The May Bride

by Suzannah Dunn

  My first thought was that the children shouldn’t see her like this: neither Dottie nor Margie were fools, they’d know something was up. Luckily, though, Dottie had eyes only for Johnny, who was – despite an extravagant snot-silvering – the very picture of composure in comparison to his mother. At Dottie’s delighted exclamation, he squirmed to be relinquished and then bustled off to join her. I absorbed myself in chivvying the procession of parentless children – Take this, Don’t forget that, Be careful, Come back for that, Hold the door – and gave Katherine the barest explanation - ‘It’s too cold in here’ – with the aim of sending her, too, on her way. I suspected, though, that she’d not been bringing Johnny to Dottie; she’d come for me. Well, hard luck, because I was off to find Moll. I could have lit the fire myself but she made a fuss if anyone else did it – she claimed to have a method – and Moll-fuss that morning would have been intolerable.

  Once the children had gone, Katherine trailed after me across Hall as I’d feared she would, but I resolved to do nothing for her; I’d already done more than enough. My attempt to leave her behind was scuppered by her longer strides, but I acted as if I were well ahead nevertheless and didn’t deign to look at her, instead speaking ahead to the door. ‘My mother’s gone to Elvetham.’ She might as well know it.

  ‘Elvetham?’ Taken aback, she lost a little ground. ‘Why? What did she say?’

  ‘She didn’t.’ I was into the screens passage before her, and then to the door that led to the kitchen area. ‘Left before we were up. And my father’s followed her.’

  Behind me in the passageway, there was a catch of sole on flagstone, an abrupt halt. I’d known it’d be a blow, and I’d intended it as such: he’d gone to my mother, and she’d get no help from him. I shouldered the kitchen door but there was no Moll inside nor even anyone to ask; and reaching around Katherine, I tried the various other doors – larders, buttery – to no avail.

  ‘Any idea’ – I kept it brisk – ‘where Edward is?’ Determinedly practical, as if no different from wondering as to Moll’s whereabouts.

  ‘He was in Antony’s room, last night.’ She sounded baleful, although surely that was the very least of her troubles. And it wasn’t what I’d asked; I could have guessed that for myself.

  Where on earth was Moll? What was she playing at?

  ‘You spoken to him?’ Lunging into the kitchen courtyard, I yelled Moll’s name only for it to fall flat, and it was that from which I rebounded into my sister-in-law’s gaze.

  She seized the opportunity: ‘Jane.’ Listen. ‘He has a letter.’ She was entrusting me with something; I didn’t want it, but she pressed it on me: ‘I’ve seen it, read it.’ The smallest of apologetic winces, a correction to mean that she’d read as much as she’d been able to read. ‘He showed me.’

  I didn’t want to know. ‘What?’ Get on with it, keep it practical. ‘What is it?’

  Something committed to paper, that was what, and I didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘Written by my father, signed, witnessed—’

  ‘What is it?’

  She swallowed a throatful of tears. ‘Forty pounds a year, every year, to the nunnery for my keep.’

  It was almost admiration that I felt for my brother, because he really didn’t do anything by halves, did he; he didn’t merely ride around the country disgracing his wife, but secured redress from one of the injured parties – because her own family stood to be at least as damaged as ours – and in perpetuity, and in writing.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said.

  ‘But I’ve seen—’

  ‘But that’s what he does!’ Did she really not know? Edward would have been covering all eventualities; second nature for him. He’d get it on paper. He’d be properly prepared. Just in case. It didn’t mean he’d end up using it. There was everything still to play for, and Katherine needed to realise that, she needed to get on with it; not mope around, trailing me down passageways and trying to lay this at my feet. I didn’t understand what had gone on – dates, babies – but if there was anything to understand, she’d know what had happened; I didn’t. Whatever had happened, she wouldn’t be going to a nunnery – that simply couldn’t happen to our family – but she was the one who had to ensure that it didn’t.

  But, ‘I don’t know,’ she was speaking at least as forcefully as I had, ‘how to stop him,’ and her eyes, in mine, refused to let me go. ‘I don’t know what more to say to him. I don’t know, Jane.’

  And there she was, giving up on herself and giving herself over to me, a certain grandeur to the gesture.

  I had no idea what to do.

  But then I remembered that I did, I did know, and I’d already done it. ‘I’ve sent for Thomas.’

  ‘Thomas?’ Genuine disbelief from Katherine, before the objection: ‘Not Thomas.’

  ’ Yes, Thomas.’ She was in no position to dictate, as I saw it. She didn’t like Thomas, but, frankly, she could lump it.

  She drew back, affronted. ‘This has nothing to do with Thomas.’

  I would’ve retorted that it had everything to do with all of us, but the Hall door was opening behind us and then there was Moll, affecting boredom: ‘You yelled?’

  Thomas was home much sooner than I’d anticipated; I was still helping Moll clear up the parlour when somehow, even before there was actually anything to hear of it, I detected his arrival. So far, so good. Mr Wallensis must have done exactly as I’d asked and sent someone for him at first light, if not earlier, and Thomas must have left the Dormers immediately, then and there, neglecting morning prayers – not that he’d have regarded that as a hardship. Never had I been so glad to see my brother, despite having to face telling him what was happening. I ran into the courtyard as he was sliding from the saddle, and in turn, he was heading for me before his feet had properly reached the ground.

  ‘Jane?’

  I turned for him to follow but he lunged, grabbed me – No, here, now – and was clearly in no mood for prevarication, so I drew him into the archway connecting the courtyards; it’d have to do, it offered a little privacy.

  ‘It’s Edward,’ I said, unnerved by my own voice, its frailty. Thomas’s eyes widened, barely perceptibly, as if he were turning from a light, but otherwise nothing: he didn’t know what to think so he’d think nothing for the time being and I was going to have to tell him what was happening. Why was this falling to me? ‘He’s saying Johnny isn’t his.’

  But still no reaction, nothing, just the stare, as if he hadn’t heard me; he had, though, because we could hardly have been standing closer to each other. And so – the horror of it – I was going to have to do it, to press on into the very worst of it.

  ‘He says,’ and I truly wondered what I was about to hear myself saying, ’that Johnny is our father’s.’

  Thomas would laugh, surely, because what I’d just said was absurd, and if I were him, arriving home to hear it, that was what I’d probably do; what I definitely wouldn’t do was believe it. For a heartbeat there was nothing from him, before something, an utterance that I took to be, ‘What?’

  So I had to say it again, had to look him in the eye and make it clear: ‘Our father’s.’

  He went to take issue with this – a frown, a contraction of the lips – but the resolve melted into incredulity: ‘Pa’s?’ Only a whisper, but all too audible in the confines of that small, low archway and I flinched, checked to either side for eavesdroppers.

  Our fathers: I intended to confirm it for him but my throat had closed up and I could only nod, just the once, and then there was the slam of tears into the back of my nose and I had to hold my breath or I’d be begging, ‘Please, Thomas, make this all right, please just make it all right. . .’ Someone began crossing the outer courtyard; the pair of us held each other to silence until the footfalls faded.

  Then I said, ‘He wrote poems for her,’ as if that could possibly be an adequate explanation for the news that I’d just broken, and indeed there was no sign that Thomas understood
. How I wished I weren’t crying. ‘She says she was in love with him.’

  At this, he did react, and predictably: an exhalation, exasperated and dismissive.

  ‘That’s what she says!’ There was no time for quibbling.

  He winced, making much of being prepared to indulge me: Now then, Jane, let’s go right back to the beginning . . .

  ‘When Edward was in France,’ I said, ’the time when he was in France,’ and somehow that did it, that did have him listening. ‘Our father was kind to her,’ I gabbled, ‘and they used to talk, they used to walk in the gardens together and—’ But I could hear how ridiculous it sounded and Thomas was shaking his head.

  ‘Edward found them, the poems, and she’d kept them hidden and—’ Don’t you see? But there was something crucial I hadn’t so far said: ‘Nothing happened, though.’ And I repeated it, emphasised it, ‘Nothing happened,’ hoping it’d be enough, that he’d understand. ‘But the problem is, Edward says it did.’ My voice was high, fracturing. ‘He’s saying it must’ve. Because Johnny can’t be his: that’s what he says. Because the dates are wrong.’

  ‘The dates aren’t wrong,’ Thomas said.

  ‘But they are, because—’ I couldn’t say it.

  He frowned. ‘Because what?’

  I didn’t know how to say it.

  ‘Because what?’

  I took a breath, took a run at it: ‘Because Edward couldn’t.’

  When Thomas realised I had no more to add, he almost laughed: ‘What?’

  ‘At that time,’ I clarified, ‘he couldn’t.’

  ‘And’ – utter disbelief – ‘he told you this, did he?’

  ‘He told all of us. He had to.’

  And it did get through: the impact had him take a backwards step, then he paced a circle to steady himself.

  Surreptitiously, I wiped my nose on my hand.

  ‘Right,’ he said, taking stock. ‘Jesus,’ and he sounded defeated.

  ‘But,’ I rushed to offer some hope, ‘Katherine says they did try.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘So d’you think—?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’

  Somehow I stood my ground.

  ‘Jesus,’ he despaired, loudly.

  I didn’t dare breathe.

  ‘Jesus.’ A flail of his arm, gesturing beyond the archway. ‘How the fuck do I know what people here . . .’

  Please, Thomas, please: I’d never heard him speak like that. He wasn’t reacting as I’d expected, but he was my only hope. He was going to have to calm down and turn practical. I tried to rein him in: ‘Our parents are—’

  ‘And what’s he saying?’ The question was fired at me. ‘Pa – what’s he saying?’

  ‘Well’ – do you really have to ask? – ‘he’s saying no.’ Of course, and I repeated with equal force: ‘No!’ Because did my brother really not understand? ‘Nothing happened.’

  Hadn’t he heard me the first time? What on earth was he thinking? How could he even think it? ‘She says she was in love with him, and he—’

  ‘Oh stop it,’ and this was vicious. ‘Love,’ he derided. Then, pacing again, almost stamping up and down that passageway. ‘Christ! Why did Edward ever marry her? Stupid bastard. Couldn’t he see? She’s a complete disaster.’

  Perhaps, but what was done was done and we needed to keep to the matter in hand.

  ‘And our saintly father,’ a bitter hoot, ‘falling for her charms? Well, Christ, who’s next? Father James?’

  That was enough. I understood that he was angry but if he went on like this, he was no better than Edward.

  ‘She didn’t—’

  ‘You don’t know what she did!’

  It boomed inside the arch but I drowned it with my own roar, ‘Of course I do!’

  He turned his back on me and kicked the wall hard, twice. Then, ‘Where’s Ma?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  ‘Gone.’ I could barely bring myself to speak to him. ‘To Elvetham. Pa, too, after her.’

  He turned around to face me, suddenly enlivened. ‘Yes, and you know what? That’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to get back in the saddle and ride away and leave them all to it. Leave this family to destroy itself. Leave Edward and his fucked-up wife to—’

  ‘Thomas!’ My heart was wild in my throat. ‘You have to talk to Edward.’

  ‘Nope,’ and he was off, striding into the courtyard, towards the house. ‘His wife, his mess, he can deal with it.’

  I dashed behind him. ‘But he says she’s going to Wilton.’

  ‘Best place for her.’

  His loathing took my breath away. ‘But the boys!’

  He turned around without breaking his stride. ‘You think they need a mother like her?’

  Now I was enraged. ‘Stop it, Thomas!’

  ‘Listen,’ he bellowed back at me, ’she had one job to do, and that was be his wife, but she didn’t do it.’

  ‘He didn’t love her!’ It was, I knew, a pathetic excuse – her excuse, my sister-in-law’s, and no excuse at all, but it was all I had and I was desperate.

  Thomas halted, then came towards me. ‘That’s because he’s Edward,’ he said, as if explaining to an idiot. ‘Edward doesn’t love anyone. And she’ll have known that; you can’t miss that about Edward. But she was still keen enough to be his wife.’

  He was right, I knew, but still it shocked me: the bleakness of the marriage and the depths of Thomas’s contempt for them both. But practicalities, practicalities . . .

  ‘Please.’ I slipped past him so that it was me, now, who was walking backwards, trying to head him off from the house, ‘Forget her, this isn’t about her. You know he can’t do this to the family, you know he has to be stopped, and he’ll listen to you.’

  ‘Listen to me?’ That he pretended to find hilarious. ‘Where’ve you been for the past eighteen years?’ Then, resolute, ‘No, this is nothing to do with me.’

  ‘It is,’ I insisted, ‘It is.’ But he wouldn’t meet my eye and we were already halfway to the main door. ‘Because how’s it going to look for you at court?’

  He paused long enough to answer. ‘Not half as bad as for Edward, but he’ll be well aware of that and he’s still happy enough to risk it. There’s nothing I can tell him that he doesn’t already know.’

  But this was madness, because surely the point was, ‘You know our father’s not responsible.’

  ‘I do not know that.’ And he was away again across the cobbles.

  But, ‘You do, Thomas.’ What was the matter with him? What was he playing at? I was yelling, now, and didn’t care who heard me. Cowardice from Thomas was something that I hadn’t expected to encounter and it was all I could do to insist: ‘You do, you absolutely do know that, and you have to make Edward see it, or’ – did he, himself, really not grasp? – ‘we’re all lost.’

  The response was a slam of the door; and so there I was, stranded, even my own breath running from me, and, tipping my head back to try to reel it in, I glimpsed a figure withdrawing from an upstairs window. Edward: somehow, I knew it; that shadow had an Edward-bearing to it. In my dismay and desolation, I couldn’t think back over what exactly he might have overheard and what he might’ve made of it, and whether it might matter.

  11

  I resisted dashing after Thomas, infuriate me though it did to let him get away; he’d see sense, I was certain, when he’d warmed through and eaten something. Badgering him would only further rile him. Anyway, I couldn’t face being back in the house, behind those dark-eyed windows and that gnarled, burly door with people I couldn’t even pretend to understand, so I stayed in the open air, the courtyard, walking around and trying to calm down, gather my thoughts. After several circuits, though, those four walls, the insensible sky and the crushing cold had me feeling just as trapped, so I decided to go to my room. Not for long, I told myself, just long enough for Thomas to get himself together.

  But pushing on the Hall door, I saw my mistake because there in the
middle of Hall was Edward and, beyond him, by the far door to the stairs, his wife. The two of them glanced at me – Edward over his shoulder – yet there was nothing in either look; they were on the brink of something and my appearing in the doorway was neither here nor there. I could have – should have – retreated, so why didn’t I? I don’t know, just a sense that it would be disingenuous, because I’d seen what I’d seen and there was no pretending otherwise, and perhaps also the faintest suspicion that whatever was about to happen should be witnessed. So, despite considerable trepidation, I closed the door behind me and took my place, although not for long, I didn’t think, because Edward was in no mood to be waylaid.

  Whether Katherine had come across him in Hall by chance or had been looking for him, I couldn’t tell, nor could I tell if words had already been exchanged. She’d come in from the oriel and presumably from the stairs, and something of the momentum of descent was retained in her stillness: she was ready for business. Dressed for it, too, unlike earlier: everything was impressively in order with the exception of her girdle, the waist-encircling length of pearls and enamel flowers having swivelled round – Johnny, the likely culprit – to hang down the back of her gown like a tail. Oblivious to it, which under other circumstances would have been endearing, she held her head high and announced to Edward, ‘I won’t go, you know.’ And instantly I was dazzled, because of course: it could be as simple as that. She’d refuse to go. Because what could my brother do? Drag her kicking and screaming to a nunnery? Well, no one at Wolf Hall behaved like that, and least of all Edward.

  She came walking towards him and so audacious was that saunter of hers that she could have been balancing along the rail of the minstrels’ gallery. She had a strategy, beautiful and compelling in its simplicity, and she had perfect confidence in it. Like a queen came to mind as I watched her, although in those days I knew nothing of queens. Beyond reproach, then, perhaps. Inviolable. She stopped at a respectful distance from him to enquire, gently, as if from concern, ‘So, what will you do?’

  My first twinge of alarm: No, don’t push it, Katherine.