The Other Boleyn Girl Part 35

Still in my dream I heard the door opening and I lazily opened my eyes. It was not George's servant returning, it was not Anne coming to look for us. It was a stealthy turning of the handle and a sly opening of the door and then Jane, George's wife, now Lady Jane Rochford, put her head into the room and looked around for us.

She did not jump when she saw us on the bed together, and I-still half-asleep and frozen into stillness with a sort of fear at her furtiveness-did not move either. I kept my eyelids half-closed and I watched her through my eyelashes.

She kept very still, she did not enter nor leave, but she took in every inch of us: George's head turned into my lap, the spread of my legs under my gown. My head tipped back, my hood tossed on the window seat, my hair tumbled about my sleeping face. She took us in as if she were studying us to paint a miniature, as if she were collating evidence. Then, as silently as she had come, she slid out again.

At once I shook George and put my hand over his mouth as he woke.

"Sssh. Jane was here. She may still be outside the door."

"Jane?"

"For G.o.d's sake, Jane! Your wife, Jane!"

"What did she want?"

"She said nothing. She just came in and looked at us, asleep together on the bed, she looked all around and then she crept away."

"She didn't want to wake me."

"Perhaps," I said uncertainly.

"What's the matter?"

"She looked-odd."

"She always looks odd," he said carelessly. "On the scent."

"Yes, exactly," I said. "But when she looked at us I felt quite..." I broke off, I could not find the words. "I felt quite dirty," I said eventually. "As if we were doing something wrong. As if we were..."

"What?"

"Too close."

"We're brother and sister," George exclaimed. "Of course we're close."

"We were on the bed asleep together."

"Of course we were asleep!" he exclaimed. "What else should we be doing together on the bed? Making love?"

I giggled. "She makes me feel like I shouldn't even be in your room."

"Well, you should," he said stoutly. "Where else can we talk without half the court as well as her prowling round and listening? She's just jealous. She'd give a king's ransom to be on the bed with me in the afternoon, and I'd as soon put my head into a mantrap as into her lap."

I smiled. "You don't think she matters at all?"

"Not at all," he said lazily. "She's my wife. I can manage her. And the way the fas.h.i.+on is for marriage, I might just throw her off and marry a pretty one instead."

Anne absolutely refused to spend the Christmas feast at Greenwich if she were not to be the center of the attention. Although Henry tried again and again to explain to her that it was for the good of their cause she railed at him for preferring the queen at his side.

"I shall go!" she threw at him. "I shan't stay here and be insulted by neglect. I shall go to Hever. I shall spend the Christmas feast there. Or perhaps I shall go back to the French court. My father is there, I could spend a happy time there, I think. I was always very much admired in France."

He went white as if she had knifed him. "Anne, my own love, don't say such things."

She rounded on him. "Your own love? You don't even want me at your side on Christmas Day!"

"I want you there, on that day and every day. But if Campeggio is even now reporting to the Pope I want everyone to know that I am putting the queen aside for the purest of reasons, for the very best of reasons."

"And I am impure?" she demanded, s.n.a.t.c.hing at the word.

The quickness of wits that she had brought to flirtation was now being exercised on Henry as a weapon. And he was as helpless now as he had been then.

"My own true love, you are an angel to me," he said. "And I want the rest of the world to know it. I have told the queen that you shall be my wife because you are the finest that England can offer. I told her that."

"You discuss me with her?" She gave a little breathy scream. "Oh no! This is to add insult to insult. And she tells you that I am not, perhaps. She tells you that when I was her lady in waiting I was no angel. She tells you that I am not fit to make your s.h.i.+rts, perhaps!"

Henry dropped his head in his hands. "Anne!"

She spun away from him and turned to the window. I kept my head down over the book I was supposed to be reading and pa.s.sed my finger along the line of the words but I saw nothing. Covertly, the two of us, king and former mistress, both watched her. The strain in her shoulders made her shudder for a couple of sobs, and then her shoulders eased, and she turned back to him. Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning with tears, her anger had flushed color into her cheeks. She looked aroused. She went toward him and she took his hands.

"Forgive me," she cooed. "Forgive me, love."

He looked up at her as if he could not believe his luck. He opened his arms and she slithered onto his lap and wound her arms around his neck.

"Forgive me," she whispered.

As quietly as I could I rose from my seat and went to the door. Anne nodded for me to leave, and I went out. As I closed the door behind me I heard her say: "But I shall go to Durham House and you shall pay for me to keep Christmas there."

The queen welcomed me back into her rooms with a small triumphant smile. She thought, poor lady, that Anne's absence meant a weakening of Anne's influence. She had not heard, as I had, the list of penances that Anne had set her lover to pay for her absence from court. She did not know, as the rest of the court knew only too well, that Henry's politeness to her over the Christmas feast was to be a matter of form.

She found it out soon enough. He never dined with her alone in her rooms. He never spoke to her unless someone was watching. He never danced with her at all. Indeed, he excused himself from much of the dancing and merely watched the dancers. There were some new girls at court who were twirled by their partners under his eyes, a new Percy heiress, a new Seymour girl. From every county in England that could gain a place at court came a new girl to enchant the king and perhaps get a chance at the throne. But the king was not to be diverted. He sat beside his wife looking drawn, and he thought of his mistress.

That night the queen knelt for a long while before her prie dieu and the other ladies fell asleep in their seats waiting for her to dismiss us and send us to our beds. When she rose up and turned around there was only me still awake.

"Half a dozen Peters," she said, looking at their neglect of her in her time of sadness.

"I am sorry for it," I said.

"Whether she is here or whether she is gone seems to make no difference," she said with a forlorn wisdom. She bowed her head under the weight of the hood and I stepped forward and slipped off the pins and lifted it from her head. Her hair was very gray now, I thought she had aged more in this last year than she had done in the previous five.

"It is just a pa.s.sion that he will overcome," she said, more to herself than to me. "He would tire of her, as he tired of them all. Bessie Blount, you, Anne is only one of a line."

I did not reply.

"As long as he does not fall into a sin against the Holy Church, while she has her spell on him," she continued. "It's the one thing that I pray for, that he does not sin. I know he will come back to me."

"Your Majesty," I said quietly. "What if he does not come? What if they annul your marriage and he marries her? Do you have somewhere to go? Have you secured your own safety if it all goes wrong?"

Queen Katherine turned her tired blue eyes on me as if she saw me for the first time. She held out her arms so that I could unlace the top part of her gown and then turned round so that I could slip it off her shoulders. Her skin was sc.r.a.ped raw by the irritation of her hair s.h.i.+rt. I made no remark, she did not like us ladies even to see it.

"I do not prepare for defeat," she said simply. "It would be to betray myself. I know that G.o.d will turn Henry's mind back to me and we will be happy together again. I know that my daughter will be Queen of England and she will be one of the finest queens that ever reigned. Her grandmother was Isabella of Castile-no one can doubt that a woman can rule a kingdom. She will be a princess that everyone will remember, and the king will be Sir Loyal Heart at my death as he was once in my girlhood."

She went to her privy chamber and the maid, who was dozing before the fire, jumped up and took her gown and hood from my arms.

"G.o.d bless you," the queen said. "You can tell the others to go to bed now. I shall expect them all to come with me to Ma.s.s in the morning. And you too, Mary. I like my ladies to come to Ma.s.s."

Summer 1530 I RODE DOWN THE ROAD TO HEVER SURROUNDED BY A JOGGING army of serving men, the Howard standard before and behind me, and any other travelers on the road crowded into the ditch as we went by. The hedges and gra.s.s at the roadside were dusty already, it had been a dry spring, all the signs that it would be a bad year for the plague. But at a distance from the road the hay was sweet, already cut and stacked in some fields, and the wheat and barley were knee-high and starting to fatten. The hop fields were green and the gra.s.s in the apple orchards was drifted with petals like snow. army of serving men, the Howard standard before and behind me, and any other travelers on the road crowded into the ditch as we went by. The hedges and gra.s.s at the roadside were dusty already, it had been a dry spring, all the signs that it would be a bad year for the plague. But at a distance from the road the hay was sweet, already cut and stacked in some fields, and the wheat and barley were knee-high and starting to fatten. The hop fields were green and the gra.s.s in the apple orchards was drifted with petals like snow.

I sang as we rode along, there was such joy for me in riding through the English countryside, with my back to the court, on the way to my children. The men were commanded by a gentleman in my uncle's train, William Stafford, and he rode beside me for some of the way.

"This dust is dreadful," he remarked. "As soon as we are clear of the town I'll order the men to ride behind you."

I stole a little sideways glance at him. He was a handsome man, broad-set with an honest open face. I imagined that he was a Stafford ruined on the execution of the disgraced Duke of Buckingham. He certainly looked like a man who had been born and bred to something more.

"I thank you for escorting me. It is important to me to see my children."

"I should think there was nothing more important. I have neither wife nor child, but if I did have I would not leave them."

"Why have you never married?"

He gave me a smile. "I never met a woman I liked enough."

There was nothing in it; there was something in it. I found I wanted to ask him what a woman would have to do to please him. He was foolish to be so choosy in women. Most men would marry a woman who could bring them either wealth or good connections. And yet William Stafford did not look like a fool.

When we stopped for our dinner he was by my horse to lift me down and he held me for a moment, to keep me steady, when I was on my feet.

"All right?" he asked gently. "You've been a long time in the saddle."

"I'm all right. Tell the men we won't stay too long to dine, I want to get on to Hever before nightfall."

He led me into the inn. "I hope they can find something good for your dinner. They promised a chicken but I'm afraid it might be a scrawny old goose."

I laughed. "Anything! I could eat anything, I am so hungry. Will you dine with me?"

For a moment I thought he would say yes, but then he made a little bow and said: "I'll eat with the men."

I felt a little piqued that he refused my invitation. "As you wish," I said coolly and went into the low-ceilinged room of the inn. I warmed my hands at the fire, and glanced out of the little leaded pane window. In the stable yard he was watching the men take the tack off the horses and rub them down before they got their dinners. He was a good-looking man, I thought. A pity that he had such bad manners.

This summer I had decided that Henry's golden curls should be cut and Catherine should come out of short clothes and go into proper gowns. Henry too should wear a doublet and hose. If it had been left to me I might have given them another year in their baby clothes but Grandmother Boleyn was insistent that the two of them should leave their infancy behind, and she was quite capable of writing to Anne and saying that I was not bringing up her ward properly.

Henry's hair was softer than hat feathers. He had long golden curls which fell to his shoulders in ringlets and framed his bright little face. No mother in the world could have seen them cut without tears, he was my baby, and the last thing I wanted was for him to leave behind his curls and his baby plumpness, the last thing I wanted was to see any change in the way he held out his arms to be picked up, the unsteady rus.h.i.+ng of his fat little legs.

He, of course, was all for it, and he wanted a sword, and his own pony. He wanted to go to the court of France like George, and learn to fight. He wanted to go on crusade and learn to joust, he wanted to grow up as fast as he could, while I wanted to hold him in my arms, my baby forever.

William Stafford came upon us at our favorite place, on the stone bench facing toward the moat and the castle. Henry had run around all morning and was now frankly sleepy, cuddled into my arms, his thumb creeping into his mouth. Catherine was paddling her bare feet in the moat.

He saw at once that there were tears in my eyes but he merely hesitated and said quietly, in order not to wake my boy: "I am sorry to disturb you, I was coming to tell you that we're returning to London now, and to ask if you had any messages that you wanted to send."

"I have some fruit and some vegetables for my mother in the kitchen."

He nodded and then hesitated, irresolute. "Forgive me," he said awkwardly. "I can see that something has made you cry. Is there anything I can do? Your uncle put you in my care. It is my duty to know if someone has offended you."

That made me chuckle. "No. It is just that Henry has to be breeched and I have so loved having him as a little baby. I don't want either him or my little Catherine to grow up. If I had a husband he would have taken Henry and cut his curls without my permission. As it is, I have to see it done myself."

"D'you miss your husband?" he asked curiously.

"A little." I wondered how much Stafford knew of my marriage that had hardly been a marriage at all. "We were not much together." That was about as honest and as tactful as I could manage, and his small judicial nod did not tell me whether he had understood me or not.

"I meant now," he said, showing me that he was cleverer than I had allowed. "Now that you no longer have the favor of the king. Now would be the time that you would expect to have another child with your husband, isn't it? And start again?"

I hesitated. "I suppose so." I was reluctant to discuss my future with someone who was only a gentleman in my uncle's train, ten a penny if truth were told, little more than a common adventurer if one was to be unkind.

"But it's not a very comfortable situation for a woman like you, a young woman of twenty-two with two young children. You've your whole life ahead of you and yet your future is tied to your sister's. You are in her shadow. You, who were once the favorite of everyone."

It was such a bleak and accurate summary of my life that I rather choked at the vista he opened up for me. "That's how it is for women," I said, stung into honesty. "It's not what one would choose-I grant you that. But women are the very toys of fortune. If my husband had lived then he would have been granted great honors. My brother is Lord George, my father an earl, and I would have shared in his prosperity. But as it is I am still a Boleyn girl and a Howard, I'm not penniless. I have prospects."

"You're an adventurer," he said. "Like me. Or, at any rate, you could be. While your family is so fixed on Anne, and her future is so unreliable, you could make your own future. You could make your own choice. They have forgotten to manage you for a moment. In this moment you might be free."

I turned my attention to him. "Is that why you are unmarried? So that you can be free?"

He smiled at me, a gleam of white teeth in his brown face. "Oh yes," he said. "I owe no man a living, I owe no woman a duty. I am your uncle's man, I wear his livery, but I don't see myself as his serf. I'm a freeborn Englishman, I go my own way."

"You're a man," I said. "It's different for a woman."

"Yes," he acknowledged. "Unless she was to marry me. Then we could make our own way together."

I laughed quietly, and gathered little Henry closer to me. "You would make your own way on precious little money if you married to disoblige your lord, and without the blessing of her parents."

Stafford was not at all put out. "There are worse beginnings than that. I think I'd rather have a woman who loved me stake her life on my ability to care for her, than have her father bind me up with a dowry and a contract."

"And what would she get?"

He looked me straight in the face. "My love."

"And this is worth a breach with her family? With your lord? With her family's kin?"