Chapter 16 #2
“Children give one power and status,” he said to Kate when next he visited. “Hal will continue our line and help our fortunes to prosper. I hope for more sons, and daughters to seal alliances between families, which extend one’s influence. I am pleased to see you looking so well again.”
“I feel well,” Kate said, thinking that all she wanted was to get this one born safely. “I only hope that the birth won’t be as difficult as last time, but Mother Ash said that was unlikely. I will engage her again.”
As the child grew within her womb, she passed the placid months overseeing the running of the household, interesting herself in estate matters, becoming involved in the life of the local community, and getting to know the families in the village.
Before she got too big to walk far, she often strolled along the country lanes with a basket of baked bread and meats, covered with a linen cloth, and some homemade cordial and jellies.
She took with her only her maid Thomasina and one of the grooms. It touched her to see the faces of the old and the bedridden light up when she appeared.
She would sit with them for a while, listen to their stories, and ask if they needed anything.
Sometimes she took Hal to see them. He was toddling now and a terrible chatterbox, but the elderly ladies loved him.
She was aware of Thomasina watching her with admiring eyes. The girl came from a poor but respectable family in Rotherfield Greys, and knew what it meant to her fellow villagers to be the recipients of small kindnesses from the lady of the manor.
“I never thought to find a place so agreeable to me,” she told Kate as they walked back to Greys Court one afternoon.
Kate looked at the earnest little face with its doelike brown eyes and merry lips.
“I never thought to have such an agreeable maid.” She smiled.
—
Kate wrote to her mother and Lettice, asking if they would come and be her gossips once more at the forthcoming birth.
Mother replied that she hoped to be there, but Lettice had hurt her foot and could not travel.
“I am deeply disappointed not to be able to come to you, but you will be in my prayers,” she wrote.
Francis had been elected Member of Parliament for Horsham, so he was dividing his time between the court, Sussex, and Westminster, which meant that he could not often snatch time to get home.
He was absent when Kate went into labor in late October.
This time, it was an easy travail. She woke early in the morning with what she thought to be indigestion.
It was only when she got up to use the privy that she realized that the pains of an upset stomach would not be coming every few minutes—and really, she should have known better, for by Mother Ash’s reckoning, she was well overdue.
She sent a panicking Thomasina for the midwife, who came hurrying up the stairs and performed a quick examination. “You’re ready to push, Madam!” she declared.
It was not like the last time. Fully aware on this occasion, Kate was able to push her baby into the world quite easily. Soon, she was holding her daughter in her arms. She called her Mary, after her mother. Francis had already agreed.
Mother had been unable to come to Oxfordshire for the birth after all.
She had been indisposed with what she said in her letter was colic and could not travel.
Kate hoped that she was all right. Being newly delivered, and with a babe and an unruly boy to look after, she could not get down to Kent, much as she would have liked to.
So she had to content herself with letters.
She wrote regularly to Elizabeth, too, and was glad to hear that her cousin was excelling at her studies.
Elizabeth was full of her achievements—she was never one for hiding her light beneath a bushel.
It was nice to hear her speak highly of Will, whom she had seen on her visits to court.
Kate hoped that one day, Elizabeth would get to meet Mother, the aunt who had been banished from her life.
She knew she could trust Will to bring that about, if it were humanly possible.
—
Kate was up and about again, and little Mary—the sweetest babe anyone could wish for—was thriving in the care of Mrs. Clements and Mrs. Wellgood, when Francis paid a fleeting visit.
Swooping the babe up in his arms, he gave her his blessing and kissed her.
“Such a pretty little maid!” he exclaimed.
“She’ll be breaking a few hearts one day, you’ll see.
” He smiled at Kate over the baby’s head, then leaned forward and kissed her.
“You have done me proud, my dearest.” Hal was capering around his father, demanding his attention.
Francis passed Mary to Kate and swung him in the air.
“Hello, little man! Have you been a good boy?”
“I’m the best boy!” Hal shouted, squealing with glee.
Kate made a face. “He’s a devil!”
Francis laughed. “He’s a boy! What did you expect?”
Later, as they lingered over the supper table in the solar, an ewer of wine and a platter of comfits between them, Francis looked a little awkward.
“I wanted to talk to you about Christmas,” he said.
“His Grace is in much better spirits these days and seems no longer to be grieving for the loss of the Queen. He has said that the court will be merry again at Yuletide, and is planning to feast the ladies. It’s a new habit of his, to invite the wives and daughters of his courtiers to a celebration and play host. He even inspects the tables beforehand. ”
Kate could feel the tension rising. She knew what was coming.
Francis hesitated. “He wants you to be there.”
She recoiled. “Me? Why?”
“He asks after you from time to time. He makes it his business to know what is happening in the lives of those who serve him. This week, he said that you must come to court for the feast because it is a long time since he has seen you. Please say you will come.”
Kate was appalled. “Why must I?”
“Because, effectively, the King has commanded it.”
“So I have no choice?”
“Not really. And I do not wish to offend the King.”
She bridled. “Francis, I am not long out of childbed, and it is Mary’s first Christmas. Hal is of an age to miss me terribly, and I don’t want to spend the season away from them.”
He smiled at her. “You will be with them at Christmas. The feast is to be held on Holy Innocents’ Day, so you can leave here on St. Stephen’s Day and be back in time for New Year.
And my mother will be coming to stay. She can keep the children entertained while you are gone, although I doubt that Mary will need much entertaining. ”
Kate sat there, miserable. Francis got up and knelt by her chair, taking her hand.
“Darling, I know you have little cause to love the King, but he is the King, and I look to him for advancement, which I trust will come before long. And he is prepared to be a good lord to you, too. We must not bite the hand that feeds us. And there will be many other ladies at the feast.” He looked at her pleadingly.
No, she didn’t have a choice. “Very well,” she said.
—
The court was crowded, and the halls, galleries, and state apartments were festooned with evergreens and infused with the heady seasonal scent of bay, juniper, cloves, and oranges.
Francis led Kate to his lodging, where a fire was lit and Will was waiting to greet her, and they shared a flagon of ale.
She wanted to know if her mother was better.
“I’ve written several times,” she told him, “but she never tells me anything about her health.”
“She is well, I’m sure,” he said. “She complains about various aches and pains, but I think a lot of it is in her mind. Don’t worry. If I was concerned, I would tell you.”
Kate had to leave him then, to change out of her traveling clothes and put on the new gown Francis had paid for. It was black with a low bodice and a crimson damask kirtle, and she felt very elegant in it, thankful that her figure had quickly returned to its normal shape.
Looking in Francis’s small mirror, she put on her hood. She had grown plumper in the face, but she thought it suited her, and that her smile was very becoming. Not bad, she told herself, for an old married woman of eighteen!
Both men looked at her admiringly when she emerged from the bedchamber.
“You look a picture,” Will said.
“I am indeed a lucky man,” Francis chimed in.
He escorted her to the Great Watching Chamber where the feast was to be held, kissed her hand, and left her at the door.
When, feeling nervous, she entered the throng of gorgeously dressed women, she was glad of her new gown, for it looked strikingly simple against some of the gaudy get-ups on display.
There was no one she recognized. The vast space was crowded, and everybody seemed to know everyone else.
As she wended her way past chattering groups, she felt very much an outsider and at a disadvantage.
She spied Anne Bassett talking to an older woman wearing heavy gold chains, but did not like to interrupt them.
Oh, why had she let herself be persuaded to come here?
This was not her world. She should be home at beautiful Greys Court, where her heart lay. Her arms ached to hold her children.
She wondered if she could sit down at one of the long tables that had been set for the feast, each at right angles to the dais, where the King’s table was laid up beneath the canopy of estate bearing the royal arms of England.
But she did not like to do so. For a start, she had no idea where to sit and did not want to give offense by taking a place intended for a lady of higher rank.