Read Online The Tudor Rose by Margaret Campbell Barnes - Free Book Online Page A

before Elizabeth saw him again, and then it seemed impossible to recapture the enchantment of their former mood. All the fanfares and shouting of the coronation were over and only the deep-toned vesper bell vied with the renewed clamour of carpenters now taking down the stands.

    “It seems incredible how orderly the streets look again after so much preparation,” Stafford said, standing in the shadow of the cloister wall and having to shout unromantically against the cacophony.

    “So much careful preparation,” Elizabeth repeated dully, thinking of all the plotting which must have gone on within the lovely walls of Baynard Castle, and of how persuasive her domineering old grandmother could be.

    “Anne Neville's purple dress looked gorgeous,” he said at random, trying to break the constraint which lay between them.

    “Did you see my brothers?”

    “No.”

    “Then, after all, Richard did not hold her train?”

    Stafford shook his head. “No, Bess. The Countess of Richmond held it.”

    “And she a Lancastrian's widow!”

    “She is Lord Stanley's wife now. And Stanley has so many retainers it pays to keep in with him. In his quieter and more calculating way he almost becomes a kingmaker, like the new Queen's father, mighty Warwick, was.”

    “I know. I suppose that is why Gloucester freed him almost as soon as he had got rid of poor Will Hastings. At least there is one thing nobody has accused my uncle of yet, and that is of being a fool!” Stafford noticed that her voice had borrowed some of her mother's bitterness so that she seemed far removed from the girl whose tears he had comforted.

    There was a lull in the half-hearted hammering, so that only the Abbey bell broke the afternoon peace. “It was unbelieveably good of you to come; but I must go now or they will miss me,” she said; yet still stood a while, the book of prayers her father had given her clasped whitely against the sombre velvet of her skirt.

    Tom Stafford waited for what he knew she would ask. He realised that, although he had risked much to come, her ultimate thought was not with him. “And you are sure my brother Richard was not there?” she insisted. “Not anywhere?”

    “No,” he answered grimly. “The only one of that name was King Richard the Third, with pale Anne Neville, his Queen.”

D EAR TOM, WHAT HAVE you brought us?” chorused the younger Princesses, running to greet Stafford when at last he contrived to visit Westminster again. After weeks of dull seclusion they would have welcomed any visitor from the outside world, but he had always been such a favourite with them that they danced around him in delight.

    “I give you three guesses,” he teased, trying to keep their marauding hands from the basket of gifts which his servant had just deposited upon the Abbot's table.

    “A new dress!” cried dainty Ann.

    “Some new toys to play with,” lisped Katherine, most of whose childish treasures had been left in the Palace.

    “And you, my lady?” asked Stafford, smiling across their bobbing heads at their grown-up sister.

    “A new dress would scarcely come amiss,” laughed Elizabeth, ruefully holding out the worn folds of her one-and-only black velvet. “But just to see you again is the best surprise of all.” Inevitably their visitor went red with pleasure, and, embarrassed by her own spontaneous candour, she turned hurriedly to her fifteen-year-old sister. “And what about you, Cicely? What do you hope Tom has brought us in that intriguing basket?”

    “Food,” said Cicely, with equal if less romantic candour.

    Elizabeth made a shocked little gesture of reproof and Thomas Stafford was all concern at once. Having shared in the culturally rich life which their parents had hitherto provided for them, the idea that they might need the bare necessities of life had never occurred to him. It shocked him so much that he left his open basket to be rifled by Ann and Katherine and came to look more carefully