Late one evening, Lady Shelton and Mary were sitting wordlessly, one each side of the fireplace, and working with silks by the light of a cluster of candles. The great household of Hatfield was quiet for once, many of its members already gone to bed. It was just a normal evening of damp countryside darkness.
In the silence, a sharp tap at the door made them both jump, and then a voice was saying ‘a letter, a letter for the Lady Mary’.
Mary got up at once, her heart jumping halfway up her throat. Perhaps the letter had come from her mother! Since Clem had gone away from Hatfield, Mary had received no correspondence at all, but she kept hoping that her mother’s friends might somehow get some message through. Her mind quickly leapt ahead to wonder if Lady Shelton would tell Sir John that Mary had received a letter. She knew, by now, that there were many things Lady Shelton did not mention to her husband.
But no, this wasn’t one of those heavily folded morsels that Clem used to deliver. This was a proper formal wax-sealed letter, placed into her hands by one of the mute serving maids.
Mary looked cautiously at it, examining it by the light of the fire. Perhaps it was from Master Cromwell? She guessed that if a letter had been delivered so openly to Hatfield then it must be something he had either written or sanctioned.
But the letter wasn’t from Cromwell, Mary saw at once.
She did not recognise the seal, but on ripping it open, she saw that it was a cramped, pointed, female hand. A hand that Mary knew. She gasped.
Yes, it was from Nan. Nan! How on earth had Nan been given permission to write to her? A strong wave of longing came over Mary to see Nan again. Perhaps Nan was going to be allowed to join her here at Hatfield? Mary’s spirits lifted. Lady Shelton was sympathetic, but her loyalty might prove shallow. Nan, on the other hand, would willingly die for Mary. She knew that.
But the truth behind the letter became clear all too soon.
My dear Lady Mary, the letter began.
No ‘princess’, then. Mary noticed it at once. What, had even dear Nan deserted her?
I write to you from the Tower of London.
Mary looked up aghast. Lady Anne Hussey, in the Tower! Who had dared to do such a thing? To send Nan to a place where such terrible things happened? She stared at Lady Shelton, who looked back with surprise. No, Lady Shelton seemed to know nothing about this.
I write to you from the Tower of London, where I have been interrogated. My writing is not good, because neither are my hands. They used machines, Mary. They have commanded me to write, to say that you too will be brought here, and this will be done to you too, unless you agree to the succession. I pray you, Mary, to do what your olders and betters think. I pray that you might not end up like me and like this.
Mary was bent over, almost double. There was a physical pain in her heart.
‘What is it?’ Lady Shelton asked. She was on her feet, standing over Mary. She laid a thin white hand on Mary’s arm, with almost as much gentleness as Nan herself might have done.
Mary simply gestured at the letter. As Lady Shelton read it through, her hand crept slowly upwards towards her mouth.
‘And this lady … was the governess of your household?’
‘Yes,’ Mary muttered, staring blankly at the table. ‘She did nothing more than look after me and love me.’
She remembered Nan holding her hand, and stroking it, when they had ridden away from Mary’s mother for that last time after saying goodbye.
She looked up, to catch Lady Shelton’s gaze of concern.
‘Have a care, Lady Shelton,’ Mary said bleakly. ‘It’s dangerous to look after a princess.’
‘Mary, you must not give in to these tactics.’ Lady Shelton was standing up now, agitated. ‘They are despicable,’ she continued. ‘I have been talking to my husband. He is troubled too, in his mind, by what my niece has asked us to do. But you must stay here, where it is safe. We can look after you, it’s just that we must … obey the one rule of not letting you leave the estate. You know that if we do that, my husband and I, our lives would be forfeit? Here, sip this. You need strength.’
She was holding out a goblet of cordial. Mary understood that Lady Shelton was trying to be kind, and nodded. But the kindness was lost on her. She could only remember Nan laughing, dressing her, soothing her. She could bear it no longer.
There was a horrible spinning feeling in her head, and the world grew dark. She simply could not go on thinking, about Nan on a torture machine, about Nan in pain.
***
When Mary opened her eyes, she found herself in bed. It seemed as if some time, perhaps hours, had passed. She could hardly move her arms and legs; they felt like cotton wadding. Lady Shelton was sitting by her side. When she observed that Mary was awake, Lady Shelton smiled. Mary saw all the sinews move at once in her elongated neck.
‘Oh,’ Lady Shelton said. ‘Oh, but I am glad to see you awake.’ She spoke as if it were a long time since she and Mary had been together. The room was still lit by candlelight, which confused Mary.
‘Is it not morning yet?’ Mary stuttered a little, for her tongue felt thick. ‘Have I been asleep for hours?’
‘Hours!’ said Lady Shelton. ‘Days, more like. You have been close to death.’
‘But what happened?’ Mary felt herself frightened, and a whimper was beginning to creep into her voice.
‘Hush, hush,’ said Lady Shelton. ‘You’re in no danger now. Nothing has changed. Remember, you are safe here, with us.’
Mary saw now that there was a man in the room, a bulky man, about the shape of Master Cromwell.
Lady Shelton saw her shrink away from the sight.
‘That is Dr Butts,’ she said quickly. ‘Your father’s own doctor. Dr Butts says that you will live, you know. You are out of danger, and here all is quiet and safe.’
‘But what happened?’
Mary raised herself on her elbows, with a panicky need to know where she had been and what had happened. She felt her bodice. Yes, her mother’s final letter was gone. Who had it? How could she do without it? She had loved to smooth it out between her fingers and imagine her mother writing it to her. She wished she had eaten it, like the rest. Then it would have been part of her.
‘Dr Butts says …’ Lady Shelton looked over her shoulder, and must have received a nod or a sign from him to continue. ‘Dr Butts says that your brain was tired and overloaded. It could no longer take in new information. If you remember, you had a shock, a letter –’ she paused, delicately – ‘about your governess being sent to the Tower.’
Mary observed that she did not mention the letter’s threat, that Mary herself would be sent to the Tower if she did not sign the paper of succession.
‘And your brain was so tired, and so full, that it could not process any more information. No wonder! You have been under great strain these few weeks. Dr Butts says it is astonishing that your body and mind have stood up so well.’
Mary flopped back on her pillows.
At last, someone was taking her seriously. This doctor, her father’s doctor – he was someone her father trusted! She had often heard his name. Perhaps, now that he had seen her, he would report how cruelly she had been treated. Perhaps her father would now realise that his wicked so-called wife had gone too far!
‘So … what is my sickness?’ Mary asked quietly.
‘It is sorrow and trouble, my dear, just sorrow and trouble.’
Now Dr Butts came over and stood by the bed, looking down at her, his forehead furrowed. His eyes in their deep sockets were perhaps brown, she thought, like the fur trimming his black gown.
‘And how I am to be cured? I will never be well, never, while they go on persecuting me!’
Mary felt her voice begin to rise, almost to a shriek, and she began to clutch at the coverlet. She could feel distress and confusion returning. Nan’s sad face! Nan in pain! She had caused this herself, by her stubbornness.
‘I have ordered a cure,’ Dr Butts said, ‘and they have agreed. I have told them that they will lose your life, immediately, unless my advice is taken. And it has been. You are to be sent to live nearer to your mother, that you may feel the benefit of proximity to her. You are to be sent away from here.’
‘That woman will never allow me to go,’ sobbed Mary. She felt angry now, cheated, by his offer of something he had no real power to deliver.
‘Oh, she will, she will,’ said the doctor. ‘Neither the queen nor Master Cromwell want your death upon their souls at this point. And I have told Master Cromwell that he will have just that, unless he authorises you to move. You need different air, and a different life. You are to be moved just as soon as you are strong enough. Now, drink this.’
He was holding out a little glass goblet, containing something sweet and yellowish.
Mary propped herself on one elbow just long enough to swallow it down. She coughed a little.
‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Mary began to say, but then the medicine, whatever it was, seemed to be taking effect before she had even finished. She was being carried away again on a dark, slow-moving but powerful tide of sleep. Her brain, she thought, she must rest her brain. Or else she would go mad, and how could she serve her mother’s purpose then? She needed to rest, and get well, in order to leave Hatfield House. She wanted never to come back.
Her final thought, just as she began to slip away, was troubling. When I am ill, Mary thought, it worries them. When I approach too near to death, they grow concerned. I must remember this. This is useful.
And she remembered her mother’s last letter, containing the treasonable words that she was still and would always be queen, and that she looked forward to the time when she might become a martyr. There was something clean, and bold, and beautiful about it.
We cannot live in the way we want, her mother’s letter had said, but we can choose the time we die.