by Mavis Cheek
Certainly in the last years of her life it was not all ease. There were bouts of aches and inflammations as well as fevers and certainly some of her illness was exacerbated by the lack of money. She was not the world’s best balancer of books, as her chamberlain grumbled, but she was too used to having wealth to change. I deserve it, she said to herself, and she still looks back and thinks that she did. If you survive what I survived, she thinks, then you deserve good things. And I did very well. Very well indeed. What use would my life be without my pleasures? I was a good woman and loved in my time, and who can say fairer than that, Anna asks herself. How very strong the urge is to reach out from the elaborate frame and tap Miss Murdoch on the shoulder and spit in her eye.
‘We should really consider Jane Seymour now,’ says Miss Murdoch, regretfully. ‘And the portrait of Elizabeth – the Ditchley –’ She looks at Flora with an interesting combination of hauteur and demand but Flora – apart from envying her the ability to combine two such emotions – says, ‘We really would like to go back to the Anna of Cleves portrait now. It is time.’ Hilary nods. Ewan is keen, too. His hands are at his sides and he is tapping his thighs in a gesture that Flora recognises as a thinking gesture – and she wonders what he is thinking. ‘Penny for them?’ she says, as she turns to follow Miss Murdoch towards Anna’s portrait. Ewan goes a shade pinker and says – after a little pause – that he was sorry Dilly hadn’t come with them after all. ‘She’d have been fascinated,’ he says, looking from picture to picture as they walk along. ‘Just fascinated.
Bright girl, Dilly. Bright girl.’ Flora does not – quite – like the affectionate way he says it. She dons her armour and mentally gives her brain a bit of a polish. I can be bright, too, she thinks.
Bright and Sober. It is time to impress.
They reach the portrait and Miss Murdoch’s nose has a definite wrinkle about it. ‘Here she is,’ she says. Wrinkling a little more. ‘So this is her,’ says Ewan, and he puts his head on one side and stares. Anna stares back. Flora holds her breath. A friend meeting a friend. How will they react? She says firmly, ‘Spend a little time just looking. Holbein painted the whole person in his portraits . . . so look for her there.’ Obediently they all stare at Anna. Who stares back at them sweet as honey. Miss Murdoch taps the back of her hand and rattles her papers with impatience again.
‘Such a pity Dilly isn’t here,’ says Ewan regretfully. ‘Such a pity.’
‘Concentrate, Ewan, please,’ Flora says, trying not to sound tart. She adds, more kindly, ‘You’ll have to describe it to her. Though quite what she’ll make of this being probate . . .’
‘Ah,’ he says, and nods sheepishly, leaning forward now and staring hard at the painted face as if his life depended on it. Gradually he begins to scrutinise each feature, each line of the head and the body, each hinted curve of a breast and dimple on a hand. Flora watches him. Eventually he steps back and nods and nods again – for the life of him, his expression says, he can find no hint of anything that might make you consider the lady to be comparable to a foreign horse. Good, thinks Flora, we have come a long way.
‘Well, Flora,’ he says, with pleasure, ‘Anna is beautiful.’ Her homely face makes its homely smile and they look from Anna to each other and back again affectionately.
‘So now,’ says Flora, ‘Anna of Cleves. A much misjudged woman I should say and –’
Hilary interrupts, ‘But what have all Dad’s researches into this queen and her stone and Hurcott got to do with this?’
Flora takes a breath.
So, though she does not know it, does Anna. A stone? What stone? From whom? And why?
Hilary turns to Miss Murdoch and says, ‘My mother put all of my father’s notes and researches in order and from them we worked together on finding out about the stone. And it was all there, all the information. It just needed a bit of ironing out.’ Ironing out? thinks Flora. All that midnight oil, all that getting under the skin – feeling my way – surmising, interpreting, understanding . . .
‘Ah yes,’ says Flora, ‘I was coming to that.’
The guide taps her fingers again and her toe begins to twitch. ‘Shall I begin?’ she says.
‘Oh,’ Flora says gratefully, ‘please do.’ She steps back and fixes her very beady gaze on the Brown Guide’s face, ready, willing and able to wade in. Miss Murdoch starts to tell Anna’s story. ‘As we have seen, Anne of Cleves was the last in a long line of possible brides for Henry VIII and his only marriage of foreign alliance. It was a disaster . . .’ And on she goes.
Flora listens intently. Ewan and Hilary listen intently. One or two of the other visitors to the exhibition linger. It feels as if the whole room of portraits is also listening closely. And when Flora looks up she sees the portrait of Elizabeth on the opposite wall. It’s fanciful, of course, but she cannot help thinking that there is also a light of interest about the Ditchley Queen’s eyes. Or is it amusement? Or even pleasure? Flora stares up at her as Miss Murdoch rattles away. Their eyes meet, the painted and the real and Anna wonders what Elizabeth would say if she were alive and the story of the stone was revealed. Would she confirm, or deny it?
Flora returns to reality. Miss Murdoch has uttered the keynote words Flanders and Mare. Flora pulls herself together. She must put this right. She can almost feel Anna’s humiliation. There is even a gathering crowd around them now, all looking at the Holbein portrait with interest. It may not be the whole world but it is a beginning. ‘Oh, Miss Murdoch,’ she says. ‘Oh, Miss Murdoch – just a minute – if you please . . .’
Miss Murdoch was extremely glad that was over. She graciously, in her opinion, put up with Flora’s constant interruptions ‘to set the record straight’ including one very long apologia for the German girl consisting of all kinds of proofs that she had a brain and wisdom and elegance and a capacity for fun and kindness – and goodness knows what else the girl didn’t have according to Flora’s paean – Miss Murdoch had to wonder why she had been asked there in the first place. And when she had her cheque safely in her hand she would say so. So humiliating it was. And much to the amusement and even delight of the gentleman of the party and the quite large crowd of people they had attracted by now. If she did not agree Mrs Chapman just butted in. Towards the end the blonde girl looked rather sullen about it all. And who could blame her? It was scarcely the behaviour of a newly widowed mother. Miss Murdoch thinks that when she finally does get her cheque she will be off as quick as quick. There is a very strange atmosphere here and Miss Murdoch does not like it at all. Nor does she like the heat and the chill that blows in on her every so often and seemingly from nowhere.
Hilary says to her mother, ‘Well, that was all a bit embarrassing – the way you kept interrupting.’
‘You should never be embarrassed by the truth, Hilary,’ says Flora. ‘You should stand fast by your principles.’
Ewan says in a quiet voice that he thought it was extremely interesting of her to know so much – and extremely brave. He says, ‘Thoroughly entertaining, Flora, and wonderfully informative. How clever you are.’
Flora says, ‘Bright girl?’ And he nods.
Hilary says, ‘Well, Ewan, I think we should give a lot of the credit to my dad. After all, he was extremely thorough and found it all out for us.’ She turns to what is now a substantial audience. ‘And now,’ she says proudly, ‘we are going to hear my father’s historical detective work about Anna of Cleves’s stone.’
Here we go, thinks Flora, and she looks from Anna to the portrait of Elizabeth. Deep breath.
Miss Murdoch turns to Flora and says waspishly, ‘Would it be possible to have my cheque before you begin this part of it?’
And Flora says, very firmly, ‘No.’
Ewan and Hilary move nearer. They look at her expectantly. ‘The stone?’
‘The stone,’ says Flora, ‘Ah yes. The Hurcott Ducis Stone.’ Miss Murdoch whispers again that if she could be given her cheque she would just like to go.
‘Not until
you have heard what I have to say,’ says Flora, in a voice so commanding that even Hilary stops her sniffing and Ewan, without thinking, takes his hands out of his pockets and straightens his spine. Miss Murdoch definitely feels a strange hot breath on her back – first cold, then hot – it must be the heating duct. She bridles. But the fee is the fee and she must wait.
‘And now we come at last to the fascinating, the moving, story of the Anna stone.’ Flora pauses. She is just about to say that these are her ideas based on her extensive researches, and that she is pretty sure that she is correct in her surmising when the bright eyes of Hilary look at her with affection and encouragement. Flora falters.
‘Go on,’ says Hilary kindly. ‘Go on.’
‘I ,’ Flora tries to say, ‘I,’ – she wants to say but no – she cannot do it. She looks at Ewan’s enquiring, kind, ordinary face and she wants to claim what is hers – but those eyes of Hilary’s . . . To have come so far, to have worked so hard, all that she has said so far, all that she still has to say, must she cede it? Her moment, her stepping out from the shadows, so much effort went into all this that she cannot, she cannot let Edward take the credit. But there are those eyes of Hilary’s again and for the first time they look at Flora full of pride and with almost childlike expectation. Can she crush any flowering of affection now? And all for being thought a Bright Girl?
Eventually Hilary, reverting to type, gives a little nod of impatience and Flora yields. ‘As Edward stated, there is a stone set low down in an old wall on the land that once belonged to Hurcott Hall, which was owned by Anna of Cleves among others over the centuries. The stone bears the crest of Cleves – swans and a coronet and other symbols – unmistakably Anna’s very similar to some of the carvings on her tomb in Westminster Abbey, and it is carved with the date of her death. It is definitely there to mark Anna in some way but – unlike her tomb – it was made at least forty years after she was dead and buried. But why?’ They all look from Flora to the portrait so that even if Anna wanted to react to this news, she can’t. She holds her breath, which is not very hard for a portrait to do, and waits. A stone, with her dates on and her beloved swans and coronet? No one looks at Elizabeth but if they did they might – just – see the set of approval about her lips. They might.
‘Well – it was our clever local solicitor – following on from Edward’s initial researches –’ Flora makes a flouncy gesture in Ewan’s direction and he goes pleasantly pink,’ . . . who recognised why the placing of the stone was so low. He pointed out that it would once have been considerably higher in whatever building housed it. That meant it was made to be seen, and that it had some kind of serious relevance. But what? A stone placed there forty years or more after Anna was dead and – one would guess – long forgotten – was a true mystery. But clever Hilary . . .’ And here Hilary blushes with pleasure, ‘. . . checked with the calligraphic society in London and they confirmed that the style of the letters carved could not have been made before 1598 at the earliest – and probably a year or two later – the fashion, even in calligraphic carving, taking a little while to travel. The style of the fancy curls on the downward strokes and the fancy curves on the upward strokes were first used in Northern Italy no earlier than 1598 – and there is no record of them existing before then . . .’ Flora draws breath and allows herself a Siddons pause. She had forgotten how enjoyable teaching was when you had something interesting to say and you weren’t suffocating in a snowstorm of form filling.
Miss Murdoch steps forward a little and whispers to Flora that she is feeling most dreadfully hot, or cold, or something, and if that is all, she will leave now. If Flora would kindly give her the cheque? Flora says that she will not kindly give her the cheque and that she would – particularly – like Miss Murdoch to hear what she has to say. Miss Murdoch, pink-cheeked herself now and trembling slightly, her forehead quite shiny, retreats back to the Holbein portrait and there – so strange – is that heating duct again. It almost sounds as if it is purring.
Ewan smiles so warmly at Flora that she nearly reaches out and strokes his nice, kind face. But she remembers that Dilly is also a Bright Girl – and desists. ‘Well – as Hilary’s information made clear – it is also very unlikely, according to the society, that the script would have been used after 1603, when James I ascended the throne. The Stuarts were no fans of the Italianate and by the end of his first year as both King of England and Scotland the style had dropped out of favour entirely. So – we are left with a very short time span for the stone’s creation. Probably five years in all. Which means that it must have been made during the last years of Elizabeth Tudor’s reign. And I would suggest – given that the style had to get here from Italy that it was in the very, very last years.’
Now they all swing their heads to look at Elizabeth’s portrait. Out she gazes, haughty, glowing like a cold pearl, but her bright eyes seem to show a bit of fire about them. ‘Ah, Elizabeth,’ says Miss Murdoch, as if to a favoured child.
‘So,’ continues Flora quickly, ‘it is clear that Anna of Cleves was remembered, quite suddenly, and quite remarkably, forty years after her death and funeral. Something reminded someone, and a someone of culture and wealth, about her. A someone who remembered which were her favourite homes. But who? And why?’
‘Well,’ says Miss Murdoch, in for a penny, ‘it can only be Elizabeth herself. Everyone else who knew the woman would be dead.’
‘Miss Murdoch,’ says Flora, both relieved and amazed, ‘I salute your logic. I agree. I think, in her very late years, Elizabeth had good cause to remember our quiet survivor and the places in which she was most happy.’
‘So all this was there in Dad’s papers, yes?’ says Hilary, a little uncertainly.
Flora sighs and nods. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Without Edward’s efforts I would never have known where and how to look.’
Hilary folds her arms and looks about her with great, smug, smiling pride. Let her, thinks Flora sadly, for after all it is Dilly who is a very Bright Girl.’
‘Go on, Mum,’ says Hilary. ‘It’s exciting.’
And so, it seems, it is. The little group of three has been swelled to a couple of dozen and now they all stare hard at Anna’s portrait. If Anna were to take a furtive look, which perhaps she does, she will need to control the corners of her mouth, for on the face of Elizabeth opposite where there was once only satisfaction and approval there is now an additional emotion – a touch of chagrin. After so long at the centre of the universe, it is hard for Elizabeth to be out of the limelight when there is a decent audience – even for someone she admires. And within her painted heart there is a struggle between the proud Tudor, and her common generosity. Her affection is such that she will bear it. What will be said must be said and this is, rightly, Anna’s moment. Elizabeth, therefore, remains calm, despite her part in the story of the stone being a painful one.
If Mary Tudor – who eyes her sister covertly – expects (and she does) Elizabeth to stamp her foot the moment everyone turns away from her – a trait she has inherited from her father and which she continued in her own court – then Mary Tudor is astonished – and unusually touched – to see that she does not. Once again both of them declare peace for Anna’s sake.
Flora continues. Despite her own loss of standing, she can still do her duty by Anna. ‘Henry VIII’s fourth wife was more loved by the people than any of Henry’s queens except Catherine of Aragon. And there was good reason for it. She was, until the end of her days, a woman of great kindness, open affection, warmth and vitality. She bound together these two sisters who might otherwise have known very little love or affection.’
Hilary looks just a little bit softer.
‘The one, when she was Queen Mary, buried Anna. The other, much later, and when she was Queen, marked her life with carved stones. Ours at Hurcott is one of these. Elizabeth’s memorial. She might have become England’s greatest Queen. But she had cause to remember how she was when she and Anna first met – a little rejected shri
mp of a thing – and how Anna showed her how to behave in a difficult and dangerous world. A lesson, to her pain, that she forgot.’
Elizabeth goes even paler in her frame, if possible. No one has ever referred to her – not in her hearing most certainly – as a shrimp.
Mary hides a smile and Anna grasps her hands together over her neat little belly just a little bit tighter. Elizabeth will never quite – be anything but Elizabeth.
Hilary and Ewan interrupt, saying in unison, ‘But the stone? The stone?’
‘Ah yes,’ says Flora. ‘I was coming to that’.
‘Oh do get on with it Mum. Dad will be turning in his grave.’ And she pushes a fresh tissue into her eyes. Flora, a little sadly, proceeds, wondering if Edward is up – or down – there and milking it. Behind her she hears, does she? A swishing noise like the trailing silks – and what might be an impatient snort were it possible – but when she turns there is nothing – only the shining, sharp-eyed portrait of Elizabeth and the darker, more sober painting of her sister, neither of whom seem the least bit moved by the drama unfolding before them.
‘Well,’ says Flora, ‘I have already explained how discreetly and cleverly Anna behaved in the years following her divorce. How she recognised that the Tudor Court and its connections were riven by greed, ideology, ambition and sleaze . . .’