The Three Crowns

by Виктория Холт

  “So I have a sister!” he cried. “And what a delightful one! I trust my subjects have been giving a good account of themselves.” He glanced quickly at James and his eyes said: You fortunate devil! Would I were in your place.

  Mary Beatrice was surprised at the complete revolution of her feelings. She had come on board prepared to hate this man; she had been fighting her feeling that she might not betray the aversion she felt for him. Instead, she was smiling, glad to put her hand in his, finding it a pleasure to be led to the rail to be seen standing side by side with him by the watchers on the bank.

  “Why, my dear,” he said in that soft tender voice he invariably used for attractive women, “you are very young, and you have come a long way from home. It is a trying ordeal, I understand full well, for I remember when I was young I was forced to leave my home … under very different circumstances than those in which you have left yours. The homesickness … the yearning … my dear sister, they have to be lived through to be understood. But remember this, that although you suffer from leaving your home, you bring great pleasure to us because you have come to live among us. Now you shall sit beside me and tell me what you have left. I have a fondness for your mother, of which I shall tell her soon. I remember how desolate she was when you lost your father and how she brought up you two children. A bit stern eh? Soupe maigre? Ah, I have heard of that! Rest assured, little sister, we shall not force you to eat soupe maigre while you are with us.”

  Mary Beatrice was smiling, and James looked on in astonishment. What power was this in his brother to charm? How could he, in his careless way, in a few short moments put at ease this girl whom he himself had tried so hard to please.

  He could not answer that question. All he knew was that from the moment Mary Beatrice met the King she became a little less unhappy, a little more reconciled to her marriage.

  When the party arrived at Whitehall the bride was conducted into the palace and there the King presented her to his Queen.

  Mary Beatrice was greeted by the quiet Catherine with affection, while the King and the Duke looked on benignly. Mary Beatrice’s mother had told her that the Queen of England would be her friend because, like herself, she was a Catholic living in a country where the recognized religion was that of the Reformed Church.

  “We will have much in common,” Catherine told her; the Queen’s voice was a little sad, for she was wondering how this young and clearly spirited girl would deal with her husband’s infidelities. She, Catherine, had been bewildered, humiliated, and deeply wounded by those of the King. She hoped that Mary Beatrice would not have to suffer as intensely as she had. “I trust,” went on Catherine, “that we shall be friends and that we shall have informal hours together.”

  Mary Beatrice thanked her and then turned her attention to the two young girls who were being brought forward.

  These were her stepdaughters—the Princess Mary and the Princess Anne. She studied them eagerly for the elder was not so many years younger than herself. Mary was about eleven years old—tall, graceful, with long dark eyes and dark hair. Her manner was serious and because Mary Beatrice guessed she was as apprehensive as she was herself, she felt a longing to show her friendship for this girl, and for the second time her spirits were lifted and the prospect of her new life seemed a little less grim.

  It was possible to have a little informal conversation with her stepdaughters and then she realized that neither of them resented her and were anxious to be friendly.

  “My father tells me that you will be as a sister to us … just at first,” Mary told her. “But you are in truth our new mother.”

  “I will do my best to be all that you wish of me,” answered Mary Beatrice.

  She looked at Anne who gave her her placid smile; and she knew at once that they would help her to bear her new life.

  Charles smiled knowledgeably at his brother.

  “I trust you are taking advantage of your new state, brother?” he asked lightly.

  James frowned. “She is beautiful, but very young.”

  “It is rare that men complain of the youth of their mistresses or wives.”

  “She is but a child and they have brought her up with a craving to be a vestal virgin.”

  “I trust for the honor of our house she can no longer aspire to such folly.”

  James was moodily silent and the King went on: “Some of your enemies are suggesting that, having made this Catholic marriage, you should for the sake of peace retire from Court. It was hinted to me only the other day. How would you like, James, to leave Court and take your little beauty into the country?”

  “My place is at Court.”

  “So think I,” said Charles. “But methinks also, brother, that if you were as successful at courting your wife as you are at courting trouble you would by now have persuaded her that the life of a vestal virgin is not nearly so exciting as that of Duchess of York.”

  “I do not propose to leave Court.”

  “Nor do I propose that you should. I have already said so. But the people are not pleased with you, James. You stand for popery and the people in these islands do not like it.”

  “What am I to do?”

  Charles lifted his shoulders. He too secretly stood for the Catholic Faith; he had even made a bargain with Louis to bring his country back to Catholicism—yet he dealt with these matters shrewdly, graciously, and secretly. Why could not James do the same?

  “Act with caution, brother. Stand firm. Remain at Court. Honor your little bride. Let every man know that you realize he envies you the possession of such an exquisite young creature, which I am sure he does. Do your duty. Let the Court and the people know that while she be young and so beautiful and a Catholic she is also fertile. Do this, James, and do it boldly. And, would you like a further word of advice? Then get rid of the mother.”

  “But my wife’s great consolation is her mother.”

  Charles smiled shrewdly. “It is a fact, brother, that when a Princess comes to a strange land and is a little … recalcitrant, she changes when she is no longer surrounded by relations. The old lady reminds her daughter by her very presence of all that she has missed in her dreary convent. Get rid of the mother, and you will find the daughter becoming more and more reconciled to our merry ways. There is little room for vestal virgins and their dragons here at Whitehall.”

  James was silent. Charles who had charmed Mary Beatrice, who conducted his affairs with skill, who was a Catholic at heart and kept the matter secret for the sake of expediency, who had dared make a treaty with France which could have cost him his throne, whose wife was as Catholic and as foreign to Whitehall as Mary Beatrice and yet was in love with him—must understand what was the best way to act.

  It was six weeks since Mary Beatrice had arrived in England. Christmas was over and she was astonished at the extravagance with which it had been celebrated. She had discovered that her charming brother-in-law scarcely ever spent his nights with the Queen; that fidelity and chastity in this island were qualities which, among the King’s circle, were regarded with incredulous pity; she was surprised that Queen Catherine longed for her husband’s company almost as intensely as Mary Beatrice prayed she would not have to endure hers; this Court was gay and careless; it was immoral and irreligious. It was all that she had feared it would be and yet she was a little fascinated, if not by it, by certain personalities. The chief of these of course was the King. He was making her fascinated by his Court as she was a little by himself.

  When, during the Christmas festivities, she heard her mother was to leave England, she wept bitterly.

  Duchess Laura comforted her, pointing out that she could not leave Modena and her son, the young Duke, forever. She had done an unprecedented thing when she had come to England with her young daughter, but now Mary Beatrice was old enough to be left.

  “I shall die of sorrow,” declared Mary Beatrice.

  “You will do no such thing. You have your friends, and your husband is kind to you.”


  Mary Beatrice shivered. Kind he was; but she wished there were no nights. If it were always daytime she could have endured him.

  “When you leave me,” she told her mother, “my heart will be completely broken.”

  “Extravagant talk,” said the Duchess, but she was worried.

  When by the end of December the Duchess had left for Modena, James discovered his wife to be in such a state of melancholy that he wondered whether he should leave her to her Italian women attendants for a few days. It was disconcerting to know that he was almost as great a cause of her wretchedness as her mother’s departure.

  A few nights after the Duchess had left, Mary Beatrice said to her husband: “When I am with child as I must soon be, then you need not share my bed.”

  James looked at her sadly.

  “Then,” he said slowly, “it shall be as you wish.”

  Her ladies had prepared her for bed. She shivered as she did every night. Soon he would be there. She anticipated it with horror: his arrival, the departure of the attendants, the dousing of the candles.

  He was late. They were chattering away, not noticing, but she did. She must be thankful, she told herself, if the dreaded moments were delayed even for a short while.

  They talked on and on—and still he did not come.

  “His Grace is late,” said Anna.

  “Perhaps we should leave you,” suggested one of the others.

  Mary Beatrice nodded. “Yes, leave me. He will be here soon.”

  So they left her and she lay shivering in the darkness waiting for the sounds of his arrival.

  They did not come.

  For an hour she lay, expectant; and finally she slept. When she awakened in the morning, she knew that he had not shared her bed all night.

  She sat up, stretched her arms above her head, smiled and hugged herself.

  If all nights were as the last one would she enjoy living at her brother-in-law’s Court? The gowns one wore were exciting; so was the dancing; she did not greatly care for the card playing but she need not indulge in that too much. She was one of the most important ladies of the Court and the King made sure that everyone realized this.

  How strange this was! Her mother had left her; she was alone in a foreign land; yet, when she was free of the need to do her duty as a wife, she was less unhappy than she had believed possible.

  The next night she waited and he did not come; and during the following day she knew why.

  It was Anna who told her, Anna who loved her so much that she shared her unhappiness to a great degree and knew her mistress’s mind as few others did.

  “He spends his nights with his mistress. I do not think you will often be worried by him. This woman was his mistress before the marriage and I have heard that he is devoted to her.”

  “His mistress!” cried Mary Beatrice. “But he has a wife now.”

  “But the marriage was for state reasons. He will continue with his mistresses. He is like his brother.”

  “I see,” said Mary Beatrice blankly.

  “I do not think you will be greatly troubled with him in future.”

  “I shall tell him that it does not please me that he should continue with this woman.”

  Anna opened her eyes wide. “But do you not see? While he is with her, you are free of him.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mary Beatrice. “That is a matter for which I must be grateful.”

  “Well, if you want to be rid of him, who better to take him from your bed than a mistress?”

  “You are right, of course,” replied the young Duchess.

  Night, and her attendants had left her. She was waiting for him, expectantly, angrily. It was five nights since he had been to her.

  She did not believe she was pregnant. He had no reason to think so either. Yet he continued to spend his nights with his mistress.

  It was humiliating. She, a Princess, to be left alone because he preferred another woman! She was his wife. He had pretended to be so pleased because she had crossed the seas to come to him; the Earl of Peterborough had wooed her urgently and tenaciously on his behalf in spite of her protests.

  Now here she was—neglected on account of a mistress!

  Was that his step outside the door? He was coming after all. She sat up in bed, clasped her arms about herself, apprehensive, terrified.

  But it was not his step. She stared about her darkened room, and knew she was to be alone again.

  She thought of him with that woman. What was the woman like? Beautiful she supposed. All mistresses were beautiful. Men went to them not for the sake of duty; it was all desire where a mistress was concerned. For the sake of such women, they left their wives … lonely.

  Lonely. She was lonely!

  She lay down and began to weep silently. Perhaps he would come and find her weeping. He would say: Do not be afraid. I’ll go away because that is what you wish.

  He would be pleased to go because he preferred to be with his mistress than to do his duty with his wife. So it was duty?

  Mary Beatrice’s eyes flashed angrily and she dealt her pillow a blow with a clenched fist.

  Then suddenly she put her face on her pillow and gave way to her sobs.

  A realization which bewildered her had come into her mind.

  She wanted James.

  THE PASSIONATE FRIENDSHIP

  The girls made a pleasant picture walking in Richmond Park; four of them were arm in arm—the special friends: the Princesses Mary and Anne with Anne Trelawny and Sarah Jennings. Sarah was such good company and the Princess Anne kept screaming with laughter at her comments.

  Behind were two of the Villiers sisters—Elizabeth and Katherine—outside the magic circle of friendship. Mary pressed Anne Trelawny’s arm to her side in a sudden gesture of happiness. It was pleasant to have such a friend; she felt completely at home with Anne Trelawny; and since she had always been devoted to her sister, she was now in the company she loved best. Sarah Jennings was a little overbearing, but Anne thought her so wonderful that Mary accepted her as a member of the quartette.

  Princess Anne peered shortsightedly ahead and said: “Let’s go toward that tree over there.”

  Following the direction in which she was pointing, Mary could see no tree; but there was a man standing on the grass.

  “It’s not a tree, Anne,” said Mary. “It’s a man.”

  “Oh no, sister, it’s a tree.”

  “It’s a man,” insisted Mary.

  Anne turned away and replied: “I’m sure it is a tree.”

  “Well, we’ll go and see. I am determined to show you that you are wrong.”

  Anne shrugged her shoulders in her lazy way. “Oh, I’m sure it’s a tree. I don’t want to go that way now. Let us go back to the Palace.”

  Mary looked reproachfully at her sister. Anne must be taught a lesson, and Mary was going to teach her that she must not make observations and insist that they were true before proving them.

  Releasing Anne Trelawny’s arm and taking her sister’s she led her across the grass. As they came near to the object of dispute, it began to walk.

  “There,” cried Mary triumphantly. “You cannot doubt now what it is?”

  Anne had turned her head and was smiling blandly in the opposite direction. “No, sister,” she said, “I still think it is a tree.”

  Exasperated, Mary said: “Oh, Anne, there is no reasoning with you. Let us go back to the Palace.”

  As they came within sight of the Palace she forgot to worry about this unfortunate aspect of her sister’s character because she saw the Duke of Monmouth giving his horse to one of the grooms.

  A call from Jemmy was always a pleasure.

  Monmouth had called on the sisters whom he knew were always pleased to see him. He had thought of a new idea for bringing himself to his father’s notice; not that that was necessary for Charles was always very much aware of him; but Monmouth longed to show how he excelled in all courtly attainments, how much more popular he was than his Un
cle James, how much more the people esteemed him than they did his uncle. When Monmouth had first heard that James was to have a young wife he had been angry and depressed. A young wife would probably mean sons, and once a son was born to James, Monmouth’s hopes of being legitimized would completely disappear. It was only while there would be no one to follow James but his two daughters that there was a chance that Parliament would agree to make a male heir by this legitimization; and once the Parliament wished that, Charles, Monmouth was sure, would be very ready—or at least could be easily persuaded—to agree.

  Unfortunately James was now married—and to a young and beautiful girl. It was almost certain that there would be issue. Then the bell would toll, signifying the burial of Monmouth’s hopes.

  But Jemmy was by nature optimistic and exuberant. He never accepted defeat for long. The marriage was one of the biggest blows to his hopes that could have been given him; and yet almost immediately he began to see a glint of brightness.

  The celebrations of the last Fifth of November had been an inspiration to him. Whenever he heard the shout of “No popery” in the streets he rejoiced. James might produce legitimate sons but he was a Catholic and the people showed clearly on every possible occasion that they did not want a Catholic on the throne.

  The young Duke of Monmouth had, in the last weeks, become a man deeply interested in matters of religion. He was seen at his devotions frequently; although he continued to live as gaily as anyone at the Court, his conversation was spattered with theological observations. He was ostentatiously Protestant; and already the Protestants were beginning to look on him with great favor.

  The seed was being sown. It might not bring forth a good harvest but that was a chance he had to take. Against the Catholic Duke of York, the legitimate successor to the throne of England, there was the Protestant Duke of Monmouth—a bastard it was true, but a little stroke of the pen could alter that.

  Perhaps, then, he mused as he made his way to Richmond Palace to ingratiate himself with the Duke’s young daughters, the marriage was not altogether a bad thing. If the young Duchess failed to produce the heir—and he prayed that she would fail to do this—if it were a plain contest between York and Monmouth … well, who could say what the outcome would be? But he must hope there would be no offspring; these young children had a way of worming themselves into the hearts of the people, were they Catholic or Protestant.