Chapter 56
1610
“Tell me more about this parure, Jeannie. Why has my husband never mentioned it to me? Is it lost?”
“My Lady, the jewels are not missing, though His Lordship thinks they are. He believes that after poor Lady Grizel died, they were somehow taken away by the Green Lady and—”
“Dear Lord, my husband does not believe in ghosts, surely?”
The maid shrugged. “They’ve always been a superstitious lot, the Setons. Not Lady Lilias, but His Lordship is and Lady Grizel certainly was, God rest her soul.”
There was something about Jeannie’s expression that bothered me. “Jeannie, how did Grizel actually die?”
She sat up straight on her stool and clasped her hands together on her lap. “What did His Lordship say happened to her?”
What a strange question. “Well, everyone knew she died in childbirth, soon after delivering little Jane. Was this not true?”
“My Lady, ever since her little boy died, she was not the same. She was nervous, fidgety, always anxious about everything – and it got worse. So much so, she never left her bed after Jane was born and became convinced the Green Lady was coming to get her.”
How could anyone believe in this nonsense?
“I slept every night in her room – your bedroom, My Lady, the Seton Bedroom. But the night she died, I woke up too late.” She paused. “She’d obviously convinced herself again that the Green Lady was in the room and she’d followed her to the dressing table – she always ended up there – and when I woke up, she’d already climbed up onto the window sill.” 271
She sighed.
“What? She fell out the window? But my room’s on the second floor, no one could have survived that.”
“She didn’t fall. She jumped out, she wanted free of the Green Lady and of her life, which had no meaning.”
I sat back on my chair and shook my head. “Poor, poor Grizel.” I looked over to her portrait and saw an innocent pretty girl with her whole life ahead of her and then, this.
“So what happened to the parure?”
“Not long after the little boy had died, she asked me to swear to keep a secret. The secret was that she’d hidden the parure, trying to keep it away from the Green Lady. She became more and more, well, unbalanced, and I was worried about her. So one day, shortly before she was due to give birth to Jane, I asked her if she still had the parure and if so, should I perhaps move it somewhere else, so that she wouldn’t feel in danger of it being taken.”
“What did she say?”
“She agreed and told me she’d hidden it in a secret chamber in the corner of the Charter Room, which she had a key for. She was rambling a little, as she often was at that stage, but then she suddenly stopped speaking, stood perfectly still and whispered to me, ‘Of course, Jeannie, I’ve just realised the Green Lady is not happy her parure is in His Lordship’s Charter Room. She hated him and we must do all we can to please her. We must bring it up here.’”
“She scrambled around in her drawers, found a key and gave it to me. ‘Go now, Jeannie, go downstairs to the Charter Room and open the door over by the window. My husband does not know I have a key to this secret chamber. It was my priest who told me about the hiding place.’”
“You might not know that Grizel had continued to worship in the Catholic faith for a while after she was married, My Lady, even though His Lordship had banned it. So then she told me to go and 272 fetch the parure and that we would hide it again, up in her room.”
This was all hard to take in, but Jeannie continued.
“When I got it back up to her bedroom, she had a strange, disturbed look about her and she pointed over to the dressing table. ‘We are going to hide it behind there, then she can easily take it. I don’t want it now, it brings bad luck.’”
“I followed her over to the dressing table and she asked me to drag it out from the wall then sit on the floor in the space where the table had been. As she instructed me, I reached towards a wooden panel that jutted slightly out of line from the others at the base. I prised my fingers underneath and eased it towards me, sliding it upwards. A small crack revealed a larger hole and I pulled out the small panel and laid it on the floor. I bent down and, on her instruction, pushed my hand inside. I was terrified there’d be a rat or a big spider. But there was nothing, just a tiny secret cavity in the wall. When I asked how she knew this was here, hidden in the panelling, she told me she’d dropped an earring down there a few months before and, with no maid to hand, had scrabbled down there to find it and the panel came loose. She’d never thought anything more about it since the parure was safely downstairs in the Charter Room.”
“And presumably that was the new place she hid the parure?”
Jeannie nodded.
“But where is it now?”
“I presume it’s still there.”
“What? No one has thought to ask about this fine piece given by Queen Mary to Marie Seton and then to her good friend Lilias? Not even my husband?”
“His Lordship was in such a state after she died – not just because she died, but the manner of it – that he never asked. I was sworn to secrecy about how she died. Donald and I are the only ones who know the truth as it was Donald, poor man, who had to 273 go and bring her body back up from the ground below and into her bed where I had to make her look as if she’d just died in her sleep.” She grimaced. “It was horrible.”
I took her hand. “Jeannie, my husband should not have asked you to do this.”
“It was the shame, My Lady. He was burdened with guilt and shame. And it meant she could have a decent Christian burial in the family vault.”
I nodded. “I see.”
“I’ve never tried to open that panel again since. I’ve no idea if the parure is still there.”
I got to my feet. “Then let us go now.”
I sat on the stool as Jeannie shifted back the heavy dressing table. I felt guilty she was doing this, at her age, but with my fat belly I knew I couldn’t help her. She sat on the floor and I looked down at the wainscoting as she pushed her fingers in and shifted a lower panel.
“Ow,” she said, and sucked her fingertips.
“I hope you haven’t got a splinter?”
“It’s fine, My Lady,” she said, removing the small panel and then reaching her other hand inside. I saw a smile spread across her face and knew she had found it. She withdrew her hand, which was holding a dusty black velvet case. She blew off the dust and handed it to me.
I unclasped the hook, opened the lid and let out a gasp. I lifted up the most beautiful necklace I had ever seen and as it caught the light, the rubies, emeralds and pearls glinted and the gold gleamed and shimmered. I replaced it in the box and brushed my fingers along the earrings and the brooch. I let out a long breath. 274
“Jeannie, I must ask you to continue to keep this a secret, you must not tell a soul. You understand why, don’t you?”
She nodded. “My Lady, you can trust me. You know that.” She lifted up the panel. “Shall I replace it for now?”
“Yes, please, I shall take some time to contemplate what I am to do with this stunning parure. His Lordship is in Banff seeing the silversmith today and won’t be back until late. I will have made my decision by then.” I raised my eyes from the beautiful jewels on my lap to my maid.
“Thank you, Jeannie. You know you shall be rewarded.”
“It’s fine, My Lady. It’s an honour to work for you.” And she pressed the panel back into position, got to her feet and slid the dressing table back in front of it.
“Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said, and she left the room and me to my thoughts. Should I break up the parure and give, say the necklace, to one of Lilias’s daughters; and give another part – the earrings? – to young Lilias, Grizel’s daughter? Though what about my own darling Grizel, named after the tragic second wife of her father?
What should I do with it? I took the parure over to the chair at the window and sat down, holding up each piece to the light as I turned over the possibilities in my mind. None of them involved telling my husband about this extraordinary find.