The Rose Without a Thorn (11 page)

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.

The Duchess had had a shock which had aroused her to action, and she was determined to put an end to the careless manner in which her household had previously been conducted.

The new way of life had its effect on me. I listened to the music and surprised myself by becoming interested in the readings. My longing for Francis faded a little. I was thinking of other things than what I called to myself “romping.” That was a pleasant comfortable word, suggesting innocence.

One letter was smuggled into me from Francis. Dorothy Barwike brought it to me with a sly smile, so I knew she was aware whence it came.

“How did you get it?” I asked.

Dorothy could only say that it had been given to her by someone to whom it had in turn been given. It was not possible to say how it had arrived in Lambeth.

It was full of protestations of undying love. He was in Ireland and would soon be sailing off on a great adventure which he knew would be profitable: and when he returned, he would come to claim his wife. None should gainsay him then. He lived for that day.

I read it through again and again and thought of his coming home. Then we would marry.

My grandmother, who, immediately after that scene when she had beaten me so severely, had treated me with coldness and disgust, now relented a little.

She said to me one day: “My child, we will not talk of what happened. ’Tis best forgot.” Then she immediately began to talk of it. “It must be hushed up. Your uncle, the Duke, must never hear of it. No one must know.”

I thought of all those who did know. All those women who slept in the Long Room … and doubtless others.

“It would disturb the family,” she went on. “Your father would be distressed. It could prevent your sisters making good marriages. Your uncle would never forgive you.”

I tried to explain again that Francis and I were as husband and wife, and we only did what married people were entitled to do.

“Be silent,” she snapped. “You do not know what you say. You are a child. You know nothing of these matters. It was but child’s play.”

“Your Grace, Francis was my husband in very truth.”

I saw exasperation and fear in her expression. I was sure that, if I had been near enough, she would have struck me.

“Did I not say that we were not to speak of the matter?”

I nodded, not reminding her that it was she who had brought up the topic. But I knew how very deeply alarmed she was, for I too was understanding that what I had fallen into in a light-hearted way was, after all, a serious matter.

This was continually brought home to me in my conversations with my grandmother. I was once more rubbing her legs, and at such times she would continually stress the importance of the Howard family.

It was the old theme. “Oh, it is a wondrous thing to belong to a family such as ours. We have always been so close to the King, except on one or two occasions in our history, for we are by no means fools … except on those occasions when we seek to gratify our foolish desires and plunge near to disaster.” A significant look at me followed this remark. “But that is when we are young and too stupid to know better. And remember this, Katherine Howard, it behooves us all not to demean ourselves with those of low standing. We must always remember that we owe the utmost respect to the noble family to which we belong.”