“I hope so,” Charles agreed, momentarily sobered.
“Everyone says it of you. You remember all who shared the years of exile, who suffered through their devotion to his late Majesty. My mother was only one of the many you recompensed.”
Charles brushed this aside with a gesture.
“Who is persuading you, my pretty one, to be other than loyal? And what friendship is it that is so precious to you? Who is the lucky man?”
“Not a man at all, and it’s not only the friendship I hate to give up, but all the fun that goes with it. Parties and laughter and dressing-up for charades, and games and meeting amusing people who have been kind to me. There were such years and years of dullness at Colombes. I feel as though it would kill me if I had to live like that again. Well, of course it couldn’t be as bad in one way, because there would be always enough to eat and fires to keep one warm. But it would be worse in another, because I am far away from ’Rietta.”
“You love my little Minette so much?”
“Oh, dearly, dearly. What wouldn’t I give to see her again!”
“Yet you were ready to leave her, to join the Court here?”
“Britain is my home…and we were exiles. Besides, everything had changed. Henrietta-Anne was Madame of France; she had become so important and she was wrapped up in the thought of the babe she was expecting. It wasn’t the same… We still loved one another, but — sometimes I thought I was disappointing to her. She said I was taking a long while to grow up.”
Charles, to whom his sister still seemed no more than a dear child who had been cruelly sacrificed to political ends, married to one who was personally detestable to him, and whose perversions could no longer be glossed over or ignored, sighed before he smiled.
“Exactly how old are you, my pretty cousin? Seventeen — eighteen?”
“Sixteen.”
“Then I would say there was no hurry to acquire the sedateness of years. Has anyone here been finding fault with you?”
“Not — not exactly; though my mother writes that I ought to be considering marriage. It’s only natural. I am the eldest — she would be glad to have me settled — to have one less to worry about. She seems to think it odd there is not anyone especially. But I don’t want there to be. It was all such fun until…oh, why must everyone always be so serious and thinking of the future?”
“Why indeed?” said Charles, who shared Frances’ gift for living in the present.
“Today is important, too. There is so much sorrow. Why shouldn’t one be gay and enjoy oneself whilst one can? Is that so wrong? Barbara says it is one’s duty.”
“Does she? It is not a word I have often heard her use.”
“She says glum faces are an offence to everyone, and it’s true. Think how the people all hated the Puritans who thought it a sin to laugh. But it isn’t only that…everyone thinks ill of her because…oh, because…I don’t care what they say. I won’t give her up,” ended Frances confusedly but with emphasis.
“Who has said that you should give her up? Your mistress, the Queen?”
“No — oh no!” Although Frances had a strong suspicion that Catherine had prompted the Dowager Queen’s lecture, Catherine had been too kind to deserve disloyalty.
Charles was frowning. His dark face looked older and heavier. Why, Frances wondered, did so many women fall in love with him? He was really ugly. For herself she was unaffected by his famed charm, though she had found it easy to talk to him and had readily turned to him as a friend.
If not Catherine, it was certainly his mother, who could not forbear to meddle, Charles reflected. Although he often wearied of Barbara’s demands, of her tantrums and extravagances, he would not brook interference; and if in his absence she had been dismissed, she would be recalled.
“The Queen Dowager thinks it an unsuitable friendship,” Frances admitted impulsively. “She hinted that unless I behaved more discreetly I might lose my appointment as maid-of-honour…might be sent away.”
“Not with my permission, and you could not be banished without it.”
“Oh, Charles!”
“Never before has my name sounded so well,” Charles said, laughing at her.
Frances also laughed, but she was truly grateful, and in her gratitude she was beautiful in a new way. Womanliness shone through her superficial childishness as she turned her great eyes upon him. Charles’ natural taste was for more sophisticated beauties, but now he was moved by her, and he veered. What could be more entrancing than aquamarine eyes still dewy with tears; more enticing than a flawless skin flushed by a fruit-like bloom; more appealing than fair, disordered curls and a mouth which, even in grief, trembled upon a smile?
“Why, my pretty one!” he exclaimed, and his arm was around her, drawing her in her warmth and sweetness towards him. “I would no more allow you to be banished than I would allow Minette to be sent away from me, if by good fortune I could have her here in England.”
“Oh, how I wish you could!”
“So do I, but it is useless to pine for the impossible, and I am disposed to content myself with such delights as are possible. The Queen Dowager means well, but she is…her way are not always mine. Soon we shall all be leaving here, and then she will have her own Court, and apart from State functions will have little concern for the regime at Whitehall.”
“And Barbara will return to London?”
“Assuredly. Nothing but my express decree could keep her away.”
Frances sighed with pleasure.
“She had planned so much. There were to be the most exciting frolics.”
“I do not doubt it.”
Charles looked down on the lovely, innocent face and perhaps felt a moment of remorse. In his heart he knew that his mother was right. This exquisite, heedless child should be preserved from Barbara Castlemaine and her kind; preserved from him. But she was in no danger, he assured himself virtuously. Minette had entrusted her to him. She, at all events, had had confidence in him. He would have a word with Barbara — impress on her that his young cousin was to be respected and guarded.
For the moment, although he had no illusions about himself or his capacity for knightly chivalry, he was sincere. And Frances, with the astonishing intuition of which she was capable, guessed the thoughts that passed through his mind and secretly smiled. She was safe — completely safe with Charles, so long as she did not fall in love with him, and that was unlikely. He was her King and her cousin, and in many ways she admired him, but she also had a real affection for the Queen and had no intention of adding to her troubles.
But Charles could make everything wonderful for her, so why should she not harmlessly charm him? Actually she would be doing the Queen a favour, Frances decided, and her heart should be set at rest. Barbara was now in love with Henry Jermyn, and, according to gossip, there was no other woman who had captured the King’s fancy.
Only herself…and she would be no menace to Catherine’s happiness, since, whatever Charles might later expect, she had no intention of succumbing to him. Frances might seldom consider the future, but she knew what she wanted from it, and it was not the position of a royal mistress. As for the present which she constantly assured herself was sufficient for many a day, all she craved was excitement and pleasure. And as Charles was of the same mind, why not make the most of his newly aroused interest and affection?
Although she refrained from putting her thought into words, the thought was there. He would never force her to be what she did not want to be, or take her against her will.
Ten
Frances, with wonder, saw Charles bestir himself on her behalf. She could not doubt that it was for her when she received the gift of a sapphire and diamond star brooch, accompanied by a brief letter in the King’s handwriting.
Barbara would be at Whitehall the following week, he wrote, so would all the Court. She must keep up her heart. The brooch was a belated present for her sixteenth birthday, which he should have remembered before, as Minette had men
tioned it in a letter.
That brooch was the first of other jewels which Charles bestowed upon Frances during the winter months, but such gifts were customary to ladies of the Court, and nobody apparently remarked on the fact that the pearls given on Twelfth Night and the diamond ring on St. Valentine’s Day were more than usually costly.
The Queen Dowager held her Court at Greenwich Palace to which flocked many of the more sober spirits amongst the nobility. Barbara had her own suite as before at Whitehall, and it was impossible to deny that Queen Catherine was neglected. Worse than this, she was surrounded by enemies of whom George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was the most dangerous. He had the ear of the King and used every opportunity to underline Catherine’s deficiencies — to insinuate that she was a bigot and a prude, who evidently hated her husband’s country; that she had no looks and a rigid stiffness which took the place of dignity.
Allowed unmeasured freedom of speech, Buckingham reported to Barbara that the King, though he pretended to ignore or not to listen to the remarks about his wife, was normally glum these days. Barbara, when she was in a good mood and bent on conciliating him, could always make him laugh, and in the closing weeks of 1662 she was seen everywhere with him and the Queen. To those who did not know the circumstances it might have been thought that she was Catherine’s bosom friend, for she drove with the royal pair in their coach, was with them at Court functions, and when a great ball was given on the last day of the Old Year Charles singled her out to dance the brantle and the coronto.
Frances appeared to receive no more of the King’s favour than many others, for, although Charles was now fully alive to her attractions, he was cautious. Barbara was indulgent and actually appeared to throw Frances in his way. Catherine and the Queen Dowager were unsuspicious, for it was Buckingham who paid Frances open attentions.
“Your Mary and the Queen must have much in common,” Barbara told Buckingham with some disdain. “They both endure more from their husbands than I would endure from any man, legally united to me or not.”
“Mary knows better than to baulk me. Moreover, she understands me,” Buckingham said with complacency.
“Then it is more than I do, George. My idea was that, in order to free me occasionally, Frances might divert Charles and distract his jealous attention, but she seems to prefer you, and you encourage her. You partner her in all her pranks.”
“I find La Belle Stuart refreshing,” said Buckingham nonchalantly. “And in some respects our tastes are similar. In mimicry, for instance, and music. She has a tuneful voice.”
“Better than yours. Nobody can doubt it when you sing duets. As for mimicry, she is an impudent rogue. Imitating me to my face as she did.”
“Flatteringly, Barbie. The child has nothing but admiration for you.”
“Borrowing my sables and my velvet cloak and a red wig,” Barbara said; but she laughed, for Frances had prevailed upon a dozen courtiers to follow her meekly on their hands and knees and had spurned them with an elegantly shod foot. The King had been immoderately amused, for this was how it pleased him to think of Barbara. His, but scorning all others. It had also satisfied Henry Jermyn, her present secret lover, who was every bit as jealous as the King.
Barbara certainly bore Frances no resentment for her spirited impersonation. Men were absurd. Though with no inclination to faithfulness, they were threatened with an apoplexy if they suspected their women folk of a like veniality.
“I wish I could fathom what is at the back of this,” Barbara said with an uneasiness new to her.
“Why should there be anything but a pleasant dalliance? Frances Stuart is a butterfly born to amuse and delight, but there is no guile in her.”
“I am inclined to believe that.”
Buckingham regarded his cousin thoughtfully. Barbara was obviously conscious of undercurrents and aware of Frances’ developing personality. Sure of her domination over the King, she had not considered Frances as a rival, but by now a doubt must have struck her. How far, Buckingham wondered, could he expect Barbara to cooperate with him.
“This marriage with Catherine of Braganza is already tottering,” he stated.
“Small wonder with such subtle undermining. But your personal dislike of her apart, what could either of us gain by a divorce and another marriage? Catherine, the poor moppet, has come to terms. She is of little obstruction to me; whereas another more attractive Queen, with influence over Charles because he was in love with her, could send us both into permanent exile.”
“Not if this more attractive Queen chanced to have a penchant for both of us.”
The remark was thrown out casually, the while Buckingham gazed from the window upon the street beneath and the people who passed by. But Barbara was too quick-witted to be deceived.
“You can’t mean — not Frances Stuart?” she cried; and then as Buckingham did not immediately reply, “You do mean it! You devil! Oh, I see it all now. Every action of yours has a sinister motive. Your foolery with the girl is to inflame Charles. You plan that he shall rid himself of the Queen…for her. But I’ll have none of it! I warn you I’ll have none of it.”
“Calm yourself!” Buckingham turned from the window. “This is a fantasy of your own devising. How think you could I bring such a thing about, even if I desired it?”
“It might not be so impossible.”
“I’m bound to say,” observed Buckingham, “that if La Belle Stuart were Queen, the Court would be livelier, for you and I would be the powers behind the throne.”
“That is of no consideration to me. It is well enough as it is. I have power. The Queen is amenable and the country is at peace. Who knows what the repercussions in Europe would be were Catherine divorced…”
“My sweet life, you are putting the strangest notions into my head!”
“Can you swear they were not there before?”
“On my honour,” Buckingham vowed without hesitation, “I did but dally with the suggestion when you presented it.”
“I present it?”
“Be realistic, Barbie. Even if this marriage were dissolved, Charles could not marry you, much as he might wish it; but he could make an alliance with a young girl of his own royal blood.”
“Much diluted!” Barbara exclaimed scornfully.
“A young girl of untarnished reputation. Strong and healthy, who would give him children,” Buckingham continued.
Barbara was furious. She stormed: “Unless you make an end of this I shall tell Charles what you plan.”
“Do not — for your own sake. You might find him not unwilling to fall in with it.”
They glared at each other. Buckingham had little fear, for, as he knew, Barbara was loyal to her own kin. But she had every fear, for she had long since discovered his devious nature. If it suited him, he would betray her with a smile.
“This,” she said, mastering herself, “sees the end of my association with Frances Stuart. I will no longer count her a friend.”
“But the girl is entirely innocent. She hasn’t a remote idea,” Buckingham protested, cursing himself for his lack of caution.
“That may be, but she will do better to dance attendance on the Queen, to work on her embroidery with the other girls, and to pray in the Queen’s Oratory. I mean what I say, George.”
Buckingham had no doubt of it and he groaned in spirit when at Barbara’s next party there was no sign of Frances, with whom Barbara had contrived an adroit quarrel. The girl’s impersonation of her served as an excuse, to Frances’ bewilderment, for at the time Barbara had seemed much entertained.
“I have no use for false friends,” Barbara declared, lashing herself to anger. “In future, Frances Stuart, you will go your way and I will go mine.”
“But it was no more than a frolic,” Frances protested, seeing her bright dreams for the future fading.
“Possibly, but I prefer to devise my own. Go play your childish games with those other little white mice of maids, and do not think to sharpen your wits
on me. The Queen will be only too pleased if you seek shelter again beneath her wing.”
At the first of her parties, which Frances did not attend but which Charles did, Barbara made glib excuses. The Queen had a prior claim on the girl. Frances had found it impossible to get away. But such specious explanations could not be spun out indefinitely. Charles sought Frances and demanded an explanation.
“I offended Barbara by my mimicry of her. She seemed to take it in good part, but it was a pretence. I hurt her feelings,” Frances said.
“Nonsense. She was as amused as I was.”
“She appeared to be. I am miserable about it,” Frances told him. “I am fond of her and I admire her. I meant no harm.”
“Of course you did not. That was obvious.”
It was also obvious to Charles that someone had been making trouble, though in this case he acquitted both his wife and his mother.
“I expect she will come round,” said Frances, who, although she avowed that she was miserable, did not seem to be particularly so. She was touched because Catherine had been so pleased to have her with her.
“You shall read one of the English books aloud to me in the evenings,” Catherine said. “It will help me to improve in the language and will be less tedious for you than the embroidery, half of which it has been necessary for Mary to unpick. The King is pleased when I speak better in English, and it is your duty to please him, is it not?”
Frances was conscious of the earnest sweetness of the small, dark face. Surely Charles, for all his casualness, must be fond of her. But as for pleasing him…! The way in which Frances could best please him would not commend itself to the Queen, who trusted her and was so kind to her.
“The other girls are contented enough, why can’t I be?” Frances wondered, but Mary and Joan were already betrothed and would be married by the end of the year, and even for little Anne there were rumoured plans.
However, the few winter evenings, which she now devoted to her royal mistress, reading aloud William Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and answering Catherine’s questions when she came upon a word or sentence which puzzled her, were not so dull as she had expected.
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