‘Poor lady. So there can be no hope of more young princes to put in place of these little lost Dukes?’
‘None whatever.’
After this conversation John considered it unwise to solicit the Duke’s help in furthering his career. But he continued to attend the Court upon all public occasions, to be seen with Godolphin, to help Hugh Offord, to visit his sister and her infant family.
So it was not long before he came to the notice of his cousin, now Duchess of Cleveland and to all appearance as firmly in the King’s favour as ever. Her confidante, a Mrs. Manly, brought a message to him from her mistress.
‘The Duchess is grieved you should regard your kinship so lightly you have not sought to present yourself to her Grace since your return.’
John was amused. His boyhood’s awe of the lady no longer embarrassed him or tied his tongue.
‘I thank you,’ he said gravely. ‘Pray take my best compliments to her Grace and say that I am ever ready to present them in person when and where she chooses to command me.’
He swept a graceful bow to the messenger who had been told to find a shy, awkward, but good-looking young man. This handsome cavalier quite took her breath away, which was apparent from her manner when she returned with Ensign Churchill’s message.
‘He continues his military career, then,’ her Grace remarked. ‘He has done well, as rumour told us, did it not? I must see him soon or he will be swept away to France to fight our battles there.’
Or Louis’s, which will be the same thing, she told herself. Though she had not been able to make Charles tell her the detail of his highly secret pact with his French cousin, she had guessed rightly that it rested upon a great sum of money, designed to rescue the King from the apparent ruin of his Navy, which in turn had come about through his extravagance. She remembered that last visit to Dover of Charles’s favourite, much-loved sister, followed so immediately upon ‘Madame’s’ return by her sudden agonising death. Everyone had concluded she was poisoned, but nothing was ever proved. An ill-wind, thought Barbara Villiers, remembering too the return of ‘Madame’s’ lovely Breton lady-in-waiting, Louise de Kéroualle, who had at Dover caught the King’s eye and now—
A couple of days later John was summoned to attend the Duchess of Cleveland in her apartments at Whitehall. He had heard she was again housed conveniently near his Majesty. No one was surprised, for the connection seemed to be as firm as ever, quite unaffected by casual additions to Charles’s overall number of mistresses, which included not only the French woman, La Kéroualle, whom the Londoners called ‘Mrs. Carwell’, but also a notorious young woman of the people, a very popular actress at the King’s theatre in Drury Lane, now sufficiently rebuilt to be at work again. This girl had been selling oranges outside the theatre until her acting talent had been noticed and she was promoted to take comedy parts, to sing and dance in light productions.
As John, dressed very correctly in his uniform of an ensign, made his way to his cousin’s apartments, he thought of all the current gossip about Nell’s career, from the Drury Lane gutter to the King’s bed. This second cousin of his had climbed a similar ladder, but from less obscure origins. Where now was the former Mr. Palmer, that complaisant husband, the Earl of Castlemaine? Had she shaken him off at last, or had the poor man revolted? He meant to find out, if not today, then later. Unless this Barbara Villiers had withered like the Duchess of York. She, poor woman, seldom appeared now and in the last week or two, when she did attend with the Duke, had seemed to be a pale ghost of her former self. Sidney was right. It was not age, but dire disease.
The Duchess of Cleveland had not withered. To John’s astonished eyes she looked younger, fresher, even more beautiful than upon their last meeting at Thames-side before he sailed for Tangier. He found her reclining upon a narrow couch from which she did not get up, but merely extended a welcoming hand. Clearly he was intended to approach, perhaps even to kiss the hand so regally offered, palm downward.
John’s inner nature, so basically puritan, rebelled at this. The vision before him was lovely, enhanced by surroundings of quiet luxury, no doubt chosen by the good taste of Charles himself. The enchantress was dressed in the most exquisite gown or robe, he could not tell which, informal, unrestraining, of a fine silk gauze, cream-coloured over a more substantial layer of palest pink. There was a profusion of delicate lace, not silver or gold as for those state occasions and court balls, where coloured finery and rich jewels dazzled the eye, but pure white that matched her Grace’s perfect neck and half-exposed bosom. She wore no jewels of any kind.
‘So,’ she said, letting her hand sink back to her side, ‘my little cousin John has become a man!’
John, who had swept her a very low bow as she began to speak, stepped forward.
‘And my beautiful cousin Barbara is once more a girl,’ he said smiling, wiping out his diffidence with a marked, if somewhat crude boldness that pleased as much as it surprised her. Sincere, too, she decided, looking at him closely with new eyes. And very handsome, both in face and figure. Tall, young, a quick intelligence, like her royal Master, an ally perhaps and again perhaps—
Their easy conversation, that lasted for the best part of an hour, continued with John seated upon an upright carved oak chair and Barbara still upon her couch but with her feet in their satin, beribboned slippers now upon the ground. In the course of it he gave his cousin a very full account of his life in the Mediterranean, the various actions in which he had fought, their results, his future prospects.
‘My life must continue in the army,’ he told her earnestly. ‘I know that nothing else will content me.’
She laughed.
‘Nothing else?’ she mocked him. ‘Nothing in life but hardship, danger and death. For yourself or for your enemy, poor souls.’
‘I have no personal enmity towards any man,’ he answered. ‘I am concerned with the winning of battles to the best advantage of my King and country.’
There was a cold note in his voice that frightened her. So she stopped her raillery to say with a new seriousness. ‘Are there not better things to win than battles? Better achievements – in the arts, in the new philosophies?’ She added, in a lower voice, ‘In the love of friends?’
She lifted such glowing, innocent eyes to his face that John forgot her position, her whole life and circumstances. She was kind, she had showed him great indulgence, treating him as an equal. She had given him the intimate attention of a relative. Moreover she had a mind worthy of respect, a rare thing in women, his arrogant youth believed. Certainly his experience to date had done nothing to disprove this conclusion. His women in Africa, in the islands, had been little more than animals, however beautiful, however desirable. Cousin Barbara was more beautiful, more desirable in every possible way.
They parted in an atmosphere of mutual satisfaction, with promises on both sides to continue their acquaintanceship. When her Grace extended her hand in farewell, palm upwards this time, John took it gently, turned it over and planted on it a kiss that much exceeded the demands of formal politeness. In her pleasure at this the Duchess could barely restrain herself from planting a responding kiss upon the handsome natural curls lowered before her.
For John Churchill that leave-taking was fatal. Touch, the all-too intimate touch of his lips upon her hand, did more to convey to him her quality than all his foregoing delight in her surroundings, her personal appearance, her conversation. He went away sunk in a happy dream where her image lay as he had first seen her upon her couch, her hand outstretched in welcome. The hand he had for a brief moment possessed at parting. It was inevitable that his thoughts should progress naturally from that point.
He tried to busy himself with plans for his career and fortunately found some success in that direction. The Duke of York still graciously expressed an interest in the young man, bringing his name up for notice whenever this might advantage him. And certainly it seemed there would be work to do for young army officers, particularly overseas.
‘In France?’ Sir Winston asked his son, quite astonished at such a suggestion. ‘Under the French King? But are not the French our enemies? Open enemies? If not actually at this time quite openly at war with us?’
‘No,’ John answered firmly. ‘We are not openly at war with anyone. The Dutch peace of Breda—’
Sir Winston interrupted him.
‘That disgrace! That humiliation! I burn with shame when I think of how our Navy was abused, our brave seamen and their captains betrayed.’
‘Even so. But that is all over and indeed our Navy, or at least our merchant ships, turned temporary pirates, have taken many fair prizes of the Dutch treasure fleet coming up Channel from the far East.’
‘I am very glad to hear it,’ Sir Winston said, though Lady Churchill shook her head to think of the continuing strife and loss of brave men in spite of the so-called peace.
‘As things are now,’ John explained, ‘the French have fallen out once more with the Dutch. King Louis would attack the States and for that he would increase his army, renewing the English contingent he hath always maintained, though in times past the men were chiefly Irish or Scottish dissidents from true English rule, whether king or usurper.’
‘Then you would join these scum?’ Sir Winston was indignant.
‘If the King wills it,’ John answered simply. He had heard, he could not fail to hear, the rumours going about the Court that Charles had secured or been forced to conclude a pact of treaty with his cousin to supply fighting men in return for much-needed gold. The matter could be considered base, as between national foes, or just as between natural allies. He was a soldier: politics were not his province.
In any case there were but two interests in his life at present, his career and his growing love for Barbara Villiers. They had met again and yet again. His infatuation was beginning to overwhelm him. He thought of her day and night; he made excuses to others to be by himself to think of her; he made excuses to himself to go where he might see her, even if this had to be in the company of the King, far across a great room or briefly passing in a corridor. In neither case able to acknowledge one another’s presence. If a day passed when he had no sight or sound of her, he spent a sleepless night or one haunted by fearful dreams of her death or his own, eternal separation of one kind or another.
He had no means to relieve himself, since he knew nothing of poetry or any other form of writing. Where most of the gallants at the Court attempted verse whether they had talent for it or not, John despised them for simpering fools or knaves. Besides, he had never wished to display himself in any such activity; a hopeless passion for the King’s principal mistress was something that needed the most complete secrecy.
For he knew it to be hopeless. In his lucid moments, for great as it was his passion did not rule him utterly, he was able to see it clearly as an infatuation, neither more nor less. The Duchess was older than he by about six years; she had a husband still alive. Socially, if not morally, she was far removed from him. Their friendship, however deep, could not be lasting.
But he could not retreat from this love any more than he could ever bring himself to retreat in battle, except to gain ultimate victory. So in the end he found himself one day alone with her on his knees beside her couch imploring pity for his extreme of love, acceptance of his adoration of her incomparable beauty, relief from the fury of his passion.
She met all his demands, with a gentle dignity he had not expected and which raised his passion to ecstasy in the fulfillment of it. She was touched, had always been touched by his sincerity. She was very flattered by finding such feelings again and in such an attractive youth. It made her more secure in her relations with Charles, who in truth was becoming more and more like a husband to her with every year that passed.
At least that was how she chose to regard it. Until one afternoon, when the intrigue was a couple of months old and John had come to her rather late because he had been at audience with the Duke of York upon military matters.
Barbara was waiting for him, coolly prepared, delicious to see, to smell, to touch. He had begun to take off his jacket when a disturbance outside the apartment, followed by a frantic knock on the door, brought them both motionless, cold with shock.
‘Your Grace, the King is without!’ Mrs. Manly, the confidante, stood there trembling.
Without a word, his jacket still unfastened, John sprang to the window, pushed through the curtains, threw up the sash and leapt into the garden below.
‘Close the window, madam,’ said the Duchess of Cleveland, ‘and go tell his Majesty that I am very happy to receive him.’
Chapter Nine
John’s Fall was not severe, a six foot drop to a newly dug flower bed. But the shock of his narrow escape from the King’s wrath was severe indeed and kept him shaking and pale-faced for the rest of that evening. As usual when he had met a problem to solve or a reverse to endure, he sought out his friend, Godolphin.
‘If I had been caught with my coat half off my back it would have been impossible to explain my presence in her Grace’s room.’
‘Charles, as we know only too well, forestalls lame explanations with his own briskly accurate conclusions.’
‘I had lost all chance to secure a fresh assignment,’ John said gloomily.
‘With the lady?’
‘No, you fool! In my regiment! Abroad, as I had been hoping.’
Sidney looked at his friend, amusement in his shrewd eyes. ‘You will go far, John. We have all seen you go about languishing for love and in heaven when success came at last. Yet now, after a dangerous setback that might put an end, in a prudent man’s eyes, to such a reckless intrigue, you have no grief, no thought at all of your lady’s plight. You think only of your career.’
‘I exist only for that,’ John answered.
‘As the Lord liveth!’ his friend exclaimed. ‘I believe you speak the simple truth!’
They went on to discuss the matter more calmly. They agreed that John should not vary his general behaviour at all, certainly not the number of his appearances at the Court in Whitehall nor at St. James’s. He must not avoid any of his former friends, certainly not those who had been inclined to tease him for his careful pursuit of the King’s favourite and the unexpected depth of his involvement.
So he did his best to join in all the fashionable ploys, the gaming and gambling that he hated, the card games at which he might use his brains to win, though the usual stakes were higher than he liked. He joined in parties for the theatre, more to watch the audience than the actors. Few of the plays held any interest for him. Shakespeare he found old-fashioned, Dryden too difficult, Andrew Marvell too poetical, Beaumont and Fletcher acceptable but dull, the new playwrights too bawdy.
But the crowds inside and outside the theatres were well worth his attention, he often thought as he stood waiting to go to his seat, his friends about him. Besides, a new fashion had arisen, invented in the first place by the Queen and her duchesses, her closest intimates. These ladies had always loved balls in fancy dress, masquerades and such like. On an impulse the Queen had suggested they might carry their disguises to the theatre in person, not as onlookers but themselves as performers.
So she with the Duchess of York and three other ladies of high rank had dressed themselves as orange girls and gone quietly in plain coaches to the narrow street behind Drury Lane and from there made their way, offering their wares to the audience going into the patched-up theatre from the front of that partly restored building. Their pretty, well-cared for faces and hands attracted much attention and rapid sales. When they had amused themselves enough, they quietly disappeared the way they had come.
These frolics soon became known at Court, and no sooner known but copied. Naturally this led to an added number of gallants who frequented the neighbourhood of the King’s theatre and that of the Duke of York in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, also restored to working shape and the production of plays. Not only gallants, but rogues of many sorts, for the word
had also gone round the underworld that the fair ladies masquerading as orange girls might also be wearing some of their fine jewels, or if not valuable gems at least valuable gloves, scarves or other easily detachable articles of dress. The Queen’s whim was not without an element of danger.
It was on this account that John agreed to go with Hugh Offord on one such occasion. Neither of them had any wish to attend the play and they chose an evening when the theatre entrance was lit by candlelight within and the torches of link boys outside in the street. John had made sure beforehand that none of the royal party would be there. He still felt a band of ice about his middle when he thought of his last, just missed, encounter with the monarch.
‘But will there be any but regular pedlars here?’ Hugh asked, as they drew near to the lively scene. ‘Do they cry their wares, these dressed-up ladies? For surely their voices and their speech would betray them?’
‘Many are shrill enough, as I have heard them often,’ John answered. ‘And rude enough, I swear, to match Nell herself. We must draw closer. Now, beside that pillar there, one foot up on the step to support the basket on her knee—’
‘Nell Gwyn?’ asked Hugh eagerly. He had heard rumour of this latest actress to find favour with the King, but had no means of recognising her.
‘No, no, She hath abandoned the oranges to her betters and taken to the stage, where she plays and dances most blatantly to the King if he be in the audience.’
‘But you swore he would not appear tonight!’
‘I prayed God he would not. Sidney promised me he would not. Now look! That is Lord Brouncker’s brother in very deep conversation with a maid I dare swear is no common pedlar. Now she signals to her friend. They close ranks. Quick, we may find sport here!’
The two young men hurried past the lighted entrance to where Mr. Brouncker, who in his turn had been joined by a friend, was urging the two orange girls to move on with him.
A Question of Loyalties Page 9
