‘I lent my jewel box to Jane, when she was so suddenly elevated. I suppose she will give it back now I am to be married.’
‘I will talk to people in Antwerp. We could go through the king’s man, Cornelius, but I know some setters who do beautiful work, and after all, you won’t want to have what your sister has.’
She drops her eyes. ‘Jane said you would be generous.’
‘You must indulge me. I have no daughters. Though that is not true, I have one, you will have heard.’
‘Your Antwerp daughter.’
‘But I don’t think she cares for such things.’
She lowers her head and smiles. Suddenly she is as shy as her sister. ‘My lord, you may indulge me and I shall indulge you. But I shall hardly be your daughter.’
He says gently, ‘I had hoped that you would see yourself in that way.’
‘Oh, but …’ She stops and puts her hand on his arm. ‘It is to be like that? I did not know. As you please, of course … but you are not so very old, and I had hoped to have your children.’
‘Mine?’
He is shocked to the marrow. He, who has been in Rome! Who has been, frankly, everywhere … ‘Bess,’ he says, ‘we should go inside.’
‘Why?’
These Seymours, he thinks, they are like something from the Greek legends. A curse will fall on them. We know Old Sir John tupped his daughter-in-law, but surely she does not think that is the usual arrangement?
‘It is late, you are tired, it’s cold,’ he says. ‘And we should not be alone.’
‘Why?’
‘It could lead to –’ He passes his hand over his face. What could it lead to? ‘To misunderstandings.’
She says, ‘It is barely eight o’clock, the night is warm, and I am as fresh as a milkmaid at dawn.’
‘Come in,’ he urges her.
‘In other respects I agree.’ Her voice is icy. ‘I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am offering my person to one Cromwell only, the one I marry. But which Cromwell is it meant to be?’
His mind flies back to his conversation with Edward. It lands, light as a fly, and begins to crawl over it: over every meaningful pause, every ellipsis. Were names spoken? Perhaps not. Could Edward have supposed – could Edward have mistaken – yes, he supposes he could.
He lets out his breath. ‘So. Well. I am flattered, Bess. That you would even consider it.’
She says firmly: ‘I am not at fault.’
‘By no means.’
‘You are at fault. I listened to what my brother required of me. I made no objection. I never said, what age is Cromwell, and was his father not a tradesman? I just said, Yes, Edward. For the family, Edward. Anything and anyone you command, Edward.’
‘I see,’ he says. ‘I begin to see.’
‘I know you are a busy man. But I think you might have paused to explain yourself, so Edward could explain to me. But with no elucidation, I assumed –’
‘But why would you? When Gregory is so likely a young man, and of an age to marry?’
‘I think you have no idea, my lord, how much your single state is talked of. How much the whole court looks to you to change it. How they speculate, men and women both, that a great and dangerous honour will come your way.’
‘It is all just gossip,’ he says. ‘And you are right that it is dangerous. Dangerous to me, dishonourable to the Lady Mary.’
‘Then you would do well to be clear in your mind. Who you will marry. Who you will not.’
He begs, ‘Don’t tell Gregory. He thinks you have freely accepted him.’ A qualm overtakes him. ‘You will accept him? Because Bess – my lady – you are relieved, that it is not as you thought?’
A pause, then: ‘My lord, I will not tell you whether I am relieved or not. You must puzzle it out. But I dare say you will be too busy to puzzle for long.’
‘Gregory will make a tender husband,’ he says wretchedly, ‘and he will make you proud of him. He is a kind young man and gentle, and he is a good dancer, and he cuts a fine figure in the tilt yard, as fine as the best gentleman with sixteen quarters of nobility on his shield, and the king likes him, and no doubt he will make him a baron very soon and you will once more have your title and style. He is all together better than me –’ I, he thinks, who am so soiled in life’s battle, so seamed and scarred, so numb, so unwanted, so cold.
‘Stop,’ she says. ‘First, too few words. Now, too many.’
‘But you will? You will wed Gregory?’
‘Tell me when and where, and I will come in my bridal finery and marry whichever Cromwell presents himself. I am an obliging woman,’ she says. ‘Though not so obliging as you thought.’
She walks away on the grassy path, but she does not hurry. Her head is down, she appears to be in prayer. He thinks, she will be plain Mistress Cromwell, and she had not reckoned on that. Does she mind? It is not the least part of it, to find you are not only dropped down a generation, but have no title. Yet surely she would prefer the son, with all his prospects before him, to the father who – well, he thinks, I suppose there are prospects before me. No doubt Wriothesley is right, about the Garter. It seems such a thing could never happen, not to Walter’s son. Yet so much has happened already, that the most credulous child would never believe.
