Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (59 page)

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There are many I would like to thank and
without whom
Queen’s Gambit
may never have come to fruition: Katie Green
for her unsurpassed clarity and insight; my publishers, in particular Sam Humphreys for
her belief in my novel and the subtlety of her editorial fine-tuning and also Trish
Todd, who can spot an anachronism at a hundred paces, for her invaluable input; my agent
Jane Gregory for encouraging my endeavours when
Queen’s Gambit
was little
more than a twinkle in my eye; Sarah Hulbert for her endless patience and precision;
Catherine Eccles for her unerring support, friendship and constructive advice; Stephanie
Glencross for her patience with an unwieldy first draft and Diana Beaumont ditto for the
second; the BAFTA Writers’ Group for helping me grapple with the raw material; and
finally the inimitable George Goodman, for igniting the initial idea.

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First published 2013

Copyright © Elizabeth Fremantle, 2013

The moral right of the author has been
asserted

Cover photography by Jeff Cottenden

All rights reserved

Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire

ISBN: 978-1-405-90937-2

Dot is a character I became
particularly fond of when writing
Queen’s Gambit
and I had originally
mapped out in detail the events that occurred in Southwark after her terrible ordeal
in Newgate prison. It felt cumbersome in the final version, though, taking the
reader too far away from the central narrative, and so was left out. I did, however,
think readers might want to know a little more of Dot’s story, so I have
transformed the original material into a short story.

Dot’s heart founders at the sound of
the Whitehall gates thunking firmly shut. With her silver penny spent and nothing but
the clothes she stands up in, filthy from Newgate, she can’t think of anything to
do but wait and hope that eventually someone will come along who recognizes her.
Collapsing on to a low wall, she only then becomes aware of her exhaustion and begins to
ponder on the disadvantage of her invisibility, once such a blessing.

She is thankful, at least, for the August
warmth and the long summer evenings, but as time creeps on, the shadows of the
passers-by begin to lengthen and the hawkers start to pack up their wares under a
glorious sky, pink and mottled like a length of fine shot-taffeta, and a knot of worry
begins to tighten inside her.

A woman with a broad, friendly face wanders
by, nodding a silent greeting. It is the first acknowledgement Dot has had since the
palace guard sent her packing, and she smiles in response.

‘You all alone?’ the woman asks,
returning the smile.

Dot never was much given to tears, but now,
here, in the face of this drop of kindness, she can feel a sting at the back of her eyes
and all she can manage is a nod, for fear of falling apart altogether.

‘A pretty maid like you
shouldn’t be all alone out here in the gloaming.’ She holds out a
handkerchief with a pretty blackwork border, which Dot takes, finally giving way to her
tears. ‘You
are
a maid, I suppose, and not married?’

‘I am that,’ Dot sobs,
‘and I belong to the Queen. But she is gone on progress and I have no place to go
while I await her return.’

‘The Queen, you say?’ Her
eyebrows rise, making furrows in the skin above them. ‘The Queen.’ It is
clear that she is not believed.

‘Yes, I am her maidservant,’
sputters Dot, screwing the damp handkerchief into a knot, ashamed suddenly by the sight
of her grubby hands, supposing that this woman will never believe it, given the sorry
state of her.

‘Is that so? And have you a
name?’

‘I am Dorothy Fownten.’

‘Now, that is a pretty handle – fit
for a proper lady.’ Dot’s tears begin to recede. ‘I am Mistress
Fenny,’ continues the woman. ‘You are
sure
you don’t have a
husband cached away somewhere? You haven’t had a tiff or something?’

‘No indeed, Mistress Fenny, I am not
married.’

‘I suppose you know of the dangers for
pretty girls such as yourself going about unchaperoned? There are wicked types
who’d take advantage.’

Dot explains her plan to wait for the
arrival of a familiar face, but Mistress Fenny begins to list vividly some of the
horrors that can befall a young woman cast adrift in the city, causing Dot’s heart
to lodge itself in the back of her throat.

‘I will house you, Dorothy
Fownten,’ blurts Mistress Fenny, placing a firm hand on Dot’s knee.
‘If you serve the Queen of England, then who am I to disbelieve you? And she will
gladly reward me for taking good care of you, I don’t doubt.’

Dot feels the knot inside her begin to
loosen.

‘It is sure the Queen will recompense
you for your kindness, as shall I, for I have four pounds of my own, stashed in the
Queen’s coffers.’

Suddenly Dot’s situation doesn’t
seem so very bad; after all, though she cannot lay her hands on her money, she is a
woman of modest means, and here is someone here willing to help her.

‘Four pound,
stashed in the
Queen’s own coffers
,’ says Mistress Fenny, as she takes Dot’s
arm, leading her towards the river. It is high tide and a wherry filled to the gunnels
with folk is about to leave. ‘Room for two more?’ calls out Dot’s
companion.

‘Always room for you, Mistress
Fenny,’ says the waterman, and if her eyes are not mistaken Dot notices him give
Mistress Fenny a lingering pat on her behind as they clamber in. She has never been on
one of the public wherries, crammed in with all and sundry, and it occurs to her how
strange it is that a girl such as she has more experience of the Queen’s barge
than an ordinary river boat – but then anything is better than that singing buffoon who
fleeced her of her silver penny.

Once across, they disembark and the crowd of
passengers disperses into the gloom. The city is quite different on this side, a muddle
of tightly squeezed alleys and lanes, with the houses leaning in towards one another at
the top, so close that the little light left struggles to find its way to the street.
Dot follows Mistress Fenny through the empty twittens winding around and about, thankful
she has someone to guide her through the maze of passages.

‘Where are we?’ Dot asks, after
they have walked for some time in silence.

‘Do you not know?’ replies
Mistress Fenny. Perhaps Dot is mistaken, for the darkness can be misleading, but she
fancies she can see a gleam in the woman’s eyes as if she is on the brink of
laughter. ‘We are in Southwark, dear.’

‘Southwark!’ exclaims Dot. Betty
was always on about the Southwark stews and how a girl walking there alone is considered
fair game, though how Betty knows so much about such a place is a mystery. One thing is
sure, it is a place where people can be lost and never found. She stops in her tracks.
‘I think I would like to go back.’

‘Back to where, dear?’ Mistress
Fenny strokes her shoulder. ‘You have nowhere to go. Besides, we are
here.’

Dot has on nothing but a plain linen shift
as Mistress Fenny, or Peggy as she has bid Dot call her, has taken her clothes away to
be cleaned and mended. She hadn’t realized, until she took them off, quite how
filthy they were and how they were ripped to rags in places. But worse was the colour of
the water after she’d washed the weeks of grime off herself and she wondered that
she wasn’t thought stark raving mad wandering the streets looking like that. It
was no wonder the guard at Whitehall sent her packing. He must have thought her a right
piece of riff-raff with her filthy face and bird’s-nest hair. When Dot asked how
come she took pity on her in that state, Peggy had taken the fabric of her dress between
her fingers, saying, ‘This is a good dress, under the grime. I can spot a
well-connected girl who’s fallen on hard luck, Dorothy Fownten. I trust you and I
trust that your mistress will not see me go short.’