The girls came to me.
“Mother, is it true then?” cried Catherine, her face working with emotion. “They have taken him. What will they do to him? What are they doing now?”
“He will die,” said Honey. “He will die at the stake.”
Catherine’s face puckered. “They can’t do it, can they? They can’t…to him! He is your stepfather.”
“That fact will not deter them,” I said sadly.
Catherine cried: “And they will burn him to death simply be cause he believes God should be worshiped in a certain way? I know he is a heretic and heretics are wicked, but to burn him”
“To death,” said Honey somberly.
They were too young to know of such horrors. I said: “It may be that it will not happen. I am going to bring the twins over here. You will be very kind to them. You will remember that it is their father….”
They nodded.
Then I went back to my old home to look after my mother.
I sat with her and we tried to talk of other things: of her garden, of her stillroom. But all the time her ears were alert for the sound of a barge at the privy stairs, for the voice which I knew she would never hear again.
It was no use. We must talk of him, because it was of him that she was thinking. She told me how good he had always been to her; how happy had been her years with him.
“He was the perfect husband,” she told me; and I thought of that good man, my father, and asked myself if she had mourned him like this, although I knew the answer to that.
“He was so clever,” she said. “He wanted to know what people were writing…what people were thinking.”
Ah, poor Simon Caseman, he should have known that one must not display interest even where our rulers had decided that we should not.
“They should have kept Queen Jane on the throne. This wouldn’t have happened then.”
No, Mother, I thought, not to you. But to others. Perhaps to Bruno.
Then I remembered that it was Bruno who had brought this about. He had done to Simon Caseman what Simon had tried to do to him.
I thought: I shall remember it forever. I had loathed the man but it sickened me to think that he had been betrayed by my husband.
The day had come. My mother wanted to go to Hampton Court, there to see the Queen and beg her to pardon her husband.
He was a heretic, proved to be a heretic, and so I heard would not diverge from his opinions. A strange man—so much that was evil in him and yet my mother thought him the perfect husband and he remained true to his belief in face of death.
I quieted my mother that day with her poppy juice and she slept.
I went out into the garden and looked toward the city. A pall of smoke was drifting down the river. The Smithfield fires were burning.
Then I went in and sat by my mother’s bed that I might be there to comfort her when she awakened.
Death of a Witch
A YEAR HAD PASSED since Simon Caseman suffered the heretic’s death. My mother seemed to have aged ten years. Caseman Court had been returned to its rightful owner—myself—for as the wife of a good Catholic who had defied the reign of heretics and in some measure reformed the old Abbey, I was in high favor.
I did not tell my mother that the house had been returned to me. Her grief was too great for her to be concerned with such matters. She went on living there. It was a sad and sorry household.
Rupert was often there; he had offered to help with the estate and this he had done. I saw him frequently and his gentleness to my mother moved me deeply.
I loved Rupert. It was no wild passion—just a gentle enduring affection. Since the betrayal of Simon Caseman I had felt a kind of revulsion toward Bruno. He knew this and hated me for it. Honey was right when she said he wanted admiration all the time. I would say he wanted adoration.
In spite of her shock over Simon Caseman’s death Catherine’s devotion toward her father had intensified. They were often together and I believe that Bruno found pleasure in turning her from me. I was hurt that my years of love and devotion could be so easily undermined. But she was bemused by him, as others had been before her, and still were. God knows I could understand that. Was I not once as bemused as any?
Honey watched Catherine’s growing devotion to her father and her estrangement from me with a satisfaction which could only alarm me.
The times were sickeningly melancholy; but never before had there been such discord in my own family circle.
I was turning more and more to my old home, where my mother was always glad to see me. Rupert was often there and we would all three sit together finding some consolation in talking of the old days.
It was a terrible year. I remember when Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake on a bitter March day in front of Baliol College in Oxford. They said that he held out his right hand first to meet the flames because it was with that hand that he signed a document recanting his beliefs.
Ninety-four people were burned that year—forty-five of them women; and there were even four children.
I found it difficult to go about my ordinary affairs. Whenever I went out of doors I seemed to smell the Smithfield fires. I dreamed of Simon Caseman writhing in agony, and I could not help remembering that Bruno had sent him to that fate.
Kate wrote from Remus. Carey would soon be sixteen years of age and she wanted to give a ball to celebrate his birthday.
The young people were excited. We lived in melancholy times and it was wise no doubt to get away from the news of arrests and dire consequences for a while; and Kate was the one to arrange such an occasion.
Honey, Catherine and I traveled to Remus with the twins and a few servants. Bruno refused the invitation and my mother preferred to stay at home; and as our barge took us downriver farther away from Smithfield and the Tower I felt my spirits rising a little.
I was amused by Catherine who could not hide her excitement at the prospect of the ball and at the same time wondered whether she ought not to have stayed behind to be with her father. The dress I had had made for her was of golden-colored velvet from Italy. The bodice was stiffened and the front opened to show a beautifully embroidered brocade kirtle—also from Italy. Honey’s dress was similar but of blue velvet. Honey was nearly seventeen years old, Catherine fifteen. I thought with a pang: They are growing up. Soon it will be a case of finding husbands for them.
It was pleasant to be with Kate again. Even though she was past thirty, she was no less attractive than she had been at seventeen. I often wondered why she had not married again. It was certainly not due to a devotion to Remus.
She entertained a good deal in Remus Castle. Now her guests would be Catholic families. Kate was too wise to be embroiled in politics; she was one who would sway with the wind.
As soon as we arrived she carried me off for a private talk, and her first words were to compliment me on the looks of the girls.
“It should not be difficult to find husbands for them. They are an attractive pair. Catherine should have a good dowry. What of Honey?”
“I shall see that she is adequately provided for.”
“Ah, yes, Caseman Court is yours now.” A shadow crossed her face. “A bad business. How is your mother?”
“She has aged ten years. She works in her garden. Thank God she has that. Oh, Kate, what a melancholy country this has become!”
“It was more gay, was it not, under Henry when we were girls? I have a feeling, though, that this will not last. The Queen is a sick woman.” She lowered her voice. “One must be careful how one speaks. Poor woman! She has brought misery to thousands.”