“I saw my mother’s light grow dim through sickness and childbirth, Tom, until it was at last doused forever. I was close to eight when she died. My father placed me in an Order. I suppose I could not hide the fact that I blamed him and wished he had never returned from his long journey. By the Blessed Virgin, I swore at eight that I would never cause the death of any woman, especially a woman I loved. I suppose becoming a priest was a way of keeping that vow. Perhaps, lad, I am too selfish a person to live completely in the world. Being a priest is a good life. It gives you the choice of thinking only of yourself and God. I do not think I would have made a good husband and father. I like too much sitting underneath a tree and just thinking.”
*
After the works of Homer, Father Stephen introduced us to the teachings of Socrates, as related by his former student Plato, which then led on to Plato’s own philosophies. I reflected in later years that a great part of the reason he was so drawn to the study of Greek was that he was very much a devotee of Socrates from ancient times. Sometimes, I am even tempted to think—knowing full well I sin most mightily in allowing myself such thoughts—that Father Stephen would have been hard pressed to say whose teachings were greater: Socrates or Jesus Christ. Though Father Stephen’s priestly calling would no doubt win out in the end, to declare the teachings of the Son of God as being the greater.
Father Stephen was a wonderful teacher who forever thought of different ways to aid us four on the paths of learning. On many an occasion he wrote a brief play that all of us would then act out in order to help us to grasp some of the reasonings of Plato and Socrates…
*
Within a dark wood-panel chamber, bright sunlight beams through a high lattice window, showering diamond shapes over the forms of four children. Sitting together on a low bench, the two boys and two girls fidget, holding lutes upon their laps. From a stool near the hearth, where a low fire burns, Father Stephen arises, straightening the folds of his grey cassock.
“So, my young players, we all know well our parts. Shall we make a start, do you think?”
The children look at one another, then back at the priest; one boy gives him a quick nod. Gazing at them with a serious glint, Father Stephen lifts his chin.
“All right then, I shall leave the chamber. But when I return, remember ’tis not Father Stephen you see, but Socrates from times long gone.”
The priest strides over to the nearby door. Without a backward glance, he closes the door behind him. The room now emptied of Father Stephen’s presence, the children sneak glances at one another, straightening their forms. George begins to strum a song on his lute, humming under-breath. Tom lays a hand on the chords of his cousin’s instrument.
“No more, coz. He’s coming back.”
Pushing open the door, Father Stephen enters the room, but his stance and walk has changed, and gives an air of a more ancient man. He comes and sits amongst the children, picking up a spare lute from the floor and begins to tune it.
George clears his throat.
“Good morrow, Grandfather.”
Mary and Anne nudge one another and laugh, Mary biting her lower lip when her giggles threaten to become uncontrollable. With a quick frown at the girls, Tom, sitting beside Father Stephen, strikes up a more serious pose, peering at the man in a puzzled fashion.
Appearing to notice, Father Stephen gives Tom a broad smile.
“My name is Socrates. Could you give me the pleasure, young man, of knowing yours?”
George nudges Tom in the ribs, and Tom squirms with embarrassment, but he still manages to sputter out: “Phaidros, sir.”
“Oh, please, please, Phaidros! Not Sir! We are all students here. I am here to learn. Just as you are here to learn.”
Tom looks more boldly at his teacher.
“But, you are a grown man, master! Why do you come here, Socrates?”
“Oh, because of a dream, Phaidros.”
“A dream?” The boy speaks as if bewildered.
The priest plays three notes upon his lute before looking again at Tom.
“Yes, I dreamt that my God came to me and told me to make music. But I do not know if the God meant me to make music with my soul or my hands. So here I am!”
The girls giggle again; Tom ignores them and pretends to be confused.
“How can you make music with your soul, Socrates?”
“What a good question, my boy, and I have always thirsted for knowledge and answers to good questions. But I tell you, Phaidros, the longer I have lived, the more I have realised simply this: the more I have sought to know, the less I am able to answer. Nonetheless, Phaidros, let me try for you an answer; you can tell me if you think the answer is good or bad. Close your eyes, Phaidros.”
Tom closes his eyes. Anne, gesturing with a finger to her lips to George and Mary, swings herself around on the bench, crouching upon her knees. She places her hands across Tom’s eyes, grinning over his shoulder at Father Stephen. The priest grins at her, but then returns his gaze to Tom.
“What do you see, boy?”
“Nothing but darkness.”
“Can you see a beginning or end to the darkness?”
Aware of Anne balanced behind him, Tom grins and gives a slight shake of the head.
“No. Not really.”
Anne takes away her hands from Tom’s eyes, lowering them to rest on his shoulders.
Father Stephen lets out a contented sigh.
“I feel ’tis likewise with the soul. The soul is the unseen part of us, which is infinite compared to our seen part. I believe the only true part of us is the soul; thus the only true music is that which is made by the soul. Does this help, Phaidros?”
“No. I do not understand.”
“Nor do I, but at least knowing that we do not understand leaves us free to gain understanding.”
*
Aye—this was the type of bait our wise old priest put before our young noses; firstly in English, then gradually adding Greek words. Eventually we were reciting our plays entirely in Greek. Regarding my memory of this particular play, I felt at the time that Father Stephen made use of the word infinity deliberately—as a little girl, Anna was always fascinated with the concept of something going on forever and ever.
One of the loveliest memories of my childhood (and there are so many to remember) is of Anna sitting on Father Stephen’s lap, under a favourite spreading oak tree, trying to determine what sort of things could be described as infinitudes and the kind of things that were not.
“Father Stephen, do you think there are an infinite number of people?”
“Little one, infinity means that the number has no end. I think it should be possible to count all the people in the world.” Father Stephen appeared to be in a half-doze as he sat there shaded from the sun.
Anne stayed silent for a moment, clearly pondering what he had said. Then she looked back up at him, and shook him hard to gain his full attention.
“But, Father, people keep on having babies. So the number keeps on going on and on. Would that not mean there are an infinite number of people?”
Wide-awake now, he looked long at Anne, then laughed his great, deep rumble of a laugh.
“Anne! You are a clever girl! That’s a very interesting concept. But when people die, surely…”
Anne broke excitedly into his reasonings.
“But, Father, there will always be more people to replace a person who has died. When father and mother die, there is George, Mary and I to take their places. And my children will take my place when I die—I want lots and lots. So the number keeps on going on and on and on…”
“What a philosopher I have in you, my child.” Father Stephen smiled broadly at her. “Just keep asking your questions, my dear, and I will run out of answers… which is how it should be… yea, how it should be.” And he leaned his body against the trunk of the oak, and looked at the sky. I looked too, my gaze following the branches that reached up for the sky, a sky sliced into blue daedal shapes
by verdant leaves.
*
George, Anne, and I were all swept away by the idealism of Socrates. Especially the romance of this noble man dying for his ideals, and often we wondered aloud to each other if any of us would ever be brave enough to do likewise if the opportunity arose.
Even though, for other reasons than Socrates, I know now how Anne and George proved their bravery to the world. Anne, on the day before her death, joked with her attendants about how her slender neck would give the executioner an easy job, saying also she foresaw how history would see her: Anne Lack-a-head.
And George. How could George ever be forgotten after his day in court, defying death and all by reading out loud a document claiming that Anne spoke and jested to his wife about the grave matter of the King’s impotence? Thus, showing to England how the King’s bruised pride could lead one straight to the executioner’s block.
I believe his action was calculated to be suicidal. George had no desire to live in a world where his beloved sister had been murdered. Yea—murdered with such vicious and bloody intent.
No! No! No!
Why am I remembering this?
I want to stay in a time where all was still golden with the promise of the future. When all seemed good and nothing evil. I want to remember a time when pain was easily kissed aside. Yea, when pain was simply kissed aside.
*
If Uncle Boleyn considered five the age to begin our education, it was also the age he considered us old enough to receive our first riding lessons. Thus, we all acquired our own ponies. Mine was a grey gelding with black markings on its legs that seemed to have never forgiven the fates for rendering him less of a horse than he should have been. Toby was a challenge to ride, but ultimately loyal when the going became rough.
Anne’s first horse was a chestnut mare with a white star upon its forehead, which led Anne to naming it Astra. Anna never so much reminded me of a wild gypsy as when she was astride her mare. Her long hair would always be loose and flowing, with the hint of silver earrings gleaming through her blue-black tresses. And was she clothed in feminine attire? Oh no! Not my girl, not my Anna! She always wore one of her brother’s outgrown hose and tunic that she had hunted out in the clothes chest kept for our cast-offs in Simonette’s room.
On our rides together we always had a loyal and faithful guardian, since forever in grave pursuit of Anna and her horse was the Boleyn’s huge Irish wolfhound, a dog that answered to the name of Pluto. It may have originally been Uncle Boleyn’s hunting dog—given to him by his kinsman, the Irish Earl of Ormond—but the dog had long ago decided the little girl—who took her first riding lessons on its back—was its true mistress.
But Anna always had a strong affinity with animals, especially those of a canine persuasion. All throughout her life she possessed one dog or another, all of which followed her around devotedly.
And she was not just close to animals. Anne also possessed a deep awareness of the natural world around her.
One time, just before she departed from my everyday life for that first and dreadful time, we spent the afternoon together when suddenly there was a burst of incessant rain, even though the sun still brightly shone in a sky with only a scattering of dark clouds. Getting off our horses, we led them quickly to shelter underneath some nearby trees.
“Oh look, Tom!” Anne said, pointing upwards to the sky. “Look over there at that beautiful rainbow.”
My gaze followed to where she pointed. I saw a magnificent arch of violet, red, yellow, and blue in the sky. Indeed, the whole scene around us was just full of the beauties of nature. The shower that had forced us to find shelter seemed to create before our eyes a veil of crystal droplets—droplets embraced by dancing rays of sunlight as they shone through the leaves of the trees.
It made me feel as if there was nothing better to do than to join this magical dance of rain and sun. This feeling, I know, was also transmitted to Anna, who stood by my side.
She turned, beaming at me, and said, “The world is such a beautiful place, Tommy. I just so love everything about it. How the sun rises and how the sun sets. The full silver moon on a summer’s night, and a winter’s sky after a heavy snowfall. How the larks sing in the spring to welcome the new morn. The way the wind smells after rain falls on a hot day.
“Blue skies… cloudy skies. Look over there where the sky is blue. Can you see those clouds, Tom? Do you not think they look like cloudy steps leading into the heavens? You know, Tommy, when I die I will go up a staircase just like that, and maybe when all earthly breath has gone out from me, God will let me become a small part of the air all around us. I feel so akin to the wind, Tommy. I almost feel as if the wind is my brother, and, if I wanted to, I could call it to do my bidding.”
Anna then rushed out from beneath the trees, back into the rain, to the clearing close by. I followed and saw her raise her arms, and spin around and around.
“Brother wind, brother wind,” she sang as she spun.
I laughed at her, and came close to teasing her, but lo and behold the wind did begin to increase its tempo.
To the children we once were, magic seemed to be just underneath the surface of everyday life. Scratch and we would find. It did not completely surprise me then (nor does it now) that the wind appeared to answer Anne’s call. But it was no witchcraft. We three as children felt so deeply about so many things that it was as if all these invisible cords connected us securely to what we loved.
*
Often, when we were out riding, Anna would frighten me, especially since we, her elders and male protectors, were supposed to ensure her safe return. She frequently rode as if the devil himself was on Astra’s tail. However, I took great heart from the knowledge that Anne was a born rider, a girl who grew up to be a woman who immensely enjoyed the chase. Unfortunately this appeared as one of the many things the King would later find compellingly attractive about her. I believe the King had never before met a woman willing to match, even excel, him in any of his own pursuits as Anne often did.
Without any doubt, Anne and the King had a love of music in common. Many, many years later, when our lives began to be deeply shadowed by what the fates had in store for us, Anne told me this. The King first became interested in her when he stood outside Queen Catherine’s door and heard a lovely voice accompanied by a skilful lute player. Opening the door, he found to his great surprise that the voice, and the lute, belonged to the same person. It was at this exact moment—the King himself would one day tell Anna—he made his decision to begin his wooing.
By the Good Lord’s Holy Passion! Why am I tormenting myself with what I know will be? It is the long-ago past I want to look back on; the beginnings of our tragedies can wait for a later time. For the present moment I wish only to stay with the boy I once was. Yea, stay with the boy who possessed such simple, complete faith that only good would befall us in the future.
*
If Father Stephen was mentor to our developing minds, then Simonette, the girls’ governess who also cast a loving, motherly eye in George’s and my direction, was like the guiding star of our hearts. She must have been married and widowed while yet a very young girl because I can never remember her striking anything but that of an exceedingly youthful note—especially compared to the mature auras surrounding our priest and the other adults of our childhoods.
Simonette, in those early years of our childhoods, was a very comely young woman endowed with deep auburn hair, lovely, soft, porcelain skin, and clear blue eyes. She was a laughing girl who spoke with a pretty, lilting accent. She also played and taught us how to play various musical instruments. Verily, we all received our first lessons on the lute from Simonette.
She always seemed one of those individuals who took great delight in just being alive. Therefore, I remember her as an extremely happy person, with a smile that would dimple both cheeks and light up her eyes.
When not busy attending to her other duties, Simonette did not hesitate to sit with the good Father and
the three of us. Her hands were kept busy completing yet another one of her delicate and exquisite embroideries, while we children sat under the green shade of oak trees in the midst of some lesson.
At eventide often we gathered into the girls’ nursery to hear yet another one of Simonette’s stories. As well as true stories from our country’s recent past, she knew so many fables. Indeed, Simonette seemed, to us children, to know by heart a multitude of different stories. What we especially enjoyed was Simonette telling us one of the legends from Le Morte D’Arthur. The chivalry of these legends inspired us but I must be truthful and say that the bloodier and bolder the story, the better the four of us appreciated it.
As I grew to manhood I could not help but be curious as to why Simonette never saw fit to remarry. There were suitors aplenty, as I recall, but Simonette was content to stay a part of our lives even when her role of governess had fulfilled its purpose. Sometimes I think she too at first was caught up in the magic of our childhoods—magic, I believed, stemming greatly from Simonette’s own joyful nature. But later I came to believe that Simonette did not leave because she loved Anne too dearly to depart forever from her, which would have likely been the situation if she chose to marry. It seemed to me that Anna was more precious to Simonette than a daughter.
Yea, we were very happy in our childhoods. As long as our Priest was there for us to tag after and ask endless questions of, and Simonette to lay beside us on our beds at night, soothing us when plagued with childish fears, we had no desire or need for those other more complicated, evasive adults. Adults who sometimes also chose to reside at Hever.
Later in her life, Anne’s enemies accused her of being more French than English. In a way this was true. Simonette was more mother to her than her true mother. Indeed, Anna’s first words were French and, as she grew up, she went easily from one language to the other. This ability made her later transition to the French court at such an early age so much easier than one would naturally expect.
Dear Heart, How Like You This Page 4
