Isabel the Fair

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

“The years when I was some sort of comfort to you for Gaveston.”

  “Happier, God knows, than I am now,” he added, ignoring her brutal thrust.

  She sat up and looked at him, trying to see his point of view for the first time. “That is possibly true,” she admitted. “You used to laugh then — you were lovable and spontaneously gay — almost like you were when I first knew you. Else I suppose I should not have wanted you so desperately for myself.”

  He sat on the edge of her bed, looking at her sadly as if from a long way off. “Do not wholly condemn me, Isabel. My life has not been easy, either. You speak of urges which you do not understand.”

  “Perhaps. But I speak of things which I have been obliged to bear.”

  “I am sorry, ma chere.” He got up with a deep sigh and he moved away from her with an air of regretful finality, as if all were finished between them. For a few moments he stood idly twisting the crimson tassels of her bed curtains. “You are clever, and full of perspicacity. Hugh Despenser did make the diabolical suggestion that I should come.” He saw the spasm of rage which shook her, and hurried on with an endearing penitence which was the best part of him and might at any other time have moved her. “But I do assure you that it was not wholly his urging nor any politic desire to placate your brother which made me come to you tonight. I came here because sometimes — when the Church has been at me — I try to fight this taint which I seem to have been born with. And I hoped that you would forget and forgive.”

  She slid down from the great bed and stood facing him with blazing eyes. “I was fool enough to forget and forgive — once. But not a second time. What do men like you expect of their wives?” She saw that he was genuinely shaken by her savagery and liked him better in that pathetic moment, but was honest enough to see that a plea of reconciliation could but wipe out the comfortable justification for her own infidelity. “It is not I, or my body, that you really want,” she went on a little impatiently, as though explaining something to a backward child. “Do you not see that it is some remembered state of life — a return to childhood security — which weak people crave — oblivion from your own self-contempt, that you are seeking? And because you remember those unreproachful domestic years of ours you hope to find it with me. But I am Isabel the Fair. I” — she groped for words and Roger Mortimer’s came to her — “I was not made for a half marriage like that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Isabel was to find that she could not deny the King her bed with impunity. When he recalled her to Westminster she had gone willingly, hoping that he had relented towards her and that the conditions of her life would be improved. But it was only to find that most of her trusted servants had been dismissed and that Despenser’s wife was appointed to her household — ostensibly to take the place of a favourite French countess but in reality to govern her actions and to spy on her. Considering the woman’s nature and the antipathy which existed between them, this was the cruellest blow that Edward could have dealt her. But he seemed to be more and more under the domination of Despenser. And now he must have allowed himself to be persuaded to find an appointment elsewhere for her faithful Robert Le Messages who had hitherto managed to guard her from some of Lady Despenser’s malevolent annoyances. And this appointment would mean losing Ghislaine, too, because she herself had already given permission for them to marry.

  When bidding the prospective bridegroom good-bye she walked with him to the top of the water steps where his waiting barge was moored, bobbing on a full, slapping tide. And because he had been with her all her married life and she would miss him so sorely, she stood talking with him in the morning sunlight about his new appointment, the house she was giving him as a wedding gift and the arrangements for his forthcoming marriage. “Be kind to my Ghislaine,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “There have been many times, God forgive me, when I have been impatient with her myself, but my household will be dreary indeed without her.”

  And all the time she was with him she was conscious of a tall, lean friar in a brown habit who was watching her from the shadow of the Watergate archway. She had noticed him before when she had been talking to Robert, and his presence made her uneasy, so that she laughed a little more loudly and gestured more vivaciously than she normally would have done. She wondered if Messager, who had always been so watchful on her behalf, had noticed the man. But what man who was going to marry Ghislaine du Bois in a few days’ time would not be blind and indifferent to anything else?

  When Isabel returned to her women the sour-looking friar had moved away, but almost immediately Eleanor Despenser joined the group so that she would not ask about him. Nor, indeed, was she inclined to talk about anything in that woman’s presence, but spent a dull and silent morning. In consequence she was all the more pleased to see Edmund of Kent coming across the garden from the King’s apartments after noon. Pitying her new unenviable state, he often contrived to spend a short while with her after dining with the King, and even Eleanor — although in some sort his niece — had not the effrontery to join him and the Queen uninvited as they walked together by the river. “I am sorry you must have that spiteful piece forever at your elbow,” he muttered, in spite of his loyalty to his half-brother.

  “It is insufferable!” broke out Isabel. “I would not have minded if it had been her sister Margaret, who knows what unhappiness is — ”

  “It is done to please the Despensers, and so that you shall not write to the King of France.”

  “Nor spend a penny on pleasure, nor visit my friends, nor ride through the streets and stir the people’s hearts to pity so that they clamour for me — ”

  Soft-hearted Edmund drew her gently to a bench. “I have a feeling that it would not have been so were my dear mother still alive,” he said. “But try not to take these slights as coming from the King himself. It is hard for all of us, seeing him so — obsessed.”

  “And too weak to resist.” Lulled by the rare company of a kind relation, Isabel sat for a few moments pleasantly relaxed, as she so seldom was these days. “Edmund,” she said, her thoughts straying back to Robert’s departure.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know anything about a sinister-looking friar who hangs about the Palace — watching me?”

  “A tall, lean man with deeply hooded eyes?”

  She turned eagerly. “Then you do know him?”

  “I am afraid it must be the man they call Friar Thomas.”

  “Afraid?”

  “Because I suppose he could well be spying on you.”

  “But to what end? Do they suppose I have a backstairs lover hidden in the buttery or behind the curtains of my bed?”

  But either Edmund would not divulge what he had heard in the King’s apartments, or he could not bring himself to hurt her. He began to hedge vaguely. His facile sympathies always had betrayed him, first to one loved person and then to another, so that it was difficult to be sure which side he was really on. “In spite of your loveliness you have led such an exemplary married life that they can scarcely suspect you of that,” he said, with a nervous laugh. “But it would be as well, my dear Isabel, to be careful in all things.”

  He should have known his spirited French sister-in-law better than to suppose that such vague warnings would satisfy her. As soon as he was gone she sent for Despenser’s wife, who had no such inhibitions. Lady Despenser came in her own good time, when the Queen’s women were preparing her for bed. It seemed that she preferred to have an audience. She stood there smug and unsmiling, her hair strained back from her high shiny forehead and her hands folded secretively in the sleeves of her gown.

  “Who is this friar — this hired creature in your husband’s pay?” demanded the Queen, in a high rage. “Why do you set him to spy on me?”

  “If your Grace is referring to the learned Father Thomas he is awaiting his final instructions before setting off on an important mission to Rome.”

  “One would imagine that a mission of any importance would call for so
meone of slightly more standing,” remarked Isabel sarcastically.

  “One might indeed, Madam,” agreed Eleanor, with that hateful meekness which the Queen was beginning to fear. The woman could afford to be meek, knowing very well that Isabel’s curiosity in the matter would force her to question further, and knowing too that all the cards lay in her own and her husband’ hands.

  Isabel, sitting with unbound hair, began drawing off her rings and laying them in the velvet-lined casket held by a pert chit who had taken Ghislaine’s place. “What is the nature of this mission?” she asked, as casually as she could.

  “To persuade his Holiness the Pope to agree to a divorce.”

  The Queen’s head shot up, jerking a long tress of wavy golden hair from her tiring woman’s hands. “A divorce,” she repeated, well aware that such a thing could usually be obtained only by royal or important persons. “Between what two parties?”

  Eleanor paused for a moment to moisten her thin lips and to enjoy her exqusite moment. “I understood, Madam, that it was between the King’s grace and yourself. Have you not heard?”

  Isabel sprang to her feet, her half-braided hair falling about her. In a mirror held by two of her new young women she saw her face whiten and the pupils of her eyes brighten to fierce bright pin points. One of the kneeling girls, being clumsy and untrained, lost her balance; and the other, from sheer fright, began to giggle hysterically. Between them the mirror fell with a clatter to the floor and broke. For a moment or two Isabel stared down at it in horror, almost shocked from everyday sanity. It was the second time such an ill-omened thing had happened. “My marriage!” she thought, momentarily forgetting the frightening present because she was reliving so vividly her wedding morning in Boulogne. But now, alas, there was no Ghislaine to bemoan the ill-omened accident and gather up the pieces. No wise Marguerite. No Aymer de Valence of Pembroke. No one at all to care. Nor, come to that, did she care so greatly herself, she thought, coming back to present reality. A divorce would leave her free. She waved away everyone but Edward’s ambitious niece, and faced up to her as a royal daughter of France should. “It was your husband’s idea, not the King’s. You can spare your breath if you think to deny it. On what grounds does the meddling parvenu think to obtain it?” she asked, with a cold pride which abashed her tormentor.

  Eleanor’s audacious eyes were lowered, not for effect, but because she no longer dared to meet the outraged Queen’s. “Since you refuse the King your bed,” she mumbled, “why should he keep you as his wife?”

  “So he went straight to your immaculate husband and told him? Then all three of you, doubtless, discussed it?” Isabel peered at her as though she were some species of vermin beyond her understanding. “Answer me!” she almost shouted, when the woman remained abjectly silent.

  “How else could we have known?”

  “How else indeed? And now, I suppose, the very scullions know. But do not hug to yourself the delusion that it would hurt me to cease to be the King’s wife.”

  “No, Madam — save that your Grace would also cease to be Queen of England.”

  The retort came swift as a rapier thrust, and was true. Isabel knew in that moment how intensely she would care, even apart from the humiliation. “But your foolish scheming is doomed to failure,” she said. “His Holiness shall be made to understand that the reason for my refusal to cohabit with my husband is no shame of mine.”

  Eleanor raised her eyes then. “I do not think so,” she said, with quiet confidence.

  “No, perhaps not, my gaoler,” allowed Isabel, “since that is what you are here for. To forbid me pen and paper. To remove any friend of mine who might be trusted to convey my side of the case. But his Holiness is neither deaf nor blind. The hand that wears St. Peter’s ring rests on the pulse of Europe. Does it not occur to you that he may already be aware of my husband’s habits — and of the accommodating ways of those who climb to power?”

  “It is only your word.” The voice of Hugh Despenser’s wife was sharp with fear.

  “It is common knowledge. But in case that should not be enough to justify me you hope to pin upon me the scandal of some lover. Even Robert le Messager, who is to marry one of my ladies next week.”

  “There was a time when he looked higher. I was only a child then but often about the Palace. And children have sharp ears.”

  “Yours could never have been dull. But there again it is only your word.” Sickened of the subject, Isabel relaxed and sighed. “I am glad to talk straightly to you this once, Eleanor Despenser. And since your tortuous mind is interested in such things I will tell you that there was a time when I could have taken Robert, my susceptible master-of-horse, but — because of the love I bore my husband — I would not. That should be proof enough that I kept my side of the marriage. But I suppose that for your own ends any man would do — to discredit me.”

  All polite pretences were down indeed. “And I doubt not we shall catch you yet,” said Eleanor venomously. “Although you are my aunt by marriage you are still young enough. And hot-blooded, they say. And men still call you Isabel the Fair.”

  Instead of crying out in indignation, Isabel laughed aloud. “No, you will not catch me,” she said, confident in the knowledge that her lover was safely in France and she immune from the demands of any other man.

  Surprised and shaken by such spontaneous laughter, Eleanor sought for some final weapon with which to quench it. “I must ask Hugh to try to persuade the King to send away that proud and secretive old woman who now shares your room, and whose dismissal his Grace still stands out so obdurately against.”

  The weapon was cleverly chosen. The thought of being left without Bringnette in the midst of so much scheming hate almost broke the Queen’s confidence. “She cared for me when I was small. She has lived with me nearly all her life. She is old and was early widowed by war,” she said, with a gesture of entreaty. “And I love her.”

  “And no doubt, since the King gave her those estates in Ponthieu, it is she who smuggles your disloyal letters to France.”

  There was a sweep of silk skirts across the floor, stirring the scent of some pungent herbs from the rushes, and the Queen was shaking her by the arm. “If you try to take Bringnette from me I will kill you,” she said. And Eleanor Despenser had the good sense to believe her, and to let the matter drop.

  Baiting the Queen was her niece’s private privilege, but Hugh Despenser and the King had more urgent matters to occupy their minds. The voice of the people was beginning to make itself felt. They were sick and tired of years of bloodshed in their betters’ quarrels, of inefficiency and misrule. Bad kings they had had before — some of them men of far worse character than Edward. Hard-working Plantagenet despots they had endured and obeyed. Courageous, pride-giving Plantagenets like the Coeur de Lion and Longshanks, who had bled England for their foreign wars, they had made heroes of. One way and another they had stomached them all. But at least they expected their kings to understand the business of State and to be strong enough to rule. Edward’s incompetency became their despair, his defeat by the Scots their personal shame. The more deeply thinking clergy and land-owners began to talk about degeneracy, as Charles of France had done. The throwback of an over-martial father. A born weakling who could scarcely be held responsible. It was a good thing he had sons, they said, and that the elder of the two grew daily more like his grandfather, bidding fair to become a man of decisive personality to whom towns and individuals could take their problems, confident that they would not be shelved or muddled into something worse. But such good fortune lay in the laps of the future generation, rather than to be enjoyed in their own lifetime. And in the meantime that much-hated man, Hugh Despenser, held the country in thrall and, although undoubtedly he was clever, his ambition and the way he sought to over-shadow his royal master sickened them.

  The Londoners, with their usual sprightliness, joked about the discomforts of a state of affairs they could not mend. They even encouraged a good-looking crazy fell
ow who traipsed about from tavern to tavern leading a dog and a cat by a chain and declaring that he was the real firstborn of Longshanks, and Edward a changeling. Nobody seriously believed in him, of course, but his antics suited their humour. After all, they bore some sly resemblance to the frivolity of taking performing animals and fiddlers to war. And the very fact that men laughed and listened tolerantly to his pretensions showed how low respect for their real King had fallen.

  That spring the country suffered a grievous loss. Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, died of a fever in Paris. Like Gilbert of Gloucester, he had stood for moderation, and with his death the people lost all hope of a final reconciliation between the King’s party and the barons and some sort of struggle back to better times. King Robert of Scotland had made his own victorious terms, and now King Charles of France was preparing to take possession of that rich-wine-growing duchy of Guienne for which their fathers had fought. And all because their own king would not bestir himself and leave his hunting and his hated favourite to go and do homage for it.

  Soon the muttering in England and the news from Guienne grew so serious that Despenser could no longer disregard it. It was he who had always advocated that the people should be heard equally with the barons and churchmen in Parliament. He had hoped that, for the safety of the crown, vox populi would sometimes keep in check the demands of the peers. But now their voices were beginning to be heard dangerously in the village squares and streets. Trade would come to a standstill again, there would be more famine, they shouted, and with proper government all of it could have been prevented.

  And as if in answer to their complaint an idea came to fruition in the Queen’s mind. An idea which she felt to be worthy of her deeply lamented mentor, Pembroke. She had suggested it once before to Edward, but it had been unfeasible then because she had been awaiting the birth of one of their children, and they had both treated the idea almost as an idle jest. “Why should your Grace not send me to Paris to negotiate with Charles?” she suggested. “Perhaps he will listen to me, his sister, and stop this senseless ravaging of Guienne.” It had not been easy to make Edward listen to her, but there was so much good sense in her argument that in the end she got her way.