by Brandy Purdy
In desperation, I sent to London, to an apothecary and, at great expense, procured a unicorn’s horn, as it was deemed a sovereign remedy against poison. Some believed one had only to dip it in any food or drink suspected of being maliciously tainted, and it would render any poison therein harmless, whilst others thought you had to grind it up and swallow a little before each meal to derive any good from it.
But Robert, on his next brief, fleeting visit, caught me with it and took it away. He called me a gullible fool and said everyone knew that in London such fakes abounded and I might as well have thrown my money—his money—into the Thames. Had I put it into cold water to see if the water boiled and yet remained cold? Had I fed poison to a pigeon and then quickly dosed it with the powdered horn to see if it would save it? Had I used the tip to draw a circle and watched to see if a spider could cross it without perishing? Had I put the horn in a pot full of water with three live scorpions to see if it killed them? I shook my head and sheepishly admitted that I had performed no tests to try its authenticity; I had only had it a few days and had been trying both touching my food and drink with it and taking a little bit ground off the bottom before I ate to see which suited me best. Then I dared to ask the question that had just popped into my head: Would not the scorpions drown in the water, and then how would I know if the horn’s magical powers were responsible for their death? Robert sighed and rolled his eyes and mumbled an oath beneath his breath, praying to God to give him patience.
“Give that to me!” he snapped, and he snatched the precious horn away from me, lest others see me with it and word spread about “what a fool of a wife Lord Robert is shackled to.”
I later heard tell of him kneeling before the Queen and presenting her with the horn of a unicorn, shimmering pearly upon a purple velvet pillow balanced on the palm of his hand, to protect her “precious and most beloved person” from those “malicious and evil persons” who might seek to do her harm with poison. I wondered if it were my unicorn horn that he had given her, or had he merely been inspired by it and purchased another of indisputable authenticity?
In a few weeks’ time he came again, accompanied by his rough and surly entourage and a number of gentlemen, just as before, again with the French cook and a cart full of fine foodstuffs and rich spices. Again he kept away, closeted with his friends and doxies summoned from the local tavern. They hunted, and when I smelt the roast venison, laid out along the length of a great table, waiting for them, hot from the spit and slathered with spices, it was as though its scent, wafting upstairs, were an invisible hand beckoning to me. My stomach rumbled, and my mouth watered for want of it. And, knowing that this was safe food, that it could not be poisoned, for it was intended for my husband and his friends, I followed like one entranced that bold, savory, beckoning scent all the way downstairs and fell like a starving dog onto that rich feast of venison, ripping out great handfuls of the meat, not caring that it burned my hands, and ravenously shoving them into my mouth, cramming in yet more even before I had swallowed the last mouthful.
Robert and his friends came in and found me thus, with smears of grease on my face and in my hair, which hung loose about my face, my cheeks puffed out with the meat I had stuffed into my mouth, and my hands smarting red from the heat and greasy from the handfuls of meat I still clutched in each fist. Robert was across the room in an instant. He slapped me so hard, the meat I had been caught in the act of chewing spewed from my mouth, and I fell across the haunch of venison, staining my gown with grease and spices. He yanked me up by my hair and slapped me again and again and pushed and beat me all the way across the room and out the door, ordering me back upstairs to my room, bellowing again and again, “You have made a fool of me!” whilst the other men stood by laughing and smirking as they watched. “Robert has married a peasant wench—you can tell by the way she eats!” one man guffawed, and the others nodded and laughed along with him.
I didn’t see my husband again after that except once when I peeped from my door to see him leading a giggling tavern wench with breasts already bared above her unlaced bodice to his room. He kept downstairs, closeted with his friends, or to his own chamber, and left me, smarting with humiliation and my face swollen and bruised from his blows, without having further words with me or even saying good-bye.
To save myself, I knew I had to try again; I had to see Robert and, somehow, persuade him to stop all this and bring my would-be murderer and not my imagination to heel. I wanted him to give me a home of my own, or at least send me to a pleasanter place where fear didn’t dog my every step like a yapping little lapdog always getting underfoot. If he didn’t, I knew that I was doomed. I would die here; it was no hysteria-fueled fancy, some evil toy that had taken hold of my mind. If I did not get away, Compton Verney would be the death of me, and I just might become the ghost it was missing, the restless earthbound spirit, a murdered woman everyone believed mad, felled by the poison of her own imagination, roaming its halls in an eternal but futile quest for justice.
Once again I enlisted the aid of Mr. Edney. He came to see me, and I took him into my confidence, and I told him all. This time, we put our heads together and came up with something bold and new, a way to let Robert see me as he never had before, not as a frantic, frightened creature desperate to please in dyed hair and a gown that did not suit, but an Amy who could herself be every bit as alluring as the ladies of the court, without pretending to be someone else and aping their airs.
He asked me to put my trust in him and promised he would make for me a gown that would dazzle my husband and silence any complaints before they had a chance to spring from his mouth.
“Dear Mr. Edney, I place myself fully in your hands,” I said, a hopeful smile breaking like the sun through my sorrow.
“Let’s get started, then!” Mr. Edney smiled and, clapping his hands, called for his apprentice boy.
Apologizing for the intimate tone this fitting must take but explaining it was vital for the gown he meant to create, Mr. Edney asked me to strip down to my petticoats, leaving myself bare above my waist, and handed Pirto a piece of white linen, which he asked her to pin around me as though it were a bodice. When I was ready, Mr. Edney, apologizing for touching me so familiarly, took a stick of charcoal and made a series of swift markings directly upon the linen over and around my breasts, followed by a series of similar marks, like raindrops dripping down over my ribs and sides, then he turned me around and, lifting the golden weight of my hair, did the same on my back.
I had never had such a fitting before, and I felt like to die of curiosity, but Mr. Edney would only smile and say, “Usually the phoenix rises reborn from the ashes, but this one shall come from the cold depths of the sea to reawaken your husband’s passions and set them aflame!”
“Like at Hemsby, when we were so happy by the sea!” I cried, my face all smiles as joy coursed through my body, chasing away the tired lethargy, making me feel more alive than I had in I didn’t even know how long. Oh, I could not wait to see the magical gown Mr. Edney would make for me!
Before he returned to London, Mr. Edney urged me to take heart. He told me, without revealing names, of course, of other ladies he had helped in the same fashion, women whose husbands had all, enraptured by their gorgeously gowned lady and the tableau he created, succumbed to their charms and come back to them more besotted and in love than ever. One gentle lady, a melancholy, violet-eyed, black-haired beauty still childless after five years of marriage and very much neglected, had greeted her husband gowned as a fiery red, orange, and gold phoenix, standing before a big gold nest lined with a mattress of red satin, and now he scarcely ever left her side; he had forsaken his mistresses, and she now had eight children to show as proof of his attentiveness and devotion. “They made a pair of twins that night in the nest I designed for them,” Mr. Edney smilingly confided.
When he came for the final fitting and unveiled his creation, it took my breath away. I was dumbstruck and dazzled by the sight of it. I had never ima
gined there could be such a gown. And, just for a moment, I feared I lacked the courage to wear it.
The bodice was sleeveless and made entirely of some gossamer-sheer, flesh-hued fabric with a multitude of shimmering crystal beads that covered my breasts, like tiny bubbles, and flashed rainbows of color whenever I moved, and dribbled down, in a light spattering, like raindrops, over my ribs and back. And the skirt, the fullest I had ever worn, stiffened beneath by a farthingale to make it stand out about my hips and make my waist seem even smaller, was a beautiful, frothy concoction, a confection made of blue and green taffeta, all ruched and ruffled to mimic roiling waves as it flowed back behind me in a long, graceful train. The crests of these sumptuous fabric waves were covered in fine netting of either pale blue or green and sewn with tiny crystals, seed pearls, and little gold and silver shells. And at the front of it, right below my waist, was sewn a beautiful, shimmering-scaled, emerald green mermaid’s tail, creating the illusion that I was a mermaid breaking the surf with my bare breasts all a-shimmer with sparkling beads of water. The skirt was cut shorter in front—to show off my pretty ankles, Mr. Edney said—and embroidered all around the hem with branches of coral, crabs, and cockleshells, and in the blue sea on either side of the mermaid’s tail swam beautiful fish of silver and gold. And there was a beautiful coral pink taffeta petticoat, rustling and crisp, that peeped playfully from underneath my full skirts to match the coral satin shoes festooned with golden cockleshells and seed pearls that Mr. Edney had brought me as a surprise. The style was new from France, and they had petite heels, like little stilts underneath, that I had to learn to balance and walk gracefully upon. And though I stumbled often and feared I would end by breaking my ankle, Mr. Edney patiently helped me, holding my hands and slowly leading me about my room like a tot learning to walk in leading strings. But our patience was well rewarded, and soon I was walking as if they were a natural part of my feet, and even dancing in them, spry and nimble as could be.
But Mr. Edney was not done. He sat me down and showed Pirto how to dress my hair when the time came for me to greet my husband in this gown, arranging it so it poured down my back in a loose golden cascade woven with ropes of pearls and pink cockleshells and even a couple of combs, one on each side of my head, crowned with golden crabs twinkling with emeralds and sapphires. Then he demonstrated how to darken my lashes and brows and apply gold and silver paint, and just a touch of shimmering blue and green, to my eyes and coral pink rouge to my cheeks and mouth. I must, he said, look the part of a court lady about to swim forth to dance the lead role in a masque. “You are a mermaid, Amy,” he said, setting the scene for me, “who has captured the heart of a mortal man but must forsake her home in the tranquil blue kingdom of the sea to be with him.
“I can give you the means to captivate and enchant him, but”—leaning over my shoulder, he whispered softly in my ear—“only you, dearest Amy, can know if he is worth it.”
Then I set to work bombarding Robert with letter after letter, making a real pest and nuisance of myself. It took over a month, my fingers grew sore from writing, and I spent a ludicrous amount of the money Robert sent me on paper and ink and messengers who went galloping off to deliver them two and sometimes three times a day. I paid them well to put themselves forward, to pester and accost Robert and deliver my letters no matter how inconvenient it might be for him, no matter where he was or what he was doing, waylaying him in palace corridors, at banqueting and gambling tables, upon the tennis court, and even when he was about to mount his horse to compete in a tournament, or being fitted with new clothes by his tailor; one brave man even barged in while Robert was relieving his bowels, until, at last, I finally wore him down, and, just to put a stop to my letters, he sent a curt note to say that he was coming.
And while I waited for my letters to do their work, I set about decorating my chamber with the things Mr. Edney sent, following his instructions to the letter. I hung lanterns with blue, green, yellow, and pink glass, draped the walls with swaths of blue bunting sewn with pearls, and from the ceiling beams I suspended pretty painted fish and strings of pearls, coral, and crystal beads. I hired a fine cook, adept at confectionary, to prepare our supper, to prove to Robert that I could provide him with as fine a fare as the court could, and to create trays of colorful candies shaped like shells and fish and other creatures from the sea. And to play soft music for us, I hired a blind harpist to travel down from London, whom Mr. Edney recommended for situations such as these, knowing that I did not want to show myself thus arrayed with my breasts all but bare beneath the crystal beads before any eyes except my husband’s. And there was a new set of clothes for my bed too, made of green, blue, and coral pink satin, sewn with gold and silver fish, and bed-curtains of a sheer, diaphanous blue and green overlaid with another curtain that was like a fishnet woven of pearls.
The day Robert arrived, I awaited him nervously, pacing back and forth across my chamber, my heavy skirts rustling, swishing, and swirling with every step, sounding rather like the gently rolling waves they were designed to mimic. I fidgeted my fingers and tried hard to keep myself from gnawing my nails or playing with the pearls clacking in my hair.
I had a speech all prepared, ready to recite to him:
“I know I made a mistake before,” I planned to say in a voice calm and sure but also humble. “I should not have tried to become someone else. But I was so desperate to recapture the love that used to be between us that I was willing to lose myself, to become someone else, to win it back again. But I was wrong. Had I succeeded, what I got out of it wouldn’t really be love, would it? Because when you love someone, you love them as they are, even stripped bare of all artifice—paint, jewels, and fine clothes—because true love is bare and mother-naked; it wears no clothes at all.”
In the happy, passionate fantasies of my daydreams, after hearing me speak these sincere and heartfelt words, my husband would strip me, and himself, bare, and carry me to the bed, and make love to me the way we used to, lying warm and naked in the cold, salty surf at Hemsby.
This time, I wanted to show Robert that I could be me, but a better, brighter, grander me, who was just as good as any lady of the court, an Amy who loved only him and aimed to please.
But when Robert came in and saw me, dancing, swaying, spinning, and sashaying enticingly before him as the blind harpist played, he burst out laughing as though it was the funniest sight he’d ever seen. Bent double and slapping his knees, he laughed himself breathless until he was red in the face and braying like an asthmatic donkey. When he was able to speak again and stood wiping the tears of mirth away, he said, even though I was “painted like a whore, I looked just like a clown.” And then, as abruptly as a sudden summer rain, his mirth turned to anger, and he denounced me like a preacher thundering from the pulpit for my “lewd and lascivious display.” When I told him my intentions, he stared me down sternly, witheringly, making me feel as tiny as an ant, and informed me that “the court is not a brothel, Amy, and the ladies there do not comport themselves like painted bawds and whores, no matter what ignorant country bumpkins might believe.”
My throat froze, and my lips quivered, too hurt and stunned to speak, as tears rolled down my face, ruining the carefully applied paint. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, it always went wrong in the end. I just could not win! I wondered if it were my fate, written in the stars, to always be a disappointment and a failure. When I looked at myself in the mirror now, those words, Disappointment and Failure, seemed to spring ever more often to my mind. Sometimes I even felt as if they were branded upon my forehead and half expected to see them there, burned into my skin in charred-edged, angry red letters. It hurt so much, to want and try so hard, but to always fail to enchant and delight him, to make him smile and reach out his arms to me. That was all I really wanted. But when it came to my husband’s love, I was a ne’er-dowell.
Then his back was turned, and he was walking away, leaving me once again, going back to court, back to Eli
zabeth.
I ran after him, in my furious pain forgetting that others might see me so immodestly arrayed, and on the stairs, from the upper landing, I shouted down at him: “I hate what you’ve become—the Queen’s pet lapdog who is kept on a short, bejeweled leash! She yanks the chain, and you go running back! She holds up a treat, and you jump for it!” He stopped for a moment—but it was only for a moment—he never turned around; he just stood still for one long, lone moment, and then he started walking again, walking away from me, never looking back. “You don’t really love her, you only love what she can give you, what she represents; once she’s served her purpose, she’ll be nothing to you! Nothing!—just like me! I hate you, Robert, I hate you!” I screamed through a hard rain of tears, raking my throat raw but too angry to care. “Your head belongs on a pike, not on the Queen’s pillow!”
As the door slammed shut behind him, I suddenly became aware that there were others downstairs, staring up at me, their eyes and mouths agape. Sir Richard Verney was there, smirking, sneering up at me, his dark eyes telling me that I was nothing, and beside him stood Thomas Blount, who had apparently accompanied Robert, staring at me as though I were a freak in a fair. And there were servants.
I gasped in shame and horror and hugged my arms tightly over my bead-bedecked breasts. As I spun ’round in retreat, stumbling over my skirts and high-heeled shoes, I fell hard, barking my palms against the stone stairs as I instinctively reached out to break my fall. Tommy Blount was up the stairs and at my side in an instant, taking my arm, trying to help set me aright on my feet again, but, in my shame, I pushed him away, my face burning scarlet and hot beneath the streaks of tear-damp paint. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at him, and instead of thanking him for his help, I lashed out at him, screaming at him to, “Stay away from me! Don’t look at me! Don’t touch me!” Then I ran back to my room, losing one high-heeled slipper in my haste and further impairing my gait, but I was too embarrassed to turn back and retrieve it. I only wanted to be back inside my room with the door locked so none could bear further witness to my shame and weeping.
