Виктория Холт - In the Shadow of the Crown

“There are women, Your Majesty. The Duchess of Lorraine is his mistress.”

I tried to smile. I heard myself saying, “The King is a man, Susan. It is the way of men. I am not there. He wants me, of course. I am his wife. But we are separated. We should not take these women any more seriously than he does.”

I was amazed at myself, surprised that I could speak calmly when I was seething with jealousy within. It was hard to pretend. He should be faithful. We were married. We had taken our sacred vows. But I knew this rumor was true. A mistress! How was he with her? Not as he had been with me… courteous… like a stranger. We must try to get a child. Just that. No real love, no passion. Was that how he was with her? But he would not be with her because of the urgent need to get a child. He would be with her because that was where he wanted to be.

And this was why he did not come to England.

I knew that was not all. Half of me said, Do not pursue this. It is only going to make you more unhappy. But if there was more to know, I must know it.

“What else, Susan?” I asked.

“There is nothing else.”

“Usually you are truthful, Susan. It is one of the qualities which have endeared you to me. Come, do not disappoint me. What else have you heard?”

“One cannot trust the French,” she said.

“No. But sometimes they make some pertinent comments. What is their verdict on my marriage?”

She was silent and looked as though she were on the point of bursting into tears.

“I insist on knowing, Susan.”

“The French ambassador told the Venetian ambassador that Philip has said that England is nothing but a costly nuisance. He does not like the people and he does not want to return to it.”

“That cannot be true.”

“Your Majesty asked…”

“Yes, I asked because I like to know what tales are being circulated. What else, Susan? You are still holding something back.”

She paused; she held up her head and a certain defiance came into her eyes. I knew she did not like Philip because she blamed him for my unhappiness.

She said, “It is that King Philip is hoping to have his marriage annulled.”

It was out, and now it was difficult for me to hide my dismay. They knew me too well, both of them. They had seen my exultation. I had talked to them of the perfections of my husband, of my perfect marriage, of my hopes. I could not disguise my misery from these two who knew me so well.

I sat very still and covered my face with my hands. There was a deep silence in the room. Then I felt them at my feet. I opened my eyes and saw them both kneeling there. There were tears on Jane's cheeks, and Susan looked stricken.

“It is only gossip, Your Majesty,” said Susan.

“Only gossip,” I repeated.

“Yet it has a ring of truth…”

They saw now that there was to be no more pretense. It was no use. They knew of my love, of my hopes. They had been with me during those terrible weeks when I was awaiting the birth of a non-existent child. They had been through it all. They had suffered with me.

I could no longer hide my true feelings from them. They were my very dear and trusted friends.

Susan spoke first. “Your Majesty must not grieve. It is better to look at the truth.”

“Better to say I deluded myself,” I murmured, “that he did not care for me, that he never did.”

“It is often so in royal marriages, Your Majesty… and in the marriages of those who are high born.”

“But sometimes love comes,” I said.

They were silent.

“He is a great man,” I said.

“Your Majesty is a great Queen,” added Susan.

I put out my hands and touched their heads gently.

“You should not grieve, Your Majesty, for one who would betray you,” said Susan.

I did not answer. Did she know that she was uttering treason against the King? But she was safeguarding the Queen.

“He was not what Your Majesty believed him to be,” she went on.

“He was all that I believed him to be.”

She was silent for a moment, then she burst out, “You thought he was so solemn…so pure…so chaste. It was never so. Why, he tried to seduce Magdalen Dacre.”

“Magdalen Dacre!”

“Yes. She told us. She was horribly shocked.”

I remembered how I had noticed the girl because she was so tall. They would look incongruous together, I thought inconsequentially. Ludicrous. Perhaps that was what appealed to him about her. But she was exceptionally beautiful. I remembered there had been a time when she had been subdued and always seemed to absent herself when Philip was there.

“It was at Hampton Court,” said Susan, who, having begun, seemed to find it difficult to stop.

“She was at her toilette. There was a small window. He must have seen her as he passed. He tried to open the window and put his arm into the room. Magdalen rapped him sharply and told him to be off.”

“She did not tell me.”

“She would not have grieved you.”

“Perhaps it would have been better if I had known.”

There was no pretense now. I could not hide my misery from them, and they would not have believed me, however good a job I made of it.

“He gave me no sign …” I said.

“He was particularly courteous to her afterward.”

“He bore no grudge,” said Jane, as though calling my attention to something in his favor.

“Oh, Your Majesty,” said Susan, “you must not be unhappy. There are such men. They know not the meaning of fidelity. It is better not to care too much. We heard how he used to go off with a group of friends. They were of a kind.”

“I had heard rumors and not believed them.”

“They used to sing that song about the baker's daughter,” said Jane.

I closed my eyes. So they knew! All my people knew, and I was the only one who believed he loved me!

“What song?” I asked.

Susan said quickly, “It was a silly little rhyme … nothing … nothing…I have forgotten it.”

I caught Jane's wrist. “Tell me the rhyme,” I commanded.

“Your Majesty, I…I can't remember.”

“Tell me,” I said coldly.

So she told me.

The baker's daughter in her russet gown

Better than Queen Mary—without her crown.

The humiliation! The pain of rejection! My happiness had been nothing but an illusion. It was a phantom creature of my imagination to mock me now. It was created out of nothing… like the child of whom I had dreamed, for whom I had planned…a will o' the wisp…to taunt me and to leave me desolate.

I wanted to be alone with my sorrow. It overwhelmed me. I could share it with no one.

“Leave me,” I said.

“Your Majesty …” began Susan, but I only looked at her coldly and repeated, “Leave me.”

So I was alone… alone with my wretchedness, staring the truth in the face as I should have done many weary months before. I had conceived a dream, a flimsy figment of my own imagination. It had nothing to do with reality. I had duped myself; and I had been seen to be duped by those around me. There would be some who laughed at my gullibility and others who kept silent and protected me from the knowledge because they loved me.

At length I rose. I went to that chamber where his picture hung.

How I had loved it! He stood erect, as he always did to disguise his low stature. His face was handsome with his fair hair and beard and his firm Hapsburg chin. I had stood many times before this picture, glowing with pride and pleasure, while he had been romping with some low woman of the town. The baker's daughter who was better than Mary … without her crown, of course.

I found a knife and I slashed at the picture. I felt better than I had for some time. The knife pierced the canvas, and still I went on cutting.