And this was the young man whom it would be expedient for Mary to marry.
I came to Richmond with some trepidation, for I was sure I should find Mary very apprehensive.
As soon as I arrived I realized that she had heard the rumors.
Everything was much as usual in their apartments. Mary and Anne had always been together, Mary being the more dominant of the two, and they were surrounded by their close friends and attendants.
Their governess was Frances Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk. I had heard from her how difficult it was to teach Anne.
“Mary is different,” she said. “She is quite interested in learning. Of course, the Duke adores her, and she does not want him to think she is ignorant like her sister. Anne does not care. The only one who can tell her what to do is Sarah Jennings. They are very close friends and you would sometimes think Sarah was the mistress. It is pleasant to see the friendship between all the girls.”
I joined them. Anne was sitting next to Sarah Jennings, a very bright-looking young woman, the kind who would stand out among others…not necessarily because of her looks…but perhaps because of her somewhat imperious manner. I could well believe in her mastery over her lazy mistress.
They rose when I entered and came to do homage to the Queen — Mary first. I felt a pang of anxiety. She was so young and rather pretty with her dark hair and almond-shaped eyes. She had the Stuart look, and she was a sensible girl. I knew that the Duke was passionately devoted to her and indulged her greatly. She could have been spoiled but, to her credit, she was not, and was a very pleasant girl.
“Your Majesty,” she began.
I smiled and took her into my arms.
“Dear Mary,” I said. “You are well, are you?”
“Yes, thank you, Your Majesty, and you?”
“I am well, thank you. And here is Anne.”
Anne looked at me with that rather vague expression which was due to her short-sightedness.
“Anne, my dear, you are well?”
“I thank Your Majesty, yes.”
I smiled at the attendants: Anne Trelawny, Mary’s special friend, and Elizabeth Villiers, Frances’s daughter, and, of course, Sarah Jennings.
They rose and curtsied, then retired so that I was apart with Mary and Anne.
I wished there need not be this ceremony. I would have liked to talk naturally to all the girls. I was particularly interested in Sarah Jennings and Elizabeth Villiers.
“Madam, has the new baby come yet?” asked Mary.
She was referring to the expected child of her stepmother, the new Duchess. Birth was always a rather depressing topic for me. Mary of Modena had already borne three children in the short time since her marriage. The first, a girl, had been named Catherine after me, but had died almost as soon as she was born. There was a son who had died and a daughter Isabel…and now the prospect of another.
“Not yet,” I told them.
“It would be nice to have a little stepbrother,” said Mary. “Though it is not the same as if it were our mother.”
Both she and Anne looked mournful. They had loved their mother and I fancied they both resented their father’s remarriage.
Anne took a sweetmeat from a bowl beside her.
“Oh, Anne,” said Mary with a little laugh. “You should not eat so many of those.”
“I like them,” said Anne.
“She eats them all the time,” Mary told me.
“Do they not spoil your appetite?” I asked.
Anne said they did not. Nibbling sweets was a habit she had acquired from her mother. Anne had become very fat in the last months of her life. I could not forget her lying on her deathbed…searching for the truth…worrying about the future of her girls.
“Sarah will be getting married soon,” said Anne. “John Churchill is always coming here to court her. His family think she is not good enough for him.”
“Sarah will certainly not agree with that, I am sure,” I remarked.
“Sarah is wondering if she is too good for him,” said Mary.
“I am not surprised at that,” I said. “Well, is she going to marry him?”
Anne nodded. “She really wants to. But she is saying…not yet. She thinks they ought to wait.”
I wonder,” said Mary, “what it is like to be married?” There was a faint note of fear in her voice.
“In time you will know,” I told her.
“Yes…a husband will be found for each of us.”
“That is certain to be so.”
“Sarah must not go when she marries,” went on Anne. “I could not do without Sarah.”
“You are very fond of her,” I said.
“So is my stepmother. She knows that John Churchill wants to marry Sarah. She likes to help them. She thinks it is romantic.”
“In my opinion,” I commented, “from what I know of Sarah, if she wants a marriage, a marriage there will be.”
Anne smiled and nodded.
“My stepmother was not very happy when she was told she must marry,” said Mary.
“She was very young. It was a shock. It can be a shock when you are very young.”
“When you married the King you were old.”
“In comparison, yes. I was nearly twenty-four.”
“That is very old. My stepmother was fifteen.”
“That is very young.”
“I am fifteen,” said Mary, almost pleadingly.
I thought, she wants to talk to me, alone. I decided I must arrange this.
“When my stepmother heard she was to marry my father,” went on Mary, “she wept all day. She screamed and kicked and refused to leave her bed.”
“Did she tell you this?”
“Yes. She is not very much older than I am. Four years only.”
“Then she is like one of you girls.”
“She is happier now,” put in Anne.
“I think she does not mind our father so much. I think she quite likes him. She loves the King. She says he has been kind to her…always.”
“The King is always kind,” I said warmly.
“Yes,” agreed Mary. “And when you came to England, were you frightened?”
“A little. But I wanted to come. I had heard of the King.”
“Oh yes, my uncle is a very nice man. The nicest man in the world…next to my father.”
She looked at me steadily and I wondered how much a fifteen-year-old girl knew of what happened in a court like this one.
“And now she has one baby,” said Mary. “That must be nice.”
“Nice! I thought what a mild way of describing the experience! What joy it must be! If only it had happened to me.
I felt sorry for Mary groping in the dark, aware that it was going to be her turn very soon.
When I was taking my leave, I kissed Anne but I held Mary close.
I said quietly: “I would speak with you, Mary.”
We looked at Anne who was peering at the box of sweetmeats, and Mary followed me out of the room into the small antechamber.
“What is it, Mary?” I asked.
“They are talking about my cousin, the Prince of Orange.”
“Do you know him?”
“No, not well.”
“And there is often talk…”
“Are they arranging a marriage?”
“People in places like ours will always have plans made for them. Sometimes…quite often…they come to nothing.”
“I do not want to go away. I want to stay here always…with us all together. My friend Anne Trelawny, and Elizabeth Villiers and Sarah Jennings…and most of all my sister. I want it to go on like this.”
“There is always change, my dear.”
“But if this Prince of Orange…”
“You will probably like him. Your stepmother did not want to come here but she is happy now.”