Читать книгу Brief Gaudy Hour - Margaret Campbell Barnes - Страница 6

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Anne’s gaudiest hours began in France. Louis’ Court was a dazzling parterre of pleasures for her delectation. Like the bright butterflies at Hever, she had emerged from her chrysalis of adolescence to sip heady essence from them all, and to flutter her wings awhile in the warm sunshine of success.

All the splendour and wit of Paris scintillated about her, and she served a Queen whose love of gaiety matched her own, and Mary had shown her special favour. Not merely calculated favour for her silence, but favour with affection.

It was Anne who had helped her to bear the Duke of Suffolk’s departure, since she alone knew what it meant to her. And when the jealousy of his own people forced Louis to send most of his new Queen’s women home again, he suffered Anne to stay. Because of her fluent French, Sir Thomas Boleyn told her. Father and daughter had both called down further blessings on the diligence of Simonette, and though Mary raged at finding herself waited on by foreign strangers, Anne was secretly glad. All those impressionable French gallants, she thought—and just one English maid-of-honour!

And apart from that one arbitrary act, Louis had been exceedingly kind. Not only had he loaded his “fair Tudor rose” with costly gifts, but for her sake he had pinned all sorts of belated reformations upon the remnant of his misspent years. He adored her, and merely by being her lovable self she quelled the brutish in any man who cared for her. She never indulged in tedious religious discourses, as so many modern women did to advertise their learning; and she seldom appeared shocked. In a land of light love affairs, she laughed merrily at most of the lewd jests told at Court, but herself remained unsmirched. And Anne Boleyn was clever enough to take her cue from one who seemed to have solved the problem of being both irresistible and chaste.

There were few restrictions in Queen Mary’s household, yet those who served her knew the grief it would occasion if they erred. Besides which, Anne had the grace to remember that she was daughter to the Ambassador from the Court of St. James. All that she did could bring fame or shame to England. And blithely as she enjoyed the sophistication of Paris, the quiet gardens of Hever had helped to mould her heart.

She was very careful not to err. But it was not always easy. She was too talented, too quick of wit not to draw attention. Even, at times, the Dauphin’s dangerous attention. And with each conquest her strange beauty bloomed less fitfully. When ardent young men forsook acknowledged beauties and pressed about her for favours, Anne began to understand that there was something which bewitched them more than classic colouring and features. Some elusive charm which stirred their sex upon the briefest encounter. Something which she possessed and must learn to wield adroitly. When some enamoured courtier presumed too far, she would glance at him with that devastating sidelong look of hers, provoking him to desire, yet keeping him uncertain of fulfilment. But there were those, more bold or more experienced, who soon taught her the necessity of hiding her own too warm response beneath a deceptive show of coldness. Not just to tantalize, but to save herself from shame.

Life in France was teaching country-bred Anne many things. Among them, the quickness of her own desires. But she was shrewd enough to recognize them as a weakness—a mortal enemy which might at any moment betray her, undoing all the carefully built up perfections of her other parts. So she bound her sexual impulses with strong cords of fear and prayer and self-interest, and pushed them, like a caged beast, into some limbo of her being, so that no one would guess at their exuberance and so that her own pride could usually forget their power.

For Anne was beginning to know herself, although as yet she did not recognize the elements that warred in her. It had not occurred to her that the cultural urges which Simonette had implanted, the suave vaulting ambition of her father and her stepmother’s good middle-class moral code were elements that made her character more complex than it need have been. That they had made her a prude, capable of being consumed by passion. That because of her father’s diplomacy she was growing into a woman who might lie to others, but on account of Simonette’s clarity of vision she was already incapable of deceiving herself. Always she would be sure of her own motives, so that the comfort of sinning unwittingly was forever denied her.

Among the lesser things that France taught Anne was how to dress. Beneath her mistress’ amused, indulgent eye Anne began to experiment. Cautiously, with small details, at first. Intriguing little gold bells tinkling at the points of her velvet cape, so that everywhere men’s eyes followed her. Or a headdress of plaited gauze, costing more in ingenuity than in money. A headdress which looked like a gossamer halo above her shining dark hair, and drove richer women with heavier features to distraction.

And then, becoming more daring, she discovered that a graceful girl can wear anything, and that fashionable women are but sheep.

A pert French girl, grudging her an admirer, had remarked too audibly that it was amazing how a man of breeding could desire to kiss a foreigner with a deformed hand and an ugly mole upon her neck. Actually, Anne’s mole was small; but her sensitiveness was great. Floods of tears soaked her pillow that night, but not for worlds would she have let her rivals see her mortification. After much thought she rose and went to her duties and, while putting away the Queen’s jewels, asked humbly if she might borrow a deep pearled collar that Mary seldom wore. The pearls were set on tiny bands of black velvet and it suited Anne’s long, slender neck to perfection, making her look more mature and adding to the lustre of her eyes. Quite effectively, it hid the offending mole and deprived quite a number of other French girls of their dance partners. And then two important duchesses began to grace the Palace in high, jewelled collars, and half the Court followed suit. “Why, Nan, you have set the fashion with my poor little trinket! You had better keep it,” laughed her mistress generously.

With such encouragement, Anne’s courage soared. At last she dared to do what she had always wanted to. With the help of her sewing woman she designed a full, hanging sleeve which afforded cover for her blemished left hand. Lined with silver taffeta, such sleeves were immensely effective against her gown of midnight blue. Burning with self-consciousness, she took her place at supper and braved the barrage of her rivals’ titters. And it was that night the Dauphin Francis asked her to lead the dance with him. And because Anne was as skilled in the dance as she was about clothes, a new French fashion was born. The Boleyn sleeve.

Anne would have been scarcely human had she not been elated. Even the Queen complimented her, and right from girlhood Wyatt’s polished love-making had accustomed her to lap up adulation. Oddly enough, it was her father who was not so pleased. He drew her aside and warned her, gently, to be careful. “We want no breath of scandal to touch you here. Who knows but what it might spoil your chances hereafter in England?” he said. And Anne wondered what was in his farseeing mind. She had supposed that he was waiting to see what matrimonial chances offered for her in France, where she had already met several men who could stir her senses, but as yet none who could touch her heart. But she rejoiced that she was still free. Free to distribute her favours lightly, to read fine French poetry, to learn to play a variety of musical instruments, and to invent new dance steps for her friends.

In the froth of light flirtations, Anne had almost forgotten the splendid lover of girlhood’s dreams. Life was so glittering, so gay.

And then, suddenly, Louis of France died. Quite effortlessly, it seemed, like a withered leaf falling into its bright parterre of perfumed flowers.

Instantly, all the colours and the music ceased. The Court became a world of sombre black. Dirges and requiems were the only sounds. Le roi est mort. And with the sad words, Mary ceased to be Queen of France. She was just a widow. A widow with real tears in her eyes. For it was impossible for one so affectionate not to feel gratitude for her husband’s many kindnesses, and not least, perhaps, for the last boon of all.

“Louis was always kind. And, after all, it wasn’t very long,” she said.

“Shall we be going home?” asked Anne. Now that all the dancing was done, Hever was beginning to tear at her heart again.

“Sir Thomas tells me that if we do my brother will be sending milord of Suffolk to fetch me thither,” answered the comely dowager Queen, with a little secret smile.

Her women were assisting at her levée after the week of strict mourning during which etiquette required a royal widow to keep her bed; but when they had changed her white weeds for unbecoming black ones, she sent them all away except Anne. “It is rumoured that some of the French Council are urging Francis to marry me,” she said. “The Dauphin! The new King, I mean!”

Anne stared aghast. “But you are—”

“His aunt by marriage? Yes.” The little humorous dimple dented Mary’s cheek. “And not really old enough to be that!”

“You mean they want it because it would continue the alliance?”

“I suppose so.”

“But it would be almost incest!”

Mary Tudor shrugged dolefully. “If the Pope granted a dispensation when King Henry had to marry our elder brother’s widow, in all likelihood his Holiness could be persuaded about this. Particularly now we have an English Cardinal.”

“But the King promised that you should choose. That day at Dover—”

“Yes, the King promised. I must pin my faith to that.” Mary got up from her dressing stool and began pacing the room, drawing a dismal trail of black draperies behind her. “Oh, if only I knew! If only I could see Henry.”

“At least you will see milord the Duke,” Anne reminded her. She, herself, had no particular desire to see him; but if it comforted her mistress—Anne put down on a chair again all the scattered garments she had so absent-mindedly gathered up. Automatically she went to fetch Mary’s jewel coffer, her mind searching for further comfort as she went. “Madame, I remember one evening when the Dauphin did me the honour to dance with me,” she began impulsively, carrying the richly inlaid box across the room. “That is, when he was urging me to—to be more kind—” She stopped abruptly, with burning cheeks.

Mary watched the girl’s reflection in her mirror. “Yes, Nan? I can imagine he did. You know you can speak quite openly,” she encouraged, smiling a little.

Anne set down the jewels before her. “I expect he was trying to make me sorry for him,” she explained apologetically. “He told me he supposed he would soon have to marry King Louis’ daughter. His sex-dry, sanctimonious cousin Claude, he called her. For his sins, he said, and to strengthen the succession.”

Mary could so easily imagine Francis saying it. In spite of her own anxieties, she had to laugh. “I hope it may prove true,” she said, selecting the earrings she wanted and clipping them on. She jerked up her russet head, so that they swung like defiant stars. “But whether it be true or not, I will not marry him!” she declared.

Girls often talked like that in the privacy of their own rooms; and then meekly obeyed their menfolk. “But if King Henry insists?” murmured Anne, regarding her with admiration.

Mary sprang up, closing her jewel case with a snap. “Am I not a Tudor, too?” she boasted. “And quicker, being a woman?” In this whirlwind mood she was a small replica of her brother, and even in her unbecoming weeds she managed to look most inappropriately radiant—a ripe woman with all her warm capacity for love running riot. “After all,” she excused herself, half laughing, “he shouldn’t be such a fool as to put temptation in my way!”

Full comprehension of her words left Anne breathless. It had not occurred to her that a woman could really disobey about marriage. “You mean that you will marry the Duke when he comes? Without waiting for permission? Here in Paris?”