Читать книгу The Queens and the Hive - Edith Sitwell - Страница 11

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To these agonies was now added that of jealousy.

If the strange and significant moments of Elizabeth’s life, after her release from the Tower, could have remained, as the fires of the martyrdoms had left their ghosts in the air, what should we see? What should we hear?

Two sisters meeting for the first time after nearly two years—the younger going to meet the elder through the dark and glittering leaves of the garden, lit only by a torch—then ascending a secret staircase, up and up, until a gallery was reached: the sisters brought face to face—the older ape-like and wizened by pain, the younger with a pride like that of summer, so that it seemed the air through which she passed must retain some colour of summer.... The Queen’s denunciation; her sister’s tears of denial. The Queen, after these denials, muttering to herself, in Spanish, ‘Sabe Dios’, ‘God knows’. The husband of one sister hiding behind the arras to see the younger sister for the first time.

At first, this had not seemed strange to the Queen.... And yet ... what interest had he in her whom he had never seen, that impelled him to hide behind the tapestry during that interview, in order to watch her, himself unseen? And why, having seen her, did he not speak of her, keeping silent as if the whole episode had been a dream?

The Queen thought of her sister’s magnificent youthfulness, the high nostrils that looked as if they were breathing fire, the strange animal force that seemed to emanate from her, the strong aura of a grand physical life. She thought of her own ageing and withered face, her distorted form. And her hatred rose....

•••••

Now there was silence in the Palace. One by one, the nobles that had crowded to Court to await the birth of the heir, the midwives, the nurses, the cradle-rockers, had gone, and soon the moment for Philip’s release from that joyless marriage would come, and Mary would be alone.

Before it was known that the child she would bear was Death, the birth of a living child had been awaited by none more eagerly than the King, for that birth would mean his instant release from captivity. The Venetian Ambassador told the Doge, on the 1st of June, ‘he [the King] will then cross the Channel instantly.... One single hour’s delay seems to him a thousand.’

Such was the King’s impatience to be free of this ageing, half-dead woman that when the marriage had lasted only six months, Renard had been obliged to remonstrate with him. The King must bear in mind, he said, the purpose for which he had come. No doubt he wished that the Queen was ‘more agreeable. But he must remember that she was infinitely virtuous.’ And with this cold comfort he had had to be content.

But now the Emperor was about to abdicate and retire to a monastery; the raging madness of Philip’s grandmother, Queen Juana of Castille, was over, for she was dead, and Philip could make it his excuse that the business of the Empire called him away. Soon he would be gone. And Renard, the Queen’s adviser. And only her cousin, the Papal Legate, the fires of the martyrdoms, and her grief, would be left.

At first the King had tried to hide from her the truth. But, one by one, the Spanish grandees were missing from the Court. The Queen, noting their absence, dared not ask the reason. But, looking at Philip with anguish, she knew what it meant. He would not stay with her. He was going, and she would be alone.

It was only for a few weeks, he explained. If she liked, she could accompany him to the place of his embarkation, and wait for his return. But she was not deceived. She had seen on his face the marks of his eagerness to be gone.

The rumour spread that the Queen had died, So the night before the King’s departure, a procession must go through the streets of London to show the people that she still lived.

The night of the 26th of August 1555 seemed laden with fire. So burning was the heat that the airs that came and went seemed plumed with flames, the river made of black fire. And in the streets the fevered dust seemed as if it might contain all the tropical diseases from Philip’s dominions—the tabardillo, or yellow fever, the calentura, or heat-stroke, the Cámaras de sangre, or tropical dysentery.

The procession made its way through the silent streets of midnight, lit by a hundred torches. (Did not Nero find his way by night, by the light of human torches that were being consumed to dust in his honour?) From a litter, the face of this new Nero, this Nightmare Life-in-Death, looked out through the heat.

The procession was on its way to Greenwich Palace, where the Queen was to bid her husband good-bye.

•••••

As she saw him step on to the barge that was to take him far away, out of her life, to where her love could never reach him, she hid her face. But not before her desperate, heart-stricken tears had been seen—tears that she must hide, for was she not the Queen?

Had she known it, he would come again, as it were in mockery, in order to complete her ruin by involving England in his war with France, so bringing about the loss of Calais. And once again she would believe she was to bear a child.

Then, some instinct of pity, some stirrings of the feelings of a gentleman in his cold heart, moved him to foster this belief in her. But then he went again. And when she lay dying he would not come. Her usefulness had gone. It was time, now, for him to look to Elizabeth.

He was far away, yet, lying on her death-bed, looking at the door, she still expected him to enter. And still the Queen, to whom Death, that awaited child, was so long in coming, heard the whisper that had fanned her madness into flame.

But now only the darkness in the Palace echoed with the name that whisper had so often uttered ... ‘Elizabeth’ ... ‘Elizabeth’ ...