Dear Heart, How Like You This Read Online Free

other three children.
    Anne and George stared long at Mary. Then they looked at each other, unaware that, beside them, the older boy gazed at them both. He knew, without questioning them, why they looked at each other with such fear. He feared the same thing: that Mary’s departure would soon be followed by other departures, the three of them separated too .
    Mary, becoming aware of the silence and mistaking its meaning, stamped her foot.
    “You two are just jealous! I am glad to be going. Glad, I tell you! By my troth, so very glad to be getting away from both of you!”
    She spun around, her blonde, untidy loose hair twirling around her head as if wind-whipped by her anger, and was out the door as quickly as she had entered.
    *
    I had lived with the Boleyns for about five years when Mary was sent to the court of Brussels. Mary rarely appeared as cross as she was that day. In sooth, of all the Boleyn children, I would have said that Mary was the one to have the sweetest temper.
    Nonetheless, it was extremely difficult for my cousins to grow up as children of my uncle. Uncle Boleyn was an uncommonly handsome man, with a well-shaped face bedecked by a glorious red beard and possessing piercing blue eyes that reminded you of an eagle surveying its world. He was also an extremely ambitious man, a man who planned to step higher in the society in which he lived via the use of his three young children. And they were intelligent enough to realise, from an early age, what his purposes and ambitions were. His children also knew that they had to strive very hard indeed to be able to give to him his pound of flesh, and thus gain their father’s hard-won approval.
    I had not much liking for my uncle and felt very thankful his duties at court meant that he was rarely in residence at Hever Castle. In truth, we never welcomed his visits to Hever. Rather we knew when we heard his heavy step approaching the nursery that one of us was likely to be violently punished for some minor transgression. No, I did not much like my uncle. Even when I was a child, he struck me as a heartless and unrelenting man. A man who calculated every move he made. A man only interested in what best served the achievement of his own desires. I speak only but the truth—my uncle was a selfish man who heartlessly ignored his children’s need for a father’s love and approval.
    I believe it was especially hard for Mary. My cousin never did have the inner strength needed to meet any of Uncle Boleyn’s hard demands. Nor was Mary—at least, not until a woman full-grown—able to stand up to her father in any way.
    I felt grateful my own father was very much different. He too was a busy official of the Crown, so was also much away from our family estate at Allington. But when home, he would always ride his horse over to come visit me or send for me to return home for a short visit so to see my sister. My father is a godly man, wise, gentle and always even-tempered. His greatest desire, in contrast to my uncle, was to do good and be the loyal friend of all who sought for his friendship. Indeed, in the life ahead of me, never was I to meet a man more faithful to his friends. My father valued truth and honour above all things. Thus, I always looked forward to his visits, and to my visits to Allington.
    My mother? What of her? Why do I remain so silent?
    Yea, I remember her. Aye, how do I remember my sweet mother—she who I loved and then lost forever. Something in my life that once was a tangible substance, and then altogether too swiftly, like an arrow in flight finding its target, became a black vacuum. I remember, and yet do not want to remember… If I delve too deeply into myself in search of memories of her I begin to tremble and ache, as if inflicted with some unresolved torment. If I delve, I begin to bleed. Therefore, it is best to leave my feelings of dark despair locked inside of me forever. Aye, my loving and beloved mother died in childbirth before I left