A Court Affair - Emily Purdy

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frivolous or featherbrained.

      I used to be the chatelaine of my father’s estate. My mother was a rich widow who never had much interest in such things. She preferred the life of a pampered invalid, lounging her life away in bed, propped up against a mountain of pillows, munching sweetmeats, gossiping with the friends and family who came calling, and showing off one or another of her pretty lace-trimmed caps and bed gowns, so I took charge of the household as soon as I was old enough. I kept account of 3,000 sheep—the lambing, the shearing, the wool sales, those animals sold for mutton at market—I tallied the profits and the losses and kept account of the barley crop, the yield from our famed apple orchard and other fruit trees, the berry picking, the brewing of cider and ale, the salting of meat for winter, the milk, butter, and cream from our cool stone dairy, the honey from the hives, the distillery where we made our own perfumes and medicines and dried herbs and flower petals for sachets and pot-pourri to sweeten our rooms and the chests where we stored our clothes and bed linens; I oversaw the larder and wine cellar and made sure they were always well stocked, with plenty to eat and drink, barrels of dried fruits and salted meats, and jams and jellies to delight us with summer fruits in wintertime. I supervised the laundry and candle-making, planned the meals with our cook, and dispensed charity, packing and giving out baskets of food, clothing, and medicines to the poor, ailing, and elderly. I rode out daily to inspect the fields, orchards, and pastures. I used to be able to do it all! Father used to say I was a paragon of efficiency!

      But now … Now there is no work for me to do even if I were able. Now I sit in the homes of strangers as a gracious, idle, and ailing houseguest with too much time on my hands and weighing heavily upon my mind. I was brought up to believe that idle hands are the Devil’s tool, but I think that is equally true of an idle mind. Rumours, fears, and fancies prey on me, they bite deeply like fanged monsters, and I can no longer distract myself and stave them off with work as I used to do. It is not just my body that is failing. Now my mind is a mass of contradictions—I think or say one thing and then another, I veer from the highest heights of hope to the deepest pit of dark despair, one moment joy rules my life, then, in a finger snap, I am fury incarnate or drowning in deep blue doldrums; I grasp greedily at life yet long for death, I fight to survive and then sink down, ready to yield, admit defeat, and surrender. I’ve lost control of my own mind, and I don’t know what I want any more when I used to be so certain. I’ve strayed so far from the woman I was and the woman I always meant and wanted to be. I’ve lost my way, and now it is too late to remedy my course, to stop, stand still, get my bearings, and think, turn back to the crossroads of Fate and choose a different path. As my father would say: “You’ve made your bed, Amy my lass, and now you have to lie in it!”

      Some rumours already claim that I am a madwoman kept chained in an attic for my own good and the safety of others and that loyal Pirto is not my maid turned nurse but actually my keeper.

      “Poor Robert!” those who hear the rumours—both the ones that tell the truth and the ones that lie—must say and sigh as they dolefully shake their heads and pat his shoulder or back sympathetically if they are acquainted with him well enough to take such liberties with his person. Under the circumstances, even those who dislike him—and there are a great many who do—cannot begrudge him his extravagances and pleasures. Eight-and-twenty is far too young to be burdened with such a wife, they no doubt think or even say outright. “Poor Robert” indeed! Healthy, handsome, virile, strong, and vigorous Robert, riding like the wind and dancing the night away, his ambitions blazing like a comet so bright, they almost turn night into day, spending every waking hour fawning over and flattering the Queen, paying poets to write her sonnets he can sign his own name to, gambling as if gold were as common as shit and all he has to do is squat down over a pot to get more, racking up debts buying her costly gifts—silk stockings by the score and an emerald that would have paid for us to have a real home of our own if such had been his desire—and dreaming of the day when he will be free of me to marry her and become King Robert I of England. It’s always “Poor Robert!” never “Poor Amy!” though eight-and-twenty is far too young to be burdened with the fatal canker of cancer in her once-beautiful breast, to live every day locked in a brutal, unbreakable embrace of pain that can only be numbed by a powerful powder of opium poppies mixed into strong wine that brings strange dreams, both sleeping and waking, that hopelessly muddles fact and fiction in her poor, befuddled brain, to live every moment knowing that her days are numbered and ever dwindling, and in such pain that she often falls upon her knees and prays to God to deliver her from her desperation. Yes, “Poor Robert” indeed! Dancing the volta with the Queen and showering kisses onto her perfect alabaster breasts; rolling silk stockings up or down her long, fair legs; flaunting his prowess on the tennis court and in the saddle; riding to the hunt or against an opponent in the tiltyard; and sitting on the Queen’s Council to arrogantly contradict the wise Sir William Cecil because he resents the trust that exists between the Queen and the Secretary of State. Robert wants to reign supreme! If Cecil said black were white, Robert would bang his fists down hard upon the table and shout, “Nay, it is green!” then pout and sulk with a face as dark as a storm cloud if Her Majesty chose to take Cecil’s word over his. Such is my husband’s life. “Poor Robert” indeed; he is the one truly deserving of sympathy, not me! If I were dead, he would be free, he would be King, but my weak and waning body stands between him and his Destiny. Poor Robert! How the heavens must weep for him!

      Dried chamomile bobs about my breasts, but I don’t look down; this disease has already killed my vanity and murdered all the delight my body ever gave to me. I sometimes wonder if it has been visited upon me as a punishment for my vanity, the pride and pleasure I once took in baring and flaunting my breasts before my husband to entice and excite him and enflame his lust. Whenever Pirto helps me dress and undress, I keep the candles at a distance and my eyes fixed straight ahead. I never look down, even though I know ignoring it will not make it go away. I tried that when I first discovered the inwardly turned dimple that later pointed outward in an emphatic and angry lump that demanded my attention and could not be ignored. I shun the looking glass now and drape it in black velvet as if I were already dead and this were a house in mourning. But even though I avoid looking, I know exactly what I would see if I did. My right breast perfect and plump, like a creamy custard crowned with a cherry pink nipple, the left marred, mottled, swollen, and florid, with an ugly, oozing lump but half a thumb’s span from my nipple, as if it were my nipple’s ugly, grossly deformed twin, a grotesquerie made to nurse Death’s pet imp. Sometimes I dream that he is there, a wicked little gargoyle, a tiny bilious green and black sulphur-stinking devil, dainty only in his size, with pointy ears and a forked tail, glowing red eyes, and needle-sharp fangs he sinks with ravenous relish into the lump to suckle and suck the life out of me and make me either scream out in agony or fall fainting and breathless to the floor, defenceless against the onslaught of pain his suckling brings. I used to dream of someday having a baby, a little girl with my golden curls or Robert’s dark ones, to nurse at my breast, but instead I have this evil imp called Cancer to suck from me, and instead of good and wholesome mother’s milk my nipple leaks a foul discharge, sometimes milky in further mockery of my dreams, other times tinged pink by my blood to remind me of the pink dresses and hair ribbons I would have given the little girl I know now I will never carry under my heart, feeling her flutter and kick inside the warm, safe nest of my womb.

      The swelling extends beneath my left arm so that I feel always tender and sore there. I try to carry myself carefully, as if I were a woman fashioned from the finest Venetian glass, but often, out of habit, a lifetime of moving freely without thought or worry, I forget. It has happened so many times that hearing me gasp and cry out has become commonplace; those about me have heard it so often that the maids seldom even look up from their work, or Mrs Forster and Mrs Oddingsells from their game of cards or backgammon, and Mrs Owen, who as the wife of one doctor and the mother of another, one might have expected a show of compassion from, has become immune to human suffering. At such times I fancy I could run stark naked shrieking like a banshee through the house with my hair on fire, and no one would even look up.

      The candlelight is kind to me, for which I am grateful, as I am for any kindness that is given me. Lately the disease has lent a yellow tint to my skin and the whites of my eyes—jaundice. But in the kind, flattering light of the candles it isn’t obvious; it is the harsh,

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