Regardless of which of these tales was the true one, Lord Wilton left the battlefield that day with a face that frightened children and now went about veiled like a lady in public lest his ears be assaulted by cries of “Dear God, what is that hideous thing?” and “Monster!” and the terrified wails of children, the screams of women, and the thud of their bodies falling down in a faint. I felt sorry for him; I, “Crouchback Mary,” the “little gargoyle,” the “goblin child,” and “mashed-up little toad,” could well understand his pain and torment. It must have been especially hard for him since he had once been accounted amongst the handsomest of men, whilst I had been born ugly and misshapen and had known no other form or face.
But empathy was not enough to make me want to marry him. Oh what a pair we would make! I could picture myself leading my half-blind and veiled husband around by the hand, my crooked spine straining and aching at the awful effort. People would think we were a couple of freaks loose from the fair or some nobleman’s collection of Mother Nature’s mistakes. Those who enjoyed such spectacles might even come up to us and offer us pennies to peer beneath my husband’s veil or toss down their coins and cry,
“Dance, dwarf, dance!”
“Nay, pet, look not so downhearted! You’re frowning as if the world were about to end without your ever having tasted of all its pleasures!
Smile!
” Father cried, setting me down and with the tips of his fingers pushing the corners of my mouth up to form a smile that instantly disappeared the moment he removed them. “Lord Wilton is a
wonderful
man and a
great
hero! A husband you can be proud of! I myself have told him
all
about you, and he cannot wait to make you his bride. How impatient he is for his little Mary to grow up! He wants to be informed the moment you shed your first woman’s blood! He
longs
for an understanding and intelligent young wife, a quiet, sensible girl whose head and heart will not be turned by a handsome face, one who is content to bide at home and sit by the fire and read to and converse with him, someone he can tell his stories to and relive his former glories with, someone like you, my little love, not some flighty little minx he is likely to find one day rolling in the straw with the stable boy between her knees! And, mind you, just because his face is ruined, doesn’t mean that William is lacking in amorous skill, quite the contrary, but that is not a subject fit for your tender years. Suffice it to say that upon your wedding night you shall experience a heavenly rapture, and not of the spiritual kind, but a warm, quivering, panting, pulsing, throbbing ecstasy of the flesh! William has the tongue and fingers to rival the greatest musician in England; he plays a woman’s body like an instrument! But forget I said that until you are old enough to remember! It’s not a fit subject for a little maid like you to contemplate.”
“But, Father!” Kate wailed. “He is
so
ugly! And
old!
I have seen him riding through London in his litter, his face covered by a thick veil, with a shawl about his shoulders, just like a hunched and shriveled-up old woman calling out to his bearers in a whining voice that they are going too fast, or too slow, or to watch out for that pig or that little girl or not to step in the street muck, and to turn here and turn there as though he laid the streets of London himself and knows them better than any!”
“Katherine!”
Father barked sharply. “I am appalled and ashamed of you! Don’t you realize, girl, that you are talking about a
great
war hero? The man who led the first charge against the enemy at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, mind you! I’ll thank you to show some respect for your future brother-in-law! Everyone with a drop of English blood in them should go down on their knees and thank William Grey for sacrificing his looks, and his vanity, for their sake. And before he was injured, he had
much
to be vain of. He was as bold and brazen as a strutting cockerel! If you girls were boys, the stories I could tell you,” he added with a wink. Then, hurtling over the obstacles that stood in the way of a good story, he went on as though our sex posed no barrier. “Why, when he was lying there with his face hanging from his skull in shreds and tatters all stitched up with crude thread and swathed in bloody rags, not knowing whether he was going to live or die, he called for a mirror though he was told it was best not to look, but look he did, he was that brave, then he defiantly flung the mirror away, and to prove himself still a man he called for women and more women and to keep them coming until he said, ‘No more!’ He wore out a dozen whores, by some counts as many as sixteen or thirty—everyone who tells the tale gives a different number—but I am sure, knowing my cousin William, that it was at
least
a dozen wenches. But upon one point everyone agrees—those doxies staggered out of his tent nigh swooning with their knees trembling, complaining that they ached in their privy parts like just deflowered virgins; some of them even clamped rags over their cunnies to staunch the bleeding, saying his battering ram was that big and gave them such a powerful banging, and these were all seasoned camp followers, mind you, whores who had left maidenhood long behind them!” He guiltily clapped a hand over his mouth as though his own words surprised him. “But I shouldn’t have told you that. You’re just little girls, so forget every word! Your lady-mother would take a horsewhip to my buttocks if she knew I had been filling your heads with bawdy stories; the Good Lord above knows that she loves any excuse to do that! Let that be a lesson to you girls.
Never
marry a woman who lives in riding boots, for like as not she will wear them in bed as well, and the whip will never be far from her hand. Frances even wore them ’neath her bridal gown; I heard her golden spurs jingling as she walked up the aisle to take her place beside me. For the life of me, I could not figure out what that noise was, and when I bent to lift the hem of her skirt to see, she slapped my new feathered hat clean off my head right there at the altar in plain sight of everyone, and as I put the ring on her finger, I had a red and throbbing ear, the wedding guests sat there in the pews tittering as they watched it swell. But forget I told you that too!” he added hastily. “Your lady-mother wouldn’t like it! Have some more candy, girls!”
He snatched up the box and offered it around to us. “Here’s something more suitable for your ears and years that will help you understand, especially you, little Mary, what a grand match this courageous man is! Why, if I were a woman I would leap at the chance to wed Lord Wilton! But don’t tell him I said that; William
deplores
anything he even thinks hints at sodomy, so he would not take my words as the sincere compliment I meant them to be, for I hold him in the
highest
esteem! But forget I said that too, the bit about sodomy I mean—you girls shouldn’t even know that word or what it means! You don’t, do you?
Please
say you don’t and spare my hide your mother’s riding crop!”
He gave a great sigh of relief and mopped the sweat from his brow with his velvet sleeve when we all nodded obediently. Then he proceeded to climb up onto the long polished table that spanned nearly the entire length of the library and, enthusiastic as a little boy, began a vigorous one-man reenactment of “the wounding of Lord Wilton at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh,” spiritedly wielding pantomime pikes and swords and playing all the various roles, the enemy Scots and the brave Englishmen, falling back, gurgling blood, clasping his throat, and gasping for air as my affianced husband was stricken, then rolling over on his side to quickly inform us how John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland himself, or “the Earl of Warwick as he was then,” had himself thrust his fingers down Lord Wilton’s throat and brought up a handful of broken teeth to clear his airway so he could breathe, “thus saving his life.”
Then the wounded warrior valiantly mounted his horse again—Father swung his leg over a pretend steed and began to mime a brisk canter, neighing as his boots went clip-clop over the varnished table—explaining in an aside how, with Northumberland at his side, Lord Wilton had ridden hard through the swarming bodies of armored Englishmen and kilted Scots, wielding clanging swords, swinging spiked maces, and thrusting and clashing pikes. “When suddenly Lord Wilton began to droop, overcome by the heat, dust, buzzing flies, pain, and loss of blood, and seemed poised to faint. ’Twas then that Northumberland grabbed a firkin of ale, tilted the swooning man’s head back, and poured it over his head, and as much as he could down his throat, to revive him, thus saving his life yet again. And our brave kinsman finished the charge, a hero, though a trifle drunken with his face a torn and bloody ruin, he was a hero nonetheless, and for it by the Crown rewarded with a knighthood and the governorship of Berwick, and he was also made warden of the east marches and general of several of the northern!”
Our lady-mother walked in just as Father was reenacting the shower of ale, having first called to Kate to bring him the flagon from his desk. She stood, arms folded across her ample breasts, tapping the toe of her boot upon the polished oaken floor, and watched with us as, standing on the table, Father threw his head back and raised the flagon up high and poured a shower of ale down his throat and all over his chest, so caught up in the drama he was reenacting that he displayed a reckless disregard for his elegant new clothes.
“Hal, whatever are you doing?” our lady-mother demanded. “Get down off that table, you’re making a perfect spectacle of yourself!”
“Well, at least he is doing it perfectly,” Jane murmured tartly, making a not so veiled reference to our lady-mother’s insistence on perfection.
Without even glancing at Jane, our lady-mother raised her hand and with the back of it dealt Jane’s face a slap. “Sarcasm is not a becoming quality in a young lady, Jane, especially not a young lady about to be married. Or hasn’t your father told you about that yet?”
Father dropped the flagon, and it fell onto the table with a loud clatter as he quickly clambered down, explaining that he had just been telling us the happy news.
“This required your standing on the table my mother left me, scratching it with your boots, pouring ale all over yourself, and ruining your new doublet?” she asked, arching one finely plucked brow in disbelief.
“I—I was just showing the girls how Lord Wilton was wounded at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh,” Father sheepishly explained as a blush flamed like a wildfire across his cheeks above his bushy auburn beard.
Poor Father! Mother always made him act like a mouse cornered by a cat. In her presence, he was forever fidgeting, stammering, and gnawing his nails, and tugging and twisting his hair, as a sweat broke out on his brow. Even when she was not there he was always starting at unexpected sounds and darting swift, nervous, and guilty glances around even when he was not partaking of the contents of his “sweet drawer.”
“What in heaven’s name for?” our lady-mother asked.
“I . . . I . . . The girls were . . . well I . . .” Father stammered, his eyes suddenly intent upon his toes. “It’s quite understandable, my dear . . . you know he . . . he is not . . . pleasant . . . to look upon . . . and I-I wanted Mary to understand and . . . be proud that a war hero wants to marry her!”
Our lady-mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t lie to her! Her mirror doesn’t lie to her, and men’s eyes won’t either, only your foolish heart and tongue! You think you’re being kind, but you’re not. He’s marrying her because
I
say she’ll have him, and he’s the only suitable man of rank and means willing to have her, and far better him for a husband than having the little gargoyle remain a spinster under our roof for the rest of her life since we can’t very well send her to a nunnery since England is now Protestant instead of Papist, and she’s too high born to be a fool in a great household. That would only shame and disgrace us! Her face will not make her fortune, like Kate’s will,” she added, her voice softening, growing tender, as she spoke my sister’s name and turned to caress the bright curls and bend to press a kiss onto her cheek.
Her words stung me like a slap, and I could not bear the way she stamped all the fun out of Father, chastised him, and made him behave like a naughty schoolboy. And, I confess, it hurt me to witness the affection she showered on Kate, so I timorously piped out a question, never thinking that it might hurt Jane. “F-Father, who is Jane to marry? You did not say before.”
Father flashed a grateful smile at me.
Anything
to divert our lady-mother. He too feared her sharp tongue that was like a metal-barbed whip, always criticizing and chastising us.
“Guildford Dudley,” he answered promptly and proudly as though the boy whose name he had just pronounced was some great prize that he had won for his firstborn daughter. “The Earl of Northumberland’s youngest son of marriageable age, and the only one of his brood with golden hair. All the others are dark,” he added. “He is his mother’s favorite and was christened with her maiden name—Guildford. It’s rather different, don’t you think?” he babbled on. “I mean when so many boys are named Henry, Edward, Robert, William, John, and Thomas, it stands out as wonderfully unique, don’t you think?”
“Guildford Dudley!”
We three sisters raised an incredulous chorus and clung together for comfort. I saw loathing and contempt in Jane’s eyes, while Kate’s and mine mirrored the pity we each felt for our scholarly sister to be wedded and bedded by such a conceited fool, a gilt-haired youth who made the proud peacocks that strutted across the royal gardens look dowdy and meek as sparrows in comparison. Jane was fluent in Latin, Greek, and French, and was currently studying Hebrew to enhance her understanding of the Scriptures; she devoured the works of Cicero, Ovid, Plutarch, Livy, Juvenal, Demosthenes, Justin the Martyr, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the New Testament written in Greek as other girls her age did chivalric romances and the rollicking, ribald tales of Boccaccio and Chaucer; she had even recently acquired a Latin translation of the Jewish Talmud. And now she was betrothed to a boy who thought books were merely decorative.
Poor Jane!