The Concubine (30 page)

T
HE PRETTY MAID-OF-HONOR
said discontentedly,

“Masked again! And that is the third time running. I could understand it if Her Grace were swollen about the face or pop-eyed as women in her state so often are, but she looks as usual. So why?”

The plainer one wanted to say that the masked balls were immensely enjoyable. She’d enjoyed herself more during the two in the past ten days, than at any other time in her life. Safely masked she had been equal to the greatest beauty in Court, and had had as good a time. But to say so would have been to decry herself, so she joined in the lament.

“It makes so much work,” she said, falsely. “Still any kind of gaiety is welcome. I always used to hear how clever the Queen was at devising entertainments, but since I came to Court I’ve found life rather dull.”

You always will, poor dear, the pretty one thought. She said,

“Ah, being pregnant again has made a great difference.
And
the change in His Grace. He’s acting like a lover again; sending in a courier every day to ask after her health. And all those deer! I’m growing tired of venison however dressed. We shall have it again this evening, without doubt.”

“This evening,” said the plain one, “I am going to wear a wig.”

How wise, how very wise, thought the pretty one, with a swift glance at her companion’s lusterless, mouse-colored hair.

“Where in the name of goodness could you get such a thing at a moment’s notice?”

“I borrowed it. From my aunt Talbot. She went bald, years ago, when my youngest cousin was born, and she used to wear a cap. But when my uncle died and she had money to spend she bought two wigs; beautiful ones, bright brown and curly. When Her Grace announced that this evening we were to be masked again and to appear as we would wish to appear, I asked leave and ran out and begged the loan of one of my aunt’s wigs.”

“Bright brown and curly? Then I know one thing. You are not intending to pay Her Grace the compliment of imitation. Nor am I. I did think of it; I think I was the first to do so. Appear as you would wish to appear. As soon as I heard that I thought it would be a pretty compliment…but six other ladies had the same notion, so I abandoned it.”

“Six?”

“That I know of; so there will be twenty most likely.”

The plain girl’s heart gave a little ecstatic leap of anticipation. Ladies who intended to pay Her Grace that compliment would be obliged to wear headdresses which concealed their hair, for her hair was unique; therefore aunt Talbot’s beautiful wig would be all the more noticeable. She remembered with pleasure the last masquerade when they had all been rural characters, shepherds and milkmaids, thatchers, plowboys, goose-girls, and a very fine upstanding plowboy had attached himself to her and finally taken her to a small dark room that smelt of horses and of harness, and had kissed her with enthusiasm. He had suggested that they both remove their masks, and she had been able to say, “The Queen forbade that anyone should,” and so escape unshamed. That was what made these masked balls so different and so wonderful; usually, on the stroke of midnight everyone unmasked and there you were with your almost lashless, gooseberry-green eyes and snub nose, yourself again. Unwanted. It was such a pity, she thought; nobody wished to be plain, or could be blamed for being so. In all other respects you were just like any other girl. And at the very back of her mind there lingered a hope, frail yet lively, that tonight somebody, momentarily caught by the masked, anonymous face and the beautiful wig, might pause, look a little deeper and realize that a face wasn’t all…

She felt so warmly toward the Queen, who had made this possible, that she almost wished that her aunt Talbot had chosen to invest in wigs of straight black hair so that she too, in response to the order to appear as she wished to be, could have impersonated Her Grace.

Her little contribution was not missed. Not twenty, but forty-three ladies had paid Anne the ultimate compliment, and had shown considerable ingenuity; breasts tightly bound to flatten them; waists tightly clenched in; almost unmanageable high heels to lend stature; dresses of the colors she favored, yellow, white, tawny, orange and cinnamon and black. Some ladies had even had their hair dyed; others had made shift with headdresses. Goldsmiths and silversmiths must have worked all through the night on hasty copies of her favorite trinkets.

Forty-three versions of her, of varying validity; some had entered into the spirit of the game and imitated her manner, sprightly yet a little aloof.

It wasn’t easy to tell one from another; it was impossible to know where they went, or what they did, or with whom.

That was—to the regret of the plain maid-in-waiting—the last of the masked balls. The Queen would dance no more until April had come and gone. The King came back from his progresses, perceptibly heavier, for everywhere he stayed he had been offered the best the house afforded and it would have been churlish not to eat and praise the food.

He was settled in his mind, too, content to wait and see what April brought. If Anne bore him a son then he would do what kings had done from time immemorial, give all outward honor and respect to the mother of his heir and enjoy himself with his mistress. Jane would accept that, once she saw that there was no alternative. But if the new baby should be another girl then he would
know
that this was another marriage cursed by God and he would get out of it somehow and marry Jane as speedily as he could.

Winter settled down over England and all life seemed attuned to the slow, inevitable process of gestation.

C
ATHERINE WAS DYING
.

Nobody knew exactly why. Some said that she was dropsical, but there was not much sign of that disease; she had for years suffered from rheumatism, but rheumatic people were usually long-lived; there were those who believed in the local rumor that Kimbolton stood in the center of an area where the very air was inimical to any but the native-born. Those closest to her said that she was dying of heartbreak, occasioned not by her personal misfortunes, which she had borne with fortitude, but by the terrible things which were taking place in England as a result of Henry’s break with Rome.

Whatever the reason, she was dying and she knew it; and when, on the fourth of January, a day of gray, weeping skies, Messire Chapuys arrived at the castle and was admitted promptly, she knew that her death was regarded as imminent by Henry, for otherwise the visit would not have been permitted.

From the bed she extended her hand and Chapuys went down on his knees, cautiously, for they were stiff in damp weather, took it and kissed it.

She said, “You have come. Now I can die in your arms and not like a beast, abandoned in a wet field.”

Chapuys, like most normal men, found the mention of death by the dying, embarrassing, and made some awkwardly evasive remark about hoping that her health would improve.

“Not on this earth, my friend. That is why I am so relieved to see you at last. My women are loyal and kind, but powerless, and my present chaplain is timorous and pliable. To tell them my final wishes would be like telling the wind. But you…”

“I shall do my utmost to carry out anything you wish done,” he said soothingly, and settled himself to endure some discomfort of body—for he was damp and muddy from his journey—and of mind—for she was certain to mention the Emperor fondly and with hope, and just before he had left London he had heard that Charles, anxious for Henry’s help against the French King, had agreed to ignore Catherine’s rights, and Mary’s. It would be a mercy if Catherine died before she learned of that.

“Material things first,” Catherine said. “’I have no estate and fear I may die in debt. My allowance has been small and prices have risen steeply of late. I have a gold collar which my mother herself fastened around my neck when I sailed from Corunna; I would like Mary to have that. And my furs. They are old and worn, but while the Concubine lives she will get no new ones and in cold weather may be glad of mine. Do you bring me any news of my daughter?”

“Nothing of much mark. She is pursuing exactly the orders you gave her; obeying the King in all matters save those of conscience. She has rebuffed the Concubine’s overtures on several occasions. You may be proud of your daughter, Your Grace.”

“I am. But I pity her, too. All her best years…” Even now she would not say “wasted”; but there were times when she felt that all the suffering, all the stubborn standing upon rights had been in vain. She had begun to feel so when Henry started to demolish the religious houses and give away, or sell cheaply, their vast estates. It was bribery, ensuring the continuance of the breach with Rome. Even if something unforeseen happened and Mary came to the throne she would find it very hard to pry men away from their ill-gotten acres.

Still, having done what she could, she must leave the outcome with God.

“As for me,” she said, “I wish to be buried in some place belonging to the Observant Friars, my favorite order.”

He opened his mouth to say that there were now no Observant Friars in England. The Friars had been among the first to go. Even here in the middle of this dismal swamp she must have heard…But at the hour of death the mind tended to look backward. He said,

“I will remember that.”

“And I should like five hundred Masses to be said for my soul.”

He nodded, and let that pass, too.

“That, I think, disposes of everything.” She lay for a moment mustering strength and then said, in a more vigorous voice, “One thing troubles me. You always urged me to take action. Was I wrong not to give you more heed?”

There was only one answer to that. But it was useless, worse than useless, cruel, to point out to the defeated and the dying just where they had gone wrong.

So he said, gently, “Your Grace has always acted in accord with your conscience, so how can you have been wrong?”

She gave him a faint smile. “That was a diplomatic answer. I am…no, not troubled…perplexed about the workings of conscience. You, I am sure were acting in accordance with yours when you went about rousing people to my cause, and trying to persuade me to take up arms. Then whose conscience was right, yours or mine?”

“Only God can judge of that.”

“Now, at the end of it all,” Catherine went on, “another thought troubles me, too. Was I wrong years ago? If when the King first questioned our marriage, I had complied and gone into a nunnery—it was Cardinal Campeggio, I think, who suggested that—then Clement would have, or might have given way to the King and England would have remained part of the true Church. Is not that an appalling thought to visit me now? I have always been so sure, so certain. Always I felt that I was acting as God willed. Now I am sure of nothing and sometimes I feel that I drove Henry to sin in the first place, and by ignoring your advice, rejected the chance to save him. And to think that way, is, I assure you, to feel the pains of Purgatory prematurely.”

Chapuys was at a loss. He was a diplomat, not a theologian. His glib tongue and supple brains were more at home dealing with worldly things. But out of pity for her, he tried.

“Such thoughts,” he said, “are a temptation to despair, which is a sin. You say that you have always felt sure that you were acting as God willed; that being so you have never before been tempted to despair. Such thoughts may be of the Devil, who having failed with you in other respects, tries this. And remember, too, that while faith is confident, it is not truly faith…”

He warmed to his task, surprising himself. He spoke of the apparent triumph of evil and of heresy and of God’s power to reverse it at any moment He chose. Referring to her concern over Henry’s spiritual state he reminded her that ultimately every soul was responsible for its own salvation. And then, moving with some relief on to more familiar ground, he spoke of Mary, exaggerating a little as was his habit. Hope of Mary’s succession must on no account be abandoned, he said. If anything happened to Henry, Mary could count on the support of everyone in the country except convinced Lutherans, of whom there were but few. And as for the Concubine’s latest pregnancy—the delight in gossip shone in the Ambassador’s eyes—there was something extremely odd about that. The child was supposed to be due in April; well, in his time he had seen a good many enceinte women, and he’d seen Anne only last week, and if she were six months gone with child, so was that bedpost. And everybody said the same. Gossip—not to be relied on, of course, but often showing which way the wind blew—said that she had been pregnant but had had a miscarriage in the autumn, dared not tell the King, would begin presently to pad herself out as much as her overweening vanity would allow, and planned, in April, to have a newly-born male child smuggled in…

Catherine felt vaguely that it was wrong to derive comfort from such talk, but in fact she did, and presently she said,

“I think I could sleep now. In the last six days I have not slept as many hours, and that explains my melancholy, for which I apologize. You have brought rest to my mind.”

Chapuys, completely exhausted, and very stiff, rose and tottered away.

Catherine slept. And while she slept there arrived another old friend, the Dowager Countess of Willoughby, who, as Maria de Salinas, had come to England with Catherine. She brought with her no order for admittance from the King and at first Sir Edmund Bedingfield was dubious about letting her in; but she shouted at him in the masterful well-born Englishwoman’s voice which she had acquired, that the weather entitled her to ask hospitality of any inhabited place: And since the dangerous Spanish Ambassador had been allowed entry there seemed no reason to exclude a comparatively harmless woman. So when Catherine woke it was to see another friendly face, and pleasure in the reunion revived her a little. She was strong enough to sit, well-propped with pillows, and write the last of her innumerable letters.

It was to Henry. It began, “My most dear lord, King and husband,” and went on, without a word of reproach, to beg him to consider the good of his immortal soul. “For my part, I pardon you everything…” And she did; she looked upon him as a fellow victim; he was easily led, he had been badly advised, he had fallen prey to an evil woman. “For the rest I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her.” She mentioned her three remaining maids, asking that they should be paid their wages and provided with marriage portions and ended the letter with the words, “Lastly I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.”

Three days later she died in Lady Willoughby’s arms.

In London, when he heard the news, Henry rejoiced. It meant the end of that always-just-hovering-threat that somebody might take up cudgels on Catherine’s behalf; it ended, even in Catholic eyes, his state of being a man with two wives. And it gave him elbow room for the future…