Lady Jane: A Time For Us

Going Home

November 1558

"Important news has arrived from England," Suzanne announced one morning. "She who desired your death is no more."

"My cousin has passed?" Jane was shocked. "What on earth happened?"

"England has suffered an influenza epidemic," Suzanne said.

"What of Philip?" asked Guilford.

"He has returned to Spain."

"We are free at last, my love!" Guilford exclaimed joyfully.

Jane frowned at him. "Her death is no cause for celebration. She must now answer to God for her deeds whilst on earth."

"Jane, I do believe that you would feel pity for the devil himself," Guilford said, but his countenance did become much more sober.

Guilford and Jane soon came to love the seashore town of Calais. Hand in hand, they strolled along the beach soaking in the sun's rays and inhaling the fresh air that had been denied them for so long.

Grace was almost four now, and Temperance, named for Guilford's younger sister who had died of the sweating sickness in 1552, was about a year and a half. Guilford loved to hold each little girl high in the air in turn and listen to her squeals of delight. He and Jane made sand castles with Grace while Temperance, too small to help, grabbed handfuls of sand and threw them as far as she could with whoops of joy.

Their skin lost its deathly pallor, and they developed healthy tans. There were also joyful reunions with Andre, Pauline, Henri, Simone, and their children.

"Persecution here has become too great for us," Henri announced one day. "With Elizabeth now on the throne, we would be free to practice the true faith in England. We shall leave soon."

"We're going home!" Guilford cried joyfully, lifting Jane and twirling her around while Grace and Temperance giggled.

"But where shall we go?" Jane asked when Guilford set her back down again. "We no longer have a home, I quake at the very thought of returning to the Tower, and I greatly fear the consequences to yourselves if your having rescued us from execution ever comes to light."

"You shall return as one of us, and live amongst us," Suzanne said. "You speak our language perfectly, with no trace of an English accent. No one will question your presence amongst us, and from now on, you will be known as Guillaume and Jeanne DuBois."

"I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance, Madame DuBois," Guilford said to Jane, bowing deeply before her. Jane giggled. Although she wondered whether the ruse would really succeed, and if so, for how long, she realized that it was probably the best option available.

Guilford and Jane's second trip across the English Channel, this one in broad daylight, was a radically different experience from the previous one. Grace, excited to be experiencing her very first boat ride, cheered, shouted, and likely would have tumbled right over the side of the boat if not for her father's restraint. Temperance, by nature more bashful and timid than her sister, clung tightly to Jane and gazed out at the water with large, worried brown eyes.

When the white cliffs of Dover came into view, Jane, overcome with emotion, felt big tears fill her eyes and flow down her cheeks.

"Why are you crying, Mummy?" asked Grace.

"This is my first sight of my homeland in almost five years," Jane told her. "That's a year longer than you've been alive, Grace. Your daddy and I were born in England, and we're both just so happy to finally be going back there."

Although thrilled to be back in the country of her birth, Jane was hesitant to gaze upon the green countryside from the carriage out of fear that her eyes might chance upon a stake with a blackened body bound to it that had been left as a silent warning. To her immense relief, there were none.

The little group settled in Spitalfields in the East End of London, and Guilford became a weaver of silk, as were Pierre, Andre, and Henri. Jane was so happy to be able to attend church in daylight on Sunday with the others that she didn't mind at all that the sermons were in French rather than English. She loved the language anyway.

As Guilford and Jane adjusted to life in Spitalfields, their years in the attic became merely a distant memory. Although their present life of relative poverty differed vastly from their upbringings of priviledge, they accepted their lot as God's will and rejoiced in the love of their friends and the happiness their children brought them.