The Loves of Charles II Read Online Free PDF Page B

with us … though not of the party.”
    “There were some uneasy moments. The worst was last night when I opened my door and saw you being marched down the stairs. Well, that is over. Stay in your cabin during the crossing, and remain disguised until you are safely on French soil. I must go now. Assure Her Majesty of my untiring devotion.”
    “I will, John.”
    “Tell her the Berkeleys will hold the West against any number of Roundhead oafs.”
    “I’ll tell her, John.”
    “Goodbye and good luck.”
    Sir John Berkeley kissed her hand and that of the Princess. Then he quickly returned to the boat and was rowed ashore.
    Not long after, the Packet slipped away from the white cliffs on its way to Calais.

TWO

    he Princess was happy. No sooner had she and her faithful little party set foot on French soil at Calais than her dear Nan discarded her hump, kissed her rapturously and called her Beloved Princess. The indignity she had suffered was now over; there was no need to remind people now that she was a princess. There were fine clothes to be worn, there were many to kiss her hand and pay her the homage she had missed when dressed as the child of a servant. The crowds welcomed her. They called to her that she was the granddaughter of great Henri, and therefore France was her home and all French men and women were ready to love her.
    How she crowed and waved her little hands! How she smiled as she smoothed down the folds of her dress! Occasionally she would turn to Nan and look with happy pleasure at the tall and beautiful governess whom it seemed she had sought in vain to revive from those dirty rags. Henrietta was happy; she did not know that she came to France as a suppliant; that she was a beggar far more than she had appeared to be on the road to Dover.
    “You are going to see your mother, the Queen,” Anne told her.
    The child was wide-eyed with wonder. Her mother, the Queen, was just a name to her. Nan, during the Princess’s two years of life, had been the only mother she had known.
    “You must love her very dearly,” Anne explained. “She will be so happy to see you, and you will be the only one of all your brothers and sisters who may be with her to make her happy.”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Because the others cannot be with her.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because your brothers, James and Henry, must stay with your sister Elizabeth; and your big brother, Charles, cannot stay with his mother in France because he has other matters to which he must attend. Your big sister,Mary, is the Princess of Holland, so she cannot be with your mother either.”
    But Henrietta did not understand. She only knew that she was happy again, that she had bright clothes to wear and that people called her Princess.
    So she was escorted from Calais to Saint-Germain.
    The news had spread that her infant daughter was about to be restored to the poor sad Queen. There was a romantic story of a brave governess who had brought the child out of a war-torn country under the very eyes of the King’s enemies. The story was one to delight the warmhearted French. They wanted to see the little Princess; they wanted to cheer the brave governess. So they gathered along the route from Calais that they might cry “Good Luck” to the little girl, and let her know that as granddaughter of their greatest King, they were ready to welcome her to their country.
    The people cheered her. “Long live the little Princess from England! Long live the granddaughter of our great Henri! Long live the brave governess!”
    And the Princess smiled and took this ovation as her right; she had already forgotten her uncomfortable journey. Anne was worn out with fatigue, and now that her anxiety had lifted, she felt light-headed; she could not believe that the people of France were cheering her; and while she smiled she felt as though she were not really there in France but sitting on a bank while the Princess betrayed their secret, or that she was in an attic,