Tapestry (32 page)

Her friend grinned. ‘Good luck, dear Countess,’ she said over her shoulder, hurrying down the second flight of stairs.

Jane could feel Winifred’s heart pounding so hard it was now vibrating in her throat, but she was bravely keeping her tension under control. The hardest and most fraught part of her daring plan was yet to unfold. She turned back, fearful but determined not to falter now, and made her way again into William’s cell, this time ensuring that Winifred’s shoulders were deliberately sagging, and dabbing helplessly at her eyes.

Jane wasn’t ready for the sight awaiting Winifred and had to stifle her host’s giggle as she caught sight of her husband
struggling into a skirt. Her laughter, which could easily have been interpreted on the other side of the door as a sob, had a touch of hysteria in it, and Jane made Winifred bite her knuckle to regain focus.

William turned to glare at her with a finger in the air, to forestall any sarcastic comment she might think of making, but before he could say anything, Winifred was kissing his hand.

‘We’re so close to finishing this, my darling. Keep faith with me,’ she murmured.

His glower faded and he smiled sadly, leaning down to snatch a kiss. ‘I have no choice, but in truth you make me feel far braver than I am.’ He sighed. ‘The warder will be along soon, with fresh candles for the condemned man’s final night.’

Jane stole a glance at the twilight. This farce of hers had to be completed before any kindly warder arrived. She hurried to tie on William’s cloak and then pulled the hood over his head.

‘Keep the handkerchief over your face, and remember to weep like a woman does — just as you heard Mrs Mills do earlier.’

‘I don’t know if I can —’

‘You can!’ she snapped, gripping his wrists. ‘Just think of how I was when I endured the miscarriages of our precious children. Remember how I wept? Keep that sorrow in mind and pretend. Believe me when I say they will not want to interrupt you — they will be embarrassed.’

He nodded in response to her insistent gaze. ‘London will know I slunk away as a woman.’

‘London will applaud us,’ she growled close to his face.

He shook his head suddenly. ‘I cannot do it.’

She stared, at once horrified but also bewildered by his words.

‘Cannot, or will not?’ she demanded in an angry whisper.

‘Both!’ he snapped. ‘Do you truly want your husband to be thought of as a coward who resorted to a woman’s petticoats because he couldn’t face the consequences of his actions?’

‘You’ve proved your worth as a man. There is nothing to be gained by losing your manly head!’

‘I will be the clown of London.’

‘Nay, my lord, you will have thumbed your nose at the Protestant king.’

He raised his gaze to hers and shook his head defiantly. ‘Not this way,’ he said, and Winifred recognised the implacable note in his voice as he began to undress.

Jane was even more surprised by the stinging slap she gave him than her host was. She could feel rage churning through Winifred’s body, hotter than the fever that was always threatening, except it wasn’t Winifred’s anger, but hers.

‘How fucking dare you!’ she whispered with force, and she wondered if the language didn’t frighten William more than her physical attack. ‘Four brave women put their names, their reputations, their lives on that same chopping block as you tonight — for do not persuade yourself otherwise, Will. We too are committing treachery against the Crown, and so is everyone else involved in this secret plot to get you safely out of a gaol that no poor sod has ever broken free of before.’ He stared at her in shock, her handprint still visible in the powder on his cheek. ‘You are a coward if you remain. You are a Jacobite hero if you defy this king and his gaolers. We are leaving now, and I will not hear another word to the contrary.’

Jane couldn’t read his expression, but the fight seemed to go out of him as he deflated his chest with a sigh. ‘Forgive me.’

‘This is it, Will. Be a weeping, hysterical woman for just a few minutes and you shall cheat that executioner’s axe, and do much more for the Jacobite cause than dying a martyr with an audience jeering at your severed throat! Do it for our children, and because you love me.’

‘I am ready, Win. Let us cheat death.’

‘Come,’ she said, taking his arm and pushing the hand holding the handkerchief to his face. ‘Start your whimpering.
Remember you are a woman who has just said her final farewell to a condemned man she loves as a brother.’

Jane felt Winifred’s heart hammering so hard that it was sounding in her head as well as banging on her ribcage. She hoped her host’s heart was strong enough for this excitement, but she knew by now not to doubt stoic Winifred.

She opened the door and pushed past the doorway, surprised that the yeoman outside had moved. He and three other warders were milling around outside the guardroom, blocking their path. She felt William tense.

‘Head down and wailing,’ she whispered.

William’s weeping was surprisingly convincing and Jane began a steady stream of soothing words.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ she said, her tone full of anxiety, pushing William and herself past the burly shoulders of the men. ‘I must see my unhappy friend away from here.’ Now was the moment that her trick must work; she had to confuse and distract the guards into believing this was not the third time she was repeating the request. ‘Oh, dear Mrs Betty, my maid is ruining me by not coming. Please run and bring her to me. You know my lodgings. If ever you have made haste in your life, please, I beg you to do so now, otherwise all is lost.’

Maybe she should have let William practise walking in the skirt, but time had not permitted her. He was not used to the cumbersome nature of the skirt, and just as they were clearing the guardroom, about to cross the Council Chamber, he tripped. He crashed his shoulder into the wall but somehow managed to keep his curse appropriately high-sounding. Guards approached, Hugh among them.

Jane wanted to scream. Winifred was cringing within herself.

‘My Lady? Is your friend injured?’

William wailed and Jane experienced what had only previously been an adage to her when Winifred’s knees turned to jelly. She felt them buckle in her terror, as William’s hood had
slipped. She sensed Hugh coming close. That was all it would take. One glimpse at the poorly made-up face of her husband and kindly Hugh would guess what was afoot.

She let out the hysterical shriek of a woman who had reached her final level of tolerance. If she were truthful, this was no act, for Jane knew they were a heartbeat away from being discovered.

But the warders were taken by such surprise at this emotional outburst from a woman they thought of as calm and contained that they froze in their tracks. Jane pushed on in a high, breathless voice. ‘Miss Betty, please, please, I beg of you! Don’t let me down now!’ she entreated, clasping ‘Betty’ close and straightening her hood. ‘If I am to save my husband, you must find my maid!’ She propelled William forward, away from the immediate light of the cresset and into a pool of shadow near the stairs.

‘My Lady?’ Hugh repeated.

‘Forgive me, Hugh; I am at my wits’ end,’ she said without turning. ‘I must get my friend Betty on her way.’

William sobbed just loudly enough to be credible, in a high-pitched voice. Holding the handkerchief close to his hooded face, he bowed his head and made himself look as small as possible, leaning into Winifred and taking small steps, as Jane nodded her thanks at Hugh and hurried William across the Council Chamber with a sense of terrified déjà vu. She was feeling dizzy with the adrenaline that was pounding through Winifred’s blood.

And suddenly they were descending the stairs. She could feel the cold London air whistling up the steps, touching her face. William was just minutes away from freedom now. They could do it! No. They
were
doing it!

He was escaping!

They half stumbled, half ran down the second flight of stairs.

‘Keep crying, keep hidden,’ she hissed near the hood of his cloak.

Her heart nearly stopped when they rounded the corner to find guards at the bottom of the second flight. These men had
not been there before. William wailed louder and it appeared to work, for the men, on looking at Winifred’s panicked expression and recognising the generous Countess, opened the door and let William out.

‘To the Byward Tower gate,’ she called, supporting him down the small grassed incline, his sobs slowing down now. There was no time for a farewell kiss of good luck. She could see Cecilia waiting with Mr Mills in the shadows just outside the gate, and within moments she had closed the distance and passed her precious cargo into their care. She lifted her hand to the carriage as it hurried away from the Tower into the warren of streets that comprised East London.

Jane could now hear a ringing in Winifred’s ears, and knew her cheeks were burning with such a build-up of excitement and strain that Winifred threatened to vomit. They had to keep their shared joy in check.

We did it, Winifred!
She wanted to punch the air.

One final hurdle, Jane
, she thought she heard in her mind.

One final hurdle to leap indeed, and it was by far the most nerve-wracking aspect of her loose plan.

Jane did not have to feign her fear … having to turn around, run the short distance back to the Lieutenant’s Lodgings and face climbing those stairs once again felt far more daunting than the previous occasions. She forced Winifred to retrace her steps, even though all she wanted to do was turn and run into the relative safety promised by London’s dark, honeycombed streets. As she ascended slowly to the first landing, she could smell food being cooked in the warders’ quarters and she was suddenly acutely aware of the combined hum of voices: chattering children, the soft laughter of women, men’s heavy footsteps creaking on the boards around her. All of this detail had been lost to her while her ‘sleight of hand’ had been occurring. Yet now she felt anchored in the reality of the magician’s craft; here was the moment when she had to pull off the climax of the trick.

She climbed the second flight of steps and felt the suffocating press of the gaol’s stone walls embracing her, reminding her that it could easily become her keeper.

Once more Jane forced her brave host to cross the now-all-too-familiar Council Chamber, deliberately dabbing at their shared eyes, Jane making sure Winifred sniffled and appeared upset, but also looking as though she were gathering her wits for a last teary scene, which the wardens were surely expecting.

The yeoman with the halberd was not back at his usual position, but was lingering close.

‘I can let myself in,’ she said softly to him. ‘This is my final farewell,’ she added, so sadly he looked away, clearing his throat with embarrassment.

‘I shall not disturb you, My Lady.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and entered the empty cell.

She leaned against the door, trying to calm Winifred’s pounding heart. The tension of the escape had caused a headache to erupt and she needed, now more than ever, to think clearly.

Come on!
she howled to herself.
You can do this, Win! He’s on the outside. He’s waiting for you. He’s alive. Both our Williams will live!

Jane demanded that Winifred take several deep, slow breaths until she thought that her host felt less light-headed, and that her voice would be steady.
Here we go, Winnie. The last part of our performance
.

And now she began to act out her charade. Comical though it was, she knew all she had to do was promote the power of suggestion. The unwitting guards and their trust in the woman they had come to admire would do the rest.

‘William, my love,’ she said in a voice filled with heartbreak, ‘hold me one last time.’

In a deep tone, the best she could effect, Jane replied, ‘Hush, my darling. Do not cry. I go to my Lord with a clear conscience.’

And so Jane kept up a halting conversation with her invisible husband, acting out both parts as she moved nervously around the room. All the while she imagined William’s coach moving through the back streets — or maybe they were already on foot, having given up the bulky horse and carriage to move with ease through the darkened, filthy alleys. She had no idea where Mills would take him, but surely the darker and grimier it was the better. She didn’t care, so long as it was beyond the King’s reach.

After approximately fifteen minutes and a worried glance over the darkening London sky, Jane felt that long enough had elapsed for William to be sufficiently distanced from the Tower. By now the threat that fresh candles would be delivered to the condemned man felt so tangible it was making Winifred’s throat tight with fear. Jane straightened herself and wished her husband goodnight in a tremulous voice that did not have to be faked.

She opened the door slightly and added, looking back into the room: ‘I will away, my lord, for I fear something has happened to my woman and I cannot trust anyone but myself now to petition on your behalf.’ She gave a weepy smile to the empty room. ‘If the Tower permits, I may try to visit later tonight. But if not, I shall be here at first light, my love, bearing good tidings, I hope.’

The guard was standing ahead of her, but with his back turned out of respect. Another man just ahead of him — the valet de chambre, she presumed — was preparing candles, slicing away at their bases to fix the wax solidly into the pewter holders.

Jane sucked in a terrified breath, looking down at the worn latch-string on the door. She had mere moments. She took her chance and wrenched it, snapping the string soundlessly and hearing the latch fall into place. Now it could only be opened from the inside.

‘My good man,’ she called in a wavering voice that she did not have to work at. Both men turned, but the valet noticed that her attention was riveted on him.

He bowed. ‘Yes, My Lady?’

‘My lord husband is saying his prayers and asked that he not be disturbed this night. He requires no candlelight for his communion with God.’

The valet blinked in consternation. ‘He wishes not to be disturbed this evening … not even for a final meal, My Lady?’