A Health Unto His Majesty

by Виктория Холт

  She withdrew herself more than ever; she began to see that in refusing to accept Lady Castlemaine she had brought nothing but sorrow to herself. She had lost the King’s affection, which had been given to a meek and gentle woman; and at the same time Lady Castlemaine had become a member of her household in spite of her dissent. Now James Crofts was made Duke of Monmouth, and was taking precedence over every other Duke in the kingdom with one exception—that of the King’s brother James.

  She herself was of no account; she had brought no good to her husband; her dowry was unpaid; her country was begging for England’s military help; valuable English ships were kept in the Mediterranean to assist Portugal should Spain attack.

  She was the most wretched of Queens for, in spite of all she had suffered, she continued to love her husband.

  She paced up and down her apartment.

  Her country was in danger, she knew. If Charles withdrew his fleet Portugal would be once more the vassal of Spain. All the political advantages which this marriage had been intended to secure would be lost.

  And it was due to her obstinacy. Was it obstinacy? She did not know. Was it her pride? Was it her vanity? She had dreamed of his chivalry; she had set him up in her mind and heart as the perfect man; and when she had met him in the flesh she had discovered him to be—so she had thought—more lovable than her ideal. That ideal had been noble, a little stern; she had never thought of his making merry. The reality had seemed noble but never stern; he was fond of laughter; lie was affectionate—the kindest man in the world.

  And suddenly one night as she lay alone, the knowledge came to her. She loved him; she would always love him; she loved him not only for his virtues but for his faults. She no longer wanted that ideal; she wanted Charles the living man. Suddenly she realized that she was married to the most fascinating Prince in the world and that, although she was not sufficiently beautiful or charming, so kindly was his nature that she could still expect much affection from him.

  He had asked one thing of her, and she had failed to give it because it had seemed impossible to give. He had asked her to accept him as he was—frail, a lover of women other than herself—and she had failed him in the one important thing he had asked of her.

  She remembered now the kindness with which he had first received her; she remembered how, when he had come into her bedchamber, he had made her feel that she was beautiful and desirable, not because he found her so, but because he knew that that was what she wished to be. He would deceive in order to please; she had failed to appreciate that. She had set him stern rules, conventional rules; she had tried to make a saint of the most charming sinner in the world, little realizing that saints are often uncomfortable people and that their saintliness is often attained at the cost of that kindly good nature which was an essential part of Charles’ character.

  She saw clearly his side of their disagreement, as she had never thought to see it, and she cursed herself for a fool because she had failed him when he asked her help.

  She loved him; any humiliation was not too much to suffer for the sake of his affection.

  She determined to regain that affection. She would not tell him of her decision; she would startle him by her friendly manner towards Lady Castlemaine. Mayhap it was not too late.

  In the early hours of the morning as he left his mistress’s apartment in the Cockpit and strolled back to his own in the main Palace, Charles was thinking of Catherine. He wondered how many people in the Court knew of these nightly wanderings of his to and from Barbara’s apartment. Did Catherine know? Poor Catherine! He had been wrong to show coldness to her. He had asked too much of her. Could he have expected an innocent and ignorant girl, brought up as she had been, to understand his blasé point of view?

  No! Catherine had acted in accordance with what she had considered to be right. She had clung to her duty. He, who would have sought an easy way out of the difficulty, must admire her for her strength of purpose. She had endured his neglect without much complaint, and he had behaved very badly.

  She was the Queen, and he must put an end to this state of affairs. Barbara was often unbearable. He would tell her she must leave the Court. That should be his first concession to Catherine. Gradually he would let her see that he wished them to return to a happier relationship.

  Poor homely little Catherine! She was a good woman, though a stubborn one, but well within her rights he doubted not.

  “I will see what may be done about remedying this difference between us,” he mused.

  And so, salving his conscience, he returned to his apartment.

  Catherine’s change of manner towards Lady Castlemaine caused great astonishment.

  It was so sudden, for not only did she speak with her as hitherto she had not done, but she seemed actually to enjoy that lady’s company more than that of any other. She referred to Barbara as “my friend Lady Castlemaine.”

  Poor Catherine! So eager was she for the King’s regard that, having once made up her mind to turn about, she could not do so quickly enough.

  Those few who had sought to curry favor with the Queen for what it might be worth, were now alarmed and tried to remember what derogatory remarks they had made about Barbara. Those who had ignored Catherine were equally astonished.

  Clarendon thought her inconsequent and unreliable. “This,” he said to Ormond, “is the total abandonment of her greatness. She has lost all dignity; for, although I continued to warn her against her stubborn conduct, yet I was forced to admire it. In future none will feel safe with her. The Castlemaine herself is more reliable.”

  The King, too, was astonished. He had not asked for such affability. He would have preferred her to have been cool with Barbara. It seemed folly to have expressed such abhorrence and now to have assumed a completely opposite attitude.

  I was a fool, he told himself. I worried unduly. She is not the woman I thought her. She gives way to sudden passions. Her persistent refusal to receive Barbara did not grow out of her sense of rightness; it was pure perversity.

  He shrugged his shoulders and decided to let matters take their course.

  It was the end of the year—Catherine’s first in England—and the King gave a grand ball in his Palace of Whitehall to mark the passing of the old year and the coming of the new.

  Into the great ballroom the public crowded to watch the dancing. There was the King, the most graceful dancer of all, more merry than any, clad in black with flashing diamonds adorning his person, surrounded by his fine courtiers and beautiful ladies. A little apart sat the Queen with Edward Montague and a few of her friends; and although she smiled often, chatted in her quaint English and seemed to be enjoying the ball, it was noticed how her eyes wistfully went back and back again to the tall figure of her husband.

  She watched him leading the Duchess of York out for the brantle. And how ungainly was the poor Duchess beside such an elegant partner! The Duke led the Duchess of Buckingham, poor Mary Fairfax, for whom Catherine had a feeling of deep sympathy, for Mary was plain, ungainly and so eager to please the brilliant handsome man she had married; Catherine noticed how all eyes were on that other pair which joined the brantle with the King’s group. Tall, dark James Crofts, the Duke of Monmouth, looking amazingly like his father, had chosen for his partner the most strikingly handsome woman in the ballroom. There were gasps from the people who had come in from the streets to watch the royal party at their pleasure; there was a titter of grudging admiration for the auburn-haired beauty with the flashing blue eyes.

  Her jewels were more brilliant than those of any woman in the room, and she held herself imperiously as though conscious of her power; and now she was amused because she knew that the King was aware of the warm looks of this very young boy who was her partner in the dance.

  A murmur went through the crowd. “’Tis my Lady Castlemaine! Was there ever such a woman, such beauty, such jewels?”

  The courtiers followed her with their eyes. None could refrain from looking at Barbara. Some of
the jewels she was now wearing had been Christmas presents to the King, but already Barbara had grasped them with greedy hands. And as she danced in the brantle the King watched her, Mon-mouth watched her, and Lord Chesterfield watched her, but none watched her quite so closely nor so sadly as the Queen of England.

  The brantle over, the King led the dancers in a coranto; and when that was ended and more stately dances followed, the King, with more energy than that possessed by most of his courtiers, signed to the fiddlers to play the dances of old England, with which country dances, he declared, none could compare.

  “Let the first be ‘Cuckolds all awry!’ The old dance of old England.”

  The Court grew very merry in the light of tall wax candles, and the crowds cheered and stamped with pleasure to see the old English dance; and they laughed and shouted to one another that Charles was indeed a King, with his merry life and his bland good humor, and the smiles he lavished freely on his subjects; they wanted no saint on the throne, who knew not how to laugh and found a virtue in forbidding pleasure to others.

  They looked at the sad-faced Queen who did not seem to share in the fun; and from her they turned their gaze on dazzling Barbara.

  The King was a man whom the English would never cease to love. And at the great Court ball in Whitehall Palace on the last night of the year 1662, all those present rejoiced once more that their King was a merry monarch and that he had come home to rule his kingdom.

  FOUR

  In the great ballroom at Windsor Castle the most brilliant ball of the year was taking place. This was to celebrate not only St. George’s Day but the marriage of the young man whom the King delighted to honor, his son, the Duke of Monmouth.

  Catherine watched the dancers, and beside her sat the little bride, Lady Anne Scott, the heiress of Buccleugh and one of the richest in the kingdom; but the bridegroom seemed more interested in Lady Castlemaine than in his bride, and the young girl gazed at the pair with apprehension.

  How sad it was, thought the Queen, that so many seemed to love those who were not their lawful partners! No wonder the King with sly humor liked to summon them all to dance “Cuckolds all awry.” Was he the only man who knew that he could rely on the good faith of his wife? Yet he seemed not to love her the more for her fidelity, and to love Barbara none the less for the lack of it in her. It was said that Sir Charles Berkeley and George Hamilton were Barbara’s lovers now and it seemed as though, before many weeks were out, young Monmouth might be; for the youth of the latter would be no deterrent to Barbara. She would look upon that as piquant. Catherine heard that she took lovers on the spur of the moment merely because some novelty in them appealed to her. She did not care whether they were noble or not; a lusty groom, she had been heard to say, was a better bedfellow than an impotent noble lord. The King also would hear these rumors, yet they seemed to affect him little; he still visited her on several nights each week and was often seen coming back early in the morning and all alone through the privy gardens. How could one hope to please such a husband as Catherine’s by one’s chastity?

  Chastity! Who at Court cared about that? Their King clearly did not, and the courtiers were only too ready to follow his lead.

  The Court was growing extremely elegant; Charles was introducing more and more French customs; he wrote continually to his sister, the wife of the French King’s brother, asking her to send him any novelties which had appeared in the Court of her brother-in-law. Making love was the main pursuit, it seemed, of all; rarely did any drink to excess at the Court; there again the custom of the King was followed. There was less gambling now, although this was a sport much loved by Lady Castlemaine. The King would anxiously watch her at play; he had good reason, for she was a reckless gambler, and who would pay her debts but himself? He did not forbid her or any of the ladies whom he so admired, to gamble; he could not bring himself to spoil their pleasure, he admitted; but he tried to lure them from the gaming tables with brilliant balls and masquerades. How indulgent he was to the women he loved!

  Why could they not be content with the partners whom they had married? Catherine wondered. She looked at little Anne beside her and felt a wave of tenderness for her. Poor child! She was young yet, but Catherine felt that if she ever grew to love her handsome young husband she was going to suffer deeply.

  Lady Chesterfield was standing beside the Queen’s chair and Catherine turned to her and smiled. A very charming lady—Elizabeth Butler now Lady Chesterfield—and married to that man who had seemed as much a slave of Barbara’s as the King himself.

  Catherine had been sorry for Elizabeth Chesterfield; she had felt she understood her sadness for she had heard how innocent she had been when she had married the profligate Earl, and how she had tried to win his love only to be repulsed.

  Catherine said in her faltering English: “I rejoice to see you look so well, Lady Chesterfield.”

  Lady Chesterfield bowed her head and thanked Her Majesty.

  Yes, she had changed, thought Catherine; she had lost her meek looks. Her dress of green and cloth of silver fell from beautifully rounded shoulders, and her thick hair was in ringlets falling about them; her eyes sparkled and she watched the dancers almost speculatively.

  So she had come to terms with life, thought Catherine. She had decided not to grieve because her husband preferred the evil beauty of Lady Castlemaine.

  The Earl of Chesterfield had come to his wife’s side, and would have taken her hand to lead her into the dance, but Elizabeth had withdrawn it and seemed not to see him standing there.

  Catherine heard the whispered words.

  “Come, Elizabeth. I would lead you to the dance.”

  Elizabeth’s voice was lightly mocking. “Nay, my lord, your place is by the side of another. I would not deprive you of your pleasure in her company.”

  “Elizabeth, this is folly.

  “Nay, ’tis sound good sense. And I advise you to watch what is afoot, for your dear friend seems mightily taken with the young Duke. You endanger your chances with her by dallying with me. Ah, here comes my cousin George Hamilton to claim me in the dance. George, I am ready.”

  And the graceful creature had laid her hand in that of George Hamilton, her cousin, who, it was said, had lately been the lover of my Lady Castlemaine. Chesterfield stood watching them with a frown between his eyes. It was like a mad dance, thought Catherine, in which, after a clasping of hands and a merry jig, they changed partners. Was Chesterfield more interested in the wife who flouted him than in the one who had been ready to love him? Or was it merely his pride which was wounded?

  She noticed, however, that as the evening progressed his eyes were more frequently on his wife than on Lady Castlemaine.

  Nor was he the only one who had seemed to change the course of his affections.

  Catherine, whose eyes never strayed far from the King, saw that he was giving much of his attention to one of her maids of honor.

  Frances Theresa Stuart was a distant relative of the King’s; she was the daughter of Walter Stuart, the third son of Lord Blantyre, and Henrietta Maria had brought her to England when she came over, and had left the girl with Catherine to act as maid of honor.

  Henrietta Maria had told Catherine that Louis Quatorze had been interested in her, and had suggested that she remain in his Court. “But,” said Henrietta Maria, “I thought it well not to leave her there; for her family lost much during the Civil War and I have a duty to them. I would not wish to see her become one of Louis’ mistresses. She has been brought up to live virtuously, so I pray you take her into your household and let her serve you.”

  Catherine had not wondered then whether removing Mrs. Stuart from the lecherous orbit of Louis to that of Charles was not after all somewhat pointless, because at that time she had regarded the King’s attachment to Lady Castlemaine as largely the result of an evil spell which that woman had put upon him. Now she was beginning to understand her husband and to realize that if there had been no Lady Castlemaine there would have be
en others.

  Previously Frances had been looked upon as little more than a child, but it seemed that in her dazzling gown and the few jewels she possessed, this night she had become a young woman; and Catherine realized that if Barbara’s beauty had a rival it was in this lovely girl.

  Frances’s hair was thick, fair and hung in curls over her shoulders; her pink and white complexion was dazzling; her eyes were blue; and she was tall and very slender; Barbara had a rare beauty with which any woman would find it difficult to compete, but Frances, in addition to beauty, was possessed of an elegance which she had acquired during her education at the French Court; her manners were gentle and quite modest—a complete contrast to the vulgarity of Lady Castlemaine. Barbara was, of course, full of wiles, full of cunning and, compared with her, Frances Stuart seemed simple as a child. It was perhaps these qualities, as much as her youth, which had made Catherine regard her as a little girl.

  But on this night she seemed to have grown up, and the King was noticing the change in her.

  Others were noticing it too. Barbara’s enemies, ever on the watch for her decline, were triumphantly asking each other and themselves: Could this be the end of her long domination of the King? Never had they seen Charles so completely absorbed in another woman, while Barbara was present, as he was in Frances.

  Catherine was sad at heart. She had believed that one day the King would come to notice what a vulgar woman Barbara was and, full of shame and repentance, he would turn to his wife and they would resume that idyllic relationship they had enjoyed at Hampton Court.

  Now she must wonder whether he ever would turn to her again, whether she had lost him forever when she had failed to do that one thing which he had asked of her.

  She continued to watch Lady Chesterfield who, flushed and triumphant, had many admirers now, including her husband perhaps. There was the Duke of York, watching her with dark, slumberous eyes. James was so clumsy in his devotions to women that he always aroused the amusement of the Court, and particularly of Charles. Catherine doubted not that ere long there would be whispers concerning the attraction Lady Chesterfield was exerting over the susceptible Duke.