Read Online The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir - Free Book Online Page B

carefully.
    Elizabeth was pleasantly astonished, but she said nothing. For a long time now, she had preferred never to mention Anne Boleyn. It was easier for her to forget that she had ever had a mother, and therefore not to wonder about how she had come to her terrible end, and the gruesome details of that end. Nor had Lady Bryan and the other members of her household spoken of Anne since that dreadful day when Elizabeth had been told she had been put to death.
    But Kat knew nothing of that, although she was of course aware that the subject was a highly sensitive one; and she had her own strong views about Anne Boleyn, her kinswoman, and about the man who had sent her to her death. Not that she could voice them to his daughter, of course, or to anyone for that matter, but she was determined that, one day, Elizabeth should find out the truth. And if that was to happen, Anne Boleyn’s must not be a forbidden name.
    For the present, however, that could wait.
    “Come,” Kat said, “it will soon be dinnertime. I’ll explain how we are related when we sit down.”
    Elizabeth was charmed. Already she was feeling a sense of affinity with her new governess, and a dawning affection—much to her surprise. There was something warm and reliable about Kat Champernowne. Dared she hope that this kinswoman was someone who would truly love her, and not leave her?
     
    Almost immediately, Elizabeth received a summons to Hunsdon, a dozen miles away, to visit her sister Mary.
    “Since Lady Bryan has left, I felt it meet that the Lady Elizabeth should be with someone she knows and trusts for a time,” Mary told Kat Champernowne soon after their arrival, unaware of the rapport that Elizabeth had instantly struck up with her new governess.
    “That was most kind of Your Grace,” Kat said, thinking how generous Mary was in her consideration for Anne Boleyn’s child. It cannot be easy for her, she thought.
    But Elizabeth found life at Hunsdon stultifyingly boring. Although she loved her sister, there was little there for a four-year-old girl to enjoy. Mary did play with her, but she also required her to attend frequent interminable services in the chapel, and expected her to spend long hours at her private devotions. Elizabeth would fidget with impatience as the devout Mary knelt, a still, rapt figure, at her side, and Kat would frantically press a finger to her lips to keep the child quiet.
    As they processed out of the chapel after Mass one day, Elizabeth asked, “Why do they ring those bells?” Mary looked shocked.
    “Have you not been taught, Sister?” she asked, frowning. “The bells signal the elevation of the Host.”
    “Father Parker says that it’s wrong to have bells at Mass,” Elizabeth said, quite innocently.
    Mary looked fretful. She knew of Father Parker slightly by repute, for he had been Anne Boleyn’s chaplain, and she suspected he was one of those dreadful Reformists.
    “It is very wicked of him to say such things,” she said firmly. “The bells signify the holiest moment in the Mass. Come with me.”
    Taking the child’s hand, she led her back into the empty chapel, to the altar rails.
    “When the priest holds up the bread and the wine before the people,” she explained, “he does it to show that a miracle has taken place, for during Mass, as Our Lord promised at the Last Supper, the gifts of bread and wine become His very body and blood, given for us for the redemption of our sins.”
    Elizabeth looked doubtfully at the altar, bare now except for its white damask cloth, rich frontal and golden crucifix.
    “But how can that be?” she asked. “They are still bread and wine. I have tasted them.”
    Mary was appalled. What had they been teaching the child?
    “But that is the miracle!” she exclaimed. “When they are consecrated, they still look like bread and wine, but they become the real body and blood of Jesus Christ. I’m surprised that Father Parker has not explained this to you. It is our