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Then, back indoors at last, I had to see a local shoemaker whose home and workshop had burned down, because my steward wanted to discuss with me how much assistance we should give the family.
We didn’t launch the barge until the evening and, despite hard rowing by my men, arrived at Chelsea too late for dinner. I can’t say I minded. I sat cosily at the fireside in Kate’s room with my two accompanying ladies to eat excellent pigeon pie, and peaches that had been bottled in lavender-infused syrup. I’d brought Joanna and Nichola, my youngest ladies, knowing they’d fit in best at Kate’s. We all have girls in our household, of course, come to us to learn the ropes, but trust Kate to have only girls, every last one of her attendants a fledgling under her wing. There had been some changes, though, now that she was no longer at court. A couple of new faces. One was Marcella, who, Kate told me, was married to one of Thomas Seymour’s men; the other was the Lassells girl – Frances, ‘Frankie’ – an eager twelve-year-old.
It was an easy, gossipy evening, Marcella playing the virginals beautifully in the background. I wasn’t late going to bed, to the room that was mine whenever I was there. I hadn’t been there for long, though, when Kate turned up, nightdress-attired, barefoot, hair down, unattended by any of her girls. There was never any bustle to Kate, just this walk, loose, light, and tall. She sat on the edge of my bed and switched those big clear eyes of hers to my maidservant, Bella.
‘Bella,’ I said,‘that’s fine for now, thanks.’ She was unpacking for me. ‘Why don’t you take a little time to yourself Bella wrapped herself in her cloak and made herself scarce.
Kate scooped her hair behind one ear and said,‘I’ve something to tell you.’ She held my gaze steady with her own and told me: ‘I’ve married Thomas Seymour.’ With a brief laugh, she turned her eyes to the ceiling, or just upwards, somehow both nervous and bold, as if taking pleasure in admonishing herself.
Thomas Seymour? They were friends, he and Kate; had been for years. Odd little friendship, theirs: a friendship that I’d never understood. Well, never even considered really. I couldn’t remember ever having seen them in each other’s company. She’d mentioned him sometimes, over the years, in a manner that might in retrospect be said to be friendly, but Kate was friendly with everybody. Her close friends, though, were reformers and scholars, people who believed in and worked for a better life for everyone. From what I knew of Thomas Seymour, the only life he was keen to better – and he was very keen indeed, from what I’d heard – was his own. But there I was, thinking about her friendship, and hadn’t she just said ‘married’?
Married?‘That was impossible. She was married to the king. Well, no, widowed, but only by a month. She was the king’s widow, still. Not some other man’s wife. And certainly not – certainly not – Thomas Seymour’s.
She got up, moved to the window. ‘No one must know, though, obviously, for a while.’
She had said ‘married’. ‘Thomas Seymour?’
She laughed, delighted. ‘Yes, Thomas Seymour.’Then, less boisterous, ‘It’s been so odd, Cathy. Such an odd time. And I couldn’t tell anyone.’
You, she meant.
Me.
It was an apology, but I was glad I hadn’t known. And wished I still didn’t. Because this was madness. Married to Thomas Seymour? Kate? No one must know? Oh, don’t worry, Kate, I won’t be the one to tell them.
Thomas Seymour had been away – High Admiral – for at least a couple of years. I’d had the distinct impression that he was regarded by those in power as someone best kept busy. The polite word for him would be ‘colourful’: a colourful character. Not only in character, though. I’d only ever known him in passing, but I remembered exactly how he looked. Because he was a good-looking man. No point in denying that. He certainly didn’t; he dressed the part. Fiercely cheekboned: that was what I recalled, now, of him. Sulky-mouthed. Moved fast, talked fast. Well, he’d certainly done that in this case, hadn’t he. Moved fast; fast-talked Kate. Kate. I looked at her, really looked. Those big fish-eyes of hers. She had a gaze – unlike his – that rested on people. And on books: those eyes of hers spent a lot of time resting on books. Thomas Seymour had the reputation of being quick-witted, but that, I gathered, was the extent of it: quick. Too quick – seemed to be the consensus of opinion – for his own good. Here’s the truth: I can’t claim that it was hard to imagine why some women would go for Thomas Seymour. Not, though, a woman such as Kate.
That was only half the puzzle, though, because what on earth had attracted him to her? I’d have sworn that Kate would have been Thomas Seymour’s very last choice. The very last choice for a man such as him. But, then, I knew nothing of his choices in women, did I. There were no women, was how it seemed. Somehow he – forty, now – had managed to stay unmarried. And he was the kind of man of whom I’d have expected to hear rumours of women, but I never had. Except, that is, for the very recent one. The big one. Big enough and recent enough to make me very worried.
He’d had his eye on the Princess Elizabeth, only weeks ago, and had been warned off: this I’d had from a reliable source, namely his brother, to whom it had fallen to do the warning. He had to remind Thomas that it’s treason to make such an approach to someone in line to the throne. Certainly the princess was Thomas Seymour’s type. In line to the throne. Sitting on a fortune. The latter, she had in common with her stepmother: both princess and dowager queen had been amply provided for by Henry. Was it the money, for Thomas? And the status? He was, after all, in the unenviable position of not being on the Council supervising the new boy-king. Sixteen men, none of whom were him. Worse: sixteen men headed by his own brother. Marriage to the dowager queen would be a smart move in the face of such a snub. Suddenly, he’d be husband to the kingdom’s first lady. Was it, then, Kate’s money and status? Well, let’s face it: what else could it be? Kate was going into her mid-thirties, three marriages behind her, with no children, so there’d almost certainly be no heir in this for him. And as for her other assets: you wouldn’t look at her twice, if looking was what you were about. And good-looking men – like Thomas Seymour – do look, don’t they. It’s a luxury they have.
If Kate wasn’t for looking at, though, she was for listening to. And she spoke so well that it was easy to overlook that she did it at all. A few quiet words from her: that was how she worked. Oh, and a kind of twinkle in her bulbous eyes. That’s all it took, for people: that wide-eyed, steady gaze of hers, and nothing much said, or so it seemed. And then whatever needed to happen would happen as if it had been that person’s own idea all along. Clever, that. Made her a lot of friends. So, you could say it was the money, for Thomas – and I will say it – but there was more to it. Kate took people on. She made their lives. I should know, because I was one of them. Kate made everything all right, and I now know there was a lot that wasn’t all right with Thomas.
Three
The next day, she was all for telling me how it had happened. Except that, it seemed, she couldn’t. Which was, as far as she was concerned, somehow part of it: the magic of it. ‘It just did,’ she insisted, exhilarated, trailing frosted breath. We were riding with a few of the household children – the doctor’s and falconer’s sons and a couple of excitable pages – and some liveried attendants in the parkland beyond the manor. Kate was a very good rider, a daily rider, a natural in the saddle. I’m probably as at home now on horseback when I have to be, but for me it comes from years of hard practice. From having two horse-mad boys and wanting to join in with them.
It just did? Well, yes, and quickly.
‘Mind you,’ she was calling back to me over the pounding of hooves, ‘we’ve always been friends.’
No, not ‘always’. The Seymours are relative newcomers. Compared to our families, they are. If it hadn’t been for their sister, Jane, the two boys would have got no further than that creaking old manor house of theirs in the West Country. Poor plain Jane, dull as ditchwater, around for a mere couple of years in which she was required only to be everything that Anne Boleyn hadn’t been. In other words, nothing much. And to produce the son that Anne Boleyn hadn’t been able to. Which she did, just, before draining away into that childbirth bed. By that time, the brothers had got their feet under the top table. They were uncles to the future king, no less.
I didn’t know them in those days. I’ve never been one for court. Best to leave them to it has always been my view – confirmed for me by the Anne Boleyn years. If you value your freedom, you’re better off away from court. Too much bowing and scraping. Kate was like me in that respect, so I don’t know how – where – it ever developed, that friendship of hers with Thomas. His brother, the elder of the two, I did get to know. I’ve had various dealings with Ed Seymour, and we’ve become friends. I like Ed in spite of himself. He has fingers in a lot of pies. It’s not hidden, though, that feathering of his nest, and I like that, I respect it. Being on the make isn’t bad if it’s honest. It’s subterfuge that I don’t like. Ed’s nothing like his younger brother. He’s even the opposite in looks: pallid, thin-lipped. Hardly fun, but straightforward. And despite all that – fingers in pies, feathering of nests, no nonsense – he’s somehow also a man of vision, full of interesting ideas. Whereas I wouldn’t want to think about any visions Thomas might have.
‘He makes me laugh,’ Kate yelled of Thomas as she thundered away from me.
I didn’t come back at her with, Yes, but my dog makes me laugh and I haven’t married him, have I.
Nor, Yes, but I make you laugh.
People underestimated Kate in one respect: kind but serious, was a lot of people’s opinion of her. Maybe it was as simple as that, it occurred to me as I trailed in her wake: maybe Thomas Seymour truly appreciates her.
Yes, but why marry him, and so soon?
Well, that was quite simple, too, in the end, it seemed. He’d asked her, she told me later. Marry me, he’d said: that’s what she told me. Marry me, marry me, marry me: he’d said it a lot. So that it seemed less and less ridiculous, presumably. Why not? he said. I’ve been away for years and you’ve been – well, you haven’t had an easy time of it for years, for your whole life, in fact, so…and then that smile of his.
Enough. That smile. I didn’t know what she was talking about at the time, but now I can well imagine it.
We were back at the stables, dismounting amid rowdy dogs, when she said, ‘So, the boys are fine?’ She was all lit up from her ride. And not only from her ride: it was how she seemed to be now, which, despite my misgivings, was good to see.
‘Yes, fine, thanks.’A measly word, though – ‘fine’ – for my wonderful boys.
‘You should bring them again, sometime.’ Then, as she handed the reins to one of her grooms, ‘Thomas is so good with children.’
Well, we’d see about that, wouldn’t we. ‘Next time.’ A second groom staggered away with Kate’s saddle and gold-tassled, crest-embroidered saddlecloth. I handed over my own horse and began removing my gloves.
‘Elizabeth’s coming to live here,’ Kate added, ‘did I tell you?’
‘No. No, you didn’t.’Was my wariness audible?
She enthused, ‘She’s a good girl, you know, Cathy.’
Well, to be honest, I didn’t know. All I knew of Elizabeth was that she was thirteen, had the Tudor-rose colouring and was clever. That’s what Kate said: very, very clever. Kate had great hopes for her. Couldn’t bear to think of her shut away in some country house with any so-so tutor. Nor did she like her having to do all that kneeling at her brother’s feet on her rare invitations to court. Elizabeth was very much looked down upon by her sister Mary, too. Of Henry’s three children, Elizabeth was definitely the poor relation. Which was, of course, down to who her mother was. But Kate had been working on Mary. It disturbed me, Kate’s bond with Mary. I don’t like catholics at the best of times, but Mary’s fervour feels to me like something else altogether. Like grief, in fact. As wilful as grief. But Kate was friends with everyone and, anyway, she and Mary had been at school together. Now Kate was telling me, ‘I said to Mary, Elizabeth’s incredibly bright.’ Well, that was a good move, because Mary would hate to think of any clever girl going uneducated; I’ll say that for her. Kate was saying, ‘I said, she needs to study here with Jane.’
Little Jane Grey. ‘Jane’s all right, is she?’ Earlier, I’d unwittingly made the mistake of asking Jane if she’d be riding with us. Her expression had been one of incomprehension as she’d declined and shrunk away, presumably to lessons or prayers.
‘Oh, Jane’s Jane,’ Kate said, diplomatically, with one of her wide-eyed twinkles.
Jane Grey: that tiny, serious girl, top-heavy with brains. Jane must have been so pleased to be at Kate’s. I’d had nice parents, if rather absent, but Jane’s situation was the opposite: parents not nice, and far too present in her life.
Walking from the stables, I puzzled over Elizabeth’s impending move into Kate’s household. Because there was something I knew about Elizabeth, wasn’t there: something that Kate didn’t seem to know. That Thomas Seymour had, only months ago, been pursuing her. But, then, I reminded myself, he’d left her alone, hadn’t he. Kate was the one he’d married, and as quickly as possible. So perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it had always been Kate for him. After all, Elizabeth was way out of his reach and surely he couldn’t have ever seriously imagined otherwise. Council would never have stood by and let him marry her, and he’d have known that, wouldn’t he. He must have known that. Anyone would know it. Perhaps, then, sensibly, he’d been covering up his interest in the king’s widow. In that way, it made sense, his play for Elizabeth. It was the only way it made sense: Elizabeth as red herring.
Four
A week or so later, when I was back home, Thomas’s brother turned up at my Barbican house. ‘Cathy,’ he said, and gave me a cold kiss on the cheek, somehow both diligent and absent-minded. Offered a drink, he requested warm milk and I suppressed a smile: England’s most powerful man, sipping warm milk. Bella fetched our drinks and a bowl of roast almonds, and Ed and I spent a while exchanging the usual pleasantries and making enquiries after family and mutual friends. Not Kate or Thomas, though: my best friend, his brother. Notable absences. Looming absences.
Presumably there was something that he felt would be best said if and when we were alone. So, I suggested a stroll in the garden. I’d probably have suggested it anyway because Ed is rather dull – he’d take no offence at my saying so, it’s something he seems to cultivate – and half an hour in his company is improved by there being something else to look at. Even a wintry garden. He hunched himself back into his luxurious cape and down we went to the terracotta-tiled terrace, then further down into the garden. At the bottom of the steps he launched in with, ‘My brother’s a bloody fool.’
So much for no one knowing.
He explained that he’d learned the news from the little king, who’d learned it from Thomas himself.
‘No one’s supposed to know,’ I said.
Ed’s smile was a sneer. ‘Thomas doesn’t keep secrets about his own good fortune.’
I asked how little Eddie had taken the news.
‘Thinks it’s nice: his favourite uncle and his beloved stepmama.’ Then he dropped the sneer and worried, ‘It’s just…too soon,’ touching his forehead as if placating a pain. His velvet cap didn’t disguise that he was more grey than when I’d last seen him, which was only weeks ago. No longer greying, but grey. The same thick, sleek head of hair, though.
‘Yes, I know.’
He gave an apologetic shrug: of course I knew. But then a double-take: ‘Did you…?’ You didn’t know beforehand, did you?
‘No! No. I’d have told her…’Told her what exactly? Any number of things. I voiced my doubts, or, more accurately, my incomprehension: ‘It’s not just that it’s too soon, is it. It’s that it’s him.’
He stopped, almost smiled.‘But I thought you’d have been all for that.’
‘For what?’
‘Marrying “for love”.’ He handled the words with a show of reluctance but it was clear that he enjoyed saying it. Probably the biggest thrill he’d had in ages.
I’ve never made any secret of my opinion. And if anyone fails to understand quite why I object to arranged marriages, a good start would be to have a look at Ed’s wife. Nasty piece of work. Or, indeed, look at Ed himself: pallid and shadowed.
‘It helps,’ I said, sarcastically,‘if both parties feel the same.’ We walked on, alongside joyless, brittle lavender.
‘So, you don’t think my brother is in love with Kate?’
‘Do you?’
Wearily: ‘I suspect he’s up to his usual tricks.’
I brushed my fingertips against a rosemary bush – the dusting of flowers, tiny knots of brightest blue – and enjoyed the sting of its deep, dark scent in the air. ‘What was all that with Elizabeth?’
‘Exactly what it looked like, I should think: an attempt to marry a princess.’
‘Has there ever been any other interest in women?’
He admitted, ‘That’s what puzzles me. If it wasn’t too premeditated for my brother – who’s nothing if not impetuous – I’d suspect he’d been waiting for the princesses to grow up. We’re lucky that his faults don’t include being Catholic.’ Mary would never have him.
I said, ‘It’s Kate who’s the mystery here, though, isn’t it. Not Thomas. What is Kate doing, marrying Thomas?’ Sensible Kate. Probably the most sensible woman any of us have ever known. Strong-minded Kate, though: it did fit, in that respect. And Kate who keeps her own counsel, likewise.
Ed nodded. ‘It’s Kate I’m concerned for. You know that.’ He was fond of Kate; she was his kind of person. ‘It’s not that I’m objecting to their being married. In fact, there’s probably no one I’d rather have as my sister-in-law -’ He stopped, gave me a look that meant Besides you, of course, although he didn’t mean it – he thinks I’m trouble. I laughed, but actually something serious occurred to me. I was remembering how Kate had said cheerfully to me, ‘But I don’t have to explain this to you, do I. You of all people.’And how I’d thought, Yes, but I’m me, Kate, and you’re you. Possibly, just possibly, this was something I’d do: marry someone whom others saw as unsuitable, and marry him quickly because I considered myself in love. Even though I had never, in fact, done any such thing. Had never had to. But Kate? Had I led her astray? By giving her ideas? She’d been the one giving me ideas, all my life: that’s how I saw our friendship. It felt odd to me that it might be the other way around, for once.
As we walked past my sunless sundial, Ed broached something else: ‘If there’s an heir soon, there’d be a question as to whose,’ and he clarified, unnecessarily, ‘Thomas’s, or the late king’s.’
‘Ed, there hasn’t been an heir in all these years. She’s been married three times since she was fifteen. To men who’d already had children, so there was nothing wrong with them’
He checked: ‘So, she isn’t…?’
‘Is that why you came here? Not to talk this over – two friends putting their heads together, concerned for a mutual friend – but to try to press something out of me?’
His turn now to take offence. ‘No. No. Don’t bite my head off over this.’ He sighed. ‘It’s genuinely that I don’t know what to think. Don’t know what to make of this.’
‘Yes, well,’ I said, ‘that makes two of us.’
Five
I went a couple of weeks later, at Kate’s invitation, to dine with the newlyweds. This was to be it: Thomas’s formal introduction to me as Kate’s husband. No point in my putting it off; every point in getting it over with while making as little as possible of it. It had to be done. When my barge drew up, it was Elizabeth – unmistakable hair of Tudor gold – who greeted us. She just happened to be sitting on the riverbank steps. Holding a lute. Beneath her scarlet, ermine-edged cloak was a gown of deepest, plushest black; beneath that, a kirtle in cloth-of-gold. Oh, very picturesque. How had she managed to slip away alone, unattended? The gems on her hood’s border winked as she stood to give me a huge smile – ‘Hellooo!’ – but those Boleyn-black eyes searched my face. I was careful to show just as much enthusiasm as we chatted. You want to know why I distrust Elizabeth’s familiarity? Because it’s calculated. Those scanning eyes. Oh, I understand why - she’s spent her life on the outside, special to no one – but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Her standing back from all the bustle of mooring and unloading our barge gave the unfortunate impression that she owned the place. ‘Oh, well,’ she said eventually and offered up her lute, raised her faint eyebrows. ‘Already late for my lesson.’ Watching her go, I did soften a little. Because there was also something genuine there. Excitement. She was obviously pleased to be at Kate’s. Understandably. Quite something, it was, to be taken on by Kate.
It was something, though, to which her elder sister was objecting: this I discovered a little later, when Kate came with me to my room. Her old friend Princess Mary was refusing all contact with her, she confided dolefully. ‘Doesn’t like my having married Thomas so soon.’ So soon after her father’s death. She shrugged, helpless. It crossed my mind to say, I’m sorry to hear that; but then it crossed my mind that I wasn’t. I was pleased; it was a relief. That friendship of Kate and Mary’s was unfathomable to me. Mary is from the dark ages.
It was predictable that she’d have voiced an objection: she’s famous for her sense of protocol, as well as for her horribly complicated relationship with her father. Understandable, the latter: think of his adoration of her as his precocious little princess, then his savage rejection of her along with her mother before he welcomed her – minus dead mother – back into the fold. Poor Mary never knew whether she was coming or going, whether she loved him or loathed him. Her confusion persists and she’s touchy on the subject, to say the least. I don’t like her but even I’d say that, given how her father treated her, she should be dancing on his grave.
‘She’ll come round, I think,’ Kate said, cautiously. We could speak freely; my two ladies, Joanna and Nichola, were reacquainting themselves with Kate’s; Kate and I could barely hear each other over all the chatter. Bella had gone to the laundresses with my gown, which had snagged on something when we’d disembarked.
‘And Elizabeth herself has no problems with your having married Thomas?’
‘No, none. Although Mary suggested she should have. Wrote to her and said it’d be best if she didn’t live with me.’ Kate permitted herself a wry smile. ‘Well, you can imagine. Elizabeth knows her own mind. She answered to say she’d be staying.’ Now, a burst of enthusiasm: ‘Elizabeth loves it here, you know. And I love having her here, Cathy. She’s a real joy to have around. Such a clever, grown-up girl; it’s so good to see her flourishing.’
I felt she was going to say, She’s more like a daughter to me than any girl has ever been. Or perhaps, I see a lot of how I was in her. She said neither. But she could have said either. It struck me that I was envious; of which of them, I didn’t know.
I didn’t meet Thomas until we went into the hall for dinner. And then there he was: across the expanse of jewellike tiles with the cavernous fireplace ablaze behind him. Kate took my hand, led me towards him, presenting me to him and getting away with it before I’d quite noticed. He kissed the hand – my hand – and greeted me with just one word: ‘Cathy.’ My own name, yet somehow it made me shy.
When had I last seen him? Five years ago? He was forty now but looked no different from when I’d last glimpsed him. His years of being cut loose from England seemed to have done him no harm at all. On the contrary. In the candlelight, his face looked sculpted, his eyes adamantine and his hair like cloth-of-gold. Impeccably tailored, too, he was, with even the smallest pieces of fabric slashed to reveal, underneath, as linings, fabrics that were just as fine. A performance in itself, how he looked. Kate never stinted on clothing – her gown was cloth-of-silver – and to my surprise they made a good-looking pair that evening.
He was bowed over my hand when he said my name and never during that whole evening did he once look me in the eye. I’ll be frank: it’s not something I’m used to, not being looked at. Ours was an intimate gathering, too, or should have been: just Elizabeth and me at the top table with Kate and Thomas. Jane Grey had gone from evening prayers to bed, having one of her headaches, and all Kate’s ladies and my own two were assigned with Thomas’s men to a separate table which was set at an unusual angle from ours. As was the table for the senior members of the household such as Elizabeth’s governess, the men of the church and the girls’ tutor. Kate’s consort of viols was practically inaudible. Uproar, though, heralded the subtlety brought to our table at the end of the meal: knowing, congratulatory laughter for the sugar-sculpted, goldleaf-tabbied pair of cats – the bigger one presumably a tom – which were arching their backs, rubbing against each other.
For all the supposed intimacy of our table, Kate seemed like a stranger to me. Was it, perhaps, like when a girl sees her older sister with a friend? I wouldn’t know, sisterless as I am, but that’s how I imagine it. A whole new Kate was conjured up in front of my eyes. A Kate who was somehow more than Kate. Not the one I knew, and surely the one I knew was the real one. But this one was so convincing. Pretty much perfect, in fact. Looking back, I suppose I felt as if something was being kept from me and something was being shown to me. I felt betrayed and tolerated and favoured, all at once.
And as for Thomas…Well, Thomas is always Thomas, I’ve learned. That, if nothing else, can be said for him. He was good company, that evening, telling stories and making us laugh, me, Kate and Elizabeth. If you know no better, that’s how he seems: fun. Daring, even, because he tended to tease Kate and this was something I’d never seen. Kate, I realised, had never been teasable. For all that she could do for people, all that she could be, she wasn’t teasable. Not due to lack of humour or humility – she had both, in spades – but because teasing’s for taking, and Kate was a giver. But this, now, from Thomas, she had to sit back and take. I watched her warm to it; watched her rise to it, as required, then submit to it.
Kate wasn’t the only one to fall in with him. Elizabeth and I must share some blame, too. Thomas was a good judge of when he’d taken more than his fair share of time and attention – as storyteller, joker – and that was when, to keep us on an even keel, he’d switch our attention to Kate. That’s what he was doing when he teased her, turning us away from him so that we could return, minutes later, refreshed, ready for more. He was also calling up our affection for her and offering it to her on his terms, in his words alone: Our Kate, our girl, our queen. We were giving up our say in who she was, to us, Our Kate, our girl, our queen. We went along with him. I can see it in retrospect but at the time, as I say, he seemed good company, telling stories and making us laugh. Now I know that’s what Thomas does: he charms; he tells stories. To women.
Six
I don’t remember ever having met Kate; she was always just there. My earliest memories of her are probably when she was thirteen or fourteen, when I would have been five or six. She was the daughter of my mother’s best friend, but more than that, to me, at my age, knee-high and wide-eyed, she was one of a crowd of girls of whom everyone at court spoke with such approval and enthusiasm. Very clever girls, they said. Of course, it wasn’t a crowd, it was a mere handful of girls from a few favoured families. Tall girls, to me, although that might only have been true of Kate and her sister, who did grow up tall. If the Princess Mary was tall, back in those days, she stopped growing, because she’s no bigger these days than a twelve-year-old. Something else: they were all so light-haired. Well, compared to me, they were. That’s what I’d notice: flaxen, auburn and gold tucked into those dark hoods. Perhaps all this makes Kate sound striking. What was striking about Kate, though, if it’s not contradictory to say so, was her plainness. There should be a word for it – striking plainness – but in English I don’t think there is; if there is, I don’t know it. Kate probably would have known a word or expression for it, in one of the four languages she spoke. Fish’s eyes was what came to mind, and still does. It might not sound complimentary, but actually they had an arresting glitter to them, those pale, protuberant eyes of hers.
For all her bookishness, gangliness and pallor, there was nothing off-putting or overawing about her for the five-year-old me. She was never anything but a comforting presence. I’d say that she always made a fuss of me, except that somehow she did it with no fuss at all.
And then she was away, married, and I thought no more of her, I suppose, or not much more; and then I was away, too, and then married and having the boys. My boys were part of Kate and I later becoming friends. She adored them and they adored her.
Now there was Thomas, and Kate seemed to be right about him being good with my boys. They came with me when I next visited Chelsea, for my first visit of a couple of days with the newlyweds, and on the first evening they were gone for hours with him. I don’t remember now what they’d gone to do, but eventually it was close to midnight and they hadn’t reappeared. Having had enough of Elizabeth’s strenuously sophisticated chatter and Kate’s indulgence of her, I made my excuses. The dogs were too sleepy to rise and I made it outside alone. The courtyard was balmy, horse-scented, under a blunted moon and a span of stars.The gardens were what made the old manor so special. Behind me, its roofs were sheathed in moonshine. Ahead, the rosebushes lay in wait, hunkered. Beyond them, at a stone’s throw, was the river, still and silent yet somehow very much a presence, a body of water at ease but vigilant.
Kate had told me that this was how she and Thomas had managed their clandestine meetings: in darkness in her garden. He would ride across the fields from London and the night porteress would admit him. It made perfect sense now: I could imagine it, even though I’d never in my life done such a thing. Before long, I heard the boys’ voices accompanied by a more certain male voice. I crept up on them; but where I’d expected to find them, there was unbroken darkness. It took me a moment to fathom: they were on the ground. Flat on their backs on the flagstones. Stargazing. Thomas was telling my boys about the stars. He’d had years away but under these same stars. Unanchored, star-trailing years during which this immense, peep-holed blackness had had to be his home. I heard how intimately he knew it, every faintly star-brushed corner. How he revered it. Earthbound me, I know so little of the constellations. I stopped at a safe distance, undetected.
It could have been an echo that I was hearing: my boys as little boys again, agog as Charles told them a bedtime story or told them about their day or the days they’d go on to have. Charles had already had families; we were third time around for him, but he never stinted with us. He had the time by then and the patience. I didn’t have much of him – twelve years – but I probably had the best. That’s what I have to remind myself.
What I was thinking, as I stood there in the darkness, was how well my boys had done in their two fatherless years. They’d done Charles proud. Their worries, I knew, were for me, for my happiness, however much I wished it weren’t so. And standing there, listening, was the first time I wondered if I was being too hard on Thomas. Perhaps Thomas, like Charles, had simply chosen to marry the woman he loved and would never waver. That kind of thinking – a forgiving kind – is what happens when you stop in a sparkling darkness and listen to a man showing your babies the stars. I doubt now that I was undetected; I think he knew I was there.
Seven
There’s a myth about Kate: that she found happiness at last with Thomas. Until, of course, it all went wrong. It’s a nice idea but it’s a myth. ‘I’ve always been happy,’ she’d said to me, during that first visit of mine, and was laughing as she said it. She sounded surprised that I’d made the remark, the one that would gain currency over the following months: that it was nice to see her happy at last. I’d succumbed already to the myth. Or perhaps, even – who knows? – I was the first to say it. Myth-making. Not like me; I don’t go in for myths. I can’t think why I said it now, can’t imagine how I’d fallen under that spell, except that’s how it is with myths, isn’t it: they’re persuasive. Myths, spells, lies – all the same, powerful.
This, then, is the truth about Kate, as I know it; this is as close as I can get. She had a happy enough childhood, growing up with a brother and sister, the three of them close. And if her mother wasn’t exactly merry…well, who would be, widowed in her early twenties with three small children? I barely remember Maud but she was, as far as I know, a woman of careful, calculated steps, dedicating the final decade of her life to her children’s education and inheritance. And who does that sound like? Except that Kate failed in the end to follow her mother’s example in one crucial respect. Maud chose to stay a widow.
