The Story of Katharine Howard. Ford Madox Ford

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СКАЧАТЬ with the block. Of late Cromwell had set himself to gain her heart with his intrigue that he could make so smooth and with his air that could be so gentle — that the King found so lovable. But nothing moved her to set her hand to a deed countenancing her dead mother’s disgrace; to smile upon her father and his minister, who had devised the means for casting down her mother; or to consent to relinquish her right to the throne. So that at times, when the cloud of the Church abroad, and of the rebellions all over the extremities of the kingdoms, threatened very greatly, the King was driven to agonies of fear and rage lest his enemies or his subjects should displace him who was excommunicated and set her, whom all Catholics regarded as undergoing a martyrdom, on his throne. He feared her sometimes so much that it was only Cromwell that saved her from death. Cromwell would spend hours of his busy days in the long window of her work room, urging her to submission, dilating upon the powers that might be hers, studying her tastes to devise bribes for her. It was with that aim, because her whole days in her solitude were given to the learned writers, that he had sought out for her Magister Udal as a companion and preceptor who might both please her with his erudition and induce her to look kindly upon the New Learning and a more lax habit of mind. But she never thanked Cromwell. Whilst he talked she remained frozen and silent. At times, under the spur of a cold rage, she said harsh things of himself and her father, calling upon the memory of her mother and the wrongs her Church had suffered — and, on his departing, before he had even left the room she would return, frigidly and without change of face, to the book upon her desk.

      So the Privy Seal talked to her by the window for the fiftieth time. Katharine Howard saw, before the high reading pulpit, the back of a man in the long robes of a Master of Arts. He held a pen in his hand and turned over his shoulder at her a face thin, brown, humorous and deprecatory, as if he were used to bearing chiding with philosophy.

      ‘Magister Udal!’ she uttered.

      He motioned with his mouth for her to be silent, but pointed with the feather of his quill to a line of a little book that lay upon the pulpit near his elbow. She came closer to read:

      ‘Circumspectatrix cum oculis emisitiis!’ and written above it in a minute hand: ‘A spie with eyes that peer about and stick out.’

      He pointed over his shoulder at the Lord Privy Seal.

      ‘How poor this room is, for a King’s daughter!’ she said, without much dropping her voice.

      He hissed: ‘Hush! hush!’ with an appearance of terror, and whispered, forming the words with his lips rather than uttering them: ‘How fared you and your house in the nonce?’

      ‘I have read in many texts,’ she answered, ‘to pass the heavy hours.’

      He spoke then, aloud and with an admonitory air:

      ‘Never say the heavy hours — for what hours are heavy that can be spent with the ancient writers for companions?’

      She avoided his reproachful eyes with:

      ‘My father’s house was burnt last month; my cousin Culpepper is in the courts below. Dear Nick Ardham, with his lute, is dead an outlaw beyond sea, and Sir Ferris was hanged at Doncaster — both after last year’s rising, pray all good men that God assail them!’

      Udal muttered:

      ‘Hush, for God’s dear sake. That is treason here. There is a listener behind the hangings.’

      He began to scrawl hastily with a dry pen that he had not time to dip in the well of ink. The shadow of the Lord Cromwell’s silent return was cast upon them both, and Katharine shivered.

      He said harshly to the magister:

      ‘I will that you write me an interlude in the vulgar tongue in three days’ time. Such a piece as being spoken by skilful players may make a sad man laugh.’

      Udal said: ‘Well-a-day!’

      ‘It shall get you advancement. I am minded the piece shall be given at my house before his Highness and the new Queen in a week.’

      Udal remained silent, dejected, his head resting upon his breast.

      ‘For,’ Cromwell spoke with a raised voice, ‘it is well that the King be distracted of his griefs.’ He went on as if he were uttering an admonition that he meant should be heeded and repeated. The times were very evil with risings, mutinies in close fortresses, schism, and the bad hearts of men. Here, therefore, he would that the King should find distraction. Such of them as had gifts should display those talents for his beguiling; such of them as had beauty should make valuable that beauty; others whose wealth could provide them with rich garments and pleasant displays should work, each man and each woman, after his sort or hers. ‘And I will that you report my words where either of you have resort. Who loves me shall hear it; who fears me shall take warning.’

      He surveyed both Katharine and the master with a heavy and encouraging glance, having the air of offering great things if they aided him and avoided dealing with his enemies.

      The Lady Mary was gliding towards them like a cold shadow casting itself upon his warm words; she would have ignored him altogether, knowing that contempt is harder to bear than bitter speeches. But the fascination of hatred made it hard to keep aloof from her father’s instrument. He looked negligently over his shoulder and was gone before she could speak. He did not care to hear more bitter words that could make the breach between them only wider, since words once spoken are so hard to wash away, and the bringing of this bitter woman back to obedience to her father was so great a part of his religion of kingcraft. In that, when it came, there should be nothing but concord and oblivion of bitter speeches, silent loyalty, and a throne upheld, revered, and unassailable.

      Udal groaned lamentably when the door closed upon him:

      ‘I shall write to make men laugh! In the vulgar tongue! I! To gain advancement!’

      The Lady Mary’s face hardly relaxed:

      ‘Others of us take harder usage from my lord,’ she said. She addressed Katharine: ‘You are named after my mother. I wish you a better fate than your namesake had.’ Her harsh voice dismayed Katharine, who had been prepared to worship her. She had eaten nothing since dawn, she had travelled very far and with this discouragement the pain in her arm came back. She could find no words to say, and the Lady Mary continued bitterly: ‘But if you love that dear name and would sojourn near me I would have you hide it. For — though I care little — I would yet have women about me that believe my mother to have been foully murdered.’

      ‘I cannot easily dissemble.’ Katharine found her tongue. ‘Where I hate I speak things disparaging.’

      ‘That I attest to of old,’ Udal commented. ‘But I shall be shamed before all learned doctors, if I write in the vulgar tongue.’

      ‘Silence is ever best for me!’ the Lady Mary answered her deadly. ‘I live in the shadows that I love.’

      ‘That, full surely, shall be reversed,’ Katharine said loyally.

      ‘I do not ask it,’ Mary said.

      ‘Wherefore must I write in the vulgar tongue?’ Udal asked again, ‘Oh, Mistress of my actions and my heart, what whim is this? The King is an excellent good Latinist!’

      ‘Too good!’ the Lady Mary said bitterly. ‘With his learning he hath overset the Church of Christ.’

      She СКАЧАТЬ