The Concubine (28 page)

The explanation came to her; distasteful, but it must be faced. So she faced it to the accompaniment of the limpid ripple of music that was like the sound of a waterfall.
Henry was making Mary his whipping boy.
That accounted for his action, and for his manner. And he’d have been even more pleased had Mary done something more shaming than make a clandestine marriage; then he could have said “your sister” with even more venom.

She’d cried to Emma, before her Coronation, “He hates me.” She had believed it then; but everyday living, some acts of consideration, even of kindness occasionally, had taken the sharpest edge off her awareness of his hatred. Faced with this fresh evidence of it she felt weak, drained and hollow. Emma’s Bible said, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” What had she sown that the harvest should be so bitter? Used his love for her as a ladder to climb by; used it as a salve for wounded pride, hurt self-esteem. That was all. She’d never done him any harm. She’d failed him in bed, in some obscure way that she would never understand; and she’d borne an unwanted daughter instead of the longed-for boy; and she had not yet conceived again. In the eyes of a man like Henry these were, no doubt, offenses, but they were not deliberate ones. Nothing to justify the tone of voice in which he said, “I’ve sent your sister and her husband packing.”

But she mustn’t retaliate; mustn’t make the obvious retort, that her sister Mary in making a clandestine marriage behaved in precisely the same fashion as
his
sister Mary had done. She mustn’t quarrel with him. Because her only hope was to bear his son. Unless she could do that the past was all waste, the future without prospect.

The last sound of the plucked strings vibrated, shivered on the air and died. She moved her hands and joined in the applause. The old man bowed, more grave and stately than a bishop, toward the King, and spoke a few words in a strange tongue. Henry, genuinely moved, both by the music and by this contact with Wales—he was sentimental about his Welsh lineage—leaned forward and shouted down the hall a phrase in the same tongue, which to the listening ears of the English sounded like abuse. The old man smiled and bowed again.

“He thanked us for listening, and wished us good night,” Henry said, beaming round with pride and pleasure. “I thanked him for playing for us and wished
him
good night.”

Anne said, “I am glad that you could thank him in his own tongue. He played very beautifully. We are all indebted to you for bringing him to London.”

Henry accepted the implied compliments; then his look as it dwelt upon her, darkened.

“We were talking about your sister,” he reminded her. “You say you saw her this afternoon? Did you make her cry? That silly young whelp found her, blubbering in a corner, took her by the hand and burst in on me to make a full confession. While I was having my beard trimmed!”

She gripped her hands together under the shelter of the table’s edge and prayed, God give me patience. She said,

“He chose his time badly.”

“He chose his wife badly. Years too old. And shop-soiled.”

Everything in her, except her common sense, cried out against that. She’d have given everything, except her hope of a son, to have been able to stand up and shout—And who had a hand in her soiling? Who used her and threw her aside? Isn’t there for every bad woman in the world a man equally bad? Am I any better than she? No better; less lucky. When he found her crying, he braved you and your barber. If you found me crying, you’d gloat, you’d gloat, you’d gloat…

But truth, and honest speaking, and Mary, must all be sacrificed to something that had as yet no existence, no shape, no form, no name.

So she smiled and said, amiably, “They displeased you, and they are punished. So…” She spread her hands. I can dismiss Mary. She’s married; she’s loved. Any man who dare break in with such a confession upon Henry and his barber, is a man indeed. She’ll be safe with him.

Henry had hoped for a scene. An exchange of verbal buffers. But it was like tilting at one of those scarecrows farmers put in their fields. Unresponsive, cold. Cold as a fish. Her own sister and not a word of protest.”

What could a man hope for, with such a wife? Nothing.

The past was all waste; the future without prospect.

Unless…

T
HE DUKE OF NORFOLK WAS
not particularly quick-witted and it took him a moment or two to catch the drift of what the King was saying. When he did so, his first thought was that it was wine talking; a justifiable thought for it was growing late, and Henry had not gone sober to bed on any night since Sir Thomas More’s execution. Then, as Henry talked on the Duke thought, Why consult
me
? His strong self-preservative instinct came into play. How could he possibly answer without offending the King or encouraging him in what he was proposing, a plan which the Duke most thoroughly disapproved.

He felt Henry’s eye upon him and hoped that he didn’t look as shocked as he felt, and hastily composed his features into an expression of respectful attention.

When Henry had finished unburdening himself, the Duke said,

“There is no one in the world who more wishes to see you happy and content and the father of a prince, Your Grace.”

But not a prince who was Jane Seymour’s son! Jane Seymour, another commoner! Another girl like Anne Boleyn, with a wildly ambitious family! A family, too, as near Lutheran as anyone dared to be in these days when the English Church was so precariously balanced, in an attempt to avoid both Papacy and Lutheranism.

Henry sensed some reserve and said rather awkwardly, “Of course, I realize that Anne is your niece.”

The Duke made a gruff, repudiating sound. “That doesn’t bother me. If you send me on an errand with Wiltshire and his popinjay son I put up with their company as I would with toothache; but the Boleyns are nothing to me.”

“Yet you object?”

“No. No. I can see…” He cracked a knuckle, then another and stirred on his chair. “Your Grace, I’m no lawyer, just a plain man. If I knew what to say I shouldn’t know how to say it. Cranmer’s your man, or Cromwell…”

“All in good time. I’m talking to
you
, now.”

“Then, Your Grace…There’s a country saying about the fox that got away with the rooster being caught if he comes back for the hen. I’m against playing the same trick twice. We’ve heard enough about consanguinity in these last years. The word stinks. To go raking over all that old business of Mary Boleyn as an excuse for getting rid of Anne, that’d be like wiping your nose on a mucky rag. I don’t say don’t do it, but I do say, don’t do it that way.”

Henry looked into Norfolk’s earnest, beefy face with something approaching affection. Norfolk had always been his loyal, active servant, but in the last year he had become more; one of the few people whose religious views exactly accorded with Henry’s own. Too many people were either backward-looking Catholics, secretly regretting the breach with Rome, or forward-looking reformers, anxious for more changes. Norfolk, like Henry, managed to be Catholic without being Papist; and Norfolk understood why, in the end, having been given every chance to conform, More, whom Henry had truly loved, the wittiest, most charming man in the world, had had to be beheaded. More had insisted upon regarding the Pope as Head of the Church, and Catherine as Queen of England; and since it was treason for an ordinary man to hold such views, it was doubly treasonable for one whom the King had called friend, and made Chancellor, to do so.

Therefore Norfolk’s opinion mattered now.

“Maybe you’re right. Well, there is another way out. A precontract. Years ago Anne was on the point of marrying the present Earl of Northumberland…”

His voice trailed away as he realized what he was saying. God in Heaven, what happened to people to change them so much? He remembered himself how desire and determination and worship had welled up in him, and he had thought—She is too good for him! Now he could speak of it like that.

“That hare won’t run,” Norfolk said bluntly. “Mary Talbot tried to bring that up when she was sick of Northumberland and ran back to her father. I happen to know because Shrewsbury consulted me about it. Northumberland said he never was betrothed to my niece, or anybody else.”

“Oh,” Henry said. He thought for a minute. “Do you reckon he’d say the same if he knew that it was my wish that he admitted to the betrothal?”

“You know the Percys. Born awkward. And if you said you’d behead him if he didn’t he’d most likely laugh; he’s so sick and full of pain it’d be a merciful end.” He cracked another knuckle. “And precontract is another word that stinks.”

“So that leaves me where I was, tied to a woman I no longer love.”

“That’s not so uncommon. I should say that nine out of every ten men hate their wives—after a year. But they use them, as God meant women to be used.”

Henry said, with an almost touching simplicity, “I have tried.”

With matching simplicity Norfolk said, “Try again, sire. I’ll be blunt. What this country needs is a prince, not another long-drawn-out wrangle about who is married to whom or, if not why not.”

“In fact you advise me to do nothing, except,” he laughed a little, “my duty in bed?”

“For a time, anyway. As for Mistress Seymour…” He broke off, decided that he might never again have such an opportunity to speak his mind, and went on, “My niece set an example, keeping her legs crossed till the crown was in her lap, but that’s not to say that every girl must set her price so high.”

Henry treated his old friend to one of his most ferocious scowls. Jane was the sweetest, dearest, most innocent little maiden in the world, completely without ambition. Different in every way from Anne, who had always seemed to be offering a challenge or promising something, egging a man on. Different, too, from Catherine, whose wifely attitude had been imposed upon a fundamentally strong character, which, combined with her greater age and her piety, had always slightly awed Henry. Jane was a child, a kitten, a plaything, Henry thought fondly, unaware that he was thinking as only a middle-aged man could do. Norfolk, he decided was entirely lacking in the finer feelings. Still, he was a man of sound sense and his advice, if nothing else, was at least sincere.

Norfolk accepted the scowl as the price of plain speaking, always a luxury in the Royal presence. He was, on the whole, rather pleased with himself. The King’s trouble was that he was not properly grown up where women were concerned; too soft, too sentimental. With all women, not merely, like most men, with the love of the moment. Look at Catherine, who had quietly defied him for years; and Mary was worse. My God, Norfolk thought, if she were my daughter I’d bang her head against the wall till it was as soft as a baked apple!

The silence lasted until Henry broke it, speaking on some other subject; and so slipped away, unremarked, unrecognized, one of those momentous occasions which later can be seen to have been pregnant with tragedy.

A
NNE LAY ON HER BED
with her skirt pulled aside and one foot, stripped of hose and shoe, being poked and prodded for evidence of possible injury by Emma Arnett. Her cousin, Lady Lee, stood near the head of the bed, holding a flagon of grated hartshorn. Other ladies fluttered about suggesting remedies, suggesting calling Dr. Butts, suggesting—this with faint sly smiles and significant glances—running to tell His Grace.

It was a warm day, but Anne was shivering and her privet-flower pallor had the gray tinge which Emma knew. It was consistent with the pain of a twisted ankle, yet Emma was puzzled, for there was no sign of swelling, nor had Anne flinched under the probing fingers.

Anne said, “You stay, Margaret. Send the others away…” When the room was cleared she moved her foot, “Let be, Emma. I did not twist it. I had to think of something quickly and that was the best I could do.”

“I never saw such presence of mind,” Margaret Lee said, looking at Anne with admiration, and then changing the look immediately to one of pity as she remembered what had provoked the display of presence of mind.

Anne pulled herself up against the bed head.

“Who else saw, Margaret?”

“No one. I’m certain. You were so quick and so clever.” But it mattered so little—except to Anne’s peace of mind—who had seen and who had not. Everyone knew that the King was in hot pursuit of Jane Seymour, and she so indiscreet, or so stupid, or so powerless to control him, that the sight of him kissing her in a corner or holding her on his knee, could surprise no one, except Anne. Anne, until this morning, had been in ignorance, the center of a conspiracy of silence which stemmed from various causes. Malice, because a good many people derived pleasure from seeing her made a fool of; affection, which sought to spare her any knowledge of what might be unimportant and transient; fear of the King’s anger, for though Henry had on several occasions been careless before others he had, so far, acted discreetly before Anne.

This morning, however, he had been caught. Anne and a party of about a dozen, most of them carrying some musical instrument, had been making their way to a pleasant, shaded spot, enclosed by a quick-thorn hedge and furnished with stone seats. One path ran in on the side nearest the palace, another immediately opposite. Anne and Margaret had been walking ahead, had reached the opening in the hedge and seen Henry, with Jane Seymour on his knee, on one of the seats. Anne had stopped abruptly and cried out and then seemed to fall backward, so that all those following were thrown into a momentary confusion. She had clutched Margaret’s arm and said, “I twisted my ankle.” Mark Smeaton had thrust his lute into someone’s hand and run forward and lifted her and carried her to the seat which had emptied as though by a wave of a magician’s wand.

Just for a second she had thought of how often she and Harry Percy had used this very spot for a trysting place, and occasionally been obliged to retire just as hastily. Then she had forgotten the past in consideration of the present and the future. She was glad that she had feigned a slight accident, it excused the shivering, the incoherence, all the symptoms of shock.

“Jane Rochfort,” she now said, “she was immediately behind me. If
she
saw, half London knows by now.”

Would it, Margaret wondered wretchedly, be the truer kindness to admit that half London knew already? It was very difficult. Anne’s friends had all said—It’s nothing; he’s forty-four and at about that age most men fall in love for a little while with some young pretty face. It’ll pass. Why worry her?

And she thought, Why should I be the one to tell her? And how would she take it? Explode into terrible rage? Freeze into silence? Or laugh? She realized, with a faint shock of surprise, that close as she was to Anne, and fond as she was, she really knew her hardly at all.

“Is it?” Anne asked. “Known by everyone? Was I the only person surprised, just now?”

Margaret glanced at Emma.

“Never mind Emma,” Anne said. “I expect she knows.”

Emma’s hard-featured face turned an ugly brickred which after a second deepened. The first flush was caused by an unaccountable feeling of guilt, the second by anger at herself for feeling guilty. She had known all along and had been one of those most eager and active in concealing the truth from Anne, one of those who prayed earnestly that this latest fancy of the King’s might wear itself out, with no harm done. She had never doubted that once Anne knew she would fly into a rage; and the sorry truth was that Anne was now in no position to give way to her temper and quarrel with the King. If she did anything might happen.

Emma had come very near to falling out with the baker and his group who had taken the new rumor without any dismay, saying that Jane Seymour and her family were on the Lutheran side of the fence and that Jane, if she stayed in favor, would be another prop to the cause.

“What she gains the Queen will lose,” Emma had declared, “and Mistress Seymour couldn’t help much even if she would, which I doubt. She’s got no wits. You have to be subtle to have any influence!” She knew, she’d been very subtle herself and one of the things that Anne had done to help the Protestant cause had been the direct result of Emma’s subtlety. For it was Emma who had persuaded Anne to read the New Testament in English; and so, when some merchants were in trouble for bringing English Testaments into the country from Antwerp and were threatened with expulsion and the confiscation of their goods, Anne had been sympathetic. She had also been able to say that she herself had read the Testament and she was no heretic.

Emma had reminded her circle of this, and also of how Anne had intervened on behalf of Hugh Latimer when he was in danger of being prosecuted for heresy; she hadn’t merely saved him, she had had him appointed as her chaplain and given a bishopric. For these reasons, and no others, Emma wished Anne to remain the unchallenged influence in the King’s life; and she had prayed that he might tire of that pudding-faced little doll before Anne knew anything about it. But here, once again, there had been no direct answer to prayer. And now, here she was, feeling guilty of disloyalty for not speaking out, and angry at herself for feeling guilty, because speaking out might have increased the damage.

She was at this point fully entitled to say, “I don’t know what Your Grace is talking of, exactly.” And she said it.

Anne said, “Jane Seymour. You knew. And you, too, Margaret! You could have spared me this morning’s humiliation.” Margaret’s eyes filled.

“I have wondered…But it’s nothing, really. It’s just a…a temporary infatuation. We all hoped it would pass over without your knowing.”

Anne swung her feet to the floor, pushed her bare foot into her shoe and folding her arms about herself began the rapid pacing and turning that Emma knew so well.

“I’ve no doubt that Catherine’s friends said that to her!” She spoke with quiet bitterness; and then, on a rising note, cried,

“But the cases are not comparable! He is my husband, he never was Catherine’s. We were troth-plighted and had exchanged rings before ever I came back to Court. And even then I never shamed her publicly, enemy as she was to me.”

“There’s no likeness at all, Your Grace,” Emma said. “You were always to be Queen. This is just a romp. His Grace is forty-four and men about that age often go foolish over some silly young girl.”

“Young? She’s as old as I am. We were in France together. And I’m not so sure about her being silly. I’d say sly. Still whatever her age and nature, she may be about to take my place. And if so, I’d like to know!”

Margaret Lee cried, “Oh, Anne, that is ridiculous. How could she? You are Queen; you were properly married and crowned. You’re taking this altogether too seriously.”

“I know the King. If he wants to put me away, he’ll find a way to do it.” She made one of her rapid turns. “And I’d go,” she cried. “I’ve failed. Wishing and willing and hoping and praying got me nothing but a girl, so I’ve failed, just as Catherine failed. But
I
shan’t sit about demanding to be called Queen. If he thinks he can get a son by Jane Seymour—and a splendid prince that would be!—he’s welcome to try, I shall tell him so this very day.”

Margaret Lee said, with great earnestness, “Anne, you are Queen, and it is not for me to advise my Queen; but you are my dearly loved cousin, too. To
her
I say that to take that attitude would be to throw him into Jane’s arms. You must act as though nothing had happened, and be charming to him, and join the rest of us in hoping and praying that he’ll tire of her, quickly.”

“With everybody laughing at me and pitying me behind my back; and my enemies gloating; and Henry thinking that I’m too blind or stupid to notice. I suppose he has been thinking so. I’ll undeceive him!”

The shock tremor had now merged into the tremor of fury; even her voice was shaking. Her face had grown small and sharp and shrewish, her great eyes shone black, and jet-hard. Emma said,

“Your Grace, I’m going to give you a dose. It was a shock, and you’re upset. But you must not do anything hasty, or go on tearing yourself to pieces in this way.”

“Emma’s right,” Margaret said. “Take a dose and lie down—I’ll sit and fan you. You’ll see presently that it means nothing; it happens in almost every marriage, sooner or later.” She was hurt by Anne’s ravaged look and added, impulsively, “That damned, pudding-faced little humbug! I could kill her!”

Suddenly, rather shockingly, Anne laughed.

“Oh no, my dear. Not you. I should do that! I’m supposed to be the one so expert with poison. I’m such a clever poisoner that Catherine prevented my marriage for years, her daughter refuses to acknowledge me and sends me rude messages when I try to befriend her and calls my daughter The Bastard. I’ve dealt so cleverly with them, I’m well-equipped to deal with Mistress Seymour.”

“Here,” Emma said, holding out the dose.

Anne took it and said, “This is the only poison I know!”

“This, Your Grace? It’s absolutely harmless. Would I bring you anything…?”

“Of course not, Emma. That was a poor joke—like my reputation as a poisoner.”

And a witch! The words slipped into her mind; and she remembered that night at Blickling when she had felt the upsurge of power; and the next day when she had viciously pricked the laurel leaf and with a vehemently worded ill-wish, buried it. Childish nonsense. Wolsey certainly had come to no good end; but he’d lived for seven years after that leaf had rotted. Too slow. Too slow for Jane Seymour! Also, and she came to this realization slowly and with some surprise, the sheer hatred was missing. She was angry with Jane, even more angry with Henry, but she was no longer capable of the concentrated hatred that would strike its target dead if it had its say. It, like one form of love, was a thing of youth, lost as the years gathered.

“Sit down, now,” Margaret said, “give Emma’s dose a chance to soothe you.”

It had already begun. The hurt was a little less raw; and out of all that Emma and Margaret had said, her mind was selecting the grains of comfort, saying temporary infatuation, saying forty-four and foolish, saying it will pass…

As her mind eased her body relaxed until at last she was lying on the bed. Margaret produced a fan, and its movement, the regular touch of the stirred air and the slight sound of its passage had an almost hypnotic effect. Presently she said drowsily,

“A son, that’s all he wants now. And I can’t see why. Women can’t ride in tourneys, but there are plenty of knights to be hired. What is so wrong in being a woman?”

Margaret thought—If I don’t answer her she’ll talk herself to sleep.

“Elizabeth, if she were brought up to be, could be Queen…Catherine’s mother was, and a good one, they say. And in Norfolk they still remember a Queen…the last person to stand out when the Romans came. Her name was Bo…something…” Her voice seemed to trail away; and then with a final effort at clarity she said, “Not Lady Bo. I don’t mean her. She’d never stand out against…anything.”

Still moving the fan, lest the cessation should disturb, Margaret Lee looked down at the face of her cousin where all the marks of strain and tension were smoothing themselves away. She thought to herself that Anne, in the last few words, had answered her own question. Lady Bo would never stand out against anything because she would always do exactly what her husband told her to do. And that was why women couldn’t be Queens in their own right; to ensure the succession the woman must be married, and then, naturally, the husband had ascendancy.

No. The cure for this whole situation was for Anne to bear a son. She must have a good rest, rise refreshed and restored, make herself look beautiful and be charming to Henry. He’d been so nearly caught this morning, thought Margaret Lee, who combined a fundamental sweet innocence of character with a good deal of worldly wisdom, that he would be more than ordinarily anxious to be amiable.

Somehow, between us, we’ll put that Seymour’s little snub nose out of joint, she thought.

Henry had enjoyed his supper, giving way yet again to the temptation to eat too much. Now that he was once more in love he was trying, somewhat halfheartedly, to reduce his bulk, thinking that it aged him. He could usually find some good excuse for eating well today and sparingly tomorrow, and his excuse on this evening was that he was feeling cheerful because it seemed that he had, after all, escaped in time that morning. At intervals all through the day the thought had recurred that Anne must have seen; and though he did not care much and had his answer ready—not a defense, an answer; he meant to tell her flatly that she must learn to bear what Catherine had borne from her—it was preferable this way. He had no liking for scenes; and he had a great liking for the little extra flavor which secrecy gave to his love affair. It made him feel like a boy again. He had been pleased when she came to supper, especially finely dressed in amber silk, banded with black velvet, and in a mood which was not merely amiable, but positively gay. He blessed the little unevenness in the path which had made her turn her ankle, even while he inquired kindly about the extent of the injury.