Lady in Waiting: A Novel (31 page)

“If there is a gown to be made, would you be opposed to my making it?” I asked.

“Not if you truly wish to do so. But your home is here with me, Lucy.”

“I do not wish to be anywhere else. I shall sew it here or not at all.”

I was restless the days leading up to my visit to Jane. When Friday finally arrived, I was ready for the carriage a full hour before it came for me. Nicholas assisted me inside, despite there being a footman who had been sent along for that purpose.

“You cannot change what Providence has willed,” Nicholas reminded me as he kissed my hand. “She is Dudley’s wife, for good or ill. Guard your own happiness, dearest.”

I laid my other hand against his cheek. “I shall be careful.”

He closed the carriage door and smiled at me as the driver slapped the reins and the coach rolled away. An hour later, we pulled in front of the Duke of Northumberland’s Syon House residence, a stately hall of honey-gold stone and bordered with sloping lawns and mature oaks.

When I alighted from the carriage, Mrs. Ellen was waiting for me on the steps. Her face was careworn, and she seemed both pleased and irritated that I was there. I found it strange that it was she who was there to greet me. She was Jane’s nurse and principal attendant, not a housekeeper. But I moved toward her with a smile and warm tone.

“Mrs. Ellen! How wonderful to see you!”

“Indeed, Mrs. Staverton.” She nodded to me nervously. “If you will follow me.”

We had no sooner stepped inside the great hall when a woman in red silk and jewels approached us from just inside a set of double doors leading to a gilded parlor. She looked to be my mother’s age. I curtsied.

“What is this?” the woman boomed as I rose from my bended knees.

“My lady, this is Lady Jane’s former dressmaker, Mrs. Lucy Staverton,” Mrs. Ellen replied, licking her lips. “Lady Jane has sent for her now that her illness has passed. She would like a new gown for her entrance back into court as a new bride.”

Guildford’s mother, the Duchess of Northumberland, narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized me. This was the first I’d heard that Jane had been ill. But I said nothing.

“We have dressmakers here,” the woman said. “Send her home.”

A voice from the top of the stairs called down to us. “I sent for her.”

Jane.

She looked pale. And older.

The duchess frowned. “We have dressmakers here,” she repeated, this time to Jane.

Jane began to descend the staircase. “Not like Lucy. Her designs are exceptional.”

The duchess’s frown deepened. “But His Majesty saw to your trousseau. You’ve gowns you’ve not even worn yet.”

“And all of them hang on me since my illness.”

Jane arrived at the landing, and I fell to a curtsy. “My lady.”

“Please escort Lucy to my chambers, Mrs. Ellen.” Jane’s voice was tired and unsure behind the authoritative words. She had indeed lost weight.

Mrs. Ellen motioned to me to follow, and I curtsied to Jane and her mother-in-law, but both of them were looking only at each other.

“If I might have a word.” The duchess showered Jane with fake politeness as I walked past them to follow Mrs. Ellen.

The two women disappeared behind the closed doors, and I heard the beginning of their conversation. It began with the duchess’s demanding from Jane an explanation for bringing someone into the manor without her consent.

I did not hear Jane’s muffled reply.

Mrs. Ellen said nothing as we continued up the stairs and into a bedchamber decorated in rich tones of green and scarlet. She motioned me into a separate room, Jane’s dressing room, and closed the door.

“My lady has been ill?” I asked, before she even turned around to face me.

“Aye.”

“Is she well now?”

Mrs. Ellen lifted and lowered her shoulders. “As well as can be expected. The fever is gone. She is eating again.” She cocked her head as a look of sorrow washed over her. “And her husband’s … visits have resumed.”

“Visits?” But I knew what she meant. “Has … Is my lady …?” But I could not finish. My face flushed crimson.

“Yes, the marriage has been consummated.” Mrs. Ellen shook her head, and her eyes turned glassy. “Poor wee thing. It is not how it should be. Not how it should be.”

Something akin to familial fidelity flared up within me. “Was he unkind to her? Did he hurt her?”

Mrs. Ellen wiped her eyes. “Of course he hurt her.”

“Is … Is that why she was ill?”

“Her illness was a blessing from God to keep him away from her until she can accept what has befallen her. It was too much for the wee lass. She knew nothing of the way of men. Her mother told her nothing! If I had not prepared her …”

She stopped. We heard movement on the other side of the door. The door opened and Jane stepped into the room. Again, I curtsied.

“Ellen, would you give me a few moments with Lucy, please?” Jane asked.

Mrs. Ellen admonished me with her eyes to please do whatever I could to cheer young Jane. “Of course,” she said. She left the room and closed the door behind her.

We stood there for a moment, silent, both of us attempting to grasp
how different it was now between us. I didn’t know my place. I didn’t know what I should do. What she would want me to do.

She looked as sad as the day I met her, when she crumpled into my bosom, and I held her as she poured out her grief. I nearly expected her to do the same just then.

But she turned from me, walked over to a bureau, opened it and withdrew a box I recognized from her bedroom at her parents’ house. She opened it, and I saw her take out Edward’s ring. Tears began to slide, unbidden, down my face as she walked back to me. I hadn’t the courage to even wipe them away.

“I need for you to do something for me, Lucy.” Her voice was wracked with emotion that she was somehow able to keep in check. “I need you to keep this ring for me. Please.”

“I cannot!” I breathed.

“Yes, you can.”

“My lady!”

“Please keep it for me. It cannot stay here. Guildford will see it. His mother will see it. His father will see it. They will take it from me. I don’t want any of them to touch it. Especially his father. Especially not him.”

The disgust on her face pained me. But still I persisted. “But if anyone finds me with it, they will think I stole it from you!”

“Who will notice that it is missing? My parents have forgotten Edward even gave me this ring.”

“But … what about Mrs. Ellen?”

She smiled ruefully. “Do you honestly think dear Ellen will tell Northumberland the ring Edward Seymour gave me has gone missing? Please do this for me, Lucy. You are the only one I can trust.”

“But, Jane.” I had not realized I had said her name out loud until a second after I said it. Mortification swept over me.

A tender smile had replaced the rueful one. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“I am so dreadfully sorry, my lady. Please forgive me!”

Her smile grew wider. “I can only forgive you under one condition.”

She held out her hand.

I hesitated.

“Take it and all is forgiven,” she whispered. Desperation shone in her eyes along with tears she refused to release.

I held out my hand, and she pressed the ring into it.

“What shall I do with it?” I murmured.

“Keep it for me,” she whispered, each word punctuated with emotion.

“For how long?”

“As long as you must.”

I could not help it any longer. I pulled her into my embrace. “I shall keep it safe for you.”

Her small frame began to quake in my arms. Measured sobs leaked from her, though I sensed she fought to rein them in.

“You are strong. You are brave,” I soothed.

“Oh, Lucy! Sometimes I think they are trying to poison me!”

I stroked her back, hiding my shock at her words with silence. Surely she was overwrought.

“There are meetings here, other lords, councilors, people I don’t know, and they whisper about me. They watch me and whisper.”

“My lady …”

“The duke! He says things behind closed doors that he thinks I cannot hear. He says things like, ‘It’s just a matter of time,’ and, ‘Everything is in place,’ and, ‘She shall bend to the will of her sovereign; that is her nature.’ That is what he is saying, Lucy! What can he possibly mean?”

“Sh, my lady. I do not know. ’Tis most likely nothing that has to do
with you.” Her ramblings made no sense to me. I would have wondered if she was still feverish except she felt cool in my arms.

“There are moments when I cannot bear it anymore!”

“And then those moments become moments when you can,” I said gently. “You are brave and strong. God will protect you.”

“I feel so very weak.” She eased her body away from me, a sure sign of strength. I told her so.

She smiled then, tiny but genuine. “I miss having you near me.”

“I miss you too. You’ve been my only companion for so long!”

Her countenance turned wistful. “But now you have Nicholas.”

I sought no words in response. How could I tell her how wonderful it was being married to Nicholas? I couldn’t.

But I didn’t have to. She knew.

“I wonder if I will ever know that kind of happiness,” she said. “I wonder if I will ever be able to choose my destiny like you have done.”

I looked at her ring in my hand. “You chose to entrust me with this,” I said softly.

She smiled and nodded. “Yes. That’s a start, isn’t it? Hide it away, now.”

I slipped the ring into my sewing bag.

“You must go,” she said. “Guildford will be returning soon.”

“What about the dress you wanted me to make? What if I am asked about the dress?”

“I commission you to make any sort of dress for me you please, Lucy. I don’t care what it looks like. Ellen will see to it that you have whatever fabric you need. Is that all right?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, dear Lucy. For coming. For doing this for me.”

“You are most welcome, my lady.”

“Perhaps you will come see me before the end of July for a fitting?”
she said, the traces of tears and fears now safely tucked away somewhere. A wisp of hope replaced the cloak of sadness.

I told her it would be my utmost pleasure to come back for a fitting. And she seemed to revel in the thought that she had something to look forward to in the coming days.

But I did not see Jane at Syon House in July.

Instead, to my absolute astonishment, I saw her in London less than a fortnight later, paraded down the banks of the Thames, accompanied by Guildford, soldiers, cannons, banners, and the Duke of Northumberland.

His Majesty, the ailing King Edward, had died.

And in his will, which he had rewritten just before his death, he had named as his successor, his cousin, Lady Jane Dudley.

The new Queen of England.

I
t is always a gray day when an English monarch dies. Edward the Sixth passed from this life to the next, riddled with consumption of his lungs, and his subjects did not know of his death for nearly three days. His demise was not altogether a surprise, though certainly no one wished him dead. He had long been ill; King Edward was just fifteen, the same age as my Lady Jane, and he hadn’t ruled long enough to allow us to see the kind of man he would have been.

When the news hit the streets of London that His Majesty had died and that his appointed successor was to be Lady Jane Grey Dudley, the response was nothing short of stunned silence. Jane was no stranger to the people of London and certainly not to the lords and ladies of the court, but she was no princess either. As fourth in the line to the throne, no one dared dream she’d reign in their lifetime.

My own heart nearly stopped beating when news reached the school of the King’s death and Jane’s succession. I begged Nicholas to tell me how this could be. It made no sense to me.

From all that I had already told him, Nicholas reasoned that John Dudley surely had a hand in convincing the King to rewrite his will so that Jane would succeed him and that he probably did so for two reasons. First, it was well known John Dudley and the Privy Council did not want a Catholic on the throne, and Princess Mary, King Edward’s much older half sister, was devoutly so. England had been free of Rome’s traditions
and power for twenty-four years. The Church of England wasn’t perfect, but the liturgical reforms that had birthed it had not come without sacrifice. I didn’t wish to see more blood shed in the name of Christianity either. And most of England did not want to return to Catholic rule.