The Queen of Subtleties. Suzannah Dunn
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only crossing the yard between my lodgings and here. The air in the yard throbs with baking bread, brewing and roasting. ‘And I’m not sure about those “orchards”,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that sugar, when it’s growing…well, that it’s anything like what turns up at Southampton. Unless it grows in blue paper wrappers.’
‘Oh.’ He glanced around, expectantly, presumably looking for them, our conical sugar loaves. I broke it to him that he wouldn’t find any, here. They’re locked in a trunk in the spicery. Even I have to apply to the Chief Clerk for my requirements. Then he asked me about spices, about whether they grow. ‘I just can’t imagine them growing,’ he said.
I explained that they’re seeds, mostly.
‘Yes, but that’s it: I can’t imagine the plants.’
I considered this. Reaching into a bowl, I took a rose-petal. With it on my palm, I said, ‘I wonder, if you’d never seen a rosebush, whether you could imagine where this came from.’ I passed it to him.
He held it and then rubbed it slowly between forefinger and thumb. It kept its shape, bounced back from every fold; effectively remained untouched. ‘I’d never thought of them as tough,’ he said, and he was as surprised as I’d known he would be. ‘They’re not really delicate at all, are they.’
‘Not at all,’ I agreed. ‘But nor is a rose-bush.’
It wasn’t until then that we exchanged names: ‘I’m Mark, by the way,’ he said.
‘Lucy,’ I said. Well, why not? Richard calls me Lucy.
He thanked me for allowing him in to watch, and I asked, ‘Didn’t you ever watch anyone making confectionery, when you were little?’ His mother, if he had a mother. If she lived until he could remember her. Few women are so grand that they don’t cook, and all of them aspire to confectionery.
‘I didn’t have that kind of childhood,’ was his cheerful answer. ‘I was a choirboy.’
Oh. So, another orphan of a kind.
‘Here, usually.’
‘Hampton Court?’ And then it sank in.
But he said it anyway: ‘I was in Cardinal Wolsey’s choir.’
I was careful to echo his even tone when I said, ‘How things change.’ Which could, of course, be taken to refer to the palace itself and not the cardinal’s demise. And it partly did, because what is Hampton Court other than endless building-work? It’s been five or six years, now, since the king took it over, and will he ever stop? Wine cellars are the latest addition to our kitchens; massive, vaulted wine cellars. It’s said that the palace was colossal in the cardinal’s time. What’s the word for it now that it’s twice the size?
He said, ‘Some things change, others don’t: I’m still singing.’ He smiled. ‘Rather lower, though.’
He’s a chorister, still. Then I’ll have heard him, in Chapel. His is one of the voices making that shining wall of sound. It’s a strange feeling that those voices cause in me; coolheaded, everyday me. As if the coping that I’ve been doing is nothing; as if everything I am and everything I do is nothing, a sham. And isn’t that wonderful, in a way? Isn’t it a kind of relief?
When he’d gone, I decided to take a break, a stroll. I don’t get enough air. I walked past the chapel, but it was silent. Walked on into the rose gardens, and, there, savoured the fragrance. It’s the faintest of scents, but steady. No muskiness, no headiness to it. Just a single, clean, high note.
Rose shapes, though, are anything but simple. Here in the kitchen we have stamps and flat moulds of roses that are regularly-petalled. Tudor roses. And we have one old mould of a rosebud which yields a rosebud-shaped pebble of sugar. But real roses have intricate whorls of petals as individual as fingerprints. If I were to try to make a faithful reproduction of a rose, I’d have to build it petal by petal, modelling each petal by hand; each one bowed and tapered between fingertip and thumb.
‘By the way,’ Richard says, ‘if you want the latest royal gossip, it’s that Henri fait l’amour avec Meg Shelston.’
‘Thank you, Richard. I don’t.’ And I wish he wouldn’t be so disrespectful. Someone will hear him, one day; someone other than me. And his ridiculous attempts at code: I should feign ignorance. He’s persuaded someone to teach him a little French, over the last year or so. Regrettably, not to broaden his mind. He’s aware that I know some French, but not how much. And in fact it isn’t much. I trained with a French cook, and I know what people say about the French but he really didn’t have much time or use for expressions like fait l’amour. I can work it out, though. What I don’t know is, who’s Meg Shelston?
‘And Le Corbeau isn’t best pleased about, to put it very, very mildly indeed.’
Initially, Le Corbeau stumped me. He had to tell me that it’s a translation of a name for her that’s been in use for a while. According to some people, he says, it was Cardinal Wolsey’s own name for her, in his time; except that the cardinal’s name was The Midnight Crow, and although Richard can manage minuit, it makes it a bit much. I’m surprised to hear Richard using such a name at all; because, until recently, he was all for her. ‘Richard, sometimes I think you like to make something out of nothing.’
‘Yes, I know. I know that’s what you think.’ He’s offended that I’ve rejected this titbit that I never asked for.
Which annoys me. ‘Richard, why would he? Think about it: he turned this country upside-down and re-wrote all the rules, two years ago, just two years ago, so that he could marry—’ What do I call her? I don’t like calling her the queen. ‘So that he could marry. He went through all that—took us all through that—and now they have the lovely little princess—’ Say what you like, she’s a treasure; born under a waning moon, so the next one’s bound to be a boy. ‘Why would he bother with any…Meg?’ I do honestly think, sometimes, that Richard lives in fairyland.
‘Well…’ He stops, seems to abandon whatever point he was about to make, and merely says, pleasantly, ‘You don’t understand men at all, do you, Lucy.’
I knew he’d come again. Somehow, though, I’m still surprised to see him. A shock: that’s how it feels; a jolt. This time, Richard’s here; but absorbed, sculpting. Hungover. Choosing not to respond to the knock at the door, but now glancing up, apparently goodnatured and almost smiling. ‘Morning, Mr Smeaton.’ So casual, yet somehow making everything so awkward. Well, that’s a Richard-speciality, and I must rise above it.
‘Richard.’ I indicate him to Mark: an introduction. A flicker of amusement between us: Richard seems to have become our private joke; Ah, Richard, at last.
‘…Cornwallis,’ Richard adds, with the same goodnatured near-smile that isn’t either goodnatured or a smile. Never mind: no one else knows the difference.
‘Mr Cornwallis.’ Mark nods.
I’d like to say, He’s not my son; I’m not his mother. I don’t know how to address Mark, now; after all the Mister this and Mister that. Did I imagine that he ever introduced himself as Mark?
He’s saying, ‘I hope you don’t mind; you must have a lot on your hands, this time of year.’
‘You, too.’
He agrees. ‘We do have a bit of a rush on, around Easter.’
I only realize we’ve giggled when Richard gives us an irritated flick of a glance. I indicate for Mark to sit.
He says, ‘This is the warmest place I know. Chapel’s freezing, and we were in there for hours.’
It is cold outside, and we’ve candles lit. His hair is catching the shine of them; he’s brightening the room. ‘It went well, though?’ I wish I knew how to talk about his work.
‘Could be better.’ Cheerful, though.