The Last Daughter

by Nicola Cornick

  As soon as Serena stepped outside, the noise and life of the city hit her like a punch. She walked down towards the river and once she had reached the bridge over the Thames, stopped and allowed herself to be quite still, feeling the warmth of the sun, letting the sound of voices ebb and flow around her, feeling the tension drain from her. She felt an overwhelming urge to lose herself amongst the shops and streets, to revel in the crush of people and traffic rather than go back to the countryside and the stifling silence. She could have a meal, go shopping, see a show… Anything to drive from her mind the image of Caitlin’s bones being uncovered in an eighteenth-century tomb.

  Except that she knew she could not simply hide from what was happening. She needed to go and talk to her grandfather and tell him about Caitlin, particularly as the police had indicated they might want to interview him. There was no easy way to broach a topic like this and she shuddered to think of upsetting him, but it was too important not to discuss. A wave of guilt swept over her at the thought that if only she had not blocked out her trauma, she could have spared Dick all of this, spared all of them the uncertainty, the lack of knowing. But as always, when she tried to force the memories to come, the mist swept in to fill the empty spaces and it felt even more difficult to grasp after the truth.

  She walked slowly back to the Park and Ride stop feeling completely cut off from the people around her, trapped inside her own head. To escape from the endless beating up of her memory she focussed instead on the other mystery: the fact that Caitlin’s body had been sealed in a vault in the eighteenth century, yet she had died only eleven years previously. Those facts were not compatible.

  ‘There were some odd circumstances about the whole thing,’ Zoe Lovell had said of the burial and Serena could see precisely what she meant now, although odd was an understatement. Perhaps she should speak to Zoe; she didn’t really want to involve either Jack or his sister in this, but perhaps there was no alternative if she wanted to learn more of the truth.

  A bus came along and Serena went up onto the top floor. It was quiet and empty, before the end-of-day rush. The leafy streets of North Oxford slipped past as the bus lurched up towards the A40 junction, crossed the roundabout and turned off into the Park and Ride car park at Peartree. With a sigh Serena took her car keys from the bag and went down the stairs to the lower deck, thanking the driver as she stepped down. There were only four other people heading back to their cars. It felt cold and a sharp little breeze blew the litter across the concrete, wrapping it around her ankles.

  She rang the retirement village on the drive to Witney to let them know that she was on her way. There was already a car in the parking bay in front her grandfather’s neat, one-bedroomed flat when she arrived, so she parked in the main car park and walked through the gardens, past the perfectly manicured bowling green and planters full of spring bulbs. It was a tranquil place and Dick seemed very happy there but as always, Serena’s relief that he was in a place where he could have full-time care for his dementia was tempered by the sense that his family had in some way failed him because they could not look after him themselves. The memory of the grandfather she had known down the years, with his energy and vitality, his enthusiasm and his pin-sharp mind, rubbed up against this other Dick Warren who sometimes felt like a lost stranger. She was the only one in the family who went to see him regularly.

  ‘Darling, what’s the point?’ Serena’s mother had said when she’d asked her why they so seldom went to Witney. ‘He doesn’t recognise us most of the time. The dementia has robbed him of coherent speech and most of his memory.’

  ‘But we remember him,’ Serena had argued hotly, and seen her father at least turn away in shame because he had never been good at handling emotion and difficult situations.

  ‘Mr Warren has been looking forward to seeing you.’ One of the uniformed staff – young, smiley and with a name badge identifying her as Bella – was waiting to let Serena in at the front door. The flat smelled of polish and fresh flowers. Serena could hear the sound of low voices drifting in from the terrace. Evidently Dick had a visitor already and it seemed he was having a good day; sometimes he was very chatty. It was one of the things about the illness that baffled Serena and seemed so particularly cruel. On one day her grandfather would recognise her and show flashes of his old self. On another he would be lost and drifting, a silent loner locked in his own world. She was glad that today he was more his old self though undoubtedly that would make telling him about Caitlin all the more painful.

  She followed Bella into the airy living room. The big double doors that led out onto the patio were open. Dick was sitting outside on a smart beige rattan sofa, a rug over his knees. A dog sat beside him, a black Labrador that was graciously allowing him to stroke its ears. Its eyes were half-closed in pleasure and it was pressed against Dick’s side.

  It was actually the dog that Dick was addressing, speaking softly as he rubbed its gleaming head. For a moment, Serena assumed that this was some sort of pet therapy; judging by Bella’s beaming face it was a big success. Then she saw the man sitting opposite Dick on a matching armchair.

  It was Jack Lovell.

  Chapter 10

  Anne

  London, June 1472

  Time flew by on leaden wings. Soon after Francis had gone to Ewelme to the household of the Duke of Suffolk, Joan and Frideswide left Ravensworth to join him there. I felt their loss as acutely as I had Francis’ own departure, for we had been good friends. At least Joan wrote to me even if her brother did not and in this way, I became acquainted with their lives at one remove.

  Mother, meanwhile, was busy making marriage alliances until it felt as though there had been nothing but weddings and babies for the past several years. I had been married longer than any of my siblings but my life was the only one that saw no change. I still shadowed my mother in overseeing the dairy and poultry, the spinning and weaving, the preserving and distilling. I visited the sick in the village, I walked and rode, I discussed sermons with mother and my sisters, and did some poor embroidery, for I had no talent with the needle. I read books with increasing enjoyment. But I fretted. I felt as though the world had moved on and left me behind and that I would be trapped in this round for ever as the seasons came and went.

  It was Joan Lovell’s marriage that changed everything. Her husband, Sir Brian Stapleton, was a distant cousin of the Duke of Suffolk. New alliances were being formed as King Edward shored up his power. Sir Brian had lands in the North but the wedding was to take place at Ewelme. So, for the first time, I travelled south to Oxfordshire. I was bursting with the excitement of all the new experiences.

  I found the soft land of the South very rich and green though a touch too gentle for my tastes. Ravensworth was a proper castle, a fortress, and I liked the uncompromising strength that seemed to flow from the rugged moors and the heathland that surrounded it. The Southern manors, like their setting, were far less rugged. Francis, though, loved this part of the country.

  ‘Wait until I show you my estate at Minster Lovell,’ he told me. ‘It is the most beautiful spot. The river runs slow in lazy curves and the meadows are lush with sweet flowers and grasses…’

  ‘You will be telling me that the sun shines all the time,’ I teased him. I was pleased to see him after a whilst apart and relieved that he seemed no different and that we picked up our easy friendship with one another. For his sake I tried to sound excited at the prospect of living out my future away from the moors and valleys of my home but I felt a pang of anticipated grief. Francis’ life was so much more exciting than mine for he was starting to take up the duties that came with his titles and estates, but there was no mention of a time when we might live together. My future still felt as remote as the moon. And whilst I was glad that we were still comfortable with each other, I would have welcomed a change in the way that he viewed me. Being seen by Francis in a sisterly light was not what I desired any more.

  From Oxfordshire we moved to London for the wedding of
Richard of Gloucester to my cousin Anne Neville. London was different from anywhere I had been before. It was a vast, untidy sprawl of dark and dirty streets, tiny crowded houses with dank thatch atop, a pall of smoke hanging over it all. The noise was relentless. Even at Westminster, set on the edge of the river away from the sounds and smells of the teeming city, it felt as though we were in another world, a world that hummed with power and purpose. I did not like it. It was strange to me and unwelcome. It spoke of men’s ambitions and the dangerous games they played. I was too straightforward for such a world. I disliked pretension and pretence equally and besides, there could be nothing but discomfort in a place where rivalries old and new lurked so close to the surface.

  The marriage was solemnised in St Stephen’s Chapel and the banquet that followed was quite the most elaborate of my life. Once I had eaten and drank my fill – and I was hungry for it had been an equally long and elaborate wedding service – I was bored. No one spoke to me as I was young, female and of no consequence, and I was seated with Frideswide Lovell and various other children near the bottom of the table. Early on, Gloucester had gestured to Francis to join him and their friends and he had gone with a word of apology to me, but clearly glad to escape the nursery atmosphere. Rather than sulk to be left behind I turned my attention to watching the wedding guests. The King presided, enjoying demonstrating his benevolence to his favoured younger brother. Women apparently found him handsome but I thought he was in danger of losing those good looks as they blurred with overindulgence. Beside him the Queen was the very opposite, her ice-cold beauty as sharp as daggers. She was pregnant again and it gave her an air of complacency but at the same time she kept a close eye on her husband as his gaze roved over all the women. Gloucester himself was a different matter, as thin and pale as an aesthete, my cousin Anne at his side, a fragile English rose whose stem looked as though it might snap at any moment.

  I became aware that the King had beckoned Francis over to him and was speaking urgently in his ear. I saw them both glance down the table towards me and then Edward gestured to a girl who was seated a little way down to his left. She was a few years older than I and at that age I felt the difference sharply for she was comely and full-grown whilst I was still half-made, a half-woman. She was dark where I was fair, knowing and bright-smiling. I realised now that she had been watching the King keenly, awaiting her summons, and now she slipped gracefully from her seat and went to curtsey to him. She smiled and dimpled prettily at Francis when they were introduced and I felt a prick of jealousy as keen as a spur.

  I looked across to where my mother was seated and saw that she too, ever-watchful, had seen this by-play. And in that moment, seeing her expression, I understood. I knew that the King had taken the opportunity of his brother’s marriage feast to suggest to Francis that he annul his marriage to me so that he could marry elsewhere. Even now he was whispering in Francis’ ear that he could be rid of me to form an alliance that the King favoured, and to a woman he could bed at once and did not need to wait for.

  Edward was acting procurer to Francis right under my nose.

  There was a blatancy to it that stole my breath and yet at the same time I felt a dull thud of inevitability. Ever since father had rebelled, I had had it half in my mind that my marriage might be annulled. Tainted by his treason, I was no longer the prize I had once been. Father was dead and my brothers both too young to be influential. Francis could now do much better and as the marriage had not been consummated there was nothing to stop the King’s plan.

  I felt quite powerless for a moment then, trapped in a vision of myself excluded from the future I had thought would be mine. I got to my feet and stumbled clumsily from the table for my eyes were swimming with tears. I was tired and lost, and did not know what to do. Frideswide Lovell saw me and tugged on my gown to stop me in my tracks.

  ‘I go to find the privy,’ I lied, blinking back my tears through pride. ‘I shall not be long.’

  It was little surprise given my distress and the fact that I could not see properly, that I was soon lost amidst the maze of rooms and corridors, ignored by scurrying servants who were laden with platters for the feast and had no time to spare to direct me. Nor did I have any clear idea of where I might go. I simply wanted to escape the crowds for a little while and gather my thoughts and my dignity in private.

  I found a room that was aside from all the noise and bustle. It was bright with lamplight and the embers of a fire glowed warm in the grate. At first, I thought it unoccupied but then I saw that a woman was sitting at a spinning wheel. I thought she looked beautiful, the same way a witch in a fairy story is beautiful and frightening at the same time; a creature of the elements, barely real. The light gleamed on her dark brown hair and her fingers flew nimbly over the wool. She looked up when she saw me hovering in the doorway and the wheel slowed. The austere beauty of her face lightened into a smile although it was not a warm one. There was still something cold about her.

  ‘How do you do, little maid?’ she said. ‘You look tired. Would you like to come in?’

  I slipped into the room and sat in the little wooden chair by the fire, watching her all the while as the wheel turned and she concentrated on the spinning, lips pursed, eyes following the run of the thread. She was making a shawl, vivid in colours of red and green and gold. There was something about the room and her presence that made me forget my fears for the future. I felt soothed and calmer than I had all evening, tucked away from the noise and the threat of men’s powerful games.

  ‘There’s blackberry juice in the jug,’ the woman said after a moment, inclining her head toward the sideboard, ‘should you care for a drink.’

  I poured a beaker for myself and looked at her enquiringly to see if she would like one too. She smiled at that. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You are a well brought-up child. What is your name?’

  ‘I am Anne,’ I said. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ginevra,’ she said simply. ‘Lately tirewoman to the Duchess of Bedford.’

  The Duchess of Bedford had been the Queen’s mother, the infamous Jacquetta of Luxembourg, who had been roundly detested by my uncle Warwick for her ambition and cupidity. When he had displaced the King a few years before, Warwick had accused both the Duchess and her daughter of witchcraft. This woman, I thought, might pass for a witch in a fairy tale, the beautiful stepmother who tried to poison the princess through jealousy. Then I laughed at my own foolishness for I was twelve years old, not a baby to be enchanted by stories of magic.

  I poured a beaker of blackberry juice for her too and sat down again by the fire. It was so peaceful here in this little chamber, the warmth of the fire and the rich sweetness of the drink making me drowsy. I could happily have fallen asleep.

  ‘I’ve been at the wedding feast,’ I said, yawning. ‘It goes on and on most tediously.’

  Ginevra laughed at that. ‘Poor child!’ she said. ‘You sound quite worn out by it all.’

  The spinning wheel clicked and creaked. I wondered what it was like for her, sitting here, working at her loom whilst others made merry in the hall. I wondered why she had not been invited. The ladies of the court were in general gently born and she looked too fine and rich to be a lower servant.

  ‘How did you come to wait upon the Duchess?’ I asked, on impulse. ‘Were you already known to her?’

  Ginevra smiled, a small smile that spoke of secrets. ‘I knew her from long ago,’ she said. ‘When I was in need of help, she was gracious enough to offer it to me.’

  This told me very little but I had been taught not to pry and so I asked no more. I thought that perhaps I should go and leave her to her work but a strange lassitude had come over me and I did not seem able to summon the energy to move.

  ‘Shall I tell you a story to cheer you?’ Ginevra asked. Her busy fingers never hesitated on the spinning wheel. ‘It is a tale of another wedding, one that happened long ago.’ Her voice changed; a hint of bitterness crept in. ‘It is a goodly tale for a night like t
his.’

  I slid a little deeper into the chair, curling up against the fat cushions. I was not averse to hearing a story. It fitted the warmth of the room and the sudden sleepiness that had come over me as the blackberry juice warmed my veins.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ she said, ‘many, many years ago, there was a beautiful manor set beside a little river that ran sweetly between the rich fields of corn. The lord was a handsome young man, his family wealthy and well respected. When he found a bride, there was much rejoicing and all the nobility of the realm gathered to celebrate. It was winter and a storm was raging outside but within the ancestral hall the wedding guests feasted and made merry. What they did not know, however, was that the bride with whom the young lord had fallen madly in love was no lady, but a thief come to rob the house of its most precious treasure.’

  I sat up a little straighter. ‘How could this be?’ I demanded.

  ‘She was young and beautiful and to all appearances rich,’ Ginevra said simply, ‘and the lord was… a man like any other.’

  I understood what she meant. In fact, the story made me think of the Queen and how it was said she had seduced the King into marriage because he was so desperate to bed her.

  ‘Poor fool,’ I said, ‘to be so deceived.’

  ‘Perhaps the bride deserves some of your pity too,’ Ginevra said. ‘Thieves are often made, not born.’

  This had not previously occurred to me. I had a simple enough understanding of right and wrong, learned from my tutors and the Bible. I did not know then what it was to starve for want of a loaf of bread, or freeze for lack of a warm blanket.

  ‘What made her so, then?’ I asked, my curiosity stirred. ‘What excuse can there be for a thief?’

  ‘She had lived by her wits since she was a child,’ Ginevra said. ‘She and her sister were orphaned young. When you have to fend for yourself you cannot afford to be too high-minded. She fell in with a bunch of rogues and whilst they offered some protection’ – she made a slight gesture – ‘the price was high.’