Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn (12 page)

She looked up, smiling and tender, with complete candour in her eyes. “Oh, Harry, haven’t we been over all that before? Haven’t I told you that you are the only man I have ever loved, or ever could love, with all of me? Haven’t I forsworn my poor pride enough and shown you my desire enough to convince even an ill-tempered Northumbrian?” She laughed, adorably, and flipped a stiff-stemmed bud against his freshly shaven cheek. “Do I not risk my uncle’s wrath every day by flaunting your great jewelled cloak clasp on my breast?”

He bent and kissed her passionately. “I know, I know, my love. But it is not enough. Any man can give you a brooch to wear.” He let go of her and stood there, comely and virile in the sunlight, tugging at the heavy signet ring on his finger. “Here,” he said roughly, “take this.”

He forced it into her hand. A heavy jewelled thing of chased gold which must have been in his family for generations. “But it is your father’s seal, as Warden of the Marches. How will you sign your documents or enforce your orders?”

“By the point of my sword,” he said curtly.

Anne still held the thing as if she were afraid of it.

“Put it on,” he ordered.

She burst out laughing because, when she slid it onto her finger it dangled like a hoop. “I pray you, be not so absurd, Harry! How could I wear it even if I would?”

“I will have it made smaller. At least it will show all other men that you belong to me.”

Joy surged through Anne’s whole being. “You mean that we shall be betrothed?”

“In spite of everything, we shall be betrothed,” he promised gravely, looking into her eyes.

It was like some wonderful game, pretending that they could be. And yet was it not true that one day he would virtually rule half England? That her father might be dazzled by the prospect. A precontract was a solemn thing. Almost as solemn as marriage. Standing together in the sunlight, with the hopeful green of spring about them, Anne almost felt that this was their marriage. It was quite different from Mary Tudor’s, which once she had dreamed about. But somehow pearled dresses and proud ceremony mattered little now. All Anne’s world was centred in the man before her. Her ambitions whittled down to the right to share his bed and board. If he had been but an archer in her uncle’s guard, she would have wanted him just the same. Wanted him, and gloried in his physical strength. Her hand closed tightly over the ring. With all her heart she wanted to keep it. “My father is expected any day from France,” she managed to say.

“Because we love greatly we must have courage to defy convention,” he encouraged her.

“When he tries to force me into marriage with this Irish cousin I will plead our pre-contract,” promised Anne. “And you?”

“Nothing, nothing will ever make me deny it.”

He had hurried her then and there to the armourer’s, and before the Cardinal left for France the ring had been beaten to the size of her finger. During the days of her lover’s absence Anne flaunted it as if it were the wealth of all the newly discovered Indies. She would have worn it proudly all the days of her life.

Because the love of Anne Boleyn and Harry Percy was so precarious, it was all the more precious. Because at any moment they might have to fight for it against parental authority, it assumed the grandeur of a cause. The marvel was that as yet no busybody had talked about it in high places.

“If only my sister could have been the one to marry James Butler,” Anne would sigh. “So long as she has her infant, she would care little whether the father were Will Carey or another.”

“There would still be Mary Talbot,” Percy reminded her, with a grimace. They had recently been sorely troubled by a letter he had received on the subject from the Earl of Shrewsbury’s chaplain.

“Is it possible that Cardinal Wolsey would help us?” suggested Anne. “The Duchess of Suffolk told me he was kind.”

“Kind to the poor, and to Thomas Wolsey!” scoffed Percy, who lived in his household.

“But he interceded with the King when she married her duke.”

“And see how Suffolk is beholden to him! Debts of that kind pay-good dividends. And, after all, Wolsey risked but little. He was sure of the King’s ultimate affection for them both.”

“Sometimes I think the King is more kind than the Cardinal,” mused Anne.

And, although she never spoke of it to Percy, she even toyed with the idea of appealing to the King himself. He was so charming to her these days. Far more approachable than her cold-hearted uncle, or even her father. So genuinely interested in her music. Often, on his way to chapel or tennis court, he would stop and talk to her. He wasn’t so terrifying really—not if one just talked to him gaily. It was so stupid of people to bow and scrape and stammer, as if he were an ogre. He was only a man after all, and responded as readily as any other to a glance or a jest. Too readily, perhaps, thought Anne, with a lilting laugh and heightened colour. Perhaps that was why she couldn’t discuss her idea with Harry. For, in fact, Henry Tudor was quite exciting to talk to with his infectious laugh and that wicked look in his eye. And when he was pleased he retained quite a measure of his amazing good looks.

The sobs of her sister, Mary, had almost faded from Anne’s mind.

But then she would overhear Henry speaking sarcastically to the Queen or snapping at Wolsey’s lumpish secretary. And her courage would fail her.

And so the weeks went by, and the first month of summer brought her father home from France. She and George met him warily. He was affectionate and affable, and mightily set up because new honours awaited him. His travelling days were done and he was to be created Comptroller of the King’s household. George and Anne perceived sadly that their days of liberty were done, too. He would always be at hand, controlling their lives. Almost the first thing he did was to arrange a grand wedding for his son and Jane Rochford. But oddly enough, although he must have needed his share of the Ormonde estates to go with his new position at Court, he said nothing more about Anne’s marriage.

“Perhaps your Irish cousin has had the bad taste to prefer someone else, and your father puts off telling you,” suggested Percy, deceived by Sir Thomas Boleyn’s suave manner into crediting him with a compassion which Anne was beginning to learn that he did not possess.

“It could be,” she admitted doubtfully.

“And then my father might repudiate this contract with Shrewsbury’s daughter in view of the fact that your mother was a Howard.”

It sounded more than ever like clever bidding at a cattle fair.

“Anything may happen,” agreed Anne, echoing her lover’s optimism without conviction. But whatever happened now would be too late to rid her brother of Jane. And it was Jane who ultimately betrayed them.

It happened at Greenwich, during that idle hour of a summer afternoon when people talked in desultory groups or strolled about the gardens. The young Princess Mary and Henry Fitzroy were playing hide and seek among the bushes, and several of the younger courtiers had been inveigled into the game. Margaret Wyatt and George Boleyn, who both adored children, had joined in with zest; Thomas Wyatt had been pressed into acting as umpire. Anne and Percy stood talking by the sundial. Only the new bride, Jane Rochford, feeling piqued and neglected, beheld their happy absorption with an envious eye and noted how, after a while, they wandered away down the river path towards a little grotto where a lewd stone cupid spouted water into a lily pond.

The children’s excited shrieks and George’s ready laughter rent the drowsy hours. The aged Countess of Salisbury, that authentic Plantagenet to whose care Mary had always been entrusted, sat watching them, surrounded by her ladies and her dogs. And presently at the height of the fun, the King and Wolsey came across the lawn from the Council Chamber, followed by the new Comptroller, a pack of solemn councillors, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk— everybody, in fact, who mattered. But there was no need, it seemed, to stop the game. Henry was in benign humour and he, too, loved playing with children. He stopped, with all his splendid entourage spread out like a peacock’s tail behind him. “Run, Harry! Catch the wench!” he exhorted his handsome, misbegotten son.

But the royal wench was too quick for him. With a flash of pale blue satin she emerged from behind a fat dowager’s skirts and touched “home” at the sundial. Everybody laughed and clapped, and Wolsey, who was Mary’s godfather, made his master a graceful compliment. “Now it’s Fitzroy’s turn to hide,” decreed Wyatt. And, guided by some spiteful imp of fate, the lad must needs make his way down the grassy path towards the grotto.

Mary Tudor counted twenty, lifted her flushed face from the beloved Countess’ lap, and listened. Unerringly, she followed the direction from whence came her playmate’s whistle. Grownups who were taller than she could see him dodge from behind the bush she was making for and double further down the river path. George Boleyn stopped laughing and moved, as if by accident, to block her way. Casually, Thomas Wyatt and Norreys joined him. Together they formed a brightly hued group almost screening the little grotto from the King’s vision. Supposing them to be on her side, the child would have allowed herself to be quietly headed off.

“Keep your hounds to the right scent! The stag’s at bay!” rallied the King.

“I can’t find him anywhere!” panted Mary.

Jane Rochford caught at her flying sleeve and pointed.

“Quiet, little fool!” muttered her husband, trying to glare her into obedience. Even then it did not occur to him that anyone would betray his sister intentionally for spite.

But Jane only showed him the tip of her pink, contemptuous tongue. She would teach him to neglect her, spending all his time with his proud sister and that soft lovesick piece, Margaret Wyatt! “Look, your Grace! Up there by the Cupid grotto. Can’t you see the bushes move?” she whispered.

It was too late to warn the lovers then. Straight down the path ran Mary. Fitzroy escaped unseen, but she pulled up triumphantly at the grotto, thinking she had found him. With eager arms she pushed aside the sheltering branches of a yew tree. “Nan Boleyn!” she squealed in surprise. “Oh, Mistress Anne, I’ve caught you instead!”

She had indeed.

At first she had not noticed Lord Percy, standing there beside her mother’s embarrassed maid-of-honour. And, as far as she knew, there was no particular reason why he should
not
be there. But a sudden silence must have warned her. She was a singularly intelligent child and not vindictive. In her half-understanding of the situation, she would have turned away and gone on searching for her playmate.

But the King had looked up quickly when she called Anne’s name. He had seen her standing there and thought it part of the game, admiring her lifelike assumption of dismay. But then Nan Boleyn was a clever girl! “You’ve run a pretty quarry to earth this time, poppet!” he called out, with his hearty laugh. “But your stag seems to have turned into a startled fawn.”

No one seemed to echo his laughter. Only Cromwell gave vent to a nervous, ill-timed snicker. And as Mary turned away Henry caught sight of Northumberland’s redheaded son. In the confined space of the grotto he was perforce almost touching Anne. His face reflected her abashed dismay, and his whole bearing had all the possessive protectiveness of a lover. Henry’s own face darkened like clouds before an approaching thunderclap. His fair skin reddened as if someone had made a bad joke at his expense. He turned abruptly from the afternoon’s merriment and walked on towards his private apartments, leaving his daughter disappointed and amazed. The countenances of the Duke of Norfolk and Sir Thomas Boleyn were a study as they tried to keep up with him.

As their ways parted, Henry bade the Cardinal a curt good-bye. “The young fool is of your household,” he barked. “Look into it, milord.”

And before going on to the watergate, Wolsey turned and said something to Cavendish.

Anne, herself, scarcely knew how it had all happened. One moment she had been in her lover’s arms, enjoying a few stolen moments in the seclusion of the grotto. All around her had been shouts and careless laughter. And then quite suddenly the King’s daughter had pulled the branches aside. Mary had stood there, with a bramble scratch on her face, panting and friendly. And in her surprise the silly minx had called her name. Called it aloud so that the King could hear. And then there had been an awful silence, and people staring. Someone had giggled; and Anne had felt like a kitchen slut taken with some scullion. She had seen the King glaring at them, and had wanted to call out that in the midst of so much greed and intrigue their love was the one clean, beautiful thing. And when he had turned away without a word, she had been desperately afraid.

She had caught sight of her father’s face—white, angry and contained. Of her brother and sister-in-law glaring at each other as if they had quarrelled. Then everybody seemed to melt away. The fragile Plantagenet countess had gathered together her ladies and her dogs. And the children, aware of one of those inexplicable blights which grown-up people sometimes bring, had suddenly tired of play and gone off together to watch the watermen turning Wolsey’s barge against the tide.

And here was Percy’s friend, whispering something to him and hurrying him away. He must follow the Cardinal, and leave in that barge for London. At the moment of parting Percy had pulled her to him, warming her with passionate lips. But he had looked grave, and dared not stay. “Keep up your heart, for it is mine,” he had said. And then he and Cavendish were gone, too. Everyone was gone.

Anne would have hurried along the path to follow him. But dread dragged at her feet. When she came to the sundial, she stood alone and hesitant where so much gay company had lately been. The sun was already slanting westward behind the pinnacles of the Palace towers and their long pointed shadows lay across the grass. She shivered as their chill pierced her sun-warmed body. If Wolsey had sent for Harry Percy because the King had ordered it, she would indeed have need to keep up her heart.

When the Cardinal came again Anne looked in vain for Harry Percy. All morning the Queen kept her in attendance while she dictated letters to her secretary. She was more exacting than usual, and obviously worried. Ever since Wolsey’s visit to France she had been writing privately to her nephew, the Emperor. Whether Katherine knew about the French Princess’ portrait or not, she must have felt that the diplomatic visit boded her ill. And with the uncanny swiftness of such rumours, words dropped in the Cardinal’s household about some secret matter of the King’s had already become whispered gossip in the Queen’s apartments.