Boynton waved her fan lazily, lids half-closed, and drawled, “She doesn’t look green to me. Perhaps it’s something in your Ladyship’s eye.”
Barbara gave her a look that once might have troubled her and turned to talk to Monmouth who leant forward eagerly, obviously much smitten by his father’s flamboyant mistress. He was tall and well-developed for his age, physically precocious as the King had been, and so extraordinarily handsome that grown women were falling in love with him. He had not only the Stuart beauty but also the Stuart charm—a merry gentle lovable disposition, and something in his personality so dazzling that he arrested attention wherever he went.
Boynton glanced around over her shoulder to exchange smiles with Frances, and Frances leaned forward, whispering behind her fan: “I just saw his Highness slip another note into Mrs. Jennings’s hand. Wait a moment and I’ll warrant you she tears it up.”
Jennings had been amusing the Court for some weeks by refusing to become York’s mistress, an office which was generally included in the appointment of Maid of Honour to his wife. She tore up his letters before everyone and scattered the pieces on the floor of her Highness’s Drawing-Room. And now, as Boynton and Frances Stewart watched her, she tore this note into bits and tossed them high in the air so that they drifted onto the Duke’s head and shoulders.
Boynton and Stewart burst into delighted laughter and York, glancing around, saw the scraps on his shoulder. Scowling, he brushed them off, while Mrs. Jennings sat very straight and prim-faced and looked down over his head at the stage, where the play was beginning.
“What!” said Charles, glancing at his brother as he brushed himself, and he laughed outright. “Another rebuff, James? Odsfish! I should think you’d have taken the hint by now.”
“Your Majesty doesn’t always take hints, if I may say so,” muttered the Duke, but Charles merely smiled good-naturedly.
“We Stuarts are a stubborn race, I think.” He leaned closer to James and murmured beneath his breath: “I’ll wager my new Turkish pony against your Barbary mare that I break in that skittish filly before you do.”
York raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s a wager, Sire.” The two brothers shook hands and Charles settled down to watch the play.
For two acts Barbara remained seated. She smiled at Buckingham and other gentlemen down in the pit. She twisted her pearls and fiddled her fan and put her hands to her hair. She took out a mirror to examine her face, stuck on another patch, and then tossed the mirror back to Wilson. She was, very ostentatiously, bored. And all the while Charles seemed unaware that she was nearby; he did not trouble to glance at her even once.
At last she thought she could bear this no longer, and fixing a determined smile on her face she leaned across Catherine and touched his arm. “It’s a wretched performance, don’t you think. Sire?”
He glanced at her coldly. “No, I don’t think so. I’m enjoying it.”
Barbara’s eyes glittered and the blood rushed to her face, but in a moment she had recovered herself. All at once she stood up, smiling sweetly, and crossing behind the Queen went to force a place for herself between Charles and York. The two men gave her surprised and angry glances and turned instantly away while Barbara sat, her face impassive and motionless as stone, though humiliated rage was making her sweat. For a moment she thought that her heart would explode, so bursting-full of blood it seemed.
And then, out of the corners of her eyes, she looked at Charles and saw the ominous flicker of his jaw-muscles. She stared at him, longing violently to reach over and rake her nails across that dark smooth-shaven cheek until she drew blood—but at last with a determined effort she dragged her eyes away and forced them down to the stage once more. All she could see was a blur that shifted and rocked; there were faces, faces, faces, turned up and grinning, smirking, sneering at her—a whole sea of enemy faces. She felt that she hated each one of them, with a murderous savage hatred that turned her sick and trembling.
It seemed to her that the play went on for hours and that she would never be able to endure the next minute of sitting there —but at last it was over. She waited a moment, under the pretense of pulling on her gloves, still hoping that Charles would invite her to ride in his coach. But instead he went off with Harry Bennet to call on the Chancellor who was again sick in bed with his gout.
Barbara lifted her hood up over her head, put on her mask and with an impatient gesture to Wilson started out as fast as she could go—the people stepped back to make a path, for her name still had magic to part the waves. Outside she got into her coach, and though it blocked the traffic she kept it waiting while her coachman yelled and swore at whoever complained, telling them to be silent—my lady would go in her own good time. It was several minutes before Buckingham appeared.
