With All My Heart
Page 29
Clearly as if it had been yesterday Catherine remembered how strange it had felt to be walking those familiar galleries again, seeing at every turn how Charles had walked here or stood laughing there. She had peeped in passing into the Banqueting Hall and remembered how, while waiting for the French Ambassador, he had told her about his father’s execution. And, although she could scarcely bear to do so, she had passed through that lovely gallery where they had all been gathered on the last Sunday of his earthly life. Her own apartments were occupied by others, but she had glanced down at the courtyard beneath them and remembered how she had watched Charles coming from a meeting of the Navy Board while the dew was yet on the grass, and how he had stopped to talk business with Lord Sandwich and Secretary Pepys. How shocked they had been because he would not punish some officer for shouting the bawdy truth in his cups — how pleasant Charles’s voice had sounded and how long his shadow had looked in the slanting sunlight ... How long, and how inestimably dear!
Catherine started when Lady Tuke, who had come with her from England, roused her from her reverie. Because in growing old one lives so deeply with lost loved ones in the past, she was quite surprised to look up and see the terraced vineyards, grey green in the hot Southern sunshine, and to see the ships below them riding the Tagus and not the Thames, and flying the Portuguese flag. But proud ships they were, and to her something more than the foreground to a pleasant picture. For her, every bulkhead and ratline had use and meaning; and moored among them, as there so often was these days, lay a British merchantman.
“I see there is one of our ships in, my dear,” she remarked pleasantly, taking Lady Tuke’s arm because she limped a little of late with the rheumatics.
“Why, so there is,” agreed Frances Tuke, following the direction of her gaze. “But how does your Majesty always recognize a British ship so quickly?”
“By the rake of her bows — or by the quickening of my heart, perhaps,” smiled Catherine, suffering herself to be led away and made yet more resplendent for supper.
But afterwards, while the musicians were entertaining her Spanish guests and she was sitting back, a little tired, Frances Tuke appeared at her elbow with a letter in her hand. “There is a young Englishman come ashore who begs to present his credentials to your Majesty,” she whispered.
“From that ship we saw,” said Catherine. “Do I know him?”
“Oh, no, Madame. He would be too young. Besides, he is but a modest sort of youth. I sent word that he must wait. But he bears a message from his uncle, Master Samuel Pepys.”
Catherine turned in her chair, all attention. “But how strange, Frances! Only a few hours ago I was thinking of Samuel Pepys! Let me see the letter.”
It was the letter of a blind man, dictated to a clerk, so that nothing of the writer’s personality showed in the hand. But all the warmth of his spirit was in the words. “If this should find you in Lisbon, dear nephew,” read Catherine, “I give you in charge to wait upon my Lady Tuke, one of the ladies attending my once royal mistress, our Queen Dowager, for whom I bear great honour; nor if she should offer you the honour of kissing the Queen’s hand would I have you omit, if Lady Tuke thinks it proper, the presenting her Majesty with my profoundest duty, as becomes a most faithful subject.”
“Will your Majesty permit the young man to kiss your hand?” asked Lady Tuke.
“But-of course. For his uncle’s sake. I pray you tell them to prepare a lodging for him and to have him sent to me immediately.”
“But your Majesty’s guests —!” objected the wife of one of the fine Portuguese hidalgos, who had no means of knowing that Catherine’s world was divided quite simply into those who had known and loved Charles, and those who had not. “The reception is being such a success!”
“Yes, God has granted me success,” agreed Catherine, looking round at the glittering assembly. “But it is pleasant to be remembered in England.”
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