Brandy Purdy (17 page)

And of course there was the cake. At one point Father even swung a squealing, happy Kate up onto the table to stand beside it in her golden gown to show that, true to his word, it towered above her. Kate was so happy! She picked up her skirts to show her pretty ankles and dainty, twinkling golden slippers and pranced joyously around the cake as though it were her dancing partner, until she stopped, laughingly crying out that she was dizzy, and several gentlemen pressed close to catch her as, with a joyous whoop, she leapt into their outstretched arms. And, as though she were a little girl, they threw her high into the air and caught her several times before setting her on her feet again and relinquishing her to the timidly smiling boy who was now her husband. Kate plucked a sunny yellow dandelion from the salad and smilingly tucked it behind his ear and gave his cheek a hearty, smacking kiss before she grasped his hand and laughingly led him off to dance, while Father, groaning and salivating in an ecstasy of gluttonous delight, dug both his hands into the cake, tearing out two great handfuls, and brought them to his mouth. The expression upon his face as he chewed conveyed such bliss I was certain he was imagining that he had died and gone to heaven.

Seeing her with him, I gave a great sigh of relief, feeling the fear fall from my heart and sink away into nothing; what had been big as a boulder was now the tiniest, most miniscule piece of gravel. She didn’t seem disappointed at all; she must have been looking at him through the eyes of love. I pressed my hand to my lips, and though she could not see me, blew a kiss to my lovely, loving Kate, wishing her all the happiness in the world.

I glanced over at Jane and Guildford, sitting at the banquet table, and wished I could see love lighting up their faces. There seemed to be an invisible wall about them setting them apart from the other guests; though they were surrounded by smiling, happy revelers, these two alone took no pleasure in the day, looking as though they wished they were any place than at this grand party meant to celebrate their nuptials.

Fastidiously nibbling on a slice of sugared lemon and occasionally sipping from a gilded goblet, Guildford Dudley looked bored and beautiful. But Jane just looked sad and very pale, her eyes, indeed her entire expression, dull and dead. From time to time Guildford would reach out and touch her hand, as though to assure himself that she was still alive. Each time Jane would flash him an annoyed grimace and pull her hand away.

“Jane, you promised!” I wanted to shout down at her.

Watching them sitting there together, so strikingly and discordantly apart from all the gaiety, I sighed and shook my head as my fingers fiddled with the cameo pinned to my plum damask bodice. It was a wedding favor, given to all the most prominent and influential guests. Specially carved by an Italian craftsman, it depicted Guildford Dudley’s handsome profile, and was wreathed by golden gillyflowers creating a cunning little frame that could be worn as either a pendant or a brooch. I was so surprised that I had been given one, I thought myself of so little consequence, but Guildford himself had presented it to me when I arrived at Durham House. Still in his gold brocade dressing gown and slippers with his golden hair bound up tight in curling rags, he had waved aside the servants who rushed to help him and knelt down before me and pinned it to my bodice with his own lily-white hands, explaining that I more than anyone deserved to have some beauty in my life. The words were pompous and condescending, but I could tell by his smile and the look in his pale green eyes, and the very fact that he made the gesture when there were so many much more important people he could have given it to, that this was a genuine act of kindness. Guildford was really not as bad as Jane made him seem. As I spent more time with him, I began to think that there was more to Guildford Dudley than most people realized, that his flamboyant ostentation was part of a role he was playing, and the joke was truly on those who never bothered to look beneath the surface.

I watched with great interest as Father approached this dour couple. Smiling broadly, with a flourish, he presented each of them with a golden bowl heaped high with salad. I saw Guildford smile, his hand reaching out to touch Father’s as he set the bowl before him. Jane sullenly shoved her salad away, and Father smilingly drew the shunned bowl to himself as he sat down between them. He waggled his golden fork at Jane, his scolding marred by the great smile that graced his face, before he stuffed his mouth full of salad and gave his full attention to her bridegroom, chewing and nodding assiduously at whatever Guildford was saying as a dandelion waggled up and down his chin, its stem caught in his beard. Jane folded her arms across her chest and glared hard at them, and harder still when Father, in a distinctly, and disturbingly, coquettish manner, leaned forward to feed Guildford some salad from his own fork, but neither of them appeared to feel the scorch of her censorious stare; they seemed lost in their own little world. Jane would later, most disparagingly, repeat some of their conversation to me.

His eyes on Guildford all the while, Father sipped from a golden goblet of “the splendid Rhenish” he had chosen and, laying a hand over Guildford’s, asked how he found the wine.

Guildford smiled brightly and said, “Oh I just look to my right, and there it is every time! The servants keep filling my cup, so I keep drinking it. It must be very good wine; after all, why would anyone give me anything but the best?”

Beaming, Father leaned forward and looked past Guildford to address Jane. “Smile and be merry, Jane, you’re the
luckiest
girl in the world! See what a clever, witty husband I have chosen for you?”

Jane just glowered. “I thought my lady-mother chose him for me.”

“Well . . .” The smile on Father’s face faltered, but only for a moment, and then he brightened. “But as her husband all her property is mine, and that includes her ideas, so, when you think about it that way, I did choose him.”

To which Jane just rolled her eyes and snorted and wished she could disappear.

I was still watching them, marveling at Father’s perplexing behavior, the way he kept feeding and reaching out to touch and caress Guildford so familiarly; such affection for a son-in-law seemed unwarranted and disturbing, indeed for even a naturally born son, or even a daughter, it would have been peculiar, there was a sensuality about it that made it appear so . . .
intimate
. I was thus preoccupied when Kate came bounding up the stairs, her gold and cream skirts hitched high so she wouldn’t tear or trip over them. A footman followed her, carrying a big golden platter heaped high with a thoughtfully chosen selection of roasted meats, cheese, and sweets just for me. Kate, in the midst of the glorious whirl of her own wedding, had not forgotten me and had actually taken time to prepare a plate with all my favorites.

“Mary, I am
so
happy!” she cried, throwing her arms about me and hugging me tight. “May you be just as happy on your own wedding day! I wouldn’t worry too much about Lord Wilton,” she added, seeing my woeful, doubtful expression. “You’ve years to wait before you come of age, and someone better, whom our parents deem just as advantageous a match, may come along. Now that I am a married lady and shall be going to court, you may rest assured, I shall look out for someone better for you. I want my little sister to be happy! I shall pray every day that love will find you, Mary, so you can know this marvelous and immeasurable joy! You deserve it! And God and Life cannot be so cruel as to deny you this bliss because of a caprice of Mother Nature!”

The musicians could not take their eyes off my Kate. She was as radiant as the sun, so jubilant and vivacious, she made everyone smile. Kate laughed and thanked them heartily for their good wishes and the wonderful music, and when she spied one of them, the youngest, a tabor player, hungrily ogling my plate, she inquired if they had yet eaten. Ashamed at his lapse in manners and too shy to answer, the boy reddened and hung his head, so the sackbut player spoke for him, explaining that it was customary for them to take their share of the leavings after the banquet was finished and the guests had left the hall.

“But all the best will be gone by then!” Kate protested. “No, you simply
must
have something now, I insist!” Before any could stop her, she was flying down the stairs again, skirts hitched high with her long train bouncing behind her, and the footman rushing after, only to return a few minutes later with four more footmen, all of them bearing flagons of wine and high-piled, golden platters, to provide us with a little feast all our own.

“I wish I could stay and dance and enjoy it with you,” she said regretfully, tarrying at the top of the stairs with a sad little smile, like one torn between two worlds, “but I must go back; they’re waiting for me . . .”

“I know,” I said, and squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, Kate. We understand. Go and be happy.”

“Mary . . .” She hesitated again. “I wish you would come downstairs. I don’t like to think of you apart and lonely like this. Please come down . . .”

“I am not lonely. I am with my sisters on their wedding day; every time you think of me, I will be right there with you. And when you dance, through you, I am dancing. And this really is better,” I assured her with a wave at the gallery. “I can see everything from up here; down there I would be lost in a swirl of skirts and see nothing but legs and asses. I would be bruised black and blue before the day is through from being jostled and bumped and trod on. Go on now”—I shooed her away—“your guests, and your husband, are waiting for you!”

With another hug and a kiss she was gone. I watched the sparkling train of her golden skirt skipping down the stairs after her, like a puppy’s happily wagging tail.

The musicians took it in turns to play while others of their number ate. To my delight, several danced with me, and so gallant and kind were they that I felt sure they truly enjoyed it. I kicked my heels high with gay abandon and whooped with joy when they swung me high. All of them praised Kate, and I saw that my sister had captured a dozen more hearts that day. The young tabor player in particular would never forget her, or her kindness, and many years later when I chanced to meet him at a court celebration, I would discover, though he was much too shy to ever publicly declare it, that he had written the popular song “Mistress Sunshine” as a tribute to her, the beautiful young bride in her golden gown who had come like a dancing sunbeam up the stairs to the gallery bearing treats for the troupe of musicians who played for her on her wedding day.

Then, like a sudden rainstorm come to ruin a perfect day, everything seemed to go wrong. I rushed to the rail to look down as sudden screams and the noise of retching filled the air. Down below me in the Great Hall people were running and staggering every which way in a blind panic, falling to their knees, grasping their bellies, and being violently sick. There was the thunderous rumble of footsteps upon the stairs as they ran for whatever private rooms and privies they could find, or fled the Great Hall to relieve themselves in the pleasure gardens behind the house, and yet more rushed out into the streets or to the river and stumbled into their waiting barges, presumably to make their way home or to the nearest apothecary, though it seemed more than likely to me that the swaying current of the river would make them sicker before they reached their destination.

I saw Father, looking none too well himself, wading through the panicked crowd, carrying a green-tinged Guildford Dudley, who had apparently fainted, and lay back limp as a rag doll in Father’s arms as he carried him tenderly upstairs. Guildford’s mother, clucking like a frantic mother hen over her favorite golden chick, followed anxiously behind, then darted ahead to open the door to Guildford’s bedchamber, herself green-faced and sweating profusely in her rust red satin gown, wringing her hands and crying for someone to fetch a doctor quickly.

High above in the musicians’ gallery, we were safe and at no risk of being jostled, trampled, and crushed by the herd of frightened, confused, and puking humanity.

“The fish?” the flutist guessed, lowering his instrument.

“
Something
was off.” The sackbut player shrugged, and all as one turned and looked warily at the table where the remains of our own little feast lay.

“It was the salad!” I piped up. “Everyone who is sick, I saw partake of the salad! Someone must have plucked some bad leaves, mistaking them for good and wholesome salad greens.”

“Aye”—the hautboy player nodded—“I’ve seen this before. ’Tis what you’d expect from a city wedding; ’twould
never
happen in the country. People there know which greens won’t gripe the belly and turn the bowels to stink water.”

“Praise be!” they all chorused as we all heaved a great, grateful sigh that the sickness had passed us by, and the musicians struck up a lively air hoping to calm the ailing masses below us. Kate had not brought us any of the salad; the crowd around it had been so dense, and she was in such a hurry to bring us our treats. I had seen her tarry a moment uncertainly beside it, judging how long the wait would be, then, with a wave beckoning the footmen to follow her, rush on up the stairs to us.

Where was Kate now? Had she or Lord Herbert been stricken? Vainly my eyes sought to pick her out, but somehow I missed her in the crush of the crowd. I was tempted to risk being trampled and go in search of her, but the rebec player reached out his hands and gently stayed me, and, with a twinkle in his eyes, informed me that he had seen her and her bridegroom taking full advantage of the confusion to slip away, “and neither of them seemed even a wee bit sick to me, little mistress,” he added with a wink. All the musicians laughed and nodded knowingly, many of them adding that the young Lord Herbert was a “most fortunate” and “a very lucky” man. The cittern player even went so far as to say he wished he could trade places with him for a night, but the lute player elbowed him sharply in the ribs and said he shouldn’t speak so in the presence of the lady’s sister, adding, “ ’Tis not meet for such young ears.”