A Mystery Of Errors

“Love? Who the devil spoke of love? We were speaking of marriage!“ He turned with indignation to his wife. “This is what comes of your silly notions about education! ‘She ought to read,’ you said. ‘She ought to know how to keep household accounts! She ought to have a tutor!’ A tutor! God’s wounds! That silly, mincing fop just filled her head with foolishness, if you ask me! Love poems and sonnets and romances… what does any of that have to do with the practical matters of life? A tutor, indeed! What a monstrous waste of money!”

“A proper lady should be well accomplished, Henry…” Edwina Darcie began tentatively, but her husband was in no mood to listen and simply went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Music, yes, I can see music, I suppose,” Darcie went on, working himself up into a fine state of pontifical righteousness. “A woman ought to know how to play upon the lute or the harp or the virginals, so that she can properly entertain her husband and his guests. And embroidery, aye, that is a useful craft, and dancing, I suppose, has much to recommend it as a skill, but… reading? ‘Tis a thing for idlers. The only reading that is useful and fitting for anyone is the Book of Common Prayer. What value is to be found in your foreign Greeks and Romans, your windbag philosophers, or your absurd ballads and your penny broadsheets for the lower classes to while away their time with instead of doing something more productive? What waste! What utter nonsense! You see the sort of thing that comes of it! I tell you, giving an education to a woman makes about as much sense as giving an education to a horse!”

“The queen is a woman,” Elizabeth said, hesitantly, invoking her royal namesake as the color came rising to her cheeks. She knew that she was being impertinent past all bearing, but she could not help herself. “And she is well educated and speaks several tongues. And reads and writes in Latin, too. Would you compare her to a horse, Father?”

Henry Darcie’s eyes grew wide with outrage. “Silence! What monumental impudence! The queen is different. She is not an ordinary woman. She is the queen. She has, by virtue of her birth and divine right, given herself in marriage to the realm and thereof she has always done her duty. As you, young woman, are going to do yours and there’s the end of it! ‘Tis done! The matter is settled! I shall say no more!”

He stabbed his forefinger in the air to emphasize his point, then quickly turned and left the room, effectively bringing an end to the discussion. Not that it had been much of a discussion in the first place, Elizabeth thought. He wasn’t the least bit interested in what she felt or had to say.

“ ‘Tis not fair,” she said to her mother, fighting back the tears.

“ ‘Tis how things are done, my dear,” her mother replied, in a tone of resigned sympathy. “I, too, was betrothed to your father before I ever really knew him. But I came to love him… in time.”

“Yes, and I see how well he loves you, Mother,” Elizabeth said, sadly. “He does not listen to you any more than he listens to me.”

“That is not so, Bess!” her mother responded defensively. “Your father listens. In his own way.”

“Which is to say, only when he so chooses,” Elizabeth said, bitterly. “Where is the fault in me that he should treat me so? What have I done that was so wrong? Where have I failed to please him? How have I offended? Why does he wish to punish me?”

“Bess, you must try to understand,” her mother replied, patiently. “This marriage is not meant as punishment for you at all. That was never your father’s intention. The arrangement was made to benefit both families, to unite the two estates so as to make both stronger. ‘Tis the way these things are done. ‘Twas ever so.”

“And what of love, Mother? What of a woman’s feelings? What of a woman’s heart?” Elizabeth asked, blinking back tears. “Or is that considered of no import?”