Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (39 page)

Anne wanted to be beloved as Katherine had been; to be looked upon as a benefactress. And, apart from the complete divergence of their religious views, unconsciously she began modelling her queenly years upon those of her former mistress.

Surprisingly she found herself thinking more and more about Katherine. Being rid of her had proved by no means the easing of life for which she had hoped. It simply meant that she herself had taken Katherine’s place, and found it less enviable than she had supposed. Unquestionably, now, she was Queen. But she was also the woman possessed and in possession, lacking that element of excitement that blooms on all forbidden fruit beyond the matrimonial pale.

And now, as the secure, uneventful months slipped by, she found herself, like Katherine, lying depressed and listless, recovering from a miscarriage.

The King had sent one of her Boleyn cousins, Madge Skelton, to be with her; but no one could make up for Margaret, who was at Allington. Merry little Arabella had leave to visit a sick mother, and Jane Seymour, her new maid-of-honour, although gentle and mannerly, was not particularly interesting. During the past unhappy weeks there had been only Jane Rochford, of her old entourage, left. And only propinquity and lack of distractions could have brought Anne to confide in her.

“I never dreamed this ignominious mischance could happen to
me
!” she marvelled incredulously for the twentieth time, listening enviously to the brisk footsteps and careless laughter of those who passed beneath her window. “Although it is true I have had grave illnesses, Jane, I have always been so full of life.”

Jane ceased her restless peeping from the open casement in search of the partner of her latest amour; which, after all, had lost much of its savour because her husband did not even pay her the compliment of trying to find out about the furtive little affair. “Perhaps it is nothing to do with you at all?” she suggested, drawing a stool to Anne’s side.

Anne, too, had considered that unmentionable possibility. At least, Jane’s mind worked as daringly as her own, and her jealous tongue had been less venomous since the others were gone.

“Of course, there can be no truth in what people are beginning to say,” went on Jane tentatively.

“And what are they beginning to say?” enquired Anne, with the idle curiosity of sickness.

“That now the King is putting on years and weight he grows impotent.”

Anne could have boxed her ears. “Obviously not,” she replied curtly, shifting her weary body significantly on the cushioned pallet.

For a minute or two her sister-in-law allowed herself to be silenced by the snub. But Anne could feel her curiosity rising like an unpleasant miasma. And presently Jane glanced cautiously over her shoulder at old Lady Wingfield, who was sewing quietly at the other side of the room. Poor Wingfield who had once assisted the Mistress of the Queen’s Wardrobe but who was now growing deaf and senile, and whose presence Jane decided to dismiss as negligible. “Tell me, Nan, now that for once we are alone—what is he really
like
as a lover?” she asked, just as Anne herself, devoured by curiosity, had once asked Mary.

It was the thing that half the women in England would have given their ears to know. Plenty of them, one way and another, had tried to find out.

At any other time Anne would have resisted such crude persistence; but it was a matter about which she had often longed to speak to someone, if only to relieve her own bitter disappointment. With a movement suggestive of accumulated irritation, she succumbed. “He is not the great lover you women suppose,” she said, half angrily. “When it comes to the point he has not half the verve of which his courtship and his kisses give promise. Let me warn you, Jane—in case your own affairs should pall and you should be tempted to try for more exciting game—there is many a lusty squire might serve your turn better.”

“You mean—” persisted Jane, round-eyed.

“I mean,” said Anne, tossing all caution aside, “that Henry Tudor is considerably less clever in a bed than in the saddle.
En cas de se copuler avec femme il na ni vertu ni puissance
,” she explained, because it seemed less embarrassing to say it in French.

“Neither power nor aptitude for giving pleasure. Oh, my poor, poor Nan! And you, as you say, so full of life,” laughed Jane, literally hugging herself for having wormed out the biggest bit of scandal in the land. “Listen, sis, you must lure him again, soon, before the
puissance
goes completely.”

Anne squirmed beneath the stifled mirth that underlay her sister-in-law’s solicitude. She raised herself on the pallet, hand to mouth. “I did not say that he was becoming impotent!” she protested sharply, wishing that she had not spoken at all. And to Jane, of all people!

“No, but it is what you are afraid of,” affirmed Jane.

In full health and spirits, Anne would have denied any such fear indignantly. But Jane had a way of speaking with real concern at times. After all, she was one of the family, and Anne felt that she must voice the ugly thought to
someone
. “What I am really afraid of is that if ever I should have
another
miscarriage, that conscience of Henry’s will persuade him that the same curse lies on
me
.”

“A curse?”

“The same as on Katherine; because our wedlock was not legal.”

Anne was loath, even by the oblique implication of such words, to compare her slender body with Katherine’s stumpy one. But lying there, she knew for the first time what Katherine must have felt, dragging herself tight-lipped and uncomplaining from one Court function to another, from one ill-fated pregnancy to the next. Gradually seeing state, pleasure, life and love slip from her, all for the want of a son.

Brought home by Jane’s crude advice, a terrible possibility confronted Anne. What if her witchery were really waning? Suppose when she got up she found she could no longer entice and hold Henry? Suppose, even now, as her enemies suggested, he were sniffing round some other woman’s skirts; while she kept her room, pallid and undesirable? A swooning nausea overcame her. For now she saw it all. What had Katherine ever been to her but an unwilling protection? Why, why had she ever wished the woman dead? For as long as Katherine reigned, had Henry tired of his new love it would have been easy enough to rid himself of a subject whom even his own jester called “the bawd”. Even when the bawd became his wife and Queen of England, as long as Katherine lived even Henry’s convenient conscience could not have disclaimed his second marriage as illegal without admitting to the righteousness of the first. But now, standing in Katherine’s shoes indeed, Anne found herself open to danger such as humble Mary Boleyn had never known. And none knew better than she what drastic measures a King must take to rid himself of a guiltless Queen who cannot give him sons.

Suddenly, stark unreasoning fear gripped her. How right was Jane, saying that she must lure Henry soon! Swaying with giddiness, Anne slid her feet to the ground, driven by some crazy notion of finding him. But as the room began to go dark about her a merciful Providence appeared to have sent succour. The door had opened and someone had sauntered, singing, into the room; and then, all in a moment, George was striding across the room to catch her.

“Save me! Oh, my dear, my very dear, save me!” she cried incoherently; but whether from falling or from some awful inexplicit fate was a jumble in her troubled mind.

“Why, Nan, my poor precious!”

Oh, the comfort of George’s voice and the lovely security of his arms! It was like being a child again at Hever, and shedding all this regal anxiety. Almost at once Anne was calmed. Reassured by tender endearments and compassionate kisses, she sank back against her pillows, sane again. With regained clarity, she saw Jane standing watching them, her face momentarily contorted with envy. She even wondered if it could be possible that in some strange, twisted way Jane loved him. Whether it might be agony to her to see him throw himself eagerly across another woman’s bed, though that woman be but his sister, just as she had always resented not being able to enter into the charmed affection of their circle of friends? If it were so, Jane controlled herself admirably. “I will leave you two alone. You understand her better than do the rest of us, George,” she said gently, with a light hand on her husband’s shoulder.

She smiled at Anne meaningly, it seemed, as if to remind her of their recent intimate conversation. Then turned to deal with the agitated and hovering Lady Wingfield, showing far more patience with her than usual. “You heard her Grace call out, didn’t you? And couldn’t hear what it was all about, poor soul! It was just that she was distressed and called upon her brother to save her—yes, to save her!” she repeated, raising her voice close to the nodding grey head. “But milord will know how to comfort her. We had best leave them alone.”

“Why disturb the old lady?” remonstrated George, hurrying to gather up her scattered possessions.

Agnes Wingfield peered at him short-sightedly, but her memory was still good. She had been wont to give him sweetmeats when he was a child, and he was still her favourite of all these restless, extravagant younglings at Court. “Marry, save us, if it isn’t my gallant George bothering with an old woman,” she chuckled, well pleased. And, seeing that she was willing to go, he let his wife coax her from the room. After all, here at Court it was a rare treat for him and Anne to be alone, particularly since she had become Queen.

“What grieves you, my sweet, besides this unfortunate miscarriage?” he asked, lounging back to stretch his slender length across her feet and helping himself to an apple from her dish.

“Oh, mercy me, it is only that I grow foolish with some childish fears.”

“Our brilliant Nan afraid?” he jibed, setting strong teeth upon the rosy fruit.

Anne sat up and hugged her knees. “Not afraid of anything I
know
, George. But some fear comes at me these days, some shuddering fear of I know not what.”

“Don’t look at me like that, with your eyes all fey, or you will have me believe you are a witch again,” he complained, discomforted beneath his laughter.

“You
did
believe it, didn’t you, when we were small?” smiled Anne, distracted momentarily from her troubles. “And often the King has said that I bewitch him.”

“Then what cause have you to call upon a mere viscount to save you?”

There was so much they had to talk of. It was one of those golden, undisturbed hours stolen from the crowded ceremony of Palace life. A time in which to speak for once of their secret fears and hopes; to discuss the position of their party, and the growth of the religion of which they dared not speak in public. They fell to discussing Norfolk’s defection and the significance of Fitzroy’s marriage with Mary Howard. They spoke of Mary of Suffolk’s death, and their sister’s humble, happy marriage. Of everything from the news of Percy’s increasing ill health to Tom Wyatt’s latest rhyming, and of the way their younger cousin, Henry Howard, sang his praises. “According to young Surrey, if Wyatt should die Nature will have lost the proper mould to make a man,” laughed George, coaxing his sister back to gaiety.

“And now, too late, I know that I agree with him,” sighed Anne.

“But Jane is no fool, Nan, if she told you to stop moping here,” George advised more seriously, knowing perhaps more than either of them. “I will tell you what we should do for Michaelmas. Revise that Circe masque we made. It has some good stuff in it. And I will see that you, as Circe, have scope to do all the luring you need and so bewitch the King afresh!”

And so he left her bright-eyed and confident again, with all her worries dismissed as sick imaginings; and strode forth singing as he had come, almost colliding with Jane Seymour and Druscilla Zouch outside the door.

“Forgive me if I have kept you from your duties, poppets,” he apologized airily, realizing the lateness of the hour by the sound of the chapel bell.

His sister’s new maid-of-honour dropped him a shy curtsy. “Milady, your wife, was at pains to tell us you were with the Queen and bade us in no wise disturb you,” she explained primly.

So he had his wife to thank for that happy hour with Nan. “Would she were more often so considerate,” he thought, kissing Druscilla casually in passing, and hurrying along stairs and galleries lest he be late to attend the King to evensong.

Cheered and refreshed, Anne took up her life again; going to visit her little daughter at Hatfield, playing with her spaniels and her great hound, Urian, in the gardens and, as autumn drew on, playing backgammon in the evenings. Henry hawked and hunted with her, and was affable and kind; but the weeks went by and he did not seek her bed.

It was the day when the new French ambassador presented his credentials at Hampton that she stumbled upon the reason why. Her beloved Margaret was back at Court again and had helped to dress her with the utmost care in the pearls and clinging black velvet which so became her, and which a Frenchman of taste was sure to admire. Never, perhaps, had Anne looked so intriguingly romantic, with a faint air of delicacy still about her. She felt warmed and confident. “Perhaps the King will come tonight,” she thought, turning from her mirror to take stock of her maids-of-honour and wondering which of them she should take to attend her.

All of them looked lovely, like a field of flowers in the variety of their coloured dresses. But, alas, so much younger than herself! Not in years so much as in a kind of unlined serenity; rather like nuns, for whom all worldly calculations are arranged. “Why eclipse myself with a whole bevy of youthful beauty?” she decided. “Just one, perhaps, would be effective. Which one shall it be?” Druscilla, though deeper bosomed, dwarfed her height. Anne did not want Margot to watch her at her wiles, while Jane Rochford would appreciate them all too accurately, with that embarrassing spark of stifled mirth. Anne’s eyes lighted upon Jane Seymour, sitting on a cushion apart from the rest, industriously embroidering a kerchief. This Jane was a year or two older than herself, quiet, well-mannered, inconspicuous, and colourless, except for the honey-coloured hair drawn back beneath her beaded headdress. The perfect foil. Anne caught sight of her own dark, sparkling reflection in the mirror again. What man in his senses would even notice a Seymour when a Boleyn was by?