by Lucy Worsley
Too late, she realised that she had stepped outside the world of the sunny garden. She had hinted at things of which it was hard to speak.
Reginald at once sensed it too. He turned to her. ‘I know that you must long to be at Greenwich again,’ he said seriously. ‘But I cannot tell you how happy I am that you are here, at Hatfield, where I may be of some service.’
‘I am afraid,’ she said sadly, ‘that my father does not want me there any more. I’m not sure if I shall ever see Greenwich again.’
Somehow, even though Reginald’s cousin was her deadly enemy, he had made her feel that she could trust him with her real thoughts.
‘I am sure,’ Reginald said, ‘that the king is proud of his … beautiful daughter.’
Now he was looking deeply into her eyes, so much so that Mary’s thoughts of the court, and of palaces, and of the hatefulness of her father, faded away. She stared back. The mysterious archer, the windows all forgotten, she felt she was almost drowning in his gaze. Grey. His eyes were grey, like her own. She could see where his beard would come, too, when he was a man.
‘I thank you for your service,’ she said at last, simply. ‘I have been lonely these last weeks.’
‘Oh! I can’t imagine how lonely.’
With an impulsive movement, he snatched her hand and carried it up to his lips. Before she knew what had happened, he had kissed it.
Gentlemen had often kissed her hand before, countless gentlemen, upon being introduced as ambassadors, or as gentlemen coming into waiting, or indeed as officers of her own household like Sir John.
But no one had ever kissed her knuckles with passion, almost as if he could not help doing it and lacked the power to prevent himself.
Mary snatched back her hand, as if scalded by hot water. It was such a potent feeling, so unexpected.
‘Forgive me, forgive me,’ he was saying quickly, taking off his cap and twisting it in his hands. ‘I was too violent; I was overcome.’ She noticed, with a pang, a red stain rising up his throat. She had made him feel bad. For a second, she felt a little thrill of power.
Mary’s own hands were at chest level, trying to silence the noisy beating of her heart. She stepped back.
‘Nothing to forgive, Reginald,’ she said, as lightly as she could. ‘Now, we must not argue, or they will see us from the house. And armed men will doubtless be sent forth to rescue me.’
His eyes swivelled sideways at the great cliff of the house, with all its many serried ranks of windows. Yes, who knew what lay within? Who knew what eyes were watching?
She held out her hand. Sedately, he tucked it into the crook of his arm. At a slow, decorous pace, he led her back through the garden. Just like any gentleman in waiting, with a care for his mistress’s velvet slippers.
Chapter 19
February 1534, Hatfield
The next day, Mary wondered how she could possibly fill the time until Reginald came to pay her a morning call.
She was up and out of bed at dawn, and she even voluntarily climbed the dreaded stairs to the high gallery. She wanted to walk up and down there, in order to build up her strength again. It had been awful feeling so weak. She wanted to be strong, to ride better and faster, so as to be able to keep up with Old Humphrey.
Or, in truth, she wanted to be able to keep up with Reginald.
When the sun had been up about an hour, she knew that the kitchen fires would have been got going, and that her breakfast would be on its way. She was back in her room, ready and waiting, a good long time before anything happened.
This morning, Lady Shelton brought the tray, and having set it down, hovered around the room, tidying, straightening, making sure that Mary had enough butter.
‘It’s all fine, thank you, Lady Shelton,’ Mary said, rather wishing that she would go away. She almost preferred Lady Shelton as gaoler rather than serving woman; it was easier to keep her role straight. It was hard to hate someone who stood now by the fire, looking worried.
What had Lady Shelton to worry about? Mary wondered, a little crossly. Lady Shelton hadn’t a care in the world. She had a niece on the throne, and all queens looked after their relatives. She had a fine position here at Hatfield, as governess to a baby princess. It was hardly a difficult job.
But there was no doubt about it, Lady Shelton was anxious. The high dome of her forehead was deeply lined with concern, and she seemed on the point of speaking. Mary stopped chewing. She had never seen Lady Shelton looking uncertain before.
Mary took pity on her, and decided to begin a conversation. ‘I hope to ride again this morning,’ she said, ‘with your nephew Reginald.’
Lady Shelton gave a sharp little intake of breath, and crossed her arms.
What on earth was going on with the woman?
Mary’s curiosity was pricked.
‘Will you … perhaps sit down, my lady?’ she asked, for Lady Shelton was clearly in distress. Lady Shelton sank, slowly, on to the very edge of the stool by the fireplace. Her fingers were twitching and making false starts of their own.
‘Reginald,’ she said at last, in her deep voice – surprisingly deep, as it came from such a long, narrow throat.
‘Yes, your nephew …’ Mary was astonished that she needed reminding.
‘I would advise you to have a care with Reginald,’ she said.
Mary stared, aghast. What on earth? Lady Shelton stood up abruptly, turned her back upon Mary, and hurried out of the room.
Mary was left anguished, ashamed, suspecting that she had overstepped some invisible line with Reginald. But she was not quite sure. She liked and trusted him. He was so … solid. He was someone you could rely on, and she was so tired of relying on herself.
And yet something was unsettling. First the groom, now Lady Shelton. What did they know that Mary didn’t? When Reginald came that morning, she told one of the waiting women to send him away, to say that she was not well.
***
Later Mary felt so anxious, and so cooped up in her room, that she decided to walk by herself in the park. What was the mystery at which Lady Shelton had hinted? She had advised Mary to have a care, and all her returning feelings of happiness and normality had collapsed at once, like a house of cards. Mary felt that she was positively stooping beneath the weight of many cares.
Above all, Mary felt suspicious. She believed that Reginald cared about her – she, oh, she certainly cared about him. Was Lady Shelton just trying to take him away from her? To hurt her?
Perhaps walking would help. If Mary hurried across the long grass meadow at the side of the house and hid herself quickly among the trees, maybe she could pass undetected? And if anyone, Sir John, for example, tried to stop her, she would blaze at him like her mother used to do. Mary certainly felt, her thoughts in turmoil as they were, that she could blaze at anybody today.
She tried to slink out of the garden door, but of course the gardener was there, and, oh, the insolent groom too. She felt their eyes on her back, and kept it ramrod straight as she went into the meadow. Of course, the long, wet grass was soaking her skirt. But under their gaze she did not like to lift it out of the way, and pretended she didn’t mind.
Among the trees, she found a little path, which led to a tiny stone turret, twins of the ones on the house’s roof. It must be a pleasant, cool, stony place to sit on a hot day. On this gusty day in February, it was unpleasantly cold. But at least the turret might shield Mary from the wind.
Mary eyed the leafless trees in the woods behind her. There were one or two snowdrops beginning to poke through. What would happen if she bolted? Would she be able to get far enough away, on her own two feet, so that no one would recognise her and bring her back to Hatfield? She knew that Sir John would send men on fast horses to hunt her down. And even if she did escape, there was nowhere she wanted to go except to her mother, and she could scarcely achieve that. She didn’t even know where her mother was.
Trapped. Mary was trapped. She had scarcely sat down in the little stone tur
ret and begun to brood once more, when she heard someone moving quickly through the grass. She half stood, ready to blaze away at whichever servant it was.
But it wasn’t the groom. It was the person she had hoped, but also feared, to see.
‘Mary,’ Reginald said, bowing formally. ‘I would have come sooner if you’d let me know you were walking out.’
‘I didn’t ask for you,’ she said coldly, paying no heed to the note of reproach in his voice.
He looked almost … hurt. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Do you prefer your own company?’
‘I am … not well,’ she said, with a hint of a stammer.
‘They told me that this morning,’ he said, ‘but soon after I heard you playing on the virginals. You are very, very good, you know,’ he added, almost shyly. ‘I thought it was the professional musician, but they told me it was you.’
So he had been listening! Perhaps he had been listening outside the door of her rooms? Despite herself, Mary’s heart beat a little faster. When she had been playing, she had to admit, she had half the time been imagining that he was listening. And he really had been!
But she also felt very wary of him after what Lady Shelton had said. Who was she meant to trust?
Mary noticed that Reginald was still standing, his hat in his hand before him, head bowed. His shoulders looked very broad indeed as he towered up above her. But his lowered chin told her that he was completely hers to command.
Slowly, Mary patted the stone bench next to her. This was wrong of her, she knew, to invite a young man to be seated in her presence. But she couldn’t resist.
He sat beside her, as young men do, with his legs apart, and dangled his hat awkwardly in his hands. The easy conversation of earlier days simply would not flow.
‘Was it your mother who taught you how to play?’ he asked, at length.
‘No,’ Mary said. ‘I had fine teachers. I always enjoyed playing. But the instrument here is poor. I can play much better on my own one, which, oh, it must still be at Hunsdon.’
‘Do you … do you hear good news of your mother’s health?’
Mary bristled up like a cat.
‘Why do you ask about my mother?’ she asked at once, suspiciously.
‘I only …’ He turned his cap round and round in his hands. His cheeks were crimson again. He seemed as awkward as she did. He turned his eyes towards her, and Mary saw that they were troubled.
‘Reginald,’ Mary said again, slowly and seriously, ‘why do you want to know? Did someone … ask you to ask me?’
Abruptly, he stood up and left her. He was striding across the meadow towards the house. He was clasping the back of his head in both hands, as if it hurt him.
‘Reginald!’ she half shouted. She had not dismissed him. What did he mean by leaving her presence without permission, without a bow?
Mary stared after him, her mouth half open. She noticed that his velvet cap, with its feather, still lay next to her on the stone bench. She was convinced that he had not meant to be rude, but was in some inexplicable confusion and distress. Sighing, she picked up his cap and stroked it with her cold fingers. She imagined that it still contained the faint warmth and smell of his hair. She sniffed it, her eyes closed, and its scent did indeed bring him back immediately into her mind, almost as if he were sitting beside her once again.
What on earth was going on?
***
Mary, too, hurried back into the house, through the darkening late afternoon. Once in her rooms, she demanded that Lady Shelton be summoned immediately.
‘Tell me,’ Mary insisted, ‘what did you mean this morning when you warned me about Reginald?’
Lady Shelton shook her head mutely, and Mary could see that there was grave concern in her eyes.
‘Tell me!’ she half shouted.
Yes, that felt better.
But she had also seen Lady Shelton wince. Mary suddenly remembered that when her father had shouted like that, it made people too afraid to answer him and tell him what he wanted to know. She took a deep breath and tried again.
‘What are you afraid of?’ Mary asked, more gently. ‘Is it Sir John?’
Lady Shelton gave one of her tight little shakes of the head.
‘Is it … Master Cromwell?’ Mary tried again.
This did the trick. Lady Shelton stood and went over near the window, and addressed her words out through the panes. It was as if she had now made up her mind, and would tell all her thoughts. But she kept her back turned, as if she were ashamed.
‘It was … a plot,’ Lady Shelton said. ‘I think you should know that the young man you call Reginald is not my nephew. He’s not really a gentleman, even, although he’s a good actor and knows how to pass for one. He was sent to … entrap you. It was Master Cromwell’s orders. I have thought for a long time now that it is wrong to treat you, a senseless young girl, as you have been treated. But this was the last straw.’
Senseless? Mary stiffened.
But her head told her that this was no time to worry about a stray word. It was more important to gather information than it was to feel offended.
‘Entrap me how? Tell me at once.’
It was rude, but Mary couldn’t be bothered with the formality of using Lady Shelton’s name or skirting around the matter.
She responded in kind.
‘He was sent to … lead you astray,’ Lady Shelton said. ‘Into immorality. And I could see yesterday, in the garden, that it was starting to work.’
Now it was Mary’s turn to wince. Had Lady Shelton been watching from the window? She squirmed inside as she remembered how she had laughed and smiled up into Reginald’s face as they walked. Yes, she had clung too hard to his arm. Had Lady Shelton even seen him kissing her hand? Had she been that easy to read?
Mary felt a fiery blush rising into her face.
‘It was all Master Cromwell’s orders,’ Lady Shelton said. There was no doubt that she was in great anguish herself, her narrow shoulders shaking. ‘And it was shameful, shameful. I want no further part in it.’ She turned, decisively, and handed Mary a piece of paper. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I know you will not believe me unless you read it for yourself. You are an intelligent girl. In fact, I think that you are one of the cleverest girls I have met.’
Mary slowly took the paper, but did not look at it at once. This was all so strange and implausible.
‘And you, Lady Shelton, why are you telling me this?’
Lady Shelton’s sharp fingers almost scratched the air.
‘Because it is wrong,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am here because my niece has become queen. She has commanded me, through Master Cromwell, to execute this plot, just as she commanded my husband to lock you up in the attic. But she is getting too … too high-handed. I fear that she will fly too near the sun and come tumbling down. I cannot be glad to see her exercise her wrath upon … a defenceless girl.’
‘Ah, but it was Master Cromwell who had me brought down from the attic,’ Mary said, instantly spotting a flaw in Lady Shelton’s speech. She leaned back in her chair. But her eyes never left Lady Shelton. Could she trust her? Was this some new trap? Where was Reginald? Who was Reginald?
‘Read it,’ Lady Shelton implored her. ‘You’ll see all the orders came from … from my niece the queen, through him. We were to starve you, then if that failed, to send a young man, to … seduce you. When Master Cromwell came to “rescue” you –’ here Lady Shelton gave a hollow laugh – ‘it was only to appear well in your eyes. So that he might persuade you to sign to the succession, and renounce your position.’
Unwillingly, Mary unfolded the paper. It was addressed to Sir John and Lady Shelton, and dated from the time of her arrival at Hatfield.
Firstly, the paper read, cause her to die of grief or in some other way.
That was starvation and loneliness, Mary thought. That was what they were trying to do when she was kept up in the attics. Well, that hadn’t worked. Her mother’s spies had seen to that, with the secret
food, and even more importantly, the secret encouragement, the signs that showed she had not been forgotten.
Next, it went on, compel her to renounce her rights, by marrying some low fellow, or falling prey to lust, so that the king may have a pretext and excuse for disinheriting her.
Mary looked up, startled. Lady Shelton met her gaze, and sadly nodded.
‘He will be gone from here by tonight,’ she said. ‘I have sent him away, and his ridiculous horse too. I think he has lost the stomach for his work anyway.’
Mary knew that she meant Reginald, and despite herself, her heart sank.
So, was she never to see him again?
Despite everything Lady Shelton had just said, she could scarcely believe it. Surely Reginald had meant everything he said yesterday, when he apologised, when he said that passion had caused him roughly to seize her hand?
Her knuckles came to life and gave her a tingling sensation as she remembered the moment in the garden.
But today he had been strange, more than strange, in his behaviour. Discourteous, and different.
‘If this is true …’
Lady Shelton butted in, uncharacteristically rude.
‘It is true, I swear it!’
‘If this is true,’ Mary began again. Her voice was beginning to quaver.
It was beginning to dawn on her that she had started to feel happy once again, despite everything, and now she was plunged once more into darkness. Mary couldn’t help but wonder how much her father knew of this. Or if he even cared. ‘If this is true, then why do you tell me so? Surely you should not? What will happen to you when the … plot fails?’
Lady Shelton turned away again, so that Mary could not see her face. It suddenly occurred to Mary that Lady Shelton had done a very brave thing in disobeying her orders.
‘I don’t know,’ Lady Shelton said simply. ‘I don’t know.’
There was no ‘princess’, there was no ‘Your Highness’, there was not even a ‘my lady’. But Mary didn’t mind. She felt chilled, and humiliated. She had been so nearly taken in by Reginald. Yes, she was a senseless girl. And what would Anne and Master Cromwell do next, both to Lady Shelton and to Mary herself?