Betrayal in the Tudor Court. Darcey Bonnette

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СКАЧАТЬ for them, Lady Mirabella,” Father Alec urged her. “Pray for all involved. And you must be confident that whatever happens, even if it is beyond your understanding, even if you do not agree with it, is the will of God.”

       Helped along by men, he added silently.

      But it consoled Mirabella to the desired degree and she quit the room to indulge in her favourite pastime.

      Father Alec excused himself to do likewise.

      Unlike Mirabella, he did not pray for the preservation of the Church in England.

      He prayed for continued change.

      Cecily affected genuine cheer in Brey’s gentle presence. With him there were no complications. The rest of the household had sunken into general decline, save Father Alec, who scrambled to uphold a façade of normalcy in the hopes of preserving some semblance of happiness. Cecily did the same. She steered Brey away from unhappy introspection with games and smiles. They rode, they composed little songs and plays together, they lay awake in the nursery, talking and conspiring about the next day’s adventures till the sun began to filter through the bay window. Together they visited Lady Grace in her apartments, always an experience Cecily approached with a measure of dread and hope—dread that she must see the poor woman in such estate, hope that it had somehow improved. It never did. Though Brey was brave when he saw his mother, he cried in Cecily’s arms afterwards. Cecily always let him. She would never tell him not to cry. If Lady Grace were her mother, she’d have cried, too.

      Lord Hal attempted to cheer them by taking them hawking and hunting. Cecily proved an archer unmatched in her abilities, earning admiration and praise by all. With Lord Hal the children also indulged in games of dice and cards. Brey challenged him to games of chess that the boy always won, while Cecily had the luck of beating Lord Hal at cards. Lord Hal, who made the effort to be in good cheer around the children, smiled and laughed. “Two little cheaters I’ve got!” he would exclaim at the close of each game he lost. He’d shake his finger at them. “I don’t know how, but wait till I have you figured out! Then we’ll see who emerges the victor!”

      Cecily and Brey exchanged a triumphant glance. They would never let Lord Hal win if they could help it.

      It went along like this, a little routine of emotional preservation and survival that the children had fallen into until the beginning of their early teens. And then one ordinary day, for a perfectly ordinary reason, everything changed.

      Cecily woke up with her courses.

      She knew what had happened. For weeks her tummy had been cramping, her back aching, and the two tiny swells that served as breasts hurt so much she could not even cross her arms. For a while she just lay there, contemplating her new status.

      She was something resembling a woman. It was an overwhelming thought. She did not feel altogether grown-up. She had imagined that when a woman began her menses she received some kind of epiphany, as though with the ability to bear children came the innate knowledge of how to be everything woman. She was disappointed. There were no divine awakenings; she was, in fact, quite uninspired, hungry, and irritable.

      Mirabella had been removed from the nursery years before for just this reason. This meant she, too, would be given her own chamber. Her nursery days were over. No more conspiring with Brey until the wee hours of the morning, no more behaving as the carefree child. Everything was going to change. She closed her eyes, squeezing back hot tears.

      At last she called for Nurse Matilda, who cleaned her up and gave her instructions on how to care for her new plight.

      “What’s happening?” Brey inquired upon hearing the commotion. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Cecily?”

      “Nothing!” Cecily and Matilda shouted at once.

      The startled lad pouted and went back to bed.

      Cecily, now cleansed and uncomfortable, quit the nursery.

      She needed to be alone. She needed to think about womanhood.

      “You will have to wear the proper corset now,” Mirabella told her after Cecily imparted the unhappy news of her ascendance to Venus. They were in Mirabella’s chamber, which was as unlike the nursery as a pup to a mule. There was a prie-dieu, of course, and several portraits of the Blessed Virgin, one of her holding baby Jesus to her breast, all surrounded in a halo of golden light, another of her alone with a sparkling rose. Cecily’s eyes were treated to an ensemble of saints and statues the like of which belonged at the chapel. She could not imagine why Mirabella needed the convent with all this about her.

      Cecily’s thoughts were drawn from the décor to her own estate. Acorset. Her shoulders slumped. She had not been looking forward to that. “I won’t be able to breathe. How will I play with Brey wearing a corset?”

      Mirabella laughed, but it was full of affection. “Poor girl, you can’t play with Brey anymore, not like you used to. No rough-and-tumble, no children’s pastimes. You are to be reared as a lady now and if my mother chooses to remain too incapacitated to guide you then I shall have to.”

      Cecily’s throat went dry. Her timid smile reflected a mingling of gratitude and dread. “I thank you,” she said in small tones.

      Mirabella rose and in a flurry of black skirts went to her wardrobe. “Now! Let me see what I have. You’re such a willowy girl … but I think I have some things you can get by on until we have you measured.”

      Mirabella smiled at the girl, pleased that she had come to her. She was happy to have someone to take under her wing. Now that Cecily was unable to be coddled as a child she would have a proper ally. Mirabella rifled through her wardrobe until she arrived at some corsets she had grown out of and had failed to give to the poor. God must have meant for her to save them for Cecily.

      “Here,” she said. “We should put it on you.”

      “Now?” Cecily asked, eyes wide. “Today? But I am not going anywhere today.”

      “It doesn’t matter if you’re going anywhere,” Mirabella explained patiently. “You must always be a lady, modest and goodly as God intends.”

      Cecily grimaced as she allowed Mirabella to dress her. The stiff shafts of wood that would confine and shape her body could be felt through the linen and they dug into her hips. Her breathing was restricted and her cheeks flushed as she struggled to modulate it.

      “You’re thinking about it too much,” Mirabella said, resting her hands on Cecily’s shoulders. “Just breathe. You will grow accustomed to it. If you think about it, though, you will swoon.”

      Cecily closed her eyes. Specks of light danced against the backs of her eyelids, or wherever her eyes went when she closed them. In, out, in, out. “It’s too tight,” she told Mirabella.

      “It certainly is not. You will get used to it,” said Mirabella. “Just as we all have to.”

      Cecily took a step with caution. Everything was different, from sitting to walking—she could not imagine what it would be like to ride a horse. She wanted to slouch, but the corset held her upright. She regarded Mirabella, who seemed perfectly adapted to wearing this torture device. At eighteen, Mirabella filled out her gown with a figure Cecily had caught the male servants gawking at. What could be glimpsed of the breasts peeking out over the top of her neckline revealed a fullness Cecily envied; the Gypsy-toned skin was soft and flawless. СКАЧАТЬ