She nodded her agreement; her blue eyes were brilliant. She longed to be up; she hated inactivity.
“I will remember,” she said. “And how fare you in your married life?”
“Happily, happily,” he said.
“And Mary Fairfax—does she fare happily?”
“She is the happiest of women, the most satisfied of wives.”
“Some are easily satisfied. Does she not regret Chesterfield?”
“That rake! Indeed she does not.”
“She finds in you a faithful husband?” said Barbara, cynically and slyly.
“She finds in me the perfect husband—which gives greater satisfaction.”
“Then she must be blind.”
“They say love is, Madam.”
“Indeed it must be. And she loves you still?”
“As she ever did. And so do the entire family. It is a most successful marriage.”
Barbara’s woman came in and was about to announce that Chesterfield was on his way, when the Earl himself came into the room.
He and Buckingham exchanged greetings. Chesterfield went to the bed, and, taking the hand Barbara gave him, pressed it to his lips.
“You are well?” he asked. “You are recovered?”
“I shall be about tomorrow.”
“I rejoice to hear it,” said Chesterfield.
Buckingham said he would take his leave. Matters of state called him.
When he had gone, Chesterfield seized Barbara in his arms and kissed her with passion.
“Nay!” she cried, pushing him away. “It is too soon. Do you not wish to see the child, Philip?”
He turned to the cradle then. “A girl,” he said. “Our child.”
“You think that?”
“Yes,” he said. “It is ours.”
“You are proud to own her, Philip. Well, we must see that your interest in the little girl does not become known to your Lady Elizabeth.”
His faced darkened at the memory of the scene he had so recently experienced with his wife.
“I care not,” he said.
She tapped him sharply on the arm.
“I care,” she said. “I’ll not have you bruit it abroad that this child is yours.”
“You are reserving her for a higher fate? Barbara, you witch!”
“Philip, soon I shall be well.”
“And then …”
“Ah! We shall meet ere long, I doubt not. Why, you are a more eager lover than you once were!”
“You become a habit, Barbara. A habit … like the drink or gaming. One sips … one throws the dice, and then it is an unbearable agony not to be able to sip or throw the dice.”
“It pleases me that you came so quickly to my call.”
He was holding her hands tightly, and she felt his strength. She looked into his face and remembered that occasion four years ago in the nuttery. “The first time,” she said. “I remember. It was nothing less than rape.”
“And you a willing victim.”
“A most unwilling one. ’Twas forced upon me. You should have been done to death for what you did to me. Dost know the punishment for rape?”
The woman came in. She was agitated. “My lady, Madam … the King comes this way.”
Barbara laughed and looked up at her lover.
“You had better leave,” she said.
Chesterfield had drawn himself up to his full height.
“Why should I leave? Why should I not stay here and say, ‘By God, Your Majesty, I am honored that you should come so far to see my daughter?’”
Barbara’s face was white and tense with sudden anger. “If you do not leave this chamber this minute,” she said, “I will never see you again as long as I live.”
She meant it, and he knew she meant it.
There were moments when he hated Barbara, but, whether he hated or loved, the knowledge was always with him that he could not live without her.
He turned and followed the woman out of the chamber; he allowed himself to be led ignobly out through a back door that he might run no risk of coming face-to-face with the King.
Charles stepped into the room while his accompanying courtiers stayed in the corridor.
Barbara held out her hand and laughed contentedly.
“This is an honor,” she said. “An unexpected one.”
Charles took the hand and kissed it.
“It pleases me to see you so soon recovered,” he said. “You look not like one who has just passed through such an ordeal.”
“It was a joyful ordeal,” she said, “to bear a royal child.”
Eagerly she watched his face. It was never easy to read his feelings.
He had turned from her to the child in the cradle.
“So the infant has royal blood?”
“Your Majesty can doubt it?”
“There are some who doubtless will,” he said.
She was reproachful. “Charles, you can talk thus while I lie so weakly here!”
He laughed suddenly, that deep, low musical laugh. “’Od’s Fish, Barbara, ’tis the only time I would dare do so.”
“Think you not that she is a beautiful child?”
“’Tis hard to say as yet. It is not possible to see whether she hath the look of you or Palmer.”
“She’ll never have a look of Palmer,” said Barbara fiercely. “I’d be ready to strangle at birth any child of mine who had!”
“Such violence! It becomes you not … at such a time.”
Barbara covered her face with her hands. “I am exhausted,” she murmured brokenly. “I had thought myself the happiest of women, and now I find myself deserted.”
The King drew her hands from her face. “What tears are these, Barbara? Do they spring from sorrow or anger?”
“From both. I would I were a humble merchant’s wife.”
“Nay, Barbara, do not wish that. It would grieve me to see our merchants plagued. We need them to further the trade of our country, which suffers great poverty after years of Cromwell’s rule.”
“I see that Your Majesty is not in serious mood.”
“I could be naught but merry to see that motherhood has changed you not a whit.”
“You have scarce looked at the child.”
“Could I look at another female when Barbara is at hand?”
Her eyes blazed suddenly. “So you do not accept this child as yours …?” Her long, slender fingers gripped the sheet. Her eyes were narrowed now and she was like a witch, he thought, a wild and beautiful witch. “If I had a knife here,” she said, “I would plunge it into that child’s heart. For would it not be better for her, poor innocent mite, that she should never know life at all than know the ignominy of being disowned by her own father!”
The King was alarmed, for he believed her capable of any wild action. He said: “I beg of you do not say such things, even in a jest.”
“You think I jest then, Charles? Here am I, a woman just emerging from the agony of childbed; in all my sufferings I have been sustained by this one thought the child I bear is a royal child. Her path shall be made easy in the world. She shall have the honors due to her and it shall be our delight—her father’s and mine—to love her tenderly as long as we shall live! And now … and now …”
“Poor child!” said Charles. “To be disowned by one because she could be owned by many.”
“I see you no longer love me. I see that you have cast me aside.”
“Barbara, should I be here at this time if that were so?”
“Then you would take your pleasure and let the innocent suffer. Oh, God in Heaven, should such an unfortunate be condemned to live? As soon as I saw her I saw the King in her. I said, ‘Through my daughter Charles lives again.’ And to think that in my weakness that father should come here to taunt me…. It is more than I can bear.” She turned her face from him. “You are the King, but I am a woman who has suffered much, and now I beg of you to leave me, for I can bear no more.”
“Barbara,”
he said, “have done with this acting.”
“Acting!” She raised herself; her cheeks were flushed, her hair tumbled, and she looked very beautiful.
“Barbara,” he said, “I beg of you, control yourself. Get well. Then we will talk on this matter.”
She called to her woman. The woman came nervously, curtsying to the King as her frightened eyes went from him to Barbara.
“Bring me the child!” cried Barbara.
The woman went to the cradle.
“Give the child to me,” said the King. The woman obeyed. And because he loved all small and helpless creatures, and particularly children, the King was deeply touched by the small, pink, wrinkled baby who might possibly be his own flesh and blood.
He looked down at the serving woman and gave her one of those smiles which never failed to captivate all who were favored with them.
“A healthy child,” he said. “Methinks she already has a look of me. What say you?”
“Why, yes … Your Majesty,” said the woman.
“I remember my youngest sister when she was little more than this child’s age. They might be the same … as my memory serves.”
Barbara was smiling contentedly. She was satisfied. The King had come to heel. He had acknowledged her daughter as his, and once more Barbara had her way.
The King continued to hold the child. She was a helpless little thing; he could easily love her. He owned to many children; so what difference did one more make?
Spring had come to England, and once more there was expectation in the streets of London. It was exactly a year since the King had returned to rule his country.
The mauve tufts of vetch with golden cowslips and white stitchwort flowers gave, a gentle color to the meadows and lanes which could be seen from almost every part of the city. The trees in St. James’ Park were in bud and the birdsong there sounded loud and jubilant as though these creatures were giving thanks to the King who had helped to build them such a delightful sanctuary.
The last year had brought more changes to the city. The people were less rough than they had been; there were fewer brawls. French manners had been introduced by the King and courtiers, which subdued the natural pugnacity of the English. The streets had become more colorful. Maypoles had been set up; new hawkers had appeared, shouting their wares through the streets; wheels continually rattled over the cobbles. On May Day milkmaids danced in the Strand with flower-decorated pails. New pleasure-houses had sprung up, to compete for public patronage with the Mulberry Garden. Cream and syllabub was served at the World’s End tavern in the village of Knightsbridge. There was Jamaica House at Bermondsey; there were the Hercules Pillars in Fleet Street and Chatelins at Covent Garden—a favorite eating house since it was French and the King had brought home with him a love of all things French. Chatelins was for the rich, but there were cheaper rendezvous for the less fortunate, such as the Sugar Loaf, the Green Lettuce and the Old House at Lambeth Marshes; and there were the beautiful woods of Vauxhall in which to roam and ramble and seek the sort of adventures which were being talked of more openly than ever before, to listen to the fiddlers’ playing, and watch the fine people walking.
Yes, there were great changes, and these were brought about through the King.
There was a new freedom in the very air—a gay unconcern for virtue. It might be that the people of the new age were not more licentious than those of the old; but they no longer hid their little peccadilloes; they boasted of them. They would watch the King’s mistress riding through the town, haughty and so handsome that none could take his eyes from her. All knew the position she held with the King; he made no secret of it; nor did she. They rode together; they supped together four or five nights a week, and the King never left her till early morning, when he would take his walks and exercise in the gardens of his Palace of Whitehall.
It was a new England in which men lived merrily and were more ashamed of their virtue than their lack of morals. To take a mistress—or two—was but to ape the King, and the King was a merry gentleman who had brought the laughter back to England.
Charles was enjoying his own. The weather was clement; he loved his country; his exile was too close behind him for him to have forgotten it; he reveled in his return to power.
He was a young man, by no means handsome, but he was possessed of greater charm than any man in his Court; moreover he was royal. Almost any woman he desired, be she married or single, was his for the asking. He could saunter and select; he could enter into all the pleasures which were most agreeable to him. He could sail down the river to visit his ships—himself at the tiller; he could revel in their beauty, which attracted him so strongly. He could take his own yacht whither he wished, delighting in its velvet hangings and its damask-covered furniture, all made to his taste and his designs.
He could spend thrilling hours at the races; he could stand beside his workmen in the parks, make suggestions and give commands; he could watch the stars through his telescope with his astronomers and learn all they had to tell him. He could play bowls on his green at Whitehall, he could closet himself with his chemist and concoct cordials and medicines in his laboratory. Life was full of interest for a lively and intelligent man who suddenly found himself possessed of so much, after he had lived so long with so little.
He longed to see plays such as he had seen in France.
He was building two new theaters; he wished to see more witty plays produced. There were to be tall candles and velvet curtains—and women to act!
These were great days of change, but there was one thing which existed in abundance in this colorful and exciting City: dirt. It was ever present and therefore, being so familiar to all, passed unnoticed. In the gutters decaying matter rotted for days; sewage trickled over the cobbles; servants emptied slops out of the upper windows, and if they fell onto passersby that merely added gaiety and laughter—and sometimes brawls—to the clamoring, noisy city.
Noise was as familiar as dirt. The people reveled in it. It was as though every citizen were determined to make up for the days of Puritan rule by living every moment to the full.
Manners had become more elegant, but conversation more bold. Dress had become more alluring, and calculated to catch the eye and titillate the senses. The black hoods and deep collars were ripped off, and dresses were cut away to reveal feminine charms rather than to hide them. Men’s clothes were as elaborate as those of women. In their plumed hats and breeches adorned with frilly lace they frequented the streets like magnificent birds of prey, as though hoping to reduce their victims to a state of supine fascination by their brilliance.
And now the arches, which would be adorned with flowers and brocades, were being set up; the scaffolding was being erected. People stood about in groups to laugh and chatter of the change which had taken place in their city since the King came home. They would turn out in their thousands to cry “A Health Unto His Majesty” when the King rode by on his way to be crowned, and drink to him from the conduits flowing with wine.
Charles, driving his chariot with two fine horses through Hyde Park, bowing to the people who called their loyal greetings to him, was, for all his merry smiles, thinking of a subject which never failed to rouse the melancholy in him: Money.
A Coronation was a costly thing, and these people who rejoiced to see the scaffolding erected, and talked of the changed face of London, did not alas realize that they were the ones who would be asked to pay for it.
Charles had a horror of inflicting taxes. It was the surest way to a people’s disfavor. And, he thought, I like my country so well, and I have travelled so much in my youth, that I have no wish ever to set foot outside England. It would therefore grieve me greatly if I were asked to go travelling again.
Money! How to come by it?
His ministers had one solution on which they continually harped. Marry a rich wife!
He would soon have to marry; he knew that; but whom should he marry?
Spain was anxious that the woman he
married should have some ties with their country. The Spanish ambassador had put forth some suggestions tentatively. If Charles would consider a Princess from Denmark or Holland, Spain would see that she was given a handsome dowry.
Charles grimaced. He remembered the “foggy” women of those capitals in which he had sojourned as an exile. His ministers wished him to take a rich wife; it was imperative for the state of the country’s finances that he did so. And for the sake of my comfort, he had begged, let her be not only rich but comely.
His ministers thought this a frivolous attitude. He had his mistresses to be beautiful; suffice it that his wife should be rich.
Hyde was a strong man. He had deliberately flouted Barbara; and only a strong man would do that, thought Charles grimly. Hyde had forbidden his wife to call on Barbara, and Barbara remembered insults. She was going to be angry when she heard that the King was giving him the Earldom of Clarendon at the Coronation. Why do I give way to Barbara? he asked himself. Why? Because she could amuse him far more than any woman; because there was no physical satisfaction equal to that which Barbara could give. And why was this so? Perhaps because in her great gusto of passion she herself could enjoy so wholeheartedly. One could dislike Barbara’s cupidity, her cruelty, her blatant vulgarity, yet Barbara’s lusty beauty, Barbara’s overwhelming sensuality chained a man to her side; it was not only so with himself. There were others.
A Health Unto His Majesty Page 6
