“Then you are wrong,” he said in a voice of thunder. His face was distorted in anger which alarmed me. My simple “Yes, Your Majesty” appeared to be the wrong answer. Thomas had said that in the service of the King one must take great care. A careless word could result in one’s being sent to the Tower.
He saw my startled face and reached for my hand. He lifted it and, to my astonishment, raised it to his lips, kissing it.
“My dear, dear child,” he said. “My dear Katherine, your King is not a happy man. There are times when I wonder why it is that Heaven persecutes me so. Have I done aught wrong? Is there some fault in me of which I know nothing, but which has displeased my Maker? Do you think so, Katherine?”
I was abashed. I looked up at the sky, as though hoping to find the answer there. How easy it would be to make the wrong answer to such a question.
But apparently no answer was needed, for his expression changed again to one of abject self-pity.
“It is a cross I have to bear,” he said. “Through the years I have borne it. All I asked was a wife who would be good to me … and the nation. I was a good and faithful husband.”
I looked sharply at him. I could not stop thinking of Elizabeth Blount—lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine—who had been the mother of his son, the Duke of Richmond. I thought of my cousin’s miscarriage, which might have been the means of giving him—and the nation—the desired son, and which had been brought on because my cousin had come upon him, fondling Jane Seymour.
Yet he looked so sad, and quite unaware that he could be speaking anything but the truth, that I found myself almost believing him.
“Why … why?” he went on.
How I dreaded these questions. Why did I have to be so inadequate? Why had I not been like my cousin? Oh no, I must not think of her.
But apparently again he did not need an answer. Though I did wish he would not keep putting his words in the form of a question.
He was saying: “There is nothing I ask more than to be a good and faithful husband to a wife who will love me in return. Yet I am plagued. It would seem there is a curse on me.”
There was silence while I tried to think of what I ought to say. He was still holding my hand.
He said: “I believe you to be a good, sweet girl. You know nothing of the evils of the world, sweet child. You are untouched by the wickedness of the world. I find great pleasure in the company of one such as you.”
Again silence. What could I say? Was I good? I had never wanted to harm anyone. But to most people goodness meant virtue. An image of Manox rose before me. I thought of the slighting manner in which he had spoken of me to Dorothy Barwike.
But I was going to forget all that. Perhaps soon they would agree to my marriage with Thomas. I should go to Hollingbourne and in the years to come tell my children about the time I was at Court and how the King had liked my music, how I had met him in the garden and he had talked to me.
I could hear myself saying: “There was something very kind about him.”
“Yes,” went on the King, drawing me back to reality, and almost as though he were talking to himself. “Ill luck has dogged me. There are times when I ask myself, what have I done? There was my first marriage … only a form of marriage, that was. I was not married all those years when I thought I was. Then I married a witch. A spell was put upon me then. And after that there was Jane … good Jane … but she died and left me the boy Edward. There are times when I think I shall outlast him. And then … and then …” His face was dark again.
“But, Katherine, the Lord has shown me the way out.” He leaned toward me and put his face close to mine. “What think you of that?”
I realized that this question had to be answered, and desperately I sought for the right words.
“I … I rejoice for Your Majesty.”
“And not only for him, Katherine. You should rejoice for another.”
I did not know to whom he was referring, so I remained silent.
“You are a good, modest girl. It pleases me that there are still such as you in my realm. You have a good heart, Katherine. I would not be deceived in you, would I?”
“Oh no, Your Majesty.”
“Of course not. It is clear in your sweet face. You will be a good and honest wife, will you not? You will love your husband as he will love you?”
I was on the point of telling him that I was all but betrothed to Thomas Culpepper and that we planned to settle at Hollingbourne, but something restrained me. Moreover, he went on immediately: “After my tribulation, it may be God’s will that I come to happiness.”
“Oh yes, Your Majesty. I pray so.”
“We will pray together, Katherine,” he said. “You and I, eh?”
I smiled happily.
“You please me greatly, Katherine,” he said. “Have they told you how pretty you are?”
I blushed and he squeezed my thigh again. I thought, it will be bruised, I doubt not, and I giggled inwardly, asking myself if it were an honor to be bruised by the King.
His face was creased again in tender sentimentality.
“My dear little flower,” he said. “I like you, Katherine.”
“Oh, Your Majesty is very kind to me,” I murmured.
“And will be kinder. There is much we shall talk of when the time is ripe. Ere long it will be so for, as I have told you, you please me. You please me greatly. What say you to that?”
I did not know what to say, and he went on: “Eh? Eh? What say you?”
“Your … Your Majesty pleases me.” I stopped short.
That was a terrible mistake. I was glad that my uncle could not hear. But it seemed I could do no wrong in the eyes of the King. He slapped his thigh this time. He was laughing.
“I like that, Katherine,” he said. “The King has found favor with little Mistress Howard. What better news? What better?”
I laughed with him—which was easy enough—while I marveled that my uncle could offend him so easily and that an untutored girl such as I was could so easily say what he wanted to hear.
There was an apprehensive air of expectancy in the Queen’s household at Richmond. On the rare occasions when I saw the Queen, I was aware of tension, as though outwardly she were serene but she was aware of our watchfulness. The only attendant left to her from her own country was known as Mother Lowe; and she was constantly at the Queen’s side.
I gathered that the Queen had always been gracious to her English attendants, but I supposed it was only to Mother Lowe that she would reveal her true feelings.
There was something else. Attitudes toward me had changed considerably. Those who had previously ignored me seemed eager to show friendship. They watched me closely. It was, of course, because the King had spoken to me.
I did not see Thomas. I wondered why, because usually he had sought some way of meeting me.
Lady Margaret Douglas, who was chief of the Queen’s ladies, had, among others, noticed me. She talked to me now and then and we had become quite friendly. She was very handsome and I judged her to be about six years older than I. I had always been interested in her because at one time she had wanted to marry Lord Thomas Howard, one of my cousins.
Lady Margaret was, of course, a very important lady, being the daughter of the King’s sister Margaret by her second husband, the Earl of Angus. She had had a very adventurous life and must have passed through many dangers. I think she felt drawn toward me because she had loved a member of my family.
She was closer to the Queen than any of the ladies—except Mother Lowe—and one day I mentioned to her that I had seen the Queen in the gardens; she had looked sad and Mother Lowe seemed anxious.
“Well,” said Lady Margaret. “Who would not be … in her position?”