“Somehow these are sweeter-scented than the roses in France,” she said.
Her words caught the King’s attention, which had wandered from the last long speech delivered by a civic dignitary.
“She herself resembles an English rose, does she not, ma mie?” he demanded of Catherine, who smiled upon Frances and said in her broken English:
“But that, is it not, is what she is. Not of the French country, but ours.”
Charles was pleased by the “ours”. He said: “A daughter of Scotland — a product of Britain. Observe that aristocratic little nose — it is all Stuart.”
“La Belle Stuart!” murmured His Grace of Buckingham, and it was a soubriquet which henceforth was to be generally applied to Frances.
The flattered girl laughed joyfully. “Oh, what a marvel of a day!” she exclaimed. “How all those people must have hated the long-faced Puritans who wouldn’t allow them any pleasure. Now everyone is so happy…”
Catherine agreed. She certainly was happy, though she knew she would be terribly weary by the time the long day ended. For the time being she had forgotten Barbara Castlemaine and the humiliations to which, through her, she had been subjected. Perhaps she might dare to believe Charles to whom she had so readily given her heart. Perhaps, as he said, as Lord Clarendon had implored her to believe and as Barbara had avowed, that affair was all in the past, had been over before Charles made her his Queen, and the only link now was the fact that Barbara was the mother of his children.
In that case it would not be so galling to assume friendship. Catherine would feel less false and despicable. She could never, of course, really like the woman, and to remember that Charles had fathered her children was as painful as a throbbing wound. But when she, Catherine, had a child of his…
She observed Frances’ flirtatious glances with amusement. Over and over again Catherine of Braganza was to be called a prude, but she was sympathetic towards the frivolities of the pretty girls in her entourage, especially towards young Frances Stuart. Catherine knew her circumstances and the history of her loyal family. No doubt it was her mother’s hope that she would make a brilliant marriage, and why not? It would be a pleasure, the Queen thought, to take her especially under her wing, to help her with her wardrobe, which was not particularly extensive — to invite her confidences.
But although these benevolent reflections coursed through the Queen’s mind, she had little opportunity of befriending Frances in any special way, for it was to Barbara Castlemaine that the girl turned.
Deceived by the amity which apparently existed between the Queen and Barbara, Frances saw no reason to avoid Barbara’s flattering advances.
The Court settled for a few days only at Whitehall. Barbara had her own separate apartments, and her attendance on the Queen was only a matter of form. She put in routine appearances, but entertained lavishly on her own account, and both the King and the Duke of Buckingham were frequent guests at her parties, which were amusing in a way that Frances found more satisfying than the brilliant entertainments at the French Court.
Barbara was nothing if not informal; she treated the King as casually as any other man, and this he seemed to enjoy. She invented games and even more elaborate entertainments apparently without forethought. Charles was usually in high spirits and played a ready part in the most romping sports.
The Queen could not have been denied had she expressed a wish to be present, but this she did not do, though in a discreet way she questioned Frances.
“The King stayed but a short while last evening, Madame. Then he said you might be lonely and left before the masque was half over,” Frances told her, one autumn afternoon, when she and Catherine were alone in the Queen’s apartment and occupied with their embroidery.
Donna Penelva, the one Portuguese lady who still remained with Catherine, the others having returned to their native land, was confined to her room with a heavy cold, and the Queen had dismissed her other attendants in order to have Frances alone with her.
Catherine’s small, dark face was impassive. There was nothing in her manner to indicate that if Charles had made an early departure from Barbara’s party it had not been to return to her.
“The King,” she said, “so soon wearies of the card parties which are the main features here in the evenings. He is no gambler.”
“Only the dull men are,” Frances said, positive as usual. “How it bores me even to look on, and everybody frowning if one dares to joke or to say a word. But then I haven’t the money to lose at cards, and if I play I nearly always do lose.”
“You are wise to abstain,” the Queen approved. “The King dislikes to see the ladies of the Court playing and sets a good example by rarely risking more than a pound or two.”
“Very unlike the Chevalier de Gramont,” Frances remarked. “The gentlemen of King Louis’ Court played, of course, but not with his earnestness, and it is only since I’ve been here that I have seen enormous sums of money staked. The Chevalier wins hundreds sometimes. It is almost as though it is a profession with him.”
“You might without loss of charity omit the ‘almost’,” Catherine observed dryly.
“Your Majesty means that he lives on his winnings?” asked Frances, and then winced as her embroidery needle stabbed her finger.
“So it is said.”
Frances sucked her pierced finger as she remarked: “For my part I find it more amusing to build castles of cards than to risk my allowance by staking on them. The Chevalier is annoyed then because some of the others help me. Sometimes he is left alone at his table shuffling his pack and waiting for the play to start.”
Catherine laughed. She had a momentary impulse to stroke the fair head so close to her knee. Frances had an endearing habit of drawing her low chair close to the Queen when they were together, or even of sitting on a cushion at her feet. She was still hardly more than a child, thought Catherine, and wondered how she could warn her to see less of Barbara Castlemaine. She dared not do so openly for fear of offending Charles, who had now satisfied himself that Barbara and Catherine were on reasonably good terms.
“You have skill,” the Queen remarked. “I had no idea such complicated castles could be built up with pieces of cardboard,”
“One needs to have a light touch,” Frances said. “Few men have. Cards fall at a breath almost.” She added with a wistfulness to which the Queen had no clue, “They are like one’s dreams.”
Dreams of a home, a beautiful home of her very own. Her fancy played upon this much more than upon the husband who would presumably share it.
Although she was no political pawn as was her royal cousin Henrietta to be moved about on the chessboard of life, she was almost totally lacking in romantic expectation. Her mother would say it was her duty to accept the first eligible suitor who offered for her. These months in which she was free of Mistress Stuart’s supervision were a respite.
Barbara Castlemaine was teaching her much — amongst other things how to hold her admirers at bay with smiles and jests which promised far more than she had any intention of giving. Frances closed her eyes and ears to much that she did not wish to recognize. She accepted Barbara’s affection and Buckingham’s half-teasing attentions without analysing the sincerity of either.
The Queen, as Frances once more bent over her embroidery, silently considered the girl’s fair face. Although she was fond of Frances, who from the beginning had been companionable to her because they both spoke fluent Spanish, she was often baffled by her. Just how real was her seeming innocence? She must, after all, see much that the Queen, by virtue of her exalted position, did not see. The Castlemaine, thought Catherine, would not trouble to throw dust in Frances’ eyes, and surely the girl must know it, at the parties which Barbara gave, Charles made opportunities to be alone with her.
But Catherine’s pride was such that she could not bring herself to give or receive confidences. In fact she had coldly checked Frances when striving to further Barbara as she had promised, the g
irl had haltingly attempted to speak of her friends’ penitence for a love affair that was in the past.
Frances sighed as she plodded on with the embroidery which the Queen considered a suitable occupation for her maids-of-honour in their spare time. It was an honour to be singled out as she was for the Queen’s companionship, but it could be prodigiously dull. On this wet afternoon the other girls were rehearsing a poetic play to be performed at Hampton Court when they moved there from Whitehall, and somebody would be standing-in for Frances, who had been cast for a leading part.
How much more entertaining that was than to sit here with her stupid needlework, keeping a respectful silence unless the Queen chose to speak.
Then — suddenly — she was galvanized into full attention by an unexpected remark, and she looked up, startled and newly animated.
“The Queen Dowager? Is she really coming on a visit to England? It has been rumoured so many times, but you said — I thought Your Majesty said that she is on her way, already on the high seas.”
“I did, and if the elements are clement she should be here next week. The King hopes that this time it will be a long visit, for she has not left Paris since the Princess Henrietta-Anne married. She gave but short notice of her intention, and there will scarce be time to put Greenwich Palace in order. At its best it is not too convenient. Somerset House, the King says, must be converted into a permanent residence for her.”
“Will our Princess accompany her?” Frances asked eagerly. “We grew up together, Your Majesty. Shared the little we had to share in those days. After all, we are cousins.”
“And almost as close as sisters,” the Queen said with quick sympathy.
Frances stopped herself on the verge of saying that she had been far closer to Henrietta-Anne than the poor Princess Mary, who had died so tragically of the smallpox.
“I have seen the letter she wrote to the King,” Catherine went on, “when she recommended you to be one of my ladies. It was generous of Henrietta. She was loath to part with you, as I shall be also, if you marry some nobleman whose estate is too far away for you to be often in London.”
“I do not suppose I would marry such a one,” cried Frances, whose taste for Court brilliance was far from sated. She remembered herself sufficiently to say, “I thank Your Majesty for such graciousness.”
There were times when the Queen could dispense with formality, and this was one of them,
“You are well aware, Frances, that I am fond of you,” she said, “and as the King’s cousin you hold a special position here. The Queen Dowager mentioned you in her last letter, saying she was sure you are a comfort to me.”
“Oh dear, I doubt if I am that to anyone, much less to Your Majesty; though the Princess in her letters to me has said much the same. Surely it is time she paid the King, her brother, a visit. They are so fond of each other. And then, too,” went on Frances, “she must want to make the acquaintance of Your Majesty in person. It is not the same thing knowing a person by exchanged letters.”
As the Queen was already inclined to be jealous of Charles’ beloved Minette, with a jealousy more poignant than that which Barbara Castlemaine evoked, she avoided comment on this, but said with seeming regret: “I fear it is impossible for Henrietta-Anne to leave France at the moment. She has her many official duties there, Moreover, her little daughter is so young…”
“It is Philippe who will not allow her to leave,” Frances cried petulantly. “Your Majesty can have no idea…he is the strangest man; outrageously jealous though he so neglects her and makes it plain that he infinitely prefers the Chevalier de Lorraine. Do you not think that very strange, Madame? Such a fop of a man, always talking about the cut and style of his coats, and fluffing out his lace ruffles. But then Philippe, too, is just such another fop. Not really a man at all, we used to say at Colombes, though he seemed to change when he first met our beloved Princess and was in love with her for a short while. But neither he nor Lorraine are really interested in women. Dorothy and Janton teased me because, though I tried, I could not provoke a compliment from Lorraine. He would look at me,” related Frances with surprised injury, “as though I were not there at all.”
Which must certainly have been a novelty for the confident young beauty, Catherine reflected, yet felt a tenderness for her because she was so obviously unaware of the deep and treacherous undercurrents that imperilled Henrietta’s married life.
The convent-bred Queen had herself been ignorant of much a few months ago, but since then her eyes had been opened to many unpleasant truths. It seemed, however, an impossibility to thus enlighten Frances. Was she wilfully obtuse or genuinely dense? The Chevalier de Gramont was convinced of her stupidity. It was hardly possible, he had said contemptuously, for a woman to have less wit and more beauty. Catherine, to whom this remark had been repeated, was not so sure of it.
Although Frances had been awed by the Queen Dowager when she had been one of her household at Colombes, she was fervently anxious to see her and talk with her again, for thus she would be given first-hand news of Henrietta. She was in attendance when Charles and Catherine drove in state to Greenwich to welcome the Queen Dowager, and a few days later, when the Court were at Hampton, Henrietta-Maria paid a return visit to the royal pair.
“This means,” said Joan Wells with satisfaction, “that we shall see less of the Castlemaine. Even she will not have the effrontery to show herself at Court while the Dowager Queen is here.”
“But why not?” Frances asked. “The Queen has consented to overlook her past. She shows much amiability towards her.”
“Oh, Frances, sometimes you are so sensible, and sometimes such a simpleton! Such friendship is nothing but a pretence, and now the Queen speaks better English there is many a barb that passes between them. Were you not present the other day when the Queen was spending much time having her hair dressed in the ringlets which His Majesty has said he admires…?”
“Yes, those ringlets take a long time to dress and arrange,” Frances agreed.
“Exactly! And Lady Castlemaine, who was hovering around, and getting in the hairdresser’s way, for, although she pushes herself in everywhere, she is nothing but a hindrance and a nuisance, asked her how she could have the patience to sit so long a-dressing, and then ran her fingers through her own red mop, flaunting it because her curls are natural.”
“What of it?” Frances asked. “Barbara couldn’t have meant to be impertinent. She has a way of saying the first thing that comes into her head.”
“You do, too, Frances Stuart! So perhaps it’s no wonder you get on so well with her. But the Queen saw her chance and she took it when she replied that she had so much reason to use patience that she could well bear such a trifle. Everyone else realized what she meant, if you did not.”
“I was paying little attention. The fringe of the Queen’s shawl was knotted and I was having difficulty in unravelling it.”
“Her Majesty may be gentle, but if ever I saw resentment and hatred in anyone’s eyes…” and Joan made a dramatic gesture. “For my part, I think, and I have heard others say the same, it was a great mistake for the Queen to give way over Barbara Castlemaine. She should have stood by her principles.”
“But there was so much at stake,” Mary Boynton reasoned. “The dowry, for instance. It has not all been paid, and then, too, our country gives so much political support to Portugal. The Queen was bound to consider such matters. Besides, she loves the King, and cannot bear to be at strife with him.”
“Well, I suppose she does love him,” Joan conceded. “Poor thing, it is sad for her. But, anyway, it will be easier for a while. It was wonderful to see the way the Dowager Queen behaved, not allowing Queen Catherine to make obeisance, but taking her into her arms and kissing her and showing everyone that she was eager as well as willing to give her precedence. How regal the Queen Dowager is, Frances. But she must have been a much more severe mistress than Queen Catherine, who is always so kind.”
“Oh no — she w
as kind too, though often sad, poor thing. My mother was one of her ladies and thought her perfection. But cruel things happened — even after the Restoration, which we all thought would bring joy into her life. There was Prince Henry’s death, and then Princess Mary’s…”
“Her husband and three children — all lost,” Mary Boynton murmured, “and people say that the Duchess of Orleans is excessively delicate. The Queen Dowager must have been very anxious when her baby was born.”
“So was I,” Frances said, which was true though her manner was absent and her voice unconcerned. She was pulling off the cord from a parcel which only a few minutes before had been brought to her by one of the Queen Dowager’s pages.
The two other girls laughed. They could not imagine that the gay Frances was ever anxious or worried. She was more carefree than any of them, though her mother and her young sister and brother had been in Scotland for months, and it was known that Frances had no real home and but little money. Nothing seemed to cause her concern; and although they were rather shocked by her intimacy with Barbara Castlemaine, they envied her too, because the proud beauty paid no attention to them. Nor did the splendid Buckingham, who flirted so audaciously with Frances and could be beguiled by her into playing any childish game she fancied.
“You will see,” Joan said, “for the next few weeks or months, or as long as the Queen Dowager is here, the Castlemaine will retire to her country home where she keeps her children well out of sight.”
“That won’t suit the King,” Mary Boynton opined. “Whatever his mother may say, he will soon have her back again. Frances Stuart, what in the world have you got there? Oh, how exquisite!”
Frances had brought forth a length of pale-green and silver brocade from the parcel. She held it up against her slim figure, dexterous fingers fashioning folds of it into the semblance of a tight bodice.
Lady on the Coin Page 8
