The Sixth Wife. Suzannah Dunn

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СКАЧАТЬ voice, outside, in the grounds. Not the voice of a resentful servant on some extra-early duty, perhaps in the bakehouse, half asleep and matter-of-fact. This was someone wide awake, excited, momentarily forgetting herself before being hushed. And from my window I spied them: Elizabeth – it had been her voice – with little Jane, being led through the garden by Thomas. Only nightgowns beneath their cloaks, the three of them, and the girls’ hair was down; I’d never before seen Jane with her hair down. Her walk was brisk but she was well behind the other two, her reluctance clear. Elizabeth’s hair was like a fox fur. Her lolloping sideways canter was keeping her abreast of Thomas while she chattered at him in a theatrical hush. She loves drama, I realised as I watched.Why do people say there’s none of her mother in her? Her father would have either woken the whole household to join him, or he’d have genuinely enjoyed the secrecy. But her mother would have done exactly as Elizabeth was now doing: making a show of stealing away. The old king had been a showman but Anne Boleyn had loved show, and there’s a difference: Henry had drawn people in, Anne had wanted them to see what they were missing.

      Unwittingly, I was Elizabeth’s audience. I’m all for high jinks, believe me, but this? A grown man prancing around in his nightgown in the early hours with two girls entrusted to his wife’s care? A man who had been suspected of having had too close an interest in one of the girls. A girl who wasn’t just a girl but a princess. Was that why Jane had been drawn into the escapade, as alibi, chaperone? They slipped from view and I attempted to follow them, leaving my room without waking Bella, but then I saw Elizabeth’s governess, Mrs Ashley, in her nightdress, at a window far down the hallway. ‘Mrs Ashley?’

      ‘Oh!’ She slapped a steadying hand over her heart. I apologised for unnerving her and asked what was happening.

      She glanced at the window as if she had to look again before she’d know, and answered slowly, flatly. ‘He says it’s going to be a beautiful morning.’Then she sounded anxious: ‘Do you think they’ll be all right?’

      It was her job to know that. Or in Elizabeth’s case, at least; Jane’s nursemaid would be held to account for Jane. I quelled my irritation. ‘Where’s he taking them?’ She shrugged, which frankly wasn’t good enough. I answered myself: ‘To the river.’ Because that’s where I’d go on a beautiful dawn.

      ‘He woke her before I could stop him.’ She chewed her lip, contrite.

      ‘He came into her room?

      She, too, now sounded surprised. ‘Yes. But he does. That’s what he does.’ The surprise seemed to be at my not having known. ‘In the mornings.’ She half laughed. ‘Just not usually so early.’ And then when I said nothing – flummoxed – she continued, ‘He likes to come in, get her up, play with her.’

      ‘Play with her?’

      She shrugged. ‘Tickle her. Tease her. Chase her around the room.’ She must have realised how it sounded because she explained, ‘That’s how he is: friendly, very friendly, never on ceremony. Everyone’s favourite uncle.’ She gave a quick, worried smile as I turned away, gave up on her and returned to my room.

      I raised it with Kate later. She was having breakfast in her chamber. Who but children ever have breakfast? But there she was, with eggs. I declined to share. Since when had she been sitting around in her bedroom in the mornings, eating breakfast? She checked whether I’d slept well and I lied that I had. ‘Thomas, though,’ I added, ‘he was up early.’

      ‘Oh, he woke you,’ she concluded. ‘I’m sorry, Cathy.’

      He didn’t, I reassured her. I was awake, I said; half awake. ‘But he woke the girls.’

      ‘Girls?’ She was unfolding the linen in which her bread was wrapped.

      ‘Jane and Elizabeth.’ I declined her offer of some of the soft, white bread; picked up, instead, one of the mound of cushions from her bed, hugged it to me.This particular cushion I recognised; remembered her embroidering it, back in the days of Henry. Stunning embroidery. Was there anything Kate didn’t do, and didn’t do perfectly? I’m a poor needlewoman, don’t have the patience. ‘That’s a habit of his, is it?’

      ‘Waking early?’ Before I could clarify, she said, ‘I don’t think Thomas has “habits”.’ And flicked her gaze skywards. ‘He just…does whatever he wishes. I lose track. I didn’t realise he was up early but…’

      Kate’s response – if it could be dignified as such – was not as I’d expected, not as I’d hoped. Irritated, I persisted, ‘He was taking them to the river, as far as I could see.’

      Chewing, she frowned. It was a question.

      ‘Said it was going to be a beautiful day.’ I put the cushion back. ‘Said to Mrs Ashley.’

      She looked at the window. ‘Well,’ she began, dreamily, ‘it is.’ Her eyes caught the light, shone.

      This was no good, she was letting herself get carried away and this could well turn out badly. She should be extra-careful, in charge of a princess; she should realise that. Especially this particular princess, but presumably she didn’t know what I knew about Elizabeth and Thomas.

      ‘Bet the girls’ll be tired,’ I said, because I was uncertain what else to say. ‘It was very early. Before five.’

      ‘Before five?’ That had her attention. She seemed to stop and think. ‘Well,’ she continued, ‘they should have a good, long nap after lunch. I’ll tell William,’ their tutor.

      I almost laughed. The girls, miss a lesson?. And Kate herself rising late. What was going on? I tried to look merely mildly interested. ‘Does Thomas do this often?’

      ‘Wake the girls?’ She dabbed a damask napkin to her lips.

      I shrugged. ‘Wake people.’

      She stood, indicated to her maid that she’d finished. ‘Well, he’s always waking me,’ a quick smile, ‘but not to take me to the river.’

      I was shocked, to be honest. Which in itself shocked me. Because I’m unshockable, aren’t I? Everyone knows that. Yet there I was, feeling flushed and – deeper – chilled. That’s shock, isn’t it? But why? What on earth had I been thinking? That they didn’t sleep together? Newlyweds? Happy newly-weds? In truth, I hadn’t been thinking about it at all. There was so much else about them that was a puzzle. Was it, then, Kate’s mention of it that shocked me? Her direct mention of it? No, because sex wasn’t a popular topic of conversation with her, but it certainly wasn’t unmentionable. And, anyway, it wasn’t direct, what she said. But nor was it coy. I didn’t quite know what it was. An aside, a quip; it had felt like a brush-off. I realise, now, what it was that shocked me. It wasn’t what she said, but how she said it. As an aside, while she stood up and turned away. Allowing me a glimpse, but only so much, as if it were nothing of significance.

      It was something I thought about as I lay in bed that night. Kate, like me, had probably had only one lover. Three marriages, but probably only one lover.Ted, her first husband, had been too old; I remembered now that she’d told me, ‘There was none of that.’ I hadn’t known her really in those days, the brief time of Ted; not properly. ‘It wasn’t a bad life for a girl,’ was what she later told me about it; and indeed she was a girl – fifteen, sixteen – in those days, younger than her own stepchildren. Her next husband was John and he, too, was a lot older СКАЧАТЬ