into a thin, bloodless line, and she almost indiscernibly shook her head. The abbess’s eyes blazed, and for an instant, Bridget thought she was going to walk across the grass and strike her. Joanna looked back and forth between them all in bewilderment but did not dare to speak. The portentous silence was broken only by the arrival of Tilly.
“Ladies, dinner is ready,” the maid announced.
“Thank you Tilly ,” the abbess replied smoothly. “Escort Mistress Joanna inside first please and Sister Margaret, would you help her? I still have a few herbs to pick and I require Lady de Brett’s assistance in doing so.”
Tilly obeyed and she and Sister Margaret shepherded a perplexed Joanna indoors. Once they were gone, the abbess put down her basket and came over to Bridget, who was sitting opposite, her hands twisted almost into claws. “Well, I never thought I would see this day,” she remarked, her tone barely controlled, “when the girl I rescued from penury, the motherless girl deposited on the abbey doorstep by her father, soon to die himself, and brought up as my own would turn on me. The girl I bestowed in marriage to my brother. You might have a title nowadays but I see you are no more than a common thief, a liar and a vandal. Is that what your career at court has transformed you into? Is that what you have become? The girl I knew would never have gone through my belongings, let alone seen fit to burn my precious letters,” she spat. “How dare you! I ought to throw you out and let you beg your bread in the streets and my brother be damned!”
“How dare I?” Bridget cried, her own temper rising to meet the abbess’s. “How dare you keep treasonous letters from an executed rebel in this house? You ask what I have become, and I marvel that you need even to pose the question, but if you require a recap, I will provide one for you. Yes, you brought me up, educated me, took care of me, and acted as both mother and father to me. I am grateful for all of that. But then the abbey was shut down and you sent me, and Joanna, off to court to be maids to Queen Anne. We thought were so lucky. As it transpired, you had sent us directly into a snake-pit and because of that last year, both of us, were forced to stand on a scaffold at the Tower in front of a crowd of thousands whilst a Frenchman with a sword executed the queen. I held her severed head in my hands. Just think of that for one moment. Think of what it must have been like. I still dream of it, I still see her blood everywhere, and I still taste it on the first May breeze. She suffered the penalty for treason .” The abbess flinched. “And she was innocent. In the end, it did not matter. I could not save her, nobody could have saved her, but I can save you. That is why I went through your belongings, and that is why I burnt the letters. I will not have you share Anne’s fate, not if I can help it.”
The abbess was momentarily abashed and she stared down at the ground. Then her face turned mutinous. “I am sorry that I upbraided you in such a brusque fashion. I should have realised just how badly that . . . experience with the last queen has marked you. I should have realised.” she said gruffly. “However, I am not sorry that I wrote to Mr Aske, and I am not sorry that I kept the letters. The only thing I am sorry for is that the rebellion, as the king calls it, failed.”
Bridget tried to shush her, but the abbess would not have it. “Mr Aske and his followers, all those good men, whose heads have ended up on pikes and whose entrails have been hung from trees, they were not rebels but loyal subjects, as I am. All they wanted was to bring the king back to the true path and turn him away from those self- interested upstarts who now surround him, Thomas Cromwell in particular.” She said his name
“Ladies, dinner is ready,” the maid announced.
“Thank you Tilly ,” the abbess replied smoothly. “Escort Mistress Joanna inside first please and Sister Margaret, would you help her? I still have a few herbs to pick and I require Lady de Brett’s assistance in doing so.”
Tilly obeyed and she and Sister Margaret shepherded a perplexed Joanna indoors. Once they were gone, the abbess put down her basket and came over to Bridget, who was sitting opposite, her hands twisted almost into claws. “Well, I never thought I would see this day,” she remarked, her tone barely controlled, “when the girl I rescued from penury, the motherless girl deposited on the abbey doorstep by her father, soon to die himself, and brought up as my own would turn on me. The girl I bestowed in marriage to my brother. You might have a title nowadays but I see you are no more than a common thief, a liar and a vandal. Is that what your career at court has transformed you into? Is that what you have become? The girl I knew would never have gone through my belongings, let alone seen fit to burn my precious letters,” she spat. “How dare you! I ought to throw you out and let you beg your bread in the streets and my brother be damned!”
“How dare I?” Bridget cried, her own temper rising to meet the abbess’s. “How dare you keep treasonous letters from an executed rebel in this house? You ask what I have become, and I marvel that you need even to pose the question, but if you require a recap, I will provide one for you. Yes, you brought me up, educated me, took care of me, and acted as both mother and father to me. I am grateful for all of that. But then the abbey was shut down and you sent me, and Joanna, off to court to be maids to Queen Anne. We thought were so lucky. As it transpired, you had sent us directly into a snake-pit and because of that last year, both of us, were forced to stand on a scaffold at the Tower in front of a crowd of thousands whilst a Frenchman with a sword executed the queen. I held her severed head in my hands. Just think of that for one moment. Think of what it must have been like. I still dream of it, I still see her blood everywhere, and I still taste it on the first May breeze. She suffered the penalty for treason .” The abbess flinched. “And she was innocent. In the end, it did not matter. I could not save her, nobody could have saved her, but I can save you. That is why I went through your belongings, and that is why I burnt the letters. I will not have you share Anne’s fate, not if I can help it.”
The abbess was momentarily abashed and she stared down at the ground. Then her face turned mutinous. “I am sorry that I upbraided you in such a brusque fashion. I should have realised just how badly that . . . experience with the last queen has marked you. I should have realised.” she said gruffly. “However, I am not sorry that I wrote to Mr Aske, and I am not sorry that I kept the letters. The only thing I am sorry for is that the rebellion, as the king calls it, failed.”
Bridget tried to shush her, but the abbess would not have it. “Mr Aske and his followers, all those good men, whose heads have ended up on pikes and whose entrails have been hung from trees, they were not rebels but loyal subjects, as I am. All they wanted was to bring the king back to the true path and turn him away from those self- interested upstarts who now surround him, Thomas Cromwell in particular.” She said his name
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