A terrible understanding came to me. What if, during those nights, I had conceived a child? Yes, indeed, I was guilty of treason.
What had these women known? What had they seen? With all this talk about the lewd life I had led before my marriage, they would be ready to believe the worst.
Would they question Thomas? Without a doubt they would. Would they do to him what they had done to Derham … and Damport? No, I could not endure that. His beautiful body, to be broken on the rack … as Derham’s had been.
I did not know what to do, which way to turn. This was the worst thing that had happened. I could not bear to think of Thomas in the hands of those cruel men. Oh, why had he not left the country? Why had he not seen what was coming? He should have been aware of what was coming … more so than I. Oh, why had he stayed to meet this cruel fate?
There was no comfort anywhere. Even Jane had changed. I had never seen her like this before. Gone was the plotter, the schemer, the one who reveled in drama. Whichever way she turned, she saw herself at the center of the tragedy.
Who was it who had arranged the meeting with Thomas Culpepper, who had cleared the way, kept the women out of sight, as far as possible? Who had connived and contrived? Jane, of course.
She was caught up in this, guilty of making the way easy for the Queen, which was an act of treachery toward the King—one which might involve the future heir to the throne.
Jane was with me in this trouble.
I saw the terror in her eyes. She could not comfort me, because she could not comfort herself.
We sat side by side, staring ahead of us. If this were proved against us, it would be the end of me … and possibly Jane, too.
We waited for news.
They would put him on the rack, as they had poor Derham. Would he tell of those nights when the King had been absent and we had given ourselves up to our passion? Would they force the truth from him?
It would be the end.
Jane was by turns sunk in melancholy or almost demented. She feared death greatly. Did not we all?
She said: “I think perhaps this is what I expected would happen to me one day. Ever since those two went to the block, I have been haunted by them. I mean your cousins—Anne and George. I helped them there. She was destined for the block, but George … oh, not George. It was cruel. It was wicked. I did not believe they were guilty … either of them. A charge of that could never have been brought against them. There will be those who say that Elizabeth is a bastard. How could that be? You only have to look at her to see who her father is. Anne had to go because she was in the way. She had no son and the King was tired of her. He wanted Jane Seymour. I am not to blame for her death. It only hurt her reputation. But George … my husband. I loved him, Katherine. He was the most charming man I ever knew. And they chose him for my husband. How could he have cared for me? In a way he was in love with his brilliant sister. Not in love perhaps, but he loved her as he loved no one else. How could he be expected to feel anything but contempt for his far-from-exciting wife?”
“Jane, he loved you as a wife.”
“He loved me not at all. I might not have been there, for all he knew. I was just an encumbrance. I would be there … they would all be together … they and their clever friends. People like Thomas Wyatt. He was in love with her, like all the rest. Lucky Wyatt. He managed to escape the axe. Norris … Weston … they were not so fortunate. They were all round her. Poetry … music … all with which I could not compete. And then I had my revenge, did I not? I was the only one who laughed in the end. I envied her so much, and it was all because of George.”
“It is all over, Jane. You distress yourself unnecessarily. There is nothing you can do about it now.”
“But it is there! It has been there ever since that May Day of 1536. Five years … more than that. It has haunted me. And now, here it is, as I feared it would come. It was my evidence that set the case against George in motion. The King was jealous of that feeling between Anne and her brother. He was only too ready to believe anything against them.” She laughed mirthlessly. “How reckless I am becoming, to say these things which I have kept hidden all these years! But what does it matter now? It was my evidence … false evidence … which cost George his life. My revenge on him for not loving me. I wanted revenge and by God’s Holy Mother, when you think of their once-haughty heads rolling in the dust, you must agree, it was mine.”
I tried to stop her, but she would not be silenced.
“Envy,” she went on. “I envied her. There are seven deadly sins, and one of them is envy. It is the greatest of them all. I envied Anne—not her crown, but because my husband loved her far more than he ever loved me. I hated her. I wanted to see her brought low. I wanted her to be hurt in the way she had hurt me. I killed my husband. I deserve to die. And now … I am going to.”
“No, no. Jane, they will do nothing to you.”
She shook her head. “They have taken Culpepper. That means they know. They are questioning Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton. They will know he came on those nights during the journey. They are bent on betraying us all.”
“But not you, Jane!”
“I was there, was I not? I arranged it. Oh, what fools we have been! Why do we not think of these things before we do them?”
“Jane, Jane, be calm!”
“I am afraid of death. I have too many sins on my conscience. George comes to me in my dreams, and I see him laying his head on the block. He lifts his head then and he looks at me. He says: ‘Jane, why did you do this to me? You knew it was false. I loved my sister, yes. She was the most interesting and exciting person I ever met, but there was no incest and you knew it. Why did you do this to me?’ Then I say to myself: ‘Why did I? I did it to revenge myself because you could not love me as you loved your sister. You could not love me as I loved you.’”
Then she was sobbing wildly.
And the next day she was taken from Syon House for questioning.
I do not remember how I lived through those next days. I raged against the Almighty, and then I pleaded with him. How could this terrible fate have befallen me? They were going to cut off my head. It had happened to many before, and now it was my turn.
There were times when I cried out to Heaven to give me another chance. I would go into a nunnery. I would devote myself to God’s work. I would do anything … suffer any hardship, if only I could keep my life. I longed for the hours when I could sleep, but then I was tormented by dreams. I longed for unconsciousness, that blissful unawareness into which, from sheer exhaustion, I would now and then sink. And all the time I was tortured by thoughts of what was happening to Thomas.
I missed Jane. I wondered what was happening to her. They would be questioning her. Cruel men would be watching her.
There were several women to attend me now. I was so weary; unaware of them, except to notice with relief that none of those who had betrayed me were there. They had the grace to keep Joan Bulmer, Katherine Tylney and Margaret Morton away. I was avid for news of Thomas and to hear how Jane was standing up to the questioning.
I begged them to tell me what they knew. They heard scraps of gossip, of course. I think they were sorry for me. I could see the glances they exchanged, which I guessed meant that they were wondering whether a little knowledge would help me or whether it would be better to leave me in ignorance.
I humbled myself and I implored them to tell me.
They had heard that there had been an inquiry into what had happened at certain of the places we had visited during our tour of the country. Margaret Morton and Katherine Tylney had told what they had seen, heard and conjectured.