Authors: Mary Hooper
The crowd buzzed with excitement and rumour. ‘’Tis the Earl of Shrewsbury on important official business,’ we heard. And then, ‘No, ’tis about Mary, Queen of Scots.’ We also heard ‘The Catholics are coming!’ and ‘The queen is preparing to go to war!’
Sonny and I watched the last of these riders disappear into the royal mews, then resumed our conversation.
‘What’s it like in there?’ he asked. ‘Is it all gold an’ precious things, an’ paintings and velvets an’ jewels?’
I nodded. ‘It is. Mostly.’
‘Then ’tis not for the likes of you and me.’
‘You may well be right.’
‘An’ you won’t go a-nosying there again, will you, Missus?’
‘I will not,’ I said. And would not, either, tell Tomas of my little visit to the palace, for then I’d have to admit that I’d found nothing amiss in Juliette’s room – which would be sure to lead him into saying that he’d told me as much. It might even make him feel protective of her, and this was not at all what I wanted. I’d have to think of some other way to catch her out.
We sat there for a few moments until my heartbeat returned to normal, and all the time I was keeping a watch on the doorways. No angry guards emerged, however, so they must have given up on me. Or maybe they’d presumed that I was merely a harmless soul who’d wanted to gawp at the rooms of the queen’s ladies, and that to give me a scare was good enough.
The usual street-sellers and peddlers had sold their wares and packed up by the time we left the palace grounds, but two quack doctors had just set up a stall along the roadway outside and were doing a roaring trade in plague preventatives, for there had not been a really bad outbreak of the pestilence for the last six years and the astrologers were predicting one this summer. We looked at the cordials they were peddling and these seemed to be most unappetising and nauseous, being made of snail liquor, crushed beetles
or the moss from a dead man’s skull, and Sonny and I looked at these and agreed that, if it came to it, we would both rather take our chances with the plague.
We turned into Green Lane. ‘Best not to tell Mistress Midge about my excursion,’ I said to Sonny as we grew closer to our house.
He nodded, furrowing his brows. ‘The fewer who knows, the better,’ he said darkly.
The rest of the day passed in the usual manner, with Sonny and me playing a game of quoits in the yard and then Mistress Midge (in a very good mood because we’d sold a lot of mice) making us a fine and tasty pig’s cheek soup with barley.
Having eaten and cleared supper, Mistress Midge and I settled to our mending, while Sonny sat himself on the front step and began whittling a whistle from a piece of wood. I was fine-stitching a petticoat and thinking over the tumultuous events of the day, when there came a piercing whistle from Sonny sitting in the doorway.
‘He’s made that whistle well enough!’ Mistress Midge remarked.
Two more whistle-blasts came, sounding urgent, and then Sonny’s face appeared round the door. ‘Look sharp, Missus!’ he hissed.
‘
What?
’ Mistress Midge and I said together.
‘Lucy! Some guards are coming and it don’t look good.’
I did not hesitate another moment, but jumped up, thrust my mending at Mistress Midge and ran out of the kitchen and straight into the room we’d decided would be Dr Dee’s study. I’d thought to climb out of the window, but a new chair and oak coffer had recently been delivered and these stood before it, giving me the idea of hiding within the coffer. It bore a latch with padlock but this, fortunately, was hanging loose and I quickly opened the lid and slipped inside.
I found myself lying in a twisted and cramped position, my head pushed forward at an uncomfortable angle and my leg buckled beneath me, but was too frightened to move in case someone heard me. Mistress Midge came into the room and – from the scritch-scratching – I deduced that she’d realised where I was hiding, set the padlock into its holder and snapped it shut.
Several more whistles blasted out, as if Sonny was trying his new toy, and then I heard voices. Someone said clearly, ‘Guard! This is where she dwells, I am sure of it. Search the place at once!’
My heart sank and I knew I was doomed, for the voice was Juliette’s.
‘Good evening, Madam … good Sirs,’ I heard Mistress Midge say. ‘May I help you?’
‘This
is
the house of Dr Dee?’ I heard Juliette ask.
‘It’s his London house,’ Mistress Midge replied. ‘Or will be.’
‘And you have a girl named Lucy who is a nurse-maid here, I believe.’
‘We have. What is it that you want with her?’
‘You’ll be told that in good time,’ a man’s voice answered, and I pictured a large and objectionable palace guard waggling his finger at Mistress Midge. ‘We want to know if the girl is here now.’
‘She is not,’ Mistress Midge said, and I blessed her, for although I didn’t really think she would have given me away, she has a strange attitude towards authority, sometimes scoffing at the law and sometimes scrupulously obeying it to the letter. ‘She has gone to Mortlake to collect some books for Dr Dee.’
‘Enough,’ I heard Juliette say. ‘Of course you would cover for her. Which is the girl’s room, old woman?’
I could almost feel the temperature drop in the house as Mistress Midge was addressed thus, and of course she didn’t reply. I heard doors opening and closing and knew people were searching for me. Someone came into Dr Dee’s study and I stayed as still as a corpse within its coffin.
‘You were asked which was the girl’s room,’ came the impatient voice of the watch. ‘If you are not going to cooperate then we’ll take you with us instead.’
There was a moment’s silence, then Mistress Midge said, ‘Her room is at the top of the stairs. But what has she done?’
‘She’s stolen a quantity of jewellery from a member of the queen’s household,’ Juliette answered.
‘By your leave,’ said Mistress Midge, ‘that is untrue, because she’s been here all day with me, cooking and
cleaning and getting things ready for our master’s coming.’
Juliette gave a cold laugh. ‘You are either deliberately lying, or have perhaps gone foolish in your old age. I saw her myself in my private apartments – glimpsed her in a mirror, running down the corridor with a handful of jewels.’
I had to bite my tongue to stop myself crying out. I’d thought myself so clever, slipping out of the apartments and getting away – but she’d seen me in the mirror! So why had she called the guards off and come round to search for me herself?
I found the answer to this a moment later. I heard dainty footsteps trip-trapping upwards, and after a moment heard her voice carrying triumphantly down the stairs, ‘I’ve found my jewels! They were in her room!’
A shiver ran through me.
‘Begging your pardon, but what have you found?’ Mistress Midge asked.
‘My stolen jewellery,’ called Juliette, and I could picture her halfway down the stairs, holding out a handful of pearls and gold chains to show the members of the watch. ‘They were on her washstand, plain for all to see.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Mistress Midge said.
‘No more do I!’ piped up Sonny.
‘So, where is she now, Mistress?’ a man’s voice asked.
‘I told you,’ I heard Mistress Midge reply, ‘gone to
Mortlake to take something to Dr Dee. She won’t be back for days.’
‘When she does come back, we’ll be waiting,’ the man’s voice said. ‘We’ll come back in daylight tomorrow to do another search, and if we don’t find her, then this house will be watched day and night. The moment she crosses the threshold she’ll be arrested and taken to gaol.’
They left, and it seemed a very long time before Mistress Midge let me out of the coffer, by which time I was beginning to worry about whether there would be enough air in there for me to breathe. I was too frightened to call, however, in case the watch had left someone inside the house to try and catch me out.
At last I heard Mistress Midge go round the house closing all the shutters for the night and, having closed those in the study, come over to the coffer. She turned the key, opened the lid and held up a lighted candle. ‘Come on, let’s be having you,’ she said.
I sat up and burst into tears.
‘Cry quietly, mind,’ she said, patting me on the head. ‘And before you speak, I know you haven’t done no robbing.’
Sonny appeared in the doorway. ‘I told you not to go into the palace, Missus. I knew no good would come of it.’
I smiled through my tears; he only came as high as the door handle but he sounded just like my brother when he’d scolded me for scrumping apples from Lord
Ashe’s orchard. ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ I began to say, but Mistress Midge held up her hand.
‘Before you start, the less we know about it, the better – then even if they rack us we can’t say a word.’
Sonny gave a frightened squeal.
I brushed the tears off my cheeks, and then began to rub my cramped limbs. ‘Let me just say that it’s all a lie, truly it is. I
was
in the room of the queen’s lady who was here, but I did not steal her jewellery.’
‘Maybe not,’ Mistress Midge said. ‘But why should she make up such a story?’
‘Because she wants me out of the way. I know something about her, you see. She’s not who she says she is.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know how you’ve got yourself mixed up in all this, no more than I know how you’re going to get yourself out of it.’
We contemplated my fate for some moments, and I wondered if Tomas knew that Juliette had brought the watch here to arrest me. Surely he couldn’t have done or he would have stopped her – or come along to find out the truth for himself.
‘First thing is, we need to get you out of the house,’ Mistress Midge said. ‘Those guards mean business. Come daylight they’ll be all over the house like a rash.’
‘There’s a man out there now sitting under the tree in the moonlight,’ Sonny volunteered.
‘And is he watching the house?’
‘He’s faced in this direction,’ Sonny said, ‘but he keeps yawning.’
‘That’s good,’ said Mistress Midge. ‘Maybe he’ll take a little nap.’
After an hour or two we couldn’t see clearly enough to judge whether the man slept or not, so decided I should go out of the back door. Mistress Midge also said that it might be best if I left London for a while, at least until the fuss died down.
‘And then you could come back here in disguise – in togs borrowed from the actors,’ Sonny said. ‘Maybe a bear’s costume,’ he added.
I sighed. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t
want
to leave London, but had been made so scared by the day’s events that I thought it would be a relief to be a way off. And it might only be for a short time, for if Juliette was an imposter – and she surely was – then the truth about her must be discovered soon.
‘You can go to my sister at Syon Park,’ said Mistress Midge. ‘She’ll give you a job in the kitchens and hide you away.’
‘And I’ll come with a message when it’s safe for you to return,’ Sonny added.
‘But how will I find my way there?’
‘’Tis easy,’ Mistress Midge said. ‘Get out of the city a few miles – just in case, take a barge upriver and ask them to let you off in Chiswyck. When you get there, everyone knows the way to Syon.’
‘I’ll go with you if you like, Missus!’ Sonny said. ‘I’ll go with you as your guard and companion.’
This idea was absurd, but strangely comforting, and so a while later Sonny and I set off with a hunk of bread, some cheese and a corked jug of small beer tied in a piece of old blanket. To further fool anyone who might be watching out for me, I’d changed into my boy’s disguise, for they’d be looking for a girl on her own, not two lads travelling together.
We went out of the back door, crept stealthily through the courtyard and along the backs of the other houses in Green Lane. It was only when we’d gone some fair distance, however, that I realised that the city gates would be closed and that we wouldn’t be able to get out until morning. And it was also then that, quite without warning, a wind blew up and it started to rain.
We continued towards Ludgate, thinking that we’d shelter near to there until first light, when they’d open the gates, but as the rain continued to stream down and the kennels in the centre of the lanes filled and churned with filth and muck, the adventure we’d embarked upon began to seem foolhardy.
Things became worse. First Sonny slipped near a slaughterhouse and fell into a stinking mire of pigs’ entrails, and then I tripped on something dead and soft – a cat or dog, I thought – and fell badly, twisting my ankle.
I got up, tried to put weight on that foot and slipped over again. Cold, wet, tired and wretched, I began to cry.
Sonny took my hand, quite alarmed. ‘Stir yourself to
move, Missus,’ he said. ‘We’ll get taken in as vagrants if anyone comes by.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, and I sat where I’d fallen and put my head down on my knees. ‘I can’t go any further.’
‘But we’ve hardly started. We’re not even at Ludgate!’
I didn’t reply, for I was feeling too sorry for myself. What was the point of going on? How could I hope to outwit someone like Juliette, who (whoever she turned out to be) was clearly of noble birth: educated, knowledgeable and well-connected? She held all the cards; what hope did I have of exposing her?
‘Look,’ Sonny said after a moment, ‘if you can’t go no further, then bide somewhere here. There’s an old turkey pen down that lane …’ He pointed into the darkness. ‘When they drives ’em down from Norfolk they pack ’em in there overnight, afore the market.’
‘I can’t sleep in a turkey pen!’
‘Why not? It’s got a bit of a roof, and there’s straw to cover yourself with. I slept there myself once when I ran away from Christ’s Horspiddle. I was but a nipper, then.’
‘Suppose there are turkeys there?’
‘There are not,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘for yesterday was market day. Besides, Missus, you can’t go back to the house, because of the guard.’
I sighed heavily.
‘’Tis but a little way off …’
Taking my silence for assent, he heaved me to my
feet. Leaning on him, I made my way up the cobbled street in the rain, trying to keep out of the flowing muck. We went down an alleyway, past old stalls (which, from the rank smell, usually held oxen) and came to a low, ramshackle shed with no windows and a sheet of tin in place of a door.