Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (41 page)

This was what she had been afraid of when she came. What she had written about in that letter sent privately to her aunt, Lady Skelton, telling her to see to it that during the King’s visit his elder daughter should keep her room. The very reason why she had put a relative in charge of Hatfield.

After all, it seemed, one could not safely relax. Even now one’s mind must keep one move ahead of Henry’s.

Anne’s eyes sought Alicia Skelton’s; and after a sly glance at the King’s scowling face, the Princesses’ governess nodded reassuringly. And although Lady Skelton had reported that Mary often held her helpless half-sister to her love-starved heart in private, Anne knew the proud piece well enough to rest assured that she would have obeyed only too readily; to escape the polluting presence of her stepmother and the ignominy of waiting upon her bastard! Anne knew just how Mary Tudor must have looked, saying it, with her back rigid and her beautiful Spanish eyes half blind with hurt arrogance. In rankled imagination, Anne could almost hear her.

And then, while still thinking of her, Anne had cause to hear her in reality. All of them could hear her. Playing on the virginals, with all the doors and windows flung wide; purposely, no doubt. And with that sweet, trained touch which was sure to catch the King’s ear. Playing, by all that was impudent, a melody of the King’s own making to which she had many a time danced before her parents!

Anne rose and kissed her child good-bye. “If it please your Grace, I think we should be on our way. The days shorten, and for the boy’s sake I would be home before nightfall,” she urged, feigning a shivering fit which was yet not all counterfeit; and perceiving, to her relief, that Henry was as anxious as she to get away. For what was there, after all, that he could say to a perspicacious grown daughter whom he had so grievously wronged? He liked to pose as a bluff, benignant personality; and, as Mary Boleyn had once pointed out, he had a way of leaving all the unpleasant interviews to underlings.

But as they mounted their horses the music stopped. Mary had yet another trick to play. She must have left her virginals and decided to take the air, for she was there on her terrace as they rode out; a small, upright, self-contained figure in a rich, dark brocaded dress of damasked black, with gold kirtle and sleeves. Save for a single pendant cross she had no jewels, but for sheer cut and good taste the severity of her dress made Anne’s pearl-crusted one look trashy and flamboyant. Grief, vicissitudes and ill-health had stolen from Mary Tudor her first fair promise of beauty, and she made no effort to hide the ravages of bitter years from their curious gaze. But when she saw the resplendent figure of her father riding forth, in spite of all his ignoring, she curtsied to the ground with all the grace of her small-boned body and all the grandeur of her birth.

The challenge of that lonely, perfect figure, outlined against a scene as wintry as her fortunes, was breathtakingly poignant. It was as if in her own small person she showed her mother’s wrongs to all the world.

As she rose again and surveyed them quietly, Anne, the Queen, lowered her eyes. And Henry, to his credit and her chagrin, pulled his great horse up short and stayed the following company with an outflung hand, while he bowed low and doffed his plumed velvet cap as if to the highest lady in the land, so that his entire company, perforce, followed suit.

Once out on the open road, he spurred on ahead immediately so that none should speak with him, and Anne could not see his face. And never once did he refer to the incident. She could only suppose, like all the rest, that he was moved by courage when he saw it.

For Mary it must have been a signal victory over a bog of legal verbiage, a silent acknowledgment of her rightful place. The sort of thing which Anne, another woman of spirit, might have staged. But Mary was but a chit, with no one in the world. “When I can afford to I will try again to win her to accept some kindness,” resolved Anne. “Once my son is safely born and she but a marriageable pawn.”

Christmas and Twelfth Night slipped by with all their Holy Offices and feasts and revels. And as the new year wore on, Anne spent most of her time at Greenwich, the Palace officially chosen for her lying-in. Henry was often closeted with Cromwell or in London gathering into his own hands the rich church lands which had accrued to him since Wolsey’s downfall; but whenever he was at Greenwich he visited her apartments more assiduously than during her other pregnancies.

“Put your feet up and let our son grow strong,” he would admonish, whenever departing upon his state or sportive occasions. And Anne would let gentle Jane Seymour bring her a warm wrap and set her pillows just right. Jane who was always so deft of hand and quiet of step, and so anxious that she should rest; and whose quiet efficiency was ousting even Margaret who, even if for no other cause, had reason to dislike her.

“This girl must be with me at the birth, Henry,” said Anne, one afternoon when the first pale rays of spring sunshine brightened her room. “Do you not think she would be invaluable in a sickroom?”

“Or in any other bedroom, come to that,” teased Henry, with his boisterous laugh, trying to make the shy chick lift her downcast lashes. For he always seemed to take a special delight in shocking the Wiltshire wench’s demure modesty.

And Anne had laughed, too, and sent the girl packing. “Go take the spaniels for a run in the garden and get some roses in your cheeks,” she told her, feeling that perhaps she had selfishly kept Jane indoors too much.

Henry had bustled away, too, full of plans for the tournament with which he wanted to impress some foreign visitors he was inviting to the christening.

But that afternoon Anne could not doze contentedly as usual. Perhaps it was the tempting sunshine, or the distant hammering already going forward down in the tilt yard. She had a sudden longing to be out-of-doors herself. She rose and looked from her window.

But there was no sound of Henry’s voice booming instructions to the carpenters, and no yapping of small dogs along the paths below. She decided to go down and take a turn or two in the gardens. “Bring me my warm cloak with the miniver,” she called to Druscilla, who alone remained in attendance.

But willing Druscilla fumbled and scolded the wardrobe maids and could not find the cloak.

“I wore it but yesterday, and soon the afternoon sun will be all gone,” complained Anne irritably.

At last the thing was found and brought. “But, your Grace, is it wise?” remonstrated Druscilla, all fingers and thumbs at fastening it.

“Is what wise?” demanded Anne, with mounting annoyance.

“To—to go out there. Your Grace should know what the King said about keeping your feet up.”

“And your Pertness should know when to mind your own business!” flared Anne, slapping Druscilla’s agitated face.

So often afterwards she remembered how, with the tears welling to her eyes and a hand to her burning cheek, the poor fond girl still tried to stop her. “Wait at least until I call Margaret,” she had beseeched, as if for some reason Margaret’s being there could help or her tongue reason more effectively.

Anne pushed Druscilla Zouch aside and opened the door herself, not waiting to change her soft fur slippers for the leather shoes which the weeping fool held ready in her other hand. Poor ‘Cilia must have had a quarrel with that devoted husband of hers, or something. But whatever lunacy had taken her, Anne would go down into the garden alone. Out into the April sunshine. To smell the violets in bloom and play awhile with her dogs. And then stroll round to the tilt yard, perhaps, and find Henry, and see some of the preparations for herself.

But Anne did not have to go into the garden to find Henry. She came upon him, close at hand, in a little room giving off her antechamber. Sitting on the cushioned window seat with Jane Seymour on his knee.

At sight of them, she stopped short as if some invisible sword had struck her, and the King’s son turned in her womb.

There was nothing shy nor shocked about the way Jane was abandoning herself to his kisses, with those deft hands locked behind his florid neck, and the grey of her gown draped intimately across his white hose.

Anne’s slippered footfalls must have been very soft, for Henry did not raise his mouth from her maid-of-honour’s until she spoke his name.

After that, in her rage, Anne had no idea what she said. Her whole body trembled with indignation, less because of the physical betrayal than because she had found herself so insultingly duped. Her husband tumbled the wench from his knee and stood there, looking sheepish. But Mistress Seymour offered no word or cry, holding herself in Henry’s shadow with amazing aplomb. The sight of her well-nigh maddened Anne, who had shown her scores of kindnesses. “So it was you, that night the French Ambassador came—when I supposed that, in your concern, you had gone to summon the others!” she accused, ignoring Henry as if he were some irresponsible groom. “
You
, who slunk down the kitchen stairs like any Bankside bawd to huddle with another woman’s husband! You mealy-faced, smooth-tongued mopsy!”

To cover his discomfiture Henry pshawed and strutted where he stood. “Anne! Anne!” he remonstrated, “I would have you remember it is our good friend Sir John Seymour’s daughter you revile, as virtuous a lady as ever came to Court.”

“When she
came
, perhaps! Upon my troth, she looked virtuous, with skirts all spread across your jewelled peascod!”

At that he calmed into self-righteousness. “Anne, you know you lie! Many a time you have seen me clip one of your maids without this pother. We went no further than that, I swear! Neither now nor at any other time.”

Knowing him as she did, Anne thought his protest was probably true, but her laughter shrilled through the anteroom. It brought Margaret running, with Druscilla still hand-wringing and explaining in her wake. “Why then doesn’t your innocent honeypot beshrew me, or deny it—or only have the common humanity to
speak
?” Anne demanded, beside herself with exasperation.

Jane swept her the correctest of curtsies. “By Our Lady’s Body, Madame, I promise you I am as much a maid as when first I came.”

“For lack of opportunity, then. That I can well believe,” countered Anne, glad to see the blood mount to Jane’s cheek at last.

At any other time Henry’s immense vanity would have been tickled at the sight of two women of good birth quarrelling over him. But it was the Queen who was behaving like a fishwife. And exciting herself. In her transport of anger she would have done the Seymour girl some bodily harm had he not put himself between them. He held Anne’s wrists firmly, but without hurting her, and spoke quietly. “Be at peace, sweetheart, and all shall be well,” he promised her, already regretting his own careless folly which might well bring about such dire consequences. “I promise you the fair honeypot shall be sent back to her father’s house, and all shall be as you wish.”

“Would that I could believe it,” moaned Anne, dissolving into bitter tears in Margaret’s supporting arms. The sudden discovery had been a cruel shock; but upon reflection, she supposed that he would probably keep his word, at least for the time being, since she knew that all the women in the world were as nothing to him compared with the well-being of his heir.

Weeping and sick with anger she let her women get her to bed.

“Nan, my love, you really must control yourself! Remember how it is with you,” exhorted Margaret. And already Anne was remembering. Already the swooning nausea was creeping on her. She would lie still, resolved to fight it with all her strength. By sheer will power she checked her shuddering limbs. Not a second time should her enemies exult over a miscarriage. Never again would she let Jane Rochford’s bright eyes mock her nor her Uncle Norfolk step stealthily nearer the glittering throne.

“Dear Margot! Let me hold your hand awhile and dream myself back at Hever until I am cool and sane,” she murmured. Then, after a time, when she could laugh again, she grinned across the coverlet at her lifelong friend. “You know, Margot, if he sends that Seymour trollop away it will not be for love of me. I warrant you right now he is sweating with fear lest, with my vile temper, I bring forth an idiot!”

For weeks Anne saw nothing of Henry in private, but in spite of her bitter resentment she joined in her ladies’ cry of delight when one morning he clanked into her room in full armour.

It was a new suit of shining gold, sent him by Katherine’s nephew, the Emperor, in token of renewed friendship; and before practising in the lists, Henry could not resist showing himself off in it. He had brought Norfolk, Suffolk, and a crowd of friends and competitors with him and, judging by their animated conversation, it would be difficult to say with which Henry was the more pleased, the gift or the consummation of his political endeavours.

“You look like a sun god!” breathed Anne, walking round him, forgetful of past dudgeon in her admiration of both man and craftsmanship.

“I
feel
like a suffocating felon clamped in the stocks,” he laughed ruefully, passing a finger round the top of the heavy gorget.

“Now your Grace knows how we women feel in our leather stays,” giggled Anne’s cousin, Madge Skelton, mischievously.

“But you don’t have to hold in a plunging sixteen-hand destrier and couch a fourteen foot lance,” retorted Henry, making as if to pinch her rosy cheek with his mailed fist. But once he had bent his comely head so that his squire could fit the great ceremonial heaume upon his head, the conversation became as muffled as it was technical. “Does it not seem to you, Charles, that this joint is riveted a shade too high?”

“And I would have them ease the left gauntlet, Harry, so as to give the rein hand more play.”

“The vizor needs a drop of goose grease, sir, lest it stick.”

“Here, Norreys, let them see to it down in the armoury as milord of Suffolk and my squire say, and have it ready for me presently at the barrier.”

Unbuckled and unbraced, Henry took a deep breath and limbered up his muscles, flexing and unflexing his mighty biceps. “God’s teeth, ‘tis good to be tilting again,” he exclaimed.