by Karen Harper
Once at supper, she had forced him into a debate over who the strange visitor might be who creaked the stairs. “My Aunt Susan always insisted it was my Uncle Humphrey, since he was the one hanged at Tyburn, and everyone thought a ghost must have a violent death,” he had said.
“But what do you believe, my love,” she had prompted.
“I reason that if there is any such thing, my Mary, it is my own father,” he had admitted. “You see, this manor was his birthright and Humphrey had Stonehouse Manor nearer to Colchester before they lost that as a result of the rebellion. Then too, my father died of fever in this house and, as far as I can tell, the ghost never acts up when I am in the house. Though my mother died here giving birth to me, the ghost never came until my father died. It is almost as if,” he concluded, his eyes growing distant and his voice softer, “as if my father is unsettled when I am at court in the hands of the king, so to speak, and rests quietly when I visit, and especially now that we reside here. It is only a theory if I am to believe any of my old aunt’s tales and warnings. Perhaps the stairs just creak, for I have seen nothing of it, despite the old lady’s stories of furniture moved about and doors ajar. If it comes now at all,” he had teased, “it will surely be to see what a beautiful wife and daughter I have brought to Wivenhoe. But you had best not tell little Catherine the tale. And do not worry yourself, for it is quite a friendly ghost.”
“How can you be sure?” she had probed, still nervous about the possibility of a haunted manorhouse.
“He fears not to creak about in day as well as night. Now the best folk tellers know that no evil ghost would dare that.” She had not been certain in the end if he were teasing or not, so she had let the matter drop. It was her own haunted mind, he had said, and well, maybe he was right.
But there had been no ghosts upon their joyous arrival here to live at Wivenhoe, she recalled, and a smile lit her tired face at the memory. Staff had carried her, dirt-stained and road-weary as she was, across the threshhold shouting for his shocked staff to assemble to greet the lord who so seldom visited and his new lady they had never seen. Safe at last in the oaken and stucco arms of charming Wivenhoe, Staff, Mary, Nancy, and Stephen had laughed and hugged one another in a raucous self-welcome. The eight-member household staff had stood in troubled awe at first to hear their new mistress was sister to the Great Henry’s Queen Anne Boleyn, but soon enough they had accepted and grew to like her too.
Proudly, bursting with enthusiasm, Staff had shown her the trim and lovely manorhouse of three gabled storeys. On the ground floor a solar, dining hall and kitchen rooms including pantry, buttery, and bolting room where all the storing and sifting of flour took place. Up the carved oak staircase, the master’s bedroom and sitting room and four other, smaller bedrooms. Above, under the high-peaked rafters, the servants’ rooms and extra storage. The house lay in a huge H-shape surrounded by garden plots, orchards and this lovely pond where she sat now.
The furniture inside consisted mostly of big, carved Medieval pieces Staff promised her they would replace over the years, but Mary had loved it all instantly. So like Hever in the rich, polished patina of the oaks, maples, and cherry woods; so open to the fresh smells of the gardens, yet so warm and cozy within. And best, she loved their tall dark oak bedstead with the carved tendrils of vines and flowers twisting up the four heavy posters which supported the intricately scrolled and crested wood canopy overhead. Even now, as autumn began, she could picture the crisp winter nights to come when they would pull the beige embroidered bed curtains closed and have their own safe world away from Cromwell’s spies and the sudden summons of the king.
“Little Catherine says you would take a nap, lady,” Nancy’s voice broke into her reverie.
“Oh, yes, Nance. You gave me a start. If you would just come with me up the steep stairs and help me into bed, I would appreciate it. It is getting to be a dark day, is it not? The lord should be back soon. If it rains on the grain crop so near harvest time, he will be in a black mood.”
“Have you pains yet, lady?” Mary shook her head.
They went in through the narrow open hearth kitchen and Brennan looked up from kneading a huge wooden trencher of bread dough. Her eyes widened at the sight of Nancy helping Mary toward the hall.
“No, Brennan,” Nance answered the unspoken question. “We need not send Stephen for the village midwife yet, but just stay about in case we need boiling water.”
“She is a fine cook, Nance, but somewhat of a gossip.” Mary observed as they left the kitchen. “Jane Rochford would consider her a dangerous rival of scandal mongering if we took her to court, I warrant.”
The parlor lay silent and dim off the narrow front entry hall as they ascended the steps. Although the oak staircase was dark and gloomy since no sun streamed through windows today, the stairs were well built and never creaked under even Staff’s weight. That is one indication that the Wivenhoe ghost truly does walk here, Mary reasoned nervously.
Their bed was a tall, square one and the carved walnut cradle for the new baby stood ready at its side. Mary sat and Nancy swung her feet up. “No, no, do not cover me. It is warm enough. And if the lord comes, do not let me sleep long.”
“Yes, milady.” Nancy pulled the heavy curtains over the two diamond paned windows and turned to go.
“Nancy. I have not been too short with you lately, have I?”
“No, Lady Mary. But if you were, I would understand with the babe comin’ and all.”
“And all. Yes, it is more than just the babe, Nance. I so often think of the queen unhappy and far away. It seems terribly unfair that I am here with Staff and things are so peaceful. You and Stephen are happy, I know. I can see it.”
“I have never been so happy, lady. Perhaps I shall bear my Stephen a son in God’s good time. I told him to stay close today and so did the lord. He can go for the midwife any time, lady.”
“Yes, Nance. Thank you. Go on now and get me up for supper if I fall asleep.” Nancy closed the door to the room quietly.
The manorhouse was very silent. Staff’s groom, Patrick, had probably taken Catherine for her afternoon ride as he did when Staff was looking to manor business or spending the afternoon with Mary. And Brennan kneaded bread and Mary needed Staff and Anne needed a child. She got so tired some afternoons that she almost dozed sitting up, and her waking thoughts merged into her inner voices. It was like that now, floating on the soft mattress where they had so joyfully made love before her size and bulk had made it impossible lately. Palaces and castles be damned, I will live and die at Wivenhoe, she was thinking. The room swam in dim light and sleep would come in an instant here. Maybe she was asleep already, but then she would not know the babe kicked at her from within. It had dropped so much lower now, that it must come soon. An heir for Wivenhoe to take the place of the rebel Humphrey who was stolen from sanctuary and hanged, or perhaps to make up for Staff’s father’s early death at Wivenhoe, here in this room.
The sharp creak scratched at her drifting mind and her eyes shot open. “Nance!” she heard herself say, and her heart quickened as though it knew something her mind could not. The door to the room stood ajar. But had not Nancy closed it? A floor board moaned near the bed. She sat bolt upright. She felt icy cold, but the day was warm, even sultry, and no breeze stirred through the closed curtains.
“No,” she said aloud and heavily moved herself toward the far side of the bed and swung her feet down. She stood unsteadily and paced slowly in a wide arc around the room, staying near the wall. She dared not look back as her hand touched the door handle. It was very warm to the touch and she pulled back. She heard her sharp intake of breath in the silence, and pulled the heavy door open farther by its wooden edge. In the hall she leaned on the carved banister at the top of the stairs and opened her mouth to call for Nancy or Staff or anyone. The staircase stretched downward, calmly deserted. Then it happened. She distinctly felt a warm touch between her shoulder blades and she meant to scream. But it was gone instan
tly, and she spun wide-eyed against the wall. There was nothing, nothing, but the blur in her own eyes and that was tears.
Fear left her then. Why had she meant to shout to those working below? She felt calm and warm, for the touch had been gentle and the feeling had been love. “It is Staff’s father,” she whispered or thought. He had only wanted to see her and touch her, for she loved his son and maybe he knew that a Tudor king had ruined her life, too. She would tell Staff later, though he might think it was all in her worried mind again. Perhaps she had dreamed it in her exhaustion. No one would ever believe the fantasy that a dead father could be warmer than the reality of a living one.
“Lady, are you all right? Why are you standin’ here? Your face looks like...well, I was comin’ to tell you your brother has ridden in.”
Mary stood stone-still as her wandering mind tried to grasp Nancy’s words. “George here? With what news or orders, I wonder. Is Lord Stafford back? I must comb my hair.” She went back into the bedroom with Nancy trailing behind. The door latch no longer felt unusually warm, if indeed it had ever been warm at all. The bed was as she had left it and the covers clearly showed where she had scooted across Staff’s side to get up. Nancy seemed not to notice as she fixed the heavy curls of her mistress’s hair.
George’s face lit in a broad smile when he saw her and he did not hide his surprise at her changed appearance. “I had forgotten how you bloom when you are with child, Mary,” he teased. “It was not since you were pregnant with little Catherine at court that I saw you like this. It becomes you so. And I never saw you in your first pregnancy with Harry at Hever.”
Mary warmly kissed George’s cheek. “Does it seem to you I spend a great deal of my life in exile from the court for some indiscretion or the other, George? But I have never been happier.” She motioned him to a chair in the parlor and they sat close together. “Perhaps you had best not report that I am so content here. Tell father, for instance, I have never been more wretched and maybe he will leave me alone.”
“You are still bitter, Mary, though I do not blame you. You have never learned to just accept the inevitable the way I have, nor do you ever attack him as Anne does.”
“Have you always accepted the inevitable, brother?”
“Ever since I had to marry Jane and I saw that the fact I wanted Margot Wyatt more than anything was nothing to him. Yes, Mary. Since then I have taken my pleasures out of sight of them all and be damned to them. Except for mother and Anne, of course.”
“Are you telling me there has been someone else to fill the void Jane could never fill in your life?” she prodded, intrigued.
“Not really someone like Staff is to you, Mary. Several someones over the years, you might say. There is a certain woman living at Beaulieu now, and she is content to await the few days I can seize to spend there. Anne knows, of course, but I warrant father and Cromwell have missed this one.” He grinned like a small boy who has gotten away with stealing chickens from the farmer. “Beyond that, I am much busy on king’s business. Speaking of that, I understand you correspond with Master Cromwell.”
“Yes, we do. Is that the nature of your business here, to tell us we are to lose our last line to the court?”
“No, of course not. I wanted mostly to see you and know how you are faring. It is a small manor, but a productive one, I would judge.”
“Do not try to put me off, George. I have been around longer than you and know how things go. Did Cromwell or father send you? I cannot dare to hope it was Anne.”
“I am sorry, Mary. It was not Anne. Truly, Cromwell sends his fondest greetings. Do you actually trust Cromwell, then?”
“My Lord Stafford is not such an innocent to trust Cromwell, but they have made some sort of bargain to work together it would seem. George, will you carry a letter I have written to him? We usually wait until he sends a messenger and then just return a note with the man.”
“I shall take it back for you. You alone wrote this letter? Is it secret?”
“Not secret, but I want him, and anyone he would care to tell, to know what it is really like for me now. Anne has not forgiven me, and I am grieved for that, but I regret nothing. It is there on the mantel. If you will get it, I will read you a part. Thank you. I do not want it to be secret, George. It is my letter to the world, if you would call it that.”
She began to read from the parchment, “You see, Master Cromwell, the world sets little store by me and My Lord Stafford, and I have freely chosen to live a simple, honest life with him. Still, we do wish to regain the favor of the king and queen. For well I might have had a greater man of birth and a higher, but I assure you I could never have had one that loved me so well, nor a more honest man. I had rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen christened. And I believe verily he would not forsake me even to be a king.”
“I should like a copy of that, love,” came Staff’s voice behind her chair. “It is most beautiful and likely to be wasted on the silly ears at court.” He leaned over her chair and kissed her on the cheek. “George, you are welcome here to Wivenhoe. Did you come to see if you are an uncle again?”
They shook hands warmly, and Staff sat on the hearth bench near Mary’s chair. He had been working hard at something, for his hair was windblown and there was rich, dark mud on his boots. “Then you have a message?” Staff’s eyes bored into George’s wary ones.
“I think you are the sort of man with whom it is best to come straight to the point, Staff,” George ventured.
“And I think you will find that your sister is that sort of woman, George. Say on, but realize that anything which concerns Mary is now of utmost importance to me.”
“Yes, of course. I bear a request from father.”
“He could not come himself?” Mary asked sharply.
“Hush, love,” Staff said. “Do not goad George, for he is only the messenger, not Thomas Boleyn incarnate.”
“Things are as bad as I am sure Cromwell has told you,” George began slowly. “Anne does not conceive of another royal child, although the king has bedded her off and on all summer. He goes from mistress to mistress as he has long done, but father fears that he is increasingly under the influence of one lady and her rapacious family.”
“Jane Seymour still,” Mary thought aloud. “Does she still hold him off? Then it would seem she has taken her ambitions and tactics from the queen.”
“Exactly, Mary. That is exactly what father says. The Boleyns must hold the king, pull him from the Seymours until Anne bears the heir. Or, if she cannot, father fears Elizabeth will never get to the throne. It will be the bastard Fitzroy or...” His words hung in the air, and Mary feared as she had long ago learned to do when father sought her help. Staff and Mary said nothing and George cleared his throat.
“Sister, do you not remember how the king referred to you as the woman who bore live sons the day he discovered Anne was not really with child and they argued so terribly?”
“Yes. I remember. It was an awful scene. If this has to do with my son Harry, George, tell father to forget it. The king knows well, and has for some time, that the lad is not his flesh and blood.” She rose awkwardly to her feet. “Father’s secret trips to Hatfield to fill the boy’s head with dreams were quite wasted. Whatever he is thinking, the answer is no. No, no, no!”
Staff rose to stand beside her and rubbed her shoulders as if to tell her to keep calm. “I am fine, my lord, truly,” she assured him, but her voice quavered.
“I think you are wrong, sister,” George pressed on. “I have seen the boy a few months ago. He looks Tudor through and through.”
Mary took a step toward George, ignoring Staff’s gentle touch trying to push her back to her seat. “He is a Carey through and through! He resembles Will Carey!”
“Then that just goes to show how people can disagree over it, but not be certain, sister. The lad is tall and healthy and clever, and Fitzroy is skinny and often weakly. His Grace will leap at the chance to declare Harry his own, if
only you will say so.”
“Mary,” Staff’s voice came low at her, but she could not stop the flow of feelings.
“I will not keep calm and be silent, my lord. I cannot!” She tried not to shout, but she could not control her voice. “Tell your father that Harry is William Carey’s son and would have been his heir if His Grace had not taken the boy’s lands and birthright and given them to his love Anne Boleyn and his henchman Cromwell.”
“Some believe he took the Carey possessions to show to the world that the boy was not Will Carey’s son, Mary,” George pursued doggedly.
“I have heard that argument before, and it is a lie. If father even suggests to the king that Harry is his son, I shall walk all the way to London if I must and deny it to the king’s face! Tell father that. Tell him that someday he should try to love someone when they can do him no service for his dreadful lust for Boleyn power! Tell him that he should go back to Hever, for our foolish mother loves him still, though how she does I can never fathom. Tell him...”
Staff’s arms were around her in the next moment, almost in the same instant in which she felt the first stabbing pain. It surely was the child, but she was so beside herself with anger and hurt that it could have been her mind playing tricks on her again.
Staff carefully picked her up in his arms when he saw the pain on her face. George stood by, clearly distraught as Staff carried her from the parlor and up the silent stairs.
“I saw the ghost. He touched me,” she said to Staff between the waves of pain. Staff shouted for Nancy from where he stood and bent over Mary, untying her long linen sleeves from her bodice. “Did you, sweetheart? Today? Where?”
