by Nell Gavin
I feel suddenly sad for her, that her efforts were not appreciated and rewarded while she lived.
The lecture pauses, and the Voice aims a personal comment toward me.
“Adulation is transitory. Is it not?”
I agree, feeling a wave of pain. Adulation most certainly is transitory.
“Then it hardly matters whether or not Rose received adulation or acknowledgment during her lifetime. It is not those on earth whom we need to impress. They are often misguided in their assessment of worth. Yet there are souls, like Rose, who show them what is worthwhile and through this, some people see and grow.”
I interject: “But if it is not seen, what worth has it? The point of it is lost. Did she waste her effort on us?”
“Do you feel it was wasted? Your mother did not.”
I do not know the “mother” the Voice seems to be referring to. The mother I remember could not be touched by the likes of Rose, or by any other thing. Her heart was ice. Upon hearing of Rose’s death, she did not weep for long. Yet she did weep . . .
The Voice continues.
“It is like written music. Its beauty exists whether or not we choose to play it, or choose to listen. If we choose not to see, the choice and the loss are both our own. What we should see is that there is none among us with nothing to give, and that giving is our purpose. At the same time we should respect and show gratitude toward those who are giving themselves so that we might understand this.”
I grow small with understanding. I realize with surprise and then shame that I am one of those who did not recognize herself as struggling farther back.
A far yawning distance stretches before me on the road. I brace myself, not knowing yet if the balance of my life will allow me to move forward, or if I slipped even farther behind.
I cannot demand a better position or order someone to move me closer to the front. I have no power over this except to slowly edge my way forward with painful effort, like everyone else. It is vexing, for I expect crowds to make way for me. I am not accustomed to viewing servants as my betters.
Then I feel shame at my expectation of special treatment. One of my daydreams in life, toward the end of it, had been that I should be like one of the faces in the crowds who knelt and bowed—and sometimes stared and pointed as I passed — any one of them; it mattered not. Remembering, I feel a sense of anticipation for I am now their equal. Relinquishing my expectations is a small price to pay, to finally be one of them. I am pleased.
I am well-pleased, and eager to get to work. I even feel a sense of pride in my position on the road, for there is a swell of souls that surrounds me here, and only a narrow trickle of souls toward the front. I want to be among the masses, unwashed, if need be. I want to be a face in the crowd, unrecognized. I want no special treatment and no special acknowledgment—I have had enough of that, and it grew sour within me.
I am anxious to proceed.
Chapter 2
•~۞~•
I now reacquaint myself with The Law, which is only in essence the same as I was taught. It is more stern and forgiving, more fair and unyielding than I had thought in life. I cannot buy it off with rituals and tithings and outward displays of piety. I cannot fool it with secrecy, self-delusion, or excuses. It does not require approval by my peers and church leaders. It has no respect for position, wealth and power; it rather views these as detriments than advantages. It is as Jesus said, but not as my teachers interpreted His words.
The Commandment of The Law says: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
It means this. It means me.
I am here to learn where I failed and where I succeeded. Then I will return to try again, to see if I can overcome my faults and repay my mistakes. It will take many attempts because the human soul must be forced into improving. It is stubborn and self-absorbed, and resistant to disruption of its habits and beliefs both in life, and here, beyond it. It does not go to Heavenly Glory without a fight, and it travels a long hard road to get there. I have yet a long hard road to travel. I will not return to Peace yet, or even soon. I have much to face, and many strengths to develop first.
My purpose, at this stage, is to remember. From this strange and uncomfortable vantage point, I view myself more closely than I care to, my eyes pried open as it were, my face held firm so I am forced to watch. With each memory, the Voice reminds me of The Law and how I measured up to it in that instance. I know I am forgiven. I also know I am not complete. I am forgiven for having had to borrow—we all borrow through our sins; it is expected and is a step in the process of growth. However there is no escaping payment. I pay for what I take, and am paid for what I give. It is as simple as that. I see where I paid in this last life, what I earned and where I took.
The borrowing brings me incredible sorrow, more than I ever would have thought.
I will be held harshly accountable for seemingly minor things, forgiven for things I had thought unforgivable, rewarded in instances I had thought I would be punished, and shown the error of ways I thought were right and good. I will pay, but not for things I had expected. I also will receive ample reward for small thoughtless, seemingly unimportant acts of kindness and love, and I see there had been many. Each moment counts in the final tally, which will shape my future as it did my past. I am to work toward compiling the tally myself, from the beginning of that life to that last moment when I knelt blindfolded before my executioner and an eager crowd.
One works here at self-assessment until successfully completing the job, then takes the tally and uses it like currency toward the next existence on earth. The tally determines destiny, good or bad, upon one’s return there. This destiny, so called, seems frivolously unfair and incomprehensible only in the realm of forgetfulness that we call “life” where the steps leading to seeming injustice are hidden. Here, it is the Word and it is the Wisdom, and I am in the midst of this, understanding and ashamed, attempting to heal from a past and prepare for a future I have created for myself.
The Law is a stern one, but fair to the smallest molecule. I see that it is fair. I see also that I have woven my own tapestry thread by thread from the beginning of time, and have no one to blame but myself for the pattern and the outcome. I would prefer to have woven somewhat differently, in many ways. Regret is easy. It is so much harder to be good when one is flesh, existing in a state of forgetfulness, influenced and seduced by so many things. The most seductive sin, I suppose, is passing judgment on others, and the next must be the acting out of one’s anger when one has the power to hurt the ones who wound us. I was guilty of both things.
One is so much better off without power. It is something I will henceforth avoid by choice. It is harder not to pass judgment, or to restrain the temptation toward vindictiveness. One can always find the means to feel superior to someone else no matter what one’s circumstances, and can easily feel justified in punishing enemies. So, I am caught again, as I have been caught many times in the past, and I will pay.
For now, I spend this period between lives in reflection and analysis and the setting of goals so that I can begin saving toward the day when the debts come due. In terms of time, I do not know how long the process of analysis takes. There is no time, here in the Memories, or rather, time does not move at the same pace or in the same measurable direction as it does on the physical plane. I believe many years have passed when I first see my life fly past me and find it was a matter of moments. I think mere hours have passed since I arrived only to find it was years. It would be startling were I not absorbed in my task and guided by a presence that reassures me.
I turn back to my life and I watch.
PART 2
Two Pegs Above Mutton
1501—1532
Chapter 1
•~۞~•
Like a shadow from the first, there was Henry, spoken of frequently in our household, reverently, as much a fixture in my life in the beginning as in the end. I heard references to him and his father the King and
his brother, the heir to the throne, from my earliest days. Names that meant nothing to me were to weave themselves inextricably into my life, first as a backdrop and then as my life’s primary focus.
I see my home, the very home in which I first heard Henry’s name. How odd it is, the manner in which perceptions change from a distance. There were times when I found this place to be insufferably dull, isolated and provincial. I chafed with boredom and impatience, anxious to be rid of it and on my way to more exciting places and events, rarely missing it, or not missing it at all when I was away. Even thinking of it as “home” seems odd, as I lived in a number of places during my life and spent considerably more time away than I ever spent here. Yet home is what this is, and I now equate the structure and the grounds with the very word “beauty”.
This home—my home—was a tiny castle in Kent called Hever, built within two concentric moats, surrounded by rolling grassy fields and thick groves of trees. Ducks glided down the outer moat, which appeared upon first glance to be a stream, and sheep grazed on shallow slopes nearby. I endured pain and loss, perhaps equal to that which I felt in other places, yet can only envision the sky above Hever as blue, the clouds as white and wispy, the air as sweet, and the flowers blooming in the meadow as if it were springtime.
My father had inherited the little castle which, while outwardly very pretty, was several hundred years old and could not possibly serve us comfortably as a home without significant improvements. So, within the castle walls and attached to the tiny castle, he had built for us a large house with three adjoining wings of three floors each. Within it, the hallways joined one another at right angles forming a square that surrounded a little inner courtyard with the castle at the forefront. On the face of it, you approached a cold, walled-in fortress when you rode up the drive, but as soon as you passed through the gates and entered the courtyard, you were surrounded by charming, vine-covered walls that displayed glinting, diamond-paned windows and architecture in the modern Tudor style. On first sight, you knew you were entering a world that was safe and warm and cheerful. It was within this world that I grew.
The courtyard led to the kitchen, so its walls were lined with barrels of kitchen goods. Within these walls were hunting dogs, servant boys struggling with water buckets or bushels of meal, scullery maids exchanging glances with horse hands, several scratching, soon-to-be-killed-and-roasted chickens, and the head housekeeper scolding all of them for being underfoot, or slow, or inattentive.
The courtyard was a very jolly place. There were whiffs of wood smoke, cooking smells of fish or game, and the heady, delicious aroma of freshly harvested herbs. There were laughs and shouts, grunts from men carrying heavy loads of goods, and the sound of voices singing. I sometimes watched these scenes from the diamond-paned windows in the hallway above, and sometimes wandered down, as a child, to immerse myself in the bustle and the company. I was not supposed to be there, mingling with the underlings, in everybody’s way, but if I kept myself very quiet and stayed small in a corner or behind a barrel, I was often unnoticed and forgotten, and thus was allowed to remain. This rarely lasted long. In a short time I would speak up in order to comment on or question something I saw, or would join someone in song and betray myself, then be scolded out of my hiding place, guilty and uncovered, usually pulled back inside by my nurse.
The family did not enter by way of the kitchen as the help did, but instead we made our way up a winding stone staircase just inside the castle gate. Inside the house were wood-paneled walls, elegant tapestries, and sumptuous furnishings lovingly polished by servants. Most of the rooms were forbidden to my siblings and me when we were small, and our early lives were spent in the narrow confines of playrooms and nurseries on the second floor.
My own room, located in a far corner, was only large enough to contain my bed. Mary’s room, of course, was larger, she being the eldest, and George’s room the largest of all (even though he was the youngest) since he was the male heir. As a female, and a middle child of very limited worth, I was provided with only the tiniest of drafty, leftover spaces, and a window too high to look out until I was grown. However, my room had the advantage of providing me with a spiral stone staircase in one corner that allowed me convenient access and ready escape to the floor below if I heard someone unwelcome approaching from the hall. For this last reason, I considered myself a very fortunate little girl indeed, and my position an enviable one.
In later years, I would be required to move myself to another room, as it would be too difficult for the household to keep me locked inside a room with a second entrance. This action became necessary in order to prevent me from trying to run away to Hal, whom Henry would one day decide I should not wed. The move was, from my parents’ perspective, a success. From mine, the larger prison with the pleasant view and just one entrance was very cold comfort indeed.
But I leap forward too quickly. Patience has never been one of my strengths.
Within this house, I see my family, first my mother, stern, distant, coldly well bred and proper. Then I see my sharp-tongued, quick-witted and shrewd brother George, and my sister Mary, pretty and sensuous, personable yet self-serving, always matter-of-fact—except when her heart was involved.
I see Father, only rarely there, the changeable one, jovial and harsh by turns. He was a man who dominated any room and all its occupants with his commanding voice and his presence, and who answered only to his wife, and to the King. Father was driven by, and hence drove his family with his forceful ambitions, his greed and his vanity, pushing us ever onward to seek out and to achieve position even higher than he himself had been able to grasp. And so, I obediently did. I focused on ambition and personal gain, just as I was expected to, to please him.
I see, of course, myself interspersed with the rest, viewed now as I have never seen myself before. I am worse, and better than I had known myself to be.
My upbringing fostered petulance and superiority. My tendency toward self-absorption, natural to all infants, was nurtured and encouraged, and my “needs”, so called, were heeded by servants who sprang to action at the sound of my tiny voice. I learned I had a right to this, and believed that I did. I knew myself to be superior, and knew that I should never want—even for one moment’s time—for anything I could obtain through someone else’s efforts, and by my own command.
My superiority stopped with the Tudor family, of course, and with various levels of nobility that were higher than my family’s. There were those with whom I was forced to be humble. Innate superiority was also of no use in impressing my parents. Compared to them, I was inferior, and (they sometimes reminded me) barely worthy, for I had been born with a deformity that shamed them, and caused me endless embarrassment.
I had what was called a “sixth finger” on my hand. It was merely a growth more than a true finger, but was difficult for me to accept with equanimity, as one should accept such things. This was particularly true since I had dark hair and skin, unlike my prettier sister. I was physically not what my parents would have wished, and temperamentally not inclined to the quiet meekness they demanded of their female offspring. I continually fought against being a disappointment to them.
I developed a habit of carefully crossing two of my fingers to disguise the deformity. I camouflaged the hand with over-long sleeves and graceful gestures, but was still to be reminded of it. It was one of the first things mentioned when I was described to anyone and, I find, always shall be. “The mark of the devil,” some said, although my parents scoffed and laughed at such unenlightened attitudes and told me not to heed them. I sometimes thought of it, though. It is hard to be a child and hear one is marked by the devil when one wants only to be good, but finds it difficult to be good sometimes. My willful moments made me fearful of Hell, once they had passed and I was set upon to examine them.
I never quite lost the anxiety that all I did and all that happened to me was a manifestation of being marked. It was from my disfigurement that my ambition to be a nun first t
ook root to prove, perhaps, that if I strove, I could transcend the devil and be as worthy of God as others. Later, I felt driven to read my Bible and pray for hours each day, never feeling quite certain I had prayed enough, always feeling that I had a bigger obstacle than others to overcome.
My sister Mary was the obedient one, at least in the presence of parents or nurses. She knew how to smile meekly, and to agree, and to make pretty promises. She knew how to lie sweetly, and to weep piteously. Whippings were rare for her, and rewards were common, but I was not jealous of this. I wished only to be as loved and as lovable as she. She was one more reminder that I was wanting, and I could not blame her for that. The fault lay with me for I was flawed at birth, and felt this must be a reflection of my soul.
Unlike Mary, I was too honest, and too forthright to deceive those who had authority over me. It was against my nature to withhold secrets, and it was within my nature to vocalize my observations, so I took most of the whippings while Mary watched, exasperated by my “Stupidity. ‘Tis pure stupidity to tell them that, Nan. Just smile and nod, then hold thy tongue and they will never know nor care, so long as thou dost appear to be compliant and obedient.” I could not do that, even smarting from the latest punishment. I would obey as much as a child is able, but I could not stop myself from babbling about some thing or another that I should have known would make tempers flare. I could not restrain myself from bursting with descriptions of the garden in the rain, when I clearly should not have ventured out and could only have done so by stealth, or from commenting on the sweets I had stolen from the kitchen, forgetting how I had come by them.
My indiscretions also cost servants and my siblings some peace of mind, for I prattled on about everything I saw. Their displeasure and anger and, on occasion, their punishments, cost me moments of the sincerest, most devastating shame, yet still my tongue wagged, for I had not the power to stop it in spite of the cost to myself or to them.
