“Do I usually let my quarry escape me?” he countered boastfully. “Ask those who hunt with me!”
And his self-confident laughter seemed to enrich the walls of Hever as he let the arras drop behind him and encountered Sir Thomas Boleyn waiting to escort him down the stairs.
Chapter Seventeen
It must have taken a deal of courage, Nan’s not answering the King’s first letter,” mused Jocunda, eying the second one as if it were some bargain from the Devil.
“She has plenty of that,” agreed her father complacently.
“More than Mary.”
“And more intelligence, too!” The better to examine the royal missive, Thomas Boleyn swept aside the designs for the Ormonde hatchment with which his table had been strewn; for why concern himself about a mere Irish title now? A year or so ago he would have broken the royal seal as a matter of course and told his daughter how to deal with the contents. But now the King’s continued attentions had put Anne upon a different footing, and there were moments when Sir Thomas was secretly afraid of her sharp tongue. She was so temperamental and yet so clear thinking—so much more imperious than Mary. “Here, take the letter to her, good wife,” he ordered.
“It is past believing,” complained the lady of Hever, taking it reluctantly. “Messengers from the Palace every few days. Freshly killed buck, supposed to fatten her, but more to show off the Tudor’s skill. And ‘Cherish her, dear Lady Boleyn,’ he tells me—as though I need his orders to look after mine own!”
“Jocunda! I would have you remember it is the King you speak of.”
“And how I would it were not! If only it were young Wyatt or some other honest lover who could marry her! I’ve a mind to burn the temptation here and now before it burns the wench’s body in hell.”
Her husband’s face reddened uncomfortably. “It is different, I tell you, with a King!”
But Jocunda realized what honest love had done to beautify Anne’s nature, and how—thwarted, turned back upon itself—it might sour her. “‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ it says,” she quoted at him from the only book she knew. “But nothing, as far as I know, about cohabiting with kings.” And was told, for her pains, that such foolish talk came of the iniquitous Lutheran idea of letting women read the Scriptures for themselves.
So there was nothing for it but to take the letter to her stepdaughter; and because Jocunda never poked or pried, Anne pulled her down beside her on the oak chest where she sat, and read it aloud.
“To my mistress,” Henry had begun romantically. “As the time seems very long since I heard from you, or concerning your health, the great love I have for you has constrained me to send this.”
“The great love,” murmured Jocunda, half-awed in spite of herself that such words should come from Westminster to Hever.
“If so be that he knows what a great love is,” scoffed Anne. “Since my last parting with you, I have been told that you have entirely changed the mind in which I left you, and that you neither mean to come to Court with your mother, nor any other way.”
“It is true, Nan, that we have made every possible delay and excuse.”
“Which report, if true, I cannot but marvel at,” went on Anne, “being persuaded in my own mind that I have never committed any offence against you. Dear God, was it no offence to destroy my life’s happiness?”
“Here, let me finish it,” offered Jocunda, seeing the tears starting to the girl’s eyes. And stretching out an exasperated hand she skimmed it over, stressing the more important parts. “It seems hard, in return for the great love I bear you— You see, Nan, he says it again!—to be kept at a distance from the presence of the woman in the world I value the most. Consider, my mistress, how greatly your absence afflicts me. I hope it is not your will that it should be so; but if I heard for certain that you yourself desired it, I could but mourn my ill fortune, and strive by degrees to abate my folly.” Jocunda hurried through the formal phrases of salutation. “Written by the hand of your entire servant, H.R.”
The portentous words seemed almost unbelievable in the quiet of the homely, familiar room. “Well, I suppose it is something to have the King of England for one’s servant!” laughed Anne in a strained sort of way, succumbing to a surge of triumphant excitement.
“And his Grace certainly writes a lovely letter, as if he really loves you. I had expected it to be more gross.”
“Gross or fine, this time I shall have to answer it.”
“Your Father hopes that it will wake you from calf-love whimsies to the reality of a splendid future,” reported Jocunda reluctantly.
“It is not the future of which I am thinking, but the past,” answered Anne slowly. “My beautiful past. One short summer of ecstasy and hopes, trodden into the dust like a morning puff ball by his uncaring feet!” She went to the window, but her great dark eyes saw nothing of the familiar view. They were staring back into time, seeing again the sunlit river meadows, the daisy-strewn lawns in the Queen’s garden at Greenwich, the tender smile of her young lover. “How dare the King hope that I shall love him?” she cried. “How dare he presume to think that he can buy my devotion with glittering baubles? In spite of all the humble courtesy of his letter we know what he wants, and how can I give him my body after—after—” The words died in her throat, strangled by a sob. She threw herself down against the cushioned window seat, her head pillowed despairingly in her arms; though even in the wildness of her distress her movements appeared to be guided by a sense of drama.
Jocunda looked down at her pityingly. Having nursed her through delirium, she knew that the girl’s surrender to Percy had been absolute and beyond time’s healing; though never would she betray that accidentally acquired knowledge. “If you keep firm in your refusal to become the King’s mistress, the dear Mother of Christ will help you,” she counselled simply. “Is it not written, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart’?”
Anne rose and kissed her. “Yes, dear Jocunda. But it is also written, ‘Thou shalt honour and obey thy father’,” she answered, with a caustic smile. “And I suppose that if I go on disobeying him it can only end by their putting me in a convent.”
“Most women must have felt at some time or another that there are worse places,” murmured Jocunda.
But Anne was scarcely the type to serve impersonally with a community of cloistered women. In spite of everything, there were still plenty of worldly things she loved. Though her lover had been taken from her, she did not want that strange sex power of hers to be sealed up. She wanted to be free to use her talents and her charm in the open light of the world. To feel again and again the warm glow of applause and power. To see the hunger in men’s eyes.
Her whole nature swung away from the thought of conventual life and back to Henry Tudor. She had not supposed that a man of his age and importance could show himself so ardent a lover. How much easier it would all be if, as Jocunda had expected, his approach had been completely gross. And he himself without attraction.
Signing himself her humble servant was a polite figure of speech, of course. Yet surely, as a woman, she was still free to yield or to refuse?
But she would not suffer herself to think of him.
When she went to bed that night her fingers sought beneath the pillows as usual for the jewelled miniature of Harry Percy. It was all she had of him. She could not see it in the darkness, but she could hold it—and go to sleep, as usual, thinking of him and praying for him. But for the first time a shade of resentment lay across her thoughts. Why could she not be free to live and love carefree as other girls? Why, why must the two of them make of her tired heart a perpetual tilting ground?
***
And when next the King came to Hever he intimated that he would lodge the night. This time there would be no calling for horses and hurrying away.
Supper was a gay and gracious meal, followed by good music, good talk, and all t
he pleasures of a cultured home. And afterwards Sir Thomas and Lady Boleyn withdrew from the parlour and left him alone with their daughter. As obviously as though he were an accepted suitor and his object marriage.
Anne looked up in anxious embarrassment. She saw that Henry was standing before the fireplace, outlined warmly against the leaping flames, and that he was no longer jesting.
“I have been revolving in my mind your answer to my last letters,” he said, turning the great signet ring on his finger. “And I have put myself into great agony not knowing how to interpret it—whether to my advantage or not.”
Anne had not intended him to. She had written cleverly, ambiguously. Not daring to refuse him, she had been playing for time. But now, tonight, she realized that she would be forced to give him a definite answer, and because he was a king the issue was so big. She could neither forgive him, nor bring herself definitely to lose him.
Hurt as he was by her reluctance, it was Henry himself who helped her. Laying aside all air of authority, he came and sat near her. He took her poor, malformed hand in his as she stood beside him. “I beseech you earnestly to let me know your mind as to the love between us two,” he entreated simply.
Touched and grateful, she turned towards him, the fingers of her other hand picking nervously at the pearls that trimmed the padded shoulder of his sleeve. “It seems so fantastic,” she said, in a low voice. “I sometimes think your Grace speaks these words in mirth, to prove me.”
“By all the Saints, Nan, do I look as if I were jesting?” he protested, torn between anger and amusement. “Does a man placed as I am, with all the fierce light of publicity beating upon his every movement, invent excuses, write pleading letters, and ride fifty miles or more to see a woman unless he wants her?”
“In doing so, your Grace does but demean himself,” murmured Anne, in a rare access of modesty.
“Have not you, too, Plantagenet blood?” he countered.
It was true enough. Each of them had it equally, through their mothers. And she knew that with him it was an obsession. Anne wondered if that had inclined his eyes to light upon her sister. If it had been Mary’s blood, rather than her celebrated beauty. But that was a subject she dared not touch upon. “It seems so strange that you, who have only to hold up your finger—” She floundered a little, uncertain how to address him in such intimate circumstances. “Why, you could have almost any woman you choose.”
“Apparently not!” pointed out Henry ruefully. “And I want none other than you. That is why I need desperately to know whether I shall succeed in finding a place in your heart.”
Anne judged it discreet to move away putting half the room between them. To Henry her graceful movements were reminiscent of the timid deer he was wont to stalk. And never had he known such delicious ardour in the chase. Her very alternation between friendly candour and frigid formality drew him on. “Your Majesty knows that we Boleyns have good cause to hold you in affection,” she began. But he sprang to his feet, goaded to exasperation. “Nan! Nan! How can you talk as if I were a stranger and you some silly, simpering sycophant? When you know I have been thus wounded by the dart of love for a whole year.”
Recognizing the controlled passion in his voice, she did not deliberately set out to inflame him further. It was the inherent coquetry in her that always made her look back over her shoulder with that slow, enticing smile. “What then would you have of me?” she asked, knowing the inevitable answer.
“Have I not already written it? Do you want me to tell you as well?’ In a stride or two he was beside her, pulling her into the crushing strength of his arms. Holding her head against his heart, roughly, so that the jewels on his doublet hurt her breasts, while his hands explored her exquisite body. “Nan, you hot hypocrite, you are trembling!” he laughed exultantly. “Is it because, for all your pretended coldness, you want the thrill of having a man put it into words?”
He jerked up her chin so that she could breathe again, forcing her to meet the demanding admiration in his eyes. “I want you to be my mistress and my friend,” he told her. “I am tired of pretending that I come to hunt a stag or see your father. More than anything I want to proclaim you mine before all men, so that they must envy me my jewel. But how can I do this until I be sure that I am not deluding myself and that you entertain for me a more than ordinary regard?”
Anne made no answer. She stood motionless, engulfed, half swooning with the unfamiliar scent and closeness of his body. She was helpless to resist his kisses. And when he had tasted the sweetness of her mouth, he made what was for him the supreme gesture. “Listen, Nan,” he promised, looking down hungrily into her enchanting face, “if you will do the duty of a true and loyal mistress, giving up your heart and body to me, not only shall the name and place be given you, but I shall cast all other women out of my thoughts and my affections, serving you only. There will be no competition, Nan.”
He released her so that she might the better answer him, holding her lightly at arm’s length with his hands upon her shoulders. “Now do you know what I want, sweetheart? And what I can give?” he asked, more gently.
But still she did not answer him, and he flung away from her, ever and anon glancing at her downcast face as he paced tempestuously about the room. “Is it nothing to you that I, Henry Tudor, will be your devoted servant?” he shot at her. “That your least wish will be gratified? That everyone—even your high and mighty uncle—will defer to you?” It was a completely new experience, this pleading to a woman for something he could not get. Except for sons, and the divorce he craved in order to obtain them, life had never denied him anything. From sulky bewilderment to anger, his voice ran through the gamut of his reactions. Finally, as the incredible probability of refusal sank in, he fetched up by his host’s table, picked up a drawing of the promised Ormonde arms, stared at it, and threw it down again. “Even if you do not love me,” he said, with a kind of savage dignity, “you Boleyns are not usually so devoid of policy.”
The shaft struck home. And Anne was no saint. The whole dazzling prospect opened like a shining pathway before her. Jewels, dresses, entertainments, envious glances—every pleasure life could give her, and herself the alluring centre of them all. Influence and riches to spend on those she loved. Power over those who had hitherto thwarted or disdained her. Small, apt revenges, that would be very sweet. But stronger, more compelling than all, was the excitement of the Tudor’s insistent passion.
But because his touch could warm her to disloyalty to her lost love, once again Anne steeled herself resolutely against his persuasions. The flower-strewn pathway of ambition faded before a wave of God-fearing rectitude, and real fear beset her. As if some unfathomable gulf yawned suddenly before her, she recoiled with horror from his advances and fell upon her knees. “I think your Majesty degrades us both,” she found courage to say. “And to ease you of the labour of asking me such questions again, I beseech your Highness, most earnestly, to desist. And to take it in good part when I say from the depth of my soul that I would rather lose my life than that virtue which is the best part of a woman’s dowry.”
Henry stood looking down at her, too much surprised, or too much moved, to speak. He did not move until her parents came back into the room, hoping to learn the outcome of the interview. “It was clumsy of me to urge you, Anne,” he admitted, trying to save his face and drawing a little leather case from the wallet at his belt. “See, child, what I have brought you. I had Master Holbein paint a miniature of me, and the best craftsman in Goldsmiths’ Row set it in a bracelet.” He risked no refusal by seeking to fasten it on her wrist, but laid the lovely jewelled thing on her father’s table. “Keep it and let it plead my love,” he said, with a sigh of self-pity. “And when your virgin heart comes unfrozen a little, send me some answering token. In the meantime,” he admitted, turning with a charming smile to his host and hostess, as though assured of their cooperation, “I perceive that I must needs poss
ess my mind and body a little longer in patience.”
Seeing the tears on Anne’s cheeks, he would have raised her. But she was too quick for him. Evading his out-stretched hand, she stepped back defensively against the wall and faced him. Innocent, for once, of all studied effect she stood slim and proud between a window emblazoned with the arms of a house as regal as his own, and a painting of a Lord Mayor of London whose womenfolk had been trained in simple virtue. “I do not understand how your Grace can retain such hope,” she said coldly, braving her father’s anger. “Your wife I cannot be, both in respect of mine own unworthiness, and also because you have a queen already. Your mistress I will not be.”
As the simple, unequivocal words fell into the hushed expectancy of the room, Jocunda crossed herself, grateful that nights of prayer were answered. Sir Thomas looked as if he might be taken of an apoplexy. And Henry Tudor had his answer.
After a year of evasion and disappointment, he was able to accept it with surprising dignity. There was that element of sportsmanship in him which could admire courage when he saw it. But unwittingly, Anne had revealed to him that it was not only her body he desired, but also her spirited companionship.
Chapter Eighteen
Anne had been sent to her room in dire disgrace. Her father had rated her soundly. Jocunda had been forbidden to bid her good night. And behind those tall, lighted windows of the best bedchamber, Henry was probably even now working off his wrath on poor Norreys or Brereton, or whoever happened to be undressing him.
“Harry, my heart’s love, have I not been true to you, giving up what most girls would have sold their virtue for?” Anne whispered, gazing out unseeingly upon the still, moon-bathed garden. But the happy days of their love-making seemed a lifetime ago. Her lips were already desecrated by another man’s, and Harry Percy was perhaps abed with his complaining wife. Gradually the righteous exultation which had sustained her began to fade, giving place to the uncomfortable conviction that she had acted like a fool.
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