“Wars, wars, wars!” said Lucy. “It is always wars. Even Jemmy dreams of wars.”
“I’m the Captain,” said Jemmy. “I’m no Roundhead.” He climbed onto the bed looking for comfits and sweetmeats which were always kept close by Lucy so that all she had to do was reach for them. Her lovers kept her well supplied; they were the only presents Lucy appreciated.
Jemmy sat on the bed, arranging the sweetmeats as soldiers and eating them one by one. “Dead, dead, dead,” he said, popping them into his mouth. “Is my Papa coming today?”
“We do not know,” said Ann. “But if you eat more of those sweetmeats you will be too sick to see him, if he does.”
Jemmy paused for a second or so; then he continued to murmur “Dead … dead … dead” as he popped sweet after sweet into his mouth. He was remarkably like his father at that moment.
A serving maid came in to say that a gentleman was waiting to see Mistress Barlow.
“Hurry!” cried Lucy. “My mirror! My comb! Ann … quick! Jemmy, you must go away. Who is it, I wonder?”
“If it is my father, I shall stay,” said Jemmy. “If it is Sir Henry, I shall stay too. He promised to bring me a pony to ride.” He leaped off the bed. “He may have brought it.”
The maid said that it was neither the King nor Sir Henry Bennett. It was an elderly gentleman whom she did not know and who would not give his name.
Lucy and Ann exchanged glances. An elderly gentleman who had never been here before? Lucy liked young lovers. She grimaced at Ann.
“I should put a shawl over your shoulders,” said Ann, placing one there.
Lucy grimaced again and pushed the shawl away so that the magnificent bust and shoulders were not entirely hidden.
Edward Hyde was shown into the room. He flinched at the sight of the voluptuous woman on the bed. The morals of the Court—which he would be the first to admit were set by his master—were constantly shocking him. He thought of his daughter, Anne, and was glad that the Princess of Orange was taking her away. He thought: What I must face in the service of my master! And his thoughts went back to that occasion when, seeking to join Charles in France, his ship had been taken by corsairs, and he, robbed of his possessions, had been made a slave before he finally escaped.
“It is my lord Chancellor!” said Lucy.
Edward Hyde bowed his head.
“This is the first time you have visited my apartment,” she went on.
“I come on the King’s pleasure.”
“I did not think that you came on your own!” laughed Lucy.
The Chancellor looked impatient; he said quickly: “It is believed that we shall not be here in Cologne much longer.”
“Ah!” said Lucy.”
“And,” went on Hyde, “I have a proposition to make. Many people remain here because they dare not live in England. That would not apply to you. If you wished you could return there, set up your house, and none would say you nay.”
“Is that so?”
“Indeed it is. And it would be the wisest thing you could do.”
“How should I live there?”
“How do you live here?”
“I have many friends.”
“English friends. The English are as friendly at home as in exile. The King has promised to pay you a pension of four hundred pounds a year if you return to England.”
“It is for Jemmy,” she said. “He wants Jemmy to be brought up in England; that’s it, I’ll swear.”
“It would be a very good reason for your going.”
“London,” she said. “I wonder if it has changed much.”
“Why not go and find out?”
“The King …?”
“He will not be long in Cologne.”
“No,” said Lucy sadly. “He will go, and he will take the most gallant gentlemen with him.”
“Go to London,” said the Chancellor. “You’ll be happier there, and one day, let us hope, all the friends you have known here will join you there. What do you say? Four hundred pounds a year; and you have the King’s promise of it as soon as it is possible. A passage could be arranged for you. What do you say, Mistress Barlow? What do you say?”
“I say I will consider the offer.”
He took her hand and bowed over it.
“The serving girl will show you out,” she told him.
When he had left she called Ann Hill to her.
“Ann,” she said, “talk to me of London. Talk as you love to talk. Come, Ann; sit on the bed there. How would you like to go to London, Ann? How would you like to go home?”
Ann stood still as though transfixed. She was smelling the dampness in the air on those days when the mist rose up from the Thames; she was hearing the shouts and screams of a street brawl; she was watching the milkmaids bearing their yokes along the cobbled streets; she was seeing the gabled houses on an early summer’s morning.
And, watching her, Lucy caught her excitement.
At the Palais-Royal, Henrietta Maria and her daughter were awaiting the arrival of Mary of Orange. The Queen felt happier than she had for some time; the royal family of France, although they had so long neglected the exiled Queen and her daughter Henriette, were preparing to give Mary of Orange a royal welcome.
“This is an honor of which we must not be insensible,” said Henrietta Maria to her youngest daughter. “The King, the Queen, and Monsieur are all riding out to meet Mary at Saint-Dennis.”
“It is Holland they honor, Mam, not us,” Henriette reminded her mother.
“It is Mary, and Mary is one of us. Oh, I do wonder what she will be like. Poor Mary! I remember well her espousal. She was ten years old at the time, and she was married in the Chapel at Whitehall to the Prince her husband, who was a little boy of eleven. It was at the time when your father was forced into signing Strafford’s death warrant; and the day after the marriage the mob broke into Westminster Abbey and … and …”
“Mam, I beg of you do not talk of the past. Think of the future and Mary’s coming. That will cheer you.”
“Ah, yes, it will cheer me. It will be wonderful to see her again … my little girl. A widow now. Oh, what sorrows befall our family!”
“But there is joy coming now, Mam. Mary will soon be with us, and I know her visit will make us very happy.”
“Hers was a Protestant marriage.” Henrietta Maria’s brow darkened.
“Please, Mam, do not speak of that. She will soon be here with us. Let us be content with that.”
They heard the shouts and cheers as the party approached.
Mary was riding between Louis and Queen Anne. Philippe was on the other side of his brother. This was indeed a royal welcome for Mary.
So the first time Henriette set eyes on her sister was a very ceremonious occasion; but there was time in between the balls and masques, which the royal family of France had devised for Mary’s entertainment, for them to get to know each other.
Henriette discovered Mary to be warmhearted and delighted to be with her family again. She was merry and quick to joke, and in that she reminded Henriette of Charles; she talked continually of her little boy who was now five years old—her little William of Orange, such a solemn boy, a regular Dutch William! She spoke sadly of her husband. She had been loath to marry him, she told Henriette as they sat alone. “So very frightened I was. I was younger than you, Henriette; think of that! But he was frightened too, and far shyer than I was, and we soon learned to love each other. And he died of that dreadful pox. It was a great tragedy for me, Henriette, in more ways than one. I could not then offer your brothers the hospitality which I had shown them hitherto; but more than that, I had lost a husband and protector … the father of my little Dutch William.”
Henriette shed tears for her sister’s sorrow, but more often she was joining in her sister’s laughter.