Elizabeth by Evelyn Anthony Page A

except me. I told my Lord Sussex to mind his tongue and his manners; but there was something else he said—the real reason why he came, I think. He said you were planning to put away Amy. Is that true?”
    â€œYes,” Dudley answered without hesitation. “I intend going to Norfolk next week if you will give me permission.”
    â€œAnd when you are a bachelor, what will you do then?” He laid the fan in her lap, and glanced round at the crowded Gallery.
    â€œIf we were alone I could tell you,” he said. “But not here, with every pair of eyes searching our faces. Will you walk in the garden with me, Madam—I have so much I want to say to you.…”
    â€œI can take Dacre with us,” she said, “and tell her to wait when we are out of sight of the Palace.”
    She made a sign and her gentleman usher preceded her, carrying the rod of his office, and the call went down the Gallery again, “Make way for the Queen’s Majesty! Make way!”
    Elizabeth walked through the lines of men and women who curtsied and bowed as she passed; she paused for a word with one or two, and smiled at the rest. She stopped before Sussex, who was still smarting from their encounter over Dudley, and suddenly held out her hand to him.
    â€œMy Lord Dudley takes me to the garden for some air,” she said. “I require the strong arm of a Sussex to guide me down the stairs. Come, my Lord.”
    It was a signal honour, and ignoring his enemy’s presence on the other side of her, Sussex kissed her hand before placing it on his arm and led her to the end of the Gallery, past the sentries at the entrance, and slowly down the wide oak staircase into the Great Hall.
    â€œI have seen too little of you,” Elizabeth remarked. “You are not to sulk out of my sight because we had a disagreement, my Lord. I am too fond of you to be abandoned.”
    Sussex crimsoned with mixed pleasure and embarrassment. He could never understand how a woman who had lacerated with her tongue a few days, or even hours before, could heal the wound with a few words and put her victim sweetly in the wrong.
    â€œI thought you wouldn’t wish to see me,” he said awkwardly. “I thought your Majesty was still angry with me.”
    â€œThere’s no real anger between friends,” she said. “And we are friends, my Lord, from many years.”
    At the entrance to the garden she stopped, and turned to him.
    â€œThank you for your strong arm.” Elizabeth smiled slowly at him, and he thought with emotion that he had never seen a lovelier expression on the face of any woman. It was so full of sympathy and affection, as if he were the only man in England that she really trusted.…
    â€œIt is always at your service, Madam. From now until death withers it!”
    â€œI know that, and I thank God for the knowledge.” Then followed by Lady Dacre, she passed out into the summer dusk with Dudley by her side.
    They left Lady Dacre sitting on a little stone seat behind a yew hedge in what had once been Cardinal Wolsey’s herb garden; she watched the pale figure of the Queen in her white dress shadowed by Dudley in his gleaming doublet, until they turned a corner by the fountain, and disappeared from sight. Lady Dacre sighed, and crossed her small feet, anticipating a long wait. She disliked Lord Dudley; he was too dark and fierce looking, and his eyes flicked over her with something rather like contempt. She was a gentle creature, and though she was afraid of her, she genuinely loved her mistress and defended her reputation among the scandal-mongering ladies-in-waiting with a vigour that surprised them. The Queen embodied all those characteristics of courage and presence that she knew to be lacking in herself. Perhaps a woman as strong and self-confident as the Queen was not afraid of men like ordinary mortals. Perhaps she could use them as they normally used women, without ever