She was lying on her back. A slow, warm tear made its way from the outer corner of her eye to her ear. She opened her eyes. Once again she tried to move, to lift her hand to wipe the tear away, but her arm felt like lead. She let out a soft moan.
Thomas had been dozing in the chair by the bed and at this sign of life he was at once on his feet.
“I am here!” he cried. He thrust aside the heavy velvet curtains and looked down upon his wife. She seemed very small in the enormous bed, and so very pale. The only color about her was her red hair, still thick and luxurious, but damp; everything was damp. “Let me help you,” he said, but as he approached she shrank back from him.
He pretended not to notice; he sat on the bed near its head and scooped her up into his arms. He rocked her, and wiped the beads of sweat and a stray lock of hair from her face. The memory of his touch, the manly smell of him, overwhelmed her and she began to cry.
“Oh, my sweet one,” he whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?”
The sudden tenderness after so many days…weeks…of loneliness, and enforced exile…she had refused to see him after she had fled the room of shame where she had found him with Elizabeth…her emotions suddenly burst in a paroxysm of pain and she began to sob brokenheartedly.
Thomas rocked her gently in his arms, muttering endearments; my heart, my sweeting…he realized now that she was his power base, not Elizabeth. With her wealth and position as queen, and as the beloved stepmother of the king, she had bound him to her. While she lived, there would be no Elizabeth for him. He would have to bring his schemes to fruition in some other way. And he would. He was bursting with plans and ideas. He had the support of many men, important men, men who could help him.
Catherine’s sobs subsided to hiccoughs. Thomas used a gentle finger to wipe away the last of her tears. She looked up at him. After fleeing the scene of his betrayal, she had gone straight to her confinement without seeing either her husband or her step-daughter again. Elizabeth had been very contrite; she had become quite ill after her arrival at Cheshunt, fueling the servant’s gossip that she was with child by the Lord Admiral. What a sordid situation! And all brought about by the unbridled ambition of a man who lusted for naught but power! Had he ever really loved her? She was certain he did not love Elizabeth. They were both merely means to an end.
And yet when Elizabeth had written her a tearful letter begging her forgiveness and wishing her well with her confinement, Catherine had forgiven her. The princess was a child and could not be held to blame. But she had refused to see Thomas and had not even given him the chance to say he was sorry. She would not have believed him anyway, so what was the use? She had taken with her into her ordeal a full, no, an overflowing cup of bitterness and heartbreak, and she had dwelt upon it all until she felt that her heart would break in two. Her wounds were raw and every memory of that terrible day was like a blow upon a bruise.
Still, they could not go on this way. There had to be a way forward.
Then she heard the child crying again. Her child. The child she had so desperately wanted all her life, and whom, when she had finally wrenched herself free of her mother’s tortured body, Catherine could not even bring herself to look upon. The child of their love, but a tainted love now…
“Where…” she said, but the word came out as no more than a raspy whisper. She tried again. “Where,” she said, “is my daughter?”
Thomas’s face brightened. This was a good sign indeed. It was not natural for a mother not to want to see her own child…
Thomas laid her back gently on the bed and said, “I shall fetch her.”
Catherine closed her eyes and when she opened them again, there stood her sister, Lady Anne, with the child in her arms. Her sister’s eyes glistened with tears as she handed the now sleeping bundle to its mother.
Thomas sat down beside her, his arm around her shoulder.
She looked down at the sleeping baby, her eyes punctuated by semicircles of tiny lashes. Her fingers were perfect, the nails like little pink shells.
Catherine started to cry again, but this time, they were tears of joy. There was a way forward after all. She would forgive her husband and be a mother to her child. And who knew? Perhaps someday happiness, that fleeting phantom, would return.
# # #
In the days that followed, Catherine refused to dwell any further upon the dreadful events preceding the birth of her child. The agony of the childbed gradually faded from memory as her delight in the new life that she and Thomas had created expanded to become all-encompassing. There was only one bad moment, and that came upon her unawares, penetrating the thin veneer of her resolution, which was to think only about that which was pleasant. She fought down the panic this incident raised in her; but it made her realize just how fragile was the peace that she had created for her tortured mind to abide in.
As the day of the child’s christening drew near, Catherine, Thomas and all her ladies were sitting in the garden. Thomas had spent lavishly renovating the old castle, and had paid particular attention to the garden. It was Catherine’s favorite place; she could not bear to be indoors since that terrible day. She would never feel the same about Sudeley again, but the garden was innocent of all unpleasantness; it was like an Eden divorced from the terrible memories of the rooms where she had experienced one of the worst ordeals of her life, at a time when she had expected to be nothing but blissfully happy.
Catherine was holding the baby, tracing her finger across the little rosebud lips, wondering anew at the baby’s slate blue eyes, which had still not changed to the color they would be for the rest of her life. In mind of the christening, which was set for that evening, she asked idly, “What shall we call her, then?”
Thomas, who was sitting close to Catherine, leant over and poked his finger into the tiny starfish hand of his daughter, who gripped it with a strength surprising in a newborn baby. “Why, we shall call her after the princess, of course,” he replied.
For a moment the sun seemed to be blocked; Catherine’s bile rose and she felt a wave of coldness grip her as if her blood had turned to ice. Her free hand flew to her mouth and she was afraid she was about to be sick. Name her child for Elizabeth! Not for the sake of all the peace and happiness that was left in the world would she agree to that!
Thomas removed his finger from the baby’s iron grip, touched her lightly on her smudge of a nose and said, “How now, little Mary Seymour? How dost thou this fine day?”
His voice seemed to come to Catherine from far away, which was absurd, because she was close enough to touch him. She should not be feeling this way; his remark had been an innocent one, it was after the Princess Mary whom Thomas meant to name their child. But the feeling of something not being quite right would not recede.
“I feel unwell,” she said.
Lady Herbert and Lady Tyrwhitt arose instantly.
“Your Grace has spent far too much time in the sun today,” chided her sister. “Come, we shall go back to the castle. You must rest before the ceremony in any case.”
But the feeling of illness had not receded; Catherine developed a fever that took a fierce hold of her and would not abate. The doctor was called back, and the midwife; both agreed that what ailed the queen was the dreaded childbed fever.
“Why does she mutter so?” asked Thomas. “What does she say? Why will she not speak to me?”
Lady Herbert, who was leaning over her sister and studying her anxiously, turned an angry countenance to her brother-in-law. “She is delirious, you fool! She is dying! And it is all your fault!”
Thomas seemed truly shocked. “My fault? How say you so? Does not God decide who shall live and who die?”
Lady Anne, who was a tall woman, straightened herself and strode the few steps that took her face to face with him. “Aye, unless one loses the very will to live!”
“But that is not true!” he bellowed. “She was happy! She told me so.”
All of the emotion that Catherine’s sister ha
d been holding back since learning of the episode with Thomas and Elizabeth burst forth. “Happy!” she shrieked. “Are you mad, sir? She was not happy! Christ on the Cross, it was all she could do not to throw herself into the nearest moat and drown! Happy, that she caught you dallying with her step-daughter? Happy, that after learning of such a foul deed, that she was to go through the ordeal of bearing the child of such a cur? Happy!” she spat out the word. “You want to know what she mutters in her delirium? I shall tell you! She frets that the moment the breath leaves her body, you will marry Elizabeth! Can you deny that such is your plan? Childbed fever, indeed! A convenient diagnosis! How much have you paid the doctor, pray, to say such? How much of your ill-gotten gains have you used to pay to poison my sister?”
This speech did take Thomas aback, but one remark particularly went home. He had been sent, as Lord High Admiral, to rout pirates in the Channel; instead, he had seen an opportunity and made lucrative deals with the renegades. The pirates would be allowed to ravage shipping while the Lord Admiral turned a blind eye and profited from their booty. He had become rich indeed from that little scheme! And there was no one to say him nay. His brother was a weak and ineffectual ruler. But he would soon see to that situation!
At Lady Anne’s words, Lady Tyrwhitt began to cry. “I see no possibility of death in her. It be only a touch of fever!” Lady Elizabeth truly loved her cousin and could not bear to think of her dying.
But the next day and the next saw no improvement and as Catherine’s condition worsened it became evident to all that the Dowager Queen would die. Towards the end her mind became clear again, and she made her will, leaving her vast wealth and estates to her faithless husband. Why she should do so was a mystery; even as Thomas tried in vain to comfort her, Catherine lashed out at him, accusing him of laughing at her pain. Less than one week after the birth of the child she had yearned for all her life, Catherine died in the arms of her sister, still grieving over her belief that her beloved Thomas would be in Elizabeth’s arms before her body was cold.
Sheringham Manor, Norfolk, December 1548
Mary stared into the fire, watching spellbound as the flames leapt and danced, and the logs crackled and hissed. The flames of Hell were said to be unfathomable. When she was a child, she had once tried to hold her little finger in the flame of a candle, but she could not; it was too painful. So what must it be like to dwell in Hell for all eternity, with the fires of the blaze constantly licking one’s flesh? She shuddered. Such was the fate that she wished upon Thomas Seymour.
It had been months since Catherine died, but Mary still could not stop thinking about the manner of her death. The Lord High Admiral had broken her stepmother’s heart, and debauched her sister. Mary was sorely grieved by Catherine’s death, but she was also mightily disturbed by the growing distance between herself and Elizabeth. She had truly loved her sister, despite the fact that she was the child of Anne Boleyn. The recent scandal had stirred up all the old gossip, and foremost in people’s minds now was the recollection of just who Elizabeth really was. When she was a child, it had been convenient to ignore it; but truth will out and Elizabeth had shamed herself abominably. Mary blamed Thomas, of course, but Elizabeth at fifteen was old enough to have known better. The terrible fact that Mary had to face was that even though she had loved the little girl Elizabeth had been… precocious, charming, so clever…she had ceased to love the woman her sister was becoming, and it was as if she were grieving for yet another death.
Mary sighed and shifted in her chair. The movement was slight and quietly done, but her stirring disturbed van der Delft, who was dozing in the chair next to her own. The Imperial ambassador seemed unwell to her practiced eye; he would be carrying on a conversation and suddenly he would nod off. Mary had thought that no one could ever have replaced Chapuys, who was enjoying his retirement in Louvain; but she had come to trust and depend upon van der Delft just as she had Chapuys. He was a dear man.
“I was not sleeping,” he lied. “I was thinking on the current situation. We must be extremely cautious, Your Grace. The Act of Uniformity is a harbinger of persecutions to come for all Catholics.”
Mary snorted at the understatement. “I know it well,” she replied. In the early summer before the scandal broke, she had bidden Catherine goodbye and gone back to Sheringham. She had been ill since Whitsuntide, and had longed to go back to Norfolk. Kenninghall was certainly grand, but it was for the little manor of Sheringham that she pined. There, on that magnificent expanse of beach in the sea air, would she find peace. She had planned to stay until Michaelmas, but then news of Elizabeth’s disgrace and then Catherine’s death had reached her. Hard on this came a summons to court, finally, from her brother, the king. She had turned back and gone all the way to London, eager to see her brother at last, and expecting them to mingle their tears for a beloved stepmother. And certainly they had done so, but it was not long before the real reason for Edward’s summons to court became plain.
Thomas had been at court already; she had sedulously avoided him, but he had pursued her and finally trapped her in a courtyard at St. James’s Palace. He had had the temerity to approach her and without a word of condolence regarding her late stepmother, had sought her support in his continuing suit to obtain Catherine’s jewels. Despite giving him short shrift on that subject, he had the unmitigated gall to insinuate that now he was free, he might perhaps court her. She had been too shocked to reply, but had made her answer plain in that she completely ignored his correspondence and his further attempts to see her.
Van der Delft pulled the counterpane covering his knobby knees up to his chin. She had been right! He was ailing, and trying valiantly not to show it. The room was extremely warm, but still he was cold.
Mary smiled indulgently and said, “Dear François, shall I mull some wine?” It was just what he needed; something to warm his insides. And she so enjoyed mulling wine. She arose and thrust the clean poker she used expressly for that purpose into the flames, then she went to the sideboard to gather her spices.
Van der Delft turned in his chair to watch Mary concoct the ingredients for the mulled wine into two sturdy goblets. He smiled; Mary loved jewels, and owned many, but even the plate she used for her everyday needs was finely decorated. He sighed. He was sorry to disturb the peace she had come to Sheringham to find, but there was nothing for it. The situation was becoming dangerous, and looked to get worse before it grew better.
“The Council will brook no organized Catholic opposition to their plans, Your Grace,” he said.
“What has that to do with me?” replied Mary with a shrug. “I have made it a point to live far from court, I make no ostentatious show of my religion, and I force no one to hear Mass.”
Van der Delft sighed. “All true, Your Grace, to be sure. But regardless of all of that, you are viewed by many as the natural focal point for such opposition. All know of your strong and unwavering commitment to your beliefs, and the faithful look to you for leadership. Whether you would own it or not, Your Grace is now the acknowledged leader of the Catholic Party in England.”
Mary had been stirring the contents of the goblets vigorously, so much so that she almost overturned one of them. She must not let her irritation color her replies to van der Delft; it was his duty to warn her of such things. But that did little to calm her annoyance with the whole situation. “I cannot be held responsible for the opinions of others,” she said. “I told Edward as much when I was at court.”
“And that will suffice for now,” said the Imperial ambassador. “But Your Grace, the tide is high and the water is rising rapidly. Your position is extremely precarious. There are many who are committed to the old faith; all know this. But there are many who…what is the expression? …sit on the fence. Your refusal to conform is noticed, and the Council fears the effect of your unwavering opposition to religious change on these people who have not yet made up their minds. They fear that those who have never been…shall we say, comfortable with the new way
s will be influenced by your resistance.”
Mary set the jewel-encrusted golden goblets down on a table near the hearth. “I seek to influence no one,” she said.
Van der Delft nodded. “I know that, Your Grace. I understand. But they do not.”
As quick as lightning, she drew the hot poker from the flames and thrust it into one of the goblets. There was a loud hiss and a cloud of steam arose from the vessel. Mary held the goblet by its sturdy stem and set it down next to van der Delft. “Let it cool for a moment, dear François, but drink it while it is hot, and before its virtue is lost.”
Van der Delft did as he was told; he was used to women telling him what to do, and secretly, he enjoyed it. His mother had been a strong-willed woman, and he had married a wife who was just as forceful. In the world of kings and courts, he had to be resolute and clever; but when he was at home, it was a relief to let his womenfolk say what should be. He obediently lifted the goblet and blew on its contents, then took a cautious sip. “Ah!” he exclaimed. “No one mulls a goblet of wine quite as well as Your Grace does.” Laying a finger to the side of this nose he whispered, “But I pray you, do not tell my lady wife that I said so!” His eyes danced.
Mary smiled, and sipped from her own goblet. She nodded, satisfied, and resumed her seat by the fire. “But surely my cousin will support my position?”
Van der Delft placed his goblet on the table beside his chair. He drew a small linen square from his sleeve and dabbed his lips. “Of a certainty, Your Grace.”
Mary shook her head and waved an expansive hand. “Then I do not see why there should be overmuch concern.”
The Baker's Daughter Volume 2 Page 11