The Rose Without a Thorn Read online

  One day, when I was sitting in the garden, I looked up and there was Francis. I leaped to my feet and we ran to meet each other. We could only laugh and cling together for some minutes, too moved for speech.

  “Am I dreaming?” I cried at last. “Holy Mother, let me not be dreaming.”

  “My own Katherine,” he murmured. “My sweet Katherine.” And I knew in truth that he was there.

  It transpired that he had come back without the fortune he had hoped for, but what did that matter? All I cared for was that he was back. And how happy he was to be with me.

  He asked earnestly, had there been someone else of whom I had grown fond?

  No, no, no, I assured him. No one. I had spent my lonely days and nights thinking of him, longing for his return.

  He was reassured. He confessed he had been afraid.

  And himself? Had he been faithful?

  “As I shall be all my life. Once I had seen sweet Katherine, there could be no one else for me.”

  We talked as lovers do, and then he told me that he was going to ask the Duchess for a place in her household.

  “So that I may see more of you,” he said. “All through the day I shall be so much nearer than I am as the Duke’s retainer.”

  “What post would you have?” I asked.

  “Oh … gentleman usher … or page. I would do anything if I might be near you.”

  The Duchess liked to have handsome young men about her, and she agreed to make him one of her gentlemen ushers. That was what we wanted, for it did mean we could see each other far more frequently than before.

  I gave him the hundred pounds and told him how carefully I had preserved it, and how glad I was that I had not been tempted to spend any of it!

  Francis was delighted. The fortune would come, and in the meantime we would give ourselves up to the pleasure of being together. We had much time to make up.

  It was true that the Duchess had changed. She was watchful, and especially of me. I had grown up. I was fifteen years old. I was a little alarmed, for I guessed she was thinking of the future, and, now that the once dazzling Anne was someone she did not wish to think of, her thoughts seemed to turn more and more to her humble little granddaughter.

  The Maids’ Chamber was a room put to the use of the women. There we did tapestry… embroidery and listened to the music one of us would play while the others worked.

  It was a duty to go there and perforce I must do my stint, but I was never any good at tapestry, and embroidery bored me. Sometimes I would play the virginals, at which I was more skilled than at needlework; but I was not so happy as I might have been doing that, because occasionally it reminded me of Henry Manox, whom I would rather have forgotten.

  I was seated there with Joan one day. There were only the two of us in the large chamber, and I was reluctantly working on a piece of embroidery when Francis came in. He stood by the door, smiling at me.

  “Two industrious ladies, I see,” he said mockingly. “What great work is this?”

  He came close to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

  “Oh, I see. Very fine. Very beautiful.” Now he had his hands about my waist and was nibbling my ear.

  “I am working,” I cried. “And, Master Derham, what are you doing in the Maids’ Chamber, pray?”

  “Oh, I just came in to make sure you were working.”

  “And should you be here, sir?”

  “Mistress Howard, why so stern?”

  He looked at me in mock menace, and I leaped up and drew away from him. He came as though to seize me, and I ran round the table with him in pursuit. Joan was watching us, smiling that secret smile which I knew so well.

  I dashed round the room; he was close behind me. I tripped, he caught me and we fell together; we lay on the floor, rolling over and over; he was on top of me when the door opened and my grandmother came in. She stood still, staring at us; her face was white, then scarlet. She was nearest to Joan and she turned to her and slapped her across the face.

  Joan looked startled and my grandmother repeated the action.

  “And you sit there and watch with that grin on your face! What do you think you are about, girl?”

  Joan started to stammer something, but my grandmother had turned to Francis and me. We stood up. Francis looked sheepish; as for myself, I was too bewildered to do anything but wait for the storm to burst.

  My grandmother stepped toward Francis and slapped him across the face in the same way as she had slapped Joan. Then she did the same to me and said: “Get out, Derham.”

  He bowed and muttered some apology; she looked as though she were going to strike him again and he hurriedly left us.

  Then she turned to me. She seized me by the ear and pulled me close to her. I saw the fury in her eyes. She started to shake me, then she pushed me away from her.

  “Go to my bedchamber,” she said. “I will deal with you there.”

  I heard her say to Joan: “As for you, girl. You deserve a beating. That you do. You sit there and watch that. What next, I wonder?”

  I went to her room, trembling and fearful. What would happen to us now? Francis and I were troth-plighted. We might play as we did. We were doing no harm.

  It was not long before my grandmother came. She was seething with anger.

  “You foolish girl!” she cried. “What do you think you were doing with Derham?”

  “It was naught but play,” I began.

  “Rolling on the floor … his arms about you … pressing down on you. Do you know nothing, girl?”

  I was very afraid of what could happen to Francis if she told the Duke how she had found us together. They would not listen to explanations. Besides, Francis would be sent away. He had not made his fortune yet and, until then, we must not talk of marriage.

  She gave me a look of contempt and I was afraid she was going to strike me; but she looked tired, exhausted by her emotion.

  “You are young, I know,” she murmured, “and you were never very clever, Katherine Howard.” A sadness came into her eyes. She was thinking of that brilliant one, who had been brought to her sorry end—one might say through that very brilliance. Even she had not been clever enough. And there was I, now fifteen years old, playing childish games with a young man of the household. No … dangerous games … when I was too young, or stupid, to know they could lead to disaster.

  I may not have been brilliant in book-learning like my cousin, sophisticated, with the gracious manners learned in the French Court, but there were certain things I knew about and one was the way of the sexes. It may be that there are some of us born with the knowledge. I had in any case been a ready pupil … responsive, eager. She decided however to talk to me.

  “Katherine Howard,” she said. “You should know something of the ways of men. Some of them … in particular the young … think of little but what they can get from unsuspecting women. It is the nature of them. Derham is a handsome young fellow. He will swagger round boasting of his conquests, like as not.”

  Oh no, I thought. Not Francis Derham. He was faithful to me, as I was to him. It might not have been so with Manox. Oh, do not think of Manox … that is unhealthy and uneasy thinking. Francis is a good man; he loves me and he is faithful. He swore it, and I believe him; and we are troth-plighted.

  But I must not tell the Duchess this. I must not betray anything.

  I must be wary.

  I hung my head and played the young girl, innocent of the world, too stupid to know the danger she was in. That was what my grandmother wanted. What she had seen was a romp, entered into on the impulse of the moment.

  I should not plead for Francis Derham or myself. I should stand there, my eyes downcast, while she sat in her chair and rambled on about the dangers that could beset young girls, and the need to keep themselves untouched; and how this applied especially to those who belonged to noble families.

  “It will not be long now,” she was saying, “before it will be time for you to look to the future. There mig
ht be a place at Court. Of course, it would have been different …” Her lips trembled. If only her once-brilliant granddaughter had kept her place instead of losing her head, what glory might have been in store for little Katherine Howard.

  I did not tell her that I did not want such glories. All I wanted was to marry Francis Derham, to whom I was troth-plighted.

  Her wrath had subsided a little. The Duchess was a lady who would make herself believe what she wanted to—particularly if the alternative was too unpleasant to contemplate—so she sat in her chair, talking of the pitfalls which could befall a young girl—particularly one of a great family. She was deluding herself into believing that I was an innocent child who knew nothing of the urgent desires of young men and the readiness of young women to yield to them.

  I was dismissed and, bruised and very frightened, left the Duchess and tried to forget my stinging cheek by telling myself I had had a lucky escape. But I could not stop worrying about Francis.

  She might think that I was an innocent, but could she apply the same judgment to him? If what we had done was due to my ignorance, youth and general stupidity, what had such a romp indicated about him?

  A few days passed. I saw Francis surreptitiously in the garden. We clung together, dreading we might be seen.

  “Has anything been said to you?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he replied.

  “Have you seen the Duchess?”

  “ En passant. She did not look my way.”

  “Do you think they will send you away?”

  He was silent, and I knew he did. We clung more closely together in desperation.

  He was not sent away. Until this happened, he had, I believe, been a favorite of the Duchess. She did have a liking for handsome young men. I think she decided to forgive us, for a week or so passed and nothing happened. We were beginning to think that the escapade had been dismissed as a matter of little importance.

  As time passed, we were lulled more and more into a sense of security; we slipped back into the old ways, and at night Francis would come up to the Long Room; but everyone knew that we had been caught rolling on the floor together in a compromising situation, and there was a certain uneasiness.

  “What if Her Grace should discover that the room is left unlocked through the night?” asked Dorothy. “We shall have to be very careful. If she found Derham in Katherine Howard’s bed …” Dorothy suppressed a giggle. “Well, that would not be so easy to explain as a romp on the floor.”

  “We should hear her coming,” I said. “She would be using her stick to mount the stairs. Then Francis could slip into the little gallery. She would not know he was here then.”

  I could not bear that we should be deprived of those meetings. It was not long since he had returned from that long absence.

  Fewer people were coming to the Long Room. Many of them had decided that it was too dangerous.

  The Duchess, however, did not come to the Long Room, nor did she discover for herself about the matter of the key. It happened in a different way.

  One of the maids, terrified, I suppose, that we were in danger of being discovered, went to her and confessed what was happening. I was sure that that was the last thing the Duchess wanted, and she was more angry than ever.

  It might have been Dorothy, Joan or Mary Lassells—she was a sly one whom I had never understood—or someone quite different. I never knew. All I was aware of was that one of the maids went to the Duchess and told her how the men came to the room, how the door had remained unlocked throughout the night; and chiefly how Francis Derham called Katherine Howard his wife, kissed and caressed her and spent the night with her under the sheets in her bed.

  My grandmother was horrified, and this was too important a matter to be set aside.

  She sent for me and, as soon as I arrived in her room, she seized me, slapped my face, tore off my gown, pushed me on to her bed and with her stick beat my bare buttocks until I screamed with pain. I think she might not have stopped until she killed me if she had not exhausted herself. Her hair was falling about her face, her eyes were wild; she looked like a witch intent on evil, and that evil was directed at me.

  Then the stick slipped from her hand; she fell into her chair and she sat looking at me lying across her bed. I rose and tried to pull my clothes about me.

  “Do not attempt to show modesty to me, slut,” she cried. “Do not simper and play the child, you little harlot. I know of your lechery with Francis Derham.”

  I cried out: “It is not fair to talk thus. I am his wife … may not a wife caress her husband?”

  “You are what! Oh, what pain you cause me! What have I done, I ask God and all his saints, what have I done to deserve this?”

  “There is nothing wrong, Your Grace,” I began.

  “Be silent, you little whore! How long has this been going on? Under the sheets …” she moaned. “After midnight … with Derham. Are you with child?”

  “Your Grace, you do not understand.”

  “I understand. I understand too well. Do not deny this … harlotry. Derham has been your lover, has he not? He will die for this. When the Duke hears …”

  “Oh, I pray, do not tell the Duke.” I thought of that cold-eyed man who had condemned Anne Boleyn. We should have been better without such a kinsman. And now his anger would be turned on Francis and on me. What would become of us? And there had been nothing wrong. We were husband and wife. How often had we said that?

  “Stop muttering to yourself, girl. You cannot tell me they have lied. If that were so …” She was almost pleading to me. She wanted me to say that what they had told her was a lie. She wanted to continue to delude herself into believing that. But she knew it was true. Had she not seen us in the Maids’ Chamber, and that was a clear indication of how it was between us.

  I said nothing. I knew it would be no good.

  “How could you?” she cried. “Have you no regard for your virtue … for your family?”

  I persisted: “Your Grace does not understand. Francis Derham and I love each other.”

  “Love!” she sneered. “Rolling about under the sheets. You could not even wait for nightfall to hide your shame. You must try it on the floor.”

  “It was not so.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “It was just … fun … as you say … a little romp.”

  “Romp! Fun! Is that what you call it when the name of a noble house is desecrated! Holy Mother of God, this is too much to be borne.”

  “I will explain. Francis and I are troth-plighted. That is enough. We are married. We did nothing wrong.”

  “You are even more stupid than I thought you. I had hopes for you. A place at Court. It might well be. The King will marry again. There is no doubt of that. The new Queen will need ladies-in-waiting. There was a chance there might be a place for you. What do you think will become of you, you stupid child? What hopes have you if it is known what you have been about? These girls know … the men too. By all the saints, it will go ill with them if they whisper it abroad. And you, addle-pate, talk of troth-plight. Derham will suffer for this. As for you … you deserve to be turned out of this household.”

  I said nothing. I could only think of what might happen to Francis.

  She tired of railing against me at last, and when I begged leave to go, she granted it.

  My body was sore and bruised, but my heart more so. This was what we had always feared. What would they do to Francis? That was the fear which dominated my mind. If only he had made that fortune! If only we could have been married.

  It would not be so now. That was clear. My grandmother might well tell the Duke, and then what would they do to poor Francis?

  The women were all subdued. They had been discovered. One of them had betrayed, not only me, but all of them. There would be no more deception about the unlocked door, no more nightly revels. And who knew what other secrets would be revealed?

  One of the pages, whom I knew to be a friend of Francis,
sought me out. He looked frightened and afraid to speak. I fervently hoped he had brought me news of Francis.

  He said: “Mistress, I have a message for you. Will you go to a spot you know well in the gardens?”

  I understood that what was meant was that spot secluded by bushes and trees not far from the water’s edge which Francis and I had called our own little garden. So I knew, of course, that this was a message from Francis. I hurried to the spot and within a few seconds he appeared. He was dressed as for a journey.

  He held me tightly in his arms and we both wept.

  Then he said: “I must go, Katherine. They will kill me if I stay. They will say that I have brought disgrace on the Howard name. Oh, my love, how can I leave you?”

  “I have been beaten and reviled,” I said. “I do not think more will be done to me. They will not want it known.”

  “I thank God for that,” he said. “But I must go … or they will find some way of killing me.”

  “Then you must go quickly …”

  “Some day I shall come back,” he said.

  “Where shall you go?”

  “I shall go to Ireland. There I shall make that fortune and return.”

  “You will come back to me … ?”

  “I swear it. And you, Katherine … ?”

  I said fervently: “You shall never live to say to me, you have swerved.”

  We clung together. I wanted to beg him not to go, but I knew he must. He wanted to beg me to go with him, but we knew that would be the final ruin of us both. This bitter parting had to be. But in my heart I knew that one day he would return.

  The Fourth Queen

  LIFE WAS VERY DULL after that. I missed Francis sadly, but I knew I must be grateful that he had escaped with his life. When I considered that, I realized the importance of what I had done.

  There was strict surveillance throughout the household. One of the Duchess’s attendants—nearly as old as herself, on whom she could entirely rely—had the duty of locking and unlocking the door of the Long Room. The nights of revelry were at an end. We were given tasks to do and long hours were spent at needlework of some kind. A musical instrument might be played while we worked, or one of us would read aloud. While this was in progress, one of the Duchess’s older ladies would inspect us at any moment to make sure orders were being carried out.