The Three Crowns epub (24 page)

Charles was silent for a few seconds then he smiled. “Catherine Laura,” he said. “What charming names!”

Mary Beatrice lay back on her pillows. She had won. She should have known that the easygoing King would let her have her own way.

The Queen came
to visit her.

“I am so touched that the baby is to be named after me,” she said.

“I should perhaps have asked Your Majesty’s gracious permission.”

Catherine laughed. “It would have been readily given as you knew. And the King has asked me to discuss the baby’s baptism with you.”

“But …”

“It is His Majesty’s wish that it should take place in the chapel royal where the bishop will perform the ceremony.”

“In accordance with the Church of England?”

“But of course.”

“When did His Majesty request you to come to see me?”

“Only half an hour before I arrived.”

Mary Beatrice lay back on her pillows. He had shown no signs of anger. But then he rarely did. He had merely smiled and then made plans to have it done the way he wished it.

She was afraid then that some punishment would fall on Father Gallis for what he had done, and as soon as the Queen had left she sent for him and told him what had happened.

He said they could only wait for the King’s vengeance.

They waited. Nothing happened. And then the baby was baptized according to the King’s desire and the rites of the Church of England. Her sponsors were the Duke of Monmouth and the baby’s half-sisters, Anne and Mary.

The King did not refer to the matter again. He hated unpleasantness, Mary Beatrice was to learn; but at the same time he liked to have his way with as little fuss as possible.

Mary was in
despair. The family of her dear Aurelia were moving from St. James’s Palace to St. James’s Square.

“What will this mean to us?” she demanded. “How can we meet when you are not at the Palace?”

“My dearest,” answered Aurelia, “we must content ourselves with letters when we are apart; my family will often be at St. James’s or Whitehall and you must contrive to be there when I am.”

Mary was a little comforted.

“I shall give you a cornelian ring so that when you look at it you will always remember me,” said Aurelia.

“It will comfort me,” answered Mary.

When she returned to Richmond she was pensive. Frances in St. James’s Square was no longer easily accessible but they would meet and there would be letters; it was a warning that life did not go on indefinitely in the same pleasant pattern.

Change came.

Daily she waited
for Gibson to bring her the cornelian ring. Anne, who had wept with Mary when she had heard that Frances was moving from the Palace, declared that she too must have a ring for remembrance; and when the cornelian did not arrive Mary believed that Frances had sent it to Anne instead.

She poured out her jealous anguish in a letter.

“Not but that I think my sister do deserve your love more than I, but you have loved me once and now I do not doubt that my sister has the cornelian ring. Unkind Aurelia, I hope you will not go too soon, for I should be robbed of seeing you, unkind husband, as well as of your love, but she that has it will have your heart too and your letters, and oh, thrice happy she. She is happier than I ever was for she has triumphed over a rival that once was happy in your love, till she with her alluring charms removed unhappy Clorine from your heart …”

But Anne did not have the cornelian ring; and all in good time it came to Mary.

A happy day, which almost made her forget that communication would be more difficult now that Frances was going to St. James’s Square.

In spite of
her love for Frances, which was all absorbing, Mary still had an affection for her cousin Monmouth; and now that she was growing up and was a great deal at Court she had many friends among the maids of honor. She was mildly fond of a number of them, but her passion for Frances meant that she had little room in her heart for others.

Eleanor Needham, a beautiful young girl, was a friend of both Mary and Frances; so that when Eleanor was in trouble and she had to confide in someone, she chose the Princess Mary.

But this did not happen until the interfering Sarah Jennings had made it necessary.

Sarah dominated whatever household she found herself in; her passion for management was irresistible to her. She had quarrelled with most of the maids of honor and was continually trying to call attention to herself. She had made the Princess Anne her special charge, but since Mary had become so attached to Frances (and Anne must follow her sister in everything) Anne had become less friendly with Sarah.

Sarah was alert; there was little she missed; and she it was who warned the Duchess of Monmouth to watch her husband and Eleanor Needham, for she was certain something was going on there.

The Duchess told Sarah to mind her own business, to which Sarah retorted that if she could not take a warning she was welcome to the consequences of her blindness. The Duchess accused her husband, mentioning Sarah, at which Monmouth called on Sarah and told her that if she did not keep her sharp nose out of his affairs she might not be in a position to much longer, for that same nose would not reach the Court from the place to which he would have her banished.

Sarah was furious; but then Sarah often was furious. All the same she was aware of the power of the King’s favorite son; and although she might talk of upstart bastards out of his hearing, she was a little afraid of what he might do. Sarah knew that it was most essential for her to keep her place at Court if she were going to make the marriage that was necessary to establish her social position.

So before Eleanor came to Mary she had had an idea of what was happening and now that she was so knowledgeable of how people at Court conducted themselves, she was not surprised at the outcome.

“My lady,” said Eleanor, “I am with child and I must leave the Court very soon.”

“Is it Jemmy’s?” whispered Mary.

Eleanor nodded.

“Poor Eleanor. But what will you do?”

“Go right away from here and no one shall ever hear of me again.”

“But where will you go?”

“Do not ask me.”

“But Eleanor, can you look after yourself?”

“I shall be all right.”

“But I must help you.”

“My dear lady Mary, you are so kind and good. I knew you would be. That is why I had to say good-bye to you. But I shall know how to look after myself.”

“You should stay at Court. No one takes much account of these things here.”

“No, I shall go. But I wanted to say good-bye.”

Mary embraced her friend.

“Promise me that if you need help you will come to me?”

“My good sweet lady Mary, I promise.”

Mary told Anne what had happened, and how sorry she was for poor Eleanor.

“Sometimes,” said Mary, “I think I hate men. There is Jemmy who is as gay as ever while poor Eleanor is so unhappy she has to go right away. How different is my love for Aurelia.”

Anne nodded, and taking a sweet from the pocket of her gown, munched it thoughtfully.

Mary went into her closet and sitting at her table wrote that she was taking up her new crow quill to write to her dearest Aurelia.

She told her about the quarrel between that busybody Sarah Jennings and the Duke and Duchess of Monmouth, which was on account of Eleanor Needham. It was sad, wrote Mary, that a woman should be so ill-used. They had both been fond of Eleanor, and now she had left the Court to go, as she said, where no one would hear of her. How Mary longed to escape from the Court where such intrigues were commonplace.

“As for myself, I could live and be content with a cottage in the country and a cow, and a stiff petticoat and waistcoat in summer, and cloth in winter, a little garden where we could live on the fruit and herbs it yields.…”

Little Catherine died
in convulsions ten months after her birth.

Mary Beatrice was heartbroken for a long time; Mary did her best to comfort her and for a while James deserted his mistresses and became the devoted husband.

There would be other children, he assured her; she was so young.

The little girl was buried in the vault of Mary Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey; and after a short period of mourning Mary Beatrice was obliged to take her part in Court functions.

The devotion of her husband and the company of her two stepdaughters did a great deal for her over this unhappy time.

Although Mary mourned
her half-sister, life had become too exciting for brooding on what was past. There was the gaiety of the Court, the friendships with the girls, none of which rivaled that with Frances, but Mary had much affection for friends such as Anne Trelawny. Her sister was very dear to her, and although at times she would feign exasperation because of Anne’s imitative ways and her refusal to change her mind once she had made it up, even when as in the case of the man in the park, she was confronted with the truth, the two sisters were inseparable.

Their stepmother was not in the least alarming. A little imperious, sometimes, a little pious often, but as she recovered from the death of her baby, ready to play a game of blindman’s buff, hide-and-seek, or “I love my love with an A.”

Then there was dancing, in which Mary was beginning to excel, and acting which was amusing. Sarah Jennings generally managed to infuse intrigue into the household which made it a lively one.

The years were slipping past and so absorbed was Mary by her own circle—and in particular Frances—that she forgot she was no longer a child: she had little interest in affairs outside her own domestic circle. A crisis occurred when there was a question of a husband being found for Frances.

A husband! But they had no need of men in their Eden.