A Health Unto His Majesty

by Виктория Холт

  But that was not the way of these earnest men of faith, and Charles’ way was to take the easiest route out of a dispute which was growing tedious.

  So now he had come to the end of those months, and the year was new, and who could say what fresh triumphs, what fresh pleasures and what fresh sorrows awaited him?

  He must find a wife ere long. He was thirty-one, and a King should be married by that age if he were to provide his country with sons.

  A wife? The thought pleased him. He was after all a man who loved his family. He pictured the wife he would have—gentle and loving and, of course, beautiful. He would discuss the matter with his ministers, and it might be well to discuss it now, while Barbara was less active than usual. She was expecting a child next month; his child, she said.

  He lifted one side of his mouth in a half-smile.

  It could be his, he supposed, though it might be Chesterfield’s or even poor Roger Palmer’s. None could be sure with Barbara.

  It was time he grew tired of her. It astonished him that she had been almost his sole mistress since he had set foot in England. Yet he did not grow tired of her. Handsome she was—quite the most handsome woman he had ever known. Physically she was unique; the symmetry of her body was perfect and her person could not fail to delight such a connoisseur. Her face was the most beautiful he had ever beheld, and even her violent rages could only change it, not distort it. Her character was unaccountable; and thus there was nothing dull nor insipid about Barbara. He had tried others, but they had failed to interest him beyond the first few occasions. Always he must go back to Barbara, wild Barbara, cruel Barbara, the perfect animal, the most unaccountable and the most exciting creature in his kingdom.

  He looked at his watch.

  It was time the morning perambulation was ended.

  He chided himself lightly for thinking of Barbara so early in the day.

  Barbara sat up in bed in her husband’s house in King Street, Westminster. In the cradle lay her few-days-old child, a girl. Barbara was a little sulky; she would have preferred her firstborn to be a boy.

  She smiled secretly. There should be three men who would come to visit her, and each would believe in his heart that the child was his. Let them have their secret thoughts; Barbara had long decided whom she would name as the little girl’s father.

  Roger, the first of the visitors, came early.

  How insignificant he was! How could she have married such a man? people wondered. She smiled when she heard that. Her reasons were sound enough. Poor Roger, he should not suffer for his meekness. Unfortunately nowadays he was not inclined to be as meek as she could wish.

  He stood at the foot of the bed and looked from her to the child in the cradle.

  Barbara cried: “For the love of God, do not stand there looking like a Christian about to be sent to the lions! Let me tell you, Roger Palmer, that if danger came within a mile of you you’d be squealing to me to protect you!”

  “Barbara,” said Roger, “you astonish me. I should not have thought any woman could be so blatant.”

  “I have little time for subterfuge.”

  “You deliberately deceive me with others.”

  “I deceive you! When have I ever deceived you? I am not afraid to receive my lovers here … in your house.”

  “Shame, Barbara, shame! You, a woman just delivered of a child! Why, there are many who wonder who the father of that child may be.”

  “Then they need not wonder long. They shall know, when the titles due to this child are given to her.”

  “You are quite shameless.”

  “I am merely being truthful.”

  “I suppose, when you married me you had your lovers.””

  You surely did not think, sir, that you could satisfy me?””

  Chesterfield …?”

  “Yes, Chesterfield!” she spat at him.

  “Then why did you not marry Chesterfield? He was free to marry at that time.”

  “Because I had no wish to marry Chesterfield. Do you think I wished for a husband who was ready to draw his sword every me he thought his honor slighted?” She laughed the cruel laugh he had come to know so well. “Nay! I wanted a meek man. A man who would look away at the right moment, a man without any great title … or hope of one, except that which I should bring to him.”

  “You are a strange woman, Barbara.”

  “I’m no fool, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Do not think that I should wish for any honors which you could bring me. Honours, did you say? They would be dishonor in disguise.”

  “Honors are honors, no matter how they come. Ah! I see the look in your eyes, Roger Palmer. You are wondering what His Majesty will do for you if you quietly father his child, are you not?”

  “Barbara, you are vulgar and cruel, and I wonder … I wonder I can stay under the same roof.”

  “Then cease to wonder. Get out. Or shall I? Do you imagine that there are not other roofs under which I could shelter? Why do you not admit the truth to yourself, Roger Palmer? You are jealous … jealous of my lovers. And why? Because you wish to be my lover!” She laughed. “My lover en titre…. You wish to exclude all others!”

  “I am your husband.”

  “My husband! What should I want of a husband except his complaisance.”

  He strode towards the bed; his face was livid with fury.

  Barbara called to her women, who hurried into the room.

  “I am very fatigued,” she said. “I wish to rest. Arrange the pillows more comfortably. Roger, you must leave me now.”

  “You must not excite yourself at such a time, Madam,” said one of her women.

  She lay back upon her pillows and watched Roger as he went quietly to the cradle and bent over the sleeping infant. She knew he was telling himself that the little nose, small though it was, was yet a Palmer nose; and the set of the eyes, that was Palmer too.

  Let him go on thinking thus, she mused, for what harm is there in thinking?

  And when he had gone, she sent one of her women with a message to Lord Chesterfield at Whitehall.

  Barbara’s messenger found the Earl of Chesterfield in his apartments at the Palace. The Countess was with him, and it was not the most propitious moment to deliver a message from Barbara; but all Barbara’s servants knew that to disobey was quite out of the question, and she would be amused to know that Chesterfield’s bride was present when he received his summons to call on his mistress.

  Chesterfield still felt the power of her attraction, and he had not ceased to be her lover at intervals ever since their first encounter. There had been a time when Barbara had actually seemed to be in love with him; when she had so far subdued her personality as to write to him: “I am ready and willing to go all over the world with you, and will obey your commands whilst I live.” That was after Barbara’s own marriage but before the return of the King, before Chesterfield had fought that duel which had necessitated his leaving the country. Then she had compared him with the meek Roger and when she knew there could never be marriage between them, she had felt he was the only man who could please her.

  That mood had not lasted. The King had come home, and the occasions when Barbara had been at home to Chesterfield became less frequent, although she had wished to receive him more often when she had heard of the beauty of his wife.

  Barbara was a wanton, Chesterfield told himself; Barbara was cruel; but that did not prevent her from being different from all other women and very desirable. His common sense told him to have no more to do with her; his senses refused to release him.

  Now he looked at the quiet girl who was his wife. She was about twenty years of age—the same age as Barbara—but compared with his mistress she seemed but a child. There was no guile about Elizabeth; she was pleasant to look upon but seemed dull when he compared hers with the flamboyant charms of Barbara. And of course he must compare her with Barbara, for Barbara was constantly in his thoughts.

  “A message?” she said now. “
From whom, Philip? I had hoped that you would spend an hour or so with me.”

  “It matters not from whom the message comes,” he said coldly. “Suffice it that it is for me, and that I must leave at once.”

  Elizabeth came to him and put her arm through his. She was very much in love with him. He had seemed so handsome and romantic when he had come to Holland; she had heard the story of the duel; she did not know the cause, and she imagined that it was out of chivalry that he had fought and killed a man. He would not talk of it. That, she had told herself, is his natural modesty. He will not speak of it because he fears to appear boastful.

  She had led a sheltered life with the Duchess her mother, who, horrified at the licentious exiled Court, had kept her daughter from it in an endeavor to preserve her innocence; she had succeeded in her task too well, for Elizabeth at the time of her marriage had no notion of the kind of man she had married, nor of the kind of world in which she would be expected to compete for his affections. The marriage had seemed a good one. The Earl was twenty-five years of age, the Lady Elizabeth nineteen. Chesterfield, a younger widower, needed a wife and it was time the Lady Elizabeth was married.

  It was true that the Duchess, having heard rumors of the bridegroom’s reputation, was a little hesitant; but those rumors were not so disturbing as they might have been, for at that time Barbara Palmer had not achieved the notoriety which she attained when she became the King’s mistress; and, as the Duke pointed out to his Duchess, a young unmarried man must have a mistress; Chesterfield would settle down when he married.

  So the marriage took place at The Hague a little while before the Restoration; and Lady Elizabeth who, having seen the affection between her parents, had expected to enjoy the same happy state with her husband, met with bitter disappointment.

  The Earl made it quite clear that the marriage was one of convenience and Lady Elizabeth found that her naive expressions of love were cruelly repulsed.

  At first she was hurt; then she believed that he still thought of his first wife, Anne Percy. She asked questions about her of all who had known her; she tried to emulate what she heard of her rival, but her efforts seemed to win her husband’s impatience rather than his kindness. He was brusque, cold, and avoided her as much as possible. He made it clear that any intercourse between them was undertaken by him because it was expected of him.

  The naive and gentle girl, being in every way different from Barbara, irritated him beyond all measure because, in everything she did, by the very contrast, she reminded him of Barbara, and set him longing to renew that tempestuous relationship.

  Even now when they had returned to London she was kept in ignorance of the life he led. Her mother, unknown to her, had spoken to the Earl asking that he treat her daughter with the deference due to her; at which he became more aloof than ever and Elizabeth, left much alone, continued to brood on the perfections of Anne Percy who she believed could charm from the grave.

  But at this moment the Earl was beside himself with the desire to see Barbara—and not only Barbara. He was sure the child was his. He had visited Barbara at the time she became the King’s mistress; he remembered the occasion when he had accused her of seeking royal favor; he remembered her mocking laughter, her immense provocation, her insatiable lust which demanded more than one lover at a time. Yes, the child could very possibly be his.

  “Philip….” Elizabeth was smiling at him in a manner which she fondly imagined was alluring.

  He threw her off, and the tears came to her eyes. If there was one thing that maddened him more than an attempt at coquetry, it was her weeping; and there had been much of that since her marriage—quiet, snuffling crying which he heard in the darkness.

  “Why do you plague me?” he demanded.

  “I … plague you?”

  “Why do you seek to detain me when you know full well I have no wish to be detained by you?”

  “Philip, you talk as though you hate me.”

  “Hate you I shall if you will insist on clinging to me thus. Is it not enough that you are my wife? What more do you want of me?”

  “I want a chance, Philip, a chance for us to be happy. I want us to be as husband and wife….”

  That made him laugh. The spell of Barbara was on him. He was sure she was a witch who could cast spells from a distance. It was almost as though she were there in the room, mocking him, scorning him for not telling this foolish little girl the truth.

  “You wish us to be as husband and wife? To live, you mean, as do other wives and husbands of the Court? Then you should get yourself a lover. It is an appendage without which few wives of this Court find themselves.”

  “A … lover? You, Philip, my husband, can say that!”

  He took her by the shoulders and shook her in exasperation. “You are like a child,” he said. “Grow up! For God’s sake, grow up!”

  She threw her arms about his neck. His exasperation turned to anger. He found her repulsive—this fresh and innocent young girl—because she was not Barbara on whose account he had suffered bitter jealousy ever since the King came home.

  “Know the truth,” he cried. “Know it once and for all. I cannot love you. My thoughts are with my mistress.”

  “Your mistress, Philip!” Elizabeth was white to the lips. “You mean … your dead … wife?”

  He looked at her in astonishment and then burst into cruel laughter.

  “Mrs. Barbara Palmer,” he said. “She is my mistress….”

  “But she … she is the King’s mistress, they say.”

  “So you have learned that? Then you are waking up, Elizabeth. You are becoming very knowledgeable. Now learn something else: the King’s mistress she may be—but she is mine also. And the child she has just borne … it is mine, I tell you.”

  Then he turned and hurried away.

  Elizabeth stood like one of the stone statues in the Palace grounds.

  Then she turned away and went to her apartment; she drew the curtains about her bed and lay there, while a numbness crept over her limbs, and it seemed that all feelings were merged in the misery which was sweeping over her.

  Before Chesterfield arrived at the house in King Street, Barbara had another visitor.

  This was her relative, George Villiers the Duke of Buckingham. He was now a gentleman of the King’s bedchamber; his estates had been restored to him, and he was on the way to becoming one of the most important men in the country.

  He did not look at the child in the cradle. Instead his eyes were warm with admiration for the mother.

  “So Mrs. Barbara,” he said, “you flourish. I hear that the King continues to dote. This is a happy state of affairs for the family of Villiers, I’ll swear.”

  “Ah, George,” she said with a smile, “we have come a long way from the days when you used to tease me for my hot temper.”

  “I’ll warrant the temper has not cooled, and were it not that I dare not tease such a great lady as Mistress Barbara, I would be tempted to put it to the test. Do you bite and scratch and kick with as much gusto as you did at seven, Barbara?”

  “With as much gusto and greater force,” she assured him. “But I’ll not kick and scratch and bite you, George. There are times when the Villiers should stand together. You were a fool to get sent back from France.”

  “It was that prancing ninny of a Monsieur. He feigned to be jealous of my attentions to the Princess Henrietta.”

  “Well, you tried to make her sister Mary your wife and failed, then you tried to make Henrietta your mistress and failed in that.”

  “I beg of you taunt me not with failing. Mayhap your success will not last.”

  “Ah! Had I not married Roger mayhap I should have been Charles’ wife ere now.”

  George’s thoughts were cynical. Charles might be a fool where women were concerned, but he was not such a fool as that. However, it was more than one dared say to Barbara. Roger had his uses. Not only was he a complaisant husband but he supplied a good and valid reason why Barbara
was not Queen of England.

  “It seems as though fortune does not favor us, cousin,” said George. “And the lady in the cradle—is she preparing herself to be nice to Papa when he calls?”

  “She will be nice to him.”

  “You should get him to own her.”

  “He shall own her,” said Barbara.

  “Roger spoke of the child as though there could be no doubt that she is his.”

  “Let him prate of that in public.”

  “The acknowledgment by her rightful father should not be too private, Barbara.”

  “Nay, you’re right.”

  “And there is something more I would say to you. Beware of Edward Hyde.”

  “Edward Hyde? That old fool!”

  “Old, it is true, my dear; but no fool. The King thinks very highly of him.”

  Barbara gave her explosive laugh.

  “Ah yes, the King is your minion. You lead him by the nose. I know, I know. But that is when he is with you, and you insist he begs for your favors. But the King is a man of many moods. He changes the color of his skin like a chameleon on a rock, and none is more skilled at such changing than he. Remember Hyde was with him years ago in exile. He respects the man’s judgment, and Hyde is telling him that his affair with you is achieving too much notoriety. He is warning him that England is not France, and that the King’s mistress will not be accorded the honors in this country which go to His Majesty’s cousin’s women across the water.”

  “I’ll have the fellow clapped into the Tower.”

  “Nay, Barbara, be subtle. He’s too big a man to be clapped into the Tower on the whim of a woman. The King would never consent to it. He would promise you in order to placate you, and then prevaricate; and he would whisper to his Chancellor that he had offended you and he had best make his peace with you. But he will not easily turn against Edward Hyde.”

  “You mean I should suffer myself to be insulted by that old … old …”

  “For the time, snap your fingers. But beware of him, Barbara. He would have the King respectably married and his mistresses cast aside. He will seek to turn the King against you. But do nothing rash. Work stealthily against him. I hate the man. You hate the man. We will destroy him gradually … but it must be slowly. The King is fickle to some, but I fancy he will not be so with one who has been so long his guide and counsellor. His Majesty is like a bumble bee—a roving drone—flitting from treasure to treasure, sipping here and there and forgetting. But there are some flowers from which he has drunk deep and to these he returns. Know you that he has given a pension to Jane Lane who brought him to safety after Worcester? All that time, and he remembers—our fickle gentleman. So will he remember Edward Hyde. Nay, let the poison drip slowly … in the smallest drops, so that it is unnoticed until it has begun to corrode and destroy. Together, Barbara, you and I will rid ourselves of one who cannot be anything but an enemy to us both.”