Part 6: Sewing Chronicles of Lady Lizbeth, Secret Diary of a Time Traveling Maid

Part 6: A Tale of Tudor Time

Not only did I win a rather spontaneous, trip back to Tudor Times, it seems I get a husband in the bargain. Kidding, kidding! I won’t actually be around long enough to cut the big white cake (make that free four and twenty black birds trapped in a pie these days). You see there is a real Lady Elizabeth Chumley and I’m just her stand in back here in the year 1581, until the new moon rolls around. (William Sainsbury swears he can get me back through the time portal, on the next neaps tide. That boy better know what he’s talking about!)  Lady Elizabeth, it turns out, is from one of the new upwardly mobile merchant class, and she’s just rollin' in the shillings. Lucky Liz is apparently looking for the guy of her dreams, and I get to be her proxy.

If I’ve got it right, my hostess will be lining up the suitors and I more or less take my pick. Won’t the other Liz be surprised when she does eventually make it on over to Northumberland, and finds out the papers have been all drawn up? All she’ll need to do is sign on the dotted line!

My hostess is Lady Margaret Hoby, she of the time-portal-connecting claviorgan. (Did you miss the lead-in to this story? You can catch up by following this link and listening in to the June podcast. That podcast extends the introduction of this story beyond what is published in this art journal.)  Lady Madge has her own little flock of unmarried women living in the house right now, and I fit right in with the crowd. Thomas Hoby’s lady seems to be in the business of marrying off girls who need husbands, and from what I can tell that’s anybody who’s single, has her eyesight, and is more or less in possession of her right mind.

One good thing about my little time-away jaunt is that this group of unmarried gals, or Lady Margaret’s Maides as we’re called collectively, spend a good part of each afternoon and evening doing needlework and making music. And as you well know both are pretty high up on my list of priorities. It’s also late spring back in these times, just like it was when I left London in 2011. Up here in Northumberland the wildflowers are thick, the birds are singing, and the fuzzy lambs are gamboling their little hearts out. I’ve seen a bit of  English countryside in my own time and I must say, the rural scene, if you overlook manure piles, is even prettier back in the days of 1581.

The bad thing is that I have to share not only a room (yeah, yeah they call it a chamber) with the other Maides, but also a bed.  Cecily’ has adenoids and Lettice gets up several times during the night to pray out loud. The snoring I can live with and even the oratory has a kind of cadence that puts me back to sleep about as well as an old-movie on t.v. It’s more the lack of, (how can I put this delicately?), well let’s just say hygiene. Not only are these gals not at all big on bathing, they don’t go in for any kind of deodorant that I’ve been able to locate. And don’t let anybody tell you that gillyflower water will do the trick. It doesn’t. Believe me.

I didn’t have much choice about my new persona. William had it all fixed up. (You probably guessed that ole Will was up to something back in the introduction didn’t you? I must have been taking my gormless pills that day.) My options were pretty limited and he knew it, the bozo. Either I said I was Lady Liz or I’d be lucky if they put me to work shoveling horse pucky or scrubbing pots in the Hoby’s kitchen. OK, call me elitist, but I got a whiff of my potential colleagues in the stable and the kitchen. At least Cecily and Lettice wipe themselves down once or twice a day, and dot on a little eau-de-gillyflower in the more offensive areas. I’ll take the less-crowded zone upstairs. Besides, given that I’ll be back in my own time in less than two weeks, I might as well make the most of the opportunity.

It’s all about culture isn’t it? Here I’ve got a change to sink my needle into a piece of blackwork embroidery that might just turn up at the V&A in my time, and blend my soprano with Cecily’s alto, while Lettice plays Crecquillon latest hot little chanson on her lute. I can think of at least three reenactors at our Elizabethan Springtyme Feste, who’d consider bumping off a fellow player with digitalis for this chance.

Travel’s like that, isn’t it? It’s the unexpected stuff that really hits me over the head. There was that time I came across three spring hares cavorting like total nuts around the meadows in Yorkshire. They made me feel like I’d taken a quick broomstick to OZ. Then there was the  cab-driver veteran of World War II, who told me about his life during the blitz, and how it impacted his attitude when he was part of the bombing raid to Dresden. That’s when it hit me, that the war had been real and not just something from books and the movies.

You gotta open your eyes and ears to the moment you land in. Then again, sometimes you just stumble on a real dissembling jolthead like William Sainsbury who finagles the moment for you. Should I even speak to a man who’s sent me spinning back to Tudor times unasked, just because he couldn’t get back there himself without an assist?

At the very least I ought to get some kind of free miles for this. I wonder what I could cash them in for…

* * *

Part 4: Sewing Chronicles of Lady Lizbeth, Secret Diary of a Time Traveling Maid

This is a continuation of a serial story from this art journal. 

Have you missed the other parts?  

CLICK THE following links TO CATCHUP ON THE STORY

Part 1: The Bloggers Apologia

Part2: The Linen Purse

Part 3: By Chance, A Meeting

Part4: Comyn Interestes

Speake not to men outside of your ken,

Lest they forgete theyre place,

And lead ye to thoughts

Unbecoming in a maid.

But take up thy work.

A needle well-placed in a piece of fruite

Has ofte distracted me from thoughts ill-suited to a ladye.

Pithy Sayings of Lady Margaret Hoby

The man plucked a semblance of a bass run on the lute. I wondered if the guy worked this gallery regularly. A sneaky look from under my lashes told me that his name was ‘William Sainsbury’. Talk about a classic British name! It sounded like one the re-enactors made up for their character names at the Elizabethan Springtyme Feste back home. Come to think of it, his name-

“Are you a musician then?”

The guy certainly knew how to get me going. It wasn’t long before he’d heard a fair amount of the story of my career, hobbies, education, family life and what I was doing in London for the summer. Any opportunity to do all the talking makes me TOTALLY happy. I suppose I’m not the first person who gets a kick out of having a member of the opposite sex hang on their every word.

I got so caught up in discussing my interest in music, sewing, antique instruments and fabrics with William, that the voice booming over the announcement system to inform us that the museum was closing in fifteen minutes almost made my drop my iPad.

Quickly he drew a business card out of his pocket. “I’d love to hear more about your plans for the summer. Maybe even-”

I was studying the red thread work on the small case, from which he’d taken the museum card. “Hey I know the woman who made that!”

The embroidery on the little receptacle was a characteristic pattern, and one that I’d seen many times. My sister’s best friend, Jacquie Fitzcannon, had originally designed the pattern of pansies that meandered around a background of diamonds. They sold quite well at her booth. I reached out and stopped the hand that was putting the card-holder back in his pocket.

“Have you been to the springtime feste? Well you must have been! When were you in California?”

“I worked there this year,” he laughed. “demonstrating sheep sheering and cheese making. Jacquie traded me that case in turn for ten pounds of unripened cheddar.”

“I’m surprised I didn’t meet you there. I was playing in the strolling musicians group. Are you going back next year?”

An odd tremor seemed to cross his face. I realized later that he had ignored my question.

“I tell you what, there’s a pub just around the corner called “Her Grace’s Garters”. A lot of the staff goes after work. That researcher who specializes in blackwork embroidery goes quite often. Do you want to join us?”

The guy was obviously safe, not only did he work for the V&A, he knew Jacquie well enough to trade cheddar for embroidery.

Was there really ever any question of my NOT showing up at The Garters?

* * *

Part 3:Sewing Chronicles of Lady Lizbeth, Secret Diary of a Time Traveling Maid

This is a continuation of a serial story from this art journal. 

Have you missed the other parts?  

CLICK THE following links TO CATCHUP ON THE STORY

Part 1: The Bloggers Apologia

Part2: The Linen Purse

Part 3: By Chance, A Meeting

If a lady aspires to virtuous standing ,

She should attend well to her work,

And leave idle contemplation,

And distractions, such as the desire for precious objects

         or the attractions of comely men 

To the vulgar.

Keep your eyes on your needles, ladies

And your hands on your work.

Pithy Sayings of Lady Margaret Hoby

* * *

When I had told my older sister where I was headed for the summer, the first words out of her mouth were to warn me about the men I’d meet there. According to Prissy, they’d be after me in droves the minute they cast their eyes my way. If only the world thought as much of us as do our ever-loving families! Then again, if it did then restaurant staff would be reminding us to eat our broccoli,and supervisors would check to see that we flossed when we got to work. So maybe it’s just as well that we’re not quite so important as our siblings and parents find us.

“I know how you react to men with accents! Just remember that British men can be terribly controlling,” Prissy reminded me. “And I should know.”

My sister had been married to a one-time citizen of Britain for ten years before she washed her hands of him. I don’t recall that my erstwhile brother-in-law had been particularly controlling, if anything, Prissy was the more controlling of the two. I ascribed their lack of marital stamina to severe political differences, but kept my opinion to myself.

“I don’t have the time, or energy to get married,” I assured her. I’m going to spend the summer sewing, practicing Bartok on the piano, and getting in some sightseeing. I’ve got a new contract starting in four months, that’s not even enough time to jump into the dating pool, never mind locating some man I find appealing enough to want to propose to.

* * *

I had been caught up in my admiration of a series of life-sized mosaics on the landing, when I first passed the gallery guide-attendant. I’d been vaguely conscious of the leggy copper-haired lad’s bountiful smile and cheerful salutation, but museum folk are paid to be gracious after all. Caught up in the tapestries, blackwork embroidery and gilt stitchery as I was, I knew that the young man passed through the hall a few times. But, frankly, I thought he was interested in a couple of boisterous American college girls over near the Renaissance instrument collection.

I became more aware of that giggling pair as they began to struggle into some farthingales they’d discovered in the interactive Daily-Renaissance-LIfe costume-area. The young women began to dissolve into helpless laughter as they commenced photographing each other and composing humorous subtitles to go along with the visuals of their now-expanded figures, that they then texted back home to the U.S.  Seeing that no one else was around, I put aside photographing and sketching sewing design ideas on my ipad, and offered my services as a photographer for a sisterly portrait of the two.

“I think we should call this one ‘our new school uniforms’, the taller of the pair gurgled.

“Are you ladies doing study-abroad then?”

“We’re just here for a summer program at UCL.”

The tall form of the guide moved back out of the tapestry niche about the time the students moved on to stare dutifully at the Raphael tapestry cartoons, and I decided I had probably studied every square centimeter of the embroidered purse and headed over to check out the instruments.

The gallery-guide-guy moved over to hover beneath a collection of reproduction lutes hanging in an artful arrangement from the ceiling, as I transferred my lust for beautiful ancient items to a virginal that, the information plaque indicated, was believed to have really, actually, maybe, been played by the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth the First herself.

I looked up from my careful examination of an inlaid bird on the spinet’s case, to find that he was watching me, in a rather obvious manner. I began to wonder if I fit some musical terrorist profile, and considered moving on to study a bass viol in the corner, when he broke the ice by pulling down one of the lutes and plucking out a brief interrogative three note melody.

“So, are you interested in a be-farthingaled photo of yourself for your friends back home?” 

Was the kid flirting with me, I wondered? Then, I decided it was simply a part of the stock patter to chat up solitary travelers.

I gave him the sort of middling-interested smile I reserved for the occasional cocktail party, and shook my head.

“Do you play?”

I looked at him more carefully now. There were lines around his eyes. Though he was built like a young man, he wasn’t as young as I’d first thought.  “What gave me away?”

“Your left hand was shaping chords, when you were examining the keyboard.”

He had a distractingly attractive lock of golden-red hair that wouldn’t stay put. I tried not to stare. “I was trying to remember how to play ‘Smoke on the Water’, but I forgot to bring along one of those kind of picks Queen Elizabeth would have used,” I responded. I hoped my attempt at humor wouldn’t fall flat.

The lock of hair swayed gently when he laughed “I think you mean a plectra. And by the way, I’m pretty sure the Queen’s Grace was a bigger fan of ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’.”

* * *

To Be Continued