She was not satisfied with the set of her dress at one moment; at the next her eyes glistened as she looked down at its smooth silken folds which fell seductively about her perfect figure. Her arms—very white and perfectly rounded—were bare from the elbow and the upper arm was visible here and there, for her wide sleeves were slit from the shoulder and loosely laced with blue ribbons. Her skirt was caught up to show a clinging satin petticoat. She was beautiful; and she wished to be more beautiful than she had ever been before. She patted those curls which had been arranged on her forehead and which were called, after the fashion of the day, “favorites.” Those which rippled over her shoulders were “heartbreakers,” and those nestling against her cheeks “confidants.” They were all lustrous natural curls, and she was proud of them.
Her husband, Roger Palmer, came to her then. His eyes shone with mixed pride and apprehension; he had been proud and apprehensive of Barbara ever since he had married her.
She gave him one of her disdainful looks. Never had he seemed to her more ineffectual than he did at that moment, but even as she glanced his way a smile curved her lips. He was her husband and that was how she would have him. She had strength and determination enough for them both.
Roger said: “The press in the streets is growing worse.”
Barbara did not answer. She never bothered to state the obvious.
“The King is worn out with the journey,” went on Roger. “All that bowing and smiling…. It must be wearying.”
Barbara still said nothing. All the bowing and smiling! she thought. Tired he might be, but he would be content. To think it had come at last. To think he was here in London!
But she was afraid. When she had last seen him he had been a King in exile, a very hopeful King it was true, but still an exile. Now that he had come into his own, her rivals would not be merely a few women at an exiled Court; they would be all the beauties of England. Moreover he himself would be a man courted and flattered by all…. It might well be that the man with whom she had to deal would be less malleable than that King who, briefly, had been her lover when she had gone with Roger to Holland.
That was but a few months ago, when Roger had been commissioned to carry money to the King who was then planning his restoration to the throne.
Charles had looked at Barbara and had been immediately attracted by those flamboyant charms.
Barbara too had been attracted—not only by his rank but by his personal charm. She had been sweetly subdued and loving during those two or three nights in Holland; she had kept that fierce passion for power in check; she had concealed it so successfully that it had appeared in the guise of a passion for the man. Yet he was no fool, that tall lean man; he was well versed in the ways of such as Barbara; and because he would never rave and rant at a woman, that did not mean that he did not understand her. Barbara was a little apprehensive of his tender cynical smile.
She had said: “Tomorrow I shall have to leave for England with my husband.”
“Ere long,” he had answered, “I shall be recalled to London. My people have been persuaded to clamor for my return, just as eleven years ago they were taught to demand my father’s head. Ere long I too shall be in England.”
“Then … sire, we shall both be there.”
“Aye … we shall both be there….”
And that was all; it was characteristic of him.
She was faintly alarmed concerning the changes she might find in him; but when she held up her mirror, patted the “favorites” which nestled on her brow, smiled at her animated and beautiful face, she was confident that she would succeed.
Roger, watching her, understood her thoughts. He said: “I know what happened between you and the King in Holland.”
She laughed at him. “I pray you do not think to play the outraged husband with me, sir!”
“Play the part! I have no need to play it, Barbara,” said the little man sadly. “If you think to fool me with others as you did with Chesterfield …”
“Now that the King is returned it might be called treason to refer to his Majesty as ‘others.’ You are a fool, Roger. Are you so rich, is your rank so high that you can afford to ignore the advantages I might bring you?”
“I do not like the manner in which you would bring me these advantages. Am I a complacent fool? Am I a husband to stand aside and smile with pleasure at his wife’s wanton behavior? Am I? Am I?”
Barbara spun round on him and cried: “Yes…. Yes, you are!”
“You must despise me. Why did you marry me?”
Barbara laughed aloud. “Because mayhap I see virtues where others see faults. Mayhap I married you because you are … what you are. Now I pray you do not be a fool. Do not disappoint me. Do not tell me I have made a mistake in the man I married, and I promise you that you shall not come badly out of your union with me.”
“Barbara, sometimes you frighten me.”
“I am not surprised. You are a man who is easily frightened…. Yes, woman?” shouted Barbara, for one of her women had appeared at the door.”
Madam, the King wishes to see you.”
Barbara gave a loud laugh of triumph. She had nothing to fear. He was the same man who had found her irresistible during that brief stay in Holland. The King was commanding that she be brought to his presence.
She took one last look at herself in her mirror, assured herself of her startling beauty and swept out of her apartment to the presence of the King.
Barbara had learned what she wanted at a very early age, and with that knowledge had come the determination to get it.
She never knew her father, for that noble and loyal gentleman had died before she was two years old; but when she was a little older her mother had talked to her of him, telling her how he had met his death at the siege of Bristol for the sake of the King’s cause, and that she, his only child, must never forget that she was a member of the noble family of Villiers and not do anything to stain the honor of that great name.
At that time Barbara was a vivacious little girl and, because she was a very pretty one, she was accustomed to hearing people comment on her lovely appearance. She was fascinated by the stories of her father’s heroism and she determined that when she grew up she would be as heroic as he was. She promised herself that she would perform deeds of startling bravery; she would astonish all with her cleverness; she would become a Joan of Arc to lead the Royalists to victory. She was a fervent Royalist because her father had been. She thought of Cromwell and Fairfax as monsters, Charles, the King, as a saint. Even when she was but four years old her little face would grow scarlet with rage when anyone mentioned Cromwell’s name.
“Curb that temper of yours, Barbara,” her mother often said. “Control it. Never let it control you.”
Sometimes her relatives would visit her mother—those two dashing boys of another branch of the family, George and Francis Villiers. They teased her a good deal, which never failed to infuriate her so that she would forget the injunctions to curb her temper and fly at them, biting and scratching, using all the strength she possessed to fight them; this naturally only amused them and made them intensify their teasing.
George, the elder of the boys, had been the Duke of Buckingham since his father had died. He was more infuriating than his brother Lord Francis, and it became his special delight to see how fierce she could become. He told her she would die a spinster, because no man would marry such a termagant as she would undoubtedly become; he doubted not that she would spend her life in a convent, where they would have a padded cell into which she could be locked until she recovered from her rages.