Portrait of an Unknown Woman

by Vanora Bennett

  “Meg,” she said gently. “You’re doing so much good, but you look exhausted. Please take care of yourself.”

  I nodded.

  “Master Hans is here,” she added, trying to cheer me up. “Looking very prosperous, with a full set of new clothes. And he’s got a bit fat.”

  I nodded again. I couldn’t find space to think about Master Hans’s climb up the greasy pole now; there was too much else on my mind. I needed to wash and change. I needed to boil up more willow-bark tea. I needed to make sure there were more clean cloths. I needed to know whether John had noticed any fresh signs of sickness (or rebellion) in the crowd at the barn.

  But when the painter bounded up, full of gingery-blond cheer, and chortled “Mistress Meg!” at me, I was charmed despite myself. He’d just sat down and had already speared a vast amount of beef and deposited it on his platter. He forgot it when he saw me, and stood, almost dancing up and down on his broad legs, with stories bursting out of him about Norfolk, where he’d been painting all the local gentry (which, I knew, meant he’d made friends with the Boleyn set’s relatives while he was at court, but I didn’t want to ask too much about that; it was his business).

  “Did you know, Master Hans, that I was born in Norfolk?” I said, briefly distracted from my worries despite myself, and surprising myself by sharing this confidence with him. It was years since I’d thought of my birthplace. “Near Burnham. I know it well.”

  “Burnham!” he said with delight. “But I went to Burnham! If I’d known, I’d have drawn you a sketch of your house! Norfolk was beautiful, and now I know everyone who is anyone there, and I have painted their pictures!”

  His English was better than I remembered. He’d learned some new phrases.

  “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” he said, proudly moving his tongue round the phrase, looking delightedly round at the group. “It is bad to come together at a time of disease. But it is a great pleasure to see you again, and a great opportunity for me to go back to the work I came here to begin. I have been forgetful, ha ha! I feel I’ve come home.”

  And his eyes came to rest on me, in a way that made me remember Elizabeth’s long-ago taunt that Master Hans had spent his first evening with us making sheep’s eyes at me.

  I lowered my eyes, embarrassed. But not so fast that I didn’t spot the look of intense dismay on Master Hans’s face as John came quietly into the room and walked straight up to me.

  Ignoring Master Hans—or, if the truth be told, perhaps partly pleased to be able to demonstrate my love directly—I looked into John’s eyes for news.

  He looked tired too, but calm. “Nothing more,” he said. “I’ll go back and check later. But it’s all quietened down for now.”

  He took my hands. I didn’t look away, but I was aware of Master Hans quietly slipping out of the room.

  By that afternoon there was more bad news. But it didn’t come from the encampment by the barn. In the middle of the afternoon, while I boiled up more willow-bark infusion in my room, Margaret began to feel unnaturally cold. By the time I reached her bedroom, hurrying ahead of the maid who’d called me, Margaret was sweating.

  I sent Will downstairs, out of the way.

  I sent others out for water and towels.

  I stood in front of her bed, alone, watching her toss and turn under her blanket, and I prayed for a moment.

  I called a servant boy so I could send him to the village to find John.

  Half an hour there; half an hour back. John would most likely be with us before the crisis hit Margaret.

  Then I thought—about Mary from Deptford and her daughter, and the agonized way they’d died, fainting and bleeding under the knife.

  It was pure instinct, but suddenly I knew that I didn’t want Margaret to go under the knife. Before the boy’s head came round the door, I found myself doubting whether I’d send for John after all. I remembered how I’d cured Father’s mysterious fever once without any superior medical knowledge—just by giving him my simple willow-bark remedy. I thought of how Father’s head had dropped gently into sleep, and how he’d woken rested and cool. I thought of how I’d given the boy from Deptford, hiding in the western gatehouse, a dose of the same willow-bark potion that morning.

  In the end I sent the servant boy away without any order to fetch John.

  Instead, I ran downstairs to Master Hans, who was unpacking his easel in what was about to be his studio again. He was the only person I could send on this errand and trust his silence. He talked too much, but he was a quick thinker. He’d obey without question. He looked surprised to see me—as if he wanted to talk. “Don’t ask questions,” I hissed fiercely. “There’s no time. Just run to the western gatehouse, and come and tell me what you see. And don’t tell a soul. Quickly.”

  I got back to Margaret’s room before Father came rushing upstairs.

  He was paler than I’d ever seen him, and snuffling with tears. He flung himself down on his knees by her bed and hugged her soaking head. She was lost to us, delirious, muttering fearful half thoughts and half prayers.

  I pulled him gently aside. My arms were aching to sit with him and comfort him; but there was no time. I sat at the head of the bed with my pail of water, dipping cloths in it and wiping the sweat from her, dropping the used cloths into a pile behind me.

  On his knees, Father wept and prayed. He got up. He stared at me. He stared at her. She was getting hotter. He paced up and down the room.

  There were tears streaming down his face. I’d never seen him in this state. It was so much part of his personality to laugh, and to talk of laughter, and to show a smiling public face to the world. But now he was as hysterical as a woman in grief; almost more delirious with his fear than she was with her sickness. “Oh, Margaret,” he howled. “Don’t go. Oh, God, spare her. If she dies I’ll never meddle in worldly matters again. Oh, God, spare her.”

  “Father,” I said, and he looked around, bewildered. I said, with the best confidence I could muster: “Father, don’t worry. It’s God’s will. We’re going to try to save her.” And I was relieved that he gave me another long, half-comprehending stare before he began sobbing again.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Master Hans. He stayed outside, looking frightened at the howls of pain coming from inside. I could see he recognized Father’s voice. “I didn’t realize,” he stammered. “I’m sorry . . .”

  “It’s not him. It’s Margaret. But never mind that,” I snapped. “What did you see?”

  He looked even more frightened, as if I’d gone mad.

  “Why . . . nothing,” he stuttered. “A blanket. A bottle. A bucket of water.”

  Which meant the boy had gone. Which meant he hadn’t caught the sickness. Which might mean the willow-bark medicine had helped. Which meant I was going to trust my own remedy to save Margaret, more than I was going to trust John Clement’s medical knowledge.

  “Master Hans,” I said, “thank you.” And I leaned forward and impulsively kissed his cheek before leaving him looking astonished in the corridor and darting off to my room to where the willow-bark tea, cool now, was waiting.

  Margaret drank it down. Half of it went down her chin, but the other half went into her slack mouth. I breathed a prayer of my own and went back to mopping her forehead.

  There came a point where only Father’s prayers could be heard. Then he stopped, and all I could hear was his anxious breathing. And then he spoke.

  “Meg,” he said, in a voice so normal it was strange. “Is she dead?”

  “No,” I said, shocking myself by the calm in my voice. “She’s fallen asleep. But I think it’s normal sleep.”

  The bed was still soaking with sweat. The room still stank of death. And she was still flushed. But Margaret was breathing as quietly and innocently as a baby.

  Father looked down at her properly for the first time in hours, and the terror left his face. Then he looked at me, and I saw a reflection of the love he felt for his first child in his
shining eyes. For a second I thought he would embrace me. But he just whispered, “She’s alive,” and stepped away to the window and crossed himself, and went back to staring at me from a distance. “It’s a miracle. No, you’re a miracle. You’ve saved her.”

  Since there was something so unexpectedly like love in the soft way he was looking at me, and since we were both so tired from what had happened and what we’d done and felt in that darkened room, around Margaret’s prone form, for those few strange, panicked hours, I felt my own gaze shine softly, lovingly back on him.

  And then I shook myself and came back to reality. Father’s look was an expression of shock more than love, my rational self told me. He would look away in a moment and forget everything. And there was something important I had to do right now. So I looked away; down to the dresser, feeling for the bell. I rang for a servant. And only then, feeling deceitful and ashamed (but secretly sure I’d done the right thing), did I finally send for John. By the time he rushed in nearly an hour later, with his bag on his shoulder and the panicked, purple-faced boy behind him, I was clearing away the rags and bucket. By the time Margaret woke up, early the next morning, she was better.

  “A life restored,” Father said as he began our prayers over supper. There was awe in his voice still. “A life restored, by the grace of God. Let us give thanks.” His voice was weak still, and his reddened eyes shone as they caressed me in the candlelight.

  Margaret was still asleep. But she would wake up, and she and the baby would (God willing) live. Will Roper’s eyes were fastened as gratefully and uncomprehendingly on me as Father’s. No one was exactly saying that I’d saved Margaret (though I was still glowing from Father having said that, in his confusion, in the sickroom), but just by having been the one on the spot to mop her brow I’d gained a kind of credit for helping her through her crisis. And Master Hans, who had asked for no explanations but who knew the errand I’d sent him on had something to do with Margaret’s deliverance, was staring at me with almost religious awe. Only John, at my side, was quiet; glad though he was to find Margaret alive, I sensed he felt he’d failed the family by arriving too late to treat her. I felt guilty at having deceived him by failing to call him; but I was pleased too that I’d trusted my own judgment. Margaret might not have lived through a bloodletting. Under the table, I squeezed his hand comfortingly; and I was relieved to feel an answering pressure from his fingers. I could have shown compassion to anyone that night. It was pure vainglory, of course, but my mood was as sweet as the song of the nightingale outside the window.

  No one quite knew what to say next. We ate in silence. It was Master Hans who broke it. With his fingers and mouth still sticky and glistening from the beef and pigeon—no one else had much appetite, but he was tucking in with as much enthusiasm as ever—he cleared his throat, sniffed the honeysuckle, and said, a little awkwardly, “Sometimes it is beautiful to remember family. My picture of your family is finished except for a few details. When you have finished eating I would like to invite you to come and see.”

  Master Hans fussed over the lighting for several minutes when he’d got us all in the studio. It was a small room, and a tight fit for six adults fidgeting against the window. His pictures were messed up on the table again. I closed his portfolio and put the skull back on it. He flashed me a grateful smile and went back to fiddling with candles and moving his easel.

  The picture was propped up against the wall with its back to us. When he’d got the easel fixed up to his liking at last, he moved the canvas to the easel, still covered with its rough cloth. Then, with a little flourish, he pulled the cover away.

  It was a revelation—like no picture I’d ever seen. No religion in it, except that Dame Alice was kneeling at one side of the composition, but it was God in a breath of ordinary life. There we all were, in miniature, in the great hall, with our faces, our expressions, the way we held our heads, all perfectly reproduced on the easel: Margaret and Cecily in the foreground, near Dame Alice, whose hair was swept back off her noble forehead and who had a hint of a smile on her face; Elizabeth standing to one side, looking pretty but distant; me next to her, leaning forward over a glassy-eyed Grandfather and studiously pointing something out to him; and, in the center, flanked by Grandfather and young John and in front of Anne, Father himself, looking solemn but without the torturer’s grimness that had been such a feature of his solo portrait; and, staring mockingly out at us from above his ginger beard, was Henry Pattinson, the fool.

  I drew in a sharp breath, and I wasn’t the only one. The idea of the composition had been a joke one evening long ago. But now it was a vision of lives restored—an invitation to nostalgia. It was almost like seeing our family reunited, with every personality full of remembered beauty, depicted with love. Father fixed his gaze on Margaret’s prayerful little head.

  But I found myself drinking in the sight of the absent Cecily, with her neat profile and her kindly face, and then, less easily, turning my eyes to Elizabeth. How watchful her beautiful eyes were, above her perfectly straight nose. How unsmiling her lovely lips. She looked unhappy, I thought, with a shock of realization; as if she didn’t fit into our circle and was withdrawing to the edge. For the first time, it occurred to me that Thomas More’s true daughter might have felt as ill at ease in the More family as I sometimes did—though for different reasons, in her case: because she was better at pretty repartee than rhetoric, and more skilled at the galliard than at her Greek. And, unusually for me, I found myself longing to see her as much as Cecily, their husbands, and the babies to come. I wanted to talk to Elizabeth in a different way, to be more straightforward with her, to admit that I’d sometimes felt more than a twinge of jealousy for her prettiness, to try and bring to life something a little warmer between us.

  When I looked around, I could see everyone in the room had been thrown into a reverie by the sudden reappearance of our family, reunited.

  I didn’t want to interrupt all their separate trains of thought. I was no painter, but the picture looked finished to me, with a cluster of objects at the back of the painted room and our heads in a semicircle at the front. But I suppose pictures are only really finished when the most important clients are satisfied. I looked to see what Father and the Dame were making of it.

  Like two sides of the same coin, they were both looking awkward and uncertain. “You should,” Alice said, breaking the spell and making me half jump out of my skin, “put some lutes on the shelf at the back of the hall.” Her voice was challenging. I thought the feelings the painting had stirred up in all of us might be embarrassing her. She was trying to break the transcendent mood that had suffused us all and bring us back to earth.

  She didn’t like being carried away by emotions. Like Father, perhaps, she was scared of their messiness. “Do Sir Thomas’s musical gifts justice.” She laughed jarringly.

  Father looked at her. Then he took his cue from her and burst out laughing too, trying as hard as she had to make light of the magic of the emotion that we’d been feeling. “If you’re going to put musical instruments in,” he added jocularly, “why not put Dame Alice on a chair? She complained about her knees aching all the time she was posing for you.”

  We all laughed along. “I’ll change everything so it’s just how you want it,” Master Hans said expansively. I supposed he just might draw in some lutes later, or put the Dame on a chair, but I didn’t think anyone seriously meant him to change anything. The picture was perfect as it was. Father was just feeling vulnerable. We quickly fell silent again and went back to admiring the portrait. I wanted to catch Master Hans’s eye. Yet even he was in his own triumphant dream. He was looking from one lost, thoughtful, haunted face to another, and gently nodding his head. He could see us all remembering love, or wanting to create it. He knew his picture had had the effect he’d wanted.

  When Father made his usual apologies and slipped away toward the New Building a little later, I slipped away after him, leaving John in the parlor with the rest of the
family without a backward glance. I was suddenly full of courage. Of all nights, I thought, tonight was one time Father couldn’t be too busy to speak to me alone.

  “Father . . . ,” I called softly from behind.

  He turned in the dusk, in a cloud of cow parsley, surprised to be followed. “Meg?” he said, equally hushed, but accepting; waiting for me to catch up.

  There were so many searching questions I’d wanted to ask him for so long, but not dared. I’d imagined dozens of tête-à-têtes between us: interrogations about the man in the western gatehouse and the question of heresy; discussions about politics, Cardinal Wolsey, or the king and his loves, or frank talks about John. But in the end, now we were walking together through the tender gnats and stars, what we talked about—walking a little farther apart than we might need, too far to make it possible to link arms, but cautiously feeling a way toward something approaching intimacy—was genius.

  “How lucky we are to be alive, and to have Margaret with us still,” he said reverently, almost in a whisper, as if he were praying. “How lucky we are to have your gift for healing.”

  “And John Clement’s,” I murmured back, happily embarrassed by the implied praise and hoping to move him on to the subject I wanted to talk about most, but he didn’t seem to hear.

  A few shadowy paces farther on, I tried again. A little uncertainly: “So many of your circle have extraordinary gifts. Didn’t you find Master Hans’s painting astonishing . . .”

  But he only sighed at that, as if I’d uncovered the secret discontent in his heart. “I’ll be frank with you, Meg: of course I love excellence, like any gift from God, but I find some of these modern gifts and geniuses disturbing,” he said confidingly, “when they produce work that you feel is assaulting your senses, like a great shout in your ear. Like Hans Holbein’s painting tonight. I looked at it and wondered: is he sharing his vision of the world with his friends—or is he thrusting it down their throats?”