Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 142
‘I dare not speak here,’ he muttered huskily. ‘But this King....’ He paused and added swiftly: ‘He is of an ill omen to all Katharines.’
‘Why, he shall give me his old gloves to darn,’ she laughed. ‘Fond knave, this King standeth on a mountain a league high. A King shall take notice of one for the duration of a raindrop’s fall. Then it is done. One may make oneself ere it reach the ground, or never. Besides, ‘tis a well-spoken elder. ‘Tis the spit of our grandfather Culpepper.’
When Henry came hurrying back, engrossed, to send Culpepper and the mule to the gatehouse for a guide, she laughed gently for pleasure.
Culpepper said tremulously: ‘She hath her father’s commands to hasten to Dover.’
‘Her father taketh and giveth commands from me,’ Henry answered, and his glove flicked once more towards the gate. He had turned his face away before Culpepper’s hand grasped convulsively at his dagger and he had Katharine Howard at his side sweeping back towards Cromwell.
She asked, confidingly and curiously: ‘Who is that lord?’ and, after his answer, she mused, ‘He is no friend to Howards.’
‘Nay, that man taketh his friends among mine,’ he answered. He stopped to regard her, his face one heavy and indulgent smile. The garter on his knee, broad and golden, showed her the words: ‘Y pense’; the collars moved up and down on his immense chest, the needlework of roses was so fine that she wondered how many women had sat up how many nights to finish it: but the man was grey and homely.
‘I know none of your ways here,’ she said.
‘Never let fear blanch thy cheeks till we are no more thy friend,’ he reassured her. He composed one of his gallant speeches:
‘Here lives for thee nothing but joy.’ Pleasurable hopes should be her comrades while the jolly sun shone, and sweet content at night her bedfellow....
He handed her to the care of the Lord Cromwell to take her to the Lady Mary’s lodgings. It was unfitting that she should walk with him, and, with his heavy and bearlike gait, swinging his immense shoulders, he preceded them up the broad path.
VI
Cromwell watched the King’s great back with an attentive smile. He said, ironically, that he was her ladyship’s servant.
‘I would ye were,’ she answered. ‘They say you love not those that I love.’
‘I would have you not heed what men say,’ he answered, grimly. ‘I am douce to those that be of good-will to his Highness. Those that hate me are his ill-wishers.’
‘Then the times are evil,’ she said, ‘for they are many.’
She added suddenly, as if she could not keep a prudent silence:
‘I am for the Old Faith in the Old Way. You have hanged many dear friends of mine whose souls I pray for.’
He looked at her attentively.
She had a supple, long body, a fair-tinted face, fair and reddish hair, and eyes that had a glint of almond green — but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled. She was so intent upon speaking her mind that she had forgotten the pain of her arm. She thought that she must have said enough to anger this brewer’s son. But he answered only:
‘I think you have never been in the King’s court’ — and, from his tranquil manner, she realised very suddenly that this man was not the dirt beneath her feet.
She had never been in the King’s court; she had never, indeed, been out of the North parts. Her father had always been a very poor man, with an ancient castle and a small estate that he had nearly always neglected because it had not paid for the farming. Living men she had never respected — for they seemed to her like wild beasts when she compared them with such of the ancients as Brutus or as Seneca. She had been made love to and threatened by such men as her cousin; she had been made love to and taught Latin by her pedagogues. She was more learned than any man she had ever met — and, thinking upon the heroes of Plutarch, she found the present times despicable. She hardly owed allegiance to the King. Now she had seen him and felt his consciousness of his own power, she was less certain. But the King’s writs had hardly run in the Northern parts. Her men-folk and her mother’s people had hanged their own peasants when they thought fit. She had seen bodies swinging from tree-tops when she rode hawking. All that she had ever known of the King’s power was when the convent by their castle gates had been thrown out of doors, and then her men-folk, cursing and raging, had sworn that it was the work of Crummock. ‘Knaves ruled about the King.’
If knaves ruled about him, the King was not a man that one need trouble much over. Her own men-folk, she knew, had made and unmade Kings. So that, when she thought of the hosts of saints and of the blessed angels that hovered, wringing their hands and weeping above England, she had wondered a little at times why they had never unmade this King.
But to her all these things had seemed very far away. She had nothing to do but to read books in the learned tongues, to imagine herself holding disquisitions upon the spiritual republic of Plato, to ride, to shoot with the bow, to do needlework, or to chide the maids. Her cousin had loved her passionately; it was true that once, when she had had nothing to her back, he had sold a farm to buy her a gown. But he had menaced her with his knife till she was weary, and the ways of men were troublesome to her; nevertheless she submitted to them with a patient wisdom.
She submitted to the King; she submitted — though she hated him by repute — to Cromwell’s catechism as they followed the King at a decent interval.
He walked beside her with his eyes on her face. He spoke of the King’s bounty in a voice that implied his own power. She was to be the Lady Mary’s woman. He had that lady especially in his good will, he saved for her household ladies of egregious gifts, presence and attainments. They received liberal honorariums, seven dresses by the year, vails, presents, perfumes from the King’s own still-rooms, and a parcel-gilt chain at the New Year. The Lady Rochford, who ruled over these ladies, was kind, courteous, free in her graces as in the liberties she allowed the ladies under her easy charge.
He enlarged upon this picture as if it were a bribe that he alone could offer or withhold. And something at once cautious and priestly in his tone let her quick intuition know that he was both warning her and sounding her, to see how far her mutinous spirit would carry her. Once he said, ‘There must be tranquillity in the kingdom. The times are very evil!’
She had felt very quickly that insults to this man would be a useless folly. He could not even feel them, and she kept her eyes on the ground and listened to him.
He went on sounding her. It was part of his profession of kingcraft to know the secret hearts of every person with whom he spoke.
‘And your goodly cousin?’ He paused. The King had commanded that a place should be found for him. ‘Should he be best at Calais? There shall be blows struck there.’
She knew very well that he was trying to discover how much she loved her cousin, and she answered in a low voice, ‘I would have him stay here. He is the sole friend I have in this place.’
Cromwell said, with a hidden and encouraging meaning, her cousin was not her only friend there.
‘Aye, but your lordship is not so old a friend as he.’
‘Not me. Call me your good servant.’
‘There is even then my uncle.’
‘Little good of a friend you will have of Norfolk. ‘Tis a bitter apple and a very rotten plank to lean upon.’
She could not any longer miss his meaning. The King’s scarlet and immense figure was already in the grey shadow of the arch under the tower. In walking, they had come near him, and while they waited he stood for a minute, gazing back down the path with boding and pathetic eyes; then he disappeared.
She looked at Cromwell and thanked him for the warning, ‘quia spicula praevisa minus laedunt.’
‘I would have you read it: gaudia plus laetificant,’ he answered gravely.
A man with a conch-shaped horn upturned was suddenly blowing beneath the archway seven hollow and reverberating grunts of sound that drowned his voice. A clear answering whistle came from the water-gate. Cromwell stayed, listening attentively; another stood forward to blow four blasts, another six, another three. Each time the whistle answered. They were the great officers’ signals for their barges that the men blew, and the whistle signified that these lay at readiness in the tideway. A bustle of men running, calling, and making pennons ready, began beyond the archway in the quadrangle.
Cromwell’s face grew calm and contented; the King was sending to meet Anne of Cleves.
‘Y’ are well read?’ he asked her slowly.
‘I was brought up in the Latin tongue or ever I had the English,’ she answered. ‘I had a good master, one that spoke the learned language always.’
‘Aye, Nicholas Udal,’ Cromwell said.
‘You know all men in the land,’ she said, with fear and surprise.
‘I had him to master for the Lady Mary, since he is well disposed.’
‘‘Tis an arrant knave tho’ the best of pedagogues,’ she answered. ‘He was cast out of his mastership at Eton for being a rogue.’
‘For that, the worshipful your father had him to master,’ he said ironically.
‘No, for that he was a ruined man, and taught for his victuals. We welly starved at home, my sisters and I.’
He said slowly:
‘The better need that you should grow beloved here.’
Standing there, before the bushes where no ears could overhear, he put to her more questions. She had some Greek, more than a little French, she could judge a good song, she could turn a verse in Latin or the vulgar tongue. She professed to be able to ride well, to be conversant with the terms of venery, to shoot with the bow, and to have studied the Fathers of the Church.
‘These things are well liked in high places,’ he said. ‘His Highness’ self speaks five tongues, loveth a nimble answer, and is a noble huntsman.’ He surveyed her as if she were a horse he were pricing. ‘But I doubt not you have appraised yourself passing well,’ he uttered.
‘I have had some to make me pleasant speeches,’ she answered, ‘but too many cannot be had.’
‘See you,’ he said slowly, ‘these tuckets that they blow from the gate signify that the new Queen cometh with a great state.’ He bit his under lip and looked at her meaningly. ‘But a great state ensueth a great heaviness to the head of the State. Principis hymen, principium gravitatis.... ‘Tis a small matter to me; you may make it a great one to your ladyship’s light fortunes.’
She knew that he awaited her saying:
‘I do not take your lordship,’ and she pulled the hood further over her face because it was cold, and uttered the words with her eyes on the ground.
‘Why,’ he said readily, ‘you are a lady having gifts that are much in favour in these days. Be careful to use those gifts and no others. Meddle in nothing that does not concern you. So you may make a great marriage with some lord in favour. But meddle in naught else!’
She would find many to set her an evil example. The other ladies amongst whom she was going were a mutinous knot. Let her be careful! If by her good behaviour she earned it, he would put the King in mind to advance her. If by good speeches and good example — since she had great store of learning — she could turn the hearts of these wicked ladies; if she could report to him evil designs or plots, he would speak to the King in such wise that His Highness should give her a great dower and any lord would marry her. Or he would advance her cousin so that he should become marriageable.
She said submissively:
‘Your lordship would have me become a spy upon the ladies who shall be my fellows?’
He waved his hand with a large and calming gesture.
‘I would have you work for the good of the State as you find it,’ he said gravely. ‘That, too, is a doctrine of the Ancients.’ He cited the case of Seneca, who supported the government of Nero, and she noted that he twisted to suit his purpose Tacitus’ account of the soldiers of that same Prince.
Nevertheless, she made no comment. For she knew that it is the nature of men calmly to ask hateful sacrifices of women. But her throat ached with rage. And when she followed him along the corridors of the palace she seemed to feel that each man, each woman that they passed hated that lord with a hatred born of fear.
He walked in front of her arrogantly, as if she were a straw to be drawn along in the wind of his progress. Doors flew open at a flick of his finger.
Suddenly they were in a tall room, long, and dim because it faced the north. It seemed an empty cavern, but there were in it many books upon a long table and at the far end, so that they looked quite small, two figures stood before a reading-pulpit. The voice of the serving man who had thrown open the door made the words ‘The Lord Privy Seal of England’ echo mournfully along the gilded and dim rafters of the ceiling.
Cromwell hastened over the smooth, cold floor. The woman’s figure in black, the long tail of her hood falling almost to her feet like a widow’s veil, turned from the pulpit; a man remained bent down at his reading.
‘Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum,’ Cromwell’s voice uttered. The lady stood, rigid and straight, her hands clasped before her. Her face, pale so that not even a touch of red showed above the cheekbones and hardly any in the tightly-pursed lips, was as if framed in her black hood that fastened beneath the chin. The high, narrow forehead had the hair tightly drawn back so that none was visible, and the coif that showed beneath the hood was white, like a nun’s; the temples were hollowed so that she looked careworn inexpressibly, and her lips had hard lines around them. Above her head all sounds in that dim room seemed to whisper for a long time among the rafters as if here dwelt something mysterious, sepulchral, a great grief or a great passion.
‘I announce to you a master-joy,’ Cromwell was saying. ‘I bring your La’ship a damsel of great erudition and knowledge of good letters.’
His voice was playful and full; his back was bent supply. His face lit up with a debonnaire and pleasant smile. The lady’s eyes turned upon the girl, forbidding and suspicious; she remained motionless, even her lips did not move. Cromwell said that this was a Katharine of the Howards, and one fit to aid her Ladyship and Magister Udal with their erudite commentary of Plautus his works.
The man at the reading desk looked round and then back at his book. His pen scratched upon the margin of a great volume. Katharine Howard was upon her knees grasping at the lady’s hand to kiss it. But it was snatched roughly away.
‘This is a folly,’ the voice came harshly from the pursed lips. ‘Get up, wench.’ Katharine remained kneeling. For this was the Lady Mary of England — a martyr for whom she had prayed nightly since she could pray.
‘Get up, fool,’ the voice said above her head. ‘It is proclaimed treason to kneel to me. This is to risk your neck to act thus before Privy Seal.’
The hard words were aimed straight at the face of Cromwell.
‘Your ladyship knows well I would fain have it otherwise,’ he answered softly.
‘I do not ask it,’ she answered.
He maintained a gentle smile of deprecation, beckoning a little with his head and with his eyes, begging her for private conversation. She lifted Katharine roughly to her feet and followed him to a distant window. She seemed as if she were an automaton without will or independent motions of her own, so small were her steps and her feet so hidden beneath her stiff black skirts. He began talking to her in a voice of which only the persuasive higher notes came into the room.
At that time she was still proclaimed bastard, and her name was erased from the list of those it was lawful to pray for in the churches. At times she endured great hardships, even to going short of food, for she suffered from a wasting complaint that made her a great eater. But starvation could not make her submit to the King, her father, or to the Lord Cromwell who was ruler in the land. Sometimes they gave her a great train, strove to make her dress herself richly, and dragged her to such festivals as this of the marriage with Anne of Cleves. This was done when the Lord Privy Seal dangled her before the eyes of the Emperor of France as a match; then it was necessary to increase the appearance of her worth in England. But sometimes the King, out of a warm and generous feeling of satisfaction with his young son, was moved to behave bountifully to his daughter, and, seeking to dazzle her with his munificence, gave her golden crosses and learned books annotated with his own hand, richly jewelled and with embroidered covers. Or when the Emperor, her cousin, interceded that she should be treated more kindly, she was threatened with the block. Of late Cromwell had set himself to gain her heart with his intrigue that he could make so smooth and with his air that could be so gentle — that the King found so lovable. But nothing moved her to set her hand to a deed countenancing her dead mother’s disgrace; to smile upon her father and his minister, who had devised the means for casting down her mother; or to consent to relinquish her right to the throne. So that at times, when the cloud of the Church abroad, and of the rebellions all over the extremities of the kingdoms, threatened very greatly, the King was driven to agonies of fear and rage lest his enemies or his subjects should displace him who was excommunicated and set her, whom all Catholics regarded as undergoing a martyrdom, on his throne. He feared her sometimes so much that it was only Cromwell that saved her from death. Cromwell would spend hours of his busy days in the long window of her work room, urging her to submission, dilating upon the powers that might be hers, studying her tastes to devise bribes for her. It was with that aim, because her whole days in her solitude were given to the learned writers, that he had sought out for her Magister Udal as a companion and preceptor who might both please her with his erudition and induce her to look kindly upon the New Learning and a more lax habit of mind. But she never thanked Cromwell. Whilst he talked she remained frozen and silent. At times, under the spur of a cold rage, she said harsh things of himself and her father, calling upon the memory of her mother and the wrongs her Church had suffered — and, on his departing, before he had even left the room she would return, frigidly and without change of face, to the book upon her desk.
