A Health Unto His Majesty

by Виктория Холт

  Buckingham was reckless and quite indifferent to public abuse. When Lady Shrewsbury was a widow he took her to Wallingford House, where the Duchess of Buckingham was living, and when she protested that she and her husband’s mistress could not live under the same roof, he answered her coolly: “I did think that also, Madam. Therefore I ordered your coach to carry you back to your father’s house.”

  Some of those who followed the course of events were shocked; more were merely amused. The King had his own seraglio; it was understandable that those about him should follow his example. Lady Castlemaine had never contented herself with one lover; as she grew older she seemed to find the need for more and more.

  After her association with Charles Hart she discovered a fancy for other players.

  One day, masked and wrapped in a cloak, she went to St. Bartholomew’s Fair and saw there a rope-dancer—who immediately fascinated her. His name was Jacob Hill, she was told, and after his performance she sent for him.

  He proved so satisfactory that she gave him a salary which was far greater than anything he had dreamed of earning; and thus, she said, he could give up his irksome profession for a more interesting one.

  Like the King, she was learning that there was a great deal of fun to be had outside Court circles.

  Catherine tried to resign herself, to content herself because the news from Portugal was good. Her young brother Pedro had contrived to establish himself firmly on the throne; he had arranged that his sister-in-law, Alphonso’s wife, should obtain a divorce and marry him; Alphonso was put quietly away and all seemed well in Portugal. Catherine had hopes that one day the dowry promised by her mother would be paid to Charles; and she marveled at the goodness of her husband who never but once—and that when he was deeply incensed with her for denying him the one thing he had asked of her—had mentioned the fact that the dowry (the very reason for his marrying her) had not been paid in full.

  So, saddened yet resigned, she continued to love her husband dearly and to hope that one day, when he tired of gaiety and his mistresses, he would remember the wife who, for the brief period of a honeymoon at Hampton Court, had been the happiest woman in the world because she had believed her husband loved her.

  Then Frances Stuart came back to Court.

  The King received the news calmly. All were watching him to see what his reaction would be. Barbara was alert. She had her troupe of lovers, but she was as eager as ever to keep the favor of the King; she still behaved as maitresse en titre, but she was aware that the King knew of her many lovers, and the fact that he raised no objection was disconcerting. What would happen, she asked herself, now that Frances had returned? Frances, the wife of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox, might, as a married woman, find herself more free to indulge in a love affair with the King than she had been as an unmarried one. If she did, Barbara believed she would have a formidable rival indeed.

  Catherine was uneasy. She knew that a faction about the King had never ceased to agitate for a divorce, and that the powerful Buckingham was at the head of this contingent. Catherine had proved, they said, that she could not bear children; the King had proved that he was still potent. It was unsound policy, declared these men, to continue in a marriage which was fruitless. England needed an heir. These men were influenced by another consideration: If the King died childless, his brother, the Duke of York, would follow him, and the Duke of York had not only adopted the Catholic religion but he was the enemy of many of these men.

  Catherine knew that they were her bitter enemies. She was unmoved by the arrival of Frances. Frances could not now become the wife of the King since she had a husband of her own; and if she became the King’s mistress, she would now be one of many.

  But when the King and Frances met, the King received her coolly. It was clear, said everyone, that when she had run away with the Duke of Richmond and Lennox she had spoiled her chances with the King.

  It was not long after Frances’s return to Court that all had an opportunity of understanding the depth of Charles’ affection for his distant cousin.

  Frances was now even more beautiful than when she had left. Marriage with the Duke had sobered her; she was less giddy; if she still played card houses it was with an abstracted air. The Duke, her husband, was not only besotted, he was indifferent; he had wished to marry her only because the King had so ardently desired her; in fact, Frances had quickly realized that her marriage had been one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She had her apartments in Somerset House, the home of the King’s mother, Henrietta Maria, for she was not invited to take up residence in her old apartments in Whitehall. It was very different being merely the wife of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox and a woman who had offended the King so deeply that she would never be taken back into his favor again. There were fewer people to visit her and applaud all she did. Buckingham and Arlington, those devoted admirers, seemed now to have forgotten her existence. Lady Castlemaine laughed at her insolently whenever they met. Barbara was determined to flaunt her continued friendship with the King, which had lasted nearly ten years; Frances’s spell of favor had been so very brief.

  “The King must amuse himself,” Barbara said in her hearing. “He takes up with women one week and by the next he finds it difficult to recall their names.”

  So Frances, the petted darling of the Court, the King’s most honored friend, found herself neglected because she no longer held the King’s favor. There was no point in seeking to please her; for what good could her friendship bring them? It was astonishing how many of those who had sworn she was the most beautiful creature on Earth now scarcely seemed to notice her.

  She was beautiful—none more beautiful at the Court; she was far less foolish than she had been, but her circle of friends had dwindled astonishingly and she was often lonely in her rooms at Somerset House. Now and then she thought of returning to the country.

  Sitting solitarily, building card houses, she thought often of the old days; she thought of the charm of the King and compared it with the ungracious manners of her husband; she thought of the Duke’s indifference to her and of the King’s continual care.

  She covered her face with her hands and wept. If ever she had been in love with anyone it had been with Charles.

  She left her card house to collapse onto the table, and went to a mirror; her face looked back at her, perfect in contour and coloring; lacking the simplicity it had possessed when Charles had so eagerly sought her, but surely losing nothing of beauty for that.

  She must go to Court; she must seek him out. She would humbly beg his pardon, not for refusing to become his mistress—he would not expect that—but because she had run away and married against his wishes, because she had flouted him, because she had been such a fool as to prefer the drunken Duke to her passionate, but so kind and affectionate King.

  She called to her women.

  “Come,” she cried. “Dress me in my most becoming gown. Dress my hair in ringlets. I am going to pay a call … a very important call.”

  They dressed her, and she thought of the reunion as they did so. She would throw herself onto her knees first and beg his forgiveness. She would say that she had tried to go against the tide; she had believed in virtue, but now she could see no virtue in marriage with a man such as she had married. She would ask Charles to forget the past; and perhaps they would start again.

  “My lady, your hands are burning,” said one of her women. “You are too flushed. You have a fever.”

  “It is the excitement because I am to pay a most important call … I will wear that blue sash with the gold embroidery.”

  Her women looked at each other in astonishment. “There is no blue sash, my lady. The sash is purple, and the embroidery on it is silver.”

  Frances put her hand to her head. “Dark webs seem to dance before my eyes,” she muttered.

  “You should rest, my lady, before you pay that call.”

  Even as they spoke she would have fallen if two of them had not managed to catch
her.

  “Take me to my bed,” she murmured.

  They carried her thither, and in alarm they called the physician to her bedside. One of the women had recognized the alarming symptoms of the dreaded smallpox.

  The Court buzzed with the news.

  So Frances Stuart was suffering from the smallpox! Fate seemed determined to put an end to her sway, for only if she came unscathed from the dread disease, her beauty unimpaired, could she hope to return to the King’s favor.

  Barbara was exultant. It was hardly likely that Frances would come through unmarked; so few people did, and Barbara’s spies informed her that Frances had taken the disease very badly. “Praise be to God!” cried Barbara. “Madam Frances will no longer be able to call herself the beauty of the Court. Dolt! She threw away what she might have had when she was young and fair and the King sought her; she married her drunken sot, and much good has that done her. I’ll swear she was planning to come back and regain Charles’ favor. She’ll see that the pockmarked hag she’ll become will best retire to the country and hide herself.”

  The King heard the sly laughter. He heard the whispers. “They say the most beautiful of Duchesses has become the most hideous.”“Silly Frances, there’ll be no one to hand her her cards now.”“Poor Frances! Silly Frances! What had she but her beauty?”

  Catherine watched the King wistfully. She saw that he was melancholy, and she asked him to tell her the reason.

  He turned to her frankly and replied: “I think of poor Frances Stuart.”

  “It has been the lot of other women to lose their beauty through the pox,” said Catherine. “Her case is but one of many.”

  “Nay,” said the King. “Hers is unique, for the pox could never have robbed a woman of so much beauty as it could rob poor Frances!”

  “Some women have to learn to do without what they cannot have.”

  He smiled at Catherine. “No one visits her,” he said.

  “And indeed they should not. The infection will still be upon her.”

  “I think of poor Frances robbed of beauty and friends, and I find myself no longer angry with her.”

  “If she recovers it will bring great comfort to her to know that she no longer must suffer your displeasure.”

  “She needs comfort now,” declared the King. “If she does not have it, poor soul, she will die of melancholy.”

  He was thinking of her in her little cocked hat, in her black-and-white gown with the diamonds sparkling in her hair—Frances, the most beautiful woman of his Court, and now, if she recovered, one of its most hideous. For the pox was a cruel destroyer of beauty, and Frances was suffering a severe attack.

  Catherine, watching him, felt such twinges of jealousy that she could have buried her face in her hands and wept in her misery. She thought: If he could speak of me as he speaks of her, if he could care so much for me if I suffered the like affliction, I believe I would be willing to suffer as Frances has suffered. He loves her still. None of the others can mean as much to him as that simple girl, of whom it was once said: “Never had a woman so much beauty, and so little wit.”

  He smiled at Catherine, but she knew he did not see her. His eyes were shining and his mouth tender; he was looking beyond her into the past when Frances Stuart had ridden beside him and he had been at his wit’s end to think of means to overcome her resistance.

  He turned and hurried away, and a little later she saw him walking briskly to the river’s edge where his barge was waiting.

  Catherine stood watching him, and slowly the tears began to run down her cheeks.

  She knew where he was going. He was going to risk infection; he was going to do something which would set all the Court talking; for he was going to show them all that, although he had been cool towards the lovely Frances Stuart because she had flouted him in her marriage, all was forgiven the poor, stricken girl who was in danger of losing that very beauty which had so attracted him.

  For love like that, thought Catherine, I would welcome the pox. For love like that I would die.

  Frances lay in her bed. She had asked for a mirror, and had stared a long time at the face she saw reflected there. How cruel was fate! Why, she asked herself, should it have made her the most beautiful of women, only to turn her into one of the most hideous! If only the contrast had been less marked! It was as though she had been shown the value of beauty in those days of the Restoration, only that she might mourn its loss. Gone was the dazzling pink-and-white complexion; in its place was yellow skin covered by small pits which, not content with ravaging the skin itself, had distorted the perfect contours of her face. The lid of one eye, heavily pitted, was dragged down over the pupil so that she could see nothing through it, and the effect was to make her look grotesque.

  Nothing of beauty was left to her; even her lovely slender figure was wasted and so thin that she feared the bones would pierce her skin.

  Alone she lay, for none came to visit her. How was that possible, who would dare risk taking the dread disease?

  And when I am recovered, she thought, still none will visit me. And any who should be so misguided as to do so will be disgusted with what they see.

  She wanted to weep; in the old days she had wept so easily. Now there were no tears. She was aware only of a dumb misery. There was none to love her, none to care what became of her.

  Perhaps, she pondered, I will go into a convent. How can I live all the years ahead of me, shut away from the world? I am not studious; I am not clever. How can I live my life shut away from the Court life to which I have grown accustomed?

  How would it be to have old friends, who once had been eager to admire, turning away from her in disgust? There would be no one to love her; she had nothing to hope for from her husband. He had married the fair Stuart whom the King so desired because he had believed that, the King finding her so fair, she must be desirable indeed. Now … there would be none.

  She could see from her bed the boulle cabinet inlaid with tortoiseshell and ivory. It was a beautiful thing and a present from the King in those days when he had eagerly besought her to become his mistress. She remembered his pleasure when he had shown her the thirty secret drawers and the silver gilt fittings. The cabinet was decorated with tortoiseshell hearts, and she remembered that he had said: “These are reminders that you possess one which is not made of tortoiseshell and beats for you alone.”

  Beside her bed was the marquetry table, ebony inlaid, and decorated with pewter—another of Charles’ elaborate presents.

  She would have these to remind her always that once she had been so beautiful that a King had sought her favors. Few would believe that in the days to come, for they would look at a hideous woman and laugh secretly at the very suggestion that her beauty could ever have attracted a King who worshipped beauty as did Charles.

  All was over. Her life had been built on her beauty; and her beauty was in ruins.

  Someone had entered the room, someone tall and dark.

  She did not believe it was he. She could not. She had been thinking of him so vividly that she must have conjured him up out of her imagination.

  He approached the bed.

  “Oh, God!” she cried. “It is the King … the King himself.”

  She brought up her hands to cover her face, but found she could not touch the loathsome thing she believed that face to be. She turned to the wall and sobbed: “Go away! Go away! Do not look at me. Do not come here to mock me!”

  But he was there, kneeling by the bed; he had taken her hands.

  “Frances,” he said, in a voice husky with emotion, “you must not grieve. You must not.”

  “I beg of you go away and leave me in my misery,” she said. “You think of what I was. You see what I have become. You … you of all people must be laughing at me … you must be triumphant…. If you have any kindness in you … go away.”

  “Nay,” he said. “I would not go just yet. I would speak with you, Frances. We have been too long bad friends.”

&nbs
p; She did not answer. She believed the hot, scalding smart on the face she loathed meant tears.

  She felt his lips on her hands. He must be mad. Did he not know that there might still be danger of contagion?

  “I came because I could not endure that we should be bad friends, Frances,” he said. “You were ill and alone, so I came to see you.”

  She shook her head. “Now go, I beg of you. I implore you. I know you cannot bear to look at anything so ugly as I have become. You cannot have anything but loathing for me now.”

  “One does not loathe friends—if the friendship be a true one—whatever befalls them.”

  “You desired me for my beauty.” Her voice broke on a cracked note. “My beauty…. I am not only no longer beautiful, I am hideous. I know how you hate everything ugly. I can appeal only to your pity.”

  “I loved you, Frances,” he said. “’Od’s Fish! I did not know how much until you ran away and left me. And now I find you sick and alone, deserted by your friends. I came hither to say this to you, Frances: Here is one friend who will not desert you.”

  “Nay … nay …” she said. “You will never bear to look upon me after this.”

  “I shall visit you every day until you are able to leave your bed. Then you must return to Court.”

  “To be jeered at!”

  “None would dare jeer at my friend. Moreover, you despair too soon. There are remedies for the effects of the pox. Many have tried them. I will ask my sister to tell me what the latest French remedies are for improving the skin. Your eye will recover its sight. Frances, do not despair.”