My father and I turned in at the gates of the park, the gatekeeper and his wife tumbling out to make their bow as we went by. We rode past them with a wave, and up the dirt road to the first river, which was spanned by a little wooden bridge. My horse did not like the look of this, she jibbed at it as soon as she heard the echo of her hoofbeats on the hollow wood.
‘Fool,’ my father said briefly, leaving me to wonder whether he meant me or the horse, and put his own hunter before mine and led the way across. My horse followed behind, very docile when she could see that there was no danger, and so I rode up to the drawbridge of our castle behind my father and waited while the men came out of the guard room to take our horses and lead them away to the stables at the back. My legs felt weak after the long ride when they lifted me down from the saddle but I followed my father across the drawbridge and into the shadow of the gatehouse, under the forbidding thick teeth of the portcullis and into the welcoming little castle yard.
The front door stood open, the yeoman of the ewry and the chief household men came out and bowed to my father, half a dozen servants behind them. My father ran his eyes over them: some were in full livery, some were not, two of the servant girls were hastily untying the hessian aprons they wore over their best aprons underneath, and disclosing some very dirty linen as they did so; the spit boy, peeping out from the corner of the yard, was filthy with deeply engrained dirt and half-naked in his rags. My father took in the general sense of disorder and carelessness and nodded at his people.
‘Very well,’ he said guardedly. ‘This is my daughter Mary. Mistress Mary Carey. You have prepared rooms for us?’
‘Oh yes, sir.’ The groom of the bedchambers bowed. ‘Everything is ready. Mistress Carey’s room is ready.’
‘And dinner?’ my father demanded.
‘At once.’
‘We’ll eat in the private rooms. I’ll have dinner tomorrow in the great hall and people can come and see me. Tell them I will dine in public tomorrow. But this evening I won’t be disturbed.’
One of the girls came forward and dipped a curtsey to me. ‘Shall I show you your room, Mistress Carey?’ she asked.
I followed her at my father’s nod. We went through the broad front door and turned left along a narrow hall. At the end a tiny spiral stone staircase led us upwards to a pretty room with a small bed hung with curtains of pale blue silk. The windows looked out over the moat and the park beyond. A door out of the room would lead me into a small gallery with a stone fireplace which was my mother’s favourite sitting room.
‘D’you want to wash?’ the girl asked awkwardly. She gestured towards a jug and ewer filled with cold water. ‘I could get you some hot water?’
I stripped off my riding gloves and handed them to her. ‘Yes,’ I said. For a moment I thought of the palace at Eltham and the constant sycophantic service. ‘Get me some hot water and see that they bring my clothes up. I want to change out of this riding dress.’
She bowed and left the room by the little stone staircase. As she went I could hear her muttering to herself: ‘Hot water. Clothes,’ so as not to forget. I went to the windowseat, kneeled up and looked out of the little window through the leaded panes.
I had spent the day trying not to think of Henry and the court I was leaving behind me, but now at this comfortless homecoming I realised that I had not just lost the love of the king, I had lost the luxuries which had become essential to me. I did not want to be Miss Boleyn of Hever again. I did not want to be the daughter of a small castle in Kent. I had been the most favoured young woman in the whole of England. I had gone far beyond Hever and I did not want to come back.
My father stayed no more than three days, long enough to see his land agent and those tenants who urgently wanted to speak to him, time enough to solve a dispute about a boundary post and to order his favourite mare put to the stallion, and then he was ready to leave again. I stood on the drawbridge to bid him farewell and I knew that I must look sorrowful indeed since even he noticed as he swung himself up into the saddle.
‘What’s the matter?’ he demanded, bracingly. ‘Not missing court, are you?’
‘Yes,’ I said shortly. There was no point telling my father that indeed I missed the court, but that I missed most, unbearably, the sight of Henry.
‘No-one to blame but yourself,’ my father said robustly. ‘We have to trust to your brother and sister to set it right for you. If not, then God knows what will become of you. I’ll have to get Carey to take you back, and we’ll have to hope that he forgives you.’
He laughed aloud at the shocked look on my face.
I drew closer to my father’s horse and put my hand on his gauntlet where it rested on the reins. ‘If the king asks for me would you tell him that I am very sorry if I offended him?’
He shook his head. ‘We play this Anne’s way,’ he said. ‘She seems to think she knows how to manage him. You have to do as you are bid, Mary. You bodged it once, you have to work under orders now.’
‘Why should Anne be the one who says how things are done?’ I demanded. ‘Why d’you always listen to Anne?’
My father took his hand from under my grip. ‘Because she’s got a head on her shoulders and she knows her own value,’ he said bluntly. ‘Whereas you have behaved like a girl of fourteen in love for the first time.’
‘But I am a girl of fourteen in love for the first time!’ I exclaimed.
‘Exactly,’ he said unforgivingly. ‘That’s why we listen to Anne.’
He did not trouble to say goodbye to me, but turned his horse away, trotted over the drawbridge and then down the track towards the gates.
I raised my hand to wave in case he looked back; but he did not. He rode straight-backed, looking forward. He rode like a Howard. We never look back. We have no time for regrets or second thoughts. If a plan goes awry we make another, if one weapon breaks in our hands we find a second. If the steps fall down before us we overleap them and go up. It is always onwards and upwards for the Howards; and my father was on his way back to court and to the company of the king without a backwards glance for me.
By the end of the first week I had taken a turn around every walk that there was in the garden and explored the park in every direction from my starting point at the drawbridge. I had started a tapestry for the altar of St Peter’s church at Hever and completed a square foot of sky which was very boring indeed, being nothing but blue. I had written three letters to Anne and George and sent them off by messenger to the court at Eltham. Three times he had gone for me and come back with no reply except their good wishes.
By the end of the second week I was ordering my horse out of the stables in the morning and going for long rides on my own, I was too irritable even for the company of a silent servant. I tried to keep my temper hidden. I thanked the maid for any little service she did for me, I sat to eat my dinner and bowed my head when the priest said grace as if I did not want to leap up and scream with frustration that I was trapped in Hever while the court was on the move from Eltham to Windsor and I not with them. I did everything I could to contain the fury that I was so far from court, and so terribly left out
