those stories which become attached to families like ours. It all started at the time of the Battle of Burton Bridge when the owner of the house was killed and the castle passed temporarily out of the family.
ut it came back to them.
es, but it was a tragic time. A black calf was born at that time and so it was said that black calves meant disaster for the Devereux family.
hen we must make sure that no more are born.
ow?
et rid of the cows.
He laughed at me tenderly. y dear Lettice, that would indeed be defying fate. I am sure the penalty for that would be greater than the birth of a black calf.
I looked at those large-eyed placid creatures and said: lease, no black calves.
And Walter laughed at me and kissed me and told me how happy he was that I had, after much persuasion, agreed to marry him.
Of course there was a reason for my contentment. I was pregnant.
My daughter Penelope was born a year after my marriage.
I experienced the delights of motherhood and of course my daughter was more beautiful, more intelligent and better in every way than any child who had been born before. I was well content to stay at Chartley with her and could not bear to leave her for long. Walter believed at that time that he had found the ideal wife. Poor Walter, he was always a man of poor judgment.
However, while I was crooning over my daughter, I became pregnant again, but I did not experience quite the same ecstasy over this one. I had never remained absorbed for any length of time in any of my enthusiasms and I found the prenatal months irksome. Penelope was showing a spirit of her own, which made her not quite the docile child she had been; and I was beginning to think with increasing longing of the Court and to wonder what was happening there.
I heard the news from time to time and a great deal of it was about the Queen and Robert Dudley. I could imagine how irritated Robert must be by her continued refusal to marry him now that he was free. Oh, but she was wily. How could she marry him and escape the smears of scandal? She never could. For as long as she lived, if she did so, she would be suspected of complicity in the murder of Amy Dudley. People still talked of itven in country places like Chartley. Some murmured that there was one law for the people and another for the Queen favorites. There were few people in England who did not believe Robert at least guilty of his wife murder.
Strangely enough, the effect it had on me was to make me more fascinated than ever. He was a strong man, a man who would have his way. I indulged in fantasies about him and was delighted because the Queen would not have him.
Walter continued to be a good husband, but that wonder he had found in my societynd which had endeared him to mewas no longer there. A man cannot go on being amazed at the sexual prowess of his wife, I suppose; I was certainly not enchanted by his, which had never seemed to me more than one might have expected from any man. It was only because I had been eager for such experiences that I had been so delighted by them. Now with a year-old daughter and another child clamoring to be born, I went through a period of disenchantment, and for the first time I began to be unfaithfulin thought.
I could not go to Court in my state but I was always eager to know what was going on there. Walter came back to Chartley with news that the Queen was ill and not expected to live.
I felt a terrible depression, cheatedhich was strange, for I could not see into the future. Perhaps it was a blessing that I could not, though even if I could have foreseen I wonder if I should have acted differently. I doubt it.
Walter was gloomy and I guessed my parents too were wondering what would happen to the country if the Queen died. There was a possibility that Mary Queen of Scots, who had been forced to leave France on the death of her young husband Francois Deux, might be offered the throne.
hy,said Walter, wo of the Pole brothers did their best to
ut it came back to them.
es, but it was a tragic time. A black calf was born at that time and so it was said that black calves meant disaster for the Devereux family.
hen we must make sure that no more are born.
ow?
et rid of the cows.
He laughed at me tenderly. y dear Lettice, that would indeed be defying fate. I am sure the penalty for that would be greater than the birth of a black calf.
I looked at those large-eyed placid creatures and said: lease, no black calves.
And Walter laughed at me and kissed me and told me how happy he was that I had, after much persuasion, agreed to marry him.
Of course there was a reason for my contentment. I was pregnant.
My daughter Penelope was born a year after my marriage.
I experienced the delights of motherhood and of course my daughter was more beautiful, more intelligent and better in every way than any child who had been born before. I was well content to stay at Chartley with her and could not bear to leave her for long. Walter believed at that time that he had found the ideal wife. Poor Walter, he was always a man of poor judgment.
However, while I was crooning over my daughter, I became pregnant again, but I did not experience quite the same ecstasy over this one. I had never remained absorbed for any length of time in any of my enthusiasms and I found the prenatal months irksome. Penelope was showing a spirit of her own, which made her not quite the docile child she had been; and I was beginning to think with increasing longing of the Court and to wonder what was happening there.
I heard the news from time to time and a great deal of it was about the Queen and Robert Dudley. I could imagine how irritated Robert must be by her continued refusal to marry him now that he was free. Oh, but she was wily. How could she marry him and escape the smears of scandal? She never could. For as long as she lived, if she did so, she would be suspected of complicity in the murder of Amy Dudley. People still talked of itven in country places like Chartley. Some murmured that there was one law for the people and another for the Queen favorites. There were few people in England who did not believe Robert at least guilty of his wife murder.
Strangely enough, the effect it had on me was to make me more fascinated than ever. He was a strong man, a man who would have his way. I indulged in fantasies about him and was delighted because the Queen would not have him.
Walter continued to be a good husband, but that wonder he had found in my societynd which had endeared him to mewas no longer there. A man cannot go on being amazed at the sexual prowess of his wife, I suppose; I was certainly not enchanted by his, which had never seemed to me more than one might have expected from any man. It was only because I had been eager for such experiences that I had been so delighted by them. Now with a year-old daughter and another child clamoring to be born, I went through a period of disenchantment, and for the first time I began to be unfaithfulin thought.
I could not go to Court in my state but I was always eager to know what was going on there. Walter came back to Chartley with news that the Queen was ill and not expected to live.
I felt a terrible depression, cheatedhich was strange, for I could not see into the future. Perhaps it was a blessing that I could not, though even if I could have foreseen I wonder if I should have acted differently. I doubt it.
Walter was gloomy and I guessed my parents too were wondering what would happen to the country if the Queen died. There was a possibility that Mary Queen of Scots, who had been forced to leave France on the death of her young husband Francois Deux, might be offered the throne.
hy,said Walter, wo of the Pole brothers did their best to
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