A Want of Kindness

by Joanne Limburg

  ‘Yes, indeed. I had it from Dr Scarborough’s own lips that if Mrs Chambers and Mrs Manning had but put a coal leaf to the humour he had breaking out under his arm and his navel, instead of striking in it like they did, he might well have lived – and for many years at that.’

  Oh for one good clash on a pair of cymbals, the blast of a cannon, a door thrown open, a cry of ‘The King!’ But no: there is only Lady Harriet, displaying her superior learning.

  ‘Quo natura tendit, tendat,’ she says, ‘quo movet, moveat.’

  ‘And the pity of it is,’ says Dr Lake, ‘that it should be this child – I don’t believe the Duke ever grieved so much for any of the others.’

  ‘No, it’s true: he was distressed, always, but never like this – not even for his other sons.’

  Anne comes to the end of a courant, and looks up. Dr Lake swallows whatever it was he might have been about to say, and begs her please to play on – it is charming, quite charming. So she rearranges her hands for a sombre passacaille, and when she resumes playing, she finds the notes are waiting for her under their keys, where they always were, and like a pack of well-trained dogs, they come out reliably when called.

  Anne Enters Into Her Closet

  According to the devotional authors, and Bishop Compton, it is written in the Gospels that Christ made his one great sacrifice to redeem the world, and, because the needs of the world shall last as long as the world itself, he established a perpetual ministry whereby this one sacrifice should be made eternally effectual as a means of atonement and expiation for all mankind. So Christ is a priest for ever in heaven, and has appointed the same ministry to be done on earth, by means of the sacramental representation of his sacrifice, in the form of Holy Communion. This coming Easter, for the first time, Anne is to participate in the sacrifice.

  If she is fit to do so, she will receive Christ within her soul; however, should she communicate in an unworthy state, she will receive only the most deadly spiritual poison, the dust of the tabernacle in the waters of jealousy, that will make the belly to swell and the thigh to rot. Instead of Christ, the Devil will enter her soul and dwell there, till he returns to his dwelling of torment and takes it with him. If she is to welcome Christ and forestall the Devil, she has to prepare.

  The preparation takes both outward and inward forms. Until now, Anne has attended Chapel weekly; now she is expected to go at least three times a week, to be seen, and to hear sermons written by royal preachers with her especial benefit in mind. On days when she does not attend Chapel, she prays in her closet with Dr Lake or Dr Doughty, at eight in the morning after she rises, and again at nine at night. As to how she spends the rest of her time, it is pressed upon her – by Compton, by Lake, by Doughty, by Lady Harriet – that private devotion and prayers will be more profitable, oh so much more profitable than dancing, or music, or private theatricals, or – heaven forbid – cards.

  ‘Enter into your closet,’ says Bishop Compton, ‘and when you are in there, you must shut the door firmly against all worldly things, and examine yourself.’

  ‘Examine myself, my Lord?’ Anne asks, thinking of the catechism, and the long Sunday mornings spent reciting it, a childish duty she would prefer to have left behind.

  ‘Yes, Madam, as a physician might examine a body, so you must try out the condition and state of your soul.’

  ‘But I would not examine my own body, my Lord.’

  ‘No indeed, but the soul is another matter. For besides God, who but you can see within your soul? Its inquisition must be your act alone. You alone must search out its weaknesses and indiscretions, those secret ulcers, all those aptnesses where it is exposed to temptation—’

  Compton’s eyes roam over the closet she has inherited from Mary, searching out the books of love poetry, the comfortable chairs, the cornelian ring which Anne has taken off and left on the table, the ivory fan that the King has given her, all the pretty, worldly things.

  ‘—and pray for grace, so that by finding out these diseases you may find a cure, and arm yourself against further dangers – and there will be many dangers, Madam, dangers of which you may be unaware,’ he adds, allowing his gaze to drop a few inches below Anne’s face, where it finds the beginnings of an impressive bosom. Anne blushes, and places her hand over the place; Compton comes to himself, and raises his eyes to a picture on the wall behind her head, as if he had only inadvertently looked for something in the wrong place, but had now – thank heaven! – found it elsewhere.

  ‘So you see, madam, that just as you are vigilant for your body’s health, so you must be vigilant – oh how much more vigilant – over your soul’s. And remember that, for all that the chief part of the labour is yours, you may seek guidance – as you would from a physician – from those of us appointed to minister physic to the soul’s diseases.’

  As it happens, there is no need for Anne to seek guidance: it comes to her unbidden, from all quarters, and more often than not, when she enters her closet alone, it is to shut the door against her guides, so that she might write to Mrs Cornwallis, or Mrs Churchill, or Mrs Apsley, of love, and clothes, and news from Court, and how much she won today at cards. Then all of a sudden it is the evening before the appointed day, and she finds herself on her knees in a panic, trying at once to purge her soul of a season’s lusts, make an oath with herself to reply to Mary’s letters, and feel charitable towards Lady Harriet.

  With all this weighing upon her, Anne hardly sleeps at all that night, and as it is Communion day there is no breakfast to revive her in the morning, so she reaches the Chapel in a state of physical discomfort which anyone might forgivably mistake for penitence. She is well prepared. She speaks the responses as beautifully as she has ever spoken any line of anything secular, so that the whole Court might hear and approve her. She kneels in the proper place; the cup comes towards her; she takes one sip, and then – because, as she tries to explain later, the cup is not immediately withdrawn – she suffers a moment of terrible confusion, and takes two more. When she hears Dr Lake’s sharp intake of breath, she understands at once that this was the wrong thing to have done, and that she will not now derive the slightest spiritual benefit from the Communion, the fasting, the penitence or any of the hours spent listening to the Bishop – all she can hope for, this time, is that no-one will want to tell the Duke.

  The Princess of Orange

  ‘Dr Lake was most grieved to hear that you are playing cards on

  Sunday again,’ says Anne.

  ‘I know,’ says Mary, ‘because he said as much in a letter to me.’

  ‘And toyour Mrs Langford, your Mam,’ says Anne Bentinck, nee Villiers.

  ‘And to Dr Hooper,’ says Betty Villiers, whom some months in Holland appear to have made sharper-tongued, and, if anything, more squinty. Anne lowers her voice and says, ‘I think he is mostly vexed that you did not choose him for your household.’

  She finds herself skewered by Betty’s good eye. ‘My, Your Highness, you have certainly come on a great deal since we saw you last . . . I do not think your sister’s soul is too much imperilled for want of Dr Lake. Not when Dr Hooper is so very – zealous.’

  ‘He has given me some very edifying reading, Mrs Villiers. I shall pass Of the Laws of Ecclesiastic Polity to you when I have finished it. I know how anxious you are for improvement.’

  But Betty carries on almost as if her mistress had not spoken, and addresses Anne again.

  ‘And it is thanks to Dr Hooper, of course, that Her Highness has her Chapel instead of that over-large dining-room the Prince had furnished for her use.’

  ‘And it is Mrs Hooper who sits behind you, Betty,’ Mary hisses. ‘Now, ladies, if you are ready, I shall deal.’

  This is Mary’s establishment, so Mary, of course, is the Bank. Anne is greatly impressed by her sister’s princely person: so stately, so stout and womanly and so very, very beautiful. It is all the more impressi
ve for being so far from what the Duke has warned Anne to expect. Ever since Mary miscarried, and even more since she began to breed again, he has been in constant fear of her riding, walking or standing too much, of her eating the wrong foods, or failing to eat the right ones, of the possible ill effects of the Dutch weather or Dutch customs or Dutch Calvinist husbands. As no written assurances can satisfy him as to Mary’s condition, he has sent his wife and second daughter – very incognito, with only the three Duchesses and their closest attendants for company – to bring him back a fuller report.

  He should be reassured, Anne thinks: the Duchess has said how delighted she is to find Mary in such good spirits. Anne, for her part, is astonished to see how passionately her sister can love a sullen, crooked prince. Mary has told her, in all apparent sincerity, that to see him riding off to war is the keenest pain she has ever felt.

  They are playing basset this evening. Mary has dealt each player her thirteen cards, and now, one by one, they lay down their first stakes. The first card Mary turns up is the Queen of Clubs, and both the Villiers sisters, who have Clubs in their stakes, lose heavily. Mary collects her proceeds, then turns a second card: the five of Diamonds, which wins for Anne. She goes at once for seven and the go, but loses on the next card, which wins for the Bank again.

  The play continues: Mary turns the cards; gold is staked, lost, won back and lost again. Anne wins, makes another bold move, and loses everything. After a little while, when the Villiers have lost nearly everything and the Bank has enriched itself at their expense, the Prince of Orange is announced, Betty swears under her breath, and the game is over.

  Anne watches her sister retire with her husband, and thinks that in – what? two years? – she too could be married and the mistress of her own household, able to eat what she wants and scold her ladies and, better than anything, keep the Bank.

  The Duchess’s Secretary

  The Queen and Duchess are crying into their needlework together. Anne is leafing through a new pattern-book, so that she might make a plausible show of looking for a picture to work onto a seat cover, while her two companions pretend that she can’t hear them.

  They have arrived back from The Hague to find the Court, and England, in uproar. All the talk is of a Master Titus Oates, and of the plot he has discovered: a hellish, Popish conspiracy to have the King murdered, the Duke put on the throne, and then with blood and fire to scourge the Kingdom Catholic. As a precautionary measure, no Catholic may now come within ten miles of London. Anne’s own Mrs Farthing has come perilously close to being turned off and sent away, even though Anne knows – in her heart and in her head – that her nurse is above reproach. As is Mary Cornwallis (unless, that is, it is treason to bewitch a princess). But with the Duchess’s own staff, the case has proved quite different.

  She is crying for her secretary, Edward Coleman. While she was visiting her niece – her dear Lemon – in Holland, very particular accusations were made against him, and his office was searched by order of the Lord Treasurer. The correspondence between Coleman and King Louis’s favourite Jesuit was more than cordial enough to send him to the scaffold.

  ‘Oh it is beyond terrible!’ the Queen is saying, through sobs, ‘and now you tell me that they took your own letters to His Holiness – your most private letters! – and read them – to submit you to such a violation – it is a violation!’

  Anne can hear from the Queen’s voice that she is shaking. With her big eyes and rabbit teeth, she is a small sad thing that waits to be preyed upon.

  ‘Well they found nothing in them, at least,’ the Duchess says. ‘Why should they? Why should I seek the death of my own dear brother-in-law?’

  ‘Or I my husband!’ the Queen cries. ‘I think it is a kind of madness with these people!’

  ‘Or the best way to power in this country,’ says the Duchess suddenly, in a harder voice that makes Anne start. She looks up to find her step­mother meeting her eyes.

  ‘You should understand this, Anne – if you do not already, which I think you must, for you are not a stupid girl, and I know that even if you do not speak, you still listen – yes, Anne, I know, I am not stupid either – you should understand there are many who do not wish your father to be King. They would see him exiled first – or dead.’

  As the Duchess has guessed, Anne did already know, but to hear it said so plainly, and in a harsh voice, out of a twisted, angry countenance, one she has never seen on her step-mother before, is such that all she can think to do is to join the others in their tears.

  Fortunately, this seems to have been exactly the right thing to have done, because before the first tear has even worked its way down Anne’s cheek, both face and voice have softened again.

  ‘Oh Anne, do not cry, do not think I blame you for your education – that they took you from your father – that Compton monster! – it was the King’s wish.’

  ‘And the King is a man of good sense,’ says the Queen, ‘for see? Nobody has demanded to read Anne’s letters.’

  Anne’s Letters

  To Mrs Mary Cornwallis

  Thank you for your letter I have kissed it a hundred times. I feared that with all the trouble there is at Court I might never see or hear from you again but thank God my poor heart is not to be quite broken yet. But I should say no more of such things. I was sorry to hear that you have caught a chill. My Danvers and also my poor unfortunate nurse always said an infusion of liquorice roots can do much good in such a case, if you wish I can have Danvers make up a bottle and have it sent to you, nothing is too much trouble for one who is ever your devoted servant. I shall pray for your good health and that I might lay eyes on you soon. Until then farewell from your most affectionate friend.

  To the Princess of Orange

  My dearest Mary I was so very grieved to hear of your miscarriage, I have wept so many tears on account of it myself so can scarce imagine how heavy such an affliction must have proved for you and the Prince. The Duke and Duchess are alike most affected and their talk is all of you and what must be done for your better health. I pray that this will be the end of your sorrows and that God willing you will be with child again and that time with a happier issue. It is a most kind thing in you to ask after your sisters’ health when you are brought so low yourself, I am glad to say I am well and that our little Isabella thank God continues lively and strong she is grown such a pretty child and she loves to laugh and to play. Her favourite game is to watch me build her a house of cards so that she might knock it down again.

  Farewell, my dear sister.

  To Mrs Mary Cornwallis

  Pray do not chide me for the letter you saw from me to Mrs Apsley, I know that I do call myself her husband Ziphares and she my wife Semandra but it is but a game since we read Mithridates together and it is our favourite play and you must know that Mary was used to sign her letters to Mrs Apsley your wife Mary Clorine. Believe me when I say I only use your true name not because I love you less but because no name in the world could be more beautiful to my ears or to my sight, after you and your mother left the ball last night the King even said that no man ever loved his mistress more than Anne loves her Mrs Cornwallis and everybody laughed and if I could have died for blushing I would have done I would have died gladly for your sake. There is no news except that poor Mrs Godolphin that was Margaret Blagge and Diana in Callisto has died in childbed which is sad but she is more like to go straight to heaven than anyone I can think of so that must be a comfort to her friends.

  Your most affectionate servant,

  Lady Anne

  The Martyrdom of Charles I

  Thirty years ago, on this day, Anne’s grandfather, the anointed King of England, came to a most unnatural death. God suffered him to fall into the hands of wicked, lawless men, who mocked and tortured him after the manner of the tormentors of Christ, before they murdered him, and in beheading a King, they beheaded England. It was a punishment for th
e nation’s sins, and a sin that would bring further punishment: eleven years of persecution for the people and their true Church; a plague; a fire; defeat at the hands of the Dutch; a barren Queen, and now, this Papist threat. Let nobody make the mistake of thinking that God might spare them on a whim. God is merciful, but not for nothing: they must confess their sins, they must repent of them, they must meekly acknowledge their vileness; they must weep, they must fast, they must pray . . .

  . . . so the sermon goes. Seated in the royal closet, in the Chapel at Whitehall, a black veil covering her face, Anne could almost fancy herself struck by a punitive blindness. And that is just one of many torments: the fast today is complete and strict, and she has not had so much as one drop or morsel pass her lips since she woke this morning. She has had the usual fasting pain in her stomach from the first, and now she feels the usual headache approaching. This year, she has her flowers too: her body, like her soul, is working to rid itself of foul and noisome excesses.

  Despite all the sweet herbs she has been stuffing into her pocket, she can still smell her own blood, and she is very much afraid that the King, and all his Gentlemen of the Chapel Closet, must smell it too. The thought of this sets her face on fire. A few feet away, she hears the King irritably blowing the air out of his cheeks, and her shameful heat increases.

  To console herself, she thinks of all the other matters – beside her menstruous smell – that might put the King out of temper. He hates a fast as much as she does, and he has felt compelled to order so many of them lately, every time another plot is discovered, or some Papist conflagration started, or a motion tabled in Parliament to bar her father from the Crown. Since the present trouble started, he has had guards and Esquires of the Body sleeping in the Presence Chamber every night for his protection, and he cannot stir from his privy chamber except when under guard. He hates to wall himself off from his people; he hates to have to admit that such a course might be necessary. Anne has heard him complaining to the Duke: