“I could not manage on my own,” Elizabeth said. “There was the estate to run—not only the lands and woods here but lands at Owlecotes and Estwheytt and Heth. And seven little children to care for.”
Her voice choked. Bess knew that there had been two little girls older than she who had died before she was old enough to recall them.
“And so I married your stepfather. We liked each other well, and he had a small income from his family and leases on bits of property. But it has always been hard, and it grew harder. Crops failed . . .”
A single tear cut a channel through the film of dust that had not been washed from her cheek, and Bess nestled close against her mother, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“When we could not pay what was due on many accounts, he was imprisoned in the Fleet. And now I must find the money to clear his debts and get his freedom, and also to provide for his food until that shall be possible.”
“It’s not right,” Bess said.
“But it is what is the case. We must make the best of it.”
Elizabeth pulled back to look into Bess’s eyes.
“And this, Bess, is why I have sought to get you such a place as that with Sir George Zouche. At Codnor Castle, you will encounter a wider circle of acquaintance than you could ever meet here. Powerful people who can come to your aid in times of trouble and introduce you to their friends and kin.”
Bess thought of the eyes of the king’s man upon her and shuddered. It was from such threats and indignities that her mother was trying to protect her. Elizabeth stroked the tangled russet curls from Bess’s face.
“You’re twelve years old now, Bess. Time to think of a husband.”
A husband? Something else Bess had never considered.
“I want for you what you cannot get here. A husband of position and wealth who will care for you and ensure that you will never face such hardships as I have seen.”
“I’m sorry, Mam,” Bess murmured, looking down at her feet. Her big toes were near to breaking through the worn leather of her shoes. “I will do as you wish. I will go to Codnor Castle. But, Mam, what will we do now? Will we be cast out of the house?”
“I can sell Moth.”
Bess restrained herself from objecting. There was far more at stake than her own desires. She understood that now.
“We won’t be cast out. If need be, I will borrow money from your grandparents, though I have done so in the past and do not wish to do it again.”
Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and Bess realized how it must wound her mother’s pride to have to beg for help.
“You’re a good girl,” Elizabeth said, kissing the top of Bess’s head. “Run and help Annabel now. And after supper I will give you the gifts I intended to give you at dinner.”
* * *
THAT EVENING, WHEN THE LITTLE GIRLS HAD BEEN PUT TO BED, Elizabeth called Bess to where she sat near the fireplace. Bess went to stand before her mother, feeling tears threatening to spill over once more. Elizabeth brushed a tendril of red hair out of Bess’s eyes and Bess leaned her cheek against the warmth of her mother’s hand.
“I know it seems a frightening thing, going off so far. But once there you’ll soon feel at home, I have no doubt.”
“What will I do there?”
“You’ll be a companion to Lady Zouche. You’ll help her to dress, and perhaps undertake such tasks as mending her gowns, or reading to her, or writing letters, or playing with the children. You will not be a servant, but of the household. You are likely to learn dancing, and perhaps will have the opportunity to improve your music.”
Bess felt transported when she played the virginals, and was pleased at the thought of spending more time making music.
“You will learn to be a lady,” Elizabeth said, stroking Bess’s curls. “You know your father was descended, long back, from King Edward the First and his queen, Eleanor of Castile. You have the blood of a king and queen in your veins and can always be proud of that. Hardwicks have lived in this house for more than two hundred years, and though we are at present cast upon hard times, you are a gentlewoman. And you are a pretty and smart and charming girl, very quick and able at anything you set your mind to. I doubt not that when you are at Codnor Castle you will shine and be taken note of.”
Bess raised her eyes to meet Elizabeth’s, her mother’s praise firing courage within her.
“There’s no place for you to grow here, sweetheart,” Elizabeth murmured. “But in a great household with important connections—even to the king himself—you will meet gentlemen of good families, possessed of influence and wealth. With such a man as a husband, who knows how high you may rise?”
Bess had never thought of what kind of a man she might marry or where a marriage might take her. How high could she rise, and what would that mean?
Alice sidled into the doorway. “Can we show Bess her things now?” she pleaded.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, standing. “Let’s do that.”
Alice heaved a basket from under her mother’s bed and drew off its cover. There was a mountain of cloth in glowing colors, but Bess was entranced at what lay atop it—a pair of shoes in soft leather of deep scarlet, with bows made of golden ribbon. She took them up reverently, inhaling the smell of the leather—surely they had been perfumed with orange blossoms?
“You are such a lucky thing!” Alice cried, throwing herself onto her knees beside Bess, her eyes hungry.
“Here, you hold them,” Bess said, feeling her spirits rise as she turned her attention to what else lay within the basket. She drew out a mass of velvet in a golden brown that made her think of the heavy tassels of wheat waving in the wind when the crops were ripe. She ran her hand along the nap of it, more deep and lush than any cloth she had ever seen.
“Tawny, that color is called,” Elizabeth said. “And the height of fashion in London.”
Beneath the velvet lay folded lengths of wool in dark green, along with yards of fine white linen and brightly colored ribbons.
“We’ll make you two gowns before you go,” Elizabeth said.
Bess lifted the soft green wool to her cheek. She had never had clothes as beautiful as what these things would make. And suddenly the thought struck her—this was where the money for the rent had gone—to provide her such finery.
“Oh, Mam,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
“You’ll be the finest lady there!” Alice breathed.
“So you will, honey-lamb,” Elizabeth said, brushing away Bess’s tears. “So you will.”
CHAPTER TWO
ON THE SUNDAY AFTER HER BIRTHDAY, BESS SAT IN THE LITTLE church at Ault Hucknall trying to keep her mind on the sermon. But her gaze kept drifting to her father’s headstone, set into the floor beneath the arch between the chancel and the aisle. Leaving Hardwick would mean leaving him, too, or as much of him as she had ever had, and that thought made her almost as sad as the prospect of leaving her family.
After the service, when her mother stood talking to neighbors, Bess knelt by the marker, the cold seeping up through her skirts, and ran her fingers over the carved letters of her father’s name.
“I don’t want to leave,” she whispered. “I need you with me. Will you help me to get on in that great place, so far from here?” She almost thought she could hear a murmur of reassurance, and pressed her hand flat against the stone in farewell.
Early one morning a few days later, the Hardwick family gathered to see Bess off. As Jem cinched the saddlebags in place, Bess kissed her little sisters, and then faced her mother. This was the moment she had been dreading, when she must say good-bye to all those she knew and loved. She flung herself into her mother’s arms for a last embrace.
“Oh, my darling Bess.” Elizabeth’s voice was choked. Bess inhaled the scent of her mother—the lavender in which she stored her clothes, the lanoline smell of the salve she used to soothe her work-roughened hands, the particular faint aroma of her hair and skin. When would she see her mother again?
She had been trying not to cry but now she could hold her tears back no longer and she could hear that her mother was weeping, too.
“My Bess,” Elizabeth murmured. “I will miss you as though I had lost an arm, but I am sure that you will shine in all that you do, and when I hold you to me again I know I will be even more proud of you than I am now.”
“You will write?” Bess had asked this and been reassured before, but it was all she could think to say, other than that she didn’t want to leave.
“Of course, sweetheart, I will write often, and give you all the news of us here at home. And now you should be off, for you have a long ride ahead of you.”
Bess nodded, memorizing the feel of her mother’s arms around her before she drew back and wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
Jem swung himself up onto the horse’s back and gave Bess his arm so she could mount and seat herself on the sideways-facing pillion behind him. Bess’s mother stepped up onto the mounting block and Bess leaned down to kiss her once more. Elizabeth gathered the cloak more tightly around Bess’s shoulders before joining the little girls, who stood with Annabel.
“Go with God, Bess!” the cook cried as Jem clicked to start the horse walking, and Bess raised an arm to wave as they set off down the hill.
Codnor Castle lay about twelve miles from Hardwick, farther than Bess had ever been from home, and despite her sadness, her interest in what experiences lay ahead of her grew as they rode. The stubbled fields stretched away on either side of the road, and the crisp autumn breeze rattled the red and gold leaves from the trees. They rode at a walk and could speak easily above the gentle clop of the horse’s hooves.
“What are they like?” Bess asked. “Sir George and Lady Zouche, I mean? And the castle?”
Jem had been to Codnor Castle once before, accompanying their stepfather on a visit.
“The castle’s very grand,” he replied. “And has more than two thousand acres of land about it. It was in the Grey family for hundreds of years, I heard, and only came to Sir George’s father twenty years ago or so, when he married a lady of the Grey family.”
Two thousand acres—more than four times the amount of land that belonged, in name at least, to Hardwick Manor.
“Very big then,” Bess said. “There must be a powerful lot of men to work it.”
“Well, some of it’s held by tenant farmers, of course. But, aye, the household is probably near on a hundred folks.”
The thought of living among so many strangers was frightening, and Bess tightened her arms around Jem’s middle.
“You’ll be fine, I expect,” he said over his shoulder. Bess was grateful for the reassurance and that he had not responded with a characteristic jest.
By late morning, the castle appeared before them, high on a hill.
“That’s it,” Jem said. From this distance Bess could not make out more than stone walls rising dark against the azure sky, but she felt a surge of excitement. As they rode closer, she could see that the castle’s crenelated ramparts ran between several tall turrets with cone-shaped tops, and that a high gatehouse with a drawbridge led across a moat. Outbuildings had grown up outside the castle walls, which Bess guessed must house the brew house, servants’ quarters, and other facilities similar to those at Hardwick, but bigger and more numerous.
As they rode across the drawbridge, a burly porter appeared, and Jem halted the horse before the arch of the stone gatehouse.
“Good day, sir, and young mistress,” the porter greeted them. “Your business here, if you please?”
“I am James Hardwick,” Jem said. Bess felt him draw himself up straighter. “Bringing my sister Elizabeth to wait upon her ladyship.”
“Ah, very good, then.”
The porter stepped aside and they rode forward into the great courtyard. A swarm of men and boys were busy at various tasks, and a fair-haired boy ran up to them to take the horse’s bridle and help Bess dismount. She noted that the porter had sent another boy pelting toward a door into the castle, and in a few moments a grizzled man in dark blue that must be the Zouche livery approached them. Bess felt very small as the man looked down at her and was conscious that her skirts were spattered with mud and dust from the road. She was wearing her workaday dress, her two new gowns carefully packed in the saddlebags, and she wondered if she should have worn what had previously been her best gown, saved for Sundays and special occasions.
“Follow me, if you please.” The man’s tone was curt and Bess wanted to cling to Jem’s arm as they followed the man toward an arched stone doorway, but didn’t want to seem afraid. As they passed through the door, Bess caught her breath, for the great hall in which they stood was far bigger and more grand than the hall at Hardwick. It must be forty paces wide and sixty long, she reckoned, and the hammer-beam roof, dark with the smoke of centuries, soared far overhead.
Two long tables ran parallel to the huge fireplace, flanked by benches, and boys and men in livery were gathered in knots there and at benches along the walls. Bess was conscious of their eyes on her and was glad that Jem stood beside her.
The man glanced to see that Bess and Jem were still behind him.
“Wait here,” he instructed, and disappeared through another door.
Jem and Bess stood, as they had not been invited to sit and did not know what else to do. Bess tried without success not to think about the fact that she needed to make water. How long could she hold out?
“Have they forgotten us, do you think?” she whispered eventually.
“Someone will come.”
Bess thought Jem sounded as though he was speaking with more confidence than he felt. She noted a dark-haired boy grinning at her and nodded to him, hoping she did not appear as small and frightened as she felt. The smell of roasting meat wafted from one end of the hall, where the kitchen must be, and Bess’s stomach growled with hunger. She hoped that they would be fed, and then worried that perhaps they had missed dinner.
“Master Hardwick.”
Bess turned at the sound of the voice. Its owner was a tall, barrel-chested man resplendent in a suit of dark blue, with a gold chain of office around his neck. He bowed briefly, his eyes sweeping Bess from head to toe as she curtsied. Her hands were dusty, she knew her hair must be disheveled, and she felt very shabby. What if she was found wanting before she had even had a chance to join the household? Would this man send her back to her mother in shame?
“Master Hardwick, and Mistress Elizabeth, you are most welcome.” His gaze turned back to Bess. “One of the other ladies will take you to your lodgings and get you settled.”
Almost as soon as he was finished speaking, a young woman appeared at his side. She was wearing a gown of a vivid blue that nearly matched the color of her eyes, and a dark curl strayed from beneath a gabled silk hood that showed off the swanlike curve of her neck. Bess wondered if she could fashion such a headdress, and then thought that perhaps her own freckled skin would not produce the same elegant effect. She wished she had not ignored her mother’s pleas to take more care to protect her complexion.
“I am Audrey,” said the young woman, “Lady Zouche’s chief lady-in-waiting. Come with me, if you please. We haven’t much time before dinner.”
Bess turned toward Jem, anxiety rising within her.
“You’re not leaving yet, are you?” she asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Your brother will stay to dinner, of course,” the steward said, and Bess thought that Jem stood a little taller at his words.
“Come,” Audrey repeated. “It won’t do to be late.”
Bess followed her up a wide staircase. Heavy stone walls rose gloomy and dark, and Bess’s heart sank at the thought that she would be living in shadow, cut off from sunlight and blue sky. Would she even be permitted to get outside the castle walls?
She was pleasantly astonished when Audrey led her into a room that glowed with color and comfort. Bright tapestries covered the walls, carpets in rich hues warmed the floors, the ceil
ing was painted in bright colors, and the fire dancing in the great fireplace chased the shadows from the corners. The center of attention in the chamber, however, was a beautiful lady surrounded by three girls. She was dressed in a gown of deep wine red, and one of the girls was combing her luxuriant golden hair, which fell halfway down her back. Another of the girls was tying embroidered sleeves into the armholes of her bodice, and the third held a little chest in which Bess could see the sparkle of jewelry.
Bess knew this must be Anne Gainsford, Lady Zouche. The lady did not look above thirty years of age, and Bess wondered why she had expected her mistress to be middle-aged. Lady Zouche and the girls turned to Bess and Audrey as they entered the room.
“My lady, this is Elizabeth Hardwick,” Audrey said.
Bess dropped into a curtsy, but Lady Zouche only gave her a distracted glance.
“You do have another gown, do you not?” she asked.
Bess felt another pang of worry. She had been entranced by her new green and tawny gowns as they took shape at Hardwick, but now, eyeing the gowns of the other ladies-in-waiting, she feared that her own would seem plain. She had no jewelry to dance and shine at her ears and throat, the stuff of her clothes was not embroidered, and she had only ribbons to dress her hair.
“Oh, yes, my lady! Two gowns! Both new.”
“Good,” Lady Zouche said, peering anxiously into a hand mirror. “We are entertaining the Duke of Suffolk to dinner. Help her, Lizzie and Phoebe. Audrey, for goodness’ sake, see what you can do with my hair.”
She waved an impatient hand at the pretty, dark-haired girl holding the jewelry box, and the girl set it down on a table of carved dark wood and beckoned Bess to follow her. Bess made to pick up the bundle of her clothing, which sat on a chair near the fire, but the girl who had been affixing Lady Zouche’s sleeves—a slight girl of about Bess’s own age, with freckles on her pale face—scooped it up with a shy smile, and followed behind as the first girl led Bess into a smaller room, which contained two beds and several chests.
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