The Concubine (23 page)

C
ATHERINE WAS WRITING WHEN HARRY
Norris arrived. She was always writing, rational, closely-argued letters, urgent and yet controlled, which were unanswered or answered evasively. This one was to the Emperor.

“Though I know that Your Majesty is engaged with gravely and important Turkish affairs, I cannot cease to opportune you about my own, in which almost equal offense is being offered to God. There are so many signs of wickedness being meditated here. New books are being printed daily, full of lies, obscenities, and blasphemies against our Holy Faith. What goes on here is so ugly and against God and touches so nearly the honor of my lord, the King, that I cannot bear to write it.”

She halted her pen and looked up, staring through the window at the gray autumn day. Here and there a bright leaf still clung to the ravaged trees, bravely defiant, but doomed. Even the one which held on longest must fall at last and join the sodden mass which lay upon the lawn and the flower beds alike. Was she, too, destined to know defeat in the end?

The untended garden was symbolic of her life now. When The More had belonged to Wolsey it had been a gay place, a pleasant summer residence to which to retire when summer baked the London streets, a pleasant place to visit in autumn or winter for a short while with a large retinue, a host of visitors, a crowd of servants. As a permanent dwelling for a few people, living in what was virtually a state of banishment, it was lonely, overquiet, dreary.

There was something eerie in the atmosphere, too. It had been taken, with all the Cardinal’s other properties, by Henry, but it had remained much as it had been. Upon York House and Hampton Court Henry had immediately began to stamp his personality, exorcising that of his fallen favorite, but here something of Wolsey remained. Catherine was free enough of the more vulgar superstitions; Wolsey’s body was coffined, his soul in Purgatory being cleansed of its sins, yet there were times when, along a passage, or on the stairs, she could almost believe that she heard a sound, that combination of the female rustle of silk and the heavy male footstep…All nonsense, and she regarded it as such. What was far more difficult to ignore was the thought that this had been Wolsey’s house, that Wolsey had enjoyed Henry’s trust and favor, displeased him, and died, disgraced and brokenhearted. Had Henry chosen The More as a dwelling place for her, with that in mind?

She had accepted her banishment without protest. Long ago she had declared herself willing to obey him, her husband and her King, in all matters not affecting her conscience and her conscience was not concerned with the site of her dwelling place. Also, the break with the life of the Court had been, in a way, welcome. Anne Boleyn was now supreme there, giddy, witty, pleasure-loving; and although her position was anomalous, inch by inch Catherine’s had been made almost the same. There had actually been a time when Henry and Anne had taken supper together and then watched an entertainment, while Catherine, in her own apartments, had stitched away mending his shirts. A ridiculous situation, rendered all the more freakish by the fact that she and the Concubine, as Chapuys has named her, had never once come into open conflict. Catherine, fundamentally an honest woman, admitted to herself that here the credit was not solely hers. Anne had never openly flaunted her triumph over Catherine, and on more than one occasion had shown surprising tact—as though she knew what was due to an anointed Queen, because she aimed…

Don’t think of it, Catherine now admonished herself, and took up her pen and wrote two lines, and then Sir Harry Norris was announced.

She had always held him in the highest esteem, faithful, discreet, resourceful, handsome and charming; and when, having greeted her, he said, “Madame, I have brought the written order,” she heard the diffident, somewhat regretful note in his voice and hastened to put him at his ease.

“I was expecting it,” she said. “Everything is ready.”

On the previous day the Duke of Norfolk had come to her and asked her to hand over all the jewels which belonged to the Queen of England. His Grace, he said, wished to give them to the Marchioness of Pembroke so that she might be properly equipped for her visit to France.

Catherine had brought into play the subtlety for which her father, Ferdinand of Aragon, had been famous.

“But,” she had said, “His Grace has expressly forbidden me to send him anything.”

“And that, Madam, as you well know, meant no gifts at Christmas or New Year,” Norfolk had replied with his usual bluntness.

She said, “Also, it would be against my conscience to assist in the adorning of a person who is the scandal of Christendom.”

Norfolk had thought, irritably, that he was sick in the belly at all this talk about conscience. He never mentioned his own, though it gave him trouble enough. He was a firm, orthodox Catholic, and he was also his King’s faithful subject and with every passing day, every hour almost, the two things became more difficult to reconcile.

He was also—but this was incidental—the uncle of the person who was the scandal of Christendom, so he said shortly,

“Madam, you refuse to hand over the stuff?”

“Without the King’s written permission, yes, my lord. After all, I hold them in trust and should not relinquish them upon a mere verbal request. Would you?”

Norfolk had looked at Catherine for a moment with envy and respect. With her no half-measures, no compromise; she was a Catholic and the Head of the Catholic Church had given her leave to marry Henry and she’d go to her grave believing herself his lawful wedded wife. Nor was she alone in her belief…And he had thought—If Darcy and Dacre and Fisher and More, if the Emperor, and the Pope…if they all came out openly in her defense, why then I…And so he had gone away bearing a heavier burden than the jewels of the Queen.

Catherine had known that Henry would try again. Not of his own will. Anne would never accept defeat.

And there, by some fantastic quirk of circumstance, was the similarity between the Princess of Aragon and the granddaughter of a London merchant.

Now, saying “Everything is ready,” Catherine indicated a casket of sandalwood, the size of a small coffin, which stood on a table.

“May I see the order?”

It was written in a clerk’s hand and signed with the King’s unmistakable H R. The sight of the signature hurt her; but it was not Henry’s doing. He’d been nagged, cajoled, persuaded. And because she could cajole and persuade and nag and sulk, Anne would go to France loaded with the jewels of the Queen of England—the diamond and sapphire necklace given to Anne of Bohemia by Richard II; the diamond and emerald necklace hung about the neck of Catherine of France by Henry V on the day of their son’s christening—these Catherine had valued especially because they had been given to Queens whose husbands had loved them. There was a great mass of ornaments for which she had no particular feeling, and also one set, most magnificent, a headdress, earrings, necklace, bracelets, broach and rings of emeralds, rubies, and diamonds which she had never worn because they had been given by Edward II to Isabella, the She-wolf of France who had proved to be a bad, false wife to him. There were some curious, almost worthless trinkets of great antiquity, dating back to the time when England was a poor country, a rosary of carved coral, a belt clasp of silver set with onyx and mother-of-pearl, a little fernleaf broach of jade. She had valued them all for the sake of their history.

But she now said, calmly, “The inventory is there. And here is the key.” Then she touched the massive gold collar which she was wearing. “This, Sir Harry, is my own, given me by my mother when we parted. His Grace will not mind, I think, if I retain it; it was never owned by any
other
English Queen.”

Norris said, “Of course, Madam, His Grace would never dream…”

Something in his voice encouraged Catherine to mention a piece of gossip that had been handed on yesterday by one of the Duke’s attendants to one of hers.

“There is a rumor that the King intends to go through a form of marriage with Lady Pembroke when they reach Calais. Has it any foundation?”

“I have heard nothing of it, Madam.” He wished it might be true.

“I have heard it, even here. Sir Harry, I wish you would carry, a message from me to His Grace. Tell him I speak from love of him and from concern for his immortal soul. Tell him that I am his wife until His Holiness decrees otherwise, and if, before that time, he stands before God’s altar and makes a mockery of the sacrament of marriage he must answer for his sin on the Day of Judgment. Tell him, too, that he may be called to account for the imperiling of
her
soul. Every time he accedes to her, as in this matter,” she glanced at the jewel casket, “he is encouraging her to demand more and more as the wage of sin.”

Norris said, “Madam, to my certain knowledge, the Lady has never asked anything of His Grace, except marriage. People lie about her. They’ll say now that she asked for your…for the Queen’s jewels, and I know she—” He broke off in confusion, not wishing to say, point-blank, to this woman who still reckoned herself the King’s wife, that the King himself had had the idea of demanding back the Queen’s jewels. He began again. “They malign her. There is no woman alive who cares less for trappings and trivialities. Whatever His Grace gives her, he gives. I assure you, she would die sooner than ask for anything.”

Catherine was utterly unable to believe or accept that; it was in direct opposition to her view of Henry, the good, kind husband who had been seduced and was being exploited. She seized upon the obvious explanation; Harry Norris was another man who had fallen under the spell.

She said gravely, “If you can believe that you can believe anything, and I pity your credulity. Take what you came for, and go.”

H
ENRY AND ANNE WERE PLAYING
cards as they so often did nowadays when they were alone together and no entertainment was taking place. Concentration upon the game served to hide the fact that they no longer had much to say to one another, that it was no longer enough for Henry simply to be in her company. Of all the words ever spoken by a human tongue none were truer than Mary’s when she said, “And then…then suddenly it is all over. The things you did and said, that used to please so much, no longer please.” Ever since August she had pleased him less and less, and her awareness of the change had made her nervous, and thus less likely to please.

She had one consolation; he had, so far, given no outward sign of lessened esteem; indeed the reverse was true. Her measuring stick was, oddly enough, Chapuys, the Spanish Ambassador: he was often at Court, he was Catherine’s friend and therefore her enemy, and he was independent. He had christened her “the Concubine,” and though compelled to treat her with seeming courtesy, there was always in his eye an expression of enmity, tinged with contempt, and caution. Contempt for her as a person, caution for what she represented. Ever since August she’d watched him most carefully. He was supremely well-informed; if Henry had ever, by word or look, by the flicker of an eyelid, a movement of the lip, intimated that her reign was over, Chapuys would be the first to know, and the first to show that he knew. She had watched, taut, wary, to see that look of contempt flavored with caution change to one of contempt flavored with triumph. And the change had never come.

It was only when they were alone together; when jokes which had once amused Henry fell flat; when his eye wandered while she was speaking; when he did not notice a new gown or a fresh arrangement of the hair that she
knew
. And the knowledge dealt her a two-handed blow; on the one side a feeling of failure, of having gambled everything on one throw and lost; and on the other a feeling even more painful. She’d never loved Henry, because she loved Harry Percy, but Henry’s love for her had saved her pride, flattered her, bolstered her, given her her opportunity to take revenge upon Wolsey who had ruined her life, justified everything she had done. Take that away, and what’s left, what am I?

That, until lately, had been a question to which the answer had been unbearable. She’d known herself to be desperate, had mistrusted her own avid welcoming of every hopeful sign, said anxiety, the cold weather, something I ate…

“Well, for once, I’ve won,” Henry said. “You owe me two shillings.”

The old geniality was lacking, and he did not look at her, his eyes were on the cards which he was gathering together.

“It’s early yet,” he said. “We’ll play another game.”

She said, “I wanted to talk to you.”

He looked up and said sharply,

“If it concerns Cranmer, there is nothing to be said. I’ve urged, begged, pleaded for speed in the acknowledging of his appointment, but in this, as in everything else, Clement is determined to keep me waiting. If I were drowning,” he said violently, “going down for the last time and Clement stood there with a rope in his hand, he’d call a consistory to give him permission to throw it. And you know that as well as I do.”

The last sentence held the note of impatient rebuke with which she was becoming familiar. And, by angering her, it solved the problem which she had been pondering all day—in what words exactly should she break the news.

She said, “That is a great pity, because I am with child.”

Once, years before, tilting with the Duke of Suffolk, Henry had taken a blow which had shattered his helmet and knocked him unconscious, and ever since he had been prone to headaches whose onset was heralded by a numbness across the front of his skull. He felt it now, and sat without moving or speaking just long enough for Anne to wonder whether, after all, she had fatally miscalculated and instead of pleasure he felt the dismay that such news might bring to any ordinary unmarried man. Then he said, and his voice shook,

“You are sure?”

“As far as one can be of such things.” He rose, overturning the card table, came to her, put his arms about her body and his head in her lap and burst into tears.

She felt more tenderly toward him at that moment than ever before, and pressing her hands against the crisp russet hair, thought of the child, not as the long awaited prince, not as her foothold on security, but as a little boy, like Henry to look at, with all his good qualities, and none of his bad.

Presently he asked, “When, sweetheart?”

“In September.”

“Then we must be married at once. The day after tomorrow. St. Paul’s day. God in Glory! If only Clement…If only we could do it as it should be done! It’ll have to be a hole-and-corner affair, my love, but I’ll make up by giving you the finest Coronation ever seen.” He gave her a great hug and a hearty kiss and stood up. “Cranmer’s first act, once he’s installed, shall be to declare my marriage to Catherine invalid. In an English Court. I’ve done with Popes. God is my witness that I have tried to keep in with the bungling fool, tried to do everything legally. I’ve been patient, humble, when all I asked was justice. And now, at the greatest moment of my life, instead of being able to cry the good news, I must…” Rage came up and choked him; he beat his fists together. “That’s the end of the Pope in England,” he said again. “But it’ll be legal, sweetheart, never fear. Private, that’s all, and kept secret for a little while. Half a dozen of our most trusted people. And your father and mother, if that would please you.”

So the end of the tightrope was in sight at last; no farther away then the day after tomorrow. Married, safe, justified. Only now dare she look back and truly face the horror of fear that had gnawed at her all autumn, the fear that she had played her last card and still not won.

She said, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!”

“You must be calm,” said Henry, the experienced father. “No excitement, no exertion. And I tell you this now, whatever you fancy, however fantastic, strawberries in February or green peas in April, just
tell
me and you shall have them, if I have to send to Turkey!”

His love had revived, as a rose, worn all day as a nosegay, will revive overnight in water. She was no longer the woman, who, after seeming to promise so much, had disappointed him so sorely and in such a mysterious way. She was the casket wherein lay that one jewel without which all his possessions were valueless. In September, God willing, she would justify him in the sight of all the world, by bearing his son, Henry the Ninth.

In the heart of the night Anne woke abruptly. She’d been dreaming, but the dream was already beyond recall. It was an unhappy dream, that was all she knew. She’d been alone, frightened and unhappy, which was perverse, for surely tonight, of all nights, she should have slept easy. She lay for a while, remembering Henry’s pleasure and thinking about the day after tomorrow—no, it was after midnight now—tomorrow, her wedding day. And a thought came, unbidden, unwelcome into her mind. Why, if a marriage, a legal marriage, could take place tomorrow, had it been delayed so long? Nothing in the general situation had changed since last August. Had Henry waited, deliberately, until he was sure that she was capable of bearing a child? Whatever the answer to that, one thing was certain: for this child’s sake Henry was at last willing to cast off all Papal authority. Not for his own convenience, not for love of her, but for something which had as yet no life, no name, nor would have until September, he had said, “That’s the end of the Pope in England.”

She knew she should be glad: for the Pope had been no friend to her.