Summerweek
By Katherine Traylor
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2020 Katherine Traylor
ISBN 9781646564231
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
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Summerweek
By Katherine Traylor
It is a bright day, and everyone is hopeful.
We’ve been outside for hours in the warmth of the sun, waiting for the Queen to pass by. We don’t mind: this kind of weather is made for waiting for processions. Jana has bought snacks—giant pastry puffs, and glass bottles full of pink cordial—and we share them as blithely as a family in a picture. The children are deliriously happy. The air is bright, and the crowd is calm. Everything is as it should be.
It has been about four hours, and the crowd has grown up like a murmuring forest, when the procession comes around the corner. It begins with a group of children, all dressed in frothing white and blue, bearing garlands of flowers almost as big as they are. They are all from noble families. My niece and nephew, charming and intelligent as they are, would never be asked to join them, though a year ago they might have had a chance.
After the children, walking easily at their slow pace, come the standard-bearers. The royal standard hangs the highest, with those of the churches just slightly below it. Behind them are the banners of all the major houses of the peerage, including those that are now extinct—a catalogue of all the most honored participants in the Battle of Long Red Hill.
My nephew watches the banners avidly. He can name every house—has done so, on days when he and I had nothing better to do than while away our time with unnecessary lessons. He is almost as interested in the drummers and pipers and trumpeters who come next, stirring the crowd with military marches. My niece Marianne, however, has eyes for nothing but the Queen.
First comes the seneschal. In his scarlet uniform and red-plumed hat, on his red-plumed horse, he looks like a bit of festive decoration affixed to the front of a helmet. But his role is important: with him to catch the crowd’s attention, the Queen and her attendants may not be judged quite so minutely.
And there it is—a fat white carriage with gold Rococo trim. I remember riding in the closeness of that carriage, settling the Queen’s hair and putting off her admirers and generally making myself useful where I could. Now I am an anonymous face in the bustling, sweating crowd. No one would know that I was once a part of that spectacle. How times do change.
The children leap up when they see the carriage. Marianne has wanted to be a lady in waiting for as long as she’s known what one was. I fear she’s taken the wrong impression from my stories about the palace. Gregory, her elder brother, has a more general interest. He loves parades, horses, carriages, crowds, and anything else under the sun. He’s looking now at the seneschal’s hat, pointing to the red ostrich plumes, asking how the palace got so many, what was used to dye them.
As for me, I am focused on the Queen herself, or what I can see of her. She is mostly shielded by the white gauze curtains around her window, but I can see the outline of her face, and it is enough to bring back the days when I first knew I loved her. She is not quite as young as you’d think. People seem to forget—though the date of the Queen’s birth is public knowledge—that the years have carried her as they’ve carried the rest of us, past the days of pink-cheeked girlhood depicted in her earliest state portraits, and on toward the beginnings of middle age. She’s thirty-seven this year, I think, or maybe thirty-eight. I would love her if she were ninety.
As the carriage nears, I see her better. They have her in pale blue organza today, with the red velvet sash she always wears on state holidays. Large diamonds sparkle at her ears and throat, catching the light like prisms. Their reflections on her skin are another set of ornaments. Nestled gently in the ash-brown waves of my lady’s hair is the Grand Tiara of the Sun Queen. It was made for the Golden Jubilee of this Queen’s grandmother—another in a long line of well-loved, inoffensive sovereigns. I’m surprised they’ve brought the tiara out. It is an ostentatious piece, and our Queen has never liked ostentation. But I don’t suppose she chose it.
I notice Jana glancing from me to the carriage, a significant look in her eyes—I must be staring. I smile, acknowledging my weakness, but I keep watching the carriage. It’s rare that I have the chance to look at the only woman I ever loved. This sight may have to last me another year.
“She looks well today,” says Jana after a moment.
I know she would have said it, for my sake, whether it was true or not—but I smile anyway. “She always looks well,” I say softly.
Jana hums. “Has she written to you yet? Or…have you written to her?”
“Why would the Queen have reason to write to me?” I hiss. “Or I to her? We’re nothing to do with each other now.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” my friend says. The carriage is passing out of sight now. Jana takes my arm and turns us so we can both see till the very last second. “I’m sure she’d want to hear from you.”
I shake my head. “Everyone around her would know I was writing if they saw the letter. They’d all think I was asking for something.”
The carriage rounds the corner, and with it the parade. In moments, the children are whining to go home. To be fair, it’s been a long day for them. My sister and her husband begin gathering the remains of our picnic, and Jana and I fold the chairs and get the children ready to go. It is not until we are walking down the street, she and I a little behind the others, that she finally says, “If you did write to her, Belle—if you could ask for something—what would you ask for?”
The question is so sudden—and the answer so heartbreakingly obvious—that for a second it takes my breath away. “Nothing…that Her Majesty can give me,” I manage to say finally. Sniffing, I leave Jana behind, and go on to catch up with my niece and nephew.
I can’t sleep that night. I am trapped in the past—in a moonlit hour on a balcony outside the Queen’s chambers, in a cloud of silk and perfume. There was no rank then—no kingdom—only two women who loved each other. It was real for her, I think, as much as it was for me. I have never known Her Majesty to be insincere.
I remember, too, the people around us: rose-tinted figures in elegant court dress, the many unnecessary attendants in any monarch’s household. Ellery, who brought in the combs and brushes each morning. Jonas, who adjusted the drapes. Morvarid, who received the ornaments the jeweler brought and arranged them neatly on a table.
Jana was there, too, of course, but she is a courtier by proximity, not by rank. A brilliant wri
ter, she was always being invited to stay by some luminary or another, and the Queen enjoyed her company enough to let it be known that Jana was welcome at court.
And Jana was the first to see what was happening between Her Majesty and me. She may have known even before I did; I have always been oblivious. I believe, at least, that Jana contrived to find time for us to be alone—engaging those around us in conversation so that Her Majesty, with her usual serenity, could sit back and observe—and I with her. From those silences grew brief pleasantries, then longer conversations, until finally the Queen and I were having our own small soirees apart from all the others.
It did not go unnoticed. Jealousy is the one language common to all courtiers, and I had unknowingly placed my thumb across the flow of power. Before I realized what I’d done, others had taken steps to contravene my influence; and by the time my lady and I were discovered in the remnants of that one sweet hour, preparations for my ouster had already been made.
It is not a story I will ever tell my niece, but I wager everyone else knows it.
I wake in the first blush of morning. I must have dozed off eventually. Gentle light creeps through my south-facing window—a borrowed kindness; this will never be my house. After some time, I make myself get out of bed and put on my dressing gown.
In the wall niche outside my bedroom door, there stands a folded note. I pick it up. It is scented faintly with violet. Unfolding it, I find no address, no signature—only the words, I hoped to see you yesterday, but could not spot you in the crowd. I hope that next time, you will wear red.
I cannot breathe. I do not know who has brought the card upstairs. Perhaps one of the maids—not knowing, of course, where it came from. But I know the handwriting. I press the letter to my heart, and wonder what could have inspired Her to write to me so suddenly.
As I stand paralyzed, the children come toward me from the nursery. Marianne looks at me reprovingly. “But you’re not dressed, Aunt Belle,” she says. “Are you ill? You said we were going to the park today.”
Quickly I fold the card and slip it into the pocket of my dressing gown, though I want to keep it by my heart always. “Not ill, darling. I’ll come downstairs soon. Go along now.”
Gregory looks at me curiously. He has noticed the note, though Marianne has moved on. However, he is a good child, and does not ask impertinent questions.
I am unable to think straight, either at breakfast or at the park with the children later. Marianne continues to ask if I am ill. Perhaps I am. I want to dress in red from head to toe, creep into the Queen’s garden, and stand there until she sees me. And at the same time, I want to flee—to Paris or Amsterdam, Rome, Cairo, Peking—to go so far away that no one will ever hear my heart beating like a rabbit’s. I could live out a hermit’s life and die happy, knowing that my lady loves me still.
But I am not such a coward as to leave. To my detriment, I must go where my rabbit heart leads—and that is to the palace.
The Queen is addressing the public this afternoon. Nominally it is in commemoration of the holiday we’re still celebrating: the anniversary of our nation’s greatest victory, the Battle of Long Red Hill. But we are not a militant people, and our Queen is a peaceful woman. She will likely speak on more domestic subjects: the poor still among us, the education and guidance of children. It will be dull, as usual, but should still draw a crowd. Ordinarily I would avoid such an event—I hardly need to be reminded that I’ve been reduced to a peasant’s admiration of our sovereign. But today I cannot help but go.
I dress carefully. I do not wish to seem desperate. I will not wear red from head to toe. Instead, I wear brown, and dress my hair demurely. I hang garnet drops from my ears—not too noticeable, nearly brown themselves, but flattering to my complexion. Only around my throat, in a slight defiance of propriety, do I tie a deep red ribbon.
In the forecourt of the palace, I stand in the back of the audience, just one of several hundred faces staring up at the Queen. I applaud politely when others do. In the shade of my straw hat, I keep my eyes lowered. It is hot today, and I am perspiring. Compared to the tall, cool figure on the balcony, in her summer frock of palest pink, I feel damp and unattractive. I am grateful for the shade of my chapeau. If I do not show my face, she need never know I was here. That will be best for everyone; it was foolish for me to come. Any moment now, her speech will end…
But when it does, the applause swells—and swells; it seems this was a larger crowd than I thought—and I hear her offer a final benediction, those last words falling like fresh water across the parched crowd. I can’t help but raise my eyes just once—and in that moment, our eyes meet.
The Queen looks…startled. I didn’t expect that. Did she not believe that I would come? Has a year been long enough for her to lose her trust in me? But surely, she knows I could never deny her even the slightest request.
Her eyes fall to the ribbon around my neck, and she smiles softly. My heart beats faster. Then I shall wear red hereafter, lady, I told her foolishly that night, when she told me how she loved that color against my skin. Thus all the world may know that I am at your service. But then the morning came, and all the Ladies and Gentlemen of the Chamber drew me aside and told me that my services would no longer be required. From then, I’ve never worn red again.
I see her lips part, as if she were about to speak to me alone. I am suddenly terrified. If she says my name, I know my heart will stop. I curtsy deeply, rise, and walk away without looking at her again.
The sun is too bright—the sky dazzles me as I walk, dazed, back to my sister’s house. My heart is beating a little too heavily. I feel as if I’m passing through the remnants of a dream. It is a long walk, and I am grateful for the chance to work away the shock of meeting her eyes again.
When I am almost home, I see Jana waiting at the corner of our street. She is dressed for walking, in dark blue with a brown straw hat. She smiles when she sees me, and her smile widens at the sight of the red ribbon around my neck. “And where have you been, my dearest one?” she says. “It’s good to see you in a bit of color again.”
“Only walking,” I say—but I can’t hide my stunned smile, and wonder if Jana can hear the fluttering of my heart.
She takes my arm and begins to walk with me toward my sister’s house. “I came to ask,” she says, smiling mischievously, “if you are going to the picnic tomorrow.”
I cannot think what she is talking about. “What do you mean?” I say.
Jana gives me an exasperated look. “I mean the Garden Party, dearest.”
And then I remember. The midpoint of the great Summerweek celebration, the Garden Party is the Crown’s gift to the occupants of the neighborhoods near the palace—a faux-egalitarian celebration, wherein Her Majesty mingles with commoners as long as they’re the right sort. As a resident of my sister’s neighborhood, I’m entitled to attend.
“I didn’t think of it,” I stammer. “Last year I—” Last year I stayed home reading, hidden away from the sun, until Summerweek was well over and I could safely pass the palace again. “And the family—they aren’t going—they’re taking the children to the seashore. I was meant to go with them…”
Jana makes an indifferent moue. “That sounds nice. Though I suppose it will be very hot tomorrow.”
“I suppose.” I am suddenly giddy. The thought of being in the garden while my lady walks there is dizzying—a breath of heady perfume. “I’d need a gift,” I add faintly. The Garden Party is, ostensibly, a celebration of the Queen’s birthday.
“I am certain you could think of one,” says Jana dryly. “I am sure Her Majesty would appreciate anything you chose to give her.”
“Don’t joke, Jana.” My mind is racing. What gift could even hint at my regard for her?
Then the reality of what I’m considering crashes suddenly home. Attend the Garden Party? Willingly enter the palace gardens, that sea of perfume and whispers, where all my enemies will see me—a serpent in their midst—and look to cast
me out? They’ve been content to leave me alone thus far, as I’ve kept well away from court, but to present myself at the picnic would surely be a step too far.
Besides, to trap myself like that, in such a close space—bound by walls and rustling hedges, where anyone—even the Queen—could come upon me? To turn a corner and meet her walking—and then to have nowhere to retreat to—the thought is too much. “I cannot go. I can’t,” I say, shaking my head quickly.
Jana looks disappointed, though perhaps not surprised. “Belle, my dear, you will have to start living life again someday,” she says. “You have mourned like a widow for a year already. Do you truly think Her Majesty would have wanted you to keep away from her? To shut yourself away like a nun in a convent?”
“It isn’t my place to impose on her,” I say primly, without meeting Jana’s eyes. “My lady has enough to do without me there, complicating things.” I hesitate, unable to let go of that brief moment’s idea. “I…might drop off a gift, though.”
That night, as my niece and nephew are running through the house, excitedly preparing for their journey tomorrow, I go up to the garret. There, looking out from the highest windows in the house, across the wide spread of trees that is the Crown Park, I see the castle burning with celebration lights. It looks, itself, like an heirloom ornament in the royal treasury—a grand tiara, set with jewels captured at great price from countries far across the sea. Inside, somewhere in the center of that glittering marvel, is a woman whose happiness I would give the whole kingdom to keep.
I imagine her watching, as I do, out the high windows of her chambers. Maybe she, too, is remembering how we lay together on the balcony seat, whispering lines to each other from our favorite poems—
I stop short, and leave the garret. Back in my room, I quickly search my bookcase. In the center of one shelf, unobtrusive between volumes of Goethe and Rousseau, is a slim antique book of Petrarch’s sonnets. Taking it from the shelf, I turn to a well-worn page. Quando fra l’altre donne ad ora ad ora Amor vien nel bel viso di costei…When, among the other ladies, Love appears from time to time within her lovely face…
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