The Concubine (25 page)

E
MMA ARNETT SOMETIMES REFLECTED WRYLY
that if this prince were born straight-backed, with all his limbs in the right place, sound in mind and unmarked of skin, England would have
her
to thank for it. Often, in the middle of an emotional scene, or when she fell exhausted into her bed, she would think that nothing, nothing in the world except her anti-Papist beliefs and her recognition of the need to keep the Lady Mary from the throne, could ever have held her to her present employment. Now and then she’d remember, with ironic amusement, that the first thing she had ever admired about young Mistress Boleyn had been her self-control. Now she had none and almost every day gave way to some kind of emotional excess of the kind a breeding woman should avoid. None of her ladies—even the few of whom she was fond and who were fond of her—seemed to have any influence. The burden always in the end, fell upon Emma.

She had what Emma called “a wild turn” when she heard that threats had failed to move Catherine.

“She must be mad! There’s nothing for her to hope for now. It’s all over and done with, but she won’t admit it. Spite, that’s what it is, spite against me. And I never did her any harm. The King told me that he was a bachelor before I ever allowed him even to kiss me. That is true, Emma; I have letters to prove it. He called me cold and unkind. I didn’t take her husband; he never was her husband. Yet there she sits, spoiling everything, calling herself Queen and turning people against me.”

“Nobody’s against you, Your Grace, except the Papists.”

“Then the streets must be full of them. Dumb, surly, staring. I’m beginning to dread my Coronation—if they behave as they have done…”

“They don’t matter. Nothing matters, except that you should bear a sound child; and I’ve told you a hundred times that getting wrought up is bad, bad for you both. Put your feet up, now, and be calm.”

“How can I be calm? Do you know the latest thing they’re saying! That I asked for Prin…for the Lady Mary to be one of my maids-in-waiting. How does that sound? As though I would! Would I want that glowering, pasty-faced girl always about me, reminding me?…”

She began to walk the room in the way Emma knew so well and now dreaded.

“It was the King’s idea. He thought the mere mention of it would shock Catherine into agreeing to what he asked of her. And the truth behind that, Emma, is that he isn’t easy in his mind. Far from it. The Bishops at Canterbury, the Parliament, the special Court at Dunstable may all declare that he never was married to her, but as long as she sits there calling herself his wife and Queen Catherine he can never be truly at ease.”

“He’ll be easy once the child is born—which it won’t be if you go on stamping and shouting. Sit down now, and put your feet up.”

Anne’s behavior worried Emma because it was so unnatural. She was now five months pregnant and ordinarily, by that time, a breeding woman had become placid and imperturbable. Emma had seen it over and over again; women who had been resentful—We’ve six now and hard-pressed to feed them, and the youngest hardly on his feet, and who’ll feed the calves, and I meant to rear geese this year…But soon, before there was any outward sign, they’d be resigned, saying that where there were six to feed one more made no difference, and somebody would see to the calves, and geese could wait till next year. God knew His business…But of course, she conceded, she was thinking of ordinary women, concerned with ordinary things. Anne’s case was different. And thinking that gave Emma patience.

On one point no patience was called for; she, as well as Anne, was deeply anxious about the child’s sex. A boy was
needed
. Even those resolute Papists who still held that only the Pope could give Henry permission to put away Catherine and condemn Mary to bastardy would hesitate when it came to choose between a Princess and a Prince to take the throne. But even here Emma took the long view, and when Anne said, “It must be a boy. She gave him a girl and I must do better,” Emma retorted that a strong girl would be earnest of a boy to follow and that to get excited over this, as over any other matter, was bad. She called up all her old country lore.

“So far as I can see, so early, it is lying high which is said to be a sign of a boy. Boys they say, ride high from the start. And you haven’t sickened, not since the first month. There’s an old saying that wenches sicken you early, lads later. But if you go on acting so excitable you’ll end with nothing, as I’ve said before.”

“Nan Savile said that where she comes from they can tell with a needle and thread.”

“A needle and thread,” Emma said cautiously. “And pray, Your Grace, how do they do that?”

“By the way it swings—held over the place where the child lies. To and fro for a boy, she said, round and round for a girl.”

That, to Emma, unlike the riding high or the occurrence of sickness which seemed to her capable of natural explanation, savored of superstition; but she was willing to do anything that would keep Anne calm.

So they tried; and the needle and thread, like most oracles, gave an ambiguous answer. It swung to and fro in a straight line; then it wavered and went round and round; then, controlled by Emma, it swung in the desired way.

“It must be a boy,” Anne said, striking her fists on the bed where she had lain for the experiment. “It must be, it must be. A girl would ruin all.”

“So would a miscarriage,” Emma said.

She attributed a good deal of Anne’s behavior to the strain of the forthcoming Coronation. Henry was keeping his promise to make it the finest ever seen; and sometimes when he and Anne had been together, Anne would be pleasantly excited, speaking of how this street was to be hung all with crimson and scarlet, and the other with cloth of gold, of what she herself would wear, and how royally she was to be attended. Emma encouraged such talk, which was healthy and natural. All too often though it would lead on to Anne’s bugbear, her nervous apprehension of how the crowds would behave.

“His Grace can order them to dress the streets and provide pageants, but he can’t order them to cheer. Suppose I go down in history as the queen who rode through silence to be crowned. And why? What have I done that they should hate me so?”

“They’ll cheer when they see you go to your crowning,” Emma said. “It takes time for thick heads to get used to changes and up to now it’s all been a bit of a muddle, with just a few stubborn people running round and saying you weren’t even married. You’ll see the difference now.”

Nevertheless she took the precaution of mentioning Anne’s fears to her Milk Street friends who undertook to have little groups of partisans posted at various important points to give the crowds a lead.

And then, as the preparations began to take shape, the King himself did something which made Emma long to box his ears, stupid, blundering, sentimental fool that he was.

She had seen immediately, when Anne returned from having supper with him that something had upset her. Her lips were so tightly pressed that her mouth was just a line, and her eyes were enormous and too bright. All through her undressing she spoke hardly a word and finally her ladies, discouraged by the silence or the monosyllables with which their chatter was received, fell silent, too. The lack of conversation and the way the watchful Emma kept saying, “I’ll do that,” or “You can leave that to me,” cut down the ceremony of disrobing by fifteen minutes.

When they were alone Anne said, “Brush my hair again, Emma. I’m too upset to sleep yet.”

“I could see something was amiss. But you should try not to upset yourself. Some silly little thing, I’ll be bound.”

“It was far from little. Nothing goes right for me. Nothing. I wish I’d never been born.”

Emma brushed, steadily, soothingly. She’d hear all, in time.

“Whose barge would
you
suppose I should use for my river journey?”

“The Queen’s—if there is such a thing.”

“So I thought—not that I was consulted, but had I been I should have told my chamberlain to do just what he did do. There is a Queen’s barge, and I am Queen; so my chamberlain took it and had Catherine’s arms burned off and mine painted on. What was wrong with that?”

“Who says anything was wrong?” Emma’s mind flew to Lady Rochfort, known to hate her sister-in-law, known to be a supporter of Catherine, known to possess a bitter and rather bold tongue.

“The King,” Anne said.

“That can’t be true. Whoever said that was wanting to upset you. And really…” She paused on the verge of saying “you should know better” to the Queen of England. “You shouldn’t play into their hands by getting upset over spiteful gossip.”

“He said it to my face. He looked me straight in the eye and said my chamberlain had no right to take Catherine’s barge, there were plenty of others quite suitable.”

Emma halted her hand and said slowly, “That doesn’t make sense to me. Not after he took the Queen’s jewels from her and gave them to you. Unless perhaps…” She was so practiced in finding soothing things to say that she had thought of something that did make sense even as her tongue said that it didn’t. “Unless it was her own, one she’d brought from Spain maybe; then he wouldn’t want it used for such a journey. That must be it.”

“The barge was hers in the same sense that the jewels were hers, and the title, and the crown. He can’t quarrel with me for having them because he gave them to me; but over this he could. And did. I’ve suspected it for a long time, now I know. He hates me, Emma. He hates me.”

Emma said, “You mustn’t say such things, Your Grace; and I shouldn’t listen to them. It’s a sick fancy, due to your condition, like wanting things out of season. I shouldn’t think there ever was a lady loved as you’ve been loved. All those years of waiting, and all the changes—all for the good we know, but some of them went against the grain for
him
. And now, with your Coronation at the end of the month, and carrying his child, you pick on some little thing and say he hates you.” She was about to say, “I call that wicked,” but remembered herself in time and ended by repeating that it was just a sick fancy.

Anne said, “No. I’m not given to fancies. He loved me—at least he wanted me. I wasn’t brave enough or strong enough. I gave in too soon. And he’s never really liked me since.”

“He married you,” Emma said bluntly. “He’s giving you the grandest Coronation ever seen.”

“Not
me
. The mother of the son he hopes for. But even to
her
he grudged Catherine’s barge.”

“Because he wasn’t asked! Close to him, as we are, we see the man, with the same funny little ways all men have; but we should bear in mind that since he was crowned he’s always had his own way—except over his divorce and even that he managed in the end. And by nature he’s masterful; if he’d been born a blacksmith he’d have told his customers what they wanted, instead of taking orders. Over the barge he was put out because nobody asked leave. You mustn’t take that to heart. Did you eat your supper?”

“No. How could I? I wanted to fling the plates on the floor and scream.”

“That’s the way to get a baby with no bridge to its nose, or one leg shorter than the other. Will you please, to set my mind at rest if for no other reason, eat a little now?”

Emma was annoyed with Henry for allowing his displeasure to show, but she thought she understood why he had been displeased. He had won, and having won he was sorry for Catherine and had been hurt to hear of her arms being removed from the barge. It was on a level with his religious policy. He’d won his battle with the Pope, but couldn’t be wholeheartedly glad about it, felt bound to show some compunction, which took the form of trying to keep Church ritual unchanged. Men were like that, always wanting to have things both ways. All the same, it was grossly inconsiderate of him to have upset Anne just now, and for a little while Emma wished that she were back in a simple merchant’s household, where by virtue of long faithful service she would have had the privilege of speaking her mind.

And that made her think about her own driving ambition to better herself, an ambition which had, in the end, led to her being put in charge of a heartbroken girl being sent home in disgrace, which in its turn had led to her being the most powerful single influence upon the Queen of England. Truly the hand of God moved mysteriously; you didn’t see it at the time, but when you looked back there was no mistaking. God had placed her, so that with a dose of poppy syrup, a sensible word, an encouraging word, she should keep Anne on
her
course. A humble instrument, Emma thought with pride.

She stood vigilant over Anne as she choked down the white bread and the beef which, because it was red was supposed to be good for the blood, as red wine was; and presently Anne looked at her, narrowing her eyes and said, “I suppose I should be grateful to you for the care you take of me. And I
am
grateful. But you are like the King. You look on me as a brood mare!” She stopped eating and for the first time gave voice to the thoughts which tormented her if she woke in the dark of the night. “I often ask myself how this all came about. One thing led to another, and that to the next. I never did a thing without good reason. What went wrong? You always have an answer to everything, Emma. Tell me, what went wrong? You know, because you were with me, I was heartbroken over Harry Percy and then the King came, like a hound on a trail. I stood him off—that was reasonable, wasn’t it? And when he said he would make me Queen, did I do wrong to accept such a dazzling prospect? Does the woman live who would have done otherwise? And now…”