A Court Affair. Emily Purdy

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 colour 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 afterwards whenever Robert looked at me, I could tell that he was still seeing that boisterous, barefoot, berry-stained bumpkin running towards 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-coloured 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 endeavoured 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 realisation that whole hours had passed 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 ardour, 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 realised—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