by Norah Lofts
Railing at him as though he were at fault. And she knew he had a headache. She hadn’t sympathized with him, or tried any remedy. She was a screeching virago!
He stood up and flung at her the most hurtful words he could muster,
“In all our time together, Catherine never spoke to me like that,” he said, and went away.
Anne did not recall her ladies but went through into her bedchamber where Emma Arnett was placing freshly-laundered linen in the press, with little scented sachets between the layers.
Anne ignored her, went to the bed and flung herself face down, took a handful of the quilted cover in each hand and wrenched it and ground her face into the pillow, trying to hold back the screaming.
Emma, who had seen her face, thought, not without irony, that the moment had come at last; the moment when the bedroom door closed and restraint gave way. But at least this lady did not demand a shoulder to cry on.
In any case, Emma was fortified now; she was still devoid of pity, and any words of sympathy that she might use would still be dictated by expediency rather than feeling, but it was no longer an expediency concerned solely with her own situation; there would be purpose behind whatever she said. She had been warmly welcomed by the reforming group that centered around the shop in Milk Street, and its members had provided her with verbal ammunition to be used when occasion offered. This might be one such occasion; you never knew.
She went softly to the bedside and asked, “My lady, are you in any pain?”
“No. I’m frantic.”
And that was all. This was a thing which Emma’s advisers could never understand—the Lady’s ability to keep things to herself.
“Don’t bother,” Anne said into the pillow, “to put away that linen. We’re leaving London tomorrow.”
“For long, my lady?” That was a permissible question.
“Forever!”
Emma was dismayed. What of the Cause? Queen Catherine had the support of the Pope, therefore it followed that Anne, whether she chose or not, must be the rallying point of the anti-Papal party. Emma’s friends, and hundreds more, hoped that Anne would maintain her hold on the King and that the situation would develop in one of two ways. Either the Pope would give Henry an annulment and thus bring the whole Papacy into further disrepute; or that Henry would tire of waiting and act upon some words he had once said in a rage, “In England I am the only ruler.” Either way would open the door to the Reformation. And for either thing to happen Anne was essential.
Emma made no protest, asked no question. She merely said, deeply cunning,
“The Cardinal will be pleased.”
Anne heaved herself over and sat up, propped on her elbows, her eyes enormous in her white face.
“You would say that!”
“Is it not true, my lady?”
“Of course it is true! And not the Cardinal alone. I could count on my fingers the people who will not be pleased.”
“No. There you are wrong, asking your pardon. Very wrong. You have friends, hundreds of them, whose faces you never see, whose names you do not know. Hundreds of them who”—her natural caution warned her not to say too much—“who hate the Cardinal. If you leave London and leave him triumphant there’ll be many a sore heart tomorrow.”
“Then they must bear them. My heart is sore, too. I have no wish to please the Cardinal, but nor do I wish to play in this mummery any more. The longer it goes on the sillier I shall look in the end. They mean to keep him tied to the Queen, lured on by false hopes until he is too old to care. He can’t see it, or won’t, and tonight, when I pointed out the truth…” Even now she hesitated for a second, but what did it matter any more? She broke through her habitual reserve and told Emma what had happened. “So what is there left to do but to retire with what small dignity is left to me?”
A bad decision, Emma thought. After an ordinary lovers’ tiff it might not be a bad policy to withdraw for a while; but the King’s parting words held a bitterness, a threat. If the lady left now he might remember her only as a nagging scold, he might take the easy way and go back to Catherine.
She said, “Why don’t you sleep on it, my lady? Things often look different in the morning.”
“Sleep! I feel as though I shall never sleep again.”
Emma thought for a moment and then said, diffidently, “One of my friends has a friend who is an apothecary and last spring, when I had that arm that ached so and kept me awake, he made me up some syrup. He swore there was nothing nasty in it.” Emma’s loathing of reptiles extended to snails and earthworms which often found their way into medicines. “He said it was made of poppies, not like ours that grow in the corn, but poppies from somewhere far away. It is pleasant to taste and it does bring sleep. I’ve proved that. Would you try a dose?”
“Anything so as not to lie awake all night, thinking.”
Emma went to her own low bed and pulled from under it the wooden chest, iron cornered and banded, which was one of her most cherished possessions. She had left home for her first post with all that she owned packed in a rush basket and she had saved for years in order to buy a chest with a lock, a serving woman’s only stake in privacy; it represented her home. When she locked it, it was like locking the door of her house.
There was the wooden bottle, and when she shook it the liquid gurgled. She poured a careful dose into a cup and handing it to Anne said, “May you sleep well, my lady.”
It tasted of honey and then of something bitter.
Anne handed back the cup and said, “Poor Emma! In addition to all else you have to be my confessor and my physician.”
Emma thought—but without emotion—that it was a rare lady who was aware of the demands made upon her body-servant.
“You should get to bed now; it’s quick working,” she said, and set about the business of unrobing Anne, grumbling all the while in her mind. The idle lady attendants had gone off to play cards or make music as soon as supper was over. They’d came rustling back when all the work was done and pretend that they had not heard the King depart, or had been waiting for the bell to ring. In Emma’s opinion all waiting ladies were lazy and frivolous and those attached to Anne at the moment were worse than most because they recognized the insecurity of her position; nobody wished to become too closely associated with one whose future was uncertain.
By the time that she was in her bed-gown and Emma was brushing her hair, Anne was feeling the effects of the dose. A great peacefulness; not truly sleepy yet, but so relaxed, uncaring, almost happy that she knew that when she did lie down she would sleep. The taunt about Catherine had lost its sting, it might have been said to someone else, long, long ago.
When, from the outer room, there came the sound of tramping feet and men’s voices, she felt neither surprise, nor alarm, nor interest.
“See who it is, Emma, and send them away.”
Emma went briskly out, and came briskly back.
“My lady, it is the King and Sir Harry Norris. His Grace has brought you a gift.”
Emma Arnett, the reformer, was delighted that the King had come back with a peace offering. Emma Arnett, the servant, was less pleased. The Lady already had two dogs, Urian, growing old and incontinent, and Beau, presented by the French Ambassador, young and incontinent.
Anne tried to think what Henry’s returning with a gift must mean. Reconciliation. But rocked on the soft opium tide she could neither think nor care.
“I’m sleepy,” she said. “I can’t talk.”
The real, the dominating, managing woman in Emma came uppermost.
“You can say ‘Thank you,’ surely,” she said, and snatched up Anne’s furred velvet robe, wrapped her in it, and spread her hair, a shimmering cape of black silk, over it. “Just thank him. You’ll like what he’s brought.”
She led Anne to the door and hovered for a second until she was safely down the steps into the outer room.
Henry tried to cover the fact that he was ill-at-ease and unsure of his reception, by a
dopting a boisterous, blustering manner.
“I had to come. I couldn’t wait to show you. Show her, Norris, show her!”
Norris spread wide the piece of velvet he carried and revealed a tiny puppy which might have been made out of the same material. Its domed head was wrinkled like a bloodhound’s, its amber eyes were at once utterly innocent and full of ageless wisdom; everywhere its soft coat was a little too large for it.
“I spoke for it long ago and it arrived not an hour since. The Spanish Ambassador once mentioned the breed to me. Brave as lions, yet small enough for a lady’s lap. All the way from Augsburg. The only one in England. I hope you like it.”
“How could I not?” She took the puppy and held it against her. It put out a pink ribbon of tongue and licked her chin softly. “I love it.”
“All right, Norris. You may go,” Henry said. Norris said his good nights and withdrew. He was one of those who knew that the relationship between the King and the lady was, so far, blameless, and as he blundered down the stairs his admiration for his master increased. In that soft robe, with her hair all loose! What iron control the man must have.
Left alone neither Henry nor Anne spoke for a moment. She because the effort seemed not worth making; he because he knew he must apologize, and apologies never came easily to him. He brought it out at last.
“Sweetheart, I am sorry. I ask your forgiveness for speaking as I did. I’d had a trying day and my head ached, and then you pained me by calling my promises eggshells. Then, as soon as I was back I found this little creature. I’d ordered it to please you; and I could have wept, Anne, I could have wept; it is so suited to you and to nobody else. So I brought it. Say I’m forgiven.”
“There was nothing to forgive. I daresay what you said was true.”
He stared at her. That was about the last thing in the world that he had expected her to say, and her manner of speaking, so remote and detached, alarmed him. It sounded as though there was nothing to resent because she no longer cared.
“It was an unforgivable thing to say. But I implore you to forgive me.”
She stood holding the little dog, her head bowed over it.
“Promises,” he said, a little wildly. “You said I broke promises. Anne, tell me, what promises did I ever make to you and not keep?”
She should have said, would have said, that no specific promise had ever been broken and that she had spoken in anger and disappointment. But the poppy syrup moved like Lethe water in her veins and the little dog lay warm and soft against her breast. All she could think of was sleep.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
And again it sounded as though she had done with him. He felt that had his present been anything but a dog, had it been a rope of pearls or some similar thing, she’d have let it fall to the floor.
“Of course it matters,” he said violently. “You and I are troth-plighted;. I am your servant. If ever I break a promise made to you I am unworthy of the name of knight, let alone King. Tell me, what promise? To make you Queen! Is that it? Sweetheart, haven’t I tried? God’s teeth! Do you think I like this delay? You said I chose the Pope. That isn’t true. I use him. I must. Ours must be a proper marriage.”
The little dog licked her again and she looked down at it with doting, dreamy eyes.
Paying me no attention at all, Henry thought; she’s cast me off, she’s no longer interested in what I am saying.
“Look at me! Listen to me! I’m going to make you a promise that I’ll keep if it costs me my crown. If Clement won’t free me, I’ll defy him. You are my one true love and I mean to have you, Pope or no Pope. Well? What do you say to that?”
She lifted her drowsy eyes and looked at him, and tried to find some words. She should have felt jubilant at this forthright statement of intention; and glad that he had taken their quarrel so much to heart. But she could feel nothing, except, far off, a faint obligation to make some response. So she smiled.
“Do you disbelieve me?” he demanded. “For God’s sake, Anne, don’t punish me this way. I’ve said I was sorry. I spoke in anger. Now I’m speaking in sober earnest and you smile. I tell you that for your sake I would break with the Pope if he forced me.”
She made a great effort.
“I hope not. You’re a Papist. If it came to that you’d hate me.”
“Hate you? How could I? I could as soon hate myself. Here…” He snatched the puppy from her so roughly that it squealed a little, and set it on the floor. “I love you, I love you,” he said, and took her in his arms and kissed her face, her throat, her breast, greedily and with mounting passion, in a way against which she was usually on guard. Tonight even her vigilance was lulled and for one wild moment he thought that she was on the point of surrender.
He saw, in that moment, all his brave thoughts about serving and waiting for what they were, trimmings hung out to hide the stark truth. This was the woman he wanted to bed with.
Only just in time she began to push him away with limp, helpless-feeling hands.
“You promised,” she said.
“But, sweetheart, I want you. And you want me.”
She wanted nothing but sleep, to give herself up to the cloudy, peaceful nothingness that drew closer and closer. To speak, to think was almost a pain. But she must.
“What I want has nothing to do with it. What I don’t want is a child out of wedlock. My child must sit upon the throne.”
She had hit upon the only argument that would, at that moment, have restrained him.
Right, of course, he thought, half-peevishly. And in a year, or less, he’d have her for his own. He must, should, could wait just that little more. He loosened his hold, kissed her once more in the manner that she approved and said,
“He shall!”
He bent and picked up the puppy.
“Let him lie against your heart and keep the place warm for me. Late as it is, I’m going to see Wolsey and warn him against that damned tricky Italian. So, sweetheart, good night. Sleep well and dream of me.”
XIII
In the beginning of this yere, in a greate Hall within the Black Friars of London was ordained a solempne place for the two Legattes to sit in…
Hall’s Chronicle
BLACKFRIARS. JUNE 18TH–JULY 23RD, 1529
EVERYONE WAS IN HIS PREARRANGED place and all was ready. George Cavendish, Wolsey’s gentleman-usher, turned his eyes without shifting his head and looked about and thought that in this one measureless, static moment before the procedure began, the great hall at Blackfriars looked like a scene set out for a masque. Only the music was lacking. From some hidden place the musicians should be plucking their strings, louder and louder in a crescendo which would end in a silence into which the first player would speak the words he had conned. But there was no music, merely the hushed sound of a number of people gathered together and waiting, the shoe scraping the floor; the small quickly smothered cough, the rustle of silk.
This was no masque; this was reality; the culmination of all the talk that had been going on for years, all the speculation, all the negotiations, the appeals, the waiting, and the worry. This was the Cardinal’s Court which was to investigate the reasons for the King’s doubts as to the validity of his marriage to Catherine, and to decide whether the marriage was legal and must stand, or illegal and could be treated as though it had never been. It was in order to sit here, in judgment upon that issue, that Campeggio had made the painful journey from Rome; it was in preparation for what was to take place here today that Wolsey had sat up at night, studying, praying and fretting.
Cavendish loved his master; into this moment of waiting he breathed a little prayer, to Almighty God, to the Blessed Virgin, to holy St. Thomas of Canterbury for whom Wolsey had been named, and to St. George, his own patron saint—Let things so order themselves that my master shall suffer no damage. Then he amended it. No further damage. For he, so close to Wolsey, knew how much damage was already done by broken sleep, by sleepless nights, by loss of appe
tite, by anxiety.
No one would guess, Cavendish thought with pride; Wolsey looked well this morning, calm, stately and impregnable. His appearance benefited from comparison with that of his fellow Cardinal. Campeggio was seven years the older, and his face was marked by ill-health and pain. And even at his best, he had never had Wolsey’s presence. Cavendish, himself a Suffolk man, derived immense satisfaction from the fact, the indisputable fact, that the son of a Suffolk butcher could outshine in appearance, in intelligence, in style, any other man in the world. Cavendish did not even except his King. Henry was handsome—but he was younger than Wolsey; he was very able—but Wolsey had schooled him; and on this vitally important morning he had a fidgety, uneasy manner which contrasted ill with his chief minister’s calm. A scolding woman, Cavendish reflected, could work more havoc with a man than anything else in the world, which was why every decently run village had its ducking stool or its scolds’ bridle for the punishment of women who let their tongues run wild.
Wolsey, settling into his place, felt far from calm and impregnable. That halt, flutter, and jerk on of the heart which he had first experienced almost six years ago was now a permanent affliction. He could only thank God that it was not plain for all to see, like Campeggio’s gout. Only he knew about it, and so far he had hidden it well; but it was there, and occasionally it made him so short of breath that he was hard put to it not to open his mouth and gasp like a landed fish. And sometimes it seemed to shake the cage of his chest so that he longed to press his hands there and steady it. And there was, too, his other wretched, squalid little affliction which he had mastered in the only way he could; one small cup of water in each twenty-four hours all the time the Court had been sitting—and it had begun its preliminaries on the last day of May. Once the verdict was given, he’d drink a gallon, straight off, cold water, straight from the well.