A Health Unto His Majesty Read online

  It was true that the Duchess, having heard rumours of the bridegroom’s reputation, was a little hesitant; but those rumours were not so disturbing as they might have been, for at that time Barbara Palmer had not achieved the notoriety which she attained when she became the King’s mistress; and, as the Duke pointed out to his Duchess, a young unmarried man must have a mistress; Chesterfield would settle down when he married.

  So the marriage took place at The Hague a little while before the Restoration; and Lady Elizabeth who, having seen the affection between her parents, had expected to enjoy the same happy state with her husband, met with bitter disappointment.

  The Earl made it quite clear that the marriage was one of convenience and Lady Elizabeth found that her naïve expressions of love were cruelly repulsed.

  At first she was hurt; then she believed that he still thought of his first wife, Anne Percy. She asked questions about her of all who had known her; she tried to emulate what she heard of her rival, but her efforts seemed to win her husband’s impatience rather than his kindness. He was brusque, cold, and avoided her as much as possible. He made it clear that any intercourse between them was undertaken by him because it was expected of him.

  The naïve and gentle girl, being in every way different from Barbara, irritated him beyond all measure because, in everything she did, by the very contrast, she reminded him of Barbara, and set him longing to renew that tempestuous relationship.

  Even now when they had returned to London she was kept in ignorance of the life he led. Her mother, unknown to her, had spoken to the Earl asking that he treat her daughter with the deference due to her; at which he became more aloof than ever, and Elizabeth, left much alone, continued to brood on the perfections of Anne Percy who she believed could charm from the grave.

  But at this moment the Earl was beside himself with the desire to see Barbara – and not only Barbara. He was sure the child was his. He had visited Barbara at the time she became the King’s mistress; he remembered the occasion when he had accused her of seeking royal favour; he remembered her mocking laughter, her immense provocation, her insatiable lust which demanded more than one lover at a time. Yes, the child could very possibly be his.

  ‘Philip . . .’ Elizabeth was smiling at him in a manner which she fondly imagined was alluring.

  He threw her off, and the tears came to her eyes. If there was one thing that maddened him more than an attempt at coquetry, it was her weeping; and there had been much of that since her marriage – quiet, snuffling crying which he heard in the darkness.

  ‘Why do you plague me?’ he demanded.

  ‘I . . . plague you?’

  ‘Why do you seek to detain me when you know full well I have no wish to be detained by you?’

  ‘Philip, you talk as though you hate me.’

  ‘Hate you I shall if you will insist on clinging to me thus. Is it not enough that you are my wife? What more do you want of me?’

  ‘I want a chance, Philip, a chance for us to be happy. I want us to be as husband and wife . . .’

  That made him laugh. The spell of Barbara was on him. He was sure she was a witch who could cast spells from a distance. It was almost as though she were there in the room, mocking him, scorning him for not telling this foolish little girl the truth.

  ‘You wish us to be as husband and wife? To live, you mean, as do other wives and husbands of the Court? Then you should get yourself a lover. It is an appendage without which few wives of this Court find themselves.’

  ‘A . . . lover? You, Philip, my husband, can say that!’

  He took her by the shoulders and shook her in exasperation. ‘You are like a child,’ he said. ‘Grow up! For God’s sake, grow up!’

  She threw her arms about his neck. His exasperation turned to anger. He found her repulsive – this fresh and innocent young girl – because she was not Barbara on whose account he had suffered bitter jealousy ever since the King came home.

  ‘Know the truth,’ he cried. ‘Know it once and for all. I cannot love you. My thoughts are with my mistress.’

  ‘Your mistress, Philip!’ Elizabeth was white to the lips. ‘You mean . . . your dead . . . wife?’

  He looked at her in astonishment and then burst into cruel laughter.

  ‘Mrs Barbara Palmer,’ he said. ‘She is my mistress . . .’

  ‘But she . . . she is the King’s mistress, they say.’

  ‘So you have learned that? Then you are waking up, Elizabeth. You are becoming very knowledgeable. Now learn something else: the King’s mistress she may be – but she is mine also. And the child she has just borne . . . it is mine, I tell you.’

  Then he turned and hurried away.

  Elizabeth stood like one of the stone statues in the Palace grounds.

  Then she turned away and went to her apartment; she drew the curtains about her bed and lay there, while a numbness crept over her limbs, and it seemed that all feelings were merged in the misery which was sweeping over her.

  *

  Before Chesterfield arrived at the house in King Street, Barbara had another visitor.

  This was her relative, George Villiers the Duke of Buckingham. He was now a gentleman of the King’s bedchamber; his estates had been restored to him, and he was on the way to becoming one of the most important men in the country.

  He did not look at the child in the cradle. Instead his eyes were warm with admiration for the mother.

  ‘So Mrs Barbara,’ he said, ‘you flourish. I hear that the King continues to dote. This is a happy state of affairs for the family of Villiers, I’ll swear.’

  ‘Ah, George,’ she said with a smile, ‘we have come a long way from the days when you used to tease me for my hot temper.’

  ‘I’ll warrant the temper has not cooled, and were it not that I dare not tease such a great lady as Mistress Barbara, I would be tempted to put it to the test. Do you bite and scratch and kick with as much gusto as you did at seven, Barbara?’

  ‘With as much gusto and greater force,’ she assured him. ‘But I’ll not kick and scratch and bite you, George. There are times when the Villiers should stand together. You were a fool to get sent back from France.’

  ‘It was that prancing ninny of a Monsieur. He feigned to be jealous of my attentions to the Princess Henrietta.’

  ‘Well, you tried to make her sister Mary your wife and failed; then you tried to make Henrietta your mistress and failed in that.’

  ‘I beg of you taunt me not with failing. Mayhap your success will not last.’

  ‘Ah! Had I not married Roger mayhap I should have been Charles’s wife ere now.’

  George’s thoughts were cynical. Charles might be a fool where women were concerned, but he was not such a fool as that. However, it was more than one dared say to Barbara. Roger had his uses. Not only was he a complaisant husband but he supplied a good and valid reason why Barbara was not Queen of England.

  ‘It seems as though fortune does not favour us, cousin,’ said George. ‘And the lady in the cradle – is she preparing herself to be nice to Papa when he calls?’

  ‘She will be nice to him.’

  ‘You should get him to own her.’

  ‘He shall own her,’ said Barbara.

  ‘Roger spoke of the child as though there could be no doubt that she is his.’

  ‘Let him prate of that in public.’

  ‘The acknowledgement by her rightful father should not be too private, Barbara.’

  ‘Nay, you’re right.’

  ‘And there is something more I would say to you. Beware of Edward Hyde.’

  ‘Edward Hyde? That old fool!’

  ‘Old, it is true, my dear; but no fool. The King thinks very highly of him.’

  Barbara gave her explosive laugh.

  ‘Ah yes, the King is your minion. You lead him by the nose. I know, I know. But that is when he is with you, and you insist he begs for your favours. But the King is a man of many moods. He changes the colour of his skin like a chameleon
on a rock, and none is more skilled at such changing than he. Remember Hyde was with him years ago in exile. He respects the man’s judgement, and Hyde is telling him that his affair with you is achieving too much notoriety. He is warning him that England is not France, and that the King’s mistress will not be accorded the honours in this country which go to His Majesty’s cousin’s women across the water.’

  ‘I’ll have the fellow clapped into the Tower.’

  ‘Nay, Barbara, be subtle. He’s too big a man to be clapped into the Tower on the whim of a woman. The King would never consent to it. He would promise you in order to placate you, and then prevaricate; and he would whisper to his Chancellor that he had offended you and he had best make his peace with you. But he will not easily turn against Edward Hyde.’

  ‘You mean I should suffer myself to be insulted by that old . . . old . . .’

  ‘For the time, snap your fingers. But beware of him, Barbara. He would have the King respectably married and his mistresses cast aside. He will seek to turn the King against you. But do nothing rash. Work stealthily against him. I hate the man. You hate the man. We will destroy him gradually . . . but it must be slowly. The King is fickle to some, but I fancy he will not be so with one who has been so long his guide and counsellor. His Majesty is like a bumble bee – a roving drone – flitting from treasure to treasure, sipping here and there and forgetting. But there are some flowers from which he has drunk deep and to these he returns. Know you that he has given a pension to Jane Lane who brought him to safety after Worcester? All that time, and he remembers – our fickle gentleman. So will he remember Edward Hyde. Nay, let the poison drip slowly . . . in the smallest drops, so that it is unnoticed until it has begun to corrode and destroy. Together, Barbara, you and I will rid ourselves of one who cannot be anything but an enemy to us both.’

  She nodded her agreement; her blue eyes were brilliant. She longed to be up; she hated inactivity.

  ‘I will remember,’ she said. ‘And how fare you in your married life?’

  ‘Happily, happily,’ he said.

  ‘And Mary Fairfax – does she fare happily?’

  ‘She is the happiest of women, the most satisfied of wives.’

  ‘Some are easily satisfied. Does she not regret Chesterfield?’

  ‘That rake! Indeed she does not.’

  ‘She finds in you a faithful husband?’ said Barbara, cynically and slyly.

  ‘She finds in me the perfect husband – which gives greater satisfaction.’

  ‘Then she must be blind.’

  ‘They say love is, Madam.’

  ‘Indeed it must be. And she loves you still?’

  ‘As she ever did. And so do the entire family. It is a most successful marriage.’

  Barbara’s woman came in and was about to announce that Chesterfield was on his way, when the Earl himself came into the room.

  He and Buckingham exchanged greetings. Chesterfield went to the bed, and, taking the hand Barbara gave him, pressed it to his lips.

  ‘You are well?’ he asked. ‘You are recovered?’

  ‘I shall be about tomorrow.’

  ‘I rejoice to hear it,’ said Chesterfield.

  Buckingham said he would take his leave. Matters of state called him.

  When he had gone, Chesterfield seized Barbara in his arms and kissed her with passion.

  ‘Nay! she cried, pushing him away. ‘It is too soon. Do you not wish to see the child, Philip?’

  He turned to the cradle then. ‘A girl,’ he said. ‘Our child.’

  ‘You think that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is ours.’

  ‘You are proud to own her, Philip. Well, we must see that your interest in the little girl does not become known to your Lady Elizabeth.’

  His face darkened at the memory of the scene he had so recently experienced with his wife.

  ‘I care not,’ he said.

  She tapped him sharply on the arm.

  ‘I care,’ she said. ‘I’ll not have you bruit it abroad that this child is yours.’

  ‘You are reserving her for a higher fate? Barbara, you witch!’

  ‘Philip, soon I shall be well.’

  ‘And then . . .’

  ‘Ah! We shall meet ere long, I doubt not. Why, you are a more eager lover than you once were!’

  ‘You become a habit, Barbara. A habit . . . like the drink or gaming. One sips . . . one throws dice, and then it is an unbearable agony not to be able to sip or throw the dice.’

  ‘It pleases me that you came so quickly to my call.’

  He was holding her hands tightly, and she felt his strength. She looked into his face and remembered that occasion four years ago in the nuttery. ‘The first time,’ she said. ‘I remember. It was nothing less than rape.’

  ‘And you a willing victim.’

  ‘A most unwilling one. ’Twas forced upon me. You should have been done to death for what you did to me. Dost know the punishment for rape?’

  The woman came in. She was agitated. ‘My lady, Madam . . . the King comes this way.’

  Barbara laughed and looked up at her lover.

  ‘You had better leave,’ she said.

  Chesterfield had drawn himself up to his full height.

  ‘Why should I leave? Why should I not stay here and say. “By God, Your Majesty, I am honoured that you should come so far to see my daughter”?’

  Barbara’s face was white and tense with sudden anger. ‘If you do not leave this chamber this minute,’ she said, ‘I will never see you again as long as I live.’

  She meant it, and he knew she meant it.

  There were moments when he hated Barbara, but, whether he hated or loved, the knowledge was always with him that he could not live without her.

  He turned and followed the woman out of the chamber; he allowed himself to be led ignobly out through a back door that he might run no risk of coming face to face with the King.

  *

  Charles stepped into the room while his accompanying courtiers stayed in the corridor.

  Barbara held out her hand and laughed contentedly.

  ‘This is an honour,’ she said. ‘An unexpected one.’

  Charles took the hand and kissed it.

  ‘It pleases me to see you so soon recovered,’ he said. ‘You look not like one who has just passed through such an ordeal.’

  ‘It was a joyful ordeal,’ she said, ‘to bear a royal child.’

  Eagerly she watched his face. It was never easy to read his feelings.

  He had turned from her to the child in the cradle.

  ‘So the infant has royal blood?’

  ‘Your Majesty can doubt it?’

  ‘There are some who doubtless will,’ he said.

  She was reproachful. ‘Charles, you can talk thus while I lie so weakly here!’

  He laughed suddenly, that deep, low musical laugh. ‘Od’s Fish, Barbara, ’tis the only time I would dare do so.’

  ‘Think you not that she is a beautiful child?’

  ‘’Tis hard to say as yet. It is not possible to see whether she hath the look of you or Palmer.’

  ‘She’ll never have a look of Palmer,’ said Barbara fiercely. ‘I’d be ready to strangle at birth any child of mine who had!’

  ‘Such violence! It becomes you not . . . at such a time.’

  Barbara covered her face with her hands. ‘I am exhausted,’ she murmured brokenly. ‘I had thought myself the happiest of women, and now I find myself deserted.’

  The King drew her hands from her face. ‘What tears are these, Barbara? Do they spring from sorrow or anger?’

  ‘From both. I would I were a humble merchant’s wife.’

  ‘Nay, Barbara, do not wish that. It would grieve me to see our merchants plagued. We need them to further the trade of our country, which suffers great poverty after years of Cromwell’s rule.’

  ‘I see that Your Majesty is not in serious mood.’

  ‘I could be naught but merry to
see that motherhood has changed you not a whit.’

  ‘You have scarce looked at the child.’

  ‘Could I look at another female when Barbara is at hand?’

  Her eyes blazed suddenly. ‘So you do not accept this child as yours . . .?’ Her long, slender fingers gripped the sheet. Her eyes were narrowed now and she was like a witch, he thought, a wild and beautiful witch. ‘If I had a knife here,’ she said, ‘I would plunge it into that child’s heart. For would it not be better for her, poor innocent mite, that she should never know life at all than know the ignominy of being disowned by her own father!’

  The King was alarmed, for he believed her capable of any wild action. He said: ‘I beg of you do not say such things, even in a jest.’

  ‘You think I jest then, Charles? Here am I, a woman just emerging from the agony of childbed; in all my sufferings I have been sustained by this one thought: the child I bear is a royal child. Her path shall be made easy in the world. She shall have the honours due to her and it shall be our delight –her father’s and mine – to love her tenderly as long as we shall live! And now . . . and now . . .’

  ‘Poor child!’ said Charles. ‘To be disowned by one because she could be owned by many.’

  ‘I see you no longer love me. I see that you have cast me aside.’

  ‘Barbara, should I be here at this time if that were so?’

  ‘Then you would take your pleasure and let the innocent suffer. Oh, God in Heaven, should such an unfortunate be condemned to live? As soon as I saw her I saw the King in her. I said, “Through my daughter Charles lives again.” And to think that in my weakness that father should come here to taunt me . . . It is more than I can bear.’ She turned her face from him. ‘You are the King, but I am a woman who has suffered much, and now I beg of you to leave me, for I can bear no more.’

  ‘Barbara,’ he said, ‘have done with this acting.’

  ‘Acting!’ she raised herself; her cheeks were flushed, her hair tumbled, and she looked very beautiful.

  ‘Barbara,’ he said, ‘I beg of you, control yourself. Get well. Then we will talk on this matter.’