“You would make yourself my knight then, Thomas,” she said softly.

“You could not have a braver...”

“Oh, I know it. I do not think I shall cry very much now.”

“Why should you cry?”

“For my mother, who is dead.”

“No, Catherine, you need not cry; for in place of your mother you have your brave cousin, Thomas Culpepper.”

“Shall I then tap on the wall if...?”

He wrinkled his brows. “For tonight, yes. Tomorrow we shall find a stick for you...a good, stout stick I think; that will make a good banging on the wall, and you could, in an emergency, hit the ghost should it be necessary before I arrive.”

“Oh, no, I could not! I should die of fear. Besides, might a ghost not do terrible things to one who made so bold as to hit it?”

“That may be so. The safest plan, my cousin, is to wait for me.”

“I do not know how to thank you.”

“Thank me by putting your trust in me.”

He stood back from the bed, bowing deeply.

“Good night, Cousin.”

“Good night, dear, brave Thomas.”

He went, and she hugged her pillow in an ecstasy of delight. Never had one of her own age been so kind to her; never had she felt of such consequence.

As for ghosts, what of them! What harm could they do to Catherine Howard, with Thomas Culpepper only the other side of her bedroom wall, ready to fly to her rescue!

There was delight in the hours spent at Hollingbourne. Far away in a hazy and unhappy past were the Lambeth days; and the sweetest thing she had known was the ripening of her friendship with her cousin Thomas. Catherine, whose nature was an excessively affectionate one, asked nothing more than that she should be allowed to love him. Her affection he most graciously accepted, and returned it in some smaller measure. It was a happy friendship, and he grew more fond of her than his dignity would allow him to make known; she, so sweet already, though so young, so clingingly feminine, touched something in his manhood. He found great pleasure in protecting her, and thus love grew between them. He taught her to ride, to climb trees, to share his adventures, though he never took her out at night; nor did he himself adventure much this way after her coming, wishing to be at hand lest in the lonely hours of evening she might need his help.

Her education was neglected. Sir John did not believe overmuch in the education of girls; and who was she but a dependant, though the child of his sister! She was a girl, and doubtless a match would be made for her; and bearing such a name as Howard, that match could be made without the unnecessary adornment of a good education. Consider the case of his kinsman, Thomas Boleyn. He had been, so Sir John had heard, at great pains to educate his two younger children who, in the family, had acquired the reputation of possessing some brilliance. Even the girl had been educated, and what had education done for her? There was some talk of a disaster at court; the girl had aspired to marry herself to a very highly born nobleman—doubtless due to her education. And had her education helped her? Not at all! Banishment and disgrace had been her lot. Let girls remain docile; let them cultivate charming manners; let them learn how to dress themselves prettily and submit to their husbands. That was all a girl needed from life. And did she want to construe Latin verse to do these things; did she want to give voice to her frivolous thoughts in six different languages! No, the education of young Catherine Howard was well taken care of.

Thomas tried to teach his cousin a little, but he quickly gave up the idea. She had no aptitude for it; rather she preferred to listen to the tales of his imaginary adventures, to sing and dance and play musical instruments. She was a frivolous little creature, and having been born into poverty, well pleased to have stepped out of it, happy to have for her friend surely the most handsome and the dearest cousin in the world. What more could she want?

And so the days passed pleasantly—riding with Thomas, listening to Thomas’s stories, admiring him, playing games in which he took the glorious part of knight and rescuer, she the role of helpless lady and rescued; now and then taking a lesson at the virginals, which was not like a lesson at all because she had been born with a love of music; she had singing lessons too which she loved, for her voice was pretty and promised to be good. But life could not go on in this even tenor for ever. A young man such as Thomas Culpepper could not be left to the care of a private tutor indefinitely.

He came to the music room one day while Catherine sat over the virginals with her teacher, and threw himself into a window seat and watched her as she played. Her auburn hair fell about her flushed face; she was very young, but there was always in Catherine Howard, even when a baby, a certain womanliness. Now she was aware of Thomas there, she was playing with especial pains to please him. That, thought Thomas, was so typical of her; she would always care deeply about pleasing those she loved. He was going to miss her very much; he found that watching her brought a foolish lump into his throat, and he contemplated running from the room for fear his sentimental tears should betray him. It was really but a short time ago that she had come to Hollingbourne, and yet she had made a marked difference to his life. Strange it was that that should be so; she was meek and self-effacing, and yet her very wish to please made her important to him; and he, who had longed for this childish stage of his education to be completed, was now sorry that it was over.

The teacher had stood up; the lesson was ended.

Catherine turned a flushed face to her cousin.

“Thomas, do you think I have improved?”

“Indeed yes,” he said, realizing that he had hardly heard what she had played. “Catherine,” he said quickly, “let us ride together. There is something I would say to you.”

They galloped round the paddock, he leading, she trying to catch up but never succeeding—which made her so enchanting. She was the perfect female, forever stressing her subservience to the male, soft and helpless, meek, her eyes ever ready to fill with tears at a rebuke.

He pulled up his horse, but did not dismount; he dared not, because he felt so ridiculously near tears himself. He must therefore be ready to whip up his horse if this inclination became a real danger.

“Catherine,” he said, his voice hardly steady, “I have bad news....”

He glanced at her face, at the hazel eyes wide now with fear, at the little round mouth which quivered.

“Oh, sweet little Cousin,” he said, “it is not so bad. I shall come back; I shall come back very soon.”

“You are going away then, Thomas?”

The world was suddenly dark; tears came to her eyes and brimmed over. He looked away, and sought refuge in hardening his voice.

“Come, Catherine, do not be so foolish. You surely did not imagine that my father’s son could spend all his days tucked away here in the country!”

“No...no.”

“Well then! Dry your eyes. No handkerchief? How like you, Catherine!” He threw her his. “You may keep that,” he said, “and think of me when I am gone.”

She took the handkerchief as though already it were a sacred thing.

He went on, his voice shaking: “And you must give me one of yours, Catherine, that I may keep it.”

She wiped her eyes.

He said tenderly: “It is only for a little while, Catherine.”

Now she was smiling.

“I should have known,” she said. “Of course you will go away.”

“When I return we shall have very many pleasant days together, Catherine.”

“Yes, Thomas.” Being Catherine, she could think of the reunion rather than the parting, even now.

He slipped off his horse, and she immediately did likewise; he held out his hands, and she put hers into them.

“Catherine, do you ever think of when we are grown up...really grown up, not just pretending to be?”

“I do not know, Thomas. I think perhaps I may have.”

“When we are grown up, Catherine, we shall marry...both of us. Catherine. I may marry you when I am of age.”

“Thomas! Would you?”

“I might,” he said.

She was pretty, with the smile breaking through her tears.

“Yes,” he said, “I think mayhap I will. And now, Catherine, you will not mind so much that I must go away, for you must know, we are both young in actual fact. Were we not, I would marry you now and take you with me.”

They were still holding hands, smiling at each other; he, flushed with pleasure at his beneficence in offering her such a glorious prospect as marriage with him; she, overwhelmed by the honor he did her.

He said: “When people are affianced, Catherine, they kiss. I am going to kiss you now.”

He kissed her on either cheek and then her soft baby mouth. Catherine wished he would go on kissing her, but he did not, not over-much liking the operation and considering it a necessary but rather humiliating formality; besides, he feared that there might be those to witness this and do what he dreaded most that people would do, laugh at him.

“That,” he said, “is settled. Let us ride.”

Catherine had been so long at Hollingbourne that she came to regard it as her home. Thomas came home occasionally, and there was nothing he liked better than to talk of the wild adventures he had had; and never had he known a better audience than his young cousin. She was so credulous, so ready to admire. They both looked forward to these reunions, and although they spoke not of their marriage which they had long ago in the paddock decided should one day take place, they neither of them forgot nor wished to repudiate the promises. Thomas was not the type of boy to think over-much of girls except when they could be fitted into an adventure where, by their very helplessness and physical inferiority, they could help to glorify the resourcefulness and strength of the male. Thomas was a normal, healthy boy whose thoughts had turned but fleetingly to sex; Catherine, though younger, was conscious of sex, and had been since she was a baby; she enjoyed Thomas’s company most when he held her hand or lifted her over a brook or rescued her from some imaginary evil fate. When the game was a pretense of stealing jewels, and she must pretend to be a man, the adventure lost its complete joy for her. She remembered still the quick, shamefaced kisses he had given her in the paddock, and she would have loved to have made plans for their marriage, to kiss now and then. She dared not tell Thomas this, and little did he guess that she was all but a woman while he was yet a child.