The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife (4 page)

“Then Catherine will have to take her lesson without you, Alice.” The music master’s voice held a warmth I had not heard in it until that moment. “Until tomorrow?”

I nodded, then looked over at Alice. Did I see a smile cross her small features? I thought I did.

“Enjoy your lesson,” she said to me as she left the room. I began to follow her, but stopped when I felt the music master grasp my arm.

“Catherine,” he said urgently.

I turned to look at him, aware that my arm was as if aflame, burning with the heat from his gripping fingers. I did not feel pain, he was not hurting me. Rather it was the burning of flesh igniting flesh, and I was aware of my increasing heartbeat.

“I cannot stay here alone with you,” I said bravely, despite my being afraid of offending this much older man, a man sent to me by my all-powerful grandmother.

Manox’s reply came with a bow of mock solemnity—a gesture he made often, and that amused him, I noticed.

“I assure you, madam, all the proprieties will be observed.”

“They will be observed, because I am leaving now.” And I pulled my arm out of his grasp and left the room, half expecting that he might follow me. But he did not, and it took all my resolve not to look back at him as I passed through the open doorway.

The following morning a note was brought to me.

“No music lesson today,” it read, and “H. Manox” was scrawled at the bottom.

My disappointment was great. I had slept poorly the night before, kept awake by thoughts of the music master and the memory of his fingers on my arm, the excitement I had felt. Had I offended him? Or was he merely respecting my wishes that we not be alone together?

“I cannot stay here alone with you,” I had said. Was he waiting until Alice’s return so that he could give us a lesson together?

Either way I had reason to be worried and preoccupied. I was eager to be with him again, yet I knew that it was not seemly for me to be alone with him. Yet I was alone at times with my tutor—a fragile creature, an Oxford master not much older than I was, who was obviously far more interested in the young page boys and the brawny man who brought in our firewood than he was in me. And in truth my actual wishes were unclear, even to me. Somehow being alone with my tutor while I copied out poems or wrote my lessons was beyond criticism.

Days passed and I was tense and uncomfortable, wondering when I might hear from Master Manox again. Something led me to go up into the music room. I sat at the old virginal, the one with the cupids and flowers, and let my fingers drift over the keys. I found that I was playing a fragment of a love song, “Enchantment Sweet She Is to Me,” again and again. I tried to sing it as I played but the words would not come to mind. I was stuck.

Then I heard a strong male voice, singing the tune and with the correct words. “Enchantment sweet she is to me, my lady full of courtesy, And fairer far than others be—”

It was the music master. He broke off, and went to sit at the newer virginal. He played the song through, far more expertly than I had, but broke off once again, shaking his head.

“It’s no good. I can’t remember it.”

I paused, then asked, “Was that why you were sent away from the royal court? Because you forgot your tunes?”

The music master burst out laughing.

“No, by the short hairs of the Virgin, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Ah! ’Tis a story not fit for a young girl’s ears.”

He began to play once again, this time a melancholy tune, almost a dirge. I tried to follow along on my instrument, imitating the notes he played.

“You have a gift, Catherine,” he remarked. “Not many young girls can do what you are doing. Or if they can, they hide their skill in order not to seem too forward.”

He looked at me for a moment.

“Come and sit beside me,” he said, patting the bench he sat on.

Once again I felt a twinge of unease.

“I wish Alice were here.”

“But Alice plays poorly, and you play so well.

“Here,” he said, reaching for my hand, “let me show you another song.”

As soon as he took my hand all my resistance seemed to fall away. I sat down next to him, quite alone—for unless we sat close together I could not reach the keys in front of him, where the melody lay.

“Now then,” he went on, his voice soothing, “just relax your hand, and let me press your fingers to the keys.”

He cupped my hand under his, in such a way that he could easily push down each of my fingers, and curled his thumb around mine.

The feel of his hand on mine, the warmth of his touch—which was surprisingly gentle—was very pleasurable. He guided my fingers through the song twice, then released my hand.

“Now you try it on your own.”

With ease, for it was a simple tune, and quite short, I repeated it, without Master Manox’s help.

He nodded when I finished. “Well done. We shall try another.”

The afternoon passed in enjoyable music making, with Master Manox teaching me half a dozen tunes, all of which I learned quickly. His gentle guiding of my fingers gave way to a firmer, more directing grip, and every now and then he caressed my hand, fleetingly, and each time he did it I felt a renewed excitement. We did not speak of what was passing between us, but it was understood that we were doing more than merely playing music. And when, our lesson at an end, Master Manox said, “Do we need to wait for Alice to return before we play together again?” I immediately shook my head.

“Good,” he said and touched his finger softly to my cheek.

*   *   *

It did not take me long to discover that the Horsham household was very badly run. On some days everything was done as it should be—the food cooked on time and served correctly, the fires laid, the grooms in their places, their liveries brushed, even the laundresses looking neat in their white caps and aprons. But on most days there was disorganization, with no one in charge. The smell of burnt food came to the upper floors from the kitchens, along with the sounds of smashed crockery and shouts and swearing. The rooms were cold and the servants still asleep, or stumbling groggily along the corridors late in the morning, their tasks left undone. Liveries were neglected, laundry left to pile up.

It was whispered that the duchess was showing the effects of her advanced age, becoming forgetful and neglecting to supervise her servants. She relied far too much on one particular servant, her household steward, who snored in the wine cupboard on most afternoons, and on the stout, sour-faced Mistress Phippson, who was in charge of overseeing the female servants and who had shown herself only too eager to be bribed. Mistress Phippson was willing to tolerate all sorts of misbehavior among the servants and also those of us Howards who were living with the duchess. Provided we gave her enough coins, we could flout the rules of the household and do what we liked.

And flout them we did—or rather, Joan did, and the rest of us followed her example. I had already seen the chamber Joan occupied that adjoined the Paradise Chamber, our common dormitory. Joan paid Mistress Phippson a few small coins every month and in return received a key to the room (the key she wore around her neck) and the right to use it, undisturbed by any of the household servants or Mistress Phippson herself.

As to what went on in that room, there were rumors aplenty. Edward Waldegrave spent nights there with Joan, that we observed. Other shadowy figures were seen going in and out of the little chamber in the middle of the night, and from time to time we heard laughter and loud playful talk. I always want to be where there is mirth and merriment, and I hoped that in time Joan might invite me into her chamber to share the jollity. But she did not, though she was perfectly friendly to me.

While I was waiting, hoping for an invitation, we were all shocked one night to see Father Dawes, our religious instructor and the duchess’s chaplain, stumble into Joan’s small chamber and not stumble out again until morning.

Father Dawes drank too much, and reeked of his drink. There were times when he was instructing us and he lost his train of thought completely. He became confused and had to sit down for a while and recover his wits before going on. At night, when drunk, he wandered. That we knew. But to see him wandering into the Paradise Chamber, and even into Joan’s inner chamber: that greatly surprised us all. The following morning Charyn went to Grandma Agnes and told her what we had all seen. The result was a visit to the Paradise Chamber by Grandma Agnes herself—a very rare event.

She and Charyn came in together, Grandma Agnes frowning and carrying a rod in her hand and Charyn looking smug and very pleased with herself. (And very pretty, I have to add.)

“Girls! Girls!” Grandma Agnes said loudly as we all made our reverence to her. We were quite astonished to see her.

“Girls!” she said again, her voice shrill. “I am told that Father Dawes was in this room last night, and stayed among you for hours. Many of you saw him. Yet you said nothing. Only one among you, Charyn here, has come to me to reveal this wickedness. Why have the rest of you kept silent?”

“We were sleeping, grandmother,” someone said timidly. This comment led to much muffled laughter.

“Silence! I am told that a number of you were awake. You were overheard whispering about the father, and making jokes about him. Speak up! Which of you saw this, and did nothing? Why did you conceal the truth from me?”

She cracked the rod against a bench, making us all flinch. I was trembling, I was so frightened. I began to cough, as I sometimes did when fearful.

“Who is that coughing?” Grandma Agnes demanded. “Speak up!”

I couldn’t very well speak, I could only cough. Someone patted me on the back.

In the next moment I looked up—and there was my grandmother, standing before me, tall and spare and withered—and glowering, the awful rod in her hand.

“Please, grandmother, I—”

But Charyn, who was beside the duchess, interrupted me.

“She was awake. I saw her. She was making the others laugh, as she always does.”

I shook my head, but my grandmother raised the rod as if to strike me. Then she looked at me more closely, squinting.

“Ah! Worthless Edmund’s daughter! No wonder! Get on down to the scullery then, and wash the pans for a day! Let that be your punishment!”

I scurried out of the room, relieved that I was not going to be beaten.

I grew to resent Charyn more and more after that incident, and I was not the only one. She was hated for being a tattle-tale, and since she was pretty it was being said that she would soon be betrothed, so she was hated all the more.

I thought Charyn cold, cold as marble. Beautiful, like marble, but lacking in feeling. She began putting on airs with me, and boasting that she would indeed (as everyone was saying) soon be betrothed.

But the man she thought would soon ask for her hand, Sir Edward Ringley, was old. And bald. And he had devilish eyes and bushy eyebrows.

“Why would you want to marry a man old enough to be your grandfather? And ugly too,” I taunted her. “Are there no handsome young men who desire you?”

“What do his looks matter? Or his age?” she snapped back. “He has four estates! Four fine houses, four fine hunting parks. He is rich!”

“Is that all you care about?”

Charyn bristled. “Wealth is important. I cannot be left without a home, servants, without any place in the world. I cannot be left not knowing where I belong, an old maid living in the closets of others.”

No, I thought. You must have high standing in the world, so that you can feel superior to others. Only you will never be superior. Not really.

I wanted to say to her, what good is wealth if there is no love? Is not love the most important thing in marriage? But I knew that if I said this, she would only scoff at me and tell me I was being foolish. Or that I was forgetting all that Father Dawes told us about the importance of remaining pure and chaste. She would think I was speaking, not of the love of the heart, but the lust of the flesh. Of all that is forbidden between a man and a woman—the sort of love that rears its head unwanted, unbidden, and leads to sin and tears.

Of the sort of love I felt (heaven help me!) for Master Manox.

Charyn was shrewd—and well informed. It did not take her long to discover that I was taking lessons on the virginal from Master Manox, the two of us alone in the upper room, sometimes joined by Alice—who was not proving to be a very apt pupil—but more often alone.

“I believe our grandmother will not be at all pleased to hear that you have been letting that man Manox get near you. Far too near, and far too often.”

Though shocked by her words, I shrugged, dismissing their obvious meaning.

“He is giving me lessons on the virginals,” I said. “He is a very good and patient teacher. Ask Alice. He gives her lessons also.”

“It was Alice who told me about the two of you. She knows what is going on.”

“Nothing is going on but music instruction. And Master Manox is a very fine player.”

Charyn gave me a hard look.

“You might like to know that Master Manox was sent away from the royal court because he dishonored his marriage. He sinned with one of Queen Jane’s maids of honor. A girl not much older than you or I. It was a scandal. The girl took music lessons from him—and then had his child. He denied that the child was his, and tried to convince others that the girl was wanton and had been the mistress of other men before he knew her. But everything he said was a lie. He was shamed and sent away.”

“I did not know that,” I said quickly. Perhaps too quickly, for I saw Charyn lift one eyebrow skeptically.

“You do know he is married?”

“Yes. He told me. He often speaks of his wife, in fact. With affection.” This was a lie. Even as I said the words I wondered, why was I lying? Out of guilt? Or fear?

Charyn hooted with laughter.

“They can’t stand each other. She hates him because of his deceit. She says he hates her.”

“Perhaps she is unworthy of him. He is very gifted.”

But Charyn only shook her head slowly.

“Do not let him deceive you, Catherine. Guard your honor. Guard your maidenhead. If you do not, no man will ever want to marry you. And you will burn in hell.”