Nobody is listening to me. As the doors opened Elizabeth turned and when she sees my husband she rises from her curtsey and goes light-footed towards him.
‘Your Grace, my lord uncle!’ she says.
Her sisters, quick as weasels, snake after her: ‘My lord uncle,’ they chorus.
He beams at them, draws Elizabeth to him and kisses her on both cheeks. ‘Looking beautiful as I knew you would,’ he assures her. The other two get a kiss on the forehead. ‘And how is your mother?’ he asks Elizabeth conversationally, as if he inquires after the health of a witch and a traitor every morning. ‘Does she like Heytesbury?’
She simpers. ‘She likes it well, my lord uncle!’ she says. ‘She writes to me that she is changing all the furniture and digging up the gardens. Sir John may find he has a difficult tenant.’
‘Sir John may find his house improved beyond measure,’ he assures her, as if bold-faced impertinence needs reassurance. He turns to me: ‘You must be glad to have your nieces in your rooms,’ he says, a tone in his voice that reminds me that I must agree.
‘I am delighted,’ I say coolly. ‘I am so delighted.’
I cannot deny that they are pretty girls. Cecily is a ninny and a gossip, Anne barely out of the schoolroom, and I see that she has lessons in Greek and Latin every day in the morning. Elizabeth is a perfect piece of work. If you were to draw up the qualities of a Princess of England she would match the pattern. She is well read – her uncle Anthony Woodville and her mother took care of that, she had the new printed books made by their bookmaker Caxton dedicated to her when she was barely out of the cradle. She speaks three languages fluently and can read four. She plays musical instruments and sings with a sweet low voice of surprising quality. She can sew exquisite fine work and I believe she can turn out a shirt or hem a fine linen shift with confidence. I have not seen her in the kitchen since I – as the daughter of the greatest earl in England, and now queen of my country – never have much cause to go into the kitchen. But she, having been cooped up in sanctuary, and the daughter of a countrywoman, tells me that she can cook roasted meats and stewed cuts, and dainty dishes of fricassees and sweetmeats. When she dances no-one can take their eyes off her; she moves to the music as if it is inspiring her, half-closing her eyes and letting her body respond to the notes. Everyone always wants to dance with her because she makes any partner look graceful. When she is given a part in a play she throws herself into it and learns her lines and delivers them as if she believed them herself. She is a good sister to the two in her care, and sends little gifts to the ones who are in Wiltshire. She is a good daughter, writing weekly to her mother. Her service to me as a lady in waiting is immaculate; I cannot fault her.
Why then, given all these remarkable virtues, do I loathe her?
I can answer this. Firstly, because I am foolishly, sinfully, jealous of her. Of course I see how Richard watches her, as if she were his brother returned to him only as a young, hopeful, merry, beautiful girl. He never says a word that I could criticise, he never speaks of her except as his niece. But he looks at her – indeed the whole court looks at her – as if she were a delight to the eye that makes the heart glad.
Secondly, I think she has had an easy life, a life which makes it easy for her to laugh half a dozen times a day as if the day-to-day round is constantly amusing. A life which makes her pretty, for what has she experienced that could make her frown? What has ever happened to her, to draw lines of disappointment on her face and lay grief in her bones? I know, I know: she has lost a father and a beloved uncle, they have been driven from the throne, and she has lost two beloved young brothers. But I cannot remember this when I see her playing cat’s cradle with a skein of wool, or running beside the river, or weaving daffodils into a crown for Anne as if these girls should not fear the very thought of a crown. Then she seems to me utterly carefree, and I am jealous of her joy in life that comes so easy to her.
And lastly, I would never love a daughter of Elizabeth Woodville. I never ever will. The woman has loomed like a baleful comet on my horizon for all my life, from the moment I first saw her, and thought her the most beautiful woman in the world at her coronation dinner, to the time that I realised that she was my inveterate enemy and the murderer of my sister and my brother-in-law. Whatever smiling means Elizabeth took, in order to get her daughters entry to our court, nothing has charmed me, nothing will ever charm me into forgetting that they are the daughters of our enemy; and – in the case of the Princess Elizabeth – they are the enemy themselves.
