Frances dragged herself back by an almost visible effort from the home in which her mind often secretly wandered.
“We are probably not important enough to be asked,” she said lightly.
“Are we not cousins? Or is it that you really were so frightened by the formal grandeur of the Louvre?”
“Oh, I expect I should really prefer living at Court. Where there are plenty of men. And probably it would be different at Whitehall. Our monarchs have not the money to be so — ornate. Louis seems to have hundreds of slaves to build his palaces and do his bidding, but my father used to say that in England even the poorest ploughman was master of his own soul. Besides” — even in the midst of such unwonted gravity Frances had to smile — “can you imagine a Court where Charles the Second reigned being frighteningly formal and inhuman?”
“No, I cannot,” said Henrietta.
But she answered almost absently, her clever mind being taken by surprise that scatter-brained Frances should have arrived, either by deduction or intuitively, at such a true conclusion.
Three
When at last the good news of the Restoration reached Colombes the roses were in bloom and the girls playing bowls in the garden. Princess Henrietta heard the gatekeeper hearing a horseman clattering into the courtyard. She looked up and saw Master Prodgers, who had been her mother’s faithful courier even in her father’s time. Dropping the poised wood from palm to turf, she picked up her skirts and ran, hoping to intercept him before he entered the château.
“Master Prodgers! Wait and tell us!” she called. “Has the King landed?”
Half dead with fatigue, he slid down from his horse, grinning with joy.
“Landed at Dover and met with an unbelievable reception,” he panted, as the rest of the running girls crowded round. “England has gone crazed with joy.”
“Tell us! Tell us!” they cried, and the servants came crowding out into the courtyard, and the lame old groom hobbled round from the stables to take their welcome visitor’s horse, promising the sweating beast the best feed in the stables.
As soon as Prodgers had regained some breath, he complied right willingly.
“They sent the fleet for him to Scheveling. He and his two brothers went aboard the Naseby, only she is now the Royal Charles. James, Duke of York, took over command as Admiral. The King and young Henry of Gloucester won the hearts of the crew by insisting upon sharing their victuals. And by the time they dropped anchor off Dover you could not see the beach for people, cheering and waving. All the bells were ringing and the castle guns thundering. When Charles the Second stepped ashore the first thing he did was to kneel and kiss a handful of his native earth, just like that actor fellow Shakespeare makes the second Richard do in his play, and half of us had tears running down our cheeks with the emotion of it all. Even stern little General Monk welcomed him on bended knee. ‘God save the King!’ the crowds shouted, and when your lively young brother Gloucester could make himself heard he yelled at the top of his voice: ‘God save General Monk!’ And that seemed to put the final seal on the glad reunion of a long-divided nation.”
“Henry has never forgotten how they released him from Carisbrooke, and how some of them showed him a rough kind of pity after our sister died,” said Henrietta.
“And did King Charles and all the rest of them go on to London?” asked Frances, agog with excitement.
“Yes. But after such a tumult the royal brothers were thankful to sleep the night at Canterbury, where I parted from them, being charged by His Majesty to sail with all speed and bring you the good news…and bring a letter which he wrote Your Highness, himself being half asleep.”
The faithful Prodgers fumbled in the pocket of his mud-splashed coat and handed it to her with a respectful bow.
“You mean, in all that tumult and weariness he found time to write to me, who am so little worthy of it!” she exclaimed. Hungrily, her sparkling eyes ran over the brief lines. “He says, ‘My head is so prodigiously dazed by the acclamation of the people that I know not whether I am writing sense or not’,” she read aloud, between laughing and crying.
But Master Prodgers had another letter in his hand, and a firm recollection of his duty.
“It is good to be bringing Her Majesty good news at last, after being the reluctant harbinger of so much that was bad in the past,” he said, as the pompous, newly-made Earl of St. Albans appeared to lead him into the château.
“If only we could have gone to Dover with them! If only we could have seen it all!” exclaimed Frances, executing a pas seul around the fountain in the forecourt.
Forgetting her domesticated dreams of home, she pictured the scenes of wild excitement all day, and dreamed that she was taking part in the pageantry and processions all night. Until some more news came, this time from London.
“King Charles rode into London on the twenty-ninth of May,” the next messenger told them.
“His thirtieth birthday,” said his mother, torn between joy at his restoration and rage that he had had to wait so long.
It was the same story. Across Blackheath thousands followed him. Bells rang out from all the City churches. Salutes were fired from the Tower and from all the shipping in the Thames. Every street and window had been full of cheering people. The conduits ran wine. Lord Mayor and Aldermen and the City Guilds turned out to meet him. Over London Bridge and home to Whitehall, Charles rode bareheaded, returning the greetings of those who now so suddenly found his return propitious and those who had so long and silently prayed for it — wondering ironically why he had not come home before, since everyone seemed to be so anxious for his return.
“Whitehall is to be redecorated,” added yet another messenger. “All the gentry are taking possession of their riverside houses again and giving parties. The pleasure-garden and play-houses will be open again.”
“Surely, Henrietta, the King will send for you,” said Frances for the hundredth time.
“Of course he will,” said Henrietta. “But consider how much business there must be for him to attend to first.”
“But will not the dowager Queen go and live there?”
“I expect so. She will certainly want to go there on a visit, if only to have some settlement made about all her dower lands which Cromwell distributed among the other regicides.”
“And then she will take us all with her,” concluded Frances.
Henrietta sat very still, hands in lap, regarding her. Much as she loved her, their relationship was subtly changing. The two years’ difference in their ages was, for the first time, accentuated. Henrietta’s brief happiness with her brother, and his undoubted affection, had given her a sense of security and importance. And something else was coming into her life which would enhance it. For the first time there was a touch of regality in her reply.
“There may be another pressing affair for my mother to attend to before she leaves. Here, in Paris.”
France was quick to note the change of manner.
“You mean the matter of a marriage for you?”
“They are all discussing it — Queen Anne, his mother, Cardinal Mazarin and the rest.”
“They are not going to give you to the Duke of Orleans?” she asked, springing up almost angrily.
“And why not?”
“Oh, we all know that he wants you. But now that the Stuart fortunes are so different, King Louis will allow it?”
“Mais naturellement. The French King’s brother and the British King’s sister. A very equal arrangement.”
Frances went and knelt beside the Princess.
“Oh, ’Rietta, I didn’t mean that. There is no king or emperor in the world who is good enough for you. But you — and Philippe of Orleans!”
“At least he wanted me when we were still penniless exiles, and that is more than you can say of any other man,” said Henrietta, with some of her elder brother’s cynical common sense.
“But can you call this one a man?” Frances spoke hesitantly of something she scarce
ly understood, but was impelled to do so with sincerity. “You know how we have all laughed at the way he loves dressing up, posing for his portraits more like a woman. And his ridiculous, jealous tantrums…”
“It is time you stopped talking like a romantic schoolgirl,” said Henrietta, speaking sharply because she was hurt by the truth of it. “Kings’ daughters can scarcely expect love in the political marriages which are arranged for them.”
“But no one wants a husband whom other women laugh at,” thought Frances, too close to clothe her thought in words. “When I marry it will have to be a real man — a man of action who does things — whom I can respect,” she said aloud. “And out of respect I should think some kind of love might grow.”
Henrietta looked at her with tears in her eyes. Once again she was amazed that this gay companion of hers could at times so accurately sum up a situation.
“I hope you will get that kind of husband, but I don’t suppose that you either will have much say in the matter. So you had better give up your delightful dreams of dairymaid dalliance.”
“I know you are right, ’Rietta, My mother, being a widow with three children on her hands, will probably jump at the first titled man who asks me, and I may come to tolerate him. But I want you to be happy, ma chère — you who have had such a wretched childhood. After all, some royal marriages are love matches. Your mother and the late King, for instance.”
“Oh, of course, there are the lucky ones. But, as good Father Cyprien says, we must make the most of our blessings.”
“And what particular blessing is Louis’ young brother likely to bring you?” enquired Frances frivolously.
Henrietta rose and walked past her to the window. “He will always live in France,” she said.
Frances swung round gracefully as a weather-vane to gaze after her.
“You mean, you don’t want to come to England?” she said in slow amazement. “Not even to be near your precious brother?”
Her pertness was inexcusable, but Henrietta answered patiently, without turning: “Of course I want to go to England. But not with a kind of fierce longing as you do — as if it were the end of every dream. For, I ask you, how long should I be there? There would be only another marriage arranged. With Spain or Portugal or Italy perhaps. Oh, I have heard my mother and Monsieur Jermyn talking. We princesses are pushed across the board of life like chess pawns. And I would rather stay in the only country that I know. Je suis française, moi — just as you are a Scot.”
“I see,” said Frances, sinking down on the nearest window-seat, and feeling a fool for not having seen further into her friend’s mind before.
Like Charles, she had always been able to alleviate her years of exile by light-hearted enjoyment of ordinary, everyday happenings. But now a new thought hovered like a grey cloud at the back of her inconsequent mind. Either she would have to part from beloved Henrietta or stay in France.
But during the exciting days that followed, Frances lived only in the new gaiety of the present. As soon as it was known that the Dowager Queen of France had formally asked for Henrietta’s hand for her younger son, all the aristocrats of France flocked to Colombes. If the sweetmeats were not so luscious nor the servants so grand, the whole atmosphere of the place was more informal, and the two hostesses, mother and daughter, more charming. And Frances herself, learning the art of being a lady-in-waiting, added much to the gaiety of the parties, particularly where the men were concerned.
“How lovely she is!” remarked Queen Henrietta-Maria, watching her teach an enamoured young marquis the steps of a new pavanne.
“But not very clever, I fear, for the daughter of a learned doctor,” said her mother. “I wish she would concentrate more on her books. Her spelling is atrocious. Why, even small Sophie spells simple words more accurately.”
“Perhaps you are too ambitious, Mistress Stuart, to expect both brains and beauty,” said the Dowager Queen, mellowed by the attention and laughter of which she had been so long deprived.
And certainly, as she grew into very young womanhood, Frances Stuart was so strikingly beautiful that young men could not take their eyes off her. She was tall and slender, and her love of dancing had lent her every movement an unconscious grace. Her skin was flawless and her eyes blue as the sea, and when candlelight or sunlight glowed on her fair hair there were rich auburn lights in it. And, besides men’s senses being inflamed by the warm beauty of her body, their hearts were charmed by the radiance of her gaiety.
“She is going to be a terrible responsibility,” sighed Mistress Sophia Stuart, wishing more than ever that her husband were alive.
But if the attention lavished on her in the security of the Château became a source of anxiety, the days when they were invited to the Louvre rendered poor Mistress Stuart almost demented between pride and fear. While Philippe of Orleans escorted his bride-to-be everywhere, effectively preventing any other flirtations on her part, it was often King Louis himself who contrived to get Frances alone, and, beautiful as she was, Frances was no eligible princess. The frequency with which she was seen with His Majesty at masques and hunts and banquets was becoming the main gossip of the Court, and such flattery was beginning to turn the girl’s head.
“I entreat you, talk to her, dear Father Cyprien,” said Mistress Stuart. “She is too young to protect herself. His Majesty can have no honourable intentions, particularly with a wedding being planned between him and the Infanta of Spain. Yet I dare not offend His Majesty by contriving to keep her away.”
“But our own Queen could. She could take your daughter with her when she goes to England,” consoled wise old Father Cyprien. “And in the meantime do not worry overmuch, dear Mistress Stuart, for in spite of all her frivolity, there is much of her father in Frances, and I imagine the sweet child is very well able to take care of herself.”
“I fear Her Majesty will not go yet. They say the smallpox is rife in London. Master Prodgers says that Prince Henry had caught the terrible thing, but is now recovered.”
And then came news which made the household at Colombes forget all about the newly-tasted splendours of the French Court. After all the May-time celebrations and the wild happiness across the Channel, almost before the leaves were turning russet on the English beech trees, that promising young prince, Henry of Gloucester, died.
“And I saw so little of him when he was here,” mourned Henrietta regretfully. “We were so poor that he went out into Paris every day to school like any other boy, or was with his tutor.”
But in the last few months this youngest brother had become even more to Charles than their murdered father.
“He shut himself all day and night in his private room and would speak to no one. Only his favourite spaniel was with him,” Father Cyprien told them, having heard.
Henrietta scarcely knew how to write to him.
“This cruel misfortune has caused you so much sorrow that one can but share it with you. I think it best to be silent, but what I desire most on earth is the happiness of seeing you again,” wrote Henrietta, fearing to write more when her stricken mother said so little.
“Prince Henry left without her blessing,” remembered Frances. “Surely she must feel terrible about that. I liked him, but he was always afraid of her.” She found herself weeping for the lad who had, for some reason, once opened his lonely heart to her, and perhaps a little for Charles, with all his fine new kingdom about him, shut up alone with his spaniel and his grief.
“I should think this smallpox scare will make Her Majesty put off her visit,” said Dorothy Culpeper.
But Janton seemed to know her better.
“I doubt if anything would ever make her change her plans because she was afraid,” she said. “And now that the Orleans marriage is arranged and King Charles has given his consent, perhaps Her Majesty will put off her visit indefinitely.”
“But the Princess wants so much to go.”
“So do we all,” sighed Janton.
“But perhaps Q
ueen Henrietta-Maria herself does not. I wonder if it is true…” mused Frances.
“If what is true?” they asked.
“Something I once heard Master Lovell, the Prince’s tutor say,” said Frances, caught back over the years by an association of ideas. “That the people in England do not like her.”
Loyally, Dorothy kept silent. She had received much kindness from the Queen. But she knew it to be only too true.
“If I were a queen I should not want to go and ride through streets where all the people kept silent.”
“I am quite sure, being pretty Frances Stuart, you would not,” snapped Dorothy. “But there is small need for you to worry, since, however much men may flatter you, at least you are never likely to be a queen.”
Four
Almost before her household had finished discussing whether the Queen Dowager would go to England or not, she had packed up and gone, taking the Princess with her. It was now or never so far as Henrietta was concerned, because she was to be married so soon. But there were other reasons for her mother’s sudden urgency.
“At least they cannot stay long because of the wedding,” concluded Frances, who, to her bitter chagrin, had been left behind.
“The Château seems dead without them, and especially after all that hustle of packing!” sighed Mistress Stuart, sinking into the nearest chair after the coaches and luggage waggons had finally rumbled away.
She and Frances had run hither and thither until their legs ached, and then stood wearily in the wind-swept courtyard waving goodbye. Now they were alone in a sad, disordered château with familiar gewgaws and garments, discarded at the last moment, lying around them. The servants were at last gone to their long-delayed meal. Tears from parting with a beloved mistress still moistened Sophia Stuart’s eyes, but the tears that brimmed in her daughter’s were of angry disappointment.
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