by Karleen Koen
“Like Winifred.” Alice whispered the name; she’d dreamed of the baby on the floor for years.
“Winifred.” Dorothy shook her head. “Married now, settled in, her sins forgotten. I’ll say this for the king and Her Majesty the queen: They bear no grudges. Thank God for it, or half this court could never show their faces in public again. Oh, sweet God in His heaven, I want to be safely wed, settled in, to fret no more when I gamble too much, to buy any gown I wish, to eat cake until my stays pop, to let go the thoughts that say he’ll abandon me for another. Those are thoughts that torture me.”
“You’re young and handsome. There are many fish in the sea.”
“The fish want to swim among the young maids or with the actresses and whores.”
“I’ll find a husband for you.”
“You’d best find one first for yourself.”
“I’ve found one.”
“Oh?”
“Balmoral.”
“The duke? You don’t mean it!”
“Well, it’s not settled yet.”
“What does that mean, it isn’t settled yet?” Dorothy mimicked her, then smiled at her mimicry. “I did that as well as Gracen. There’s one who’s grown up. I turn around, and she turns into a beauty. Balmoral. Tell me about Balmoral. He has one foot in the grave.”
“Well, I’m determined to have him, and my father—”
Dorothy snorted.
“My father is going to help me do it.”
“Your father hasn’t anything on his mind but being king of the House of Commons.”
“Brownie, when did the talk of divorcing the queen start?”
“Oh, don’t bring up that dreadful subject. I’ve never seen her weep the way she did this last year—”
“This last year? Is that when it started?”
“Well, let’s see. You were gone…Caro had married your Lord Colefax…Frances had the smallpox, and all the talk was that she’d lose her looks, and the king went to see her in spite of the sickness—I always thought he truly loved her. The war with the Dutch was over, disastrously. The House of Commons was howling to investigate the council and officials right and left…the queen had miscarried again…yes, there it was, not long after that there just grew these whispers. There was something in the House of Lords—some divorce case—and I really thought for a time he’d leave her, and then nothing happened. Everything became Madame’s visit, what were we going to do to entertain Madame. Who is dead now. Oh, I want more wine. I don’t want to think about these things. There’s another bottle in the cabinet. Fetch it, Alice, that’s a good girl.”
“I will find you a husband, Brownie.”
“I have a husband. He calls me wife, I call him husband.” Dorothy began to weep.
Dorothy was in her weeping stage of drunkenness. Best to get her into bed, thought Alice. “There, there, yes, yes, you do. Lord Knollys is a fine man.”
“He is, oh, he is. I love him so.”
“So you do, I know that. Come along here, let’s go to bed now.”
“The sheets will be cold. If I had a proper husband, I wouldn’t have to lie in a cold bed.”
“Unless there was a quarrel.”
Alice took fire tongs, tossed some coals in the warming pan, walked to the bed, at which Dorothy stood sniffling like a lost child, and carefully—the handle was long, it was easy to tip open the pan and then hot coals would fall out onto the sheet and start a fire—rubbed the bottom of pan against the sheets, up and down, up and down, all around.
“There, jump in, quickly now.”
Alice emptied the coals into the fire, hung the pan by the mantel.
“I’m sick. The room is spinning,” said Dorothy from the bed.
“Here, sit up.”
Dorothy did as commanded. Alice fluffed pillows behind her, took the ones on the other side, placed them behind Dorothy’s back. “Now, lie back carefully—carefully; you want to be sitting up as much as possible. There. Close your eyes…Better?”
“My head will hurt in the morning.”
“So it will.”
“Stay.”
“I will, Brownie. I’ll be right here. In fact, when you wake in the morning, I’ll be on the other side of the bed.”
“You’ll sleep here? Good. Oh, I wish I hadn’t eaten the cake. Lately, he complains that I eat too much. I know I do, but I can’t seem to stop.”
“Never mind it. I’m going to find you a husband who will spoon-feed you himself.”
“He’d be jealous.”
“Indeed he would. He thinks he has you all to himself. Well, we’ll show him a thing or two.”
“I want no other.”
“Hush now, just hush, my dear, dear Brownie. What would we do without our dear, dear, Brownie….”
It was a kind of lullaby she sang, the way she imagined her mother might have sung to her. Dorothy closed her eyes. There was a hiccup, and she began to snore. Alice sighed. She’d forgotten that Dorothy snored.
She went back to the fire, moved the fire screen, poked at the burning wood there, added another piece, moved the chair closer, and considered whether she’d open the bottle of wine for herself. There was an ache between her eyes, and her mouth felt dry, and if she drank more, she would be sick. So she’d just sit awhile with her thoughts, which were sad. What was that verse, when she’d been a child, she’d thought as a child, spoke as a child, understood as a child, but now she saw more clearly? She could bear that, seeing more clearly.
Outside the window, a pale sun was rising. It was sad, what men and women did to themselves, to one another, but, yes, she could bear that.
CHAPTER 20
While Alice dozed in a chair in Dorothy’s chamber, most of the palace slept.
But not everyone. At just past dawn, Richard stepped out from the Life Guard house and looked around. No one on the street in either direction. It was too early in the morning for any servants to be up yet, but soon this part of the palace would be bustling. “All clear,” he called.
Barbara stepped from an alcove and ran across Whitehall Street and through a door in Holbein Gate that would take her into the royal quarters of Whitehall Palace again. Richard grinned at his cousin, who was watching Barbara run. Then he shivered; the morning was cold, more than cold. Winter was so close, you could feel her frosty breath. “So you’re her morning prayers now, are you?”
“She’s mine, Richard. I think I will die if she doesn’t marry me.”
“She’ll marry you.”
“Not with Verney back.”
“You forget the good book, John. ‘There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.’ Come, I’ll buy you a cup of milk. The milkmaids should be done with their milking.”
They walked through the alley by the tilt yard, out into St. James’s Park. Milkmaids herded their cows in from the little hamlets of Chelsea and Marylebone. Ducks still hid their heads under one wing in the long landscape canal. None of the pelicans or peacocks were around. Doubtless they were nestled in some shrubbery from the chill. Richard handed a milkmaid a coin, and she quickly dipped two metal cups into her full milk pail. John was in among the young trees that shaded Pall Mall Alley. King Charles had planted these ten years ago when he was restored to the throne. Richard clinked his cup against John’s. “To true love.”
John sipped the milk, glanced at his cousin as if he wanted to say something. Richard saw it but said nothing.
“Barbara says the king is eyeing Mademoiselle de Keroualle,” said John at last.
“He can eye all he wishes. I won’t begrudge her the pleasure of the king’s admiration.”
“You trust him?”
“I trust her. She’s beautiful. Why shouldn’t the world notice?”
“How stalwart you are. I, on the other hand, cannot sleep for fear Barbara should suddenly know how u
nworthy I am of her. I think my heart will break.”
“She’s of age to marry as she wills. You have only to convince her of it. Have you a letter for me?” Richard delivered John’s daily letters to Barbara and hers back to him. “Ah, but you’ve been telling her in person what you’d write in a letter, haven’t you?”
“We’ll meet for dinner at the Swan, and I’ll give it to you then.”
“You’ll write a love letter when you should do accounts? For shame. No wonder the Commons investigates the doing of the war.”
“Dinner at the Swan, Richard. I’m off.”
Richard tossed the cups back to the milkmaid and went to the royal mews to check upon his horse. There was to be a drill upon the parade ground today, thank God. He could feel restlessness within himself. Things were moving too slowly. Maybe his brother-in-law, Lord Cranbourne, was right; maybe he should give up his commission with the army and ask for a place in the navy. Since the Dutch wars, it seemed every penny went to victual or to build ships. King Louis had commissioned thirty-seven cavalry regiments five years ago. His army was huge. It had been Richard’s intention to join the French army and court Renée from there, but then Renée had surprised him and ended up on this side of the Channel. It couldn’t be that the rest of wars would be fought on the sea, could it? Patience, boy, Balmoral said, his watery eyes narrowing. There’s war coming, but that’s between you and me and the fence post. He’d say no more than that. War. Richard had two Dutch wars under his belt and Tangier. A man was never more alive than in the midst of a battle, where death picked and chose with a randomness that changed you forever, that made every sense in your body sharpen to crisp awareness of all that was life, all you would never do again if you died in the next moment. His horse whinnied at the sight of him, and he gave the handsome beast pieces of Indian corn and park grass out of his pocket. He’d brush him down and braid his mane and tail with ribbon. And after drill today, he’d call upon the Duke of Balmoral, see if there were any further errands in France that needed doing.
THE SUN OF this day rose higher, warming some of the chill. It was going to be a beautiful October day, but not everywhere, not in the queen’s quarters.
“Don’t weep, ma’am, please don’t weep,” begged Alice.
But Queen Catherine kept the note clutched to her breast and paid no mind. The Duchess of Richmond, the lady of the bedchamber on duty, knelt on the other side of Alice, adding her own pleading to Alice’s. Barbara and Dorothy stood guard at the bedchamber door to make certain no one entered and saw the queen in this kind of distress. The queen put her face in her hands and, in doing so, dropped the note. Alice picked it up.
“Three sights to be seen,” were the words written on the paper, “Dunkirk, Tangier, and a barren queen.” The sneer was an old one, part of a street ballad that pilloried the king’s most faithful councillor, a man who was one of the architects of the king’s return but was now in exile. It touched on what were considered the man’s failures, the sale of Dunkirk to the French; Tangier, which had come as Queen Catherine’s dower but had to be defended continually from the infidel Moors; and, of course, Her Majesty’s failure to carry a child to term.
“Bring me that bowl of water,” said Frances, the Duchess of Richmond. Frances dipped the queen’s hands in the water. The shock made the queen catch her breath. Frances dipped her own hands in, put them to the queen’s face again and again, until the queen stopped her and slumped back in her chair. The sobs had hushed, but in her face was a wild sorrow. “Send for Father Huddleston,” she whispered.
Nerves jangling, Alice stepped into the withdrawing room, where the rest of the maids of honor were waiting, as well as Her Majesty’s pages and the other ladies who attended Queen Catherine. They were past time to go to morning mass. It wasn’t like the queen to be late. Whom to trust here? she thought. Few. That knowledge was clear and stark, as real as the awful note. Any one of the older women in the chamber could have consented to sneak it into the queen’s bedchamber, put it in a place where it could not be overlooked. And there was another note, the letter in her pocket. Could they be connected? “Edward”—she kept her voice calm—“will you go for Father Huddleston?”
“Whatever is the matter?” It was the Countess of Suffolk, the highest ranking of the ladies of the bedchamber, in charge of the queen’s wardrobe and privy purse. “Is she ill? Let me in at once.”
“She’s asked that no one else attend her. There’s a fever.”
Lady Suffolk’s imperious impatience changed. Fevers were dreaded. They might be harbingers of plague or smallpox. It was only four years since plague had decimated London. It had killed Barbara’s father. Only two years or so since smallpox had embraced the court beauty.
“Could it be her flux? Has she her flux?” asked another untrustworthy hag of the bedchamber, Lady Falmouth.
“It wouldn’t matter,” said Lady Suffolk. “The king has not been fishing in this pond.”
At that moment, Alice hated these women with all her heart. They had no mercy.
“May I come in?” It was Renée. She asked quietly, humbly, with dignity.
“I said there’s a fever.”
“I mind it not.”
“No.”
Lady Suffolk eyed Alice disdainfully. If it hadn’t been that there was fever, she’d have marched right past her and seen precisely for herself. The bright spot in it was that this cheeky young woman might be stricken with it herself, might even die. Lady Suffolk smiled. High-backed, difficult Alice Verney dead in her prime before she was even married. And the other piece in this was that the queen might sicken enough to die—one never knew. Then they could all of them wash their hands of a bad bargain and begin again. She shook out her skirts with satisfaction and left the antechamber to carry the gossip that Queen Catherine was sick with a fever.
In the bedchamber, Barbara and the queen knelt together at her prayer stand, murmuring, their fingers touching beautiful silver and gold—and, for the queen, diamond—rosaries.
“Where’s the note?” Alice whispered to Frances, the Duchess of Richmond.
Frances took it from a pocket. “She’s asked that no one see it.”
“Keep it safe,” said Alice.
“Who would be so cruel?” whispered Dorothy.
“Anyone outside this chamber,” answered Alice. “I don’t think we should speak of this to anyone just yet. Falmouth and Suffolk are like cats out there waiting for birds with broken wings.”
She pulled Frances to a corner by the fire, where they might talk and not be heard. “Is it true the king isn’t visiting Her Majesty in the bedchamber anymore?”
Frances nodded.
“How long?”
“Months. Since the spring.” Frances looked away. Smallpox had lightly kissed her profile, not killing her, as it did many, or disfiguring her so that she must wear a mask for the rest of her life, as it did others, but leaving its telltale marks in a broadening of her features, so that her once sharp beauty was blunted.
Father Huddleston interrupted them. The door to the withdrawing chamber behind him closed, but not before Alice saw curious faces clustered at the door, peeking in to see what was to be seen. The priest went at once to Queen Catherine. Her face, which looked up from its prayers, was streaked with tears, ravaged by them, actually. He led Queen Catherine up the stairs to her closet, to her most private space, a small chamber filled with handsome, gilded furniture, paintings, relics, crosses, things she loved, where no one might enter, where her life was finally and most completely private.
Barbara sighed; something in Alice exploded. “We must talk.”
Leading her by the hand, Alice slipped out a door so intricately made, so joined to the wall, that at first glance, or even second, no one would know there was a door there. They hurried down a back passage. Doors were open here and there, and one of them opened to the queen’s oratory, her little chapel where she might worship privately. A woman was kneeling in prayer there, and she raised
a startled white face as Alice and Barbara ran by. It was Renée.
“Alice!” Renée rushed into the passage, caught up with Alice and Barbara. “The queen. How is the queen?”
“Well enough.”
But Barbara took pity. “She’s a little better. I think her fever will pass.”
“If there is anything I can do—”
“You can leave us alone. We have important business.” The words were sharper than Alice meant, but there they were, out of her mouth, too late to call them back, and anyway, it was none of Renée’s concern.
Renée took a step back. “Yes, of course. If there is anything I can do—”
But they were rushing on, leaving her alone.
“Your prayers,” Barbara said, tossing the words over her shoulder.
There were few people in the Matted Gallery. On the top floor of the palace, it was the longest of the galleries, full of statues and paintings that King Charles had meticulously acquired, attempting to restore at least a portion of what had been his father’s collection. Prince Rupert and the Duke of York had lodgings at its farthest end. Alice stood a moment at the roaring fire, as if to gather her wits.
Barbara put her hands to her chest. “My heart is beating so, I think it will fall from my chest. Oh, Alice, who would do such a thing to the queen—” She stopped, her words dying in her throat, seeing the expression on Alice’s face.
“You knew of the bill in the Lords about divorce, of all the gossip and talk before Madame came, and yet you wrote me nothing? Nothing! Where was your mind? Where was your care for her? You promised me you’d write everything of importance! Do you not remember? We swore it to each other. I trusted you, and you failed me!”
“I didn’t know—”
“The whole court was singing it, that the king should put her aside. You didn’t know”—Alice stepped forward so that her face was inches from Barbara’s—“because you were caught in your silly romance, thinking of nothing but John Sidney! I could slap you witless, Barbara. This note is no game! Someone is trying to hurt the queen, truly hurt her, have her cast off and sent away, have her divorced and abandoned, perhaps have her killed!”
