Fortune's Wheel

by Rhoda Edwards

  ‘Of times that we shared, that you might remember kindly.’

  Anne bent her head and lowered her eyes, so that he could not see her expression. She looked the prettiest thing in the world standing there. Well, no, she was not really pretty, Richard thought, but there was something about her…more than enough. He could have wished that picture of her preserved for ever in his memory; the girl with unbound hair, framed by the window and the trailing vine, the soft September sun gilding her a little, making her look prettier than she was. It was so different from the sober, unhappy young widow of the winter, reading by the fireside.

  Quite suddenly, without thinking, Anne put out her hand and touched Richard’s face, very lightly and shyly. ‘Come in by the door,’ she said, her gravity broken by a smile, which dimpled her cheek and made the pink lips curl upwards at the corners; it was quite the most marvellous thing he had ever seen, because it had been so long a shadow of itself. Also, she had touched him entirely of her own free will, as if she at last wanted to know what he felt like. The fear had gone. At this stage he dared not let the triumph in him burst its way out. He hoped, as he walked through the door, that his face bore no evidence of the hugeness of his delight. He could have bounded through the window itself in one leap.

  Once inside, his way was barred by Alice. ‘No visitors until the lady is properly dressed to receive a gentleman — your Grace.’ She spoke to him exactly as she had when he had been ten and doing something he should not. He smiled, because old nurses always took such liberties.

  ‘Hurry, Alice,’ he said. ‘I have something to give to Lady Anne, if she’ll have me.’ He showed her the ring on the palm of his hand. Alice looked at it and a huge beam of pleasure and approval spread over her face. She took hold of his other hand and kissed it.

  ‘Oh, your Grace, this is a happy day, to see my lady restored to where she ought to be… If you had taken her no for an answer, she would have broken her heart, poor lamb. How could she have known her own mind, after everything she’d been through? Legalized in church or not — and in a funny French church at that — nothing more nor less than rape in my opinion!’ Alice snorted with indignation. Richard wisely concurred in this by keeping silent. That she expressed her opinion so forcefully, and seemed so pleased at the hoped-for engagement, was a measure of her esteem of him. Besides, what she said was a revelation, that Anne had wanted to be his wife all the time, and had held back only out of fear and mistrust.

  When Alice had disappeared into Anne’s room to finish dressing her, he wondered what they said to each other, who were so different in age and rank but, being women, close in understanding. It was gratifying that Alice had taken his part.

  Anne came out to greet him with her hair put away decently under velvet and wire and gauze which was disappointing — he hated women’s headgear, the more fashionable, the more unbecoming. Anne had resumed her serious expression.

  They both opened their mouths to speak at exactly the same moment. ‘Did you…?’ This made them both laugh, which was the best way of beginning things.

  ‘It’s a long way to ride from Carlisle,’ Anne said.

  ‘Yes. But I prefer to live in the north.’

  ‘Home.’

  Richard turned abruptly from her side and walked over to the window, where he stood with his back to her, apparently studying the Dean’s garden outside. He said, with the worst effort at casual enquiry she had ever heard, ‘Yes. Have you considered my offer, Anne?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  Richard did not turn round to face her. He did not want her to see his expression, the bleak disappointment if the answer should be no. There was silence in the room, except for the tick of the table clock he had given her, remorselessly stealing away the moments of their lives. These might be the last ones they would spend together.

  ‘Richard?’ Anne spoke his name very softly.

  Oh, God, he thought, put me out of my misery quickly. His own voice in reply to her sounded quite unrecognizable to him, loud and echoing round the walls, as if everyone in St Martin’s might hear. ‘Anne,’ he said in a quick burst, ‘will you have me?’

  The silence nearly burst his eardrums and seemed to last for ever. He did not hear her move. Suddenly he felt a touch on his sleeve, and jerked his head round to find her close, looking straight into his face.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. For a second he could not remember what the question had been and stared, ashen-faced and dumb at her. Then he woke up and the expression changed, as if someone else’s face had been put there in its place, to amazement and delight. At the same moment, Anne began to laugh. It was the first time he had heard her laugh properly for years, and she was laughing at him, with pure amusement and happiness. He gaped at her like a lovelorn idiot.

  ‘I say yes,’ she gurgled, ‘and you look at me as if I’d sentenced you to death! Richard, what do you want?’

  ‘You!’ he said promptly. He realized that he must be grinning like a lunatic and that his hands were shaking. He suddenly remembered what he was doing and held out one hand, unclenching the fingers from the ring he was still holding. He held it out to her. She stared, then smiled very sweetly and held out her own hand, instead of taking it from him. She wanted him to put it on. He did so, though he was shaking so much he was frightened of hurting her. When it was on, he held her hand between his own, flat between his palms. It was the first time he had touched her.

  ‘I’ve no ring to give you,’ Anne said.

  ‘Time for that later. Time for everything.’

  ‘Yes.’

  His mind began to think rationally again. ‘Parliament sits next week,’ he said, ‘and the session is bound to be a long one. I’m stuck in London for the winter, Anne. In the spring, I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Home to Middleham?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as I can. You know we’re cousins, we need a dispensation — it may take a long time to persuade Rome to give us one. Maybe nearly a year. Will you wait, Anne?’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘Not too long. If it does not arrive by next Easter, we’ll marry without it and receive it later. There’s been too much waiting and wrangling already.’

  They were still standing just as they had been, her hand between his. The cat rubbed round their legs, jealous of the attention given to her mistress.

  ‘Kiss me?’ Richard said, like a suppliant. He shut his eyes and heard her move, then felt a touch on his cheek like a butterfly’s feet gingerly walking. ‘Mmm,’ he said, and turned his head slightly so that he met her soft, shy, hovering lips just where he thought he would, with his own. Just a touch, but enough. He drew away first, before he was overcome, and grabbed her and kissed her as one should kiss a lover. As it was, he was breathing like a broken-winded horse and shaking like a virgin under assault. Anne seemed not to notice. For a widow of sixteen she was remarkably innocent and desperately timid. He recognized that when they were married — and please God let it be soon — that he would have to go very carefully indeed. She had been frightened badly in so many ways, of wedding, bedding and childbirth. He hoped that he would be able to withstand the strain self-restraint imposed. He would have to be everything to her, husband, father, mother, brother, lover — she had no one else.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, contrite as an erring child, ‘that I set my mind against you for so long. I had no right to reproach you.’

  He silenced her by taking the hand he was still holding and placing her own fingers against her lips. ‘Hush!’ he said. ‘What’s past is past. Think of our future.’

  For answer Anne took his hand and kissed it, as if she had cause to be grateful to him. Before, she had not thought she had a future. ‘Take me home,’ she said.

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  Notes

  The illustration on page 5 is of a medieval Wheel of Life, dated 1480 (reproduced by permission of the Mansell Collection).

  The drawings decorating the chapter headings are of badges used by the characters:

  1. (page 5) Warwick’s bear and ragged staff: he commonly used the ragged staff alone.

  2. (page 29) Edward IV made particularly his own the sun in splendour, a Plantagenet badge. Often a white rose was superimposed.

  3. (page 47) The falcon in a fetterlock was used by Edward IV’s father, the Duke of York.

  4. (page 67) The SS collar of the House of Lancaster was known as a gorget. The meaning of SS is not clear.

  5. (page 95) The fleur de lis of France.

  6. (page 115) A white rose was used as a Yorkist badge, but a red rose seems to have been neglected by the House of Lancaster until the exiled Henry Tudor began to use it.

  7. (page 139) The silver swan of Edward of Lancaster came to him from Mary of Bohun, wife of Henry IV.

  8. (page 155) The flint and steel badge was used by Charles, Duke of Burgundy.

  9. (page 175) A clump of daisies or marguerites was used by Margaret of Anjou, though this example is the device of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.

  13. (page 269) The Duke of Clarence’s badge of a black bull was used by previous Dukes of Clarence.

  15. (page 301) Gloucester’s badge of a white boar was also a re-use of a device used by his forebears.