The Rose Without a Thorn

by Jean Plaidy

  It was a strange scene. A number of the girls were sitting up in bed. I could not believe that I saw aright, for the girls were not alone. Young men were there. Some of them were lying on the beds, their arms about the girls.

  I had been right. They were eating and drinking. Several held goblets in their hands and it was clear that they were having a very happy time.

  I could not understand why the young men were there. They had their own apartments, surely. Some of the men were familiar to me, for I had already seen them about the house. The Duchess had a big retinue of people to serve her, and among these were the young men and women of lesser houses whose parents sought to introduce them into a ducal establishment.

  They were whispering together and, young as I was, I was old enough to know that they were doing something which, if it reached the ears of those in authority, would bring dire punishment upon these men and girls. I was stunned, shocked; and I knew they must not catch me spying.

  I went silently back to bed and lay there shivering—not with cold, but with fear. I was asking myself what I ought to do about this startling discovery.

  The next day, Isabel said to me: “I saw you last night. You were peeping through the curtains. What did you see?”

  I felt myself blushing.

  “Come, Mistress Howard,” urged Isabel. “You must tell me.”

  I stammered: “I saw the women … in their beds.”

  “Yes. What else?”

  “I saw the men … beside them.”

  “It was just a little gathering … of friends. An entertainment. You understand? It is the sort of party people have when they are grown up.”

  “I did not know.”

  “Of course you did not. You are not grown up, are you? You did not live in a great house like this one. There is much you do not know, but you will see and learn here. Have you told anyone what you saw?”

  “No. No one has asked me.”

  “If your grandmother should …”

  “I did not see my grandmother.”

  “No, but if you did, you must say nothing to her.”

  “Why? Is it wrong then?”

  “Wrong? Who says it is wrong? Did you think it was wrong?”

  “I … I don’t know … but as you say not to tell…”

  “You are too young to understand. It is what people do but do not talk about.”

  I was bewildered, struggling to understand, and suddenly she put her arms about me.

  “Mistress Katherine Howard,” she said. “I am growing very fond of you, and you are growing fond of me, I do swear.”

  “You have been kind to me.”

  “So you will promise me that you will say nothing of what you saw last night.”

  I promised.

  I had been in Horsham more than a week before my grandmother remembered me, and a summons came for me to present myself to her.

  I had changed a little since my arrival. Some new gowns had been provided for me, and, although they were by no means grand, they were a marked improvement on my previous wardrobe. I sat down to regular meals, which I took with the waiting women, and this pleased me because Isabel had now become my closest friend and she was always pleasant to me in a rather conspiratorial way, which I realized was because I shared the secret of what happened in the communal bedchamber on some nights. No governess had been provided for me, and I was left a great deal to myself, for all the waiting women, though not overworked, had certain duties to perform. It was an extraordinary life, largely because of those scenes which I witnessed through the bed curtains. They did not occur every night, and I was never told when they would. I would go to the Long Room before the others and sometimes sleep through the night. On other occasions, I would wake and hear the giggles, the protesting murmurs which, some instinct told me, were more invitations than protests. I would be unable to resist the temptation to slip from my bed and peep through the curtains and look at the girls and men laughing, whispering and fondling each other.

  Life was very different here from that in my father’s house, but, of course, there had not been all these young men and women in the service of the household, and I had not been able to observe how people behaved when they grew up.

  When my grandmother sent for me, I went to her in some trepidation, for I feared she was going to find some fault with me and decide she did not want me to remain in her house.

  I had begun to think that she had forgotten all about me, and was hoping that this was so, but now I knew that this could not be the case as she had sent for me. I realized that I did not want to leave. Life here fascinated me, particularly the night scenes I witnessed through the bed curtains. I sometimes wished that I could go out there and join in the fun which they seemed to enjoy so much.

  As I approached my grandmother’s apartments, I heard music. I rapped on the door and, as there was no command to enter, timidly I lifted the latch and walked in.

  My grandmother was seated on her chair, as she had been on our first encounter in that room. Beside her was a table on which was a tray of sweetmeats. She was eating—presumably one of them—and on a stool nearby her sat a young man playing the lute.

  He was beautiful, I thought, with dark hair falling about his face, almost to his shoulders, in graceful curls. He went on strumming and, glancing at me, gave me a very warm smile.

  My grandmother said: “ ’Tis Katherine Howard. Come here, child.”

  “Your Grace sent for me,” I said.

  “Did I?”

  As she had apparently forgotten, I wondered whether I had been wrong to come.

  “Silence, Manox,” she said to the musician, who immediately bowed his head and let his hands fall from the lute.

  She took a sweetmeat from the bowl and threw it toward him; he caught it with graceful dexterity and put it into his mouth.

  He then stood up, and said: “Your Grace would dismiss me?”

  She considered for a moment, then she said: “Nay, nay. I would hear you play a tune for me. One that my granddaughter, the Lady Anne, will be listening to at Court. So … Manox, stay.”

  “I thank Your Grace,” he said with great respect, but he was looking at me.

  “Now, Katherine Howard,” she went on. “Your new gown becomes you. You look more as Mistress Katherine Howard should than when you came here. And the women look after you well?”

  “Isabel does, Your Grace.”

  “And behaves to you as she should toward my granddaughter?”

  “I … I think so, Your Grace.”

  “You must always remember that you are a Howard. More so now that our star is rising high. You are the Lady Anne’s cousin and great things will come to her, and through her to us. Come closer, child, where I can see you better. Yes, there is a faint resemblance. Of course, she is a fine lady. She has been well tutored. All those years in France. There is no gainsaying that there is something about the French. They are our natural enemies, but that does not mean they have not a certain elegance. The Lady Anne likes well the French fashions. Those hanging sleeves. She only has to wear them and others follow. French fashions are everywhere at Court. I shall be leaving for Lambeth soon. I trust it is just a matter of settling this ‘secret matter.’ Secret no longer. We all know of it. You know of it, Manox, do you not?”

  “Oh yes, Your Grace.”

  “And is not our Katherine Howard a little like the Lady Anne? I thought I detected a resemblance when I saw her. Have you seen the Lady Anne, Manox?”

  “I glimpsed the lady when she called upon Your Grace recently.”

  “And did you see what I mean? Cousins of the blood, they are.”

  “Yes, indeed, Your Grace. There is a shared excellence. They both are blessed with beauty of a distinctive kind.”

  “Beauty. Bah! Many girls have beauty. There is that extra … the Howard look. Do you see what I mean?”

  “I do, Your Grace. It is a rare … quality.”

  My grandmother threw another sweetmeat to the musi
cian and took one herself.

  “You may offer the dish to Mistress Katherine Howard,” said my grandmother.

  He rose from his stool, took the dish and proffered it to me with a deep bow.

  I smiled and took one of them. He replaced the dish and sat down on the stool, smiling at me.

  I felt elated. The sweetmeat was delicious.

  “It will be well, Manox,” went on my grandmother, “that you do not fail to treat Mistress Howard with respect at all times. She is a Howard and my granddaughter. Please inform those around you of this.”

  “I serve Your Grace with all my heart,” he said. “And in all ways I will give the utmost respect to Mistress Howard.”

  “Manox is as good a courtier as he is a musician,” said the Duchess to me. “Do you like music?”

  “Oh yes, Your Grace.”

  “And were you taught to play an instrument in your father’s house?”

  “No, Your Grace.”

  “Well, it is different here, is it not?”

  I said it was, and I found myself thinking mainly of the nights in the Long Room. I was feeling a certain relief, because I had feared my grandmother would ask about those nights and I should not know what to say, since Isabel had warned me not to speak of them.

  The Duchess was saying: “The King loves music, and the Lady Anne is very musical. But, of course, she is gifted in many ways. I think you should have some music lessons here, and Henry Manox is on the spot to give them to you. What say you, and you too, Manox? My servants are lazy. So, Manox, here is a new task for you. Instead of sitting strumming your lute to please yourself, you shall instruct Mistress Katherine Howard on the virginals.”

  “Your Grace could offer me nothing I should like better.”

  “’Tis agreed then. Henry Manox, you will begin without delay to teach Mistress Katherine Howard to play the virginals.”

  He was smiling at me. “It will be my great pleasure,” he said.

  The Duchess was regarding him intently. “And, Manox, you will remember that the young lady is my granddaughter, that she is a member of the illustrious Howard family, cousin to one who will soon …”

  She stopped abruptly, smiling to herself, and Henry Manox said: “I understand, Your Grace.”

  “And, Manox,” went on my grandmother, “make sure that the others understand this too.”

  “I shall always remember Your Grace’s words,” replied Manox. “What I desire above all things is to serve well Your Grace and her noble family.”

  The Duchess sat back in her chair, smiling with self-gratification.

  I understood enough to realize that she was feeling a little conscience-stricken for forgetting me until now, but she had made up for that by arranging music lessons for me.

  I had a new interest in life. I was enjoying my music lessons. I learned quite quickly and without a great deal of effort; and I looked forward to my daily sessions with my tutor.

  He was always helpful and kind. He said I was the perfect pupil. I learned more quickly than anyone else, he told me, and he was sure my grandmother would be delighted with my progress.

  Apparently she made no inquiries about it; nor did she summon me to her presence again. I had quickly come to the conclusion that she felt no great interest in me except when she fancied she saw a resemblance to my cousin Anne; but, as she rarely saw me, she was not often reminded even of that. There were so many young people in her establishment—those who had posts in the household and impecunious relatives and dependants of the Howards—that she could not remember who they all were. I believed that I came into that category, and it was only that faint resemblance which singled me out.

  I began to understand that she had taken me into her household on the whim of a moment because of that resemblance, and once there I had become one of a crowd.

  I must adjust myself and make my own friends. This I was enjoying doing. I had Isabel and some of the other women, and now my music teacher.

  Henry Manox was a good musician. The instruments in his hand seemed to speak to me. I would sit listening entranced while he played, letting the music carry me along.

  He had a very pleasant tenor voice too; he would play the lute for me—he was teaching me that instrument as well as the virginals—and suddenly he would break into song.

  One morning, he was playing the lute and singing a sad song about a man who had died because his mistress no longer loved him. I sat listening, my eyes closed, when suddenly I felt his hand on my cheek stroking it.

  I opened my eyes quickly and saw his face close to my own. I noticed his bright, dark eyes, with their long eyelashes.

  “You would not have been so unkind, sweet Katherine,” he said.

  I blushed. “Oh … you mean the song.”

  “He died of love,” he said softly. “Fancy! He died because the lady he loved was cruel to him.”

  “She was not cruel,” I replied. “She could not help that she did not love him in return.”

  “His heart was broken.”

  “But that was not her fault.”

  “What do you know of love, Mistress Katherine?”

  “Very little, I suppose.”

  “But you would learn very quickly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I see that in you. There is much that you know and do not realize you know. I saw it the first moment we met.”

  I managed to say: “ ’Tis a strange way to talk, Henry Manox, and in a way which is not connected with music.”

  “It is connected with music, and everything else around us. The world would stop, dear Katherine, if it were not for love.”

  He laid his hand over mine and suddenly lifted it to his lips and kissed it.

  I did not know what I should say, and at that moment Isabel came in.

  She said: “The music lesson has been long this morning.”

  “Mistress Katherine amazes me so much with her talent that I am apt to forget the time.”

  Isabel laughed. “Come, Mistress Katherine Howard,” she said. “You must tear yourself from the lute, the virginals and the musician, I fear. It is time to eat.”

  Henry Manox stood up and bowed, and Isabel, smiling to herself, took my arm and drew me away.

  That night, I was awakened by revelry in the Long Room, and, peeping through the curtains, I saw Isabel and, sitting on her bed was a young man whom I had never seen before. He was kissing her and she was looking very happy.

  It was the usual scene—the laughter, the giggling, the banter. Isabel knew that I watched them through the bed curtains. Some of the others did, also.

  I knew this because I had heard Isabel tell Dorothy Barwike, a young woman who had come from a village nearby, and who had joined the household only recently.

  Dorothy had said: “You take great risks. Katherine Howard knows. I have seen her looking out through her bed curtains. What if she were to tell the Duchess?”

  “Katherine will not tell,” Isabel had replied. “She has promised not to. She doesn’t altogether understand. She is only a child really. Young for her years in some ways. I know she has that air, in a way. I don’t know what it is. She is so little and slender, but there is something. In spite of her youth, she is almost a woman in some ways, if you know what I mean. She may not have the book-learning, but she’s got something else. She likes to watch, so she’s part of it in a way. She would not tell.”

  “Well, don’t forget, she’s a Howard.”

  They had laughed.

  “Great ladies!” Dorothy had said. “They can be as bad as the rest of us. Often worse.”

  That was all I had heard of that conversation. I wished I had heard more, but eavesdropping is often unsatisfactory. Conversations are cut off when they become the most interesting.

  I talked to her about the young man I had seen with her.

  “He was kissing you, and you seemed very closely entwined with each other. I was surprised.”

  “People who spy often get sur
prises!”

  “Spy!” I cried. “I am no spy.”

  “What else? Let me tell you this, Mistress Howard. The young man who was with me that night had every right to be there. He is my affianced husband.”

  “You are going to marry him!”

  “Soon now.”

  “I did not know him.”

  “He is not of the household. He is a farmer. When I marry, I shall leave this household.”

  “You mean go away from here?”

  “Of course.”

  “But who will be my friend?”

  “There are many here who will be friends to you if you will with them. The Duchess has said that Dorothy Barwike will take my place when I go.”

  “And the man you are going to marry is allowed to come here at night to be with you?”

  “Hush, Mistress Howard. You are but a child. You do not understand these matters.”

  I was mildly irritated that, when I asked people to explain something to me, they often began by telling me I was a child so could not understand.

  She sighed and went on: “He comes at night because I arranged that he shall. We are to be married, so it is best that he should be with me.”

  “And no other,” I said.

  She looked at me sharply, and I thought she was going to say again that I was too young to understand, but she changed her mind and gave me a little push.

  “You must tell no one,” she said. “You understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  I was really too worried to learn that she was going away to think of much else.

  Later I heard another scrap of conversation between Isabel and Dorothy.

  Dorothy said: “Katherine Howard is growing up. It may be that she knows a little more of what is going on than she admits. I declare you should be careful. If the Duchess knew, she would have to bestir herself, much as she would like to forget all about it.”

  That was all I heard, but I thought about it a great deal.

  One day Isabel said to me: “You are getting on very well with your music.”

  I smiled, gratified. “I can play the virginals well, Master Manox says. And if I am not quite as good with the lute, he says I shall be in time.”