The Other Elizabeth

Chapter V: Winter-Summer 1448

Chapter V: Winter-Summer 1448 

Great Totham, Essex, England

Above me, My Lady's screams filter through the bedchamber floor and through into the ceiling of my room. She has been in labour for about four hours and a half now, and I have not slept at all, for her excruciating grunts make my stomach roll. I hold a tallow candle in my hand, all the lovely-scented beeswax candles being in My Lady's room, as I leaf through the whispery pages of many books, searching for a name for the child. I am trying to ignore My Lord's pacing on the floor above me also, muttering about 'damned Edmund Beaufort, becoming a Duke!' and 'Richard (assumingly his brother-in-law) will be furious!' I am sure it will all be resolved without any weapons being drawn.

I am currently searching through a book relating to the saints, hoping that I will find names more interesting than Mary and Jane and Anne; however, I have only come across old Norman or Saxon names, such as Editha, Frideswide or Hedwig. My Lady has a feeling this child will be a girl, and her last, for she is over forty years now, although the grey threads in her hair are hidden by that ridiculous horned headdress of hers, and her skin is still as creamy as the milk she showed Alice and I to make in the dairyhouse. Oh, Alice! I am so pleased she has finally been sent away to her Baron. I could not tolerate her one minute longer!

I had taken to calling her Dame Alice in my head, as if she were no better than a fat old knight's widow. She complained for all of England about how she, the daughter of an Earl, had to marry a mere Baron, and one with no remarkable name- for whoever has heard of Baron Fitzhugh? Apart from appearing ever so disdainful, she greatly offended my person. A mere Barony? I am to be a baroness- I may not be a duchess-in-waiting, but I still count it as a glorious title, even though it is just words; it does not mean much, just lands and money passed through the generations. One thing Alice's complaining has done is make me wonder about my own marriage. Who will be my husband? Will they be another Baron, or something even grander? Foreign, English, noble, or recently come into their title (for the King seems to be giving them away a lot.) The endless possibilities... At least that will not be for a while yet.

Another reason I started to hate Dame Alice so much, apart from her perfection in everything she seemingly did, is that she spent all her time with William, and now William will sigh whenever I come up to him and ask him to play. He has become so cold, back straightened, chin lifted, eyes as unreadable as the confusing depictions in the stained-glass windows at church. He listened to her every word. It is like she bewitched him. I would not be surprised if she were in league with Eleanor Cobham, wherever she was banished to. He looks at me now as if I were just a goodwife from the village.

"He has grown up. We are too young for him. He prefers Alice, and I am quite sure he fancies himself... in love... with her. Alice surely must be humouring him," Henry had said rather icily, for he has always tagged around after William like an adoring squire, and is rather lost without him.

So now, even though Alice has left, I am stuck with Henry, and it is all rather dull, for I still want to caper about, no matter what My Lady says. Although, I have endeavoured to put more effort into my Latin and French lessons, which Dr. Watt is most joyous about, for My Lady says they are important languages at court, and I would not want to show myself up if someone said 'bonjour,' and I gaped at them like a gormless halfwit.

I had tried my uttermost hardest at all the tasks My Lady had set Dame Alice, with myself present too, from working with account books for her manors, to the running of the kitchens and the hiring of servants. Dame Alice had completed all these tasks perfectly, but had complained about all those lowly, bore some Baron's wife things that even My Lady had to press her lips together, for she was a Baroness beforehand. I heard her sternly admonishing Alice one day over her duties and station in life, which pleased me greatly.