Feud by Lady Grace Cavendish Read Free Book Online

never been anywhere else— and doesn't give a fig for the French or any other foreigners.
    I am glad poor Carmina is sleeping now, for she has had hardly any peace. I've been here all afternoon keeping her company, and it has been likeCheapside on market day what with all the coming and going. After I dined in the parlour with the other Maids and Ladies-in-Waiting—but not the Queen, for she was closeted with her papers—Mrs. Champernowne made up a tray for Carmina. When she asked if any of us would carry it for her, I offered, as I thought it would give me reason to sit with Carmina and perhaps learn more about her mysterious malady.
    When we came in, we found Carmina had dribbled a little on the pillowcase in her sleep. So while she was sitting up to try and eat, I got her another one from the chest and put the old one in the pile of laundry by the door.
    Just then, Carmina got a cramp in her belly and had to rush to the little garderobe in the corner where the close-stool is. While she was behind the curtain, being sick, Ellie came in to collect the dirty laundry. She peered round the bedpost at the garderobe and dropped a curtsey to Carmina as she came out slowly and climbed back into bed.
    “She's pale, i'n't she?” Ellie hissed at me. “It's not the plague, is it?” She made horns with her fingers to ward off bad luck. “It's too early in the year for that, surely?”
    “Nobody thinks it is plague!” I scolded Ellie.“Don't be wood. If there were
any
chance of it, the Privy Council would have made the Queen leave immediately and we'd all be locked up in here to die!”
    “Not me,” said Ellie. “Or anyway, I wouldn't die. I've had it. Got it the last time it came and you never get it twice. That was what did for my ma and pa, you know. Look, see? I've still got scars on me neck and me armpits.”
    She showed me the ones on her neck, which are about the size of ha'pennies and are where the buboes burst.
    “The ones in my armpits are really big,” she said. “The buboes hurt something terrible until they burst, and then the pus was all stinking and oozing down, but I felt much better.…”
    I didn't really want to hear any more, because I haven't had plague and it's always frightening to know that there's a sickness you can catch in the morning which could kill you by nightfall.
    “My ma and pa didn't get buboes,” Ellie went on, looking sad. “They might 'ave lived if they did. They just went black all over and died.”
    I touched her arm. I didn't really know what to say, because it made me think of my own parents and how sad it was that I couldn't see my mother everagain until Judgement Day. Ellie and I are both orphans, even though we have such different lives. Masou is, too—his mother died when he was born, and after they came to England, his father took sick with the cold and the damp and got consumption and died.
    “So anyway,” said Ellie, forcing herself to perk up, “it ain't plague. So what is it?”
    Just then Carmina sighed and put down the chicken tartlet she was nibbling. “It doesn't even taste good any more,” she said fretfully. “There's this nasty taste in my mouth all the time. Will you pass me a sweetmeat, Grace? At least they're still nice.”
    I passed her some apple leather and she managed to eat a little before lying back again. She looked tired and sad and a moment later she dozed off.
    “Well, nobody else is sickening,” said Ellie with authority. The laundry always knows first when there's an illness going round. “So maybe it's something she ate.”
    “I suppose it could be, though she's hardly eating anything at all,” I replied thoughtfully.
    “Well, if it's not that, it's got to be a curse or a spell then,” said Ellie, hefting up the laundry basketand putting it on her head, where it balanced. “See you later, hope she don't die.”
    No sooner had Ellie left than my uncle, Dr. Cavendish, arrived in his furred cramoisie and black brocade gown, followed