'It shall get you advancement. I am minded the piece shall be given at
my house before his Highness and the new Queen in a week.'
Udal remained silent, dejected, his head resting upon his breast.
'For,' Cromwell spoke with a raised voice, 'it is well that the King
be distracted of his griefs.' He went on as if he were uttering an
admonition that he meant should be heeded and repeated. The times were
very evil with risings, mutinies in close fortresses, schism, and the
bad hearts of men. Here, therefore, he would that the King should find
distraction. Such of them as had gifts should display those talents
for his beguiling; such of them as had beauty should make valuable
that beauty; others whose wealth could provide them with rich garments
and pleasant displays should work, each man and each woman, after his
sort or hers. 'And I will that you report my words where either of you
have resort. Who loves me shall hear it; who fears me shall take
warning.'
He surveyed both Katharine and the master with a heavy and encouraging
glance, having the air of offering great things if they aided him and
avoided dealing with his enemies.
The Lady Mary was gliding towards them like a cold shadow casting
itself upon his warm words; she would have ignored him altogether,
knowing that contempt is harder to bear than bitter speeches. But the
fascination of hatred made it hard to keep aloof from her father's
instrument. He looked negligently over his shoulder and was gone
before she could speak. He did not care to hear more bitter words that
could make the breach between them only wider, since words once spoken
are so hard to wash away, and the bringing of this bitter woman back
to obedience to her father was so great a part of his religion of
kingcraft. In that, when it came, there should be nothing but concord
and oblivion of bitter speeches, silent loyalty, and a throne upheld,
revered, and unassailable.
Udal groaned lamentably when the door closed upon him:
'I shall write to make men laugh! In the vulgar tongue! I! To gain
advancement!'
The Lady Mary's face hardly relaxed:
'Others of us take harder usage from my lord,' she said. She addressed
Katharine: 'You are named after my mother. I wish you a better fate
than your namesake had.' Her harsh voice dismayed Katharine, who had
been prepared to worship her. She had eaten nothing since dawn, she
had travelled very far and with this discouragement the pain in her
arm came back. She could find no words to say, and the Lady Mary
continued bitterly: 'But if you love that dear name and would sojourn
near me I would have you hide it. For--though I care little--I would
yet have women about me that believe my mother to have been foully
murdered.'
'I cannot easily dissemble.' Katharine found her tongue. 'Where I hate
I speak things disparaging.'
'That I attest to of old,' Udal commented. 'But I shall be shamed
before all learned doctors, if I write in the vulgar tongue.'
'Silence is ever best for me!' the Lady Mary answered her deadly. 'I
live in the shadows that I love.'
'That, full surely, shall be reversed,' Katharine said loyally.
'I do not ask it,' Mary said.
'Wherefore must I write in the vulgar tongue?' Udal asked again, 'Oh,
Mistress of my actions and my heart, what whim is this? The King is an
excellent good Latinist!'
'Too good!' the Lady Mary said bitterly. 'With his learning he hath
overset the Church of Christ.'
She spoke harshly to Katharine: 'What reversal should give my mother
her life again? Wench! Wench!...' Then she turned upon Udal
indifferently:
'God knows why this man would have you write in the vulgar tongue. But
so he wills it.'
Udal groaned.
'My dinner hour is here,' the Lady Mary said. 'I am very hungry. Get
you to your writing and take this lady to my women.'