Hans says, ‘Henry is easy. He never shows he would like to be elsewhere. He takes it as his duty to be painted. Do you not see? His face shines with the wonder of himself.’
Towards the end of May the queen’s child quickens. The
Jane has objected to the taking of her portrait, saying, ‘Master Hans will look at me.’
But she has yielded to the king’s pleasure, requesting only that Lord Cromwell be present: she seems afraid that the artist will shout at her in a foreign tongue. He makes the introductions and then retreats, so he is out of the painter’s eyeline.
‘Here?’ Jane says.
The queen takes up her stance. Her sister Lady Oughtred, now in attendance, stoops to arrange her skirts. Jane is as stiff as a woman on a catafalque. She stands with her hands clasped over her child, as if keeping it in order. ‘It is very correct to breathe,’ Hans reminds her. ‘And certainly your Highness may sit if she pleases.’
Jane’s gaze rests on the middle distance. Her expression is remote and pure. Hans says, ‘If your Highness could lift her chin?’ He sighs; he shuffles, he walks around the queen, and hums. He is dissatisfied; her face is puffy; he cannot find the bones in it.
Jane speaks only once: ‘Is Lady Lisle delivered yet?’
‘It cannot be long, madam,’ he says, from his seat in the window.
‘God send her a good hour,’ Lady Oughtred says.
His mind shifts, wanders: he takes a prayer book out of his pocket and thumbs through it, but an image of water, of daylight on water, begins to flicker and flow between his eyes and the page. He thinks of a woman sitting upright in a tangle of linen sheets, her breasts bare, sunlight sliding over her arms. He thinks of himself at nightfall, on the slippery paving beside the German House in Venice, his friend Heinrich asking as they step out of their boat: ‘You want to see our goddesses on the wall? You, guard, hold up your torch.’
Almost imperceptibly, Jane’s chin has dropped again. Hans approaches him. It does not matter, he whispers, whether she sits, stands, kneels, anything she has a fantasy to do; her hands, her posture, I can fix it later, and we can put her in another gown if she likes, or paint on different sleeves, we can push her hood back a little, and as for her jewellery I will give her pieces of my own design, which will be a good advertisement of my skill, Thomas, do you not think so? But I must have her face, just for this one hour. So implore her – spare me a glance.
‘The king will want her as she is,’ he warns. ‘No flattery.’
‘It is not my habit.’
‘I warrant when he married her,’ her sister says, ‘she did not look so much like a mushroom.’
The queen’s happy condition is now known all over Europe, and the Seymour name exalted. It is time he, Cromwell, opened talks with Edward.
‘Your lady sister,’ he says. ‘Oughtred’s widow.’
‘Yes,’ Edward says.
‘Her hand in marriage.’
‘Yes?’
‘I believe you’re talking to the Earl of Oxford? You know he’s older than I am?’
‘Is he?’ Edward frowns. ‘Yes, I dare say.’
‘So would Bess not prefer a young lad?’
Edward looks as if something improper has been hinted. ‘She knows her duty.’
‘I see it is promotion for you, to marry into the Vere family. Yet the Seymours are as old a house, I would have thought, old and just as good, if less rewarded till now. The Veres have more power, but not more estimation.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Edward is cautious.
‘You don’t need Oxford to make your fortune. It is already made. And I suggest that a bride could be happier elsewhere.’
‘This is a surprise,’ Edward says. ‘Would you then …?’ He closes his eyes as if in prayer. ‘That is, are you willing …’
‘We are willing,’ he says.
‘And ready? To talk about money?’
‘It is my favourite subject,’ he says.
We rough Cromwells, eh? Edward tries to smile.
‘But Edward, this could be a great thing,’ he says. ‘We can make an alliance in blood, as well as in the council chamber. Have no qualms. All the grace and goodwill lie on your side, and the rude substance will come from mine. I will build Bess a new house. While she is waiting she will not be short of a roof over her head – Mortlake is much enlarged, and there is Stepney which is a very pleasant house at any season, and there is Austin Friars of course – all my property is at her disposal, and if there is some house of the king’s she has a fancy to, I feel sure that of his kindness he will lend it us. She will have whatever I can give to make her happy.’
