Читать книгу A Queen of Nine Days онлайн

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The day before I went my father informed me about those to whom I was going. It seemed the Duke of Northumberland, knowing my father, Sir Henry Brown, with whom he had been in battles in their younger days, had sent for me to come and be one of the gentlewomen of his daughter-in-law, the young Lady Jane Grey, newly married to his fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley, in London City. My father said that it was a great distinction for me to be selected out of scores of other country maidens for the work, and that if ever I had speech with the noble duke I was to thank him heartily for his favour towards us—this I promised readily, not knowing what manner of man that was whose doings were afterwards an enormous factor in working dire woe to those I loved. And then my father went on to say that business of importance would prevent his going with me on this my entrance into the big world—oh, father! I saw through that, for was it not from you I inherited the nature which loved home and freedom better than the life among great people of exalted rank?—but he said he would send me with old and trusty servants, who would take me safely in a horse-litter from our town of Brighthelmstone[ssss1] on the south coast, all the long way to Sion House, in Isleworth, near London City, where my Lady Grey was residing at that time.