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By Root 4079 0

between them did not appear until Celia was about a year old. It was his fault. Perhaps, if she had not been so anxious to please, he could have held out for longer; but occasionally he began to tease her. Sometimes it would be no more than a light-hearted remark; at other times there would be an unstated criticism of her in his words. These comments were usually about the dogma of the Catholic priests, or perhaps the absurdity of some sacred relic that had been done away with. Poor Katherine could sense that such remarks were intended as a challenge, but she was not sure whether they were a criticism of herself or of her church. Was he no longer a good Catholic? Or did he mean that he no longer loved her?

He was young. Sometimes he enjoyed making her unhappy. Sometimes it even excited him. But as the months passed, a certain coldness began to develop between them. Several times he had found her looking at him suspiciously, and once she had turned to him and frankly demanded:

“Are you not a Catholic?”

He had told her that he was, but this time he realised that she feared he might be lying.

When he lay beside her at night, though she did not turn away from him, he could feel her resentment coming from her like a wave; and as the months went by he found that he returned it, if only in some sort of self-defence.

She was still submissive, still dutiful; but because he sensed she might not love him, it no longer gave him pleasure to get his way. Sometimes he would lie again to please her, swear to his Catholic faith, and for a time it would seem that their relationship had returned to where it had been before. But always he suspected she secretly doubted him.

He guessed correctly, however, that she had made no mention of her doubts to her family, for to do so would have been to admit that her husband was a traitor.

During the last few years though, their marriage had been peaceful enough. The old attraction had for periods returned. She had become pregnant again, but miscarried.

Celia was being brought up as a Catholic, in the secrecy of the home. But once or twice already the child had been heard to utter remarks which might have given him trouble in the city.

“Let the child be taught the Catholic faith when she is older,” he ordered Katherine. “But not until she has reached an age when she can understand how to keep silent. After all,” he added to comfort her, “Cranmer’s Prayer Book is but a translation taken mostly from our old Use of Sarum.” This was true, but it failed to console her.

And then there had been the scene that morning. He went out early but had returned to the house briefly before going on to St Thomas’s church.

She had not heard him coming in. It was as he came up the stairs to the big room that overlooked the street that he heard her gentle voice saying to the child:

“And then the priest performs a miracle and the bread and wine become in very truth the body and blood of Our Lord.”

He felt himself grow cold. What if the child should say such things in public? For this was the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Every Catholic must believe in the power of the priest, when he raises the Host to perform the great miracle that transforms bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Every Lollard in the past and every Portestant now denied it. The orthodox Henry VIII in his Six Articles had insisted upon it. But to his son Edward VI, to Cranmer, and to Bishop Capon it was anathema.

He stormed into the room.

“No! I will have her taught no popish doctrines.” He pointed his finger furiously at his wife. “I forbid it, Katherine, and you will obey me.”

He saw her look of anguish but he did not care.

“You call it popish?”

“I do.”

“Then,” he would never forget the pain he saw in her eyes, “do you not believe?”

And at last in his anger he cried:

“No, foolish woman. I do not.”

So now she knew, beyond all shadow of doubt, that all these years he had despised her and that he had lied.

It was a relief to turn his thoughts back to business.

For today could be a turning point in his life. If the