The Sixth Wife

by Suzannah Dunn

  Thirty-one

  Midsummer morning, my curtains and shutters opened to flawless weather, the sky a pale, airy blue. On my way over to Kate’s rooms, I came across her and Thomas standing at a window in one of the hallways, the two of them in the green-gold glimmer of the glass. Her strange but beautiful shape: a bowing of her; the shy upward reach of her belly. I retraced my last step back onto the stairs, but too late. Turning, she was radiant in a gown of apricot over a honey kirtle. ‘Cathy,’ she enthused, ‘what a day!’

  Thomas smirked. ‘Looks like God’s for a party after all.’ Kate flashed him an amused glance and laid a hand briefly on his arm. That easy affection, the lightness of her touch, had my heart flick shut but still the thought came barging through: I’ve loved that man, hard and frantic.

  To my relief, they were about to go their separate ways. When Thomas was gone, I fell into step with Kate, and checked with her, ‘Do you need me around today?’ Because I had plans. Quite apart from the three-month anniversary that I wanted to forget, to erase, to not be an anniversary, was the awkwardness of being in a household not my own during its frenetic preparations for a celebration. I’d be superfluous, which, feeling as I currently did, was something best avoided. I’d been at a loose end too much lately, and look where it had got me. Kate answered me that everything was under control and the only tasks that she’d set herself were the garland-making and trying to stop the children becoming overexcited. I’d already given some thought to my boys’ day, and asked her if she could spare her choirmaster for a couple of hours for lessons, and she was happy to oblige.

  ‘And you?’ she asked.

  ‘A ride,’ I chanced. A long ride, a day’s riding: that was the plan. Riding put her out of my sight and me beyond her reach. And I wanted to turn my back on Sudeley for a while before it clamoured for my attention, that evening.

  She encouraged me to take whomever I needed from the stables, but I chose a small party of men I barely knew – none of my own staff – and then, riding, kept any exchanges to the purely practical. I rode up and over that crest of a day and came back down none the wiser, but it had been what I’d wanted to do and I’d done it.

  I arrived back late in the afternoon and Sudeley had been hotting up in my absence, the air pungent with roasting meats. On my way up to my room I saw that trestle tables had been erected in the formal garden, their tablecloths dazzling among the muted green-blues of the lavender, rosemary and yew. Staff were staking the paths with torches and setting down lanterns, all of course as yet unlit, around the bases of statues. When Bella began preparing me a bath, I left her to it. Kate’s rooms were where I went, but she wasn’t there. (I wondered – was forever wondering, couldn’t stop wondering – where Thomas was.) Her ladies said she was in chapel, at prayers; she’d spent the morning writing letters and meeting with a couple of local clergymen, then had enjoyed an afternoon in the gardens, collecting armfuls of flowers and foliage for the house. The ladies’ talk turned to the evening’s musicians – who was best and why, and when they’d be playing – and the food, principally the Sudeley pastry cook’s legendary hot strawberry and almond pies. I had to interrupt to check up on my boys: had they been keeping themselves out of trouble? Oh, yes, absolutely, came back the assurance. I don’t know why I asked really, because, of course, my boys could easily pull the wool over these ladies’ eyes, were they so inclined.

  Later, bathed and dressed, I returned to Kate’s rooms, wary as ever of coming across Thomas on the way, trying to listen ahead, around corners. Hallway windows were open into the early evening, open onto that slow evaporation of colour and clamour from the gardens. I’d like to have savoured it, to have settled on a window-seat and given myself up to the wisps of conversations from people walking along the pathways below. More distant was the piping of children’s voices. A couple of musicians tuning up, too: that insistent, exploratory plucking of one string at a time.

  No Thomas on the way, nor in Kate’s rooms. I was both relieved and disarmed, standing there at the end of Kate’s bed with a feeling to which I was becoming accustomed, a sensation of no feeling. The sense of a feeling postponed. Kate, on the contrary, looked brimful, reclining against her pillows with one bare foot in Agnes’s lap. Agnes’s long fingers were pressing at the ankle. A tall, fair pair, they made, Kate and Agnes. Unbothered and capable. Kate was in a gown I’d never seen before: the pale gold velvet stamped with a small, square pattern and sewn all over with pearls. She shone, she looked so perfect that she could have been a painting. In a chair beside the bed, Elizabeth lounged; on a cushion at her feet was Mrs Ashley, unpicking a kirtle – one of Elizabeth’s, I recognised – perhaps for the re-use of the material or perhaps for the turning of a panel, the hiding of a stain. Kate made polite enquiries about my ride, before conversation moved on to preparations for the evening.

  ‘Elizabeth can’t decide what to wear,’ Kate said in an exaggerated tone of warning, giving me an amused look.

  ‘Clothes,’ I suggested. On cue, Elizabeth tutted and rolled her eyes. She never has any difficulty making any decision about anything; the fuss was simply for attention.

  ‘Easy for you to say.’ Kate smiled at me. ‘You’re another one.’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Someone who’d look good in anything. In a sack.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Although a sack’s not what we have here, is it. It’s absolutely gorgeous, Cathy. Is it Lucas?’ From Lucas de Lucca, she meant. She made a twirling motion with one hand, but I don’t twirl for anyone.

  I said, ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’

  ‘Oh, but the effort this took us!’ She patted Agnes’s hand. ‘To get me looking even half decent. Half human, in fact. Anyway, it’s only us this evening, only Sudeley people; it’s not as if we’re at court. I’ve told Elizabeth she shouldn’t worry. And she’ll look stunning, anyway, whatever she ends up wearing.’ Mrs Ashley looked up, distractedly, complacently, in a dutiful kind of seconding. Elizabeth rolled her eyes again, but this time happily. ‘Nevertheless -’ Kate sighed, extracting herself from Agnes, Agnes relinquishing her, ‘it seems my presence is required in her room.’

  ‘It is,’ insisted Elizabeth.

  Kate stood. ‘You’re lucky to have the choice. Whereas me’ – hands patting the bump – ‘I’m a bit restricted.’That glimmering gown of hers: she wasn’t hard done by. I dismissed her complaint with a laugh and she inclined her head, accepting it, then the head tipped towards the door. ‘Is this’ – Elizabeth’s dress choice – ‘something you’d like to get involved in?’ Mischievous, knowing the answer. I said I’d go and find my boys, asked where they were. Building the bonfire, Elizabeth said, as she left.

  The stack of wood was at the front of the house; I’d seen it as I’d ridden back, but hadn’t seen the boys. This time, after I’d skirted the maze, there they were. ‘Found you.’

  Harry said,‘Where is everybody?’As if they should already have been there. We were hours from darkness.

  ‘I’m here.’ I opened my arms, partly a display of affection, partly a display of my attire. He barely looked at me.

  ‘Yes, thank you, a lovely day,’ I said, sarcastically. ‘And you?’

  Charlie said, ‘We’ve been building the bonfire,’ his enthusiasm tentative in front of his brother.

  ‘So I see.’ I made a show of examining it. ‘It’s amazing.’

  ‘Well,’ he folded his arms, ‘it will be.’ Businesslike.

  ‘No bones, I hope.’

  Harry grumbled, ‘It’s no good without the bones.’

  We’d discussed this. No bones, he’d been told. They’d all been told.Yes, we could celebrate Midsummer, but no, there’d be no bones. That disgusting tradition of burning bones on the John the Baptist bonfire: the rolling black smoke, the stench.

  ‘There are no bones,’ Charlie assured me, quietly.

  ‘Good. We don’t want that stink.’

  ‘But that’ – Harry drew himself up to patronise me –
‘is the point of it.’ Out with the old.

  ‘Well, the point of this one can be to have a nice evening around a nice bonfire.’ What was happening to me? I was turning into my mother. ‘Is it far enough from the tithe barn?’

  Charlie said, ‘Mr Billings says so.’ Presumably a groundsman. ‘Thomas put me in charge,’ he added.

  And how had Harry taken that? I wondered. The answer was in Harry’s sneer: child’s play, said his expression. I checked again: ‘You’re sure it’s safe?’

  ‘Very Thomas said to keep asking Mr Billings and I did.’

  ‘Good.’And a good choice from Thomas, if unintentional: I was happier with my fate in Charlie’s hands, at this time, than Harry’s. Ready to move off, I finished with, ‘How did you find the choirmaster this morning?’

  ‘All right.’ Charlie, noncommittal. Then, artless, ‘Harry’s written a song.’

  ‘Charlie!’ Harry took a swipe at him; he ducked.

  ‘Harry!’ I was livid at the aggression towards his brother. Charlie looked stung, though probably more by my intervention than by Harry’s reprimand. If I hadn’t been there, he’d have doubtless shrugged it off. But I was there; I couldn’t stand by and let it go. ‘Apologise to Charlie!’

  ‘Leave me alone. Both of you.’

  He stalked off; we watched him go. Turning to shrug at Charlie, I saw that he looked sheepish. There was more to this than I’d appreciated.‘What? What was it about the song?’

  Gravely, he confided, ‘It was lovey-dovey.’

  Which, of course, at the time, ignorant of what was happening, I found touching and amusing.

  Thirty-two

  All evening, that vast bonfire was compelling, tearing into its wood and hurling smoke, but by eleven o’clock a small crowd of us had retreated, exhausted, to Kate’s private garden at the back of the house. Despite the many benches, we’d somehow ended up sitting where we’d been standing, on the steps.There we were, among clouds of fleabane growing from between the tiles, the tiny flowers as perfect as if concocted by a confectioner in sugar. The sky was Madonna-blue, silvered with stars and hung with a fat, buttery moon.

  Elizabeth was leaning back against Kate’s kirtle. She’d spent the evening dancing, and cajoling everyone else to join her. Rigorous, as usual, in her pursuit of a good time for all. Quite something to watch. Watch was all I’d done, my excuse being my long day’s ride. Harry, though, to my surprise, had fallen in with her, thrown himself into it. His exuberance had drawn some admiring but baffled attention (‘Just look at that young chap!’ I overheard from a manor tenant). The spectacle was endearing to me, too, but also unnerving: I was aware of a helplessness in him, even as I didn’t understand it. Now he was lying face down on some grass, head on folded arms, glancing up from time to time. Not, I feared, very soberly.

  Charlie had sat out the dances, as had Jane. The two of them were now side by side on a step, spooning up sticky cherry pie from a shared plate: Jane, huge-eyed, unblinking; Charlie, frowning, intent.

  Thomas was elsewhere. I’d last seen him playing cards with his men in the formal garden and presumably he was still doing so. Occasionally we could hear something of the games: a groan of dismay, a yell of triumph.

  I didn’t want to think about Thomas.

  Suddenly Kate put her hands to her bump.‘He’s hiccuping.’

  ‘All that gooseberry fool,’ I said. That cheek-twingeingly sharp gooseberry fool which had been my favourite pudding of the evening.

  Elizabeth swivelled, her rose garland moonlit. ‘Can I feel?’ Kate guided her hand. ‘Hiccuping?’ Elizabeth wondered, head cocked as if listening for something. ‘Really?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  I said, ‘Charlie used to do it all the time.’ Actually, it was Harry who used to do it, but I suspected he’d object to my saying so. Charlie’s frown deepened; Jane sneaked a hand up over a smile.

  Elizabeth gave a little start. ‘There he is!’

  Harry looked up, eyes heavy-lidded, and Elizabeth met him with a slow smile. As if pacified, he folded himself back down.

  When Elizabeth’s hand was back in her own lap, Kate turned to me, eyes shining: ‘Odd to think, isn’t it, that next year – everything being well – there’ll be someone else enjoying all this with us.’ She added, ‘Not that he’s not enjoying it now, in his own little way. He knows something’s going on. He knows he’s in good company.’ Her hand was on mine, briefly. ‘Loving company,’ she said.

  Listen: I went to find Thomas because, on that beautiful evening, with Kate holding my hand, it seemed to me that all the damage that could ever be done had already been done. Whatever I did now made no difference. That’s the only way I can explain it.

  I made my excuses, such as they were, none being required on a long evening of everyone coming and going. I didn’t have far to go: through the gate of Kate’s garden and all of fifty paces or so to where the card game was under way. I stayed at a distance, perched on a step. When he noticed, he came over, no one else as much as glancing up because the game was in full swing. He sat beside me. ‘What is it?’ He could see there was a problem and assumed it was with Kate. I didn’t reply – couldn’t put it into words – but shook my head, Not Kate. Then lowered my head into my hands. He laid a hand on my arm. I’m lost, I’m lost, was all I could think, desperate and furious. Yet even as I was thinking it, there was in my core a stirring, there was life.

  We did nothing that night. Didn’t even talk about it. It was enough for me to have come to him; it would have been too much to do any more.

  The next day, it began again. ‘Not our old room,’Thomas said. We were all leaving chapel; he’d fallen into step with me and slowed me up. ‘Not unless it’s Eleanor you’re keen on’ – Marcella’s sister, staying – ‘because that’s who you’ll find there.’ For that, he got the most deeply disapproving look I could dredge up. Bad enough in the first place that he’d intercepted me on the way out of chapel.

  Suddenly, Elizabeth was there, sweeping alongside Thomas. ‘Thomas?’

  Emphatically: ‘Yes, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Would you talk to the new Master of the Horse for me? About Cristobal?’ One of her horses.

  Kate heard; twisted around, called back, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve already done it. Didn’t I say?’

  Elizabeth skipped ahead of us. ‘Oh. Thank you.’

  ‘And it’s fine, Elizabeth: fine.’

  I couldn’t help but feel that Elizabeth had fabricated a reason for interrupting us.Thomas spoke hurriedly now.‘The only other room is on the servants’ side.’

  To cover up our whispering, I called ahead to Kate, ‘Are you sure you don’t need one of our stables?’ We’d had a conversation earlier about the stabling arrangements for my own horses.

  Again, she twisted, called: ‘No. Really, Cathy, we’re fine.’

  Thomas continued,‘Herb garden, stairs on your left.’ Then, ‘Usual time.’ Some time in the hour before supper: the earlier, of course, the better.

  I didn’t like the prospect of being on the servants’ side of the house: so many more people, even if they were supposed to be busy elsewhere. When the time came, I stood in the stairwell – pressed back against the wall, hiding from anyone who might come into the little walled garden – because he hadn’t been able to tell me which room, and these stairs led up to a lot of rooms. What I could see, from where I stood, was rosemary, symbol of fidelity in marriage. What I was thinking was, Why am I doing this? Cowering here, waiting for this man.

  And then along he came, and I knew. Excitement. It’s the only word for that blooming of my heart under my breastbone. He sauntered down the path, glinting in the sunlight, beautifully clothed. Beautiful naked, too, I recalled: the penny-flat nipples and, down from his navel, the line of fur. ‘I can’t do this,’ I told him, when he reached me. He froze, wide-eyed, as if looking for a way to be helpful. ‘I can’t come here,’ I explained, ‘it’s too risky.’

  ‘But you are here.’ He smiled.
<
br />   Remind me, ‘What is it that I’m supposed to be doing here?’

  A shrug.‘Looking for someone?’ His fingertips were tracing the shape of one breast beneath the bodice of my kirtle.

  I batted his hand away. ‘Who?’Who on earth would I be looking for? These servants weren’t mine.

  He peered up the stairs as if for inspiration.‘Dominic. The farrier’s boy.’

  It made no sense to me. ‘But why would I want to find him?’

  ‘You don’t want to find him. You want to be looking for him, not finding him. Trust me: if there’s someone you want to look for but never find, Dominic’s your little man.’ Twisted logic. He started up the stairs, whispering, ‘My falconer’s our neighbour.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ I hissed, sarcastically. ‘A hawk-eyed falconer.’

  Smiling, he shook his head. ‘Best kind. He’s not in the least interested in humans.’

  Our new room: on bare boards lay a narrow, straw-stuffed mattress.‘Reduced circumstances.’Thomas sounded cheerful. I, too, liked it; liked it better than that previous gloomy room of ours, dominated by his mother’s old bed. Here, limewashed walls glowed with late-afternoon sunshine. Even as I was taking it in, he was unpinning me, casually. My petticoat slid from my shoulders but there was no chest over which to drape it, so I stepped out of it, left it where it was, comically half standing.

  Later, the warm sunshine made us slower than usual to get up and leave. I was lying on top of him; there was no room on the mattress to lie side by side. We hadn’t spoken much – what was there to say? – but then he said, dreamily, ‘Kate tells me you were to marry the son.’

  I didn’t follow, raised my head.

  He gazed fondly back at me. ‘Charles’s son.’

  ‘Why did she say that?’

  He frowned, puzzled. ‘Isn’t it true?’

  I sat up. ‘It’s true, but why did she say it?’

  He shrugged with his mouth. ‘Just in conversation.’