Murder Most Royal: The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard - Jean Plaidy

He said, moving nearer to Catherine: “That was perfect!”

She flushed with pleasure, and he noticed the delicate skin and the long, fair lashes, and the charming strand of auburn hair that fell across her brow. Her youth was very appealing; he had never made love to one so young before; and yet, in spite of her youth, already she showed signs of an early ripening.

“Never,” he whispered, “have I enjoyed teaching anyone as I have enjoyed our lessons!”

The Duchess snored softly.

Catherine laughed, and he joined in the laugh; he leaned forward suddenly and kissed the tip of her nose. Catherine felt a pleasurable thrill; it was exciting because it had to be done while the Duchess slept; and he was handsome, she thought, with his dark, bold eyes; and it was flattering to be admired by one so much older than herself; it was gratifying to be treated as though one were charming, after the reproaches her grandmother had showered upon her.

“I am glad I am a good pupil.”

“You are a very good pupil!” he said. “Right glad I am that it is my happy lot to teach you.”

“Her Grace, my grandmother, thinks me very stupid.”

“Then it is Her Grace, your grandmother, who is stupid!”

Catherine hunched her shoulders, laughing.

“I take it, sir, that you do not then think me stupid.”

“Indeed not; but young, very young, and there is much you have to learn yet.”

The Duchess awoke with a start, and Catherine began to play.

“That was better,” said the Duchess, “was it not, Manox?”

“Indeed, Your Grace, it was!”

“And you think your pupil is improving?”

“Vastly, Madam!”

“So thought I. Now you may go, Catherine. Manox, you may stay awhile and talk with me.”

Catherine went, and he stayed and talked awhile; they talked of music, for they had nothing in common but music. But the Duchess did not mind of what her young men talked as long as they talked and entertained her. It was their youth she liked it was their flattery. And as Manox talked to her, she drifted back to the days of her own youth, and then forward again to the court as it was today, ruled by her loveliest of granddaughters.

“Methinks I shall go to Lambeth,” she announced, and dismissed Manox.

Catherine went to the apartment, where she found Isabel.

“How went the lesson?” asked Isabel.

“Very well.”

“How you love your music!” said Isabel. “You look as if you had just left a lover, not a lesson.”

Their talk was continually of lovers; Catherine did not notice this, as it seemed natural enough to her. To have lovers was not only natural but the most exciting possibility; it was all part of the glorious business of growing up, and now Catherine longed to be grownup.

She still thought of Thomas Culpepper, but she could only with difficulty remember what he looked like. She still dreamed that he rode out to Horsham and told her they were to elope together, but his face, which for so long had been blurred in her mind, now began to take on the shape of Henry Manox. She looked forward to her lessons; the most exciting moment of her days was when she went down to the Duchess’s room and found him there; she was always terrified that he would not be there, that her grandmother had decided to find her a new teacher; she looked forward with gleeful anticipation to those spasmodic snores of the Duchess which set both her and Manox giggling, and made his eyes become more bold.

As he sat very close to her, his long musician’s fingers would come to rest on her knee, tapping tightly that she might keep in time. The Duchess nodded; her head shook; then she would awake startled and look round her defiantly, as though to deny the obvious fact that she had dozed.

There was one day, some weeks after the first lesson, which was a perfect day, with spring in the sunshine filtering through the window, in the songs of the birds in the trees outside it, in Catherine’s heart and in Manox’s eyes.

He whispered: “Catherine! I think of you constantly.”

“Have I improved so much then?”

“Not of your music, but of you, Catherine . . . of you.”

“I wonder why you should think constantly of me.”

“Because you are very sweet.”

“Am I?” said Catherine.

“And not such a child as you would seem!”

“No,” said Catherine. “Sometimes I think I am very grown-up.”

He laid his delicate hands on the faint outline of her breasts.

“Yes, Catherine, I think so too. It is very sweet to be grown-up, Catherine. When you are a woman you will wonder how you could ever have borne your childhood.”

“Yes,” said Catherine, “I believe that. I have had some unhappy times in my childhood; my mother died, and then I went to Hollingbourne, and just when I was beginning to love my life there, that was over.”

“Do not look so sad, sweet Catherine! Tell me, you are not sad, are you?”

“Not now,” she said.

He kissed her cheek.

He said: “I would like to kiss your lips.”

He did this, and she was astonished by the kiss, which was different from those Thomas had given her. Catherine was stirred; she kissed him.

“I have never been so happy!” he said.

They were both too absorbed in each other to listen for the Duchess’s snores and heavy breathing; she awoke suddenly, and hearing no music, looked towards them.

“Chatter, chatter, chatter!” she said. “I declare! Is this a music lesson!”

Catherine began to play, stumbling badly.

The Duchess yawned; her foot began to tap; in five minutes she was asleep again.

“Do you think she saw us kiss?” whispered Catherine.

“Indeed I do not!” said Manox, and he meant that, for he well knew that if she had he would have been immediately turned out, possibly dismissed from the house; and Mistress Catherine would have received a sound beating.

Catherine shivered ecstatically.

“I am terrified that she might, and will stop the lessons.”

“You would care greatly about that?”

Catherine turned candid eyes upon him. “I should care very much!” she said. She was vulnerable because her mind was that of a child, though her body was becoming that of a woman; and the one being so advanced, the other somewhat backward, it was her body which was in command of Catherine. She liked the proximity of this man; she liked his kisses. She told him so in many ways; and he, being without scruples, found the situation too novel and too exciting not to be exploited.

He was rash in his excitement, taking her in his arms before the sleeping Duchess and kissing her lips. Catherine lifted her face eagerly, as a flower will turn towards the sun.

The Duchess was sleeping, when there was a faint tap on the door and Isabel entered. The lesson had extended beyond its appointed time, and she, eager to see the teacher and pupil together, had an excuse ready for intruding. Isabel stood on the threshold, taking in the scene—the sleeping Duchess, the young man, his face very pale, his eyes very bright; Catherine, hair in some disorder, her eyes wide, her lips parted, and with a red mark on her chin. Where he has kissed her, the knave! thought Isabel.

The Duchess awoke with a start.

“Come in! Come in!” she called, seeing Isabel at the door.

Isabel approached and spoke to the Duchess. Catherine rose, and so did Manox.

“You may go, Catherine,” said the Duchess. “Manox! Stay awhile. I would speak to you.”

Catherine went, eager to be alone, to remember everything he had said, how he had looked; to wonder how she was going to live through the hours until the next lesson on the morrow.

When Isabel was dismissed, she waited for Manox to come out.

He bowed low, smiling when he saw her, thinking that he had made an impression on her, for his surface charm and his reputation had made him irresistible to quite a number of ladies. He smiled at Isabel’s pale face and compared it with Catherine’s round childish one. He was more excited by Catherine than he had been since his first affair; for this adventuring with the little girl was a new experience, and though it was bound to be slow, and needed tact and patience, he found it more intriguing than any normal affair could be.

Isabel said: “I have never seen you at our entertainments.”

He smiled and said that he had heard of the young ladies’ revels, and it was a matter of great regret that he had never attended one.

She said: “You must come . . . I will tell you when. You know it is a secret!”

“Never fear that I should drop a hint to Her Grace.”

“It is innocent entertainment,” said Isabel anxiously.

“I could not doubt it!”

“We frolic a little; we feast; there is nothing wrong. It is just amusing.”

“That I have heard.”

“I will let you know then.”

“You are the kindest of ladies.”

He bowed courteously, and went on his way, thinking of Catherine.

Through the gardens at Hampton Court Anne walked with Henry. He was excited, his head teeming with plans, for the Cardinal’s palace was now his. He had demanded of a humiliated Wolsey wherefore a subject should have such a palace; and with a return of that wit which had been the very planks on which he had built his mighty career, the Cardinal, knowing himself lost and hoping by gifts to reinstate himself a little in the heart of the King, replied that a subject might build such a palace only to show what a noble gift a subject might make to his King.

Henry had been delighted by that reply; he had all but embraced his old friend, and his eyes had glistened to think of Hampton Court. Henry had inherited his father’s acquisitive nature, and the thought of riches must ever make him lick his lips with pleasure.

“Darling,” he said to Anne, “we must to Hampton Court, for there are many alterations I would make. I will make a palace of Hampton Court, and you shall help in this.”

The royal barge had carried them up the river; there was no ceremony on this occasion. Perhaps the King was not eager for it; perhaps he felt a little shame in accepting this magnificent gift from his old friend. All the way up the river he laughed with Anne at the incongruity of a subject’s daring to possess such a place.

“He was another king . . . or would be!” said Anne. “You were most lenient with him.”

“’Twas ever a fault of mine, sweetheart, to be over-lenient with those I love.”

She raised her beautifully arched eyebrows, and surveyed him mockingly.

“I fancy it is so with myself.”

He slapped his thigh—a habit of his—and laughed at her; she delighted him now as ever. He grew sentimental, contemplating her. He had loved her long, nor did his passion for her abate. To be in love was a pleasant thing; he glowed with self-sacrifice, thinking: She shall have the grandest apartments that can be built! I myself will plan them.

He told her of his ideas for the alterations.

“Work shall be started for my Queen’s apartments before aught else. The hangings shall be of tissue of gold, sweetheart. I myself will design the walls.” He thought of great lovers’ knots with the initials H and A entwined. He told her of this; sentimental and soft, his voice was slurred with affection. “Entwined, darling! As our lives shall be and have been ever since we met. For I would have the world know that naught shall come between us two.”

Unceremoniously they left the barge. The gardens were beautiful—but a cardinal’s gardens, said Henry, not a king’s!

“Dost know I have a special fondness for gardens?” he asked. “And dost know why?”

She thought it strange and oddly perturbing that he could remind her of his faithfulness to her here in this domain which he had taken—for the gift was enforced—from one to whom he owed greater loyalty. But how like Henry! Here in the shadow of Wolsey’s cherished Hampton Court, he must tell himself that he was a loyal friend, because he had been disloyal to its owner.

“Red and white roses,” said the King, and be touched her cheek. “We will have this like your father’s garden at Hever, eh? We will have a pond, and you shall sit on its edge and talk to me, and watch your own reflection. I’ll warrant you will be somewhat kinder to me than you were at Hever, eh?”

“It would not surprise me,” she laughed.

He talked with enthusiasm of his plans. He visualized beds of roses—red and white to symbolize the union of the houses of York and Lancaster, to remind all who beheld them that the Tudors represented peace; he would enclose those beds with wooden railings painted in his livery colors of white and green; he would set up posts and pillars which should be decorated with heraldic designs. There would be about the place a constant reminder to all, including himself, that he was a faithful man; that when he loved, he loved deeply and long. H and A! Those initials should be displayed in every possible spot.

“Come along in, sweetheart,” he said. “I would choose your apartments. They shall be the most lavish that were ever seen.”

They went up the staircase, across a large room. It was Anne who turned to the right and descended a few steps into the paneled rooms which had been Wolsey’s own. Henry had not wished to go into those rooms, but when he saw their splendid furnishings, their rich hangings, the magnificent plate, the window seats padded with red window carpets, the twisted gold work on the ceilings, he was loath to leave them. He had seen this splendor many times before; but then it had been Wolsey’s, now it was his.

Anne pointed to the damask carpets which lay about the floors, and reminded the King of how, it was whispered, Wolsey had come by these.

Henry was less ready to defend his old favorite than usual. He recounted the story of the Venetian bribe, and his mouth was a thin line, though previously he had laughed at it, condoned it.

They went through the lavishly furnished bedrooms, admired the counterpanes of satin and damask, the cushions of velvet and satin and cloth of gold.

“Good sweetheart,” said Henry, “I think your apartment shall be here, for I declare it to be the finest part of Hampton Court. The rooms shall be enlarged; I will have new ceilings; everything here shall be of the best. It shall be accomplished as soon as possible.”

“It will take many years,” said Anne, and added: “So therefore it is just possible that the divorce may be done with by then, if it ever is!”

He put an arm about her shoulders.

“How now, darling! We have waited long, and are impatient, but methinks we shall not wait much longer. Cranmer is a man of ideas . . . and that knave, Cromwell, too! My plans for your apartments may take a year or two completely to carry out, but never fear, long ere their accomplishment you shall be Queen of England!”

They sat awhile on the window seat, for the day was warm. He talked enthusiastically of the changes he would make. She listened but listlessly; Hampton Court held memories of a certain moonlit night, when she and Percy had looked from one of those windows and talked of the happiness they would make for each other.

She wondered if she would ever occupy these rooms which he planned for her. Wolsey had once made plans in this house.

“Our initials entwined, sweetheart,” said the King. “Come! You shiver. Let us on.”