Barbara Cartland - The Hidden Evil

“Maggie, I am frightened,” Sheena said impulsively.

“Shame on you! You’re nothin’ of the sort,” Maggie retorted tartly.

She did not meet Sheena’s eyes and they both knew the feeling of uncertainty and fear of what lay ahead.

“They are kind gentlemen,” Maggie said almost gently, “despite all their fancy garments. They’ll show us the way right to the King’s door if nothin’ else.”

“If only we had some money that we could buy different clothes with,” Sheena breathed almost beneath her breath.

“They must take us as they find us,” Maggie retorted. “The men who are fightin’ for Her Majesty are doin’ it often in bare feet and without a piece of cloth to cover their shoulders. Let her remember that. Make her understand the sacrifices that are bein’ made not only by the men themselves but by their wives and bairns as well.”

“I will try,” Sheena said humbly.

She cheered herself up with the thought that Mary Stuart was nearly three years younger than herself, only a child, whereas she had now come to womanhood. It should not be hard to instruct a child in the truth.

Despite such comforting assurances her hands were cold, her fingers trembling a little, as she laid them on the arm of Comte Gustave de Cloude as he helped her alight at The Palace.

She had expected it to be Regal, but she had not expected so many servants, such a bustle of liveried footmen, of Major Domos and sentries besides numerous personages who had apparently little to do but stand around, waiting and staring.

Sheena was allowed only a few moments to tidy herself after the long journey and then, without being allowed time to change her gown, she was ushered straight into the presence of the King.

She was ready to hate and despise him. The stories of his liaison with Diane de Poitiers had lost little in the telling when they crossed the sea, also his neglect of the Queen, the fact that he ordered the initials ‘D’ and ‘H’ to be entwined as a monogram and carved on all his Palaces. These stories had made her father snort with indignation.

Sheena had not known what she expected the King to look like. Whatever the image she had preconceived it was certainly nothing like the heavy mournful features of the dark-haired man who looked at her with melancholy eyes.

“Mistress Sheena McCraggan, Your Majesty!” she heard a voice saying and swept to the ground in a deep curtsey.

'“Mistress McCraggan, we have been looking forward to your arrival,” the King said.

“I thank you, Sire.”

Sheena was surprised to hear her own voice, clear and apparently unafraid. She rose to stand before him, small and straight-backed in her crumpled homespun gown, her head held high so that the evening sun coming in from the window behind the King’s head glittered on the red-gold curls she had tried to straighten into unaccustomed neatness on either side of her cheeks.

“You had a good journey, mam’selle ?”

“The sea was very rough, Sire,”

The King nodded, as if he had expected the sea to be rough, and then he commented,

“You speak French extremely well.”

“My grandmother was French, Sire.”

“Yes, yes, I have not forgotten. Jeanne de Bourget, one of the oldest families in France. You have good blood in your veins, Mistress McCraggan.”

“I am proud of my Scottish blood too, Sire.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Henri was quite obviously bored with the conversation. He looked round the audience chamber as if at a loss, wondering what he should say next or what he should do or perhaps seeking guidance.

And then the door opened and his face was very suddenly transformed.

The look of melancholy vanished, the air of uncertainty changed and he moved forward quickly.

Sheena turned her head.

The most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life was coming into the room. She was not young and yet there was something so youthful in her movements that it was as if spring itself had suddenly emerged to cast away the darkness of winter.

She was dressed in white with touches of black and yet the purity of the colour only served to show the whiteness of her skin.

‘She is like a camellia,’ Sheena thought, surprised at her own sense of poetry.

The lady in black and white sank to the ground before the King.

“Forgive me, Sire, if I am late.”

He bent forward to raise her hand to his lips.

“You already know that every hour you are away from me seems just like Eternity,” he murmured.

Only those nearest to him could hear what he said, but everyone could see the adoration in his eyes, the pleading of his lips and the change that had come over him since the opening of the door.

Still holding the hand he had kissed with his lips he turned towards Sheena.

“Mistress McCraggan has arrived,” he announced. “She has had a rough voyage, but she is young enough to survive it.”

The beautiful woman smiled at Sheena, a smile so warm and so embracing, that Sheena felt some of the tension go from her.

“We are so glad you are here, Mistress McCraggan,” the lady said and then, as Sheena curtseyed, she added, “The little Queen has been looking forward to seeing you. It will be nice for her to have news of Scotland and her people who must miss her sorely.”

She could have said nothing that would have gone straighter to Sheena’s heart.

“Indeed, madame , in Scotland our thoughts are only of the time when the Queen will return to us.”

“That is how it should be,” the King said a little ponderously. “And so now, Mistress McCraggan, the Duchesse de Valentinois will take you to your mistress.”

Sheena felt herself stiffen.

So this was Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois, the Grande Sénéchale , who had bewitched the King and seduced him so that he had eyes for no one else.

She had known, she thought, the moment that the Duchesse had entered the room, but somehow she had been so bemused, so taken aback by her beauty and her charm, that she had for a moment forgotten the scandal and the gossip, the spite and the condemnation, that she had listened to in Scotland about this very woman.

She had thought somehow that she would never see her. That the King would keep her in some secret place where only he visited her.

“The Queen has been in my charge,” the Duchesse was saying quietly. “I have been supervising her education and Her Majesty is a very promising pupil. You will be surprised at how talented she is and how quickly her education has progressed in the last few years.”

Sheena found herself unable to answer. What would her father and the other Statesmen say if they knew? To be brought up by a courtesan , by a woman they had all declaimed as a prostitute and lower than those who followed in the wake of the Army or who paraded the dark streets of Edinburgh at night.

Diane de Poitiers ! A witch they had all called her. And yet now with most incredible graciousness, she was leading the way down the corridors of The Palace.

‘Heaven knows,’ Sheena thought to herself, ‘what the little Queen has been taught under such auspices.’

Had Her Majesty’s education been one of witchcraft and guile, of how to blind a man’s eyes so that he would forget his duty and his honour simply so that he could receive a smile from those red lips?

“You must be very tired after your journey,” the Duchesse was saying and it seemed to Sheena that her voice was almost hypnotic it was so easy to be deceived by it.

“I have had a room prepared for you near to that of your Queen. You will have much to talk about in the next few days and after you have met I suggest that you go upstairs and have a sleep. If you are not overly tired, we shall welcome you at dinner. There will be dancing afterwards, but if you prefer to do so, sleep until morning and start the day fresh.”