The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

  Dorothy broke in. “If you ask me—”

  “We didn’t,” said Stephen.

  “If you ask me,” repeated Dorothy loudly, “I think she’s done as much to kill Master Allerbrook as any.” She pointed at Jane. “He stood up for her because he was a loyal, decent man, but I think hearing that she’d been whoring with my husband gave him a shock. I don’t suppose he knew about it. But it’s true!”

  “It is not true!” Jane shouted. “You’re a spiteful, wicked woman. You’re the one who caused this—Mistress Fat Slug Palmer!”

  “That’s enough.” Shearer took Dorothy’s elbow. Jane, shuddering with rage and anguish, wondered how he could bear to feel that squashy flesh below the pale pink sleeve.

  “The man is dead,” Shearer said. He looked down at Harry and for once, his narrow features displayed something that resembled compassion. “Death pays all debts—and I’ll not call a dead man a liar. Maybe Biddy was muddled or maybe not, but we’ll not ask any further. Shall us?” He looked around at his followers and there were shamefaced murmurs of agreement, even from Danny Clay.

  He turned to Stephen. “I’ll not trouble ’ee in time to come, son, but I wish ’ee good luck.”

  “And the same to you,” said Stephen. His voice was expressionless.

  “And now, please,” said Jane, “will you all leave this house?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Signs of Danger

  1551–1553

  “No,” said Jane resolutely to Sir Edmund Flaxton, Ralph Palmer’s wealthy first cousin and her own distant relative, when, less than a year after Harry’s death, he travelled all the way to Somerset to urge a second marriage on her. The Allerbrook lands amounted to a good dowry, he said, and he had found a suitable man, a good stepfather for Tobias.

  “In fact, you’re lucky, mistress, that your lands aren’t bigger and neither Francis nor Master Hudd had any titles or high positions, or the Crown might have made young Toby its ward and sold the wardship to the best bidder. As it is, you can keep him, but he needs a man to guide him all the same. Now, this gentleman comes from Shropshire and you’d need to move there….”

  “I don’t want to remarry,” said Jane. “Or to leave Allerbrook. My nephew Stephen is almost a man already. You mean well, but I have no need of a husband.”

  “Every woman needs a husband!”

  “Some women have husbands they scarcely see anyway!” According to the gossip exchange in the White Hart inn in Clicket, Ralph Palmer had been furious with Dorothy for leading Shearer and his followers to Allerbrook, and since then had hardly spent a night under the same roof with his wife. “I am sorry, Sir Edmund,” Jane said determinedly, “but no.”

  Another year passed, during which, with the aid of the heavy horses, she brought more land under the plough, which meant extra corn to send to market. She did not think twice about penning a letter saying no thank you to another offer, from a distant relative in Yorkshire, who wrote offering an alliance with a neighbour.

  You are so much alone, the letter said. Your father and brother are both gone and now your husband is gone, as well. I hereby offer a proposal from our neighbour Master Humphrey Robbins, a well-respected gentleman with a house and lands near the city of York. He adheres to the old religion, but we are disturbed very little in the north. He is past his fiftieth birthday but has no infirmity beyond a stiff knee.

  He was recently widowed, as you were. He can offer good hopes of children, having already four, aged from six to thirteen. He needs someone who will guard and guide them as did his late wife….

  “Past fifty and lame!” said Stephen, aghast, when shown this missive. “I’d wager that the stiff knee is ten times as bad as they pretend—and I’d wager that those four children who need a mother so badly are troublesome children, worse than I ever was! Dear Aunt Jane, have nothing to do with this!”

  “I agree,” chimed in Tobias, who since his father’s death, had matured a good deal. “Please don’t say yes, Mother. Please!”

  “Of course I shan’t,” said Jane. “And that’s final.”

  She meant it. There were still times, undoubtedly, when desire troubled her. But if the man were not Peter Carew, then she would do without. She was relieved that Ralph never visited Allerbrook these days and seemed to spend most of his time in Kent. She would remain where she was and look after her household, which needed her.

  Tobias and Stephen did, now, try to put up with each other because they loved her. They even had occasional moments of accord, as they had during Shearer’s intrusion and just now, when discussing this latest proposal. But they would never be real friends. Meanwhile, the times were full of trouble and unease. She must fortify Allerbrook against these things if she could.

  The disquiet worsened as the months passed. The sense of impending disaster was more powerful than ever when rumour began to say that young King Edward was dying.

  In Greenwich, in the May of 1553, the royal council was panicking.

  It was cold for springtime. There was a hearth in the council chamber, but the meeting had been called at short notice and so disturbed was the atmosphere in the palace that no one had thought of laying a fire. Most of the gentlemen now in agitated conference around the long table were in their warmest fur-trimmed robes. Beaver jostled red fox; silver fox and ermine rubbed against the pelts of bear and lynx. Among their wearers were points of view as diverse as the original owners of the furs, but at the moment they were drawn together by mutual alarm.

  “The king’s physicians are in despair,” said John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, grimly, standing at the head of the table. Tall and balding and ermine-trimmed, with sharp dark eyes under high-arched brows, he was pulsating both with his authority as head of the council, and the dread of losing it.

  “His Majesty is coughing up black phlegm with blood in it,” he said. “He hasn’t been himself since catching smallpox and measles both at once last year. There’s a wise woman I’ve found, who thinks she can help—I’ve promised no reprisals if she fails. No good terrifying the woman! She’s giving him a medicine that has eased things a little, but…”

  “What’s in it?” enquired Henry Grey of Suffolk.

  “I asked her that. She gave me a whole list of things. There’s arsenic among them,” said Dudley. “Not much! Don’t be afraid. It will help to clear his breathing, so she says. I’ve heard of it being used that way before. It may upset his stomach,” he added callously, “but he’ll have to put up with that. If he dies…”

  “If he dies,” said Sir William Petre, who was one of the Secretaries of State, “we shall have his sister Mary. We’ll have a woman on the throne.” Several red foxes had died to adorn his cloak and he himself had a pointed, foxlike face that was almost feminine. He wore a beard and kept stroking it as if to remind himself that he was male.

  The other Secretary of State, young Sir William Cecil, nodded gravely. “She is next in the line of succession under King Henry’s will.”

  “And,” said Antoine de Noailles, the French ambassador, who was present by invitation, “she is half-Spanish.” His voice was cool and sardonic. He had a feline air and he affected lynx fur on his cloak. He was reminding them that the French and the Spaniards were hereditary rivals, to a point that outweighed by several tons the fact that both were Catholic.

  “I can tolerate a woman on the throne,” said Northumberland. “But the Lady Mary…”

  “She will overturn the reformed religion and she’ll have support for that,” said the aging Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. “We’ve had uprisings against the Reformation. There was that absurd upheaval in the southwest, the one that Sir Peter Carew nearly managed to turn into a major catastrophe, and there have been others since, here and there. She’ll call those people to her side. And then what will happen to all of us? I’m the king’s godfather! I’ve reared him in the reformed church. She’ll very likely have me in the Tower, or worse!” His voice held a quiver of fear.


  In his bedchamber, Edward VI of England lay, listening to the birdsong beyond his window. His swollen, pustule-ridden body hurt in every part. Above all, his throat and chest were sore because of the cough that would not stop, that kept sleep from him at night, and brought up sputum so ugly that the sight of it made him want to vomit.

  He was trying to read a prayer book, but his head throbbed and he knew that he was feverish again. The piping of the blackbird outside was a torment, in its purity and its love of life. His body was as foul, as corrupt as a body well could be and still live, but who could call this living? Nor, he knew, would he ever regain health and cleanliness and rejoin the world in which that innocent bird rejoiced. He tossed in the bed, and hurt himself in so doing, and wished he could strangle the bird, or that a cat would kill it.

  In the council chamber someone had said, “What other candidates are there, besides Mary?”

  Someone else mentioned her younger sister Elizabeth, who was also mentioned in King Henry’s will as being in line for the throne. “There’s doubt about her legitimacy,” said the archbishop gloomily.

  Northumberland observed that what was needed was a good Protestant princess, born in wedlock, with forebears who were also, one and all, born in wedlock, and who was a direct descendant of the royal Tudor house. As he spoke, he looked thoughtfully at Suffolk. Suffolk’s wife was King Henry’s niece. Henry VII had been her grandfather. “You have two unmarried daughters, haven’t you?” he said. “Good girls, reared in the reformed faith?”

  “They’re just young wenches!” Suffolk protested. “Even the eldest, Jane, isn’t quite sixteen.”

  “That’s old enough for marriage. A queen must have a husband,” Northumberland said. “I still have one unmarried son I can use.” He said it casually, as though his offspring were surplus items of furniture, settles or stools perhaps, gathering dust in a lumber room and available to anyone who happened to find a purpose for them. Behind those sharp dark eyes, though, John Dudley’s mind was working at top speed.

  It had been said of Northumberland that he never did anything without at least three motives, and at this moment he was thinking that here was a scheme that would surely achieve three things. It would keep England Protestant, would ensure that his head and a good many others would stay safely on their owners’ shoulders and would make him, in effect, the father of a king, the power behind the throne—and not that far behind it, either. His boy Guilford would do as he was told and any girl the lad married would have to obey Guilford. It would be a most triumphant coup.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A Change in the Wind

  1553

  Jane looked around at her hall, at the shining glass and silver tableware and the applewood fire in the hearth, and was aware of her own healthy body in its best green velvet gown. If only, now and then, time would pause so that good moments could be properly savoured.

  Christmas was coming; Dr. Spenlove was back from a journey to London on business connected with the sale of the Allerbrook wool clip, on which payment had been still owing from a London wool buyer. He was older, thinner and less jolly than in the past, but his health was still good and he had returned safely—and with the outstanding payment—despite bad weather and worse roads.

  She had planned this as a welcome-home dinner and had invited Father Drew to join them, since he and Spenlove were friends. So, despite the disturbances in the world outside, here they all were, enjoying themselves and eating good food. Accidents and illnesses like those which had killed Francis and carried Eleanor and Harry away could seize on any of them, but they hadn’t done so yet. The long, prying arm of the religious law could reach out and find fault with one of them, but that had not yet happened, either.

  Even the creatures of Allerbrook were safe. It was cold and sleeting, but the hens were in their henhouse and the geese in the barn where they always sheltered in such weather. The horses and cattle were in their stalls; the two big dogs, Hunter and Rusty, were asleep in front of the hearth, amicably curled up with the two cats, both descendants of Claws. Inky looked like a reincarnation of his departed ancestor, but his sister had a white chest and white whiskers, and was accordingly known as Whiskers.

  All safe, and in her care. Peggy was bent-backed these days, but she still worked as she always had, and still had Beth and Letty to help her. They had done much to make this feast a success. Peggy really did have a miraculous hand with cider and wheaten bread….

  At this point, somewhat to Jane’s irritation, Father Drew, who had been talking quietly to Spenlove, chose to introduce a discordant note. Having taken a long drink of cider, he suddenly put his tankard down with a thump and declared in despairing tones that at times he felt like giving up his vocation, running away and ceasing to be a vicar.

  The gathering looked at him in bemusement. “I mean it!” he said.

  “But…oh, please!” said Jane. “Why should you? Everyone in Clicket would miss you. Your health hasn’t worsened further, has it?”

  “My joints are more painful than they were but otherwise I am no worse. But I am tired—tired. It’s as if churchmen are all just balls in a game of spiritual tennis. Under King Henry, it was everyone abandon the Pope. Buy English Bibles and read them. Then the king lost his nerve and took to saying that only priests and men of rank could read the Bible in English, and the ordinary folk who’d been told to buy them found it was against the law to have one in the house! Then we had the boy King Edward and it was down with all popish images and say the mass in English—and now it’s Queen Mary and it’s bring back the old ways. And if this Spanish marriage goes ahead, this Philip of Spain will most likely bring something more than the old rituals with him. According to Dr. Spenlove here, anyway!”

  “I shouldn’t have spoken of such things on this happy occasion,” said Spenlove with regret. “But I was saying to Father Drew that London is full of rumours. There is much murmuring against the idea of Queen Mary marrying Philip of Spain for fear that he introduces the Inquisition here, and it is being said, in every tavern, by the boatmen on the Thames—by everyone—that the queen is angry because Prince Philip hesitates to come while there are so many Lutherans in the land. He thinks they are dangerous to him. The queen is saying she will deal with the heretics, and that, in her mind, includes anyone who opposes her marriage.”

  “But heresy can’t be just that,” said Jane. “And how can one be sure what heresy is, when the rules keep changing? Dr. Spenlove, I haven’t asked you yet—is there any news of what is to happen to that young girl who has the same name as me, Lady Jane Grey? Is she still in the Tower?”

  “Yes. She will be pardoned, I think. It was hardly her fault that her parents and Northumberland tried to put her on the throne. She’s only just sixteen! The pardon won’t be issued until after the Spanish marriage, though.”

  “The whole world’s in confusion. I went to see Mistress Palmer today,” said Drew. “She is very ill—she’s dying. She wanted me to give her the sacrament but in English, and that’s against the law now! But it’s not fair to refuse the dying such a simple wish.”

  “She’s no better, then?” Stephen enquired. At eighteen, he was tall and becoming handsome. His neatly clipped hair had golden glints in its light brown, and his long-chinned face, markedly like that of Andrew Shearer, had a look of strength. He was a contrast to Tobias, who was mousy-haired, wide of brow and chin, with a fair complexion and at twelve, did not look as though he would ever be tall.

  Tobias was still a quiet boy, too. Stephen, however, never hesitated to speak when he felt like it, and had lately developed a curiously subtle way of expressing himself. He had long since told Jane that he had, eventually, bullied Peggy into naming Ralph as Sybil’s final lover, but that he blamed Dorothy more than Ralph for his mother’s death. His feelings for Sybil were few and equivocal, but he had told Jane that he hated Dorothy. His simple enquiry about her health was laden with hidden meanings, such as I hope she won’t recover and how soon can we
expect the burial?

  Drew sighed. “Mistress Palmer is only thirty-five or so, but she’s hugely fat, worse than ever her mother was, and nearly blind and her feet—it’s as if they’re rotting. I don’t know where her husband is—Kent, I suppose. Never seems to be where his wife is, anyhow. That excellent woman Lisa does most of the nursing and looks after the little girl, Blanche, as well. In fact, I did use English when I gave Mistress Palmer the sacrament. She pleaded with me so. What does it matter? Why can’t the authorities leave us alone?”

  “They want to save our souls, I suppose,” said Tobias seriously.

  Jane wondered, not for the first time, whether she had been wrong when she decided to hold by Harry’s decision not to send the boys to school. But then, few schools would have satisfied Stephen’s desire to study navigation and read about the discoveries made by explorers, and she would not have wanted either of them bullied into hating the sight of Latin. She had heard bad reports of some schoolmasters. One day, perhaps, she would arrange for them to stay in London households, with a chance of attending court.

  Meanwhile, why, oh why did Stephen have to make people uncomfortable by asking innocent-sounding questions which were really as full of spikes as a hedgehog, and why must Tobias, at only twelve, talk gravely about saving people’s souls, for all the world as though he were a doctor of divinity aged seventy? She would prefer him to take more interest in the Allerbrook accounts. He seemed to have no head for figures.

  “The trouble,” she said mildly, “is that those who rule us don’t seem able to agree on exactly how souls can be saved. I suppose all we can do is try to keep the laws, whatever they are. Father Drew, has John Grede in North Molton dug up the church treasures he had buried back in 1550?”

  “He tells me he tried, but the spot wasn’t marked and no one’s been able to find them,” said Drew. “Or so he says,” he added, and to Jane’s relief the company once more broke into laughter, and then sat up with expectant expressions, because while all this serious talk had been going on, Letty and Peggy had slipped out to the kitchen to fetch the next course, and it was venison.