The Sixth Wife (pages 60-120)

Summary:

During this section of the book, Cathy informs the reader a bit about her childhood. She explains how her mother wasn't around much and she describes her father as hopeless in terms of financial income as well. So when he father died, she was sold. Back at this time when a girl didn't have any parents, she was sold. A man is paid to have a girl given to him along with her inheritance and as she gets older, he makes an effort to find someone that would place the best bet to marry her. This was how she became introduced to woman that had taken care of her as a child, Mary Rose. Princess Elizabeth has now moved in with Thomas and Kate. Cathy wasn't too sure about how that would work out seeing how she had suspicions about whether Thomas may have had feelings for her but she didn't want to mention this to Kate. Kate thought of Elizabeth as her daughter almost and that she was such a smart and mature girl for her age. She felt bad that such a sweet girl had to live around an evil half sister, Mary who was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII. Kate became pregnant and Cathy didn't feel like Elizabeth should have known about it although Thomas decided that he would go ahead and do it anyways. He explained that she was now a part of the family and there wasn't anything wrong with it and he felt the urge to share the news with someone. It was making Cathy upset that everyone was becoming a "family" because it used to be just her and Kate. It then became her, Kate, and Thomas then her, Kate, and the baby and now she was surrounded by everyone else and didn't fancy the idea. She explained to him that she wasn't a part of the family. She felt like Thomas would flirt with Elizabeth and she would do the same as well. She would smile at him a lot and play around with him in a way that they shouldn't. They didn't want to let off any signals but the only one that noticed was Cathy and she was surprised that everyone around was letting it happen. One night, Kate began bleeding and it worried everyone whether she may be keeping the baby or not because it's happened to other before and everything turned out okay. Thomas felt that he wasn't ready to be married because he was trying too hard and he didn't feel that it was enough. Cathy tried her best to encourage him that he was doing fine or that it could be that he was doing too much. This made her think about her husband, Charles that died a few years back and she began comparing him to Thomas where he was experienced with marriage.

Quote:

"Blood. No mistaking blood, it's not like pain, it's so clear a signifier and yet there's no telling what it signifies. Both triumphant and sly, is blood." (Dunn, 113)

Reflection:

The quote above has me confused which would be my reasoning for choosing it. What does the author means by it's no mistaking blood? On the other hand, it made sense to me because I can signify that I'm bleeding because I hurt myself but there are times where I don't know why I'm bleeding. I hope that everything with Kate's pregnancy goes well and I'm wondering what could be wrong that she's bleeding because it doesn't seem normal to be bleeding before you give birth and to have such pains. I'm still curious on Thomas's reasoning for marrying Kate as well and is there anything going on between him and Elizabeth. Could it be possible that she may have feelings for him?