Read Online Margaret the First by Danielle Dutton - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Danielle Dutton
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themselves happy in Marriage.
Takepl . You are mistaken; for Women never think themselves happy until they be married.
Dick . The truth is, Sir, that Women are always unhappy in their thoughts, both before and after Marriage; for, before Marriage they think themselves unhappy for want of a Husband; and after they are Married, they think themselves unhappy for having a Husband.
Takepl . Indeed Womens thoughts are restless.
Then scenes change according to my whim, for I was writing more freely than ever before. In the cloister one moment, we’re next on a field of green, where sheep graze around a maypole, and Lady Happy is a shepherdess, while the Prince-who-woos-her-as-a-Princess is a shepherd. Next, Lady Happy is a Sea-Goddess and the Prince-as-Princess is Neptune astride a rock. They embrace, as friends, and then as friends they kiss. Happy questions her fate. Truth be told, she felt a certain stirring. And “why,” she asks, “may not I love a Woman with the same affection I could a Man?” In the end, the Prince’s true nature is revealed. But would Happy, who fled all men, be happy to be his? I hadn’t yet decided, but hurriedly placed a lid atop the crate, then marched myself and my household to the shore. The goods and lower servants boarded a frigate. I, at last, a Dutch man-of-war.
THE RESTORATION
IT CAME AS A SHOCK. AFTER A BRUTAL CROSSING—IN WHICH SHE HIT her head in a storm and swore she’d seen a bear at the helm of the ship—Margaret expected to find her husband at his London residence, Newcastle House, in fashionable Clerkenwell. Yet there she stood in Bow Street in a rented house, again. “I cannot call it unhandsome,” she said when asked if she liked her new room. Where was she meant to keep her gowns? It hadn’t even a mirror. William’s steward came to tell them that her crates could not be found. Her sister, Margaret learned, would be in Cornwall for three weeks. All this in the first two hours, still stinking of the ship. A doctor came, declared her sound. Margaret washed. She slept. In morning light, she dressed. And over the following week, as William prepared to petition the courts for the return of his elegant townhouse, Margaret prepared for some sign of the notice she’d allowed herself to expect.
A celebrity, the king had said.
She sat by the window day after day, yet no one they knew would be walking in Bow Street, and no one in Bow Street seemed to notice who she was.
This was the Restoration, after all. The very air in London was filled with triumphant returns. When the king arrived on his ship in the Thames, twenty thousand horse-and-foot stood brandishing their swords. Everyone had their version of events. Everyone spoke at once. John Evelyn, from the Strand, beheld it and blessed God: “Praised be forever the Lord of Heaven, who only does wondrous things.” “A pox on all kings!” cried a hag. “Oh look, the king,” gasped a girl held aloft. The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote of bonfires the city over, an infinite shooting of guns, and men drinking to the king’s health upon their knees in the street. London was born anew, again. The theaters reopened in a glow of candles and laughter. There were public lectures at Gresham College—on astronomy, on wind. Throngs of visitors, exotic ambassadors. There was tennis at Hampton Court.
Amid this tumult, Margaret’s crates went undelivered. Her manuscripts were missing. She had only two gowns on hand.
“Did you know,” she said over toast one morning, setting aside a letter from her sister, “it is the fashion in London for a lady to appear in public in a state of near-undress?”
“Ah,” said William, and grabbed his hat.
He had always some appointment or some old friend to see.
“My dear,” he sometimes offered, “if you wish to come, then say.”
But Margaret said nothing, or hesitated, and William left, annoyed. When he returned in the evening, he’d find her seated alone at the table in one of those
Takepl . You are mistaken; for Women never think themselves happy until they be married.
Dick . The truth is, Sir, that Women are always unhappy in their thoughts, both before and after Marriage; for, before Marriage they think themselves unhappy for want of a Husband; and after they are Married, they think themselves unhappy for having a Husband.
Takepl . Indeed Womens thoughts are restless.
Then scenes change according to my whim, for I was writing more freely than ever before. In the cloister one moment, we’re next on a field of green, where sheep graze around a maypole, and Lady Happy is a shepherdess, while the Prince-who-woos-her-as-a-Princess is a shepherd. Next, Lady Happy is a Sea-Goddess and the Prince-as-Princess is Neptune astride a rock. They embrace, as friends, and then as friends they kiss. Happy questions her fate. Truth be told, she felt a certain stirring. And “why,” she asks, “may not I love a Woman with the same affection I could a Man?” In the end, the Prince’s true nature is revealed. But would Happy, who fled all men, be happy to be his? I hadn’t yet decided, but hurriedly placed a lid atop the crate, then marched myself and my household to the shore. The goods and lower servants boarded a frigate. I, at last, a Dutch man-of-war.
THE RESTORATION
IT CAME AS A SHOCK. AFTER A BRUTAL CROSSING—IN WHICH SHE HIT her head in a storm and swore she’d seen a bear at the helm of the ship—Margaret expected to find her husband at his London residence, Newcastle House, in fashionable Clerkenwell. Yet there she stood in Bow Street in a rented house, again. “I cannot call it unhandsome,” she said when asked if she liked her new room. Where was she meant to keep her gowns? It hadn’t even a mirror. William’s steward came to tell them that her crates could not be found. Her sister, Margaret learned, would be in Cornwall for three weeks. All this in the first two hours, still stinking of the ship. A doctor came, declared her sound. Margaret washed. She slept. In morning light, she dressed. And over the following week, as William prepared to petition the courts for the return of his elegant townhouse, Margaret prepared for some sign of the notice she’d allowed herself to expect.
A celebrity, the king had said.
She sat by the window day after day, yet no one they knew would be walking in Bow Street, and no one in Bow Street seemed to notice who she was.
This was the Restoration, after all. The very air in London was filled with triumphant returns. When the king arrived on his ship in the Thames, twenty thousand horse-and-foot stood brandishing their swords. Everyone had their version of events. Everyone spoke at once. John Evelyn, from the Strand, beheld it and blessed God: “Praised be forever the Lord of Heaven, who only does wondrous things.” “A pox on all kings!” cried a hag. “Oh look, the king,” gasped a girl held aloft. The diarist Samuel Pepys wrote of bonfires the city over, an infinite shooting of guns, and men drinking to the king’s health upon their knees in the street. London was born anew, again. The theaters reopened in a glow of candles and laughter. There were public lectures at Gresham College—on astronomy, on wind. Throngs of visitors, exotic ambassadors. There was tennis at Hampton Court.
Amid this tumult, Margaret’s crates went undelivered. Her manuscripts were missing. She had only two gowns on hand.
“Did you know,” she said over toast one morning, setting aside a letter from her sister, “it is the fashion in London for a lady to appear in public in a state of near-undress?”
“Ah,” said William, and grabbed his hat.
He had always some appointment or some old friend to see.
“My dear,” he sometimes offered, “if you wish to come, then say.”
But Margaret said nothing, or hesitated, and William left, annoyed. When he returned in the evening, he’d find her seated alone at the table in one of those
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