Виктория Холт - Madame Serpent

But what did that matter? Catherine had at last understood. She and Montmorency had wasted their time. Nothing could come between the King and the Duchess. No brief love-affair with a red-headed governess, no scheming of a clever woman could break up this surely most enduring love affair in the history of France.

Still, Diane would have some discomfiture to bear; and Catherine, since she could not break the King’s devotion, must content herself with this.

Diane had lost none of her subtlety. It was to Catherine she came when she heard the news.

‘I hear that the Lady Fleming is to become a mother,’ said Diane.

‘I have heard it also, Madame,’ said Catherine mildly.

‘The woman is a fool,’ said Diane. ‘She talks too much. Did Your Majesty know that the child is the King’s?’

‘I had heard that also. I fear it is a matter to grieve us both.’

‘When a stupid woman’s tongue begins to clack, it is a matter to grieve all concerned. I think you should insist on her banishment from court.’

‘I see,’ said Catherine. ‘Have you spoken of this to the King?’

Diane shrugged her shoulders as though to say she did not consider the matter worth the King’s attention. How clever she was! So she was going to let Henry see that she did not consider this infidelity― occurring while she herself was unavoidably kept from him― of the slightest importance. It was the same attitude that she had adopted over the Piedmont incident. How easy it was to manage a lover when you did not love with a fierce desire, a burning passion that robbed you, calm as you habitually were, of all good sense.

Catherine said slyly: ‘The King loved this woman. Doubtless, that was why she gave herself airs.’

‘Madame, the brief attention of the King is no indiscretion.’

Oh, she was clever! She gave herself airs; but she had never been indiscreet.

‘The King may not give his consent to her banishment,’ said Catherine maliciously. ‘It may be that he wishes to keep her at court.’

‘He longer wishes to keep her at court.’

The two women surveyed each other. Do as you are told! the uncrowned Queen of France was saying . The King amused himself because I was not here. Remember that. You could not prevent his straying. That is understandable. But now I have returned, and the governess who diverted him for a little while may be sent away. Catherine used her lids as hoods to hide her glittering eyes; she feared they might betray her hatred of this woman.

‘I doubt not, Madame,’ she could not prevent herself saying, ‘that you know the desires of the King’s mind as well as you know those of his body.’

How foolish that was, she realized at once. But I am the Queen, she thought weakly. Let her remember that.

Diane turned a shade paler, but gave no other sign of her anger.

She said calmly: ‘As Your Gracious Majesty knows, it has it has been my constant care to devote myself to the King, yourself, and your children. That is why we are such excellent friends.’

That was like a queen talking to her woman. And yet, what could Catherine do? She must remember that every smile she received from her husband came by way of this woman; and now she believed herself to be once more with child, and this she owed to Diane. Her comparatively strong position at court had been given to her by Diane. However provoked, she must not forget that.

She lifted her eyes to Diane’s face. ‘Madame, as usual you are right. The woman’s mistake was to talk too much. I will see that she leaves the court immediately.’

‘That will be well,’ smiled Diane. ‘We must see that she lacks nothing, for we must not forget whose child it is she carries. Her indiscretion, though, makes her immediate banishment necessary.’

The interview was over. The little plot had failed. There might never have been a cleverly devised masque, a passionate Andromeda in pursuit of Perseus.

Henry was reassured that his mistress understood and forgave his brief lapse. She was even glad that he had found a temporary solace. Their love was not to be considered as merely on a physical plane. Did they not both know this?

Henry enchanted by this explanation of his folly; he seemed more devoted, more in love with Diane than ever.

But Diane was not so forgiving to others as she was to her royal lover. The walk together of the Queen and the Constable in the gardens had not gone unnoticed by Diane’s spies; and out of that walk had grown the masque; and was it not at the masque that Henry had been given as partner the Scots governess? Diane felt she knew how to deal with the Queen; she knew equally well how to deal with the Constable.

To show how lightly she regarded this affair of the King’s, she deliberately reminded the court of that other lapse of his by bringing into the royal nursery Henry’s daughter by the Piedmont girl. She was a beautiful child, this daughter of Henry’s, and more like her father than any of Catherine’s children. Now fourteen, she was sweet-natured and charming. She was called Diane of France and was an example of what a girl could be when her education was supervised by the Duchess of Valentinois.

It was useless, Catherine realized, to fight for the King against such a one.

And there began again, when they were at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the misery of watching the King and his through the spy-hole in the floor.

* * *

In September of the following year a significant event took place. This was the birth of another boy to Catherine. There was nothing very special, one might have thought, in the birth of another child; Catherine had had six already, and five were left to her. This was a boy, it was true― but she had two boys already.

Yet, there was something about this child which moved her deeply. Was it a likeness to his father? For one thing, he was a bigger, healthier baby than Francis, Charles, and dead Louis had been. Catherine knew, with that curious prevision of hers that this child was going to mean more to her than any of the others.

He was christened with pomp and ceremony such as had attended the christening of other members of the royal family. His names were Edward Alexander; but right from the first she called him Henry and he became known by that name.

‘It is because he reminds me so of his father!’ she said.

She tended to him more than she had any of the others and he did much to soothe her. There was less watching through the floor, less spying generally, less mingling with the crowds in the city, than there had ever been before.

Young Henry compensated her in some measure for the pain the older Henry caused her. She adored the child. It was to her he turned; he had cried when Diane took him into her arms. He did not stare wonderingly up into the King’s face, but he clung to his mother.

At last there was a second love in her life, this child who comforted instead of tormented, and who gave something in return for what he took, love for love.

TWENTY-THREE YEARS of marriage― and her love for her husband had not abated. She was young yet― only thirty-seven― but she was beginning to grow fat; she had produced ten children in the last thirteen years; and she was still so passionately in love with Henry as she had been when a young girl.

Catherine knew― with that unerring instinct of hers― that there would be no more children. This year she had given birth to twins― little Jeanne, who had died a few hours after her birth, and Victoire, who had lived a few months before she followed her twin. But between the births of the twins and the beloved Henry had been born to Catherine two other children. One was Margot, now three years old and as enchanting a child as young Mary Stuart; the other was Hercule, born less than a year after Margot. Catherine could rest from childbearing now. She had lost three children, but she had a goodly brood of seven, and four of them were boys.

She felt that she could congratulate herself on her children, though Francis, the Dauphin, caused both Henry and herself a good deal of anxiety. He had had a bad attack of smallpox, and on finally recovering was even more delicate than he had been before. Short in stature and not always very bright at his lessons, he was completely under the influence of the scheming little Scots Queen. He was thirteen, but looked no more than eleven; she was only fourteen, but she appeared to be quite seventeen. Young Charles, who was six, adored her, jealous because she was to marry his brother; Charles had turned out to be quite a little musician; he liked to play his lute to Mary, and to read verses to her. She was willing to listen, the little coquette, always ready for adulation; and Heaven knew there plenty of that for Mary Stuart at the court of a France. The child’s airs and graces might have been intolerable but for her charm. They often were intolerable to Catherine― who was indifferent to charm, except in her two Henrys― but she bore with the girl, for she had decided that one day Mary Stuart should answer for her sins.

Catherine loved her daughters, Elizabeth and Claude, though mildly, for they were pretty, charming girls. Young Margot, even at three, showed signs of becoming a stronger personality. Lovely to look at, and imperious already, she had easily won the hearts of Diane and her father; she was bolder with her mother than any of the others― except Henry― dared be. Catherine admired her young daughter, but her great love was already given to young Henry.

He was five now, her beloved child― a Medici in every respect. He was entirely hers. She had one great regret regard and that was that he was her third son, and not her first; she would have given much to have made him Dauphin of France. He was delightful; his beautifully shaped hands were her hands; his features were Italian; his eyes were the flashing Medici eyes. He was not, like his brothers, fond of the chase, though he rode well; Catherine had seen to that.