The Loves of Charles II (28 page)

Charles smiled. “Dear Mary,” he said. “You must please yourself. Go, if that is what you wish.”

“I am sure I am right. I do not believe the Spaniards will help you regain your kingdom. They’ll not fight for you. They are just temporarily friendly with you because, for the moment, the French are not.”

“I think you have the truth there.”

“We must not have these rifts between members of our family. Our mother must love you again. She must love Henry. Oh, Charles, there are so few of us left now. Smile on my journey. I could not enjoy it if you did not.”

“Then if my smile is necessary to your pleasure, you must have it, dear sister. Take a kiss to my dear Minette.”

Mary embraced him warmly.

“Yes, Charles,” she said. “Do you know you’re my favorite brother? I would almost go further and, but for a small person who now resides in Holland, I would say you are my favorite man.”

“I really begin to think,” said the king, “that I am not such a fool as I believed myself to be.”

“You’re the wisest fool on earth. I shall take your Chancellor’s daughter with me as a maid of honor. She is a pleasant girl, Anne Hyde. And I wish her to make herself very agreeable to our mother whom I would like to see reconciled to the girl’s father. She declares Hyde advises you to act against her wishes, you know.”

“You make me wistful. I would that I could go with you on this journey to France.”

“What! Have you a fancy for the Chancellor’s daughter?”

“Anne Hyde! Assuredly not.”

“Then I am glad, because I think her father would have a high pride in her virtue.”

“I was not thinking of being with Anne Hyde,” said Charles. “I was thinking of the pleasure of seeing Minette again.”

Lucy was in bed nibbling sweetmeats. She could hear Ann Hill moving about whilst she cleaned the apartment. Lucy had coarsened slightly, but she was still beautiful. On the pillow beside her had rested, until a few hours ago, the fair head of one of the Court gentlemen. She did not know his name, but he had been a satisfactory lover.

Her clothes lay on the floor where she had flung them; Ann had not yet been in to tidy the room. Ann was angry with her mistress. Ann thought her mistress should not receive any gentlemen in her bed except the King.

But Lucy must have a lover; she might sigh for the King, but the King was not always at hand, and there were so many waiting to take his place.

Now she wondered whether the fair gentleman would visit her again this night. If he did not, another would.

Ann had come into the room and was clicking her tongue at the state of the apartment as she picked up the garments which lay about the floor.

“Don’t frown!” cried Lucy. “It makes you look uglier than usual.”

“If this is what beauty brings you to, I’m glad I’m ugly,” muttered Ann. “A new man last night! I’ve never seen him before.”

“He was wonderful!” murmured Lucy.

“What if …”

“What if the King had visited me? Oh no!” Lucy sighed and was momentarily sad. “He is pleasantly occupied elsewhere for the last week—and the next, I doubt not.”

“It’s wrong,” said Ann, shaking her head. “Quite wrong.”

“Is it? I never have time to think about it.”

“You think of little else!”

“It seems that I am thinking of last night’s pleasure until it is time to anticipate tonight’s.”

Ann said: “It’s depravity … and everybody here seems to … to wallow in it.”

“It is a pastime in which one cannot indulge alone.”

“For the children to see such things is not right.”

“They are too young to know.”

“Mary may be. Jemmy is not. He begins to wonder. He is nearly seven. It is time you gave up this way of living and, settled down to quiet, and thought of looking after the children.”

Lucy stared before her. She loved her children—both of them—but she adored Jemmy. He had such vitality, such charm, and he was such a handsome little boy. Moreover everybody who visited the house—and in particular the King—made much of him.

Settle down and be quiet! Look after Jemmy! As well ask a bird not to sing in the spring, a bee not to gather honey!

Ann went on: “There are rumors. There’ll be another move soon.”

“I dare swear we shall go to Breda.”

“If there is another attempt …”

“Attempt?”

“You think of nothing but who your next lover will be. Don’t you see they’re only waiting here. One day they’ll be gone … and then where will you be? They’ll all be leaving here to fight with the King, and you’ll be left with a few Germans to make love to you.”

“You’re in a bad mood today, Ann.”

“It’s all these rumors,” said Ann. “We shall be moving soon, I know. I wish we could go home.”

“Home?”

“To London. Fancy being in Paul’s Walk again!”

Lucy’s eyes were dreamy. “Yes,” she said. “Just fancy! Fancy going to Bartholomew and Southwark Fairs.”

“I’d like to walk by the river again,” said Ann wistfully. “No other place is the same, is it? They don’t look the same … don’t smell the same … All other places are dull. They weary a body … and make her long for home.”

“To walk down the gallery at the Royal Exchange again …” murmured Lucy.

Jemmy came running into the room. He wore a toy sword at his belt; it was a present from his father. “I’m a soldier!” he cried. “I’m for the King. Are you for the Parliament? Then you’re dead … dead … dead …”

He took out his sword and waved it at Ann, who skillfully eluded him.

“Wars, wars, wars!” said Lucy. “It is always wars. Even Jemmy dreams of wars.”

“I’m the Captain,” said Jemmy. “I’m no Roundhead.” He climbed onto the bed looking for comfits and sweetmeats which were always kept close by Lucy so that all she had to do was reach for them. Her lovers kept her well supplied; they were the only presents Lucy appreciated.

Jemmy sat on the bed, arranging the sweetmeats as soldiers and eating
them one by one. “Dead, dead, dead,” he said, popping them into his mouth. “Is my Papa coming today?”

“We do not know,” said Ann. “But if you eat more of those sweetmeats you will be too sick to see him, if he does.”

Jemmy paused for a second or so; then he continued to murmur “Dead … dead … dead” as he popped sweet after sweet into his mouth. He was remarkably like his father at that moment.

A serving maid came in to say that a gentleman was waiting to see Mistress Barlow.

“Hurry!” cried Lucy. “My mirror! My comb! Ann … quick! Jemmy, you must go away. Who is it, I wonder?”

“If it is my father, I shall stay,” said Jemmy. “If it is Sir Henry, I shall stay too. He promised to bring me a pony to ride.” He leaped off the bed. “He may have brought it.”

The maid said that it was neither the King nor Sir Henry Bennett. It was an elderly gentleman whom she did not know and who would not give his name.

Lucy and Ann exchanged glances. An elderly gentleman who had never been here before? Lucy liked young lovers. She grimaced at Ann.

“I should put a shawl over your shoulders,” said Ann, placing one there.

Lucy grimaced again and pushed the shawl away so that the magnificent bust and shoulders were not entirely hidden.

Edward Hyde was shown into the room. He flinched at the sight of the voluptuous woman on the bed. The morals of the Court—which he would be the first to admit were set by his master—were constantly shocking him. He thought of his daughter, Anne, and was glad that the Princess of Orange was taking her away. He thought: What I must face in the service of my master! And his thoughts went back to that occasion when, seeking to join Charles in France, his ship had been taken by corsairs, and he, robbed of his possessions, had been made a slave before he finally escaped.

“It is my lord Chancellor!” said Lucy.

Edward Hyde bowed his head.

“This is the first time you have visited my apartment,” she went on.

“I come on the King’s pleasure.”

“I did not think that you came on your own!” laughed Lucy.

The Chancellor looked impatient; he said quickly: “It is believed that we shall not be here in Cologne much longer.”

“Ah!” said Lucy.”

“And,” went on Hyde, “I have a proposition to make. Many people remain here because they dare not live in England. That would not apply to
you. If you wished you could return there, set up your house, and none would say you nay.”

“Is that so?”

“Indeed it is. And it would be the wisest thing you could do.”

“How should I live there?”

“How do you live here?”

“I have many friends.”

“English friends. The English are as friendly at home as in exile. The King has promised to pay you a pension of four hundred pounds a year if you return to England.”

“It is for Jemmy,” she said. “He wants Jemmy to be brought up in England; that’s it, I’ll swear.”

“It would be a very good reason for your going.”

“London,” she said. “I wonder if it has changed much.”

“Why not go and find out?”

“The King …?”

“He will not be long in Cologne.”

“No,” said Lucy sadly. “He will go, and he will take the most gallant gentlemen with him.”

“Go to London,” said the Chancellor. “You’ll be happier there, and one day, let us hope, all the friends you have known here will join you there. What do you say? Four hundred pounds a year; and you have the King’s promise of it as soon as it is possible. A passage could be arranged for you. What do you say, Mistress Barlow? What do you say?”

“I say I will consider the offer.”

He took her hand and bowed over it.

“The serving girl will show you out,” she told him.

When he had left she called Ann Hill to her.

“Ann,” she said, “talk to me of London. Talk as you love to talk. Come, Ann; sit on the bed there. How would you like to go to London, Ann? How would you like to go home?”

Ann stood still as though transfixed. She was smelling the dampness in the air on those days when the mist rose up from the Thames; she was hearing the shouts and screams of a street brawl; she was watching the milkmaids bearing their yokes along the cobbled streets; she was seeing the gabled houses on an early summer’s morning.

And, watching her, Lucy caught her excitement.

At the Palais-Royal, Henrietta Maria and her daughter were awaiting the arrival of Mary of Orange. The Queen felt happier than she had for some
time; the royal family of France, although they had so long neglected the exiled Queen and her daughter Henriette, were preparing to give Mary of Orange a royal welcome.

“This is an honor of which we must not be insensible,” said Henrietta Maria to her youngest daughter. “The King, the Queen, and Monsieur are all riding out to meet Mary at Saint-Dennis.”

“It is Holland they honor, Mam, not us,” Henriette reminded her mother.

“It is Mary, and Mary is one of us. Oh, I do wonder what she will be like. Poor Mary! I remember well her espousal. She was ten years old at the time, and she was married in the Chapel at Whitehall to the Prince her husband, who was a little boy of eleven. It was at the time when your father was forced into signing Strafford’s death warrant; and the day after the marriage the mob broke into Westminster Abbey and … and …”

“Mam, I beg of you do not talk of the past. Think of the future and Mary’s coming. That will cheer you.”

“Ah, yes, it will cheer me. It will be wonderful to see her again … my little girl. A widow now. Oh, what sorrows befall our family!”

“But there is joy coming now, Mam. Mary will soon be with us, and I know her visit will make us very happy.”

“Hers was a Protestant marriage.” Henrietta Maria’s brow darkened.

“Please, Mam, do not speak of that. She will soon be here with us. Let us be content with that.”

They heard the shouts and cheers as the party approached.

Mary was riding between Louis and Queen Anne. Philippe was on the other side of his brother. This was indeed a royal welcome for Mary.

So the first time Henriette set eyes on her sister was a very ceremonious occasion; but there was time in between the balls and masques, which the royal family of France had devised for Mary’s entertainment, for them to get to know each other.