The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr (35 page)

And he strode away, leaving poor Kat Ashley disconsolate and wondering whither this romping would lead, and dreading that the Dowager Queen might eventually understand its real meaning. Then, she was sure, much trouble would await her reckless little Princess.

THE RUMORS CAME to the ears of the Duchess of Somerset.

She was great with the child she was expecting in August. June was hot and it was difficult to move about, so she contented herself with making plans for the future of her family.

She was growing more afraid of her husband’s brother. How she hated him, he who had charmed the King and advanced himself by marrying the Queen.

She sent for one of her serving women to come and sit beside her; she had trained this woman to keep her eyes open when in
contact with the servants of her brother-in-law’s household. She was wondering whether, if it were proved that immorality was going on in that household, it would be possible to remove little Jane Grey from the care of the Sudleys and have her brought up by the Somersets.

What she had heard so far was promising.

“What heard you this morning, Joan?” she asked her woman.

“My lady, they say that the Princess and the Admiral are acting shamefully…more so than usual. He goes to her bedroom, and sometimes she runs to her women, pretending she is afraid of him, and… sometimes she does not.”

“It disgusts me,” said the Duchess with delight.

“Yestermorn he tore off her bedclothes and she lay there without them, my lady.”

“I can scarcely believe it.”

“The Queen was there. It was a game between the three of them.”

When the woman had left her, the Duchess thought a great deal about the rompings which went on in the Admiral’s household. Was he wishing that he had not married Katharine Parr? It was clear that he had hopes of the Princess. Suppose Katharine were to die, which she might well do, bearing a child at her age, and suppose the Admiral wished to marry the Princess. Suppose he asked the King’s consent. The King would refuse his beloved uncle nothing that he asked.

Her husband, the Duke, was too occupied with his parliaments and his matters of state, thought the worried Duchess, to realize what was happening. But matters of state were often decided in bedchambers. It had been so with the last King. There was no doubt that the Admiral would try for the Princess…if Katharine Parr were to die.

She would give Joan further instructions. The woman must become even more friendly with the servants in the Admiral’s household. Nothing that happened there must fail to reach the ears of the Duchess of Somerset.

BOTH ELIZABETH AND THOMAS felt that this strange, exciting and most piquant situation could not continue as it was. It must change in some way.

Katharine, who was now heavy with her child, moved about ponderously and some days kept to her bed. The glances between the
Princess and the Admiral had become smoldering; each was waiting for the moment when change would come.

It happened on a hot summer’s day when they found themselves alone in one of the smaller rooms of Chelsea Palace.

As Thomas stood watching her, a deep seriousness had replaced his banter. They were no longer merely stepfather and daughter; they were man and woman, and neither of them could pretend it was otherwise.

Elizabeth was a little frightened. She had never sought a climax. She wished to go on being pursued; she wanted to remain provocative but uncaught.

She said uneasily, as she saw him shut the door and come toward her: “There are rumors about us two.”

“Rumors,” he said lightly. “What rumors?”

“They are whispering about us…here…at court … in the streets. They are saying that you and I are as we should not be… and that you come to my bedchamber.”

“What! By morning and in the presence of the Queen!”

“You must desist…or it will be necessary for me to leave your household.”

He caught her and held her fast. “I will not desist. I mean no evil.”

“If you will not desist, I must leave here.”

“You shall not go.”

“My lord …” she began weakly.

But he interrupted passionately: “Elizabeth, why did you say me nay?”

She was alarmed, and she sought to hold him off. “You loved me not,” she said shrilly. “If you did, why did you go straightway to the Queen on my refusal? Did you not turn over in your mind whether or not you could hope even for little Jane Grey? Did you ask my cofferer the extent of my possessions?”

“You know I love you,” was his only answer, “and you only.”

“I thought I was to you but a wayward child.”

“You lie, Elizabeth. You know full well what you are to me.”

“And all the rompings and teasings?”

“Were just that I might be near you… touch you… put my lips close to yours.”

She felt weak—no longer Elizabeth the Princess with her eyes on the throne, but Elizabeth in love.

She put her arms about his neck, and they kissed fervently, passionately.

Katharine had quietly opened the door and found them thus. She stood, incredulously listening to the words of love.

Suddenly they were aware of her.

Katharine, awkward in her pregnancy, her hands hanging at her sides, her eyes bewildered, stood there trying to understand this sudden disintegration of her happy existence.

Thomas was abashed; but already he was planning what he would say to her.

As for Elizabeth, even in that moment of fear and humiliation, she knew that this discovery had saved her from herself and the Admiral.

THE QUEEN PACED her apartments. She seemed almost demented. She wept, and there was nothing Thomas could say to soothe her.

She despised herself, marveled at her folly; she, who had known the agony of life with a callous murderer, had allowed herself to be deceived by a lighthearted philanderer.

“Sweetheart,” declared Thomas, exerting all his charm, all that plausibility which had never yet failed him, “’ twas nothing. ’T was but a moment of madness.”

But she would not listen. She looked at him sadly and remembered so many occasions when the truth had been there for her to see. She had held the Princess while he had cut her dress; she had helped him pull off the bedclothes; she had laughed, simply, foolishly… like a child, while those two had deceived her. And that was what they did when she was present; she had now discovered something of what they did when she was not with them.

It was too much to be borne.

Once, when she had lived near to death, she had passionately longed for life; now that she had tasted the perfect life—which had been quite false—she longed for death.

Her feelings for her husband were in a turmoil. Poignant love and bitter hatred alternated.

She did not hear his words, those glib explanations which rose to his lips so easily. She knew that some of the rumors at least were true;
he had wished to marry Elizabeth and, failing the Princess, the Queen had suited his ambitions.

She begged him to leave her, and he, seeming eager to please her in all things, obeyed her wishes.

Calmness was what she needed, indifference. She must think of the child she would have; yet even such thoughts were tinged with bitterness, for so often had she pictured them all together—herself, her husband and the child. That false man, that philanderer, had always dominated any pictures she had made of the future.

When she had married the lords Borough and Latimer, she had not expected an ecstatic life; but those lords had not deceived her. When she had married the King, she had known that her life would be filled with dangers; and she had not been deceived in that. But now, that marriage which was to have brought glorious fulfillment to her life, which was to have made everything that had gone before worth while since it was to have led to perfection, was proved to be utterly false, a fabrication, a fantasy which did not exist outside her own imagination.

She must be calm. She would be calm.

KATHARINE SENT for the Princess.

Elizabeth came, shamefaced, expecting abuse. But the Queen smiled at her, not coldly, but, as it seemed, with indifference.

I cannot blame a child, Katharine was thinking. He is more than twenty years older than she is, and the fault lies with him.

She looked at the girl—this girl who stood near the throne— and she marveled at the folly of her husband. If he had seduced the Princess and there had been tangible consequences of that seduction, he would almost certainly have lost his head. He had known that, and yet he had not hesitated to run risks. Was the attraction so strong? Was the temptation irresistible?

Katharine said: “In view of what has happened, I have no alternative but to send you away.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth.

“I would prefer you to leave as soon as possible.”

Elizabeth bowed her head.

“How soon can you be ready to go?”

“In a few days’ time.”

“Then let it be done. I shall not expect to see you or any of your household by the end of the week.”

“It shall be done,” said Elizabeth.

“That is all. You may leave me now.” Katharine turned her head to look out of the window.

Elizabeth bowed and went toward the door, but there she paused.

“Your Grace,” she murmured. “Mother…”

There was an appealing note in her voice that once would have affected Katharine deeply.

Now she deliberated: Is she wondering what effect all this has had, and will have, since the King loves me as his mother? Perhaps she is going to ask me to say nothing of this to His Majesty. She need not trouble, for I doubt not that the King has heard what the whole court has heard, and that even the people in the streets are laughing at the simplicity of Katharine Parr.

She continued to stare out of the window until she heard the door quietly shut, and knew that Elizabeth had gone.

Little Jane Grey came to her as she stood there, and Katharine was glad that she had this girl with her. She put her hand on the curly head, and suddenly the tears began to fall down her cheeks.

Jane looked at her with great pity.

“Your Majesty …” she began, and she too started to cry.

The child’s tears sobered Katharine. “Jane, Jane, what is this? Why do you weep?”

“I weep to see Your Majesty so sad.”

“Then I must stem my tears, for I cannot bear to see yours. It is folly to cry, Jane. What good did tears ever do? We should be brave and strong, ready to face anything that is coming to us. Come, dry your eyes. I command it.”

And she held the girl against her while Jane began to cry wildly.

“Jane dearest,” said Katharine, “we are going to Sudley Castle. We shall stay there until my child is born. I have a desire to be a long way from the court …to live very quietly for a while. You shall be my constant companion… always with me, my little comforter. How will you like that, Jane?”

Jane put her arms about Katharine’s neck, and kissing the tearstained cheeks Katharine found some small comfort.

ON A HOT AUGUST DAY the Duchess of Somerset gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

She was delighted. It seemed to her significant that she and the woman whom she hated more than any other should be having a child in almost the same month, for Katharine Parr’s child was due very soon.

She embraced her boy while she visualized a great future for him; but she would feel more sure of the greatness of that future if her husband did not possess such an ambitious brother.

Joan had brought her interesting news: Katharine and her household had left for Sudley Castle, where she intended to stay until after the birth of her child. The move in itself was not so strange. To what more beautiful spot than that castle could a woman retire to await the birth of her child? The strangeness was not in the going, but in the manner of going.

“My lady,” Joan had said, “there has been great trouble in the Queen’s household. It concerns the Admiral and the Princess Elizabeth.”

“That surprises me not,” said the Duchess. “The wonder is that the stupid woman did not discover, long ere this, what the rest of her household seemed to know so well. Did you hear how she took the discovery?”

“Most bitterly, my lady. Her servants said that she became hysterical, as she did before… when the King was her husband and so many thought he would have her put away from him.”

The Duchess smiled and suckled her baby.

Later she talked to her husband.

“I shall never be happy while your brother lives,” she declared.

“Would you wish his
death
then?”

“As I would the death of all who stood to harm you, my lord.”

“And the Queen?” he asked.

“The Queen is a foolish woman. I fear her influence, but not herself. They say she is a bitter woman who cares not whether she lives or dies. Oh, my lord, a woman in her state and of her age…who has never before had a child…”

“Yes, my love?”

The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. “I do not know. But it would not greatly surprise me if she did not survive the ordeal before her.”

“That is what you hope.”

“I like her not. But it is your brother whom I fear.”

“My dear wife,” said the Duke, “even if we proved a case against him, the King would put up a fight for his beloved uncle.”