Bruneau. It wouldn’t matter how little I had learned, if both of you had learned less.”
“That answer,” Frevisse responded, “didn’t work on your father when you were eight years old and tried it over your Latin lessons and it doesn’t work with me.”
They were laughing at each other by then, and Lady Jane was listening in open puzzlement, her head turning back and forth between them. Alice, noticing, said kindly, “It’s the trouble with having family who’ve known you for years. They leave you no dignity.” And then, her expression changing, she said contritely, “Oh, Jane, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
Lady Jane’s smile was awry, as it must needs always be because of her blemish, but her eyes and voice were amused rather than hurt as she said, “I know. It’s no great matter, my lady.”
“Jaaane!” a girl shrilled from down the room. “Millicent is being wrong about colors again!”
“If you’ll pardon me, my lady?” Lady Jane asked.
“By all means. The saints forbid Millicent be left to go her own way with colors.”
Laughing softly, Lady Jane left them. Watching her go, Alice said, “I’ve grown most fond of her since she came to us. I’ll miss her when she weds. Come sit at the window. We’ll be comfortable and well apart there from everyone else. We’ve hardly had time to talk of how things are with you.” But when they were seated on the cushioned window seat next to each other, she went back to Lady Jane who was now showing bright-dyed yarns to a cluster of other women and girls, explaining something to them. “She may stay. We’re all the family she has, after all.”
“Family?” Frevisse prompted.
“Yes. Family.” Alice seemed puzzled by her question, then, “Oh! Yesterday, with everything, I never said, did I? She’s my lord husband’s niece. His older brother’s last daughter.”
“But she’s marrying a yeoman,” Frevisse said, showing her surprise. Suffolk’s older brother had died without a son and so Suffolk had come into the earldom, but his nieces were still noble, entitled to better marriages than that.
But Alice, seeming to feel nothing was wrong in it, said easily, “It’s a story indeed. When my lord’s brother died—in Agincourt battle, did you know?—he left two daughters, no son, and his widow well along with child. If she’d birthed a boy, he would have had the earldom but it was Jane and born marred with that blemish, poor thing, for worse luck. Her mother wanted nothing to do with her. She said the child was devil-marked with her dead father’s blood and only wanted to be rid of her.”
An array of uncharitable thoughts concerning Lady Jane’s mother passed through Frevisse’s mind but she kept them to herself, asking only, “And then?”
“She went through with what she’d already planned to do if she had no son. She’d been given wardship of her daughters as a matter of course and now proceeded to sign away all her rights and theirs concerning the earldom except for their dowries and retired with the two older ones into a Franciscan nunnery in Suffolk for life.”
Frevisse was trying to calculate years in her head: what she guessed Suffolk’s age to be against how many years since Agincourt, how old his brother might have been then and so to, “The girls must have been very young.”
“Babies. Simply babies,” Alice said. “Their father was only twenty, I think, when he died. It was all their mother’s doing, no choice of theirs.” Alice, who had made her own choices for most of her life and would never have made that one, showed her disgust.
“And Lady Jane?”
“She wouldn’t have the baby anywhere near her. She had her taken away to somewhere else.”
“A small nunnery,” Frevisse guessed, “well out of the way.”
“A very small nunnery and very out of the way. Her shame disposed of, never to be seen or thought on again,” Alice agreed.
“Only Lady Jane did not stay disposed of, I
“That answer,” Frevisse responded, “didn’t work on your father when you were eight years old and tried it over your Latin lessons and it doesn’t work with me.”
They were laughing at each other by then, and Lady Jane was listening in open puzzlement, her head turning back and forth between them. Alice, noticing, said kindly, “It’s the trouble with having family who’ve known you for years. They leave you no dignity.” And then, her expression changing, she said contritely, “Oh, Jane, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
Lady Jane’s smile was awry, as it must needs always be because of her blemish, but her eyes and voice were amused rather than hurt as she said, “I know. It’s no great matter, my lady.”
“Jaaane!” a girl shrilled from down the room. “Millicent is being wrong about colors again!”
“If you’ll pardon me, my lady?” Lady Jane asked.
“By all means. The saints forbid Millicent be left to go her own way with colors.”
Laughing softly, Lady Jane left them. Watching her go, Alice said, “I’ve grown most fond of her since she came to us. I’ll miss her when she weds. Come sit at the window. We’ll be comfortable and well apart there from everyone else. We’ve hardly had time to talk of how things are with you.” But when they were seated on the cushioned window seat next to each other, she went back to Lady Jane who was now showing bright-dyed yarns to a cluster of other women and girls, explaining something to them. “She may stay. We’re all the family she has, after all.”
“Family?” Frevisse prompted.
“Yes. Family.” Alice seemed puzzled by her question, then, “Oh! Yesterday, with everything, I never said, did I? She’s my lord husband’s niece. His older brother’s last daughter.”
“But she’s marrying a yeoman,” Frevisse said, showing her surprise. Suffolk’s older brother had died without a son and so Suffolk had come into the earldom, but his nieces were still noble, entitled to better marriages than that.
But Alice, seeming to feel nothing was wrong in it, said easily, “It’s a story indeed. When my lord’s brother died—in Agincourt battle, did you know?—he left two daughters, no son, and his widow well along with child. If she’d birthed a boy, he would have had the earldom but it was Jane and born marred with that blemish, poor thing, for worse luck. Her mother wanted nothing to do with her. She said the child was devil-marked with her dead father’s blood and only wanted to be rid of her.”
An array of uncharitable thoughts concerning Lady Jane’s mother passed through Frevisse’s mind but she kept them to herself, asking only, “And then?”
“She went through with what she’d already planned to do if she had no son. She’d been given wardship of her daughters as a matter of course and now proceeded to sign away all her rights and theirs concerning the earldom except for their dowries and retired with the two older ones into a Franciscan nunnery in Suffolk for life.”
Frevisse was trying to calculate years in her head: what she guessed Suffolk’s age to be against how many years since Agincourt, how old his brother might have been then and so to, “The girls must have been very young.”
“Babies. Simply babies,” Alice said. “Their father was only twenty, I think, when he died. It was all their mother’s doing, no choice of theirs.” Alice, who had made her own choices for most of her life and would never have made that one, showed her disgust.
“And Lady Jane?”
“She wouldn’t have the baby anywhere near her. She had her taken away to somewhere else.”
“A small nunnery,” Frevisse guessed, “well out of the way.”
“A very small nunnery and very out of the way. Her shame disposed of, never to be seen or thought on again,” Alice agreed.
“Only Lady Jane did not stay disposed of, I
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