Brief Gaudy Hour

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

Bon Ami went faultlessly along the soft earth of riverside lanes. By the time the walled silhouette of London was lost to view, she and Harry Percy were lingering as far behind the royal cortege as they dared. And as they rode they told each other precious small things about the years before they met, exploring each other’s minds, and building a foundation for their love. Utterly wrapped in the wonder of attraction and dissimilitude. Until they came to Hampton.

  Henry Tudor himself drew rein then, involuntarily. Russet, his horse, flicked away the flies and cooled his fetlocks in the clear shallows where, mirrored on the river’s sparkling bosom, stood the fairest domestic building imaginable. Moat and walls were but a gesture to the dangers of a bygone age. Behind them all was peace and comfort. Roofs and pinnacles and towers rose in a kind of harmonious jumble, homely yet dignified. A jewel set in green gardens and sprawling to a gleaming watergate. “It is the loveliest manor I have even seen!” exclaimed Henry, above the ecstatic comments of his followers. His delight exceeded anything that Wolsey, in his proud complacency, could have hoped, and when the King, guiding his great horse across the drawbridge, added pensively, “It is big enough to be a summer palace,” such excess of appreciation may well have occasioned the wealthy prelate’s first faint feelings of uneasiness.

  From the moment Henry was inside the courtyards, the beauty of the place had him in thrall. Great hall, chapel, kitchens, fish ponds—he insisted upon seeing them all. While the Queen rested, his sister Mary accompanied him, inflaming his gusty Tudor enthusiasm with her own. And by the time the fat Cardinal finally showed them his own workroom he found himself quite breathless, and for once uncertain of his own wisdom; for Henry touched the exquisite linen-fold panelling with expert fingers, and stood for a long time before the stone fireplace with its splendid carving of a cardinal’s hat. “I could work here myself,” he said, enviously. And it was too late then for Wolsey to regret his ostentation and to recall with misgiving the story of Naboth’s vineyard.

  But work was for neither of them that day. There was good cheer and rare wine, with service and entertainment unrivalled even at Windsor. Wolsey was an incomparable host. And Thomas Cromwell, his plain indefatigable secretary—plunging hither and thither seeing to the comfort of their guests—acted as a complete foil to his master’s leisurely graciousness.

  All afternoon Anne relieved Margaret Wyatt in the Queen’s apartments, catching only a distant view of the archery contests at which she longed to compete. But afterwards there was supper, with all manner of tempting dishes and minstrels playing the King’s own music. Lord Harry Percy, it appeared, had distinguished himself at the butts; and the King, in his bluff sportsman’s way, made much of him and invited him to the royal table, both in consideration of his prowess and his father’s rank. Although Anne was not near enough to talk to him, they could at least exchange glances; and afterwards, while the laced cloths were being drawn and the trestles pushed back to make room for games and dancing, he drew her aside through a little door to give her the prize he had won. Thrilled as she was, Anne dared not wear it openly because everybody knew that she was betrothed to James Butler. She tried to summon enough moral courage to tell Percy so, but was afraid to lose him. And to her surprise, when she tucked the jewelled cloak clasp into her bodice, he made no protest.

  “The King draws a marvellous fine bow, and he was not the only one,” he said, secretly marvelling to find that for all their fiddling and versifying, most of these southerners about Court had preserved their hardihood.

  “But his wrestling days are over. Whereas, you—” Anne’s eyes rested upon a troupe of acrobats and wrestlers who were waiting to take the floor, and noticed that not one of them was more finely built than he. “Will you not try a throw?” she urged, ambitious for him to win yet more praise.

  But it seemed he did not want to leave her.

  “There will be dancing later,” she told him, hoping that he would ask her to partner him.

  “I am afraid I know more about defending the northern Marches than dancing,” he confessed.

  She tucked an encouraging hand through his arm, and would have shown him some of the steps had not George Boleyn appeared at her elbow, scowling uncertainly at the man who had enticed her from more august company. “Nan! Nan!” he summoned in an urgent whisper. “The King is calling for you.”

  Anne let go of Percy’s arm. “The King!” she repeated, in surprise.

  “Oh, don’t imagine he’s luring you to his bed,” said George, with brotherly candour. “He wants you to sing that ballad of yours to the Duchess.”

  Anne followed him, surprised and elated. In spite of the rich tapestries and the finely dressed company how pleasantly domestic was the scene!

  The King was sitting by the hearth, with his sister beside him and Suffolk leaning over the back of his chair. Queen and Cardinal were talking together. The Queen looked rested and happy, flattered no doubt by her host’s suave attentions. She was evidently enjoying the family party. Every now and then her gaze strayed to her little daughter, who was dancing with a tall boy of about fourteen. And if everybody knew that young Henry Fitzroy was her husband’s bastard—well, it had all been a long time ago and most kings had more than one. Taken on the whole, Henry had been a good husband to her.

  The light of kindness softened all the company’s faces as they watched the young people dancing. At ten, young Mary Tudor was entrancing. Affectionate and unspoiled, with all the cultural advantages of her exalted background. “In a few years she will dance as well as I do,” thought Anne, with an odd antagonism stirring in her. And when her glance rested on the child’s well-set-up partner, Elizabeth Blount’s by-blow, she knew momentary pity for their father. How hard it must be for a king to have just one son to whom he was devoted, to whom he could leave nothing save his own personal estate of Richmond! And no more chance of any legitimate sons.

  But the fiddlers had stopped and amid a gust of delighted applause Henry’s daughter ran laughing to the shelter of his outstretched arm. The beloved aunt, after whom she had been named, set a box of comfits on his knee for the child to pick at. Then, seeing Anne standing waiting, she beckoned to her kindly. “Here is my exile’s solace, Anne Boleyn, to sing to us,” she said.

  Henry turned his thickening body, his face benign and florid in the firelight. His small, lascivious eyes flickered over her admiringly. “Well, Mistress Anne, where have you been since I found you and Tom Wyatt hiding under an apple tree?” he asked, in high good humour, setting everybody laughing.

  Anne borrowed a lute from one of the royal musicians and sang as she was bid, her clear high voice filling Wolsey’s guest chamber with as sweet melody as ever was heard there. It was the second time she had sung for the King, and this time she knew no nervousness; only that the song was perfected and that she had the power to please. She was aware of her brother’s pride in her, and of Wyatt’s appreciation. Of the high honour paid her. Of Mary Tudor’s pleasure and the King’s interest, which she felt sure was not wholly on account of her voice. But most of all she was glad of the good fortune which had given her a chance to shine before Harry Percy. Perhaps, after this, he would speak less slightingly of music. If only she could make him really love it, as all the others did.

  In the moment of their generous applause life was for Anne a golden bubble of enjoyment, bright with excitement and success. A little space of time detached from the past and without concern for the future. Intoxicating enough to be sufficient unto itself.

  But, alas! It was the wrestlers’ turn next and she must make way for them. The Duchess invited her to a stool at her side. “You must sing for us again presently,” she invited.

  But Anne’s golden bubble of success was soon pricked.

  She looked up, past the King’s surreptitious ogle and saw the Queen’s protuberant eyes watching her. Katherine turned away almost at once, and was in conversation again with her scarlet-clad host. Bu
t presently she said a few words to Donna da Salinas, who in turn beckoned to Anne. Katherine, always completely mistress of any situation, had chosen the moment when some mummers were entering to an accompaniment of shrieks and giggles, so that neither the King nor his sister noticed. And there was nothing for it but to obey.

  Anne stood resentfully before her mistress and the Cardinal. And the Aragon woman kept her standing there. Only when she had finished what she was saying and the mummers were just about to begin did she turn and say negligently, “My new spaniel, girl. Donna da Salinas left him asleep on her bed. He may waken and be frightened in a strange place. I pray you, go and bear him company.”

  Go and bear a spoiled lap dog company! When her highly trained voice had just given pleasure to a King. To fetch the spoiled little beast, which any page could have done would have been bad enough. But to stay up there in the cold, away from all the admiration and the fun! She, the daughter of one of the King’s ambassadors, who had once refused the kisses of the new King of France.

  All Anne’s vanity was outraged. If anyone else had asked her she would have flounced with disdain. But those hard, protruding eyes were upon her, and she dared not disobey. She would not be asked to sing again. She would offend Mary Tudor. And she would miss the dancing.

  Shaking with rage, half-blinded by tears of disappointment, Anne stumbled along the unfamiliar passages. Twice she lost her way; and when she had climbed the backstairs there was no one to direct her to the Queen’s apartments. No one even to bring her a light. Stairs and galleries were deserted. Even the servants must be downstairs, listening and goggling at the buttery hatch.

  At last Anne found the Spanish woman’s room. A rising moon spilled silver through the latticed windows. The Queen’s spaniel lay in a snuffling, silken ball, fast asleep on the bed. Anne looked at it with loathing. Then crossed the narrow room and leaned her hot forehead against the cooling horn of the window. “I hate her! How I hate her!” she muttered, rolling her damp kerchief into a tight, hard ball.

  There were footsteps following her. There must have been some of the backstairs pages about after all. The door was still wide open. Anne straightened up, instinctively trying to hide her anger and distress. But to her joy it was Harry Percy who stood there, hesitating until his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. As soon as he was sure that she was alone, he crossed the room in a few strides and took her in his arms.

  “I followed you,” he whispered, searching her tear-marred face. “Why did the old hag send you away?”

  Anne clung to him and he held her gently, letting her cry against his costly new doublet. And presently, between sobs, she tried to explain. “She didn’t want me to sing again. I suppose the King looked at me too long. Or she thinks there have been too many Boleyns in his life. Always she has been twice as strict with me as with the other girls.”

  “My poor sweet!”

  “I have never let anyone see me weep like this except my stepmother. Not even when they said hateful things about my hand.”

  “I am not anyone.”

  Anne blew her nose with vigour. “It was foolish, I know. But I hoped they would ask me to sing again, and I wanted you to see how well I dance,” she confessed, with the intimate candour which she usually kept to herself.

  “It was a sweet foolishness and I love you the more for it.” He searched for his own handkerchief and dried her face.

  “Well, since the wretched dog sleeps and we cannot dance,” she sighed, withdrawing herself from the consolation of his arms and making as if to leave the Spanish woman’s room.

  “Why wait in a draughty corridor?” he asked reasonably.

  Anne hesitated, afraid but sorely tempted. “I should be disgraced forever if they found you here.”

  “The door is open and we should hear anyone on the stairs. Besides, they will go on frolicking down there for hours yet.”

  Half capitulating, Anne sank back against the window seat. “There is no need for you to miss all the merriment,” she pointed out, halfheartedly.

  “Can you suppose I do not want to stay?” he whispered; and there was something so exciting in his urgency that, deep in love as she was, Anne sought to defend herself from it a little longer. She pushed open a small square casement so that a reach of swift running river and the sleeping gardens lay before them in the moonlight. “How lovely it is,” she murmured. “George tells me Cardinal Wolsey had the manor from the Knights Hospitallers, and enlarged it. I would rather live here than in any house I have seen.”

  But Percy had eyes only for the loveliness of her profile. “You haven’t seen Wressell yet,” he reminded her.

  She looked up and smiled. Already he had talked much of his father’s Northumbrian stronghold. “Is it very grim?” she asked.

  “I suppose you would find it so. After Paris, and these southern unfortified places.”

  “But to you it is what Hever is to me.”

  “My father keeps almost regal state there, and one day it will be mine. It seems strange, but until now that has always sufficed me.”

  “And now?” she asked, fiddling with the dagger at his belt. Almost pressed against him, too close for safety, in that narrow room.

  “Now it must have a woman in it.”

  “What sort of a woman?”

  “One with hair like the night, and a face the shape of my heart and lovely hands.”

  Carefully, Anne sheathed the murderous blade and spread them both before her. “Only one is lovely, Harry,” she said, sad that she was not all perfection.

  He turned her left hand over carefully so that the ugly blemish did not show, and kissed the palm. “It is a specially vulnerable part of you for me to cherish—just as you have defended my boorish ways against ridicule,” he said.

  There was a part of him, vaunting and aggressive, for the world, and another, all young tenderness, for her. Anne’s dark eyes adored him in the moonlight. “Il faut toujours lutter pour les choses que l’on tient les plus precieuses,” she said softly.

  With their eyes they drank deeply of each other before ever their bodies touched. He had only to reach out his arms to pull her against his thudding heart. And this time it was in no mood of tender consolation. To his joy her whole exquisite body responded to his passion. He felt her arms reach up eagerly about his neck. And when his hard young mouth came down on hers, her hands but drew him the closer. Only when at last he ceased kissing her, did she stir reluctantly in his arms, breathing a small sigh of utter completion.

  “I should have told you. I am to marry my Irish cousin, James Butler, because of the family title,” she said, knowing that nothing could part them now.

  “I will kill him first,” he promised, close against her lips. And then, more soberly, “There are plans for me, too. But from the moment I saw you they had no meaning.”

  Anne pressed herself back against the moonlit wall. It seemed necessary to move away from him in order to think. “What shall we do, Harry?”

  But how to think in that ecstatic hour? He only laughed in all the deep fullness of possessive manhood. “After all, anything may happen,” he decided, with superb optimism.

  Utterly absorbed in each other, they had not heard the quick approaching footsteps. The hurrying figure of a man in a white doublet passed the open doorway. “Nan, where are you? If you are not alone, for God’s sake be careful! The Queen is leaving early.” The words came in urgent undertones, and he was gone. They were not even sure if he had seen them.

  “It is Thomas Wyatt,” said Anne, aghast. “No one else would take such a risk for me.”

  “God in Heaven, he must have seen me follow you! I was standing next to him,” muttered Percy.

  It could have been their undoing—would certainly have been, with any other out-rivalled suitor. Anne laid a hand on Percy’s wrist to allay his consternation. “Thomas must be hurt to the quick,”
she said regretfully. “But he would never betray me.”

  For a moment they both listened intently. “He is right. She is at the turn of the stairs. You can hear her women chattering.”

  “Harry! What will you do?”

  He took a quick look round the room. To leave by the door was to risk being seen before reaching the end of the gallery. Wyatt, in his conspicuous white satin, could only just have made the turn in time. He pushed open the casement and looked down. A mulberry tree still flourished beneath the wall. Swiftly, silently—blessing the bygone Knights Hospitallers—he swung a leg across the sill. “Fasten the casement after me,” he whispered, beginning to let himself down.

  While he sought a foothold among the branches, his hands and face were still level with the sill. Anne bent over him, radiant and laughing. A woman to grace a Border castle. A woman to share any adventure with. “Heaven send all spaniels pleasant dreams,” she laughed back, her nimble hand already on the latch.

  Chapter Ten

  The Queen’s influence was waning. It had been a good influence during those halcyon days when she had first married Henry. But she was considerably older than he, and had never been a beauty. She must always have wanted him, Anne supposed, even during the few short months when she had been married to Arthur Tudor, his sickly elder brother. Even before Arthur died, Henry must always have been there, radiant and vital. And once the Pope had granted a dispensation for Katherine to marry him she had, as everybody knew, been faithful to him with every fibre of her stumpy body and every thought of her straight-forward, inflexible mind. But now, what with her righteous obstinacy and his disappointment about an heir, Henry’s affection was almost wiped out with irritation.

  Whereas the influence of Wolsey waxed rather than waned. He, too, was older than the King. He had been the athletic, colourful personality who had caught at Henry’s warm imagination when first he came to the throne. And still, by dint of prodigious industry and expenditure, he excited admiration in his master’s mind. If his tall figure had grown too portly with good living to excel in worldly sports, it looked all the more spectacular in pontific scarlet. Henry himself was never indolent. He busied himself with state affairs. But he never had need to worry. Wolsey gave him security. So far did the man’s grasp of world affairs overtop that of his fellows that no dissentient voice was ever raised in Council. There was no need for money passing through his capable hands to be dissipated in trying out the whims of smaller men. It was there to be poured out without delay or question upon whatever project he had persuaded Henry to pursue. By keeping balanced all other power in Europe, England became more powerful and more feared than she had ever been. Wolsey saw to it that that fine soldier, Francis of France, and Katherine’s nephew, Charles of Spain, were forever titubating at either end of the seesaw, while the massive figure of Henry Tudor, straddling the centre, could control their rise or fall by shifting the weight of his favour first to one side and then to the other. Wolsey had made him Arbiter of Europe.