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

So now she tried to goad him, longed for him to take her by the shoulders and shake her, that he might lay hands on her if only in anger. Perhaps he knew this, for he was diabolically clever and understood most uncomfortably the workings of minds less clever than his own. Therefore he sat, arms folded; looking at the pen stuck in the polished floor, bored by Jane, weary of the many scenes she created, and heartlessly careless of her feelings.

“George....”

He raised weary eyebrows in acknowledgment.

“I...I am so unhappy!”

He said, with the faintest hint of softness in his voice: “I am sorry for that.”

She moved closer; he remained impassive.

“George, what are you writing?”

“Just an airy trifle,” he said.

“Are you very annoyed that I interrupted?”

“I am not annoyed,” he replied.

“That pleases me, George. I do not mean to interrupt. Shall I get your pen?”

He laughed and, getting up, fetched it himself with a smile at her. Any sign of quiet reason on her part always pleased him; she struggled with her tears, trying to keep the momentary approval she had won.

“I am sorry, George.”

“It is of no matter,” he said. “I’ll warrant also that I should be the one to be sorry.”

“No, George, it is I who am unreasonable. Tell me, is that for the King’s masque?”

“It is,” he said, and turned to her, wanting to explain what he, with Wyatt, Surrey and Anne, was doing. But he knew that to be useless; she would pretend to be interested; she would try very hard to concentrate, then she would say something that was maddeningly stupid, and he would realize that she had not been considering what he was saying, and was merely trying to lure him to an amorous interlude. He had little amorous inclination towards her; he found her singularly unattractive and never more so than when she tried to attract him.

She came closer still, leaning her head forward to look at the paper. She began to read.

“It is very clever, George.”

“Nonsense!” said George. “It is very bad and needs a deal of polishing.”

“Will it be sung?”

“Yes, Anne will write the music.”

Anne! The very mention of that name destroyed her good resolutions.

“Anne, of course!” she said with a sneer.

She saw his eyes flash; she wanted to control herself, but she had heard the tender inflection of his voice when he said his sister’s name.

“Why not Anne?” he asked.

“Why not Anne?” she mimicked. “I’ll warrant the greatest musician in the kingdom would never write music such as Anne’s...in your eyes!”

He did not answer that.

“The King’s own music,” she said, “you would doubtless consider inferior to Anne’s!”

That made him laugh.

“Jane, you little fool, one would indeed be a poor musician if one was not more talented in that direction than His Majesty!”

“Such things as you say, George Boleyn, were enough to take a man’s head off his shoulders.”

“Reported in the right quarter, doubtless. What do you propose, sweet wife? To report in the appropriate quarter?”

“I swear I will one day!”

He laughed again. “That would not surprise me, Jane. You are a little fool, and I think out of your vindictive jealousy might conceivably send your husband to the scaffold.”

“And he would richly deserve it!”

“Doubtless! Doubtless! Do not all men who go to the scaffold deserve their fate? They have spoken their minds, expressed an opinion, or have been too nearly related to the King...all treasonable matters, my dear Jane.”

For this recklessness she loved him. How she would have liked to be as he was, to have snapped her fingers at life and enjoyed it as he did!

“You are a fool, George. It is well for you that you have a wife such as I!”

“Well indeed, Jane!”

“Mayhap,” she cried, “you would rather I looked like your sister Anne, dressed like your sister Anne, wrote as she wrote....Then I might find approval in your sight!”

“You never could look like Anne.”

She flashed back: “It is not given to all of us to be perfect!”

“Anne is far from that.”

“What! Sacrilege! In your eyes she is perfect, if ever any woman was in man’s eyes.”

“My dear Jane, Anne is charming, rather because of her imperfections than because of her good qualities.”

“I’ll warrant you rage against Fate that you could not marry your sister!”

“I never was engaged in such a foolish discussion in all my life.”

She began to cry.

“Jane,” he said, and put a hand on her shoulder. She threw herself against him, forcing the tears into her eyes, for they alone seemed to have the power to move him. And as they sat thus, there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor, and these footsteps were followed by a knock on the door.

George sat up, putting Jane from him.

“Enter!” he called.

They trooped in, laughing and noisy.

Handsome Thomas Wyatt was a little ahead of the others, singing a ballad. Jane disliked Thomas Wyatt; indeed she loathed them all. They were all of the same caliber, the most important set at court these days, favorites of the King every one of them, and all connected by the skein of kinship. Brilliant of course they were; the songsters of the court. One-eyed Francis Bryan, Thomas Wyatt, George Boleyn, all of them recently returned from France and Italy, and eager now to transform the somewhat heavy atmosphere of the English court into a more brilliant copy of other courts they had known. These gay young men were anxious to oust the duller element, the old set. No soldiers nor grim counselors to the King these; they were the poets of their generation; they wished to entertain the King, to make him laugh, to give him pleasure. There was nothing the King asked more; and as this gay crowd circulated round none other than the lady who interested him so deeply, they were greatly favored by His Majesty.

Jane’s scowl deepened, for with these young men was Anne herself.

Anne threw a careless smile at Jane, and went to her brother.

“Let us see what thou hast done,” she said, and snatched the paper from him and began reading aloud; and then suddenly she stopped reading and set a tune to the words, singing them, while the others stood round her. Her feet tapped, as her brother’s had done, and Wyatt, who was bold as well as handsome, sat down between her and George on the window seat, and his eyes stayed on Anne’s face as though they could not tear themselves away.

Jane moved away from them, but that was of no account for they had all forgotten Jane’s presence. She was outside the magic circle; she was not one of them. Angrily she watched them, but chiefly she watched Anne. Anne, with the hanging sleeves to hide the sixth nail; Anne, with a special ornament at her throat to hide what she considered to be an unbecoming mole on her neck. And now all the ladies at the court were wearing such ornaments. Jane put her hand to her throat and touched her own. Why, why was life made easy for Anne? Why did everyone applaud what she did? Why did George love her better than he loved his wife? Why was clever, brilliant and handsome Thomas Wyatt in love with her?

Jane went on asking herself these questions as she had done over and over again; bitter jealousy ate deeper and deeper into her heart.

Wyatt saw her sitting by the pond in the enclosed garden, a piece of embroidery in her hands. He went to her swiftly. He was deeply and passionately in love.

She lifted her face to smile at him, liking well his handsome face, his quick wit.

“Why, Thomas...”

“Why, Anne...”

He threw himself down beside her.

“Anne, do you not find it good to escape from the weary ceremony of the court now and then?”