The Three Crowns epub (18 page)

“My father tells me that you will be as a sister to us … just at first,” Mary told her. “But you are in truth our new mother.”

“I will do my best to be all that you wish of me,” answered Mary Beatrice.

She looked at Anne who gave her her placid smile; and she knew at once that they would help her to bear her new life.

Charles smiled knowledgeably
at his brother.

“I trust you are taking advantage of your new state, brother?” he asked lightly.

James frowned. “She is beautiful, but very young.”

“It is rare that men complain of the youth of their mistresses or wives.”

“She is but a child and they have brought her up with a craving to be a vestal virgin.”

“I trust for the honor of our house she can no longer aspire to such folly.”

James was moodily silent and the King went on: “Some of your enemies are suggesting that, having made this Catholic marriage, you should for the sake of peace retire from Court. It was hinted to me only the other day. How would you like, James, to leave Court and take your little beauty into the country?”

“My place is at Court.”

“So think I,” said Charles. “But methinks also, brother, that if you were as successful at courting your wife as you are at courting trouble you would by now have persuaded her that the life of a vestal virgin is not nearly so exciting as that of Duchess of York.”

“I do not propose to leave Court.”

“Nor do I propose that you should. I have already said so. But the people are not pleased with you, James. You stand for popery and the people in these islands do not like it.”

“What am I to do?”

Charles lifted his shoulders. He too secretly stood for the Catholic Faith; he had even made a bargain with Louis to bring his country back to Catholicism—yet he dealt with these matters shrewdly, graciously, and secretly. Why could not James do the same?

“Act with caution, brother. Stand firm. Remain at Court. Honor your little bride. Let every man know that you realize he envies you the possession of such an exquisite young creature, which I am sure he does. Do your duty. Let the Court and the people know that while she be young and so beautiful and a Catholic she is also fertile. Do this, James, and do it boldly. And, would you like a further word of advice? Then get rid of the mother.”

“But my wife’s great consolation is her mother.”

Charles smiled shrewdly. “It is a fact, brother, that when a Princess comes to a strange land and is a little … recalcitrant, she changes when she is no longer surrounded by relations. The old lady reminds her daughter by her very presence of all that she has missed in her dreary convent. Get rid of the mother, and you will find the daughter becoming more and more reconciled to our merry ways. There is little room for vestal virgins and their dragons here at Whitehall.”

James was silent. Charles who had charmed Mary Beatrice, who conducted his affairs with skill, who was a Catholic at heart and kept the matter secret for the sake of expediency, who had dared make a treaty with France which could have cost him his throne, whose wife was as Catholic and as foreign to Whitehall as Mary Beatrice and yet was in love with him—must understand what was the best way to act.

It was six
weeks since Mary Beatrice had arrived in England. Christmas was over and she was astonished at the extravagance with which it had been celebrated. She had discovered that her charming brother-in-law scarcely ever spent his nights with the Queen; that fidelity and chastity in this island were qualities which, among the King’s circle, were regarded with incredulous pity; she was surprised that Queen Catherine longed for her husband’s company almost as intensely as Mary Beatrice prayed she would not have to endure hers; this Court was gay and careless; it was immoral and irreligious. It was all that she had feared it would be and yet she was a little fascinated, if not by it, by certain personalities. The chief of these of course was the King. He was making her fascinated by his Court as she was a little by himself.

When, during the Christmas festivities, she heard her mother was to leave England, she wept bitterly.

Duchess Laura comforted her, pointing out that she could not leave Modena and her son, the young Duke, forever. She had done an unprecedented thing when she had come to England with her young daughter, but now Mary Beatrice was old enough to be left.

“I shall die of sorrow,” declared Mary Beatrice.

“You will do no such thing. You have your friends, and your husband is kind to you.”

Mary Beatrice shivered. Kind he was; but she wished there were no nights. If it were always daytime she could have endured him.

“When you leave me,” she told her mother, “my heart will be completely broken.”

“Extravagant talk,” said the Duchess, but she was worried.

When by the end of December the Duchess had left for Modena, James discovered his wife to be in such a state of melancholy that he wondered whether he should leave her to her Italian women attendants for a few days. It was disconcerting to know that he was almost as great a cause of her wretchedness as her mother’s departure.

A few nights after the Duchess had left, Mary Beatrice said to her husband: “When I am with child as I must soon be, then you need not share my bed.”

James looked at her sadly.

“Then,” he said slowly, “it shall be as you wish.”

Her ladies had
prepared her for bed. She shivered as she did every night. Soon he would be there. She anticipated it with horror: his arrival, the departure of the attendants, the dousing of the candles.

He was late. They were chattering away, not noticing, but she did. She must be thankful, she told herself, if the dreaded moments were delayed even for a short while.

They talked on and on—and still he did not come.

“His Grace is late,” said Anna.

“Perhaps we should leave you,” suggested one of the others.

Mary Beatrice nodded. “Yes, leave me. He will be here soon.”

So they left her and she lay shivering in the darkness waiting for the sounds of his arrival.

They did not come.

For an hour she lay, expectant; and finally she slept. When she awakened in the morning, she knew that he had not shared her bed all night.

She sat up, stretched her arms above her head, smiled and hugged herself.

If all nights were as the last one would she enjoy living at her brother-in-law’s Court? The gowns one wore were exciting; so was the dancing; she did not greatly care for the card playing but she need not indulge in that too much. She was one of the most important ladies of the Court and the King made sure that everyone realized this.

How strange this was! Her mother had left her; she was alone in a foreign land; yet, when she was free of the need to do her duty as a wife, she was less unhappy than she had believed possible.

The next night
she waited and he did not come; and during the following day she knew why.

It was Anna who told her, Anna who loved her so much that she shared her unhappiness to a great degree and knew her mistress’s mind as few others did.

“He spends his nights with his mistress. I do not think you will often be worried by him. This woman was his mistress before the marriage and I have heard that he is devoted to her.”

“His mistress!” cried Mary Beatrice. “But he has a wife now.”

“But the marriage was for state reasons. He will continue with his mistresses. He is like his brother.”

“I see,” said Mary Beatrice blankly.

“I do not think you will be greatly troubled with him in future.”

“I shall tell him that it does not please me that he should continue with this woman.”

Anna opened her eyes wide. “But do you not see? While he is with her, you are free of him.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary Beatrice. “That is a matter for which I must be grateful.”

“Well, if you want to be rid of him, who better to take him from your bed than a mistress?”

“You are right, of course,” replied the young Duchess.

Night, and her
attendants had left her. She was waiting for him, expectantly, angrily. It was five nights since he had been to her.

She did not believe she was pregnant. He had no reason to think so either. Yet he continued to spend his nights with his mistress.

It was humiliating. She, a Princess, to be left alone because he preferred another woman! She was his wife. He had pretended to be so pleased because she had crossed the seas to come to him; the Earl of Peterborough had wooed her urgently and tenaciously on his behalf in spite of her protests.

Now here she was—neglected on account of a mistress!

Was that his step outside the door? He was coming after all. She sat up in bed, clasped her arms about herself, apprehensive, terrified.

But it was not his step. She stared about her darkened room, and knew she was to be alone again.

She thought of him with that woman. What was the woman like? Beautiful she supposed. All mistresses were beautiful. Men went to them not for the sake of duty; it was all desire where a mistress was concerned. For the sake of such women, they left their wives … lonely.

Lonely. She was lonely!

She lay down and began to weep silently. Perhaps he would come and find her weeping. He would say: Do not be afraid. I’ll go away because that is what you wish.

He would be pleased to go because he preferred to be with his mistress than to do his duty with his wife. So it was duty?

Mary Beatrice’s eyes flashed angrily and she dealt her pillow a blow with a clenched fist.

Then suddenly she put her face on her pillow and gave way to her sobs.

A realization which bewildered her had come into her mind.

She wanted James.