I am there. The plan is working. My dear, you may congratulate the queen’s newest bedchamber woman.
Old Mrs Banks, who’s been senile for years, was made to resign last week when she began biting people. Immediately I heard I sent Uncle Cofferer to Duchess Sarah to plead for me. Sarah is pleased with me, and nowadays she’s not pleased with many. She appreciates crisp laundry. Also, she’s running out of people she can trust. And Uncle Cofferer was desperate; I’d told him no more tickly-tickle until I got the post. Somehow he worked the oracle.
Then began a tussle between Sarah and Abigail Hill. Abigail had her own candidate. Sarah won; she is, after all, in charge of the bedchamber. But it was a near thing, Abigail’s influence over Queen Ant being in the ascendancy and Sarah’s waning fast.
I was called to Kensington Palace and waited in an antechamber, listening to the exchange between Sarah and Abigail in’the room next door – the duchess’s voice sounding off like light cannon. Eventually she came sweeping out, mouth tight, colour high, asking did she have my loyalty.
I sank into a deep curtsey. ‘I live to repay, Your Grace.’
And I do.
‘Another once told me that,’ she snapped, ‘and has proved a gross traitor. Very well, I have persuaded Her Majesty to accept you. But remember whose influence raised you so high. Can I trust you to tell me what goes on behind my back? There is a viper in the bedchamber, as you will find out, and I wish to know when it is poised to strike.’
I protested my life was hers, she should know all and so on. She patted my head, raised my salary another ten pounds a year and glided off. Apart from gaining access to the heart of things, I am now also blessedly free of Uncle Cofferer, God rot him. Bedchamber women follow the queen on her progress round the royal palaces, which means peripatetic attic accommodation at Hampton Court, Kensington, Windsor, etc. Queen Ant rarely sleeps at St James’s because it was so much the home of her Papist father whom she deserted for William and Mary during the Glorious Revolution.
Oh yes, my dear, our plan progresses well. If I don’t die of boredom. As a form of entertainment the post of bedchamber woman resembles suffocation. After minute instruction, I took up my duties and meekly followed the Duchess of Somerset, known as ‘Carrots’ for her red hair, into the queen’s bedchamber. The duchess is a lady of the bedchamber while I am just its woman. The distinction is insisted on.
It’s a grand room, very tapestried, very gilded and the bed is enormous. It needs to be. When Carrots drew back its curtains I had to blink at the size of the woman in it; a great white elephant seal with a lace cap on its head. Carrots said, ‘God’s grace to Your Majesty, a fine day,’ – actually it was dull with November mist – and its eyes opened and flinched, as if the thought of another day was a burden to it.
There was no sign of Prince George of Denmark – royal couples sleep apart – yet he must have frequented the bed pretty often to impregnate his wife seventeen times, though not one child has survived. In her hand, which is swollen by gout into the shape of a crab, she held a miniature of the boy who died when he was eleven.
Cooing sweet nothings, Carrots looks on while I and Mrs Darville, another mere ‘woman’, help Her Majesty out of bed to the chamber-pot, then assist her to the prie dieu in a corner for prayers. It’s as well I’m strong. Queen Ant weighs a ton and is so crippled she can barely shuffle. Her extremities are white and puffy.
After prayers she is ‘shifted’. I take a clean white linen shift from a press while Carrots takes off the nightrobe and cap. Not forgetting to curtsey, I hand the shift to Carrots, who puts it on Her Majesty. (These are morning rules; if she’s shifted at noon I don’t have to curtsey.) I then go to the door where the page of the backstairs is waiting with basin and ewer and accompany him to a side table. He bows and sets them down. Kneeling, he puts on Her Majesty’s slippers, then leaves. (If she’s going out, we have to call him to put on her gloves because that’s not done by woman or lady.)
I kneel at the table while Her Majesty seats herself on its other side and holds out her hands. I pour water over them. Carrots watches. Next I fetch the royal fan from another table and hand it, curtseying, to Carrots who exhausts herself by handing it to the queen.
That, virtually, is that. No, I forget the cup of chocolate. It’s my job to take it from the page when he brings it and, kneeling, put it on the table. From then on I merely lurk against the tapestry to recover from the excitement.
Carrots was sent off to enquire after Prince George’s health, while Mrs Garcia set the royal hair, which is thick and greying, not unpretty.
‘Come here, mistress.’ I was summoned to step under the royal eyes which are weak but more acute than you might expect. ‘The duchess tells me you are a worthy young woman. If you will treat me as kindly as I hope to treat you I shall be the overjoyedest creature in the world.’ It was a plea. She wants everyone to love her. Her voice is her best feature; deep and musical, like a trained actress’s. Adoringly, I prattled unworthiness, joy, gratitude, which went down well and I took a royal smile back with me to the tapestry.
Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour take over when the queen leaves the bedchamber. (A tiresome crew; proper as bollards in the royal presence; scandalous away from it. They think themselves daring to play Selling a Bargain, in which the dupe must be made to ask, ‘What?’ ‘It’s large and always asleep.’ ‘What?’ ‘Prince George.’ And the what-ter pays a fine. I laughed at jokes like that in my cradle.)
But today I was fortunate and Queen Ant lingered in the chamber so that I was present for her visitors. The royal physician, Arbuthnot, came to sniff the royal chamber-pot, pronounce the royal urine too thick, administer a physick and recommend rest. Prince George lumbered in for a kiss and said woss there any yourneyings today because he had yoists to make. (He woodworks as well as drinking, eating and not thinking.) Queen Ant said: ‘Just the thing, dearest. I have only an old cabinet meeting and after we can take tea together.’ They seem genuinely fond.
Next Abigail Hill. The woman’s incapable of a straight line; she serpentined towards her quarry, a few steps sideways here, some more there, until she stood at an angle to the queen, holding up her hands as if awaiting the Second Coming to ask how We were today. She listened to the urine saga with whimpers of oh-my-dear-Majesty-how-bravely-you-suffer. They go down well.
She’s invited to pull up a tabouret and sit near so that she and Queen Ant can whisper and giggle. They must think I’m deaf. They’re planning something; there was much mention of a ‘Mr Ashley’, and did ‘Mr Morley’ approve, and oh-do-you-think-so-ma’ams.
Mr Morley is Prince George because everyone knows that during Sarah’s reign the queen called herself Mrs Morley and Sarah Mrs Freeman. I must find out who ‘Mr Ashley’ is. Whatever their plan, it’s going to benefit Abigail; she wore the smile of a shark sighting a baby seal.
It became more sharkish as she looked at me and whispered again. I caught the words ‘cuckoo in the nest’ put into a question. But the queen said out loud that she thought I would suit her very well. ‘And so pretty.’ The shark’s smile froze a little.
They turned to politics without bothering to whisper. I stared raptly at the portrait of Queen Ant on the wall opposite – it’s by Kneller and is over-kind to her figure – listening hard. Abigail was pushing the cause of Harley. It’s turned out she is one of his distant relatives, as well as Sarah’s. Who isn’t the woman kin to? Secretary of State Harley is having his nose put out by the tendency of the Duke of Marlborough and Godolphin to side with government Whigs. He wants neither Tory nor Whig to hold sway; Harley’s party is Harley.
‘He would die for you, ma’am. I beg you, let me bring him by the backstair that he may lend strength in your stand against S.’
‘S’ is Sunderland, I’m sure, whom Queen Ant hates worse than poison. He’s so republican he opposed the giving of a grant to Prince George. All this goes with the information William Greg gave me; Harley’s trying to control the queen through Abigail.
At that point, in came Sarah, without knocking. She looked marlinspikes at Abigail. ‘I would speak to you privately, Your Majesty.’ Queen Ant nodded to Abigail to go, though reluctantly. Abigail went, equally reluctant. I blended into the arras.
‘Dear, dear Mrs Freeman,’ says the queen, patting the tabouret Abigail had vacated, ‘how kind to come to your unfortunate Morley after this long time when she is so vexated with the gout.’
Sarah stayed standing. ‘The matter of my son-in-law, Your Majesty…’
‘Not Majesty, not Majesty,’ begged Queen Ant. ‘Let Morley and Freeman open their hearts to each other as once they did. Have I not given way that the Earl of Sunderland might be Minister without Portfolio?’
‘It’s not good enough, Your Majesty. He must have a proper government position. My husband urges it from the field of battle where he undergoes such privation in your service, my Lord Godolphin urges it, as do all those with your welfare at heart.’
‘Not all,’ said Queen Ant and then blanched because Sarah was on it like a whippet.
‘Who? Who does not urge it? Harley? That Tory?’
‘Oh Mrs Freeman,’ said the queen, beginning to cry, ‘All my desire is the liberty to employ those faithful to my service whether they are called Whig or Tory, not to be tied to one nor the other, for if I fall into the hands of either I shall be no queen but a slave.’
Sarah was unmoved. ‘It seems to me, Majesty, that your dislike of party rule more often than not means Whig rule. I cannot see how anyone of sense can run so scared of the word “Whig”.’
Queen Ant rallied. ‘At least the Tories protect the church.’
Sarah gave a great, deliberate sigh and said: ‘I see I must remove myself, since my counsel has no avail.’
‘Don’t leave me, dearest Mrs Freeman, or I shall be the miserablest creature alive and shall shut myself away.’
The exchange came wearily, like a sweethearts’ threat-and-capitulation game they had played too often. Were they lovers once? Was that how Sarah gained her dominance? I can see it on the queen’s part, she is a woman’s woman, but it wouldn’t have come naturally to the duchess.
But, oh, Sarah, you’re throwing the game.
She refused to unbend. Went to the door with a last salvo: ‘I wish you to reflect on the fact that the greatest misfortunes in your family were occasioned by ill advice and an obstinacy of temper.’ Slam.
So much for the Stuarts. But it’s unwise to shout rude things at queens, even this one. Deep within this mass of royal jelly is the pride and stubbornness of a Stuart. I saw her eyes when Sarah had gone. If she thinks she’s in the right, they could keelhaul her and not alter her opinion.
Therefore, so much for Sarah. A woman as unaware of danger as she is will drag her allies down with her. No, I will take care to placate Abigail, insinuate myself with Queen Ant and await my turn.
I began at once. With Sarah’s departure we were alone. ‘You are distressed, Your Majesty,’ I said, oozing sympathy. ‘My dear mother always recommended cold tea in such circumstances.’
‘Cold tea?’ says the queen.
I fetched Mrs Darville to sit with her while I went to the butler’s pantry and ordered brandy with a dash of water. On my return through an antechamber full of maids-of-honour one of them pranced up to me, trying to play Bargain and induce me to say ‘what?’ by carolling: ‘It’s white and it follows me.’
I didn’t have time for games. ‘Your arse,’ I told her.
Queen Ant drank the brandy, giggling like a girl: ‘Such a restorative, my child. I thank you.’
I fetched her another later. I noticed she didn’t mention it to Abigail, who drinks hardly at all, except coffee. Cold tea is to be our little secret.
The plan is properly begun, then. But oh, God, oh, Devil, the littleness of this life before it’s ended. Months, perhaps years. Stuffy rooms, that afflicted malodorous royal flesh, hand the fan, kneel, watch, plot, pettiness, I shall go insane in this miniature world of women. I can’t breathe. Why didn’t they kill me? We fought on, the two of us, when the others had surrendered. And still we didn’t die.
We watched them hang Calico Jack. ‘Had you but fought like a man you would not now be dying like a dog.’ My true, my only love. No man could compete with your spirit. The best of me died with you. Only revenge keeps me upright to walk and talk. How can I bear the days?
Yet the nights are worse. The creature comes to me then, its hands feeling for my throat. The other bedchamber women let me have an attic to my own because I scream in my sleep.
Hold the course, steersman, hold, hold, hold.
As I indicated, William Greg is now my purveyor of information. I have to pay him in flesh. The only difference between him and Uncle Cofferer is that he is younger and hammers harder.
He’s a fool. He thinks himself a gay blade. He spouts bad poetry as he fucks and buys me trinkets he can’t afford. The Negroes tell me he’s been gambling with a Frenchman they suspect of being an agent for Louis XIV and to whom he owes large amounts of money. If they’re right, the agent will use the age-old ploy: Spy for me or I go to your master. Harley wouldn’t tolerate a gambler on his staff. Although he’s a Tory he’s also a Puritan. It would mean instant dismissal. What will Greg do? If I read his character correctly, he’ll choose to spy. He’s become used to high position and couldn’t bear to lose it.
Well, if he does, he’ll fall into my lap as well as the Frenchman’s. I need a channel of communication to France. The latest information on the Bratchet, according to Greg who receives it via The Hague from Martin Millet, is that the search for Mary Read is taking her and the others to the winter quarters of the First Dragoons. And those winter quarters, my dear, are right opposite the French lines.
Can I tempt the Bratchet into France, I wonder? I think I can. Certainly I can tempt the Scotsman into taking her there. Or rather, if I can send a letter to France, I can persuade Francesca to do the tempting for me with the connivance of Louis XIV. She is with the rest of the Jacobites at St-Germain-en-Laye and high in Louis’s favour.
Yes, I think a secret summons from Anne Bonny’s very own grandmother might draw the Bratchet to France, to St-Germain-en-Laye, where she can be disposed of. While I doubt that Francesca would do the disposing herself, I know a woman who will – if the price is right. It all depends on William Greg and whether he decides to turn traitor. Persuading him to spend more on me than he can afford will assist his decision. What do I care if he betrays his country? Or if I do? England betrayed me. She’s no country of mine.
But oh, she was, she was. She held my dreams in the days when my dreams were innocent. Before she turned me into an assassin.
At first I was relieved the Bratchet had made her escape, but the night I learned of it was dreadful. The shadow in the corner of my attic solidified into a lump as big as Queen Ant. Eyes bulged through the fronds of seaweed that covered its face and it lumbered towards me, its hands groping with fingers that were lobster’s claws. Its wet mouth pulsed out a roaring like a tide race through the room.
I know what it is now and what it wants and I am afraid. Effie Sly has returned from hell where I sent her. I was promising her that Bratchet should die when Mrs Darville came in to wake me up, saying I was disturbing the other women with my shouts. But I hadn’t been asleep.