by Mavis Cheek
Flora upturned the bucket and sat on it in much the same pose as Rodin’s Thinker and stared. She hoped the pose would help the thought process and she tried thinking very, very hard. A datestone for one’s death, but carved when Elizabeth Tudor had been on the throne for forty years. When she was old, afraid, loveless, alone. It surprised Flora to read about those last years. The Elizabethan Age was always taught as golden and glorious but when you looked at Elizabeth’s long reign it was beset with difficulties, assassination attempts, false and overweening lovers, religious rebellion and Spanish assaults with such an intensifying of these in her last decade that the throne was almost lost, Elizabeth almost taken prisoner – but again – what could that possibly have to do with Anna? What could the memory of one solitary, long-dead, German queen, almost certainly a dignified virgin when she died, one who was amenable, scandal free, a quiet survivor, mean to someone in those last years of Elizabeth’s reign? And since the manor and its lands were still then in the hands of the Crown there was no family in ownership to help trace any clue.
Scandal, scandal. Surviving, surviving . . . That word again. But why? But what? But who? Elizabeth, Gloriana. It had to be connected with her – but why? With the relief much sharper the stone looked much more like the carving of the ducal coronets on Anna’s tomb in Westminster. Very like it in fact. When she visited the Abbey, Flora thought that the way the tomb looked was much like the way Anna was remembered now. It was once a grand piece of marble, decorated with semi-precious stones and gilding, with highly wrought carvings – but now it was stripped of all its fine decoration, made ugly by neglect and crowded out by other more recent monuments. The ducal coronets were all that was left of a once finely wrought memorial. And it did not have swans, the romantic symbol of Cleves’ tradition, like this carved stone. It was almost as if someone wanted to redress this oversight of neglect and at the same time give Anna her full heraldic honour. Someone who knew about the swans, knew the story . . .
Flora stared at it all the harder. But how – if at all – were the two connected? The neglected tomb and the elegant, thoughtful stone? And then – and then – the clouds seemed to part – and illumination flowed down from the heavens to the upturned bucket and Flora’s concentrating face and she was certain that she understood it at last. Revelations were not something that usually happened to Flora – when shafts of illumination were flying about she was usually absent – but sitting there in the deepening light, staring at the wall and the fresh cleaned stone as if it might speak, she suddenly had one. A Revelation. ‘But of course –’ she shouted to the evening sky. She stood up and the bucket overturned making a clattering rumpus that frightened the dozing birds into shrill complaint. ‘Of course that is why the stone is there,’ she said to them. ‘Of course. It must be. It’s like a crossword puzzle where you get the clue but then have to work out the question . . .’ On the whole the bird community did not seem much interested in her sudden cracking of the code. Small-brained creatures, all feathers and no thoughts. Elizabeth, her feet on England, her marriage games of cat and mouse, the lovers, the ambitious lovers, the men who wished to rule her, the scandals. Elizabeth – The Tudor’s greatest survivor. But only just.
Flora looked at the stone again, touched it almost reverentially. The fashionable word for it now was footprint. She traced its outlines, the swan, the coronet, the ornate Anno domini 1557, and she knew.
Picking up the bucket Flora walked home feeling happy. Feeling proud, even. And if it wasn’t the last piece of the puzzle and if she was wrong – well – it would just have to do. Now that would be something to tell the dreadful Murdoch woman who thought Anna of so little consequence and the Ditchley and its subject so admirable. Miss Murdoch would never look at the portrait of Anna in the same way again when Flora had finished with her.
The following morning Ewan telephoned Flora from his office and they decided on a date for their visit. Ewan then drew a line through his diary page for that day and thought fondly of Flora. She wasn’t letting the grass grow. She wasn’t sitting around wondering where the golden life had fled. She was getting on with things. His way of getting on with things was golf. You could put a very large amount of your angst into the swing of a club and take a great deal of comfort from the crack of its head on the ball. A very great deal. He felt expansive. It was a good idea of Flora’s to go to London to see the exhibition and he was looking forward to it. And since he had noticed something of a froideur between Hilary and her mother last time they met, he thought he would do something to help. He nodded to himself and picked up the telephone.
First he called the place where the exhibition was about to open, then he telephoned Hilary. They were of one accord – it would be a nice thing to do – and – as Hilary said – they could make it a little occasion, something to mark and celebrate her father, too. Her mother would like that.
‘Exactly,’ said Ewan. ‘It’ll be just what Flora needs. A bit of support after all her efforts. A bit of a celebration. We’ll all have a nice lunch afterwards.’
‘Lovely.
‘She’s been marvellous, your mother,’ said Ewan. ‘She’s put a lot of effort into the job despite discovering your father’s . . .’ He just about stopped himself in time.
‘Father’s what?’ asked Hilary. ‘Complexities,’ he answered quickly.
He could sense Hilary’s smile. ‘Well, he was always very wide-reaching – sometimes it was hard to keep up with him – never knew what he would do next,’ she said. ‘He was wonderful.’
Ewan could only agree.
It would, on the whole, be easier not to take Dilly if Hilary was going to be there too. Hilary never quite held back where Dilly’s somewhat erratic behaviour was concerned and had been heard to say, ‘Pull yourself together,’ which was never very helpful. He was not entirely sure if Dilly would cope. He was not at all sure about anything very much where Dilly was concerned – those beautiful eyes of hers were a blank to him . . . So if the three of them had a nice lunch together it might bring mother and daughter closer and it would be a friendly thing to do for Flora. She’d suffered quite enough humiliation with that Pike woman. Unlike Dilly, he thought Flora was probably much stronger than she seemed – indeed – now he came to think about it – she appeared to be getting stronger daily. Perhaps Pauline Pike had put grit in the oyster? He tried not to remember those undoubted charms. The more helpful and supportive he could be with Flora, the easier it would be for her to forget the pain. And it had the helpful side of helping him forget his pain, too. He, of course, was still hoping for a miracle. He then rang Flora to say that he would like to take her for lunch after seeing the Holbein. His treat. She, somewhere in orbit, agreed.
The following afternoon Flora, still feeling little tingles about having a definite date with Ewan, walked across the paddock with Giles, who had brought his camera. Everything was coming together very nicely and it was a cheerful, smiling Giles who arrived, thank goodness, a return to his old self. He’d been moping around the village for weeks and had given no impromptu wine tastings at all much to the annoyance of many, including the Vicar, who always enjoyed the occasions purely, as he said, for their social effect. As Betty remarked once, effect was the right word. They were, as those who missed them said, very merry affairs. Over the years, although his friendship was really with Edward, he had always been friendly towards Flora in his slightly nervous, Wodehousian way and though he was clearly a man’s man, and akin in his relationship with Edward to a bibular jousting companion, he was a nice person and never did that thing of switching his interest from her to one of the younger and more attractive women of the village if they were at a Hurcott gathering together. Indeed, he quite often seemed to move nearer to her, as if for protection. Poor Giles – not one of life’s survivors from the school system.
This afternoon, she noticed, he looked very pleased with himself. When she asked him why he merely turned his eyes heavenwards and said that he was very glad to be doing som
ething positive for Edward.
‘Oh,’ said Flora, a little wonderingly. ‘Good.’
‘You’re looking very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Flora,’ he said, cheerfully.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Giles,’ she said. ‘Do,’ he said happily. ‘Do.’
They walked through the back gate away from Lodge Cottage and out into the mellow evening. ‘It’s been a beautiful summer,’ she said. ‘And every evening seems to have been golden for ever.’
‘Dear old Flora,’ said Giles. ‘Always one to look on the bright side despite everything . . .’
She took this to mean the little Pike. ‘Men will be men, Giles,’ she said, absolutely hating herself. But it hit the right note.
Giles, swinging his camera nervously, turned to her with a dramatic countenance. ‘Oh Flora,’ he said, so fervently that she quite expected him to follow it with something like A dashed Aunt is all very well but you can’t beat a Bertie. ‘What a good idea of yours to write up this history of Edward’s. What a mighty brain that man had.’
She just smiled and nodded. Usefully, little more is expected, she knew, from a plain and amenable woman.
It might have been all right if Giles had ended the fulsomeness there. But he did not. ‘Ah,’ he continued, with equal drama, ‘a last service you can do for him. His final opus. He was my friend, whence comes such another? Take your mind off all the bad things. That Pike woman. I mean, what chance did he have . . .’ Flora very nearly snapped, ‘Every bloody chance,’ but she stopped herself. There was a tear in Giles’s eye. It was absolutely intolerable this total faith in such a rat. She shook her head. Edward’s history indeed! The last service she could do for him indeed . . . As if she were a handmaiden dusting shelves. Surely she could give up on the role now? Edward’s notes were hardly on a par with Macaulay and Gibbon. She could not help herself. She wanted to point this out to him. Why not?
‘Well, Giles, I have to say it’s proving a lot more difficult than I thought.’ She spoke with as much feeling as she dared. . .
‘A lot more . . .’
Giles was still in the painful realm of the siren Pike. ‘Oh that woman,’ he said. And to her astonishment he took Flora into his arms. It was all rather angular and uncomfortable, added to which he nearly hugged the living daylights out of her. ‘You poor dear girl,’ he said, which seemed rather an overreaction. ‘But we’re all here to help. I’m here, Flora. I’m here for you.’
‘Good,’ she said, and a little confusedly removed herself as delicately as possible. To have an experience of a passionate nature in the wrong man’s arms was highly ironical and very trying.
‘You know how close I was to Edward,’ said Giles, ‘Well – how close I was to both of you. And now that he’s gone – well –’
Flora had a sudden dreadful suspicion. ‘And now that he’s gone – well what?’
Giles looked uncomfortable but determined. ‘I should look after you. At the very least.’
‘Why?’ she asked, genuinely astonished.
‘Well – because love takes you in strange and surprising ways, Flora. I never expected it – not after first youth and all that. But there it was.’ He looked at her with large, wet eyes behind his spectacles.
Good grief, she thought. Giles is making a pass. Giles.
No, no. ‘It’s very early days,’ she heard herself saying firmly. ‘Far too early, Giles.’ But part of her was pleased. If she was having trouble persuading herself that Ewan would even look at her twice, she could at least take heart in Giles. She was not remotely attracted to him but it always changed the goal-posts when someone declared themselves to be taken with you – you began to feel much, much fonder of them – for their good taste among other things. And – yes – it is a truth universally acknowledged that if an unexceptional man declares himself to a woman of his fancy, she will immediately start to look on him in a more favourable light and find his unexceptional qualities less of a handicap. Unless you were Elizabeth Bennett in company with Mr Collins, of course, but she was pretty – who amongst the plain of us would dare turn any offer down completely? So thought Flora.
Giles was now quite pink. ‘Will you let me be here for you, Flora? It would help me enormously too.’
‘What exactly do you mean by “here for you”, Giles?’ She moved away from him slightly in case he took her in his arms again. Giles had never known his strength and was the archetypal overgrown schoolboy. She’d still got a pair of barbecue tongs once used by him that looked as if Uri Geller had been visiting – and that was only sausages and steak.
‘Well – you know,’ he said, disconcertingly coy. ‘Anything you might need – that you miss – now Edward is gone. Anything.’
He suddenly looked quite desperate and miserable and she felt very sorry for him. She moved a little nearer, gingerly took up one of his hands between her own. ‘It is a lovely thing to say Giles and I’m touched – I really am – but no one can replace Edward. He was unique you know.’ No truer word, she thought.
‘I know,’ said Giles, almost in tears. ‘You loved him, and I loved him, and now he’s gone and it feels as if life is over.’
A strange light began to break through Flora’s own halo of pride. Clouds parted and a revelation occurred. That made twice in the last few days after a lifetime without. But not a terribly flattering revelation, this.
‘You loved him?’ she said.
Giles nodded. He took his hand away from her and put it up in a gesture of humility. ‘I know he didn’t return it but he knew and he was kind about it and . . .’
Well hot damn, she thought. So much for the husband she thought she knew inside out and sideways. Not only was he carrying on with the Brownie mistress but he was having declarations from gay men all round the village too. Edward might have told her about Giles at the very least. Surely he couldn’t have thought it would make her feel jealous? All those years and he kept all those secrets, she thought crossly, and she could have broken out and been free. Damn her own stupidity. She put her hand on Giles’s shoulder and gave it a little pat. ‘It’s nice to have a friend, Giles. Thank you,’ she said, and keeping her distance she led him to the stone. ‘Photographing this will be really helpful.’ And she put her pride back in her pocket.
After they had admired it, and photographed it, and speculated about it and Giles referred to himself as being All at Sea when it came to working anything like that out – crosswords were his nightmare – she gave the stone one last pat, saying, ‘Sun’s over the yardarm. Glass of wine, Giles?’ And they proceeded back to the house.
‘What sort of a lady was she?’ Giles asked.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is what I’ve been attempting to find out. Clever, I think. Protective of her privacy. Resolute. Kind. Not one to make waves. Something of an anachronism in her contented single life. It’s all there in the portrait, really, Giles. Holbein showed her qualities as clear as crystal. It’s just that nobody seems to have bothered to look. Her eyes are sweet but her chin is determined.’
‘Sounds a bit like you, Flora,’ said Giles, going pink again. ‘Why, thank you ,Giles,’ she said feeling a little warm glow.
‘Thank you very much.’
‘This Hans Holbein,’ said Giles as they arrived at the back door, ‘German was he?’
‘Yes,’ said Flora. ‘So was Anna of Cleves.’ In they went. ‘Can’t be helped,’ said Giles absently, putting his camera down and rubbing his hands. ‘Now what’ll you have?’
In my own kitchen, she thought, and he takes charge of serving the wine just because Edward isn’t here. She felt a little faint at the idea of her deceased husband’s commanding so much love from so many people – for all she knew he’d been necking in the bushes with Foot and sharing more than a hymn book with the Vicar’s wife. It just didn’t seem fair when she had been so – necessarily – good. She definitely needed a drink of something strong and red.
‘Sit down, Giles,’ she said sweetly. ‘There’s a love.�
�� He did so.
She picked up the bottle she had opened the night before. Giles rose again and fell on it with a startled noise – half squeak, half groan. ‘Edward’s Margaux . . . My stars,’ he said, horrified. ‘You’ve opened this?’
She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said positively. ‘Yes I have.’
Later, at her desk, and feeling a little mellower, Flora began writing up her final notes, her revelation. Elizabeth and Anna. Anna and Elizabeth. The task would be a pleasure.
Clever Flora, she told herself delightedly, a few hours later, Clever, Clever Flora – and she tottered off to bed.
On the following day a bleary-eyed – perhaps there was a little too much Margaux – but excited Flora began the final stage of her work on the manuscript. She planned to give the whole thing to Millingtons in Welford to copy and then bind one version in calf before presenting it to Hilary. She then made a booking with Miss Penelope Murdoch for a very exclusive bit of guiding at the appointed time that she and Ewan would be visiting the exhibition. To Miss Murdoch’s somewhat astonished, ‘Why me?’ Flora dared to say, ‘Because I have heard of your exceptional knowledge of the subject.’ This, she thought, was a good example of equivocation if ever she knew one. Perfect. Miss Murdoch took the bait. Once she had Miss Murdoch in front of Anna’s portrait she’d soon put her right. Then the coup de grace, her final revelation about Anna and Elizabeth and the Hurcott Ducis stone, and – bingo Flora would step from the shadows of restraint. Anna would be properly reinstated, Ewan would be amazed, and the two of them could glide off to lunch together and who knows what might be said across the quiet expanse of napery. It would be Flora’s finest hour.