Sisters of Treason (27 page)

I glance, instantly recognizing the familiar words, words etched on my heart:
It shall teach you to live and learn you to die
. A shiver runs through me with the idea that little by little I will forget her and all that will be left is words.

“I miss her, Maman.”

A knock at the door interrupts our silent separate thoughts of Jane. It is one of the pages.

“You have a visit from the Earl of Hertford, my lady,” he says, unable to hide the concern from his face on seeing Maman so very gray with fatigue.

“Young Ned Hertford,” she exclaims, sitting up a little. “I suppose he has come to ask if he can court Katherine. Send him in.” The page leaves; I straighten Maman’s wrap and stroke her hair beneath her hood. “That would put a stop to Feria’s schemings, if Katherine were to marry
him
.” She stops speaking as the door swings open and Hertford enters, pulling off his cap and bowing deeply.

He is a fine-looking fellow with pale curls and apricot skin that looks smooth as a girl’s. His elegant boots are spattered a little from the road, and the tip of his nose is red from riding in the bitter weather. Maman shifts in her seat with a wince. “My lord Hertford,” she says, “how glad you must be to have your name back.”

“I am most happy, my lady.”

“This is Katherine’s sister, Lady Mary,” she says, taking my hand and bringing it into her lap.

He turns my way, saying, “It is a true delight to know any sister of Lady Katherine’s.”

Smooth words indeed, I am thinking. I explore his expression for disdain or disgust, not finding it there, not even in the smallest way. Perhaps Katherine has warned him about me, prepared him for my strange form. Anyway, prepared or not, he flashes me a warm smile and seats himself on the bench before us, as Maman has indicated.

“So?” says Maman, who has a little color back in her cheeks.

“Um . . . I . . . I . . .” The boy is lost for words, and I like him all the more for it.

“Are you trying to ask me if you may court my daughter?”

“I am, my lady.” He smiles again, seeming relieved not to have to explain himself, and I can see what my sister sees in him. He is so very much like her.

“I assume you are aware that Lady Katherine is no ordinary girl.” Maman has made herself sound quite stern, but she carries a hint of a smile, though Hertford is so nervous it is unlikely he has seen it.

“I am, my lady. And I hope you do not find me wanting. I was first cousin to the last King Edward, and on my mother’s side we are descended from—”

“The third Edward,” Maman interrupts. “Yes, I know all about you and the royal line you come from. I knew your father very well—and your mother. How does she fare? She is at Hanworth, I am told?”

“She is, yes, and in good health too, my lady.”

“And what is
her
opinion of your intention to court my daughter?”

He picks at a thread on his doublet, pulling a brilliant clean away. “She . . . she is not yet aware of it.”

“Ah, so you think she will disapprove?”

“I suppose . . .” He pauses, twiddling the bright bead in his fingers. “I suppose so, my lady.”

“Well, never mind,” says Maman, who is smiling fully now. “
I
do approve. But I should like to have my daughter’s opinion on it. You may only court her if she wishes it herself.”

“Oh, she does, my lady.”

“I should like it from the source, as it were. So when you return to court you shall bid her come and see me, and if she wishes it, then she is yours. I assume the Queen doesn’t know, either?”

“She does not.”

“I imagine she’s too caught up with her own affairs to notice if someone has set his eye upon one of her ladies.”

We all know she means Dudley when she says “affairs.”

“We shall worry about the Queen when the time comes,” continues Maman. “I shall approach her myself. I knew her well as a girl. But you must be discreet in the meantime—we wouldn’t want any trouble.”

Hertford throws himself at her feet, taking both her hands in his. It is a gesture rather too dramatic for the occasion, but quite charming nonetheless. “Do you believe she will grant us permission?”

He is like a boy in a poem begging for the hand of his love. How Katherine must delight in his overblown ways.

“I am confident that all will be well,” says Maman. “But I suggest you try and persuade as many as you can on the council to your way of thinking; only those you trust, mind. That will help.”

“I shall do so, my lady. Anything.”

“And tell Lady Katherine she can collect her pets when she comes. Unless you want to take them back for her.”

•  •  •

It is less than a week after Hertford’s visit that Katherine arrives, and, with her, dearest Peggy. Katherine was unable to hide her shock on seeing Maman, who has gone into a decline and has a look of unbearable frailty about her. I fear for her greatly—she can hardly manage even the lightest of broths, and is so weak she
struggles to leave her bed. Stokes is a rock; he has sat up with her night after night; he administers her tinctures and holds her hand, reading to distract her while she is being bled and cupped. But the doctor makes a glum companion when he visits, and we know it is only a matter of time. He says it is a stoppage of the spleen and gives her physic for the pain, which at times is so bad she screams out like a woman birthing. She has begun to recount stories from the past, the days at Bradgate, and talks much of Jane, how she put us all to shame with her learning. And she talks of regret. It is as if she has gone back into the past and means to stay there.

I try to imagine a world without her, but it is like trying to think of the sea without salt. It is said that there is a sea in the Holy Land so full of salt that you can never drown in it. Maman is that sea to me; she has held me up, kept me buoyant, and I wonder if I can float alone. When I think of our family, so shrunken, a little seed of fear sows itself in my core—it will be just Katherine and me, with nobody to stand between Elizabeth and us. There is no doubt that I shall be called back to court, as a ward of the Queen, I suppose.

I watch Katherine talking to Maman. She is describing a masque in which she played one of the muses. I admire the way she can be so light, so entertaining, and watch Maman’s muted pleasure on hearing Katherine’s stories. I wonder why it is that I feel too freighted with grief to distract Maman from her woes with pretty tales.

“I was Terpsichore,” Katherine says, jumping up and dancing a few steps, to demonstrate her part. “And Margaret Audley was Erato, which was the best part, and poor Peggy got Clio. You had to recite an endless tract about the history of England, didn’t you?”

“But I enjoyed being Clio,” pipes up Peggy, who is beside me, twisting skeins of embroidery thread.

“I should have liked to have seen it,” says Maman. There is a little life back in her bearing—it has lifted her spirits to see Katherine.

I had met Katherine and Peggy down at the door when they arrived and had warned them of Maman’s condition.

“She will get better, I know it,” Katherine had said.

“No, Kitty,” I told her. “We must prepare ourselves.”

“Mary, you are always the pessimist.”

I had left it at that. Perhaps it is easier for her to believe that things will always improve.

Maman is smiling as she watches Katherine dance, and Katherine hums as she trips lightly about the chamber. My sister is full of life, as if her seams will burst with it. I am heartened to see Maman’s smile and it makes me think I have been a rather gloomy companion for her. I resolve to brighten up, to take a leaf from my sister’s book and make Maman’s last days full of joy.

“Come and sit, Kitty, you are making me giddy,” says Maman, patting the bed. Katherine climbs up beside her and drops a kiss onto her forehead. It is an oddly inverted gesture, as if she is the mother and Maman the child.

“Do you want to ask about Hertford?” Katherine says.

“He was here, as you know.”

“I
do
want to wed him, Maman, truly I do.”

Stokes peeps round the door. “Would I be interrupting, Franny dear, if I sat with you ladies?”

“Not in the least,” Maman says, and I can see the fondness she has for my stepfather written in her eyes. He sits on her other side.

“
Venez ici
, Mouse, Peggy,” Maman says. “This bed has room enough for us all. See, we fit like puppies in a basket,” she adds as we settle beside them. A small part of me has the wish that she would depart this life right now, in this moment, for she seems so very content to have her family all about her. I cannot bear the thought of her creaking slowly, excruciatingly, towards her end. “Now, we were talking about Hertford.”

“He is . . . He is . . .” Katherine cannot formulate her words. “He is perfect, Maman.”

As she says this, I notice Peggy purse her lips and minutely
shake her head, but no one else sees it—Peggy herself is probably unaware, but I mean to find out what her misgivings are when we are alone.

“The Queen must give permission,” says Stokes. “That is vital. I’m not having you getting into deep water, Katherine.”

“Deep water,” she repeats thoughtfully. “No.”

I can’t help myself from thinking that the idea of deep water has a grave allure for Katherine.

“Elizabeth is more artful than her sister,” says Maman. “I knew her as a girl. Knew things about her she would rather I didn’t.”

“Perhaps if you wrote to her, Franny?”

“Yes,” Maman says. “It is unlikely she would refuse
me
. I shall remind her of the days we were together in Katherine Parr’s house, that should spur her on to give you her blessing.”

Stokes snorts out a small dry laugh at this, and I look in turn to Peggy and Katherine, who seem equally confused by what is being said—or what is not quite being said. It would appear, though, that Maman has some influence over the Queen.

“Yes, I shall write to her. That will do the trick. And Kitty . . .” She turns to my sister. “
Pas de bêtises!
No naughtiness!” We all laugh at this and I want to keep the moment forever, preserve it like bottled summer fruits. “Now tell me,” she says when our mirth has died down, “how it goes with Levina at court. I hear her limnings are in great demand.”

“They are, Maman,” says Katherine. “She has painted just about everyone. And the Queen more times than I have fingers on both my hands. She pictured you, didn’t she, Peggy?”

“She did.” Peggy is fumbling in a pouch attached to her girdle and pulls out a small package. “This is for you.”

She hands it to Maman, who passes it to me, saying, “I’m afraid my fingers are not so very nimble lately. Would you open it for me, Mouse?”

I pull off the wrapping and there is a tiny portrait of Peggy.
Maman smiles, taking it. “Peggy, that is so thoughtful. I am grateful, my dear.”

“You have been as good as a mother to me,” says Peggy, unable to hide the crack in her voice. Suddenly the atmosphere in the chamber is heavy, unbearably so, too heavy for any of us to speak.

Eventually Maman says, in a wilting voice, “I think I will have a little sleep now.”

•  •  •

I can see the dull glow of morning creep through the gap in the hangings—despite the draft, I like to leave them open a hand’s width, so if I wake in the night I can look out. From my window here at Sheen, there is a particularly bright star I can always see on clear nights, framed at the exact center of one of the windowpanes. It is a constant, and if I fix my mind on it, it steadies those night thoughts that tend to whirl out of control. I imagine in my more fanciful moments that that star is Jane, looking down on me.

I feel Echo’s wet nose against my fingers, nuzzling, wanting me to stroke her. Peggy sleeps quietly beside me, and Katherine, on her other side, has one arm flung out above her head, making a dark shape against the white pillow. They are both good sleepers, unlike me. I am kept awake more often than not by the unanswerable questions, the whys and wherefores of the world, things that are most easily answered by faith. But there is a part of me that does not tend to seek the easy way to answer things; I want an explanation for everything that does not require the leap of imagination that God asks of us.

Then I remember Peggy’s little scowl yesterday and a pebble of doubt about my sister’s marriage plans drops into my thoughts. I had asked Peggy what she truly thought of Hertford when we were abed last night, before Katherine had joined us.

“Do you not think he is . . .” She had hesitated, twiddling at her necklace. “I don’t know. He seems . . .” She had never finished, for
Katherine came in then, and the subject had been firmly changed to what she would wear for her wedding. I tried to be enthusiastic, but I couldn’t shake Peggy’s doubts out of my head.

I am aware that my pessimism has taken hold. Contradictory thoughts spill over one another. The fact cannot be ignored that anyone hitching themselves to my sister could find themselves nicely placed. It may be a risk but then the greatest risk produces the greatest reward—Hertford will know that as well as anyone. Strictly speaking, according to the old King’s will, Katherine is Elizabeth’s heir, even if the Queen refuses to acknowledge it. I think of the stuttering Hertford I met the other day. Surely there is true affection there? But it is expected of a boy like him to gain back lost ground for his family. I suppose he carries all their hopes on his shoulders. The Seymours took a tumble during Edward’s reign, it is well known. I was very small then but I remember all the talk of it, Hertford’s father, the Duke of Somerset, going to the block and the Duchess festering in the Tower. My trickle of thoughts becomes a gush as I am engulfed with memories of my dead sister. The Seymours are not the only ones to have taken a tumble.

I clamber down from the bed with Echo in my arms, taking care not to wake Katherine and Peggy, fumbling for my gown. It is bitterly cold, so cold my head feels tightly compressed, as if I am a fledgling that has outgrown its egg. I poke about in the hearth to see if any embers are still alive, finding a few hopeful glowing flecks. I take a handful of kindling, placing it carefully and blowing gently to bring it back to life. One by one the embers extinguish themselves. I am not much given to superstition, but I cannot help thinking that it is a sign, and I am gripped with the fear that Maman is gone.