About a week later most of the Court went to the opening performance of John Dryden’s new play, “The Maiden Queen.”
The house was full when the Court party arrived and there was a great buzzing and scraping as the fops in the pit climbed onto their benches to stare, while the women hung over the balconies above. One of them impudently dropped her fan as the King passed beneath and it landed squarely on top of his head. It began to slide off and Charles caught it and presented it with a smile to the giggling blushing girl above, as a spattering of handclaps ran over the theatre.
The King, York, and the young Duke of Monmouth were all in royal mourning—long purple cloaks—for the Duchess of Savoy.
Monmouth, the King’s fourteen-year-old bastard by an early love affair, had come to England in the train of Queen Henrietta Maria a year and a half before. Some said he was not really the King’s son, but at least he looked like a Stuart and there could be no doubt that Charles thought he was one. Almost since the day of the boy’s arrival he had shown him the most conspicuous affection and as a result of the title conferred upon him by his father he took precedence over all but York and Prince Rupert. The year before, his Majesty had married him to Anne Scott, eleven years old and one of the richest heiresses in Britain. Now the boy was appearing publicly in royal mourning—to the scandal of all who reverenced the ancient proprieties or who believed that blood was not royal unless it was also legitimate.
Down in Fop Corner one of the sparks commented: “By God, if his Majesty isn’t as fond of the boy as if he were of his own begetting.”
“It runs through the galleries he intends to declare him legitimate and make him his heir now it’s been proved the Queen’s barren.”
“Who proved it?”
“Gad, Tom, where d’ye keep yourself? My Lord Bristol sent a couple of priests to Lisbon to prove that Clarendon had something given her to make her barren just before she sailed for England.”
“A pox on that Clarendon’s old mouldy chops! And will you have a look at his mealy-mouthed daughter up there—as smug and formal as if she was Queen Anne!”
“And so she may be one day—if it’s true what they say about her Majesty.”
Another fop, catching the last phrase, perked up. “What’s that? What about her Majesty?”
All over the theatre the gossip went on, hissing and murmuring, while the royal party found its seats. Charles took the one in the center, with Catherine on his right and York on his left. Anne Hyde was beside her husband, and Castlemaine at the opposite end of the row next the Queen. Around and all about them were the Maids of Honour, both her Highness’s and the Queen’s. They were a group of pretty, eager, laughing girls, white-skinned, blue-eyed, with shining golden curls, their satin and taffeta skirts making a rustle as they arranged the folds and fluttered their fans, whispering and giggling together over the men down in the pit. They had arrived at Court during the past year and almost all of them were lovely—as though nature herself had sought to please the King by creating a generation of beautiful women.
On Barbara’s right sat one of the Queen’s Maids, Mrs. Boynton, a lively little minx who liked to affect an air of great languor and who grew faint three or four times a day when there were gentlemen about. Now Barbara spoke to her in an undertone which was nevertheless loud enough for Frances Stewart, just behind them, to overhear.
“Mrs. Stewart is looking wretchedly today, have you noticed? I would swear her complexion has a greenish cast.”
It was a well-known fact that Frances had been suffering from jealousy over the sensation created by the recent arrival at Court of Mrs. Jennings, a fifteen-year-old blonde who was currently being admired by all gentlemen and criticized by all ladies. Barbara was delighted that someone had come to catch interest from Frances Stewart, since that was what had happened to her the year before when Frances appeared.
Boynton waved her fan lazily, lids half-closed, and drawled, “She doesn’t look green to me. Perhaps it’s something in your Ladyship’s eye.”
Barbara gave her a look that once might have troubled her and turned to talk to Monmouth who leant forward eagerly, obviously much smitten by his father’s flamboyant mistress. He was tall and well-developed for his age, physically precocious as the King had been, and so extraordinarily handsome that grown women were falling in love with him. He had not only the Stuart beauty but also the Stuart charm—a merry gentle lovable disposition, and something in his personality so dazzling that he arrested attention wherever he went.
Boynton glanced around over her shoulder to exchange smiles with Frances, and Frances leaned forward, whispering behind her fan: “I just saw his Highness slip another note into Mrs. Jennings’s hand. Wait a moment and I’ll warrant you she tears it up.”
Jennings had been amusing the Court for some weeks by refusing to become York’s mistress, an office which was generally included in the appointment of Maid of Honour to his wife. She tore up his letters before everyone and scattered the pieces on the floor of her Highness’s Drawing-Room. And now, as Boynton and Frances Stewart watched her, she tore this note into bits and tossed them high in the air so that they drifted onto the Duke’s head and shoulders.
Boynton and Stewart burst into delighted laughter and York, glancing around, saw the scraps on his shoulder. Scowling, he brushed them off, while Mrs. Jennings sat very straight and prim-faced and looked down over his head at the stage, where the play was beginning.
“What!” said Charles, glancing at his brother as he brushed himself, and he laughed outright. “Another rebuff, James? Odsfish! I should think you’d have taken the hint by now.”
“Your Majesty doesn’t always take hints, if I may say so,” muttered the Duke, but Charles merely smiled good-naturedly.
“We Stuarts are a stubborn race, I think.” He leaned closer to James and murmured beneath his breath: “I’ll wager my new Turkish pony against your Barbary mare that I break in that skittish filly before you do.”
York raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a wager, Sire.” The two brothers shook hands and Charles settled down to watch the play.
For two acts Barbara remained seated. She smiled at Buckingham and other gentlemen down in the pit. She twisted her pearls and fiddled her fan and put her hands to her hair. She took out a mirror to examine her face, stuck on another patch, and then tossed the mirror back to Wilson. She was, very ostentatiously, bored. And all the while Charles seemed unaware that she was nearby; he did not trouble to glance at her even once.
At last she thought she could bear this no longer, and fixing a determined smile on her face she leaned across Catherine and touched his arm. “It’s a wretched performance, don’t you think. Sire?”
He glanced at her coldly. “No, I don’t think so. I’m enjoying it.”
Barbara’s eyes glittered and the blood rushed to her face, but in a moment she had recovered herself. All at once she stood up, smiling sweetly, and crossing behind the Queen went to force a place for herself between Charles and York. The two men gave her surprised and angry glances and turned instantly away while Barbara sat, her face impassive and motionless as stone, though humiliated rage was making her sweat. For a moment she thought that her heart would explode, so bursting-full of blood it seemed.
And then, out of the corners of her eyes, she looked at Charles and saw the ominous flicker of his jaw-muscles. She stared at him, longing violently to reach over and rake her nails across that dark smooth-shaven cheek until she drew blood—but at last with a determined effort she dragged her eyes away and forced them down to the stage once more. All she could see was a blur that shifted and rocked; there were faces, faces, faces, turned up and grinning, smirking, sneering at her—a whole sea of enemy faces. She felt that she hated each one of them, with a murderous savage hatred that turned her sick and trembling.