Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard Page 5

  “Here is the new baby, Madam,” said the nurse, and put the flannel bundle into Anne’s arms. Its little face was puckered and red; a very ugly little baby, but it was amusing and affecting to see the nurse hovering over it as though it were very, very precious.

  A little hand was stroking the silk of Anne’s surcoat. Anne looked down and saw a large-eyed, very pretty little girl who could not have been very much more than a year old.

  “This is the next youngest,” said Jocosa.

  “Little Catherine!” said the Duchess, and stooping picked her up. “Now, Catherine Howard, what have you to say to Anne Boleyn?”

  Catherine could say nothing; she could only stare at the lovely lady in the gorgeous, bright clothes. The jewels at her throat and on her fingers dazzled Catherine. She wriggled in the Duchess’s arms in an effort to get closer to Anne, who, always susceptible to admiration, even from babies, handed the flannel bundle back to the nurse.

  “Would you like me to hold you, cousin Catherine?” she asked, and Catherine smiled delightedly.

  “She does not speak,” said the Duchess.

  “I fear she is not as advanced as the others,” said Catherine’s mother.

  “Indeed not!” said the Duchess severely. “I remember well this girl here as a baby. I never knew one so bright—except perhaps her brother George. Now, Mary...she was more like Catherine here.”

  At the mention of Mary’s name Jocosa stiffened, but the old Duchess went on, her eyes sparkling: “Mary was a taking little creature, though she might be backward with her talk. She knew though how to ask for what she wanted, without words...and I’ll warrant she still does!”

  Anne and Catherine smiled at each other.

  “There!” said the Duchess. “She is wishing she had a child of her own. Confess it, Anne!”

  “One such as this, yes!” laughed Anne.

  Catherine tried to pluck out the beautiful eyes.

  “She admires you vastly!” said Jocosa.

  Anne went to a chair and sat down, holding Catherine on her lap, while her grandmother drew Jocosa into a corner and chatted with her of the proposed match for Anne, of the advancement of Sir Thomas and George Boleyn, of Mary and the King.

  Catherine’s little hands explored the lovely dress, the glittering jewels; and the child laughed happily as she did so.

  “They make a pretty picture,” said the Duchess. “I think I am proud of my granddaughters, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. They are such pretty creatures, both of them.”

  Catherine’s fingers had curled about a jeweled tablet which hung by a silken cord from Anne’s waist; it was a valuable trinket.

  “Would you like to have it for your own, little Catherine?” whispered Anne, and detached it. They can doubtless sell it, she thought. It is not much, but it is something. I can see it would be useless to offer help openly to Uncle Edmund.

  When they said farewell, Catherine shed tears.

  “Why, look what the child has!” cried the Duchess. “It is yours, is it not, Anne? Catherine Howard, Catherine Howard, are you a little thief then?”

  “It is a gift,” said Anne hastily. “She liked it, and I have another.”

  It was pleasant to be back at Hever after such a long absence. How quiet were the Kentish woods, how solitary the green meadows! She had hoped to see the Wyatts, but they were not in residence at Allington Castle just now; and it was a quiet life she led, reading, sewing, playing and singing with her mother. She was content to enjoy these lazy days, for she had little desire to marry the young man whom it had been ordained she should. She accepted the marriage as a matter of course, as she had known from childhood that when she reached a certain age a match would be made for her. This was it; but how pleasant to pass these days at quiet Hever, wandering through the grounds which she would always love because of those childhood memories they held for her.

  Mary paid a visit to Hever; splendidly dressed—Anne considered her over-dressed—she was very gay and lively. Her laughter rang through the castle, shattering its peace. Mary admired her sister, and was too good-natured not to admit it wholeheartedly. “You should do well at court, sister Anne,” she told her. “You would create much excitement, I trow. And those clothes! I have never seen the like; and who but you could wear them with effect!”

  They lay under the old apple trees in the orchard together; Mary, lazy and plump, carefully placing a kerchief over her bosom to prevent the sun from spoiling its whiteness.

  “I think now and then,” said Mary, “of my visit to you...Do you remember Ardres?”

  “Yes,” said Anne, “I remember perfectly.”

  “And how you disapproved of me then? Did you not? Confess it.”

  “Did I show it then?”

  “Indeed you did, Madam! You looked down your haughty nose at me and disapproved right heartily. You cannot say you disapprove now, I trow.”

  “I think you have changed very little,” said Anne.

  Mary giggled. “You may have disapproved that night, Anne, but there was one who did not!”

  “The tastes of all are naturally not alike.”

  “There was one who approved most heartily—and he of no small import either!”

  “I perceive,” said Anne, laughing, “that you yearn to tell me of your love affairs.”

  “And you are not interested?”

  “Not very. I am sure you have had many, and that they are all monotonously similar.”

  “Indeed! And what if I were to tell His Majesty of that!”

  “Do you then pour your girlish confidences into the royal ear?”

  “I do now and then, Anne, when I think they may amuse His Grace.”

  “What is this?” said Anne, raising herself to look more closely at her sister.

  “I was about to tell you. Did I not say that though you might disapprove of me, there was one who does not? Listen, sister. The night I left you to return to the Guisnes Palace I met him; he spoke to me, and we found we liked each other.”

  Anne’s face flushed, then paled; she was understanding many things—the chatter of her grandmother, the glances of her Aunt Jocosa, the nurse’s rather self-righteous indignation. One of the heroes of Flodden may starve, but the family of Boleyn shall flourish, for the King likes well one of its daughters.

  “How long?” asked Anne shortly.

  “From then to now. He is eager for me still. There never was such a man! Anne, I could tell you...”

  “I beg that you will not.”

  Mary shrugged her shoulders and rolled over on the grass like an amorous cat.

  “And William, your husband?” said Anne

  “Poor William! I am very fond of him.”

  “I understand. The marriage was arranged, and he was given a place at court so that you might be always there awaiting the King’s pleasure, and to place a very flimsy cover of propriety over your immorality.”

  Mary was almost choked with laughter.

  “Your expressions amuse me, Anne. I declare, I shall tell the King; he will be vastly amused. And you fresh from the court of France!”

  “I am beginning to wish I were still there. And our father...”

  “Is mightily pleased with the arrangements. A fool he would be otherwise, and none could say our father is a fool.”

  “So all these honors that have been heaped upon him...”

  “. . . are due to the fact that your wicked sister has pleased the King!”

  “It makes me sick.”

  “You have a poor stomach, sister. But you are indeed young, for all your air of worldly wisdom and for all your elegance and grace. Why, bless you, Anne, life is not all the wearing of fine clothes.”

  “No? Indeed it would seem that for you it is more a matter of putting them off!”

  “You have a witty tongue, Anne. I cannot compete with it. You would do well at court, would you but put aside your prudery. Prudery the King cannot endure; he has enough of that from his Queen.”

  “S
he knows of you and...”

  “It is impossible to keep secrets at court, Anne.”

  “Poor lady!”

  “But were it not I, ’twould be another, the King being as he is.”

  “The King being a lecher!” said Anne fiercely.

  “That is treason!” cried Mary in mock horror. “Ah! It is easy for you to talk. As for me, I could never say no to such a man.”

  “You could never say no to any man!”

  “Despise me if you will. The King does not, and our father is mightily pleased with his daughter Mary.”

  Now the secret was out; now she understood the sly glances of servants, her father’s looks of approbation as his eyes rested on his elder daughter. There was no one to whom Anne could speak of her perturbation until George came home.

  He was eighteen years old, a delight to the eye, very like Anne in appearance, full of exuberant animal spirits; a poet and coming diplomat, and he already had the air of both. His eyes burned with his enthusiasm for life; and Anne was happy when he took her hands, for she had been afraid that the years of separation might divide them and that she would lose forever the beloved brother of her childhood. But in a few short hours those fears were set aside; he was the same George, she the same Anne. Their friendship, she knew, could not lose from the years, only gain from them. Their minds were of similar caliber; alert, intellectual, they were quick to be amused, quick to anger, reckless of themselves. They had therefore a perfect understanding of each other, and, being troubled, it was natural that she should go to him.

  She said as they walked together through the Kentish lanes, for she had felt the need to leave the castle so that she might have no fear of being overheard: “I have learned of Mary and the King.”

  “That does not surprise me,” said George. “It is common knowledge.”

  “It shocked me deeply, George.”

  He smiled at her. “It should not.”

  “But our sister! It is degrading.”

  “She would degrade herself sooner or later, so why should it not be in that quarter from which the greatest advantages may accrue?”

  “Our father delights in this situation, George, and our mother is complaisant.”

  “My sweet sister, you are but sixteen. Ah, you look wonderfully worldly wise, but you are not yet grown up. You are very like the little girl who sat in the window seats at Blickling, and dreamed of knightly deeds. Life is not romantic, Anne, and men are not frequently honorable knights. Life is a battle or a game which each of us fights or plays with all the skill at his command. Do not condemn Mary because her way would not be yours.”

  “The King will tire of her.”

  “Assuredly.”

  “And cast her off!”

  “It is Mary’s nature to be happy, Anne. Do not fear. She will find other lovers when she is ejected from the royal bed. She has poor Will Carey, and she has been in favor for the best part of three years and her family have not suffered for it yet. Know, my sweet sister, that to be mistress of the King is an honor; it is only the mistress of a poor man who degrades herself.”

  His handsome face was momentarily set in melancholy lines, but almost immediately he was laughing merrily.

  “George,” she said, “I cannot like it.”

  “What! Not like to see your father become a power in the land! Not like to see your brother make his way at court!”

  “I would rather they had done these things by their own considerable abilities.”

  “Bless you!” said George. “There are more favors won this way than by the sweat of the brow. Dismiss the matter from your mind. The Boleyns’ fortunes are in the ascendant. Who knows whither the King’s favor may lead—and all due to our own plump little Mary! Who would have believed it possible!”

  “I like it not,” she repeated.

  Then he took her hands and kissed them lightly, wishing to soothe her troubled mind.

  “Fear not, little sister.”

  Now he had her smiling with him—laughing at the incongruity of this situation. Mary—the one who was not as bright as the rest—was leading the Boleyns to fame and fortune.

  It seemed almost unbearably quiet after Mary and George had gone. Anne could not speak of Mary’s relationship with the King to her mother, and it irked her frank nature perpetually to have to steer the conversation away from a delicate topic. She was glad when her father returned to the court, for his obvious delight in his good fortune angered Anne. Her father thought her a sullen girl, for she was not one, feeling displeased, to care about hiding her displeasure. Mary was his favorite daughter; Mary was a sensible girl; and Anne could not help feeling that he would be relieved when the arrangements for the Butler marriage were completed. She spent the days with her mother, or wandered often alone in the lanes and gardens.

  Sir Thomas returned to Hever in a frenzy of excitement. The King would be passing through Kent, and it was probable that he would spend a night at Hever. Sir Thomas very quickly roused the household to his pitch of excitement. He went to the kitchen and gave orders himself; he had flowers set in the ballroom and replaced by fresh ones twice a day; he grumbled incessantly about the inconvenience of an old castle like Hever, and wished fervently that he had a modern house in which to entertain the King.

  “The house is surely of little importance,” said Anne caustically, “as long as Mary remains attractive to the King!”

  “Be silent, girl!” thundered Sir Thomas. “Do you realize that this is the greatest of honors?”

  “Surely not the greatest!” murmured Anne, and was silenced by a pleading look from her mother, who greatly feared discord; and, loving her mother while deploring her attitude in the case of Mary and the King, Anne desisted.

  The King’s having given no date for his visit, Sir Thomas fumed and fretted for several days, scarcely leaving the castle for fear he should not be on the spot to welcome his royal master.

  One afternoon Anne took a basket to the rose garden that she might cut some of the best blooms for her mother. It was a hot afternoon, and she was informally dressed in her favorite scarlet; as the day was so warm she had taken off the caul from her head and shaken out her long, silky ringlets. She had sat on a seat in the rose garden for an hour or more, half dozing, when she decided it was time she gathered the flowers and returned to the house; and as she stood by a tree of red roses she was aware of a footfall close by, and turning saw what she immediately thought of as “a Personage” coming through the gap in the conifers which was the entrance to this garden. She felt the blood rush to her face, for she knew him at once. The jewels in his clothes were caught and held by the sun, so that it seemed as if he were on fire; his face was ruddy, his beard seemed golden, and his presence seemed to fill the garden. She could not but think of Mary’s meeting with him in the palace of Guisnes, and her resentment towards him flared up within her, even as she realized it would be sheer folly to show him that resentment. She sought therefore to compose her features and, with admirable calm—for she had decided now that her safest plan was to feign ignorance of his identity—she went on snipping the roses.

  Henry was close. She turned as though in surprise to find herself not alone, gave him the conventional bow of acknowledgment which she would have given to one of her father’s ordinary acquaintances, and said boldly: “Good day, sir.”

  The King was taken aback. Then inwardly he chuckled, thinking—She has no notion who I am! He studied her with the utmost appreciation. Her informal dress was more becoming, he thought, than those elaborate creations worn by some ladies at a court function. Her beautiful hair was like a black silk cloak about her shoulders. He took in each detail of her appearance and thought that he had never seen one whose beauty delighted him more.

  She turned her head and snipped off a rose.

  “My father is expecting the King to ride this way. I presume you to be one of his gentlemen!”

  Masquerade had ever greatly appealed to Henry. There was nothing he enjoyed as muc
h as to appear disguised at some ball or banquet, and after much badinage with his subjects and at exactly the appropriate moment, to make the dramatic announcement—“I am your King!” And how could this game be more delightfully played out than in a rose garden on a summer’s afternoon with, surely, the loveliest maiden in his kingdom!

  He took a step closer to her.

  “Had I known,” he said, “that I should come face to face with such beauty, depend upon it, I should have whipped up my horse.”

  “Would you not have had to await the King’s pleasure?”

  “Aye!” He slapped his gorgeous thigh. “That I should!”

  She, who knew so well how to play the coquette, now did so with a will, for in this role she could appease that resentment in herself which threatened to make her very angry as she contemplated this lover of her sister Mary. Let him come close, and she—in assumed ignorance of his rank—would freeze him with a look. She snipped off a rose and gave it to him.

  “You may have it if you care to.”

  He said: “I do care. I shall keep it forever.”

  “Bah!” she answered him contemptuously. “Mere court gallantry!”

  “You like not our court gallants?”

  Her mocking eyes swept his padded, jeweled figure.

  “They are somewhat clumsy when compared with those of the French court.”

  “You are lately come from France?”

  “I am. A match has been arranged for me with my cousin.”

  “Would to God I were the cousin! Tell me...” He came yet closer, noting the smooth skin, the silky lashes, the proud tilt of the head and its graceful carriage on the tiny neck. “Was that less clumsy?”

  “Nay!” she said, showing white teeth. “Not so! It was completely without subtlety; I saw it coming.”

  Henry found that, somewhat disconcerting as this was, he was enjoying it. The girl had a merry wit, and he liked it; she was stimulating as a glass of champagne. And I swear I never clapped eyes on a lovelier wench! he told himself. The airs she gives herself! It would seem I were the subject—she the Queen!