Innocent Traitor (5 page)

“Jane’s education,” my lady announces, “will be as good as, if not better than that afforded to the King’s daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth. She will be made familiar with the classical works of the ancients, as well as history, mathematics, theology, and the Scriptures. She will learn the languages that are advantageous to her future role in life. At the same time, we shall engage dancing and music masters. You yourself, Mrs. Ellen, can teach her embroidery. We must not neglect the traditional feminine arts. And Jane must be schooled in the ways of the court. She must be taught perfect manners, how to dress like a princess, and how to carry herself like one. The importance of her high birth must be drummed into her. She is born to great things.”

It all seems a shade too burdensome for such a tiny little girl. Looking at Jane’s pointed, heart-shaped face, with its freckled nose and earnest, dark-browed eyes, I wonder if she will grow up to be a beauty. That is not a requirement of the greatest importance in marriages of state, but it helps. I’ve heard that the King, in his search for a foreign bride, has insisted that he see her first before committing himself.

Lady Dorset is determined to help Nature along.

“Something must be done about those freckles, Mrs. Ellen,” she demands. “We must search out a remedy.” We’ve already tried several lotions and pastes, but nothing has worked so far.

“Her good feature is her hair,” declares my lady. “It’s the same Tudor red as the King’s.” Yet she complains that Jane’s is frizzy and unruly, and it is true that it does not submit happily to being scraped back under a cap. In my humble opinion, it should be left to fall free, a wavy cloud of auburn flying in the wind. But my lady would never agree.

“Jane is very small for her age,” she says. “She’s too skinny. It gives her the appearance of being delicate, which she most certainly is not.” Lady Dorset has good cause to know this, for it has been made abundantly clear, on the occasions when the Marchioness has had cause to pull Jane over her knee and chastise her protesting, wriggling body, that this child is strong and healthy. She is also highly intelligent, and much advanced for her age, but although my lady values erudition in girls, she sees Jane’s precocity as undue forwardness, which must be discouraged.

“A clever maiden is no great asset in the marriage market,” she declares. “We must cultivate sufficient modesty to overcome this handicap.”

“Indeed,” I agree, but unlike Lady Dorset, I shall not be too rigorous. She is right that it does not become a maid to be too saucy and forward, but I have no desire to break Jane’s spirit.

Lord Dorset paid one of his rare visits to the nursery today. Like most fathers, he has little to do with his daughter. He pats her on the head, calls her his “winning little filly,” and makes his escape. He is quite happy to leave the rule of her upbringing wholly to his wife, until such time as Jane reaches marriageable age, when she is between twelve and fourteen. Then he will no doubt suddenly find her most interesting for the advantages that she can bring him through a nuptial alliance. I pray God that he thinks also of her welfare and happiness when it comes to choosing a husband.

BRADGATE HALL, 1540

“The acquisition of virtue,” my lady tells me, “is as much the product of education as of upbringing.” Jane is not yet three, but already her mother has given her a hornbook to hang around her neck on a ribbon. On its smooth wooden surface is written, in beautiful black script, the alphabet, simple numbers, and the Lord’s Prayer, and Jane is expected, with my help, to learn them all. I think myself fortunate that my father had me tutored in letters, so that I can help her with her lessons.

Every day, we sit together and I go through them with her, repeating everything over and over so that, when the summons comes from Lady Dorset at five o’clock, the child will be able to recite her lesson without making any mistakes, because if she does, her mother will certainly deliver a stinging slap. It has happened before, for much lesser crimes. Today, we are late. We hurry along the gallery to the winter parlor, where my lady is waiting, Jane’s little legs running at twice the pace of mine to keep up. We are late because I made her go over her lesson just one more time, so that she will be word-perfect for her mother. As we enter the chamber, Jane is clutching her hornbook and holds it before her as she reads aloud, her tiny finger tracing the letters carved into the smooth wooden surface. Lady Dorset nods and dismisses us. She cannot find anything to criticize; nor does she offer any praise.

Young as she is, Jane is already well-grounded in religion. Outwardly, the Dorsets conform to the Catholic doctrines authorized by the King after he had made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, but privately—and I must speak carefully here—I believe that they, like many other people, have secret sympathies with those who wish to reform the Church, and even, I suspect, with those who promote the teachings of Martin Luther and his Protestant followers. Luther dared to attack the very sacraments of the Church, and in England today it is dangerous to express such heretical views. People are burned at the stake for doing so. The King is a great one for tradition in matters of religion, for all he has broken with the Pope—or the Bishop of Rome, as we have had to call him since our gracious sovereign took his place as Head of the English Church.

Jane has been taken to Mass since her infancy and is now familiar with the Latin rubric of the service, although I doubt she understands much of what it means. She has been taught to revere Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to pray to the saints to intercede for herself and others. She has even had explained to her the miracle of the Mass, wherein the Host, at the moment of elevation by the priest, becomes the very body and blood of Our Lord Jesus. Like all little children, she accepts these teachings without question and has conceived a proper and dutiful love for her Creator. I believe she is set to become a devout little person.

“The King’s Grace,” announces my lady jubilantly, on a cold January day, “has married the Lady Anne of Cleves at Greenwich. I am summoned to court to pay my duty to the new Queen and am honored in being appointed one of the great ladies of her household.”

That very afternoon, the whole household gathers in the courtyard to watch as, nobly attired in a splendid gown of red velvet and swathed in furs, she climbs into her coach, ready to depart for the south. Lined up behind are two chariots for her ladies-in-waiting, her maids, and two pages.

“How beautiful my lady is!” Jane whispers in awe. “I want to look just like her when I grow up.”

“You will, my little beauty, you will,” I assure her, patting her head.

“Farewell,” says Lady Dorset to the assembled throng, as the chamberlain hands her a basket of refreshments for the journey and a fur rug to keep her warm.

Lord Dorset is ready with the stirrup cup, which he hands to his wife. She takes it, then leans forward and kisses him on the lips. He murmurs something I do not catch, and they smile. Then my lady remembers she has a child.

“Be a good girl, Jane,” she says.

“Good-bye, my lady,” answers Jane.

“And God keep you,” I whisper.

“God keep you,” Jane repeats. The Marchioness nods her approval, then she is away, the coach trundling out of the courtyard. Beside me, Jane stands waving decorously to her mother until the vehicle is through the gatehouse and out of sight. There is no answering wave.

During my lady’s absence, Lord Dorset bestirs himself to spend some time with his daughter. He quickly gets bored with hearing her read, so he decides to teach her to ride.

“I’ll make a huntress of her before long, Mrs. Ellen,” he promises.

I follow the pair of them to the stables. In the end stall, ready saddled, is a plump, dappled pony, the dearest little creature imaginable, and ideally suited to a novice rider.

“Her name is Phoebe,” my lord says, beaming.

Jane extends a tentative hand and pats the pony’s mane and nose.

“Beautiful Phoebe!” she exclaims.

My lord lifts Jane on the pony’s back, and she sits there gripping the reins, a big smile on her face. As we watch, a groom takes the bridle and leads the pony into the courtyard, where he walks it round and round to enable Jane to get used to the motion of its gait. The child is in her element.

“Watch me, sir!” she cries to her father as she passes us, red curls bouncing and skirt spread wide across the animal’s flank.

“Well done!” calls Lord Dorset. “She’s doing well,” he says to me.

“If I may be so bold, my lord, you should let her ride regularly,” I venture.

“A capital idea, Mrs. Ellen! She shall ride each afternoon, for the space of an hour. I will see to it.”

And see to it he does. Unless the weather is foul, Jane is out there daily on her pony, being put through her paces, learning to trot and jump, and to keep a straight back in the saddle. She loves it, and it is pleasing to see how well she and Phoebe accord together. The riding lessons also give Lord Dorset an opportunity to get to know his daughter better, and it is gratifying to see him praise her for her prowess.

“Why, it’s Diana the Huntress!” he says, smiling, as Jane emerges in her new miniature riding habit and feathered bonnet, which he himself ordered for her. “Today, Daughter, you can come out riding with me.”

“Oh, sir,” I say, alarmed, “I beg of you, take care. The countryside around her is dangerous. The rocks and cliffs…”

“Stop fretting, Mrs. Ellen, the child will be safe with me. Won’t you, Jane?” And he trots off on his mighty steed, leading Jane by the bridle. Sure enough, they are back two hours later, she rosy-cheeked and exhilarated, he jubilant, smiling down at her. Then I catch the pained look that briefly shadows his eyes, and I know for a certainty that he is regretting, probably for the thousandth time, that his little girl is not a boy.

My lady is gone a month before we hear any word from her, but news from court travels fast, even to these remote parts, and gossip is rife within the household. I am obliged to remind the servants and the nurserymaids to hold their tongues in Lady Jane’s presence, yet I am sure the child has picked up something of what is going on. After all, we were chattering excitedly about the new Queen’s arrival a few weeks ago, and now we do not mention her.

Everybody in the household, if not in the whole of England, has heard by now that the King’s fourth marriage is going the way of the other three, and if His Majesty were an ordinary man, doubtless they would be laughing at his lack of success in the matrimonial stakes. There is much chatter and speculation—a lot of it bawdy—about what has gone wrong this time, when he’s barely been wed five minutes, but I do my best to ensure that Jane hears none of it. To be truthful, I do not know much myself—nobody does, really—and not until Lady Dorset returns do I learn a little more of the strange goings-on at court.

It is now March, and my lady is home. As her coach clatters into the courtyard, its leather curtains tied back, my lord summons the household to attend on her and receive her. But when the Marchioness dismounts from the coach to greet her husband, regal in a velvet cloak over a damask gown trimmed with furs and a bejeweled French hood, I notice that she looks pale and ill, while Lord Dorset is showing himself uncommonly solicitous in his welcome. As she raises her arms to embrace him, her cloak falls aside, and immediately it becomes clear why she looks unwell. Jane notices the change and shrinks fearfully into my skirts; later, when we are back in the nursery, she asks, “What has happened to my mother, Nurse? Why does she look so fat?”

“Bless me, what a bright child it is!” I smile at the nursemaid. Jane stands mute, urgent to know more.

“Your lady mother is with child again,” I tell her. “That is all. There’s nothing to worry about. God willing, you will have a baby brother soon, to become Marquess of Dorset after your father.”

Jane takes this in wide-eyed. “Why can’t I be Marquess of Dorset?”

I laugh at that. The very idea! “But, Jane, you are a maid, and maids do not become marquesses. So we must pray that your lady mother has a baby boy.”

Jane thinks about this. “That’s not fair.”

“Oh, you are old-fashioned!” I answer, chuckling. “It is God’s will. We females are the weaker sex, and only men are fitted to rule. That is why you cannot be a marquess, and why you have to obey your father in all things.”

Jane seems to accept this. Forward as she is, she is still a young child and usually accepts unquestioningly what I tell her. She is more concerned about what is happening to her mother, bless her. If only the Marchioness deserved such devotion.

“When will the baby come?” Jane whispers.

“By the look of her, sweetheart, the baby will come in high summer.” That can mean little to the child—she has as yet no sound concept of time. “You must pray for your mother every day and ask God to send her a happy hour and a lusty boy.”

“I will,” Jane says fervently. Then, unexpectedly, she looks me straight in the eye and asks if the Queen is going to have a son too.

I get up abruptly.

“Time for your hornbook,” I say.