Lady on the Coin

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  “There, there! Your Grace is so young there will be others. Several maybe,” comforted kind Mrs. Harvest, but Frances shook her head speechlessly. She did not believe that she would be given a second chance of bearing a child. The presentiment was so strong that it amounted to certainty.

  The good old family doctor, more sensible than many of his kind, took the housekeeper aside.

  “Her Grace is not as strong as she seems,” he said. “She has a buoyant spirit which deceives herself as well as others, but of a truth she is fragile. Send as quickly as may be to His Grace, the Duke, and belike he will, the war being over, be able to return to her. And if she has a mother or any older female relation it might be a solace to her were they with her at this time.”

  Mrs. Harvest knew that Frances’ mother lived in London, and had even heard that it was at Somerset House. While a servant on horseback was sent off to Dorset to acquaint the Duke of the ill-tidings, the family coach was sent on its way to London.

  Within a day or two Mistress Stuart was at her daughter’s bedside, and whatever previous complaint Frances may have had of her, she had none now, for her mother’s sympathy was deep, and she tended her with loving care.

  Soon afterwards, Lennox arrived, having spurred from Dorset with few intervals for rest. When he took his young wife in his arms, he murmured the words she had already heard from her mother and the housekeeper.

  “Such mishaps are frequent, my sweet. You must forget it and grow strong again. Never doubt but that we shall have sons and daughters in plenty, for this is but a small misfortune.”

  It seemed so indeed to Frances, now that he had returned unhurt and with such love for her. How could she grieve when their separation was over, and to him she could not bring herself to say what, in spite of the doctor’s reassurances, she still believed, that for them there would be no sons or daughters. They must find all their happiness in each other.

  Twenty-One

  Now that the war was over with France as well as with Holland, Charles and Henrietta-Anne could resume the correspondence which had been impossible for nearly two years. The Queen Dowager returned to England, though she told her daughter she would be in France again before the winter set in, and it was from her, not from Frances, that Henrietta heard of Frances’ marriage and the King’s anger with her.

  The Queen Dowager had already interceded with her son on Frances’ account, but she had met with no success. Knowing that Henrietta could nearly always get her own way with him, she suggested that she might write herself to Charles, reminding him of her affection for Frances. This Henrietta did, but she received an uncompromising reply.

  “I do assure you,” Charles wrote, “that I am very much troubled that I cannot in everything give you that satisfaction I could wish, especially in the business of the Duchess of Lennox and Richmond, wherein you may think me ill-natured.”

  Frances, the King continued, had given him great provocation and had injured him sorely. She was one for whom he had had great tenderness, and it was a hard thing to swallow such an injury.

  Charles was one who usually found it easy to forgive, and the Queen thought, and he missed her sorely as at contemplative moments he so often looked melancholy. Frances, more than anyone else, had amused and enlivened him. Although more flippant than witty, she had nearly always been able to make him laugh. They shared a sense of the ludicrous, the Queen thought, and he missed her sorely as a companion.

  Was that in reality what he had most needed from her? A gay, irresponsible companionship, a friendship shot with a romantic affection? It seemed unlikely when one considered the promiscuous Charles, and yet, as Frances had not been his mistress, it was not thus carnally that he now missed her. No — it was her gaiety that had entranced him. There was a magnetism in such vitality and high spirits and laughter, powerful enough to banish Charles’ dark moods. It came to Catherine that if Frances returned to Court as a happily married young woman, Charles, though setting aside all hope of possessing her, could still find happiness in her.

  If only one could persuade him of this. But Catherine knew the time was not yet ripe.

  Meanwhile, Henrietta and Frances wrote to each other, and presently the young Duchess of Orleans made a suggestion. Since Charles was obdurate and, even with Cobham Hall to engross her, it was unthinkable that Frances and her husband should be in perpetual rustication, why not spend the winter months at least in France?

  In addition to his other titles, Lennox was the hereditary Duke of Aubigny, a state in Berri, which had been bestowed on an ancestor of his in the fifteenth century by Charles VII, then the reigning King of France. Henrietta was sure that if she raised this matter with Louis, he would put Lennox in possession of the estate of Aubigny. Then, suggested Henrietta, Frances could become one of the Queen Dowager’s ladies, or one of her own.

  Lennox and Frances talked over the matter, though with no great enthusiasm.

  “It is true,” Lennox said, “that neither of us would be happy in perpetual exile, dear though Cobham is to us. You would find the winter here dull enough.”

  “It is not so much the dullness, but being forbidden to show our faces in the King’s sight,” Frances returned. “What have either of us done to him? And you, if war broke out again, would be immediately torn from me to serve him. Fond though I am of ’Rietta, and dearly though I would like to see her again, I would not wish to exile ourselves in France, as though we had committed some unspeakable crime. Besides, what an undertaking it would be to journey there and back to Cobham. To get to London is easy enough.”

  “I had thought of Scotland as a change for you,” Lennox said. “Your Blantyre cousins would give you a great welcome, but my sister is living on my estate there, and I could hardly make a different arrangement for her; while as for being their guests for any considerable time — well, she is a cantankerous piece, some years older than I, and I doubt if you would get on with her or her husband O’Brien. I have found it hard enough to keep on good terms with them.”

  “Then it would be even harder for me,” Frances said promptly. “When I look back, though I wasn’t then conscious of it, it does seem as though few women had much liking for me. It was always their husbands.”

  Lennox laughed. “You didn’t trouble to make big eyes at the wives. But even you would find O’Brien a hard nut to crack, for he’s woman-proof if ever a man was. In good truth, he and Kate are a sour-looking pair.”

  “Then don’t let’s go near them!”

  “If I thought there was a chance that you could win them over to liking it might be good policy,” Lennox said. “It is like this, my Heart. If we by ill-chance have no son of our own, I can but leave you a life-interest in both Cobham and the lands in Scotland.”

  “Don’t!” Frances said, and it was as though the flowering gardens through which they walked were suddenly darkened. “If you died, nothing would have any value to me in my loneliness. But why speak of it? You are young and strong — we shall live to be old together.” She laughed, and the sun once more steeped all around in a brilliant light. “I shall be a formidable old woman. I can see myself — so tall and thin and my nose will look hooked then — a witch’s nose!”

  He teased her, pretending to see signs already of such a nose, and then he said: “We shall do better in London once the summer is over. Your mother will be pleased to have us at Somerset House, and now that the Queen Dowager is there, you will see your sister Sophie.”

  “So I shall.” Frances’ eyes glinted mischievously. “It won’t worry the Queen Dowager if the King is annoyed, because she countenances us. It never worried her to be at odds with him. We shall be able to hold our own Court there.”

  So they did, much to the King’s annoyance when it came to his ears. Frances, he said angrily, had no sense of what was fitting.

  The Queen retorted blandly: “No girl ever made less of ceremony or treated you more as your own sister would have done had she been in England.”

  “Not prec
isely as a sister,” Charles objected, unwilling to think that he had failed to stir Frances emotionally. But then he caught Catherine’s somewhat sardonic smile and laughed sheepishly. “Men are vain fools. I strive to convince myself against all evidence that the minx would have lost her heart to me had I been unmarried.”

  “I can’t think how it was that she didn’t, even though you were married,” Catherine said with perfect honesty, and Charles was as much touched as amused.

  “I am not an Adonis,” he pointed out.

  “Adonis was nothing but a foolish boy.”

  Charles laughed and patted her shoulder. There was nobody who understood him better and for whom he had more affection. It was a cruelty she was unable to bear children, which might well have reformed him, or so he told himself. With a legitimate son or two there would have been security, not all this dissatisfaction about the succession because his brother James was a Papist. The heir to the throne would have been reared a Protestant, though that would have been a grief to his Catherine and a torment to her conscience, so perhaps it was as well, thought Charles, who could generally see the redeeming side of any misfortune.

  He couldn’t, however, be philosophical about Frances, whom he missed as he had never missed any woman. Her laugh echoed in his ears and her face haunted him. She had had the gift of making him feel young and carefree, and nobody else could do that, not even Nell Gwyn, the witty, saucy, Drury Lane actress. Nell’s quips amused him, and he believed she had a genuine fondness for him, but she had none of Frances’ innocence, her breeding and fastidiousness. This had appealed to him more than he realized. Nell’s chief asset was a boundless though entertaining vulgarity. It had been easier to put Frances out of his mind and to harden his heart against her while she was at Cobham, but now he was conscious of her nearness. Julia La Garde prattled of her to Catherine and sometimes Charles was within earshot. The La Garde girl had attempted to emulate Frances in many of her insouciant ways, and there were those who admired her and thought her as charming, but Charles was unmoved by the languishing glances she cast at him, and Barbara Castlemaine, who divined the girl’s aspirations, mimicked her as cruelly as Nell Gwyn sometimes mimicked Barbara.

  Frances, though forbidden to show herself at Court, was not neglected. At Somerset House, as Charles knew, she gave frequent receptions. His mother had returned to France after a brief visit, and Frances’ sister Sophie, who had grown into an exceedingly pretty girl, had gone with her. Courtiers, who had missed Frances when she was banished, now flocked to see her, and Charles could not bring himself to forbid it. He heard of Lennox’s obvious content, and of the new moderation in his drinking and gambling habits with secret rancour. Nothing would ever make him like Lennox. Though forced to admit that he had good qualities, he would always think of him as a dull fellow and wonder at Frances’ partiality.

  Aware as Charles was of the frequent absences from Court of those he most favoured, he was astonished when these truants were again seen there regularly, and he then put the direct question, enquiring sarcastically if La Belle Stuart had left for Cobham. The reply that Frances was ill with the small-pox threw him into consternation. Her life was in no danger, Charles was told, but the disfiguring rash was severe.

  Little else could be learnt, for, afraid of the infection, everyone was shunning Somerset House, but it was said that Lennox was distraught with anxiety and hardly left her side. It was thought that her sight might be affected and that she would be badly scarred.

  Charles was aghast, so was the Queen when he told her of Frances’ illness, and without any prompting from her, Charles wrote to both Lennox and Frances, telling them they were forgiven.

  Frances, who had borne her illness with fortitude, broke down and cried when she received the King’s letter. “He has a good heart after all,” she said, “and even if I am to look hideous, perhaps it is worth it, my dearest, if it restores you to favour.”

  “I would rather be out of favour for ever,” Lennox retorted, “than that you should be pitted with the smallest scar. We should have stayed at Cobham where the disease is a rarity. Should your sweet face be marred…”

  “Do not scare her,” interposed Mistress Stuart irately. “As you know, Frances has shown wondrous self-control and has not torn at her spots.”

  “Which was chiefly due to my lord, Maman, for he went from one apothecary to another in search of a particular eye water and skin lotion which few stocked, but which he had heard averted blemishes. They were most soothing. If when the rash fades I am found to be not badly marked, it will be thanks to him.”

  Mistress Stuart could not deny it, though her temper through long days and nights of nursing Frances had sharpened. Lennox had become so despondent that she had little patience with him, and now that the doctors said that Frances’ state was no longer infectious, the two, who had devotedly tended her, rasped one another. Frances in the early stages of convalescence was in no condition to act as peacemaker, and upheld her mother when she said: “Frances is now more in need of rest than anything else. As the King has lifted his ban, why not show yourself at Court, and reassure those who no doubt have been anxious about your wife? Do not on any account let them suppose that in future she will look unsightly.”

  Lennox at last allowed himself to be persuaded, and Frances then entreated Mistress Stuart to go to her own room and rest. She got her own way, and was no sooner alone than she searched for and found the mirror that had been hidden from her. Hitherto she had not asked for it, for she had dreaded to look at herself, but she was strong enough now, she decided, though as she returned to her bed with the mirror clutched to her breast she was praying fervently that she might not appear too hideous.

  Tears at first blurred her sight, but she dashed them away and then gazed earnestly at her reflection. She was not such a terrible sight as she had feared. Her skin was still blotched and her face looked swollen, her eyes were sunken and dimmed, but the horrible spots had disappeared, leaving no mark. Her once healthful cream-and-peaches complexion might return, she supposed, and her eyes would not always ache so incessantly.

  At this moment the door-handle turned and the door was pushed open. Frances turned, prepared to remonstrate with her mother, whom she had hoped was asleep by now. Instead, she gave a startled cry, for it was the King who stood on the threshold.

  “My poor Frances! My poor, sweet child,” he said.

  “Sire!”

  The mirror was cast aside. Frances made as though to dive beneath the bed-clothes, but the King’s arms were round her. He kissed her forehead and held her tenderly.

  “You should not — you should not!” exclaimed Frances.

  “Why not? The doctors say there is no further fear of infection and I have longed to see you. I was told your husband had been seen on his way to Whitehall, and I wished first to talk to you alone. I took a boat and sculled myself down the river, but when I landed I found the garden-door was locked, so I climbed over the wall.”

  “Your Majesty did that!”

  “Why not? Once I was within, my troubles were over. I knew your room. I have passed and looked up at the window, with the light burning in it at nights, more than once these last weeks.”

  “You — you cared enough for that?” Frances said in wonder, and then the mirth which was so much a part of her and which he had so sorely missed bubbled up and she shook with laughter. “But to climb that high wall with the spikes on top. You — the King of England! Oh, Charles, did you tear your clothes?”

  “I am not yet so old that I cannot vault over the top of a wall — since there were footholds between the bricks.”

  “But suppose you had been seen, and by one not recognizing you, who would have taken you for a robber?”

  “I had a care of that. There were none about.”

  Frances’ thoughts veered to herself. She faltered. “If I had known, if you had sent a message warning me, I would have put up a better appearance.”

  Instinctively she had pulled
over her face the gauze scarf which she had used of late as a shield for her eyes when the light was strong, and she was thankful that her mother had tended her with such care, changing the bed-linen daily, keeping the window ajar and freshening the room frequently with a lilac-scented water. Her night-shift was of silk and the curtains of the four-poster were of rose-coloured damask. If only he would not look at her face.

  But now Charles was gently turning it towards him, and her lips trembled.

  “Come, now, there is no great difference,” he said tenderly. “And these are early days. You will see, within a few weeks the last mark will have disappeared.”

  “They do say that even at the best my left eyelid will droop somewhat,” Frances said.

  “Do not believe it. You will be as beautiful as ever. But it is not only beauty you have, Frances, it is your gay spirit and your happy heart. How I have pined for them, there is no telling. Though having taken stock of myself these last days, I am fain to own that I deserved to lose you.”

  “No. It was as much my fault as yours,” Frances insisted. “I was vain and foolish and I promised you that which I had no right to promise, which in my heart I meant to give only to one who wedded me. I don’t deserve that you should be here now, and so — so kind to me.”

  Her voice shook on the last words and Charles said: “I wish I could have been with you when you were at your worst. Do you remember telling me when the Queen was so ill, that if you were ever in like case you hoped you might have as good a nurse as I had proved myself?”

  Frances did remember, but at the thought of the King tending her, of her mother’s incredulous dismay and of Lennox’s furious anger, she once again shook with laughter.

  “Oh, the scandal that would have caused! It would have been retailed in history from one generation to another. Still, if you had, the very madness of it would have gone far to cure me. What heaven it is to laugh again! My poor husband and my poor mother have so grieved over me, and so rated one another.”