Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [17]
An Account of a Meeting
On the promised day, upon the hour of three, my valet brought C.A. to me in the garden.
“My mistress wishes to borrow your volume containing the Spanish captain’s account of his voyages,” she announced.
“Clever Cat!” I said and sent the valet to fetch the requested book.
Glancing about nervously, she said, “Rather, I feel like the bird about to become the cat’s meal.”
“There is no danger here,” I assured her, leading her through the elegant knots of greenery, the tall hedges, and the fig trees brought from Sicily. She scarcely seemed to notice my statues newly arrived from France. Then I brought her to a bower where petals of the flowering pear drifted down with each puff of wind. I tried to take her hand but she held it back.
“This coyness, lady, seems a crime; for here is solitude and time.” (In her presence my verses flow like wine.)
She blushed very prettily but was not deterred from her purpose. She related a quip of Her Majesty, light words that weighed heavily on her. “Do you think she meant to warn this ‘Cat’ away from you, her ‘Warter’?”
“I would not drown you,” I said, smiling.
“I don’t fear you, but her. She is … in love with you.” She hesitated, as if revealing a secret, then added, “Everyone knows this.”
“The queen can be jealous,” I agreed, “but I daresay she was only enjoying a bit of sport with you. Do not be afraid to match wits with her.”
Thus reassured, she smiled. I took her hand and she did not resist.
“Now let us talk about you,” I said.
She talked but I remember little of what she said, for I was conscious only of her pretty teeth and lips. Then I related my upbringing in Devonshire and made her laugh over my escapades at Oxford, where I never read a single book. Her eyes widened to hear of my soldiering in the Irish wars and how I despaired of subduing that barbarous land.
“Thus you are determined to succeed in this New World enterprise. I am certain you will,” she said. Under her admiring gaze, I longed all the more for the fame and favor of which I dream.
My valet had not returned with the book (a wise fellow who knows his master’s wishes), and my dear Catherine was beginning to be uneasy again. Then from her sleeve she produced a handkerchief, saying “You must have this back. I dare not keep it.”
I was confused, for I could not remember giving her my handkerchief. I said, “You are unkind to return my token.”
“It is the queen’s token.” She showed me the embroidered initials in the corner. “She meant it for you, not for me.”
So that is what became of the handkerchief! I did not lose it after all. I remembered the delight it had given me to insert the cloth in Catherine’s sleeve that day in my library. It would be ungentlemanly of me to reclaim it.
“What was the queen’s to give to me, became mine to give to you,” I said. “’Tis a traveling token of favor.” And I would not take it back despite her protests.
Moved and flattered, with blood suffusing her pretty cheeks, the lady departed—without the book. I shall have to carry it to Whitehall myself. Clever Cat, indeed.
And damn me that I was so surprised by that silly handkerchief I lost my chance to kiss her.
To C.A.
Over the “C” is my newfound land,
My America, north and south,
I’d explore you with this hand
Claim you with my mouth.
O let me but sail my bark
Into your shimmering bays
There to anchor my heart
All my remaining days.
Chapter 6
Spies and Savages
I committed Walter Ralegh’s poem to memory. In my dreams I let him explore me with his hands and lips and woke up blushing. I imagined standing beside him on the deck of a ship bound for the New World, where strange men lived who had no idea we were coming to dwell among them. But I told no one, not even Emme, of my fantasies.
Meanwhile my mistress had no time for jealousies or jests. There were fresh rumors that her Catholic enemies were plotting to put her cousin, Queen Mary of Scotland, on England’s throne.