Midnight in Westminster Abbey

by Sean Dennis Cashman

  Instinctively, the two sisters clasped one another in a royal embrace. Then they knelt down and prayed silently in thanks for another safe delivery after their year’s sleep. When they rose, shards of fractured masonry and the tatters of burial raiment fell away with other debris.

  And so, the two Tudor queens were standing side by side in their side chapel in Westminster Abbey: Mary I and Elizabeth I. They faced one another, slender but wan, proud but nervous. Without seeking one another’s reassurance as harmoniously as waterfowl bound together for life, in death they shook their bony frames, trembling as they cast off any residual shabby vestments and dusty wrappings from inside the two-tiered tomb to reveal themselves as two lovely skeletons.

  Georgie had cowered during the mini explosion. It was almost more than he could do to stay stock still and silent. He knew he had to go on breathing but he did not want to give himself away.

  “Heavens,” said Mary I. “We’ve forgotten our face masks.”

  “I’d thought of that,” said Elizabeth. “I remembered time and took precautions last year. We don’t want to frighten the horses. The masks are here somewhere.”

  She bent down and looked at the side of her marble effigy on the tomb just below the noble head modelled and carved from her death mask.

  “Here they are,” she said with a flourish as she produced two elaborate Venetian face masks with exquisite headdresses. “Some tourist left them. How thoughtful and how convenient. There are three of them so we have a spare.”

  When attached to the two queens’ skulls, the masks presented a perfect image of each in her glory days. For Elizabeth, this was Gloriana in her heyday: an idealised icon of benign majesty. For Mary Tudor, it was a much prettier version of her younger self, looking like a fun-loving young woman such as she had never been in her life on Earth.

  Mary noticed a tiny gilded papier-mâché crown on the floor. She retrieved it and placed it graciously on her head just in time before Lizzie saw it. “After all,” she thought. “I was queen first. What a relief,” she hummed, purring like a cat that had lapped all the cream. “Lizzie can eat all the pies if she wants to.”

  Fortunately for Mary Tudor, Lizzie was in her own world.

  “Now I’m Elizabeth again: no more Lizzie tonight. We can take on all comers,” said Elizabeth I as if she were still seeking an eligible young suitor.

  Elizabeth’s brief reference to the pleasant prospect of a young man’s fanciful gaze in the first throes of love alerted both sisters to the fact that they were being watched from the shadows, maybe spied upon and possibly appraised by the wandering eyes of an inquisitive youth.

  They could see better now for around them Westminster Abbey was beginning to stir as other late kings and queens were also rising from their resting places for a night of rites and recreation, shuffling off the deathly coil of perpetual slumber. The general movement was creating an atmosphere of palpable expectation just like an appreciative theatre audience settling down before its favourite musical.

  Then the queens noticed something else.

  “We know you’re there,” Mary called out sharply. “We sense you through the twilight. We know you’re appraising us.”

  “Don’t be shy,” said Elizabeth.

  Then imperceptibly, the sisters’ tone changed as Mary said, “It’s not a cousin king or queen. It’s a mortal.”

  Somebody in the shadows—young Georgie—moved as silently as he could. Two liquid eyes below a pale forehead and lovely wavy hair peered above the parapet of the fragmented tomb where he had been crouching.

  “It’s a young fellow from the New World,” said Elizabeth. “Arise. Take your stand. Show your face like a man.”

  Georgie stood up, almost to attention. He was struck dumb at the sight of the two unclothed lady skeletons with lovely painted faces.

  The two sisters shielded their nakedness from him by covering themselves together in an outsize Welsh flag someone had left draped over a chair. The flag had green and white panels and a red dragon.

  “State your business,” said Mary sharply.

  “Fear not,” continued Elizabeth.

  “Please, ma’am. My name is George. But they call me Georgie. I came over with my family. We’re from New York. My dad and my sister are American royalists. We love the British royal family.”

  Georgie remembered that his father had told him that if he were seen in Westminster Abbey after hours, he must have this prearranged explanation ready. And Georgie had learnt it. It tripped off his tongue.

  “We love the British royal family. Our names, Charlie, Ginny and Georgie—that’s me—are from US states that have the names of English kings and queens: Virginia after Elizabeth I, North and South Carolina after Charles I, Georgia after George II.”

  “I thought all Americans were Republicans,” said Mary.

  “Or Democrats at least,” said Lizzie, softening and resuming her little-girl persona.

  “My dad says that nowadays you can’t tell the difference,” said Georgie. “But some of us in the States with names from the English royals really do love the English royals—past and present,” he added softly in case this was tactless.

  Mary Tudor did not like mention of future sovereigns. So she said haughtily, “I don’t think I should like America.”

  “I suppose that’s because we have no ruins and no curiosities,” Georgie suggested with the response his dad had taught him.

  Mary replied with pleasurable scorn. “No ruins? You have your foreign policy. No curiosities? You have your rock stars.”

  “And a ruin may be charming,” said Elizabeth to keep the tone light, “as anyone who sees us knows.” She smiled sweetly.

  Mary did not like this. But years of political compromise had made Elizabeth more broad-minded and tolerant. Besides, when she chose, she had the common touch.

  Lizzie asked Georgie, “What did you say just now about your family?”

  “There’s my dad, Charlie, and my older sister, Ginny. She’s in London on a student exchange. My dad and I came over to help her settle in before her first Thanksgiving away from home. Somehow, we got separated in the abbey.”

  This was far from the whole truth but Georgie’s dad had taught him never to give out too much information to people in control.

  “Don’t be afraid,” said Elizabeth. “We won’t harm you. You catch us dishabille—before we’re properly up and dressed to receive our courts.”

  “Like a levée ?” asked Georgie precociously. He knew the difference between a levée that was a harbour promenade and a levée that was an aristocrat’s open morning reception.

  “That came later,” retorted Mary. “And it’s more European—at any rate more French.”

  Here she lowered her voice as if that particular F word had to be whispered.

  “But we can be ready in a trice,” said Elizabeth to keep the party polite. “One advantage of being bones without skin is that you can adjust your whole being to suit every occasion.”

  She clapped her delicate little hands. There was a twinkling sound and a rhythmic pulse of a costume shimmying as it shimmered.

  “It’s like the song says in Gypsy—something like, ‘If you’re ever going to make it, twinkle while you shake it’. Besides, I heard a diamond ring.”

  The two queens let go of the Welsh flag. Almost in a trice, Elizabeth’s bones became glistening fragments and shards. And almost immediately, they reassembled themselves into a different framework from a skeleton into the outline and structure of a lady’s farthingale complete with hooped skirt, outsize starched-lace collar and exaggerated puff sleeves. Bones that, a moment ago, had been discoloured yellow and off-white now took on new sheen as well as new shapes. They glowed like so many pearls, mother of pearls and semi-precious stones to create a translucent impression of sixteenth-century court elegance.

  Georgie simply said, “Wow!”

  His gaze grew more intense as Elizabeth I in all her twinkling finery started to perform a minc
ing dance, half in mock homage to a new subject to be flattered, half because she was in love with herself.

  “This is a galliard,” she said by way of explanation.

  “Wait till I tell my folks.”

  “Stay,” ordered Mary Tudor.

  For, initially jealous, Mary was not to be outdone by her assertive half-sister. She moved forward from the shadows.

  “Anything she can do, I can certainly do better. Want to bet?” she added assuming a mock but indeterminate American accent uttered with a coquettish smile. Mary performed the same movement that Elizabeth had a few moments ago. She clapped her hands as if summoning spirits of the air. Then she swayed as if possessed by some mysterious force.

  As Mary moved, her bones also split, divided and divided again. But whereas Elizabeth’s bones had reconstituted as a silver or pearly white dress, Mary’s hooped skirt looked as if it was made of rubies with some emeralds for decoration, giving the impression of blood-red berries on a green holly bush.

  “Gosh,” said Georgie. “How did you do that?”

  “We learnt it from our fourth mother—or rather from my fourth mother but her third: Anne of Cleves,” said Mary. “She’s here somewhere, getting ready.”

  “We are the privileged daughters of King Henry VIII, whom we both adored,” added Elizabeth.

  “Daddy got married and married,” said Mary with pointed regret.

  “But he never got carried away—six times—that’s without other company in youth and age alike,” interposed Elizabeth tartly. “He couldn’t stop himself. Father wasn’t the easiest husband to love, honour and obey.”

  “We liked some of our stepmothers more than others,” said Mary with surprising sweetness. “But Anne of Cleves was good to both of us. She was what you moderns would call a quick-change artist. Got married, took what she could and got away with her life intact.”

  Surveying Mary Tudor’s outfit critically, Lizzie said, “We’ve got company. A handsome, young man. I think we can do better than that.”

  Elizabeth clicked her fingers again and the red and green shards around Mary became iridescent nicer costume jewellery, shimmering in the candlelight like luminous gems. With another click of Elizabeth’s fingers, they became like a beaded curtain and then turned into a slinky sheath dress as if Mary I was the most IT girl of all 1920s flappers or the lead singer of a 1960s hot gospel group. Then Elizabeth handed Mary Tudor a toy—a little fluffy white lamb. Mary adored her new look and shimmied with delight as her sister recited a perky aside:

  Mary has a new sheath dress.

  It is too tight by half.

  Who cares a damn for Mary’s lamb

  When they can see her calf?

  No one had ever taken any interest in Mary Tudor’s calf before and the hitherto ignored queen now puffed herself up with salacious pride in her superficially heavenly body.

  “They’re not my words, of course,” Elizabeth added sotto voce. “I borrowed them from Thomas Edison, the most famous inventor in history, although, unlike the White Knight in Alice, not everything was his own invention.”

  Mary covered her fluffy pet lamb nervously.

  The two sisters giggled together affectionately—something they had never done in real life.

  “You’ve never been to Westminster Abbey before?” asked Elizabeth, changing the subject in order to show off again.

  Georgie sensed this was his cue to explain his mission.

  “I’ve never been to London before. We came over because dad wanted to see it and for us all to be together. Then he seized a chance to see the royals’ secret ceremony.”

  Elizabeth smiled as if she were keeping her thoughts under wraps.

  “Then first let me give you the guided tour.”

  As Lizzie took the little boy’s hand in her choppy fingers, they started to move forward with gingery steps. Georgie looked back in wonder. From the front, the friendly apparition of shades and patches that was the Virgin Queen seemed the epitome of jewel-encrusted charm, an entirely regal monarch. But when Georgie looked to the side, all he could see was a thin sparkling vertical flickering line. And when he looked to the back, there was nothing there.

  Mary guessed what he was thinking.

  “This is Elizabeth I as you have never seen her,” said Mary Tudor, smacking her lips. “Or even dared to imagine her. It’s taken all her glittering bones and shards to create this one-dimensional effect. There aren’t enough splinters and bones to make a rounded woman. You see, with her, it’s all for show. There’s nothing behind it.” Then she added in a dark whisper, “That’s what Republicans say is wrong with monarchy. At least with nothing behind us, no one will call us ‘rear of the year’.”

  Lizzie noticed that Georgie was looking anxious.

  “My child, you look worried when Mary makes these remarks that pass over your head. Am I right?”

  Georgie nodded.

  “Believe me, sonny, when she’s around, you’re lucky still to have a head to nod.”

  Moving on from her aspersions on Mary Tudor’s celebrated cutting skills, Elizabeth started the tour by showing Georgie the chancel and then the great Lady Chapel built by orders of her grandfather, Henry VII, the first Tudor king. She pointed out the immense ceiling with its spectacular fan vaulting, explaining that it was a late flowering of Perpendicular Gothic and a vivid testament to Henry VII’s superb architectural taste. (She had read that in a guidebook).

  “The stone came from Caen in France, the Isle of Portland and the Loire Valley, also in France. You see the curved triangular shapes?”

  Georgie looked blank.

  “You need more light?”

  As if the queen’s wish was her immediate command, the high ceiling with its decorated stone fans was suddenly lit up by some mysterious golden light that enhanced the creamy yellow stone above. It was as if this was a hallowed canopy for sacred events about to unfold below.

  Elizabeth continued with her little tutorial.

  “A fan vault is a style in which the ribs have the same curve and are spaced equidistantly, like the ribs of a lady’s fan . Look. See. The shaped clusters of ribs spring from slender columns or from pendant knobs at the centre of the ceiling.”

  She stopped her little recitation, sensing that it was too detailed and technical for a youngster. Georgie looked up and saw that, within the soaring vertical vaults created by the immense pillars, the stone was decorated with tracery as fine and delicate as feathers.

  Mary said, “The style allows for ever larger expanses of glass than earlier Gothic styles that have more pointed windows. Look up. These windows almost meet in a crisscross of fanlike decoration across the ceiling. It’s as if walls and windows and ceilings are united into one integral whole.”

  She added somewhat sardonically, “The style aims at refined magnificence suitable for the glory of God, to be sure, but also the power and glory of us proud English kings and queens. It’s beautiful not just for beauty’s sake but also to convey a political message—we royals showing off.”

  Georgie understood that this was a royal pronouncement meant to be the last word on the subject.

  When his neck got tired from looking upwards, he started to look around at ground level. He noticed, as he had not during daylight hours, that the nave had three aisles and there were four bays. As the queens guided him, he counted five lesser chapels and noted the elaborate tombs of Henry VII and his queen, another Elizabeth, as well as the plain tomb of King James VI and I, the first Stuart king.

  Mary sensed that Georgie was overwhelmed. “Side chapels? Apses? Naves? Aisles? Too many?” she asked. “Well that’s why the UK is known as the British Aisles.”

  Georgie was taken by another surprise. For now, Elizabeth matched the splendour of the ceiling. Georgie turned to look on her again. And she dazzled like all the colours of the rainbow.

  “Do you like it?” Elizabeth asked without waiting for an answer. “It’s my concession to politically correct modern politics—the
Rainbow Coalition. It’s the dress I wore for the Rainbow portrait. It’s full of symbols of my power and prestige.” Here she positively preened: “The dress is embellished with decorations of eyes and ears.” With her crabbed fingers, she pointed some of them out for his supposed delight: “Here—and here and here.”

  Georgie became more aware of her gliding along as if she were not walking but being drawn gracefully by invisible ropes.

  The queens moved with a tinkling sound that came from the jingling of the royal bones. A seasoned royal observer might have compared the sound to the clinking sound of glass in chandeliers being moved from one splendid baroque room to another. Georgie thought it sounded like the ‘Skeletons’ duet his sister used to play on the piano with one of her high school friends. He remembered that Ginny had told him that it was one number in a larger piece, Carnival of the Animals, by Camille Saint-Saens.

  Despite wanting to get back to his father, Georgie had slowly warmed to the ghosts of the mysterious Tudor court. When he felt more comfortable, Georgie started to tell the old queens about recent sadness in his family’s history: the tragic death of Ginny’s mother, his father and his grandparents’ grief and his father’s second marriage to his own mother. But when he tried to explain how his father and mother’s marriage had started to unravel he got confused and started to ramble and gabble. His parent’s divorce had been bitter and Georgie had been (and remained) torn. Then he ran out of words. At this, the skeleton queens softened even more to Georgie. He started again, saying, “Dad says we’re—we’ve been a dis-, dis-something family. I can’t remember the D word.”

  “Dysfunctional?” suggested Mary Tudor.

  “That’s it—dys-funct—something,” said Georgie still struggling with the word.

  “Believe me, sonny,” said Elizabeth I, “we’re with you on this. No families are more dysfunctional—crazy, weird, confused—than any of the European royals during the Renaissance. And I’m not forgetting the Caesars of Imperial Rome. Such scandals!” she purred. “So we’re the last who should cast stones.”