The Fallen Queen (20 page)

“Oh, Jane!” I sighed, shaking my head as the Duchess of Northumberland gave an anguished cry of, “My brooch! My
beautiful
brooch! Look what that girl has done to my beautiful brooch!”

Then Kate, nestled up against Lord Herbert, with her head pillowed on his chest, and his arm close about her, beamed and waved at me as their barge glided past. At least one of my sisters was happy, I thought as behind me our newly extended family fell to brawling over the loss of the ugliest brooch I had ever seen. While I couldn’t condone or applaud my sister’s conduct, it truly was an unforgivable snub and most ungracious and ill-mannered, the brooch itself really was better off stuck in the muddy bottom of the Thames where it could offend no one’s eyes except the fishes, as our lady-mother quite candidly informed the Duchess, who had begun to stagger and sway and clasp her head and call for her smelling salts. “I know I shall faint!” she cried several times while failing to actually do so. In the end, she had to be helped back into the house, supported between two of her sons, while her daughter ran ahead, calling for smelling salts and cold compresses, and her husband sent Robert riding fast to fetch the family physician and an apothecary.

When they had all gone back inside, and only Lady Amy and I remained, she smiled down at me and held out her hand and suggested we take a turn in the garden until all the ruffled feathers had been smoothed back down again. I nodded eagerly and gave her my hand. When my lady-mother called for me, I was sorry to leave Lady Amy behind with her husband and in-laws. After I turned back to wave at her, I saw the sadness on her face and impulsively ran back and gave her a hug as though a part of me knew that I would never see her again.

3

I
was back at Suffolk House on what was to be my last night in London, helping Hetty pack my travelling chest, preparing to return to Bradgate on the morrow and dreading the long, lonely hours that lay ahead of me without my sisters. Regretfully, I folded away the lovely new gown I had worn to the wedding with sachets of crushed lavender nestled amidst its luxuriant folds and wondered when I would get to wear it again. I was heaving a doleful sigh and trying to resign myself to my fate when a letter came from Kate, bidding me come to Baynard’s Castle. I was so surprised I had to read the letter through three times to make sure wishful thinking hadn’t caused me to misread the words, and even then I couldn’t quite believe it and handed it to Hetty for confirmation. Kate had scarcely been gone a week, and I had thought not to receive an invitation to visit either of my sisters for months and months. But, as Kate explained, since she and Lord Herbert were still forbidden to consummate their marriage, and she found it “wearisome, vexing, and dreary” being always chaperoned “like a pair of guilty prisoners” she craved my comforting presence, as both a sister and a friend, someone she could be free and easy with. “I cannot even touch my husband’s hand,” she lamented, “without people eyeing me like a hawk about to swoop down and pounce on a poor little mouse. They’re afraid if they leave us alone for an instant I will ravish him.”

I was so excited I could barely sleep and was bouncing on my toes, impatient as could be, to set off right after breakfast the next morning. I drove my poor nurse to such distraction that I set off for Baynard’s Castle wearing a pair of mismatched gloves with my bodice only haphazardly laced in back because I could not stand still and dear old Hetty’s eyes were not what they used to be. “Don’t be cross with me,” I said to her, “my cloak will hide it. I know you’re excited too, to see Henny again.” For her own dear sister was Kate’s nurse, now, like Jane’s Mrs. Ellen, raised up to serve as lady’s maid. Everyone loved Henny; she was a plump, good-natured mother hen of a woman who doted on Kate and clucked over her constantly, and she was much sweeter than my sour, always complaining Hetty, who had misery in her bones, aching back, stiff fingers, tired old eyes, and just about everywhere else. Father had offered to provide Kate with a real French lady’s maid, one skilled with perfumes, paints, and fashions, and nimble fingers for the styling and curling of hair, but Kate had wept and clung to her “dear old Henny” and refused to be parted from her, and Henny had wept too and wrapped her arms like a pair of protective wings about Kate and said, “I’ll not have my chick painted like a French whore!” Then Father had offered around his comfit box filled with pink sugared almonds and nothing more was ever said about Henny leaving or a French maid.

At Baynard’s Castle, I followed a footman up the grand stone staircase and walked in on a scene of utter chaos. Like two naughty children playing at house, Kate and Lord Herbert, whom Kate had christened “Berry” because “he blushes red as one and is just as sweet,” received me in the large, spacious parlour that divided their bedchambers.

Dogs and cats, barking and meowing, hissing and growling, chased each other all around the room, clawed the furniture, or curled up in their baskets or napped or groomed themselves on the bearskin rug by the fire, and gilded cages crowded the windows in which a profusion of rainbow-plumed songbirds sang or chirped and flapped their wings against the bars, and a big blue and yellow parrot danced on his perch or hung upside down from a large ring suspended from the ceiling, while constantly demanding a cherry over and over again until I wished I had a whole basket of cherries to throw at him just to shut him up.

There were bowls of fruit, sweets, and nuts, cups and flagons of wine, and platters of meat, cheese, and cake strewn over every possible surface, even balanced precariously upon the mantelpiece, and several garments and items of jewelry, vials of scent, combs, hairbrushes, and pins, bits of sewing, and the accoutrements of needlework, and several spoons and knives, all apparently laid down in scattered distraction and then forgotten.

In the midst of it all stood Kate, in a shimmering emerald satin gown that was more appropriate for a court ball than a quiet rainy day spent at home, her coppery curls, unleashed from their pins and held but loosely back from her face by a jade butterfly comb, cascading down her back as though she was bored with pretending to be a proper married lady and wanted to be a little girl again. She didn’t see me enter nor hear the footman announce me, which was hardly surprising given the din created by her menagerie. She was preoccupied, plumping the pillows behind her husband’s back as he reclined on a couch, looking pale and smiling weakly, in his quilted mulberry satin dressing gown and slippers. She perched on the edge of the couch beside him and a brown and white spaniel hopped up onto her lap as she sweetly coaxed the invalid to take a sip of milk punch. Two implacable, blank-faced servants in the Pembroke livery stood stationed at either end, eyeing the young couple vigilantly, ready to put a stop to any affectionate displays that threatened to grow too familiar, and Henny, a much more familiar and friendlier face, smiled at me from over her sewing. I was astonished to see that she was making a tiny yellow dress trimmed with sky blue silk ribbons—a
baby
garment! My jaw dropped, and I flashed a startled glance down at Kate’s stomach as with a cry of delight she sprang up, dislodging the spaniel from her lap, and rushed to embrace me.

“Not for me, silly! How could it be when we’re not allowed to …” She giggled. “For the monkeys! Look!” She pointed across the room to where the two little creatures were rudely snatching cakes off the table and gobbling them greedily as Berry on his couch eyed them nervously and shrank back against his pillows. “That’s Rosamund.” Kate pointed to the one dressed up like a little lady in a rose damask gown and hood. “And that’s Percival.” She indicated the other, clad in a handsome forest green velvet doublet replete with gold buttons and fringe and a round velvet cap with a jaunty plume just like a courtier in miniature. “Aren’t they
adorable?
My new father, the Earl of Pembroke, gave them to me. He simply
adores
me! As does Berry”—she ran to hug and plant a smacking kiss on her husband’s cheek—“they both spoil me so. I even have an ermine coverlet for my bed! Look what they gave me this morning at breakfast!”

She thrust out her hand to display an enormous emerald in an ornate gold setting. It was so ostentatiously large it made me wonder how Kate could even lift her hand. Lord Herbert favoured me with a shy smile, wincing as Rosamund snatched the silver-tasselled nightcap from his head and Percival hopped up to “groom” his pale, lifeless hair until it stood up on end like stalks of wheat, then clambered down over Berry’s body and took off his slippers and began slapping their leather soles together, gibbering with delight at the noise they made. Then the parrot flew from his perch and landed on top of Berry’s head and resumed his imperiously squawked demands for a cherry.

Laughing, with puppies nipping at her trailing skirts, Kate ran to snatch up a blue glass bowl filled with cherries that was sitting alarmingly near the edge of the mantel, and began tossing them, one by one, to her parrot. “Isn’t life marvellous? Truly, my dear Mary, it is delightful to be married! I never dreamed it would be this much fun!” Kate’s aim went awry and one of the cherries hit Berry’s nose.

With a cry of alarm, she thrust the bowl at me, never noticing that I fumbled and almost dropped it, and ran to him and began smothering him with kisses until one of their chaperones cleared his throat loudly then, finding himself ignored, stepped forward and took Kate’s arm and gently pulled her away.

“Milady mustn’t be so exuberant,” he said, wagging a reproving finger at her. “She must show some restraint and not be so free with her affections; there are some who might misunderstand and think her a wanton.”

But Kate just laughed and threw her arms around him. “Don’t scold me, Master Perkins, I can’t help it; I’m just
so
happy!
So wonderfully, gloriously, blissfully happy!
” She began to spin around the room, and I marvelled that with all the clutter and the bevy of boisterous animals crowding around her that she didn’t trip and fall. “I wish all the world could be as happy as me! Oh, Mary!” She suddenly grabbed my hand and began tugging me across the room. “Come, I must show you Fussy’s new trick! My little boy is
so
clever!”

She bent and caught up the little brown and white spaniel chewing on the trailing train of her skirt and rushed over to the table by the window where a handsome gilt and ivory set of virginals sat. She set the little dog down upon the table beside the instrument and lifted a big, sprawling, fat orange cat from the chair and sat down and began to play, her fingers gliding effortlessly over the keys as the little dog began to yowl in time to the music. “Who’s a clever boy? Isn’t he
wonderful?
So talented, so clever!” Kate enthused, then turned smiling to me. “Now if I can only teach the others … we’ll have a whole choir! Just think, Mary, we might even be invited to court to entertain the King!”

I glanced over at Lord Herbert and saw that though this failed to fill him with delight, he nonetheless still forced himself to nod and smile out of indulgent affection for his bride.

Seeing the stunned expression frozen on my face, Henny took pity on me and offered to show me to my room, chidingly reminding Kate that I had only just arrived and as lady of the house she had neglected her first duty—to see to the comfort of her guests. But when Kate started to rise Henny stayed her with a motion of her hand. “Nay, love, Miss Mary and I are old friends. We’ll manage just fine. You stay ’ere and care for your poor ailing ’usband.” And, before Kate had a chance to protest, took me by the arm and hurried me toward the door just as Rosamund sat down before the virginals and, to Kate’s delight, began banging out a series of loud, discordant notes upon the ivory keys that set Fussy yowling and made Kate beam like a proud mother and praise them both for being “so brilliantly clever!”

Just before I reached the door, I tripped and would have fallen had Henny not caught me. I glanced down to see what I had stumbled over. I blinked my eyes and shook my head and wondered if the din had driven away my wits. There appeared to be a large tortoise staring up at me. His shell, unless I was very much mistaken, was set with a fortune in precious gems.