by G Lawrence
He was impish, daring and brave. I thought him wonderful.
But when Anne came to tell me something about him, I became less sure. Thomas had been away for a few days, and without him court seemed barren. There was less light in the dim halls, the laughter was not merry, but seemed cruel. I had heard he was coming back, after hunting in one of the King’s parks, an honour personally permitted by His Majesty. I was excited, but when Anne came to me, I was shocked.
“Culpepper stands charged with rape,” she whispered. “I thought you should know.”
“Rape?” I whispered. Thomas? I could hardly believe it.
“It is said he and some of his friends came upon the wife of a park officer,” she whispered. “And Culpepper had his friends hold her down whilst he forced himself on her. A villager came upon them and was murdered by Culpepper’s friends. The charge was taken straight to the King, who has ordered an investigation.”
I was horrified, and Thomas was not at court to affirm or deny this. After only a few days, he was called back and it was announced the charges were false. Neither he nor his friends suffered any punishment, and Thomas was back in the King’s chambers as if nothing had happened. But I was uneasy. I knew little of the details, and the thought he might be guilty was hideous. Had I fallen for a man who enjoyed harming women? What was this curse upon me? It was as though when Manox first touched me that shadow had become my own, following me, sending me reeling towards men who thought violence their right, and women’s bodies their property.
I had thought him so different. Was it possible I was wrong, again?
When he came to me, I was distant. I found it hard to laugh with him, for as I looked upon him I was trying to see the shadow, trying to see if it had followed me again, disguising itself to trick me. Sensing my unease, and affronted at my lack of interest, he came to me less often, and I was heartbroken. One part of me was terrified he would come close, another that he would go away.
Lady Rochford scoffed at the tales when she heard us whispering. “Obviously, it was not so, or the King would not have dismissed the charges. His Majesty does not hold with rape. If there was any evidence Culpepper was guilty, he would have been dismissed and sent to jail.” She looked upon us with those green eyes. “Besides, I know Culpepper. He has never acted inappropriately with me, and would not with anyone else. Do not become carried away by scandal. Put your faith in the King. If he has decided someone is innocent or guilty, they are.”
I wondered later if that applied to her husband and sister-in-law.
Soon it was said about court that the woman had in fact invited Thomas to her bed. Her husband had come home to find Thomas there, and the woman had cried rape. All about court there were tales of the falseness of which women were capable, and men lauded Thomas, clapping him on the back and telling him to be more careful next time, for women were false creatures all and would use an honest man ill. I heard some quoting from The Art of Courtly Love, a book by Andreas Cappellanus, in which it said it was the natural right of a knight to take any woman of low birth. As I passed, I heard one man quote, “be careful to puff them up with lots of praise, and then, when you find a convenient place, do not hesitate to embrace them by force.” He nodded to his friend. “A little compulsion as a convenient cure for their shyness.” The other man chuckled. Clearly, all the men at court and most of the women thought Thomas innocent.
I was distraught. I had believed these tales and poor Thomas was innocent! The thought that the second tale might be the lie and the first the truth did not enter my mind. The court believed Thomas, as did the King, and His Majesty was infallible.
But I did not want to admit I had thought him guilty. I tried smiling at him, and he turned his face from me. I tried sending messages, and got none in return. I cursed myself, for I knew he was angry at me, and when I saw him with another girl, laughing and talking with her as once he had with me, I was lost to misery.
“He has taken a mistress,” said Anne one day when she saw me adrift in thought. “Put him out of your mind. I know you cherished hopes that you might marry, but the speed with which he has gone on to another should tell you he was not honest with you.”
I cried that day, trying to hide it, to sneak away so I would not be seen by the great ladies, and wept at night into my pillow with Mary Norris rubbing my back. Thomas had indeed found a new girl, and with breathtaking speed. Her name was Bess Harvey, and she had once been a maid in my cousin’s royal household. “She was sent away for lack of morals,” Mary told me. “She is back now as a chamberer. Some say she will become a maid of honour, if her family can manage it.”
The thought that I would have to share a chamber with Thomas’ bawd was more than I could manage. I cried myself to sleep for nights on end, thinking of how I had ruined love. And I hated Bess.
“Conceal that wrath in your eyes,” Lady Rochford said one day, stopping near me as I tidied a chest of handkerchiefs and combs. She spoke quietly, her hand gesturing to the case. I realised she was trying to offer me advice without anyone seeing. “You are hurt, and with good reason, but show it not. That little whore he has taken up with is nothing. There is not a man at court who has not had a ride on her, and everyone knows it. He will not wed her, for his family will not allow it.” She put her hand on my arm, guiding me to crouch by the side of the case. “Men stray, Catherine. They are expected to, so they do. Do not waste your time and feelings by hating them for it. I speak from experience. I wasted a lot of energy hating my husband for his whoring.”
I stared into those green eyes and saw compassion.
“If his love was true, he will return,” she said. “And if not, you will find another. It may not seem like it now, but there are other men worthy of your attention.”
“He is angry at me for believing the false rumours, my lady,” I whispered.
“Of course. We are supposed to believe men without question, and you did not.” She smiled. “But do not ruin that pretty face crying for him. Be joyous. Think of it as revenge. If he sees he has hurt you, and Bess the bawd sees it too, you lose. If you are merry, you win. Put another face over your own, pretend to be happy when you are not. Conceal your true feelings, then, no one can hurt you.”
She tapped me on the arm, and rose, telling the other ladies of the Bedchamber I was doing well in my tasks. I watched her leave with gratitude in my eyes, for over the past few days I had been scolded for clumsiness.
I returned to my work, but glanced up to see Jane talking to my sister Isabella. My sister smiled politely, but shifted out of the conversation as quickly as possible. I saw the mask Jane had spoken of slip over her own face. Lady Rochford understood how to hide feelings, but that did not mean she did not have them. She had been kind to me, and for no reason. I had nothing to offer her. In that moment, I no more believed she had betrayed my cousins. If she had been forced to go to Cromwell and work for him perhaps that was what she had had to do to survive.
Always grateful for any scrap of kindness, I took Jane into my heart. And not understanding there was a difference between kindness shown to me and goodness in all areas of life, I believed her innocent.
Watching her walk about, women politely shunning her and her pretending to note nothing, my heart leapt from its cage, heading to warm those green eyes with all the fire of my generous, naive heart.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Greenwich Palace
Winter 1539
“Be warned,” said the note in my shaking hands. “Dereham heard from the maidens you were soon to wed Master Culpepper. When he came to me, I denied this, but he has sworn to come to court to confront you about the matter.”
The shadow wrapped about me as a cloak.
The note was from my grandmother. I was terrified, not so much of Dereham, for even with his wonted temper roused he could not hurt me here, but I was scared of what he might say. Anne found me with the letter, and quizzed me. “He had a liking for me,” I said. “But no promises were made… yet
he thinks I am his, and now he will come to court and make a scene and all will be ruined!”
Would he ruin me? Shatter this new life I had made?
“He will do nothing of the sort,” Anne said. “We have warning. You will be protected.”
She forewarned the other maidens, telling them this man had thought to marry me, had been denied, and now wanted to force me into marriage by shaming me. Since my reputation at court was good, the others knowing nothing of my past, they swore to help me, and told each other that men of low birth often tried to do this to young girls.
But avoid him I could not. There were many hangers-on at court, and a man could pass with ease into the gilded halls claiming to be on an errand for this lord or that. I was with a group of maidens when he found me in a corridor below stairs, and he stopped me.
“I will talk to him,” I whispered to them. “He will not go away otherwise.”
“Threaten to report him to the Lord Steward,” Anne said. “That will make him go, and we will tarry here, close by, so you are in no danger.”
Their support offered me strength as I walked to him.
Francis looked older. I thought him less handsome, but perhaps it was just the comparison between him and Thomas. He accosted me about the rumours and I denied them. “I am promised to no one,” I said.
“You are promised to me.”
“I am not, and if you insist on saying that again, my grandmother will tell my uncle and you will find yourself in a ditch.”
“You think to threaten me,” he said. “Yet I could destroy you in a heartbeat.”
“You would not be believed,” I said stoutly. “It is common knowledge amongst the maidens that men try to force women to wed them, and my reputation here is spotless. If you try a thing, my uncle will have you dead.”
“You belong to me,” he insisted, although he sounded less sure of himself.
“I belong to my uncle,” I said. “I gave back the money I owed you, and now there is no tie between us. Why should you trouble me? You know I will not have you and if you heard reports about Master Culpepper and me, you know more than I do know. There is nothing promised between us, just as there is nothing between you and me.”
“You have my hundred pounds,” he reminded me.
“My grandmother has it,” I said, making his eyebrows shoot up, for he was sure I would have kept that. “If you want it, go to her. It is more fitting she keep your money safe, for she is your mistress.”
“You are mine.”
“I am not.”
“I will not be denied.”
“If you will not go,” I said. “I will call upon my friends to bring the Lord Steward, and he will remove you forcibly from court. It is done, Francis. I am nothing to you, and you nothing to me.”
“Then I will stay not at the house of your grandmother,” he said, his eyes raging with fire.
“Do as you please,” I said. “It is none of my business where you go or what you do, just as what I do is nothing to you. We are strangers. Let that be an end to it.”
He stalked off, swearing under his breath. The other girls flocked to me, telling me I was courageous and strong, and they were proud of me. I was, in truth, proud of myself. My hands were shaking and my skin trembled, but I had faced him down. I heard later he had gone to my grandmother, telling her again he would leave. He asked to be released from her household. She had denied this before, as she thought it might be safer to keep an eye on him. She wrote to tell me she had denied his request again, for she thought he would cool down in time.
He did not. A few days later I had another note. My grandmother said Dereham had left Norfolk House, taking his belongings with him. The maidens said he had gone to Ireland.
I did not care where he had gone, as long as it was nowhere near me. I breathed a sigh of relief, and thought on him no more.
*
“At last,” I breathed as Anne read us a letter dispatched from Calais by her mother.
My sentiments were echoed in the faces of all the maidens. The Queen had at last been sighted on the road to Calais. The same news had been sent to the King, who was growing more and more impatient every day, and later I learned that a delegation was to be sent that afternoon to Calais to meet the Queen upon arrival. One of those chosen to go was Thomas.
I sought him out near the King’s rooms, and managed to find him alone in a corridor, on his way to pack his best clothes and ride for the coast. “I wanted to give you this,” I said, handing him a handkerchief embroidered with heartsease. “For the journey.”
He looked at the cloth and taking it, thanked me with a bow, but his eyes were cold.
“Thomas...” I said, catching his sleeve as he made to leave. “I am sorry. I heard rumours about you and they made me afraid. I knew not they were false.”
He stared at me, and a flicker of something passed over his eyes. For a moment he looked almost guilty. “’Tis no matter,” he said. “The King believed in me, that is what counts.”
“You and I were good friends. I would wish us to be again.”
“We are friends as ever we were,” he said, glancing up as a soft footfall came upon the rushes in the corridor up ahead. “Excuse me, Mistress Howard. There is a lady waiting for me to whom I must say goodbye, for she has always been my supporter and friend.”
He left me staring at his back as he went to Bess and kissed her heartily. She giggled as he lifted her a little off her feet, and arm in arm they walked away, as my heart shattered.
He left that afternoon. That night, as I lay in bed listening to bitter wind lashing the palace with shards of ice and flecks of snow, I thought of him crossing the feral sea and feared for him. It was just before Christmas, and the King had ordered the palace to be decked out in more greenery than ever before, so his perfect woman would be greeted by a magnificent sight when she got here.
But a day passed, then another, and another. There was word from Dover that the seas were too perilous for the Queen and her party to cross, but they did say the greeting party had made it to Calais, which stopped me panicking that Thomas would be lost, drowned at sea.
After another few days, a letter got through from Anne’s mother, saying the Queen was in Calais. The King complained mightily that if a letter could get to England surely his bride could too, but if he was annoyed, we were breathless to know what Lady Lisle had written.
“The Queen is gentle and kind,” Anne said, picking out snippets for us. “She is eager to please and seems delighted with all things English. She tries many dishes, and asks, through her translator, for her English is slight, which are the King’s favourites.”
“She will have a taste for lamprey, then, when she arrives,” said Mary, making us smile. The King could not go one meal without a little eel on his plate.
“The Queen has asked us to instruct her in card games pleasing to His Majesty, and we are teaching her a few phrases, so she will know more English when the sea allows us to send her to you. She makes no complaints about the weather, but asks only about England; what it is like, what the people are like. I have told her all about you and the other women in her house and she seemed surprised and pleased by the number and rank of her ladies.” Anne smiled. “Your uncle William has been playing Cent with the Queen,” she added, looking at me. “Apparently the Queen played with grace and good countenance and enjoyed the game.”
Anne frowned at the parchment. “My mother says the Queen’s clothes are a little of a shock. I wonder what she means?”
Thinking of the portrait in the King’s chamber, I answered. “I think the fashions of the north are different to ours. From the portrait in the King’s chamber, they look ornate and rich, but rather bulky and strange.”
“I wonder if the King will like them,” mused Mary, “for he has always favoured French garb; elegant, refined.”
“We can help her with new clothes, more suited to England when she gets here,” I said. “Her ladies will guide her, surely?”
We giggled. “But that came into common use,” I said. “Perhaps the same will be true of some of these northern fashions.”
“Does your mother say what the Queen looks like?” asked Bess Harvey.
“She calls her fair,” Anne said. “But there is little more.”
“Let us hope the King will not be disappointed,” said Bess, a cruel edge in her tone. She was not alone in questioning if the Queen resembled her meek portrait. A little rhyme had been heard at court, nowhere near the King of course, but loud enough for us to hear.
If that be your picture, then shall we
Soon see how you and your picture agree!