Now Face to Face (97 page)

Jane began to put coins in the hands of the guards, who, though startled, immediately accepted them.

“I’m Mrs. Cromwell. I am so happy to see my dear husband. Drink to our joy this night. Drink to the King’s mercy when all is said and done.”

One of the doors set in the walls was open. Jane saw stairs leading upward.

“We opened it for you,” said a guard.

So. That was the door to the stairs that led to Gussy’s cell upward, nestled in a side tower of the building.

Jane took off her cloak, folded it carefully, stood before her father.

“I feel as I did the day I gave you away in marriage,” Sir John said.

“Bless me the way you did that day, Father.”

He put his hand on Jane’s head. “Father of us all, bless this beloved child and her beloved husband. I put their care into Your hands.”

Jane walked to the door. A guard was already there, on the stairs.

“The door above is open. I unlocked it for you. Don’t pull it all the way shut or you will lock yourself inside.”

She stopped somewhere about halfway. It was dark, but there was light ahead. The wooden door of the cell was ajar, and light spilled out softly, like a welcome. She touched the cold stone of the wall around her. It felt massive, impenetrable. She stepped inside, a small chamber, a fireplace with the fire going, though it was still cold. She would imagine this stone never warmed.

She saw him, standing in shadow. Barbara had warned her that there might have been roughness, but to see his face, the hurt to it, was hard. At that moment she hated Walpole more than she had ever hated anyone in her life. I’ll remember this, she thought. It will keep me strong.

He was walking toward her, and upon his face was the most beautiful of smiles. Under the bruises, the swelling, was still Gussy. I love you, she thought. You are my heart. How will I live without you if they convict you? She touched his face, the emotion in her so strong that it hurt to breathe.

“What have they done to you?”

“Many things. But it isn’t me who’s changed. You look like a queen. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

He touched her face where Barbara had placed a patch.

“I wanted to look beautiful for you.”

“You’ve always been beautiful to me, Janie.”

They held each other. She smelled his shirt, his chest, him. Gussy. Too thin. Swellings on his back. What had they done to him? There was only tonight to see.

They stood apart from each other, their presence, this closeness, a feast. Holding his hand, for she couldn’t bear to let loose of him, she went to the narrow bed.

“Wait,” he said.

He pulled back the cover. Everywhere were white rose petals.

“A gift from friends, I don’t know who. I heard a knock on the door, a turning of the key, and I found a bag on the top stair, filled with these. Our bridal bed, Jane, better than the first time.”

She sat down. He was kneeling before her, holding her face in his hands, kissing her lips and brows and forehead, kissing the places where Barbara had placed the patches. The tenderness of his kisses, the way they made her heart shake, was almost too much to bear.

“Foolish Janie, don’t cry. My dove, my sweet, my angel, let me move these foolish feathers, unlace this gown and see where else your bad Barbara has placed patches….”

“W
HERE IS
your mind, Alice?” said Aunt Shrew. “I’ve won again. You know, don’t you?” she said, “that there’s talk the King will build a house for the Princesses at Devane Square. Wren is beside himself, thinking of it, what should grace that hill where Devane House was. It would be difficult to build anything that beautiful again, he says. He thinks whatever is built ought to complement the Virginia garden. You’ve done well, Barbara. You’ve taken Roger’s muck and made something grow from it.”

Behold, thou are fair, my love, thou hast doves’ eyes. The Duchess was thinking of Richard. Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green—so Richard had said, their wedding night. Richard, I am going to die. It was said, through Barbara, through Diana, through Andreas, that Sir John was going to lose his farm. Crops were poor, and he owed money from the South Sea. Send him to Virginia, said Barbara. Why not, Grandmama? He and Lady Ashford and Jane and the children. He can be your agent there. Do it.

“‘Marry in pink,’” Barbara sang to Amelia, the other children, nestled about her skirts, “‘of you he’ll aye think. Marry in blue, love ever true.’”

Chapter Fifty-seven

T
HE FIRST TRIAL BEGAN
.

“It is the judgment of the law that you, Christopher Layer, be led to the place whence you came, and from thence you are to be drawn to the place of execution, and there you are to be hanged by the neck, but not until you are dead, for you are to be cut down alive, and your bowels to be taken out and burned before your face. Your head is to be severed from your body, and your body to be divided into four quarters, your head and quarters to be disposed of where His Majesty shall think fit.”

There was a long intake of breath from the crowd gathered in Westminster Hall. The entire long hall was a jostling, whispering mass of people, so many people pressing in to see and hear that witnesses could scarcely move to and from the witness box.

Layer was being led from the chamber, weeping, crying out that he had been betrayed.

“He is no one, of no rank, having no fortune, no family of consequence,” said Aunt Shrew. She and Tony and Colonel Perry had come every day to the trial. “It is inconceivable that he could be important to a plot of the magnitude presented. Capturing the Captain General of our army, capturing Lord Cadogan, the Prince and Princess, Walpole and Lord Townshend. It is sheer nonsense that he had a key part, the ravings of a mad dreamer.”

It was pieces of the actual plot, but she didn’t say that.

“As to those who testified against him,” she continued, “I wouldn’t take their evidence to hang a dog. It ranks up there with this wild rumor that Laurence Slane has left London because he is a Jacobite agent. An Irish good-for-nothing, yes, but an agent, I think not.”

“Layer did plot to overthrow the King. You cannot deny that, Aunt Shrew, cannot deny the evidence presented us,” said Tony.

“And so he must die. I quite understand. The penalty for treason is death.”

The crowd had cleared enough to allow them to begin to make their way outside. Just below the windows of this long hall, at the point where Gothic arches to hold the roof began, battle flags captured in war hung down in rows of ragged and frayed glory. Aunt Shrew pointed out the flags to Colonel Perry, talking about her brother, Richard, about his victory at Lille.

“This trial has been a show to whet the tastes of the mob,” she said. “There was nothing presented to link Layer with the Bishop of Rochester, yet listen to how everyone around us is talking of Rochester, of how close we’ve come to war. Jacobite troops. Jacobite weapons. Jacobite evil. Walpole is a clever man. I thought you were angry with him, Tony, because of his encounter with Barbara.”

“I am angry, but I can’t deny truth when it is presented, and my anger with him has nothing to do with my loyalty to the King.”

“Well, it took a jury only six days to convict Layer. They will proceed far faster with Gussy Cromwell. Is Jane prepared?” Aunt Shrew said.

“Are we ever prepared to see a loved one sentenced to die?” said Colonel Perry.

“Tell Barbara.”

“To prepare her? How will Barbara do that? Why must Barbara do that?” asked Colonel Perry.

“It’s her lot,” said Aunt Shrew. “She’s the heart of this family.”

T
HAT EVENING,
the King gave an evening drawing room to signal his pleasure at this first verdict. Everyone was there, pleased or not.

Barbara stood with Sir Gideon Andreas, who was not happy with her.

“Why do you allow Pendarves to finish the row of townhouses?”

“He asked.”

“I also asked.”

“Ah, but he asked first.”

“What are the terms?”

She didn’t answer.

“See here,” he said, “I am not your enemy.”

No, thought Barbara, my mother has seen to that.

“It would be in your best interest not to make me one, and yet you try. Do you want me to demand that you pay the notes I hold?”

“I can’t pay the notes you hold. Demand all you like.”

“As I well know. I try to allow both you and myself to gain from your husband’s mishandlings, and you won’t have it. Ride with me one morning to Marylebone, where we can look back on the vista of Devane Square. Let me tell you my schemes for it. Come, one ride with me won’t hurt you. Is it true the King will build a house for the Princesses at Devane Square?”

“No one has spoken to me of it.”

It was to be her New Year’s gift, the King’s dwarf had told her. The King would present her with a set of plans.

“Well, it is being spoken of. I want to buy ground leases at Devane Square.”

“I don’t sell the ground leases.”

“Finally I know at least one of your terms. You give the rents over to him who builds?”

“For a time which he and I agree upon.”

“The whole of the rents?”

“The whole. How else would it be fair?”

“Fair?”

“An important word to me, Sir Gideon. Someone once told me another man’s gain is also my own.”

“Who told you that?”

“Colonel Perry.”

“He who leases the second townhouse.”

“Yes. Lady Doleraine is signaling me, Sir Gideon. Excuse me, please.”

“I want the other two sides of the square,” said Sir Gideon. “I want them now. I am willing to be, as you say, fair.”

He wanted them before the fine was debated in Parliament, as it soon would be. Walpole was true to his word. If the fine is reduced, Pendarves had said, every man in town with an eye to building will be after you.

“We’ll talk soon,” Barbara replied.

“We certainly will.”

Barbara led the Princesses upstairs, to their private quarters. They were full of questions about the trial today as Barbara saw to their undressing, the putting on of their bedgowns.

“They’ll quarter him and hang him,” Caroline, the youngest, said.

“Would the Jacobites have taken us, too?” asked Anne.

“I don’t know,” said Barbara. “You mustn’t ask me these questions. You must go to Lady Doleraine.”

“She won’t answer. She’ll tell us to hush, not to think of such things. You know that. Were they going, truly going, to kill Papa and Mama and Grandpapa?” asked Caroline.

“Kings and princes don’t kill one another,” said Barbara. “That wouldn’t be honorable.”

“They imprison one another instead. We’d all have been in prison,” said Amelia.

Barbara left the Princesses to the bedchamber women and to Lady Doleraine, who oversaw prayers and thoughts and actions. She walked back through the corridors that would bring her to where everyone was gathered, her mind on the verdict today, on Slane, on Gussy’s coming trial. She sat down a moment in a window seat in one of the halls, leaned her head back, closed her eyes. Everyone needed her, and she was tired. What it was taking to sustain her present life was much, more perhaps, than she wished to give.