The Sixth Wife (21 page)

He sat back on his heels. ‘Have a heart. Not Elizabeth.’ A heart for whom, I wondered. ‘I’m afraid it has to be Elizabeth.’

He saw it: ‘It’s not so much that you don’t want it to be you, is it. You want it to be Elizabeth. You want Elizabeth in trouble, don’t you. You want her – what? – chaperoned? Is that what you want? Or sent away? And you want Harry to think Elizabeth is capable of -’ He stopped, as if offended beyond words.
‘Oh
, no. No, no, no.’

I reiterated, ‘I will tell her,’ and put it to him: ‘What have I left to lose?’ and believed it, utterly. ‘Her friendship? I don’t deserve her, Thomas; I deserve to lose her. I’ve ruined it all, already; it’s already ruined. And my “good name”?’ Me? Good name? How laughable. ‘If I have to sacrifice my good name – such as it is – to save my son from the mess he’s made for himself, then I will. You know I will.’

Oh, he knew. He tried, though: ‘Cathy, listen, there are other ways to save Harry.’

‘Not that aren’t patchy, leaky, and that’s not good enough. And not that will keep him on my side.’ I shook my head. ‘No, this – the Elizabeth situation – will do it. And, anyway, he needs to see Elizabeth for what she is.’

‘But she
isn’t,’
he protested, horrified. ‘And how
could
you? How could you do this to Harry?

Oh, Thomas, come on! We all have disappointments, in life
.

He said, ‘In any case, what do you think Elizabeth’s going to say?’

Not much. She wouldn’t get the opportunity. I’d advised Kate: when you talk to Elizabeth, keep it general, keep it to the ‘overfamiliarity’, don’t get dragged into specific instances and details because then she can argue with you and you’ll get tied up in denials and it’s not about what she did when, it’s the whole situation, the situation that’s developing. To Thomas, I said, ‘Elizabeth will know that she’s allowed you
to overstep the mark too often and that it’s upset her stepmother, and she’ll feel very sorry.’

He rose, slowly, and began to pace. ‘Elizabeth’s second in line. If I’d been messing about with her, I could be had up for treason.’ He gave me a cool, frank look. ‘I have enemies, Cathy.’

Yes, I know, and whose fault is that?
But I said, ‘Not here, you don’t.’ I got to my feet. ‘As for further afield, well, who’s to know? Kate’s hardly likely to make it known, is she? Nor is Elizabeth.’

‘And Harry?’

‘I’ll deal with Harry.’As best I could. Truth was, I didn’t fancy my chances. Hurrying on, I reapplied the pressure to Thomas, appealed again to his self-interest: ‘Think: which is Kate more likely to forgive you?’

He was weighing it up, I could see. He couldn’t resist. Self-interest was winning.
I
was winning. He switched to, ‘And what happens to us?’

I’d been hoping he’d ask and give me a chance to make it clear. ‘Nothing. I made a mistake, Thomas.’

This, of all, seemed hardest for him to believe.‘
What?’
He laughed aloud – there, in chapel – and came towards me, stopped only just in time, standing too close. ‘Again and again and again? Face down over a bolster?’

I didn’t dignify it with a response; turned, and walked out.

The next day, we left. I insisted to Kate that she and Thomas would need time to themselves, and, despite her protestations, she did seem relieved. Charlie was merely puzzled and a little disappointed. Harry was initially furious at the news, but I gave him the impression that our hasty departure was for his benefit, as part of a plan, a strategy. He was unaware that we wouldn’t be accompanied by his and Elizabeth’s letters. We were taking no evidence, nor leaving any behind. Even as I spoke with him, those letters were flaking to ashes in my grate.

Harry was surprisingly unaware of just about everything that was happening. Clearly, Elizabeth hadn’t yet come to him. Perhaps she had enough to do, placating her stepmother, and Harry was one complication too many; Harry could wait. Harry, as her rock, in her opinion, would understand; there was no rush to explain herself to him. Perhaps that
was it. Or perhaps she had been half persuaded of her guilt, or was examining the possibility of it and avoiding Harry while she did so. Whatever the explanation, she retreated to her room, into the care of Mrs Ashley. But this retreat from Harry, I knew, wouldn’t last. Time was of the essence.

Kate had told me what had happened with Elizabeth. She hadn’t needed to, because in a sense I already knew. I’d guessed what Elizabeth would feel, do and say, because she was me all over again. Her life had been lived under the care of many different people, good people, kind people, but no one had ever understood her and placed her first. And then, just in time, just as Elizabeth was almost grown upjust before it was too late, a wonderful woman had taken her on as a daughter. How horrible, how unthinkable for Elizabeth: the accusation that she had betrayed Kate, had tried to take something of Kate’s own belated happiness.

That I’d anticipated, and used. Only in retrospect did I realise that there had been far more in the situation that had worked in my favour. Elizabeth’s life was like mine, yes, but also nothing like mine and nothing like anybody else’s. Yes, like me she had seen at fourteen that there was a good life to be had, and she longed for that good life for herself, but above all she wanted a life which, unfortunately, for her, was no given, not as the royal bearer of bad blood. She had to be very, very careful at all times and had developed a nose for danger.Two when her mother was disgraced, she’d grown up the offspring of a woman executed for adultery with her husband’s best friend and her very own brother. It was a lot to live down, a lot to try to escape. Accuse Elizabeth of being involved with someone else’s husband, and accuse her of keeping it in the family, and no doubt she felt that her fate
had come to claim her. In short, it was no more than she’d expected.

She would have said and done anything to try to make amends. According to Kate, Elizabeth did plead her innocence, but didn’t dare contradict her. In other words: if she had behaved improperly, then that hadn’t been her intention (nor Thomas’s, she was quite sure), and she was more sorry than she could ever say. She couldn’t bear to argue, couldn’t live with herself if she caused Kate any more distress. Begging to be forgiven, she cried and, according to Kate, seemed terrified. ‘Heartbroken, too.’ Kate sounded surprised. It was no surprise to me.

Kate decided to send her away for a while, into the care of our friends Jane and Anthony Denny in Hertfordshire. The real reason was kept from them; they were told that Elizabeth needed to concentrate on her studies away from the hectic preparations for the baby and then its arrival. Elizabeth pleaded with Kate to allow her to stay –
You need me here! -
but Kate didn’t waver. We need some breathing space, she told Elizabeth, we need some time for reflection. It’s not for ever, she said.

All that I could have predicted. What I hadn’t been able to guess was whether Elizabeth would mention Harry. In fact, she had. ‘D’you know,’ Kate said, ‘she told me that she’s in love with Harry.
Your
Harry. Seems to think she wants to marry him.
Did
you know, Cathy?’The question was genuine.

‘Harry?’

Kate offered, ‘Well, it’s an idea…’ but then seemed to lose interest, adding only, ‘She really does need some time away, doesn’t she, to think, to calm down.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Definitely.’

‘We all do,’ she added, quietly, which made me shiver.

And Thomas? Thomas had done as I’d said. Kate quoted him inexpressively, as if what he’d said was barely worth relating: ‘It was nothing, a bit of silliness, he was drunk and it was just a moment that got out of hand, just a kiss, and, yes, he’s been stupid, and it’s been a difficult time for him’ – her hands to her belly – ‘what with the pregnancy.’ At this last, she raised her eyebrows, disparagingly. She clearly didn’t believe a word of it, although what exactly she
did
believe about this supposed situation between Thomas and Elizabeth, I didn’t know.

It was spider season when I returned to Sudeley, webs everywhere in the garden, spanning paths and veiling windows, each bearing a single dark fruit. Eerily blind to us, those spiders, squatting there, clutching their lace. I walked with care, head bowed, flinching.

It was the end of the summer, late August, and I’d come to Sudeley for the impending birth. At last came the opportunity to make amends as best I could, to do my utmost for her. To be everything to her, I hoped. My boys, of course, had stayed home, because this was women’s business. Harry had said nothing. What he knew of what had happened to Elizabeth, and what he made of what he knew, I had no idea. He hadn’t said if she’d written, and I hadn’t asked. He didn’t seem himself, though. He often didn’t hear me when I spoke to him and when he did, he often didn’t seem to understand. Time, I told myself: it’ll take time.

Me, I hadn’t missed Thomas once, not even for a heartbeat, since I’d last been at Sudeley. As for missing what we used to do together, well, I’d begun to think differently; I’d begun to think how it might be to be married again. That was new for me. I had no fear of facing Thomas again, because I’d managed it fine before, hadn’t I? Been civil to him when I felt anything but. Indeed, that was how it had almost always been between us. In any case, he’d be keeping out of my way, I knew, because Sudeley was about to become no place for a man.

I hadn’t missed Thomas, but I’d been longing for Kate. Dignified Kate, who always knew what to do for the best. That was how she was, again, in my eyes. Gone was the dumpy, befuddled woman who’d briefly crept into her place. She was untouched by the mess of the past few months – she
didn’t
know the truth, did she – and moved with grace and confidence towards the future. We now had something to do together, she and I: get this baby born and cared for. I was determined to be of the most use. I knew I could do it. Not because I’m tough – although of course I am – but because while the other women would fuss, I could make her laugh. It seemed a simple enough hope at the time, although now, when I look back, it seems breathtakingly audacious, that optimism of mine, and hopelessly naive.

I was shocked when she came to greet me in the courtyard: she was even more swollen. Her smile, though big and genuine, looked painful, splitting her face; her hands, taking mine, didn’t look like hers, didn’t look like anyone’s, could have been stone-carved, all features subsided beneath the swelling. No rings on her fingers. My concern showed, because she begged, ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ but was
laughing. And quite a roar it was, for her, sweeping me up so that I laughed, too, and did indeed shake off whatever look had come over me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, it’s just -’

‘Oh, I know! I’m
huge
!’ She was trying to hug me but couldn’t get close enough, which, of course, had us laughing harder. She said,‘There’s this great big baby, and then, tagging along, there’s me.’

I broke the bad news: ‘That doesn’t stop when it’s born.’ ‘Ah, but then Thomas can do some of the hefting.’ This first mention of Thomas so early on, placing him firmly here with us. My heart, stubbed. I’d been thinking – stupidly, stupidly – that he was over with, that he’d not trouble us and we’d not have to trouble ourselves with him. Kate enthused, ‘Let’s go and see him,’ but I hesitated, a hand on her arm, ready to make excuses. ‘No,’ she urged, ‘no, it’s fine,’ although the hurried, whispery delivery belied this. ‘It’s fine, it’s…
fine,’
this last word ringing with surprise but also clearly meant to be conclusive. She raised her hands only to drop them back to her sides:
there’s nothing more to say
.

‘Good.’ I hoped she didn’t hear my scepticism. How could it be fine? It would never, ever, be fine, with Thomas; of that, I was sure. ‘Good,’ I said again, for want to something to say.

There
was
more: ‘He’s been trying very hard.’ He always did, though, didn’t he. That was never his problem. The problem was that he could so easily be up to no good elsewhere. I longed to tell her what I knew about him and had to remind myself that at least I’d told her something, even if it hadn’t been the actual truth. She had had her warning.

She said, quickly, ‘We don’t talk about it.’

Well, I can’t pretend I wasn’t grateful to hear that, can I.

Then she said, ‘Elizabeth writes,’ her determined cheerfulness back as we walked arm in arm towards the house. ‘Lovely letters. Chatty, just…’ she shrugged,‘telling me what she’s up to, asking after me. She’s a good girl.’

‘And you write back to her?’

‘I do.’ She kept the smile in place and didn’t meet my gaze. There would be no discussion.

I concurred, moved on, but took the opportunity to ask, ‘Does she mention Harry?’

‘Nothing like that.’ Still the smile, still no eye contact. Clearly she didn’t want to think about any romance of Elizabeth’s.

Thomas had changed, too, I found, when we did at last see him, at supper, and his change was the opposite of Kate’s: there was less of him. He’d had a glow, but now it was as if a scrubbing brush had been wielded because not only was there no glow, but there was something raw in what remained. His manner, too: the politeness and attentiveness were there, on duty, working as hard as ever, but there was none of his usual leaping in. He limited himself to responses, and they were perhaps a little slow, as if to echoes.

The midwife, Mary Odell, was exactly as I’d remembered her; I doubted she was ever otherwise,
could
ever be otherwise, doubted she could ever be ruffled. Which is how people think of me. She was genuinely serene, though, whereas I just stand my ground. As soon as I arrived, I paid a visit to the newly finished nursery. ‘Go on up,’ Kate had urged me, claiming to be too pregnant to tackle the stairs, and that was how I came to be up there alone, pushing open that door.
The room covered with tapestries. No walls, no panelling, but floor-to-ceiling depictions of the twelve months of the year. Not merely the seasons, not four panels but a full twelve, the top border graced at appropriate intervals with the signs of the zodiac. Facing me was an espaliered tree, among its leaves some blush-hued globes that were probably supposed to be peaches. Better and more plentiful peaches than I’d ever seen on any tree, however well tended and however sheltered. Circling its base, a twinkling of ripe strawberries – heart-shaped rubies, green-capped, bowing their delicate stalks – and, nestled amid them, a basket piled with blood-red blobs on wishbone stalks. In the same panel were two doll-like – distant – figures, two halves to make a pair of arm-in-arm ladies. I wondered, were they supposed to be us? In the foreground, a substantial boy depicted mid-stride, bowling a hoop. My boys never bowled hoops, no child I have ever known has been the least interested in bowling hoops, yet that’s always how they are in illustrations. This one, though, for all his enthusiasm for a simple hoop, was no common, carefree child. He was gorgeously dressed, from his plumed cap down to the firmly squared toes of his slippers. His doublet was draped in gold, his cuffs lost in lace. And all of it – except the lace, the gold, and that feather – was purple, the colour of royalty. This one was every inch the little prince.

And there he was in every panel that I could see, involved in the usual childish pursuits, sometimes alongside other, smaller playmates but always subtly depicted as a prince. Skating on a pond stitched from silver thread, his cold-ruddy little face peeking over an ermine collar: that, too, marking him as royal. Obscuring a couple of spring months for me
was the room’s other major piece of furniture: a massive, gold-canopied chair – the cloth made of threads of pure gold – like a chair of state, a throne. Actually, it
was
a chair of state, I realised. A chair for a queen: Kate was still queen, I had to remind myself. Married to a man who couldn’t behave like a husband, let alone a king, and stuck out here at Sudeley, but still, if only in name, England’s queen. This room had been done by the book for a baby of the queen, for this first-born, latecoming child of England’s queen. And it was a room fit for a prince or princess, although that was a step too far – let me guess: a step taken by Thomas – because a prince or princess was something this child of this queen could never be.

Kate’s own rooms were stunning, but – being beyond Thomas’s influence, presumably – were sumptuous rather than grand.They were to be our home for the coming weeks, both before the baby’s birth and afterwards. A luxurious retreat for us, the ladies of the household. Less ‘ladies’ than girls, of course, this being Kate’s household; and there were fewer of us, too, than I’d envisaged. There was the usher’s wife, Susan, with Marcella, Agnes, and little Frankie Lassells who, recently married, was now allowed to attend a confinement and lying-in. Bess Cavendish would have come but for it being too soon after the birth of her own daughter; and Jane Denny couldn’t leave Elizabeth, who, apparently, hadn’t been well. Kate’s sister was too pregnant to leave home, and her brother’s wife wasn’t yet recovered sufficiently from a fall from a horse.

Luxury, but a confinement all the same and I wasn’t sure I could do it, stay cooped up for so long. I’d never had to, before, except for the birth of my own babies and that, of
course, was different: that, I remembered, had been welcome.

When it came to it, though, I surprised myself by taking to it. We did the things ladies are supposed to do, and did them with relish so that, somehow, there never seemed to be quite enough time in the day. We played card games with increasing skill, and higher – and higher – stakes. Susan was the surprise, here: daring. We played instruments – our own, and then, tentatively, sometimes badly, others’ – and sang, finding our voices together. We learned new songs from each other; and old ones we reworked, gave new twists. Some days, we spent hours dressing ourselves elaborately, experimenting with one another’s clothes, jewellery, hair, make-up; but other days, we lolled in our shifts.The rooms, too, became giddily dressed: our flower arranging, intended for no one’s eyes but our own, became ambitious, then overambitious, then unhinged. Kate’s doing, principally. ‘And everyone thinks I’m so restrained,’ she said once, shoving a plum-bearing branch into an already overstuffed vase. Late afternoon was when restraint tended to win the day and we’d write letters or settle to our books, reading and reading and reading: the new ideas in Europe percolating into a room of sleepy-eyed, shut-away women. We’d raise our heads, stupefied, at the arrival of our evening meal. Oh, we ate: that goes without saying, doesn’t it. We sleepy-eyed, shut-away women ate a lot, ate everything that was presented to us, and, usually, more: sending down, every mealtime, for more.

When everyone else had gone to bed, Kate and I had time together. Too uncomfortable to be able to sleep, the baby keeping her awake or waking her, she’d beckon me onto her immense bed, behind its hangings. And there we’d lounge, those hangings drawn around us and the lamp above extinguished
, whispering for hours about nothing much. I was happy; I’ve never been so happy with anyone except my boys. Surely she could know nothing, suspect nothing, of what had happened between Thomas and me. She and I were recapturing old times, we were girls again. And we were lucky to enjoy such freedom: once, she whispered, ‘Imagine if this had been a royal birth,’ and her relief was audible. It was indeed hard to imagine. If we were at court, her door would be hard to force shut against the frenzy of expectation. On the other side would be councillors and their families and staff, physicians and theirs, various dignitaries of the church, and a royal-appointed astrologer or two. Not to mention a king who was in no way to be disappointed. Below the window would be messengers ready to ride, and, beyond them, across London and across the land, bells ready to peal.

Instead, outside Kate’s door, there was a silent, night-watched hallway and staircase, and then deep Gloucestershire darkness. We were getting away with something, was how I felt; and I knew she felt it too. After all that we’d been through in our lives, we’d made it, we’d made it here, where the birth would be Kate’s occasion; this baby, Kate’s, not England’s. We were on the dark edge of the world with nobody looking over us but the stars, and if we chose to tell no one about this birth, then no one, for a long time, would know.

Another night, she confided to me, ‘I’m not scared,’ and then sounded scared when she added, ‘D’you think I should be?’

There was only one answer to that, to be truthful: ‘Well, it wouldn’t
help
, would it.’ And although I knew very well
that disaster could strike any birthing woman, I couldn’t imagine Kate running into trouble. Statuesque, capable Kate: surely a baby would slip from her with ease. And, anyway, just about every woman I’d ever known had survived. The exception was Thomas’s sister, Jane Seymour, but her fate seemed like a story, had an inevitability to it: the new, doomed queen sacrificed for the longed-for prince.

Kate said, ‘We’ve a good history, we Parrs. My mother survived, so did my sister.’ She added,‘And I’m so lucky that I have Thomas: if anything goes wrong – for me, I mean – he’s there for our baby.’

What a prospect, was my immediate reaction: he’ll lead him or her astray.

‘And I know he’ll be marvellous,’ Kate whispered.

But she didn’t mention any possible role for me. Names, too: I wondered for whom this baby – if a girl – would be named. ‘Catherine’ was unlikely, though, being her own name and also being rather old-fashioned, a name of our mother’s generation. So clearly a saint’s name.
The
saint: the ‘bride of Christ’, no less. When Kate and I first knew each other, we shared our hatred of our name, sniggering together over that pathetic old prayer:
A husband, St Catherine, A handsome one, St Catherine, A rich one, St Catherine, A nice one, St Catherine, And soon, St Catherine
. St Catherine, patron saint of unmarried girls. Well, we were hardly that: me, married from girlhood; Kate, married already several times.

I did wonder if she’d call a girl baby ‘Elizabeth’, but that, now, perhaps, was doubtful. No word, either, on who would be godmother. I hoped she’d know that I’d do my very best for her child. She knew I was good with boys. And girls? Well, a girl, I would champion; I’m all for girls. I said to her,
as a kind of prompt, ‘I’ve been lucky, knowing’ – because we’d talked it over, many times – ‘that you’d step in for my boys, if anything happened to me.’