A note from him was delivered to her early one morning by a servant. “Dress in your prettiest gown, dear heart,” he wrote, “and put Jackie into his best lace cap and both of you meet me in the woods in an hour’s time.”
She did as she was told. Though he had no money he had bought her some lovely dresses on credit; one of them was made of cornflower blue silk that matched her eyes and she chose it because it was his favourite. It was a fine day but the wind from the sea was keen and she wore her mother’s cloak and carried Jackie tucked into its warm folds. With her head held high, because she knew this must be something of an occasion, she walked over the dunes to the woods. When Charles came to see her at the farm it was always on foot as Tomos Barlow, but when she reached the woods she found a coach there, with a coachman and groom in attendance upon the two black horses, and beside it stood the King of England. He laughed and bowed to her and handed her in with some ceremony.
“Where are we going?” she asked, when they were sitting together on the cushioned seat, Jackie in the crook of his father’s arms, and lurching along the uneven track beneath the trees.
“To visit a lady I wish you to know and love,” he answered. “In fact two ladies. And why are you not wearing the diamonds I gave you? You never wear them.”
She flushed. “I did not know it would be your wish,” she answered, “but I have the brooch in its case in my pocket.”
“Of course it is my wish,” he answered imperiously. She did not like it when he was imperious for the hard tone of his voice brought back that slight shadow to her mind. She took the brooch from its case and fastened it in the lace of her gown with slow dignity.
“You do not like it,” he said sharply. “Why is that?”
She answered quite truthfully, “Because decked in diamonds I feel more like your mistress than your wife.”
“Under promise of their secrecy I have shown these ladies my copy of our marriage lines,” he said.
“Why did you do that?” gasped Lucy.
“Because those who are closest to me must know that Jackie is no bastard. My son and I will always face the world together and care nothing for its opinion, but the inner circle must give him the respect that is his right.”
Why did the shadow touch her mind again? Because his concern seemed more for Jackie than herself? But she loved Jackie more than herself. Because of his possessiveness over the child? Then Charles broke into a sunburst of laughter and the shadow vanished. He had pulled off the baby’s lace cap and found that Jackie’s first golden fluff of hair had now entirely vanished and he was bald as an egg.
“When I come back again I may find his hair as black as mine,” he said.
Instantly the sun went in and the shadow returned. “Come back again?” asked Lucy. “Are you leaving The Hague?”
“The States are still so infuriated over the murder of the Parliamentary Ambassador that they have asked me to leave Holland, so for a time I shall go. Do you not want to know whom we are visiting?”
Lucy was trembling; angry that he had not told her this before, desperately anxious to know where he was going, hurt by his sudden change of conversation, but she choked it all down and asked shakily. “Who are these ladies whom you love?”
“One of them you have told me you admire already,” he answered.
“Not the Queen of Bohemia?” she whispered.
“Yes. The two are my Aunt Elizabeth and my sister Mary.”
She was silent for a while, trying to control her trembling. That other family who had always meant so much to her but whom she had seen only distantly, passing by, were coming nearer now. In a short time she would be curtseying to the Winter Queen and the Princess of Orange. Knowing what they did would they greet her as niece and sister? If so the nimbus about the moon would perhaps become a band of comfort about her. Yet it seemed impossible of belief.
“Do not be frightened, dear heart,” Charles encouraged her. “You are more beautiful than any of my aunt’s daughters. I once told my cousin Sophie she was handsomer than you but it was a deliberate fib. I tell lies to all the royal ladies to whom they try to marry me and I tell them so boorishly that they soon want no more of this perfidious fellow. Sophie wants no more of me.”
“Shall we see her today?” asked Lucy anxiously.
“We may do so but I think not, for her daughters bore my aunt. We should see them if we stayed to dinner but from dining with the Queen of Bohemia may God preserve me.”
“Why is it so dreadful?” asked Lucy nervously.
“She is the most trusting, loyal and hospitable woman in the world but she is also the world’s worst housekeeper. All the tradesmen cheat her, and no servant who has ever served her moderately well is ever dismissed whatever his subsequent state of degeneracy. Anyone with the least claim upon her can invite himself to dine whenever he wishes. Sitting at her table you may find yourself with the impeccable Marquis of Montrose upon your left and some old dotard in a greasy doublet spluttering his food upon your right. The meat will either be bloody or burnt. But my aunt reigns over it all in dignity and serenity. She is so generous with the very little money that she possesses that her daughters are portionless and her house is starting to fall to pieces over her head, but the sufferings of her life have left her, I think, not much disturbed by material misfortune. She is a great and noble woman.”
“Yet you do not, like the Marquis, dine with her.”
“I am her nephew,” Charles explained, “and nobility of character can press very hard upon a person’s relatives. Willy-nilly they are involved in his or her sacrificial deeds while not themselves having a taste for sacrifice. You see what I mean? But do not look so worried, dear heart. I shall never be a noble character.”
“I was feeling sorry for the portionless princesses,” said Lucy. “And why is their mother bored with them?”
“One of those family things,” said Charles airily. “She is a man’s woman and idolizes her sons. We are here. For God’s sake take Jackie from me. Why do you not get a nurse for him? Do you not know that kings cannot be seen carrying their own brats?”
Lucy did not know, but what she did know was that he was as nervous about the coming interview as she was. She took Jackie from him as the coach passed through the gateway of the Wassenaer Hof, swept round the courtyard and drew up at the foot of the steps. Charles handed her ceremoniously from the coach, the halberdier on guard saluted and the great doors opened from within.
They were in a large hall panelled in dark oak and hung with tapestries. One bowing servant took her cloak from her and another led them towards the wide dark staircase. Lucy found she had become two different girls. One was trembling behind the brave façade that she had unfolded from her fear as a peacock opens its tail, and the other stood back in the shadow of the hall and watched with amazement as the regal figure in the blue silk dress walked across the hall beside the King of England, diamonds sparkling on her breast and her marvellous baby held proudly in her arms. Was that radiant vision her? Or was this her, this observer in the shadows? Or was the fear that had put forth the peacock’s tail her? But that would make three; the fear, the façade and the observer. She was conscious of flushed cheeks and dry lips that she moistened with the tip of her tongue, and the discomfort seemed to bring her divided being back into unity again. She was just fear. That was all. That is what a human being is; a hot frightened animal.
The major-domo was announcing the King of England and Mrs. Barlow in a high room that seemed full of rainbows, dogs and monkeys. The sun shone through windows that were mosaics of coats-of-arms in coloured glass, and the pinks and blues and greens splashed their colours on the pale silk that covered the walls, on the polished floor and the white dress of the tall woman who stood to receive them. Why, thought Lucy confusedly, these rainbows are the nimbus about the moon. Here I am with the other family.
The tall woman was bi
dding them welcome in a deep beautiful voice. Lucy could not hear what she said above the chattering of the monkeys and the barking of the dogs, but her deep curtsey came easily to her in spite of her shaking knees, for it seemed natural to sink down before that tall whiteness; especially as someone had had the fore-thought to take Jackie from her. She might have stayed where she was at the Queen’s feet had not his roar of protest brought her up again, to find that the person who had removed Jackie was the Queen herself.
“A boy, thank God,” she said, looking with appreciation at the furious countenance of her great-nephew. “How I love a baby boy. Be quiet, child, that I may look at you.”
Jackie was not a baby who protested long, he was too healthy and too interested in the world about him. He was still and silent instantly, gazing fascinated at the large pendant pearl earrings that swayed above him. The tears that hung on his lashes incommoded him a little in his scrutiny of this new phenomenon, and the Queen wiped them away with her handkerchief. “Why, he is like my godson James!” she ejaculated. “Look, Mary, is he not like James?”
There was a soft rustling as the Princess of Orange in her mourning dress of violet satin drew nearer to inspect her nephew, and Lucy sank into another curtsey. “These small infants always look alike to me,” she said with cold hostility.
She was very changed from the little princess Lucy remembered. Her hair was curly and pretty as ever and she had a delicate porcelain look about her, but her mouth was sullen and obstinate now and her eyes had a wary expression. Lucy remembered The Hague gossip about the many love affairs of the Prince of Orange, and of the baby whom the little Princess had lost when she was only fifteen, and was full of pity. She smiled at the Princess and wanted to love her but Mary turned away pointedly and began talking to her brother. Lucy flushed with sudden shame, as though the image of herself that she must present to the world were the truth; and also with a spurt of anger, for the Princess’s behaviour seemed to her an insult to her husband as well as herself. But Charles appeared not to have noticed anything amiss. He was fond of his sister and laughing with her seemed to have forgotten his wife.
“I have lost my heart to your son, Lucy,” said the Queen. “Now let me have a look at you.”
They sat down together by a large window and Lucy found that she was able to meet the appraisal of a pair of eyes as piercingly blue as her own. She was not afraid of this tall gaunt woman with her thin, strong, slightly aquiline face, though she could understand how others were sometimes intimidated. The Queen was startlingly direct, and there was about her appearance and manners the simplicity of real greatness that passes unconscious judgment on the trivial. Except that she dressed always in black or white there was nothing in her appearance to show she was a king’s widow, for she saw no reason why the tragedies of her life should condemn her to the hideous elaboration of royal weeds. She dressed in the way that suited her, in simple flowing dresses cut low to show her still lovely neck and shoulders, her only jewels her moony pearls. The sober ladies of The Hague were slightly outraged by her dresses but she never minded what people thought.
Her gaze softened as she inspected Lucy. “You are not what I expected,” she said. “I commend my nephew’s taste though I am very sorry indeed that he has married you. But you were both so young and caught in the storms of love; coming as they do from the deeps that are beyond control, one does not consider the fabricated wisdom of the world.”
Lucy wondered if the Queen had forgotten her. She was looking at a portrait that hung on the wall opposite. A picture of the dark, sad King of Bohemia hung over the mantelpiece but the man she was looking at was not the Queen’s greatly loved husband but a much younger man, with a broad forehead and large firm mouth, and eyes so keen and living under the peaked eyebrows that they seemed to be looking straight out of the picture into the mind of the beholder. As abruptly as she had forgotten Lucy the Queen returned to her.
“What am I saying to you, child? Oh yes. The deeps. In another world than this, Lucy, and I do not speak of an imagined heaven but of the world of the spirit that is present with us here and now, you will not regret Charles, but in what we are accustomed to call this world I would like to know what you are expecting?”
Lucy answered instantly, “Your Majesty, that I shall find living a lie more and more difficult. I did not know that a month ago, but I know it now.”
“But you must do it,” said the Queen sternly. “Just now, with his hope of winning his throne hanging in the balance, Charles must have every chance. And he must make the right choices.” Again the Queen’s eyes had gone to the portrait opposite her. “If you have any influence with your husband, Lucy, do not let him commit himself too deeply to these gentlemen of the kirk who are now at The Hague. They betrayed his father and they will betray him. His greatest servant, as he was his father’s before him, is the Marquis of Montrose. But kings, Lucy, do not always recognize to whom they should give their trust and loyalty. It would seem that kingship brings with it a tragic myopia.”
“My husband does not often speak to me of his affairs, Your Majesty. Playing the part I do how could I expect his confidence in such matters?”
“A pity,” said the Queen abruptly. “You have sense.”
The current of sympathy was flowing warmly between them. To Lucy at nineteen the middle-aged queen seemed an old woman and she marvelled that she remembered one’s helplessness when the deeps overflow. For the King of Bohemia had died many years ago. But women do not love only once, she remembered. The deeps can open again. And perhaps yet again, once more, one last time. But surely the Marquis was betrothed to the Queen’s daughter Louise? Suddenly she was ashamed, as though her flash of intuition were an insult to the woman beside her. Yet she could not take her eyes from the eyes in the picture that were looking into her mind.
“That portrait was painted by Honthorst,” said the Queen calmly. “He gets a good likeness. Do you want Apollo on your lap? If not, smack him and put him on the floor.”
A strange little golden-haired monkey had settled himself on Lucy’s knees and was gazing in amazement at the baby in the Queen’s arms. He was not jealous, only utterly amazed. But not so amazed as Jackie. He considered the golden vision for a moment or two and then reached out a microscopic fist, five tendrils uncurling from it, groping and closing and uncurling again with the immensity of his unsatisfied desire. He whimpered a little. He wanted the thing, he gripped, yet he never had it.
“From the very beginning,” said the Queen sadly, “our longings are very ill-matched with our powers of attainment. It is the human condition.” Then she noted Lucy’s brown fingers moving caressingly in the golden fur and smiled. “I see you like monkeys. Moving as I do always at the centre of a zoological radiation it amuses me to watch the reactions of my guests. Some wade towards me as though through some fungoid growth, others advance as happily as though my periphery were a border of daisies. You were one of the latter, and I noted the fact with pleasure. Do you like my French greyhounds? My sister-in-law the Dowager of England prefers spaniels. A taste for monkeys we share. The sister-in-law relationship is not an easy one and I thank the maker of us all for that point of contact with her.”
Charles, now standing beside them, burst into a shout of laughter, then sobered on a memory. “When Lucy was a child she had a marmoset called—now what was he called? Well, she gave him to me.”
“And you do not even remember his name,” chided the Queen. “She gave you her world, you were unaware of the fact and later no doubt tired of the creature and allowed others to care for it. Probably it soon died. Now do not contradict me for I know small boys. When do you leave for Paris? I look forward to coming part of the way with you.”
“Would the last week of this month suit Your Majesty? Mary is coming a short way with me as well as yourself. Also, of course, my suite and her servants and yours.”
So he is going to Paris, thought Lucy, an
d remembering Charles’s promise to her at Breda her heart beat fast. Would he remember? Charles wanted to discuss his plans with his aunt and presently she found herself in another window with the Princess. The Queen had somehow inveigled her there without her knowing it and she found she was happy where she was. This, she knew, is the mark of a perfect hostess; the ability to move her guest from station to station on the chessboard of her salon in such a manner that where she wants them to be is also where they are glad to be. Lucy wondered what the Queen had murmured in her niece’s ear for the Princess was in a better humour. She was smiling a little and even regarding the baby in Lucy’s arms with a dull sad interest. “Yes, he is a Stuart,” she said in relief.
“He has my mother’s fair hair, Your Highness,” said Lucy gently, for knowing now what it meant to bear a baby her thoughts were very often with the mother who had borne her, and the grandmother who had borne her mother. “At least,” she amended, “he had before it came off.”
They were silent, for neither girl knew what to say to the other. A greyhound pushed affectionately against Lucy’s knees and another monkey, a grey one this time, jumped on Mary’s shoulder. She pushed it off pettishly.
“My aunt has too many creatures,” she ejaculated. “She cannot afford them but she says they are all presents from her friends and if people give her gifts that eat what can she do? But I heard her actually ask the Marquis of Montrose to give her the golden marmoset, and he did.”
“Was that the one that sat on my lap?”
“Yes.”
“Then no wonder my son liked him,” said Lucy. “Would Your Highness like to hold Jackie?” She spoke without thinking, wanting to give joy, but when she saw the childless girl holding the baby so stiffly, a queer mixture of yearning and loathing on her thin face, she reproached herself for a blundering fool. She put out her hand impulsively and touched Mary’s cheek. “Your Highness will have a son soon,” she whispered. “I know you will. I will pray that you will.”
The Child From the Sea Page 50