Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (15 page)

Anne felt certain that the group of clerks beside her, with their shiny tonsured heads together, were discussing the Percys.

“His father is in the long gallery now with milord Cardinal,” announced a passing usher, confirming her suspicion. And a buzz of good-natured jesting arose from the pages clustered round the door.

Anne hated them all for knowing about the love which made her very life.

“Hist! They’re coming this way!” warned a man whom she recognized as George Cavendish’s groom.

A rich brocaded curtain was held aside and Cardinal Wolsey came into the upper end of the hall with his guest, and together they stood talking beneath the great oriel window on the dais.

Anne’s heart beat wildly.

So this was Percy’s father. This tall, dark-visaged, sinister-looking man, with the keen eyes and sharp hawk nose, and a red riding cloak which jarred horribly against his host’s scarlet.

He turned and looked at the crowded lower end of the hall as if planning some campaign. “Where is the young fool?” he asked, without troubling to lower his voice.

“I will have him sent for,” said Wolsey suavely.

And while they waited, the earl called for a noggin of good strong wine to fortify himself for the interview, so that his cheekbones were almost as red as his cloak by the time Percy came hurrying in at the open door.

Anne could almost have touched him as he strode past the form where she sat. She wanted to call out, to sustain his courage, but dared do nothing to show him that she was there. His head was held high as if he were well aware that the hour of his manhood’s assertion was upon him, and there was that air of arrogance about him which she loved. Seeing his father on the dais, he would have gone straight up the hall to greet him, but the earl made an impatient gesture and snarled at him to stay where he was. With a brief “by your leave” to his host, and throwing back his trailing over-sleeves as if he were about to wash or to wrestle, Northumberland came swiftly down the shallow step to confront his son. His very rage seemed to bear him along. And, seeing him closer like that, Anne perceived with chilling heart how little chance of clemency there was for either of them. Hatred of a younger man who would one day lay him to rest and inherit his estate had ousted all natural affection from his close-set eyes.

“You always were a proud, licentious, unthinking waster!” he accused, clipping his words harshly between clenched teeth. “And now that I am brought hot-foot like this because you have already incurred the King’s displeasure, what comfort can I hope for from you in my age?”

Percy pulled the jaunty cap from his head and sketched a hurried obeisance. Faced with such an embarrassing situation, he looked surprisingly gauche and young. “Not here, sir,” he entreated, glancing round him at the groups of goggle-eyed underlings.

But even decent family pride could not restrain the earl from seizing the opportunity to inflict humiliation. “And where better?” he demanded. “Have you not demeaned yourself to the level of a lackey? Misusing your time when you might have been learning from milord Cardinal’s wisdom, and abusing my trust by dallying with a wench who is none of yours.”

“She is mine!” countered Percy. But somehow the protest seemed puerile, as if such a burst of parental authority had already dwarfed his manhood; and Northumberland, in full spate, ignored it. “Prodigally spending money on her which I and my father have laboured to amass,” he complained.

“The hateful old niggard,” thought Anne, wondering if he would want back his ring and her horse.

“Milord Cardinal tells me that you have even been wanton enough to enter into some sort of contract with this Boleyn girl,” went on Northumberland.

Avidly, every person in the hall listened. Wolsey himself sat in collusive silence. Not a potboy shuffled his foot, and Anne’s whole being hung upon her lover’s answer. From her humble bench by the screens she could see but a part of his profile, and the way his hands twisted at the gold-quilled cap behind his back. “It is true. I have,” he said. But his voice was less defiant than when he had acknowledged her his before the Cardinal and had had the backing of his friends.

The veinous red patches on Northumberland’s cheeks deepened to purple. “Have you no regard for me or for our liege the King, to whom we are more beholden than your light head can, seemingly, imagine?” he shouted. “Do you not see that because of your wilfulness the King in his indignation might have ruined me and my posterity utterly? Do you take no thought even for your own estate, in your hot hunt for the things of the flesh?”

How little they chose to understand, these middle-aged materialists! Had they no lovely memories of their own youth whereby to gage how clean and uncalculating first love could be? “You don’t understand, sir. This is no light affair,” Percy was striving to explain. “Anne Boleyn is the Duke of Norfolk’s niece and would bring honour to our house. And with all my heart I love her.”

To young lovers it seemed argument enough. To their betters, who took their appointments and rent rolls from the King, honourable affections seemed as nothing compared with his displeasure. But why, oh why, need Henry Tudor have condescended to concern himself with the Boleyns’ affairs, wondered Anne, wishing that her family had made themselves less conspicuous.

“You will obey me in this and marry where I say or, by God in Heaven, I will disinherit you!” bellowed Northumberland. “Have I not other sons to leave my title to?”

Of course, a man so insufferably competent would have! It gave him so much more power over each. Anne could imagine a row of dutifully kneeling sons carven round his tomb; and Northumberland, in his lifetime, bullying his wife into producing them. Until she, poor thing, had so gladly predeceased him.

To be disinherited meant to lose Wressel and the grim border mastery and all the things Harry Percy loved—to lose them for her sake. Anne saw him draw himself rigid as the parental shaft went home. “I have never liked Mary Talbot. I should go mad with her always at bed and board. How then shall I beget you heirs?” he was muttering desperately, hating to discuss these things in public.

“The same way as better men have done before you, taking the wives arranged for them, no matter where their lusts have strayed,” snarled his father. “Do you suppose that when I first married—”

Percy’s sword hand stopped crushing the cap and flew to his dagger. He had adored his overburdened mother. Even Northumberland turned aside, shamefaced, and let the half-formed sentence die. “I pray God this may be a sufficient admonition to you, and that you will be suitably beholden to his Grace and to milord Cardinal in that they lament your folly rather than malign me for the same,” he said more mildly.

He moved closer to his son, so that the unwilling resemblance between their features was more marked. Although the gesture intimated that, once he got his way, the breach would be closed between them, yet he still intimidated Percy with those gimlet eyes of his, enforcing all he said with powerful hand beat on open palm. “You will give me your word not to try to see this Anne Boleyn again, and as milord Cardinal is witness I will see to it that you are married to Shrewsbury’s daughter before the month be out.”

Percy blanched before him. He was giving way. It was inevitable. Piled high behind all present parental arguments was the wearing force of all those brought to bear throughout remembered years. Anne understood. All that was maternal in her looked back and saw her lover as a small child being brought into that overbearing presence. A presence which must have been to him as awful as God’s, but less benign. She knew how the habit of instant obedience could undermine one’s courage. But never, never would she let it subdue her own in this matter of her love.

Northumberland’s cruelty was not yet done. To crown all he turned to the half-cowed, half-tittering menials of Wolsey’s household. “Mark my words, all of you,” he ordered, “and for the short time that my son will yet be with you see that he goes not forth unknown to your master, and be not sparing in telling him of his faults.”

No proud young noble’s humiliation could have been more complete. Northumberland returned to the dais. He had done what he came to do, and been quick about it. Beaten down the insubordination of this arrogant cub of his, and obeyed the King. And what else mattered? He could go up river now to his half-deserted town house, and leave the Cardinal to deal with the young fool’s sulks and all this modern sentimental nonsense about breaking up a love match. After all, his Eminence was well paid for it! And as for that wretched Boleyn wench, no doubt her father would behave as efficiently, and see that she married her Ormonde cousin immediately and ceased running wild and making havoc of other parents’ plans.

Anne sat, white faced, and watched her lover go. A lover who had betrayed her more deeply than any but themselves knew. It was not fear that held her still. Even then she would have risked all shame and scandal to follow him out into the sunlight. To comfort and reassure him. To ease his desperate unhappiness. But how could she add to his humiliation by letting him know that she had witnessed it. That would be the hardest thing of all for him to bear. Though the nails dug into her palms she would not stir until Arabella Savile came. She must spare him the shame.

Somehow the day dragged to a close. That evening Anne begged an audience of her father. Since he had neither reproved her nor made any further pronouncement about her marriage, she would not wait to be sent for. There was one card still in her hand. If she confessed her surrender to Percy, her Ormonde cousin would have none of her; and, furious as her father would be, he might even then intervene and appeal to Northumberland. In the depth of her misery Anne felt that no shame could hurt like separation. Even if Percy were disinherited, all she asked was to be with him. She would bring every gift of mind and body to compensate him for material loss. She would know how to make him happy.

So emotionally spent was she with the day’s anxiety and grief that she could scarcely push open the heavy door of her father’s room. She must steel herself to meet yet more parental anger. She had caught a glimpse of herself in the Queen’s mirror as she came. She knew that her eyes were dark pits in the pallor of her face. She cared not what she looked like and hoped she was with child.

But in the quietness of the new Comptroller’s household there was only genial comfort. Sir Thomas held a glass in his hand and seemed well pleased. “You look ill, child,” he exclaimed, with concern, and led her to the warmth of a crackling fire.

He was kind. He put the untouched glass of wine into her hand and bade her drink it. It was the King’s best vintage and warmed her shivering nerves. Tears of reaction stung her eyes. Why had she not confided in him before? Why had she thought him hard when he had told her about her betrothal? Compared with the blustering of the unspeakable Northumberland he had been gentle and humane. Perhaps, after all, he would help her?

As she set down the glass she noticed for the first time that they were not alone. Her uncle, Thomas Howard of Norfolk, stood by the window watching her. A dark, forbidding figure with a hatchet-shaped face. He, too, held a wine glass; and, with the return of her swooning faculties, Anne gathered that the two of them must have been about to drink a toast to someone or something at the moment of her entry. She rose immediately and apologized. The Duke seemed in no wise annoyed and even smiled that rare, thin-lipped smile of his. But in his presence the oft-prepared words died on her lips.

“You wanted to see me, Nan? To ask my advice, perhaps?” prompted her father. “Your importunate messenger said your matter must be spoken of without delay.”

Anne clutched at her courage. “Before milord Northumberland leaves London,” she managed to say.

“Ah, that unfortunate affair.” Clearly they knew all about it. Everybody must know by now, she supposed wearily. But still nobody scolded her.

“Perhaps, my dear Thomas, it was not after all so unfortunate,” suggested his ducal brother-in-law. “You know the old adage, ‘The value of a commodity lies only in the demand’.”

In her troubled state Anne took in nothing of his meaning. But she felt that he was watching her with a new, amused interest. That they both were. She wished that she had stopped to put on a better gown. She hated appearing like a poor relation, and if she had not felt herself to be looking so plain she would have had more confidence to talk with them. After all, they were her menfolk, her own flesh and blood. They must care for her and for her good name. And probably the powerful duke could help her if he would.

“I pray you tell me, sir, is it only because of my contract with the Ormonde family that the King was so displeased to find me with milord Percy?” she ventured to ask him.

“I scarcely imagine that he would mind vastly whom Percy marries, so be it that he marries quickly,” answered Norfolk sardonically.

“Then if, for any reason, I had been free to marry him, his Grace would not mind about Mary Talbot?”

“Whomsoever his son marries is Northumberland’s business,” said Sir Thomas Boleyn.

Anne rose from her chair. “Then I entreat you, good uncle, speak for me to the King!”

“Have I not always been ready to do you any possible service for your mother’s sake?” said Norfolk, with unwonted courtesy.

He had never done her any that she could recall. Since his sister’s death he had never visited Hever. So that it was odd of him to speak so now, when for once he had cause for anger. But Anne’s mind and will were occupied with the difficult words which might free her from a travesty of wedlock. “This marriage with James Butler—” she began. It was more difficult even than she had imagined to say this thing before her uncle. But perhaps it was better that he should be there. Once the thing was said, for very shame of each other’s knowledge, neither of them could wittingly force her to make a cuckold of her cousin. And her father surely must urge Northumberland to let his son marry her.

She looked from one to the other of them—two calm, considerate men. But in a moment now, when she had told them that her body was already Percy’s, they would be livid with rage. The words stuck in her throat. Her tongue felt dry as leather. She closed her eyes so that she might seem but to be saying this wonderful thing over to herself. She conjured up the attractive image of Harry Percy and her longing for him gave her strength. “No one can force me to marry James now. Not even the King himself,” she began bravely.