The Other Boleyn Girl Part 40

I lit the candle one night and held it up to see her. Her eyes were closed, dark eyelashes sweeping her white cheeks. Her hair was tied back under a nightcap as bleached as her skin. The shadows under her eyes were violet as pansies, she looked frail. And all the time her bloodless lips, parted in a smile, were muttering introductions, jests, quick quips. Every now and again she would turn her head restlessly on the pillow, that enchanting turn of her head that she did so well, and she would laugh, a horrid breathy sound from a woman so driven that even in her deepest dreams she was trying to make a celebration come alive.

She started to drink wine in the morning. It brought color to her face and a brightness to her eyes, it lifted her from her intense fatigue and nervousness. Once she thrust a bottle at me when I came into her rooms with Uncle following me. "Hide it," she hissed desperately and turned to him with the back of her hand against her mouth so that he would not smell the drink on her breath.

"Anne, you have to stop," I said when he had gone. "Everyone watches you all the time. People are bound to see, and they will tell the king."

"I can't stop," she said darkly. "I can't stop anything, not for a moment. I have to go on and on and on, as if I am the happiest woman in the world. I am going to marry the man I love. I am going to be Queen of England. Of course I am happy. Of course I am wonderfully happy. There couldn't be a happier woman in England than me."

George was due to come home in the New Year and Anne and I decided on a private dinner in her grand rooms to welcome him. We spent the day consulting with the cooks and ordering the very best that they had, and then the afternoon lingering in the window seats waiting to see George's boat coming up the river with the Howard standard flying. I spotted it first, dark against the dusk, and I did not say a word to Anne but slipped from the room and ran down the stairs so that when George disembarked and came up the landing stage I was alone, into his arms, and it was me that he kissed and whispered: "Good G.o.d, sister, I am glad to be home."

When Anne saw that she had lost the chance of taking first place she did not run after me but waited to greet him in her rooms, before the great arching mantelpiece when he bowed and next kissed her hand and only then folded her into his arms. Then the women were dismissed and we were the three Boleyns together again, as we had always been.

George had told us all his news over dinner and he wanted to know everything that had happened since he had been away from court. I noticed that Anne was careful what she told him. She did not tell him that she could not go into the City without an armed guard. She did not tell him that in the country she had to ride swiftly through peaceful little villages. She did not tell him that the night after Cardinal Wolsey had died she had designed and danced in a masque ent.i.tled "Sending the Cardinal to h.e.l.l" which had shocked everyone who saw it by its tasteless triumphing over the king's dead friend and its outright bawdiness. She did not tell him that Bishop Fisher was still against her and that Bishop Fisher had nearly died of poison. When she did not tell him these things I knew, as I had in truth known before, that she was ashamed of the woman that she was becoming. She did not want George to know how deep this canker of ambition had spread inside her. She did not want him to know that she was not his beloved little sister any more but a woman who had learned to throw everything, even her mortal soul, into the battle to become queen.

"And what about you?" George asked me. "What's his name?"

Anne was blank. "What are you talking about?"

"Anyone can see-surely I've not got it wrong?-Marianne is glowing like a milkmaid in springtime. I would have put a fortune on her being in love."

I blushed a deep scarlet.

"I thought so," my brother said with deep satisfaction. "Who is it?"

"Mary has no lover," Anne said.

"I suppose she might have her eye on somebody without your permission," George suggested. "I suppose somebody might have picked her out without applying to you, Mistress Queen."

"He'd better not," she said, without a trace of a smile. "I have plans for Mary."

George let out a soundless whistle. "Good G.o.d, Annamaria, anyone would think you were anointed already."

She rounded on him. "When I am, I will know who my friends are. Mary is my lady in waiting and I keep good order in my household."

"Surely she can make her own choice now."

Anne shook her head. "Not if she wants my favor."

"For G.o.d's sake, Anne! We're family. You're where you are because Mary stepped back for you. You can't turn around now and act like a Princess of the Blood. We put you where you are. You can't treat us like subjects."

"You are subjects," she said simply. "You, Mary, even Uncle Howard. I had my own aunt sent from court, I had the king's brother-in-law sent from court. I had the queen herself sent from court. Is there anyone who has any doubt that I can send them into exile if I wish? No. You may have helped me to be where I am-"

"Helped you! We b.l.o.o.d.y well pushed you!"

"But now I am here I will be queen. And you will be my subjects and in my service. I will be the queen and mother to the next King of England. So you had better remember that, George, for I won't tell you again."

Anne rose up from the floor and swept toward the door. She stood before it, waiting for someone to open it for her, and when neither of us sprang up she flung it open herself. She turned on the threshold. "And don't call me Annamaria any more," she said. "And don't call her Marianne. She is Mary, the other Boleyn girl. And I am Anne, Queen Anne to be. There is a world of difference between us two. We don't share a name. She is next to n.o.body and I will be queen."

She stalked out, not troubling to close the door behind her. We could hear her footsteps going to her bedroom. We sat in silence while we heard her chamber door slam.

"Good G.o.d," George said, heartfelt. "What a witch." He got up and closed the door against the cold draught. "How long has she been like this?"

"Her power has grown steadily. She thinks she is untouchable."

"And is she?"

"He's deeply in love. I should think she is safe, yes."

"And he still hasn't had her?"

"No."

"Good G.o.d, what do they do?"

"Everything, but the deed. She daren't allow it."

"Must be driving him crazy," George said with grim satisfaction.

"Her too," I said. "Almost every night he is kissing her and touching her and she is all over him with her hair and her mouth."

"Does she speak to everyone like this? Like she spoke to me?"

"Far worse. And it is costing her friends. Charles Brandon is against her now, Uncle Howard is sick of her; they have quarreled outright, at least a couple of times since Christmas. She thinks she is so safe in the king's love that she needs no other protection."

"I won't tolerate it," George said. "I'll tell her."

I maintained my look of sisterly concern, but my heart leaped at the thought of a gulf opening up between Anne and George. If I could get George on my side, I would have a real advantage in any fight to regain the ownership of my son.

"And truly, is there no one that has caught your eye?" he asked.

"A n.o.body," I said. "I would tell no one but you, George-so keep it as a secret."

"I swear," he said, taking both my hands and drawing me closer. "A secret, on my honor. Are you in love?"

"Oh no," I said, drawing back at the very thought of it. "Of course not. But he pays me a little attention and it's nice to have a man make a fuss of you."

"I'd have thought the court was full of men making a fuss of you."

"Oh they write poetry and they swear they will die of love. But he...he is a little more...real."

"Who is he?"

"A n.o.body," I said again. "So I don't think about him."

"Pity you can't just have him," George said with brotherly candor.

I did not reply. I was thinking of William Stafford's engaging intimate smile. "Yes," I said very quietly. "A pity, but I can't."

Spring 1532 GEORGE, IGNORANT OF THE CHANGE OF THE TEMPER OF THE people, invited Anne and me to ride out with him, down the river, to dine at the little ale house and come home again. I waited for Anne to refuse, to tell him that it was no longer safe for her to ride out alone; but she said nothing. She dressed in an unusually dark gown, she wore her riding hat pulled down over her face, and she laid aside her distinctive necklace with the golden "B." people, invited Anne and me to ride out with him, down the river, to dine at the little ale house and come home again. I waited for Anne to refuse, to tell him that it was no longer safe for her to ride out alone; but she said nothing. She dressed in an unusually dark gown, she wore her riding hat pulled down over her face, and she laid aside her distinctive necklace with the golden "B."

Pleased to be back in England riding out with his sisters, George did not notice Anne's discreet behavior and dress. But when we stopped at the ale house the slatternly old woman who should have been serving us took a sideways glance at Anne and then went away. Moments later the master of the house came out, wiping his hands on an ap.r.o.n of hessian, and announced that the bread and cheese he had been going to set before us had spoiled, there was nothing in his house we could eat.

George would have flared up, but Anne put a hand on his sleeve and said that it was no matter, we should go to the monastery nearby and eat there. He let himself be guided by her, and we ate well enough. The king was an object of terror now in every abbey and monastery in the land. Only the servants, less politically astute than the monks, glanced askance at Anne and at me, and speculated in whispers as to which was the old wh.o.r.e and which was the new.

Riding home, the cold sun on our backs, George spurred his horse forward and rode beside me. "Everyone knows then," he said flatly.

"From London to far out into the country," I said. "I don't know how far the news has gone."

"And I don't see anyone throwing his hat in the air and shouting huzzah?"

"No, you won't see that."

"I'd have thought a pretty English girl would have pleased people? She's pretty enough, isn't she? Waves her hand as she goes by, gives out alms, all the rest of it?"

"She does all that," I said. "But the women have a stubborn liking for the old queen. They say that if the King of England puts a loyal honest wife aside because he fancies a change, then no woman is safe."

George was silent for a moment. "Do they do more than mutter?"

"We were caught in a riot in London. And the king says it's not safe for her to go into the City at all. She is hated, George, and they say all sorts of things about her."

"Things?"

"That she is a witch and has enchanted the king by sorcery. That she is a murderess and would poison the queen if she could. That she has made him impotent with all other women so he has to marry her. That she blasted the children in the queen's womb and put barrenness on the throne of England."

George went a little pale and his hand on the rein clenched into the old sign against witchcraft-thumb between the two first fingers to make the sign of the cross. "They say this publicly? Might the king hear of it?"

"The worst of it is kept from him, but someone is bound to tell him sooner or later."

"He wouldn't believe a word of it, would he?"

"He says some of it himself. He says he is a man possessed. He says that she has enchanted him and that he can't think about another woman. It's love talk when he says it, but when it gets out-it's dangerous."

George nodded. "She should do more good works and not be so d.a.m.ned..." He broke off, searching for the word. "Sensual."

I looked ahead. Even on horseback, even when she was riding with no one but her family, Anne swayed in the saddle in a way that made you want to take her by the waist.

"She's a Boleyn and a Howard," I said frankly. "Underneath the great name, we're all b.i.t.c.hes on heat."

William Stafford, waiting at the gateway to Greenwich Palace when we rode in, tipped his hat to me and caught my secret smile. When we had dismounted and Anne had led the way in, he was at the doorway and he drew me to one side.

"I was waiting for you," he said, without further greeting.

"I saw."

"I don't like you riding without me, the country's not safe for the Boleyn girls."

"My brother took care of us. It was good to be out without a great retinue."

"Oh, I can offer you that. Simplicity I can offer in abundance."

I laughed. "I thank you."

He kept his hand on my sleeve to keep me by him. "When the king and your sister marry then you will be married to a man of their choosing."

I looked into his square, tanned face. "And so?"

"And so, if you wanted to marry a man with a pretty little manor and a few fields around it you should make haste to do so before your sister's wedding. The later that you leave it the harder it will be."

I hesitated. I moved away from the touch of his hand and I turned away. I smiled at him, sideways under my eyelashes. "But no one has asked me," I sweetly explained. "I shall have to reconcile myself to being a widow all my days. No one has asked me to marry him at all."

For once he was lost for words. "But I thought..." he began. A delighted laugh escaped me. I swept him a deep curtsy, and turned for the palace. As I climbed the stairs I glanced back to see him fling his hat to the ground and kick it, and I knew the joy that every woman knows, when she has got a handsome man on the run.

I did not see him again for a week though I dawdled in the stable yard, and in the garden, and at the river where he might have found me. When my uncle's train went by one day I watched them but I could not pick him out from the two hundred men in matching Howard livery. I knew I was behaving like a fool; but I thought that there was no harm in looking for a handsome man and teasing him.

I did not see him for a week, and then not for another week. My uncle and I were watching the king and Anne playing at bowls one warm April morning and I said casually: "Do you still have that man-William Stafford-in your service?"

"Oh yes," my uncle said. "But I have given him leave for a month."

"Gone from court?"

"He has a fancy to marry, he tells me. He has gone to speak to his father and to buy a place for his new wife."

I felt the ground shift. "I thought he was married already," I said, choosing the safest thing to say.

"Oh no, a terrible philanderer," my uncle said, his mind half on the king and Anne. "One of the ladies of the court was quite besotted with him, thought she would marry him and give up the life of court to live with him and a flock of hens. Can you imagine it!"

"Foolish." My mouth was dry. I swallowed a little.

"And all the time he's betrothed to some country girl, I don't doubt," my uncle said. "Waiting for her to come of age, I expect. He's off to marry this month and then he'll come back to me. He's a good man, very reliable. He took you to Hever, didn't he?"

"Twice," I said. "And he found me the children's ponies."

"He's good at things like that," my uncle said. "He should go far. I might raise him up to run my stables, be my master of horse." He paused, and suddenly turned his dark gaze on me like a bright lantern. "Didn't flirt with you, did he?"

The look I returned to him was one of absolute indifference. "A man in your service? Of course not."