By Royal Command (12 page)
A
t the frost fair Tomas had told me to trust no one, but I’d hardly heeded his words. I would from now on, however, for clearly someone had seen him speaking to me – someone who knew that he was not only the queen’s fool, but also acted as her emissary, and thus had reasoned that I’d been asked to engage in some secret work. Realising all this, I would have written to Tomas to inform him, except that I had no parchment nor quill. Besides, I realised, if I was being watched, any letter might be taken straight to the counterfeit Tomas.
I did nothing, therefore, but used what little leisure time I had in the worry of what I was going to wear to the palace and how I was going to behave while I was there, for I had begun to fear that I might show myself up through not knowing what was mannerly. I didn’t know what the entertainments at the palace might consist of: music, dancing, a masquerade, mummers singing Christmas songs? Even, perhaps, jousting in the tiltyard. Each of these would demand a different response from the onlookers and, the Court being so conservative in its customs and etiquette, I had next to no idea of what this response might be.
That evening, when the girls had gone to bed, I laid all my clothes – bodices, kirtles, sleeves and smocks – on my bed, held my candlestick high and scrutinised them for some time, unhappily coming to the same conclusion as Isabelle: nothing I owned was in any way suitable to wear to an entertainment in front of the queen at Richmond Palace. The style of the kirtles – and the necklines, lacing, embroidery, bodices and ruffs, too – was dated, the fabric dull and faded, and those items of clothing that were not darned had either grease spots or marks around the hems where I’d endeavoured to brush away the winter’s mud. I looked at them, and then I thought about the queen’s ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour, those bright young women who acted as an attractive and elegant backdrop for Her Grace, and sighed heavily. I’d been to the palace before, that was true, and had not worried about my gown to that extent, but then I’d just been one of a couple of hundred other ordinary citizens seeking an audience in the presence chamber. This time I was actually going to be part of the Court.
My eyes fell on the only costly and fashionable thing I owned: the sable mittens given to me by Miss Charity, and I suddenly remembered how grateful she’d been to me. She’d told me I must go to her if I ever wanted anything. Had she meant what she’d said?
There was, I thought, only one way to find out.
‘Good morning,’ I said politely when Thomas Mucklow’s front door was opened the next morning.
The housemaid – who was not the one I’d met previously – looked me up and down. ‘Trades at the back door,’ she said.
I felt my face turn pink. ‘I am not
trades
,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to speak with Miss Charity.’
‘Have you indeed?’
I stood my ground. ‘Would you kindly tell her that a friend . . .’
As I said this last word, she smirked.
‘A
friend
,’ I said firmly, ‘wishes to speak to her.’
‘And who is this person? This friend?’ asked the housemaid.
‘My name is Mistress Mary Ditcham,’ I said, making up the name on the spot. I hoped that Miss Charity would remember me, but I’d bought her mittens along to jog her memory, just in case she didn’t.
‘I’ve not heard of no one of that name.’
‘Nevertheless, I am she. I am a friend of Miss Charity’s and bring something belonging to her,’ I said, indicating the package under my arm.
‘Very well,’ said the maid sullenly. ‘I’ll tell her.’ She left me standing at the door, went up the facing flight of stairs and knocked on a door. I heard her say, ‘A person has called who says she is your friend, Miss, but I think it might be someone from the market trying to sell you something.’
After a moment Miss Charity came down the stairs on her own. She was dressed very neat and pretty in a deep red gown embroidered with gold leaves and flowers, her auburn hair caught into a gold net studded all over with tiny red stones. She looked at me hesitantly for a moment, and I brought out the package. ‘Your mittens, Miss,’ I said.
Her face cleared. ‘Oh! What shall I call you?’ she asked in a whisper.
‘Mistress Mary Ditcham, if it please you, Madam,’ I whispered back.
‘Do come upstairs, Mary,’ she said, and she led me into a long bedchamber at the front of the building. This, I saw immediately, had not been furnished on Puritan principles like the rest of the gloomy house, but was very light and pretty, with a four-post bed hung around with light draperies and two wood benches having coloured velvet cushions. The wall hangings, too, were not improving stories from the Bible, but gaily coloured pastoral scenes on painted silk, with maidens and lambs frolicking in fields, or lovers walking together through flowery meadows.
‘I suppose that Mistress Ditcham isn’t your real name?’ my young lady asked.
I shook my head.
‘Very sensible.’
I hesitated. ‘I hope you’ll forgive my boldness in coming to see you, Miss, but . . .’
‘You must call me Charity if we’re supposed to be friends!’
‘Charity,’ I ventured, ‘you said that I was to approach you if ever I needed anything.’
‘I did indeed. And I meant it.’
‘I trust you have suffered no harm as a result of what happened to you?’
‘I can barely remember it!’
I nodded. ‘I daresay that is because of the poppy juice.’
‘But do tell me more, because I’m most intrigued as to why you’re here.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Well, here it is as plain as flour, Mi— . . . Charity. I have to go somewhere very important on Christmas Eve.’
‘Do you?’ she asked, and sighed. ‘Is it a dance or a ball? I wish very much that I could hold a dance, but father has banned any form of gaiety from the house this Yuletide.’
I looked at her with sympathy.
‘But I’m sorry I interrupted. Do go on!’
‘You see, I haven’t got anything suitable to wear to this important place, only my everyday gowns, which – now that I’ve looked at them closely – are very dull and horrid.’
‘And you’d like me to give you something?’
‘Not give, Miss,’ I said, mortified that she’d presume such a thing. ‘If I could just borrow a gown from you ‘twould be more than enough.’
‘No, indeed you cannot.’
‘Oh!’ I said, saddened and worried that I had offended her by asking for too much.
‘But I’ll
give
you a gown – for heaven knows I have enough, and nowhere to wear them. Moreover, I insist that you have two gowns, so that if you get invited somewhere else then you’ll have something different to wear, which is only seemly.’
When I tried to protest, she would have none of it, and simply said, ‘In return you must come to see me and tell me about the occasion, of how you looked and how everyone else looked.’
‘If you wish,’ I said, ‘of course I will.’
‘For you cannot know how much I long to go into society!’
‘And your father won’t allow you?’
She shook her head. ‘He believes that the world is full of sin and treachery and at any time I might fall into the devil’s hands.’
I thought about this. ‘You nearly
did
fall . . .’
‘But you rescued me!’
She went into a small room, which I supposed was her dressing room, for it had a pitcher and bowl for washing, a padded night stool and a long shelf containing hats and hoods, various hair decorations, false topknots of curls and so on. Hanging all around the picture rail of this room were many bodices and skirts in a variety of colours, mostly soft shades which would be becoming to a young miss: white, misty blues and greys, palest of pinks, primrose and hazy greens.
‘So many lovely things!’ I gasped.
She went to a nest of drawers and opened one which contained belts, coloured feathers, fans and gauzy scarves. ‘You see I am not a Puritan in spite of having a Puritan name, and despite my father’s admonishments and daily lectures. I have all this because my family is very rich, and my mother loves to spend money on me.’ She stood back for some moments looking at the garments around the room, her head on one side in deep consideration, then sprang forward and pulled out two gowns. ‘I think . . . this pale blue wool, and this green velvet will both suit your colouring.’
On touching the soft wool and feeling the richness of the velvet, I gasped. ‘I really could not possibly . . .’
‘Nonsense. They are not worn half enough and will be out of fashion before anyone has a chance to fall in love while wearing them – and that, after all, is the reason for having pretty dresses, is it not?’
I could not answer this, being so moved at her kindness to me, and did little more than kiss her hand and promise to return when I could and tell her how I’d fared in them.
I called briefly at the marketplace in order to see Isabelle (who had just sold the last of that day’s kissing boughs) and arrived back at the magician’s house in time to help Mistress Midge with that day’s dinner, for which the main dish was chicken pie with apple puffs and clotted cream to follow.
‘I have some very interesting news,’ she said. ‘When the brewer called, I asked if he’d heard anything new about Her Grace’s lover – for he delivers beer to the palace, you know.’
I nodded keenly.
‘And he said that the Frenchman had sent the queen a love letter with an emerald pushed into the wax seal!’
‘Never!’
‘The emerald, they say, was as long as your little finger, and as wide!’
‘So the royal match is still on?’ I surmised.
‘Seems it is. Though the brewer told me ‘tis all a ploy by Her Grace and her ministers to try and stop France joining with Spain against us, and she doesn’t really mean to marry him at all.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Apparently there are twenty-one years between them! What do you think of that?’
At first I was horrified, but then quickly came not to care about it, for I knew that royalty are not like ordinary people. Besides, whatever Her Grace chose to do was beyond reproach in my eyes, and if she wanted and loved a younger man, then that was her affair.
We gossiped about this for some time, for Mistress Midge was in a merry mood, having completed the marchpane cake and also gilded the top of it with squares of gold leaf, so that it looked very fine and festive.
‘I’ve been thinking long about the cooking of the venison,’ she said, ‘and have obtained an excellent recipe from my sister for a gallendine sauce to garnish it. ‘Tis a
royal
method she has told me, made with claret wine, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and sugar.’ She winked at me. ‘It will show the Walsinghams that the Dee family are served by a very skilled and most knowledgeable cook!’
As she was so gay, I took the opportunity to ask if I might, once Merryl and Beth were in bed, go a-mumming around the houses with Isabelle and her sisters (for I did not, of course, intend to tell her I was going to the palace).
‘You may,’ she said. ‘I did the same in my youth and ‘tis an excellent way to get a few coins in your pocket.’ And, rolling out a yard of pastry, she sang,
‘
A jug of Christmas ale, Sir, will make our voices ring
,
Money in our pockets is a very good thing!’
I laughed and we sang this again, together, and a moment later a smiling Mr Sylvester (for he had heard us for sure) put his head around the door and said that the fire was very low in the school room and could it be made up.
I went in with a pail of coal and, feeling confident of the answer, paused to ask if Merryl and Beth were doing well at their studies.
‘Indeed, they are very diligent,’ said Mr Sylvester. He wore a schoolmaster’s gown as usual, but underneath I was surprised to see a heavily decorated jerkin and embroidered shirt – more the clothes of a court dandy.
Beth stopped writing and smiled up at me, pleased to be praised, and I looked to see what she was copying from her horn book.
‘Do you read?’ Mr Sylvester asked in a startled voice.
I was torn here, on the one hand wanting to continue the impression of being a simple housemaid, on the other not wishing to appear ignorant in front of such a clever and personable man.
‘A . . . a little,’ I said. ‘But that is merely through the girls’ attentions to me, for before you came they had taught me to read and write my name, and we would often play word games together.’
He was clearly surprised, but didn’t say so and, bending over Beth’s horn book once more, I saw that it bore a kind of map of all the kings of our country: mostly having the names of John, Henry and Richard.
‘’Tis called a family tree,’ Mr Sylvester said. ‘’Tis so that one can see the provenance of our monarchs.’
My fingers touched the one right at the bottom. ‘Elizabeth,’ I read out.
‘That’s right. And we have just been learning – have we not, Beth and Merryl? – of the queen’s position and the tale of how she came to reign over us.’
‘Her mother’s head was cut off!’ Beth said, and I blushed, for although everyone knew about this beheading, of course, it was not seemly – indeed was thought almost treasonous – to speak of it in public.
‘Her mother was Anne Boleyn and she was the second wife of Henry,’ Merryl recounted. ‘And her brother Edward reigned first, and after he died, her half-sister Mary Tudor took the throne.’