The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  On this particular evening, having seen the two of them vanish between the high dark walls of the Yew Walk, Lady Bo turned to her husband, and in a voice she did not often use, sharp, a little shrill, demanded,

  “And where is all this going to end? Tell me that!”

  “My dear, I might as well ask you.”

  “You should put a stop to it. You’re her father. You once said yourself that you didn’t want her to go the way Mary went. You should do something!”

  “And what would you propose? Am I to look my sovereign lord in the eye, and say—Sire, you are not welcome in my home; I suspect you of having designs upon my daughter? Are you really anxious to see me clapped into the Tower on some trumped up charge or other?”

  “Of course not. What a question! But there must be some other way. She should be married.”

  “I seem to remember your professing a distaste for arranged marriages. And have you seen her cast a single favorable glance on any man, all these months? The Butler match has never been mentioned again, and it is not for me to reopen the subject. And nothing has been done about those titles. Sometimes, when my gout keeps me awake in the night I wonder whether the King isn’t playing a crafty game with me. Perhaps he thinks that I should put some pressure on the girl; but I shan’t, after the shabby way he treated Mary. Besides, I think the next move should be his. Also, I doubt whether, even if I wished, I could persuade her against her will. I don’t think His Grace yet realizes what kind of cat he has by the tail.”

  “And what does that mean? You know, Tom, I never could understand parables.”

  Sir Thomas looked round cautiously.

  “I mean, my dear—and I wouldn’t for the life of me breathe a word of this to anyone but you—I shouldn’t be surprised if the wench isn’t prepared to hold out until he’s on his knees offering a wedding ring in one hand and a crown in the other.”

  “Tom!” For a moment she could say no more; the enormity of the suggestion took her breath away. When she regained it, she said, “But that is mad. Her Grace is alive and in better health than ever, they say, now that her childbearing days are done.”

  “I have heard otherwise. There’s talk of dropsy. In a woman hard on forty, that could be…”

  “Tom! That is wicked talk. Waiting for a dead woman’s shoes! Oh dear, now I don’t know what to think.” For which was worse, to let yourself be seduced, or to set out for some objective that could only be reached over a dead body?

  “Whatever we think, whatever we do makes no difference. That I know from hard experience. Anne is the only one of my children to take after her mother.” He seldom thought of his dead wife these days and mentioned her even more rarely. “Not in looks. Mary has her looks, watered down, and George has her ability, but Anne has her…her…” Even his facile tongue could not find the right word; he never had been able to. It was a quality which in a wife could be, had been, exasperating in the extreme, but in a daughter who had a King suing for her favors, might be of incalculable value. “All or nothing, that’s their way. And if it turns out to be nothing, then they laugh.”

  “I’d grown fond of Anne,” Lady Bo said, rather miserably, her mind still upon the two alternatives. “And at least,” she added more cheerfully, “she isn’t greedy or grasping. His presents don’t mean much. That necklace he sent her—the one with the great B for a pendant—she wanted to give me that. B for Bo, she said; and laughed.”

  Sir Thomas, accustomed to being sent on diplomatic missions where in a chance talk the mere inflection of a word might mean a great deal to a sharp ear, narrowed his eyes. B was for Bo, for Boleyn, therefore it was not for Anne because she intended…But how? Was this rumor of the Queen’s dropsy more well-founded than most rumors? Was she more ill than anyone, save Henry, knew? Was she in fact very ill, and the fact being kept secret for political reasons?

  “I’d give a good deal to be able to hear one of their conversations when they are alone together,” he said.

  “You can’t. They use the seat by the sundial and the hedge is so wide and high, you can’t hear a word. I tried, last time he was here.” She realized that she had confessed to eavesdropping and said, “Oh dear,” and put her hand to her mouth and turned very red in the face. Blushing, she looked like a sweet rosy apple. Sir Thomas laughed,

  “I shall have to inquire whether the Cardinal has a vacancy for a most unsuspicious-looking little spy,” he said. “Come and sit on my knee!”

  Trapped in the high hedges of the rectangle in which the Yew Walk ended, the day’s heat still lingered. The sundial, in shadow now, no longer told the time, but offered only the engraved admonition, “Watch Well the Hours.” The words irked Henry every time he saw them. God knew, he was well enough aware of the passage of time. A year this very month since he had first seen her, a new face amongst those of Catherine’s ladies. Just one glimpse. Slim and dark and with some indescribable grace which made mere prettiness seem cheap and vulgar. It was as though, hunting red deer in Windsor forest, he’d caught sight of some mythical creature like the unicorn.

  Nose down, a hound on a trail, he had pursued his inquiries; learned her name, learned that she was almost betrothed to Harry Percy; put a stop to that; thrown her father the promise of the Butler betrothal; waited for the wounded girlish heart to forget. And then he had gone through all the routine of seduction; the compliments, the gifts, the looks of longing and of lechery, and all he had so far received was a firm, unequivocal “no,” sweetly spoken, but in a way that showed that she meant what she said. Once—on the visit before this—he had lost his temper and roared out that it would be a long time before he came riding this way again. She had replied to that with the slightest, only just perceptible shrug of a shoulder. No words could have conveyed as eloquently her indifference as to whether he came or not. He’d carried his anger back with him to London and deliberately cherished it for a day or two; then it had faded and he’d begun to ask himself what right had he to be angry because she was chaste. Wasn’t modesty a virtue in a girl? So he’d sat down and written a slavish, loving letter, saying that to please her was his one aim, and signing himself her servant. And at the first possible opportunity he had come himself. And here he was.

  He frowned at the sundial and passed on to the stone seat.

  “We’ll sit here,” he said, and then added hastily, “if it pleases you.” He was learning; and one thing he had learned was that he must take nothing for granted, not even her assent to his choice of a place to sit. She sat down, spreading her skirts wide, so that in order not to crush them and bring a rebuke upon himself, he was obliged to keep his distance. He had always been spoilt and flattered and treated with exaggerated respect and to be in awe of someone was a new experience; not entirely agreeable, but with a certain titillation.

  He made a few remarks of no importance and then mentioned once more his great desire that she should return to Court.

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said.

  “Why won’t you? You never give me a reason.”

  “You know it. Those who can’t afford a loaf are fools to stand by the bake-house door.”

  He thought that over and decided that it was the most promising thing she had yet said to him. It sounded as though she wanted to give in, and was afraid that subject to his company for long enough she would give in.

  “But we can afford the loaf. If only you would come to London, I would so arrange it that you had your own apartments. I could be with you every night.”

  “My father is not over generous; I shall have a small dowry, but part of what I take my husband will be my virginity. I do not intend to be your mistress.”

  “Then you don’t love me!”

  She intended to say, “I never pretended to do so.” But when she spoke she said,

  “How can you know? You’ve never tried me.”

  And there it was—it had happened again. As though some other woman had taken possession of her. That seemed the only possible explan
ation for the inconsistency of her behavior. She’d spend an hour behaving coolly and prudently, and then in half a minute undo the hour’s work by some remark of a frivolous nature, faintly tinged with lasciviousness to which he instantly and extravagantly responded. He now reached out and snatched at her hand.

  “Whether you love me or not, I love you, sweetheart. Come to London and let me show my love. Is it the thought of scandal that deters you? I can impose my will, you know; and I shall make it abundantly clear that I expect everyone to honor and respect you as I do.”

  “And how long would that last? No man hunts the hare he has caught.”

  “I shall love you forever.”

  “You think so now. Men tire of their wives.” A mischievous note came into her voice. ‘But a wife still has rights. A mistress can be thrown away like an old shoe.”

  “You’re thinking of Mary.”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “But I swear to you, there’s no likeness between the two cases, no more likeness than there is between you and her. She was…” he was about to say, “the plaything of an hour,” but one never knew; some sisters were fond of one another; “very sweet,” he said, “and I was fond of her; but I was not devoured by love, as I am for you. Every man by the time he reaches my age, has had his passing fancies and indulged them if he could. But a love like this comes only once in a lifetime. I tell you I see no woman but you; I think of no other. I live like a monk. Soliman the Great could parade his harem before me, half naked, and I should know no flicker of desire. Whereas the sound of your voice in another room, or your step on the stair, even the thought of you…On all my visits here I doubt if I’ve slept more than an hour at a stretch, knowing you were so near, yet so unattainable. I ache with longing…”

  She too had had her wakeful nights, thinking of Harry Percy and Mary Talbot together in a bed.

  “Time will cure it,” she said, and gave him a sad little smile. “I think it would be better if you stayed away. We have no future. Your wife I cannot be, because you are married already; and your mistress I will not be.”

  She had said much the same thing last time and he had been infuriated; she expected him to let go her hand, get up, and stamp away in a rage. And she thought that for the ache of thwarted love anger was no bad remedy. And she thought, too, of Mary.

  But Henry had learned another lesson. Complaisant or otherwise, she was necessary to him. When she said, “We have no future,” he’d looked ahead and seen a long dark tunnel of years stretching from where he sat to the grave, with no joy in it, no hope. Appalling. Not to be borne. He tightened his hold on her hand and began to work his against her palm.

  “If I were a free man, a bachelor, and could offer you marriage, what then would your answer be?”

  Something new in his voice, the sensuous movement of his thumb, the question itself, caught her unawares. It was like one of her worst dreams, the one where she found herself taking part in a masque without being prepared, not knowing what to say or do, but conscious of being watched by a hundred avid eyes.

  “But to answer that would be a waste of breath,” she said, forcing herself to speak lightly.

  “Waste it then. God knows I’ve wasted breath enough on you!”

  She tried the oldest trick of all to gain time, repeating his question.

  “You ask me whether, if you were free and offered to marry me and make me Queen, I’d say yes, or no.”

  He said violently, “I am free. I’ve yet to prove it and that may take a little time; but prove it I will. Listen, sweetheart, and I’ll tell you something I’ve mentioned to no one, except Wolsey. I am not, I never have been, lawfully married. A man may not marry his brother’s widow; that is God’s own law and a few words written by the Pope can’t alter that law. And don’t think that this is something I have invented out of my love for you—though I would invent more than that for your sake. This is sober fact and I can prove it. The Emperor’s own lawyers, when my daughter Mary’s betrothal to the Emperor was first mooted, questioned her legitimacy and spoke of her being the child of an incestuous marriage. Other lawyers said otherwise and she was betrothed, but the fact that the question was ever raised is evidence in my favor. Julius, mistakenly, gave a dispensation, which I shall ask Clement to declare a mistake. And the moment I am free, I’ll marry you.”

  She remembered standing in the embrasure of the window at Greenwich, listening to Lady Cuddington’s quiet, deadly voice and longing for power, power to destroy them all. And she remembered standing in the cold, smoke-filled room at Blickling and feeling the uprush of—not power exactly, but its crazy sister thing, the ill-wish magic of the otherwise helpless. And now this!

  “If you’ll have me,” Henry said, awed again because she seemed so unmoved.

  “How long would it take?”

  “In Rome the wheels, however well-oiled, move slowly. If I remember rightly it took Rome fourteen months to decide that the marriage between Arthur and Catherine was no marriage. With Wolsey at work, Clement might do his part in a year. Wolsey will throw his heart into this; he’s always been against the Empire and for the French, and he’ll think that once I am free he can marry me off to some French princess. He’ll get a sad shock when he knows the truth, but it will be too late then.”

  The small hand that he was fondling suddenly turned so cold that the chill ran up his arm and set the hairs on end. They had sat here too long, he thought, all compunction. He was warm enough, even sweating slightly, but she was vulnerable to cold being so small, so delicate. He could link his two hands about her waist, span her neck with one, and the hand he held was as fragile as a flower.

  “We should go in,” he said, “unless you would sit closer and let me warm you.”

  She shook her head. She could not at that moment have stood steady on her feet. Silly childish games, Emma had said. But she herself had sensed the possibility of real damage to be done by the channeling of virulent hatred; and she had pricked the laurel and buried it. And nothing simple or straightforward had resulted; Wolsey hadn’t fallen from his horse, or been stricken with sickness, or suffered any of the things one thought of as bad luck; the vengeance was to be far more subtle, something—her mind hesitated and then drove on—something that Satan might well have contrived. The great Cardinal, working away to set his master free to make the French marriage he had always wanted for him, and then having the sad shock of discovering that all his efforts had been directed at making a Queen of Anne Boleyn!

  For a moment she had a terrifying glimpse of the dark currents that move hidden behind all the busy little lives of men; and she would have crossed herself, had not Henry taken her other hand as well and said,

  “You still give me no answer.”

  She said carefully, “If it could be so arranged, openly, lawfully. Why then, of course I…But the Queen! What of her?”

  “Catherine is a woman of great piety; whatever the Pope decreed she would not question. She will see herself as my fellow-victim of a Papal error, and be equally anxious to put things right. I shall provide for her, and for Mary, royally. Catherine is not my wife, and I love you. I shall regard her as my sister.”

  And that, for him, settled the matter. He felt as though he had won a great victory, and careless of her dress, moved closer and took her into his arms, and clasped and kissed her as he had been longing to do for a year. The kisses were different from Harry Percy’s youthful, ardent ones, but for a moment they reminded her of him and something in her shrank, affronted. Then, under the searching, hungry mouth and hands her flesh stirred and she’d learned another of the sorrier lessons of growing up—that it was possible to respond to another’s need, regardless of your own. She kissed him, and he grew bold.

  “A year is all too long,” he murmured against her neck. “We could be happy now. Let me come to you tonight, sweetheart.”

  She stiffened and drew away. Just like a yokel and his wench, she thought, lying among the haycocks. I’ll marry you after har
vest Nan, Peg, Polly, but let me have my way tonight. So women were seduced and bastards begotten. And perhaps the whole story, Wolsey, Catherine, the Pope, had been fabrication, a net woven to snare her.

  “No,” she said, “not tonight, nor any other night until we are married. I am your true, loyal subject and it pains me to refuse you anything, but this I must.”

  He was disappointed, but not wholly displeased. She was unique amongst women, and for her he could wait a year. All that part of him that was romantic and took pleasure in song and story, in pageantry and the outward form of chivalry rose to the surface. He’d serve his apprenticeship, as Jacob had served for Rachel, but—God be merciful—not seven years! This was a challenge, and he would meet it nobly; he’d be patient, considerate, undemanding.

  But for the moment he felt the need for some gesture, something to put a seal upon this evening, and, casting about in his mind, he found it. He bent forward and kissed her gently, and then stood up and taking her hands, pulled her to her feet.

  “You are a maid,” he said solemnly, “and I regard myself as a bachelor. Let us plight our troth. I swear by Almighty God that as soon as I am free in the eyes of the world, as I am now in my own, I will take you for my wife.”

  This, following immediately upon her latest rebuff, made that fleeting suspicion seem unworthy; she wondered, for the first time, how she would have felt toward him had she not met Harry Percy first, had she not been Mary’s sister.

  “You must answer me,” he said.

  “I promise that when you are free, I will marry you.” His spirits soared suddenly and he said, boisterously, “Now we must exchange rings.”

  He pulled at the emerald which had taken the place of the ruby upon his little finger and slid it on to the third finger of her left hand. It was so large that only by bending her finger quickly was she able to prevent it sliding off again.

  “Had it fallen, it would have boded us no good.”

  “I’ll wear it on my biggest finger, the middle one of my right hand.” She moved it. “That will save explanations, too.”