“Go on,” I say.
“She slept on the foot of her bed, and when her ladyship closed her eyes with her own hand, she made a little noise, like a whimper, and laid her head down on her ladyship’s feet.”
My stepgrandmother clears her throat, as if she cannot bear this mawkish scene.
“Truly?” I ask.
“Truly,” Sir Owen says. “We had to take the body, you understand, and embalm it and seal it in lead. It was all done as a princess should be buried, you know.”
I know. Who should know better than me?
“The little dog followed the body like the first of mourners, and we were all too tender to push her away, to be honest with you. We didn’t mean any disrespect, not to the Lady Katherine, God knows. But she always let her little dog run after her everywhere, and so we let her follow, even though her mistress was gone.
“On the day of the funeral, there was a beautiful hearse, very dignified, covered with black and cloth of gold, as is fitting, and the herald went before and seventy-seven mourners from the court came behind, and my household and many many local people, and gentry from far afield. Her ladyship was there, too; everything was done beautifully.” He bows to my stepgrandmother. “Everyone followed the hearse to the chapel, and the little dog followed, too, though nobody noticed her at the time, what with the banners and the herald and the honor from the court and everything. I wouldn’t have allowed it, if I had noticed, but, to tell you the truth, I was as grieved as if she had been my own daughter—not to be disrespectful—I never forgot her estate. But she was the most beautiful lady I have ever served. I don’t expect to see her like again.”
“Yes, yes,” my stepgrandmother says.
“She was laid to rest in the chapel and a handsome stone put on her grave, and the banners and the pennants all displayed around, and then everyone went home after they had said their prayers and blessed her. Nobody prayed for her soul,” he specifies, one eye on my staunchly Protestant kinswoman. “We all know there’s no purgatory now. But we all prayed that she should be in heaven and free from pain, and then we all went home.
“But the little dog didn’t come home with us. She stayed in the chapel on her own, funny little thing. And nobody, not even the stable lad who took such a fancy to her, could get her away. We offered her a bit of bread to come, and even meat. She wouldn’t eat anything. We tied a bit of string round her neck and pulled her away, but she slipped her collar and went back to the chapel to sleep on the tombstone, so we let her. She closed her eyes and she put her nose under her paw as if she was grieving. And in the morning, poor little thing, she was still and cold, as if she chose not to live without her mistress.”
I look at my stepgrandmother and I see the same twist in her mouth that I know I am showing. I am biting the inside of my lips so that I don’t cry over the death of the little pug, so that I don’t cry for the death of my sister, so that I don’t cry for the ruin of my house, and all for no reason, for no reason at all.
We are all silent for a moment and then Sir Owen speaks. “But I have the linnets coming behind in the wagon,” he says, suddenly cheerful.
“Not Janey Seymour’s linnets!”
“Their babies, or perhaps their babies’ babies,” he says. “She had them nesting and breeding and we had to give some away and keep some as she ordered. But I have a bonny cage of singing linnets for you, coming after me in the wagon.”
THE MINORIES, LONDON,
SPRING 1568
Bess St. Loe, our family friend and sometime ally, pulled off a triumph last year that makes me smile whenever I think of her. Aunt Bess buried her third husband and walked as a great heiress to the altar for the fourth time—but this time she surpassed herself—she netted George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and is now the richest woman in England second only to the queen, owning almost all of the Midlands of England.
It would take a sadder little woman than I not to laugh aloud at the tremendous progress that Aunt Bess has made. Once she was a friend and a hanger-on at Bradgate, now she is a countess. Aunt Bess, born a poor girl and widowed young, glad of my mother’s favor, is now a great woman by her extraordinary business sense, and by marriage. Of course, I think that her good luck might serve me. A landowner such as Aunt Bess with thousands of houses at her command and acres of farms and villages could very easily house me in one of them. She is trusted by the queen; she could guarantee that I would not run away or plot with the Spanish, nor anything else that the queen pretends to fear, in order to keep me in captivity. If Aunt Bess will say one word for me (though I don’t forget that she never said anything for my sister Katherine), then I might yet be a free tenant near Wingfield Manor, Tutbury Castle, or Chatsworth House, or any of the other half dozen houses that she owns. If she were to be my landlord, I would need no guardian, I would liberate my stepgrandmother from her duties and Elizabeth’s irritable disfavor, I would be far from London and quite forgotten, and I could be free.
I tell my stepgrandmother that I am thinking that Bess might speak for me to the queen and might offer to house me, and she encourages me to write to the new countess and ask her to use her influence with the queen—for she is still a lady-in-waiting, though now considerably higher up the ranks. I think that a little house, a very small house in a mean village, might be a source of great happiness to me. I might have Thomas Keyes’s children to live with me, even if I could never see him. And Mr. Nozzle would like a little orchard, I am sure.
GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE,
LINCOLNSHIRE, SUMMER 1568
Elizabeth our cousin bears her grief for the loss of my sister Katherine so well that the court comes out of mourning in a month, and the May Day revels are among the merriest that have ever been. She recovers so well from her anxiety for her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, still held in prison, that she exchanges letters with Mary’s captor and the guardian of her little boy, Lord Moray—the Queen of Scots’ treacherous half brother. When Elizabeth hears that he has opened the royal treasury and is selling off Mary’s famous jewels to the highest bidder, she overcomes her much-praised anxiety for her cousin and makes an offer. His shocking betrayal and theft from his own half sister and ordained queen ceases to trouble Elizabeth, who outbids everyone to win the auction for a six-string necklace of pearls beyond price. I think of Mary held in Lochleven Castle as I am held at my stepgrandmother’s house at Grimsthorpe, and think how bitter it must be to her to learn that the cousin that she thought would rescue her has struck a deal with her captor and is wearing her pearls.
But my cousin Mary wastes no time counting her losses and mourning for her miscarried babies. Later in the month of May we learn that she has broken out from captivity, broken out like a woman of desperate courage, and I think—I wish I had the bravery and the money and the friends to do the same. Mary rows herself over the lake, disguised as a page, raises an army, and challenges her false half brother to meet her on the field of battle. Elizabeth should send an army in support—she has loudly promised one—but instead she sends her best wishes, and they are of little effect. The Queen of Scots is defeated. This was her last throw, and now she is on the run and nobody knows where she is.
She must be somewhere in the wild country of Scotland. The battle was outside Glasgow, in the west, not a country that she knows, nor one where she is likely to have friends. Her husband and greatest ally, Bothwell, is missing. Her cousin Elizabeth does nothing to help her. Mary is quite alone. We hear nothing for days, and then we hear that she rode thirty miles after defeat in battle, thirty miles by night over rough ground in darkness. She has found a safe hiding place, an abbey where they love their queen and her faith. If the English were to come to her aid now, it could still be all changed about in a moment. Mary could regain her throne; Elizabeth could have a beautiful cousin as a neighboring queen once again.