Queen's Pleasure Read online

  10

  Amy Robsart Dudley

  Stanfield Hall, near Wymondham, in Norfolk

  and

  Syderstone Manor in Norfolk

  September 1550–May 1553

  Nearly three years crept slowly past, like a snail on a pane of glass, with the tense and tedious waiting relieved by only brief and hurried visits from Robert. He always came bearing gifts, as though he thought worldly goods could atone for his absence. But his preoccupied smile and distracted eyes told me that even though his body was, his mind wasn’t truly there with me. He was there like a whirlwind and then gone again, and I was left dizzy and reeling in his wake.

  He was never there for holidays. They always had such great need of him at court, he said, but he always sent gifts—lavish, costly gifts for everyone, even the servants—but he never came himself; the King, and his father, were counting on him to help organize the Yuletide revels. So in muted sorrow, trying to smile and not let my tears rain on everyone else’s pleasure, each year I celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas and toasted in the New Year without my husband beside me.

  Father and I went back to Syderstone—a drafty ruin though it was, and becoming less habitable every year—for our traditional New Year’s ritual. Muffled in our furs and warmest woolens, and with all our servants and workers and their families gathered around us in the snow-blanketed orchard, we set a great fire blazing, and Cook brewed up a bubbling cauldron of Lambswool—a special blend of beer flavored with roasted apples, ginger, nutmeg, and sugar, so named for the white froth that floated on top—and ladled out cups of the steaming brew to us all. And as the church bell tolled the midnight hour, we toasted the apple trees and sang carols to them, thanking them for the fruit they had given us and hoping that their winter nakedness would soon be clothed with fine green leaves and, later, beautiful, fragrant pink and white blossoms, then fat, ripe, rosy fruit. Then the musicians played, and we danced and drank Lambswool and ate gingerbread until the sun came up, and we all staggered home and fell into our beds to sleep half the day away.

  And in June, after the shearing was finished, we held a celebration with music and dancing and served our people apple cider and sweet wafers baked to a golden crisp inside special irons that imprinted upon each side a design of a sheep in full woolly coat ringed by a border of Syderstone’s famous apples. We always let them have cream, as much as they pleased, to dip the wafers in. That was a real treat for them, as most had to use the cream from their own cow for making butter and cheese, so this was a sweet luxury indeed, and it made my heart glad to see the happy smiles it brought to their faces. But in my heart I ached because Robert was never there to share the fun and joy with me. Even as I smiled and clapped my hands as we watched the morris dancers, fire-eaters, acrobats, and jugglers, I could not help feeling his absence and longing to have him there with me. And when we went out at midnight, singing and skipping and still sipping cider as we made our way to the top of the hill and there packed a cartwheel all around with straw and set it alight and rolled it down, hoping it would reach the bottom before it went out, for that foretold a bountiful harvest, I wished with all my heart that he were there and that the revelry would end in love, with me in my husband’s arms, and not with me alone, restless and yearning, in my lonely bed.

  And he was never there to take part in the Candlestick Branle we danced every year in the Great Hall on All Hallows’ Eve, sometimes slow, solemn, and stately, other times rollicking, fast-paced, and lively, passing lighted candlesticks from hand to hand as we danced in a line and, like a lady’s intricately braided coiffure, wove complicated formations, while my father, and the others who were not taking part in the dance, watched from the gallery above or standing high upon the stairs.

  But there were good times too, even though they were few and far between and grew more so with each year that passed as Robert’s absences grew more prolonged and his visits ever briefer. Eventually they dwindled to a hasty handful strewn throughout the year that seemed to be hello and good-bye all in the blink of an eye.

  Once he sent me some jeweled grapes to wear in my hair, beautiful clusters of smooth, round amethyst and emerald grapes with silver leaves set with sparkling diamond dewdrops. They were so pretty, so special, and unique! And when he sent me word that he was coming, I was ready. When he started to bound up the stairs, sweaty and smelling of horses, sweat, leather, and spice, I was there at the top waiting for him with the jeweled grapes in my hair, wearing a new gown of gooseberry green silk with a kirtle and under-sleeves of wine-colored silk embroidered with silver vines hung with green and gold grapes. Without a word—there was no need for any—Robert swept me up in his arms and carried me to our chamber and straight to our bed. We didn’t leave it until long after the sun came up the next day.

  But the next evening, when he sat late by the fire, and I came in my shift, sheer like a clinging cobweb covering my body, with my hair unbound, to lay my head upon his knee, he just sat there, staring broodingly into the flames, as if his mind were miles and miles away. I could not help but wonder who it was he saw dancing in those entrancing flames. Was it the flame-haired Elizabeth? Did the crackling, rippling, swaying, leaping, grasping flames remind him of her, shining like the brightest bonfire, dancing in an orange and yellow gown with her hair a flaming mass about her shoulders, flying out as she leapt and spun ’round and ’round? I was certain of it, but I bit my tongue and said nothing. I didn’t want to ruin the rare and peaceful bliss and shatter it with an argument. I wanted kisses and caresses, not raised voices and quarrelsome words. So I knelt down and laid my head in his lap, but when his hand moved to absently stroke my hair, I wondered if in his mind it was red instead of golden. Does she do this with him? I wondered. And the pleasures we shared together in bed, did he give and take the same with her? Was I special in any way, was there anything he did with me that was ours alone, or did I share all with Elizabeth, or, even worse, did I only get the crumbs from her plate? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t sure which would hurt more—knowing for certain or the questions that clawed at my mind, like raging, hungry lions that I tried, sometimes successfully, other times not, to quiet and subdue and send retreating with a crack of my whip, but they were always there, sometimes growling low, other times roaring deafeningly, demanding to be heard, to have their curiosity fed and sated.

  When Custard had her yearly litter of kittens, even though I marveled and caught my breath at each tiny mewling, squirming body, so small I could hold it in the palm of my hand, I felt the shadow of sorrow hanging over me. I yearned to be a mother. But how could I conceive when my husband was away and had so little time for me? There was always one excuse or another to keep him away or prevent him from sending for me. Even as the proud mother brought each kitten to me and laid it in my lap, and I petted and praised her and profusely admired her babies, I envied her, even though she was a cat. And while Custard lay in her basket by the fire and nursed her little brood, I would take Onyx, who had, like me, never conceived, onto my lap and stroke her sleek black fur and listen to her purr, and smile through my tears; the kittens were such a bittersweet sight, they did my heart good and hurt it all at the same time.

  I would stay at Stanfield Hall so long that many would forget that I was a married woman, and they, along with those who did not know about my marriage, would call me Amy Robsart, as if it had never happened at all. Even I at times thought it was all a lovely dream that had vanished upon my waking. I had to look at the ring on my left hand to remind myself that I had the right to call myself a wife at all. The name Amy Dudley, or Lady Dudley, seemed foreign to my lips and ears; when I heard it spoken, it always took a few moments for me to realize that it was me they were talking about or speaking to. Robsart felt right and natural; Dudley made me feel like I was a pretender, claiming a name that wasn’t rightly my own. A few times I even caught myself about to introduce myself as Amy Robsart instead of Dudley, and I would grow flustered and red in
the face as my tongue tripped clumsily over the syllables, trying to sort them out and speak my name aright, and the whole time I felt like a fool, and sometimes, if I saw pity in the other person’s eyes, I felt angry, at myself and Robert too. Maybe I had flown in the face of Fate, and I was never meant to be Lady Dudley at all. Maybe I was never meant to have any other name or be anyone other than Amy Robsart.

  Fear began to take a fierce hold of me; I could not outrun it or shake it off. No matter how hard I tried to lose myself in my work, its fangs and claws bit deeply and left scars and wounds that never truly healed. I would feel it in my heart, in my head, keeping me awake at night, gnawing my nerves until they were bleeding raw and leaving me so sensitive that I would cry at the least little thing. There were many days when, after tossing and turning in my big and lonely bed all night, I could not rise and would spend the day sleeping and weeping in bed. But more often than not I forced myself to rise, even though it meant I came downstairs with dark-circled eyes, leaden steps, and a dull mind. I would follow the sheep out to graze, sit myself down on a stone, bury my face in my hands, and weep. But the fear held fast; I couldn’t cry or drive it out. It festered and became a part of me until I could not remember what it felt like to live without it.

  I watched Mother Nature change her gowns each season. Draping herself in the white ermine and diamond frost of winter, then doffing the cold, sumptuous white for bright, floral-sprigged spring, then upon a sudden whim changing into sunny yellow to drowse and sweat each day away beneath the brim of an old straw hat with the sun beating down upon its brim, then primping like a lady who can’t decide between all the crackling, crisp brown, bronze, gold, orange, russet, tawny, yellow, and red taffeta gowns draped over the branches, so she tries them all on one by one, yanking them down, throwing the discarded dresses on the ground, and leaving the trees naked and bare before reverting to white and ermine again. I could feel Robert slipping further and further away from me, but I was powerless to make him stop and stay; every time I saw him, he seemed more distant and remote, as if he were standing on the tip-top of a tall mountain and I were stranded far below, cupping my hands around my mouth and shouting or else jumping up and down and waving my arms, trying desperately to get his attention. But all I did was in vain; he ignored me.

  And he never sent for me. Though the idea of being presented at court both terrified and excited me, when I wrote and asked when, there was always some excuse to tarry, and later and not now were words I soon became all too familiar with. Where I was concerned, my husband was never one for pinning down dates and sticking to them; on the rare times when he did give a definite one, he was more likely than not to forget and never appear; something more important always came up.

  The first year, I had Mr. Edney make a beautiful silver-embroidered icy blue gown trimmed with silver lace and sewn so thickly with crystals that the silk looked like water shimmering under ice, with white fur to trim the graceful bell sleeves. And Father gave me a beautiful necklace of opals to wear with it. But I never got to wear it as I curtsied before the King.

  The next year I decided something brighter would be better, and I chose a pretty pink that reminded me of how rosy my cheeks used to be, and I had the sleeves furred with a tawny gold that looked wonderful with my hair. I never wore that gown for the King either.

  The third year brought another dress—a buttercup yellow damask, worn with a petticoat and sleeves of pale green, the color of new shoots emerging from the earth after the winter thaw. King Edward never saw me in that gown either.

  After that, I stopped hoping. I could not bear to look my tailor in the eye and speak of my being presented at court; I no longer believed Robert’s later would ever come.

  I still wore the pretty dresses, just not for the King or my husband; I wore them for myself and tried to forget the occasion they had been intended for and not to let my mind dwell on the disappointments or keep tally of all the times my husband let me down. The disappointments had begun to outnumber the delights, and the broken promises far surpassed the ones that had been kept. I hated myself for hoping every time Robert said or wrote something that made me believe I had something to look forward to, but I wanted so much to believe, yet almost every time I let myself, he let me down again. I hated myself for giving him the power to do this to me. Every time he did, I was furious with myself for allowing hope to blossom like a flower inside my breast, even though I knew all too well that Robert was more likely than not to trample and crush it or pluck it and give it to another.

  To make matters worse, I rarely knew when he would arrive on one of his rare and infrequent visits. And I would see the disdain curling his lips into an ugly sneer beneath the new silky black moustache he was growing even though I hated it, and the haughty, annoyed contempt in his eyes when he found me out in the sun with my feet bare and my skirts pinned up, an old straw hat on my wild, tumbled-down hair, my face flushed, with sweat beading my brow, and dark, wet stains spreading beneath the arms of my old faded blue cloth gown, standing waist-deep in the barley crop or supervising the shearing of the sheep, with Ned Flowerdew at my side with a ledger, which we both bent our heads over, keeping tally of the wool sacks. While my father, now grown feeble in his steps and increasingly hazy in his head, though he was at times still his dear, old self, was carried out in a chair to sit in the shade and watch.

  There were other times when someone would rush to bring me word of Robert’s arrival, and I would go running out to greet him, just the way I used to when we were courting, scampering through the green grass and rainbow of wildflowers, a barefoot hoyden with my skirts tucked up, with a basket brimming with the berries I had been picking slung over my arm, and stains about my lips and on my apron and fingers. My fastidious husband in his elegant clothes, with gold braid and buttons even on his riding leathers, would recoil, cringing as if the mere sight of me might soil him.

  At the sight of him, I seemed to live again, and I would be so overcome with happiness that I would run to him and try to fling myself into the arms that used to reach out, open wide, to enfold me, only to smack up against the hard wall of his chest instead, with the smile and glad-hearted laughter dying on my lips, as I looked up to see him frowning down at me as tears of hurt filled my eyes.

  The damage was done, and forever afterward whenever Robert looked at me, I could tell that he was still seeing that boisterous, barefoot, berry-stained bumpkin running toward him, pink-cheeked and breathless, with her hat flying off and her hair streaming out wild behind her. The image was seared into his mind forever, and I could never change it. Even perfumed and pretty in rose-colored silk, with pearls about my throat, and my hair gleaming in perfect golden curls with pink roses and pearls, still he could never forget the berry-stained, barefoot bumpkin.

  Yet I found that if I spent my days idle, dressed in gorgeous array like a fine lady with an overabundance of leisure, sitting anxiously by the window, hoping and wishing that he would come galloping up the road, my embroidery, or the book I was studying as I endeavored to better myself lying forgotten on my lap, the weight of sorrow was like a stone about my neck, dragging me down to drown. The waiting, the hoping, yearning, and worrying were just too much for me to sit idly and bear. I had been raised to believe that idle hands were the Devil’s tool. I needed to be up and about, busy inside and out, and there were moments, I found, when, caught up in the busy bustle of the day, I could almost forget. I would be helping gather cider apples, or salt down meat for the coming winter—though Pirto would later scold me for the toll the salt took upon my hands, leaving them coarse and red and in sore need of long soaks and rubbing in soothing creams to make them soft again—or standing shoulder to shoulder with the servants before a wooden trough wielding a wooden hammer to mash the black, rotted crabapples to make verjus for the pickling, and I would of a sudden start up, like a child bolting awake in bed at the crash of nearby thunder shattering the perfect quiet of a still night, at the realization that whole hours had pas
sed without a single thought of Robert intruding upon my mind. Those were my best days, though they became my worst if Robert came riding up unexpectedly.

  I liked it far better when he arrived after dark, after the household had already gone to bed, and found me waiting for him, naked beneath the sheets with my hair spilling across the pillows. “My gold and pink alabaster angel,” Robert always used to call me then, in a whisper dripping with lust. And though I had many beautiful night shifts, bed gowns, and robes, from the most delicate cobwebby pink or white lace to sumptuous jewel-hued velvets trimmed with gold or silver adornments, I always slept naked, knowing that were Robert to come in and pull back the sheets, he would never be disappointed in me and would come eagerly into the arms I held out for him. Those were the times when he was so loving and passionate, so like the boy who had come to woo me, that the flame of hope leapt high within me, to burn, unwavering and steady, until the moment came—as it always did—when he would douse the flames with cold words that made light of his ardor, dismissing it all with a wave of his hand, dampening the ecstasy with excuses that he had gotten carried away, spoken rashly in the heat of passion, and that no man should be blamed for that. He never realized—or maybe he just did not care?—though I tried so hard to tell him, to make him understand, that each time he did this made it harder for me to trust and believe him. If his mind was likely to change in the cold light of morning or two days, two weeks, or even two months hence, how could I possibly know what to believe? He left my mind dizzy and reeling in a constant state of confusion and uncertainty, as though I were playing Blindman’s Buff and grasping for the truth. And though I always hoped and wanted with all my heart to believe, his words lost weight with me until all his passion and promises became as light as feathers that would waft away upon the slightest breeze.