Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (50 page)

Sometimes she even misses the work itself,
the way it made her body feel strong, the heaving and carrying and running up and down
stairs, the scrubbing and sweeping and plumping and folding. It made her feel alive. The
embroidering and reading and card playing and reciting of poetry, which is what
gentlewomen seem to do a lot of, have the opposite effect. And though she is meant to
care for little Ned, there is a maid to wash his napkins and clean up after him, and
another to make sure he is fed; her job is simply to occupy him, teach him his prayers
and scold him if he is naughty, which is rarely.

This is what it is to be a woman in the
world she has risen into – to be still and silent and pretty, in public at least. The
others dance daily, with an Italian dance master who comes to teach, bossing the girls
into submission. Mary Odell, one of the new girls in the household, is usually a bit of
a lump but when she dances she is light on her feet and quite changed. Elizabeth is the
one who dances best. She makes it her business to be best at everything. Dot is afraid
of drawing attention to herself, so doesn’t join in, just sits watching with
Lizzie Tyrwhitt who says her dancing days are over.

Dot can hear Katherine talking with Seymour in
the garden under the open window. She is thankful the marriage is no longer a secret. It
had seeped out anyway, though she had not breathed a word of it to anyone and neither
had William. Seymour was probably spotted coming and going at night.

Elizabeth’s nurse, Mistress Astley,
had accosted Dot about it in the kitchens at Chelsea, not a week after the wedding.

‘Tell me, Dorothy Savage, about the
Queen’s new peacock,’ she had said, making a lewd gesture with her hand.

‘I don’t know what you
mean,’ Dot had replied, making to leave.

But Astley had planted her sturdy form in
the way and she couldn’t pass.

‘Don’t get high and mighty with
me,’ the nurse spat. ‘You may serve the Dowager Queen but I serve the Lady
Elizabeth, who is a Princess of the blood, and yours is only Queen by
marriage.’

Dot hadn’t known what to say to that,
and had been tempted to give her a shove, but in the end said, and did, nothing. Dot has
learned the value of keeping her gob shut.

‘And,’ the Astley woman went on.
‘Don’t imagine I’m fooled by
you
, Dorothy Savage, in your
fine dress that was a gift from the Queen. I know what kind of place you come
from.’ She said it with a scowl, as if the words left a foul taste in her
mouth.

‘I have nothing to hide about my
impoverished roots, Mistress Astley. My father may have been low born but he was a good
man,’ Dot had said, drawing herself up to tower over the squat woman.
‘Besides, a thimbleful of good blood doesn’t necessarily make for a good
person.’ She could hardly believe such a fine riposte had come out of her, but
she’s learned a good deal by listening all those years at court.

Astley had harrumphed and fumbled for a
response.

But Dot had turned, quick as anything, and
skipped away into the yard, calling back over her shoulder, ‘As I recollect,
Christ was no more than a carpenter …’

Elizabeth has seated herself at the
virginals now, with Jane Grey perched on the very edge of the stool beside her.
She’s playing a popular ditty, a love song that has been going around and that
they have all been humming for weeks. Elizabeth’s long white fingers flit over the
keys and she adds her own little flourishes to the tune, then begins to sing in her
thin, high voice, eyes shut mostly, but sneaking the occasional glimpse to be sure
everyone’s looking, which they are. Jane is all agog.

At a break in the verse Elizabeth turns to
William briefly, who stands behind her, throwing him a wink; he looks away and over at
Dot, raising his eyebrows. Elizabeth can’t bear to think any man wouldn’t
desire her and Dot has seen her play up to even the lowest servant boys. William,
though, seems immune to her charms, has confessed to Dot that he finds her exasperating;
but Katherine has asked him to instruct the girl in music, which he hasn’t been
able to refuse.

It is warm in the sun by the window and Dot
drops her head back on to the window frame, drifting off. She can still hear the Queen
and Seymour talking in the garden below, their voices floating up to her. Katherine
sounds agitated and Seymour is calming her but with the music she can’t quite make
out the words, just the tone; his voice is velvety, hers shrill.

‘Kit,’ she hears him say, in a
break in the singing, ‘we will get them back.’ He sounds angry now.
‘This is a slight against me as much as you.’

It occurs to Dot that, like Elizabeth,
Seymour wants to be admired by everyone.

‘But my cross, Thomas. My
mother’s cross is among those things and Stanhope well knows it.’ Katherine
scrunches her handkerchief into an ever-tighter ball.

It has been three months since he promised
he would have her mother’s cross returned to her. Three months of marriage.

‘That cross is nothing but a trinket,
sweetheart. I shall give you jewels far more beautiful than that. What I can’t
bear is the idea of that brother of mine and his monstrous wife doing this to me. She,
strutting about the palace dripping in the Queen’s jewels when
you
are
Queen. Until my nephew marries, you are still the Queen and you are
my
wife.
This is a slight against me, Katherine.’ He bangs his hand against his thigh.

She says nothing. There is little point
trying to convince him of the worth of that so-called trinket to her, or what it means.
And she has
him
now. She thinks of all those hours spent running the pearls
beneath her fingers and thinking of him, wondering where he was and who he was with,
seething inside at the thought that he might love another. Now he is hers and she his,
and what they have is like nothing she has ever known, as if he has brought her to life.
He plays her body like an instrument. She is consumed by her desire for him. She’d
never thought herself capable of that: pragmatic, sensible Katherine Parr driven to wild
abandon.

But already she can feel him slipping away
in tiny incremental steps. At first the intrigue had kept him in her thrall. The Lord
Protector was incandescent with rage about the marriage and the King hadn’t been
happy, either, to discover that his permission had been asked and granted for a marriage
that had already taken place. Thomas had squared it, though, just as he promised he
would, working his charms on the young King. Next to the Lord Protector, who barely
lets the poor boy breathe without his say-so, Thomas must be like
fresh air. Thomas gives him pocket money, for the Lord Protector leaves him poorer than
a church mouse. And the child may be distant now but he cannot have forgotten that she
cared for him when he was barely out of skirts. But she feels she has lost his trust
with this secret marriage – Mary’s too. Mary does not approve, thinks it shows
disrespect for her father that his widow would marry so soon, and she no longer replies
to Katherine’s letters.

And then there was the scandal. When news of
the marriage got out, pamphlets were printed making spurious suggestions about
Katherine’s virtue, with terrible lewd drawings – or so Huicke had told her. He
had refused to show them to her, said she could do without seeing such things. She had
felt so deeply and horribly ashamed. Thomas had been a rock to her, helped her hold her
head high, even in the face of the scathing comments from Stanhope about how she had
diminished herself by marrying a younger brother when she had once been the wife of the
King. Stanhope had always been like that, her fingers gripping firmly on to the ladder,
knowing exactly who should stand on each rung at any given moment and scrambling up and
over people to pull herself higher. Thomas, meanwhile, was charged up by the adversity,
the defence of his wife.

But now that he has her and the world
accepts it, she senses a separation, as if his fascination has diminished minutely. It
is not apparent enough for anyone else to notice as he fawns over her in public in a way
that borders on indecent. Sometimes, though, she feels it is a performance, this love of
his, and she feels it like a thin current of cool air, the dwindling of his desire. And
while his seeps away, hers burgeons, swallowing her up.

One of the gardeners walks past them and she
calls out to him, beckoning him over. ‘Would you cut some lavender, Walter,’
she says, ‘a good quantity, enough for strewing in my chamber?’

He removes his cap, fumbling as he has a
fistful of bulbs.

‘What are those?’ she asks.

‘They are hyacinths, madam,’ he
replies.

Katherine can feel her husband’s eyes
burrowing into her, and he gives an impatient little snort.

‘I shall store them, then we can enjoy
them early next year. They are the fragrant ones you liked so much.’

‘I shall look forward to them,
Walter.’

‘That’ll be all,’ barks
Seymour.

Walter moves away, head down.

‘Why ever do you call him
Walter?’ he snaps, his lips drawing tight together.

‘It is his name,’ she replies,
stroking the coarse hair of his beard with a smile.

‘I will not have you be so forward
with the servants.’

‘Oh Thomas, I knew his father. I saw
the lad grow up.’

‘I will not have it …’ He
pauses, gripping her wrist hard, as if to emphasize what he says.

She opens her mouth to speak.

But he continues, ‘… and all that
about the hyacinths … he is too familiar. I should get rid of him.’

‘As you wish,’ she replies,
knowing that if she defends the man it will only be worse. She notices that Seymour
cannot bring himself to meet her gaze and is sulking like a little boy.

His desire may be waning but his jealousy
knows no bounds. He will not allow her to be alone with any man, barely even Huicke, and
she wonders if somewhere inside him he believes those pamphlets that talk of her
corrupted
virtue. She is reassured by his jealousy, though, clings on
to it as proof of his continued love, thinks it part of his boyish pride – but at the
bottom of it she knows he doesn’t trust her.

She can hear Elizabeth singing in the music
room, her unmistakable voice, high and clear, drifting through the summer afternoon.

‘That girl has a voice,’ she
says.

‘I must go,’ he says, planting a
perfunctory kiss on her hand before turning and striding away across the garden.

I love him too much, she thinks, watching
the way his gown flips up at the edges and swirls about his thighs as he moves. She
thinks of those thighs slapping up against her skin, the grip of his fingers around her
waist, and feels sick with desire. Surely, she thinks, a child will come of this passion
– how could it not? But time is ticking away. She feels the years on her; at thirty-five
most women have stopped their birthing. But then again, at thirty-five most women have
been all used up and stretched out of shape by dozens of babies and, as Thomas said
once, ripping her shift from her, she still has the body of a maid.

‘Will you be back tonight?’ she
calls after him.

But he doesn’t hear, or at least
doesn’t react.

She sits on the lawn, her skirts circling
out around her, and rubs her eyes. She hears the clatter of hooves on the stable cobbles
– the sound of him leaving. He will come back around to her, she is sure of it, for
theirs is a love match. He is only sulking.

‘Are you sad?’ says a small
voice that comes from nowhere, making her jump.

‘Oh!’ she cries. ‘You
surprised me, Jane, I thought you were in the music room with the others.’

‘Are you crying?’

‘No, Jane, it is just that my eyes
itch and I have rubbed them.’

‘You have a sad air about
you.’

‘No, Jane, how could I be sad when I
have everything I ever desired?’

Jane smiles at this in a puzzled way, as if
the notion of having one’s desires met is something incomprehensible.

‘Come, let’s find Rig and walk
him in the orchard.’

They call for the dog and head to the
orchard gate, arm in arm. She has such poise, thinks Katherine, for a girl so young,
already shaped for her future, like the espaliered trees that grow along the orchard
wall, contrived into intertwining obedient forms. It is a future that will not be hers
to choose, for she, like her singing cousin, has royal blood in her veins. Katherine
wonders if that is a blessing or a curse.

Thomas is conniving to make a match between
Jane and the King, which would not be such a bad thing. But the Lord Protector continues
to hope he will lure the four-year-old Scottish Queen into his pocket before the French
get their hands on her. All these girls being moved around like pawns in a game of
chess.

It’s time someone was lined up for
Elizabeth – she is nearly fourteen now, but no one is sure whether she’s a good
bet or not, legitimate or not, a Princess or not – poor girl.

Hounslow Heath is bitter and a low sky,
thick like gruel, hangs over them. The storm of a few nights ago has blown
the last of the leaves from the trees, giving the place a bleak,
unforgiving air. Sweat striates the horses, who have run themselves out and now walk
sedately towards the house with the mud-covered hounds lolloping after them. It has been
a good day’s hunting and a quartet of men follows behind with the carcass of a
great stag strung between them, while another leads a mule with two smaller buck slung
like a pair of sacks over its back.

Katherine will send one of them to Stanhope
in a gesture of goodwill that she hopes might promote the return of her mother’s
cross – though she doubts it, for the whole issue has become a battle between Thomas and
his brother. Stanhope has been intolerable, swanning about at court, throwing her weight
around. She is with child again – number eight – and Katherine can’t help but
ponder on the injustice of a world that can send eight children to one woman and none to
another. But she is accustomed to the feeling, which is no longer the intense longing it
once was; it is more a vague sense of something lacking, that is all. And she has Jane
Grey now and her sister’s boy, little Ned Herbert, in the nursery – and of course
there is dear Elizabeth, so they make a satisfactory family.