wife, dazzled from the first by that lively, go-ahead, essentially modern family, had been as devoted to Nan as she now was to her daughter.
Now at last it was safe to speak of her, now that King Henry, having spoken, had died.
And after his funeral, followed by a procession four miles long, had left for Windsor, Cat Ashley picked up a grisly tale of the coffin having burst the night before the burial and how the plumbers had to come and solder it up again; and this she knew for a fact, for one of them was engaged to her own chambermaid, but of course it was kept quiet, and scarcely any knew of it who attended the magnificent ceremonial next day when Bishop Gardiner preached his most moving sermon on ‘the loss to both the high and low of our most good and gracious King’. ‘As well he might,’ the Ash-Cat declared, her twinkling black eyes rolling round at Bess, ‘seeing that it’s meant the loss of all his hopes from the Will!’
Bess sat hugging her knees, staring at the rain-scuds flyingdown the river from the west, feeling very grown-up to be told so many things that she knew she should not be told. But one of them startled her worse than even the horrifying tale of the coffin, and that was when Cat Ashley, pulling a long purple thread through some mourning garment she was making for her, said lightly, ‘It’s my belief your stepmother will be a widow for even fewer days this time than the last. She must make haste with all her mourning clothes if they’re to be ready before she’s ordering her wedding dress for the Admiral.’
Bess’s knees went taut as whipcord in her grasp. If she did not hold on to them tight she would be springing up to fly at the Ash-Cat, shake her and scream that she was a liar.
She kept silent. Cat Ashley, disappointed in her lack of interest, said, ‘Well, and I thought you would be pleased. He’d be your step-stepfather then, and your guardian as like as not.’
‘
I
don’t want him as a stepfather,’ said Bess, loosening her grip on her knees with a jerk. ‘I don’t believe the Queen wants him as a husband either. Why should she?’
It was a good move, for Mrs Ashley at once poured out a protesting flood of all the reasons, among them some very flattering to the Admiral, which Bess heard with little painful stabs of pleasure – the finest man in England, so handsome, tall and splendid in his bearing, with none of his brother’s cold stateliness but all the more imposing just because he didn’t trouble about it; there was a careless magnificence about him, like that of a man born to be King. Fierce as a lion in battle, yet as merry as a schoolboy, and that grand voice of his, it would put courage into a mouse.
‘But the Queen – isn’t she rather old for him?’
‘
That
she’s not, at just thirty-four, and he a year or two older, though they neither of them look it. Besides – this had to be a secret while your father lived – I don’t know that I’d better even now—’
‘Now, my Ash-Cat, hand up your titbit; I’ll never stop twisting your tail till you do.’
Bess had seized Ashley’s little finger and was pulling it round and round. Laughing and jerking her hand away, Ashley disgorged the titbit; Catherine Parr and Tom Seymour had been privately betrothed before her marriage to the King. When he signified his choice of her as his sixth wife, there was nothing for her to do but to give up Tom, for to have married him against the royal will would have only meant utter ruin and probably death for them both. She had been a faithful wife and devoted nurse to Henry for three and a half years, and he had been the third elderly widower she had had to marry.
Now at last she was free to take her own choice and still young and pretty enough to enjoy it. She had already been having some confidential meetings with the Admiral in London even before the funeral – though that was all quite correct and above-board, since he had been a member of King Henry’s
Now at last it was safe to speak of her, now that King Henry, having spoken, had died.
And after his funeral, followed by a procession four miles long, had left for Windsor, Cat Ashley picked up a grisly tale of the coffin having burst the night before the burial and how the plumbers had to come and solder it up again; and this she knew for a fact, for one of them was engaged to her own chambermaid, but of course it was kept quiet, and scarcely any knew of it who attended the magnificent ceremonial next day when Bishop Gardiner preached his most moving sermon on ‘the loss to both the high and low of our most good and gracious King’. ‘As well he might,’ the Ash-Cat declared, her twinkling black eyes rolling round at Bess, ‘seeing that it’s meant the loss of all his hopes from the Will!’
Bess sat hugging her knees, staring at the rain-scuds flyingdown the river from the west, feeling very grown-up to be told so many things that she knew she should not be told. But one of them startled her worse than even the horrifying tale of the coffin, and that was when Cat Ashley, pulling a long purple thread through some mourning garment she was making for her, said lightly, ‘It’s my belief your stepmother will be a widow for even fewer days this time than the last. She must make haste with all her mourning clothes if they’re to be ready before she’s ordering her wedding dress for the Admiral.’
Bess’s knees went taut as whipcord in her grasp. If she did not hold on to them tight she would be springing up to fly at the Ash-Cat, shake her and scream that she was a liar.
She kept silent. Cat Ashley, disappointed in her lack of interest, said, ‘Well, and I thought you would be pleased. He’d be your step-stepfather then, and your guardian as like as not.’
‘
I
don’t want him as a stepfather,’ said Bess, loosening her grip on her knees with a jerk. ‘I don’t believe the Queen wants him as a husband either. Why should she?’
It was a good move, for Mrs Ashley at once poured out a protesting flood of all the reasons, among them some very flattering to the Admiral, which Bess heard with little painful stabs of pleasure – the finest man in England, so handsome, tall and splendid in his bearing, with none of his brother’s cold stateliness but all the more imposing just because he didn’t trouble about it; there was a careless magnificence about him, like that of a man born to be King. Fierce as a lion in battle, yet as merry as a schoolboy, and that grand voice of his, it would put courage into a mouse.
‘But the Queen – isn’t she rather old for him?’
‘
That
she’s not, at just thirty-four, and he a year or two older, though they neither of them look it. Besides – this had to be a secret while your father lived – I don’t know that I’d better even now—’
‘Now, my Ash-Cat, hand up your titbit; I’ll never stop twisting your tail till you do.’
Bess had seized Ashley’s little finger and was pulling it round and round. Laughing and jerking her hand away, Ashley disgorged the titbit; Catherine Parr and Tom Seymour had been privately betrothed before her marriage to the King. When he signified his choice of her as his sixth wife, there was nothing for her to do but to give up Tom, for to have married him against the royal will would have only meant utter ruin and probably death for them both. She had been a faithful wife and devoted nurse to Henry for three and a half years, and he had been the third elderly widower she had had to marry.
Now at last she was free to take her own choice and still young and pretty enough to enjoy it. She had already been having some confidential meetings with the Admiral in London even before the funeral – though that was all quite correct and above-board, since he had been a member of King Henry’s
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