When they returned home that evening, the scent of the bonfire smoke seemed to have seeped into their clothes. It really began to bother Rose.
“Mind if I open a window to air out the smell of the smoke in our clothes?”
“Oh no, not at all.” Marisol sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just worry—all the papers and things for me to be . . . safe, for your grandmother to become my sponsor, are taking so long.”
“I think it was all that snow. A lot of city government offices were closed. And things, you know, get clogged.”
“Clogged?”
“Plugged up, slowed down.”
“I still am so scared. I saw a headline today in the newspaper. It said that more than one hundred thousand people from El Salvador were being sent back to their country.”
Rose was quiet. She didn’t know what to say. It would sound so lame to say “don’t worry.” Rose had an odd thought. If things didn’t work out for Marisol, if the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers came for her, the ICE men, Susan had called them, if they came right here to their front door at 4605 North Meridian Street, could Rose get her out? Could she actually tuck Marisol away in that past century, across the sea, in England? Or would that be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire? Another favorite expression of her mom’s. It now sent chills up her spine. Marisol was Catholic. Calvin drove her to Mass on Sundays. She’d be fine in England. Safer than Franny. Good grief, Rose thought. How did I end up with two IMPERILED friends? Bonus points for using a word-list word. But peril seemed to swirl around her.
Anxiety seemed to hang in the air as thick as the scent of the bonfire. It soon became chilly in the room, so Rose closed the window.
“Night, Marisol.”
“Night, Rosa. I mean, Rose.”
“No problem. I like it when you call me Rosa. Night again.” Somehow it seemed wrong to say “sweet dreams.”
Chapter 24
The Dress
She wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep, but she felt something soft brush across her face. She opened her eyes. “September. What are you doing here? Where have you been? How did you get here?” September slitted her eyes and gave a small sniff as if to say, Really? How did I get here? Then the cat nodded toward the window and gave a deep purr—a SUPERCILIOUS purr, Rose thought. She obviously had not completely shut the window. September leaped lightly from the bed and onto the floor. Standing by the door, she tipped her head. It was clear now what September wanted. She wanted Rose to follow her to the greenhouse and go back, back to that other time—that kindling time, when the pyres were about to burn. Rose began to feel scared, but she knew she had to see her father again, and Franny. Rose scrambled out of bed and as quietly as possible put on her robe and fuzzy slippers. Here we go again, she thought. She glanced at her bedside clock. It was three minutes past one in the morning. She had a sudden thought. Why not take her iPhone? How cool would that be if she could somehow take some pictures? She had transported things back and forth over these borders of time—Jane the Bald’s shoe to get it repaired. And then there was the acne cream for Princess Elizabeth, and of course several discarded ruffs. Sure, she could take her iPhone. No problem. She slipped it into the pocket of her bathrobe.
She stopped briefly at the damask rose graftling. “Oh dear!” she muttered. It looked slightly shriveled. She remembered her gran saying that roses were “heavy feeders.” This one needed feeding. Potassium! She had helped her grandmother put the “lollipops,” as her gran called the potassium sticks, in the other roses, but they weren’t just seedlings or graftlings. They were full grown. She didn’t want to overdose this one. She went to a shelf where the lollipops were kept in a box. September meowed.
“Just a minute, September. I have to take care of this graftling.” She took out her iPhone from her bathrobe pocket and used the flashlight to read the instructions. For seedlings use half a stick. All right, she thought, setting down the phone. She went to the sink and wet the stick, which would release the potassium slowly. “Good luck,” she murmured to the plant.
And then she was back. She was walking across the spreading lawn between the gatehouse and the palace of Beaulieu. It was a brilliant sunny day in May. She saw the shiny bald head of Jane the fool approaching.
“You should wear sunblock, Jane, or your head will be scorched.” As soon as the words were out, Rose knew she’d made a serious error.
“Sunblock? Now that’s a witch’s brew if I’ve ever heard of one.”
“Oh no. I meant to say a cap to block the sun. I can make you one.”
“Out of those?” Jane asked nodding at the stack of material in Rose’s arms.
“Probably not. These are swatches for the queen to choose from for her wedding dress. I guess it’s all settled now, more or less.”
“Well, so they say.” Jane’s right eyebrow scooted up to her domed bare scalp, indicating doubt rather than faith.
“You don’t believe it, Jane?” Rose knew—how, she was unsure, but as soon as she walked out of the greenhouse into the palace grounds she had instant knowledge of the basic state of things. The marriage contract been signed after all. According to the announcement, it made Mary, through her marriage to Felipe, a ruler of many countries beyond England. She would be officially known as Mary, Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, and Ireland, Princess of Spain and Sicily, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, and on and on. It seemed to Rose that it wasn’t about love, but more about real estate. How romantic! Mom would have loved it, she thought. For Rose’s mother had been one of Philadelphia’s leading Realtors. What was that other thing her mom used to say—a rea estate quip: It’s all about location, location, location. Well, it seemed to Rose that Queen Mary would have a minimum of about half a dozen countries to locate in. How would she ever cycle through all those palaces, much less the ten or more she had in England? Ridiculous!
It was at Beaulieu that the marriage plans had been set. The queen and Prince Felipe of Spain were to be united in holy matrimony on July 25 in Winchester Cathedral. Had the “happy couple” met yet? No, but that didn’t seem to concern anyone. It was much more worrisome that the bridegroom-to-be had not sent one letter to his intended bride.
“No email?” Rose began to cough, attempting to disguise the word that had just slipped out. Dear Lord, she thought. I have to get with the program. “No letters yet to her from the prince?” Jane shook her head. The pulse in her bulging eye throbbed a bit, making it dance around. “Well, I do feel sorry for her.” Rose sighed.
“Don’t feel too sorry for her,” Jane whispered hoarsely. Her eyes darted every which way, as if to catch a spy. “Of course the good news is that she let the princess out of the Tower. But she’s still under arrest at Hatfield, and then they plan to take her to Woodstock.”
“Woodstock? What’s that?”
Jane looked surprised. “You don’t know?” She paused a moment. “Oh, I always forget how young you are. Indeed, in all the time I’ve known you, Rose, you haven’t aged a bit.” This always made Rose quake, when people in the court mentioned her age or lack of aging. Jane herself had aged quite a bit. She had several wrinkles and didn’t often turn cartwheels in court these days. Touch of gout, she had told Rose. Rose assumed that gout was something like arthritis, which often made the knuckles in her gran’s fingers swell to the size of marbles.
“Woodstock is the old king’s hunting lodge.” Rose knew that when people said “old king,” they were referring to Henry VIII. “And when the king wasn’t hunting, he was wooing. He wooed Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, there, and Jane Seymour, the mother of little King Edward—God rest his soul.”
“Hate to rush off, but I had better get these swatches to the queen. Is you-know-who there?” Rose asked, and Jane laughed.
“You mean she-who-must-not-be-named?”
Voldemort! It nearly slipped out. Rose almost bit her tongue. No way would Jane know about Vol
demort. Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling would not be along for another five hundred years or so.
Jane smiled. “The one you call Snail Head?”
“Yes, indeed.” So far Rose had also managed to avoid Sara—thank God! Sara was still back at Whitehall Place finishing up some sewing for the queen’s ladies-in-waiting.
“Snail Head, or Lady Margaret, is there, but not in best favor. Not since Courtenay’s arrest. It happened at the same time as Elizabeth’s.”
The queen had come around to suspecting that the man who was trying to woo her was possibly also involved in the Protestant rebellion.
A few minutes later Rose was passing through the presence room to be received in the queen’s privy chamber.
“Oh, at last!” the queen exclaimed. “The swatches for my gown. How delightful.” She waved her hand in the air, shooing away her councillors. “This is not men’s business,” she announced, turning to Jane Dormer and another lady-in-waiting, Susan Clarencieux. She had become especially close with Susan since her engagement. “Now let’s see what you’ve got.”
Rose curtsied and then began spreading out the pieces of fabric on a broad table from which the councillors had cleared their documents. They were truly the richest, most beautiful fabrics Rose had ever seen. In her home century, they might have cost hundreds of dollars a yard. But, of course, royalty didn’t ask about prices. There was, however, not a single white fabric in the lot. Rose supposed that white was not in for wedding gowns. The queen stood close to the table, and because she was quite nearsighted, she bent over and squinted at the fabric. As she did, the rose pendant swung from her neck. A rage threatened to boil deep within Rose. She wanted to snatch the pendant from her neck. The queen, after flipping through two dozen or more pieces of fabric, straightened up. “I think this one.” She casually wrapped the chain of the dangling locket around her finger. “What do you think, Lady Susan?” It was a plum-colored satin with an overlying intaglio design of leaves and flowers.
“And you?” She turned to Rose. “What do you think?” Me, think? “Can you work with this?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Jane Dormer stepped forward. “I would suggest, milady, that perhaps cone sleeves could be made with insets at the wrists in a contrasting color. Perhaps a pale silvery fabric.”
“Excellent idea!” The queen clapped her rather pudgy hands together. She wore glittering rings on eight of her ten fingers. Her hands were in truth the only pudgy part of her. Quite in contrast to her scrawny neck, from which the locket hung.
“And a traditional ruff.”
“Really?” Lady Susan asked.
“Yes, why not?” the queen replied. Her hand went to her neck. Was she aware of what an ugly neck she had? Rose wondered.
“It’s so . . . so . . . so like your sister to wear a ruff.” So Elizabethan! thought Rose. But did they use the term yet? A dark shadow crossed the queen’s face. Her thin lips pursed. “Well, she doesn’t own the style. Does she?”
“Of course not, ma’am.” Lady Susan dipped into a minuscule curtsy.
“I could change it slightly and make a new kind of collar,” Rose offered.
“You could?” the queen asked.
“Yes, Your Highness.” Rose dipped into a slightly deeper curtsy.
“What would it look like?”
“I was thinking of a petal-style collar.”
“Petal-style?” the queen asked.
Rose had seen the style on Etsy. “Well, imagine, if you will, flower petals, maybe even rose petals,” she said, staring directly at the gold rose locket that her father had made for her mother. I’m going to get that back . . . some way . . . somehow. The queen’s puffy fingers went to the locket.
“That seems appropriate. Yes. I like the idea.”
“I’d make the petals larger, of course, and perhaps out of the same fabric as the wrist insets.”
“Yes! Can you bring me a design? A sketch.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Rose curtsied again.
“Now, if we have decided on this as the main fabric, I feel that we should send out the samples of all the fabrics that will be in the dress with strict commands that no woman attending the wedding can wear anything close to the materials or the design of the wedding gown of the queen.”
“Very sound suggestion.” Jane Dormer nodded.
“Lady Jane, it is not a suggestion. It’s a command, a royal command.” She wheeled about quickly and faced Rose. “It’s of particular importance that you give this message to Princess Elizabeth yourself. Others can take it to lower-ranking ladies of the court. Assure her that she can wear all the ruffs she wants—a dozen of them!” She gave a little squeal of laughter. “But no petal collars and no plum satin!” She tapped the fabric on the table with her finger. “You understand, Rose?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“She is under arrest right now at Hatfield, but she shall soon be transferred to Woodstock—a rather dreary, damp hunting lodge.”
I get to go to Hatfield! Hatfield! To see Franny. And close to Dad!! But in the next moment her delight dissolved. She suddenly remembered that she had lied to her father and promised him she would never come back.
Chapter 25
The Hush Book
Hatfield House seemed to Rose like a ghost of its former self. There was only one lady-in-waiting in the presence room. She sat with her embroidery hoop next to Kat Champernowne, Elizabeth’s former tutor. Though now bent with age, she looked up as Rose passed by.
“Oh, Rose! So nice to see you again. I heard you were coming with the fabric swatches.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My goodness, I haven’t seen you in a while. You don’t look a day older than the first time you came to Hatfield. I think the princess will be happy to see you.” She paused. “And obedient to whatever commands the queen has for appropriate attire for the wedding.”
“Yes,” Rose replied softly. “Might I ask you, ma’am, does Franny Corey still work here?”
“Franny . . . Franny,” Kat Champernowne said dimly. “Oh, you mean the scullery girl. The one who limps.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure she does. She’s probably doing five other jobs in addition to the scullery, as we are on a greatly reduced staff here.” She sighed. “Not good times.” The other lady who was stitching on her needlepoint hoop looked up. A spy! thought Rose. Jane the Bald had warned her when she had left Beaulieu that there were more spies at Hatfield than servants. Spies and numerous guards, as Princess Elizabeth was, after all, under arrest.
“But I think the princess is waiting for you. She is so excited about her dear sister’s wedding.” Kat cast her eyes toward the supposed lady-in-waiting. “So you’d best run along.” She tipped her head toward the door of Elizabeth’s apartments. “You might find the princess a bit changed.”
“Changed” was an understatement, thought Rose as she faced the princess. By her own calculations, Princess Elizabeth was twenty-two years old. But she looked much older now. Dangerously thin, with a terrible yellowish pallor. Little lines, the ones people call crow’s-feet, had begun to radiate out from the corners of her eyes. The princess looked straight at Rose, her mouth set in a grim line.
“As you can see, imprisonment in the Tower did me no favors. The apartments they assigned me were adequate enough, but it is unhealthy to live so close to the river. There is a miasmic fug that invades one’s lungs.” Miasmic fug? She had no idea what the princess was talking about. Must tell Mr. Ross for next week’s word list. “The air is so bad it produces a catarrh. . . .” She began to cough. It took several seconds before she stopped. “The catarrh produces an excess of mucus in my throat, as you can tell from my voice. Kat tells me I should be bled.”
“Oh, I don’t think so!” Rose said with alarm.
Elizabeth looked at Rose with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “And why do you say that? You have a medical background?”
“No . . . no, but my m
um . . .” Rose was winging it here. “My mum,” she began again, “had a catarrh just like yours.”
“Just like mine?” the princess said somewhat cynically. As if no one might dare have a disease that a royal had. Oh, gimme a break! Rose thought. Although she did feel sorry for the princess.
“Yes. And they decided to bleed her and she died, just like that,” Rose said, snapping her fingers. There was no way that she would witness another bleeding. Dang! Some way, somehow, she was going to drag these people into twenty-first-century medicine. What if she got sick and they decided to bleed her! That was NOT going to happen.
“Well, shall we get on with it?” the princess said briskly. “Show me what I can and cannot wear to this . . . wedding. I understand that the handsome prince finally wrote her and also flung a few emeralds, rubies, and diamonds her way.” Rose nodded, but she was surprised. The letter and gift had only happened the day before she had left Beaulieu to come to Hatfield. Elizabeth must have her spies too. Could it have been Jane the Bald? Bettina? Rose had suspected both of them for quite a while.
There was a tap on the door.
“Enter!”
It was Mrs. Dobkins! The head housekeeper was with another woman of about her age.
“Your Highness,” Mrs. Dobkins said, and curtsied. So did the other woman. Then Mrs. Dobkins turned to Rose. “Rose, child, it’s so good to see you again. You look the same as ever.”
“I was about to comment myself on that,” Elizabeth said. “She never seems to change, does she?” Rose felt panic streak through her.
“Good genes, I guess,” she whispered.
“Good what?” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh . . . oh, my mother’s name was Jeanne. I was just blessing her for her robust health.”
“I thought she died of a catarrh when they bled her?” Elizabeth asked.
“Er . . . well . . . uh.” Rose had to think fast. “That was precisely the problem. They bled her. I honestly don’t think she would have died. She’d never been sick a day in her life.”
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