The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  That did sound rather a dreadful thing for a man to say about his wife who was dead, but there again, great people looked at things differently; and Tom was so truly fond and loving one couldn’t help feeling that if he spoke so of his first wife she must have led him a dance.

  Lady Bo—George had given her that name, being, as she shrewdly guessed, unwilling to call her “Mother” yet thinking “Lady Boleyn” too formal—was pleased, and ashamed of herself for being pleased, when Anne arrived at Hever, utterly miserable and suffering from the worst cold Lady Bo had ever seen. They’d come from Blickling and the hard-faced, short-spoken woman, Norfolk born by her speech and therefore to be trusted absolutely, had given such a shocking account of the state of the house there, that Lady Bo bitterly blamed herself for not accompanying Tom on his last visit; but he was only planning to stay for a day or two, and wanted her to go from London to Hever.

  “She wasn’t fit to travel,” Emma said, “I could see that. But there wasn’t a decent aired bed in the house, the chimneys all smoked. And she was very anxious to get to her father.”

  Anne—and really despite having been in France and then one of the Queen’s maids-of-honor, she was nothing more than a child, a sick child—had been put to bed with hot bricks wrapped in flannel, with possets hot with ginger and cinnamon and clove, with linseed plasters on her back and chest, with a cup of honey and vinegar to ease her throat and restore her voice. Lady Bo had been in her element and quite happy until Tom came home from Edenbridge and was told of his daughter’s arrival and said, “In God’s name, why was she sent home?”

  “That I can’t tell you. She can’t speak, and the woman didn’t say, even if she knows. She did say that Anne was anxious to see you. But you’re not going into that room yet! Colds like that are as catching as measles. And you know what happened with your last cold; deaf for a fortnight.”

  “My dear, I must risk the cold or have a sleepless night. Girls aren’t sent home from Court in October for nothing. There’s something behind this, and I must know what it is.”

  “Then I will make you a pomander, and you will hold it in front of your face all the time. Wait here.”

  She ran up the main staircase, holding her skirts high, looked into the room where Anne lay and said, “Take the honey and vinegar, child, because your father wants to talk to you,” and then ran down the back stairs into the kitchen, where she took a fresh orange and pressed cloves into its skin and then, as an extra precaution made a little posy of lavender, rosemary, and borage. Presenting these to her husband she said, “Ask just what you must and then come away.” She added, under her breath, “God shield you!” for he was dear to her, and when his last cold had deafened him he had been extremely worried, saying, “His Grace would never send a deaf man on an errand; one needs sharp ears in his service.”

  He was with his daughter for about fifteen minutes and when he emerged from the room Lady Bo was certain that despite all her precautions he had taken the cold. He looked ghastly. But that was soon explained. He said,

  “They’ve gone behind my back again, God damn them!”

  She knew by this time who “They” were. His enemies. And first and foremost amongst them was the Cardinal. Lady Bo found that very awkward; Thomas Wolsey had always seemed to the middling sort of people a triumph for their kind, and particularly to those of East Anglia, a justification of their claim that there were no people to match the East Anglians.

  The son of a butcher and grazier at Ipswich, with nothing but his own wits and merits to aid him, he had climbed to the very top of the tree. Nothing but foreign prejudice had prevented him from being elected Pope. Lady Bo, like all her kind—except a few near heretics who mattered little—had been, until her marriage, very proud of Wolsey. Then she had learned, rather sorrowfully, that he was one of Them, the people who were jealous of her Tom; and he was so mighty, so paramount in importance, that when Tom burst out with his complaint, she said,

  “Oh dear, what has he done now?”

  “Broken off…no, prevented her betrothal to Lord Harry Percy, Northumberland’s heir.”

  That was one thing that had come easily to Lady Bo, this nominating of men by their lands; in Norfolk, when you said “Ten Acres” you meant John Bowyer, when you said “Pond Farm” you were speaking of Will Riddle; so she knew instantly what Tom’s mention of a county implied.

  “That would have been a match indeed—if she liked him.”

  “From what I gather, she did. Not that that matters. What worries me is why. The Percys never concern themselves with affairs. They’re not courtiers. They sit there in their stone fortress, guarding the border and think themselves little kings, like Darcy and Dacre. Why, in the name of God, should Harry Percy’s choice of wife matter to anyone? Still, no doubt about it; the Cardinal acted; and the blow was aimed at me. But I’m damned if I can see why.”

  Lady Bo surreptitiously crossed herself; to say I’m damned, or damn me, was to invite disaster.

  “How did they prevent it?” she asked. Sir Thomas told her, and she said, as soothingly as she could,

  “Perhaps that is the truth of it—that the young man was already betrothed to this Mistress Talbot.”

  “My dear, she is not plain Mistress Talbot; she is the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter and a betrothal between two such families would not have been unremarked.” He frowned and pulled at his beard. “No, this is a move against me, and may I be—sorry, my dear—blessed if I can see its purpose. But I shall find out. His Grace is on progress, working his way back, he’ll be at St. Albans or thereabouts. I shall go and see what I can find out.”

  Lady Bo sighed; she always felt apprehensive when Sir Thomas ventured into a world largely peopled by his enemies. She thought of them as wolves. Lurking, ready to spring. And suppose he had taken Anne’s cold and fell ill in a place where there was no one to tend him properly.

  “How long will you be away?”

  “That depends,” Sir Thomas said darkly; then he added fondly, for he loved his wife,

  “No longer than I can help, you may depend upon that.”

  He was back, safe and sound, in less than a week and the moment she saw him she knew that in this latest brush with the wolves he had got the better of them. He looked pleased with himself, almost sleek. And he was unusually willing to discuss the business with her.

  “I never bothered you with all this before,” he said, “but my mother was a coheir to property and titles, my claim to which has been long disputed by my cousin Piers Butler. His Grace has decided that the best way to end this old quarrel is to marry Anne to Piers and leave the property in their hands, but to confer the titles—now in abeyance—upon me. That is why he asked the Cardinal to break off this other arrangement; and I must say, I think it was a wise decision. Anne will be well provided for. And you, my dear, will be a Countess.”

  She was one of the few women in the world whom the prospect dismayed rather than pleased, but like a dutiful wife she concealed her feelings and pretended to share her husband’s delight.

  “Though I’m well enough as I am,” she said. “What I can’t understand is why the Cardinal couldn’t give his real reason and save you all the worry. And Anne too,” she added, remembering some of the events of the last few days. “If he’d just said that he was acting by the King’s order…”

  “Ah, but that is diplomacy. My unbeloved cousin is going to be taken by surprise. If he knew what the King intended he’d run straight out and marry someone else, from spite. He’s always regarded himself as heir to the property and the titles. So not a word of this to anyone, my dear. We get the wench on her feet again and His Grace will indicate to Butler what he wishes. And all will be well.”

  It seemed to Lady Bo’s simple mind a bad beginning to a marriage.

  “I don’t like these arranged matches,” she said. “Such things should be left to chance, and liking. Nobody said a word or lifted a finger for us, and we…”

  “Fit like hand and
glove. But we were come to years of discretion—at least, I had,” he said gallantly. “Now, tell me, how have things been here?”

  “She’s better now; but for two days and nights I was sorely worried. Every breath creaked, and she raved. Thomas, some of the things she said frightened me. I lay in her chamber myself, not wishing the servants to hear, though that Emma she brought with her seems a very decent sort of woman. But her hatred of the Cardinal, and some of the names she called him! It was horrible. I shouldn’t have thought a gently reared girl would have known such words, even.”

  “But you recognized them,” Sir Thomas said, teasingly.

  “Of course. Well, on a farm. I mean I wasn’t gently reared and never pretended to it. I heard carters and plowmen and drovers.”

  “Just as Anne has heard pages and ushers, grooms and ostlers.”

  “This was different.” But she knew that she could never make him understand. “That great dog that came with her and she will have him by her bedside. She’s changed his name.”

  “Quite right too! He had a French name, and we want nothing French in England just now.”

  “But his new name is Urian.”

  “Well?”

  “That’s another name for Satan.”

  “Then I consider it a good choice. I can see you’ve had a very trying time. Come and sit on my knee. I saved one piece of news till last. His Grace is coming to visit us. Not part of his progress, just a friendly visit, to hunt a little. No formality, he said, and no ceremony.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” Lady Bo said.

  She was still saying it, mentally, days later, when the royal visit was almost at an end. It was all very well for Tom to say no formality; the truth was that wherever the King went some formality was bound to follow. And there was this everlasting worry of how to entertain him during the evenings.

  She had counted upon Anne for that. Even while she was sitting on Sir Thomas’s knee, with the announcement of the visit still in her ears, she had had a comforting thought. Here under the same roof was a young woman, daughter of the house, experienced in the ways of Courts, and reputed to be a musician of more than average ability. Anne would know just when, and to whom to curtsy, who should sit where, and why; and she could provide entertainment. Coming, as she did, direct from Greenwich, she would know the latest songs, and His Grace’s personal preferences.

  Anne had been no help at all. She said, “I’ve done with all that,” and pleading her cold as an excuse, had refused to make an appearance.

  On the afternoon of the last day of the visit, Lady Bo went to make one final plea.

  “Your father hasn’t noticed, I’m thankful to say, but then I don’t think men do notice things about people. I can see that every evening His Grace gets uneasy and fidgety. He seems discontented, somehow. I think it is the music. Lady Forsyth lent us her musician and I hired some as well, and they seem to me to play very sweetly. And that young man who goes everywhere with His Grace—Groom of the Stole, they call him—Norris is his real name, he sang extremely well. But something is lacking. Anne, please, come down this evening and bring your lute and sing some of his own songs. Wouldn’t that be a pretty compliment?”

  “I can’t sing, Lady Bo. You can hear for yourself, I am as hoarse as a rook.”

  “Oh no. Just a little husky. To tell you the truth, Anne, I think it is rather attractive. You’d be doing me such a favor. I feel so awkward you see. If he’d come to our farm and been hungry or anything, I’d have fed him and done anything I could to please him. But here it is different. He has a right to expect Lady Boleyn of Hever Castle to entertain him and I simply haven’t any accomplishments at all.”

  “You have many. And a talent for music isn’t an accomplishment, it’s like—like blue eyes, you either have them or you haven’t.”

  “And you have—not blue eyes, the talent. Anne, if you’d come down this evening and help entertain him, I’d let you have anything out of my jewel box that you fancied. Or my marten cloak…”

  “You don’t have to bribe me. I’d do it to oblige you, if I could. But truly, I don’t feel like singing. And lute music is always a little sad. I might break down and cry.”

  “You’d feel a great deal better if you did. I sometimes think that God knew women had such hard things to bear that He gave them tears for comfort. I never liked to mention the matter outright,” she said, a little shyly, “but I do think it was harsh. You must try not to grieve, though. Sometimes, you know, things that look bad…When I was young I lost my heart. He was a sailor and he was drowned, the last voyage before we were to be wed. I thought I’d never fancy anyone else again, and I didn’t, for years and years, not until your father stopped at our place that day. And we’re very happy. So you see.” Her mind came back to the present and its problem. “The one thing I dread is that one day he should notice the things I fail at and wish he’d chosen somebody with more airs and graces. That is why this music does so worry me.”

  “I’ll come down,” Anne said impulsively. “Not to supper, not into the hall; but on to the gallery, out of sight. And I’ll play my best, and sing if I can.”

  “Oh bless you! Sweet Anne. I can never be grateful enough,” Lady Bo cried, and she leaned forward to kiss her stepdaughter, who then dismayed her by leaning against her, shaking like an aspen, and laughing and crying at the same time.

  Lady Bo thought—Hysterical! and thus diagnosed an ailment which was to puzzle many people. Had the girl been her own flesh and blood she would have slapped her smartly on the face, but a blow from a stepmother could be ill-taken; so she shook her instead and said, “Stop it, Anne. Stop, dear.” Then, under pressure of distress, her mind slipped back a little and she called as though to a restive horse, “Whoa!” At that the sobbing stopped and only the laughter was left, laughter in which Lady Bo joined.

  “Country talk will out,” she said.

  “It was just what was needed,” Anne said, wiping her face. “I’ve been a fool, torturing myself with hope. When Father went to London and when the King came here, I thought they might have put things right after all. But I don’t suppose even the King can go against the Cardinal. Or perhaps, angry though he seemed, Father didn’t dare mention the matter.”

  “Oh, but he did,” Lady Bo said, rushing to Tom’s defense, and then realizing with horror that she was on the brink of a breach of confidence. “He did look into it. And…and the betrothal with Miss…with the other young lady was in order, and must stand.”

  “That I shall never believe. Still, it’s over and done with now. Let’s think of other things, plot and plan. If I sing, my voice being so hoarse, I’d better sing as a boy. I’ve done it before, in a masque.”

  “And you’ll sing some of His Grace’s own songs.”

  “I’ll decide that later.”

  She would not. They were too closely associated with happy days in Greenwich; for Lady Bo’s idea of what would be a pretty compliment was far from being original; every Court lady had had it.

  “Which pageboy’s clothes would you most fancy?”

  “The cleanest. The fit doesn’t matter. Nobody will see me closely.”

  Supper was almost over and Lady Bo was still saying to herself, Oh dear, oh dear! She’d been wrong about the music. Anne in her hidden place had played beautifully, varying the instruments, harp, lute, rebec. And the tunes had all been merry or sad in a pleasant way, sad like the scent of cowslips or violets when you were grown up and picking them for practical purposes, the cowslips for wine, the violets to crystallize, and to smell them reminded you of how eagerly you had gathered them just for themselves, when you were a child.

  So far Anne had not sung a word, but that was understandable; nobody who valued her voice would sing against so much clatter and the coming and going behind the screens.

  The King still fidgeted and had that faintly discontented air.

  Actually, for a man laboring under a sense of woeful disappointment, Henry was behaving very well.
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br />   He’d come, hotfoot, to Hever, eager as a boy, imagining himself to be about to enjoy four days in the company of the fascinating young maid-of-honor whom he had noticed during the summer. When he went out to hunt, she would stand by, admiring the way he sat and controlled his great horse; when he returned, she would admire his trophies. In the evening she would sing and play for him, and he would sing for her, a good deal of tender meaning could be infused into a song. Then he would suggest dancing and she would be his partner.

  Nothing had been as he had imagined. On his arrival he had been told that she had suffered a heavy cold, not yet shaken off, and was still confined to her room. Well, he knew a sovereign remedy for colds, and one which couldn’t be commanded by just anyone. Fresh fruit. A courier had been sent posting back to Greenwich to bring oranges and melons, grapes and pomegranates from the hothouses.

  She’d be better tomorrow.

  But she was not; and now the last evening of his visit was dragging its weary length along, and Henry was trying to hide his boredom and displeasure out of consideration for Lady Boleyn, who did try so hard and was so aware of something not being as it should. Every now and then Henry would see her eye him anxiously and then look at her husband. He had an impulse to pat her on her firm square little shoulder, as one would a pony, and say, “Easy, then. Easy.” She had done her very best and it wasn’t her fault.