Six of One (13 page)

“Definitely not, Dolly.”

“So why does lace get pride of place?” I asked.

“It’s because you were so attracted to the lace in the first place. There was no hemming or hawing about
that
decision; you did not hesitate, Dolly. When your first choice is the right choice, you
know
it, because no other choice will do.”

“Very well, then, Flamina,” I conceded. “A lace petticoat it shall be. Beaton, the one draped over your right shoulder is the one for me. How is
that
for decisive, ladies?” I asked.

Flamina congratulated me on my choice.

“That is excellent, Dolly; the reticella is one of my favorites. Incidentally, that petticoat will win you favor with Katharine of Aragon. She introduced the lace trade into England, you know.”

By the grace of lace, I had already made two of the wives happy, and I hadn’t even met them yet.
Only four to go
, I thought.

To complete the main portion of my outfit, Seton suggested what she called a “French gown.”

“Your slenderness suits the fashion perfectly, Dolly, and Catherine Howard always admires women who can wear that style well. She never could herself, you know—much too buxom. But she is so good-natured that it makes her happy to see others enjoying the things she can’t enjoy herself.”

I decided that I liked Seton the best of all the Marys; she was certainly the most diplomatic of the bunch—and
she
had yet to slap me on the butt.

“I defer to your judgment but need some instruction,” I said to her, motioning toward some heaps of fabric. “Which of these things are the French gowns?”

Seton explained that they were the overdresses gathered tightly in the middle and split at the front (to show the petticoat beneath).

“Since we are in a hurry,” she said, “I suggest one of the French gowns that already has matching sleeves attached. We have piled those all in one place on the bed; come and see. Since the lace petticoat you chose is so lavish, I would suggest a relatively simple gown to go over the petticoat; but, of course, the choice is yours.”

It was not easy to keep it simple, confronted as I was with a veritable Aladdin’s cave of sartorial treasures. The colors were incredible and predominantly earth tones: warm reds, salmon, tawny, brown, and gold. The satins shone; the brocades were rich and sumptuous; and the embroideries curled, rolled, and meandered. I didn’t know where to look first and cried out from the sartorial wilderness.

“Help me, ladies! Which color do you think would be the most flattering on me?”

Beaton suggested basic black. “It would best suit your complexion, Dolly, and set off the lace petticoat to perfection.
And
it would please Katherine Parr no end to see you wearing black.”

“Why, Beaton?”

“Well, because she wears so very much black herself. She got very used to it, having worn it in mourning for three successive husbands, so she feels an affinity toward other women who wear it.”

“Beaton, I think you are right,” I said, feeling confident in the choice. “My mother always said that you can’t go wrong with black. It’s a real no-brainer.”

My gaffe started Seton, Livy, and Flamina knocking on the wooden bedpost so hard that the French gowns began to slide off the bed and onto the floor. “Please, Dolly!” said Beaton. “Mind what you say! Thank
goodness
Ann Boleyn wasn’t here to hear you!”

I was afraid the four Marys were going to be none too happy with me; there would be a tangled mess to clean up once all those gowns had finished falling. But everything happens for a reason, as they say; and, from among the avalanching garments, one gown fell directly at my feet. It was black velvet with a wide bar of gold-filigree embroidery lining the neckline and split skirt and running down the length of the sleeves. It was simple yet elegant.

“Eureka!” I cried. “I’ve found it!”

The fashion train had pulled into the station. Slowly, smiles started to break on the faces of my four companions. We had nailed it; the dress was perfect.

Chapter Twenty-One

In Which are Discovered Two Peas in a French Hood

As Mary Beaton fastened me into my French gown, Flamina assembled the accessories that she said would give just the right panache to my outfit. These included a pair of ruby earrings, a French hood studded with rubies, a gold-and-ruby girdle belt, and a pair of pretty red slippers with tasteful red bows. Once I was securely in the gown, Flamina shooed the others away to the far side of the room.

“I will put the finishing touches on Dolly myself,” she announced to the other Marys. “No peeking till I say so! Nothing will be revealed till the ensemble is complete.” I worried that a lengthy session in makeup and wardrobe would ensue, but, fortunately, that was not the case.

With her centuries of lady-in-waiting practice, Flamina was able to breeze with ease through the accessories, and it wasn’t long at all before she had the jewels positioned perfectly. She also proved to be one spruce coiffeuse, and pinning my hair up was the work of but a moment. She added the French hood to the outfit last—the pièce de résistance. After she had set it on my head and secured it at the back, she walked around me to have a look at me from the front. Taking in the full effect, she arched her eyebrows and placed her hand over her heart in a gesture of surprise.
Do I look that
good
, or do I look that
bad
?
I wondered.

“Well?” I asked, the curiosity too much for me.

“I don’t believe it,” Flamina said simply.

“
What
don’t you believe?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years I’ve been here. I didn’t see it at first, Dolly, but now that you’re in costume, it’s unmistakable.”

“
What
’
s
unmistakable?”

“I want the others to see you before I speak; I must validate my impression. Seton, Beaton, Livy!” Flamina called. “Come here at once to inspect Dolly. Tell me what you think.”

Seton, Beaton, and Livy hurried over to have a look. Three sets of arched eyebrows, three gasps, and three hands over three hearts followed.

“
Well?
” I said again.

Mary Seton was the first to regain her composure.

“The resemblance is remarkable,” she said.

Beaton concurred. “The similarity must surely be a sign. A portent. An omen.”

“Yes, but what of?” Livy wondered aloud.

“It can only mean one thing,” said Flamina, gathering the other three Marys about her. “It can only mean that Dolly is a very special guest, and that this will prove to be a very special night.”

“I suspected as much when I heard Dolly’s backstory,” Seton said, “and this
would
seem to confirm it. What should we do about it?”

“We must tell the queen,” replied Beaton calmly.

I was starting to get restive.

“Did you say ‘the’
queen?” I demanded. “You have
got
to be kidding! This place has more queens in it than
La Cage aux Folles!
Which queen do you mean? And for God’s sake, Beaton,
what
are you going to tell her?”

“Mary, Queen of Scots is the queen we are accustomed to answering to. It is to her that I shall go to now with the news.”

With that, Beaton left the room. I spun around to face the remaining three Marys and demanded an explanation. Flamina spoke for the group.

“We didn’t recognize it at first, but now we can see, Dolly; you look just like her—
exactly
like her. Knowing what you know, surely you can see why we are so astounded.”

“I look…just like…
who
?” I asked, desperate.

Flamina replied slowly.

“Just…like…Catherine Willoughby.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

About a Dead Ringer Who Was Saved by the Bell

Flamina had put it mildly when she said that I would understand about Catherine Willoughby. We had many things in common, ‘Cathy’ Willoughby and I: intelligence, looks, spunk, scholarship, capability, and sharp wit, to name a few. Cathy had been the daughter of Baron Willoughby by Maria Salinas, the Spanish lady-in-waiting and best friend of Katharine of Aragon. When Cathy’s parents died, Charles Brandon, Henry VIII’s brother-in-law through Henry’s sister Mary, took custody of Cathy as his ward. When Mary Tudor Brandon died, the widower Charles turned around and married Cathy himself. Then Charles Brandon died, leaving Cathy a widow. (Don’t think too hard about all that. There will
not
be a quiz afterward.)

Henry VIII, at that point, was married to his last queen, Katherine Parr, a woman with whom he occasionally got out of humor—and Henry’s court was
well
aware of what could happen when Henry got out of humor with the missus. They were equally well aware of Henry’s policy on infertile spouses, and Parr had yet to conceive. Naturally, plenty of book was made on which English noblewoman would become queen in the not-unlikely event of Katherine Parr predeceasing Henry.

Henry began showing a marked preference for a particular young English noblewoman, and ambassadors wrote home about rumors of a seventh English queen in the offing. The smart money was on Cathy Willoughby, the two-to-one favorite for wife number seven. As it turned out, Katherine Parr beat the odds and outlived Henry VIII, and Catherine Willoughby ended up a nonstarter.

I can’t say that I was shocked when I learned that I physically resembled Catherine Willoughby. Given my experiences thus far that night, it actually seemed quite natural—but, like the four Marys, I wondered what it might portend.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Enter the Gladiators” or “Stealing a Screamer March”

Thanks to the four Marys, I was suitably attired to “enter the arena”; but, as it turned out, the arena came to
me
. Six women—they could
only
be the six wives—streamed into the room single file. Flamina, Seton, and Livy, having hurriedly arranged enough chairs for the six wives and me, scattered like leaves in the wind. I was on my own and confident in my fashion choices. I especially liked the touches of red; they defined the outfit, like the scarlet lining of a matador’s cape.

The six wives wordlessly seated themselves in an arc, facing me; it was like looking at a gallery of Holbein portraits come to life. I had looked at them a million times: those simple, feminine, unmade-up faces, holding their own in settings of bejeweled and sartorial splendor. I would have recognized them anywhere.

They seated themselves in chronological order: Katharine of Aragon, Ann Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Katherine Parr. Each appeared at about the age she was when she left Henry VIII’s employ, so to speak.

Katharine of Aragon was a stout dowager. In stark contrast was Catherine Howard, barely out of her teens. She was lush with youth and looked remarkably agile for such a full-figured girl. The other four wives were good-looking young women in their twenties and thirties. In modern-day dress, coiffure, and makeup, none of the four would have looked amiss on a women’s magazine cover, I thought—Ann Boleyn on
Vogue
, Jane Seymour on
Woman’s Day
, Anne of Cleves on
BUST
, and Katherine Parr on
Ladies’ Home Journal
.

After the cacophony that had accompanied the advent of some of my other visitors that night, the silence in which the wives paraded made quite an impression. I thought at first that they must have meant it to be intimidating. Luckily for me, any intimidation quotient that “the big six” had was decidedly diluted in my case by their familiarity factor.

The wives were, not surprisingly, dead ringers for my own Harry’s six exes. My experiences in the real world with my marital predecessors had shown me that, as one woman against six, the odds were against my
ever
having the last word on any given good night. I reasoned, then, that tonight, I might as well have the first word. I was feeling fully up to it; the six of them could not
possibly
have anything to hit me with that I haven’t been hit with before, I thought. Looking back, I am glad I did not give voice to that sentiment. If I had, I would have felt damned silly by the time the night was over.

“I wish that I was in the portrait gallery with all of you rather than here in the peanut gallery all by myself,” I ventured, securing the victory of the first word (not to mention the subsequent twenty-two).

“A point for you, Dolly. You attempt to outwit us and be a clever girl! That gives truth to the rumor,” said Ann Boleyn, “about you and Catherine Willoughby.”

“Word travels fast around here, doesn’t it?” I asked her. Then again, with so many women in a contained area, that was hardly surprising.

“Word does
indeed
travel fast within this place, but words from
without
travel here slowly or not at all. We have to admit that we do not know what a peanut is,” said Ann Boleyn.

First word
and
first submission! It had not occurred to me, as I said what I did, that the peanut was unknown on the European stage when these women trod the boards. I was feeling quite full of myself. But then, as I was about to see, so was Ann Boleyn.

“Most of our guests,” she said, sighing with boredom, “speak of things that did not exist in our lifetime. That does not surprise us; you are not the first to do so—merely the latest in a long line. If you think to intimidate us in that way, perhaps you’d best think again.”

“I thought,” I parried defensively, “that you meant to intimidate
me
by your silence. And,” I added, taking back the offensive, “I
hate
head games.”

Ann Boleyn rose from her chair, did the bedpost honors, and returned to her seat.

“Cheap attempts at power politics do not surprise us, either,” she said wearily. “What
does
surprise us is
you
speaking to
us
before one of
us
speaks to
you
. Most of our guests are more mindful of their manners before an assembly of six queens!” She began to huff. “Margaret Beaufort went on at such great length, Dolly, about how well your mother had brought you up! All those things Margaret said about your mother must have been sheer invention.”

“My mom was not a sheer invention! She was one real, dyed-in-the-wool
mother
!”

Realizing that I had just been reduced to calling my mom “one real ‘mother’” made me take a moment to regroup and size up the enemy. To Ann Boleyn’s immediate right, Katharine of Aragon was nodding approvingly at Ann for taking me to task. Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard were cracking up but trying hard not to show it. Katherine Parr, pressing her hand down on Catherine Howard’s leg as if to help her contain her laughter, smiled at me conspiratorially. I could see why Henry VIII’s children, variously orphaned, had glommed on to Katherine Parr as a surrogate mother; there was definitely something of Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music
about her.

With that, the song “Do-Re-Mi” popped into my head, and you know how it is when that happens with a song: there is just no other way to get it out than to sing a few bars. Besides, my mother had always encouraged me to sing a little tune if I needed to keep my courage up, so I went for it.

“Doe, a deer, a female deer—”

“Dolly,” interrupted Jane Seymour, “do you speak of Mr. Wyatt’s sonnet about Ann Boleyn: ‘Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind?’
Doe is a much prettier word than hind, I think, for the female deer that he likened Ann Boleyn to so aptly; but still, it is a pretty poem.”

“The man definitely had a way with words,” said Katherine Parr. “‘Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,’ he says in the poem. Those were
my
very words to your brother Tom Seymour when he first began to pursue me so hotly, Jane. Tom certainly had a taste for that which belonged to the man in charge; he wanted me because I was Henry VIII’s property, and I suppose that’s why he wanted my stepdaughter Elizabeth as well.”

I had never seen anyone grind her teeth and speak at the same time before, but Ann Boleyn was doing it now.

“Hearing the name of that blasted
Tom Seymour
makes me so mad—the cur! He very nearly destroyed my daughter Elizabeth before she was even out of the schoolroom. He was a ruttish lout, to play on her starved sense of self-importance that way!”

“Screw Tom!” I exclaimed, entering into the spirit of the thing. “Screw him
and
the horse he rode in on!”

“My daughter had the last laugh, though, didn’t she, Dolly?” triumphed Ann. “
His
head landed in a basket, but
she
held on to hers! He was not fit to kiss her shoe, that…hellspawn, that…that—”

“Please, Ann, let me help you again,” I cut in, finding it kind of fun. “Try this out. ‘That knave…one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch!’ I think that should about cover it,” I said, confident in my Shakespeare.

“Nothing will ever cover that man’s baseness!” Ann insisted, “but still, that was well said, Dolly. I must admit to being quite speechless at your eloquence.”

“Ann Boleyn, speechless!
That
makes a nice change, to be sure!” rang out Catherine Howard’s voice.

I had a feeling, from the direction the conversation was taking, that there would be a bitch slap happening sooner or later. And I was not disappointed; Ann delivered a lollapalooza of one to Catherine Howard’s right cheek. Catherine, confirming my estimation of her agility, returned the slap with gusto as she bobbed and weaved.

“Take that!” said another voice. It was Jane Seymour’s. In a surprise rearguard maneuver, she landed an ear-ringing one on Ann’s left cheek. “That was for my brother Tom!”

Predictably, Ann reciprocated, and it became a bitch-slap riot.

“Take that, Jane Seymour! That one was for being Tom Seymour’s sister!”

Paradoxically, all of the slapping had a relieving effect on Ann Boleyn’s agitation, and Catherine Howard and Jane Seymour were none the worse for the wear. The riot quelled itself, and the three of them, along with Katherine Parr and Anne of Cleves, pushed their chairs back and stared pointedly at Katharine of Aragon.

Katharine was looking down and fussing with the folds of her voluminous skirts as though she was mustering imaginary forces about her. She rose suddenly, raised her head, clasped her hands in front of her in a composition of prayer, and opened her mouth to speak.