A Step Back in Time

A split second ago I was Hannah Palmer, busily working in the garden at Mitchell Road, weeding the borders and cutting back the roses, trying to be extra careful with the thorny branches that pulled at my skin, drawing blood that bloomed into little scarlet beads on my fingers. The sun glowing from a deep blue sky felt warm on my back, and the smell of the roses—bright yellows, reds, and pinks—suffused the air with their sweet scent.

Tiny, dainty steps had taken me from one world into the other, and I was now Ursula Pole again. I was somewhere dark and dank within thick walls, with the smell of muddy water creeping through the stone like a poisonous gas. My mother, Margaret Pole, kneeled at a makeshift altar on the cold hard stone, her back ramrod straight and her gnarled hands steepled together, muttering under her breath, a long low monotonous sound. I thought she was praying—praying for her life. She was much older now, her face seamed and the tiny stray hairs peeking from her hood as grey as old iron, yet she still retained a presence, an aura, an almost ghostly aura. It shone around her in this gloomy place like a silver halo.

She stood up, keeping a hand on her lower back as if she was in pain and, bobbing her head, walked slowly and carefully through an arch in the thick walls and into the adjoining cell. In keeping with her noble birth, the cell had been made as comfortable as it could be for a person being held within the confines of the dreaded Tower of London, for this was surely where I was now.

I saw that the thick walls were adorned with hangings, and the floor in sweet scented rushes. My mother’s bed was a lush four poster affair covered with a thick counterpane, and there was a chair and a writing table laden with books next to a tiled washstand. A porcelain chamber pot glinted beneath the bed. A heavy tome of a Bible lay on the chair, and candles streaked with knobs of wax glimmered in the dim.

My mother had but one gown and hardly any underclothes to speak of, and these were tired and worn now. But oh, how thoughtful King Henry had been in the two and half years that he had kept an innocent woman here against her will. I didn’t know how she had been able to withstand this confinement, for even standing on tiptoes, I could only just see a sliver of blue sky from the tiny slit of a window, and feel only a stirring of warm air against my face.

I suspected that it was spring time, yet here there was no smell of new growth and no sunshine pouring in from the outside. The odor of death, decay, and despair seeped from the very walls, and I realized with an awful sinking heart that today, because there was no escape, I would have to witness my mother, Margaret Pole’s, execution. Oh my God, how would this be borne?

My mother, my poor poor mother, confined for so long in such a deep dark place. Mother...a lover of laughter and song, who enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her skin and the sound of rain drops pattering through leafy trees. Who loved to see the sun rising and setting in a crimson hue, and rainbows arching across a rain-washed sky. My mother, who kept my secrets and let me grow, always, within her heart.

My heart thumped now like a drum as I heard the tramping of feet on the stairs, and immediately melted deep within the shadows of the cell. The heavy metal door creaked open and a slovenly maid walked in, a silver plate in her hand, which she clattered onto the small table. I saw that it was some sort of thin gruel swimming with grease, skinny white meat floating on its surface. She gave a short, perfunctory bow of the head and then backed out, locking the door behind her with a magnificent silver key.

My mother sat on the chair, her dark threadbare gown belling around her legs, holding on tightly to the Bible. She stared at the food then looked away, sickened, it seemed, by its oily stench. She could not see me—I was invisible. I was an imposter, a visitor from another time, another world, just as I had been when I witnessed the soldiers forcibly dragging her from Warblington Manor to bring her here to wait these many years for her death day. It seemed there was nothing I could do to help her. She would be alone today.

It was later, much later, for the sun had moved and was a distant yellow glow at the tiny window. Once again there were footsteps on the steep stairs, and the cell door swung open, admitting the constable of the tower. I watched, from the shadows, this short burly man, who had narrow, flinty blue eyes and a beard that coated his chin like well clipped hedging.

He informed my mother in a booming voice, “Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, I am here to inform you that your death by beheading will take place this day, the twenty-seventh of May in the year of our Lord, fifteen forty-one. Your crime is treason against Henry the Eighth, King of England. I will return for you within the hour.”

“No crime can be proven against me,” my mother replied, springing up from the chair in shock, it seemed, as I saw feelings of anger and despair in equal measure passing rapidly across her face.

Giving a slight bow of his head, he went from the room with not another word, clanging the door shut behind him. She paced then, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards across the stone flagged floor, her soft slippers whispering amongst the rushes. And then she lay upon her bed, the Bible clutched in both hands and her eyes closed. I could see the panicked rise and fall of her breasts against the worn silk of her gown.

The awful long hour passed, and then, as promised, the silver key grated in the lock and the door creaked open. Then pandemonium ensued as they surged in, filling the dank cell with their noxious stench. I flattened myself into the shadows, the stone wall behind me deathly cold, watching as the huddle of stinking, smelling men grabbed her from her bed and rushed her from the room, almost dragging my poor old mother, pious Margaret Pole, down the steep stone steps.

Hurrying after them, I sped down the stairs, my heart hammering in my throat and my hands shaking in despair. How can I stop this? I thought to myself. How can I stop this terrible act of atrocity?

Outside the sun blazed from a porcelain blue sky, and leafy trees waved their branches in a gentle spring breeze. The men, huffing and puffing from exertion, dragged my mother, her face a mask of despair, not to a scaffold as I had thought, but to a simple wooden block which had been placed on the soft spring grass. Guards and the executioner, a young man clutching an axe in his quivering hands, surrounded her. Nervous sweat coated the executioner’s upper lip.

The small crowd made up of officials and workers from the tower were tense with anticipation, whispering amongst themselves, and I made to step forward, to speak for her, when a voice said in my ear—or was it just in my head? — “You can’t change history, Ursula. Do not tempt fate.”

I heard her voice then, pleading, desperate, old and reedy, yet cutting swiftly through the muttering of the crowd. “Where is the king? I must speak with the king, with Henry. He is my kin.” She scanned the crowd with eyes as frightened as a cornered animal, and when nobody replied, she said staunchly, “No crime can be proven against me.”

Then she became silent, as did the crowd, and I watched as she proudly stood tall, her palms pressed together and her mouth moving in prayer. There was a deep dark silence where nobody moved and nothing stirred. If a pin had dropped the sound would have been as cannon fire. And then, even as I blinked, my mother was pushed to a kneeling position and her head, her poor thin neck exposed to the sweet smelling air, lay in readiness on the block as the axe, arcing through the air, glinted in the sunshine.

And then I came around and was sitting in my garden in a flower bed, squashed in amongst the pom pom dahlias and the roses, thorny branches clutched tightly in my scratched hands. I watched in shock as my blood seeped into the earth, just as my mother’s, Margaret Pole’s, had when it gushed in a crimson hue from her neck such a long, long time ago. I felt heavy with despair until I looked up and saw that Gregory was there—or was it Max? —and he held out his arms and, whimpering, I fell into them.

***

For traitors on the block should die. I am no traitor no, not I....

These words ran through my head as I parked my car along the road by the row of cottages at Langstone just before the Ship Inn. I was planning on a walk along the shore line past the Old Mill and the Royal Oak public house, and so on to Warblington Cemetery and St. Thomas à Becket Church. I had an urge to visit the ruin again, to place my hands on the cold slumbering stones, and like a magician, conjure up Margaret Pole and bring her back to life.

I needed to go back to a time before she died, before cruel King Henry stole her life away from her, and to a time when she was vibrant and alive and she was my mother.

My faithfulness stands and so, towards the block I shall not go!

The last couple of lines of the poem come to mind as I set off, my rucksack bouncing jauntily on my back, making sure that I set my Fitbit to the walk mode. I was determined to start trying to get my steps in every day.

Nor make one step, as you shall see, Christ in Thy mercy, save Thou me!

According to Wikipedia, this poem had been found scratched into the stone in Margaret Pole’s cell in the Tower of London. She had made it clear right up to the end that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. Surely Henry should have known that, and should have trusted her as a close member of his family. After all, he had allowed her to be godmother to Queen Mary, and she had cared for both Mary and Elizabeth as a nanny for many years. Poor, misunderstood lady.

Flashbacks of the execution kept coming into my mind, and the sight of the poor bowed figure of Margaret Pole, her head on the block and the axe hitting not her neck as it was supposed to, but her shoulders and her back, tormented me. She had tried to escape, had crawled away, her wounds leaving a bloody trail on the grass. The young man, the executioner, the heavy axe shaking within his grasp, had followed behind, hacking at her violently like the Grim Reaper.

I stood and gazed at the lovely view, desperately trying to rid myself of such macabre thoughts, and finding it hard to believe that the execution of Margaret Pole had actually taken place. Thoughts of Gregory and Max came to me, and how sure I’d been that one of them, particularly Max, had been there when I’d come round after witnessing the execution. How sure I’d been that I was in Max’s arms, when really there was nobody there, nobody at all. It was all in my imagination. Luckily Sarah was at home, and had rushed outside to comfort me when I’d fallen to the ground, bruising my hands and my knees and crying uncontrollably.

Looking up, I saw that the sky was a perfect blue, only faint skeins of clouds marring its surface. The sun, which was warm for the end of May, shone in a lemon hue, and I was really glad I’d worn just shorts and a T-shirt, even though my sad winter white skin was now exposed to the air for everybody to see. My boots felt good, comfy as slippers, as I walked along the beach, searching for tiny iridescent shells that sparkled in the sun, and trying not to slip and slide on patches of slimy seaweed.

People chattering in groups sat on the stony shore eating sandwiches or enjoying a liquid lunch of beer or wine. Glamorous swans, like models on a catwalk, swayed over the stones, begging for sandwiches, nuts, and crisps, and gaggles of geese gave the quacking ducks sly nasty hisses as they paddled at the water’s edge. The sea was calm and clear, and tiny waves of frothy white frill rolled to the shore. I breathed in the fresh briny odor and carried on walking along the shore, and then across fields of patchwork black and white cows and fluffy sheep until I reached the cemetery.

The graveyard was peaceful, as it always was, its tranquility marred by my hurrying footsteps as I walked past its endless rows of monuments and headstones. I loitered at the nun’s plot with its simple wooden crosses. Sister Angelique, Sister Monica Jones, Sister Marguerite, Sister Bernadette—oh, how the relics of the dead went on and on. I walked past St. Thomas à Becket Church, squatting amidst its ancient graveyard, lingering only for a moment at the heart shaped headstone of Gregory’s mother, Eliza Walsh, the memorial that I was so proud to have found

Claire’s news came fleetingly into my mind, and I shook my head at my own stupidity in thinking that Max and Claire were together, when all the time Claire’s married lover was a woman. How come I hadn’t known that my own sister was gay? The whole Barbie look had been a total red herring.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I remembered asking her after she’d dropped her bombshell. “Don’t you trust me, Claire?”

Gazing at me hard and putting her hand in mine, she said, “Of course I trust you, Hannah. You’re my sister. But this was just too much—too much of a secret to even speak of—and I had no idea what you’d think.”

“I think,” I told her carefully, “That whatever makes you happy makes me happy too. When can we all meet Laura?”

Glancing at my Fitbit, I saw that I’d walked 9,522 steps. Wow! Only a few more to go now, though, because the ruin was visible, and even from this distance I could see with excitement that the gate was open so access was still possible. I would be able once again to touch the stones of what was once, such a long time ago, Warblington Manor.

With a sense of anticipation I walked towards it and, squinting, raising my hand to block out the bright sun that shone in my eyes, I saw a figure leaning casually against the tower. As I got closer I realized that it was a man—a good looking man, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt that fit very snugly over his broad chest. His blond hair gleamed like gold, and his face was creased in a smile.

He raised his hand in a wave, and as he prowled towards me like a sleek panther, said, “Hannah. I thought you’d never come—I’ve been waiting for you.”