The Lady in the Tower (23 page)

I did not want to hear about the Court.

Mary went back to Allington, but it was comforting to know she was not far away.

My stepmother tried to interest me in some embroidery stitches she had learned. She was working on an altar cloth for the church and wondered if I would care to help her.

I worked with her listlessly, taking no interest in it.

And so the weeks passed.

Then one day a messenger came from Court. We were to prepare for a visit from the King. He would be with a hunting party in Kent and as he would be near Hever he would spend a night at the castle. My father had written out a list of instructions for my stepmother. It was possible that the Cardinal would be a member of the party.

I felt sick with rage.

“I shall not see them,” I said. “I shall take to my room and they must be told that I am ill… which I shall be at the thought of seeing them.”

My stepmother reasoned with me. “You cannot do this. It will not be allowed. You will be commanded to come down to greet the King.”

“I refuse.”

“Have you forgotten that when the King came before you stayed in your room pleading illness?”

“I remember the occasion well,” I said grimly.

“You must steel yourself, my love. It will not be so bad. Remember, it is only for one night. It will soon be over.”

“No,” I cried. “I will not.”

The next morning I had a return of the fever, and this was not feigned. I think I must have conjured it up. I lay in my bed, hot and uneasy, assuring myself that in no circumstances would I see the royal party.

What if they forced me? They could, I supposed. They had shown me how powerful they were. If they were capable of ruining my life, they could surely insist that I leave my bed and join them.

I lay there fuming with hatred. I was not calm and gentle like my stepmother. I could not mildly accept the fate which had been thrust upon me. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the sinister figure of the Cardinal. How I hated that man! How dared he humiliate my lover! How dared he speak of me as he had!

How I should love to have my revenge on him! If ever the opportunity arose, I would gladly take it. I would never forget, never forgive.

It was absurd to think that the King was interested in my affairs. It was the Cardinal who was making the trouble. After all Henry Percy had been of his household. He wanted to have charge of all those there; he looked upon them as his minions. He was an arrogant man.

And as I lay there I thought: There is only one way to be sure. I must not be here when they come.

I rose from my bed. I felt better now that I had a plan of action. The fever had miraculously subsided, so it must have come to my aid as it had now so conveniently left me.

I put on my riding habit and rode over to Allington Castle.

Mary received me warmly.

“I must talk to you,” I said. “I need your help.”

“You know I shall be happy to give it.”

“The King's party is coming to Hever. The Cardinal may be among them.”

“What an honor!”

“I do not see it as such, Mary. I cannot be there. I cannot face them. I think if I did I should do something … say something which would damn me and my family forever.”

“Anne, you must restrain yourself.”

“Restrain myself when they have taken away the only man I shall ever love, when they have ruined my life!”

“Anne, be calm. Tell me your plan.”

“I intend to be away from home. I want to come and stay here during their visit.”

“Might they not come here to seek you?”

“Why ever should they?”

“I don't know. Your father might be angry and send for you.”

“That is true. My stepmother will help. She has been wonderful to me. I shall ask her to say that I am with you and we are going to visit a friend of yours and she does not know who it is.”

“He could send to see if you were here.”

“Then we could make your people pretend that I was not. Would they do that?”

“There would be talk.”

“I know. But I must try. May I come and stay… just for a few days. Leave it to me. I will do the planning.”

I rode back to Hever.

My stepmother was in a panic. “I heard that you had gone out riding alone, Anne. You know …”

“Dearest Stepmother, I am old enough to ride alone and the sky is full of daylight. No one would harm me. You are going to help me in this.”

So we went to my room and we talked. I told her that I was going to Mary Wyatt. She was to make them believe that the arrangement had been made before the King's visit to Hever had been proposed. While the royal party was in Hever, I should be elsewhere. As a safety precaution she must tell them that Mary had arranged for us to visit friends so that we should not be all the time at Allington. When the King's party had left she should send a servant over to Allington to tell me. Then I would return to Hever.

She needed a certain amount of persuasion. She hated to lie to my father, but she was very worried about the state of my health, and she feared I would fall into a fever if I were crossed. So at length she agreed.

In due course I rode over to Allington.

Mary welcomed me and I talked to her freely of my hatred for the Cardinal, who I reckoned was at the root of my trouble.

Mary could not understand why he, who was so involved with the politics of Europe, should concern himself so deeply about the marriage of two young people at Court.

I could not understand it either, but it was clear to me that he was behind all my troubles.

“Cardinals are not allowed to marry, so perhaps they resent other people's finding happiness in that way.”

It seemed as good a reason as we could think of, and somehow it made me hate the Cardinal more than ever.

Those days were fraught with fear. Every time I heard the sound of horses’ hooves in the courtyard, I was alert. But it proved to be no fateful messenger.

I fed the pigeons with Mary; we rode together; she showed me some of Thomas's poems which I had not seen before; and so the days passed.

One day a messenger arrived at Allington. He came from my stepmother.

The royal party had been to Hever and departed.

So I could go home.

WEEKS PASSED INTO MONTHS and a year sped by. During that year my father had been awarded several stewardships and he was now a very rich man; it was clear that he was a favorite with the King. He had been considerably successful as an ambassador, but I was of the opinion that the King was saying: Thank you for giving me Mary.

One cannot grieve forever. There were days when I forgot my love for Henry Percy. I did not wonder all the time what was happening in the castle which he loved so much; I did not continue to ask myself what Mary Talbot was like, whether he still compared her to me and thought of those days when I had waited for him to arrive with the Cardinal. One must grow away from sorrow. But the scar was there; and always would be. Now and then something would remind me… inconsequential little things like the dew on the grass, the shape of a cloud in the sky, the smell of a flower… sights and feelings one has marveled at when one was in love… and I was back in the past.

My stepmother understood me well and she tried so hard to wean me from my unhappiness that I felt I had to respond and pretend that I was forgetting—and that helped me to forget.

She would consult me about the management of the house, and although I was not really interested, I would feign to be just to please her. I rode a good deal; I walked; I hunted; I hawked; I was often at Allington Castle, and Mary often came to Hever.

My father paid rare visits. He did not reproach me as I had expected him to; he behaved as though the matter was closed. But he did not speak of my future and I began to feel that I was to be left at Hever for the rest of my life. It was at least peaceful, and I had grown to love the surrounding country. It was home in a way. But I missed the Court. I designed my dresses but what was the use if no one was there to see them except the local people and a few country friends. They understood nothing of fashion.

Mary came visiting us once. She was sparkling with pleasure. Life was
very good to her. My stepmother was in a flurry of excitement, making sure that all was befitting for such a personage as my sister had become. I laughed at these preparations. “She may be the King's mistress,” I said, “but she is still only Mary.”

Mary was as little likely to give herself airs because of her position as she was to feel shame because of it. She lived by simple rules and it was not long before she was betraying a few secrets to me.

When we were alone together, she slipped easily into the role of a sister who, although she might be older, had always been dominated by me to a certain extent. She had never seemed to understand discretion and it was easy to learn what one wanted to from her.

She told me something of what had happened about Henry Percy and myself. Being close to the King she had seen what effect it had had in royal circles. Not that she was in the least discerning, but even she could not fail to be aware of such a
contretemps
, particularly when it concerned her sister.

She said: “The King was in a mighty rage. He sent for Wolsey. I don't know what he said to him, but Wolsey was with him for a long time. I did hear the King say something about ‘those upstart Boleyns.’ I thought that was the end of me. He shouted: ‘Send for Northumberland.’ The Cardinal left him, and the King did not send for me. I only knew that he was very angry because one of our family had dared to think she could marry with the mighty Northumberlands. It was a surprise to me. After all the King had done for our father. I thought he had taken a sudden dislike to
me
. As a matter of fact, he had been falling off in his attention for some time now. Well, I had a long run. Few people last as long.”

“Oh, Mary,” I said. “I wish it wasn't so. It is so demeaning.”

“To be the King's mistress! My dear Anne, it is an honor. People vie for it.”

“Why, Mary? Why you? I know most of them feather their nests. They look for honors… riches… but you…”

Mary's eyes were glazed with memories. “He is a very fine man,” she said.

“Of course he has a beautiful crown.”

“I never think of that. I think he liked me for it. No one has ever lasted as long… not even Elizabeth Blount.”

“I cannot understand Will Carey.”

“He is a gentle soul. He would never make trouble. He is happy enough as long as he doesn't know too much about it.”

“He must know … all. Everyone knows.”

“There is great discretion at Court. The King does not want people to know. He wants them to think he is a faithful husband … and he would be…if hecould.”

“Most of us would be virtuous if sin was not so enticing,” I said.

“Well, there is the Queen, you know. She behaves to me as though I were just one of her maids of honor. There is never any mention…of the fact that I visit him at night. Those in attendance disappear when I slip in and when I come out. And nobody ever says when I return to the maids’ apartment, ‘Where have you been?’”

“But they all
know
!”

“But it is not spoken of… and that makes it seem all right.”

I laughed. “These matters are conducted differently in France.”

“Well, this way is better. It makes it easier for everyone. But I did think it was the end. He sent for me so rarely… and the occasions were becoming less and less frequent. They stopped altogether for several months. I thought it was over. And then, suddenly, recently, it started again. He was very affectionate. He seemed to have forgotten that we were the upstart Boleyns and a member of our family had attempted to marry into the House of Northumberland.”

It was impossible not to laugh with Mary, although I deplored her position and would have preferred our father to have done without what I called his ill-gotten gains, because I felt life at Hever was intolerably dull, and I could not help urging Mary to talk of the Court.

When she had gone, it seemed duller than ever.

After a year of so of this quiet country existence, George came home. I was much happier then. George and I had always been two of a kind; the family bond between us was close. Now I had a companion; we rode together; we hawked and hunted; but best of all we talked.

There was an occasion when we had visitors from the Netherlands. George had met them on one of his visits abroad and we entertained them for a few nights at Hever.

I remember that night as we sat around the table after the meal and how we talked long into the night. Our visitors were fascinated by the works of Martin Luther and they talked glowingly of the reforms which were needed in the Church. They talked of the growing anxiety throughout the Catholic world and the attempts to destroy this man. So far they had not succeeded and those who followed him were growing in number. There was going to be a revolution throughout the Church, and
the outcome would be that a new doctrine of protesters would be formed…a branch of the old religion, but an improved religion with much which was evil in the old removed.