A Court Affair (35 page)

“They know they are in the presence of greatness,” he said to me once, with a self-satisfied smile.

I stared straight ahead and had to keep swallowing hard to keep my tears from getting the better of me. I couldn’t even look at Robert without the tears welling up afresh, and hurt and blame blazing from my eyes like fingers of frost and flame. For this reason, I had Pirto fasten a veil to my hat and kept it down over my face all the way to Throcking. I told Robert it was to protect my complexion from the frosty air that burned even as it chilled, and I did not want to arrive at the Hydes’ with my nose bright red and my eyes streaming, and he seemed content to believe the lie and said that he was happy to see that, for once, I was displaying some common sense.

The house was indeed a fine one, bold redbrick plopped down in the middle of a daisy-dotted meadow, though there were carefully cultivated pleasure gardens replete with a fishpond in back. And, just a ways down the road a bit, was the little church of the Holy Trinity.

Fortunately, I did not have to face the Hydes straightaway. Mrs Hyde was with child and “feeling a trifle sick and having a lie-down”, the steward said, and Mr Hyde had had some business come up that prevented him from being there to greet us personally. We were shown to the left wing of the house, where I was to lodge, by the pleasant, smiling-faced steward who was so chatty and effusive, I could not help but like him. I thought it might be fun to talk to him later and learn the local gossip; if I had to stay here, I thought I really should make an effort. But Robert dismissed him quickly, saying he deplored such forwardness and familiarity in servants and that country people were notoriously lax about such matters.

Much to my dismay, I found my bedchamber hung all around with the Griselda tapestries. I had hoped Robert had forgotten them or would take them with him to London. There was a pretty little silver gilt writing desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl and turquoise positioned before the window to catch the best light, with a silver inkwell, a quantity of quills, and a child’s copybook at the ready atop it, arranged just as if they were waiting for me, along with Robert’s copy of
The Canterbury Tales,
the start of Griselda’s story still marked with the red satin ribbon.

“To practise your penmanship,” Robert explained.

Even before I had a chance to take off my gloves and hat, he was there at the desk showing these things to me, lecturing me like a schoolmaster.

“You read tolerably well, though with much hesitancy and uncertainty and without any grace; you falter often and trip over the words. But your penmanship is
atrocious
; you sign your name like an old woman with palsied hands and failing sight. Every day I want you to sit at this desk for two solid hours—I have given orders that no one is to interrupt you unless the house is on fire—and copy “The Clerk’s Tale” into this copybook as many times as you can until it is filled from cover to cover. When you have filled the entire book, you may send it to me. But do not wait to hear from me; go on with your work and begin at once upon another.” He opened a drawer to show me that it was filled with at least a dozen more copybooks. “When you are down to the last one, tell Mr Hyde, and he will provide you with more. And every morning when you awake, I want you to lie in bed and contemplate these tapestries, and think about the story you have been copying, and do the same whenever you feel compelled to pester me with letters asking when I am coming to visit you. I will come when I can, not a moment sooner. I hope you understand that asking will only annoy me and will not bring me to you a moment sooner.”

I was
so
angry, I wanted to fly at him, kick his shins, pummel him with my fists, and rake my nails down that handsome face, I wanted to fling the inkwell at his head and tear the copybooks and even that beautifully bound book apart. But the hurt went deeper than my anger, deeper than actions. And instead, even though I
hated
myself for doing it, I could only nod and hang my head and murmur, “Yes, Robert.” Then I asked if I might lie down. “I am not feeling well,” I said delicately with downcast eyes, hoping Robert would take that to mean I was ill with the onset of my courses.

He gave his consent—“but just this once,” he stipulated, saying that he would make my excuses to the Hydes, but I must not make a habit of shunning their company. “Remember, Amy,” he said, “you must not be rude to your hosts and make them think you find their company irksome and unwelcome—even if it is. Some people,” he continued, “equate a reserved and solitary nature with snobbishness, and I will
not
have that said of
my
wife; Lady Dudley must
always
be a kind and gracious lady who is a credit to her lord.” Then he summoned his valet, Mr Tamworth, and set about washing and changing his clothes, making ready to dine with the Hydes.

When he was gone back downstairs, I stripped down to my shift and pulled the covers up over my head and curled up on my side, crying for all that I had lost, inwardly raging against all the false hope my husband had given me throughout all our years together. I had hoped so very much for a new beginning, a fresh start, another chance for us to love as we once had, but now I was homeless and banished and had lost my husband to his ambitions and the only woman who could fulfil them—Elizabeth. I was, just like Griselda, being turned out in disgrace so that another woman could take my place. And I had a feeling, a deep, fearsome foreboding inside me, gnawing at me, and giving me no respite or mercy, that, unlike Griselda’s story, mine would not end happily.

My eyes found the tapestry, the last in the series, in which Griselda is reunited with the daughter and son she thought slain and discovers that she is not to be replaced after all, and is restored to her fine clothes, jewells, and her husband’s loving embrace. As I gazed upon that tapestry, I wept all the more. I didn’t believe in happy endings any more. That’s why people loved stories so, I realised in that instant, because they found in them what was missing from their own lives, the things they knew, no matter how much or how hard they might hope and dream and scheme, they would never have.

Robert stayed late downstairs, drinking far into the night with William Hyde. I awoke to the feel of his body on top of mine, his fingers fumbling, clumsy with drink as he lifted my shift, and his breath sour with wine. I was not ready when he pushed inside, and he hurt me, but he ignored my tears and pleas. When he was done, he rolled off me, heavy as a log, and fell at once into a deep sleep.

I awoke the next morning alone, feeling raw, sore, and aching between my legs, and a trifle bewildered at waking up in a strange place. I had to remind myself where I was. As I gazed about the room, I realised that the small travelling chest Robert had brought with him was gone, and there was nothing of his left within the room. I bolted out of bed, snatched up my shift, and pulled it over my head as I ran to the window. I was just in time to see him turning onto the road, heading back to London, at a fast gallop, followed by his retainers.

The door opened behind me, and then Pirto was there, enfolding me in her arms and looking as if she was about to weep too. “Oh, my lady!” she said as she held me close and stroked my back.

“He should not have gone without saying goodbye!” I sobbed. “Heaven knows when I shall see him again!”

The next day, though I did not feel like leaving my bed—I had a feverish and aching head and knew I presented a sorry sight with my eyes still all swollen and red—I forced myself, lest I offend my hosts, to descend the stairs and sit and sew with Mrs Hyde in the parlour.

When I opened my sewing basket, I found, nestled like an egg inside a nest of colourful embroidery silks, a note from my husband.

Below it was a verse, words Chaucer had assigned to Patient Griselda:

“My husband is not a kind man,” I said softly, forgetting myself and speaking the words aloud, then gasping when I realised that I had done so.

“What’s that, my dear?” Mrs Hyde cocked her head over her embroidery. Cupping her hand around her ear, she apologetically explained, “I’m afraid you will need to speak a little louder. Since the last baby I am a trifle deaf. The doctor cannot explain it, nor can the midwife; it’s quite a mystery, and a
most
vexing one.”

I breathed a brief prayer of thanks that Mrs Hyde had not heard me aright and forced myself to smile as I folded the note and tucked it beneath the coloured silks. Then, like a dutiful and devoted wife made in the mould of Griselda, I said in a clear voice loud enough for Mrs Hyde to hear, “My husband is such a kind man.”

“Oh, yes, indeed he is!” Mrs Hyde enthused. “The
very
soul of kindness! Oh, Lady Dudley, you are the
most
fortunate woman alive, to be married to such a man!” She clasped a hand to her heart and looked fit to swoon in rapture as she piled praise upon Robert. “So kind, so thoughtful, so courteous, so brave, and charming! There cannot be a handsomer man in
all
of England! And such a fine voice—I never have a whit of trouble understanding Lord Robert! Oh, and the stories he told last night at supper! I feared I would burst my stays, I was laughing so hard! He is such a clever, witty man! And he can sing and recite poetry too! And he is
so
considerate! Do you know, my dear, last night he drew up a footstool and sat at my feet with my sewing basket on his lap, handing me whatever I needed as I sewed, and so humbly implored me to look after you, flattering me that while he could not ask me to be like a mother to you, as I am not old enough”—she laughed delightedly and patted her grey-peppered curls—“but perhaps he might presume to ask me to be like a sister to you. He
begged
me to take good care of you, and I could hear his worry for you in
every
word! Oh, what a considerate and loving husband he is—you are
so
blessed to have him, my dear! He moved me to tears, and I
swore
upon my life that I would care for you as if you were my very own daughter and my own sister as well. And I will, Lady Dudley, I will. I cannot
bear
to even contemplate disappointing such a
marvellous, magnificent
man! My husband and I have already decided to name this child I am carrying”—she patted the bulge beneath her loose gown of pink brocade—“Dudley, even if it is a girl!”

I nodded and forced myself to smile. “I understand, Mrs Hyde, that disappointing Robert can feel like a crime. I thank you for all your kindness,” I added, just to be polite; then I bent my head over the doublet I was embroidering with forget-me-nots as a gift to send to Robert.

And so I settled down to a life of waiting. Glum and morose, I would sit beside a window, with my hands either idle, listlessly embroidering, or dutifully wielding a quill, endlessly filling a child’s copybook with the tale of Patient Griselda, and all the time my heart would hope and yearn and burn with longing and the green flames of jealousy fed by my fears and hot, angry tears. And there were other days when I was so prostrated by tears that I could not even get out of bed and would lie all day with my cats, taking what comfort I could from holding their warm, furry bodies and hearing them purr.

Every time I heard horses’ hooves, on the dirt road or the gravelled path leading up to the house, hope would leap from my heart into my eyes, and my lips would spread in an eager, expectant smile that would slowly die as the riders passed on by or turned out not to be Robert or one of his men bearing a letter for me.

And each day as twilight fell, my hopes would also plummet as one more day passed without a sign of Robert. I tried
very
hard not to pester and plague him with queries about when he would come to see me, but I wanted him so much. In his letters, Robert always said vaguely that he would come “soon”, but something would always come up to prevent or delay his coming. It was as if I was the last and least important item on his list, the most expendable, and the first to cross off and discard in favour of other, more important people and things. And, like a demon, a ballad of longing for one’s absent love that had been popular in Queen Mary’s reign—it was said some had sung it as a cruel taunt while she was pining for Prince Philip—began to haunt me, and I could not get it out of my mind. It was as if a phantom singer had invaded my brain, hiding in dark, quiet corners, where I could never turn her out, endlessly singing the same doleful refrain:

No, no, no!
My mind rebelled against the verse. That is
not
the way it is—out of sight, yes, but
not
out of mind, rather,
always
on my mind,
always
! I think of him all night and day! Even though he seldom spares a thought for me, I am
always
thinking of him,
always
wanting and longing for him! And surely
she
—my rival, the Queen—must think of me. She often crosses the threshold of my mind, an imperious visitor who should be an honoured guest but who has taken the one thing I valued most. But, out of courtesy and deference to her royal blood, I cannot confront her as I would any common rival; I can only endure the trespass and thievery, wearing a false smile, politely, as if she had come and admired a prettily painted porcelain plate in my cupboard and I had taken the hint and graciously presented it to her with my compliments. Because she is the Queen, I cannot fight her. And it is not a plate she wants—that I could bear—it is my husband!