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

He pulled up his horse, but did not dismount; he dared not, because he felt so ridiculously near tears himself. He must therefore be ready to whip up his horse if this inclination became a real danger.

“Catherine,” he said, his voice hardly steady, “I have bad news....”

He glanced at her face, at the hazel eyes wide now with fear, at the little round mouth which quivered.

“Oh, sweet little Cousin,” he said, “it is not so bad. I shall come back; I shall come back very soon.”

“You are going away then, Thomas?”

The world was suddenly dark; tears came to her eyes and brimmed over. He looked away, and sought refuge in hardening his voice.

“Come, Catherine, do not be so foolish. You surely did not imagine that my father’s son could spend all his days tucked away here in the country!”

“No...no.”

“Well then! Dry your eyes. No handkerchief? How like you, Catherine!” He threw her his. “You may keep that,” he said, “and think of me when I am gone.”

She took the handkerchief as though already it were a sacred thing.

He went on, his voice shaking: “And you must give me one of yours, Catherine, that I may keep it.”

She wiped her eyes.

He said tenderly: “It is only for a little while, Catherine.”

Now she was smiling.

“I should have known,” she said. “Of course you will go away.”

“When I return we shall have very many pleasant days together, Catherine.”

“Yes, Thomas.” Being Catherine, she could think of the reunion rather than the parting, even now.

He slipped off his horse, and she immediately did likewise; he held out his hands, and she put hers into them.

“Catherine, do you ever think of when we are grown up...really grown up, not just pretending to be?”

“I do not know, Thomas. I think perhaps I may have.”

“When we are grown up, Catherine, we shall marry...both of us. Catherine. I may marry you when I am of age.”

“Thomas! Would you?”

“I might,” he said.

She was pretty, with the smile breaking through her tears.

“Yes,” he said, “I think mayhap I will. And now, Catherine, you will not mind so much that I must go away, for you must know, we are both young in actual fact. Were we not, I would marry you now and take you with me.”

They were still holding hands, smiling at each other; he, flushed with pleasure at his beneficence in offering her such a glorious prospect as marriage with him; she, overwhelmed by the honor he did her.

He said: “When people are affianced, Catherine, they kiss. I am going to kiss you now.”

He kissed her on either cheek and then her soft baby mouth. Catherine wished he would go on kissing her, but he did not, not over-much liking the operation and considering it a necessary but rather humiliating formality; besides, he feared that there might be those to witness this and do what he dreaded most that people would do, laugh at him.

“That,” he said, “is settled. Let us ride.”

Catherine had been so long at Hollingbourne that she came to regard it as her home. Thomas came home occasionally, and there was nothing he liked better than to talk of the wild adventures he had had; and never had he known a better audience than his young cousin. She was so credulous, so ready to admire. They both looked forward to these reunions, and although they spoke not of their marriage which they had long ago in the paddock decided should one day take place, they neither of them forgot nor wished to repudiate the promises. Thomas was not the type of boy to think over-much of girls except when they could be fitted into an adventure where, by their very helplessness and physical inferiority, they could help to glorify the resourcefulness and strength of the male. Thomas was a normal, healthy boy whose thoughts had turned but fleetingly to sex; Catherine, though younger, was conscious of sex, and had been since she was a baby; she enjoyed Thomas’s company most when he held her hand or lifted her over a brook or rescued her from some imaginary evil fate. When the game was a pretense of stealing jewels, and she must pretend to be a man, the adventure lost its complete joy for her. She remembered still the quick, shamefaced kisses he had given her in the paddock, and she would have loved to have made plans for their marriage, to kiss now and then. She dared not tell Thomas this, and little did he guess that she was all but a woman while he was yet a child.

So passed the pleasant days until that sad afternoon when a serving-maid came to her, as she sat in the wide window seat of the main nursery, to tell her that her uncle and aunt would have speech with her, and she was to go at once to her uncle’s chamber.

As soon as Catherine reached that room she knew that something was amiss, for both her uncle and her aunt looked very grave.

“My dear niece,” said Sir John, who frequently spoke for both, “come hither to me. I have news for you.”

Catherine went to him and stood before him, her knees trembling, while she prayed: “Please, God, let Thomas be safe and well.”

“Now that your grandfather, Lord Thomas the Duke, is no more,” said Sir John in the solemn voice he used when speaking of the dead, “your grandmother feels that she would like much to have you with her. You know your father has married again....” His face stiffened. He was a righteous man; there was nothing soft in his nature; it seemed to him perfectly reasonable that, his sister’s husband having married a new wife, his own responsibility for his sister’s child should automatically cease.

“Go...from here...?” stammered Catherine.

“To your grandmother in Norfolk.”

“Oh...but I...do not wish...Here, I have been...so happy....”

Her aunt put an arm about her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

“You must understand, Catherine, your staying here is not in our hands. Your father has married again...he wishes that you should go to your grandmother.”

Catherine looked from one to the other, her eyes bright with tears which overflowed, for she could never control her emotion.

Her aunt and uncle waited for her to dry her eyes and listen to them.

Then Sir John said: “You must prepare yourself for a long journey, so that you will be ready when your grandmother sends for you. Now you may go.”

Catherine stumbled from the room, thinking, When he comes next time, I shall not be here! And how shall I ever see him...he in Kent and I in Norfolk?

In the nursery the news was received with great interest.

“Well may you cry!” she was told. “Why, when you are at your grandmother’s house you will feel very haughty towards us poor folk. I have heard from one who served the Duchess that she keeps great state both at Horsham and Lambeth. The next we shall hear of you is that you are going to court!”

“I do not care to go to court!” cried Catherine.

“Ah!” she was told. “All you care for is your cousin Thomas!”

Then Catherine thought, is it so far from here to Norfolk? Not so far but that he could come to me. He will come; and then in a few years we shall be married. The time will pass quickly....

She remembered her grandmother—plumpish, inclined to poke her with a stick, lazy Grandmother who sat about and laughed to herself and made remarks which set her wheezing and chuckling, such as “You have pretty eyes, Catherine Howard. Keep them; they will serve you well!” Grandmother, with sly eyes and chins that wobbled, and an inside that gurgled since she took such delight in the table.

Catherine waited for the arrival of those who would take her to her grandmother, and with the passage of the days her fears diminished; she lived in a pleasant dream in which Thomas came to Horsham and spent his holidays there instead of at Hollingbourne; and Catherine, being the granddaughter of such a fine lady as the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, wore beautiful clothes and jewels in her hair. Thomas said: “You are more beautiful in Norfolk than you were in Kent!” And he kissed her, and Catherine kissed him; there was much kissing and embracing at Horsham. “Let us elope,” said Thomas. Thus pleasantly passed the last days at Hollingbourne, and when the time came for her departure to Norfolk, she did not greatly mind, for she had planned such a happy future for herself and Thomas.