The House of Allerbrook Page 9

  “But both labels have come off—and they’ve been ripped off,” said Jane, examining the hamper. “There are just scraps of them left, and look! Someone’s splashed something over the place where Francis painted my name. It’s been covered over by—well, it looks like ink.”

  “Is there someone at court who doesn’t like you, Mistress Sweetwater?” Carew asked, quite seriously.

  “It’s a woman, if so,” said Lisa. “This is what spiteful women do. And I can put a name to the hussy, as well!”

  “Leave it,” said Jane. “Let’s just take the hamper to the dormitory and not speak of this. I’ve got my property back. Master Carew, I must thank you for your help.”

  “I’m always willing to assist a young lady in distress,” Carew said. He added suddenly and cryptically, “Remember that. Especially if there is spitefulness about.”

  He left them before Jane could ask him what he meant. She asked Lisa instead, as they were carrying the hamper into the empty dormitory. “I don’t understand,” she said in puzzlement.

  “I do,” said Lisa. “And I can put a name to the girl who did it.”

  “Who?”

  Lisa opened her mouth to reply, but closed it as the door opened and Dorothy came in with her tirewoman Madge. “So you found your things after all,” said Dorothy rudely. “You ought to take more care with your labels. Fancy gluing them on so feebly that they just fall off.”

  Madge, who was very partisan as far as her young mistress was concerned, turned away quickly, but not quickly enough to hide a sly, smug smile. Jane looked at Lisa, who nodded.

  “Start the unpacking,” said Jane, and turned grimly to face Dorothy.

  “I took every care. Most people tie their labels on, so how did you know I used glue? I didn’t announce it and you weren’t in the room when I was sticking them on. They were wrenched off deliberately and where my name was painted on the wicker, someone has blanked it out with ink. Now, I wonder who did that?”

  Dorothy coloured but tossed her head. “It wasn’t me, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No?”

  “Oh, don’t put on such righteous, haughty airs! Just because the king and Master Carew both dance with you…”

  “Dorothy, what in the world is the matter with you? You surely don’t care whether you dance with the king or not.” It was incredible to Jane that anyone could actually wish to be physically close to the malodorous Henry. “And you have a handsome man of your own. Aren’t you going to marry Ralph Palmer?”

  “There’s an understanding. We’re not formally betrothed yet and if we ever do marry, Ralph Palmer will be marrying my dowry, not me,” Dorothy retorted. “If yours were bigger, he’d take you instead and he’d probably rather. I saw him looking at you sometimes on the way here.”

  “Oh, Dorothy!” said Jane helplessly.

  She worried about it all through the May Day celebrations, with their tournaments and masques. On the following day Queen Anna said to her, in her slow English, “Hanna has written…how to make a dish I like. It is like a cake made with rice and covered in…bread in tiny bits….”

  “Crumbs?” said Jane.

  “Yes, so. Crumbs. And fried and served with cold, sharp stewed apples. Very good. Hanna does not like talking…to English officials. Take this to the kitchen and explain. I wish it tomorrow at supper.”

  I don’t like giving orders to officials, either, Jane thought, but orders from the queen must be obeyed. However, the White Stave she spoke to in the Greencloth room was not one of the overdignified ones and was kind enough to tell her a quicker way back to the queen’s apartments.

  “Whitehall is confusing, I know. But—” he pointed through a window “—you can cut through that building there. It has a small council chamber downstairs and the king is in conference there now, but there is a staircase just inside the door and no one will mind if you go up one floor and walk through the upstairs gallery. At the far end is another staircase and you can go down to a courtyard. The side door to the queen’s lodging is just a few steps to your left.”

  Jane was glad of the guidance, since the good May Day weather had now given way to rain. She found the building the White Stave had pointed out and went up to the gallery, a wide and handsome place with a long row of windows. Settles with arm-ends shaped like lions’ heads and crimson cushions with gold fringes strewn on the seats, stood here and there, and oak chests with gold-inlaid carvings were placed between the windows. Rain blew against the diamond-leaded panes and she was glad to be on the indoor side of them.

  Then, as she was walking through the gallery, a figure she decidedly did not want to meet entered through a small door near the far end. The conference, presumably, was over. At any rate, King Henry had left it.

  He had seen her. There was nothing to do but stand aside and curtsy. He seemed to be on his own and he looked angry. She kept her eyes down as he approached, hoping he would just walk past, but instead he stopped, stretched one of those beefy hands down, slipped it under her elbow and raised her.

  “Mistress Jane! You’re a healing sight for a harassed man. My nobles! All hummings and hawings and protocol and…ah well, never mind. Come and cheer me for a little.” He led her to the nearest settle and she found herself obliged to sit on it beside him. His thick, powerful arm went around her.

  “There is something you must know,” he said. “Something that I suspect all you ladies have guessed anyway. Queen Anna and I…are not more than friends. I am seeking a way to dissolve the union, without harming her. I wish her to be respected and provided for and treated as my sister—but we cannot go on pretending to be man and wife. Cromwell is making every possible difficulty, damn the man. Others, not you, will have the task of telling the queen, but I want you to know. Can you guess why?”

  With that, the powerful arm tightened and turned her to face him, and the big square countenance came close and his mouth clamped itself over hers. She dared not struggle, but the feel of his fat tongue forcing its way into her own mouth made her want to retch. She controlled the urge with a gigantic effort as he nuzzled and sucked. He had been drinking wine and the taste was on his tongue. Secondhand wine, thought Jane wildly, was horrible. There were tears in her eyes. The whole ghastly business seemed to go on forever.

  He let her go at last, but put a thick forefinger on one of her eyebrows and said, “Dear little Jane. Are these tears? Have I moved you so much?”

  “I…I am overwhelmed,” Jane found herself stammering. She blurted out something else, about fearful majesty, and he laughed and began to fumble at her clothes. “Please,” said Jane. “Please…sir…Your Majesty…”

  Rescue came, but not in an agreeable form. She had been longing for it, but would have preferred it not to come in the shape either of the Duke of Norfolk or Thomas Cromwell. They, however, were both in the group of men who now followed Henry into the gallery and came striding toward them. Norfolk’s expression as he looked at her was that of a bird of prey eyeing a mouse.

  Henry freed her and stood up. “Well, gentlemen. I left you to further deliberations. I hope you have some sensible suggestions to make to me now.” He smiled at Jane. “Go back to Queen Anna, but…” His voice dropped. “No word of this happy encounter. You understand? We will talk more in due time. Yes, Sir Thomas? What have you to tell me?”

  Jane was dismissed. She was obliged to pass Norfolk and his companions, which shouldn’t have been difficult because the gallery was so wide. But Cromwell had instantly engaged the king in earnest conversation and Henry had turned away from her. He did not see Norfolk shoot out a hand and grip her shoulder, spinning her around to look at him.

  “Slut,” said Norfolk softly. Then he let her go and she was on her way again, with tears once more in her eyes.

  She found the stair at the end of the gallery and ran down it, thrusting open the door at the foot and fleeing out into the rain. The side door to the queen’s lodgings was only a few yards away and she hastened to it, with mingled
rain and tears almost blinding her.

  Just inside the door she stopped short, leaning against the wall. She felt breathless and her heart was hammering. Never had she wished more ardently that she could be back at home, sewing with Eleanor in the parlour with its view of the brown and purple moorlands, or riding down green-shadowed Allerbrook combe.

  Inside her, something seemed to have snapped. I can’t stay here. I can’t stay at this court, said Jane to herself. The door through which she had just come opened again and Peter Carew came striding in.

  “Jane! I saw you running in here as if you were in a panic and, well, here you are, propped against a wall and…” He came toward her, looking at her keenly. “You’re crying. Jane, what’s amiss?”

  “King Henry,” said Jane miserably. Peter looked bewildered.

  “I met him in a gallery and he kissed me. And he wants to divorce Queen Anna. Did you know?”

  “Most of the court knows, except for the queen herself.”

  “I can’t bear it. I daren’t stay here. I’m going home. I’ll take Lisa with me. Where’s the best place to hire horses from, to start us on our way?”

  “Good God, you can’t go off with only Lisa as an escort!”

  “I must. After what happened in that gallery, I must! I don’t suppose I’ll be granted permission, so I’ll just go.”

  “No, you won’t…no, listen! You’re right to want to get away, unless you’re prepared to end up as another concubine, in wedlock or out of it, living in luxury and the target of spite and not only from the other girls. The Duke of Norfolk wouldn’t be your friend either. I told you I’m always willing to help a young lady in distress. And I’ve always had a liking,” he added with a grin, “for doing lawless things, especially in a good cause. As it happens, I’m leaving the court myself tomorrow—with permission—to visit my mother in Devon. She’s been lonely since my father died.”

  “But how…what…?”

  “Listen. Let me think. Yes, I know. I’m good at getting into trouble and getting out of it as well, but there’s no need to ask for it. Here’s what you must do…”

  “I’d better leave word of some sort,” Jane said as his instructions ended. “I’m part of the queen’s household. She’ll feel responsible. She might send after me! Maybe King Henry will, too!”

  “King Henry,” said Peter, though he kept his voice down, “is still officially a married man, and—this is treason, of course, kindly don’t repeat it—what with putting Queen Catherine aside, beheading Queen Anne and now planning to annul his present consort, he’s getting a reputation. If he goes chasing, either personally or by proxy, after an errant maid of honour, there’ll be talk and even laughter. He won’t want that! Leave a note for the queen. Don’t mention the king. Say you were homesick. Say you’re going home with a reliable escort. That should reduce the chance of any pursuit. Can you trust your tirewoman?”

  “Lisa? Yes.”

  “Does she need to travel by pillion or can she ride?”

  “Lisa rides very well. You won’t fail me?”

  “I won’t fail you. I love an adventure,” said Peter, laughing. “Oh, and don’t worry. You will travel as my sister and I shall not treat you as anything else. I’ll bring you home unharmed, I promise.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Wrong Response

  1540

  Afterward, Jane marvelled at how smoothly it went. The following evening, as Peter had suggested, she pretended to feel unwell. In the morning the other maids of honour went to the chapel with their tirewomen, but Jane, still complaining of illness, stayed behind with Lisa to look after her. Once everyone else was out of sight, she rose and prepared a note while Lisa packed a hamper with essentials. Then she put the note half under her pillow. It would be found, but with luck, not for some time.

  Because the hamper was heavy, she helped Lisa carry it outside and down to the landing stage. They were stopped only once, by a White Stave who was not for some reason in the chapel, and who called to them, quite jovially, to ask where they were going. Jane had planned for this sort of thing and answered unflinchingly that they were on a charitable errand for the queen.

  “What’s in the hamper, then? Clothes for the poor?”

  “Yes,” said Jane, and opened the lid to show the respectable but dull cloak she had deliberately put on top. Queen Anna collected plain and hard-wearing items of clothing to be sent to the people responsible for distributing charity: the vicars, mayors, parish overseers in charge of housing orphans and apprenticing them to trades. The White Stave nodded, smiled and stepped back to let them pass.

  “Come, Lisa,” said Jane briskly. “We should hurry. We mustn’t be late back.” Whereupon the White Stave escorted them to the landing stage in person and hailed a boatman for them.

  Jane gave the boatman his instructions while Lisa, who had grasped her conspirator’s role very well, busily thanked the White Stave and prevented him from hearing the words White Bull Inn. They boarded and waved goodbye to him and then they were off on time, making for the inn three miles upstream. Peter Carew was there, as he had said he would be. He introduced them to the landlord as his sister and her woman servant, and since neither of them had breakfasted, ordered refreshments. After that, the two grooms who were with him saddled the horses he had hired and they set out again, by road.

  Jane was still afraid of possible pursuit, but Carew was not. There was something very resolute about him, Jane thought.

  “The court’s like a rabbit warren,” he said, “especially at Whitehall. Everyone will think you’re just somewhere else. By the time your note is found, we’ll be leagues away. Don’t be anxious.”

  He added, as they rode on, “That landlord thinks you’re my sister, but the grooms know who you are and that you’re escaping from the court to protect your good name. They approve. Have no fear of any of us.”

  It took eight days of steady riding, but there were no alarms and Peter never seemed uncertain of the road. “How is it that you know your way about so thoroughly? I thought you’d been abroad for years!” Jane asked him once.

  “I was, but since I’ve been back, I’ve travelled with the court on royal progresses and besides, I always make sure I understand the world I’m living in and how to get from here to there. You never know when it may come in useful.”

  He grinned at her, a bold, adventurer’s grin. Combined with his air of experience and maturity, it created a heady attraction. Jane, looking at his strong brown face with its aquiline nose and shapely chin, experienced a curious physical sensation, as though a warm and powerful hand had gripped her guts and jerked.

  This would never do. She must not indulge such feelings. She had no business to have them. She must not fall in love with Peter Carew! He came, and she knew it, from a family even more in the habit of making wealthy marriages than Ralph’s. A Sweetwater wouldn’t qualify. That was the way of the world.

  Peter showed no sign of falling in love in return. Both he and his grooms showed Jane and Lisa the utmost respect. Jane knew she must be grateful for this and quelled the regrettable part of her that seemed, mysteriously, to be wishing the contrary. She kept Lisa always by her side and guarded her tongue, to the point, she sometimes thought, of seeming dull and prim. On the morning of the ninth day, she came home.

  When she was once more within sight of the Exmoor hills, she felt a relief so great that she could almost have fallen from the saddle to kiss the ground beneath. It was raining, but the soft drizzle of Somerset felt like a caress. The very village seemed to welcome her. She looked with delight at the tower of St. Anne’s church, built of pale Caen stone, imported for the purpose long ago by one of Jane’s own forebears. And there on its knoll stood Clicket Hall, which was similar to Allerbrook House but older, the battlements of its small tower more genuine looking and less ornamental than Allerbrook’s.

  Even the thatched houses of the village seemed to smile at her. This was home. She would never go back to the court. The k
ing would probably turn his attention to poor little Kate Howard now and she pitied the girl, but Kate must look after herself. Jane Sweetwater had escaped, and forever.

  They started up the combe under the dripping trees, the pinkish mud of the track squelching beneath the horses’ hooves and splashing up their legs. The main track to Allerbrook House led off to the left about two-thirds of the way up to the ridge. Then the house was in sight, with smoke drifting from the chimneys. “Home!” said Jane ecstatically. Peter, who had a bigger horse, looked down at her and laughed.

  “You would never survive years abroad, would you? You’re no wanderer. Not like me.”

  The thought shot through her mind that if she had Peter Carew for company, perhaps she could bear to travel; perhaps, with him, everything would seem different. But she mustn’t say that, or even let her eyes betray it. “Here we are,” he was saying. “Your very own gate.”

  “Our very own dogs and geese, as well!” said Jane as the usual cacophony broke out to welcome them.

  It brought Francis out of the house at once. He came across the yard at a run, holding a coat over his head.

  “God’s teeth! Jane! What are you doing here? And who is this?” He stared inimically at Carew.

  “I’m Peter, the youngest son of your old friend Sir William Carew. I have escorted Mistress Jane all the way from Whitehall Palace. She has come home of her own free will and for a good and honourable reason. She’ll tell you all about it herself. Master Sweetwater, I don’t want to impose on you, but we’ve been on the road since early this morning. The horses need rest and fodder and both I and my grooms would welcome something to eat. I’m not inviting myself to dine, but…”

  “You’d better dine,” said Francis shortly. “And of course we’ll take care of the horses. Get down and come inside.”

  His voice was brusque, and as he helped Jane to alight she looked into his face and saw no friendly welcome there. His blue eyes were cold. He turned away as soon as she was safely down and led the way indoors without looking back. The maids came out to meet her, but their welcome seemed muted and the house felt curiously empty.