The Loves of Charles II (65 page)

“I have a letter from him,” went on Catherine, “in which he calls me his lady and his wife.”

“It would seem now,” said Donna Elvira, “that God has willed that the marriage should go forward.”

“How strange it will be,” said Catherine, her needle poised, “to leave Lisbon; perhaps never again to look from these windows and see the Tagus; to live in a land where, they say, the skies are more often gray than blue; where manners and customs are so different.” Her face showed fear suddenly. “I have heard that the people are fond of merrymaking; they laugh often; they eat heartily; and they are very energetic.”

“They need to be,” said Donna Maria. “It keeps them warm since they rarely feel or see the sun.”

“Shall I miss it?” mused Catherine. “I see it often from my window. I see it on the water and on the buildings; but I seem only to look on the sunshine, not to be in it.”

“It would seem that you have a touch of it to talk thus,” said Donna Elvira sharply. “What should the Infanta of Portugal be expected to do—wander out into the sun and air like a peasant?”

They had been with her—these two—since her childhood, and they still treated her as a child. They forgot that she was twenty-three, and a woman. So many were married long before they reached her age, but her mother had long preserved her for this marriage—marriage with England, for which she had always hoped, because in her wisdom Queen Luiza had foreseen that Charles Stuart would be recalled to his country, and as long ago as Catherine’s sixth birthday she had decided that Charles Stuart was the husband for her daughter.

At that time the fortunes of the Stuarts were low indeed; yet, although Charles I had been in sore need of the money a rich Portuguese wife could
bring him, he had decided against the match for his son. Catherine of Braganza was a Catholic and it may have been that he—at that time the harassed King—was beginning to understand that his own ill fortune might in some measure be traced to the fiercely Catholic loyalties of his own wife.

Disaster had come to the Stuarts and the first Charles had lost his head, yet, with that foresight and instinct for taking action which would be useful to her country, Luiza had still clung to her hopes for union with England.

“I do not think I shall miss the sun,” Catherine said. “I think I shall love my new country because its King will be my husband.”

“It is unseemly to speak so freely of a husband you have not seen,” Donna Maria reminded her.

“Yet I feel I know him. I have heard so much of him.” Catherine cast down her eyes. “I have heard that he is the most fascinating King in the world and that the French King, for all his splendors, is dull compared with him.”

Donna Maria lifted her eyes momentarily to Donna Elvira’s; both looked down again quickly at their work. But not before Donna Elvira had betrayed by the slightest twitch of her lips that she was aware of what was in Donna Maria’s mind.

“I think,” went on Catherine, “that there will be a bond between us. You know how deeply I loved my father; so must he have loved his. Do you know that when his father was condemned to death by the Parliament, Charles—I must learn to call him Charles, although in his letter to me he signs himself Carlos—Charles sent to them a blank paper asking them to write what conditions they would and he would fulfil them in exchange for his father’s life. He offered his own life. You see, Donna Elvira, Donna Maria, that is the man I am to marry. And you think I shall miss the sun!”

“You talk with great indiscretion,” said Donna Maria. “You, an unmarried Princess, to speak thus of a man you have never seen. You will have to be more discreet than that when you go to England.”

“It is surprising to me,” said Donna Elvira, “that you can so little love your mother … your brothers and your country as to rejoice in leaving them.”

“Oh, but I am desolate at the thought of the parting. I am afraid … so very afraid. Please understand me. I sometimes awake with terror because I have dreamed I am in a strange land where the people are rough and dance in the streets and shout at me. Then I long to shut myself into a convent where I could be at peace. So I think of Charles, and I say to myself: No matter what this strange new land is like, he will be there. Charles, my husband, Charles, who stopped the people torturing those men who had killed his father; Charles, who said: ‘Have done with hanging, let it sleep;’
Charles, who offered his life and fortune for that of his father. Then I am less afraid, for whatever awaits me, he will be there; and he loves me already.”

“How know you this?” asked Donna Maria.

“His goodness, you mean? I have heard it from the English at our Court. And that he loves me? I have his letter here. He writes in Spanish, for he knows no Portuguese. I shall have to teach him, as he must teach me English; for the nonce we shall speak in Spanish together. I will read it, then you will stop frowning over that altar cloth and you will understand why the thought of him makes me happy.”

“‘My, Lady and wife,’” she read. “‘Already at my request the good Count da Ponte has set off for Lisbon; for me the signing of the marriage has been great happiness; and there is about to be despatched at this time after him one of my servants charged with what would appear necessary; whereby may be declared on my part the inexpressible joy of this felicitous conclusion, which, when received, will hasten the coming of Your Majesty.

“‘I am going to make a short progress into some of my provinces; in the meantime, whilst I go from my most sovereign good, yet I do not complain as to whither I go; seeking in vain tranquility in my restlessness; hoping to see the beloved person of Your Majesty in these kingdoms, already your own; and that, with the same anxiety with which, after my long banishment, I desired to see myself within them…. The presence of your serenity is only wanting to unite us, under the protection of God, in the health and content I desire….’”

Catherine looked from one woman to the other and said, “He signs this: ‘The very faithful husband of Your Majesty whose hand he kisses. Carlos Rex.”

“Now, Donna Elvira, Donna Maria, what say you?”

“That he hath a happy way with a pen,” said Donna Elvira.

“And if,” added Donna Maria, rising and curtseying before Catherine with the utmost solemnity, “I may have the Infanta’s permission, I will retire, as there is something I wish to say to your royal mother.”

Catherine gave the required permission.

She returned to her needlework.

Poor Donna Maria! And poor Donna Elvira! It was true that they would go to England with her, but not to them would come the joy of sharing a throne with the most fascinating prince in the world.

As a result of her interview with Donna Maria, the Queen Regent sent for her daughter and, when she arrived, dismissed all attendants that they might talk in the utmost privacy.

Catherine was delighted to dispense with the strict etiquette which
prevailed at the Court of Portugal; it was great happiness to sit on a stool at her mother’s feet and lean against her.

At such times a foretaste of great loneliness would come to Catherine, for she would suddenly imagine what life would be like in a strange country without her mother.

Queen Luiza was an unusual woman; strong and fiercely ambitious for her family as she was, she was the tenderest of mothers and loved her daughter more than her sons. Catherine reminded Luiza poignantly of her husband—tender, gentle, the best husband and father in the world, yet a man who must be prodded to fight for his rights, a man who could be persuaded more by his conscience than his ambition. But for Luiza, Portugal would have remained under the yoke of Spain, for the Duke of Braganza had, in the early days of his marriage, seemed content to retire with his wife and two sons to the palace of Villa Viçosa in the province of Alemtejo surrounded by some of the loveliest country in Portugal, and there live with his family the life of a nobleman. For a time Luiza herself had been content; she had savored with delight the charms of a life far removed from intrigue; there in that paradise her daughter had been conceived and, on the evening of the 25th November, St. Catherine’s Day, in the year 1638, little Catherine had been born.

In spite of her practical outlook, Queen Luiza was something of a mystic. From the time the child was two she had believed that Catherine was destined to lead her country to security and be as important a factor in its history as she knew herself to have been. For it was on the child’s second birthday that greatness was thrust upon the Duke of Braganza and, had it not been for his two-year-old daughter, it might have happened that the great opportunity to rescue Portugal from Spanish tyranny would have been lost.

Never would Luiza forget that November day when the peace of the Villa Vicosa had suddenly given place to ambition. Portugal had been a vassal state to Spain since the mighty Philip II had made it so, and during the course of sixty years of bondage there had crept into the minds of the new generation a lassitude, a dull acceptance of their fate. It needed such as Luiza to rouse them.

Into the Villa Viçosa had come Don Gaspar Cortigno; he talked long and eloquently of the need to break away from the Spanish tyrants; he brought assurances that if the Duke of Braganza, the last of the old royal line, would agree to lead the revolt, many of the Portuguese nobility would follow him.

The Duke had shaken his head; but Luiza had been filled with ambition for her husband, her sons and her daughter. They were happy, she agreed, but how could they be content, knowing themselves royal, to ignore
their royalty? How could they ever be content again if they did not keep faith with their ancestors?

“We are happy here,” said the Duke. “Why should we not go on being happy all the days of our lives?” His eyes pleaded with her, and she loved him; she loved her family; yet she knew that never would her husband be completely happy again; always there would be regrets, reproaches and doubts in his mind. She knew that it might well be their children who, on reaching maturity, would accuse their parents of robbing them of their birthright. Then beside her was her little daughter catching at her hand, begging to be noticed; and inspired with the certainty that this appeal must not be turned aside, Luiza caught the child to her and cried: “But, my lord, here is an omen. It is two years since this child was born. Our friends are with us to celebrate her birthday. This is a sign that it is the will of Heaven that your sons should regain the crown of which we have long been deprived. I regard it as a happy presage that Don Gaspar comes this day. Oh, my lord and husband, can you find it in your heart to refuse to confer on this child the rank of King’s daughter?”

The Duke was struck by the glowing countenance of his wife, by the strange coincidence of the messenger’s coming on the birthday of his daughter; and he thereupon agreed to relinquish his peaceful life for one of bloodshed and ambition.

Often he regretted that decision; yet he knew that he would have regretted still more had he had to reproach himself for refusing to take it. As for Luiza, she was certain that Catherine’s destiny was entwined with that of Portugal.

It was for this reason that she had kept Catherine so long unmarried; it was for this reason that she had determined to wait for the conclusion of the match with England.

And, during the years which had followed the Duke’s decision, success had come to his endeavors and he had regained the throne; but the struggle had so impaired his health that he had died worn out with his efforts; and since Don Alphonso, his elder son, was somewhat simpleminded, his mother Luiza was Queen Regent and ruler of Portugal, for so ably had she advised her husband that on his death, when the government of the country was left entirely in her hands, she continued to preserve Portugal from her enemies and became known as one of the ablest rulers in Europe.

But now, as she confronted her daughter and thought of the life which lay before her in what she knew to be fast gaining a reputation as the most profligate court in Europe, and a rival to the French, she was wondering whether she had been as wise in conducting her family affairs as she had been in managing those of her country. Catherine was twenty-three, a
normal and intelligent young woman, yet so sheltered had her life been that she was completely ignorant of the ways of the world.

She had seen the felicitous relationship of her father and mother and did not realize that men such as the Duke of Braganza—faithful husband and loving father, gentle yet strong, full of courage, yet tender and kind—were rare indeed. Catherine in her innocence would think that all royal marriages resembled that of her father and mother.

“My dearest daughter,” said the Queen, embracing Catherine, “I pray you sit here beside me. I would talk to you in private and most earnestly.”

Catherine sat at her mother’s feet and rested her head against her farthingale. It was in moments of intimacy such as this that she was allowed to give vent to her tender feelings.

Luiza let her hand rest on her daughter’s shoulder.

“Little daughter,” she said tenderly, “you are happy, are you not? You are happy because there is now every likelihood that this marriage will come to pass?”

Catherine shivered. “Happy, dearest mother? I think so. But I am not sure. Sometimes I am a little frightened. I know that Charles is the most charming King in the world, and the kindest, but all my life I have been near you, able to come to you when I was in any difficulty. I am happy, yes. I am excited. But sometimes I am so terrified that I almost hope the arrangements will not be completed after all.”

“It is natural that you should feel so, Catalina, my dearest child. Everything you feel is natural. And however kind your husband is to you and however happy you are, you will sometimes long for your home in Lisbon.”

Catherine buried her face in the serge farthingale. “Dearest mother, how can I ever be completely happy away from you?”

“You will learn in time to give all your devotion to your husband and the children you will have. We shall regularly exchange letters, you and I. Perhaps there may be visits between us. But they would be infrequent; that is the fate of royal mothers and daughters.”