“Oh, Catherine! I’m sorry—I’m so sorry! Have they given you something to ease the pain?” His face looked tired and as haggard as hers, for above all things on earth he wanted a legitimate son; but pity made him yearn to protect her.
“It isn’t the pain. I don’t care about that. Pain doesn’t matter—But, oh, I so wanted to give you a son!”
“You will, darling—you will someday. But you mustn’t think about that now. Don’t think about anything but getting well.”
“Oh, I don’t want to get well! What good am I on earth if I can’t do the one thing I’m put here for? Oh, my dear—” Her voice now sank so low that he had to lean forward to hear it and she stared up at him, her eyes flooded with self-reproach. “Suppose it’s true what they say—that I’m barren—”
Charles was shocked and his breath caught sharply. He had not known she had heard that gossip, though it had been circulating through the Court and even out in the town from the first month of their marriage, perhaps earlier.
“Oh, Catherine, my darling—” His long fingers stroked her hair, caressed her pale moist cheeks. “It isn’t true; of course it isn’t true. People will talk maliciously as long as they have tongues in their heads. These accidents happen so often, but they mean nothing. You must rest now and grow well and strong—for my sake.” He smiled tenderly, and bent his head to kiss her.
“For your sake?” She looked up at him trustingly, and at last she gave him a grateful little smile. “You’re so kind. You’re so good to me. And I promise—this won’t happen the next time.”
“Of course it won’t. Now go to sleep, my dear, and rest, and presently you’ll be well again.”
He remained kneeling beside her until her breathing was deep and regular and the little frown of pain had left her forehead, and then he got up and without a word walked from the room and back to his own apartments where he went into his closet alone.
Catherine was no better the next day and she grew steadily worse with each day that passed. They did everything they knew to cure her: They bled her until she was white as the sheets she lay on. They cut live pigeons in two and tied them to the bare soles of her feet to draw out the poison. They gave her purgatives and sneezing-powders, pearls and chloride of gold. Her priests were with her constantly, groaning and wailing and praying, and at every hour the room was filled with people. Royalty could neither be born nor die in quiet and privacy.
Hour after hour Charles sat there beside her, anxiously watching each move that she made. His grief and devotion amazed them all; but for that one episode regarding Castlemaine, he had been a kind but by no means adoring husband.
They were all convinced that she would die, most of them hoped she would, and the talk was not so much of the dying Queen as of the new one. Whom would he marry next? For of course he must and would marry, after a decent interval of mourning.
Frances Stewart was the bride they had selected. She had some royal blood in her veins, enough to make such a match possible, she was beautiful—and she was still a virgin. That, at least, was the opinion of the best-informed, even though his Majesty had been pursuing her for months, ever since she had come from France to take a place as one of Queen Catherine’s Maids of Honour.
She was not quite seventeen but rather tall, and slender as a candle-flame; she had about her an air of tranquil poise which could be suddenly broken by a bubbling merry laugh that gurgled up out of a happy well of youth and confidence. Her beauty was pure and perfect, flawless as a cut gem, delightful as the sight of a poplar glistening in the sun.
Charles had been first attracted by the irresistible lure of beauty, and then, discovering in her a modest shyness that was to him as incredible as it was genuine, he began a systematic program of seduction. So far, it had been unsuccessful. But her fresh youth and naïveté appealed to him strongly, sent him yearning toward the lost years as though in her he could catch again for a moment something of that perishable and precious charm.
During the past four months, since the discovery of her Majesty’s pregnancy, Charles had seemed to lose interest in Frances; he had been as coolly polite as though he had never desired her at all—or as though he had already had her. But now he seemed to return to Frances again for comfort in his despair. They were so positive she would be the next Queen of England that it was not even possible to find betting odds. Frances believed it herself.
But certainly not even the King’s sorrow was more extravagant or more seemingly sincere than that of the least likely of all mourners, Lady Castlemaine. She kept a continuous stream of pages running from the Queen’s apartments to her own at every hour of the day and night, went there frequently herself, and was reliably reported to pray for her Majesty’s recovery five or six times a day. Barbara was alarmed.
It had never occurred to her, when Heydon had made his astounding prophecy, that the Queen would be as sick as she was. Certainly not that she would die. And she had not even considered the possibility that if she did she might be replaced by a woman like Frances Stewart, whose marriage to the King could mean nothing but Barbara’s own ruin and, more than likely, her exile into France. She and Frances had not been friendly for some time, not, in fact, since Barbara had become convinced that his Majesty’s infatuation for the girl was a serious one. She had always underestimated all women but herself, and it had taken her a long while to discover that Frances was really a formidable rival. Now she lived in terror that the Queen would die.
The gatherings in Barbara’s rooms were sober affairs now, for though the King came almost every night at supper-time his mood was a morose and silent one, and discretion kept them from seeming to be as indifferent as they were.
On the tenth night after Catherine had fallen sick he stood in Barbara’s drawing-room, over against the fireplace, thoughtfully swirling the red wine in his glass and talking in quiet tones which the most intent ears could not catch, to Frances Stewart. For Frances, though her own hopes of glory depended upon the Queen’s death, was genuinely sympathetic and sorrowful for the quiet unhappy little woman who had befriended her.
“How was she when you left her, Sire?”
Charles scowled, a drawn and worried scowl which seldom left his face nowadays, and stared down into his glass. “I don’t think she even knew me.”
“Is she still delirious?”
“She hadn’t spoken for more than two hours.” He gave a quick shake of his head as though to drive away the painfully vivid image of her that dogged his memory. “She talked to me this morning.” A strange sad and cynical smile touched his mouth. “She asked me how the children were. She said that she was sorry the boy was not pretty. I told her that he was very handsome and she seemed pleased—and said that if I was satisfied then she was happy.”
Frances gave a sudden hysterical sob, her fist pressed against her mouth, and Charles looked at her in quick surprise, as though he had forgotten that she was there. Just then a page entered the room, running in without ceremony, and went immediately to the King.
Charles whirled around. “What is it?”
“The Queen, Sire, is dying—”
Charles did not wait for the boy to finish his sentence but with a swift movement he flung the glass into the fireplace and ran out of the room. The Queen’s bed-chamber was in the same miserable condition it had been in for days: All windows were closed and had been since she had first fallen sick, so that the air was heavy and hot and stinking; the darkness was complete, but for a few low-burning candles about the bed; and the priests hung over her like bald malefic ravens, their voices eternally wailing and moaning.