A Want of Kindness

by Joanne Limburg

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘No, of course not, so when the stag is unharboured, when he rushes out of that entry, when he comes at you with his great horns, what will you do, Anne? What. Will. You. Do?’

  His face is very red: it might be the heat, or the beer he has been drinking all morning – he is blowing the smell of it into her face as he shouts – or then again perhaps she and her foolishness are the cause of all of it. She finds she cannot say or do anything in response, except turn redder herself.

  They hold each other’s gaze for a moment, the red-faced Duke and his ruddy daughter, mouths firmly shut, one enraged, one sullen. Then Henry Jermyn, the Duke’s Master of the Horse, appears at his side, ready to soothe and to charm. Anne has never understood what is supposed to be so charming about him, but he does amuse her, if only by having ridiculous short legs and an enormous head. Next to her stately father, he always looks especially absurd.

  ‘No harm done, Sir,’ he says to the Duke. ‘She is in one piece still, and – if you will permit me to say so – Her Highness’s spirit and grace in the field, the figure she makes on horseback must be such a source of pride, and were she my daughter—’

  ‘That’s enough, Jermyn. You’ve stuck the point. Anne, I will not send you back for now but you must stay where you are. Warner, mind she goes no further.’

  The Duke and Jermyn turn their horses round, and at the very next moment there is a shout from the huntsman: the stag is unharboured.

  Anne turns in time to see him take a few, stiff steps forward, then stop and stand, facing the hounds, who know the danger in their well-trained sinews, and hold back. While the hounds and stag face each other, the huntsman runs to the Duke and Jermyn; they put their heads together for what can be no more than a minute but seems much longer, and while they do so nobody else speaks, no animal moves. The huntsman nods, and signals to his men, who in turn call the hounds back softly, and couple them. And as they do so, the Duke is carefully, quietly drawing his sword.

  The exhausted stag, whose fear has driven all his cunning out, turns his head at once to flee, but the Duke has galloped up already, and his sword drives home.

  Now the Duke dismounts, and the huntsman hands him a shorter blade, a hunting knife. He cuts the stag’s throat, then he bloods the youngest hounds. Then the Mort sounds, and it is safe for Anne to urge Mercy forward again, and watch as the stag is butchered. Her father looks up and sees her; he laughs and tells her to close her mouth; he tells Warner to help his daughter dismount, and when she has done so, he walks up to her, laughs once more, then, with deftness and some affection, he dabs her nose with blood.

  From Lady Anne of York to Mrs Mary Cornwallis

  Thursday ten a clock

  I trust you are not still vexed that Mrs Jennings walked always at my right hand when we three strolled in the gardens yesterday, it was indeed a little unkind of her but not yet uncivil because it is true what she said as a Maid of Honour she does have precedence. Please believe I shall always be your friend on all accounts, and took up my pen today only to tell you so, and whatever becomes of me, I must not live when I cease to love you and there is no-one I love more than you not even Mrs Jennings.

  Your most affectionate friend,

  Anne

  Mary’s Closet

  Anne cannot remember having said the prayer for a sick child before. Mary tells her that she has, already, said it over twice, once for Edgar, and then again for the other Catherine; now they are both kneeling in Mary’s chamber at St James’s with Dr Doughty, saying the prayer for the present Duchess’s Catherine, who is in the nursery, fretful and feverish, and suffering convulsions. One way or another, God will soon deliver her from pain.

  The words of the prayer are familiar enough – God, mercy, life, death, sickness, salvation, Jesus, soul – but, whatever Mary says, Anne is unfamiliar with the order in which they appear in this instance, and as she very much does not want to make a mistake, she holds her prayer book close to her face, and attends to the printed letters with all her attention. She has no energy left for the production of tears, but Mary has said the same prayer six times at least, and she has tears enough for the both of them. As soon as they have said ‘Amen’, she cries out ‘Oh the poor dear distressed bab!’ and doubles her efforts. Anne is no longer distracted by the effort of reading, and joins her lustily. Dr Doughty leaves them to embrace each other, and to soak each other’s pinners.

  When they have cried as much as they are able, Mrs Langford offers Mary a handkerchief, and Danvers performs the same office for Anne.

  Then Mary takes a candlestick up in one hand and Anne by the other.

  ‘Come into my closet, with me, Sister,’ she says to Anne, and over her shoulder, to the nurses, she adds: ‘You may scratch at the door with news.’

  This is a surprising invitation. Mary, for all her sociability, guards her closet and her privacy jealously, and has all the more so since her monthly courses began. Anne, whose own closet is so much smaller, is agog to take a look. It is nothing disappointing, full of wonderful gifts from their father, and still more extravagant ones from their uncle. Her cabinet, her table, and the writing-desk that sits on it are all decorated in a beautiful floral pattern, made out of many-coloured woods which Anne supposes to be both rare and precious. Mary has not only the usual cane chair to sit in when she writes or reads at her table, but also a pair of armchairs, upholstered deliciously in velvet, and edged with gilt. The cane chair, the walls, and the work box next to the desk are all covered with needlework – flowers and animals, scenes from the Bible which Anne can recognise, a few other scenes from other kinds of story which mean less. There is more evidence of Mary’s wide reading on the hanging shelf above her desk, where her bible and copies of devotional works are placed at one end, and plays, poetry and romances at the other, with a decent space in between. When Mary replaces her prayer book on the shelf, she snatches another book which has been lying open on the table, with a quick glance at Anne, and puts it back on the shelf too, but at the other end. Anne, who does not like it when Mary treats her like a child, is more than a little vexed by this.

  ‘You needn’t hide anything. I heard Barbara Villiers say she had lent you Five love-letters from a nun, so you see I already know about it.’

  Mary blushes. ‘Well, even so, it’s not the kind of frivolous stuff that should be open today.’

  ‘So were you reading it after you knew Catherine was ill?’

  Mary’s blush deepens gratifyingly. ‘Of course not! But I had it open on the desk before I heard the news, and only happened to leave it there.’

  Then she recollects herself, and takes charge again.

  ‘Sit down while I close the door.’

  Anne chooses an armchair, hoping as she sinks into it that Mary will not judge it too comfortable for the occasion, and bid her stand up again. Happily, she only sits down in the other armchair. She winds her hands into a tight knot in her lap, and sighs.

  ‘Anne, I don’t know what to make of this,’ she says at last. ‘We’re told God-knows-what of Bab, good one day and ill the next, so I kill myself with sighs for her, then I kill myself again with joy, the good and ill is so confounded together in me, it makes me quite mad . . .’

  ‘Me too, me too.’

  ‘. . . but today . . . today . . .’ She unknots her hands and places the right one flat on her midriff. ‘. . . while we were praying just now, I felt the most melancholy qualm come over my stomach.’

  Then Mary knots her hands up again, making a period of them. Anne, whose temper is more sanguine, asks if she might not think of taking a cordial.

  ‘Or the surgeon could come in to bleed you, perhaps.’

  Mary makes an impatient noise.

  ‘That can hardly help our sister.’

  ‘We’ve prayed. That will.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Mary, but she is shaking her h
ead as she says it. ‘But we – the reason why I asked you to come in here . . .’

  She leans forward and offers her hands to Anne, who takes them, and as she does so her gaze, which has been wandering and distracted up till now, fixes itself on Anne’s face. Her dark eyes take the light from the candles, and hold it.

  ‘Anne, we have prayed just now for Bab, but we must pray again, together, we must offer up our broken hearts to God, for her sake.’

  There is something disturbing in the flame-bright eyes, and Mary is holding Anne’s hands so tightly now that they are beginning to hurt.

  The pain makes her feel as if someone, somewhere, might somehow be angry.

  ‘Do you think then that her sickness is a punishment? But she is so innocent!’

  ‘No, not a punishment, or at least, not to her.’

  ‘O Mary, not to us!’

  Mary lets Anne’s hands go, so that she can knot and unknot them again, and her gaze slides guiltily away.

  ‘Anne, I have sometimes thought that lately – I especially, I have been so much at Court, so taken up with frivolous—’

  ‘O I wish you would not—’

  ‘Don’t shout at me!’

  ‘So I’ll whisper it then: I wish you would not talk such stuff. A punishment to you that Bab is sick? If a sick baby is a correction to anyone, then it must be to the parents.’

  Mary looks horrified. In her eagerness to show that she can know better than Mary, Anne has said what she should not. She is ashamed of herself, and starts to cry. Mary takes one of her hands again, but gently this time.

  ‘I believe we might fairly say that . . .’ She stops. Neither sister can meet the other’s eyes. ‘I believe that – since it was you and I that spoke for Catherine at her christening – her proper christening, where her parents were not – I believe we might speak again for her now.’

  Anne still has the handkerchief Danvers gave her, stuffed into her sleeve. She pulls it out and wipes her face with it.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I knew you would. So, kneel with me, then.’

  They go down onto their knees, face to face, hands together in front of them, in the proper attitude for prayer. Anne waits for Mary to speak, but she is frowning again, looking about her: something is giving her new qualms, is not to her perfect liking.

  ‘Do you think perhaps – the case is so extreme – ought we perhaps to prostrate ourselves before the Lord?’

  Anne takes a sceptical look about her.

  ‘In here? How could we? There is scarce room enough for two to kneel.’

  It is true: their prayer hands are only a few inches apart, but Mary is pulling her dark brows together, and thinning her lips, trying to think of an argument. She looks as if she might have thought of one, but Anne never finds out what it is, because at the very moment Mary opens her mouth, they hear the sorrowful scratch.

  Tom Thumb, his Life and Death

  After Catherine has joined the others in the vault, Mary does indeed prostrate herself. Her melancholy qualms overpower her completely, and she takes to her bed, where she refuses to eat, hardly sleeps at all, and is more often than not in floods of tears. The doctor proclaims it a mother-fit, brought on by grievous passions; she is given violet water, then a purge, and finally bled.

  Grief has always made Anne’s appetite bigger rather than smaller, so while Mary cries she eats, and she eats to the rhythm of rhyme in her head, that has stolen into the silent days where Mary’s voice is not:

  His body being so slender small,

  The cunning doctor tooke

  A fine perspective glasse with which

  He did in secret look

  Into his sickened body downe

  And therein saw the Death

  Stood ready in his wasted guts

  To sease his vitall breath.

  Tom Thumb and the cunning doctor are there to greet Anne when she wakes up, and they follow her everywhere till it is time to say her last prayers, and sleep again. After a few days, when it is clear that Mary will not be up and about for at least a week yet, and that Anne, though eating heartily, is not quite herself, Mrs Cornwallis is sent for to bear her company. She brings a new book with her, a volume of love poems, written on purpose to be sighed over, and as she reads them aloud in her sweet voice, all unnoticed, Tom and the doctor take their leave.

  The Dean of the Chapels Royal

  Some things are not difficult for Anne to grasp: that there is but one living and true God, for example, is as simple a lesson as one could ever wish to learn. Other, more intricate truths, such as the matter of God’s being at once of one substance and three Persons, she is content to take on trust, knowing that she will never comprehend them, and that she need never try. Anne does not deal in abstractions, which is why, even though she has to believe in a God without body, parts or passions, she can’t help but give him a face. How can God be expected to make his face to shine upon her if he doesn’t possess one?

  The face of God has many aspects. It shines upon her when she is good. When she feels guilty it darkens; at the worst of times, it is thunderous. When she prays to it, more often than not, it has a deliberate blankness about it, like the face she has sometimes seen on her uncle when someone has approached him with a petition. God has many other expressions which are recognisably the King’s: amusement, enjoyment, indulgence, boredom. Like the King, he is very forgiving, but only up to a point, and there is no predicting, on any given day, where that point might be. God is to be feared as much as loved, lest he grow angry, and his face turn stern or red, like the Duke’s.

  Lately God’s face has also acquired a look of Henry Compton, Bishop of London and, more recently, Dean of the Chapels Royal and the princesses’ Preceptor. In the months Anne has spent under Compton’s tutelage, God’s face has grown square and soldierly, with a nose like a rock on which the true Church might be built, and eyebrows of righteous black ink. He holds a copy of Mr Foxe’s book in one hand, and a copy of the Articles of Religion in the other. Those same Articles in which it is said that God has no parts.

  Mary and Anne have been studying the Articles in preparation for their joint Confirmation, which they are receiving today at the Bishop’s request, and with the King’s express authority. They stand side by side in the Chapel at St James, before the Bishop so fearfully splendid in his robes, and agree in their charming voices to renew the vows made for them at their baptisms. Then they kneel, so that the Bishop can lay his hand on their heads, one at a time, and ask their Protestant and English God to defend them with his heavenly grace.

  Afterwards, they are each given a copy of The Whole Duty of Man, and are much congratulated, though not by their father. They spend the day of their grandfather’s martyrdom mourning together with him as they have always done, and at first, so Mary says, it looks as if things may carry on with them much as before. But then, in March, in full sight of the King, the Court, and of all England, the Duke turns back at the Chapel door.

  Letters From Lady Anne of York to Mary Cornwallis, August 1676 – October 1677

  Wednesday three a clock, St James’s

  I visited the baby Isabella today I am so thankful that she is so strong and like to live. It is true I have been much with Mrs Apsley of late, she has been so kind as to give me the cornelian ring just because I so admired it, Mary is vexed. But do not you be vexed with me, Mrs Apsley is nothing to you, there were never friends like us, I am yours, and will be yours always, say you will come today with us to take the river air, it is the only pleasant place in this heat, I can show you how well the ring looks and we can play cards and besides I must see you else I die.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Lady Anne

  Saturday nine a clock, St James’s

  I was long in hopes of a visit from you but you have not come so I see I must write to beg for your company. M
r Gibson will bring you this not Mrs Jennings she is quarrelling with her mother who says two of the Maids have had great bellies at Court and she will not leave her child there to have the third but Mrs Jennings loves Mr Churchill and will not leave though his family will marry him she says to a shocking creature. I should never be false to you like he is to poor Mrs Jennings. I am yours and will be yours in despite of fate and fortune.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Lady Anne

  Wednesday ten a clock, St James’s

  Do not chide me I beg you that I did not write last night the Duchess had a great ball my sister and I did not rise till eleven o’clock this morning Tuesday I was busy trying on gowns and manteaux and I played the Duchess at cards and won Monday I took physic so could not leave my room to see anyone not even you. Mrs Jennings has had her mother banished from Court she said she is a madwoman but still she was crying at the ball. Please come visit me this afternoon that I may be ravished once more by your beauty.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Lady Anne

  Friday eleven a clock, St James’s

  I said I would write as you see I am as good as my word but I cannot see you till the day after tomorrow as today I have music before dinner then my sister and I must be fitted for all our mourning for tomorrow I must own to my shame I hate to fast but it is for my grandfather who is a martyr so I shall try if I can with a willing heart I shall bear it better in hopes of seeing you so perfect in person and in soul.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Lady Anne

  Thursday ten a clock, Windsor

  I have received your letter and kissed it already a hundred times. I am glad so glad the physic has wrought well and to read you are in better spirits. I wish you had been here last night we have been so very gay Mrs Jennings is to marry her Mr Churchill Mary has danced again with my Lord Shrewsbury and reads romances in her closet. Tomorrow I am to go hunting again with father the huntsmen have seen a great stag in the forest it shall be a fine day I hope and all the better because you are not sick anymore if you only knew how I prayed for this you should never doubt me more.