The Forgotten Sister

by Nicola Cornick

  Arthur didn’t move. ‘One day soon,’ he said, ‘we’ll need to talk about this gift of yours and what it means for us.’

  ‘We could just ignore it,’ Lizzie said lightly.

  ‘I doubt very much that will happen,’ Arthur said. He raised a hand and she thought that for a fleeting moment he brushed the rain drops from her cheek, but perhaps she had imagined that. ‘Goodnight, Lizzie Kingdom,’ he said.

  Lizzie watched him walk away, disregarding the water that was now running in rivulets down her neck. He didn’t turn to look back at her. The most disturbing thing was that when he vanished from sight down a side street, she felt bereft.

  The ringing of her phone was a welcome distraction.

  ‘Lizzie.’ It was Dudley. He sounded as though he was crying again. There was noise in the background, the chink of glasses and a roar of voices. Not Mackenzie’s, then, but another nightclub somewhere nearby.

  ‘Lizzie, help me,’ Dudley said. ‘I can’t do this without you… I need you.’

  ‘Where are you?’ Lizzie said. She looked along the empty street; Arthur had gone. Nor, she realised, did she have his number. ‘Dudley,’ she said again, ‘where are you?’ Her first thought, her only thought, was to find him so she could ask him about Johnny.

  ‘I’m at the Lizard Lounge,’ Dudley said. ‘I need you to come and get me. Please Lizzie…’ His voice broke.

  ‘All right,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m on my way.’

  Chapter 10

  Amy: Whitehall Palace, Summer 1552

  Robert was insanely ambitious. I had always known it but never was it more apparent than in those summer days of 1552. The serious boy king had been ill that spring; he was a sickly youth whose permanently pallid air gave the impression that all life and vitality had long since drained from him and he was no more than a husk. He spent all his time at his books and writing his letters but it scarcely mattered. My father-in-law was the Duke of Northumberland now and he ruled the Kingdom. The Duke of Somerset had been executed for treason and the Dudleys had climbed so high it felt as though we were touching the stars.

  That day there was to be a joust, one in a long procession of masques and tourneys I remember that year. The flower-bedecked pavilions, the ladies fluttering and gossiping, the press of the spectators, the blaze of heraldry, the stir of trumpets… I hated every last moment of it. Robert and his brothers were like so many flaunting peacocks amongst the crowd and I was supposed to smile until my face ached and applaud until my palms were sore.

  ‘How fine your husband looks!’ Lady Margaret Palmer gave me a sideways glance and an arch little smile. ‘All the women are hot for him.’ She leaned further out over the balcony, crushing the sweet-smelling roses that garlanded the stands in attempt to catch Robert’s eye. In contrast I tried to draw back a little. I hated the dust and the heat and the blood of the tourney. My head was already aching and I put up a hand to rub my brow.

  ‘Amy?’

  My sharp-eyed mother-in-law had noticed my withdrawal. She was a kind woman, the Duchess, in a brisk manner that still intimidated me after two years of marriage. Weakness was not something that she either understood or tolerated. Generous to me though she was, I knew that she, along with the rest, had thought Robert should look higher for a bride. It was a long time since his love for me had seemed sufficient to protect me from those slights either real or imagined. Now our desire seemed an ephemeral thing; it was no longer so heady as in the early days of our marriage and it was all too quickly satisfied. Often it left nothing but emptiness between us in its wake.

  I needed a child. Without one, I was nothing, less than a wife. The knowledge that a son would transform my status was becoming an obsession with me. Anna had lost her babe the previous year and yet still, ashamed as I was of it, I envied her. I had not even conceived yet.

  ‘Do you feel the heat?’ her grace enquired. ‘Is it the sun?’ She drew me beneath one of the fluttering canopies. ‘Sit, my dear. Take some rest.’ Her gaze flickered to my stomach. ‘You look very pale. I wonder… Do you think you may be with child?’ She looked at me with her kind, hopeful eyes.

  I could have told her no. I should have done. I was hot and sick because my flux was coming, as regularly as it always did. But I was tired of disappointing them, of the monthly letters to my mother that were full of inconsequential chatter and no news of a babe. Pain gripped me and a desire to be of consequence for once. It was pleasant to be approved of, to be ushered to a seat in the shade, to sit quietly whilst the Duchess sent a servant scurrying for a glass of wine to revive me. I lowered my gaze and pretended that I did not see the glances of surprise and hear the whispers that had already started:

  ‘Can it be true? Amy Dudley is enceinte?’ Then a voice, quickly hushed: ‘I thought she was barren.’

  Ah, my sister-in-law Anne Seymour, so loud and tactless, articulating what everyone else was thinking. Anne had grown sourer still with the death of her father and I supposed that was no surprise, for who would wish to be trapped in a marriage to the son of their father’s murderer? It was a harsh world we inhabited for all that it was dressed up in silks and gaudy colours.

  I swallowed the bitterness of Anne’s words. She had no children herself so perhaps like me she was driven by envy. Yet how little time it had taken the whole court to condemn me because I had failed to perform a woman’s natural function, a woman’s only important function, and fall pregnant. Robert, even now demonstrating his virility in the lists, was surely as fecund as the stallion he was riding. Thus ran the logic. If there was no child then it must be my fault.

  Even as I rested my hands demurely over my stomach, I knew this could only end in more disappointment, more disapproval. Yet still I said nothing, sitting in the dusty June heat, dreaming, as though that would make it true.

  It was not long, of course, before everyone knew there could be no child. The year slid into autumn and then into winter and I did not increase. I felt a curious sense of disappointment and loss, as though I had almost convinced myself of the lie along with everyone else. I grieved for the child I was not carrying and the canker of doubt, of a belief in my barrenness burrowed a little deeper into my heart.

  Nobody mentioned that there was no babe. Indeed, I think perhaps that Robert barely noted it. He was too occupied with other matters, not that he ever discussed them with me. I had tried to talk to Robert about affairs of state, of the court business, of politics when he attended the parliament, but he had no interest in my opinions. I quickly came to realise that he humoured me. He never sought my advice, perhaps because he was so certain of his own mind. Robert was now a gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber and his father had granted him more estates in Norfolk. This made me happy, though less so when I discovered we were not to go there. I missed the landscape of my childhood and I missed Arthur very much too, but Robert shook his head when I bearded him in his study and begged to go home again.

  ‘It is more important to be at court now than buried away in the country,’ he said. ‘All the things that matter happen here.’

  ‘Then what are our manors for?’ I felt frustrated. ‘If not to be lived in?’

  Robert laughed though I glimpsed irritation in his eyes. ‘You are such an innocent, Amy,’ he said. ‘Owning land is always about power and money.’

  I could see that, but to me it was also about building a home, a place to raise the family I was still so hopeful we would have. It was about belonging. I was only just starting to learn that I needed to have a settled home, now that I felt so rootless.

  ‘My father wishes to increase his authority in Norfolk,’ Robert said, ‘Suffolk too. They are… unruly places, dangerous to the stability of the realm. So he grants me land and authority there to keep that danger in check.’

  I was not so naïve that I did not know what he meant. There were festering resentments in the east of the country; people did not like the imposition of the new religion and held fast to older loyalties. There was always the po
ssibility of insurrection.

  ‘Was that why you married me,’ I asked suddenly, ‘to buy my father’s loyalty and increase your influence?’

  I wished the words unsaid as soon as they were out of my mouth. I knew Robert well enough by now to know that he admired independence of spirit and could not bear what he saw as a mawkish need for reassurance. Even so, if he had denied it immediately, all might have been well. If he had kissed me and told me fondly that I was foolish to doubt him, I would have pushed those fears back into the dark recesses of my mind. He did neither. He stood gazing out of the window for a moment and he seemed lost in thought, as though he had not heard me. Then:

  ‘Your father’s loyalty was never in doubt,’ he said.

  He went back to his desk, picked up his pen and resumed the writing I had interrupted. I felt hot and furious. I clenched my fists by my side.

  ‘I shall go alone then,’ I said. ‘My mother would welcome a visit, I know. She has been ailing of late.’

  ‘A wife’s place is with her husband,’ Robert said, without looking up this time. ‘You will stay here at court with me.’

  ‘But I have nothing to do!’ I burst out. ‘I cannot be for ever at my needlework or reading…’

  The quill snapped between Robert’s fingers. ‘Why are you troubling me with this, Amy?’ he said. ‘Surely after three years you can find your own amusement? Go and visit your aunt in Camberwell or—’

  I did not hear what other suggestions he might have for my entertainment for I had left the room. I did not wish to be amused; I wanted to have something to do. Later though, when we supped at court with the King, and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, we behaved with complete composure as though nothing were amiss between us. I had learned that to dissemble one’s feelings was the aristocratic way.

  The Duke, my father-in-law, was, as always, at pains to compliment me on how well I looked, reminding me that my role was as an enhancement to my husband. The Duchess drew me to her side with her usual kindness.

  ‘I fear you must give up Somerset Place soon and return to Ely Palace,’ she confided in me later in the evening. ‘The King is minded to send the Lady Elizabeth to live there.’

  The Lady Elizabeth. It was not the first time in my married life that the Princess’s name had been mentioned but it was the first time in years that I felt such a strong prick of jealousy. Perhaps it was because Robert and I had quarrelled. Perhaps, that had made me realise how far apart we had already drifted and how his history with her lent their relationship deeper roots than we could ever achieve.

  I glanced down the table to the empty stool that was the Princess’s place. When they were at court both Elizabeth and her half-sister Mary were denied the right to sit with the King beneath the canopy of state. Both were obliged to kneel to him and fulfil all the intricate rituals of royal ceremony. I could not blame them for so frequently sending their excuses in order to be free of his company. It was one of the things I disliked most about the King; to my mind Edward was fortunate to have his family about him yet he did not value his sisters. Instead he demeaned them in ways great and small through his arrogance. I had little liking for Elizabeth, of course, but it made me wince that Edward made no secret of the fact that he believed his sister a bastard. I wished the King would marry her off to some foreign prince in a miserable political bargain and put an end to both her humiliation and my jealousy.

  ‘I will not regret a move from Somerset House,’ I said. The new palace was half built and draughty and uncomfortable. ‘I shall look forward to summer back at Ely Place. The strawberries in the garden are the best in London.’

  Her grace smiled but it did not reach her eyes. ‘Summer is far away,’ she said. ‘Who knows where we shall all be then?’

  I did not much care. The news that we were to leave Somerset House had heartened me even though I wished Robert had been the one to tell me. It had been unpleasant living in a house designed for the Duke of Somerset, not only stepping into a dead man’s shoes but occupying the chamber he had planned for himself. The place was haunted by the ghost of his ambition. It mocked me at every turn, showing me what happened to those who rose too high. Robert laughed at me when I shivered and told him how much I hated living there. He did not understand, even when I tried to explain. I remembered one morning lying in the huge oaken four-poster in our chamber. The window was open and the breeze blew in from the river. I could hear the cries of the boatmen and the splash of the waves. There was a scent too, of fresh air and dank water mingled with thyme and lavender from the gardens, an odd mixture of sweetness underpinned with something less pleasant. I looked up at the rich red velvet folds of the bed hangings and felt smothered by how opulent our life was. No, I should not be sorry to go even if it meant that the Lady Elizabeth was once more casting her shadow over my life.

  In the event, our remove was short-lived. The King developed a fever during that winter and was often struggling for breath. He rallied but then he would fail again. He started to cough up blood and bile. The doctors, at first hopeful of a recovery, started to despair as gradually Edward grew wasted and weak. In the end he wanted to die. I could see it in his face. He wanted the peace of it. Yet with each step closer, the Duke too came closer to disaster. I knew that he and Robert and other members of the Privy Chamber plotted like thieves through the spring and Robert grew ever more distant and did not confide in me. Perhaps I should have been glad of it for had I known what was to come I do not know how I would have borne it. It is not good to know the future.

  I should perhaps have guessed at the wedding in May. It was a ridiculously ornate affair, a triple union of powerful families, with Robert’s younger brother Guildford marrying Jane Grey, the King’s cousin, whilst two other cousins were also parcelled off to tie the bonds of alliance tighter. The King presided over it looking sick in heart and spirit, and despite the celebrations there was about it an air of conspiracy and hurry that felt ill-wished. Two months later Edward was dead and Jane, as bookish and quiet as he, was the new Queen.

  ‘You are crazed,’ I said to Robert when I discovered it. Even though a part of me had not wanted to know the treason they plotted, I was still furious he had not told me his father’s plan. I could not hold my tongue. ‘The people will never accept Jane over Mary. You live in a fool’s paradise.’ I had not been there when Jane was proclaimed Queen but I had heard that the news was received by Londoners in silence but for one poor man who shouted out for Mary and was fiercely punished for it.

  Robert and I were in the old solar and there were servants all around, their ears out on stalks, but I was too fearful and too angry to care. Robert, who had an equally hot temper, caught me by the arm in a grip that made me wince and hustled me behind an arras. In the enclosed space of the alcove behind I was suddenly overwhelmed by his physical presence and the sheer force of his anger.

  ‘Hold your tongue, Amy,’ he said bitingly. He gave my arm a little shake before he let me go. ‘Why do you think I did not trust you with the truth ahead of time?’ His eyes were narrowed, his face set hard. ‘I do not wish to hear your gloomy counsel. Jane was the choice of the King himself. We do but enact his will.’

  ‘You may dress it up however you please,’ I said, ‘but this is your father’s work.’

  Robert’s gaze scanned my face for one impossibly angry moment. Then he shrugged, some of the tension going out of him. ‘What if it is?’ he said. ‘Someone must steer the Kingdom.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ I burst out. ‘I am afraid for you! I am afraid for us! I am your wife, Robert. I do not want to lose you.’

  It was, by good fortune, the best thing I could have said. His face cleared miraculously and he pulled me close and wrapped his arms about me. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said, against my hair, ‘you will never lose me. I swear it.’

  He tilted up my chin and kissed me. There was some of the old fervour in that embrace; I could see he was lit with excitement just as he had been that night we had met at Stansf
ield. For Robert the game was all and the riskier the better. ‘This is for us,’ he whispered, as he let me go. ‘There is no limit to how high we can climb, Amy, with a Dudley Queen on the throne.’

  I did not think that the Lady Elizabeth would wish to bend the knee to a Dudley Queen and I wondered how this ambition squared with Robert’s loyalty to her. However, I had the sense to say no more for those sweet moments were increasingly rare between us even if to me they secretly felt poisoned. Robert’s fingers were entangled with mine and he kissed my hand as he released me, and then he was gone, his mind already on the weightier matters of treason, and I was left in the window embrasure, staring after him.

  That same day Robert left for Cambridgeshire, tasked with hunting down Princess Mary and her supporters. Knowing Robert, I imagine he had no fear of failure. His father was busy trying to buy the support of the privy council and I clung to the Duchess and my sisters-in-law, an unhappy little assemblage of Dudley wives who tried to put on a brave face whilst we waited endlessly for news.

  It came that evening, when the window embrasures were thrown wide to try to draw in the slightest breath of coolness in a London summer that felt as overheated as a powder keg. We had abandoned any attempt to play at cards and were conversing in low voices whilst our ears strained for any sound that a messenger might have arrived. It was a terrible, nervous time; I had not eaten for several days, picking anxiously over my food, staying within doors because it was too dangerous to venture out. We all knew that Queen Jane could not command the support of the people and dreaded what was to come.

  Even so, the messenger took us by surprise for it was the Duke himself. He swept into the room and we scattered like chaff; he went straight to his wife and took her hands in his.

  ‘Forgive me, Jane,’ he said, and afterwards I wondered whether he was apologising for the entire, ill-founded disaster. ‘I have to leave. Robert pursued the Princess Mary as far as Sawston, but he was too late. The east is rising to support her now; I must take an army.’