Plain Jane by Laurien Gardner

Author:Laurien Gardner [Gardner Laurien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781440634222
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2008-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-two

QUEEN Catherine’s death burst upon Jane as a complete surprise.

Later, she would think that doubtless the king had dispatches about the illness of the woman he called the Dowager Princess of Wales. She would be aware that people at court had heard about it.

But, perhaps because Jane was so thrust out of the mainstream of the court, she never heard of it and was left to learn the news when she was summoned to a full court gathering and arrived to find both Anne Boleyn, King Henry, and the little Princess Elizabeth, now two years old, attired in gaudy yellow clothes of joy.

King Henry had put a little feather in his hat and came towards Jane, carrying Princess Elizabeth in his arms and smiling. “Have you heard, Mistress Seymour?” he asked.

Confused, Jane shook her head. She hadn’t heard anything. The princess Elizabeth smiled at her. She was a pretty child, a Tudor beyond doubt, but with her mother’s eyes.

“The Dowager Princess of Wales is dead,” King Henry said and, to what Jane was sure must be her blank expression, he added, “She slipped away yesterday afternoon, and the messenger has just come to tell me of it.”

Jane’s mouth dropped open. Words and images rushed through her, without ever reaching her lips. Any of those words reaching her lips might have been fatal.

But she thought of Queen Catherine as she had then been, playing an animated game of cards with her ladies. She thought of Queen Catherine handing her a book of prayers and telling her how much she prized Jane for her calm and gentleness.

Jane had been much better treated at Queen Catherine’s hands, and a part of her felt a great kinship with the lady whose face had become ugly, whose body unappealing in the course of bearing many princes who had not lived long.

Looking up at the king, with his smiling face, Jane could only think that this man had shared a bed with the woman for twenty years, slept beside her many a night and, presumably, got up with her in the morning. And now she lay cold in her grave, and he was celebrating. The idea was repugnant and wounding, and Jane felt her tears come to her eyes and looked down to hide them.

She did not wish the king to see them and imagine she was reproaching him for his happiness. She knew better of His Majesty’s quick temper and absolute belief in his own right to do whatever he wished to do.

But when he saw her bend her head, his own face crumpled, the conspicuous happiness vanishing from it. “Mistress Jane,” he said, softly, addressing her by her first name, “I’d forgotten how gentle your heart is.” He was quiet a moment. “Of course, you served the Dowager Princess of Wales, did you not?”

Jane nodded. “I did, Your Grace.”

“Ah,” he said. “Catherine was a kind mistress and very generous. In fact, she was very nearly a saint,” he said.

Jane lifted her gaze with some surprise, to find his own gaze full of puzzled worry.

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