“Long, long after we are all dead and gone and forgotten,” Frances mused.
“But how can you be forgotten when you can be always seen on every coin?” asked Julia La Garde, who on Mary Boynton’s marriage and retirement had replaced her as a maid-of-honour. “As for His Majesty, he will ever be remembered as England’s greatest monarch.”
Charles smiled at the pretty young woman who fluttered her lashes at him, but he had little attention to spare for anyone but Frances, who was now enquiring as to the exact worth of the new half-broads and double-crowns.
The new guinea gold would be issued in five-guinea and two-guinea pieces, and probably there would be coins of less worth, Slingsby told her. He plunged his hand into a pile of small silver coins and announced that this was Maundy money, and issued by His Majesty’s command.
“Royal alms bestowed every Maundy Thursday upon certain worthy poor persons,” Slingsby said.
“Would it were in my power to give away thrice the amount,” Charles said sincerely, forgetful of the fortunes squandered upon his favourites and of his own manifold extravagances.
“However poor they may be, those who have the great honour of receiving alms from Your Majesty rarely spend it,” Master Slingsby observed. “Such coins are treasured heirlooms to pass down to their children and grandchildren.”
“We must have some portrait models struck of you, Frances,” the King said, “that those who are given them can also hand them down to their descendants.”
Frances, as the visit to the Mint drew to a close, showed a reluctance to leave, which further endeared her to Master Slingsby. When she said, “I have been so interested. I have so enjoyed myself. There is still so much I want to know, but perhaps I can pay another visit before too long,” he bowed as low to her as he would have bowed to the Queen.
And how well she would become that position were it ever hers, was the thought that passed through the mind of more than one of the courtiers who watched her as she smiled at Master Slingsby and gave him her little gloved hand to kiss. Miss La Garde was more critical.
“It’s ridiculous for La Belle Stuart to give herself such airs,” she observed to a companion when they were out of earshot. “It is no such great thing to have the King for a lover. ’Tis said that he goes often now to Drury Lane for the sake of that low play-actress who is appearing there. Nell Gwyn she calls herself, and she has red hair which resembles the Castlemaine’s, and a vulgar wit that makes all the gentlemen laugh.”
The royal cavalcade returned to Whitehall on horseback, the King leading the procession with Frances beside him; but on arrival there the laughter and gaiety were abruptly checked, for a waiting servant hurried to the King with urgent news.
During their absence the Queen had been taken suddenly ill. Her physicians had been called, and messengers would have been dispatched at once to the Tower, where it was known the King could be found, only that the Queen had forbidden it.
Forgetful of Frances, Charles, with a stricken expression as he realized that his hopes of an heir were once more doomed, hurried to the Queen’s rooms.
Fifteen
If the majority of the King’s more intimate companions thought it strange that he should be distraught with anxiety for the Queen now that she was so ill, Frances did not. She had always understood Charles’ affection for Catherine, who gave him an adoring fidelity no other woman had ever given him.
It seemed now that if she recovered, it was all she could give him, for the doctors who attended her said that she would now never bear a child. In the premature birth of a son she had suffered much damage, and within hours a fever set in which was probably augmented by her desperate disappointment.
Day by day she was reported to be more grievously ill. The physicians shook their heads despondently and could give the King no hope of her recovery. It astonished them that he so urgently desired it, for tossing on her pillows and crying out in delirium was a wife he had blatantly neglected when she was in good health, and who now if she were pulled back from death would be nothing but an encumbrance to him.
Charles did not see the matter in this light. Neither did Frances, who also desired Catherine’s recovery, partly out of genuine affection, partly because if she died Frances knew that in the course of time Charles would turn to her, and she would be given the chance of marrying him. That she could refuse it was unthinkable, that she desired it was debatable.
While the Queen’s physicians wrestled for her life and the King spent hours by her bedside, in her few lucid moments imploring her to live for his sake, Frances had plenty of time in which to consider the future.
The King’s fondness for her being so evident, she had for months been a person of consequence, but now she was given an additional deference. In those days and weeks of suspense, with callous disregard of the Queen’s sufferings, bets were laid as to whether or not Frances would succeed her. As time passed, and it was seen how Charles turned to her when he was not with the Queen, there were few prepared to stake their money against her.
None but the Queen’s attendants who knew something of nursing were allowed near her, but Frances heard every detail of her illness from the King’s lips. He sent for her and she listened to him and tried to comfort him, all her butterfly lightness subdued and her sympathy and concern so genuine that for the time being a grateful affection took place of passionate desire.
Most of these meetings took place in Barbara’s apartments. Every evening the King took supper with her, but he demanded Frances’ presence and Barbara was forced to comply. Now she fully realized that, whether the Queen lived or died, she was supplanted. The King, because of his tenderness for the children she had borne him, might never publicly reject her, but her influence with him was nil, and her physical attraction had lost much of its power. Neither sulks nor rages affected him, and Barbara had the sense to discard them, and to pretend a friendship for Frances which was now entirely false.
Frances, in her youthful ignorance and her failure to understand the complexities of human nature, was far from appreciating the wound inflicted upon Barbara’s pride. She knew that Henry Jermyn was Barbara’s lover, and that, tiring of him, she had started an affair with another young man who had recently put in an appearance at Court and was one of Buckingham’s satellites. Therefore, why in the world, argued Frances, should it affront her if the King were now indifferent to her? All that Barbara could expect was that he would honour his obligation to her, and this he would do. He invariably did.
For the time being Frances herself was safe. Charles was not now thinking of her as a longed-for mistress. He needed her as a friend and that she could be. She had never been more of a woman and less of a minx; never more tender of heart than when he restlessly paced Barbara’s salon, his face ravaged with grief and his speech almost incoherent.
Barbara, in repressed rage because her apartments were being used as a convenience, because the elegant supper she had ordered had been barely touched, and Charles gazed at her blankly as though he scarcely realized her presence, retired without apology to her bed-chamber, from whence she sent a message demanding the attendance of her latest lover. There was no necessity for secrecy. The King would neither know nor care that she was not alone.
“Don’t, please don’t give up hope,” Frances entreated, as Charles dropped down into a chair, covering his face with his hands. “The Queen is putting up a fight, and that shows she wants to live. Doesn’t that bring comfort? It is you who have given her the strength to fight, by showing her how much you need her.”
“God knows I do,” Charles said wretchedly, “but I showed her little sign of it before she fell ill.”
“Oh, but you did. I know you did. Sometimes she would talk to me, tell me how kind you had been to her. And you would never allow anyone to slight her. She knew that — that — oh, how can I word it? That her position was unassailable. She was your wife. You would never put her away from you.”
“Yes, thank God, she knew tha
t,” Charles muttered.
“And now, just to realize that you are here, beside her, is of more benefit to her than all the doctors’ remedies,” Frances insisted.
He uttered a scoffing laugh and looked up with angry, miserable eyes. “Those fools! They do more harm than good. If she fights for her life, poor soul, I fight against them for such poor chance as she has. Given their way and they would bleed her until she fell into a coma from sheer weakness; while as for their absurd remedies…! Pigeons slaughtered by the dozen and their carcasses laid against her feet, poor love! The stench of them in that room with the closed windows is appalling, and she gasping for breath. As for the priests, they are little if any better with their so-called miraculous cures. Today I had a battle with them. They would have shaved off all her hair and fitted what they swear is a miraculous cap to her bare scalp.”
“It’s a mercy you are the King whose orders they dare not disobey,” Frances commented. “Oh, Charles, her lovely hair…!”
“I was obliged to agree that it should be cut short, otherwise did she die it would be said I had murdered her. Like enough, if the worst happens, such will be said. She prayed for air and I threw open the windows. I insisted that the linen on the bed should be changed, though they all swore it would hasten her end. I put her into fresh night-gear with my own hands, after I had sponged her poor, fevered body…and had you seen their aghast faces…”
He dragged himself up from the chair to pace the room once more, and Frances said: “If ever some such illness befalls me, I pray that I may have as good a nurse.”
The King looked at her then. For the first time in days seeing her clearly as the beautiful girl he had desired before this grief had come upon him. He would desire her again, and knew himself well enough to own it — as wife if Catherine died, as mistress if she lived. But just now they were in a sexless no-man’s-land, and she could give him comfort that was not to be found elsewhere.
“Women can be angels,” he said. “I little thought that you — but mayhap we are both fond of her in much the same way.”
“We are, and I know the Queen has always trusted me,” Frances said, hoping these words would be remembered if Catherine recovered.
“Could you but hear her raving,” Charles cried. “She believes that she has borne our son, poor love, and grieves because she fancies he is an ugly babe. What could I do but humour her, and tell her he is a pretty boy? Yet if she recovers who is to break it to her that the child died before she had carried it long enough for it to live? It will destroy her.”
“Oh, no. Not if you tell her. Not if you make her realize that you love her for herself and will always so love her, even though there can be no children.”
“Such love as mine, inconstant wretch that I am, can be of little consolation.”
“But it is, Charles. You know it is.” And then Frances said hopefully: “And why should you not be constant in the future?”
He ceased his restless pacing to regard her closely. He said bitterly: “Because it is not in my profligate nature. God’s truth, if you can think otherwise, ’tis proof you are still a child.”
Strong hands pulled her up to him. He drew her to his breast and kissed her. But there was no fire in him. Frances held him to her as she would have held any suffering human being, smoothing his hair and noticing with awe that in the last tense days the dark locks had become sprinkled with grey.
“It is at this time in the evenings that she is always calm and able to sleep,” Charles said. “Later, she will be restless and then I must be with her.”
“How I wish I could do something to help,” Frances said sincerely.
“You help me. Can you doubt it? God’s Peace! What a maze is a man’s heart!”
That evening, when the King passed from Barbara’s apartments to those of the Queen, Frances went with him, walking with her hand in his through the long corridors and the rooms where members of the Court were assembled, regardless of the curious glances as all present rose to their feet and bowed low. The King mechanically acknowledged the general salutations, and Frances did not try to withdraw her hand, though she gave a slight start as, passing through the last room before they came to the passage which led the Queen’s suite, she recognised the Duke of Lennox and Richmond.
She had not seen him for months, and of late had rarely thought of him, but now she blenched as she met his dark and lowering gaze. The King glanced at her as she made an attempt to pull her hand from his clasp, and then he saw Lennox and came to a standstill.
“It is long since I have seen you, cousin,” he said, “and now we meet at an ill moment. But for the Queen’s illness I would have summoned you here to commend your enterprise and gallantry. It was a shrewd notion to send out a fleet of privateers.”
“All I did, Sire, was to repeat the tactics of the Elizabethans. If the scheme had been unsuccessful, ’twould at least have been no charge on the Admiralty. But as it chanced, the Dutch merchantmen were taken unawares.”
“So I am told. ’Twas a bold stroke, and but for this ever-present anxiety ’twould rank of first importance to me. As it is, my mind is in distraction, and I go now to the Queen, who at this hour is always wakeful. I will leave our mutual cousin in your care.”
Raising Frances’ hand to his lips, arresting with a gesture her low curtsey, the King strode on. Lennox and Frances gazed at each other.
“What did the King mean when he spoke of your enterprise in sending out privateers?” Frances asked curiously.
Lennox shrugged. “It was an obvious action once one’s mind turned to the past. Drake and Frobisher set the example. The Admiralty might have chewed for weeks over the cost, so I bought the ships, fitted them out and hired the crew. I was in command, and we’ve captured more than one of the Dutch merchantmen with a full cargo.”
“It must have been exciting,” Frances said, and thought that the King and all those who had rated him low would now change their tune. Not that there were no grounds for criticism. Doubtless Lennox was a spendthrift, and had, as she had heard one say who was friendly with him, been born with an unquenchable thirst. “It is long since we met,” she said, and sat upon an oak settle with a high, padded back. “You are seldom at Court.”
“There is little to bring me to Court. I hardly know why I am here now, except that hearing of Her Majesty’s dire illness, and the rumours…”
“At one time I thought there was to be friendship between us,” Frances said with the frankness she had never lost.
“A make-believe friendship is of little worth.”
“Why should it be make-believe? But mayhap you regretted our confidences, for on the few occasions when I have caught a glimpse of you you have ignored me.”
‘You were so well occupied that it is amazing you were aware of me. Not once have I seen you but that you were the centre of a group of sycophants, and at the King’s side.”
“Was that so significant when by your own showing you have been here so seldom?”
“In itself it might not have been, but the talk…”
“I would have said Your Grace was of too independent a mind to pay attention to the everlasting gossip of the Court.”
He looked at her with hot, angry eyes, and said: “You did not answer my letters.”
Frances shrugged and retorted with maddening nonchalance: “Did you write? So many people write to me. I only know that last year when we were at Tunbridge you stayed at your Kent fastness for weeks while I was within an easy distance of you.”
Suddenly Lennox abandoned reserve and exploded into angry speech.
“For the love of God, what is the use? I have heard and seen enough to recognize that it is useless. What friendship can there be, when at the most, should I be fool enough to care for you, the King and you would but use me as a pawn? One thing he has not yet bought you is a husband who can be safely cuckolded, and that is not a role I covet.”
This furious speech was uttered in tones that Frances feared were lou
d enough to be heard by those close by. She was dumbfounded. Although her eyes blazed and her cheeks were hot with anger, she cast an apprehensive glance around, and was thankful that nobody seemed to be paying them any attention.
Julia La Garde was playing at a chemin-de-fer table, and was holding the bank. No doubt successfully, as a hillock of gold coins was at her elbow. Even the Queen’s illness and the sobriety demanded by etiquette could not abate the prevailing passion for gambling.
Frances said bitingly, though in a discreet undertone: “Had His Majesty been less perturbed he would not have left me in your drunken company, for drunk you are. If you remember aught of this tomorrow, then remember what I now tell you. Between the King and me, all is as it was when I first met you.”
“Drunk I am not,” cried Lennox with an anger to match her own, and by his standards this was a fact, since he could still stand on his feet.
“Then all the more shame to you!” Frances declared stormily. “What you have said is an enormity, which one day I pray you may repent.”
“If the day ever comes when I bow the knee to you as my Queen, no doubt you will so prevail upon His Majesty that I shall be forced to repent in order to avoid my ruin. But that day is not yet, and now that we speak together as equals, I would have you know that even if what you say is true, it is of little credit to you to keep a man, though it may be the King himself, dancing to your tune — promising him that which you have no mind to deliver. It proves you a cheat, my cousin.”
“You dare to say so!”
“That and more!”
Frances was trembling, and her voice shook though it was little above a whisper: “’Tis well that the King is not here to listen to you, and were I to repeat what you have said, a score of more gallant men than you would challenge you to a duel.”
“I have no doubt of it. Why then should you hold to silence?”
“That is a puzzle to me as well as to you.” Frances’ lips quivered. “It can be only because I had a liking for you, and that, deny it though you may, you are bemused and do not understand the cruelties you have thrown at me. It must be so, for what have I ever done to make you hate me?”
Lady on the Coin Page 17