I recoil as he kneels to me as if I were a queen. “Please get up,” I say.
“I am so sorry for the news I bring,” he says, getting to his feet but stooping so that he can see my face. “I learned to love and revere your sister in the short time that my house was blessed with her presence. Both my wife and I were very grieved at her death. We would have done anything for her. Anything.”
I see that I have to put my own grief aside to answer him. The death of a princess is not the same as a private loss. “I understand,” I say. “I know you could have done nothing to save her.”
“We did everything we could,” he says. “We made sure that she could eat. She had no appetite but we served her from our own kitchens, though there was no money provided for her delicacies.”
The thought of Elizabeth’s vindictive penny-pinching sets my teeth on edge but I smile up at him. “I am very sure that she found a kind final home with you,” I say. “And if I should ever come to happier times myself, I will not forget that you were kind to my sister.”
He shakes his head. “No, I seek no reward,” he says. “I didn’t come for thanks. To know her was to know a great lady. It was a privilege.”
It is a bitter joke to think what Katherine would make of her ascent to greatness. There is no one but her who would share the sour wit with me. I can only nod.
“I have brought you some of her things,” he says. “Her husband, the Earl of Hertford, said that I should bring you some of her books, a Bible and some grammars. The earl said you should have the Italian grammar that was dedicated by the author himself to your oldest sister, Lady Jane Grey.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“And I brought you this,” he says a little more shyly. I see my lady stepgrandmother’s gaze go to the cage at the back of the room.
“Not the monkey!” she says.
For the first time in weeks I feel that I could laugh, however inappropriate the occasion. While everyone will remember the tragedy of my sister, I will also remember her silliness and her charm. That her executor should make his sorrowful way around England with a box of books and a caged pet is so typical of the young woman, who was such a mixture of grand passion and funny whims.
“What do you have for me?”
“It is the monkey,” he says, with one eye on my lady stepgrandmother, who audibly says: “Absolutely not!”
“We really can’t keep it ourselves, and the Duchess of Somerset said that she would not have it at Hanworth.”
“And I won’t have it here!” my grandmother insists.
He pulls the cover off the cage and there is Mr. Nozzle, sad-faced as always, seated in a corner, like a little pagan god, shivering at the cold welcome. I swear that when he sees me he recognizes me and comes hopefully to the door, making a little gesture with his black-tipped fingers as if to turn a key.
“There now, he knows you. He hasn’t wanted to come out since his mistress died,” Sir Owen says encouragingly. “He’s been pining for her like a Christian.”
“Nonsense,” comes from my stepgrandmother’s great chair, but she does not forbid me opening the cage and Mr. Nozzle—an older and I think sadder Mr. Nozzle—comes out with a bound and jumps into my arms.
“I will keep him if I may?” I turn to her.
“You girls!” she says, as if Jane and Katherine and I are still children together, begging for unsuitable pets.
“Please!” I say, and I hear Katherine’s voice in mine. “Please, he will be no trouble, I promise.” I remember a sunny day in Jane’s bedroom and Katherine refusing to put him out of the door, and lying about his lice.
“Well, keep him,” she says indulgently. “But he is not to tear things, or make a mess in my rooms.”
“I will keep him clean and tidy,” I promise her. I can feel him take tight hold of my thumb in his little hand, as if we are shaking on an agreement. “She did love him so very much.”
“She had a loving heart,” Sir Owen remarks. “She had a very loving heart.”
Someone has trimmed his little jacket with black ribbon so he is in mourning for the young woman who loved him. His sorrowful eyes look at me, and I tuck him into the crook of my arm.
“What of her cat and dog?”
His downcast face droops farther. “The cat is old now, and lives in our stable yard. They’re not loyal, you know. I didn’t think to catch him and bring him.”
“No,” my stepgrandmother says hastily. “Indeed no. We don’t need another cat.”
“And the little pug, Jo . . .” he hesitates.
“You’ve never brought her, too?”
“Alas, I couldn’t,” he says.
“Why?” I ask, but I think I know.
“She was at the bed all through Lady Katherine’s last days. She never left her side, she never ate. It was a little miracle. Her ladyship said that she should have her meat put down on the floor of her bedchamber. She noticed her little dog; she did not forget her, even while she was preparing herself for God.”
“Go on,” I say.
“She slept on the foot of her bed, and when her ladyship closed her eyes with her own hand, she made a little noise, like a whimper, and laid her head down on her ladyship’s feet.”
My stepgrandmother clears her throat, as if she cannot bear this mawkish scene.
“Truly?” I ask.
“Truly,” Sir Owen says. “We had to take the body, you understand, and embalm it and seal it in lead. It was all done as a princess should be buried, you know.”
I know. Who should know better than me?
“The little dog followed the body like the first of mourners, and we were all too tender to push her away, to be honest with you. We didn’t mean any disrespect, not to the Lady Katherine, God knows. But she always let her little dog run after her everywhere, and so we let her follow, even though her mistress was gone.
“On the day of the funeral, there was a beautiful hearse, very dignified, covered with black and cloth of gold, as is fitting, and the herald went before and seventy-seven mourners from the court came behind, and my household and many many local people, and gentry from far afield. Her ladyship was there, too; everything was done beautifully.” He bows to my stepgrandmother. “Everyone followed the hearse to the chapel, and the little dog followed, too, though nobody noticed her at the time, what with the banners and the herald and the honor from the court and everything. I wouldn’t have allowed it, if I had noticed, but, to tell you the truth, I was as grieved as if she had been my own daughter—not to be disrespectful—I never forgot her estate. But she was the most beautiful lady I have ever served. I don’t expect to see her like again.”
“Yes, yes,” my stepgrandmother says.
“She was laid to rest in the chapel and a handsome stone put on her grave, and the banners and the pennants all displayed around, and then everyone went home after they had said their prayers and blessed her. Nobody prayed for her soul,” he specifies, one eye on my staunchly Protestant kinswoman. “We all know there’s no purgatory now. But we all prayed that she should be in heaven and free from pain, and then we all went home.
“But the little dog didn’t come home with us. She stayed in the chapel on her own, funny little thing. And nobody, not even the stable lad who took such a fancy to her, could get her away. We offered her a bit of bread to come, and even meat. She wouldn’t eat anything. We tied a bit of string round her neck and pulled her away, but she slipped her collar and went back to the chapel to sleep on the tombstone, so we let her. She closed her eyes and she put her nose under her paw as if she was grieving. And in the morning, poor little thing, she was still and cold, as if she chose not to live without her mistress.”