Lady on the Coin by Margaret Campbell Barnes

Author:Margaret Campbell Barnes [Barnes, Margaret Campbell]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2016-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

If the majority of the King’s more intimate companions thought it strange that he should be distraught with anxiety for the Queen now that she was so ill, Frances did not. She had always understood Charles’ affection for Catherine, who gave him an adoring fidelity no other woman had ever given him.

It seemed now that if she recovered, it was all she could give him, for the doctors who attended her said that she would now never bear a child. In the premature birth of a son she had suffered much damage, and within hours a fever set in which was probably augmented by her desperate disappointment.

Day by day she was reported to be more grievously ill. The physicians shook their heads despondently and could give the King no hope of her recovery. It astonished them that he so urgently desired it, for tossing on her pillows and crying out in delirium was a wife he had blatantly neglected when she was in good health, and who now if she were pulled back from death would be nothing but an encumbrance to him.

Charles did not see the matter in this light. Neither did Frances, who also desired Catherine’s recovery, partly out of genuine affection, partly because if she died Frances knew that in the course of time Charles would turn to her, and she would be given the chance of marrying him. That she could refuse it was unthinkable, that she desired it was debatable.

While the Queen’s physicians wrestled for her life and the King spent hours by her bedside, in her few lucid moments imploring her to live for his sake, Frances had plenty of time in which to consider the future.

The King’s fondness for her being so evident, she had for months been a person of consequence, but now she was given an additional deference. In those days and weeks of suspense, with callous disregard of the Queen’s sufferings, bets were laid as to whether or not Frances would succeed her. As time passed, and it was seen how Charles turned to her when he was not with the Queen, there were few prepared to stake their money against her.

None but the Queen’s attendants who knew something of nursing were allowed near her, but Frances heard every detail of her illness from the King’s lips. He sent for her and she listened to him and tried to comfort him, all her butterfly lightness subdued and her sympathy and concern so genuine that for the time being a grateful affection took place of passionate desire.

Most of these meetings took place in Barbara’s apartments. Every evening the King took supper with her, but he demanded Frances’ presence and Barbara was forced to comply. Now she fully realized that, whether the Queen lived or died, she was supplanted. The King, because of his tenderness for the children she had borne him, might never publicly reject her, but her influence with him was nil, and her physical attraction had lost much of its power.

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