Le Temps Viendra: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (44 page)

I was truly excited. This was no ordinary trip. From the beginning, it felt like a pilgrimage to a place that, in another lifetime, I had known so well, so intimately. It would always be a place of golden memories; a place where Henry and I had sought solitude and privacy away from the prying eyes of court; of riding on great waves of never ending affection and love which foolishly, ridiculously even, I thought would last a lifetime.

The Great Yew tree took some finding; it was tucked away down a narrow lane and across several fields; it was clearly not meant to be found by the casual, passing tourist. It seemed fitting that in order to visit the tree—a magical place which has been venerated over millennia—one should have to demonstrate a clear intention and fierce determination to find it. As we made our way across the lush, green meadows that overflowed with nature’s abundance, I found myself jealously guarding the secrecy of this ancient site, which once belonged to a king and his lady.

Approaching the Yew across those pretty pastures, I noticed how much of the woodland had been lost since I was last there with Henry; forests sadly cut away to make room for the intensive livestock farming required to support a burgeoning population. But I recognised the wooded escarpment in front of me, which rose away sharply to the south of the Thames. The course of the river, which had changed little over time, also helped me find my bearings. Nostalgically, I saw myself as Anne, riding along its pretty banks with the King and a small entourage, as we made our way to and from Windsor.

The King had always used that stream to navigate the final stretch of our journey. I sensed how that quiet stretch of the river afforded a reassuring continuity, an enduring presence which extended a thread connecting me to my own evocative memories. Arm in arm, Daniel and I veered away from the river, making our way along a tree-lined avenue. Soaring silver birch provided an impressive colonnade, guiding us deep into the woodland.

When I was last at the Ankerwcyke Yew with Henry, that beautiful tree had stood proudly in the centre of the large, well-tended gardens of the magnificent priory of St. Mary. Yet, if it had not been for a silver metal plaque that announced the significance of the site, I would have missed it entirely. We stood in complete silence.

The place was sadly neglected; the surrounding woodland patchy and overgrown with a multitude of nettles and brambles covering its floor. I felt deeply saddened, as it deserved so much more love and attention than it had evidently received for some time.

Disbelievingly, I gazed out across the meadow which lay nearby, towards the site of the original monastic buildings; the monastery had been a thing of great beauty, with its large and lofty central church that had once dominated its surroundings and captivated me with its haunting medieval grandeur. I suddenly found that I could hardly breathe; for all that had remained were a few crumbling walls covered in ivy and overgrown with a profusion of wildflowers. I don’t know what I had expected. I knew that like virtually every religious house in England, the Priory had been crushed by Henry not so long after Anne and her faction had been similarly destroyed. Yet, nevertheless, I felt bereaved.

I turned to look at the tree which was considerably shorter than I remembered. I had been prepared though; we learnt from a local landowner at the outset of our walk that the upper part of the tree had snapped off some twenty years earlier and that it used to be, as I remembered it, nearly 100 feet high. What remained of the upper part lay like a slumbering giant next to its stalwart companion. I was full of emotion as I made my way along the short, side path that led me from the main track to the base of the tree. As soon as I was beneath its gnarled and tangled canopy, I threw myself against the trunk, as if I were greeting a long lost friend, pressing my cheek against its flaky, roughened bark, as I had done so many times before as Mistress Anne.

It was as if the spirit of that tree was speaking to me, whispering my name, and for a moment, I was at one once more with the magical genius of the place. My memories, my longing, my love and my pain had overwhelmed me; the pain at my own loss and that of the sad, crumbling decay of the priory, the woodland and the loneliness of this Great Yew, all had caused me to well up. For the first time since regaining consciousness in my modern day life, a tsunami of emotion suddenly burst forth in a torrent silent tears that streamed down my cheeks.

Daniel followed me into the clearing underneath the canopy. He put down the picnic basket and rug that he had been carrying and I felt his reassuring hand upon my shoulders. He placed his arms around me, holding me whilst my quiet tears turned into deep, heart-felt sobs. Of course, Daniel had no idea about the real cause my distress. Instead, he took it to be a natural reaction to the illness and held me tenderly against his chest, stroking my head with one hand, whilst he whispered soothingly,

‘It’s okay, it’s okay. Everything is going to be fine.’ Suddenly all my grief and frustration for the life I had lost with Henry, and the life I seemed as yet incapable of creating with Daniel, exploded forth in a barrage of suppressed emotion.

‘You don’t understand! I don’t care what happens to me!’ I exclaimed, as I broke free from his embrace, my arms extended out in exasperation. I couldn’t hold back the truth for one more moment; and against my better judgement, I said: ‘You have no idea what actually happened to me!’ Daniel stood motionless, looking deeply perplexed as I forged on, ‘When I passed out in the Long Gallery at Hever I . . .’ I hesitated but I knew that this story needed to be told. ‘. . . well, something unbelievable happened to me, and I just simply can’t explain it. When I blacked out, I left this world and I woke up in Hever, I was . . . Anne Boleyn.’

For a moment the fight had gone out of me, my arms dropped to my sides. I knew that it sounded too fantastical for anybody to believe.

‘I know you will never be able to believe me; that you will say it was just a flight of fancy of a fevered and sick brain, but I tell you I was there! I was there for a whole year . . . I saw Henry and he loved me, and my friends; Nan and Margery, my brother George and my parents, Thomas and Elizabeth Boleyn; I saw them all!’

I looked up at Daniel who had been listening patiently. I must have looked pathetic, but I was so far into the story that I felt an overwhelming urge to complete it. ‘I miss them, Daniel. I miss them all so much. I am so confused; for in that life, I loved Henry with all my heart.’ I looked up at Daniel again, walking forward until we stood within a foot of each other. I spoke earnestly. ‘Yet here I am, with you, and I love you with all my heart.’ I looked away and contemplated again what had troubled me so deeply since I had arrived back in my modern day life. ‘Tell me; is it possible to love two people so entirely at the same time?’

Daniel remained entirely silent, giving me the space to finish what I had started. So, I began pacing up and down beneath that ancient yew tree, my hands on my hips, as I had done so many times as Mistress Anne. ‘But look! Here we are Daniel; you tell me you love me, and yet nothing changes. I will never ask you to leave your wife, but I simply don’t see us making any progress whatsoever! We are together—and yet we are not—and it’s killing both of us. You say you’ve made your choice; that you can’t leave yet, not until Jemima is more independent. But you are kidding yourself, Daniel. You haven’t made your choice; you are in no man’s land and it’s tearing you apart, let alone what it is doing to me. I can’t keep doing this Daniel! I can’t keep going round in circles . . .’ Suddenly, the fury had gone out of me and I sank down in resignation upon the tree trunk that had long ago fallen to the forest floor. I couldn’t look at him, for I felt too wretched; in that moment, I wished only to be alone.

‘Sweetheart.’ I snapped my head around to look at Daniel who had sat himself down beside me, his arm reaching round my shoulders, as he brought his in face close into mine. For a moment, I could not believe my ears; he had never used such a word with me. I had no idea where it came from; but for a second, he sounded so like Henry. My lover lifted his hand gently and raised my chin so that my lips met his in a fragile kiss. I closed my eyes and when we finally parted, I found Daniel gazing at me intently for what seemed like the longest time. I could not have guessed what Daniel would say about either my incredible tale of adventure, or my tirade about our never-ending story; but what he said next, was entirely unexpected, shocking and yet deeply moving, ‘You know that whenever I look at you, all I see is Anne Boleyn, don’t you. You have her spirit, of that I am sure.’

Somehow it was the most accepting thing that Daniel could have said to me in that moment. At the very core of my being, I felt entirely validated, even though in truth I did not know where it came from, and he would never say it again. There was always a deep, immortal, soulful connection between us that seemed to endure no matter what fate threw our way. I recognised fully in that moment, that like this ancient tree, Daniel and I were old souls whose paths had always crossed and perhaps always would. Suddenly, my egotistical tirade seemed small and insubstantial in the face of the vast expanse of eternity. And so, in the end, we sat there and drank champagne; we toasted our past, our present and future. The Ankerwcyke Yew, which had stood as a silent witness to Henry and Anne’s historic love, bore witness to ours, and I wondered if this would be the final time, or were we bound to return there again, in another lifetime, as yet beyond our knowing.

Chapter Four

Hever Castle

August 10, 2007

I was returning home to Hever and was virtually beside myself with excitement. Just over two weeks had gone by since Daniel and I spent a lazy afternoon picnicking on the riverbank in the meadows near Runnymede. We had sat in the shade of an old English oak, and after my initial, emotional outburst, I recounted to Daniel all my recollections of my time spent as Anne. It was such a relief to finally be able to tell somebody else about the secrets that I had harboured close to my breast since I regained consciousness at Hever.

To my surprise, Daniel seemed genuinely interested in my experiences, and I was so thankful that he did not condemn me, or try to persuade me to seek psychiatric help. To this day I don’t know what he truly thought about my tales of another world; I always loved Daniel for his open-mindedness and his disinterest in judging others, and that day, I was just grateful for his ability to be receptive to the great mysteries of life, mysteries that sometimes defy our understanding. After that afternoon, he never questioned me about it again, and I had no further inclination to speak more of it. However, it did serve to propel us to an even more astonishing level of intimacy.

Following our trip to Runnymede, I continued to gain in strength, walking out more and more to drink from nature’s never ending power to replenish the soul. I had seen my neurosurgeon a few days before I was due to travel down to Kent with Daniel. He was utterly delighted with my progress, and encouraged me to continue to get back to normality. I nearly laughed out loud at that suggestion, for I no longer knew what that meant! However, Mr. Harris’s words of reassurance were enough to secure me my day out to Hever Castle.

When we set out on that pleasant morning in August, my relationship with Daniel had never been more beautiful, more intimate, or more promising. I was sure that the tide had begun to turn, even if just by degree, and oh, how much I wanted that tide to turn, to finally taste the possibility that Daniel and I would at last be able to contemplate beginning our life together.

When he dropped me off at the entrance to the castle, I kissed my lover and friend lightly on the lips, saying goodbye and sealing an agreement that he would pick me up in the same spot, three hours hence. If I’d had my way, I would surely have stayed all day, luxuriating in the feeling of being once more within the arms of my ghostly family. However, it was just six weeks since the rupture of my aneurysm, and although I was feeling so much stronger, I still tired easily. Thus, I agreed somewhat reluctantly to Daniel’s terms, thankful at least to have the opportunity to be close once more to the place which was as much my home as anywhere in this world.

I paid for my ticket and walked down the sweeping drive, the Boleyn family home revealing itself to me gradually from between the leafy foliage that adorned the surrounding parkland and which ran along each side of the driveway. I descended the winding path that had once actually headed northwards and parallel to the castle, sweeping through the heart of the medieval village of Hever. The settlement had long since been displaced by Lord Astor in his quest for total privacy, leaving instead the paved driveway to lead me eastward, into the heart of the Eden Valley and towards the gatehouse and the main entrance to the building.

It was the perfect late summer’s day; the morning already melting beneath a pristine, flawless sky. The gentlest of breezes touched my skin, keeping the heavy heat of the approaching midday sun at bay; whilst circling languidly above my head, climbing skyward upon hot thermals, the screech of a hawk reminded me of the day when Henry and I had picnicked at Windsor Lodge; the day that the King had so fervently declared his love for Anne Boleyn. As I looked around, I noted that the profusion of colour associated with midsummer had long since returned to the earth, but the vibrancy of green, manicured lawns set against the azure sky and the mellow sandstone of the castle’s ivy clad walls, remained truly enchanting. I paused for a moment, as I beheld the most welcome of sights; my home, waiting for me patiently as she had done for nearly 500 years.

It was the place that nurtured me as I took my first tentative steps in a world that had only previously lived in my fertile imagination. I had known some of the happiest times of my life there, and closing my eyes, I imagined the castle just as I had last seen it. Of course, I had been half delirious with the sweat when I returned home with my parents from Greenwich, but I could never forget the sight of my beloved Hever. There it was, in the theatre of my imagination; the small settlement of several, rather modest wattle and daub houses that formed the village of Hever to my left; then straight in front of me, directly in front of the castle itself, a large area of swampland, which originally protected the south facing gatehouse from attack. When I opened my eyes, the rugged beauty had gone; in its place, a far prettier, more manicured version; the marsh long ago drained, replaced by lawns, topiaried hedging, and a second, perfectly formed moat, which was crossed by a bridge leading towards higher ground to the south.