The Story of Katharine Howard. Ford Madox Ford

of the Lady Mary’s Commentary upon Plautus. By pretending that certain words were obscure to her, she should find opportunities for coming suddenly into the room, and she should afford herself excuses for searching among his mistress’s papers without awakening suspicions.

      ‘Why, my face is too ingenuous,’ Katharine said. ‘I am not made for playing the spy.’

      He laughed at her.

      ‘That is so much the better,’ he said. ‘The best spies are those that have open countenances. It needs but a little schooling.’

      ‘I should get me a hang-dog look very soon,’ she answered. She paused for a minute and then spoke earnestly, holding out her hands. ‘I would you would set me a nobler task. Very surely it is shameful that a daughter should so hate the father that begat her; and I know the angels weep to see her desire that the great and noble prince should be cast down and slain by his enemies. But, sir, it were the better task to seek to soften her mind. Such knowledge as I have of goodly writers should aid me rather to persuade her heart towards her father; for I know no texts that should make me skilful as a spy, but I can give you a dozen from Plautus alone that do inculcate a sweet and dutiful love from daughter to sire.’

      He leered at her pleasantly.

      ‘Why, you speak sweetly, by the book. If the Lady Mary were a man now. . . . ’

      The hitherto silent men laid back their heads to laugh, and the Chancellor of the Augmentations suddenly rubbed his palms together, hissing like an ostler. But, seeing her look became angry and abashed, Cromwell stopped his sentence and once more held out a finger.

      ‘Why, indeed,’ he said, gravely, ‘if you could do that you might be the first lady in the land, for neither the King nor I, nor yet all nor many have availed there.’

      Katharine said:

      ‘Surely there is a way to touch the heart of this noble lady, and by long seeking I may find.’

      ‘Well, you have spoken many words,’ Cromwell said. ‘This is a great matter. If you shall achieve it, it shall be accounted to you both here and in heaven. But the other task I enjoin upon you.’

      She was making sorrowfully to the door, and he called to her:

      ‘I have found your cousin employment.’

      The sudden mention made her stop as if she had been struck in the face, and she held her hand to her side. Her face was distorted with fear as she turned to answer:

      ‘Aye. I knew. He hath told me. But I cannot thank you. I would not that my cousin should murder a prince of the Church.’ She knew, from the feeling in her heart and the cruel sound of his voice that he had that knowledge already. If he wished to imprison her it could serve no turn to fence about that matter, and she steadied herself by catching hold of the tapestry with one hand behind her back. The faces of Cromwell’s three assistants were upon her, hard, sardonic and grinning.

      Viridus said, with an air of parade:

      ‘I had told your lordship this lady had flaws in her loyalty.’ And the Chancellor was raising his hands in horror, after the fashion of a Greek Chorus. Cromwell, however, grinned still at her.

      ‘When the Queen Katharine died,’ he said slowly, ‘it was a great relief to this realm. When the late Arch Devil, Pope Clement, died, the King and I were mad with joy. But if all popes and all hostile queens and princes could be stricken with devils and dead tomorrow, his Highness would rather it were Reginald Pole.’

      Katharine understood very well that he was setting before her the enormity of her offence: she stood still with her lips parted. He went on rehearsing the crimes of the cardinal: how he had been educated by the King’s high bounty: how the King had offered him the Archbishopric of York: how he had the rather fled to the Bishop of Rome: how he had written a book, accusing the King of such crimes and heresies that all Christendom had cried out upon his Highness. Even then this Pole was in Paris with a bull from the Bishop of Rome calling upon the Emperor and the King of France to fall together upon their lord.

      Katharine gasped:

      ‘I would well he were dead. But not by my cousin. They should take my cousin and slay him.’

      Cromwell had arranged this scene very carefully: for his power over the King fell away daily, and that day he had had to tell Baumbach, the Saxish ambassador, that there was no longer any hope of the King’s allying himself with the Schmalkaldner league. Therefore he was the more hot to discover a new Papist treason. The suggestion of Viridus that Katharine might be made either to discover or to invent one had filled him with satisfaction. There was no one who could be more believed if she could be ground down into swearing away the life of her uncle or any other man of high station. And to grind her down thus needed only many threats. He infused gradually more terror into his narrow eyes, and spoke more gravely:

      ‘Neither do I desire the death of this traitor so hotly as doth his Highness. For there be these foul lies — and have you not heard the ancient fool’s prophecy that was made over thirty years ago: “That one with a Red Cap brought up from low degree should rule all the land under the King. (I trow ye know who that was.) And that after much mixing the land should by another Red Cap be reconciled or else brought to utter ruin”?’

      ‘I am new to this place,’ Katharine said; ‘I never heard that saying. God help me, I wish this man were dead.’

      His voice grew the more deep as he saw that she was the more daunted:

      ‘Aye: and whether the land be reconciled to the Bishop of Rome, or be brought to utter ruin, the one and the other signify the downfall of his Highness.’

      The Chancellor interrupted piously:

      ‘God save us. Whither should we all flee then!’

      ‘It is not,’ Viridus commented dryly, ‘that his Highness or my lord here do fear a fool prophecy made by a drunken man. But there being such a prophecy running up and down the land, and such a malignant and devilish Red Cap ranting up and down the world, the hearts of foolish subjects are made to turn.’

      ‘Idiot wench,’ the Chancellor suddenly yelped at her, ‘ignorant, naughty harlot! You had better have died than have uttered those your pretty words.’

      ‘Why,’ Cromwell said gently, ‘I am very sure that now you desire that your cousin should slay this traitor.’ He paused, licked his lips and held out a hand. ‘Upon your life,’ he barked, ‘tell no soul this secret.’

      The faces of all the four men were again upon her, sardonic, leering and amused, and suddenly she felt that this was not the end of the matter: there was something untrue in this parade of threats. Cromwell was acting: they were all acting parts. Their speeches were all too long, too dryly spoken: they had been rehearsed! This was not the end of the matter — and neither her cousin nor Cardinal Pole was here the main point. She wondered for a wild moment if Cromwell, too, like Gardiner, thought that she had a voice with the King. But Cromwell knew as well as she that the King had seen her but once for a minute, and he was not a fool like Gardiner to run his nose into a mare’s nest.

      ‘There is no power upon earth could save you from your doom if through you this matter miscarried,’ he said, softly: ‘therefore, be you very careful: act as I would have you act: seek out that secret that I would know.’

      It came irresistibly into Katharine’s head:

      ‘These men know already very well that I have written to Bishop Gardiner! This is to hold a halter continuously above my head!’ Then, at least, they did not mean to do away with her instantly. She dropped her eyes upon the ground and stood submissively whilst Privy Seal’s voice came cruel and level:

      ‘You are a very fair wench, made for love and such stuff. You are an indifferent good Latinist who might offer good counsel. But be you very careful that you come not against me. You should not escape, but may burrow underground sooner than that. Your Aristotle should not help you, nor Lucretius, nor Lucan, nor Silius Italicus. Diodorus Siculus hath no maxim that should help you against