by Hilda Lewis
And so it would be, she knew, when she met Henry again. He would have eyes only for his ships, his men; ears for nothing but his officials. Only when he had satisfied himself about them would he have eye or ear for his wife—though he had not seen her for nearly a twelvemonth.
Standing there and searching her mind, she was forced to admit that it touched her pride; but hardly her heart.
Once she had loved Henry; now she loved him no longer. People said of her that her marriage had fitted her ambition—and that was true. But all the same she had worshipped him with a young girl's silliness. If only Henry had loved her a little in return! But love—perhaps there was no such thing except in tales. What had she ever seen of it? Between her mother and father, what love? And Philip and Michelle—he not bothering to hide his indifference and she with that painful fawning of hers-—was that love? And Jacque? What love had she ever known with her disgusting husband? And if she got Gloucester there'd be precious little love there, either.
Very well, then, no love. But kindness. Surely there could be kindness. And with kindness there was hope. For all his harshness, for all his angers, there was a nobility about Henry, and the glamour of great deeds and men's praises. Though she loved him no longer, though she feared him still, yet she desired him. She desired him not with the delicacy of young love but with her woman's body and her desire to bear children.
* * *
He took in his breath when he saw her again. He was no longer surprised that men called her The Fair. There was a richness about her. Childbearing had rounded the slightness of her breasts, the thinness of her hips; softened the hard, young mouth. She looked sensitive; but she looked proud...a most proper pride. She rode with a royal air. There was a lovely, glowing triumph about her because she had borne him a son. And yet she was shy, as though she greeted a stranger, and it pleased him well.
And she? She found him older even than she had thought, leanness turned to haggardness. But—and she recalled her resolutions—the man was her husband; and she no longer a raw girl. She was woman enough to take what came.
“He looked at you as though he could eat you there and then!” Isabeau said wasting no time on idle greetings. She pushed her daughter away, scanned her with a keen eye. “You're learning your lessons at last, my girl!”
Her mother looked older, too; wrinkles creasing through paint and powder; and she looked careless; her rich dress rubbed as though it had seen too much wear, spotted in places. She had never before appeared in public carelessly attired, however she had looked in the privacy of her chamber. She was old, Catherine thought, old.
But her father looked the same, except that, even to her careless young eyes, he looked more fragile. It was, she thought, looking into that curious, childlike face, as though during his frenzies life stood still; as though he had lived but half his years, the rest being sponged away.
As for Burgundy, though Isabeau had warned her of his anger because of her friendship with Jacqueline, he showed no sign of it. On the contrary. His lips did more than brush her cheeks; and she could see excitement pricking in his eyes. How many mistresses had he, the good Philip? Not so many but that he couldn't add another! He might hesitate to antagonize her husband; but Michelle would not count in the matter at all—Michelle her own sister. Michelle never had counted.
She asked him pointedly about Michelle.
Michelle was in Ghent; and there, it appeared, she could stay.
“But I had looked to see my sister, I had looked...” and she surprised in herself an uprush of affection for Michelle. “Is she ill, Cousin?”
“Why should she be? War is no place for women.”
“But I am here; and my mother is here!” And when he did not answer she cried out, “And what of other women, the women who live day in day out in the midst of war?”
“They stay in their place—as women should. Michelle's place is in Ghent.”
“Michelle's place is with her sister. We haven't seen each other for two years and more. Send for Michelle, Cousin, I must see her.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his eyes bold upon her. “Yes. One day.” And he would not even pretend he cared for Michelle—save that she should keep her distance. Better be wedded to Christ like their sister Marie than be neither wife nor widow. She felt like weeping for Michelle and was again surprised she should care so much.
That night Henry came to her bed. He was not the man she had known—arms like banded steel to take and to hold. They lay side by side talking like old married people. She told him about his son and he forebore to scold her about the child's birthplace or her choice of godmother...some other time, some other place. She told him how the bells had never stopped pealing the day his son was born; and of the joy of the people; and then, once more, about his son. “The loveliest little child; like a picture in a missal of the Infant Christ.”
“You shall give me many such!” he said. But when he would have taken her, desire suddenly failed. He lay there rigid with his shame; but she, wiser than before, held him close until he slept upon her breast.
* * *
The weariness of her husband, the absence of her sister—pinpricks, merely, in the triumph of her homecoming. They pricked no longer when she rode with Henry through the streets of Paris; a Paris of flowers, maytrees all red for Whitsun, ropes of flowers swinging from window to window, and flowers beneath her feet. A Paris of wealth, too—jewels and great robes of State; rich garments of knights and ladies; and the decent holiday clothes of the common folk.
And her mother had said Paris was poverty-stricken with war and famine! And her mother had said Paris was angry with Henry because of the taxes! But surely her mother exaggerated. For where were the marks of hunger? Or anger? When she mentioned it to Isabeau, Isabeau said, “You were never one to look anywhere but beneath your nose!”
She was at the Louvre again. And now it was no longer strange; its magnificence was fitting for Henry and for herself; it was a setting to hold her own glory, a place where she might sit crowned at the feast, receiving the adoration of all because she was a queen and beautiful; and because she had borne a son.
But in one thing, at least, Henry had not changed. God must be served first.
* * *
God had been served in public thanksgivings; now for the merrymaking.
Music and feasting fed the lovely colour in her cheeks; poems and praises added brilliance to her eyes, threw a richer gloss upon her ruddy hair. Beautiful she was not and never would be; but the prettiness she had, the vitality, the grace with which she moved; the richness of her gowns and the splendour of her jewels, all lent her the glow of beauty. When she went to her place, moving the length of the great hall, she caught the impact of admiration; read it even in Henry's tired eyes. She was so happy these days; her laughter came clear and free. She was gay, gay. She could never have too much of gaiety.
But best of all she liked sitting next to Henry in the great chair, the diadem upon her head, the great velvet mantle flowing from her shoulders, to receive the peers of France, the knights and the burghers—and the poor, by old custom welcome with the rest, who looked at her as though she were more than mortal. And, indeed, she felt like the Queen of Heaven.
And yet, sometimes, in the midst of her gaiety, drinking her fine wine of Champagne, eating her fine fat foods, she found herself remembering, suddenly, the poor whom Henry greeted...and sent away empty. Hunger and disappointment was written on their faces. All should be welcome, all fed. Not only the gentry sitting each according to his degree, but the poor, the simple. It was her father's custom; and the people loved him for it. If Henry meant to rule in France, he must win the people, win them all—even the poor; they had been known to make trouble.
She should tell him, surely she should tell him! But he was no easy man to advise; she was afraid to spoil the new frail kindness between them. When at last she summoned her courage—and it was the wrong time and he all eager for his bed—he frowned in the old, cold way. “Th
e King of England does not sit at meat with beggars,” he told her.
“But he expects them to fight for him,” she said before she could forbid the words.
“You talk like a child,” he said. “There is not enough food in France to feed every mouth.”
But there is blood enough to flow...But now she was wise enough to bite back the words.
* * *
Feasting and masques, jousting and hunting-parties. The coffers, English and French, might be empty, but she and Henry outshone the sun. When she rode over to see her parents, even her heart, young and hard, was touched by the poverty of the table at St. Pol and the meanness of the service. She had her first taste of sycophancy—the pawn who had become a Queen; and, in spite of her ambition, found it distasteful. But Henry, it seemed, fattened upon it, grew in arrogance.
But this arrogance, she thought, growing to learn him a little, might be a shield. He was not popular here in Paris. There was constant muttering at St. Pol, Isabeau said; and she, herself, caught it at the Louvre. And if the gentry grumbled, what of the common people?
Guillemote told her; Guillemote who caught the whispers in the street. It was not only complaints about the price of food and the heavy taxes, it was dissatisfaction with Henry himself. Why was the Enemy of France taking his ease in Paris? And what had he to do with the French crown? The true heir was their own Dauphin, never mind what he had done—and so the Englishman would find!
But soon she grew used to the muttered complaints, as she forgot the bitter spring. It was early June now and warm at last; you could enjoy the masques and the games without shivering if you moved from the fire; and, for hunting and hawking, the woods in their tardy green held the intoxication of summer.
* * *
Catherine sat in her place watching the masque of St. George. It had been rewritten with special flattering praise for Henry and there were gorgeous new dresses for the players; everyone had been talking about it for days. And certainly it was worth seeing; and certainly Henry was pleased at the compliment. There he sat watching and smiling and nodding as though he hadn't a care in the world.
But the next day he didn't attend the performance though she had told him that the second part was to be even more exciting than the first. And, when she looked round, she could not see Bedford or Exeter or March either.
“Nor my lord Bishop of Coutances,” Isabeau said catching the wandering glance. “Nor their lordships the Chancellors of Normandy and France.” She sat for a moment, eyes screwed beneath plucked brows. “Nor Madam the Queen of France.” She rose abruptly and was gone.
Catherine stayed to the end of the masque; it was the best masque she had ever seen.
“I knew it!” Isabeau told her later. “A joint council—France and Normandy together. Such a thing has never happened before. Things are going to move—fighting on a grand scale! Smile, girl. Have you no spirit?”
Catherine found it hard to smile at this sudden end to gaiety. For the first time her light thoughts went further. What could it be like to live a whole lifetime—and no war? No thunder of gunstones, no groans of the dying? But quiet day by quiet day to live with one's husband and learn to know him; to take one's time over love-making; to bring up children in the knowledge of both father and mother.
Watching that tell-tale face Isabeau threw out her hands.
“My children are all alike—Valois through and through! Not one with my spirit, my family fighting spirit. Would you lose your son's crown for want of fighting? Are you so squeamish that you sicken at the thought of a little blood? Listen, girl! South of the Loire the treaty that we made at Troyes—your treaty—is laughed at. As for the north, as long as traitor Harcourt is alive, there no peace for any of us.”
She did not see Henry these days, even in bed. He snatched a few hours on a mattress where he could. He sent no excuses, not so much as to pretend desire for her company; nor any word of regret. She did not expect it. How could she expect it when he was for Picardy to crush Harcourt and his rebellion once and for all? Yet she was hurt. A word, a little word would cost him nothing.
To send that word never occurred to him. Men, arms, provisions—and the towns to supply them; those were his concerns. Vermandois, yes; he could count upon Vermandois. But Amiens he was not sure about. Amiens might need a flick of the whip!
A good week. Food, arms, men, everything promised; the flick of the whip had been enough for Amiens. And success in the field had been spectacular. Gamaches had been taken both town and castle; and Warwick had driven the Dauphin's troops from Vimey. But the burnt and plundered countryside the enemy had left behind them was, Warwick wrote, God's Own Pity.
And then, to crown all, the most unexpected thing. Compiègne offered its surrender. Now why was that? The town could have held out for at least a year—and no lover of England, neither! The thing smacked of trickery, Henry said. He would go himself and see!
A lovely June day when the great procession rode out—two Kings, two Queens, bishops and princes, knights and ladies. And, finest of all, in Henry's eyes, his own command marching behind him. He had no eyes for Catherine riding beside him; hardly knew she was there. He had forgotten everything but war; forgotten his own deadly fatigue, even. His every thought pressed forward to the fight.
At St. Denys where they halted for the night she began to wish herself back in England—Jacque was amusing; the Welshman would wait upon her with new gowns; and there was her baby. She had come to France to learn to love her husband and to get herself with child. The second seemed as likely as the first! And Michelle had not come. She found herself remembering Michelle's many kindnesses in their childhood; she wished she herself had been kinder.
The next day saw them at Henry's headquarters. Senlis was cooler than Paris and, for the moment, quieter. Her father, at least, would benefit by the change. Here, if she must complain of her lack of bedfellow, she could not complain of her bed. Henry, with his usual thoroughness, had sent the household well in advance.
At Senlis it was almost as though she had never been married at all; as though she was still the young, insignificant Catherine. Her father, fatigued with the journey, had been taken weeping away. Henry might just as well not exist for all she saw of him. Her mother, huddled over the brazier in her chamber for all it was summer, pored over despatches and hardly bothered to wash, much less to beautify herself. Catherine walked lonely in the garden and longed for Jacque's merry tongue.
Once she came face to face with her husband. And though she knew she could never love him again—the time for loving was long past—she saw that he looked old in the summer sunshine; old and grey.
She thought with sudden anger that she had not bargained to marry an old man. And then she saw that he looked thin and restless...sick. She was frightened at that, and sorry. Why would he not rest? she asked him timidly, humbly almost.
“Soon, soon,” he promised impatient as with an importunate child, “when I have my crowns secure.”
“But...crowns?” she asked Isabeau later. And surely he had spoken, unthinking! “Why crowns?'
“He knows what he says,” Isabeau told her. “His one crown, even, is not so secure, neither. He may be England's darling with all his glories thick about him—but what are the Lancasters but usurpers after all?”
* * *
Henry was in Paris hot on the rumour of a plot.
'The dust of his going had barely settled before he was back again. He came striding in at dinner all flushed with triumph. Catherine found his high colour reassuring; Isabeau's shrewder eyes mistrusted the flush, noticed that he ate little.
“Scotched!” he said. “But only just in time. Part of a widespread plot. Compiègne's in it, too—there's the answer to that queer offer of theirs to surrender. Paris and Compiègne to throw open their gates to our little Dauphin at one and the same time.”
He watered his wine liberally, took a deep draught and then another; thirst seemed to worry him. “The dust sticks in my throat,” he s
aid. “A good plot—and a near thing. But you can't trust a woman! A woman, God be praised, will always be talking! And a woman was at the bottom of this. And where must Madam choose to confide her little secrets but just under the city walls. Incredible but true. Imagine it! Outside Madam at her chattering; inside, ears pressed back like horses—my guards. She was still chattering when they took her.”
“And—the end of Madam Blabtongue?” Isabeau asked grim, amused.
“The Seine cooled her; her and her friends together.”
Isabeau, approving, caught the sudden pallor in Catherine's face. “Are you with child again that you've grown so dainty?” she asked contemptuous.
Henry looked at her with sour amusement. “Why did you not give this girl of yours some of your own good sense?” he asked.
“Her father had some say in her making,” Isabeau said, idly, and saw him wince. I am not of the King's making. Catherine bit her tongue upon the words. How would his pride welcome a bastard to wife? Besides, she no longer believed it was true.
Had she longed for France? It was home no longer but an alien land whose soil sucked both blood and courage. It was England she longed for now, quiet England, green England where she had borne her child. It was as much as she could do not to ask Henry to let her return. But she had her pride; besides, these days she never knew how he would take a thing. He might be proud that his England had won her. Or he might wave her irritably aside—a child who did not know its own mind. He was unwell; it was clear, even to her eyes. But he would never admit it.
Isabeau would not admit it, either.
“Be careful how you talk, my girl. Henry is well enough; but sickness—even the rumour—would be the strongest weapon in the hand of our enemies. My son Charles, God knows, is a fool; but even he would know how to use such a weapon.”
* * *
Michelle was dead.
