With All My Heart (19 page)

“You will wear yourself out, Madame,” remonstrated Catherine, recognizing from her own long illness the signs of exhaustion.

Even Charles would say gently, “You really must rest,
ma
mie
.”

But Minette would only laugh and settle herself upon some cushions on the floor and drop off to sleep in the midst of all the lights and laughter, with her hand fast in her elder brother’s and her neat dark head against his knees. “You remember how even as a child I liked to sleep like this,” she would apologize; but everyone knew that it was because neither of them could bear to spend the precious moments apart. And Charles, who loved to surround himself with chiming timepieces, had the only clock in the Castle stopped so that he need keep no account of the swiftly passing hours.

Catherine left them to themselves as much as possible, but one morning when their guest slept late Charles returned to her room before the Castle was well astir bringing with him five other men. While still in her wrapper sipping her morning brew of tea, she looked up to see milords of Arlington and Arundel, Sir Thomas Clifford and Sir Richard Bellings, together with the French Ambassador, bunched together in her doorway as if fearing to intrude. But Charles, after a hasty look round to assure himself that no one but her dresser was there, came swiftly across to her. To her surprise he said nothing but, looking her in the eyes, pressed her fingers urgently with his own and jerked his head backwards with a meaning gesture towards his silent companions.

Remembering how overcrowded the Castle was and how often, even at Whitehall, he had brought people to her rooms for privacy — albeit at more suitable times of the day — she was quick to understand his need. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said lightly, turning towards them. “I hope you have slept reasonably well in such makeshift accommodation as we have been able to offer you. For myself,” she added, as Colbert came forward courteously to kiss her hand, “I find this old room mighty oppressive and have slept but ill. Indeed, I was about to take a turn upon the battlements to refresh my poor head with some sea air. So if your Majesty will excuse me ...”

She saw the quick, warm, approving smile in the beloved brown eyes, and was rewarded. Beckoning to her woman to bring her cloak, she lost no time in passing between the bowing gentlemen. Waving Bellings aside, Charles himself went to the door with her and opened it. As she turned her head to smile at him she noticed that the rest of them were clustered around Colbert and the paper he was holding, and had already forgotten her existence. Arid as she began to climb the worn turret stair she was certain that she heard her husband push home the massive mediaeval bolt.

“It is something extraordinarily secret. Something to do with France,” she thought, emerging from the gloomy spiral onto the breezy, sunlit battlements, where the blue Channel, with grey stone quay and gaily dressed ships, was spread like a brilliant tapestry below her. “Something, quite certainly, which his sister knows about and I do not.”

The sharp prick of jealousy was swiftly followed by a larger racial one. Ahead, a faint smudge on the horizon, lay France. Even now a frigate flying the golden
fleurs
-
de
-
lys
hove to beneath the dazzling whiteness of the cliffs, seeming to emphasize her neighbourliness. But somewhere away to the southwest — if only one could see far enough — lay Portugal, the firm ally of England. Catherine’s longing gaze was blurred by tears as homesickness surged in her. The Portuguese Ambassador was aware, as was all Europe, of the peace Treaty Charles had discussed some days ago. Why did he want to come now, quite secretly, to her room to sign something else? Could it in any way be to the disadvantage of her brother? Something that might curtail the trade of her people? Leaning against the battlements, forgetful of the patient woman behind her, Catherine knew herself to be first, foremost and always Portuguese. Slights and betrayals received-in this country crowded to her mind. England had not been so extraordinarily kind to her. And the young, laughing image of Pedro was at that moment very clear and dear. Ought she to warn him? Although she never meddled in State affairs, she had wit enough to do so. Just a word dropped in a personal letter perhaps ... How could it be disloyal when Charles wrote so many urgent words — not all of them personal, she now suspected — to his precious Minette?

But suddenly she remembered his telling her how Henrietta Maria had dropped a casual word and so destroyed his father’s fortunes. She remembered, too, the urgency in his eyes a few minutes since, and reaped how vital this half entrusted secret must be to him. And Charles was the very heart of her. Charles she never could betray. Whatever he was signing — whoever might profit or suffer by it — she would stifle her own intelligence and keep silent. And surely — surely — she could trust him to do nothing that would harm her own country.

After a while, when she had descended to her deserted bedroom to be dressed, she found the whole company, French and English alike, filling the great hall with excitement, and the Captain of the newly anchored frigate talking to Charles.

“King Louis has sent Captain Falli
è
re to say that I may stay another week!” cried Minette, running to embrace her. “Seven whole more days at home!”

“So after all the splendours of Paris you still think of our barbarous little island as home?” teased Charles.

“Wherever you are,
men
cher
, that is home,” she assured him recklessly, even before King Louis’s officer.

“My only regret is that time does not permit the Queen and me to offer all of you the hospitality of Whitehall,” he answered. “Your compatriots must think us barbarous indeed, my dear Falli
è
re. Knowing the limitations of this village I did warn my sister to bring but a limited retinue, but she appears to have brought all the pleasantest persons in France!”

“Louis himself selected the women for their beauty, knowing you to be somewhat of a connoisseur,” she bantered back, in high spirits, “
Voici
,
par
exemple,
my little friend Mademoiselle Louise de Keroualle. Have you any quarrel with Louis’s taste?”

All eyes were turned on Madame’s favourite attendant, a young Breton with a lovely oval face framed in red brown curls, who laughed in pretty confusion. But it would seem that Charles had already endorsed it. “Mademoiselle knows that I am the devoted slave of her charms,” he said, gallantly kissing her hand.

“And Monsieur le Capitaine will also remain with us?” invited Catherine, conscience driving her to join in hospitality to the French.

“Your Majesty is too gracious —
et
moi
je
suis
desole
,” he replied, looking round regretfully at the merry company. “But duty compels me to return immediately.”

“And take Monsieur Colbert and that intriguing paper with you!” thought Catherine.

But from that day it seemed to her that some cloud was lifted from her husband. He might have been some anxious merchant who — after many scrimping, anxious years — at last finds resources at the back of him and can look forward to security ahead. A new sense of confidence seemed to inform him, so that there and then he was able to put all further care from him, mingling his wit and merriment with Minette’s so as to pack into one short week, for each of them, the happiness of a lifetime.

It was perfect May weather and every kind of pastime was invented to celebrate his birthday and the anniversary of his restoration. But such a round of gaiety was a strain upon Minette. “She has never been strong,” confided Charles in a conjugal aside.

“And now, obviously, she is far from well,” insisted Catherine. “I pray you, Charles, take James and Jemmie to review the fortifications or something, while I persuade her to rest.”

“But I cannot bear to waste one hour, or to spoil my brother’s pleasure,” remonstrated Minette when pressed; and in the end it was Mademoiselle de Keroualle who persuaded her.

“Your Highness knows how you tossed and coughed half the night,” she said. “If you do not get some sleep you will, make yourself ill and then his Majesty will have no pleasure at all.”

And although Catherine bore Minette off she felt sure that her husband’s immediate pleasure would be well catered for; for, being sadly experienced in such matters, she doubted very much whether solicitude for her mistress actuated Louise so much as her desire to be alone with a king who obviously admired her.

Lying in the quiet of the Queen’s own bedroom the exhausted Duchess looked little more than a girl; yet in the defencelessness of sleep that small-boned, piquante face took on a worn aspect which revealed how much she had been through. And Catherine, sending her women away, sat by the bedside wondering about the strange life she must have led — as fantastic with sudden changes as the King’s. Birth in a besieged city, an unknown murdered father and a domineering mother, exile and poverty — real poverty, so that when her eldest brother had wanted a portrait of her the artist had perforce to paint her in her pinafore. And then quite suddenly the change in the family fortunes with the Restoration, her own brilliant marriage, the. friendship of the most powerful monarch in Europe, extravagant gaiety, painful motherhood, the cruelty of a jealous, sadistic husband — all these things Henrietta Stuart had known. And in knowing them had acquired much the same attributes as Charles.

And just as this charming woman, who wore herself out in order to taste of life to the full, had a facility for falling asleep at any time, so she could wake instantly and unrumpled as an infant. As Catherine sat dreaming, hands in lap, she was startled to find her sister-in-law’s bright eyes fixed upon her in kindly, ironic amusement, and to hear her say in her improved but still elusive English, “I am so glad you married Charles!”

“B-but it is scarcely a success,” objected Catherine, shaken out of her slowly acquired reticence as perhaps Madame had intended she should be.

“Why do you say that?”

“In the first place,” answered Catherine more warily, “we have no children.”

“For that I am sorry — deeply sorry. We all are.”

“It is not Charles’s fault!” said Catherine quickly, defensively, idiotically.

“Obviously,” grinned his unregenerate sister, who had had at least three of his children presented to her.

“It is not only our disappointment, but the difficulty it makes for him — about the succession,” added Catherine hurriedly.

“Of course. But apart from that — come, come, Catherine, what did you expect? Your marriage is more of a success than — let us say — that of Louis, who imagines himself the Sun God, and poor, stolid Marie-Thér
è
se.”

There was much of her brother’s sophistry and a wealth of worldly wisdom in the light, tired voice.

“But — he is not in love with me,” blurted out Catherine, looking down at the hands in her lap.

Madame of France made a gesture of helpless exasperation. “Not
in
love. But that is not to say that he does not
love
you.”

“As he loves his spaniels — or Toby Rustat, perhaps,” said Catherine bitterly.

“Say rather as he loves James — or me.”

“
Not
as he loves you, Madame.”

“For the love of God, can you not call me Minette?”

“It is
his
name for you,” objected Catherine mulishly.

“Henrietta, then. And you cannot imagine how often he mentions you in his letters.”

“But he — he —
You must know there are so many other women.” Catherine knew that she was behaving like a gauche child. So often these two brilliant Stuarts made her feel like that, although somehow James, with his slower mind, did not.

“He seldom mentions any of them — pah!” The second lady of France blew out her lips in a contemptuous grimace of the Paris gutters. “It is always ‘I have just caught my wife teaching three of her chaplains country dances in her bedroom’ ... ‘I would have you get some images in Paris for my wife’s prayer book’, or when he first saw you, ‘She has wit enough and a most agreeable voice’. ‘My wife mends but slowly from her illness’,” mimicked Minette in her brother’s deep voice. “ ‘My wife, thank God, continues to improve’. Or ‘My wife is calling me away to dance’. And always that smug husbandly satisfaction of a man who likes to grumble that he is busy and yet
likes
to be dragged away.” Minette watched her sister-in-law’s cheeks grow pink, and because she loved to radiate happiness she warmed again to her theme. “And he never writes ‘Catherine’ or even ‘Kate’ as I so often hear him call you. It is always
tout
simplement
‘my wife’. Oh, most certainly,
ch
è
re
imbecile
, those other women may monopolize more of his time and money, but there is only one of you!”

Catherine leaned forward, breathless with happiness. “My old Maria says something like that. Minette —
dear
Minette — you really think so?”

And Minette, grown grave, cupped the Queen’s radiant face between kind jewelled hands for a moment, although her long dark lashes were suddenly bedewed with tears. “Mother of God,” she murmured, “what would I not give to go home to a husband who found me amusing and liked me to call him away to dance!”