said that she had no dress to go in.
‘A seemly decent habit shall be got ready,’ he answered. ‘You shall sit in a gallery in private, and it shall be pointed out to you what lords you shall speak with and whom avoid.’ For ‘com’ è bella giovinezza’ . . . How beautiful is youth, what a pleasant season! And since it lasted but a short space it behoved us all — and her as much as any — to make as much as might be whilst it endured. The regard of a great lord such as Privy Seal brought present favours and future honours in the land, honours being pleasant in their turn, when youth is passed, like the mellow suns of autumn. ‘Thereby indeed,’ he apostrophised her, ‘the savour of youth reneweth itself again and again. . . . “Anzi rinuova come fa la luna,” in the words of Boccace.’
Her fair and upright beauty made Viridus acknowledge how excellent a spy upon the Lady Mary she might make. Papistry and a loyal love for the Old Faith seemed to be as strong in her candid eyes as it was implicit in her name. The Lady Mary might trust her for that and talk with her because of her skill in the learned tongues. Then, if they held her in their hands, how splendid a spy she might make, being so trusted! She might well be won for their cause by the offer of liberal rewards, though Privy Seal’s hand had been heavy upon all her kinsfolk. These men of Privy Seal’s get from him a maxim which he got in turn from his master Macchiavelli: ‘Advance therefore those whom it shall profit thee to make thy servants: for men forget sooner the death of a father than the loss of a patrimony’— and either by threats or by rewards they might make her very useful.
She had been minded to mock him in the beginning of his speech, but his dangerous pale-blue eyes made her feel that if he were ridiculous he was also very powerful, and that she was in the hands of these men.
Therefore she answered that youth indeed was a pleasant season when health, good victuals and the love of God sustained it.
He surveyed her out of the corners of his eyes.
‘Seek, then, to deserve these good things,’ he said. He stayed some time longer directing her how she should wear her clothes, and then in the gathering dusk he dwindled stealthily through the door.
‘It is to make you like a chained-up beast or slave,’ Margot said to her mistress.
‘Why, hold your tongue, coney, after today,’ Katharine answered, ‘the walls shall hear. I am a very poor man’s daughter and must even earn my bread if I would stay here.’
‘They could never tie me so,’ Margot retorted.
Her mistress laughed:
‘Why, you may set nets for the wind, but what a man will catch is still uncertain.’
It was cold, and they piled up the fire, waiting for some one to bring them candles.
A tall and bulky figure, with a heavy cloak cast over one shoulder in the Spanish fashion, but with a priest’s cap, was suddenly in the doorway.
‘Ha, magister,’ Katharine said, knowing no other man that could visit her. But the firelight shone upon a heavy, firm jaw that was never the magister’s, on white hands and in threatening, steadfast eyes.
‘I am the unworthy Bishop Gardiner, of Winchester,’ a harsh voice said. ‘I seek one Katharine Howard. Peace be with you in these evil days.’
Katharine fell upon her knees before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words of the exorcism against demons.
‘I am even cured,’ Katharine said.
He sent Margot Poins from the room, and stood in the firelight that threw his great shadow to shake upon the hangings, towering above Katharine Howard upon her knees. He was silent, as if he would threaten her, and his brooding eyes glowed and devoured her face. Here then, she thought, was the man from the other camp descending secretly upon her. He had no need to threaten, for she was of his side.
He said that a Magister Udal had reported that she stood in need of Christian aid, and, speaking Latin with a heavy voice, he interrogated her as to her faith. The times were evil: many and various heresies stalked about the land: let her beware of trafficking with them.
Kneeling still in the firelight, she answered that, so far as was lawful, she was a daughter of the Church.
He muttered: ‘Lawful!’ and looked at her for a long time with brooding and fanatical eyes. ‘I hear you have read many heathen books under a strange master.’
She answered: ‘Most Reverend, I am for the Old Faith in the old way.’
‘A prudent tongue is also a Christian possession,’ he muttered.
‘Nay there is no one to hear in this room,’ she said.
He bent over her to raise her to her feet and holding before her eyes his missal, he indicated to her certain prayers that she should recite in order to prevent the fiend’s coming to her again. Suddenly he commanded her to tell him how often she had conversed with the King’s Highness.
Gardiner was the bitterest of all whom Cromwell had to hate him. He had been of the King’s Council, and a secretary before Cromwell had reached the Court, and, but for Cromwell, he might well have been the King’s best minister. But Cromwell had even taken his secretaryship; and he was set upon having Privy Seal down all through those ten years. He had been bishop before any of these changes had been thought of, and by such Papists as Katharine Howard he was esteemed the most holy man in the land.
She told him that she had seen the King but once for a little time.
‘They told me it was many times,’ he answered fiercely. ‘Should I have come here merely to chatter with you?’
There was something sinister and harsh even in the bluish tinge of his shaven jaws, and his agate-blue eyes were sombre, threatening and suspicious.
She answered: ‘But once,’ and related the story very soberly.
He threatened her with his finger.
‘Have a care that you speak truth. Things will not always remain in this guise. I come to warn you that you speak the King with a loyal purpose. His Highness listens sometimes to the promptings of his women.’
‘You might have saved your journey,’ she answered. ‘I could speak no otherwise if he loved me.’
He gazed involuntarily round at the hangings as if he suspected a listener.
‘Your Most Reverence does ill to doubt me,’ Katharine said submissively. ‘I am of a true house.’
‘No house is true save where it finds its account,’ he answered moodily. He could not believe that she spoke the truth — for he was unable to believe that any man could speak the truth — but it was true she was poorly housed, raggedly dressed and hidden up in a corner. Nevertheless, these might be artifices. He made ostentatiously and disdainfully towards the door.
‘Why, God keep you,’— he moved his fingers in a negligent blessing —‘I believe you are true, though you are of little use.’ Suddenly he shot out:
‘If you would stay here in peace your cousin Culpepper must begone.’
Katharine put her hand to her heart in sudden fear of these men who surrounded her and knew everything.
‘What hath Tom done?’ she asked.
‘He hath put a shame upon thee,’ the bishop answered. He had fallen upon Sir Christopher Aske: he had been set in chains for it, in the Duke’s ward room. But upon the coming of the Queen the night before, all misdemeanants had been cast loose again. Culpepper had been kept by the guards from entering the palace, where he had no place. But he had fallen in with the Magister Udal in the courtyard. Being maudlin and friendly at the time, he had cast his arms round the magister’s neck claiming him for a loved acquaintance. They had drunk together and had started, towards midnight, to find the chamber of Katharine Howard, Culpepper seeking his cousin, and the magister, Margot Poins. On the way they had enlisted other jovial souls, and