a son of his own who would be playing in her nursery. She remembered happy days spent there, and in her death-drugged thoughts it was Catherine who seemed to be there, not herself. It was soothing to the dying mother to see her daughter Catherine in her own nursery, but the pleasure passed and she was again conscious of the big, bare room at Lambeth:
“Edmund...” she said.
Catherine turned her tearful eyes to the nurse.
“She speaks my father’s name.”
“Yes, my lady?” asked the nurse, bending over the bed.
“Edmund...”
“Go to your father and tell him your mother would speak to him.”
He stood by the bedside—poor, kind, bitter Edmund, whose life with her had been blighted by that pest, poverty. Now he was sorry for the sharp words he had spoken to her, for poverty had ever haunted him, waylaid him, leered at him, goaded him, warping his natural kindness, wrecking that peace he longed to share with his family.
“Jocosa...” There was such tenderness in his voice when he said her name that she thought momentarily that this was their wedding night, and he her lover; but she heard then the rattle in her throat and was conscious of her body’s burning heat, and thus remembered that this was not the prologue but the epilogue to her life with Edmund, and that Catherine—gentlest of her children—was in some danger, which she sensed but did not comprehend.
“Edmund...Catherine...”
He lifted the child in his arms and held her nearer the bed.
“Jocosa, here is Catherine.”
“My lord...let her go...let Catherine go...”
His head bent closer, and with a great effort the words came out.
“My brother John...at Hollingbourne...in Kent. Let Catherine...go to my brother John.”
Lord Edmund said: “Rest peacefully, Jocosa. It shall be as you wish.”
She sank back, smiling, for it was to be, since none dared disregard a promise made to a dying woman.
The effort had tired her; she knew not where she lay, but she believed it must be at Hollingbourne in Kent, so peaceful was she. The weary beating of her heart was slowing down. “Catherine is safe,” it said. “Catherine is...safe.”
At Hollingbourne, whither Catherine had been brought at her father’s command, life was different from that lived in the house at Lambeth. The first thing that struck Catherine was the plenteous supply of good plain country fare. There was a simplicity at Hollingbourne which had been entirely lacking at Lambeth; and Sir John, in his country retreat, was lord of the neighborhood, whereas Lord Edmund, living his impecunious life among those of equally noble birth, had seemed of little importance. Catherine looked upon her big Uncle John as something like a god.
The nurseries were composed of several airy rooms at the top of the house, and from these it was possible to look over the pleasant Kentish country undisturbed by the somber grandeur of the great city on whose outskirts the Lambeth house had sat. Catherine had often looked at the forts of the great Tower of London, and there was that in them to frighten the little girl. Servants were not over-careful; and though there were some who had nothing but adulation to give to Lord Edmund and his wife, poverty proved to be a leveler, and there were others who had but little respect for one who feared to be arrested at any moment for debt, even though he be a noble lord; and these servants were careless of what was said before the little Howards. There was a certain Doll Tappit who had for lover one who was a warder at the Tower, and fine stories he could tell her of the bloodcurdling shrieks which came from the torture chambers, of the noble gentlemen who had displeased the King and who were left to starve in the rat-infested dungeons. Therefore Catherine was glad to see green and pleasant hills against the skyline, and leafy woods in place of the great stone towers.
There was comfort at Hollingbourne, such as there had never been at Lambeth.
She was taken to the nurseries, and there put into the charge of an old nurse who had known her mother; and there she was introduced to her cousin Thomas and his tutor.
Shyly she studied Thomas. He, with his charming face in which his bold and lively eyes flashed and danced with merriment, was her senior by a year or so, and she was much in awe of him; but, finding the cousin who was to share his nursery to be but a girl—and such a little girl—he was inclined