Mary & Elizabeth - Emily Purdy Read Free

Marigold.” “God bless our Princess Marigold!” they would shout whenever I rode past in a litter or barge or mounted sidesaddle upon my piebald pony, smiling and waving at them before reserved dignity replaced childish enthusiasm.
    Though it may seem vain to say it, I had such beautiful hair in my youth, as true and shining an example as there ever was of why a woman’s tresses are called her crowning glory. But before my youth was fully past it began to thin and fade until its lustrous beauty and abundance were only a memory and I was glad to pin it up and hide it under a hood, inside a snood or net, or beneath a veil.
    But oh how I treasured the memory of Father’s pride in me and my beautiful hair! The day he danced with me before the Ambassadors became one of my happiest memories.
    I would never forget the way he swept me up in his arms and spun me round and round, my marigold hair flying out behind my head like a comet’s tail, as he danced me from one end of the Great Hall to the other.
    I never thought the love he felt for me then would ever diminish or die. I thought my earthly father’s love, like our Heavenly Father’s love, was permanent, unchanging, and everlasting.
    “This girl never cries!” Father had said. Little did he know I would make up for a childhood filled with unshed tears by crying whole oceans of them in later years, and that most of them would be spilled on account of him, the callousness and cruelty he would mete out to me in place of the love and affection he once gave so freely and unconditionally to me.
    But that was yet to come, and in those early days I truly was a princess. I sat on my own little gilded and bejeweled throne, set upon a dais, and upholstered in purple velvet with a canopy of estate, dripping with gold fringe, above me, and a plump purple cushion below me to rest my feet upon. And I wore gowns of velvet, damask, and brocade, silk, satin, silver, and gold; I sparkled with a rainbow of gems, and snuggled in ermine and sable when I was cold; gloves of the finest Spanish leather sheathed my hands; I walked in slippers made of cushion-soft velvet embroidered with pearls, gems, or gilt thread, and when I rode, boots of Spanish leather with silken tassels encased my feet; and underneath my finery only the finest lawns and linens touched my skin. But it was not the prestige and finery I liked best; being my father’s daughter was what delighted my heart most. And during the bad years that followed the blissful ones, I used to think there was nothing I would not give to hear him call me “my best sweetheart” again.
    Having no son to initiate into the manly pursuits, Father made do as best he could with me. He took me with him to the archery butts, and when I was nine he gave me my first hawk and taught me to fly her. We rode out at the head of a small retinue, me in my velvet habit, dyed the deep green of the forest, sidesaddle upon my piebald pony, the bells on my goshawk’s jesses jingling, and the white plume on my cap swaying. And Father, a giant among men, powerfully muscular yet so very graceful, astride his great chestnut stallion, clad in fine white linen and rich brown hunting leathers, with bursts of rainbow light blazing out from the ring of white diamonds that encircled the brim of his velvet cap, and the jaunty white plume that topped it bouncing in the breeze.
    We were following our hawks when we came to a large ditch filled with muddy water so dark we could not discern the bottom. Father made a wager with one of his men that he could swing himself across it on a pole. But when he tried, the pole snapped beneath his weight, and Father fell with a great splash, headfirst into the murky water. His legs and arms flailed and thrashed the surface frantically, but his head never appeared; it was stuck fast, mired deep in the mud below.
    Edmund Moody, Father’s squire, who would have given his life a hundred times over for him, did not hesitate. He dove in and