Brief Gaudy Hour

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  But the bodies of the dead were least of all.

  Out on Tower Hill youth and grace and virile beauty had been slain. There had been an insentient cutting off of gifted promise, of laughter, enthusiasms, and loving plans. And somewhere out in the country the last pale streaks of sunset were leaving to darkness ancestral homes made desolate by the death of eldest sons.

  “Let me go! Let me go and make my end with these, who for my grasping ambition die!” Anne had begged. “For looking into their eyes I shall be brave.”

  “It is no sight for a woman,” her keepers had said.

  And yet sometime she would have to go out onto Tower Hill before all those staring eyes. Tomorrow, perhaps. Oh, cruel, that she must wait and go alone!

  It was Arabella who made eyes at the Captain of the Guard and so managed to bring news of their passing. “The Westons are so rich, and Francis was so beautiful. His widowed mother offered as ransom all the money the King had paid for the grounds of Hampton—even their lovely home Sutton Place,” she reported. “But they would not spare him.”

  “Tell us what they said on the scaffold,” Margaret bade her.

  “All of them acknowledge sin in the sight of God; but denied guilt of the specific charges. And lest their families should suffer, they spoke no evil of the King.”

  “And Mark?” enquired Margaret.

  “He alone called out, ‘Masters, I beseech you to pray for me, for I have deserved the death!’”

  “What, with the noose about his neck and nothing more Cromwell could do to him, would he not clear me of the shame he brought upon me?” cried Anne indignantly.

  “I suppose he could have meant that by his betrayal he deserved to die,” suggested Arabella, in his defence.

  “Then he should have made it clear in men’s minds,” said Anne. “But it is not for me to condemn him.” And dismissing him with a pitiful sigh, she asked the thing which lay nearest her heart. “And what of my brother, ’Bella?”

  “Milord Rochford?” Arabella’s wide, generous mouth parted in a little, loving laugh, the kind of tribute he would have liked best. “He stood and looked the crowd over, I am told, cocking an eyebrow as he so often did. ‘What would you have me say?’ he asked, knowing well that they were all agog with prurient curiosity. ‘I am come here to die, not to preach.’ And die he did, forgiving his enemies and warning his friends not to rely upon fortune’s smiles—gay and fair and gallant to the last!”

  It was Margaret who broke down and hid her face in Anne’s lap. “Oh, Nan!” she cried, between stifled sobs, “Terrible as it is for you, at least you and he will be together afterwards. Whereas I must go on living somehow without you both!”

  “You will have Thomas,” Anne reminded her gently. And Arabella thrust a sheet of paper into Margaret’s hand. “See, hinny, here are some verses my amorous Captain found in their cell, and I bought them for you with a kiss. The jailors say that last evening Rochford was singing some gay ballads to keep the others’ spirits up. But this one, which he was writing at dawn long after they were asleep, shows a little what was in his own heart.”

  Together the three of them bent over the crumpled sheet. It seemed like a tender farewell, seeing George’s familiar script again.

  “Farewell, my lute, this is the last

  Labour that thou and I shall waste,

  For ended is that we began;

  Now is the song both sung and past,

  My lute, be still, for I have done.”

  Outside, as if outraged, Nature joined their grief, a wild gale was blowing up. Rain lashed the casements and the warning calls of watermen echoed fearfully from the wind-tossed river. To cheer the condemned Queen, and because even in summer the Tower could be cold and dank, some kind hand had kindled a fire. And far into the night Anne and Margaret and Arabella sat over it, listening to the wind, praying, even laughing sometimes, and talking of old times.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Is he come, good Kingston? The executioner out of France?”“Madame, consider the storm last night. Perhaps his ship could not put in at Dover.”

  “But this morning the storm is past and over. Listen how the birds sing!”

  “He is probably somewhere on the Dover road, and that a quagmire.”

  Anne pictured him. A Frenchman with a sharp broadsword, riding headlong through a strange country, hurrying to behead her. Hurrying mercifully.

  “Oh, will he never get here? Suppose, Sir William, that he had not enough English to ask his way, or his horse stumbled and threw him. You all said that it would have been over yesterday. I had thought to be out of my pain by now.”

  “Cromwell sent an escort to meet the man. It is supposed that he may be here by noon.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “A detachment of the new Honourable Artillery Company has been sent from Westminster with orders to stand by for the firing of a salute.”

  “You deafened all London with salutes when I came for my Coronation. But why do me that much honour now?”

  The Governor of the Tower stood silent, with bowed iron-grey head.

  “Ah, I see,” said Anne, on a long-drawn sigh. “So that the King may know the moment it is done.”

  When Kingston had gone, she raised her arms above her head in a gesture of renunciation—the lovely arms which Henry had so often covered with kisses—and went to an open window, her clinging black velvet swaying and soughing after her. Out in the little privy garden sunlight lay upon the grass and drew a drowsy sweetness from the box borders of prim little flower beds. A linnet carolled from its cage beside a doorway. High above the tall city wall the last wrack of the storm scudded in small white clouds across a sky of summer blue. And from somewhere behind the Keep came the cheerful echo of workmen’s shouting and hammering as they went about their ordinary daily work.

  Or was their work so ordinary?

  “’Tis but the carpenters fixing up extra stabling by the guardroom,” lied Arabella, a shade too negligently.

  But Anne had already guessed what the workmen were doing. They were putting up a scaffold. And each ringing blow fell not only upon the nails but upon the quivering consciousness of the woman for whose destruction it was being built. “I hear it is to be very low,” she said, passing her tongue across dry lips.

  “So that the people outside on Tower Hill will not be able to see the Tudor’s shame, and tear you free,” muttered Arabella passionately, pulling her mistress into strong young arms.

  Anne was thankful to rest there for a minute or two, comforted by the warm impulsive love of friendship in which, of late, she had found herself to be so rich. “What will they do with me afterwards?” she asked in a broken voice, as the hammering went on.

  For Margaret’s sake, Arabella was trying to silence her. “That, darling Nan, will be our grief,” she reminded her.

  To pass the heavy time, and so that she might no longer harass them with her secret thoughts, Anne went to her writing table. Humming softly to keep her teeth from chattering, she pulled a sheet of paper into position and took up a pen with that one-handed gesture so familiar to those who watched her. Because it did not seem worth-while to sit down, she remained standing, absently stroking the goosequill feathers against her pale cheek while she collected her thoughts. Setting herself a test of courage. For if George could be so master of his mind as to write verse on the brink of death—why, so would she.

  Firmly, her quill began to move.

  “Defiled is my name, full sore,

  Through cruel spite and false report,

  That I may say for evermore

  Farewell to joy, adieu comfort.”

  “Do you write a last bequest, that I may see to it for you, Madame?” asked Lady Kingston, touched by the divorced and crownless prisoner’s true repentance, and anxious to be of service.

  “Why, n
o, I thank you. I write verses to pass the time,” answered Anne, trying to achieve something of her brother’s nonchalance.

  But a tear splashed down onto the paper as her pen moved on afresh.

  “Oh, Death, rock me asleep,

  Bring on my quiet rest,

  Let pass my guiltless ghost

  Out of my careful breast.”

  “What kind of verse can you write at such a time, Nan?” whispered Arabella, coming to peep over her shoulder.

  “A lullaby, dear ’Bella.”

  “Her last thoughts for her baby daughter,” murmured Lady Boleyn, raising sanctimonious eyes to Heaven.

  “No, for myself!” Anne corrected her crisply. And hearing the tramp of approaching feet, she turned sharply, leaving the half-finished lines there for all to see; to see and to puzzle over as they would probably puzzle over the whole enigma of her life.

  She knew that the end was come. That there was no longer any hope of the last-minute reprieve for which, in her weaker moments, she had prayed. How often had she seen a death warrant lying on Henry’s table! With his own hand, he must have signed hers. Through the open doorway she could see Kingston bringing a priest and a posse of official-looking people. Before going to meet them she stood for a moment or two watching the sands filter through the slender waist of the hourglass on her table. “Strange that I should have been striving to pass the time, who have so little time to spare,” she thought, almost dispassionately.

  The executioner had arrived at last. It would not be long now, they assured her. But first he and his assistant must eat. How strange, thought Anne again, that they could eat! But of course, they had ridden hard; and it was a trade to them like any other. They would be ready by noon, Kingston said. Ready to put her out of life.

  Someone brought her a glass of hot spiced wine; but she set it aside, untasted. Suppose in their new concern for her they had mixed in it some poppy seeds or bryony to drug her senses? No, she would go clear-headed to her death suffering all to the uttermost rather than fail to proclaim, by word and behaviour, the innocence upon which rested her own fair name and the honour of her friends. She would look her best and go proudly.

  With that quiet authority which she could assume at times, Margaret Wyatt turned them all from the room. For this last half hour they would be alone; Arabella, herself, and Nan.

  “Make me more beautiful than ever,” ordered Anne, making them laugh shakily, because it was what she had always been wont to say before any special occasion in the past. So they dressed her in her favourite black damask which parted in front to show a rich crimson kirtle. As carefully as if she were going to a masque or a tournament they brushed out her long, dark hair. Only now they dressed it higher and caught it up from the whiteness of her neck beneath a jewelled coif. If the pins slipped now and then from their trembling fingers, or they dropped a comb, all three of them pretended not to be aware of it; and there was no one there to see. Only from time to time one or other of them would give voice to some little half-finished sentence, making it sound as casual as she could.

  “If it had not happened that you wanted to get into the Cardinal’s house that day, I might never have served you.”

  “You must marry and be very happy, ’Bella.”

  “I shall go straight home to Allington and tell Thomas how brave you were.”

  “Tell him, rather, dear Margot, that having had you with me all these years has been a little like keeping something of him.”

  All too soon the escort came for them. For a hasty moment Anne clung desperately to each friend in turn. Their cheeks were cold and wet; but because she had yet a drama to play out in the sight of men, Anne herself could not afford to weep. At the last moment she picked up a little book of devotions which her stepmother had given her long ago when life had been a string of happy days. It was so small that she could encircle it with her hand. It would be something of Jocunda to take with her.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me,” she read, because the golden covers fell apart at that familiar page. But she could not really see the words. Her eyes were too blind with unshed tears.

  “Do not grieve for me,” she managed to say, as the door opened and Henry’s creatures came for her. “George and the rest are now, I doubt not, before the face of a true King, and before long I shall follow.”

  At thought of them a strange peace possessed her. A lifting of all fear. She felt their goodly company about her, as though they tarried for her, and was sustained by a great longing to join them. Lifting the pearled crimson kirtle a little, she almost ran down the stairs, humming a snatch of song, for all the world as though she were hurrying out to meet them in the garden at Hever.

  Suffering had softened all her hard haughtiness. Never had she looked more beautiful, with her proud head held high, nervous strain painting colour on her cheeks, and her great dark eyes glistening with emotion. Men and women, stepping aside to make way for her to pass, could not take their eyes from her face. For the first time, perhaps, some of them understood how their King had been bewitched.

  “It has been my lot to see many people executed, but never one went more gaily!” marvelled Kingston, waiting to conduct her out through the Palace gate to the little green behind the Keep.

  But once out in the noon sunshine, Anne’s composure began to break. At sight of the scaffold she stopped abruptly, drawing a breath which seemed to stab her side.

  There were no vast crowds. Only a group of well-dressed persons around the finished scaffold, and the Lord Mayor and sheriffs in their scarlet robes, standing at a little distance. And, raised above them on the straw-strewn platform of the scaffold, the two most important protagonists of all—except herself. A tall man with a little pointed beard and a shock-headed youth. The executioner and his assistant.

  So the scene was all set, much as she had pictured it; with the grim white walls of the Keep rising up on one side, and on the other the sad little church of St. Peter-ad-Vincula, where the men-at-arms and grooms and jailors worshipped. All just as she had steeled herself to face it.

  But to die on a May morning, while one was yet comparatively young! While the gilly flowers were drenched with sweetness, and happy hawking parties went galloping across gorse-gold heaths, and the sap of love and laughter still rose in one’s blood. To give up all warm, human loves and the comfort of familiar, earthly things. To moulder in some warm dark grave. At thirty-three a woman wanted a man’s love, and children—laughter, gowns, and gaiety—not a Heavenly crown. But of what avail to think of such things now, when one was already shriven and prepared for death?

  After that first recoiling, Anne forced her reluctant limbs to walk on. The way was so terribly short. No time to gather daisies now. She had only to walk a few short steps across the green and mount those four shallow wooden steps. And then life’s journey would be done.

  Sir William Kingston went up first so as to give her his hand. With a swift, imprudent movement his wife, at the scaffold’s foot, bent unobtrusively to kiss her flowing sleeve. Margaret and Arabella followed up the steps.

  Once upon the scaffold, Anne was able to look down upon the lines of upturned faces. She heard their involuntary gasp, and knew that, though she was no longer a Queen, she could still stir the hearts of men. Until the moment when they struck off her head she would be able to bemuse theirs with her strange, fatal beauty. The knowledge warmed her, giving exonerating reason for all that she had ever done. For everything which had happened since that day when Simonette had called into the stillness of the garden, “Nan, Nan, it is your turn to come to Court!”

  Cromwell, she supposed, was the one man present unmoved by feminine appeal. Norfolk’s absence was attributable, she hoped, to his disgrace. But surely there was one of Jane Seymour’s brothers? With just enough decency left to try to hide his splendid height behi
nd a line of steel-helmeted halberdiers. Suffolk stood immediately below her, with his chance resemblance to the King and his determination to have a front place; and by his side her Howard cousin’s bridegroom, Harry Fitzroy. Probably it was the first execution young Fitzroy had ever witnessed in his pampered life. In spite of all his swagger and finery, he looked greenly nervous. Anne hoped that he would vomit and disgrace his manhood. But, alas, she would not be there to see!

  From the grievous contemplation of foes and forsworn friends, Anne lifted her eyes to the unpolluted sky, only to see the King’s gunners standing at the ready by the cannon on the wall waiting to proclaim her passing. So that Henry could hear it at Westminster and know that the final price of their furious loving had been paid. And rejoice that he was a widower again. And get on his great horse, no doubt, and ride to his new marriage bed.

  But why picture Henry in all his lusty attractiveness? Would to God she had never seen him!

  Kingston was at her elbow, reminding that she might speak from the scaffold—that people were expecting her to.

  But what was there to say, save to reiterate her innocence of treason, adultery, and incest? And to yield herself humbly to the King’s will, lest more ill befall their child. Standing there, with her own clear voice echoing strangely back to her from the surrounding walls, Anne could not curb her thoughts from going forward into time with Elizabeth. How would the new Queen treat her? “As I treated Mary?” she wondered. Or would gentle Jane be kind, so that the child would learn to love a stepmother, as she herself had done? But whichever way God willed it, Elizabeth would be taught that Nan Boleyn had been a harlot, and would remember no mother save as a thing of shame.