He sucked a quick breath through his teeth and his jaw set. “I’m very happy, thank you.”
A faint mocking smile crossed her face. “For your sake, Sire, I’m glad.” Then she sighed again and looked wistfully out the window. “Oh, you can’t think what a wretched time I had in London after you’d left! The very porters and ’prentices in the streets insulted me! If you hadn’t promised to make me a Lady of the Bedchamber—Lord, I don’t know how I’d shift!”
A scowl crossed his face, for this was what he had been expecting and dreading. Of course her aunt had told her the whole story. “I’m sure you exaggerate, Barbara. I think you’ll get along very well, in spite of everything.”
Her head turned swiftly, the black centers of her eyes enlarging. “What do you mean—in spite of everything?”
“Well—it’s unfortunate, but my wife crossed out your name. She says she doesn’t want you for an attendant.”
“Doesn’t want me! Why, that’s ridiculous! Why doesn’t she want me? My family’s good enough, I hope! And what harm can I do her now?”
“None,” he said, very definitely. “But all the same she doesn’t want you. She doesn’t understand the way we live here in England. I told her that I would—”
Barbara stared at him aghast. “You told her she needn’t have me!” she repeated in a horrified whisper. “Why, how could you do such a thing!” Tears had swum into her eyes and already, in spite of Lady Suffolk’s frantic signalling, her voice was rising and a quaver of hysteria had come into it. “How can you do such a thing to a woman who has sacrificed her reputation, been deserted by her husband, and left to the scorn of all the world—to give you happiness! Oh,——!” She turned and leaned her forehead against the window, one closed fist pressed to her mouth. She took a deep sobbing gasp. “Oh, I wish I’d died when the baby was born! I’d never have wanted to live if I’d known you’d do a thing like this to me!”
Charles looked more annoyed than sympathetic or conscience-smitten. All he wanted was to have the matter settled one way or another—and whether Barbara won or Catherine did made little difference to him. There was something to be said for both sides of the question, he thought, but a woman could never see more than one.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll speak to her again.”
But instead he sent the Chancellor to do the delicate business for him, though the old man protested vehemently, for he thought that Castlemaine would be well served if she were sent into exile overseas. Clarendon came out of his interview wiping his red face and shaking his head, limping slightly to favour his gout-stricken right foot. Charles was waiting for him in his laboratory and that was where he went—but as the short, round, pompous little man passed through the galleries he was followed by a trail of smirks and whispers. The contest between their Majesties was giving amusement to the entire Court.
“Well?” said the King, getting up from where he had sat writing a letter to Minette—she was now Madame, Duchess of Orléans and third lady at the Court of France.
“She refuses, your Majesty.” He sat down, ignoring ceremony, because he was tired and discouraged and his foot ached. “For a little woman who looks meek and obliging—” He mopped his wet face again.
“What did you tell her? Did you tell her that—”
“I told her everything. I told her that your Majesty no longer had commerce with the Lady—nor ever intends to. I told her that your Majesty has the greatest affection for her and will make her a very good husband if she would but agree to this one thing. Oh, I beg of your Majesty, don’t send me again! I have no maw for this business—you know what my opinion is—”
“I don’t care what your opinion is!” said Charles sharply, though usually he listened with a lazy patient smile to whatever criticism of his manners, morals or intellect the Chancellor cared to make. “What was her attitude when you left?”
“She was in such a passion of tears, I think she may be wholly dissolved by now.”
Charles went to his wife’s room that night in a mood defiant and determined. He had had a domineering mother; he had unwittingly chosen a domineering mistress; but he did not intend to be hen-pecked at home. He was less interested now in the fate of Barbara Palmer than he was in convincing his wife that he and not she would make the decisions. Catherine met him with an equally defiant air—though only an hour before they had been smiling politely at each other and listening to a choir of Italian eunuchs.
He bowed to her. “Madame, I hope that you are prepared to be reasonable.”
“I am, Sire—if you are.”
“I ask this one favour of you, Catherine. If you’ll grant it, I promise it shall be the last hard thing I’ll ever expect of you.”
“But the one thing you do ask is the hardest thing a man could ask of his wife! I can’t do it! I won’t do it!” Suddenly she stamped her tiny foot and cried in a flare of angry passion that astonished him, “And if you speak of it again I’ll go home to Portugal!” She stared at him for a moment, and then bursting into tears turned her back and covered her face with her hands.
For a long moment both of them were silent, Catherine struggling to control her sobs but wondering miserably why he did not come to her, take her into his arms, and tell her that he realized how impossible it would be for her to accept his cast-off whore as an attendant. He had seemed so kind and gentle and tender, she could not understand what had happened to change him. Surely if he cared so much about the woman’s having that place he must still love her.
But Charles, his stubbornness now thoroughly aroused, had a vision of himself going through life the meek, uxorious husband of a tyrannizing little despot. She could never learn earlier that he would rule his own household.
“Very well, madame,” he said at last. “But before you go I think it would be wise to determine first if your mother will have you—and to find out, I’ll send your attendants before you.”
Catherine whirled around and stared at him with unbelieving astonishment. Those men and women of her own country were all she had to cling to in this strange terrifying land. Now, more than ever, when he was against her too, she needed them.
“Oh, please, Sire!” Her hands went out imploringly.
He bowed. “Good-night, madame.”
To the amused relief of the Court most of Catherine’s ugly train departed within a few days, for Charles allowed only Penalva, the priests, and a few kitchen attendants to remain. He did not trouble to send so much as a letter of explanation with them, but he hoped the Dowager Queen would know that he was displeased because she had paid most of the dowry—at the last moment—in sugar and spices instead of in gold.
For days the contest between them persisted.
Catherine remained most of the time in her own rooms and, when she did appear, she and Charles scarcely spoke. When the courtiers met in the garden or at the cockpit they asked each other: “Are you going to the Queen-baiting this afternoon?” The young and gay wanted to see Barbara Palmer triumphant because she represented their own way of living; the older and more circumspect sympathized with the Queen but wished that she understood men better and had been taught that tact could often accomplish what blustering and threats could not. As usual, Charles heard advice from both camps, but though he listened politely to everyone he was no more influenced than usual. In any matter which he considered to be of importance to his comfort he made his own decisions—and he did so now.