A Court Affair. Emily Purdy

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.

      I knew something had changed one day during the second year when he came to visit me. Clinging to his arm, I so happily escorted him upstairs and, proud and excited, showed him the rich new set of brocade bedclothes—coverlet, curtains, and canopy—I had had made for my—our—bed, thousands of yellow buttercups in perpetual bloom upon a ground of spring green, “as a remembrance of the day we first made love,” I explained, pressing my body against his in a way that I hoped conveyed how much I would like him to lower me onto the bed.

      With an exasperated sigh, Robert shrugged free of me and strode across the room and sat down by the fire and began to tug off his muddy boots.

      “I don’t need a remembrance, Amy!” he snarled, slamming his boot down, causing the silver spurs to rattle and bits of mud to flake off onto the fur rug, and then beginning on the other. “I am not likely to forget the seventeen-year-old boy I used to be, thinking with my cock instead of with my head! I should have just tumbled you in a haystack and been done with it, but …” With an angry sigh he flopped back in his chair, seething like an angry bull, and closed his eyes. His hands curled tightly round the arms of the chair, the knuckles shaking and standing out white, as if he was fighting hard to restrain himself from some act of violence. Then he sighed deeply and opened his eyes. “You got your gold ring, Amy, so be content with that, and cease prattling to me about remembering things that are best forgotten. Incidentally, I loathe buttercups; they are such a common little flower.”

      My head felt light enough to float away, as if it were a weathercock caught in a strong and violent wind, and I couldn’t catch my breath, I felt as if he had just kicked me in the stomach. I felt icy and aflame all at the same time. And I couldn’t see! There were all these dark and coloured sparks floating before my eyes, obscuring my vision, and I feared I was being struck blind by terror. But I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t tell Robert what I was feeling, what was happening to me; it was as if a door had slammed inside my throat, barring the jumble of confused words from coming out. When Robert saw my lips trembling and the tears spilling down my face, he swore loudly and snatched up his boots again and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

      Later that night, alone in my bed, when I was huddled up with the covers pulled high above my head, still weeping, though my eyes and throat were a swollen, sore misery, he would come to me with kisses and a bolt of blue silk the colour of a robin’s egg, and lengths of pretty, sunny yellow lace and matching embroidery silk to make a fine new gown, and tell me that he was sorry, he had only spoken out of anger over something I could never understand that was “nothing to worry your pretty head about”. And he rolled me over onto my back, covered me with kisses, and made such passionate, tender love to me that I was soon persuaded that he hadn’t really meant it and that he truly did love me, that it had been nothing more than a show of temper, he had been taking out his frustration upon the most convenient person, the one he said he trusted to see him at his worst and best, like an angry fist that I had stepped in front of and caught a blow not intended for me.

      The next morning, when I woke, he was gone, back to London, but he sent back to me a bolt of buttercup yellow brocade with the flowers I loved so figured golden in the weave, and a ring in a green velvet box—a buttercup made of sparkling yellow gems, with a note, ardently inscribed in bold black ink in my husband’s handsome script with graceful and elegant curlicues and flourishes trimming the black letters like pretty lace:

       I Love My Buttercup Bride!

      And I let myself be lulled into believing that everything really was all right, though in my heart I knew it wasn’t.

      Even though these outbursts of anger followed by tender, passionate reconciliations in bed became a disturbing refrain repeated often during his visits, I let myself believe. I shut my eyes to the truth that they really settled nothing, that they were merely a means to turn off my tears and free Robert from seeing and hearing the consequences of his temper, that they were a way to render me docile and smiling for the few days we would spend together, to make life more peaceful and pleasing for Robert until, feeling he had done his duty, he could gallop back to London again as fast as his horse could carry him.

      When I heard that his father had deeded him Saxlingham Manor near Holt, my hopes briefly surged back to life. I thought it meant a proper home for us, but Robert preferred to lease it out rather than live there, and he eventually sold it, all without my ever setting eyes upon it.

      Having the loving good grace not to say “I told you so,” Father even tried to bring him back, to keep him home with me and away from the court, so that we might settle down and have the children I longed for. He arranged to have Robert made a knight of the shire, and, now that his health was declining, shared with him his own honours—the Lieutenancy of the county and joint stewardship and constabulary of Castle Rising in Norfolk. But these rustic honours paled against being a Gentleman of King Edward’s Privy Chamber, Honorary Carver at the King’s Table, and Master of the Buckhounds, with its responsibilities of breeding, training, and tending the royal hunting hounds, organising the hunting parties, and keeping the deer parks well stocked. None of which I could share, and so I was left alone, trying to fill up my life with things to do, all the while pining for my husband and missing him sorely.

      My lengthy stay at Stanfield Hall ended abruptly one warm April afternoon when Robert burst into the kitchen, dusty and sweating in his riding leathers, giving us all such a fright the way he rushed in. He had caught me unaware again and found me laughing and gossiping with Cook and the kitchen maids, just as if I were one of them, standing there flush-faced, with my hair carelessly pinned, my sleeves rolled up, and my apron stained with colourful splotches, surrounded by great bubbling cauldrons of jewel-coloured fruits—the strawberries, apricots, cherries, both sour and sweet, gooseberries, peaches, quinces, plums, apples, currants, raspberries, and pears I had myself helped pick. We had been busy for days making the jams and jellies that would delight us all winter when sweet red strawberries smeared on a piece of bread would feel like a slice of Heaven, paradise in your mouth, as luxurious to the tongue as a length of red velvet on bare skin.

      The spoon in my hand clattered to the floor, and I, with a startled cry that quickly turned to one of pure delight, started to run to fling myself into his arms, but he froze me with a look.

      Hurt, I stopped in my tracks and self-consciously brushed back some wild wisps of hair clinging wetly to my brow and untied my apron and balled it up and thrust it at the nearest maid.

      “We were just making our jams and jellies for the winter, so we can have fruit,” I explained, nodding towards the boiling cauldrons. “Look at them, Robert—aren’t they pretty? Like liquid jewels, the colours are. Did you ever see an emerald a finer hue than our mint jelly?” I pointed to the row of jars sealed earlier that morning and lined up on the table.

      “But they are not jewels,” Robert said, with a hard, deep frown. “You cannot wear them except as unsightly stains upon your apron, and they have no value except for their taste and the pennies that could be earned should you sell them at market; therefore, any slight similarity between jewels, jellies, and jams is completely irrelevant. It is absurd you should even think it!”

      “I-I’m s-sorry, Robert,” I said softly, and I hung my head, staring down at the crude wooden and leather clogs I wore in the kitchen and outside on muddy days, shamed that I had displeased my husband and that he had rebuked me before the servants.

      “Come upstairs, Amy”—Robert started for the door—“after you have tidied yourself and made yourself look as my wife should look. Then we will talk.”

      And meekly I nodded. “Yes, Robert.”

      As I was leaving, Cook caught my hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.

      “Don’t