Danielle Dutton - Margaret the First

“Come,” says her rescuer, a warm paw on her back.

Behind her, the ship has disappeared.

“Silver, silver, silver!” a maid shouts in the hall, and Margaret can hardly believe it, for when was the last time she went anywhere at all? Now the whole house prepares for departure, and the servants are talking of spoons. One room swirls with feather dusters and motes of dust in light — they must be alive, she thinks, for see how they are nourished by the presence of the sun — and maids are throwing linen over chairs.

It’s off to London now, for Newcastle House in Clerkenwall has finally been regained. Or has it been repurchased? In any case, it’s William’s. He is anxious to see it, be in it again. It was built, he tells her, on the ruins of a nunnery, in the Palladian style, with thirty-five chimneys and views in all directions. He asks her what she hopes to do in the city. It’s been so long since she was there. The carriage bounces south. Toward Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle. Gresham College and public lectures. And that modest house Sir Charles rented in Covent Garden, where — so many years ago — she wrote her first book in a trance. “Shall you sit for a portrait?” William asks, but she hadn’t thought of that.

Outside the carriage, England unrolls in reverse: first forest, then farmland, then softly rising downs. They stop at an inn. They stop beside a brook that’s fast with spring. It all looks the same, she thinks, if a brighter shade of green, since the last time she traveled this road it had been the end of summer. Or was it early fall? The following day, the traffic begins to grow. She sees carts of flowers and cabbages trundle toward the city. The farms turn to villages, the villages to town. There are even crowds along the roadside, trying to get a glimpse — of him? of her? she isn’t sure. William declares it right, pulls her back from the window: “You seem to forget we are now among the highest aristocrats in England. Let them watch the grandees pass.”

At last the carriage stops.

All she can see is a wall.

She hears the horses panting, brushes a fly from her lap. As they sit together in the carriage warmth, her eyes begin to close. Scraps of vision from the past two days pass beneath her lids: the scattered trees and bluebells; the sun upon a hill; a small white house with a thick thatched roof and a dog who appeared above her head atop a garden wall. Her eyes are shut. She smiles. Is it happiness she feels? She is back in London, her Blazing World a triumph. It was just as William said. She had only to give it time. There was first that letter praising the sharpness of her wit. Then one about divine fury, enthusiasm, raptures. And in a single afternoon two letters came from Cambridge. The vice-chancellor called her an oracle. The Master of Fellows of Trinity College called her “Minerva and an Athens to herself.” Yes, there were others who never responded to the gift of a copy she sent. Still, she thinks. The horses shuffle. She sleeps.

Then, with a clatter of gears, a gate is pulled open in the windowless façade, and they pass through to a courtyard, which leads to a reception hall, which leads to gardens behind. The walls enclose two acres, complete with an orchard ready to blossom and the ivied relics of the ancient cloister that formerly stood on the grounds. Margaret steps outside. She breathes the London air. But William calls to her, eager to lead the tour. Thus Margaret learns “Palladian” means “balance.” There are two symmetrical wings of the house, one built for the husband, one for the husband’s wife. Though when he had it built, of course, his wife was someone else. It’s this lady’s portrait, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, that hangs in Margaret’s rooms.

Yet she is happy — is it happiness she feels? — as she places her things in the cupboards and drawers. Her quills, stockings, shoes. The room is dotted by porcelain figures. Punctuated , she thinks. She picks one up, puts it down. The former wife’s collection? Then opens a window to London bells and that green-silk scent of spring. And she sees now, here in this room, how badly she’d needed to leave. Impossible to perceive at Welbeck what one perceives in town. Or to perceive in London what one perceives anywhere else in the world. The rain in Paris, for example. Or the color of the cobblestones that run along the Scheldt. Of course, she thinks, a body cannot be in two places at one time. Might a mind? But no, she thinks. For when a body changes location, it changes its mind as well. She looks to the mirror. Her hair is graying, but her eyes are wide and green. On how many millions of occasions has she observed her own reflection? Tonight she sees that girl in the carriage so many years ago, en route to join the queen. Yet how hard it is to point to a moment. To say: There, in that moment, I changed. That night on the road to Oxford she felt she was plunging into life. The horses ran through the starry dark. And today, too. She closes the window. Everything comes together. The air is wet and sweet, and tiny star-shaped flowers creep across the lawn. She almost laughs as she unpacks a pair of gloves. I will call on dear Catherine in the morning, she thinks, and moves to sit on the canopied bed as Lucy hangs her gowns.

They eat, undress, dress again, drive out into the city. The city is half black from the fire. Still, there is birdsong and laughter. Swine root in fishy water. Towers strain, bells peal. Someone cries for a girl called Doll Lane. The carriage takes a left. Then Charing Cross, then Wallingford House, then Royal Park and the new canal. At last they disembark and enter the Banqueting Hall together, William greeting familiar faces, Margaret in diamond earrings and a hat like a fox that froze. They’ve come to pay their respects to the king and his new queen — new, at least, to Margaret — and pass beneath enormous chandeliers, Margaret in a gown designed to look like the forest floor, like glittering yellow wood moss and starry wood anemone and deep-red Jew’s-ear bloom. It has a train like a river — so long it must be carried by a maid — yet hitches up in front, so she might walk with ease. Gone are the golden shoes with gold shoe-roses, just flat boots laced to her knees. Into the king’s reception chamber — dizzying carpets and glasses of wine half-drunk — where Margaret grandly bows, but there’s little chance to speak. Someone takes her arm. While William is left to speak with the king, Margaret is stewarded to the queen’s reception rooms, where Queen Catherine sits surrounded by her Spanish ladies and several snoring hounds. How unlike Henrietta Maria and the old court this new one is: this queen is pious, unpretty, and has miscarried four times. Margaret’s curtsey is solemn. Solemnly, she offers the queen a copy of her book. The queen is cold. Her ladies cold. “Are those Spanish dogs?” Margaret asks. She is not invited to cards.

“I hate it here,” she says, climbing back into the carriage.

“You’re far too easily flustered,” William says.

In heavy rain they pass Arundel House, where the Royal Society — he’s just learned from Lord Brouncker — has been meeting since the streets near Gresham College were damaged in the fire.

“Are you listening?” he asks.

The city is black and glistens.

A simple rule, which she should have remembered. “The most preposterous sort of ceremony,” she says. For only the woman of highest rank is allowed a female train-bearer, yet Margaret has just presented herself to the queen in a train so long her train-bearer still stood out in the hall.

“An error,” William says. “I’ll apologize to His Majesty myself. You are simply out of practice. It’s been nearly seven years. No need to make a fuss. There’s no need to be always getting so upset.”