An Unmarried Lady

by Willman, Anna

  “I do think our cousin is most charming,” Anne assured her, “and I suppose that must be what Giles meant when he said that he was a ‘true Howard’, for he certainly doesn’t have either the Howard nose or forehead.”

  “Indeed he does not,” Elaine replied. “It may be, too, that he is fond of gambling and other extravagances. Certainly his taste in clothing is extravagant.”

  “Yes, but I think Giles would not have noticed that in Spain when they were all in uniform. I asked him about the nose when we were viewing the picture gallery, and he told me he is almost an exact copy of his maternal grandfather, and that is why he has not the Howard look.”

  “Well, he’s a very pretty fellow whomever he takes after, so we have no cause at all for complaint,” Elaine responded laughing, and her mind set at rest, she let the matter drop.

  Late one afternoon, after inquiring of Roberts as to her whereabouts, James walked down to the dairy in search of Elaine. To his amazement he found her in the milking shed seated on a stool, her cheek leaning against the flanks of a spotted cow. She was humming a soothing melody a little off key, as she milked the creature. He paused in the doorway of the milking shed, breathing in the sweet dusty blend of hay and dried dung. The sight of his usually elegant hostess in her faded work clothes performing this most mundane of tasks brought a slow smile of appreciation to his lips. She was as enchanting a vision with this rough-hewn cowshed as her setting as she was wearing a fine gown of grey bombazine and ensconced in an armchair in the Blue Drawing Room. He let out a little involuntary sigh and she lifted her head to look at him.

  “Has it come to this, that you are now Lynnfield’s milkmaid as well?” he asked.

  Elaine laughed. “How absurd you are, to be sure! Betsy Robbins usually comes twice a day from the village to do the milking, but she sent word this afternoon that her mother has taken violently ill. I sent for the doctor to go around to their cottage, but Betsy does not feel she can leave her alone. Chudleigh has arranged for another girl to come temporarily starting tomorrow morning, but these ladies can’t wait that long, and so rather than divert energy from work that was already planned elsewhere this afternoon, I told him I’d take care of them.”

  “You are quite the farmer, aren’t you? I wonder how it came about that a lady of quality acquired this particular skill?” he asked as he helped her pour the milk from the milking bucket into a tall metal jug.

  “Oh, when Mary Hastings and I were still running wild about the place, we begged to be shown how and our milkmaid Sally (that is now our Betsy’s ailing mother) finally taught us, just to still our tongues, she said. We had some scheme of running away to become milkmaids in the next county, but that particular notion lasted no more than a week before one bad-tempered cow kicked Mary and lunged at me and disillusioned us both sadly.”

  “I was going to offer to assist you, but now you have quite terrified me.”

  “Oh these bunch are all mild-tempered creatures. Would you truly like to learn?”

  “I would, indeed.”

  In no time, they had two more cows lined up in the fresh straw bedding of the shed and stools set beside them. Elaine showed him how to sit and what to do, saying, “You grasp the teat with a firm hand and pull gently, like this.”

  He failed at his first effort, merely inducing the cow to swing her great head around and peer back at him with stoic patience. Elaine hesitated and then asked him to hold out his hand.

  “This is how Sally taught me,” she said, blushing a little, and then she took two of his fingers into her hands and pulled on them firmly and gently with a slow and steady rhythm. He marveled at the strength in her slender fingers and the assurance of her grasp. Then she had him try first on her own hand and then again on the cow, and this time he was able to encourage a small spurt of milk. A little more practice and he soon found his rhythm and was pleased to feel the cow release a great sigh that softly heaved her great belly against his cheek.

  They milked the remaining cows without further conversation, listening instead to the sound of the milk streaming into the metal buckets and feeling the warmth of the cows’ bodies rising gently with each breath. Rays from the setting sun came slantwise through the boards fronting the shed, causing stripes of light to fall across the flanks of the cows and making the straw bedding glow in alternating bands gold and pale yellow.

  James had not known it was possible to feel such contentment, and said so as they walked back up to the manor house in the twilight.

  “Yes, it is a great feeling, is it not? “ Elaine replied. “However, I understand it palls somewhat with familiarity, for neither Sally nor Betsy after her, seem to find it at all remarkable.”

  Since Anne had already shown Lynnfield Manor to Captain Howard, Elaine took it upon herself after breakfast the next day to give Mr. Merrival an abbreviated tour. She walked him through the upper floors of the West Wing, which had been added on to the original manor house during the Tudor period, recounting the history of the house and showing him what renovations had happened over the years. She pointed out the water damage that had forced her to order a new roof and described her plans to replace the flooring in one room and to have the ceiling and walls replastered in another. They paused to inspect the Royal Suite, so called because King William and Queen Mary were said to have stayed there one long weekend in 1694.

  Elaine had planned only a quick pass through the picture gallery, assuming that the Howard portraits would only be of mild interest to someone outside of the family, but Mr. Merrival delayed there, expressing pleasure at the design of the room, which was a long broad hall extending the entire length of the front of the main house. It was beautifully illuminated by daylight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows which ran down the entire length of the room on the front wall. The pictures were displayed on the wall opposite to the windows, set back far enough to escape damage from the sun but near enough to be seen clearly.

  Mr. Merrival stopped at the first portrait, a medieval gentleman with fair hair, brown eyes, and a rather rakish countenance.

  “That is James Danforth Howard, a first cousin of Kathryn Howard, wife to King Henry. He is the founder of our line of the family. He was a third son, who inherited Lynnfield from an uncle whom he had pleased in some way. Despite the rather frivolous expression, we are told that he was a scholar of some note.”

  Mr. Merrival seemed about to comment but stopped himself rather abruptly and moved on to the next portrait. Elaine was a bit puzzled and rather amused to note his apparent absorption in every detail of each painting. Sometimes he stepped close to examine some small item in the background. Once he exclaimed, “This one was painted in the library! See the carving on the shelf and the little nook below with the small portrait?”

  “So it is,” she agreed after a moment’s examination. “That little picture is supposed to be of Kathryn Howard herself, painted in the early days of her marriage to King Henry. It is strange, is it not, that it should be copied in such detail in this portrait. This is Edward Lambert Howard, my great great grandfather, and Captain Howard’s as well. His great grandfather was my great grandfather’s younger brother and that is how far back our two families are connected.”

  “It is along way back, to be sure,” Mr. Merrival replied staring at the portrait thoughtfully. “Have you noticed that there is something missing from this portrait that was in most of the others?”

  “The Tudor heart, you mean? King Henry’s motto, the Coeur loyal?”

  “Yes. I felt sure you would have been aware of that. I wonder why it is not in this one?”

  “I have often wondered rather why it was in all the others!” Elaine said. “I cannot understand why the Howards should have been so proud of the connection when it ended so very badly for poor Kathryn. Yet in all but two of the Howard portraits, and even in some of the paintings of their wives, you will find worked into the picture somewhere that heart with the word “loyal” written across it. An irony, since King H
enry was never a loyal friend to the Howards, for all that he wed two of our own, the unfortunate Anne Boleyn being a connection of ours as well. I don’t pity her, though, as I pity Kathryn, for it seems to me that Anne knew what she was about, but Kathryn was an innocent, hardly more than a child and I understand rather badly brought up, so that she had no idea what she was about or what risks she was taking.”

  “In neither case, a cause for celebration or pride one would say.”

  “Exactly! And yet we seem to have hung on to that motto. Could it be intended as a kind of bitter irony, do you suppose?”

  He laughed. “Giving the king a posthumous set down, you think? A kind of secret sarcasm to be handed down from one generation to the next?”

  “Oh, it does sound foolish, and yet we Howards have always had our own kind of humor.”

  “So I have noticed.” He smiled at her.

  “ Well, of course! For your humor is very much the same. How odd, for while my cousin does have a lively sense of humor, it is not exactly in the usual Howard style. Our humor is, I think, generally a little more subtle. Like the loyal hearts. They are not at all obvious but are worked carefully into the details of the paintings. I’m surprised that you noticed them. And what is more, after this portrait, there are no more Tudor references that I can find, so whatever the joke may have been, it appears to have been lost over time.”

  “My curiosity is now fully engaged. I wonder if we might go down to the library and take a look at the picture of Kathryn once we have finished looking at the paintings here in the gallery.”

  He found that she was right – there were no more loyal hearts hidden in the background of the remaining portraits, and no other portraits showed the picture of Kathryn Howard. When they reached the library, she brought a candle over to the nook so that the small portrait, normally lost in the shadows could be more easily seen. Mr. Merrival studied it carefully.

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” Elaine asked him.

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” he replied. “Do you know the origins of the painting?”

  “I have thought it must have been an acquisition of my great great grandfather’s, for he was known to collect works of art, and it is in his portrait in the gallery that this picture is shown and no where else. Of course we cannot even be certain it is indeed of Kathryn Howard, although family legend says it is so.”

  “The young lady is certainly wearing a great deal of jewelry, which would argue in favor of the legend, for I believe the King was quite fond of giving her expensive gifts.”

  “So I have always understood,” Elaine said. “How interesting that you should know so much about her.”

  “I have always been fascinated by history. When I was, that is, when we were children,” Mr. Merrival said, looking at the picture thoughtfully, “James used to regal me with romantic tales about this lady. It seems there was a jeweled talisman of some sort that King Henry had given to Kathryn Howard when he was courting her – an emblem of the great passion he had conceived for the poor girl. My fa-, er, friend James told me that she found it too gaudy for her taste and handed it rather carelessly off to a young cousin then serving as a page in the court. That would have been the Howard in the first portrait, James Danforth Howard. Somehow the lad managed to escape the chopping block when the lady’s various infidelities were pronounced, and the talisman became a family prize, handed down through the years until, sadly, it quite vanished. We, James and I, used to invent most wonderful stories about how that talisman might have disappeared, but it seems most likely that it was simply sold or lost, or possibly concealed in a safe, but long forgotten, hiding place. Our, er, speculation was that one or another of the Howards of Lynnfield may have died unexpectedly without beforehand disclosing the object’s location to his heir.”

  “Of Lynnfield? It came into our branch of the family? Oh, the Captain must be mistaken, for I have never heard of such a thing, and surely Papa would have told us a wonderful story like that.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t know about it,” Mr. Merrival said. “It has been gone for several generations now.”

  “But why would the Captain’s family remember it when mine did not?”

  “I believe the Captain comes from a long line of scholars. For such as those, the history of the talisman would be at the heart of their interest. Perhaps your family was not so inclined to scholarship?”

  “Oh, but they were, at least some of them. Papa was once a most devoted student, and my brother Giles as well. Only we Howards are also much addicted to gambling and all kinds of extravagance and invariably are seduced away from the life of scholarship. At least many of the men are. I myself have been spared that unfortunate addiction. But as for the talisman, I’m wondering if Papa did not after all know something about it, for there has been something… But I must say no more. It is all the merest speculation. Tell me, Mr. Merrival, did Captain Howard tell you just what kind of talisman this was? Is it a ring, perhaps?”

  “That was, alas, never disclosed to me.” Mr. Merrival turned from the painting and smiled at her. “All I know is that it had very many jewels upon it of the highest quality, quite a valuable article even if it was in rather poor taste. It might have been a small statue, or a box, or some article of jewelry. In any case the gist of our romantic boyhood imaginations was that we should someday be invited to Lynnfield and by dint of our superior minds discover the missing talisman and be admired by just about everybody who had hitherto discounted us.”

  Elaine laughed. “Well, now you are here, let us hope that your childhood dreams come true! What a find that would be! In fact, you have just solved a puzzle for me, for Mrs. Fraidy has told me that the staff have on several occasions found my cousin poking around in the oddest places. There can be no doubt – he is hunting for our talisman!”

  For once Mr. Merrival failed to share her amusement. “He has no right to do so!” He frowned and could not agree with her that since it would one day be his, her cousin had every right to explore the old manor house to his heart’s content.

  When she visited her father later in the Green Parlor and told him about Mr. Merrival’s reminiscences, she watched her father’s face closely and was troubled by what she saw.

  “You knew about this talisman, didn’t you, Papa? I take it Carney is informed about it as well? You have had him hunting for clues in the library. All of those papers and letters we’ve been saving for you, you think the secret may be found in them.”

  “Now don’t fuss at me Elaine. I’ve known about the damn thing all my life and searched high and low for it from time to time when my luck was down, thinking it would be our salvation.”

  “But Papa, you couldn’t think of selling such an heirloom. Well, it isn’t yours to sell!”

  “Who says it ain’t? And who’d have known the difference anyway? It’s been missing these ages and no one the worse off. If we could but find it and sell it to some collector, most quietly, you understand, why we’d have a fortune, for the value is not just in the gems, you know. It’s of some real historical significance, quite a find, really. And if we should do so, who’s to know but what it had already been sold by some rascally ancestor of ours? That’s what everybody thinks in any case. Why such a sale could give Anne a generous portion that would guarantee her success, and there’d be plenty left over to pay off the mortgages, so if you’d a mind to do that, I’d not begrudge it.”

  “Papa, it’s not ours to sell. It is not to be thought of. Why it is part of the Howard heritage to be held in trust for the family and passed on through the generations.”

  “And to what purpose? What good does it do anyone just sitting around here at Lynnfield gathering dust? It ain’t even pretty from what they say of it, an ugly extravagance bought on the whim of an aging King to impress his mistress, for that is what the chit was to him in those days. Now don’t you interfere with me, Elaine. I know what I’m about. If there’s a clue anywhere as to where that thing i
s hidden, it will be on one of the papers in this little wooden box of mine, you can count on that, for the habit of hiding secrets in our books goes back more than a few generations.”

  “Papa, I’m afraid you are not quite a, a respectable person,” Elaine’s voice faltered and a hint of a dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth.

  His eyes sparkled appreciatively. “Well, you’re quite spot on there, and if that’s news to you, you’ve been hiding from a truth that’s right before your nose. Now don’t go on fidgeting about it, my dear. I’m not precisely a scoundrel, but I’ve played a good game or two and cut a few corners in my day when in desperate straights (though I assure you I’ve never actually crossed the line). Now I’ve told you I would provide for you girls and so I intend to do.”

  “But Papa, we don’t need this. Truly we will be all right. Anne is such a taking thing that there can be no doubt she will find a good match, even with a small portion. Well look what happened to me. I am not at all the style of female that gentlemen rush to marry and I had a number of perfectly good offers. And Anne is so exactly what is wanted that she is sure to do much better.”

  “But you’re the prettier,” Mr. Howard protested.

  “Yes, so it is said, but although many gentlemen like to look at me very well, there are not nearly so many who continue to admire me once they have made my acquaintance. I do not care much for small talk, or even for the mildest of flirtations, you see.”

  “Well, I know that, of course. But I thought in Society that you must have conformed.”

  “Oh certainly I conformed. I can play the game if necessary. What I cannot do is shine as Anne will, for her manners are excellent, her character good, and her sense of fun enchanting. She is more than a mere beauty. She is a darling!”