‘It will be a triumph,’ Josiah laughed. ‘The whole thing a triumph.’
It had grown rather late, but none of us could settle for a quiet hour of reading before supper; we were feverish, highly strung. In less than forty-eight hours, royalty would be in our house. Already the place was coming alive in a way it has never done before. We had prepared as far as we could. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
‘When do we rehearse the masque?’ James said, pale and anxious in the candlelight. ‘I practised the steps you sent me but I would rather do it here.’
‘Tomorrow,’ I told him. ‘The players are coming tomorrow.’
‘The Triumph of Platonic Love. It sounds very well, doesn’t it?’ Henry stroked the lace at his cuffs. ‘Not that we will rival Mr Jones’s pieces in any way, but I’m sure the Queen will be pleased. Do you dance, Charles?’
The three boys erupted into laughter. I have seen Charles dance but twice since he was a small boy: it is not a performance designed to inspire maternal pride. He has no sense of time or grace, and his stout figure makes him most comical.
Charles took the jibe on the nose, though he pretended to glower and shook his fist at his brother. ‘Oh, wouldn’t you like to see it? But I have no wish to put the Queen in a fright. I swagger on and do my speech, that’s all. And what a speech!’
I was so busy laughing with the boys that I did not notice Hetta stealing up to where Josiah sat on the chair before the fire. It was only when I heard him speak that I turned to see her beside the armrest, tugging on his sleeve.
‘Yes, Henrietta Maria? What is it?’ She blinked her big eyes, green splintered with gold and brown in the firelight. ‘Well? What is it that you want?’
I should have known then. I should have paid attention to the shadows scurrying over her face and the queer, frightening hush. But I just sat there, dumb, and watched them; watched Hetta point to her chest, her eyes alive with expectation.
‘How now?’ Charles called. ‘Speak up, little Hetta!’
The boys hooted again.
‘Leave her alone, Charles!’ I snapped, but it only made them laugh harder. They were so excited, I believe they would have laughed at death itself.
‘It is only in jest, Mother.’
‘I really cannot understand what Henrietta Maria is trying to communicate,’ Josiah said. ‘Anne, have you any idea?’
Slowly, carefully, Hetta rose onto the tips of her toes and turned a perfect pirouette, her arms arched above her tortoiseshell head. She looked like a dream, like a French courtier dancing ballet. I had not known she could dance like that. But the sight did not fill me with pleasure or a mother’s pride. I saw the light in her face, and the guilty scowl upon Josiah’s, and all the pieces slotted into place.
‘She wants to know her part!’ Henry bleated. ‘What part will Henrietta Maria have in the masque, Father?’
No, I thought. Not like this. Not in front of her brothers. But Josiah did it anyway. He swirled the drink in his glass and said, very quietly, ‘Henrietta Maria will not be in the masque.’
She dropped back to the flats of her feet. I could not look at her face. I stared into the chasms between the logs on the fire, wishing they would swallow me.
‘Not even a little part?’ Charles’s voice – too loud, too jovial. ‘I’m sure we could slot her in somewhere. Not a speaking part, mind!’
James and Henry guffawed.
‘She is too young,’ said Josiah. ‘She is still too young for these things. She will feast with us and then she will go to bed.’
The boys had been away for too long: they did not recognise the warning in their father’s voice. Drunk on their own humour, they called out ideas.
‘Make her a cupid.’
‘Love is blind, so why not silent?’
‘Have her act in the antimasque.’
‘What, as a devil? Do they have tiny devils?’
‘Oh yes, they’re the fiercest. Mr Jones always makes them erupt from a cloud of smoke.’
‘Doesn’t he do that with the Queen’s dwarves?’
‘Aye, but there’s always a shortage of good dwarves. Dress up a girl and paint on a beard, that’s what I say.’
‘Heigh-ho! We’ll stick her in the menagerie! Her Majesty likes to collect queer and curious people.’
‘I warrant you, there’s none more curious than my sister.’
‘Enough!’ The drink slopped out of Josiah’s glass as he sat forwards in the chair. ‘Enough, all of you.’ His growl cut through the chatter, through my skin. ‘What is this knavish talk? I thought you had grown into men.’
The boys hung their heads, chastened.
‘We were only—’
‘It does not matter, Henry. The King and Queen will be here soon, do you understand? I won’t have my sons behaving like fools.’
‘No, Father.’
‘I have said that Henrietta Maria will not stay for the entertainment, and that is an end of it.’
I might have borne it if she had stamped her foot, if she had cried, or shoved me as she tried to do that time in the garden. But she did nothing. She dropped onto her knees by the side of the fire and folded her hands into her lap. She did not sob. She did not move. She stared into the fire, as I had done, fixated on something within its depths.
They all went to bed, but neither Lizzy nor I could move Hetta. We could not make her look at us. She might have transformed into one of the wooden boards, for all the expression on her blank face.
‘Your diamonds?’ Lizzy suggested.
I placed them about Hetta’s slender throat, to no avail. They simply flickered against her skin, red and orange in turn.
We had to leave her there, watching the logs dwindle into ashy piles. My daughter, alone in the dark with the dying flames.
I cannot sleep. My ears are alive with tunes that will not fade, playing over and over, on and on. When I close my eyes I see champagne satin, scarlet taffeta and gold-tipped lacing. My body feels as though it is dancing still. I know that my heart is. Josiah was right: it was a triumph.
They arrived a little after noon, with their heralds and gentlemen-at-arms forging the way. A magnificent sight: a glimmering ribbon of horses, armour and riches, winding beside the river and over the hills. No Fayford Puritans interfered with the cavalcade, but neither did they come out to cheer. I had planned for that. I hired common folk from Torbury St Jude to wave banners and give the loyal address. They did it creditably.
Barges on the river blasted a fanfare as the royal couple crossed the bridge. Jackdaws scattered before the pound of hooves. The fountain flowed with wine, ruby red, spilling out of the stone dog’s mouth to patter in the basin.