The Concubine (8 page)

Hers was to protect. She said,

“I have something. I don’t know its worth, but it would help. And you’re welcome to it; it’s of no use to me whatsoever.”

“I can’t take anything from you, darling. You heard what Father said just now. No new dress for years and years…”

But Anne had turned and gone to the little leather-covered box which held her few worthless trinkets and the King’s ring. Holding it in her hand she came back to Mary and pressed it into her hand and closed her fingers over it.

Mary thought—Her ring, her poor little scrap of silver and amber, worth ten shillings at the very most; and the facile tears sprang. Without looking at what was in her hand she put both arms around her sister and kissed her, a warm, wet, tear-flavored, sachet-scented kiss.

“Thank you, dear Anne. Dear Anne. But I couldn’t possibly deprive you of…”

“You haven’t even looked at it,” Anne said.

Mary brought her hand up and opened it, and the ring lay there, the ruby as big and as red as a raspberry, the diamonds winking their rainbow colors, the solid, richly chased gold setting gleaming.

She’d seen that ring a hundred times; she knew it so well that looking at it she could see the hand, surprisingly shapely and delicate-looking for so large a man, whose little finger it had adorned.

Anne had been watching Mary’s face, joyfully expectant of an expression of astonishment and delight, for who would have dreamed that she, poor Anne Boleyn, had such a gift to give? But Mary’s face blanched and shriveled, in her eyes the pupils widened until they looked as black as Anne’s own; her expression indicated a dismay, verging upon horror.

“Mary!”

“Where,” Mary asked, raising her hand a little, “where did you get
this
?”

“I earned it, quite honestly. Well, almost. By a trick really. You see…”

“Henry gave you this?” For the first time in her life Mary Boleyn cut in upon another person’s speech.

“Not me; a pageboy…” Anne hastened to tell the whole story, wondering as she spoke why Mary should look so shocked. So ill. Surely she didn’t think…or was it jealousy?

At the end of the story, Mary said,

“But he knew who was singing. He must have known. He is generous when it suits him to be, and he can be impulsive, but even he wouldn’t have sent this to a pageboy, however pleasingly he had sung.”

“He did. Ask Lady Bo if you don’t believe me. She tried to bribe me to sing and I wish now I’d taken something from her and then you could have had it as well as the ring.”

Mary, whom everyone regarded as a fool, heard in those words the ring of clear innocence. And innocence must be guarded.

“Of course I believe you. Has he been back?”

“No.”

“He’ll come, with the better weather and the harder roads. Anne, listen! When he does, be firm; have nothing to do with him. Dearest, forget everything else; believe this; if I were now on my deathbed and had only enough breath to say a few words, these are what I would say. Don’t have anything to do with him. I know. I can tell you. He’s dangerous. There’s something,” she paused, hampered by her inborn inability to express herself in words, “something
twisted
about him. Half of him is just a simple, lighthearted boy, greedy and selfish as boys are, but there’s another side, dark and ugly, like the Devil. He wants to be loved, he really does want to be loved, but anyone who loves him he is bound to despise. It’s like…” she paused again. “In the lists, it is the same; he always wants to win; but if an opponent lets him win, he despises him for evermore; if an opponent puts up a fight and beats him, then he hates him for evermore. I do know what I’m talking about; I could give you a hundred examples. Only I’m so bad at explaining things. Take the Cardinal,” she was so intent upon her analysis that she did not notice Anne’s sudden stiffening. “Henry loves him, calls him his True Thomas, heaps favors on him, and for one simple reason only, he knows that Wolsey in his heart esteems the Pope more. Henry would deny that and so would his True Thomas, but they both know it, and it holds a kind of balance. Women can’t do that. He is so handsome and so charming, and then…Oh I know that Father thinks I managed badly not to have got something out of the loss of my good name; but in the beginning it would have seemed like selling what I was only too anxious to give, and at the end…” She gave a small, convulsive shiver. “I couldn’t
ask
,” she said.

“You loved him, Mary. I think you still do.”

The color which had fled from Mary’s face flowed back.

“Don’t think,” she said hastily, “that that is why I spoke as I did. He’s finished with me, long since; and what he does is no business of mine. But I wouldn’t wish to see any girl, least of all you, dearest Anne…” She left the sentence unfinished, and then, after a second said, very definitely, “He’s cruel. Not always. Not often. But it is there. I do beg you, keep out of his way. If you can, though of course, with Father…That is what is so unjust; he speaks now as though I had disgraced him, but at the time he was delighted. And if it happened again…Oh, Anne, isn’t there anyone you could marry, quickly?”

Anne had listened to the admonition, but hardly heeded it, since it seemed to deal with a situation which existed only in Mary’s mind. What did interest her deeply was that Mary was still in love with the King, and yet had insisted, against her father’s counsel, on marrying William Carey.

She said, “No one has asked for me, yet. And if someone did I think I should be more vexed than pleased. You see,” she colored a little, “I’ve been…I am…in love, too.”

“Harry Percy?”

Anne nodded.

“I was sorry when I heard,” Mary said. Then she went on, in a more worldly-wise manner, “Still, you mustn’t spend your life grieving over that. One falls out of love, as well as in.”

“Yet you just admitted that you still love the King.”

“That didn’t prevent me from marrying William, and being very fond of him. And being happy. Besides, there is a difference. I have lived with Henry and he isn’t like any other man. Yours was just a romantic, boy-and-girl affair.”

“Like yours, in France, when you were my age!”

“Oh don’t!” Mary cried. “When you’re angry you sound just like Father. I didn’t mean to annoy you. I was trying to encourage you. This,” she held up the ring and the firelight caught the great ruby which blinked at them balefully, “bodes no good. I
know
. And you should marry anyone, darling, anyone who is kind and decent and who could keep you. There’re worse things in the world than wearing the same gown three years running. He’d hurt you far more than he hurt me, and that was bad enough. You’re not so…pliant. Or so experienced. In fact…I’d sooner see you in a convent.”

“Me?”

“You’d be safe. And you’re so clever; you’d be an Abbess. Nunneries are the only places where women really count for anything. Had you never thought of that? I have, often. Everywhere else in the world it’s what your father is, or what your husband is. I thought about it the other night, at supper; all the women seated according to their husband’s ranks, and mine a low place; and I thought if I had been a nun, home for Christmas from Ramsey, I should have been near the top of the table, and treated with great respect.”

Anne forgot that a moment earlier Mary had annoyed her, and only thought, with a pang of pity—She
minds
! She forfeited all claim to respect long ago, and didn’t make the grand marriage which would have thrown a cloak over the past, and she pretends not to care, but she does. Anyone who wishes she were a nun must be in a low state of mind indeed.

She said, “Such respect has its price. I should think that unless you had a real vocation it would be unbearable. Always the same dull clothes, only sacred music, a life governed by bells, prayers at midnight and no pets, nothing of one’s own. I think you would have to be very pious to bear so bleak a life.”

“The rules aren’t always kept. I know at least one nunnery where they lead gay lives. The Abbess is said to have had two children.”

“I should dislike that kind of establishment just as much; or even more.”

Mary said mildly, “It was only a suggestion. I’m just so afraid that if when Spring comes you are still at home, he’ll come. He’ll flatter you and charm you and you’ll be fascinated. And then…then suddenly it is all over. The things you did and said, that used to please so much, no longer please. And then, for a long time, maybe forever, life is like…like a banqueting hall next morning, early, in winter, all cold and gray.”

“Is that how life seems to you, Mary?”

“Sometimes. And I would hate it to happen to you.”

“About that you need not worry. It has happened already. But I don’t want to talk about it. And I think you attach too much importance to the ring. I did sing very well; and he had been royally entertained; I think he just snatched off the first thing that came handy. He has plenty of others. Do you think you could sell it for ten pounds?”

“I don’t think I could even try,” Mary said, laying the ring on a table. “It was
his
and I should feel…”

Anne entertained three thoughts almost simultaneously. The first was that Mary was incurably sentimental; the second was that she herself might well feel the same way if confronted with something that had belonged to Harry Percy; and the third was that she would give the ring to George and ask him to dispose of it and give the money to Mary, he’d certainly strike a better bargain.

“You will remember all that I have said?” Mary asked, earnestly.

“If I ever need to,” Anne said.

B
Y MIDSUMMER OF
1524 L
ADY
Bo had ceased to be shy in the King’s presence, or worried about the standard of her hospitality. She had a graver cause for concern. Henry had paid, in all, four visits and in the intervals he had sent letters and valuable presents. Lady Bo had no doubt at all that his object was to seduce Anne, and her sturdy, yeoman-class standard of respectability was outraged by the very thought. Mary had been bad enough, but that was in the past, when the family had been drifting without a feminine hand at the helm. If it happened now, under her eye, under her roof, she would be ashamed forever.

Talking to Anne was useless; she had tried it. Anne had said, “I never ask him to come.” And that was true. It was true, also, that she never—at least never in public—seemed to give him any encouragement at all. She adopted a stiff, grand manner which aged her by several years; she never looked at him with any expression but that of grave attention when he addressed her directly; she never matched his wit—which Lady Bo knew she was well able to do if she chose; and she always had to be persuaded, almost compelled, to play for him.

But Lady Bo had an uncomfortable feeling that this demure, touch-me-not manner was only a façade. There was a good deal more in Anne than met the eye. And if, when they were alone, she behaved as she did in public why, why, why did he persist in paying her attentions?

On this particular evening, having seen the two of them vanish between the high dark walls of the Yew Walk, Lady Bo turned to her husband, and in a voice she did not often use, sharp, a little shrill, demanded,

“And where is all this going to end? Tell me that!”

“My dear, I might as well ask you.”

“You should put a stop to it. You’re her father. You once said yourself that you didn’t want her to go the way Mary went. You should do something!”

“And what would you propose? Am I to look my sovereign lord in the eye, and say—Sire, you are not welcome in my home; I suspect you of having designs upon my daughter? Are you really anxious to see me clapped into the Tower on some trumped up charge or other?”

“Of course not. What a question! But there must be some other way. She should be married.”

“I seem to remember your professing a distaste for arranged marriages. And have you seen her cast a single favorable glance on any man, all these months? The Butler match has never been mentioned again, and it is not for me to reopen the subject. And nothing has been done about those titles. Sometimes, when my gout keeps me awake in the night I wonder whether the King isn’t playing a crafty game with me. Perhaps he thinks that I should put some pressure on the girl; but I shan’t, after the shabby way he treated Mary. Besides, I think the next move should be his. Also, I doubt whether, even if I wished, I could persuade her against her will. I don’t think His Grace yet realizes what kind of cat he has by the tail.”

“And what does that mean? You know, Tom, I never could understand parables.”

Sir Thomas looked round cautiously.

“I mean, my dear—and I wouldn’t for the life of me breathe a word of this to anyone but you—I shouldn’t be surprised if the wench isn’t prepared to hold out until he’s on his knees offering a wedding ring in one hand and a crown in the other.”

“Tom!” For a moment she could say no more; the enormity of the suggestion took her breath away. When she regained it, she said, “But that is mad. Her Grace is alive and in better health than ever, they say, now that her childbearing days are done.”

“I have heard otherwise. There’s talk of dropsy. In a woman hard on forty, that could be…”

“Tom! That is wicked talk. Waiting for a dead woman’s shoes! Oh dear, now I don’t know what to think.” For which was worse, to let yourself be seduced, or to set out for some objective that could only be reached over a dead body?

“Whatever we think, whatever we do makes no difference. That I know from hard experience. Anne is the only one of my children to take after her mother.” He seldom thought of his dead wife these days and mentioned her even more rarely. “Not in looks. Mary has her looks, watered down, and George has her ability, but Anne has her…her…” Even his facile tongue could not find the right word; he never had been able to. It was a quality which in a wife could be, had been, exasperating in the extreme, but in a daughter who had a King suing for her favors, might be of incalculable value. “All or nothing, that’s their way. And if it turns out to be nothing, then they laugh.”

“I’d grown fond of Anne,” Lady Bo said, rather miserably, her mind still upon the two alternatives. “And at least,” she added more cheerfully, “she isn’t greedy or grasping. His presents don’t mean much. That necklace he sent her—the one with the great B for a pendant—she wanted to give me that. B for Bo, she said; and laughed.”

Sir Thomas, accustomed to being sent on diplomatic missions where in a chance talk the mere inflection of a word might mean a great deal to a sharp ear, narrowed his eyes. B was for Bo, for Boleyn, therefore it was not for Anne because she intended…But how? Was this rumor of the Queen’s dropsy more well-founded than most rumors? Was she more ill than anyone, save Henry, knew? Was she in fact very ill, and the fact being kept secret for political reasons?

“I’d give a good deal to be able to hear one of their conversations when they are alone together,” he said.

“You can’t. They use the seat by the sundial and the hedge is so wide and high, you can’t hear a word. I tried, last time he was here.” She realized that she had confessed to eavesdropping and said, “Oh dear,” and put her hand to her mouth and turned very red in the face. Blushing, she looked like a sweet rosy apple. Sir Thomas laughed,

“I shall have to inquire whether the Cardinal has a vacancy for a most unsuspicious-looking little spy,” he said. “Come and sit on my knee!”

Trapped in the high hedges of the rectangle in which the Yew Walk ended, the day’s heat still lingered. The sundial, in shadow now, no longer told the time, but offered only the engraved admonition, “Watch Well the Hours.” The words irked Henry every time he saw them. God knew, he was well enough aware of the passage of time. A year this very month since he had first seen her, a new face amongst those of Catherine’s ladies. Just one glimpse. Slim and dark and with some indescribable grace which made mere prettiness seem cheap and vulgar. It was as though, hunting red deer in Windsor forest, he’d caught sight of some mythical creature like the unicorn.

Nose down, a hound on a trail, he had pursued his inquiries; learned her name, learned that she was almost betrothed to Harry Percy; put a stop to that; thrown her father the promise of the Butler betrothal; waited for the wounded girlish heart to forget. And then he had gone through all the routine of seduction; the compliments, the gifts, the looks of longing and of lechery, and all he had so far received was a firm, unequivocal “no,” sweetly spoken, but in a way that showed that she meant what she said. Once—on the visit before this—he had lost his temper and roared out that it would be a long time before he came riding this way again. She had replied to that with the slightest, only just perceptible shrug of a shoulder. No words could have conveyed as eloquently her indifference as to whether he came or not. He’d carried his anger back with him to London and deliberately cherished it for a day or two; then it had faded and he’d begun to ask himself what right had he to be angry because she was chaste. Wasn’t modesty a virtue in a girl? So he’d sat down and written a slavish, loving letter, saying that to please her was his one aim, and signing himself her servant. And at the first possible opportunity he had come himself. And here he was.

He frowned at the sundial and passed on to the stone seat.

“We’ll sit here,” he said, and then added hastily, “if it pleases you.” He was learning; and one thing he had learned was that he must take nothing for granted, not even her assent to his choice of a place to sit. She sat down, spreading her skirts wide, so that in order not to crush them and bring a rebuke upon himself, he was obliged to keep his distance. He had always been spoilt and flattered and treated with exaggerated respect and to be in awe of someone was a new experience; not entirely agreeable, but with a certain titillation.

He made a few remarks of no importance and then mentioned once more his great desire that she should return to Court.

“I haven’t changed my mind,” she said.

“Why won’t you? You never give me a reason.”

“You know it. Those who can’t afford a loaf are fools to stand by the bake-house door.”

He thought that over and decided that it was the most promising thing she had yet said to him. It sounded as though she wanted to give in, and was afraid that subject to his company for long enough she would give in.

“But we can afford the loaf. If only you would come to London, I would so arrange it that you had your own apartments. I could be with you every night.”

“My father is not over generous; I shall have a small dowry, but part of what I take my husband will be my virginity. I do not intend to be your mistress.”

“Then you don’t love me!”

She intended to say, “I never pretended to do so.” But when she spoke she said,

“How can you know? You’ve never tried me.”

And there it was—it had happened again. As though some other woman had taken possession of her. That seemed the only possible explanation for the inconsistency of her behavior. She’d spend an hour behaving coolly and prudently, and then in half a minute undo the hour’s work by some remark of a frivolous nature, faintly tinged with lasciviousness to which he instantly and extravagantly responded. He now reached out and snatched at her hand.

“Whether you love me or not, I love you, sweetheart. Come to London and let me show my love. Is it the thought of scandal that deters you? I can impose my will, you know; and I shall make it abundantly clear that I expect everyone to honor and respect you as I do.”

“And how long would that last? No man hunts the hare he has caught.”

“I shall love you forever.”

“You think so now. Men tire of their wives.” A mischievous note came into her voice. ‘But a wife still has rights. A mistress can be thrown away like an old shoe.”

“You’re thinking of Mary.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“But I swear to you, there’s no likeness between the two cases, no more likeness than there is between you and her. She was…” he was about to say, “the plaything of an hour,” but one never knew; some sisters were fond of one another; “very sweet,” he said, “and I was fond of her; but I was not devoured by love, as I am for you. Every man by the time he reaches my age, has had his passing fancies and indulged them if he could. But a love like this comes only once in a lifetime. I tell you I see no woman but you; I think of no other. I live like a monk. Soliman the Great could parade his harem before me, half naked, and I should know no flicker of desire. Whereas the sound of your voice in another room, or your step on the stair, even the thought of you…On all my visits here I doubt if I’ve slept more than an hour at a stretch, knowing you were so near, yet so unattainable. I ache with longing…”

She too had had her wakeful nights, thinking of Harry Percy and Mary Talbot together in a bed.

“Time will cure it,” she said, and gave him a sad little smile. “I think it would be better if you stayed away. We have no future. Your wife I cannot be, because you are married already; and your mistress I will not be.”

She had said much the same thing last time and he had been infuriated; she expected him to let go her hand, get up, and stamp away in a rage. And she thought that for the ache of thwarted love anger was no bad remedy. And she thought, too, of Mary.

But Henry had learned another lesson. Complaisant or otherwise, she was necessary to him. When she said, “We have no future,” he’d looked ahead and seen a long dark tunnel of years stretching from where he sat to the grave, with no joy in it, no hope. Appalling. Not to be borne. He tightened his hold on her hand and began to work his against her palm.

“If I were a free man, a bachelor, and could offer you marriage, what then would your answer be?”

Something new in his voice, the sensuous movement of his thumb, the question itself, caught her unawares. It was like one of her worst dreams, the one where she found herself taking part in a masque without being prepared, not knowing what to say or do, but conscious of being watched by a hundred avid eyes.

“But to answer that would be a waste of breath,” she said, forcing herself to speak lightly.

“Waste it then. God knows I’ve wasted breath enough on you!”

She tried the oldest trick of all to gain time, repeating his question.

“You ask me whether, if you were free and offered to marry me and make me Queen, I’d say yes, or no.”

He said violently, “I
am
free. I’ve yet to prove it and that may take a little time; but prove it I will. Listen, sweetheart, and I’ll tell you something I’ve mentioned to no one, except Wolsey. I am not, I never have been, lawfully married. A man may not marry his brother’s widow; that is God’s own law and a few words written by the Pope can’t alter that law. And don’t think that this is something I have invented out of my love for you—though I would invent more than that for your sake. This is sober fact and I can prove it. The Emperor’s own lawyers, when my daughter Mary’s betrothal to the Emperor was first mooted, questioned her legitimacy and spoke of her being the child of an incestuous marriage. Other lawyers said otherwise and she was betrothed, but the fact that the question was ever raised is evidence in my favor. Julius, mistakenly, gave a dispensation, which I shall ask Clement to declare a mistake. And the moment I am free, I’ll marry you.”