by Hilda Lewis
The rare moment of selfless pity broke. She could remember, only, that her young son's shield had fallen from his hand. And on the heels of that—another thought. The last brother had made a step nearer to the throne. Last step but one—only Harry between Gloucester and the throne, greedy, unscrupulous Gloucester who thwarted her at every turn. Surely now, now, she had cause to fear!
She would not be comforted. Like Cassandra she prophesied nothing but woe; and, like Cassandra, she prophesied true.
* * *
In spite of all her praying, all her beseeching, they had concluded the peace at Arras. Burgundy's heralds came bearing a copy of the terms; my lord Cardinal Beaufort himself came to break the news.
“Traitor Philip has done well out of this, well and well enough!” she cried out. “He gets my son's lands—the crown lands of France; fifty thousand pieces of gold—a Queen's dower; and jewels stolen, so he says, at his father's murder—twenty years ago! But Philip, it seems, keeps the inventory still. And for that same murder he may take vengeance on whom he pleases, when and how he pleases—no waiting upon the law. Oh my poor France, now you have a third King. Philip, Philip, you are forsworn.”
But how forsworn she did not know until Gloucester burst in upon them with the last infamy. Beaufort had meant to take time preparing her for this worst betrayal of all; but Gloucester, it appeared, could not wait.
Burgundy had written to the King beseeching him to accept the terms. And, in the letter, read in full Council, the traitor had robbed Harry of his titles. It had been addressed to the High and Mighty Prince Henry by Grace of God King of England and our well-beloved Cousin.
She said, white and steady—no crying out now, “He did not name our son King of France and his sovereign lord?”
“No, by the living God! And did you expect it?” Gloucester mocked at her. “Oh', he has stuffed us well with his excuses! He must, like an obedient son, listen to his father the Pope. Your Pope!” he flung at the cardinal.
“And my lord the King?” Catherine interrupted quick and sharp, “what of Harry?”
Beaufort had the grace to look away; but Gloucester flung out in fury, “Wept, Madam. Snivelled sitting there among his lords—the King of England! And that damned traitor's heralds not able to wait to fly back with the news. By God's Face, had I the handling of this it could not have happened!”
“Spare us, Nephew,” Beaufort said almost gently but his eyes were agates. “Had you led the armies in France—all would go better. Had you been Governor to the King—all would go better. With you, everything always, had gone better. It's a foregone conclusion. But spare your breath now; you may need it yet to cool your own porridge.”
* * *
She had come back to Tudor's cherishing, back to the healing of her children's need of her. But the quiet country could not give her peace; her nerves were on the stretch, she lived only for the news.
Parliament had named Burgundy traitor. “Words,” she said. “Words. Sticks and stones may break my bones...” In London the common people thought as she did. Roused to fury at the insult to their King, they had fallen upon the foreigners—Flemings and Hollanders and Burgundians alike. Foreigners all and tarred with the same brush!
The King had put an end to that. He would not have the innocent suffer. He had handed over the rioters to justice.
She nodded, stiff. But, “He is too gentle, too gentle,” she cried out when the messengers had gone. “These are not times for gentleness. Before God he is not his father's son; had I not borne him in my own body I should doubt he were mine. He will lose all...all...Henry of Windsor...of Windsor...”
* * *
Town after town fallen to the enemy; towns bought dear by the royal blood of Lancaster, the loyal blood of England. Town after town...Henry of Windsor. Was there anything in the old prophecy, she wondered wild, fearful.
It was nonsense, she agreed with Tudor in the bright daytime; but at night it haunted her so that she could not sleep. It had begun—the remorse with which day and night she tormented herself.
Fourteen hundred and thirty-five. A bad, bad year. She would never forget it.
And to top her miseries, Isabeau died.
Isabeau dead, that great beauty. Faithless, untruthful, greedy, there had yet been a glory about her—power to make life serve her purpose; courage and a certain harsh wisdom. Faithless, she had yet her faithfulness; untrue, her own truth. She had not loved her husband—how should she? She had betrayed him with love after love; but she had stood by him, a rock to his weakness. She had been most cruelly slandered—because she was a woman. Had she been a man everything would have been forgiven, glorified in her. Now she lay dead in poverty to be hustled into her grave without the barest honours of a queen.
Philip, hypocrite and traitor, had held a funeral service for her in Arras—Arras where he had betrayed them all. God's Own Wonder she had not risen from her grave, that grim and valiant ghost, and chased him from his mockery.
Isabeau was dead and it was long since Catherine had loved her, but Isabeau had been her mother. Catherine felt a cold breath at her own back.
She turned fearful from the thought of death.
...Life goes quickly over. I am thirty-four and soon I shall be old...
She went over, searched her face in the mirror. Lines on the white forehead, about the grey eyes, and the warm red mouth. She stared, only half-believing; her finger went up, slow, unwilling, to smooth them away.
...Yes, soon I shall be old...
Behind her the dead faces nodded sorrowful—Isabeau and Michelle and Jacqueline; and Henry and Bedford and all-but-forgotten Clarence.
She heard, behind her, a footfall. The mirror was cleared of her sick fancies. Ruddy, warm with life, Owen smiled there instead.
CHAPTER XXXV
Johanne had been right. Life was sweet with one's love, with one's children; and one could not, by oneself, hold fate back. But if one could; if, dying, she could give Harry his French crown, would she choose to die?
No. Her answer came swift. There was Owen; there were the children; there was her own desire to live. Why should she die to give Harry a second crown? She saw clearly now that she wanted nothing but to live quietly with her love. As for the rest, let Gloucester and Beaufort fight it out between them. As long as Harry was well, as long as she might see him sometimes, she was content.
She turned her back on London. In the quiet of the country she would live and be forgotten. She would make up to herself for the lost years, bear more children, enrich Owen's life and her own. She was thirty-four—what of it? Women older than she had borne children.
She was thirty-four...and she had a hard little lump beneath the left breast; so little a lump her fingers must search to find it. She did not let it disturb her—it did not hurt. These days she was possessed by an urgency to live, to live. She had wasted enough time.
* * *
Imperceptibly buds thickened; again the elm-trees threw fans of rosy flowers against the pale sky.
In April, when the water ran swift and the willows were golden, she knew she was pregnant again. She had not guessed it earlier; she had felt so weary, so depressed—she who was used to carrying her children with joy. She could not tell whether the lump was larger beneath her breast; she did not want to know. As for the tiresome little pain where the lump was—that was nothing, nothing; a discomfort of pregnancy, she told herself. But she did not believe it—she had been pregnant before; and not like this, never like this.
It was not only the wretched weariness that oppressed her; there was news from France, to which, try as she might, she could not stop her ears.
Paris had fallen. Paris, sick to death of the English and the misery they brought, had let the enemy in by ladders in the dark of the night...The enemy marching in and the English marching out and all Paris mocking them with cries of A la queue, au renard…Henry's fox's tuft remembered even now, remembered with bitterness.
And now Calais was being besie
ged. Parliament sent messengers posting the countryside, north, south, east and west, urging men to the defence of England's most precious jewel. Let not Calais fall in shame!
Edmund, not yet nine, clapped his hand upon his sword and demanded to go. He flew into a passion and wept when Tudor said he was too small. Jasper wept, too. He did not know what it was all about; but whatever Edmund did was right.
And now it was July, all sunshine and roses; but still Catherine shivered over the fire and the lusty little boys could not raise her spirits. Tudor besought her to see her physician. She refused. It was her pregnancy she told him. A woman had no need to fuss about pregnancy.
More gentle, more tender than ever, he served her on his knees. In spite of her fears, her oppression, she smiled when she saw him come into the great hall—how could she help it, debonair as he was? She walked a few steps in the summer garden leaning upon his arm. Love between them had never been so kind, so cherishing.
The end of the month saw them on the road to London. There was a thing to be done—they must petition the King. She and Tudor had agreed upon it. He had urged her, though, to wait until the child was born. At Christmas, the time of goodwill, they would do what must be done. She would not, could not listen, though her heart fainted with fear. The pain beneath her breast was her constant timepiece.
* * *
Johanne cried out when she saw Catherine so old, so pale, so drawn. She cried out, too, for another reason. Catherine had brought the children with her.
“This is death to Tudor,” Johanne said.
“We must think of the children now,” Catherine told her. “We have thought of ourselves too long.”
“Then you must send Tudor away—back to Wales; or where you will, so long as it's far enough. And at once. Before it's too late.”
Tudor refused even to listen. “She's ill; I could not leave her now,” he said.
“But if you have to leave her—forever?” Johanne asked.
“Man cannot escape his fate.”
“Coward's talk. A true man makes his own fate.”
She saw the red spring into his face at that and was glad. If he did not go at once, certainly they would hang him. She would be sorry if he were to hang; she liked a comely man. But it was not of Tudor she thought, but of Catherine and the children.
Now was the time to petition the King, now that Gloucester was mercifully away, swaggering in France, hectoring and punishing as though he had relieved Calais with his own two hands instead of arriving when all was won. Heaven, you might think, had sent them this chance. And now it looked as if she and Tudor, between them, would let it slip. It was understandable, Johanne thought, worried. Like any true man he hated to leave a woman—and a sick woman at that—to bear the burden; as for Catherine she could not bring herself to move in the business until he was safe in hiding. So between them they let time waste—and who knew when Gloucester mightn't take it into his head to return? One morning they would wake up, those two, to find their chance forever gone.
* * *
Catherine sat listless. Her face had altered considerably in these few weeks—the Valois features were clear enough. Catherine the Fair they had called her, Johanne thought, pitying; they would never call her that again.
Down in the garden the children played. Jasper looked up, caught sight of Johanne standing at the window, tugged at Edmund; they each waved a hand. Johanne, that austere woman, blew kisses. “Those lovely children!” she said. “Catherine, you must see the King at once—the whole court's a-buzz. Did you know?”
Catherine shook a listless head.
“We're not so far from Westminster nor London. Nor,” Johanne said pointedly, “from Greenwich, neither. Madam of Gloucester has ridden over more than once from Greenwich—and each time playing the old game of wondering aloud that her dearest sister has not yet paid her respects to the King.”
Even that did not seem to rouse Catherine. “I will go soon,” she said.
“Soon may be too late. You must go at once—it was for that you came! But first you must send your husband away.” It was the first time Johanne had granted Tudor the title. It had an ominous sound.
“He will not leave me. But—” Catherine shrugged, “the King will pardon him.”
“And...if the King will not?”
“The children come first; it's a price we must pay.” Beneath her quiet she was, Johanne could see, shaken to the soul.
“A price that will bring your Tudor to the” gallows,” Johanne said, brutal. “And you? Whether the King pardons you or not—in prison or out—you will know that you brought him to London and to his death?”
But she had lived with danger too long; and she was weakened by sickness, lulled by sickness.
Johanne subtle and quick, pursued her end by another track.
“You will not be sorry when your time's come,” she said.
“My...time?” Catherine's mind was moving slowly.
“When your child is born. What are you hoping for?”
“A girl!” Catherine spoke with some of her old warmth. “I pray God send me a girl. I pray God send her happier than I!”
“Come now,” Johanne said, brisk, “you married the hero of Christendom—and most willingly. And then you married your love. Is that so ill a fortune?”
“The hero wasn't flesh-and-blood. And the lover—did I marry him? In the sight of God, perhaps. And my children go nameless; and, for their father, there may well be shameful death. But—” she shrugged, “all is as God wills, so Henry used to say. But God, it seemed, willed what Henry willed. It's a trick few men know how to perform.”
Her voice trailed into silence. Then she began to speak softly as though talking within herself.
“They called me the Fair...yet I was not so fair. It was my will. I willed men should think me beautiful—it was wisdom I had from my mother. And yet, maybe I was fair enough...”
“You were fair enough!” Johanne's voice, clear as a trumpet roused the wandering mind. Suddenly she struck. “And will be again.”
“Again?”
“Pregnancy plays tricks.” Johanne handed her the mirror.
Catherine stared into the polished steel.
...the Valois nose, thin and long. She had taunted Michelle once with the Valois nose.
“When all is over,” Johanne said cheerful, “you will look yourself again.”
But Catherine, it seemed, had not heard. She was staring as though she had never seen herself before. The mirror fell crashing to the floor.
Owen must not see her like this, not ever again. He must go away, right away, until she was well once more.
* * *
They said Goodbye in Catherine's chamber where she lay in the shadow of the great bed.
“I cannot leave you, nor I will not leave you,” Tudor said and wept. Such a thing she had never seen before. Sorrows they had known and fears, but never before had she seen him weep.
“Come now,” she was hard and bright with her grief, “it is a woman's part to weep. It may be forgiven a woman if she weep herself to a fountain!”
“It becomes a man to weep when he parts with his heart's love,” he said.
“To part?” she said and took the word like a sword in the heart; but her face gave no sign. “If not now—then maybe forever. But you shall come back soon—the King's pardon. He cannot refuse me. I never asked a gift from him in my whole life. Yes, you shall come back and the King shall make you an earl—a duke, even—who knows? And every lady in Christendom will envy me my handsome husband.” She laughed, crouching in the shadow of the bed.
He heard her laughing as he strode away, lifted his hand all wet with her tears to his own wet cheek. And, she for all her laughing, when she could no more catch the distant sound of his going, sprang from her bed, hung against the door and wept as though her body were torn by childbirth rather than by the pain of parting.
* * *
Forgetful of her condition she was startled to her feet when
my lady of Gloucester, without warning, and on the heels of announcement, came into the room.
Eleanor's narrow eyes narrowed still further and that was all.
“Dear Madam and Sister,” she said and made a sketch of a curtsey. And, as always, the insolence of that last word was galling. “We had expected you at court. Such junketings since Burgundy was forced from Calais, such masques, such feasts, we have not seen this long while. It has pleased even my lord King to be merry...except for lacking you, my dear! So, since you would not come to us, I have come to you.”
“You should wait till you are asked,” Catherine said—Queen to Cobham.
“I might wait too long.” Eleanor let her insolent eyes flick over the Queen's figure. “You are not well, Sister, I fancy. But—” she laughed, “no doubt you will be worse before you're better.”
“I shall be a great deal worse,” Catherine said, steady; “but I doubt I shall be better ever again.”
“Fancies, Sister, fancies. In women's affairs courage is all!” She smiled; said suddenly, “That was a handsome child I saw upon the stair.”
“Which child?” Catherine's lips were dry for all her careless air.
“Are there so many little ones about your household?”
“My page perhaps.”
“They start young in your service.”
“We find it better.”
“No doubt.”
Catherine shook from head to foot with the tide of her anger. She was weary to death of this cold, insolent pricking. She would order the woman from her presence—no need for care now, the woman's eyes told her so. But...Careful, my heart, Owen would say. A bad thing is not so bad but that it may be made worse! And the creature was Gloucester's wife.
She bit upon her tongue.
There came the sound of light feet racing along the corridor, a child's feet. Jasper came bursting in forgetful of his manners.
Over his head Eleanor flashed her sly, triumphant glance.
“The lady!” he said all breathless with haste. “She bade me meet her here. She promised me a hawk, a little hawk, a little tiny hawk; just big enough for me, she said. Isn't she kind?” He pulled at Catherine's sleeve. “Madam...mother, isn't she kind?”
