by Deryn Lake
At Christmas he had been on the point of collapse and no amount of cajoling from the good Duchess would tempt him from his quarters to join the household. Only dire necessity had brought him to the classroom in January and the miserable creature had even contemplated suicide. Then, mercifully, had come an early Easter and though he had skulked in his room it had given Master Pratt, for such was his wretched name with all its silly double entendre, a certain amount of time for spiritual refreshment. But during the week following had come his worst moment. Bending before a mathematical diagram he had actually broken wind and several of his pupils had sniggered aloud. He had fled from his class, almost in tears, and would never have returned had not the Duchess actually knocked upon the door of his room and ordered him to come out and continue.
The next day news of the arrival of three more children had filled Master Pratt with dread and he had entered the study room that morning almost too afraid to speak. There had been an anonymous braying laugh as he had come in and the tutor had stood by his desk wishing that the world might instantly come to an end and the entire castle of Kenninghall, complete with occupants, be reduced to rubble. Finally, with an enormous effort of will he had managed to look up and clear his throat.
During the electric silence that followed his attention had been caught by one of the newcomers who sat near the front, smiling at him. Eyes the colour of the Virgin’s mantle — or so Master Pratt romantically thought — looked into his and just for a fanciful moment he imagined himself standing beyond his body, looking at his lanky person and realising his shoulders were hunched and his gaze swift and furtive. The tutor felt a terrible sensation of fear followed by one of enormous hope.
‘Good morning,’ he said tentatively.
‘Good morning, arse,’ muttered an indistinguishable voice.
Oh God, he thought and looked at the new girl for help. She was still smiling at him, quite softly, with no malice at all. ‘Tell them your first name’ were the words that came into his head.
Squaring his shoulders, Master Pratt looked directly at his pupils. ‘My name is Anthony, not arse. And as we have three new people with us today we shall start afresh. From now on you will address me as Master Anthony and at least one very boring joke will be over.’
‘Well done,’ said the voice in his head. ‘Now show them your strength.’
‘But before the incident is closed,’ he went on, hardly knowing where the words were coming from, ‘I am going to punish the person who insulted me.’
There was a small silence, then one of the little mites piped up with, ‘But who was it, Sir?’
The teacher looked round desperately and then knew quite certainly, almost as if someone had told him, that it was carrot-haired Ursula Tilney’s brother, Gerard.
‘Stand forth, Gerard Tilney,’ he said in a voice that sounded quite menacing. And when there was no response thundered, ‘Stand forth I say.’
There was total stillness and Anthony saw that he was staring at a sea of small faces with amazement written all over them.
‘Why should I?’ said Gerard eventually.
‘Because I say so, wretch. And if you will not step out I shall come to fetch you.’
And so he did, seizing the boy’s already pink ear, twisting it, then leading him, using the lobe as lever, from his place.
‘Now hear your punishment,’ said Anthony, pulling Gerard’s face close to his. ‘On this April day, being so fine and warm, I was intending to take lessons out of doors. But you, Sir, you’ — Anthony shook the ear and its owner enthusiastically — ‘you shall remain within and transcribe Latin all day long. And get no idea of running to tell the Duchess because I shall do so myself, now. The rest of you may pick up your things and go quietly to the meadow beyond the curtain wall. Lessons will begin in a short while.’ And with that he marched Gerard off to find Elizabeth Howard, leaving behind some very startled young people.
‘How dare he,’ said Ursula, as soon as the teacher was gone. ‘I shall report him to my father.’
‘Why bother?’ answered Joscelin. ‘It will all be too late by the time he hears of it.’
‘It’s a matter of principle,’ she replied haughtily, flinging her red hair about.
‘Really?’ said Joscelin, sounding disinterested, and got up from his place, crossing to where Sapphira sat with her brothers. He bowed politely. ‘May I help you to find your way to the meadow?’ he asked in his best voice.
The girl nodded, putting her hand out to him, but knowing that Ursula was watching him sulkily, Joscelin hesitated. Then he took Sapphira’s small childish fingers into his and sealed his future irrevocably.
‘I really think,’ said Ursula, sweeping up, ‘that Mistress Howard would be better accompanied by her brothers than you, Joscelin. Remember that I am your betrothed. It is your place to walk with me.’
He turned on her a look that frightened her because for a few seconds Ursula could see plainly that her future husband could not remember who she was.
‘What’s the matter?’ she cried furiously. ‘Have you gone mad? Don’t stare at me like that!’
He came to his senses, abruptly and with a shudder. ‘Forgive me. I shall go with you to the meadow now.’
She threw Sapphira a poisonous look. ‘Mistress Howard, I must advise you that it is not seemly in a maiden of your years to hold handfast with a man pre-contracted to marry another. If you wish to keep a shred of reputation it would be best to concentrate on your lessons while you are here.’
‘My sister touches people because she cannot speak to them,’ said Sylvanus hotly.
‘And because she is genuinely kind,’ added Jasper, his face menacing. ‘There is no cruelty in her, unlike some others.’
Ursula would have argued then, followed the instincts of her flaming hair and had a battle of wits with the dark boy-creature but the moment was spoiled by Master Pratt popping his head round the door and saying in a most authoritative voice, ‘Not gone yet? Now come along!’ And with that they all scurried.
Beyond the shadows of Kenninghall the spring day triumphed. It was warm enough for the young people to sit on cushions and watch the sun throwing beams of light through the trees, listening lazily to Master Anthony who, in his turn, grew bored with hexameters and pentameters, and began to talk of the beauties of the seasons and the cycle of nature reflected in human life.
‘You are all in the springtime,’ he said, ‘like this day, golden and glowing with youth.’
‘But so are you, Master,’ called Surrey’s little girl and as Anthony shed a tear of joy, nobody laughed at him.
‘You are dismissed,’ he said. ‘Go and pick flowers for the Duchess. There are banks of primroses in the woods.’ And with that he rolled on his back and fell asleep.
‘Will he lose his post?’ asked Sylvanus anxiously.
Joscelin shook his head. ‘No. He is a good teacher, excellent in fact. It is just that he is so nervous. But today he seems to have passed through some sort of metamorphosis. The Duchess will be delighted.’ He sighed and looked round for Ursula who by now should have been approaching in a cloud of ginger hair, but she was nowhere to be seen. Only Sapphira sat, smiling and still, watching the others as they drifted off in twos and threes, delighted to have time free from their lessons.
‘Where is Ursula?’ he called to the departing pupils.
‘She went back to the castle. She was suddenly tired,’ came the puzzling answer.
So now, as Jasper and Sylvanus rushed off, they were alone together. Hand clasping hand, blue eyes gazing into green, they walked slowly off towards the wood, lost in their own dream world in which nobody else existed at all. Sapphira had not expected to gain love without pain and now as she and Joscelin took the irrevocable step that both frightened and exalted them, she felt momentarily hurt.
‘We are lost,’ said Joscelin as his very life seemed to flow into her.
Sapphira shook her head.
‘I knew nothing of this,’ he whisper
ed, quite unnecessarily because Sapphira was already aware. ‘I never laid a finger on Ursula. You are my first love.’
He did not have to say that she was also his last. They were one person in many ways, two halves that together formed a perfect whole. Lying in the sunlit wood, watching the sun make tunnels of light in which insects and butterflies danced for their delight, Sapphira and Joscelin clung together, already fearing the separation that lay in wait for them, putting off the dreaded hour of their return until it could no longer be avoided.
*
On the edge of the great Wolff Hall estate lay Topenham Lodge, a substantial hunting lodge into which guests overflowed when the main house was full. It was there that Jane Seymour had stayed when King Henry had first come to her father’s house, and it was to the Lodge that Edward’s mother and children had removed themselves when in 1539, a month before his marriage contract with Anna of Cleves had been signed, Henry Tudor had visited again. But when the family was not at home and there was no guest staying in order to hunt, Topenham Lodge stood empty.
Ever since Thomas’s delighted realisation that the Widow Latymer was only too eager for their courtship to be renewed, it had exercised his mind constantly where his seduction of her should take place. It would have been only too easy to become a permanent visitor at her Charterhouse home, thereby giving Katherine’s servants plenty to talk about. But though he cared nothing for himself, being totally devoid of any kind of shame or embarrassment or even interest in what other people thought, Thomas would not subject someone he loved to humiliation. And he did love Katherine to the limit of his raffish ability.
Topenham Lodge, with its lack of servants and isolated position, seemed to him the ideal spot for secrecy, and with Thomas’s childlike adoration of plots and schemes, it was easy to arrange that he meet Lady Latymer at a pre-arranged place along the route, Katherine to travel with only one trusty male guard, and no female attendants at all.
In the months that followed, as events took an unimaginable turn, Thomas thanked a providence that he did not altogether believe in that he had observed the niceties and taken the precaution of hiding his love affair with Katherine from slanderous tongues.
To prepare the Lodge he had sent ahead his own man Jack, who would have died rather than betray his master, to fetch from Wolff Hall old Meg who had once been servant to Tom’s sister Jane. She had grumblingly set about cleaning and airing the rooms and shaking out bedding, while Jack, and Thomas’s cook, another trustworthy soul, had prepared the food. So on yet another pretty April evening, Katherine Latymer had arrived in Wiltshire, her secret safe, to learn about love by putting herself in the hands of an expert.
They supped romantically before a fire, the mood well set, and then Katherine went to bed with Thomas like a child, for sweetness, for reassurance, for gentleness and caring. And this he gave because of his love for her. But after tenderness followed passion, raw and rough. Beneath his touch areas of sensation which Katherine did not know she had, were made aware of their existence; the plunging within her was demanding, exciting beyond belief, and then, for the very first time, Katherine knew what it was to explode with ecstasy, to burn and freeze simultaneously, to reach for the moon and touch the stars. She was thirty and this was her first experience of completion. As the butterfly soared towards heaven it was very small wonder that Katherine’s love for Thomas Seymour became obsessional.
Afterwards, they lay an inch or two apart, staring at each other. Every detail of Tom was crystal clear; the dark leonine hair, the splendid face, complete with its little lines where he laughed or frowned, the brilliant eyes, blue as oceans. While he saw her comely features changed, grown experienced. With a silent chuckle Tom put out a long finger and tickled her nose.
‘Well, Madam,’ he said, ‘how is life with you?’
‘Perfect, at last. Oh Tom, I love you.’
‘And I you, my dear.’ He drew her close and closed his eyes and, unbidden, a vision of the child Elizabeth flashed into his mind.
Thomas must have given a small shudder of self-disgust for Katherine said, ‘Is anything the matter?’
He opened his eyes and the image faded. ‘I need you again.’
It was all so new to her, a powerful lover with strength and stamina.
‘I will never give you up, never,’ she whispered as she flew up a rainbow of delight and floated down into paradise.
‘You will never have to,’ Thomas answered quietly.
‘Do you promise?’
‘I promise,’ he said, unaware that even at that very second forces over which they had no control were moving against Thomas Seymour and his new-found love.
*
It blazed out of them like high summer. One look at their faces, at the way they had eyes for no one but each other, was enough. It was not possible for Sapphira and Joscelin to hide from anyone, except the very young, the fact that they had become lovers.
For the rest of that afternoon they were safe enough, for they saw only each other, but as soon as they came before the older children the truth was out. Ursula, recovering from the extraordinary bout of sleepiness which had suddenly overcome her, had searched for Joscelin everywhere, and then spied him coming out of the woods with his arm round Sapphira’s waist, not even attempting concealment. She had run then, hurried from the castle, so that she met them before they even entered the precinct.
‘What have you done?’ she asked bluntly, her face white against her violent hair. ‘Why, I could kill you, you mealy-mouthed witch,’ and she had flown at Sapphira with feet and fists.
In a way Joscelin felt sorry for her as he pulled her off. ‘Don’t Ursula, please don’t. You are making it all so difficult.’
‘Difficult? You are mine, remember? Our fathers signed the contract years ago.’
‘But that doesn’t mean we love one another. And we don’t.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ answered Ursula and with that, catching him unawares, gave Sapphira a stinging blow round the face.
Zachary’s daughter went pale but made no move to hit back, in fact she remained quite still, not lifting a finger in her own defence. Joscelin, sensing something of her power, said, ‘Don’t hurt her, Sapphira. It’s not her fault.’
She nodded her head and this seemed to infuriate Ursula all the more. ‘I’ll tell the Duchess what you’ve done. Then you’ll both be sent away,’ she hissed, and before Joscelin could stop her, punched Sapphira in the stomach.
It was at this anguished moment that Mary Howard, the Duchess of Richmond, daughter of the house of Norfolk, came innocently upon the scene and stopped in amazement.
‘What in Heaven’s name is going on?’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you two girls fighting?’
With her attention thus distracted, Ursula Tilney never saw and never afterwards knew that Sapphira had picked a flower from the meadow beneath her feet and rubbed a petal over Ursula’s hand. Nor did she see the mark where a faint smear of juice lay upon her skin.
There was a frozen pause, then Joscelin opened his mouth to answer as Ursula said, ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Mary.
‘We were not fighting,’ answered Ursula dreamily. ‘I do not fight with friends.’
Joscelin’s expression was so amazed that the Duchess of Richmond was suspicious. ‘I don’t trust this,’ she said. ‘Is the quarrel between you and your betrothed?’ And she turned to the boy for an explanation.
He coloured. ‘In a way, yes.’
‘He is no longer betrothed to me,’ said Ursula.
‘What is happening here?’ snapped Mary. ‘There is something I don’t understand. You are all three of you coming before my mother.’
And that was how disaster struck the youthful lovers. The Duchess of Richmond, widowed but still immature, might have been deceived, but Elizabeth Howard took one look at Sapphira and Lord Joscelin and felt her heart shrink within. Catherine Howard had lost her virginity when she was twelve, now here was ano
ther, not much older, and left in her charge too.
‘Joscelin, go to your room,’ she said. ‘Sapphira, stay here. I forbid the two of you to be left alone ever again. If what I suspect is true then one of you shall be banished from this house forever.’
‘God’s sweet life!’ Mary exclaimed, her hand flying to her throat.
‘Indeed,’ answered her mother grimly. ‘It looks as if we have just received a nest of vipers into our bosom with these poor relations of your father’s.’
‘But surely Joscelin is as much to blame?’
‘Joscelin is a Howard,’ said Elizabeth firmly. ‘I’m not quite sure what the other three are!’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I shall make up my mind tonight.’
And with that the Duchess strode out, grey with rage.
*
Katherine Latymer, born Parr, had gone to Wiltshire as a widow but travelled back two weeks later an affianced bride. During their wonderful sojourn, Sir Thomas had both proposed marriage and convinced her that it must be soon, in the face of whatever convention decreed. Katherine returned to Charterhouse in a whirl of wedding plans, sending at once for Scutt the tailor and ordering an expensive trousseau of French, Venetian and Dutch gowns, a slope hood and tippet, to say nothing of embroidered sleeves, crisp pleats and fine linen.