Never mind. You just be quiet and you'll get along all right. But any defiance . . . and you'll be sorry. I'm taking you in . . . doing you a good turn. . . . Now come with me.'
It was a nightmare. She must be dreaming. Who was this woman who had taken her clothes and given her these rags in substitute, and who was saying such mad things to her?
She was led to another room. They went in and shortly afterwards a large woman appeared in a gown which was splashed with grease.
'This is the poor girl I've been telling you to expect/ said the woman who had brought her to this place. 'She is suffering from what they call delusions. Thinks she is some great lady. Lady Anne something. Gives herself airs. She does it rather well, speaks and acts it. Must have been in some grand house sometime. Well, it's turned the poor thing's head. She could get into real trouble wandering the streets saying she's all sorts of people.'
Anne went to the fat woman and took her sleeve. 'I am Lady Anne Neville,' she said. 'Take me back to my family ... to my sister ... to my brother. You will be well rewarded.'
'See,' said the woman, 'she does it very well. That's why it is a httle dangerous. Take her to the kitchen. Don't make her do too much . . . just at first. Have a little pity on her. She'll want showing how to do things. Keep her in the kitchens. She might try to get away. Don't let her do that. I can trust you to look after her.'
The fat woman nodded. 'I'll see to her. I've seen these loonies before. Think they're all sorts of people they do. I'll look after her.'
'Thank you. Cook,' said the woman.
The nightmare continued. She was taken to the kitchens. There were pots and pans everywhere and a great fire was burning.
'Sit down and watch the pots,' said the woman who had been called Cook. 'Come on. Stop dreaming. Have to work to eat you know . . . even if you are a grand lady in your dreams.'
Anne sat on the stool into which she was pushed.
She could not understand why she had been forced into this nightmare.
Richard gave himself up to the search. He could not imagine where she could have been taken. He went to Isabel and talked to her when George was absent but she could offer no clue. She had thought that Anne had run away in which case she would go to their mother. Where else? And if she were not there, she had no idea where she could be.
'I believe George to be concerned in this/ said Richard.
'He has always said that he would look after her and that she and I should be together.'
'We know George. He loves you, but he does want the whole of your father's estates for himself.'
Isabel was silent.
'Therefore I believe my brother has hidden her somewhere. Where, Isabel?'
'I do not know.'
'Isabel,' he caught her hands and held them tightly. 'If you knew you would tell me, would you not?'
She was silent again.
'I beg you, Isabel, for Anne's sake... for my sake. I love Anne. I always have. When we were children I used to think when we grew up we would be married. We talked of it once. You know how I care for her. You will tell, Isabel.'
'Yes, I would of course if I could, but I simply do not know where she is. George tells very little and I swear on my soul that I do not know where she is.'
Poor Isabel. Tom between her husband and her sister. But he was convinced that she did not know.
Somehow the conviction came to him that Anne was in London for the big city would be the best place in which to hide her. She could not have gone to any of Clarence's friends because the news would assuredly leak out as to where she was.
In addition to his noble friends Clarence had an army of hangers-on. People who spied for him and worked for him in many devious ways. Richard knew his brother well. He was one of those men who surrounded himself with drama. He was a bom intriguant. Where intrigue did not exist he created it. He was always working on some twisted project. Edward was right not to trust him. For one thing George always had his eye on the throne. He was resentful against a fate which had not made him the elder brother. Richard knew he had to be watchful of George not only for his own sake but for that of Edward. Edward was
well aware of George's perfidious nature of course, but being Edward he pretended to ignore it, to preserve the peace and a show of amity between them.
Then if Anne were not hidden in one of the noble houses she must be in one of the lesser ones.
He would search every one of them. He would set his own spies to discover who was on the payroll of his brother in however small a way, and if necessary he would take an armed guard to search their houses. He knew that Edward would approve of what he was doing for he understood his feelings for Anne. His had been as strong for Elizabeth. Moreover he might take whatever action he cared to as long as he did not involve the King. In quarrels between his brothers Edward would wish to stand outside. But Richard knew that Edward's support would be for him against George.
He decided to call in the help of a woman he had once known very well indeed for whom he still had a great regard. Katherine had borne him two children during their relationship—a boy John and a girl Katherine. Richard visited her now and then and had always made sure that the children had every advantage. It had never been a grand passion between them, and Katherine had become a true and grateful friend.
Katherine lived modestly in the city of London and would perhaps have knowledge and access to places which were denied him. There could never have been any question of marriage between Katherine and the Duke of Gloucester and he had often talked to her about Anne and explained to her that he would probably marry Anne in due course.
So to Katherine he took his problem and he knew that she would do everything she could to discover if Anne were indeed in London.
It was a forlorn hope for indeed she might have been removed from the city; but Richard was determined to make quite sure that she was not in London before he abandoned the search there.
It was Katherine who discovered that there was talk among the servants.
There was working in one of the houses a strange crazy girl who imagined that she was really a great lady.
She was, so the story went, a poor waif who had been found wandering in the streets and given a home by a magnanimous lady. The girl worked in the kitchens and was practically useless
and it was a wonder she was not driven out into the streets, but in spite of everything the mistress kept her there. She was quite crazy. She had even said that she was the daughter of the great Earl of Warwick.
Richard could hardly contain himself.
'Find out where the house is,' he said. 'Let me know at once and I shall be there.'
One day seemed to merge into another. Anne was bewildered still. Somerimes she wondered whether she had imagined another life, whether she was indeed the crazy waif who believed herself to have been a great lady. But that was rarely. She remembered so much . . . Middleham, Richard, Isabel, her mother and Isabel's husband George who was gracious to her and yet whom she feared.
No, she must cling to sanity. She must try to turn attention from herself. She must try to do these kitchen tasks for which she had no aptitude and which she never knew had to be done until she came here. She must try to be patient and quiet and wait until some way of escape was offered to her.
It was an ordinary morning. She was roused from the pile of rags on the floor which was her bed and in the room which she shared with six others she awoke to a new day.
She endured the usual teasing from the kitchen girls. She never agreed with them that she was mad and although she did not insist that she was the Lady Anne, she never denied it. They laughed at her fancy ways, at her manners of speaking and eating. Some of them even inclined to think that there might be something in her story, but any suggestion that there was would be reported to the mistress and that meant a threat that they might be driven out into the streets for talking such nonsense. 'We can't do with two loonies in one kitchen,' the cook had once said threateningly.