I looked down with dismay at my denuded dress.
“Do not regret the loss of the ribbons,” said Charles. “It still looks delightful, as any dress would on you.”
I noticed that only one knot had been left, and Charles plucked it off. “This one shall be mine,” he said. He kissed it and held it to his heart. Everyone applauded.
I turned to him and smiled. I was so happy. There was only one regret. My mother was not here to see my contentment, and the successful culmination of the dream we had shared through the years.
Suddenly I felt almost faint and might have fallen if Charles had not put an arm about me.
“You are unwell, my dearest?” he said with concern.
“No, just a little tired.”
Donna Maria, watching me intently, had seen what had happened. She was beside me, indignant and vociferous.
“I should think so. You have had enough. It is time you were in your bed. You will be ill. I have never heard the like…two weddings in one day.”
I was glad few could understand her.
The Countess of Suffolk was talking to the King. He looked grave.
Then he said to me: “They are saying you are overtired. This is too soon after your illness. The Countess thinks you should return to bed.”
I said: “There is the banquet…”
“Your good health is more important than all the banquets in my kingdom. The ladies are right. You must go to your bedchamber at once. You must rest.”
“But…,” I began.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “It is best. There is the rest of our lives for us to be together.”
Donna Maria was chattering about the folly of doing too much too soon. Elvira was with her. They knew, they were saying, what was best for me.
I said: “I shall miss the banquet…my wedding banquet…and I shall not be there.”
“A plague on banquets,” said Donna Maria. “Your health comes first.”
The King came with me to my bedchamber. Donna Maria pursed her lips and I wanted to remind her that he was my husband now.
Lady Suffolk was there. She implied that she, with my ladies, would help me to disrobe.
I lay in my bed. Yes, I was exhausted and it was a relief to rest. But I could not stop myself thinking of the splendid banquet, the merrymaking, and the King sitting there with an empty chair beside him, which made me feel a little dispirited, when the door was flung open suddenly, and two men appeared, carrying trays.
I thought: I do not want to eat. Oh, how I wished that I had been able to hide my weakness.
And then Charles was there. He gave an order to the men and one tray was set down on the bed. He seated himself on the other side of the tray, smiling at me.
“What…?” I began in Spanish, and he answered in that language.
“I could not sup on my wedding day without my wife.”
Oh, what a merry meal that was! How we laughed and how we talked! It was so amusing for us because we found our Spanish not always adequate and must resort to miming.
Charles said: “I wonder if you will share my view that this is far more agreeable than the grand banquet they are having downstairs.”
“It is the most enjoyable meal I ever had,” I told him.
We kissed over the tray, and I was happier than I had ever been before in the whole of my life.
I SPENT MY WEDDING NIGHT alone in my bed. Charles was so considerate that he realized I was too overcome by the excitement for anything else.
I scarcely slept. How rarely is the realization more delightful than the dream itself! That was what I believed had happened to me.
How charming he was! He had a nonchalant air, a carefree manner which implied that everything would be well if left to him. And above all, there was his kindness. I remembered how grim Don Francisco had become when I had told him I must have a Catholic marriage ceremony. How different from my dearest Charles! It was a delicate matter, I knew. I was asking something which had to be performed in private because the people here would not have wanted it to take place. But he had immediately understood how much it meant to me. He was wonderful. I must be the happiest woman in the world.
He was in the room early next morning asking me, with the utmost tenderness, how I was.
I told him I was completely well.
“We shall take care of you,” he said.
Then he talked of our honeymoon which, he said, if I were agreeable, should be spent at his palace of Hampton Court.
I said that would be most agreeable.
“It is one of my favorite palaces,” he told me. “You will enjoy it, as I shall. It is a place where a great deal has happened and I shall tell you of some of this. It was built many years ago…four hundred, I think, and much later it was bought by a man who is very well known in our history. He was called Cardinal Wolsey. He displeased the King, Henry VIII, who took the palace from him, and it has been royal property ever since.”
“I want to see it very much.”
“We shall dally there for a while. You will like the gardens. You will like the river which runs alongside, and you will not be afraid of the ghosts who haunt the palace, because I shall be there to protect you.”
I told him I should not feel afraid of anything if he were there.
Now our relationship had deepened. I was young, innocent and ignorant. He, as I learned later, was as well versed in the art of lovemaking as anyone on the earth. And I was sure he must have been born with it. How charmingly and romantically he initiated me. And what an apt pupil I was. I believed I delighted him. I did not realize then that it was because of my innocence, which must have made me very different from most of the women he had known. Few would have lived such a sheltered life as I had.
I found life enchanting. We were together for most of the days and nights during the time we spent in Portsmouth; and we were to leave for Hampton Court as soon as enough carts could be found to take the court there.
Charles joked about the Portuguese costumes which my ladies had brought with them.
“It is fortunate that the ladies of England do not follow the same fashions. If they did, there would not be enough carts in England to carry them and their belongings from place to place.”
It was about four days after our wedding when we left for Hampton Court.
What a welcome we received there! There were two reasons for rejoicing. It was the twenty-ninth of May, the King’s thirty-second birthday, and the second anniversary of his restoration to the throne. The English loved excuses for holidays and pageants and making merry. Moreover, Charles told me, they were also celebrating his marriage and my arrival in England.
“So you see, my love, there is ample reason for rejoicing.”
There were bonfires all along the route. People lined the roads to see the King and Queen. They shouted loyal greetings and threw garlands at us. We smiled and waved as we passed along.
They seemed pleased to see me. I had learned to recognize the shouts of “God save the Queen.” Charles was always delighted by their recognition of me.
And thus we came to Hampton.
It has always been one of my favorite palaces. To me now it is the one place where I was most happy, where I had spent those magical days…childlike in my innocence. How happy I could have been if I had never lost that innocence! But one cannot go blindfold through life.
When we arrived at the palace, the guards were waiting to greet us. How I wished that we could have come there alone and have entered the palace without ceremony, but we had to pass through the lines of soldiery, followed by our retinue, and there must be presentations and kissing of hands. As the new Queen, there were important people whom I had to receive. It was so difficult because of the language. I could only nod and smile, for I was not at that stage ready to attempt those few words which Charles had taught me.