My Lady of Cleves: Anne of Cleves (41 page)

She didn’t want Henry for herself, and yet the matter touched her pride and a sharp stab of jealousy shot through her, not so much of Kate as a possible wife, as of her possible position in the family.

What did this strange woman know of their ways? Would she have the sense not to encourage Elizabeth’s vanity, and be careful never to rebuff Mary’s bruised capacity for loving? It was suddenly borne in upon Anne how much she herself had come to care for these Tudors. Savagely she would fight for the well-being of each one of them, she would almost be willing to give up her personal liberty to retain them.

“Mistress Parr is a very charitable woman. When I was ill she took charge of Elizabeth,” she said, seeing that Cranmer was waiting for some comment. “But I thought—that is—hasn’t there been of late some sort of attachment between her and Sir Thomas Seymour?”

That was putting it mildly; for everyone knew that the little widow, in common with every unmarried chit at court, worshiped the ground he walked on and that either her refreshing virtue or her well-filled coffers appeared to be making unexpected headway with that gay philanderer. But Cranmer waved aside their emotions as if they were of no more account than Katherine’s pretty neck.

“It is, of course, only a suggestion which has occurred to the Council,” he admitted. “Indeed, there was a time when I hoped it might never be put to his Grace, for if, as some supposed, your woman-of-the-bedchamber—erroneously supposing your honor to be in question—had lied—”

Anne pushed the herb tray from her and faced him, gripping the table edge behind her. “I thought Mistress Guligh had convinced you all that the child is hers?”

The Archbishop was swift to placate her. “Of course, of course, Madam! And the true explanation of the matter will be made known to all. But it was a decision which a few of us came to unwillingly—being more in the King’s confidence and considering the color of the infant’s hair—”

Anne said nothing. She felt breathless with incredulity. Here was a primate of England going as far as he dared to express regret that she had not, in her anomalous position, borne the King a son!

It would, presumably, have made things much simpler—and much safer—for him. It would have provided the last straw to the Norfolk party’s burden of defeat, and made inevitable that “reconciliation with a view to matrimony.” Perhaps some of them had even counted on it when they let all the foreign ambassadors know so soon about the Queen’s disgrace.

Leaning there against the table, she began to think furiously— as probably Cranmer had intended she should, for he at least had never underrated her intelligence. He kept very still so that there should be no sound to distract her save an occasional hiss as a log fell smouldering to the hearth and the melancholy calls of some fog-bound water men out on the river.

“Suppose even now I refuse to kill this wishful thinking in his mind?” thought Anne, seriously perceiving for the first time her own opportunity to juggle with the succession. It was almost being pressed into her hands. The Protestant party still looked upon her as their lawful Queen, the people wanted her back, and all the bells of Cleves and Guelderland, Juliers and Hainault would ring wildly with vindicated joy. And Henry? Anne smiled, remembering how much she had learned since the old days, how much better she could manage him and how much she would like to comfort and mend him in his present trouble, poor soul!

Did she herself want to be Queen again? She wasn’t sure. But even in those hurried moments she was sure that she didn’t want Kate Parr to be. She would do a great deal to prevent her from strolling possessively beneath the elms at Hampton Court and having complete charge of Elizabeth, who was already half way to loving her.

Anne glanced across at Cranmer’s inscrutable face. He was Henry’s confessor. He probably knew about that night at Richmond.

It should be easy to persuade him. She allowed herself to toy with the idea…Dorothea and Guligh would have other children. She had only to persuade their devotion—to restore Henry’s self-esteem and happiness with the warm reality of a sturdy red-head, the longed-for heir apparent who would bring peace to his old age. But suppose, as people were always saying under their breath, something really were to happen to Edward? Anne recalled the red, wrinkled bundle of humanity Guligh had placed upon her bed.

Poor little William the Third! she thought almost hysterically, her rare excursion into the realms of imagination checked as usual by a sense of its absurdity.

She opened her mouth to speak but at that moment the distant shouts from the river culminated in a commotion beneath the palace windows. Some distressed craft in mid-stream was evidently hailing the Lambeth watermen. A door banged somewhere below, followed by the scuffle of men’s feet and an answering shout from the landing stage. No one but Cranmer’s master bargeman, she knew, could bellow like that.

“It sounds like an accident!” she exclaimed, and with a hurried apology she walked to the window and pushed open a casement against what appeared to be a wall of clammy wetness. Through the fog she could see two water men hurrying down the slippery stairs, their lanterns bobbing like yellow will-o’-the-wisps as they ran. The somber shape of a barge loomed out of the enveloping greyness, carefully nosing her way inshore. From the muffled inter - change of shouts it was evident that she had bumped into something and broken the horn lantern hanging at her prow and her barge master was wanting to borrow one in its place. Clearly the men knew each other, and as her eyes accustomed themselves to the murky afternoon light Anne observed that there were people of consequence aboard.

“Why, it’s the Northumberland barge!” she reported, over her shoulder. “But surely even the Dudleys wouldn’t be going to a party today!”

No answering comment came from within the room nor any sound of roistering from the barge. Something more than the elements seemed to hold the motionless company beneath the canopy in thrall. Even the cheery voices of the Archbishop’s men were suddenly hushed as they handed over a fresh lantern, and only a circling curlew broke the wintry silence with its sad, shrill cry.

There was something sinister about a boatload of people who did not speak—something uncomfortably reminiscent of the Styx.

“When did you say milord of Suffolk was to fetch—the Queen?” asked Anne sharply.

Cranmer hadn’t mentioned any time. He wished she would shut the casement. “This afternoon,” he answered irritably, forcing a fit of coughing.

But Anne, with a hand on the latchet, leaned out as far as she could, regardless of the stream of fog she let into the room, regardless of anything but the mysterious, hooded figures in the boat.

There was a consequential looking person who might be the Duke of Northumberland himself, a tall stately one who looked like Charles, a huddle of women, a priest, some soldiers—and a girl sit - ting apart on the cushioned seat of state. Anne had seen her sitting like that in a moored barge before; but then her knee had been touching Henry’s and Tom Culpepper was a romantic figure ready to hand her ashore—a carefree party arriving at Hampton stairs with a load of Cheapside toys. And now her little drab and gilded hour of life had come full circle. As the great barge slid slowly away again on her lugubrious journey from Sion to the Tower the Lambeth landing lamp shone for a moment on the girl’s desperate face. In her misery she neither knew nor cared at which lighted mansion they had stopped; but she must have known that they were nearing London and her journey’s end.

“Poor pretty, pleasure-loving Katherine!” murmured Anne, remembering her as the girl who had tried to do her a kindness when she first came. Better than most she could guess what it felt like to be traveling out there, wrapped about with the dankness of the day and the strained sympathy of onlookers who could not help—with wide eyes staring ahead through the fog and the short, terrible future into Eternity. This thing might have happened to her—Anne—whose life was yet fragrant with a hundred small daily pleasures…

She felt cold. She crossed herself slowly and closed the casement. As she drew her shoulders back into the warmth of the lighted room her eyes were dark and distended with disturbing visions. Cranmer was still standing where she had left him and she had a feeling that he had been listening intently to a scene he would not look upon. She knew that all that had happened down there was stamped by imagination as clearly upon his memory as it was held in hers.

“If she should chance to look up when they reach Lon don Bridge— the light would be too bad, wouldn’t it—to see—anything…?” she entreated falteringly.

But Cranmer only said something in Latin which she didn’t understand. “
Sic transit gloria mundi
!” it sounded like. So she went to the fire and tried to compose herself. She knew she had been rude, opening the window and leaving him in the middle of a conversation like that. She looked round at him questioningly while she warmed her hands.

“You were saying, milord—when I interrupted so unpardonably?”

He absolved her with his charming smile. “I, too, had forgotten for the moment,” he confessed, joining her before the hearth. But, of course, the matter upon which he had wanted to sound her concerned the future and was far more important than an unfortunate tragedy that was almost past. “Was it not,” he recalled hopefully, “that some of the Council thought your woman might have lied on your behalf?”

Ah, yes. The whole conversation came back to her, and with it amazement at the absurd temptation that had assailed her. Those few moments at the window watching the suffering of Katherine Howard had completely altered her reactions. Nothing was worth bidding for—neither home nor popularity nor even the chance of motherhood—that might have to be paid for like that. What was it that cheeky young Christina of Milan had said? “If I had two necks—” Well, she was about right.

Anne turned to the Archbishop with a friendly smile. She was still grateful to him for asking her to come—for letting her feel always that she had had the chance. “No, milord, I’m afraid their flattering wishes sired their thought,” she said firmly, “for you can assure them from my own lips that there was nothing for my good Dorothea to lie about.”

31

THE YEARS HAVE DEALT kindly with milady Anne of Cleves,” observed Marillac, watching the buoyant way she trod the grass with a child clinging to either hand.

“Yet how she has changed during the seven years or so since she came!” said Charles Brandon, trying to reconcile the derisive epithet of “Flanders Mare” with this buxom woman in her early thirties coming towards them.

“She is one of those people who have found serenity because they have never tried to dodge suffering,” summed up Cranmer, who understood her better than either of them.

They were standing together under a cedar tree at Hampton Court in rather bored attendance at a May Day festival given by Queen Kate Parr, the sixth of Henry’s wives, and their personal remarks were safely covered by the merry fiddling of musicians and the rhythmic clapping and bell shaking of Morris dancers. There had been ribbon plaiting round the Maypole, the traditional Jack-in-the-Green and a charming masque in which Elizabeth and Jane and a score of other children had each been dressed to represent different flowers. And perhaps the most novel and successful item of all had been the glee singing of Anne’s tiny orphans.

The lawns were gay with childish shouts and tinkling laughter, while the grown-ups strolled in little groups of silk and velvet finery.

And yet, in spite of all Master Carden’s efforts as Master of the Revels, the proceedings were falling a little flat. Something was lacking. Anne was aware of it as she trailed towards the three notables under the cedar tree, a fair little girl on either side and the incorrigible Seymour, undeterred by his new dignity as Lord High Admiral of England, flirting lightheartedly with Jane Ratsey behind her back. Was it, perhaps, because there was little probability that at any moment these men must spring to attention and all the women in their bright dresses sway gracefully in one direction as if mown down by the wind, nor any need for everyone to be keyed up to meet the incalculable Tudor mood? For no matter how kind was the Queen nor how capable Sir Thomas Carden, no court function could be really a party without the all-pervading presence of the King. Of late the pain in his leg had been almost unbearable and he could hobble only with the aid of a stick and someone’s shoulder, or lower himself with angry grunts into a chair. But whether in ill or genial humor, he was still the core and center of it all.

Today an attack of gout had made it impossible for him to come into the gardens at all. While answering the children’s excited chatter Anne looked up at the west wing of the palace, picking out the windows of Henry’s room. She could picture him sitting there with his leg up, fuming at having to stay indoors on such a perfect day—he who loved color and merriment and the outside world as much as she did. It seemed so silly not to run in and see him now she was here. He would be glad of a visitor—someone with whom he could spar good-naturedly or pass the time playing cards. But the Queen hadn’t suggested it. So she must just pay her respects to these three good friends of hers, take a look round the beloved pleasances and orchards and go. Round at the other side of the palace her barge would be waiting to take her little party home, gaily beflagged for the occasion and bobbing on the tide.

Charles, ever courteous, came to meet her. She noticed that he was beginning to stoop a little.

“We must congratulate you, Anne. Your orphans’ charming songs were the hit of the afternoon.”

“Congratulate the babes themselves—or Jane Ratsey here!” she laughed. “It was a happy suggestion of yours, milord,” she added, greeting Cranmer affectionately. “The children were so delighted at the Queen’s allowing them to come.” She turned to the elder of the two children who had hung back shyly before such important-looking gentlemen. “Curtsey to the French ambassador, Lavinia, lest he think we English have no manners!”

Both little girls, dressed in exact imitation of their elders, bobbed obediently; but the legs of the younger were still so short that she toppled over among the pink-tipped daisies and, finding them more interesting than ambassadors and such, remained there contentedly collecting bunches of them in her chubby hands. They all laughed and Thomas Seymour, basely diverting his attentions from Jane, sat down on the stone edge of a fountain and drew Lavinia between his knees.