Part 10 (1/2)
HAM H HOUSE, O OXFORDs.h.i.+RETO OUR SISTER, P PRINCESSE H HENRIETTE-ANNE, D d.u.c.h.eSSE D' O ORLeANSFROM H HIS M MAJESTY K KING C CHARLES IIJULY 20, 1665 20, 1665 What a brood you have, my dearest. Congratulations! Another beautiful princesse princesse for the House of Stuart. How brave you are! She will be a comfort to your ailing mother-inlaw, Queen Anne. Please tell the Monsieur and King Louis we pray for our beloved aunt. Take care, my sweetheart. Please, for my sake, take care. for the House of Stuart. How brave you are! She will be a comfort to your ailing mother-inlaw, Queen Anne. Please tell the Monsieur and King Louis we pray for our beloved aunt. Take care, my sweetheart. Please, for my sake, take care.
I am always your loving, Charles Note-Has the comet been seen in Paris? I have not yet seen it with the tail, although I stay up most nights watching the sky.
July 28, 1665Hampton CourtDear Ellen,Thank you for your sweet note. We gratefully accept your invitation to Hill House, but first I had to journey to town to check on the theatre, and thence on to Hampton Court to see my brother Henry, the king's chaplain. I am still with the court now, and we move on to Salisbury tomorrow. Is the middle of the next month convenient? Yes of course I will endeavour to bring my son, but Harry is ever with the court. I understand that Dryden and the Howards will also be returning to Surrey in August.The theatre is safe, but in truth London is in a sad state. Every street has boarded-up, marked houses, and the city is hot and still. Everyone breathes through beaked masks and chews tobacco to ward off the sickness. The numbers rose to above seventeen hundred this week, but I hear rumours through town that physicians are not even reporting the true numbers, in order to save families from the required forty-day quarantine within a plague house. Also, the poor are difficult to count, as are the Quakers, who will not have bells rung for their souls.It is pleasant and diverting here, but strange to enjoy such entertainments after the horrors I have just seen. I am called to billiards. I will be happily antic.i.p.ating your reply.
Yours, Tom Killigrew August 15-Hill House (still warm)Ring a ring a rosyPocket full of posyA tishoo, a tishooWe all fall down.
Children in the village are singing this gruesome song. Do they know what it means, I wonder? It has become custom to bless someone if he sneezes. Suspicion rules. We are all afraid.
Note-The Bill shows the London numbers rose above six thousand this week, but Hart says the true reports are closer to ten ten thousand. thousand.
September 1, 1665-Hill House (late afternoon) ”Darling, the court has moved to Oxford,” Hart said when he returned from his morning ride. Oxford-which is still mercifully uninfected. Please G.o.d, let it stay that way.
”Will we join them?” I asked, helping Hart out of his riding coat.
”Ah, but here, we can be alone,” he said, hugging me close.
Note-Scandalous news from Oxford: Teddy writes that while la belle Stuart la belle Stuart still refuses the king, she does not refuse Lady Castlemaine. The two of them had a pretend marriage and then climbed into a marriage bed, for all to see. At the last moment, the king hopped in, replacing Castlemaine. still refuses the king, she does not refuse Lady Castlemaine. The two of them had a pretend marriage and then climbed into a marriage bed, for all to see. At the last moment, the king hopped in, replacing Castlemaine. La belle Stuart La belle Stuart claimed indecency and fled, better late than never. I am amazed at what lengths Castlemaine will travel to manipulate the king. All this while the country is ravaged by plague. claimed indecency and fled, better late than never. I am amazed at what lengths Castlemaine will travel to manipulate the king. All this while the country is ravaged by plague.
September 2 Terrible news. Rose writes that Mother is unable to live with Great-Aunt Margaret any longer and is returning to London. London! Unable to live-what she means is unable to drink drink. I despatched Hugh with an urgent note begging her to stay in Oxford or at the least to come here. Fretting. Fretting. Fretting.
COLOMBES, F FRANCETO MY BROTHER, K KING C CHARLES II OF E ENGLANDFROM P PRINCESS H HENRIETTE-ANNE, T THE M MADAME OF F FRANCE10 SEPTEMBRE 1665 1665.
My dear, The reports we receive are frightening. France has embargoed all s.h.i.+ps bound for England, so I have little hope of this letter reaching you, and yet for my own peace of mind I must write it. I know that your nature, so opposite from its reputation, tends towards action rather than patience, but I beg you to take care. There is little that you can do but send out monies and medical supplies, and I am sure you are already doing both. Protect yourself, my dear. For all our sakes.
Mam arrived safely and is busy overseeing her renovations here at Colombes. Louis has agreed to the figure you suggested, but already I am quite sure she has spent twice that amount. I send my love to all your children and your dear queen. Tell them that I pray for their safety, as I pray for yours.
All love, Minette September 14 (still summer) She's done it! Rose writes that Mother has left for town.
Later-six p.m.
”I must go and fetch her!” I repeated for the tenth time. ”She is my mother, I cannot just let her return to London! Everyone is dying in London!”
”Be reasonable,” Hart said in his most patronising voice. ”It is far too dangerous. I could never allow it.” Sitting heavily in his armchair, he picked up his news sheet, signalling an end to the discussion.
Breathing deeply to collect my calm, I began to explain it to him again.
Even later-eight p.m. (a cool country rain beats on the roof) I slammed the door. Utterly childish, but when one is treated as a child, what options are there? Many options, I know, but I chose not to take them.
Everyone knows that the death toll is at least double what is reported in the Bills. Some say twenty thousand a week are dying of plague. No one can bear to turn in those they love, condemning them to die alone. Unable to stop myself, I imagine Mother bricked up in Drury Lane for forty days, waiting. And on the forty-first day?
They say the stench of the dead is overpowering. Farmers cannot coerce their cattle to enter the city; the poor creatures would rather be whipped to death than venture into such a place.
And Mother is there. Somehow I must get to town.
Midnight Hart knocked gently on my closet door.
”I would like a truce,” he said, his large hands held out to me in supplication.
I remained where I was.
”I understand: she must be fetched. Regardless of how foolish she may be, she is your mother, and she is in danger.”
”That is what I was telling-”
He held up his hands to cut me off: a commanding gesture that he uses to quiet the audience when he is about to make a great speech on the stage. I find it irritating. ”I do not argue with that. I argue with your your going. We will send someone to collect her, and you will stay here.” going. We will send someone to collect her, and you will stay here.”
”When?” I challenged, pressing my advantage.
”Tomorrow. I have already asked Hugh to find someone.”
One a.m.-my closet I left Hart's sleeping bulk and have come here to think. I know I should feel grat.i.tude, relief, and even tenderness towards him, but I feel curiously bereft, almost robbed of a fight I wanted to have. Why? Why should I wish for discord? It is unlike me. Not discord, I think: freedom.
September 16-early morning Daniel, one of the grooms, has gone to fetch her. I made him repeat the directions to Drury Lane twice before I let him leave. He will take Hart's beaky mask and collect Mother as well as his cousin near Charing Cross. He is strangely undaunted and seems ready for adventure. How foolish.
September 17 (sunny) Not back yet. I am waiting.
September 18 I was amazed and appalled when Daniel returned with his cousin Maybeth and her husband, George, but without my mother.
”Where is she?” I shrieked as Henry handed Maybeth down. Maybeth obviously enjoyed her excursion in a fine carriage very much and seemed utterly unbothered by the plague-it must run in their family.
”Oxford,” Henry said, bewildered. ”Farm Cottage, River Meadows, Oxford,” he recited proudly. ”See, I remembered.”
”Ellen,” Hart said warningly from behind me. I had not heard him come onto the drive. ”Come inside.”
”You sent her to Oxford!” I screeched, wheeling on him. ”She ran away from Oxford!” I stormed past him into the house.
”Never in front of the servants, Ellen! How many times must I tell you?” Hart began without preamble. His huge frame looked even bigger in the pale green morning room (it is exquisite; the decorators have just finished it), his body overwhelming the delicate furnis.h.i.+ngs. I remained in the cus.h.i.+oned window-seat next to Ruby, who had been startled from her afternoon nap.
”You have lied to me for three days, and you want me me to hold my tongue in front of the servants?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level. to hold my tongue in front of the servants?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice level.
”Not lied!” he thundered, slamming his hand onto the writing desk and sending scripts flying and a gla.s.s candlestick shattering to the ground.
One of a set. I will never be able to match it, I thought irrelevantly, looking at the mess.
”I never said she was to come here!” Hart said, stepping over the broken gla.s.s and loose papers. ”You simply a.s.sumed.”
”Ha,” I snorted. ”Not lying is not the same as telling the truth.”
”She won't run again. I have seen to it.” His meaty pink face took on an air of self-satisfied complacency. I wanted to reach through the thicket of his smug reserve and shake the puffy pride from his fat features.
”Meaning you gave her enough money so that she can drink herself silly and have no need to run away?” I threw the words at him like sharpened icicles. They hit their mark, and he crumpled into petulance. This was a dangerous course for me to take. Hart could not bear any slight to his pride, but this was the health of my family he was risking. I threw my rage onto the table and waited for his response.
”I did not have to do anything for her,” he said brutally. ”Or for you. You are not my wife. Be grateful I did as much as I did.”
I did not respond, as there was nothing to say.