James was looking at her, his dark eyes anxious. She must respond. “Thank you, my brother,” she said in halting English.
He smiled. “You’re very welcome,” he said, more confident. “You need not feel obliged to adopt our English ways all at once, you know. You’ve brought your own cooks, I understand?”
Catherine nodded.
“Good, good.” The Duke’s gaze fell upon the snowy gown. “And if you prefer to wear your native dress, I promise you no one will take it amiss, least of all Charles. I’m sure you look charmingly in it.”
His voice and expression were kind, indulgent. Like a man talking to a stranger’s child, she thought. For a moment she could not think what to say. Her head ached fiercely. “Too kind,” she murmured, and then, more strongly: “Now, will you not be seated? I wish these gentlemen to be made known to me.”
• • •
The day after the Royal Charles sailed into Portsmouth Harbor, the Duke of York’s household gathered in the forecourt to give the new Queen of England a proper English welcome. Fanned down from the front steps in neat rows, men to one side, women to the other, they stood in the bright May sunshine, brushing specks from their livery, adjusting caps and sleeves.
In the last rank of women, among the other chambermaids, stood young Jenny Martin, atwitter with anticipation. She’d starched her cuffs and pressed her apron and tucker. If the queen’s eye should chance to fall upon her, she wanted to be sure that it found her neat and brisk.
Jenny had ambitions. Other chambermaids might be content to spend their lives cleaning night pots and making beds, but not Jenny. Someday, Jenny meant to wait upon a great lady, with absolute power over patch box and hot tongs, ribbons and laces. To this end, she studied the mode, and though she was only fifteen, had opinions about busks and sleeves and lace collars. She knew how to dress a head and wire a curl so that it wouldn’t droop at the first sign of rain.
Trumpets sounded outside the gates and menservants ran to open them. Everybody straightened and put on their best solemn faces as a line of carriages rumbled into the forecourt.
The first carriage held the duke and a slight, pale girl wrapped up in a velvet cloak—the new Queen of England, Jenny realized with a shock. How tiny she is! Jenny thought as the duke handed her ceremoniously out of the carriage. How dark her hair and eyes! And none too steady on her feet, Jenny noticed as she passed, lips pressed tight, clinging to the duke’s arm. Why, she thought with sudden pity, the poor lady’s sick as a parrot.
And then duke and queen were inside and the foreign ladies-in-waiting were descending, the wide wings of their old-fashioned farthingales swinging and bumping, dark as crows and solemn as deacons. Jenny slipped into the front hall, where the queen was speaking to the duke in—blessed be all the saints—Spanish! The duke, clearly dismayed, turned to the lackey by the door.
“The queen asks for tea,” he said. “Send someone around the coffeehouses to find if some tea may be procured. Best bring up some small ale first. Well, hurry, man!”
The lackey bustled off, reappearing a few moments later with a silver tankard on a salver. Behind her pillar, Jenny watched the queen take it and sniff it gingerly. “And what is this?” she asked in Spanish.
“Small ale, Madam, an English drink. Very refreshing,” said the duke.
Doubtfully, the queen took a sip, made a face, then choked and turned an unhealthy yellow that showed crimson spots of cochineal blazing on her cheeks. A elderly lady in black swam forward to support her just in time for the poor girl—Her Majesty the Queen, Jenny corrected herself—to spew the ale and whatever she’d eaten that morning over the black-and-white checked tile of the hall.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then an uproar of women’s voices gabbling in what must be Portuguese and the duke shouting for a physician and what sounded like smothered laughter from the younger members of the duke’s entourage. Jenny started forward to kneel before the little queen and mop up the floor with her own apron.
The lady in black cuffed her soundly, only to be reproved by a faint, sweet voice. A moment later, the same voice, in hesitant, oddly accented English, said, “Zank you.”
Jenny flushed, ducked her head, wadded up her filthy apron, and flew to the kitchen on the wings of excitement. The queen had thanked her. And the poor lady was ill—anyone with half an eye could see that. Trust a sailor to thrust small ale on her when what she needed was Jenny’s mother’s infusion of whortleberry leaves and licorice, well-seethed with honey. Surely Cook had the leaves in her store—they were sovereign against cold vomits.
A little time later, Jenny, in a fresh apron and her best lawn tucker, carried a steaming mug to the door of the queen’s apartments. She tapped and entered a scene of considerable upheaval. Open boxes and scattered clothes bore mute witness to a fruitless search, undoubtedly for tea. The flock of black swans fluttered and honked anxiously around the queen, who lay shivering in the great, curtained bed.
Poor mite, Jenny thought as she approached. They’d managed to get her out of her stained gown, at least, though her hair was still dressed over what looked to be a birdcage.
The lady who had cuffed Jenny seized her arm. “What are you doing, girl?” she demanded in Spanish.
She clearly did not expect to be understood; her mouth gaped in astonishment when Jenny answered her in the same language. “Your pardon, madoña. It is only a little tisane to settle Her Majesty’s stomach.”
The lady frowned—she had a good face for frowning, narrow and sharp under her headdress. But from the bed, the sweet voice said, “In the names of all the saints, godmother, let me drink, before I perish of thirst.”
The lady seized the cup, sniffed it, tasted, nodded, and handed it to the queen, who drank gratefully before lying back among her pillows with a sigh. The large dark eyes glanced up and around, searching. “Where is the girl?”
The lady gestured impatiently to Jenny, who stepped forward and sank into a deep curtsy.
“What is your name, child?” the queen asked. “And how does it come that you speak such excellent Spanish?”
Jenny swallowed. “My name is Jenny Martin, so please Your Majesty, and my mother is Spanish. My father met her when he fought in the late Spanish wars.”
A wan smile. “We have something in common, it seems. My father, too, fought the Spaniards and took a Spanish wife.”
Titters from the flock of black swans. The blood rose to Jenny’s face. “If Your Majesty pleases, I will take the gown to be cleaned.”
“Yes, of course.” The great dark eyes moved to the stern lady, who was scowling. “Give her the gown, Condessa, and a gold piece. Her queen’s gratitude she has already.” She smiled again. “You have a quick wit, Jenny. We will speak again.”
She pronounced her name “Zsonna,” in the Portuguese manner, but Jenny understood. Charmed and awed, she rose, snatched up the gown, and fled to the laundry, singing.
• • •
It was raining still when Charles swanned into the Theatre Royal with Barbara at his side and a pack of courtiers at his heels. The house was only half full, but it rang with the cheerful noise of Londoners milling about the benches in the pit and up in the galleries, chatting, intriguing, flirting. In the gloomy afternoon light filtering through the glass dome overhead, the plain wooden thrust stage had a forlorn, abandoned air, biding its time until the actors stepped out upon it and spoke, when all would spring to glorious life: the invariable and inexplicable magic of the theater. It was a magic Charles never tired of. Reviving London theater had been one of his first acts upon regaining his throne, and vastly popular.
Just inside the entrance, Charles saw his impresario, Thomas Killigrew, chewing on his moustache. He caught the man’s eye and the shadowed face lit up as he bowed in welcome.
“Thomas!” cried the king. “You’ve something new for us today, I think?” and swept him along with an arm under his, Barbara at his other hand, looking as splendid as any queen. Behind him, h
is followers—lords and ladies, poets and wits—were a comet’s tail of jewels, satins, bright colors and gleaming hair. As the house rose and greeted him with noisy cheers, Charles waved his hat and bounded up the steps to the royal box, where he and his friends made themselves comfortable, his page pouring and passing wine.
The crowd returned to its idle pleasures below and about him, but with a difference, a heightened glow, a giddiness in the air, because their king was there.
It would have been unheard of in the old days, he knew. His late father wouldn’t have dreamed of lowering himself to go among the common people. If Charles I wanted to see a play, he sent for players to come to him.
Charles drank from his glass, and lowered it to find Killigrew looking at him anxiously. “Well, Tom? Why all a-gloom?”
“Your Majesty,” Killigrew began, giving rather an impression of having planned his speech, “you know me of old. You know that I love but three things in this world: my king, my city, and my theater.”
“Why, what of drink and doxies?” Charles interjected with an air of innocent inquiry.
Killigrew gestured loftily. “Common necessities, sir, we may take them as read. Now my king is restored, praise God; our city is recovering, by your grace. But my theater is in crisis once more, and this day may doom it or raise it to a glory to rival all the history of the English theater. And all, all is in your hands.”
“What eloquence—you should put it in a play and mend your fortunes that way.”
Killigrew ignored this mild sally. “Sir—it is the playhouse!” he said earnestly. “We are already sadly out of date, out of fashion—His Grace the duke’s theater has all the latest and left us standing—we must have a new house, it is a matter of the prestige of the English theater! The prestige of your theater, your gift to the people after the long banishment of not only your royal self but of the noblest of arts by that most joyless of killjoys, Oliver Cromwell. Does not such a gift—such a matchless gem—merit an equally wondrous setting? Indeed—”
To stem the flow of Killigrew’s eloquence, Charles held up his hand, laughing. “My dear fellow, enough! Never fret yourself—come to the palace tomorrow and go over it all with Wren.”
Killigrew’s fair hair all but stood out from his head. “Wren? Christopher Wren? Your own builder?”
“I believe he prefers architect, but yes. Od’s fish, do you think I haven’t noticed how behind the times the King’s Company has fallen? My brother’s theater outshine us? That won’t do. No, you come and explain what you need to Wren. There’s a spot in Drury Lane will do you very well, I believe. And we’ll have all the latest in scenery and cunning devices to make them stretch their eyes.”
The still-soldierly impresario’s chest seemed to expand; he could hardly find words to express his elation. Charles gazed at him benevolently. “Come, Thomas. What would I not do for any man who shared my exile?”
Killigrew raised his glass to Charles. “Your health, dearest Majesty.” Flushed with his success, he went on, “Speaking of your brother, where is His Grace today?”
Charles looked out over the crowd as though an unwelcome thought had come upon him of a sudden. “In Portsmouth.” He shot Killigrew a wry look. “Meeting the money for your new playhouse.”
• • •
Barbara was enjoying the rapid wit of the wild young lords known as the Merry Gang and the Ballers—wild Sedley, rich and haughty Buckingham, quarrelsome Dorset, gentle Etheridge the poet—who had invited a few favorite actors to join them for a drink before the play. They would all drink deeper afterward, but Charles had made it clear from the first day he reopened the playhouses that his friends were not to become excessively rowdy before or during the performance. The king actually liked to hear the plays. He even left his spaniels at home so they would not bark and mar a scene.
Barbara was holding out her own glass to be refilled when she noticed the Lord Chancellor making his ponderous and determined way toward Charles. He was a magisterial man beginning to stoop, his hair and little pointed beard going gray now. He had been Charles’s counselor since he was a young prince and had stood by him through everything; Charles trusted him completely. Barbara did wonder if he ever might begin to chafe at Clarendon’s domineering airs. But perhaps that was wishful thinking.
She stepped away from her friends and deftly intercepted him. Unwillingly enough, he stopped, took her offered hand, and bowed as she said, “Cousin! I am surprised to see you here.”
“How, surprised?”
“Only that you surely have weighty matters to contend with that should keep you from this scene of frivolity.”
His thin lips pursed. “It is true that I do not take joy in watching the court disport itself so frivolously when, as you say, weightier matters face the country.”
“But you don’t begrudge the king his pleasures? He has paid for them, would you not agree?”
Barbara watched Clarendon’s narrow eyes glance toward the king, who had turned from Killigrew and was chatting now with that silly child, Frances Stuart. A distant relation of some sort, shipped over from Paris by the king’s mother to be a maid of honor to the new queen. She had a sly look of innocence about her, like an unblown rose. Barbara thought her insipid.
“Uncommonly pretty, the Stuart girl,” said Clarendon. “All that spun-gold hair. You are quite right, to be sure; the king has earned some pleasures.”
Well! That was pure cattiness, but it would take more than such an obvious barb to provoke her. She gave Clarendon a disdainful look and he frowned, as if annoyed at himself for stooping to bait her.
“To be honest, my lady,” he went on, “I had hoped to divert the king’s attention to business, and to his setting off to Portsmouth. I am at a loss to understand his delay.” A dark glower gave the lie to his words. “His marriage is a great endeavor, a great event, after all. Much depends on it. We have long felt the want of a gracious queen in this land.”
“Indeed,” Barbara said. Her irritation was becoming difficult to conceal; her fingers itched to slap his great, fat jowls. “Marriage is always a great affair, and most especially in princes. We all marveled at your skill in maneuvering your own daughter into marriage with the king’s brother, for example. A future queen, if the king were to have no sons. How proud you must be!”
There, that should hit the mark. And indeed, the look on Clarendon’s face and the stiffening of his spine were all she could have hoped for.
“I think you must know, my lady, that not only had I nothing to do with that union, I would have stopped it if I had had the slightest idea of it.” His fleshy cheeks quivered with indignation. “My own daughter secretly marrying the duke, when all the world might think I encouraged it!”
“Oh yes, I can imagine your feelings, especially when James thought better of it and attempted to cast her off, despite her being with child. She must be an admirable horsewoman, not to have been unseated when he bucked!”
Clarendon’s color heightened. “What is this insolence? Have you no respect for your own family?”
“No more respect than you have for me,” Barbara hissed. “Do you think I do not know you counsel the king to throw me off?”
“I do not scruple to admit I do; you are scandalous! Greedy and licentious and likely to bankrupt the nation—those jewels you are wearing would finance half a war!”
Behind her, the Merry Gang had fallen suspiciously silent. This was getting out of hand. Barbara laughed and playfully tapped the Lord Chancellor’s chest with her fan.
“Tush, cousin, your passion carries you into gross exaggeration. The king is generous, and rewards his friends. Which I have ever been. I may have no wealth of my own, but I am proud to be rich in the king’s regard. As you see, he is not disposed for business today; I suggest you try him on the morrow.”
Clarendon stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“My lady, take heed. It is one thing to dally with an unmarried king. But now he is to be wed, I give you warni
ng. I will use all of my influence to see Catherine of Braganza is the only queen in England.”
Barbara raised her head, and gave him a steely smile. “I wish you joy of your influence. But I think you’ll find the counsel chamber less decisive than the bedchamber in such matters, after all.”
Their eyes held for a moment, testing, warning. Then Clarendon gave her the briefest and coldest of bows, she nodded, and he withdrew from the field of combat. She gestured to the page for more wine. She’d had the final word, but was not at all sure her victory had been as decisive as she could have wished. She must oust her cousin from Charles’s affection and trust, if ever the opportunity should present itself.
As she turned to rejoin her friends, she bit her lip as she saw Clarendon greeted by Charles and drawn aside for a more private conference.
• • •
Charles had half-listened to Barbara and Clarendon’s sparring even as he gazed at the beautiful Lady Stuart. Chatting with the girl took very little of his attention; her wit flickered where it should sparkle, but one couldn’t help but admire her looks. She seemed extraordinarily innocent as well, but knowing she’d grown up in the French court, he thought that must be a protective device, an appearance of perfect virtue to ward off unwanted suitors. As a novelty, it was rather charming.
Charles’s attention strayed out over the theater. He noticed an orange girl staring at him and rewarded her with a wink. There was Pepys from the Admiralty with his wife—a deferential bow from them both, acknowledged with a nod. Useful man, Pepys; James thought a lot of him. There were the happy people in the pit, glad to be idle enough of an afternoon to see a play and the king. He liked their cheers, he liked to be loved as much as any man. But he did sometimes wonder whether the same crowds had cheered as loud when his father’s head had been cut off before their eyes. Oh, he’d been told a “great groan” had gone up. But then, they would tell him that.
He knew he was thought cheerful, even frivolous. He went to some pains to give that impression; it was part of this new age, after all, to replace the dour Puritan with a merry king. He thought no one, not even James, certainly not Barbara, had any idea how shallow his merriment went. Which was as it should be. He’d fought a great war, starting in his beardless youth; he’d been a penniless mercenary, a desperate exile, a poor relation in a foreign court, a pawn in other men’s plans until he’d learned to shake off outside influences—though both Barbara and Clarendon cherished illusions on that score. Now he was home at last, having resumed his place in the world and avenged his father (modestly enough—no more than a dozen regicides executed, though no man would have blamed him for unleashing a bloodbath). He couldn’t complain that even his nearest friends did not guess how a lifetime of longing had left him ill-fit to enjoy what he’d regained. It created in him a restlessness that he physicked with near constant activity: riding, dancing, swimming in the river, a furious speed of walking and a ferocious style of tennis. And, of course, a great deal of love-making. With the edges of his restlessness blunted, he was better able to address the business of being king in this demanding, complicated, fractious age.
Whitehall--Season One Volume One Page 3