Nannyland

by Jane Elizabeth Hughes

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said her father.

  She turned toward him beseechingly and threw up on his perfectly pressed khakis and Tod’s loafers.

  “Bloody hell,” said John.

  So John went alone. When he called me that evening from his London flat, he was in quite a state.

  “Do you know your Dr. MacAlister is promising great revelations for the gala?”

  “He’s not my Dr. MacAlister,” I countered.

  “Oh yes, let’s quibble, shall we? So productive.”

  I was silent. He must not be looking forward to parading his daughter at the event, either, I realized.

  “He drew quite a large crowd at the opening when he told a reporter of his groundbreaking research. ‘It will change the way we view Lady Jane Grey, now and forever’ were his exact words.”

  “Well, it will,” I said unwisely.

  “For God’s sake, Jordy, do you realize he’s planning to present this research at the gala? What about my mother?”

  “What about her?” I retorted.

  “Have you read her bloody book?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, bloody read the bloody book!” he barked, and hung up the phone.

  When John came home the next weekend, he was still fuming. I waited until we were in bed for the night to say, “I read your mother’s book.”

  “Oh?” he said warily.

  “Have you read it?”

  “I skimmed it.”

  I reached for the sheaf of papers on my bedside table; it had taken some cajoling and coaxing to get an advance copy from her publisher. But it was quite a read.

  I opened to one of the pages that I had marked and read out loud, “ ‘Like other gently born girls of her age, Lady Jane was prim and virtuous, a maiden as she went unwillingly to her marriage bed. One can only imagine her fear and trembling upon being forced to lie with the squat and pockmarked boy her parents had forced upon her, Lord Guildford Dudley.’ ”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “So, first of all, she was almost certainly not a maiden. She had a pre-contract with George Wyatt, and in those days that meant—”

  “I know what it means. Go on.”

  “Second, Guildford was tall, handsome, and popular with the girls.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” John asked curiously.

  “Dr. MacAlister found correspondence among several young girls, including Jane’s cousin Anne Grey, describing Guildford as ‘fair and meetly handsome, most pleasing company.’ ”

  “Indeed.”

  I turned to another marked page and read, “ ‘Lady Jane was the most learned maiden of her age.’ ”

  “And?”

  “She most assuredly was not. Her cousin Princess Elizabeth was the most learned maiden of the age, and no one knew that better than Jane.”

  “I suppose you have a source for that, too?”

  “Oh, yes. There is a letter from Jane’s tutor to—”

  “Never mind. I’ll stipulate to that.” He paused. “What else do you have?”

  I found another page. “ ‘Lady Jane was an innocent victim, a martyr to her parents’ blind ambition. She was executed in the wake of the foolish and doomed Wyatt’s Rebellion of January 1554, in which she played no role and for which she most assuredly could not be blamed.’ ”

  John eyed me warily. I was pleased to see his intelligence starting to engage in the historical mystery, but at the same time, he was painfully aware of the present-day repercussions of these revelations. Almost, I sympathized.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But we have a letter from Jane herself promising support to Wyatt for the rebellion, and the graduate students have also found documents from other conspirators referring to Lady Jane Wyatt’s oath of fealty to the Princess Elizabeth. She was in it up to her eyeballs.”

  “Why didn’t anyone come up with this before?”

  “They thought the documents referred to George’s mother, whose name was also Jane.”

  “And how do you know it’s not?”

  “Why would anyone care if Sir Thomas Wyatt’s wife swore fealty to Elizabeth? Her own husband led a rebellion in favor of Elizabeth! Why on earth would that be worthy of comment?”

  John shrugged. “Largely circumstantial,” he said.

  “Yes, and Dr. MacAlister is well aware of that. He’s a dedicated scholar, John; he’s put a lot of work into this research, and he’s hoping that more documents will come to light after his announcement. He’s not some publicity hound out for fame and fortune.”

  Cautiously, John said, “And the alleged baby? The alleged dying declaration?”

  “Nothing; Dr. MacAlister doesn’t believe the dying declaration ever existed. As for the baby, he says it could have been the baby of a maid or fellow prisoner; the letter is too badly damaged to be entirely legible. The only part we can read says, ‘I plead with your kind heart to care for the babe; he is but a few months of age, and sickly.’ ”

  “And there’s no record of him after that?”

  I shook my head. “None. Dr. MacAlister says his gut feeling is that it was Jane’s son—she wouldn’t be pleading for the son of a servant on the night before her execution—but that he died in infancy. We’ll probably never know.”

  I didn’t add my own belief that the tiny boy had been Jane’s, born to her in the dank cold of her Tower cell after the baby’s father, George Wyatt, had been publicly hanged, drawn, and quartered: the death of a common traitor, not a nobleman. Or my sense of her despair as she watched over her baby on the long night before her own execution. What must this young girl, not much older than my Jane, have been thinking as she wrote that last desperate plea to Elizabeth? Was she terrified and grief-stricken? Afraid and alone save for the weak, helpless baby at her breast? Or was she calm, steadied by her deep belief in the Protestant faith and in that cousin, Princess Elizabeth, who one day would be the greatest queen the world had ever known?

  God, I hoped it was the latter.

  “So the good doctor is going to tell everyone that Jane was not an innocent victim but a sexually active, politically astute fifteen-year-old,” said John, “who helped plot a rebellion to put the Princess Elizabeth on the throne. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Well,” I said, “more or less.”

  “But my mother’s book—she’ll look a bloody idiot.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  John sighed, too. “Jordy, I know you think I’m a bloody nuisance. This is interesting research—well done, you and Jane. But you must know how difficult my position is.”

  “Maybe,” I said cautiously.

  “I have this brilliant, clever wife and daughter who have come up with some quite compelling information . . .”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “But I also have a mother and an entire shire full of people who love the old legends. I have a difficult constituency and upcoming elections. I have a sister who is pouring herself into the gala.”

  I was silent.

  “Well, the truth will out,” he said resignedly. “And God help us all.”

  Chapter 47

  THE GALA WAS fast approaching now. Almost every day a procession of tires spurted up gravel in the forecourt: delivery lorries, decorators, designers, volunteers, and the ubiquitous Lady Olivia. Pamela, I noticed, seemed to have an uncanny knack for timing her visits on the few occasions when Lady Olivia was not there. (I later learned that Pamela had gained access to Lady Olivia’s calendar through her personal assistant, who was a childhood friend of Pamela’s assistant. I developed a grudging respect for my sister-in-law after that.)

  Lady Olivia was in her element, strutting about the great hall as if she still reigned supreme, oblivious to the inconvenient presence of me, the current Lady Grey. One da
y, however, she deigned to recognize me. “Have you seen this?” she demanded, thrusting a book into my hands.

  It was a thick tome, but its weightiness was belied by the suggestive cover art: a young girl, her satin bodice ripped almost to the point of luridness, writhing in the arms of a beefy, scowling man. The title read: Lady Jane Grey: Innocent Victim.

  “Oh, dear,” I said.

  “Do you know who wrote this?” Lady Olivia pointed a shaking finger at the cover.

  I looked closer. It was by Dame Araminta McPhee, a bestselling author of bodice-ripping, faintly pornographic “historical” fiction (emphasis on the word “fiction”). She was hugely popular; her last volume on Cleopatra—who had slept with everyone from her tomb builder to her own father, according to Dame Araminta—had debuted at number one on the bestseller list and was in the process of being turned into a blockbuster Hollywood movie.

  “She timed this to coincide with the gala,” Lady Olivia fumed. “The sneaky wretch! She’ll want to turn the gala into a circus and take the attention away from serious scholarly works like mine.”

  Lady Olivia was probably right.

  “Have you read it?” I ventured.

  “Sadly, yes. Her account of poor Jane’s deflowering at the hands of Guildford—I cannot even bring myself to describe it. Filth, that’s what it is.”

  Henry came bounding in, mud-covered and bright-eyed. “Look, Jordy!” He extended a filthy hand to me, and a hairy spider peeked out from between his fingers. “I found it in the stable! Can I keep it?”

  I shrieked and leaped back, almost knocking Lady Olivia off her feet. “Let’s continue this conversation later,” I said quickly to her. “Henry, you come with me. DO NOT let go of that spider.”

  — – — – —

  “The sooner you get that child off to boarding school, the better,” Lady Olivia pronounced later that day.

  Startled, I said, “Henry’s not going to boarding school. He’s doing quite well at St. Swithin’s.” Floods and fire alarms aside.

  She sniffed. “Of course he’s going to boarding school. By the time John was his age, he was already at Ludgrove and prepping for his Eton entrance exams.”

  “Henry is not going to boarding school,” I said again.

  “I think you will find that your husband, Henry’s father, disagrees,” she shot back.

  I turned on my heel and walked away.

  But Lady Olivia wasn’t done with me yet. A few hours later, she stormed into the kitchen, where I was chatting with Doris and sampling her fresh-made raspberry scones. “Are you trying to ruin the gala?” she asked.

  Doris’s face turned flat again, and she turned back to the oven.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

  “Pamela just told me that Katherine told her that you and Jane went to St. Andrews to meet with that professor. Are you trying to ruin everything?”

  “No, I—”

  “You do realize that the gala is meant to celebrate the life of a martyr to the Protestant cause? Why would you want to sully the reputation of a young, innocent girl?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Never mind,” she retorted. “I will discuss this with my son, and he will deal with you.”

  She sailed out of the kitchen.

  Doris said, “Have another scone, Miss Jordy.”

  The next day, a letter was hand-delivered to the great hall. It bore the crest of the Lady Jane Grey Society and read:

  Dear Lady Grey,

  In light of recent developments, the Society has elected to de-list you from its membership and Board.

  I hadn’t even known I was on the board of the Lady Jane Grey Society. With mounting amusement, I read on.

  Kindly do not identify yourself as a member or representative of the Society . . .

  As if I ever would!

  . . . and ensure that you conduct all public engagements as an individual rather than as an emissary of the Society.

  What public engagements?

  This letter will serve as notice that all communications between you and the Society will be severed, and that you will no longer receive our notifications, emails, and invitations.

  John burst out laughing when I read the letter to him over the phone. “How in hell does Lady Grey get kicked out of the Lady Jane Grey Society?” he chortled.

  Relieved, I said, “I guess I committed heresy.”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “And John? Your mother says you want to send Henry to boarding school?”

  He paused. “Do you want to send him away?”

  “Of course not!”

  “I went to Ludgrove when I was his age, I suppose. But if you don’t want him to go . . .”

  “Over my dead body,” I said.

  “Well, then, all right.”

  I sighed in relief.

  There was a pause; I could almost hear John searching for words. Finally, he said, “That’s settled, then. And Jordy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t worry about my mother. It seems that you and Jane and the professor have really uncovered new information—well, that’s brilliant. Well done.”

  In that moment, I felt warm and toasty and very, very close to him. I understood that this was John’s awkward way of saying what he couldn’t put into words: Thank you for caring for my children; thank you for wanting them at home; thank you, Jordy.

  So I said it for him. “Thanks.”

  Chapter 48

  A FEW WEEKS later, Mary came home from school with a cough. At first I was afraid it was the asthma making an unwelcome return—she was running with the cross-country team every day and could complete a 10K with no wheezing—but soon she developed a fever and chills. The village GP came out to check her over (yes, doctors still did house calls in the Cotswolds) and pronounced it the flu. “You’d better keep her isolated from the other children,” he warned.

  It was too late. By the next morning, all four children were in bed, shivering, sweating, coughing, and crying. When they started to throw up, I thought I had died and gone to hell.

  John was tied up in London working on the gay marriage bill. (“I can’t afford to get sick now,” he explained helpfully.)

  I spent the next week running from room to room, offering paracetamol, water, juice, and comfort. Henry whined, “My throat hurts. Make it stop, Jordy.” Katherine, ever the dramatist, moaned, “I want to die. Am I dying, Jordy?” Mary was the best patient, but her stoic silence made me feel worse about my inability to make her feel better. Jane kept trying to get up and help me, then staggering back to bed even sicker than before.

  The doctor came every day, and Doris cooked up endless servings of chicken broth and shortbread. But even she refused to enter the plague-infested sickrooms, so I was completely on my own.

  By the seventh day, I, too, wanted to die. But Katherine, the first to recover, got up that day and went down to the kitchen, where I found her chatting with Doris and devouring an enormous plateful of pancakes.

  “I’m starved,” she explained around a huge mouthful.

  Doris nodded in satisfaction, as if she were single-handedly responsible for Katherine’s recovery.

  Then Henry appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and sniffing like a hound on the trail of a rabbit. “I’m starved, too,” he complained.

  Beaming, Doris rustled up steaming platters of blueberry pancakes, scones, bacon, and eggs. Jane and Mary arrived, drawn by the exquisite smells, and soon all four were tucking into their loaded plates. Exhausted, I sank down on the kitchen rocker and closed my aching eyes. My head felt swimmy, as if I were watching the scene from a distance, and it hurt to swallow.

  From far away, I heard Doris’s voice. “Miss Jordy, are you all right? Miss Jordy!”

  I tried to get up, then swayed and grabbed at the
chair for balance. But my knees gave way, and for the first time in my life, I crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

  When I opened my eyes again, I was in Doris’s arms. I blinked, thinking I was dreaming.

  “Shhh,” she murmured. “Don’t try to talk. Lean on me and we’ll get you up to your bed now. Poor lady, you were taking care of everyone else, and no one took care of you.”

  I made an enormous effort and hoisted myself upright, leaning heavily on Doris. She crooned reassurances to me as we staggered up the stairs together.

  “Don’t tell John,” I whispered.

  “What was that, my lady?”

  “Don’t tell John.” I hated for him to see me helpless.

  “Don’t worry about anything, my lady,” she told me as we reached the bedroom.

  The doctor arrived shortly and diagnosed flu plus possible pneumonia. He mentioned the hospital, but I refused, recalling the brusque nurses and cold, sterile atmosphere. They would probably blame me for getting sick.

  Over the next day, I drifted in and out of consciousness, occasionally aware of one of the girls at my side, offering water and pills. I tossed and turned restlessly; every inch of my body ached, and my head was one giant ball of agony.

  Then my stomach rebelled. I tried to pull myself into a sitting position and called out weakly for Jane, not wanting to throw up all over myself and the bed. Instead John appeared in the doorway, immaculate in white dress shirt and dark blue suit.

  “Oh, shit,” I whispered.

  “Lovely to see you, too,” he returned. “What seems to be the problem?”

  I gestured helplessly. “I need a . . . I’m going to be . . .”

  In a few quick strides, he crossed the room and grabbed a wastebasket. “Use this,” he ordered.

  Being sick in front of John was intolerable. “Go away,” I tried to say, but it came out as a whisper.

  “Just go ahead and be sick,” he said impatiently.

  So I did. Surprisingly, John smoothed back my sweaty, tangled hair and held the wastebasket until I leaned back, retching and aching. Without a word, he brought me a washcloth and began to wipe my sweaty face.