Jean Plaidy - Murder Most Royal - The Story of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

Catherine wished her grandmother would not talk so frequently of her cousin, for such talk always made her sad.

“You had news for me?” she reminded her.

“Ah, news!” The Duchess purred. “Well, mayhap it is not yet news. It is a thought. And I will whisper this in your ear, child. I doubt not that the stony-hearted Duke would give his approval, for it is a good match.”

“A match!” cried Catherine.

“You do not remember your dear mother, Catherine?”

“Vaguely I do!” Catherine’s large eyes glistened with tears so that they looked like pieces of topaz.

“Your dear mother had a brother, and it is to his son, your cousin, whom we feel you might be betrothed. He is a dear boy, already at court. He is a most handsome creature. Thomas Culpepper, son of Sir John, your mother’s brother...”

“Thomas Culpepper!” whispered Catherine, her thoughts whirling back to a room at Hollingbourne, to a rustle of creeper, to a stalwart protector, to a kiss in the paddock. She repeated: “Thomas Culpepper!” She realized that something very unusual was about to happen. A childhood dream was about to come true. “And he...?” she asked eagerly.

“My dear Catherine, curb your excitement. This is a suggestion merely. The Duke will have to be consulted. The King’s consent will be necessary. It is an idea. I was not to tell you yet...but seeing you so attractive and marriageable, I could not resist it.”

“My cousin...” murmured Catherine. “Grandmother...when I was at Hollingbourne...we played together. We loved each other then.”

The Duchess put her finger to her lips.

“Hush, child! Be discreet. This matter must not be made open knowledge yet. Be calm.”

Catherine found that very difficult. She wanted to be alone to think this out. She tried to picture what Thomas would be like now. She had only a hazy picture of a little boy, telling her in a somewhat shamefaced way that he would marry her.

Derham’s letter scraped her skin. The thought of Thomas excited her so much that she had lost her burning desire to see Francis. She was wishing that all her life had been spent as she had passed the last months.

The Duchess was holding her wrists and the Duchess’s hands were hot.

“Catherine, I would speak to you very seriously. You will have need of great caution. The distressing things which have happened to you...”

Catherine wanted to weep. Oh, how right her grandmother was! If only she had listened even to Mary Lassells! If only she had not allowed herself to drift into that sensuous stream which at the time had been so sweet and cooling to her warm nature and which now was so repulsive to look back on. How she had regretted her affair with Manox when she had found Francis! Now she was beginning to regret her love for Francis as her grandmother talked of Thomas.

“You have been very wicked,” said her grandmother. “You deserve to die for what you have done. But I will do my best for you. Your wickedness must never get to the Duke’s ears.”

Catherine cried out in misery rather than in anger: “The Duke! What of him and Bess Holland!”

The Duchess was on her dignity. She might say what she would of her erring kinsman, not so Catherine.

“What if his wife’s washerwoman be his mistress! He is a man; you are a woman. There is all the difference in the world.”

Catherine was subdued; she began to cry.

“Dry your eyes, you foolish girl, and forget not for one instant that all your wickedness is done with, and it must be as though it never was.”

“Yes, grandmother,” said Catherine, and Derham’s letter pricked her skin.

Derham continued to write though he received no answers. Catherine had inherited some of her grandmother’s capacity for shifting her eyes from the unpleasant. She thought continually of her cousin Thomas and wondered if he remembered her, if he had heard of the proposed match and if so what he thought of it.

One day, wandering in the orchard, she heard the rustle of leaves behind her, and turning came face to face with Derham. He was smiling; he would have put his arms about her but she held him off.

“Catherine, I have longed to see thee.”

She was silent and frightened. He came closer and took her by the shoulders. “I had no answer to my letters,” he said.

She said hastily: “Jane has married and gone to York. You know I was never able to manage a pen.”

“Ah!” His face cleared. “That was all then? Thank God! I feared...” He kissed her on the mouth; Catherine trembled; she was unresponsive.

His face darkened. “Catherine! What ails thee?”

“Nothing ails me, Francis. It is...” But her heart melted to see him standing so forlorn before her, and she could not tell him that she no longer loved him. Let the break come gradually. “Your return is very sudden. Francis...”

“You have changed, Catherine. You are so solemn, so sedate.”

“I was a hoyden before. My grandmother said so.”

“Catherine, what did they do to thee?”

“They beat me with a whip. There never was such a beating. I was sick with the pain of it, and for weeks I could feel it. I was locked up, and ever since I have scarce been able to go out alone. They will be looking for me ere long, I doubt not.”

“Poor Catherine! And this you suffered for my sake! But never forget, Catherine, you are my wife.”

“Francis!” she said, and swallowed. “That cannot be. They will never consent, and what dost think they would do an you married me in actual fact?”

“We should go away to Ireland.”

“They would never let me go. We should die horrible deaths.”

“They would never catch us, Catherine.”

He was young and eager, fresh from a life of piracy off the coast of Ireland. He had money; he wished to take her away. She could not bear to tell him that they were talking of betrothing her to her cousin, Thomas Culpepper.

She said: “What dost think would happen to you if you showed yourself?”

“I know not. To hold you in my arms would suffice for anything they could do to me afterwards.”

Such talk frightened her. She escaped, promising to see him again.

She was disturbed. Now that she had seen Derham after his long absence, she knew for truth that which she had begun to suspect. She no longer loved him. She cried herself to sleep, feeling dishonored and guilty, feeling miserable because she would have to go to her cousin defiled and unclean. Why had she not stayed at Hollingbourne! Why had her mother died! What cruel fate had sent her to the Duchess where there were so many women eager to lead her into temptation! She was not yet eighteen and she had been wicked...and all so stupidly and so pointlessly.

She determined to break with Francis; there should be no more clandestine meetings. She would marry Thomas and be such a good wife to him, that when set against years and years of the perfect happiness she would bring him, the sinful years would seem like a tiny mistake on a beautifully written page.

Francis was hurt and angry. He had come back full of hope; he loved her and she was his wife, he reminded her. He had money from his spell of piracy; he was in any case related to the Howards.

She told him she had heard she was to go to court.

“I like that not!” he said.

“But I like it,” she told him.

“Dost know the wickedness of court life?” he demanded.

She shrugged her shoulders. She hated hurting people and being forced to hurt Francis who loved her so truly was a terrible sorrow to her; she found herself disliking him because she had to hurt him.

“You...to talk of wickedness...when you and I...”

He would have no misunderstanding about that.

“What we did, Catherine, is naught. Thou art my wife. Never forget it. Many people are married at an early age. We have done no wrong.”