The King's Mistress (46 page)

I
N EARLY
N
OVEMBER
, J
ANE RECEIVED A MESSAGE FROM
W
ORCESTER
House that Nan Hyde wanted to see her. Nan received her in her bedchamber, fully recovered now from the birth of her child, who snored peacefully in his cradle.

“He’s to be christened Charles,” she said proudly. “Oh, Jane, it’s all come about perfectly. I never thought it would.”

Nan called for coffee and cakes, and it seemed to Jane that Nan had a new imperiousness about her, and that not only the servants, but Lady Hyde, who came in to greet Jane, treated Nan with far greater deference than they had before.

Nan seemed to be bursting with excitement, and once they had settled before the fire, she could not contain herself any longer.

“I’m to be made Duchess of York.”

It took Jane’s breath away. It had all happened, she thought. Everything that had seemed so impossible when she first saw Nan sighing over the Duke of York so long ago in Peronne. Now Nan Hyde was married to the duke. She was to be Duchess of York. And the fair-haired sleeping child was second in line to the throne. And Jane? Who loved the king, had risked her life to save him, who had been loved in return, who had borne the king’s child in her belly? She had swallowed her disappointment and hurt, as she had thought she must.
What if I had made a fuss?
she wondered.
And what if the child had lived? Was there at any time the chance that he would have married me?

She realised that Nan was waiting for her reply to the momentous news.

“I give you my congratulations, Nan,” she said. “Your Grace.”

Nan giggled.

“Not quite yet. But soon. Oh, Jane, I cannot thank you enough. Where I should be without your help, I dare not think.”

“Nonsense,” Jane said. “I only reminded the duke of what he knew to be true and of his duty to you.”

“Only that!” Nan said. “When I was so nearly lost.”

She leaned towards Jane conspiratorially.

“I must have a household, Jane. Will you come to me, and be one of my ladies?”

No,
Jane thought.
No, I will not come to be maid to you, who are no better than me, and have not deserved to be where you have got.
And yet
, she thought,
What harm? I will go home in January, just as soon as the coronation is done. Mary is in a black rage already, and this is like to make her even more fretful.

“Yes,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Thank you. It will be my honour to serve you.”

And so Jane’s belongings were moved from Mary’s household at Somerset House to Worcester House, where the Duke and Duchess of York were making their home, and on the ninth of December she stood by while the infant Charles was christened, with the king, Prince Rupert, and the wife of General Monck, now the Duchess of Albemarle, serving as godparents.

C
HARLES HAD COMMISSIONED FROM
I
SAAC
F
ULLER A SERIES OF FIVE
paintings of his miraculous escape, and one of them was to portray him on horseback, with Jane riding pillion behind. When she was informed that she was needed for a sitting, she looked forward to some time in Charles’s company. But when she arrived at the room where Fuller was at work, Charles was nowhere to be seen, and she was helped onto a seat placed sideways on a tall sawhorse.

“His Majesty will sit separately,” Fuller explained. “I make sketches from life, and then put the elements together when I come to work on the canvas itself.”

Other pictures would show the king changing into his disguise as Will Jackson at Whiteladies, sheltering in the woods near Boscobel, hiding in the oak tree with Colonel Carlis, and riding on the Penderels’ mill horse. The five Penderel brothers, along with Thomas Whitgreaves and Father Huddleston, had sat for Fuller when they visited Whitehall in June, and he showed Jane the painting of them escorting Charles through the dark woods.

The paintings brought back vividly to Jane’s mind her travels with Charles, the days when they had been as close as two people might be. She longed for that closeness again, and on a whim, decided to go and see him.

She made for the king’s privy chamber. Perhaps she would be fortunate enough to find him alone. She was pleased to see that no one waited in the outer chamber, but just as she was about to give her name to the guard, the door to Charles’s room opened, and a richly dressed young woman and a little girl stepped out. Charles kissed the woman on the cheek before he saw Jane, and she noted his look of guilty surprise as his eyes met hers. The woman turned to see who was coming, and Jane recognised her as Betty Killigrew Boyle, who had been made Viscountess Shannon in September. She had been one of the ladies-in-waiting to Charles’s mother in Paris, and another of his lovers. And the little girl by her side, with her near-black ringlets and shining dark eyes, was unquestionably Charles’s daughter. The two women stared at each other for a moment before bowing coldly, and then the viscountess swept past Jane and away, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

“Jane,” Charles said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

He seemed a little awkward. Quite polite, as he might be to a stranger. Not the Charles she had hoped to find. Not her Charles.

“No, Your Majesty,” she said. “I just—I have just been admiring Mr Fuller’s paintings and wanted to compliment you.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, pulling out his pocket watch and tilting it to catch the light. Jane thought of the watch he had given her on that morning when they parted at Trent.

“Good, aren’t they?” Charles smiled vaguely in her direction. “I’m sorry, Jane, but I’m late for Edward Hyde. Perhaps we can talk later?”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” she said, curtsying, and managed a smile as she left him.

That night, Jane could not sleep, and stood staring out a window of the darkened palace. She could just discern the ripples in the river below, shining in the moonlight. She thought she had never been so lonely in her life. Seeing Charles’s little girl that afternoon had made her think once more of what would have happened had she borne that lost baby. Would she have received a title, as Elizabeth Killigrew had? Would Charles pay any more attention to her? Or would she feel as cast aside as she now did, only more so, with a child to care for and no prospect of a husband, either in the person of the king or someone else?

The face of Clement Fisher rose to her mind, and she suddenly longed to see him. He was still unmarried, she knew. But perhaps there was someone, someone he had contracted with but not yet wed. After all, it had been nine years since they had seen each other last. Well, that was just one more thing she would learn when she went home. In January, after the coronation. Not very much longer now.

T
HE COURT, STILL MOURNING THE DEATH OF THE
D
UKE OF
G
LOUCESTER
, was preparing for a subdued Christmas. Jane’s brother Richard had come, and she scarcely recognised him from the fire-breathing young man she had last seen a few days before the Battle of Worcester. It warmed her heart to have him with her at Whitehall, among the ever-growing sea of strangers.

She had not yet received further news of the promised pension, but she was overjoyed to learn that Parliament had voted her a gift of a thousand pounds to buy herself a jewel. She would be glad of the money, but had no intention of spending so much on a jewel when it might let her live in independence and comfort for many years.

She was just sitting down to write to inform Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia of her good news when Dorothy darted into her room, looking terrified.

“Have you heard? The Princess Royal is taken ill.”

Mary had never been quite well since they had arrived, but Jane had put it down to grief over her brother’s death, distress at having been forced to leave her son William behind at The Hague, the dreadful voyage to England, and then the protracted stress over the Duke of York’s marriage.

“You mean more ill than she has been?” she asked.

“Oh, yes.” Dorothy blinked, on the edge of tears. “A raging fever, and red spots all over.”

Jane’s heart stopped. Red spots sounded very like smallpox. Jane hurried to Somerset House, where a group of black-gowned doctors gathered, looking like a flock of ravens. By that night, Mary was worse, out of her head with delirium. The next afternoon Mary seemed somewhat improved, but Jane thought she had better write to Queen Elizabeth.

“I believe Your Majesty will hear the hot alarum of the Princess Royal’s being in great danger of death, which indeed this morning was sadly apprehended by many. But because Your Majesty should not be frighted at what news perchance you may hear, I have just now been with her and God be praised she is much better. The doctors do not yet know whether it is the pox or the measles, but I fear it will prove the smallpox.

“Let it be what it will, I am confident the trouble about her brother’s business has thrown her into it. The duke is much at Worcester House with his wife and is as all people say very fond of her. She takes an abundance of servants, and ’tis said great lords’ daughters are offered her to be maids of honour to her. I confess I am now glad Your Majesty is not here, for all things go very cross. The queen has deferred her journey a week longer because of the princess being not well.

“The Parliament has given me a thousand pounds this week. I will not fail to write Your Majesty word how the princess does by the next post. I pray God bless Your Majesty.”

Mary’s doctors decided that it was not measles she had, but smallpox, which had so recently carried off the Duke of Gloucester, and all of London seemed to hold its breath, hoping for news of Mary’s recovery but fearing the worst. Charles sent his mother and sister Minette to St James’s Palace to be out of danger of contagion, but visited Mary daily himself, sitting by her bedside as she grew weaker.

Jane returned to Somerset House to see Mary again the day after she had written to Queen Elizabeth. Mary’s room was stifling, a fire burning on the hearth and heavy coverings over the windows, and a whimper of misery came from the figure beneath the bedclothes.

“Your Highness,” Jane said softly as she approached the bed.

Mary’s eyes flickered open. They were bright with fever, and her face seemed to have aged ten years. Flat red spots flared on her face, her forearms, and the palms of her hands.

“Jane,” Mary murmured. “Don’t touch me. I would not have you ill.”

She closed her eyes, as if the effort of keeping them open was too exhausting. Jane sat beside the bed, horrified at Mary’s condition.

“Is there anything I can do, Your Highness, to make you more comfortable?”

The faintest of smiles crossed Mary’s face.

“My little William. Make sure that the king cares for him as he ought, champions my son as I have done in dealing with the stadtholders. Ask my aunt Elizabeth of Bohemia to never let him forget me.”

“Oh, Your Highness, surely you will recover to see your son again,” Jane murmured, her heart breaking at the thought of William, just turned ten, being orphaned.

Mary shook her head, her eyes closed once more, as if gathering her strength to go on.

“Tell Nan Hyde I’m sorry I have not been more kind to her these last weeks. I know she loves James, and he must love her to have withstood what he has on her behalf.”

Her eyes opened again, burning into Jane’s.

“And thank you, Jane. For what you did for His Majesty. I know that you have suffered these years, and I can never thank you enough, for without you surely he would not have come safe away from England, nor would he now be back in London, and truly king.”

“I would do it again a hundred times,” Jane said, wondering if it were true.

“What courage,” Mary said. “Never forget, Jane, what you have done for England.”

T
HE NEXT DAY
M
ARY SEEMED TO RALLY, BUT ON
C
HRISTMAS
E
VE SHE
died, and the stunned court greeted the first Christmas after Charles’s restoration with renewed sorrow.

On the twenty-ninth of December, Jane walked behind Mary’s coffin to Westminster Abbey, flanked by Lord Ormonde and Edward Hyde. As was the custom, the king was not present, and the Duke of York served as chief mourner.

The funeral was conducted by the Reverend Gilbert Sheldon, as had been the christening of Nan Hyde’s son. He was a man of the generation of Jane’s parents, who was also from an old Staffordshire family, and listening to his accent made Jane acutely homesick. Very soon now, she would go home. There was no reason for her to be in London once the coronation was done.

Except …
The word whispered at the back of her mind. Except what? Except to feel once more Charles’s love, to know that she was special to him and that their days together had not been forgotten.

O
N THE FIRST OF
J
ANUARY
, J
ANE WENT WITH
N
AN
H
YDE TO
W
HITEHALL
, where the Duke of York presented her formally as his wife to his mother, Queen Mary, who, with as much grace as she could muster, embraced the new duchess and kissed her cheeks.

A little later, Nan’s baby Charles was created Duke of Cambridge, though what should have been a joyful celebration seemed almost an afterthought in the gloom following Mary’s death.

The next day, Queen Mary and Minette set out for Paris, and Charles and his brother James were left to themselves, all that remained of the royal family that had returned so hopefully to England.

Twelfth Night brought to a close the Christmas season that had started with such joy and ended in such grief. In the Banqueting House, Jane chatted with Dr Sheldon, exchanging memories of Christmases long past, of Morris dancers with antlers stepping the horn dance of Abbots Bromley. He knew her parents and John, and Jane was sure she must have met him when she was small.

“Will you go home now, Mistress Lane?” Dr Sheldon asked.

“Very soon,” she answered. “I tarried here so that I might attend the coronation, but now …”