Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 153
Cicely hopped back on to the stool and shivered.
‘We shall see these two old fellows very well without getting such a rheumatism as Lady Rochford’s,’ and she pulled the window to against Katharine’s face and laughed at the vacant and far-away eyes that the girl turned upon her. ‘You are thinking of the centaurs of the Isles of Greece,’ she jeered, ‘not of my knight and his old fashions of ironwork and horse dancing. Yet such another will never be again, so perfect in the old fashions.’
The old knight passed the window to the sound of trumpets towards his invisible master, swaying as easily to the gallop of his enormous steel beast as cupids that you may see in friezes ride upon dolphins down the sides of great billows; but Katharine’s eyes were upon the ground.
The window showed only some yards of sand, of grey sky and of whitened railings; trumpet blew after trumpet, and behind her back horse after horse went out, its iron feet ringing on the bricks of the stable to die into thuds and silence once the door was passed.
Cicely Elliott plagued her, tickling her pink ears with a piece of straw and sending out shrieks of laughter, and Katharine, motionless as a flower in breathless sunlight, was inwardly trembling. She imagined that she must be pale and hollow-eyed enough to excite the compassion of the black-haired girl, for she had not slept at all for thinking, and her eyes ached and her hands felt weak, resting upon the brick of the window sill. Horses raced past, shaking the building, in pairs, in fours, in twelves. They curvetted together, pawed their way through intricate figures, arched their great necks, or, reined in suddenly at the gallop, cast up the sand in showers and great flakes of white foam.
The old knight came into view, motioning with his lance to invisible horsemen from the other side of the manage, and the top notes of his voice reached them thinly as he shouted the words of direction. But the King was still invisible.
Suddenly Cicely Elliott cried out:
‘Why, the old boy hath dropped his lance! Quel malheur!’ — and indeed the lance lay in the sand, the horse darting wildly aside at the thud of its fall. The old man shook his iron fist at the sky, and his face was full of rage and shame in the watery sunlight that penetrated into his open helmet. ‘Poor old sinful man!’ Cicely said with a note of concern deep in her throat. A knave in grey ran to pick up the lance, but the knight sat, his head hanging on his chest, like one mortally stricken riding from a battlefield.
Katharine’s heart was in her mouth, and all her limbs were weak together; a great shoulder in heavy furs, the back of a great cap, came into the view of the window, an immense hand grasped the white balustrade of the manage rails. He was leaning over, a figure all squares, like that on a court-card, only that the embroidered bonnet raked abruptly to one side as if it had been thrown on to the square head. Henry was talking to the old knight across the sand. The sight went out of her eyes and her throat uttered indistinguishable words. She heard Cicely Elliott say:
‘What will you do? My old knight is upon the point of tears,’ and Katharine felt herself brushing along the wall of the corridor towards the open door.
The immense horse with his steel-plates spreading out like skirts from its haunches dropped its head motionlessly close to the rail, and the grey, wrinkling steel of the figure on its back caught the reflection of the low clouds in flakes of light and shadow.
The old knight muttered indistinguishable words of shame inside his helmet; the King said: ‘Ay, God help us, we all grow old together!’ and Katharine heard herself cry out:
‘Last night you were about very late because evil men plotted against me. Any man might drop his lance in the morning....’
Henry moved his head leisurely over his shoulder; his eyelids went up, in haughty incredulity, so that the whites showed all round the dark pupils. He could not turn far enough to see her without moving his feet, and appearing to disdain so much trouble he addressed the old man heavily:
‘Three times I dropped my pen, writing one letter yesterday,’ he said; ‘if you had my troubles you might groan of growing old.’
But the old man was too shaken with the disgrace to ride any more, and Henry added testily:
‘I came here for distractions, and you have run me up against old cares because the sun shone in your eyes. If you will get tricking it with wenches over night you cannot be fresh in the morning. That is gospel for all of us. Get in and disarm. I have had enough of horses for the morning.’
As if he had dispatched that piece of business he turned, heavily and all of one piece, right round upon Katharine. He set his hands into his side and stood with his square feet wide apart:
‘It is well that you remember how to kneel,’ he laughed, ironically, motioning her to get up before she had reached her knees. ‘You are the pertest baggage I have ever met.’
He had recognised her whilst the words were coming out of his great lips. ‘Why, is it you the old fellow should marry? I heard he had found a young filly to frisk it with him.’
Katharine, her face pale and in consternation, stammered that Cicely Elliott was in the stables. He said:
‘Bide there, I will go speak with her. The old fellow is very cast down; we must hearten him. It is true that he groweth old and has been a good servant.’
He pulled the dagger that hung from a thin gold chain on his neck into its proper place on his chest, squared his shoulders, and swayed majestically into the door of the stable. Katharine heard his voice raised to laugh and dropping into his gracious but still peremptory ardent tones. She remained alone upon the level square of smooth sand. Not a soul was in sight, for when the King came to seek distraction with his horses he brought no one that could tease him. She was filled with fears.
He beckoned her to him with his head, ducking it right down to his chest and back again, and the glances of his eyes seemed to strike her like hammer-blows when he came out from the door.
‘It was you then that composed that fine speech about the Fortunate Isles?’ he said. ‘I had sent for you this morning. I will have it printed.’
She wanted to hang her head like a pupil before her master, but she needs must look him in the eyes, and her voice came strangely and unearthly to her own ears.
‘I could not remember the speech the Bishop of Winchester set me to say. I warned him I have no memory for the Italian, and my fright muddled my wits.’
Internal laughter shook him, and once again he set his feet far apart, as if that aided him to look at her.
‘Your fright!’ he said.
‘I am even now so frightened,’ she uttered, ‘that it is as if another spoke with my throat.’
His great mouth relaxed as if he accepted as his due a piece of skilful flattery. Suddenly she sank down upon her knees, her dress spreading out beneath her, her hands extended and her red lips parted as the beak of a bird opens with terror. He uttered lightly:
‘Why, get up. You should kneel so only to your God,’ and he touched his cap, with his habitual heavy gesture, at the sacred name.
‘I have somewhat to ask,’ she whispered.
He laughed again.
‘They are always asking! But get up. I have left my stick in my room. Help me to my door.’
She felt the heavy weight of his arm upon her shoulder as soon as she stood beside him.
He asked her suddenly what she knew of the Fortunate Islands that she had talked of in her speech.
‘They lie far in the Western Ocean; I had an Italian would have built me ships to reach them,’ he said, and Katharine answered:
‘I do take them to be a fable of the ancients, for they had no heaven to pray for.’
When his eyes were not upon her she was not afraid, and the heavy weight of his hand upon her shoulder made her feel firm to bear it. But she groaned inwardly because she had urgent words that must be said, and she imagined that nothing could be calmer in the Fortunate Islands themselves than this to walk and converse about their gracious image that shone down the ages. He said, with a heavy, dull voice:
‘I would give no little to be there.’
Suddenly she heard herself say, her heart leaping in her chest:
‘I do not like the errand they have sent my cousin upon.’
The blessed Utopia of the lost islands had stirred in the King all sorts of griefs that he would shake off, and all sorts of remembrances of youth, of open fields, and a wide world that shall be conquered — all the hopes and instincts of happiness, ineffable and indestructible, that never die in passionate men. He said dully, his thoughts far away:
‘What errand have they sent him upon? Who is your goodly cousin?’
She answered:
‘They put it about that he should murder Cardinal Pole,’ and she shook so much that he was forced to take his hand from her shoulder.
He leaned upon the manage rail, and halted to rest his leg that pained him.
‘It is a good errand enough,’ he said.
She was panting like a bird that you hold in your hand, so that all her body shook, and she blurted out:
‘I would not that my cousin should murder a Churchman!’ and before his eyebrows could go up in an amazed and haughty stare: ‘I am like to be hanged between Privy Seal and Winchester.’
He seemed to fall against the white bar of the rail for support, his eyes wide with incredulity.
He said: ‘When were women hanged here?’
‘Sir,’ she said earnestly, ‘you are the only one I can speak to. I am in great peril from these men.’
He shook his head at her.
‘You have gone mad,’ he said gravely. ‘What is this fluster?’
‘Give me your ear for a minute,’ she pleaded. Her fear of him as a man seemed to have died down. As a king she had never feared him. ‘These men do seek each other’s lives, and many are like to be undone between them.’
His nostrils dilated like those of a high-mettled horse that starts back.
‘What maggot is this?’ he said imperiously. ‘Here there is no disunion.’
He rolled his eyes angrily and breathed short, twisting his hands. It was part of his nature to insist that all the world should believe in the concord of his people. He had walked there to talk with a fair woman. He had imagined that she would pique him with pert speeches.
‘Speak quickly,’ he said in a peremptory voice, and his eyes wandered up the path between the rails and the stable walls. ‘You are a pretty piece, but I have no time to waste in woeful nonsense.’
‘Alas,’ she said, ‘this is the very truth of the truth. Privy Seal hath tricked me.’
He laughed heavily and incredulously, and he sat right down upon the rail. She began to tell him her whole story.
All through the night she had been thinking over the coil into which she had fallen. It was a matter of desperate haste, for she had imagined that Throckmorton would go at once or before dawn and make up a tale to Privy Seal so that she should be put out of the way. To her no counter-plotting was possible. Gardiner she regarded with a young disdain: he was a man who walked in plots. And she did not love him because he had treated her like a servant after she had walked in his masque. Her uncle Norfolk was a craven who had left her to sink or swim. Throckmorton, a werewolf who would defile her if she entered into any compact with him. He would inform against her, with the first light of the morning, and she had trembled in her room at every footstep that passed the door. She had imagined guards coming with their pikes down to take her. She had trembled in the very stables.
The King stood above these plots and counter-plots. She imagined him breathing a calmer air that alone was fit for her. To one of her house the King was no more than a man. At home she had regarded him very little. She had read too many chronicles. He was first among such men as her men-folk because her men-folk had so willed it: he was their leader, no more majestic than themselves, and less sacred than most priests. But in that black palace she felt that all men trembled before him. It gave her for him a respect: he was at least a man before whom all these cravens trembled. And she imagined herself such another being: strong, confident, unafraid.
Therefore to the King alone she could speak. She imagined him sympathising with her on account of the ignoble trick that Cromwell had played upon her, as if he too must recognise her such another as himself. Being young she felt that God and the saints alike fought on her side. She was accustomed to think of herself as so assured and so buoyant that she could bear alike the commands of such men as Cromwell, as Gardiner and as her cousin with a smile of wisdom. She could bide her time.
Throckmorton had shocked her, not because he was a villain who had laid hands upon her, but because he had fooled her so that unless she made haste those other men would prove too many for her. They would hang her.
Therefore she must speak to the King. Lying still, looking at the darkness, listening to the breathing of Margot Poins, who slept across the foot of her bed, she had felt no fear whatsoever of Henry. It was true she had trembled before him at the masque, but she swept that out of her mind. She could hardly believe that she had trembled and forgotten the Italian words that she should have spoken. Yet she had stood there transfixed, without a syllable in her mind. And she had managed to bring out any words at all only by desperately piecing together the idea of Ovid’s poem and Aulus Gellius’ Eulogy of Marcus Crassus, which was very familiar in her ears because she had always imagined for a hero such a man: munificent, eloquent, noble and learned in the laws. The hall had seemed to blaze before her — it was only because she was so petrified with fright that she had not turned tail or fallen on her knees.
Therefore she must speak to him when he came to see his horses. She must bring him to her side before the tall spy with the eyes and the mouth that grinned as if at the thought of virtue could give Cromwell the signal to undo her.
She spoke vehemently to the King; she was indignant, because it seemed to her she was defiled by these foul men who had grasped at her.
‘They have brought me down with a plot,’ she said. She stretched out her hand and cried earnestly: ‘Sir, believe that what I would have I ask for without any plotting.’
He leant back upon his rail. His round and boding eyes avoided her face.
‘You have spoilt my morning betwixt you,’ he muttered. First it was old Rochford who failed. Could a man not see his horses gallop without being put in mind of decay and death? Had he need of that? ‘Why, I asked you for pleasant converse,’ he finished.
She pleaded: ‘Sir, I knew not that Pole was a traitor. Before God, I would now that he were caught up. But assuredly a way could be found with the Bishop of Rome....’
‘This is a parcel of nonsense,’ he shouted suddenly, dismissing her whole story. Would she have him believe it thinkable that a spy should swear away a woman’s life? She had far better spend her time composing of fine speeches.
‘Sir,’ she cried, ‘before the Most High God....’
He lifted his hand.
‘I am tired of perpetual tears,’ he muttered, and looked up the perspective of stable walls and white rails as if he would hurry away.
She said desperately: ‘You will meet with tears perpetual so long as this man....’
He lifted his hand, clenched right over his head.
‘By God,’ he bayed, ‘may I never rest from cat and dog quarrels? I will not hear you. It is to drive a man mad when most he needs solace.’
He jerked himself down from the rail and shot over his shoulder:
‘You will break your head if you run against a wall; I will have you in gaol ere night fall.’ And he seemed to push her backward with his great hand stretched out.
IX
‘Why, sometimes,’ Throckmorton said, ‘a very perfect folly is like a very perfect wisdom.’ He sat upon her table. ‘So it is in this case, he did send for me. No happening could have been more fortunate.’
He had sent away the man from her door and had entered without any leave, laughing ironically in his immense fan-shaped beard.
‘Your ladyship thought to have stolen a march upon me,’ he said. ‘You could have done me no better service.’
She was utterly overcome with weariness. She sat motionless in her chair and listened to him.
He folded his arms and crossed his legs.
‘So he did send for me,’ he said. ‘You would have had him belabour me with great words. But his Highness is a politician like some others. He beat about the bush. And be sure I left him openings to come in to my tidings.’
Katharine hung her head and thought bitterly that she had had the boldness; this other man reaped the spoils. He leaned forward and sighed. Then he laughed.
‘You might wonder that I love you,’ he said. ‘But it is in the nature of profound politicians to love women that be simple, as it is the nature of sinners to love them that be virtuous. Do not believe that an evil man loveth evil. He contemns it. Do not believe that a politician loveth guile. He makes use of it to carry him into such a security that he may declare his true nature. Moreover, there is no evil man, since no man believeth himself to be evil. I love you.’
Katharine closed her eyes and let her head fall back in her chair. The dusk was falling slowly, and she shivered.
‘You have no warrant to take me away?’ she asked, expressionlessly.
He laughed again.
‘Thus,’ he said, ‘devious men love women that be simple. And, for a profound, devious and guileful politician you shall find none to match his Highness.’
He looked at Katharine with scrutinising and malicious eyes. She never moved.
‘I would have you listen,’ he said.
She had had no one to talk to all that day. There was no single creature with whom she could discuss. She might have asked counsel of old Rochford. But apart from the disorder of his mind he had another trouble. He had a horse for sale, and he had given the refusal of it to a man called Stey who lived in Warwickshire. In the meanwhile two Frenchmen had made him a greater offer, and no answer came from Warwickshire. He was in a fume. Cicely Elliott was watching him and thinking of nothing else, Margot Poins was weeping all day, because the magister had been bidden to go to Paris to turn into Latin the letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt. There was no one around Katharine that was not engrossed in his own affairs. In that beehive of a place she had been utterly alone with horror in her soul. Thus she could hardly piece together Throckmorton’s meanings. She thought he had come to gibe at her.
