by Anya Seton
St. Mary! what a celebration! Anthony thought, pushed back his chair with a loud scraping, shouted to his minstrels and raised his goblet. “Wassail to the bride, wassail to the groom!” He turned to Celia, bowing deeply. “Come, my lady, we’ll begin the dance. A Coranto? We’ll make merry!”
Celia started. She looked around and behind her in astonishment. Anthony understood and laughed. “Tis you are ‘my lady’—you’ve wed a goodly knight, Celia—think on it! And now that I do—Ho! Sir John! You come dance wi’ your bride!”
The clothier rose majestically, he came forward and took Celia’s hand. The fourth finger now wore a heavy golden ring made of two hands clasping a large amethyst heart.
Sir John pulled Celia tight against his stout velvet chest. He bent and whispered in her ear. “No need for fear, my dearling. I treasure ye more than all the gold of the Indies, and this is the happiest day o’ my life.”
She heard his words as through a torrent of rushing water, and clutched his arm.
“There, there, poppet,” said Sir John. “Ye’ve no wish to dance? I’m not so apt at it myself. We’ll drink the loving cup together, shall we?”
Her bridegroom hefted the great silver punch bowl filled with mulled claret and containing many sprigs of rosemary, sovereign herb for virility and always included at bridals.
They drank with arms entwined as was customary, then passed the bowl to the others.
“Long life together—may your union prove fruitful, eh?” cried Anthony. He nudged the groom and winked at Celia in an effort to capture the jovial bawdry weddings should evoke. “Eat hearty of the oysters, Sir John, they fortify a bridegroom!”
Nobody laughed but Master Babcock. The bridegroom himself seemed to wince. His bright blue eyes shifted, the tiny veins reddened in his cheeks.
“We thank’ee, Sir Anthony, for this splendid wedding feast,” he said bowing. “My little bride seems a-weary, we’d best be leaving now.”
Anthony protested for the sake of politeness, though he was relieved. There was no hope of squeezing merriment from this gathering. His musicians, unheeded, strummed and tootled through the music of a galliard—even a rousing rendition of “Back and side go bare, go bare” caused nobody to join in the chorus. Besides Anthony was as eager to attend the Arundel supper party as was Mabel; it was hoped that the Queen would be there. She might bring Magdalen, but in any case there would be many members of the powerful Catholic nobility, eager to celebrate their escape from the danger of Wyatt’s Rebellion.
Sir John Hutchinson had hired a chariot to convey his bride across the river to his London lodgings. “They’re not as fine as I could wish for her,” he said to Ursula, as they all stood in the priory courtyard, “though my servants have done their best. And soon she’ll have all comforts, at my manor near Boston. You’ll visit us some day, Lady? I know you’ve a fondness for her, e’en though she’s been scarce two years in your charge.” He smiled kindly, with only a trace of condescension.
He perfectly recognized Ursula’s position in Sir Anthony’s household, as useful dependent, temporary chatelaine, for which John considered her most suitable. He assumed that she had done her duty by Celia from a belated recognition of the blood tie and its obligations, and must be relieved to get the girl so well off her hands. In fact, he did not really see Ursula at all, and looked on with impatience when his bride touched her beautiful mouth to the widow’s white cheek. He thought Lady Southwell’s response a bit excessive—a desperate clutch, a stifled noise like a sob, but no words were spoken, and Celia came with him docilely, permitted him to seat her in the place of honor in the waiting chariot. The coachman flicked the horses. The heavy vehicle lumbered through the portal towards Borough High Street and London Bridge. Master Babcock mounted his horse and rode after them. The porter clanged shut the great oaken door.
“Il cuore lacerato sempre riparase,” said Julian to Ursula, who was still standing where she had been when Celia kissed her good-bye, staring at the shut portal and pressing her hand to her left breast. She turned and looked at him.
He had instinctively spoken to her in Italian, now he translated in a brisker tone. “The lacerated heart always repairs itself, my poor lady—you will see her again. Come, the marriage is not what you hoped for, yet no tragedy either.”
“You don’t know . . .” said Ursula. “I forced her into it, she hates me now. And had I been her true mother I would’ve had more wisdom. I’ve tried to pray—I can’t. The words click and rattle like the beads—no meaning. And now she’s gone.”
“This happens to real mothers, too,” said Julian. He examined her with a quick professional eye. Her skin looked gray, bluish around the lips. She pressed on her left breast so hard that the knuckles stood out. “Have you pain there?” he asked quietly. “Is there pain, too, in your arm?” She looked down at her arm in surprise.
“Aye, I believe so.”
He put his fingers on her pulse. “You will lie down,” he said. “I’ve no remedy with me, but will get one from the apothecary on the High Street.”
Ursula permitted Julian to help her upstairs where she lay panting a little on a bench in the Great Hall, while the bustling servants were clearing away the wedding feast. Julian took the cushion from Anthony’s armchair and put it under her head. She shut her eyes, feeling very weak. She dozed a little, as empty tankards raided on trays, and two of Anthony’s hounds snapped and snarled over a fish head which had fallen into the floor rushes.
Julian came back with a glass vial. “Swallow!” he commanded. She obeyed without question while he kept his finger on her pulse, but she looked her question, which he answered promptly.
“Tincture of foxglove,” he said, “Digitalin, but clumsily distilled. I’ve some that’s better at Dr. Dee’s laboratory and will send it tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Julian,” she said. She put her thin white hand on his sleeve. “Could you . . . could you not bring it yourself?”
He looked down at her hand, its raised veins showed purple, but the well-kept nails were as smooth and rosy as a girl’s. He knew that her use of his Christian name had been unconscious, just as she was unaware that her physical heart, responding to the wound dealt to what the poets called “the heart,” had suffered a slight failure of function.
He steeled himself with exasperation against pity and a recurrent sense of guilt. She was gaunt, she was quite old—lying there in her black velvet robes she seemed a very effigy of mourning.
Her faded blue eyes looked into his face, then turned towards the corbel on the rafter. “Aye . . .” she said, “I know I’m not comely.” Her hand fell from his arm.
“Sancta Maria!” Julian snapped, rising abruptly. “You will rest now. I fear I can’t come tomorrow, though I will try to soon. Turn to your religion, Lady—that’s what it’s for, I suppose? And make yourself useful! I told you earlier to go back to Cowdray! You didn’t heed me, though possibly nothing would have prevented this wedding you pushed, and now regret. You may find the satisfaction of duty by caring for the twin babes Sir Anthony seems to forget. He’s gnawed by ambition—and so, per Bacco, am I!”
“You?” she stiffened and looked at him again.
“Aye. I’m now quite certain of my appointment as a Court physician. Furthermore, I’ve found favor in the eyes of a young lady. Mistress Gwen Owen, a toothsome widow of twenty who is kin to the Earl of Pembroke. She owns bountiful lands in Wales besides a goodly house near St. James’s Palace.”
“I see . . .” said Ursula after a moment. “I see clearly, Master Julian. And I congratulate you. It seems you’ve no cause to search for the philosopher’s stone or the elixir vitae. You achieve what you want without them. Or is success foretold by your stars?”
“I don’t know my horoscope,” said Julian curtly. “I’ll make my own destiny, and without being hampered by sentiment—that fool’s opiate!”
Ursula bent her head. “Perhaps so. And now, farewell . . .”
“Addio, ma donna
. . .” he patted her shoulder, pulled his squirrel-lined robes close around him and left the Hall.
Ursula shut her eyes and remained lying on the bench as the servants finished clearing the tables, extinguished the tapers and left the fire to smolder into ash.
In Sir John Hutchinson’s lodgings on Leadenhall Street, Celia was dismaying her bridegroom by the amount of mead she was drinking. His servants had prepared a festive little supper which included breast of chicken and spicy sausages sent from Lincolnshire. John observed Lenten fasting only because it promoted the fishing industry, and saw no reason to follow any papist rule on such an evening. His parlor was decorated with holly branches and a vase of “Christmas roses” to welcome Celia. He had also ordered a flask of vintage claret. Celia shook her head and asked for mead.
“But, sweeting—” John said anxiously, “’tis an old-fashioned drink, and very strong, I’ll have to send out for it, and not sure which tavern . . .”
“I’d like some mead,” said Celia. She sat down in an armchair near the fire and folded her hands on her lap. Her unbound golden hair rippled over the carved oak armrest, the firelight sparkled on her new wedding ring.
“Well, to be sure . . .” said John, “to be sure, if you wish—” He dispatched a servant.
Until the flagon of mead came, Celia said nothing at all, though John tried several topics. He spoke of his manor in Lincolnshire, and assured her that it was not damp. “The sea coals from Newcastle are landed at my jetty, and I’m not one to stint fuel—nor hospitality neither, I’ve a mort o’ friends in Boston, some wives as young as you. There’ll be dancings, fairs, strolling players, ye’ll not be dull, I swear it.”
Celia put her chin in her hand and gazed into the fire.
When the mead came she gulped down a cupful, then another. A flush tinged her cheekbones. She leaned back in the chair and began running her finger round and round a carved spiral on the armrest, but she refused the food John awkwardly pressed on her.
He had dismissed all the serving men. Suddenly she poured herself another noggin of mead, and John’s nervousness exploded into exasperation.
“God blast it, Celia, ye’ve drunk enough for a barrowman!”
“I wish to be sotted,” she said. “Better so.”
John swallowed. “Look, my dear, I must speak plain. Ye needn’t be bedded tonight, if that’s why ye act so odd, we’ve a lifetime ahead and I’m not so sure o’ my prowess as I used to be, ’tis a chancy thing at my age, but I want thee—I’ve proven how I want thee—and I wish for a son . . . I want thee, but by God, ye frighten me a bit.”
Celia finally turned and looked at him. She saw the square ruddy face, the imploring eyes beneath heavy brows, a face like Cowdray’s prize mastiff, Ajax. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re a good man, Sir John.”
“Not Sir John,” he cried, “I’m thy husband!”
“Aye . . .” she said, “but not in the sight of God.”
He flinched. Her speech was not thick, yet her intonation was strange. He glanced ruefully at the mead flagon. He thought of his other wedding night near forty years ago . . . how had she behaved, that scraggy bride he had married for her dowry and connections? He remembered her chicken-wing shoulders, and the token mouse squeaks of protest as he deflowered her. He remembered that she had a sour smell he disliked. But I was young then, and lusty as a ram, it didn’t matter, nor with the others—the female bodies which came later, now and again—after it became clear that Margaret had something wrong with her womb and would give him no heirs . . .
“What are ye doing, Celia?”
She had suddenly risen, throwing off the cloak. She moved languorously to one of the vases of holly and Christmas roses. She picked out two of the thick petalled greenish flowers, and tossing back her hair, tucked a flower behind each ear. They gave her an exotic fairy look. Her eyes glittered behind the long dark lashes . . .
“There should be music,” she said with a throaty laugh. “Music for the bride. Can’t you play the lute for me, Sir John? Can you not sing?”
He shook his head, watching her in fascination. There had been a ballad in his childhood, his nurse had sung it to him as they trudged through the misty fenlands—“’Ware the elf maiden, she’ll get thee in thrall; ’ware lest her honey-lips soon taste o’ gall . . .”
John shook his head again violently. “I know no songs, a pox on it, child, you’re overwrought, go to bed—’tis in there behind the arras.”
“Ah-h-h—” she breathed and smiled down at him tilting her head. “Then, I’ll sing one—‘Celia the wanton and fair.’ Wouldn’t you like that, Sir John?”
She moved near him, she raised her white arms and made a gesture of supplication, a wavering motion with her hands. Suddenly his fear left him. Beneath this mummery he saw the miserable despairing child, and he knew that though he might never gain her love, she yet had need of him.
“Hush—” he said, for she was still singing “Celia the wanton and fair” in a harsh cracked voice. He lifted her in his arms and carried her behind the arras. He lay down with her on the bed, and she went limp as he undressed her. He kissed the hollow of her neck. He drew her head against his shoulder where she nestled giving little whimpers like a puppy. She went to sleep at once, but he had no thoughts of sleep. Through the dark he stared up at the ceiling, savoring the closeness of her body, the faint herbal scent of her hair—no doubt she had washed it in camomile for the marriage. Yet this was not the wedding night he had imagined. His thoughts slid hither and yon. The meeting of the clothiers guild tomorrow, the new excise on Flemish cloth, an insubordinate factor in Boston—cozening and cheating—the Wyberton dyke must be mended at once before the spring floods.
The bells rang out for midnight and Celia stirred. She flung her right arm across his chest and whispered, “Stephen.”
John held himself very still. Stephen? And who was Stephen? Some stripling she had met? Some gallant who had caught her fancy? How little he knew of this girl he had wed. And how old he felt.
He withdrew his arm carefully from under her head. She turned away from him on the pillow, breathing deeply. Presently John slept, too. The inexorable bells awakened him at five.
It took him some moments to understand why there was a girl in his bed. Then he ran his hands over her body and felt a welcome flicker and throbbing in his loins. She did not stir, even as he began to kiss her. Except for her body warmth she lay limp as a new corpse. “Damn it, wake up!” he cried. “Ye must’ve been told your duty, e’en though ye’ve not the inclination!” As she still did not respond, he mounted her clumsily, uncertain, fumbling.
Suddenly, she spoke. “I know my duty, Sir John. I’m not hindering you.”
Her cool resigned little voice quenched him, though he gritted his teeth and proceeded as best he could until he was certain of failure. Then he flung himself to the other side of the bed with sounds of sobbing anger.
Celia raised herself on one elbow listening to the sounds. “Poor man . . .” she said in wonder. “Can all this mean so much to you?” She leaned over and patted his stout shaking shoulders. “No doubt ’twill come better later. You said so yourself.”
He gave a cry and heaved himself out of bed. She heard his heavy footsteps thudding across the fresh-strewn rushes as he pushed aside the arras and left the bedroom alcove. “I’ll see ye at breakfast,” he said, and she heard the hall door slam shut.
Thus passed Celia’s wedding night.
Four days later the Hutchinsons arrived at Sir John’s manor, Skirby Hall, a mile outside of Boston.
Though travel and new sights had worked their usual magic, and Celia’s misery lessened with each mile away from London, she found in the flat marshlands none of the exhilaration she had felt amongst the Cumberland mountains. The brown sedge, the water-threaded fens succeeded each other with a monotony which she accepted as a portent of her future life.
Her only positive pleasure was Juno, her mare. Sometimes she talked to the horse
as they all rode single file along the interminable dykes—John, Celia, two men servants and a pack mule.
She dutifully responded whenever her husband turned around to show her some sight or landmark. “That’s the Wash, m’dear, part of the North Sea.”
“Oh, aye,” she said, but saw only a distant expanse of gray water merging with gray sky.
“Look ye—my fowlers are out early,” cried John, watching a group of rough-clad men carrying snares and guns. They had now entered his own demesne. “We’ll have snipe tomorrow, or would ye prefer a fat roast mallard?”
“Either one,” said Celia, and made an effort. “What’s that ahead? Like a big black stump in the sky?”
John chuckled. “Ye’ve said it right, ’tis Boston Stump, we call it! The church steeple. Ye can go there time and again,” he added smiling, “’twill save me paying the fine the papists’ve put on for staying away. I’ve no use m’self for churchgoing.”
“I know,” said Celia. “Nor have I . . .” she added softly to the horse. She looked down at the pouch which hung from her girdle. Stephen’s note was in there—a scrap of parchment folded into a wad under her ivory comb, her two handkerchiefs and the last of the gilded sugarplums Magdalen had sent her.
What use to keep the note? She had not looked at it since the Bishop of Winchester’s page delivered it at the priory, nor would she ever forget its wording:
“After you make your confession, as I shall—we will pray God to forget what happened, nor think on it ever again ourselves . . . S.”
“I shall think as I please,” said Celia to the horse, but her voice wavered. She had not gone to confession since the night Wyatt invaded the priory. On this point she had lied to Ursula. Celia’s knowledge of her religion, her entire interest in it had sprung from Stephen.
She thought of his cherished portrait of the Virgin. The Rival. “I hate her,” Celia whispered. She suddenly fished in her pouch, drew up the bit of parchment and flung it down into the muddy waters of a drain.