As far as the game is concerned, it makes no difference where the staircase goes, because neither Mary nor the Duchess will be ascending it to find her. Anne has taken care to put the greatest possible distance between her and her pursuers, and to travel it by the most elaborate route. This is not a stratagem that would ever occur to the other ladies, who are both by nature too obliging to put anybody to the trouble of searching too long or with too much effort. Anne has no such scruples: she likes to know that her absence is felt.
Once she has arranged herself comfortably, and her eyes have accustomed themselves to the darkness, she rummages about under her skirts until she finds her pocket. She has a secret hoard in there, some sugar-plums she had from the housekeeper this morning. It is only after she has popped one into her mouth and broken its shell that she remembers she has given them up for Lent.
Anne had her first proper conversation with her step-mother a couple of months after the new Duchess’s arrival in England. Her English had already improved greatly by then, and she was crying only every other day, so was a good deal more approachable than she had been. She had come to visit Anne and Mary at Richmond, and, although religion was not to be mentioned, they had come, somehow, to be talking of fast days.
‘We had soupe maigre,’ said the Duchess, ‘every fast day the same, and I hated it so much, but my mother said I had to have it, she made me and she watched me and I was not allowed to stop until I finished the bowl.’
Anne, so used to parables and homilies, searched for the moral.
‘But then you found the soup was tolerable after all?’
The Duchess shook her head. ‘No. Never, and every fast day I wept into the soup.’
Anne thought of the Duchess’s mother on her visit, insisting that she must have precedence over all the great English ladies, and seating herself in the Queen’s presence while other duchesses stood. Mary must have been thinking the same, because she remarked that the Duchess Laura was indeed a most commanding person.
‘Commanding, yes. I was scared of the men who cleaned the ashes in my chamber – they had black faces – what do you call them here?’
‘Chimney sweepers.’
‘“Chimney sweepers.” Thank you. They frightened me when they came, and I told my mother, so then she told them to come closer to me: I was of the Este family, and I should not be frightened.’
For a long time, it seemed as if the Duchess was as frightened of the Duke as she had ever been of chimney sweepers, and whenever he came close, she would cry all the harder. Fortunately, however, he fared better with her than fast-day soup: after a while, she came to find him tolerable after all, and a little after that to love him. These days when she cries it is usually because he has been moving in close to some other lady. That said, the Duchess is in excellent spirits today. She has recently come out of her first confinement with a healthy child – a daughter, but never mind – and the Duke, when not out hunting, is most attentive.
Anne becomes aware of busy noises in the closet next door. She wipes her mouth quickly, and straightens her skirts, but when the door opens it is neither Mary nor the Duchess, but only a necessary woman, a very young one, with a fresh chamber pot. Both girls are equally startled; they blush at each other, while the necessary woman hurriedly conceals the chamber pot behind her back. Then she curtsies and mumbles something that might be ‘Your Highness’. They blush together for another moment, then Anne whispers, ‘Pray don’t alarm yourself: it’s only a game. I’m hiding.’
When the necessary woman has completed her return journey, and the renewed blush has died down, Anne is returned to darkness and to quiet. Nobody else comes into the chamber or the closet. She hears the clang of the bell in the clock tower, and begins to wonder if Mary and the Duchess are ever going to come. Perhaps they have given up the game altogether, and have sent one of their ladies to look for her. They might have picked up their work again, or started playing cards. The Duchess’s card-playing has improved along with her English, and nowadays she plays as often as any other lady at Court; she even plays on Sundays, with the Queen. Dr Doughty has made it clear to the princesses that it would not be expedient for them to join her on these occasions: Sunday card-playing is a sin, and more to the point, a Catholic one.
What a Good English Princess Knows About Catholics
They do not belong to God’s Church, but to the Pope’s, and he is the Antichrist, the Son of Perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, and sits in the temple, dealing in signs and lying wonders.
Some you meet may be agreeable, even kind, they may do many good works, but nevertheless they shall not be saved. Salvation is the reward of a life lived in the light of God’s truth, a truth found only in the Bible, which Catholics do not hear. In the English Church, the Bible is read over to the people once every year, and in their mother tongue, so that they might see for themselves the process, order and meaning of the text and therefore profit by it, but in the Popish Church, such scripture as the people hear is broken up and read to them in Latin, which they do not understand; then the Word is further smothered under a multitude of responds, verses and vain repetitions. If any drops of truth remain, they are quenched by the priests and Jesuits, with sophistry and traditions of their own making, founded without all ground of scripture. Such men can take the text and twist it, and do so with such serpentine subtlety, as to amaze the unlearned, and turn plain truth to riddles. By these means and others, the Popish clergy maintain their abominable mischief and idolatories, and damn their people with them. Any Englishman who chooses such a religion, when the truth is plainly laid before him, has declared himself an enemy of that truth. And if he is not a true Christian, then he is not a true Englishman either, for a man can be loyal only to one prince, and the Catholic looks not to his King, but to the Pope in Rome. His design, and that of Popish kings across the Channel, is to bring England under Catholic tyranny, and to this end they have waged ceaseless war against the English, from without, and from within. Queen Elizabeth’s life was often in danger; there was even a plot to kill King James with all his Parliament, which by the grace of God was foiled. Every year the people give thanks for this deliverance, and burn the Pope in effigy, with a cat sewn into his belly to make him scream.
And this was deliverance not only for the King and his Parliament, but for every Englishman, for it is quite certain that under a Catholic prince he would lose his freedom, his religion, his property and the rule of law, and in their stead get persecution, blood and fire. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which is nearly as true as the Bible, shows how this happened in the reign of Queen Mary, when anyone who proclaimed God’s word was hunted down, imprisoned, examined, tortured and condemned to die in flames. Anne Askew was so tormented on the rack that she couldn’t walk to her own execution; Lawrence Sanders’ death was drawn out on purpose, because they burned him with green wood, and other smothering fuel, so put him to much more pain. When the bloody Bishop of London had Thomas Tomkins in his custody, and found that neither by imprisonment, nor beating, nor by shaving off his beard could he persuade him to renounce his faith, he became so vexed against the poor man, that he thought to overthrow him by some forefeeling and terror of death. With this in mind, he took Tomkins by the fingers, and held his hand directly over the flame of a candle, but so rapt up was Tomkins’ spirit that he felt no pain, and never shrunk, even when the sinews burst, and the water spurted into Master Harpsfield’s face.
No-one was spared in these terrible times, not even princesses. The Queen’s own sister, the Lady Elizabeth, suffered terrible persecution, which no-one could have borne more bravely. By the Queen’s own orders, she was fetched from her sickbed by a troop of a hundred and fifty horse, put under armed guard, and taken to the Tower, where she was examined, and falsely accused of treason. Then she was imprisoned in Woodstock, still under guard, and in danger from plots to murder her. The Bishop of Winchester even sent
a writ for execution while she was there, and it was only by God’s Providence that this came to no effect. All the time she was in captivity, guiltless men were racked in the Tower, in the hopes of persuading them to accuse her, and even when she was let out of prison and went to Hatfield, she was closely watched until her sister’s death.
The story of Lady Elizabeth and her miraculous preservation is the only one in the book that does not end in death, but that is not to say that the others do not have happy endings, because every martyr in it concludes his or her earthly life by praising God even in the midst of the flames, and departing to a better place, there to live in joy unspeakable. In the pictures their faces are rapt and beautiful, their arms raised like a preacher’s in the pulpit, and words of faith come out of their mouths on long ribbons: ‘Welcome lyfe!’ says one; ‘Lord receive my spirit!’ cries another. Every story is beautiful, because it tells that even though there may be persecution and suffering in this life, for those who remain steadfast in their faith there will be a just reward in the next, and for their persecutors, just punishment.
It puzzles Anne very much, knowing all this, that her father should choose to be one of them.
Love
‘I love my love with an A’, says Mrs Jennings, ‘because he is Admirable.’ It is Betty Villiers’turn. ‘You would be better, Mrs Jennings, to love him with a B, seeing as he is Betrothed to another.’ ‘And you with a C,’ says her sister Barbara, ‘because you are Canker-tongued.’ Betty shrieks with laughter. ‘How you cheat, Bab! Canker-tongued! There is no such word!’
Now Sarah declares herself sorry to have ever started the pestilent game, turns her back on the Villiers sisters, who carry on without her, and sits down next to Anne.
It is summer, so the Court has moved to Windsor. The King spends his time fishing, walking, playing tennis and visiting his mistresses in their lodgings, while the Queen holds picnics. Today she and the Duchess have joined their two households together, and there are several dozen women gathered under the shade of the oak trees, ladies and servants seated side by side. Leaves sieve the strong afternoon sunlight, letting through just enough to lend the servants’ plain gowns a few hours of sparkle, while protecting the ladies’ complexions.
Food and drink are shared along with the sunlight, and everyone has brought a dish: there are chines of beef, venison pasties, several dozen ruffs and reeves, baskets of fruit, all kinds of sweetmeat and several cases of wine. Mary is sitting a little way away, with her friend Frances Apsley, picking delicately at the contents of a fruit basket, so Anne has been able to work her way through the heavier dishes unseen and unrebuked.
The Duke’s newest daughter, baby Catherine, has joined them for the meal, and is sitting on her nurse’s lap, mumbling a crust of bread. She has a sticky cascade of saliva running down its bed of crumbs from her lower lip onto the lace of her mantle. A few more crumbs come out every time she smiles, but all the same her smile is beautiful, and Anne has a most excellent way to bring it out. If she sounds one pair of strings on her guitar, the corners of Catherine’s mouth will begin to turn up; if she thrums all the strings at once, then the baby smile will break out in its full glory. Pushing the experiment a little further, she plays the first few notes of the chaconne that Signor Corbetta has been teaching her this last week, and now the baby is more delighted than ever, crowing and waving her newly unswaddled arms about until the crust flies out of her hand.
Sarah Jennings rushes to pick it up, but Mary Cornwallis gets there first. She is the York sisters’ oldest friend, and has been stationed at Anne’s side all afternoon, ready to assist. She is unable to get as sure a grip on the crust, however: the baby has mushed it to paste and there is nothing to do but wipe the mess off her hand on the grass.
‘Not such a prize after all,’ says Mrs Jennings. ‘Too bad.’ Catherine’s nurse reaches into her pocket and produces another crust, which the baby snatches.
Anne can hear her sister Mary, still engaged in her tête-à-tête with Mrs Frances Apsley. She is admiring the cornelian ring Mrs Apsley is wearing, saying how well it becomes her, how it draws the eye to her elegant hands. Having Mrs Apsley to love makes Mary happy; if you are to make a proper figure at Court, having someone to love is essential, and there are right and wrong ways to go about it, as there are right and wrong ways to dress, to walk, to dance, and to play. Anne strikes a thoughtful chord, catching first Mrs Jennings’s eye, then Mrs Cornwallis’s.
‘Your Highness.’ It is Mrs Jennings. ‘Will you play the whole tune, or are you meaning just to thrum at us?’
‘Oh yes indeed, do play us the tune!’ cries Mrs Cornwallis. ‘It’s a new one, isn’t it? You play so well, it is always such a pleasure to listen!’
So Anne plays the rest of the piece, for the company, and the baby, and for Mary Cornwallis.
From Lady Anne of York to Mrs Mary Cornwallis
Wednesday five a clock
I have said that I have gone into my closet to pray but I must write to you my dearest friend, if Mary can write to Mrs Apsley then I do not see why I should not write to you. Fate has cruelly parted us since this morning but in a letter I might yet tell you my heart. I will send this by the hand of Mr Gibson the drawing-master, you must know him, he is a dwarf.
Your affectionate friend,
Anne
The Duke’s Dogs
It is an early afternoon in August, nearing the end of another Windsor summer, and Anne is on horseback. She has her usual mount from her father’s stables, a roan jennet named Mercy, quiet, comfortable and surefooted, with the character of a perfect lady, in horse form or in human. They have been hunting together since early morning, and in all this time Anne has only persuaded her to canter twice, and to gallop not at all. The truth is that the Duke does not wish her to gallop: that is why he has had her mounted on Mercy, and accompanied at all times by a trusted equerry, a portly older gentleman the Villiers girls call Wheezing Warner. They might laugh as much as they like today: Anne won’t hear them, because despite the twin impediments of Mercy and Warner, she has long since left them behind. And Mary too. One of the chief pleasures of riding, for Anne at ten, is in leaving Mary behind.
Another is the knowledge that, even though he has ordered the impediments, her father is proud of her when she joins him in the field, is delighted that one of his children, at least, loves sport as much as he does. He has no living sons, but in her riding habit, with its buttoned-up doublet, long-skirted coat, boots, hats and periwig, Anne could be both son and daughter. Only her petticoat gives her sex away. She doesn’t resent it on that account, although she might wish that it weren’t so heavy, or so hot.
The sun is at its highest now, and the day is growing overripe. There is a glare about that draws the water from her eyes, and powerful smells are rising off the coats of horses and gentlemen, and – though one should never say so – off the coats of ladies too. Mr Warner is wheezing especially hard, and there is a dampness on Mercy’s neck. Anne feels as if her own blood-heat is trying to rise out through her skin to join the heat outside. But they have come to a stop finally, the stag they have pursued for five hours is harboured in a thicket, and they are all gathered outside, waiting for the huntsman to drive him out.
Waiters have jumped down from their wagons and are moving among the riders with refreshments. Mr Warner hands Anne a mug of small beer; she drains it with what Mary, or Lady Frances, would say was unseemly haste.
‘The stag is tired, Your Highness,’ the equerry says, as he takes the mug back. ‘I think we are nearly at the end.’
Anne nods slowly. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Besides, he’s old. He’ll not stand long before the hounds.’
She expects Warner to say at this point that her knowledge puts him to shame, and he does. Then she nudges Mercy forward a little, so as to be nearer to her father, and have a better sight of his dogs.
They have had a hard day of it. The
stag’s great age has been evident not only in his girth and magnificent crown, but also in his cunning: he has in the course of this one morning’s hunting run straight into the middle of three different herds, and on two of those occasions confounded the hounds completely, so that it has taken some time for them to pick up his scent again; too many times to count he has doubled back over his tracks and then back again; once he had even headed straight for the river and it had seemed for a moment that he was about to take soil, but at the last moment, in a move the hunt had come to recognise as his signature, he had doubled back again.
Now they have tracked their quarry to the entry in this thicket, and the scent is strong. They have run up to the entry, and pulled back again, bawling: they believe that the stag is there. The sound of a pack in full cry, each animal barking as if tuned to a different note, all the notes moving with and across and after each other in agitated counterpoint, is Anne’s favourite sound, and it charms her further and further forward, until she is close enough to discern each broken bough at the entry, close enough to see the huntsman stop to check the footprints, to make sure that the hounds are baying for the right beast, close enough—
‘Anne – get back this instant! Warner! What are you about, man?’
It is the Duke’s voice, half-fear, half-rage, and louder even than the hounds. She pulls back at once, and goes to beg her father’s pardon, but he has not quite finished being angry yet.
‘What did you think you were doing, girl? Have I not taught you better? Do you have a sword now, do you? Do you?’
Anne opens her mouth and shuts it again.
‘Well, do you have a sword? A stick? Anything? Are you armed?’
A Want of Kindness Page 3
