Виктория Холт - The Queen’s Devotion: The Story of Queen Mary II

I heard Anne Villiers saying: “She is very tall and nothing but skin and bone — not good-looking at all.”

“Only a magnificent pair of legs,” said Elizabeth, raising her eyes to the ceiling in an expression of wonder. “Yet she inspired a personage.”

Sarah said that there was so much beauty at court that perhaps it was refreshing to find a lack of it.

“The gentleman concerned,” went on Elizabeth, glancing at her sisters, several of whom could not restrain their giggles, “is said to have an odd taste in women.”

I was getting more perceptive. The pauses and the exchanged glances startled me. I thought suddenly, I believe they are talking about my father. I could not believe this though. This Arabella Churchill had had three children. When the first would have been born, my mother was alive. It was nonsense. But the suspicion remained.

I said to Anne Trelawny when we were alone: “Arabella Churchill’s lover? Who is he?”

I saw the flush in her face and she did not answer.

I said: “Was it my father?”

“In a court like ours these things happen,” she said uneasily.

I could not forget that, while my mother was dying, he had been in love with Arabella Churchill’s legs. I discovered that her first child had been born in 1671 — the year my mother had died — and now there was this one.

I remembered my father’s sorrow over my mother’s death. How he had wept and seemed to care so much, and all the time he was making love with Arabella Churchill. And I had believed he was heartbroken by my mother’s death. How could he have been?

Life was full of hypocrisy. People lied. They deceived. Even my noble father.

Elizabeth Villiers had succeeded in what she had intended to do. Nor did she leave it there.

She had a clever way of steering the conversation round to the way she wanted it to go. In the days of my innocence I believed that it happened naturally, but now I was beginning to see it differently. She was clever; she was subtle; she was five years older than I and when one is eleven that is a great deal.

At this time her aim was to poison the relationship between my father and me. It may have been because she thought he might yet turn me into a Catholic and so jeopardize my way to the throne and, as my attendant, she would be without the benefits accompanying such a position. Or it might have been that, disliking me as she did, she could not bear that I should know such happiness from a love the like of which I imagine could never have been hers.

When one of the courtiers began acting strangely and it was said that he was suffering from a bout of madness, Elizabeth remarked that he reminded her of Sir John Denham.

One of the younger girls asked who Sir John Denham was.

It was obviously what Elizabeth had expected, and she said quickly: “It was something which happened some time ago. It was very unsavory and perhaps best forgotten, though there will always be people to remember it.”

“Oh yes,” said Anne Villiers. “Whenever Sir John’s name is mentioned, people will remember.”

“Do tell us what happened,” begged Henrietta.

And then I heard the story of Sir John Denham.

It had started in the year 1666, just after the Great Fire. Sir John Denham had gone mad suddenly and thought he was the Holy Ghost. He even went to the King to tell him so.

Henrietta and Maria Villiers giggled at the thought and my sister joined in.

Elizabeth reproved them rather primly.

“It is not a joke,” she said. “It was very serious and you should not laugh at the misfortunes of others.”

“It was due to his wife, was it not?” said Anne Villiers. “He had married her when she was eighteen and he was a very old man. You can guess what happened. She had a lover.”

Elizabeth was giving me a covert glance, so I guessed what was coming.

“Sir John was so upset,” she went on, “that he went mad. And then she died. It was said she was poisoned. The people blamed Sir John at first. They gathered outside his house and called on him to come out that they might show him what they did to murderers. The people are fickle. When he gave his wife a fine funeral and wine was served liberally to all the people who had come to see her buried, instead of attacking him, they said he was a good fellow and it must have been someone else who murdered his wife.”

“Who?” asked Henrietta.

“I really do not think we should talk of this,” put in Elizabeth. “It is not really a very pleasant subject.”

“But I want to know,” said Henrietta.

“You are not to . . .” Elizabeth made a great show of embarrassment, as though forcing herself to be silent.

Sarah looked at her cynically. Sarah was more shrewd than the rest of us. That was why she and Elizabeth were so wary of each other. I wondered whether she would discuss the case of Sir John Denham with my sister when they were alone together. Anne might be too indolent to ask, but she seemed to be listening with interest; I supposed it would depend on whether Sarah wanted Anne to know.

I did bring the matter up with Anne Trelawny. I trusted her completely and it was always a joy to talk over things with her, because she never tried to impose her will on mine.

“Do you remember all that talk about Sir John Denham who thought he was the Holy Ghost?”

“Oh yes,” said Anne reluctantly. “It happened a long time ago.”

“Round about the time of the Great Fire.”

“I thought they said she died the year after the Fire.”

“She had a lover.”

“They said so.”

“Who was it?”

“Oh, people will talk!”

“Was it my father?”

Anne blushed and I went on: “I guessed it was by the way Elizabeth Villiers talked.”

“She’s a sly creature, that one. I had even rather have Sarah Jennings, though I must say she can be a trial, and I could well do without her.”

“What happened? Was there a big scandal?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“And my father?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

I said: “I now know about Arabella Churchill. She is still with him, is she not?”

“Both the King and the Duke can remain faithful to those who really mean something to them. The King had been very friendly with Lady Castlemaine for some years and there is this play actress, Nell Gwynne.”

“Pray do not change the subject, Anne. I said I want to know. One of the Villiers girls said that when Sir John provided the wine, someone else was accused of the murder.”

“They had to blame someone.”

“My father?”

“No ... not your father.”

“Then whom did they blame?”

“Well ... they said ... your mother . . .”

“My mother! She would never have done such a thing!”

“Of course not. As a matter of fact, the post mortem proved that Lady Denham had not been poisoned at all. So it was a lot of lies.”

“Not all,” I said. “I suppose Sir John did go mad and his wife did take a lover, and that lover was . . .”

“Dear Lady Mary,” said my friend Anne. “You must see the world as it really is. You cannot shut your eyes to the truth. Your father is not unlike the King in this. They were both born to love women. It is part of their natures. I sometimes think that the King is so greatly loved because of this weakness. He is the people’s charming, wayward King. He has so much that is good in him and must be forgiven this foible. And as for your father, he loves you dearly, as you love him. This love between you is a precious thing, the best you will ever know until you have a husband who will love you, too. Accept what is good in life. Do not allow others to influence your feelings toward those you love.”

“I wanted him to be perfect, Anne.”

“No one is that. Life is very rarely perfect and never for long. If you are going to savor the best of it, accept what cannot be changed and enjoy it while you are able. When you have learned to do that you have mastered as valued a lesson as ever Bishop Compton can teach you.”

My father came to see me. He wanted to be alone with me and I knew he had something of great importance to tell me.

“My dearest daughter,” he said. “I want to talk to you very seriously. I know you are young, but I want you to try to understand the position in which I find myself.”

I nestled closer to him. No matter what evil stories I heard about his relationships with women, I still loved him the same. To me he was always the tender loving father, and whatever he felt for those women did not touch us.

“You must know that the King cannot get children,” he began.

I wrinkled my brows. I had often heard that this woman or that was going to have the King’s child.

He noticed this and went on: “No child who could inherit the throne. The Queen, it seems, cannot produce one. Now this is of some significance to us. I am the King’s brother and, if he were to die ... Oh, do not look alarmed ... he is not going to die for a long time. He is hale and hearty. But there are those who say, yes, but suppose there was a riding accident ... some mishap. Who knows in this life? And if your uncle died tomorrow ... well, we must be prepared. I should be king then.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Well, I have two beautiful daughters and God knows I love them well, but the country looks for sons. People have this obsession for the masculine sex. That is a custom. They will take a woman, yes, but they would rather a man and they maintain that it is the duty of the heir to the throne to get sons if he possibly can.”