Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey (7 page)

And then, two days later, on a day of February thaw, when the sun seemed a blessing, nothing less, the unthinkable happened.

Katharine caught Sir Thomas and Elizabeth in an embrace in the garden.

I had seen them together there first, merely

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strolling, although there seemed to be something intimate in their conversation. Sir Thomas had waved at me, and I at him. Then I went into the house, and there was Katharine looking out one of the large windows.

"They are together, then," she said flatly to me.

I could not deny it. I said yes. And she went outside. Oh, I wanted to stop her. There was a death knell in my bones, I wanted to stop her so! But I did not. Why did I not?

I watched Katharine waddle down the steps of the garden. And waddle she did, for she was well advanced in her pregnancy. I turned from the window and picked up a book and tried to read, but to no avail.

I picked up my flute and started to play. My back was to the door from which Katharine had exited. I was well into my song, practicing, when the door opened and Sir Thomas stormed in.

"Well, I hope you're happy," he said.

I stopped midnote and stared at him. His face was flushed. From the sun I hoped, but I knew better.

"Sir?"

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"Don't 'sir' me, Lady Jane Grey. You told her about my morning visits to Elizabeth, didn't you? Making something of innocent play."

I did not answer. He had a violent side. Anger came quickly to him.

"And now you ran into the house to tell her we were in the garden together. Is this how you repay me for my kindnesses?"

Something in his tone caught at my heart. I put my flute down. "Sir, I never."

Just then Katharine came in, huffing and puffing. Tears were coming down her face. "Thomas, don't blame the girl."

"There is no blame to be put. Nothing happened. Except that she was spying for you." He turned to me. "Is that what you learned at court? To spy? You do it well."

I could not abide this! I ran to him, threw my arms around him, and he held me. I buried my face in his leather doublet. He did not let go, but he said no more.

Katharine spoke. "Thomas, I would speak with you in our chambers. Leave the child out of it. She is not spying." She wiped tears from her

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face and, regally as she could in her condition, walked from the room.

He followed.

"Please," I said as he walked away from me. I held on to his hand with both of my own. "Please, Sir Thomas, I did not send her into the garden. I promise you that."

He pulled his hand away and looked at me sadly. "Trust is so hard to come by, Jane," he said. "It was one of the reasons I adopted you. You trusted no one. Everybody could see that. I wanted to give you some sense of, of..." His voice trailed off and he sighed, shook his head, and walked from the room.

How could he speak of trust, he who had failed Katharine so? Because he thought of it as innocent play?

Oh, I was so confused. Something was broken in the house after that. Sir Thomas was too much the nobleman, too much the knight, too much the protector to mention it to me again, but I know he never forgave me.

Katharine had caught him in the garden with Elizabeth in his arms, she told me.

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I did not want to think what that meant. I hated Elizabeth for it, though, for what she had done to us all. She was truly like her mother, Anne Boleyn.

She was a child one moment, innocent and trusting, and in the next a witch going after another woman's husband.

And dear Katharine. Who could hurt her?

I caught her crying on several occasions after that, and I wondered how we could all continue to live together in the house. I avoided Elizabeth. It was not difficult to do. She was out and about more than I. Riding, playing at archery, or just walking.

After a week Sir Thomas called me into his study.

"You haven't been speaking to Elizabeth," he said.

I did not deny it.

"That is no way for you to behave. She will be Queen of England someday. You know Edward is not well. And that Mary is always sickly. I would that you speak to her, mend this thing between you. Don't let it fester."

I promised him I would speak to her.

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"She is soon to leave us," he said.

I just stared at him.

He was fussing with some papers on his desk. "It is Katharine's wish, and I must honor it. She will be going to Hatfield to stay with a very dependable couple who have stewardship of the place. And I am off at the end of the week for the Isle of Wight. I have ships and men to see to, as well as the country's defenses. I would that you keep Katharine good company while I am gone."

"Yes, sir," I said.

That was all. There was no more joking or teasing between us. He was stern and serious. Then in the next moment I was dismissed.

Elizabeth had a new green velvet archery outfit that fitted her form perfectly. She had soft leather gloves, a perky hat.

"Your outfit becomes you," I said, approaching her as she was taking aim at her target in the fields behind the house. "Green is your color."

"My mother had an outfit like this made. I had to have one too."

I watched as she let the arrow fly and saw it land near the center of the target. "You play well.

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I could never even hold that thing."

She tossed her head. "Innocent play keeps us all sane, Jane."

What was I expected to say? I minded that someday she would be Queen and I would be obliged to kneel to her. No sense offending her now. Queens had long memories.

"You don't play enough," she chided.

"I would rather read."

"But you chide others who do."

"I chide no one," I said. "Shall we correspond when you are at Hatfield?"

"Yes. I would like that. You must let me know the instant Katharine's baby is born. It is to be a boy, you know."

"How so?"

"Sir Thomas has been seeing astrologers and fortune-tellers. They say it will be a boy."

"They told our fathers you and I would be boys too."

She shrugged. "Thank you for coming to see me. Now I must practice more."

So formal! Well, we had all changed in the last few weeks. I bade her luck with her archery and made my way back to the house.

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By the end of the week they were both gone: Sir Thomas to London, and Elizabeth off with her household and yeomen of the guard for Hatfield.

We parted friends, all of us. Yet a cold hand lay upon the house, and it made me shiver in fear.

Katharine came down with a cold. It rained steadily. She took to her bed and I read to her for hours. Greek mythology. She loved it. Also some Latin. But inside me my heart ached. For I blamed myself, just as Sir Thomas had blamed me. If only I had kept my mouth shut. Now our family was broken up, and I had a bad feeling about things to come.

I helped Katharine fit out the nursery. Oh, it was to be beautiful. The walls were hung with blue silk at Sir Thomas's request.

But Katharine insisted on some pink pillows. "Just in case it's a girl," she said.

The cradle was draped in silk. Draperies hung like ladies' skirts at the windows. The bed for the nurse was swathed in crimson. Would Sir Thomas be back in time for the baby's birth? A midwife was engaged.

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"If I were Queen," Katharine told me, "I would have to take to my private chambers a month ahead of time and not be seen. How tiresome to be Queen. Don't ever let them make you Queen, Jane." She clutched my hand tightly, saying it. Was her hand warm? Was she feverish?

Two days later Sir Thomas returned, laden with gifts for us and for the new baby. And the house came alive again with his voice, his step, his laughter. His presence dismissed all my ghosts. No one dared be grave with Sir Thomas around.

I knew why Elizabeth had been in love with him and felt ashamed of myself even thinking it. I adored him, in spite of everything, and knew it to be a weakness in myself that I must conquer.

But he thought of me still as a child, for his gift to me was a doll. I smiled and thanked him. He was solemn with me, and proper, but oh how I longed to have my old Sir Thomas back. Time was he'd take me on his lap and count the freckles on my nose.

A whole month he'd been gone, and still I knew he had not forgiven me. Would he ever?

Katharine was delivered of a baby girl on August

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thirtieth. The midwife s name was Maude, and she kept Katharine entertained while the baby was coming with tales of how she had delivered the Princess Elizabeth and how frightened she'd been to tell King Henry that he had a daughter, not a son.

"I thought he was going to have me head then and there," she said.

And when the baby finally came she held it up and pronounced: "I tell you as I told the King then. You have a beautiful baby girl."

Katherine was smiling even as tears came down her face. "Where is my husband?" she asked.

The baby was beautiful. But so small! How could a body be so small and survive? I wondered at the miracle of it. I couldn't stop staring at her, and when the midwife offered to let me hold the baby, I declined.

Sir Thomas came in, hesitant in this women's realm, cautious and not at all disappointed. He kissed Katharine tenderly, inquired after her health, and held the baby. Sir Thomas seemed enamored of the child.

People came to visit in great plenty and filed

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right through Katharine's chambers with gifts the next few days, as was the custom/She received them sitting up in bed with her beautiful hair down around her shoulders, wearing her silken gown, and Sir Thomas poured the wine and I gave out the sweetmeats.

For three days the house was in a cocoon of happiness. Then Katharine took sick with fever. The doctor was called in by a worried Sir Thomas.

It was childbed fever. For two days she tossed and turned in delirium, and I seldom left her side. Oh, how frightened I was. Most women with childbed fever died of it. But surely Katharine would not die! Surely the Good Lord was not that cruel. I clung to her hand. I never left her bed and had to be told to go and get some sleep.

Whenever Sir Thomas came in, I was there. We spoke little. She accused him once of poisoning her, of wanting her dead, of wanting her money, and I flinched for him, seeing the look on his face.

"You never loved me," she accused him.

"I always loved you, sweetheart.''

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"You love that Elizabeth. That Boleyn brat."

"You are my wife. You have my heart."

On the third day her delirium ceased, and she sat up and called for her secretary and pen and paper and made up her will, leaving everything to Sir Thomas.

That night she died.

I was with her, as was Sir Thomas. I saw the life go out of her body, something I had never witnessed before. It appalled me. Surely I could not bear it if she left us. She had been the center of my world. What would I do without her? I refused to believe she was gone. They had to lead me away from her bed.

I saw Sir Thomas lean over her and clutch her hand and weep, his whole body shaking.

"Sir Thomas ..." I tried to comfort him. I put my hand on his arm.

He raised his head. "Get out of here," he demanded, "now. You helped sow the mistrust in her for me. Leave now."

It was worse than being slapped. I backed out of the room, telling myself his grief was speaking, not he. But I knew what my feelings of doom had been for. Were we all doomed, then? Was there

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to be no happiness on this earth for any of us?