Lady on the Coin

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “You are cruel to me!” Frances flamed.

  “On the contrary, I am kind.” Charles rose, with his complacency restored. Long-limbed girl though she was, he looked down upon her from a greater height, and although there was tenderness in his expression, there was also resolution.

  Because she was pale and shaken, his dignity was restored to him. He should, he reflected, have taken this stand long ago, but it was against his nature to show harshness to a woman, much less to one he loved.

  When he had gone, the newly-minted gold coin that he had idly tossed in his hand lay on the ground. Frances picked it up and gazed at herself in the robes of Britannia; majestic with her trident and her palm. Ruler of the sea, but unable longer to rule a royal lover.

  Seventeen

  Mary Boynton said in a shocked voice: “Not even Frances Stuart, reckless as she always was, would be capable of doing such a thing.”

  “But she did,” Joan Wells insisted. It was the night before last and Lady Castlemaine was giving a party.” “Were you there? It wasn’t her habit to ask any of us to her parties — only Frances.”

  Married for the best part of a year, Mary was on a visit to London with her husband, and had called upon her old friends at Whitehall, smugly pleased to air herself as a young wife, imposing in a sable cape and with her wedding ring conspicuously displayed. Joan Wells had expected to be married ere now, but her wedding had been postponed through a family bereavement and would not take place before the New Year. It was amusing, she thought, to override Mary’s complacency. She had paid this visit in such a patronizing spirit — the young matron condescending to those who were not yet as securely placed. But so much had happened at Court she was quite overwhelmed by the flood of news poured out to her.

  “Oh, she does now,” Joan said airily. “All is changed. Frances is so much in the ascendant that dear Barbara has become much less haughty and is quite gracious at times. Anyway, there we all were, Julia La Garde and Cecily Angels, who are both new since you left.”

  Joan’s gesture included the two other girls. Although Mary would be received later by the Queen to whom she would pay her dutiful respects as a past maid-of-honour, they were at present all spread around Joan’s room, which did duty as both bedroom and sitting-room, with a smaller adjoining apartment for her maid.

  Mary glanced towards this door now with an instinctive question in her raised brows.

  “It’s locked,” Joan reassured her, “and Patty is out. There’s a ribbon which I need to have matched, and she’ll be gone for a while, as it’s an unusual colour.”

  “As the mistress of a household I have found that one cannot be too careful with servants. The best of them are ready to pry and listen,” Mary told them importantly.

  “Here at Whitehall they often seem to know more of what is going on than we do,” said Julia La Garde.

  “Buckingham’s wife was there as well,” Joan continued, “though he was away. But there were others. A Mr. Roper, who sings so well as to woo the heart from one’s breast, or so others say, for mine is already wooed. And milord Audley, who lost his wife some months ago, and Richard Granger.”

  “And Frances really openly said that she would marry anyone?” Mary enquired in her shocked voice.

  “She did, did she not, Julia?”

  “She had had too much wine,” Cecily Angels interposed before Julia La Garde could reply. “Frances rarely drinks, or at least only a glass at the most and often with water diluting it. But she was in a strange mood that evening. Very gay but in a wild sort of fashion — laughing at nothing, or almost nothing.”

  “She told us all,” said Julia, “that it would soon be her nineteenth birthday and that she intended to give a big party and that we were all invited and many others as well, of course.”

  “And then something was said about marriage. I forget exactly what.” Joan again dominated the conversation. “I believe it was some remark of Barbara’s. Yes, I remember now. She said she had been two years married by the time she was nineteen, and Frances laughed and drank off a full glass of wine and then said she would be willing to wed any gentleman who had an income of over fifteen hundred a year and would have her with honour. As you can imagine, everyone was stunned. There was such silence you could have heard a pin drop, but Frances just leant back in her chair, and when nobody spoke she laughed and laughed until the tears were in her eyes,”

  “But what in the world made her say such a thing?” Mary wondered. “Why, when I was here she had only to lift her finger and she could have had the choice of half a dozen. Besides which, the King…”

  “Well, he can’t marry her with honour,” said Joan, “much though he might like to.”

  “I’m sure she had little idea of what she was saying,” insisted Cecily, whose sweet face was matched by a charitable nature.

  “I had the exact opposite impression. She struck me as being deliberate — throwing down the gauntlet,” Joan declared.

  “I agree,” said Julia. “It was a kind of challenge.”

  “In very bad taste then,” Mary pronounced.

  “Bad taste or not, I dare swear she had offers from all the unmarried gentlemen there before another day was out,” Joan said.

  Mary shook her head. “I’m not so sure. Most look for the King’s favour, but many would doubt the wisdom of marrying one whom he does favour. We do not know for certain what the situation is between the King and Frances. The man who marries her may be required only as a front, a shield.”

  “Frances said a gentleman who would marry her with honour,” Cecily reminded them, “and Her Grace of Buckingham said afterwards to me that she was sure Frances meant it. She thought she was in a mood of wanting to get away from Court.”

  “The Queen as well as the King would make it hard for her to leave,” Joan opined. “It’s strange that, isn’t it? The Queen is not blind. She must have seen for ages how it was with the King. He can’t take his eyes off Frances.”

  “Perhaps the Queen doesn’t care much by now,” Mary said. “As long as the King is kind to her and refuses to divorce her, that contents her. It’s very sad. To have a faithful, loving husband means more than anything else in the world, as I should know,” and Mary twisted her wedding ring on her finger and gazed down at it with a secret smile warranted to irritate any girl who was still unmarried.

  “Queens have more than ordinary women and less than ordinary women,” Julia observed, “and mayhap it’s not so bad for the Queen if the King has one mistress only for whom she has a liking. Frances has more or less routed Barbara Castlemaine who so affronts the Queen.”

  “How did the Castlemaine take it when Frances announced…well, practically announced that she was up for sale?” Mary enquired, and Joan replied:

  “Oh, she laughed it off. She told her she was crazy. But it would suit her if some gentleman as poor as that, I mean with only a bare fifteen hundred, offered for Frances, and she took him, just to be as good as her word. Then she’d disappear from Court and live in the wilds of the country, in some tumbledown manor as like as not. What an end that would be for La Belle Stuart, while Castlemaine would again reign supreme.”

  “I wonder,” Julia La Garde looked sceptical. “Everyone says the King is tired of her. It’s more likely that his eyes would fall on someone else. Frances Stuart is a flashy beauty, and mayhap obscures more subtle types.”

  As none of the other girls would have applied the word ‘subtle’ to Julia, though she was sometimes accounted sly, they did not guess that she was already seeing herself in Frances’ place. Twice lately the King had danced with Julia, which was nothing out of the way, as he did sometimes single out a maid-of-honour, but Julia thought she had made some impression upon him, for he had told her that her pink dress was vastly becoming and had asked her teasingly if her lashes were more than an inch long. They were quite as long and even darker than Frances’, Julia reflected with satisfaction.

  Frances, meanwhile, unconscious that her reckl
ess challenge had caused a sensation amongst her female friends, had been paying a visit to her mother who had lately returned to London, and was living at Somerset House, the official residence of Queen Henrietta-Maria on the occasions when she was in England.

  The Queen Dowager had allotted a large suite there to her old and faithful friend. It was to be her home for her life, Mistress Stuart told Frances, remarking that it was far larger and grander than any ordinary house — really too large just to herself and Walter. A growing family could be lodged in the several enormous rooms. She had thought of having some of them partitioned. The Queen Dowager had given her carte blanche to make such alterations as she wished.

  Frances was interested and made several pertinent suggestions, glad to be able to divert the conversation from her personal affairs. She knew that her mother was secretly disappointed in her, though she could not blame her because the Queen had made a complete recovery, and because all talk about a divorce had died down.

  Nor would Mistress Stuart’s conscience permit her to advocate a surrender to the King. She would have no actual part in that, though he was probably right, Frances reflected in his estimate of her mother. If this did come about, Mistress Stuart would sigh and moan and pour all her perplexity into the ear of a sympathetic priest, and then she would resign herself to the situation.

  Frances did not suppose that her mother would hear of the scene at Barbara Castlemaine’s. Frances was now ashamed of this, though she had but an imperfect recollection of it, for it was true that she rarely drank much wine. But on that particular evening she had been so low-spirited that she had taken three or four glasses.

  Zero hour was approaching and she was desperate in a way that nobody imagined, especially as Joan Wells’ expectation that she would have offers from all present had not come about. Only Hugo Roper whose distinguished family and melodious tenor voice made him acceptable at Court, though he was known to be very poor, had written her a poem — a love poem — lamenting his poverty and his frustrated adoration.

  She was poor too, Frances reflected, and apart from her looks she had little to recommend her as a wife.

  Today she had driven to Somerset House in a palace coach, but, not knowing how long her visit would last, had told the coachman to return to Whitehall with the maid who had attended her. Mistress Stuart, who had no coach of her own, but had authority to make use of those belonging to the Queen Dowager, descended to the main entrance with her daughter, intending to escort her to Whitehall. But there, waiting, was an ornate coach with gilded panels and gold and silver fringe and harnessed to four splendid bays. Frances immediately recognized the coat of arms emblazoned on it. It was no surprise to her when the occupant of the coach leisurely descended, swept off his plumed hat and bowed low to her mother and then to herself. None the less, she gazed at him speechlessly.

  “Mistress Stuart?” he queried. “But it must be so — for the likeness is unmistakable.”

  And there were those who called him an oaf, thought Frances indignantly. Nothing could have been more courtly. “His Grace the Duke of Lennox and Richmond,” she said hurriedly as her mother turned to her for elucidation. “And I think, Maman, that he is here to take me back to Whitehall.”

  “If I may be allowed to spare your mother the fatigue,” Lennox said. “I was told at the Palace that you were visiting here, and then by chance I sighted the coach as it returned, and discovered, cousin, you had made no arrangement to be called for again,”

  “Cousin?” said Mistress Stuart, and then with pleased understanding: “But of course! Your Grace is a Stuart, and my dear husband knew your father milord Aubigny. But are you in such haste to be on your way? Will you not come within if only for a short while to take some refreshments?”

  “Her Majesty may be requiring me, Maman. I have been gone overlong,” Frances said hastily, having no mind to conduct this unexpected meeting beneath her mother’s speculative gaze.

  “I was forgetting. Certainly you must not delay,” Mistress Stuart agreed, accepting it as natural that this splendid-looking young man in the impressive family coach should escort Frances.

  Lennox murmured that he hoped to have the pleasure of calling upon her formally before long. Frances bade her mother farewell, and was handed into the coach. The footman closed the door and took his place beside the coachman, the horses were whipped up and off they went.

  “But not immediately to Whitehall,” said Lennox, who had evidently given contrary instructions, for the coach bore them along towards Piccadilly and St. James’s. “The Queen, so I heard, did not expect your attendance this evening?”

  “No. She gives me permission to stay as long as I choose with my mother,” Frances owned. “It wasn’t true what I told her, but I was surprised to see you, and I thought she might ask awkward questions. How did you discover where I was?”

  “I saw Miss La Garde, who told me. Late yesterday I received a letter from her, sent by special courier. I shall be ever in her debt for her good offices.”

  “Will you? It puzzles me why Julia concerns herself with my affairs.”

  “Out of pure good nature, I assure you. She discovered how it was with me and she has taken compassion on me.”

  “Really?” Frances smile pitied his simplicity. “I would not have said that Julia was particularly kind-hearted. But perhaps I wrong her.”

  “You do, cousin, you do! She wrote to tell me of how you stated two evenings since that you would marry anyone whose fortune was of a moderate figure, so that they would have you with honour.”

  In the dimming light of the late afternoon Lennox could see that Frances had coloured furiously. She turned aside her head, for her gay little feathered hat afforded her no protection from his penetrating gaze. But her hands in their cream-coloured, pearl-sewn gauntlet gloves clenched nervously, and his own right hand closed upon them.

  “Am I too late?” he asked.

  “Too late for what?”

  “Have you not been overwhelmed by eager suitors? Fairness might prompt you to accept the first offer.”

  “Nobody has offered. I did not expect it. It was a madness. I am sure nobody took it seriously. I drank too much wine, and I am less able than Your Grace to conceal it when I am half tipsy.”

  “I am not half-tipsy now,” said Lennox. “I have abstained for the entire day.”

  “But ’tis sultry for the time of year, and your thirst must have been excessive.”

  “Not so consuming as my hopes, which were not too promising, I grant you, and could have been nil. I was far from expecting a clear field, but since ’tis so, there is but one thing to ask. Will you have me?”

  “Have you?” repeated Frances stupidly.

  “Surely ’tis plain enough. You offered yourself to any who would take you in honour. That at least I can promise, though I’m in debt and shall only clear myself to fall into it again. But I’m worth more than a couple of thousand a year.”

  Frances turned her head to look at him closely. She said: “Are you in your right senses, or is it just your pretence that you are sober?”

  “How can I be anything else, when I have not so much as set my lips to a tankard of ale? I drank water and a great pity it roused in me for the beasts of the field who have no alternative.”

  “One can only pray it won’t give you a chill on your stomach, though with use you may grow accustomed to it,” and Frances barely suppressed a giggle.

  “Heaven forbid! ’Twas a very special occasion.”

  “If you married me, there would be many such occasion. Not that I take you seriously, cousin.”

  “But you must take me seriously. Can you suppose that I have driven all the way from Cobham to make foolish jests? I persuaded myself it would be best not to see you again.”

  “Then why did you?”

  “Because when I heard there might be a chance for me I could not help myself. God knows you’re a cruel jade, Frances Stuart, and I’m a fool to have set my heart on you. But there it i
s. Take it or leave it.”

  “But of course I shall leave it,” she retorted disdainfully.

  “Then you’ll be a fool as well as a jade. Julia La Garde is certain that you are scared half out of your wits. Our Royal Cousin has put his foot down, I suspect. Has said he’ll be played with no longer, and that you’ll either come to terms or…”

  “Or?” Frances queried haughtily.

  “’Pon my soul, I haven’t a notion what threats he used. Don’t think I’m not in sympathy with Charles. He deserves it mayhap, but he’s met his match in you. Small blame to him if at last his patience is at an end, and he takes you by force as a lesser man would have taken you months ago.”

  “Don’t!” Frances exclaimed in a stifled murmur, and beneath his grasp her hands trembled.

  Lennox, however, was now remorseless. “I’d think the better of you if you played fair with him,” he said.

  “But I can’t, I can’t. I would rather die. Oh, don’t you understand that I can’t.”

  “Yes…I understand,” Lennox said quietly.

  “And it’s not because I’m a tease and a cheat. I never wanted to be, or I don’t think I did. At first it seemed fun, exciting and — not any harm. I dare say if I had ever loved him I might have forgotten all else — but — oh, I’ll be honest with you, though it’s more than you deserve for your brutality. Sometimes I think I can never love as women do love. I am fond of the King. Were he my brother I would be — be devoted to him; but to give myself to him…no, I cannot. It would have been dreadful had the Queen died, for I could not have refused marriage. All it meant would have been too much for me. The fact is, people are right when they say I have a cold heart, and often I’ve grieved for it.”

  There was silence. The horses were now carrying them farther afield towards the villages of Chelsea and Kensington.

  “He is too old for you,” Lennox said with calm confidence, “and he has had too many women. It has made him repugnant to you. As for the others who have flocked about you, are they any better?”