Amenable Women Read online

  Perhaps the attendant is used to early visitors muttering at the paintings. In any event she does not look up. If she had Flora might have shared with her the revelation that Anna is rather comely. Flora would not mind looking half so attractive. Or even a quarter. This Anna is dignified and so quietly amenable within her painted existence that to remember what lay before her makes Flora sad. Or Anna was quietly contented and dignified when this was painted. For of course, when she sat for the portrait she had not suffered the huge humiliation of such a public rejection so far from home. It makes Flora shiver just to read about it. This is the young woman who came to England – perhaps full of hope, perhaps full of trepidation, certainly determined to please, expecting to be treated like a queen and instead she was treated like a cast-off bawd. Henry, cruel in his anger, even told his council of men that her very smell was obnoxious to him. That most personal and private of things between a husband and wife, her very scent, open to the sniggerings of gossiping legal scribes. Flora looks again. These were the last days of this young woman’s innocence and happiness. Within six months of sitting for the painting she would be far away in a foreign land where it was dangerous to be her friend until the King showed the way. Anyone who has ever been bullied knows how that isolation feels. Flora knows just a little, a tiny bit, of what it is like to be thought second-rate and not worth bothering with. How much worse if those who would not bother were afraid for their lives?

  She returns to the bench and sits there, hunched up, chin on her hands, not even seeing the painting now, but dipping into the past, caught up in the vileness of it all. How did Anna manage? How did she cope without going mad? How did she survive the stripping away of her clothes and her privacy and not retreat forever into blackness? Her breasts and belly, according to some jubilantly prurient historians, were publicly reviled by the petulant King. Her virginity denied. How – how did she survive? That is the question Flora wants to ask her. How?

  She brings herself back to that face. Well – yes – the expression is docile but there is a firmness about the chin and mouth, a sense of position perhaps? After all she was a princess. And a princess with the blood of several royal houses in her veins. Henry might shake her belief in herself as a woman and a wife, but – from the way those lips are set – it seems unlikely that he would shake her faith in her royal dignity. But how he tried. What a pig of a man he was, that Most Noble Prince Henry of England. At that moment Flora hates him. She likes Anna and that is what you do in friendship if someone hurts your friend you despise them for it. It was called loyalty and that is what Flora experiences now, a wave of loyalty for Anna and a desire that seems perfectly natural – to want to set the record straight. Flanders Mare, indeed. At the very thought she finds herself apologising, mentally, for the disgraceful behaviour of this English king.

  Even as Flora thinks this she has the strangest sense that she may have spoken the thought aloud, or that it has been taken from her mind and noted elsewhere. She stares searchingly at the portrait, and the portrait stares back at her. Its dignified sweetness seeming now to be tempered by its frankness. You could almost, thinks Flora, feeling the little tremor run up and down her spine, you could almost believe that the painted face contains a glimmering of life. It is as if it – she – wants to speak, as if her demure calm is about to be broken by an overwhelming desire to say something to the woman who observes her.

  Flora feels odd, alone, although there are people all around her now – gradually filling up the gallery – and despite her sense of unease she is held there, waiting for something to happen. What that might be she cannot possibly dare put into rational thoughts. Just a something. It is absurd, ridiculous, frightening. It is alive.

  Words echo in her head, long buried lines of Eliot’s, ‘Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” / Let us go and make our visit. / In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo . . .’ And in a way they are, those visitors, for they are looking as Flora has looked so often, not into the paintings hung there but around them. Checking the catalogue notes or squinting at the information cards on the walls – less at who is portrayed, but how and why. And then they hurry on to find easier comfort in the better-known painters, the more familiar images, the big stars like da Vinci, Raphael, Titian’s Man with a Glove. But here in the celebrity B camp Flora knows that something has happened between her and the painting of Anna of Cleves a connection, a bond. Perhaps all portraits are capable of this if you spend time with them, she thinks. Flora looks at the other portraits in the room. They seem uncommunicative by comparison. No – Anna is unique.

  The other visitors’ chattering moves on, leaving silence. The direct look from the painted face, the light in the eyes, the mouth set as if to draw breath, it all seems real. A speaking likeness. The picture, the young woman, wants to speak. In the rooms beyond the people come and go . . . But there is a life here, a princess protagonist, a dark fairy tale, perhaps, or a story of good triumphing over evil, something to be spoken of after centuries of silence. Flora’s bun-like smile and overweening husband is a but a pinprick, a mouse-bite. She leans towards the painting, as if to see it breathe, hear it speak. It is almost, almost there – almost alive in Flora’s head – and then the moment is broken.

  A voice – clipped, English, confident – is speaking in English. Very firmly in English. Flora is suddenly aware of a scuffling and a nudging of people crowding around the picture now, pushing at her to move, which she does. It is a group of perhaps eight or ten adults none of whom will see fifty again – and the voice that addresses them slices through the benign breathing warmth like a cut of ice. Flora blinks, stands to one side to let the scufflers and the nudgers form their semicircle, looks across the heads and shoulders of the assembly and sees that the portrait is merely surface once more – that what seemed about to happen has not happened. Flora, irritated at the disturbance, waits, and because she can do little else, she listens. After all, she is of an age, too, as they say, and she could fit into this group very well. Except, she adds to herself hastily, except that her black and bottle-green clothes are dramatic if unstylish and she would never, ever be seen, dead or alive, in beige. Nor, she reckons, smiling up at the portrait, would Anna.

  Miss Penelope Murdoch is not stylish and will never see fifty again either, nor sixty, and she therefore knows a thing or two about a lot of things. She is a clever woman, an art historian by training, and has no truck with the way Braque once dismissed her profession (for she is determined that it is a profession) as being as relevant to painters as ornithologists are to birds. Miss Murdoch is a Brown Guide in charge of a very small collection of Works of Art back home in Blighty. She refers to England as Blighty, as her father, in the fag-end of the colonial service, did once. She, too, might have been in the colonial service had there still been Colonies in the old-fashioned way – as it is she went among art history students at a good-quality Ladies’ College and – providing she is not asked to pronounce on the visual and historical value of art works made after nineteen-fifty – or thereabouts – and containing nothing comfortably recognisable – she’s your girl. And she loves her art history. She especially loves it when those gathered about her know nothing. This group is called ‘English Art Abroad’ and – although the artist was German – Holbein was the man who shaped the face of the English court when it was at its most tumultuous.

  Miss Murdoch begins by saying that Holbein is a good taker of likenesses but that she does not feel, as some do, that he is a genius. This portrait of Anne of Cleves, for example, if it were not for its ornamental qualities, would be very dull. Flora feels herself colour with indignation at this and casts a quick, apologetic glance at the portrait. This, too, seems to reflect a little more pinkness on its oval cheeks and who, thinks Flora, caring nothing for the silliness of the thought, can blame her?

  Miss Murdoch, who wears her Guide’s badge so proudly and has with her a sheaf of notes, must know so much about so many things that she may find it very ti
ring making up her own mind about art. That is the best Flora Chapman can think about such thoughtlessness.

  Miss Penelope Murdoch now speaks and Mrs Flora Chapman, who is not of Miss Murdoch’s party, nor trained as an art historian, sidles up to the group and listens. It is as if some careless acquaintance passes comments on a friend. ‘Anne of Cleves was Henry VIII’s fourth wife. But they were married only briefly. She came from Flanders – now northern Germany – and was a Lutheran. Necessary as Henry had broken away from the Pope. Henry was enchanted by the portraits Holbein painted of his new Lutheran Queen – this threequarters one to scale and another, a miniature, which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and is exquisite but which cannot have been a true portrait by very reason of its subject’s reasonable looks.’ Miss Murdoch pauses and gives a theatrical turn towards the portrait as if to emphasise her point. Flora manages – just – to hold back. ‘When it was received by Henry it was described as “very lively” – this means lifelike – by those who had seen both the Princess in the flesh and the Princess on the vellum. Vellum is calfskin. Both portraits were painted on vellum and the larger – this – was later transferred to board. Calfskin, due to its porous nature, has a surface that is particularly good at holding colour.’

  The group look slightly squeamish at this but Miss Murdoch, who is at her most confident when discussing technicalities, does not notice. Miss Murdoch likes this kind of information because it is factual. Miss Murdoch and Edward Chapman would have got on very well.

  There are more facts for the group. The miniature in London, apparently, has a rich mid-blue background and it is likely that the background in this portrait was also once either a rich mid-greeny blue or kingfisher and it is time that has turned it etc etc. Why they used the colour Miss Murdoch simply does not know if it was so unstable . . . Flora, half amused, half astonished, thinks Miss Murdoch could as easily be discussing an inferior brand of polish. This is the first time she has had anything to do with a group art visit and it is not the engaging exercise she imagined.

  Miss Murdoch, having made it clear that Holbein was a nuisance for using a colour that changed so radically, continued her tale of the pictures’ journeys. ‘So then – the portraits arrived – the big one first the miniature later – and Henry was enchanted with his new Lutheran Queen – remember that Henry had broken with the Pope and Rome and was now Excommunicate – so her Lutheran status was important. The prospective bridegroom’s enchantment quickly evaporated when Henry saw the portrait’s subject in the flesh . . . She was rejected and Cromwell eventually lost his head.’

  How much rested on physical beauty then, as now, Flora thought sourly. A man could die of it. Something of a miracle that Anna did not die, also, considering Henry’s past methods of removal. Anna, she thought, must have very scared indeed.

  Miss Murdoch seemed rather jubilant on the subject of Anna’s looks: ‘As other portraits of the Queen by her court painter Barthel Bruyn – notably at St John’s College, Oxford, clearly show – had Holbein painted her at any other angle except facing straight ahead, it would show her long chin and even longer nose. No beauty she, not at all.’

  Miss Murdoch said this last with such consummate satisfaction that Flora nearly spoke up. Takes one to know one, she thought rudely.

  Flora had her back to the portrait almost protectively and she felt a warmth, a definite warmth, all around her, which might be her own blood pumping with indignation, or a heating duct. Then, from behind her, she heard a very slight noise that might be an intake of breath – but when she looked around she saw no one except the unblinking, sweetly docile, face. Imagination, she decided. Or perhaps she made the noise herself. People do that sort of thing when they get older, she thought gloomily.

  Flora wondered whether this was because the painter got it wrong in the first place, or whether it was to flatter the sitter. Anna did not look like the kind of young woman who needed to be flattered. Flora did not warm to this guide person. Her tone had a definite air of the celebratory about it, as if she loved to dwell on physical imperfections. It should also be said, thought Flora sharply, that Miss Murdoch’s own nose was no slouch.

  Flora now scowled. One thing a plain woman can do is to scowl marvellously well and most alarmingly. Scowling, she felt, sometimes made her more interesting. At least Miss Murdoch would see the deep disapproval on one of her spectators’ faces, even if that spectator was an interloper. ‘It is Holbein’s most frontal composition and made as sumptuous as possible in order to detract from the very plain face of the sitter . . .’

  Flora scowled more deeply. How dare the woman? Miss Murdoch paused and peered very positively at the portrait again. It was a pause and a peer designed as a flourish. Did the painting wince? It had every right to do so. Then again - Flora thought she heard a soft hissing noise but she could neither swear to it nor find the source. Whatever the reason, the sound seemed entirely appropriate. Like the breath of history. ‘So, in painting the dress asymmetrically, Holbein sent the strongest message that he could to the King regarding Anne’s dullness, ineptitude and complete lack of suitability . . .’ She spoke this last with such emphasis that it would be a brave man or woman who denied its Absolute Truth.

  Flora was that woman. She turned towards the speaker and surprisingly found herself saying, ‘Well – if that were so and Hans Holbein was known for putting hidden messages into his paintings for his clients – which sounds very far-fetched to me, if not downright dangerous for the painter – then the King must have been pretty dim himself not to notice . . . I mean, how come a twentieth-century eye – twenty-first century eye even, can tell all this and yet a sixteenth-century eye – one that was familiar with that sort of thing – couldn’t?’ She gave an enjoyably dismissive wave of her hand and added, ‘I suggest it’s flim-flam. All flim-flam.’

  All eyes turned towards her. Miss Murdoch blinked. The group shifted and muttered nervously. Behind her Flora was quite, quite sure she heard an approving exhalation of breath. As if someone had heard and was utterly satisfied with the statement. Nonsense, of course. But nice nonsense. It made her feel that she did not stand here alone.

  Miss Murdoch gave Flora what could be called A Killing Look – and continued. ‘Now – to prove my point – if you stand away to look at the portrait you can see that Holbein has painted her attire in such a way that one forgets, when looking, to see the face as a separate entity. But if you do look at the face you will see that it is far from pretty and certainly not beautiful – in fact – it is plain and wholly expressionless. He has made the perfect iconesque painting which shows nothing of the sitter in human terms. Henry VIII fell, I am quite sure, for the glorious richness of the portrait, the jewels and the gold, and forgot that he was looking for a wife and companion. The trick of the icon – to read the pattern and not the individual parts – Holbein transformed plain, dull Anne into a beauty. When Henry saw her in the flesh for what she really was – he called her his Flanders Mare.’

  Her group made a suitable sound expressing shock. Flora said loudly, ‘Oh how I loathe that expression . . .’ Miss Murdoch tutted but continued her gallop to the end. ‘It also seems that the lady was so repugnant that the usually redblooded Henry could not – er – perform as a bridegroom should.’ She gave a roguish little grin at the group who all looked slightly nervous and Flora shook her head several times and let out a little grunt of disapproval. Miss Murdoch ignored it and said, ‘Well, whatever we think, the rejected Queen was soon pensioned off and left to her own devices. It says much for Henry’s admiration of his court painter, Holbein, that he went on working for the King until his death four years after completing this portrait.’ Miss Murdoch appeared to rub her hands together as if to say that was that. She looked very selfsatisfied.

  ‘You are quite wrong, I think,’ said a commanding voice which Flora surprisingly found to be hers. ‘Firstly I think you will find that there is some question over whether the marriage was consummated or not – Hen
ry’s desire for a divorce making it more likely he conveniently forgot. And as for the Queen’s physical attributes – why – if you look again you will see that the face is far from plain. I reiterate – I think you are quite wrong . . .’

  Silence. Then Miss Murdoch squared her shoulders and said, with icy politeness, ‘Oh. And are you in – er – a position . . .?’

  Flora stood firm. ‘Well – my name is Flora Chapman and Anna of Cleves once owned the house I live in – or at least the site – or the foundations – or . . .’

  Miss Murdoch raised a quelling eyebrow. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘And you think it gives you authority?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Flora, wishing she had never got started. She was about to add, in a more conciliatory tone, that she spoke as any observant member of the public might speak but the words faltered. Something then seemed to give her a shove in the back and it was as if a great hindering lump had been removed from her throat. She said, with extraordinary confidence, almost laughing now, ‘Well, I speak as that, but I also . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ said Miss Murdoch. ‘You also speak as . . .?’

  Flora said, to her surprise, ‘I speak as her sister. After all, someone has to speak up for her – I mean – she can’t exactly speak up for herself – now can she . . .?’ There was that pleasant warmth again, like the breath of approval.

  Flora had never seen eyes genuinely pop before. Miss Murdoch’s certainly bulged at this. ‘Well,’ she added, ‘less histrionically I suppose, I speak as a woman who doesn’t take kindly to hearing bad things said about another woman. Sister in that way.’ The blankness in the group’s eyes told her that these were not people who ever scudded down to Women Against Greenham with blankets and flasks of tea.