"Why," said Walter, "two of the Pole brothers did their best to march on London, their object being to put Mary Stuart on the throne. Of course they declared they had no wish to do this and merely wanted the Queen to name Mary of Scotland as her successor."

"And bring back Catholicism!" I cried.

"That was their aim."

"And the Queen?"

"Sick unto death. She sent for Dudley. She would have him with her at the end, she said."

" 'Tis not the end yet," I put in quickly.

I looked at Walter and thought: If she dies, Robert will marry. And now I am married to Walter Devereux!

And I think it was in that moment that I began to dislike my husband.

"She sent for him," went on Walter, "and told him that if she had not been Queen she would have been his wife. Then she called her ministers to her bedside and told them that it was her dying wish that Robert Dudley be made Protector of the Realm."

I caught my breath. "She really does care for him," I said.

"Did you have any doubt of it?"

"She would not marry him."

"Nay, for he stands suspected of murdering his wife."

"I wonder ..." I began; and I was picturing her carried to her grave, her brief reign over. And what would happen to the country? Some would try to put Mary of Scotland on the throne; and there would be others who wanted the Lady Catharine Grey. We could be plunged into civil war. But the question which plagued me most was: What will Robert do if she dies? And I was asking myself if I had hurried too quickly into marriage and whether it would have been better to have waited a while.

Then I gave birth to my second child—a daughter and I called her Dorothy.

The Queen recovered, which was what might have been expected of her. Moreover she had come through unscathed, which was rare. Robert's sister Mary, who was married to Henry Sidney, had been with the Queen night and day attending to all her needs, caught the smallpox from her and was severely disfigured. I heard that Lady Mary asked leave to retire from Court, permission which could scarcely be denied in the circumstances was given, and she went to her family estate at Penshurst, from where she never really wanted to emerge again. Her reward for nursing Elizabeth, who was not likely to forget it. One of the Queen's virtues was her loyalty to those who served her; besides, Mary Sidney was her beloved Robert's sister.

Walter said that people again believed that a marriage between the Queen and Robert might now take place.

"But why should it be acceptable now when it was not a short time ago?" I demanded.

"It's not such a short while," Walter reminded me, "and the people are so delighted to have her well again that they would be prepared to accept anything. They want her married. They want an heir to the throne. Her recent illness has shown how dangerous it could be if she died without heirs."

"She won't die until she wants to," I said grimly.

"That," retorted Walter coolly, "is in the hands of God."

So the Court was soon as it was before her illness. Robert was back in favor, always at her side, always hopeful, I had no doubt; and perhaps more so than ever now that it was being hinted that people would accept a marriage between them.

The Queen was in high spirits—happy to be well again. She pardoned the Pole brothers, a gesture which was typical of her. She wanted to show her people how merciful she was and that she bore no grudges to any. The Poles were exiled, though—and the Court was gay again.

But there was no announcement of her betrothal to Robert.

It was galling to receive the news through Walter and those who came to Chartley to visit us, because they never told me all I wanted to know. As soon as I had recovered from Dorothy's birth, I promised myself, I would go to Court again. The Queen would welcome me and I rehearsed how I would kneel before her with tears of joy in my eyes at her recovery. I knew how to produce those tears with the juice of certain plants. Then I would cajole her into giving me her version of events and I would tell her how a quiet life in the country was no worthy substitute for her royal apartments. She was always a little envious of babies—but perhaps not so much of girls.

She received me with a show of affection and I did my scene, implying thankfulness for her recovery, which I managed very well, and which I fancied touched her, for she kept me at her side and gave me some plum-colored velvet to have made into a gown and a lace ruff with a wire underpropper to go with it. It was a mark of her favor.

It was while I was at Court that news came that the Archduke Charles—that suitor whom she had declined—was now seeking the hand of Mary Queen of Scots. The intensity of Elizabeth's feelings towards that royal rival would not be disguised. She was inordinately interested in Mary. If she gleaned any information about her, she would be tense with concentration; and she never forgot any detail of what she had been told. She was jealous of Mary not because of the Scottish Queen's unquestionable legitimacy, nor because of her claim to the throne, but because Mary was reputed to be one of the most beautiful women in the world; and the fact that she was also a queen made comparison natural. That Mary was beautiful and talented, there was no doubt; but I felt sure she could not have possessed one hundredth part of the shrewd cunning and that heaven-sent cleverness of our own Lady Elizabeth.

I fell to thinking how different their lives had been. Mary, the petted darling of the French Court, fawned on, loved by her father-in-law and his mistress Diane de Poitiers, who was of far greater importance than Queen Catherine de' Medici, doted on by her young husband, beloved of the poets. And our Elizabeth, growing through her uneasy childhood and girlhood, never very far from death. I think it was probably this which had made her what she was; and in that case it was doubtless worthwhile.

It was amazing that one who was as clever as she was could not have seen fit to hide her jealous rage because the Archduke was seeking Mary's hand. Had she suffered it in private it would have been a different matter, but she sent for William Cecil, was abusive in her reference to that "Rake of Austria" and declared that she would never give her consent to a marriage between him and Mary, and she wished Mary to be advised that since she considered herself heiress to the crown of England, it behooved her to take heed of the opinion of England's Queen.

Cecil was afraid that the Queen's outburst would be ridiculed by the foreigners concerned and when the Emperor of Austria wrote to the effect that his son had been insulted and he had no intention of submitting himself to that indignity again, the Queen smirked and nodded.

Robert must have felt his chances were good at that time. I caught glimpses of him now and then and there was no doubt that he was very sure of himself. He was constantly with the Queen, alone in her apartments; so it was small wonder that people like Mrs. Dowe believed the rumors which were spread about them. But it seemed that Elizabeth was still thinking of the Amy Dudley affair and that was why she went on holding back.

When we heard that another of her suitors, Eric of Sweden, had fallen romantically in love, she could not stop herself repeating the story over and over again. He had seen a beautiful girl named Kate selling nuts outside the palace and had become so enamored of her that he had married her. It was like a fairy story, said Elizabeth. So touching. But what great stroke of good fortune for poor Kate that she had refused Eric! Indeed, she said, Kate should be as grateful to her as she was to her lover. But it was clear that a man who could marry a nut seller was no mate for the Queen of England.

She loved to discuss her suitors. She would often make me sit beside her while she went over details of the offers of marriage which had been made to her. "And here I am, still a virgin," she sighed.

"But not for long, Your Majesty," I said.

"Think you not so?"

"There are so many seeking the honor, Madam. You will, I doubt not, decide to accept one and make him the happiest man on earth."

The tawny eyes were half closed. I guessed she was thinking of her Sweet Robin.

Ever since she had heard that the Archduke Charles had offered himself as a husband for Mary Queen of Scots, she had made much of the Scottish Ambassador, Sir James Melville. She played the virginals for him—she performed with great skill on this instrument—she sang and above all she danced, for of all social activities, dancing was her favorite and, as I have said, the one at which she most excelled. She was so slender and she carried herself with such dignity that in a room of dancers she would always have been selected as the Queen.

She would demand of Melville how he had liked a performance and always there would be a request to know how it compared with that of his mistress, the Queen of Scots.

I, and other women of the Court, used to laugh at the manner in which poor Melville strove to give the right answer which would compliment Elizabeth without denigrating in one whit the accomplishments of Mary. Elizabeth would seek to trap him, and sometimes she would snap at him because she could not lure him into admitting her superiority.

It was astonishing how such a woman could be so concerned with the vanities of life; but of course she was vain. She and Robert were matched in that. They both believed themselves to be supreme: he, certain that in due course he would overcome her resistance—and when he married I reckoned that he promised himself he would be the master—and she determined always to call the tune. The crown glittered between them. She could not bear to share it with anyone, and he was so determined in his pursuit—of the woman or the crown? I thought I knew, but I wondered whether Elizabeth did.