The Lady of Misrule (10 page)

‘No,' and not a missed beat, unless you counted my own because it was breathtaking, that nonchalance of hers regarding her husband's welfare. Ridiculous he might well be, but harmless enough, surely; I didn't think I could have been so dismissive of him. ‘But then the door opened and there was Guildford's father and some of his cronies' – her pitch and pace on the rise – ‘and they came up to me and they
knelt.'
Here, at last, she did pause, to glare at me. A response was required, it seemed, but what was I was supposed to feel, picturing those men on their knees at her feet? In truth, I couldn't quite see them because I was still lost somewhere in the various comings and goings, the barges here and there, the lack of snack.

‘Knelt
,' this time the disgust loud and clear, so I could oblige with a disapproving frown. ‘And you know what I thought?'

No, but go on, tell me.

‘I thought they were making fun of me.'

And there I did have to catch myself because for one disloyal moment it was irresistible, the vision she'd conjured. Because she did act superior: even if she couldn't help it, she did, and, from what she was saying, everyone else knew it too. It wasn't just me who suffered the rough end of it.

‘They think,' she said, ‘that I see myself as too good for Guildford.'

Which brought me to my senses. But you are, I wanted to say, aren't you? I mean, anyone would be. Even I would be.

She sat back in her chair. ‘Well, I wasn't going to stand there
and take that; I asked Mary to tell my boatmen I was leaving. But then in came my mother, to tell me the King had died.'

It seemed to strike her anew, and suddenly all the belligerence was gone; instead, she was wide-eyed and bereft. ‘I just couldn't believe it. I mean, I'd known he was ill, really ill, of course I had. Everyone knew it –' she looked to me, and I didn't deny it ‘– but, well, I don't know, but …'

And I saw it, then: how she lived her life in the certainty that thinking everything through was enough to protect against the untoward.

‘And then' – and now she sounded truly amazed – ‘I couldn't stop crying.'

Not merely tearful in front of people but later owning up to it, and to me of all people.

‘And I said no. I said the crown was his sister's. I said no, and I said it and said it.'

And really, I wondered, what more could she have done? Punched and kicked the duke and bolted from the room? And then what? Because if everyone said she was Queen, then she was, and for one suffocating instant I felt the horror of it closing down on me, as if that fate had been my own.

‘But the duke was saying, “It's not for you to decide,” and my mother said that if I didn't do it then England would be taken over by papists and Spaniards; and in came my father and it was the same, Stop snivelling, do your duty, think what happens to this country if you don't. And then Guildford—' The recollection brought her up sharp. ‘All lovey-dovey.'

Amazing that he'd thought that would cut some ice.

‘And then…' A huge sigh, she'd had enough. ‘Then there was a banquet, that evening, for those who could stomach it,' of which she clearly hadn't been one, ‘and the next day we came here,' she concluded, ‘and there you have it.'

Did I, though? I wasn't so sure that I did. This was the most – by far – that she'd ever said to me, but somehow I was none the wiser. All that barging about, and Chelsea and banqueting, the duplicitous mother-in-law and the husband who wasn't quite a husband. Then again, what would I have said to anyone if I had to explain what had been happening, at the same time, to me? Would I have managed to make any more sense? A clock cupboard, a house like a lantern, a lady of misrule.

It had begun the previous December. The days were no more than daubs of light, not that we at Shelley Place glimpsed much sky from behind the hefts of door, the fastened shutters and lined hangings, sore-eyed as we were in the spew from the long-smouldering fires and fatty, spitting wicks. We too were burning up: sick of preserved food, salt-addled and dry-mouthed, our headaches worsened by the interminable candlelight. How can such short days feel so very long?

But then, as the month crawled towards its miserable end, bang came Christmas and Shelley Place shook off its torpor to put on its glad rags. We Tilneys threw a party for everyone from miles around – those mud-mired miles, scoured by
wind – not because my parents were sociable but because it was a Tilney tradition, and most of Suffolk, it seemed to me, came trekking through the biting gusts to knock red-nosed at our door, all but insensible until revived with our spiced ale and pastries and a fire lavish with logs.

It had been a good year, with a harvest at last and, for once, no war or plague, and more people than usual turned up that Christmas, many of whom I only ever saw at our annual party. Crowded into Hall were the kersey-bundled with the silk-draped, those who were lively with lice and others decked with gems, all of them side by side and then, later, hand in hand as the dancing demanded, and the volume of chatter was a physical presence of its own, strong enough to lift the roof. By early evening, we'd been fed twice and ful-somely, dinner and supper: Hall was girded with tables, the dishes breathing steam and the air zinging with cloves. And for those of us at the top table, there'd been special delights – jewel-bright sugary jellies and gilded stars of spice-bread, and a wine heavy with honey that kept coming my way.

I'd lost track of how long I'd been there with the food and drink coming and going, the musicians sawing at their strings: it could've been days, judging from how tired I was. But, I knew, I'd need to be back on my feet before too long, because there was more dancing to come, and sure enough the tables were soon being cleared, dismantled and stacked against the panelling, and the musicians were manfully preparing to strike up, summoning the verve from God knows where so that it would've been churlish not to honour their efforts.

And I knew I'd manage it: somehow I'd be there with everyone else and be glad of it, and not too bad at it. Light-headed, I was game, which was everything, and within minutes I was there, doing my bit, shoulder to shoulder with my fellow-dancers.

Harry turned up opposite me in the line, as eventually everyone would: taking his place as the dance required, partnering me for that particular move. Harry, in a hallful of people I hardly knew; there he was, being so very much himself, so very ready to give of himself, and there was something close to comical about him – the ale-ruddied cheeks and cowslick hair, the popped buttons – but he was definitely in on the joke, which only made it funnier.

‘Hello, Lizzie,' he said, and that too was funny, to have a greeting voiced as if we were anywhere other than passing each other, flushed and breathless, in a dance. No one ever greeted anyone during a dance; everyone just danced. And what a funny pair we made, too: the big man and the scrap that was me. But a proper pair in that hallful of fair-weather friends, because we'd known each other for my whole life and for a moment, just one moment, as he took my hand, I felt that no one else would ever know me so well. But it was only a moment, gone in a flash and if nothing more had happened later then I'd never have remembered it, I'd have danced on down that line, partner after partner, with Harry long gone as he should've been.

A little later, the music stopped and that year's lord of misrule came running on to the dais to direct the festivities. I
knew the face – he was one of our stablelads – but the face wasn't what drew the eye. Skipping on to that little stage to cat-calls from the audience who'd voted him there, he was preceded by an absurdly swollen codpiece which spoke of high jinks behind the scenes: a host of stablelads having had a hand, as it were, in its creation.

Their handiwork had been slapdash, though, and now it was skewiff, the stuffing slipped, not that our puny stablelad seemed bothered. He was keen to display his appendage with swirls of an over-sized cloak which would've been loaned by someone twice his size.

With a particularly vicious swirl, he regaled us: ‘Oh, you lover-ly lot.' A snarl, but scamp-eyed in the delivery and I recalled him as meek and mild-mannered at the stables, much more so than the other lads, which was probably why they'd voted him up there. The gleam in his eye said he wouldn't disappoint them: if he really did have to don an outsize codpiece and whip up a crowd, then he'd not be doing it by halves. ‘You lover-ly lot down there.' The dais elevated him all of a hand's breadth above us, the advantage of which was lost by his diminutive stature. ‘Call that dancing, do you?' He was deriding us as he was supposed to do: we dancers who'd halted dutifully to become his audience. ‘All that lover-ly little neat-stepping of yours,' and he took a couple of niggardly, prancing steps which had the codpiece bouncing horribly and of course we all laughed. ‘Well, you know what?' He stood tall, as much as he could. ‘Life's been too kind to you.' At this, the laughter turned slightly guarded, although the deal
was that we should give ourselves over for goading, that we should lay ourselves open to it, and anyway there was safety for us in numbers. I hoped those who'd volunteered him had his interests at heart, because I saw now that he was a little unsteady on his feet; I hoped he knew his limits. ‘You don't neeeed to enjoy yourselves, do you.' He lunged accusingly and the crowd, as one, drew back, but then he was swirling again, working himself up to being a spectacle for us, and letting us
off
the hook. ‘Because every day's a party, for you, isn't it. Not just for you…' he seemed unsure how to name us,
‘finer
people,' said, though, with no detectable rancour, ‘but
all
of you,' he crooned it to the roof before snatching it down into a playful sneer, ‘with your oh-so-lover-ly indoor lives.' A flamboyant swirl of the cloak almost unbalanced him. ‘But you know what? You wanna be outside with the
real
men.' His relish of the word ‘real' garnered him a roar of approval: he was playing to those friends of his, now, and specifically addressed them: ‘Work hard, play hard, eh, lads?' and to the rest of us, ‘Out in the stables there's a lot of …' he paused for effect,
‘horsing around
.'

Everyone obliged with the predictable collective groan, at which he giggled, losing his composure before changing tack and calling ringingly through the room, ‘But who's going to be my lady of misrule, eh?' Arms flung wide, codpiece on its way to his knees. ‘Where's my lady? What's the point of being a lord if I don't have a lady?' and suddenly his eyes were on mine simply because I was nearest, at the front, just because that was where I'd been when the music had stopped,
and how hadn't I seen it coming? Why hadn't I realised how exposed I was, there? Why hadn't I stepped back to lose myself in the crowd?

‘You,' he implored me.

Instinct had me take a backwards step, by chance into Harry – I knew it was him from his laughter in my hair, wine-scented – and he put a hand on my shoulder, possibly just to stop me from treading on his toes but it was enough, it was all that was needed to claim me from the Lord of Misrule.

Later that evening, on a dash outside to the jakes, I was sufficiently stoked on indoor warmth to be able to take a moment on the way back to appreciate the sky, which held most of a moon amid a pack of stars. The midwinter sourness was gratifyingly bracing and I left the courtyard for the rose garden. Just a minute more, I decided, but then I glimpsed a figure ahead, sitting on a wall, and the figure turned and it was Harry. Harry, here in the dark. Harry, who was never to be found anywhere but in the thick of things.

‘Fresh air,' he offered in explanation when I approached, although I hadn't actually asked and if fresh air was all he'd wanted, he could've kept to the steps by the door. So, I checked, asked if he was all right, and he said he was.

Not cold?

No, ‘But
you
are,' and there was no denying that, my breath seething with shivers.

Nodding towards the house, he gave me his blessing: ‘Off you go.'

But Shelley Place, across the garden from us like a giant
lantern, was suddenly not where I wanted to be. And anyway I balked at being ordered; I'd go in my own time. Which perhaps he detected, because then he got to his feet, saying, ‘You're right, it
is
cold,' and although he had my interests at heart, it rankled; I was quite able to look after myself. I didn't need saving from myself. But then he made me smile by adding, ‘Back to the fun,' making clear that he regarded it as anything but. He was right: it was unconvincing, that fun in there. Good-natured and well intentioned, definitely, but I'd had enough of it. I'd had what I wanted of it and there were so many people who were better at that kind of thing than I was. But we were already in step on our way back, even though we didn't believe in it. We were going back indoors because we had to, and perhaps in recognition of that, we were holding hands: a conciliatory gesture. Who had taken whose hand first, I hadn't noticed, but it didn't matter because they were a good fit, our hands, and the warmth was welcome. There we were, walking along with our linked hands swinging between us as if this were something we regularly did, although in truth no one had held my hand since before I could remember.