It was not possible to tell the Duchess that one could not hope to have the grace of one’s cousin who had been educated most carefully and had learned the ways of life at the French court; who had been plenteously supplied with the clothes she might need in order that Sir Thomas Boleyn’s daughter might do her father credit in whatever circles she moved. One could not explain that the brilliant Anne had a natural gift for choosing the most becoming clothes, and knew how to wear them. The Duchess should have known these things.
But she rocked in her chair and dozed, and was hardly aware of Catherine’s standing there before her. “Marry! And the dangers that girl was exposed to! The French court! There were adventures for her, I’ll warrant, but she keeps her secrets well. Ah! How fortunate it is, Catherine, that I have taken you under
And while the Duchess snored in her bedroom, her ladies held many midnight feasts in their apartments. Catherine was one of them now, they assured themselves. Catherine could be trusted. It was no matter whether she slept or not; she was little but a baby and there were those times when she would fall asleep suddenly. She was popular; they would throw sweetmeats onto her bed. Sometimes she was kissed and fondled.
“Is she not a pretty little girl!”
“She is indeed, and you will keep your eyes off her, young sir, or I shall be most dismayed.”
Laughter, slapping, teasing....It was fun, they said; and with them Catherine said: “It is fun!”
Sometimes they lay on the tops of the beds with their arms about each other; sometimes they lay under the clothes, with the curtains drawn.
Catherine was accustomed to this strange behavior by now, and hardly noticed it. They were all very kind to her, even Isabel. She was happier with them than she was when attending her grandmother, sitting at her feet or rubbing her back where it itched. Sometimes she must massage the old lady’s legs, for she had strange pains in them and massage helped to soothe the pain. The old lady would wheeze and rattle, and say something must be done about Catherine’s education, since her granddaughter, a Howard, could not be allowed to run wild all the day through. The Duchess would talk of members of her family; her stepsons and her numerous stepdaughters who had married wealthy knights because the Howard fortunes needed bolstering up. “So Howards married with Wyatts and Bryans and Boleyns,” mused the Duchess. “And mark you, Catherine Howard, the children of these marriages are goodly and wise. Tom Wyatt is a lovely boy...” The Duchess smiled kindly, having a special liking for lovely boys. “And so is George Boleyn...and Mary and Anne are pleasant creatures....”
“Ah!” said the Duchess one day. “I hear your cousin, Anne, is back in England and at court.”
“I should like well to see her,” said Catherine.
“Rub harder, child! There! Clumsy chit! You scratched me. Ah! Back at court, and a beauty more lovely than when she went away...” The Duchess wheezed, and was so overcome with laughter that Catherine feared she would choke. “They say the King is deeply affected by her,” said the Duchess happily. “They say too that she is leading him a merry dance!”
When the Duchess had said that the King was deeply affected by Anne Boleyn, she had spoken the truth. Anne had left the court of France and returned to that of England, and no sooner had she made her spectacular appearance than once more she caught the King’s eye. The few years that had elapsed had made a great change in Anne; she was not one whit less beautiful than she had been when Henry had seen her in the garden at Hever; indeed she was more so; she had developed a poise which before would have sat oddly on one so young. If she had been bright then, now she was brilliant; her beauty had matured and gained in maturity; the black eyes still sparkled and flashed; her tongue was more ready with its wit, she herself more accomplished. She had been engaged in helping Marguerite to fete Francois, so recently released from captivity, a Francois who had left his youth behind in a Madrid prison in which he had nearly died and would have done so but for his sister’s loving haste across France and into Spain to nurse him. But Francois had made his peace treaty with his old enemy, Charles V, although he did repudiate it immediately, and it was the loving delight of his sister and his mother to compensate him for the months of hardship. Anne Boleyn had been a useful addition to the court; she could sing and dance, write lyrics, poetry, music; could always be relied upon to entertain and amuse. But her father, on the Continent with an embassy, had occasion to return to England, and doubtless feeling that a girl of nineteen must not fritter away her years indefinitely, had brought her back to the court of her native land. So Anne had returned to find the entire family settled at the palace. George, now Viscount Rochford, was married, and his wife, who had been Jane Parker and granddaughter to Lord Morley and Monteagle, was still one of the Queen’s ladies. Meeting George’s wife had been one of the less pleasant surprises on Anne’s return, since she saw that George was not very happy in this marriage with a wife who was frivolous and stupid and was not accepted into the brilliant set of poets and intellectuals—most of them cousins of the Boleyns—in which George naturally took a prominent place. This was depressing. Anne, still smarting from the Percy affair—though none might guess it—would have wished for her brother that married happiness which she herself had missed. Mary, strangely enough, seemed happy with William Carey; they had one boy—who, it was whispered, was the King’s—and none would guess that their union was not everything that might be desired. Anne wondered then if she and George asked too much of life.
There was no sign of melancholy about Anne. She could not but feel a certain glee—though she reproached herself for this—when she heard that Percy and his Mary were the most wretched couple in the country. She blamed Percy for his weakness; it was whispered that the Lady Mary was a shrew, who never forgave him, being contracted to her, for daring to fall in love with Anne Boleyn and make a scandal of the affair. Very well, thought Anne, let Percy suffer as she had! How many times during the last years had she in her thoughts reproached him for his infidelity! Perhaps he realized now that the easy way is not always the best way. She held her head higher, calling her lost lover weak, wishing fervently that he had been more like Thomas Wyatt who had pursued her ever since her return to court, wondering if she were not a little in love—or ready to fall in love—with her cousin Thomas, surely the most handsome, the most reckless, the most passionate man about the court. There was no doubt as to his feelings for her; it was both in his eyes and in his verses; and he was reckless enough not to care who knew it.
There was one other who watched her as she went about the court; Anne knew this, though others might not, for though he was by no means a subtle man, he had managed so far to keep this passion, which he felt for one of his wife’s ladies-in-waiting, very secret.
Anne did not care to think too much of this man. She did not care to feel those little eyes upon her. His manner was correct enough, yet now there were those who were beginning to notice something. She had seen people whispering together, smiling slyly. Now the King is done with the elder sister, is it to be the younger? What is it about these Boleyns? Thomas is advanced as rapidly as my lord Cardinal ever was; George has posts that should have gone to a grey-haired man; Mary...of course we understand how it was with Mary; and now, is it to be the same story with Anne?
No! Anne told herself fiercely. Never!
If Thomas Wyatt had not a wife already, she thought, how pleasant it would be to listen to his excellent verses, which were chiefly about herself. She could picture the great hall at Allington Castle decked out for the Christmas festivities, herself and Thomas taking chief parts in some entertainment they had written for the amusement of
