Читаем Forever Amber полностью

For Charles it marked the successful culmination of ten years of planning. French money would free him, in part at least, from his Parliament; French men and ships would help him to the defeat of his country’s most dangerous enemy, the Dutch. In return he gave nothing but a promise—a promise that one day, at his own convenience, he would declare himself a Catholic. Charles was much amused to see how eager the French envoy was to complete the business, how eager they were to pay him for protection against a war he had never intended to wage.

“If everything I’ve ever done,” he said to Arlington, when it was signed and complete, “dies when I die—at least I’ll leave England this much. This treaty is a promise that one day she’ll be the greatest nation on earth. Let my French cousin have the Continent if he wants it. The world is wide, and when we’ve destroyed the Dutch all the seas on it will belong to England.”

Arlington, who sat with one weary hand pressed to his aching head, sighed a little. “I hope she’ll be grateful, Sire.”

Charles grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and reached down to give him a friendly pat. “Grateful, Harry? When was a nation or a woman ever grateful for the favours you do her? Well—I think my sister’s abed now; I always pay her a call last thing at night. You’ve been working too hard these past few days, Harry. Better take a sleeping-potion and have a good night’s rest.” He went out of the room.

He found Minette sitting up waiting for him in the enormous canopied four-poster bed. The last of her waiting-women were straggling out, and half-asleep on her lap was her little tan-and-black spaniel, Mimi. He took a chair beside her and for a moment they sat silent, smiling, looking at each other. Charles reached out one hand and covered both her own.

“Well,” he said. “It’s done.”

“At last. I can scarcely believe it. I’ve worked hard for this, my dear—because I thought it was what you wanted. Louis has often accused me of minding your interests more than his own.” She laughed a little. “You know how tender his pride is.”

“I think it’s more than pride, Minette—don’t you?” His smile teased her, for rumours still persisted that Louis had been madly in love with her several years before and had not yet quite recovered.

But she did not want to talk about that. “I don’t know. My brother—there’s something you must promise me.”

“Anything, my dear.”

“Promise me that you won’t declare your Catholicism too soon.”

A look of surprise came into Charles’s eyes, but was quickly gone. His face seldom betrayed him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because the King is troubled about it. He’s afraid you may declare yourself and alienate the German Protestant princes-he needs them when we fight Holland. And he fears that the English people would not tolerate it—he thinks that the best time would be in the midst of a victorious war.”

An almost irresistible smile came to Charles’s mouth, but he forced it back.

So Louis thought that the English people would not tolerate a Catholic king—and was afraid that a revolution in England might spread to France. He regarded his French cousin with a kind of amused contempt, but was glad it was always possible to hoodwink him. Charles had never intended and did not now intend to try to force Catholicism on his people—of course they would not tolerate it—and he preferred to keep his throne. It was his expectation to die quietly in his bed at Whitehall.

Nevertheless he answered Minette seriously, for even she did not share all his secrets. “I won’t declare myself without consulting his interests. You may tell him so for me.”

She smiled, and her little hand pressed his affectionately. “I’m glad—for I know how much it means to you.”

Almost ashamed, he quickly lowered his eyes.

I know how much it means to you, he repeated to himself. How much it means—He made a fervent wish that it would always mean as much to her as it did now. He did not want her ever to know what it was to believe in nothing, to have faith in nothing. He looked up again. His eyes brooded over her, his dark face earnest and unsmiling.

“You’re thin, Minette.”

She seemed surprised. “Am I? Why—perhaps I am.” She looked down at herself and as she moved the spaniel gave a resentful little grunt, telling her to be still. “But I’ve never been plump, you know. You’ve always called me ‘Minette.’”

“Are you feeling well?”

“Why, yes, of course.” She spoke quickly, like one who hates to tell a lie. “Oh—perhaps a headache now and then. I may be a little tired from all the excitement. But that will soon pass.”

His face hardened slowly. “Are you happy?”

Now she looked as though he had trapped her. “Mon Dieu! What a question! What would you say if someone asked you, ‘Are you happy?’ I suppose I’m as happy as most people. No one is ever truly happy, do you think? If you get even half of what you want from life—” She gave a little shrug and gestured with one hand. “Why, that’s all one can hope for, isn’t it?”

“And have you got half of what you wanted from life?”