The Lady of Misrule

by Suzannah Dunn

  Guildford tried, ‘Well, you know, as she’s all we’ve got, perhaps that’s no bad thing.’

  ‘But if I wasn’t stuck in here—’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, which had me tense without quite knowing why.

  Jane could barely contain herself, but she did.

  Guildford, though, didn’t. ‘And, anyway, what?’ His patience was suddenly, spectacularly gone. ‘What could you be doing, if you were out there in the big wide world?’

  And now she was the one in retreat, muttering so that I could barely hear the response: ‘More than I can do in here. I can’t get the right books, in here. I can’t talk with anyone—’

  Well, anyone who mattered.

  ‘Listen,’ which she couldn’t fail to do because he’d raised his voice, ‘I didn’t want you shut in here, believe me. But you are, and honestly, I don’t know any more ways to say I’m sorry.’

  This was an echo, I was sure, of some earlier, intimate exchange they’d had, in the days before I’d arrived, and I was desperately curious even as I knew I shouldn’t be.

  Jane stepped away again into the wet. ‘Well, I can’t stand it.’

  He was almost shouting: ‘And you think it’s what I want? You think I want this?’

  I felt I should stop them, do something to stop them, but then suddenly they had stopped, had already stopped before they’d even really started, and she was sighing – short and sharp – and saying, ‘Well …’

  Well, I suppose I should he going.

  And, ‘Yes,’ he was only too ready to oblige, so that it became the sum total of her leave-taking, that one little word, Well, which was no real word at all, and then she was gone, back through the door, leaving me on the wrong side of it. William was remarkably quick off the mark, too, for someone with a limp: already on his way back towards the White Tower.

  Guildford and I stood staring after him.

  And Guildford said, ‘I saw you.’

  When I turned to him, he seemed just as startled by what he’d said as I was.

  ‘What?’

  He took a moment but then could only repeat, ‘I saw you.’

  ‘Saw me what?’

  And now it was he who was lost for words. He indicated the green. ‘Walking.’ But he knew that was inadequate. ‘On coronation day.’

  He’d seen me on the green, all alone; seen me stripped to my bare bones by the wind and more alive than I’d ever been.

  ‘What were you doing?’

  I paused in the doorway with the open door before me. ‘Walking.’ You said so yourself.

  Not until I had that door closed behind me did I take a breath. He was perfectly entitled to look out of his own window. And, yes, I’d been there, right in the middle of the green, for anyone to see. But I hadn’t been just walking and he knew it, although quite what there had been of me for him to see, I honestly didn’t know.

  Incredibly, Guildford took Jane’s railing at him about the Queen’s retrograde measures as a sign that she was keen to resume their meetings. The very next day, an anxious-looking Mrs Partridge brought word that he was outside and would welcome a little of his wife’s time.

  Jane checked: ‘For anything in particular?’

  Mrs Partridge didn’t think so.

  ‘Well, then,’ she concluded, ‘I think we’ve said all we need to say to each other for the time being,’ and she said it so nicely, as if it were the best of all possible responses. As if other married couples were burdened with things to say to each other but by good fortune she and Guildford had now moved beyond that.

  Mrs Partridge glanced at me; I rolled my eyes and said I’d let him know. She demurred, as she probably felt she should, but I assured her I was happy to do it. And she knew how I liked an excuse to get outside. But really I’d volunteered because I had a bone to pick with Guildford.

  In the middle of the Partridges’ herb patch was a trough planted with thyme to make a seat which, as far as I knew, no one ever used. But there was Guildford, now, sitting on it in hope of a fragrant half-hour or so with his wife. William was keeping well back, crouched on the steps to Beauchamp Tower, playing himself at cards.

  I strode up to Guildford. ‘Don’t,’ as he got to his feet but too late because he already had, so I plonked myself down in his place on that scrubby, springy, scented cushion. If it had been good to tell him to sit, it was even better watching him not quite dare to sit back down so close to me.

  There he stood, in front of me, and the sheen of his velvet jacket was substantial enough in itself to be a distinct, additional layer. Everywhere over him were buckles and toggles and buttons, an armoury fending off the sharp-angled October sunlight. Dressing and undressing him must take some doing: no wonder William was permanently enervated. I relayed the message: ‘She’s said all she needs to say for the time being.’

  He absorbed that. Then, ‘You never address me properly, do you. Anyone else would say, “She’s not coming out, my lord.’”

  I gave him a tight little smile that was no smile at all, which might’ve said, I’m not ‘anyone else’, and possibly even You’re not my lord. And it occurred to me, ‘You don’t call me Mistress Elizabeth.’

  Surprisingly, he mulled that over. ‘True.’ Then folded his arms, defensively. ‘I should. And you should address me as my lord, or’ – his turn for the unsmiley smile – ‘I could report you for insubordination.’

  ‘Well, I’m already in the right place for that.’

  With a sigh, he gave in and joined me on the herbaceous seat, which made for quite a squeeze. The air around us held the scent of thyme but, closer, he smelled of mud. ‘You know, Mistress Elizabeth, being rude isn’t how to go about making friends.’

  ‘And you’re the expert on that.’

  He stared resolutely ahead at the Lord Lieutenant’s shuttered house. ‘And anyway, why don’t you? Why don’t you address me properly? Is it because I’m in here?’

  Held in the Tower, disgraced, reduced. I was about to say no, of course not, What do you take me for, kicking you when you’re down, but I realised that it was precisely the reason. He was in here and so was I: both of us in the Tower and, in that respect, equal.

  ‘I mean, do you call other lords “lord”?’

  ‘Depends.’

  He protested, ‘It does not “depend”. They’re lords. They’re what they are. It’s not for you to decide.’

  I was enjoying myself, for the first time in a long time. ‘Who does, then? Who does decide?’

  For a second, he was stumped. Then, ‘The monarch.’

  And it wouldn’t do to go disobeying one of those, would it.’

  For a moment, he said nothing; together we watched a particularly corpulent raven going about its obscure business.

  ‘What about my wife, then? Do you call her “my lady”?’

  No. Same reason. And anyway, ‘A month or so ago, you’d’ve been having me call her Your Majesty.’ I stood to leave.

  Up came those eyes, after me. ‘You don’t go to Mass,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t I?’

  He bit his lip. ‘I’ve never seen you.’

  I started back towards the house.

  ‘If you said you were going to Mass,’ he called behind me, ‘you could come outside every day.’

  I could go wherever I wanted any time I wanted, but I called back, ‘What’s there to come outside for?’

  And when I glanced round, at the door, he half smiled and said, as I knew he would, ‘Me.’

  ‘You’re on your way to Mass,’ he said the following day, when I took my place beside him on that bed of thyme.

  ‘I am.’

  He was looking better – his hair had been washed – and even William, too, on the Beauchamp Tower steps, seemed in surprisingly good spirits, delighting in the presence of the Partridges’ supercilious cat. All well and good, it all made for a good start, but immediately we ran aground because I couldn’t think why I’d come, nor what to say, and I didn’t want to be redu
ced to commenting on the weather, spectacular though it was. He sat pensively, forearms laid along his thighs, hands clasped, fingers interlaced, and earnestly broke our silence with ‘Tell me, then: as a Catholic, do you really believe that the bread is the body of Christ?’

  Oh, give me strength. And anyway, ‘What do you care what I believe?’

  He denied it, fast, ‘I don’t,’ but back-tracked just as quickly: ‘Well, no, I do, if you’re—’ then flinched from his own unspoken words.

  I was intrigued. ‘If I’m what?’

  ‘If you …’ A flex or two of his joined fists, to pass the moment.

  ‘If I what?’

  ‘… believe something that’s …’

  I too was leaning forward, now, but in pursuit, because I had an inkling of where this was going, and I wouldn’t let him get away with it. ‘Something that’s what?’

  And so he gave it up, with bad grace: ‘Stupid.’

  I made as if to give that some thought. ‘Stupid.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  I shrugged hugely. Do I? I’m just a stupid Catholic, right?

  ‘Because you’re not stupid,’ he insisted crossly.

  I tilted my head, mock-solicitous. ‘You sure about that?’

  He spread his hands, All I’m saying is, ‘It’d be a shame for you to be believing something stupid.’

  ‘Well, thank you for your concern.’

  Silence. Let him stew. But eventually I said, ‘I suppose a Catholic would say it’s a kind of miracle.’ And I asked him, ‘Don’t you believe in miracles?’ before answering for him: ‘Just some of them. The less miraculous ones. You decide which ones to believe. Multiplying fishes and loaves, fine; but being a loaf, a step too far.’ I sank my hands behind me into the scratchy thyme, and luxuriated in a backwards stretch. ‘Do you believe there’s a God?’

  ‘What?’ He sounded nervous. ‘Of course I do.’ And dismayed: ‘Are you saying there isn’t a God? Are you saying that’s a stupid belief?’

  I bounced my heels on the base of the trough. ‘I’m saying it’s a belief.’

  To that, nothing, for a moment. Then, coolly, ‘That’s heretical, Elizabeth. You could die for saying that.’

  I grinned. ‘Only if you tell.’

  He didn’t reciprocate.

  ‘You weren’t listening,’ I said. ‘I didn’t say there wasn’t a God; I said I didn’t know if there was. I said you have to believe.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘And anyway, if your wife’s right about the way things are going, people are going to be dying soon for saying what you just said about the bread.’

  ‘I didn’t say, I asked.’ He was despondent. ‘Everyone thinks they know what I believe. Everyone thinks they know everything about me.’

  After a moment, I said, ‘But you’re not just your father’s son.’

  ‘No, but I am just my wife’s husband.’ And that’s why I’m here.

  ‘Not to me,’ I said, as I stood up.

  He looked up at me. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Mass.’

  He was startled. ‘What, really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ I said, although actually it was a lie. And I thought, You’ve never had to slip by, have you: you and your kind never have to cover your tracks and go unnoticed. Well, you should start learning, I thought, and you can do worse than learn from me.

  Despite her agitation at the content of that letter, Jane was generally easier company after the coronation. Perhaps she considered herself on the home stretch, although, in view of what Guildford had said about the practical difficulties of their future life together, I wondered what kind of home she envisaged. Funnily enough, around that time she became quite the little housewife, procuring linen and silks from Mrs Partridge for the stitching of two purses as New Year presents for her sisters. A honeysuckle pattern for Katherine, and gillyflowers for Mary. Occasionally she’d stop reading and would stitch for a while instead. The Partridges could of course send those purses on but I couldn’t help feeling that Jane was hoping to be able to hand them over in person. And indeed, a couple of days into her stitching, she broached it: ‘It would be odd to be here for Christmas, wouldn’t it.’

  Would it? Odder than at any other time?

  She didn’t look up from her work with a pink silk. ‘I wonder what it’s like here at Christmas; I wonder who stays around. The Partridges, do you think?’

  I reminded her that Mrs Partridge would be heavily pregnant by then: hardly in a fit state to travel.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ as if she’d forgotten, and then, ‘I do so love Christmas at home at Bradgate,’ and I’d have tried to get her to say more had Goose not come crashing in.

  Later that afternoon, I related it to Guildford, flatly, for comic effect: ‘Jane does so love Christmas at Bradgate.’

  We were sheltering from drizzle in the entrance to the White Tower; William was nowhere to be seen although he had to be somewhere, watching.

  It was mean of me, I knew, to be reporting what Jane had confided and in a manner to make light of it, but then, I was beginning to realise that if I looked at her in a certain way, which meant through someone else’s eyes, she did sometimes rather lend herself to being a figure of fun. And anyway, it was too valuable to pass up. It was something of a coup: Jane having expressed a sentiment, and such an unlikely one.

  None of which was wasted on Guildford: ‘Does she now?’ Something about Jane that we hadn’t known and, better still, something we could never have guessed. He was keen for more: ‘Well, what? What is it that she so loves about Christmas?’

  There, though, I was going to have to disappoint him. ‘We didn’t get that far,’ I admitted.

  ‘She didn’t say?’

  Suddenly I was weary. ‘Does she ever?’

  In the distance, a roost of starlings rose like a puff of cinders.

  ‘And you?’ he asked me. ‘Are you a lover of Christmas?’

  Last Christmas was when Harry had kissed me. It seemed to me now that not only had he forgotten himself but, drunk in the darkness, had quite possibly forgotten me, too: forgotten who I was, even mistaken me for someone else.

  ‘I bet you like a party,’ Guildford was saying, ‘and I bet there are parties back in Suffolk. I imagine you’re quite a dancer. Or would be, if you let yourself go, which you probably don’t. Everyone worries too much about what everyone else thinks. But I mean, that’s what Twelfthtide’s there for, isn’t it – out with the old, in with the new.’

  ‘Yes, but then life just goes on, doesn’t it,’ I said and, giving up on any pretence of going to Mass, got up and headed back instead to the house.

  I was never gone from the room long enough to have attended a Mass but on this occasion there couldn’t be even the most bare-faced pretence. Jane, though, didn’t seem bothered; I was barely through the doorway before she said, ‘You can be back home by Christmas, if you like,’ in a reasonable, cheerful tone which I rarely heard from her unless we were in the company of the Partridges.

  I didn’t follow, not least because I was busy catching my breath from the climb up the stairs. She was standing at the window, her back to it as if hiding something although there was nothing behind her but sky. ‘You could leave now, if you like.’

  What was she talking about?

  ‘I mean, you don’t have to stay, especially now that you’re all right

  That, I did grasp, although I couldn’t believe she’d said it. ‘That wasn’t why I came here!’ I was appalled. ‘Is that what you think? That I came here because of that?’ Because, apart from anything else, how short-sighted would that have been? I was furious with her. ‘What? Would I have had you’ – I didn’t know how else to put it – ‘delivering the baby?’

  She rushed in with ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’

  Jane, not thinking? Jane? Well, maybe that was what too much sewing did for a person. I flung my cloak at the hook. Behind me, she tried again, but cautiously: ‘All I mean is t
hat you can go any time,’ as you know, despite neither of us ever before having spoken of it. ‘It’s just that with Christmas coming …’

  One of us needed to say what we meant, so I turned around and put it to her: ‘Is that what you want?’

  But she still wouldn’t have it, turning away and saying only, ‘It’s for you to decide.’

  Not until that night, when I thought she was already asleep, did she answer me: ‘Since you ask, I’d prefer if you didn’t leave until this is all over.’

  I waited in case she had any more to say, but she didn’t.

  ‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘I won’t.’ Because it was no hardship. It wasn’t as if I had other plans.

  When I told Guildford that Mrs Partridge had taken me on more than several occasions to pick flowers from the Queen’s Garden, he was disgruntled that Mr Partridge hadn’t favoured him with some similar privilege. He mused, ‘What would be the equivalent, for me?’ We were in the mouth of a passageway at the side of the Lord Lieutenant’s house; it was William’s turn for the White Tower’s entrance. ‘Shouldn’t Mr Partridge be taking me across the river to a brothel? Isn’t that what Bishop Gardiner used to do for Edward Courtenay?’

  Very funny. ‘No, that was what he didn’t do, although it’s what Edward Courtenay did as soon as he was free of him.’

  ‘Ah, well, bishops,’ he was mock-rueful, ‘what are they good for?’ Then, ‘For running the country, if this queen has her way.’

  Who would you have instead? I didn’t say it but it was there in the air between us, halting any conversation until he salvaged it with a deliberately anodyne enquiry as to the progress of Jane’s embroidery. Then, ‘Do I get a Christmas present?’ He was back to being mischievous. ‘Has she mentioned anything?’ He knew she hadn’t.

  ‘Do you want one?’

  He dropped back to rest against the wall, in a show of contemplation. ‘Well, if it’s made by the hand of my own fair lady wife, then maybe I do.’

  ‘In which case, I’ll put in a good word for you.’

  Sharper, he said, ‘I do need some stitching done.’

  I gave him a look.