Brandy Purdy (29 page)

Kate and I just sat there, staring down at the sugar rolls growing sticky in the heat of our hands. It just wasn’t fair! We were to be ladies-in-waiting, to live in luxury at court, with dancing, feasting, and beautiful clothes, and a generous allowance for each of us of £80 per annum, while our sister was to languish in prison with the shadow of the ax hanging over her. Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, our lady-mother was draping our shoulders with pale orange satin to see which of us it suited best and debating whether the gold braid or vermilion silk fringe made the best trim, and Father was railing against the unjustly forgotten pastry cooks of bygone centuries. There seemed to be no justice left in the world!

T
o appease the fears and keep—or win—the good regard of her nobles, Queen Mary decreed that they should keep their church spoils and plunder, that while the religion would in time be restored, the properties and goods would remain where they were, in private hands. But there were other things that made the men squirm uneasily in their seats around the council table—Queen Mary seemed to trust Senor Renard, the Spanish ambassador, more than she did any Englishman. She deferred to him at every turn. And though it was true these men, most of whom had betrayed and sacrificed my sister to save themselves, did not merit great trust, they were all Englishmen born and bred who would put their own proud little nation before the interests of any foreign country and fight for it unto the death.

It all seemed such a fraud to me! My family and many of the men who now sat on the Queen’s Council had, until a scant few weeks ago, been Protestants, ardent devotees of the Reformed Religion, yet now we all decked ourselves with rosaries and crucifixes, listened to the priests’ Latin litanies, and marveled at the miraculous moment when the bread and wine became the body and blood of our savior Jesus Christ, and never missed a Mass.

“We are all turncoats and hypocrites,” I said to Kate one day as we were dressing in the room we shared at Greenwich Palace, donning the russet and black velvet livery we wore during our daily attendance upon the Queen, saving our finery for evenings, holy days, Sundays, special celebrations, banquets, balls, and feasts.

Kate vehemently agreed, adding, albeit softly lest the walls have ears, that she herself believed that Princess Elizabeth had it right and that there was but one Jesus Christ and all the rest was naught but dispute and debate over trifles.

As I finished lacing the back of her gown, Kate turned and in all seriousness said to me, “I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and try to honor and live by his teachings, I read my Bible, follow the Ten Commandments, and say my prayers; why is that not enough, Mary? Why must we be either Catholic or Protestant? Why must lives be ruined and sacrificed for either faith?”

“Heaven only knows.” I sighed as I stepped up onto the trunk at the foot of our bed and grasped the bedpost so Kate could return the favor and lace mine. “For I certainly don’t!”

 

Meanwhile, in Master Partridge’s house, Jane waited, through the sweltering heat and summer storms.
Wait
—that was really
all
she could do. She had already written and justified herself as best she could to the Queen.

Day after day she passed sitting tensely by the window, quietly observing the gate to see who came in and out, warily watching the Tower Green, gazing at the Beauchamp Tower, where Guildford and his brothers were kept, and the chapel. All the while the fever burned slow and steadily within her, making the August heat even harder to bear. Mercifully it never rose alarmingly high, never enough to drive her out of her senses into the arms of delirium, or to require more than cooling compresses, but it never departed either.

From her window, Jane watched our royal cousin ride through the Tower gates in triumphal procession, amidst heralds and trumpets and splendidly arrayed nobility, mounted on a white palfrey caparisoned in gold embroidered white velvet nigh down to the horse’s hooves, with Cousin Mary herself in grand purple array embroidered with a blinding blaze of gold and a jeweled coronet casting rainbows over her faded hair and haggard face.

Before we hastened to take up her train, Kate and I waved and blew a swift kiss to Jane, just to let her know that we had not forgotten her.

And Jane was there at her window, to observe in stern and disapproving silence the Catholic requiem Mass Queen Mary ordered in memoriam of the late King Edward. Though, in fairness to our royal cousin, I must say this was more for her than for him, for she had already given Edward the stark Protestant funeral service at Westminster Abbey that he would have wanted. Kate and I, as well as our lady-mother, walked, veiled and black clad, each of us with a large silver crucifix on our breast and a black onyx rosary in our hands, behind the new queen, amidst priests in embroidered and brocaded robes and miters and swinging censers that engulfed us in perfumed blue clouds of incense that made us cough and feel light-headed.

And Jane was there at her window to watch Northumberland embrace the Catholic faith in a desperate ploy to preserve his life. Whenever she saw him being escorted under guard to hear Mass in the Tower’s chapel, she pounded the glass and loudly denounced him as “a hypocrite,” “an evil fraud,” “a base and false man,” “a white-livered milksop,” and “the devil’s imp.” She accused him of “trading the beautiful temple of God for Satan’s stinking, filthy kennel” and shouted, “Whoso denieth Him before men, he will not know Him in His Father’s kingdom!” But if he heard her, Northumberland gave no sign, studiously bowing his head over his book of hours as a pearl rosary swung from his hand, the dangling silver crucifix catching the last rays of the dying sun. Sometimes his sons followed after—Ambrose, John, and Robert—a penitent trio of bowed, dark heads, but strangely never Guildford. Later I heard that when he was coaxed to convert, to try to save himself, Guildford—vain, foppish, frivolous Guildford—replied that since his wife valued the Reformed Faith so highly he didn’t think “it should be cast off lightly like one suit of clothes for another.”

On the twenty-third day of August, Jane was there at her window to witness the poignant farewell between Northumberland and his sons, outside the chapel where he had just heard Mass for the last time. Stoically, he bade each boy a fond farewell, until he came to Guildford. It was then that Northumberland’s famous composure deserted him. He pressed his golden boy to his breast again and again and wept and kissed him, before Sir John Bridges gently parted them and led Northumberland away to die upon the scaffold, where he once again renounced the Reformed Religion and implored the Queen to be merciful to his children, and remember that they had only obeyed their father as all good and obedient children were reared to do.

But there was reason to take heart; the night before her coronation, when I knelt to remove Cousin Mary’s gold-embroidered, rose velvet slippers, while Kate brushed and braided her long, lank hair in readiness for bed, hoping to coax the faded, dingy, orange and gray strands into holding a wave on her day of triumph, Cousin Mary dismissed her other ladies. She bade us to sit beside her and, with her arms draped affectionately about us, confided that she could not bear to have a pall of sorrow cast over the morrow, she wanted it to be a happy day for all, so we must banish our fears and know that Jane had naught to fear from her.

“An innocent girl should not suffer for the crimes and greed of others, and my conscience, and my heart, will not allow me to condemn unjustly. I know it may seem an unjust punishment, but your sister is safer where she is at present. She is housed in comfort and treated with great kindness. As soon as I am married and have borne a son, then, when no man can dare raise a banner in your sister’s name, to try to claim for her a crown I know she does not want, then it will be safe—for her and for me—to set her free. For now, I am protecting her by preventing any man from using her as his pawn; when I restore Jane to liberty I want her to be
truly free,
to know that no one can ever do that to her again. She is a young woman, not a weapon, and youth and beauty are fleeting,
I know,
and I want her to be able to enjoy them before they slip away.”

Jane was there, as we knew she would be, watching from her window, upon that sultry September morning when the long, splendid coronation procession assembled in the courtyard, led by Queen Mary seated resplendently in a golden litter in sumptuous ermine-bordered, gold-embroidered sapphire velvet and a dazzling coronet of jeweled flowers like a spring garden sprouting from the lost and faded glory of her hair.

For that occasion, I made two red silk petticoats trimmed with golden lace, for Kate and me to wear beneath our new crimson and ermine gowns. Upon each I embroidered three golden butterflies, working a concealed initial into the wings of each—
J, K, M.
When we emerged from the royal apartments, to take our places in the procession, we boldly went to stand before Master Partridge’s house, so that Jane could see us. We lifted our skirts to show our petticoats, the three golden butterflies, and we held up three fingers then pointed up to Jane, then back at ourselves, to show that we had not forgotten her, that we were still together, sisters three, and nothing could divide us.

“The brilliant one,” Jane mouthed.

Then it was Kate’s turn—“The beautiful one.”

Then mine—“The beastly little one.”

Jane watched us climb into a gilded chariot where a discreet crimson-carpeted step had been supplied to put me at an equal height with Kate. It was with glad and excited hearts that we waved gaily back at Jane as the trumpets sounded and the long, winding procession headed out the Tower gates to progress slowly through the city to Westminster Abbey. We blew kisses back to her, hoping to convey to her that soon,
very soon,
all would be well, we had the Queen’s word upon it, and she would soon be free, to live quietly with her beloved books and Guildford and perhaps—how Kate and I hoped!—learn to embrace the joys of being young, beautiful, and to taste and savor the fruits of love. We still believed that love was possible between Jane and Guildford; if Jane would only stop fighting desire as though it were a demon sent to tempt and torment her.

But we didn’t know then that Senor Renard was holding Prince Philip, the dazzling golden Spanish bridegroom, out, tantalizing, before Queen Mary, dangling the man whose portrait our royal cousin had fallen in love with like a carrot before a donkey’s nose, trying to compel her to condemn Jane, making it so that Mary must choose between Jane’s life and the love she had always longed for. But in those days our cousin was still clinging strong to clemency, wringing her hands, and crying, “I
cannot
find it in my heart to put my unfortunate kinswoman to death.” Vainly she tried to assure Ambassador Renard that “every requisite precaution will be taken before I set the Lady Jane at liberty.” But by these assurances he would not be placated, and Mary’s dream of marriage with her gold-bearded Spanish prince seemed to drift further and further away, until, I think, she too began to see that Jane stood between her and the most incredible, fierce desire she had ever known.

 

Jane was still a prisoner the blustery October day when she turned sixteen. We were afraid she would think that we had forgotten her, so we wanted to do something special to let her know that even though our bodies were apart we, her loving and devoted sisters, were always there with her in spirit. Through Mrs. Ellen, we sent her a rich plum cake and a beautiful but, by court standards, plain, new gown of the more modest cut Jane favored. It was made of velvet of that most delicate hue of blue known as milk-and-water with its modest square-cut bodice edged with luminous moonstones. Mrs. Ellen ignored Jane’s protests and dressed her in it and brushed and crowned the red-kissed brown waves of her hair with a delicate pearl chaplet. With the connivance of Mr. and Mrs. Partridge and Sir John Bridges, we arranged that Jane be encouraged to walk in the walled garden after supper and enjoy the breeze off the river.

How Kate and I relished imagining the scene that followed! Kate pleaded a headache and to be excused from her duties that night, and I was allowed to stay with her, and we lay side by side on our bed, imagining Guildford Dudley clad head to toe in shining white stealing up behind Jane and gently cupping his hand over her mouth so she would not scream. With his own body, he would press her against the side of Master Partridge’s house, letting her feel his desire, and there, in the shadows of the weeping willow tree, sheltered by the lilac bush, lift her skirts and make sweet love to her. Even when the rain began to fall and the lightning flashed across the darkened sky, Kate and I imagined them clinging all the closer, feeling the full scorching heat of their passion in the chill of the autumn rain.

But Jane always knew how to spoil a good dream. The next day Mrs. Ellen told us that, after their passion had been spent and Jane had pushed Guildford into a mud puddle, she rushed into the Partridges’ kitchen, soaked to the skin, breathless, and bedraggled, and frantically sought lemon juice and vinegar. She had made a great mess, which she did not tarry to clean up, attempting to pour both into a wine bottle, then bolted up the stairs to her bedchamber, ripped off her sodden clothes, and flung herself naked upon the bed. She spread her legs wide, and, with a rage-fueled brutality akin to rape, shoved the long, slender neck of the bottle inside her cunny, thrusting her hips high as she poured its tart, stinging contents inside her.

When Mrs. Ellen tried to intervene, fearing that Jane would do herself an injury, Jane snarled like a mad dog and slapped her hands away, shouting, “Leave me be!” and Mrs. Ellen quietly withdrew to sit upon a stool in the corner. Later, when Jane lay curled upon her side and wept because the mixture stung and burned her inside, and she ached from the bruising force of the bottle she had thrust into her secret center, she rejected all Mrs. Ellen’s attempts to comfort her and ordered her to get out.

“Leave me be! Leave me be!” she sobbed to the rhythm of Mrs. Ellen’s softly retreating footsteps.

When I heard about it later, I sighed and shook my head and felt the salty prick of tears stab my eyes. There was a battle betwixt angels and demons raging inside my sister, so heated, confused, crowded, and clouded by smoke and writhing, warring bodies, sometimes it was impossible to tell good from bad, friend from foe, or who would triumph in the end. I loved my sister, but I despaired of ever understanding her. Why must she fight against herself and push away any who would love and comfort her? Why did she relish the role of victim and stage her life for sacrifice? Why did she reject pleasure and choose pain time and again?