“So you are visiting us….”
“I have come for the christening of the Caseman babies and to see Damask and you….” She lingered on the last word.
“And you have found many changes?”
“What changes in the Abbey! They are talking of nothing else throughout the countryside.”
“So you came to see for yourself. And how do you find it?”
“Even more wonderful than I had thought to.”
She was looking at him eagerly, calling attention to herself. I knew her well. She had no scruples.
How affected was he? What was he remembering?
“My son is not with me,” she said. “But one day I will bring him to show him to you.”
“I shall want to see him,” he said.
I put in: “We will choose a time when Bruno has the time to spare.”
“Tomorrow I must come again,” said Kate. “My stay here may not be of long duration and there is so much we have to talk about. I want to hear your plans for this wonderful place. Damask has been showing me. I had no idea that there was so much…only having seen it from the gatehouse and as tall gray walls, and of course what I saw when I came through the ivy-covered door.”
He was watching her intently. I wondered what he was thinking.
We returned to the Abbot’s Lodging and all the time he talked to her earnestly of the great plans he had for the Abbey.
“There will not be a larger estate for miles round,” he said with pride. “Once it is in order, once the farms are producing…you will see.”
“Oh, yes,” said Kate, “I shall see. And deeply shall I envy you from my castle keep.”
The next day the twins were christened in the chapel at Caseman Court. I had never seen my mother so happy. Simon Caseman was a proud father too.
The boys were named Peter and Paul, and Paul bawled lustily throughout the proceedings, a fact which made my mother delight in his show of manhood while at the same time Peter’s docility showed her what a good child he was.
The following day Kate again visited the Abbey. We went to the solarium and indulged in her favorite occupation of gossiping.
Remus, it seemed, had taken on a new lease of life since his marriage and the birth of his son. She seemed a little rueful about this which I found shocking. She laughed at me.
“Rich widows,” she said, “are so attractive.”
“Is it your next ambition to become one?”
“Hush. Why, if Remus died in his sleep from an overdose of poppy juice I should be suspected of having administered it.”
“Don’t talk of such things even in a jest.”
“Still the same old Damask. Afraid. Always looking over your shoulder for the informer.”
“There have been informers in my life once. They shattered it.”
She laid her hand over mine. “My poor poor Damask. How well I know! Your good faithful heart was broken for a time. How glad I am that it has healed! And now you are so lucky….I am sorry I recalled that sad time. And I did not mean to suggest that I would be rid of Remus. He is a good husband and it is sometimes better to have an aging one than a young one. He is so grateful, poor Remus; and I verily believe that if I were to take it into my head to adventure a little—he would not take it amiss.”
“I hope you do not…adventure…as you call it.”
“That is a matter on which I propose to keep you in doubt. And I do not see why if Remus were ready to turn a blind eye you should show a censorious one. But talking of wayward wives, I must tell you the latest Court scandal. It concerns the Queen. Are you listening?”
“I am all ears.”
“I fear our dear little Queen may well be in trouble. Cruel men and women are closing in on her and she, poor soul, is in no position to oppose them.”
“This marriage surely is a happy one.”
“It was. How amusing to see the King’s Majesty in the role of uxorious husband. She is such a charming little creature. By no means beautiful. Though the cousin of Anne Boleyn, she is completely without elegance. Poor little Katharine Howard. She reminds me of Keziah in a way. She is the sort who could never say no to a man and it seems that she has said yes very frequently.”
“Tell me what has happened. I have heard nothing.”
“You soon will for I believe all that her enemies would wish has been proved against the Queen.”
“The poor child,” I murmured. “For she is little more.”
“She is a little older than you and a little younger than I, which I am ready to agree is young to leave this life.”
“It has not come to that.”
“If all that is rumored is proved against her she may well be walking out to Tower Hill as her fascinating cousin did some six years ago.”
“Can the King have had so many wives in such a short time?”
“Indeed he can. Was there not sly Jane to follow Anne who followed Spanish Katharine? Of course his marriage to her lasted twenty years and for all that time he remained married to one wife; and then Anne of Cleves who was not at all to his liking. She was the fortunate one. She now enjoys life mightily at Richmond, I believe; and now pretty little Katharine Howard.”
“With whom he is so happy.”
“With whom he was happy. Poor Katharine, rumor has it that she learned a loose way of life in the dormitory she shared with the other girls of her grandmother’s household—some lowborn and little more than servants—and that as young as thirteen she had taken a lover. These unscrupulous women found the corrupting of this nobly born young girl’s morals an amusing occupation. It is said that young Katharine had soon formed an immoral association with a musician and that was but a beginning. Afterward she went through a form of marriage with a young man named Francis Dereham. Thus she was no virgin when she married the King although I’ll swear she professed to be.”
“Her grandmother is surely the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk?”
“Of a surety she is, and little care she took of her fascinating granddaughter. Poor Katharine! Daughter of a younger son, she was of little account until the King singled her out for notice. Then my Lord Norfolk begins to appreciate his niece, just as he did with that other niece, Anne Boleyn. But you remember how he deserted her when she needed support. I’ll swear the fellow is now preparing to desert Katharine.”
“Is Katharine in danger?”
“Unlike Anne, she is really a little fool, Damask. Oh, how differently I should have managed my affairs had I been in her place!”
“Queen Anne could not have managed her affairs with any great skill for they led her to Tower Hill and the executioner’s sword.”
“True enough,” admitted Kate. “But this is different. Anne could not get a boy and the King was obsessed with the need for a boy.”
I thought of Bruno then. I believed he was obsessed by the desire for a boy. At least, I thought ironically, he could not cut off my head if I failed to provide one.
“He was also enamored of Jane Seymour,” went on Kate. “This is why Anne lost her head—through circumstances outside her control. It is not quite the same with Queen Katharine Howard. She was loose in her morals, they say; she had several lovers and allowed this to be known by the unscrupulous people of her grandmother’s household. I am told that several of them acquired places in her Court because they asked for them with veiled threats and she was perforce obliged to give them to them.”
“And all this has been brought to the King’s ears? I was of the opinion that he loved her dearly and if this is so surely he will forgive what she did before he married her.”
“You live in a backwater, Damask. You do not know what goes on. Do you not realize that this country is split by a great religious conflict? Have you ever heard of a man called Martin Luther?”