Anne of the Fens

by Gretchen Gibbs

  I was speechless. Father always said we must speak the truth above all else, and now he was telling me to lie.

  He seemed to read my face and he waved his hand impatiently.

  “Take a lesson from Sarah.”

  I blushed, for it was just what I was thinking.

  “Of course, I want you to bring the tray in and curtsey and leave. You are not to talk to him.”

  I blushed again as I said, “Yes, Father.”

  “And speaking of Sarah, make sure she does not see you. She is so thoughtless and wayward, she would have the Sheriff’s men upon us in no time.”

  The mention of the Sheriff sobered me. This was not just a game so I could be with a young man.

  “If we were found out, we might have to flee to the fens, ourselves. These marshes around us have held so many outlaws, from Robin Hood till today. The fens are almost impassable, but I know you do not want to live among wet, cold reeds.”

  I was stunned at the idea that our family could live in the marshes, but as Father went on about Robin Hood and other outlaws, past and present, my mind began to wander. He brought himself up short and began to tell me about the secret room, and how to enter it, in great detail. It gave me practice in lying, to keep my face straight and ask innocent questions.

  “There is a rabbit head on the fireplace?”

  When I left Father’s office I felt like skipping, something I have not done since childhood. How delightful life seemed, and how exciting! I had forgotten again about the Sheriff’s men.

  I had a hard time falling asleep. I kept thinking of John behind the tapestry, gnawing on the joint Father had brought him. I wondered if he had spoken to Father, or if it had been Father’s idea that I should bring the food. I had not dared to ask.

  MY HAPPY IMPATIENCE continued through the next day. It was raining, a hard rain that we seldom see. Usually it mists and sprinkles and clears for a bit and then mists again. This day, the rain came down like God was pouring out the washing water from a huge pail in the sky. There was no going up to the roof of the castle to distract myself.

  I went to the library. Simon was sitting in his chair at the large oak table, and I sat down at my own small table. I asked Simon if he would find me another book, poetry if possible. To my surprise, he came directly to my table and pulled a leaflet out of his jacket, saying he had received it in Boston last Sunday. The leaflet was by a young man named Milton, who Simon said was a good Puritan not much older than I. It made me think I could someday write poems myself. We spent some time looking at the rhyme and meter and talking of the ideas in the poems, mainly religious, but there was one about love.

  “Interesting that this young Puritan should find his mind turning to thoughts of love,” I said.

  Simon turned away, and I could see his neck growing red.

  “Perhaps when you have written this many fine pieces about God’s love, you also will have time to think of human love. In the meantime, diagram the meter in this one.”

  He picked the most difficult poem, put it in front of me, and went back to his place. Before I knew, my head had fallen to the table. For several days I had not slept well, what with midnight excursions and too much thinking.

  When I woke, Simon was standing over me. “I let you sleep for half an hour.”

  He brushed my apologies aside. “I used the time to write something for you.”

  He handed me a sheet of paper. He had written something on the back of one of John’s flyers about not paying the King’s tax. I took it, and began to read.

  Anne Dudley has asked a "wicked" question. She wants to know how to treat Catholics, as our Puritan faith tells us we should not tolerate them. It is wickedly hard to answer this question.

  “Let us discuss it another time,” Simon said. “Just read it through quickly now.”

  I skimmed the phrases.

  Basis of religion is embracing God’s mercy as a principle of living... Importance of teaching those with other beliefs but not forcing them against their will... Religion must be freely chosen... Truth will show itself... We seek religious freedom, we should therefore offer it to others... Our King, the idiot dwarf, must learn these principles, or else England’s future shall be a civil war of bloodshed unending...

  Simon seated himself on the bench beside me. His eyes glowed and he looked younger than usual. I felt an urge to reach out to touch his arm. I remembered John in the secret room, and felt strangely guilty, not sure if the feeling was because of Simon or because of John.

  He began to talk about the pilgrims, who escaped from England and went first to Leiden, in Holland, and then to the New World. As I knew, they were different from us Puritans. Pilgrims felt that other religions should be tolerated, while Reverend Cotton and most other Puritans felt that we have the one Truth and should not accept others among us who might cause us to waver in our beliefs.

  “If we have the one Truth,” I said, “then it should hold against any other argument. We should not be threatened by what others say or believe.”

  His face shone. “Nothing you could have said could give me more pleasure.” He began to study my face. “There is something changed in you in the last days.”

  “I am very tired,” I said. I could not tell him about John.

  At that moment the door opened and Mother entered, telling me to come help her with the meal.

  I slipped John’s paper into the back of the Milton leaflet and said loudly, “I find the poem about God’s goodness especially moving.”

  Simon grunted some reply and went back to his chair.

  I told Mother I must run to my room first, and I took the Milton pages with me, intending to read Simon’s paper more carefully in private and to return it to him. Generally we left the books in the library, as they were too valuable to leave around the castle where a servant might be tempted to pick them up. I left the book in my room, under the bed, and went back to help.

  When I reached our dining room I saw Father was not with us. I thought he was probably eating with the Earl’s family. He had said that Arbella was in need of counsel without her brother’s presence. I looked at the large tureens of food upon the sideboard, and I thought of a better plan than my father’s. I said, bold as you please, “Father asked me to make up a plate for him.”

  I gave Mother a significant look. She said nothing. Father had said to ask Cook for food, for Patience, but I had worried that Cook might only give me a small bowl of gruel, since Patience was supposed to be sick. John needed a good deal of food and drink. I piled a trencher high with roasted duck, bread, a stew of spring greens with thyme, and a piece of early cherry pie, adding a tankard of ale.

  At the end of the meal, I took it to my room. I would have to think of something to tell Patience about the food. My mind went back and forth, about what to say, until we went to bed.

  I put the plate under the bed, beside the Milton book, and hoped for the best.

  As Patience walked around the bed ready to get into it, her candle in hand and ready to blow it out, she sniffed and said, “What is that smell? It smells like duck.”

  It had occurred to me that she would smell the food, but what could I say? The best I managed was, “You have strange fancies.”

  “No, I declare I smell a roasted duck.”

  Before I could say anything further, she was wandering around the room, searching for food. It did not take her long to find the trencher under the bed.

  “What is this? This is the plate you took for Father from dinner.”

  “Father changed his mind.”

  “So why didn’t you take it back to the kitchen? It will draw mice.”

  “You know I am trying to gain weight. I thought I might be hungry in the night.”

  “When have you ever been hungry in the night? You cannot keep food under my bed. I do not want mice running over me.”

  I was beginning to run out of ideas. Lying was hard. “In fact, I did not want to tell you, but it is something Simon told me ab
out. It is a strange Catholic ritual, like Communion. I will get up in the middle of the night and eat the food and then make a wish.”

  “That is the silliest thing I have ever heard. You are lying.”

  So I told her the truth as we lay in the bed. The rain had stopped, the sky was clear, and a part of the moon was visible through our window. The night was so warm I threw off my coverlet. Patience made sounds of wonder and scolded me for not having told her before. It was good to have someone to talk to about what John looked like and what I had felt.

  “But you cannot marry an outlaw.”

  Patience is always practical. I had not got so far in my thinking to reach marriage.

  “No, and even if I could, he is probably going off to America, and I should never want to do that.”

  Patience shuddered. “To give up our castle, our bed so warm we need no covers, to live with bears and wolves and lions.”

  Nothing she said could have been better preparation for taking the food to John. I had no intention of curtseying and leaving without a word, but I vowed to keep my distance from a man whom I could never marry.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I FELL SOUNDLY asleep, and would have slept through the twelve o’clock church bell, but Patience heard it and woke me. I put on a rose-colored skirt over my shift. I liked it, though was not my best one, which would look like I was primping.

  I heard a rustle as I leaned under the bed to gather my tray. Patience was right, the mice had found the trencher. I could not see how much damage they had done in the night, without a candle, but I picked up the plate and made my way downstairs. This night, I heard nothing in the halls or staircase and I went easily to the secret room.

  John had a candle already lit and he was sitting on his bed, dressed this time. He was wearing blue — dark blue trousers over a light blue shift. It made me notice the blue of his eyes all over again. Blue eyes with dark hair are so rare, and especially handsome. I wondered if he had thought of me, as he dressed, the way that I had thought of him when I chose the rose skirt. Most likely he was already dressed, and the blue clothes were all that he had.

  I placed the tray upon the oak chest. I did not curtsey but I was prepared to say a few words and leave.

  “I told you I should find a way to see you again,” he said. He explained that he had told my father that he lacked a woman’s way with food. Father had taken it to heart, as John had intended.

  His smile was just as I had remembered, only sweeter. My resolve weakened.

  “And you have brought me a much finer dinner than your father did.”

  I could see the tray clearly now in the candlelight, and while there were a few suspicious crumbs around the tart, there were no other signs that mice had been there. I decided not to mention mice to John.

  He beckoned to the stool, and I found myself sitting on it. Near me on the floor there was a plate with a well-gnawed bone on it.

  John was drinking the ale down with a will.

  “A day without anything to drink is hard,” I said.

  “Indeed. And it is hard to be confined to such a small room with nothing to do but read forbidden books.”

  “Have you read anything interesting?”

  He told me about Chaucer and the story of the pilgrims. It sounded quite a proper story to me, and I wondered aloud why the book was in this room.

  “Hmm.” For a moment John sounded like Father. “Some of the pilgrims, like the wife of Bath, have had adventures that Reverend Cotton would not approve of.”

  He would not tell me more.

  I asked if he had read any Shakespeare.

  “No, perhaps tomorrow.”

  I began to tell him the plot of Romeo and Juliet. I stopped with a start. I realized first that I might spoil the story for him, and then that I should not be speaking this way with a man I could not marry. I rose and prepared to leave, taking the platter with the gnawed bone. I left the plate I had brought, as he had not finished it.

  “Stay.”

  It sounded heartfelt, and I wanted to stay, but I forced myself out of the room. I wondered if he was just lonely, or if it was my company in particular that he wanted.

  “Tomorrow I will bring more ale,” I promised. I had not thought about how much a person drinks in a day.

  As I was shutting the door, I met his eyes and could hardly leave. He said softly as he smiled, “Just bring yourself.”

  THE MOMENT I opened the door to our room, Patience said, “Well?”

  “I left after a few moments, just as you said I should.”

  “But you did talk, I can tell. There is something in your voice.”

  As we lay there in the dark I told her everything, how John had spoken to Father, and each thing he had said to me, and I to him, and about his smile.

  “Anne, you must not fall in love with him, you must not. He will leave and your heart will break.”

  I said I would certainly not fall in love with him. I knew, even as I said it, that I could not promise any such thing. Patience knew it too, I thought, from the way she squeezed my hand in the dark.

  I dreamed that night of a white horse that was wild and running through the marshes. He saw me, stopped, and then approached. I held out an apple in my hand, and he came to me without any fear. I got onto his back, and we raced through the fens so fast I could not see the ground beneath me.

  When I woke up the next morning, I remembered that one cannot race through the fens on a horse, as it is too wet, and the horse must go extremely slowly, to avoid getting up to its hocks and breaking them with the sudden movements.

  “Dreams are dreams,” I said to myself, and got up.

  AFTER BREAKFAST MOTHER set Patience and me the task of re-hemming Sarah and Baby Mercy’s skirts, since they had grown out of them. It was laborious, as their skirts were so full and there were so many stitches.

  Since the day was fine, we sat outside, to the side of the castle on a small knoll where the grass was thick. A breeze carried the flies away, and we sat upwind of the smell from the moat. Sarah and Baby Mercy stayed with us, and Sarah made merry at our expense.

  The day before, Mother had put Sarah to lengthening her own skirts. She had made such a mess of the stitches, and the hem had been so uneven on the first skirt, that Mother had taken it from her. She said that however slovenly Sarah was willing to look, she, her mother, did not want to be seen with such a slothful hog of a daughter. Once again, I thought as I pushed the needle through the heavy linen petticoat, pricking my finger — Sarah had gotten her own way.

  Strangely, when Sarah wins, she is seldom contrite. Instead, it seems to spur her on to new feats of disobedience and willfulness. She was merciless that day, running up to pull my hair when I was not watching, untying Patience’s sash on her skirt over and over like a kitten, and pushing Baby Mercy into the mud at the bottom of the knoll so that she cried and had to have her clothes changed. What was most irksome was that because she and Baby Mercy were there, Patience and I could not talk about what was on our minds, or at least on my mind.

  As we sat there in the sun, Patience had to re-thread and she dropped her needle. Cursing herself as a stupid hedgepig, she felt around in the grass and then stood up to go back into the castle for another. Sarah and Mercy decided to go in with her, leaving me a moment’s peace.

  After Patience had gone, I saw Marianne running away from the basement entrance to the castle, flushed and out of breath. When I beckoned to her, she stopped running and walked toward me. I asked her what had happened, and she held back a sob.

  “Sit for a minute, then.”

  She flung herself on the grass beside me and told her story. She had encountered Erik, the guardhouse keeper, in the basement where she had been sent to get a pomander for Arbella. Erik had cornered Marianne and tried to kiss her, and only by a quick movement had she managed to slip by him and get away. Once up the basement stairs, she had simply run.

  “Just because I am a servant-girl does not mean my morals are
loose. This happens so often.”

  I was angry and said she must tell Arbella. She said she had, but there was little Arbella could do for her except tell her to threaten the men. And now that the Earl was gone, she had even less authority.

  “Part of the problem is that you are beautiful.”

  She waved her hand impatiently. “Beauty is not helping me find a husband. There are only local clods from the village with whom I would always be hungry.” She paused then continued shyly, looking down at the grass as she ran her fingers through it. “Sometimes I dream,” she said. She told me about the Earl’s visitors and how she had met a lord’s valet she fancied.

  I told her that to me her dreams sounded as if they could come true.

  “But what happens when a man finds out I am Catholic?”

  I had no answer. We sat there in silence, her fair face mournful. And then I thought of something.

  “Simon! He would not care if you are Catholic. He has just shown me a paper he has written about tolerance.”

  Her face lit up and she sat up suddenly, her knees bent and showing more of her ankles under the long skirt than was proper. “He would be lovely. He is handsome, and kind, and rich and ... don’t you fancy him yourself?”

  I smiled a little sadly. “I am not blind. I have also noticed that he is handsome, and he has always been kind to me. I have tried many times to capture his fancy, but he never responds. I guess he is too old for me. His ideas are old. He is always talking about politics and history, and often it is boring. He is the teacher, and I am the student.”

  I told her what happened if I mentioned romance or love to Simon, like about King Charles and his romantic journey, and how he accused me of being a silly, sentimental girl. She laughed.

  “You are wrong on one count,” I said. “He is not rich.”

  “In my world he is rich.”

  I thought she was saying that I did not understand her position, and she was probably right.

  “He is above my station, but if you introduced me in the right way it might be possible.”

  Patience was returning, and Marianne stood up.