Read Online The Queen's Devotion: The Story of Queen Mary II by Jean Plaidy - Free Book Online Page A

cannot because she is not rich.”
    â€œAnd that worries my tenderhearted little daughter?”
    â€œI like her. She is very pretty and she looks unhappy now.”
    â€œAnd you cannot be happy and enjoy your triumph while poor Margaret grieves.”
    He understood, as he always had.
    â€œWell,” he said, “I refuse to have my daughter sad on such an occasion. I tell you what shall be done. I shall provide the eighty pounds, so that Margaret Blague can take it along to Lady Frances and so forget about the matter. How is that?”
    I looked at him with adoration. He was indeed the best and kindest man in the world.
    â€œSo you are happy now you have this matter settled?” he asked.
    â€œI am happy,” I said, “to have the most wonderful father in the world.”

    ANNE HAD BEEN SO EXCITED by the performance that she wanted to do more. She had liked Mrs. Betterton so much that she had wanted to keep her at court. Of course, she was indulged in this matter and there was to be another play with a bigger part for Anne. We were all so pleased to see her enthusiasm. Good-tempered, good-natured as she always was, she was rarely excited about anything, so it was unusual to see her working on her lines with energy and real enjoyment. This was for the play
Mithridate,
and Anne was to have the part of Semandra.
    Mr. Betterton was also at court and he was coaching the young men in their parts.
    Anne had discovered my passion for Frances Apsley. She knew about the letters we exchanged and that Frances was Aurelia and I Clorine. She did what was typical of her; she decided she must have a passionate friendship. I had Frances and, as there was no one to compare with my choice in Anne’s opinion, she must have Frances too.
    After all, sentimental friendships were the fashion. So many young women indulged in them and they were generally conducted by letters.
    This had nothing to do with her allegiance to Sarah Jennings, any more than mine had toward Anne Trelawny. They were our true friends, our everyday friends. This was different. The object of our devotion in this case was an ideal being, a goddess to be worshipped.
    I had found the goddess and she must be Anne’s too.
    I often wonder now what Frances thought of our outpourings. When I remember some of the impassioned words I wrote I can smile at my innocence. It did not occur to me at the time that others might think it was not exactly a healthy state of affairs.
    However, Anne was soon corresponding with Frances in the same manner. Frances humored her, as I expect she did me. We were the daughters of the Duke of York, heir to the throne, and if there was no son, I was second in line to the throne, Anne third. That had to be a consideration.
    Not only was Anne writing to Frances—an example of her devotion and her determination to imitate me, for writing was an occupation she had hitherto avoided and I could imagine what those letters were like—but they must have their private names, as Frances and I had. So Frances was Semandra—from the play, of course—and Anne was Ziphares, another character from it.
    It may have been this unusual activity on Anne’s part that attracted Lady Frances’s attention, and she may have felt that she should know what was going on. We were, after all, in her charge. She was especially watchful.
    It happened that Richard Gibson, the dwarf, whom we often used as a courier, was away. Sarah Jennings, who was fully aware of the passion Anne and I shared for Frances Apsley, and no doubt laughed at it and clearly considered it no impediment to her domination over Anne, agreed to take the letters while Richard Gibson was absent. Thus, I supposed, she could keep a close check on Anne and share her confidences about what she would consider to be a silly and by no means a permanent arrangement.
    One day, when I was having my dancing lesson with Mr. Gorey, our dancing master, Anne was in her closet,