As Mary sat on the window seat with Anne, their cousin between them, she noticed that the Villiers girls had disappeared.
“When are you coming to Court?” asked Monmouth.
Mary said that neither her father nor her mother had told her.
“Do they have plenty to eat at Court?” asked Anne, and Monmouth described the Whitehall banquets for Anne’s delight.
Then he turned to Mary. “But you would rather dance, I’ll swear.”
Mary admitted it.
“Then you must come to Court and we will dance together. I will tell them to devise a ballet in which you shall join.”
“Oh my lord Monmouth,” cried Mary, “that would be wonderful.”
“I’m your cousin,” he replied. “You should call me Jemmy, as my father does.”
“Cousin Jemmy,” repeated Mary looking happily into his face, which she thought was the most beautiful she had ever seen. He was grown up, yet not old. His skin was fresh and smooth, his eyes flashing and deeply set. He was kind, too.
“Always at your service,” he said, standing up and bowing. Then he took her hand and made her dance a few steps.
“You would be a good dancer,” he told her. “You must ask your father to have you taught.”
“We are to be soon.”
He whispered: “Before your sister grows too fat.”
“I am always telling her she eats too much,” Mary whispered back.
They laughed together; it was so pleasant sharing a joke with Cousin Jemmy.
He showed her how to dance as they did in the ballet while Anne remained on the window seat; she was not interested in dancing; nor was she so taken with Cousin Jemmy who had brought her no sweetmeats when all the visitors who wished to please her brought them for her.
As for Mary she clearly adored her cousin and he was delighted with her. She was a pretty creature, so innocent and unaware of her rank. He was certain that if he told her she took precedence over him she would not know to what he referred, and when he explained, assure him that he was certainly more important than she was. She soothed his mood, and to his surprise he found that his visit to the Duke of York’s house in Richmond was more pleasant than he had believed it could be.
As they danced and smiled at each other Mary suddenly grew serious. He asked her if anything troubled her and after a moment’s hesitation she said: “Cousin Jemmy, could you tell me about my grandfather?”
He looked at her in some astonishment. Then he said: “Oh, he lives in France now. He felt it was best to leave England for a while.”
“I don’t mean Grandfather Clarendon but Grandfather Charles the Martyr. They cut off his head didn’t they … because they didn’t like him?”
“Some didn’t like him. It was the wicked Parliament men. They cut off his head and afterward were made to wish they hadn’t.”
“They were very wicked, were they?”
“Very wicked.”
“Cousin Jemmy, no one will cut off Uncle Charles’s head … or my father’s?”
Cousin Jemmy laughed, not as Elizabeth laughed, but to show that what she suggested was not possible. She felt very relieved.
“Lady Denham died because of my father …” she began.
“Why,” said Jemmy, “you have been listening to the scandalmongers. There are always plenty of them about. The thing to do is to let what they say go into one ear and out of the other.” As he said this he was laughing; and somehow only to look at Cousin Jemmy’s kind face—which must also be the most handsome in the world—was a comfort.
Mary found that it didn’t matter what Elizabeth said about kings or her father; Elizabeth was not important now that Cousin Jemmy was her friend, and that made her very happy. Whenever she was frightened or bewildered she would remember Jemmy; perhaps she could tell him what puzzled her and she was sure he would always be able to explain it.
Jemmy took her hands and twirled her round; she was laughing and a little breathless but so happy.
She was thinking how different everything seemed since he had come; as for Monmouth, he was asking himself why they had not married him to Mary. If Charles had no legitimate heirs and James’s sickly boys died, this girl could one day be Queen. If he had been her husband would they have been ready to waive his illegitimacy?
This thought made him warm toward the enchanting little creature who so adored him.
When James, Duke of York, entered the apartment, he saw the Duke of Monmouth dancing with his daughter, and Mary so evidently enjoying the boy’s company. There was nothing which could have endeared him more to his nephew than this friendliness toward his favorite daughter.
Monmouth felt that visit to Richmond was well worthwhile. Effortlessly he had made peace with James; and it was pleasant to be adored by the Lady Mary of York who could, in certain circumstances, become the Queen of England.
The Duchess of York lay on her bed, where she now spent a good deal of her time. Many thought her indolent physically, although mentally alert. She was growing more and more unwieldy and she knew that she would continue so unless she cut down the consumption of sweet things. A cup of chocolate! How soothing to the nerves! How comforting the hot sweet drink which helped to divert the thoughts from the dull nagging pain which she was feeling more and more frequently in her left breast.
She was afraid of that pain; it had been slight at first—just a twinge which she had felt for the first time during a Court Levee; she had forgotten it until a month or so later when she had felt it again. Now scarcely a day passed when she was not given a twinge to remind her that all was not well.
When one was young it was natural to believe that one would live forever. Death seemed so far away as to be an event which overtook others; but recurring pain brought death nearer, and to contemplate death meant that one grew more and more concerned with the hereafter. She was beginning to believe that the Catholic Faith was the true one.
For this reason she often slipped out of the Palace of Whitehall or Richmond or wherever she should happen to be to visit Father Hunt, a Franciscan who talked with her, gently and persuasively and after each meeting with the friar she felt closer to Catholicism.
It was dangerous. The people of England were firmly Protestant. The memory of the Smithfield fires was too recent; and some old men had heard their fathers talk of those days when the island had been under the shadow of an attack from Spain, when it had been feared that the ships of the Armada, which were being assembled to attack England, came not only with guns and weapons of war but the rack and all the Inquisition’s instruments of torture. “Never shall the Inquisition come to these shores!” said the English; “The Church of England for us. No popery!” The Sovereign of England was head of the English Church and the English wanted no direction from Rome.
It was a dangerous matter therefore when the wife of the man who might well be the King of England should become a Catholic. Yet, if one believed one had discovered the truth, what was to be done? Worship in secret was the answer—as thousands were doubtless doing at this time.
A difficult problem, but at least one which turned her mind from the nagging pain in her breast.
She wanted to talk with James of her religious feelings and wanted to share this new experience with him, for she believed that he, like herself, would find much to attract him in Rome. But she was uncertain and this was a dangerous matter.
Her women came in to help her to bed. Indolently she allowed them to disrobe her and put on her night clothes. She lay lazily on her bed when they had left her, thinking of the meeting with Father Hunt tomorrow, and the points she would raise with him; and at the same time hoping that the pain would not begin for she fancied it was growing more acute.
She slept and dreamed that a woman had come into her room, a shadowy form which glided to the bed and looked down at her. In the woman’s hand was a cup of chocolate.