My Lady of Cleves: Anne of Cleves (21 page)

Where every April the fruit trees were a froth of pink and white. At Holingbourne Manor, in Kent.

14

ANNE KNEW BY NOW that Henry would give anything to get rid of her. Everyone at court who had watched the break-up of the King’s first two marriages knew that she touched tragedy. But she warded it off by good temper and good sense. There was a comfortable sanity about her which rendered her immune from drama and made even the statesmen who were planning her downfall look faintly ridiculous.

Perhaps it was because she never paraded her suffering, and was intensely interested in the lives of other people. Not being in the habit of exaggerating the importance of her own feelings, she managed to keep a sense of balance. Friendly contacts and the everyday pleasures of life would always be warmly lighted feasts for Anne. There were letters from home, and good horses to ride and masques with lovely music and costumes to attend. She never tired of watching London street scenes or the ever-changing life and color of the river, and every now and then her world was ruffled by small excitements such as the Duchess of Northumberland’s latest extravagance or a boat over turning in the dangerous maelstrom between the wide piers of London Bridge. And always, of course, there was the drudgery of her books. And so the days slipped by, devisedly too full to wait upon tragedy. And at evensong in the King’s private chapel, listening to sonorous Latin chants she couldn’t understand, she would thank God simply that the first winter of her exile was over and that the pangs of homesickness were growing more bearable.

And now it was nearly May and the springtime beauty of her adopted country was beginning to catch at her heart. The skies were no longer grey nor the roads quagmires. It was as if everything, from the great English oaks to the wayside flowers, had been washed in dew and painted afresh. Little hawthorn bushes hung red and white veils about the park and the delirious scent of them drifted in at all the palace windows. And she was no longer alone, for Henry had allowed her to invite Elizabeth to Greenwich for the May celebrations and Mary’s Bavarian suitor had gone back unbetrothed.

“What do you English people do on May Day?” Anne asked, wondering why all her servants were too excited to work.

She and her two step-daughters were sitting in the sunny south gallery desultorily looking through her dower chests which she had had brought out for their entertainment. Dorothea was spreading out all the ugliest garments for Mary Tudor’s inspection, and a little group of sewing maids by a far window were altering some of them in accordance with her suggestions. Elizabeth, enchanted at being allowed to finger so much finery, was gathering notions for the still more elaborate wardrobe she meant to have when she was grown up.

“We have revels, Madam,” she vouchsafed, hugging the nightgowns Anne had just finished embroidering for her.

“Revels—what are they?” Anne inquired, selecting a strand of gay embroidery silk. “I don’t think we ever had any in Cleves.”

“Well, for one thing, there is a sort of set dance,” Elizabeth explained a trifle absently, her envious gaze lingering on a length of green damask stitched with seed pearls. “With everybody dressed up as Robin Hood and Maid Marion and the Devil—”

“Not another dance?” protested Anne, who had scarcely mastered her latest lesson from Culpepper.

Mary looked up from a distressingly bundly Flemish kirtle. “We don’t have to do them,” she assured her step -mother. “The Morris dancers come round.”

“With bells on their ankles,” supplemented her sister, weaned from the silks and jewels to something she loved still more. “I wish we did do them, Mary! I am sure I could take the Maid’s part. And imagine Uncle Seymour as the Devil!” Curbing her rippling laughter at sight of Mary’s reproving frown, she hurried on before her pertness could be scolded. “And then there’s ‘Jack in the Green,’ Madam. A man walking about in a little house of flowers.

And garlands hung on all the people’s doors.”

“Where do they get the flowers from?”

“The girls go a-maying on Blackheath and in Moor fields.”

Seeing the eagerness on the child’s face, Anne looked out of her window at all the inviting loveliness of lilac and gilly flowers and golden broom. “Suppose we go maying in the park this afternoon?” she suggested. And Elizabeth clapped her hands because nobody had ever bothered to plan a treat like that for her before.

“You must see some of the May poles, Madam,” Mary said.

“They are hung with multicolored ribbons and the children plait them as they dance round, and all the people flock to watch.”

“What lovely ideas!” approved Anne. “And yet the same people will flock to see a hanging, or even a woman who is to be beheaded!”

Happening to look up and see the hot color dying Elizabeth’s fair skin, she could have bitten her tongue. She was certain now that the child knew about her mother, and she wanted to take her in protecting arms and pour over her the shielding love of which the cruel block had denied her. But by the age of seven Nan Boleyn’s daughter had already learned to hide her feelings. She handed her night gowns to Dorothea and told her to fold them, and began talking about something else with a composure which Anne found pitiful.

“I had a train of this sort of stuff for Edward’s christening,” she said, pulling at the green damask. “It was four yards long and afterwards Mrs. Ashley made me a dress from it. Uncle Seymour carried me in his arms and I carried the chrisom. And Queen Jane was all in crimson and ermine.”

Anne glanced questioningly towards her elder step -daughter.

“Surely she can’t remember—”

“I do! I do!” insisted Elizabeth. “She was lying on a pallet sort of thing with halberdiers and tall candles all round her.”

But Mary, who knew that most of it was what the child had been told, shook her head smilingly. “You’re thinking of the wax effigy the chandler made of her for her lying-in-state,” she said kindly.

“That wasn’t really Queen Jane.”

“Well, anyhow, she looked lovely and I envied her.”

“But she wasn’t queen for very long,” pointed out Anne, laying down her embroidery to draw her into the circle of her arm. “And, why should you suppose it to be such an enviable state, sweet?”

The child’s green eyes looked levelly into Anne’s kind brown ones.

“It could be—for a queen regnant,” she argued, with pitiless logic.

Mary hastened to interpose. She felt responsible for her younger sister’s manners. “There hasn’t been such a thing in this country since Matilda!” she said. “And if you listened to what Master Cooke teaches you instead of indulging in such worldly fantasies you would remember that it was Stephen who really ruled. It would be such a terrible responsibility for a woman.”

“But what fun to make all the men obey!” persisted Elizabeth.

“If I were Queen I’d dress in gorgeous clothes like our new mother’s, so that they’d write verses about me and go sailing the seven seas to bring me back galleons of gold.”

“Don’t be a little fool!” Mary said, her voice low pitched with contempt. “Ruling a country isn’t dressing up and ogling men and grasping all you can get. It’s working—meeting your Council— writing far into the night. Trying never to punish for personal spite nor yet reprieve for pity. And lying awake, no doubt, wondering if you have done right. Feeling the souls of your people pressing upon you…”

Her white hands were clasping her suffering temples in a familiar gesture; her beautiful, shortsighted eyes staring abstractedly into space. And her words were laden with such earnestness that the others stopped whatever they were doing to look at her.

Anne sat with needle suspended and Elizabeth’s hand still warm at her neck. Of course, she thought, if little Edward were to die…But even so, what about her own children, waiting to be born? They, at least, would grow up strong and capable, shielding poor conscientious Mary from such a fate.

“I could rule that way too—without losing any sleep,” Elizabeth was boasting inexcusably.

Mary sighed, and relaxed with a shrug of exasperation. Her fingers strayed to the cross on her breast as if in search of strength or patience. “It is not likely to be required of you,” she remarked coldly. And, having snubbed the self-assertive little bastard, turned back to the business in hand. “Suppose we settle which dress you will wear for the Bachelors’ Pageant at Durham House, Madam?”

By a process of careful elimination she had selected the two most becoming, which Dorothea now spread before them. Anne’s chastened gaze lingered on the more colorful. “I do prefer the flowered crimson,” she admitted. “But I suppose the King would think it too elaborate.”

Mary of the severe and impeccable taste looked consideringly from the fantastic garment to its owner. “I think he’s wrong there,” she decided, with surprising firmness. “On some people, yes. I should hate it. But bright colors and jewels become you, Madam.

They make you look—well, just your generous, cheerful self—when other people would look merely overdressed.”

“And after all, Madam,” urged Dorothea, “these gallants are arranging a real old-fashioned tournament in your Grace’s honor.”

Mention of the tournament reminded Mary of an awkward contingency. “Suppose, Dorothea, the Queen’s dress should clash outrageously with their color scheme for the competitors and stands?” she said, rather surprised to find herself so anxious for her new Lutheran step-mother to make a good impression.

“Your Grace may keep an easy mind,” professed Elizabeth politely. “They’re all going to wear white velvet.”

Mary turned and surveyed her, suspecting her of sulking by the way she addressed herself exclusively to the Queen. “How do you know?” she asked sharply.

But Elizabeth had seated herself virtuously before one of Anne’s newly acquired books, and if there were malice in her eyes it was concealed by diligently downcast lashes. “Uncle Seymour told me when he came to say ‘Good night,’” she said, studiously turning a page. “He and Sir John Dudley and Tom Culpepper are all going to compete.” She knew it annoyed Mary that people didn’t tell her things. But why should they want to when she cultivated that prim Spanish reserve instead of the open Tudor touch?

Anne turned to give Dorothea instructions about the exact cap and shoes and ornaments to go with the dress. Tall, devil-may-care Seymour wasn’t really Elizabeth’s uncle. He was Edward’s. But the child preferred him to all her own grown-up relatives—either Tudor or Howard—a penchant which Anne was human enough to share.

She remembered that the gallant Sir Thomas hadn’t found her unattractive even in her winter traveling clothes at Calais and, whether her husband approved or not, she wanted to look her best.

So the new Flemish queen rode through London on May Day in her brave crimson velvet with flowers embossed in oriental pearls.

Blackbirds sang in rich merchants’ gardens and the garlands she had been told about decorated all the doors. A pleasant breeze from the river scattered the last of the bridal blossom from cherry trees along the Strand, and on the blue line of the Highgate hills away to the north a dozen busy windmills turned, reminding her of home.

And she certainly looked her best.

Though not so placid as when I painted her, thought Holbein, standing on his friend’s balcony in Goldsmiths Row to watch her pass. She had lost that grave, “going out into the unknown” look.

And Holbein was right. Anne no longer was the same naive person who had left Cleves six months ago. She had learned more than a language out of her books, and from the massive tyrant who rode by her side. She had learned to be patient and to mix humor with renunciation and to take gracefully such pleasures as were left her. And at sight of the smile that beautified her face, children pressed forward for the pleasure of strewing posies in her path. And the people who leaned from windows and lined the streets, remembering her many unobtrusive kindnesses, called to each other that surely she was the sweetest and gentlest queen they had ever had.

Henry overheard them and frowned, fidgeting at Dappled Duke’s glossy flanks with golden spurs. He knew his Londoners.

Were they not the pulse of his kingdom? They might manifest an almost childish passion for holidays and processions, but underneath they were inflexible. They gave loyalty, but they stood on their rights, and neither he nor any of his forebears had ever been able to bend them to subservience of make them accept what they did not want.

Once he had tried. He had pitted his will against theirs. He had brought his sweetheart Nan through their streets to her coronation.

And, though the bells rang and the conduits ran wine, they would have none of her.

She was the one thing he had ever wanted enough to cross them for. God, how he had wanted her! For three years the clever little bitch had made him sweat with fear lest he shouldn’t get her in the end; made his heart murderous to the dying woman who had been his wife for eighteen years and loved him still. So that he had defied them, and ordered their Lord Mayor to see to it that the city was
en fête
, the proper speeches made and the flattering masques performed. It had been a day such as this, with the hot sun and the crowds. He could see her now, carried in a litter beside him—carried carefully between two white palfreys because already she had the shameful seeds of their love child within her. His little Nan, with her pointed piquant face…and her bewitching cloud of night-black hair…

It all came back to him now in the mingled smell of perfumed gloves, Fleet ditch and Eastcheap dust, so that a resurgent gust of the old hot passion swept his aging body. And yet these Londoners had looked on her beauty unmoved, except to hate her as a usurping harlot. They had paid him back with silence, so that when at last he and she were alone, instead of sliding into his arms in weary surrender she had wept and upbraided him, beating at his breast with her fists in her shrill, spit-cat way. And although he was King, there had been nothing he could do about it. He would have given anything to make them shout as they were shouting now—for this ordinary Flemish woman with her firm bones and her painstaking English. It was their damnable sense of fair play, he supposed…