‘I love my love with an A’, says Mrs Jennings, ‘because he is Admirable.’ It is Betty Villiers’turn. ‘You would be better, Mrs Jennings, to love him with a B, seeing as he is Betrothed to another.’ ‘And you with a C,’ says her sister Barbara, ‘because you are Canker-tongued.’ Betty shrieks with laughter. ‘How you cheat, Bab! Canker-tongued! There is no such word!’
Now Sarah declares herself sorry to have ever started the pestilent game, turns her back on the Villiers sisters, who carry on without her, and sits down next to Anne.
It is summer, so the Court has moved to Windsor. The King spends his time fishing, walking, playing tennis and visiting his mistresses in their lodgings, while the Queen holds picnics. Today she and the Duchess have joined their two households together, and there are several dozen women gathered under the shade of the oak trees, ladies and servants seated side by side. Leaves sieve the strong afternoon sunlight, letting through just enough to lend the servants’ plain gowns a few hours of sparkle, while protecting the ladies’ complexions.
Food and drink are shared along with the sunlight, and everyone has brought a dish: there are chines of beef, venison pasties, several dozen ruffs and reeves, baskets of fruit, all kinds of sweetmeat and several cases of wine. Mary is sitting a little way away, with her friend Frances Apsley, picking delicately at the contents of a fruit basket, so Anne has been able to work her way through the heavier dishes unseen and unrebuked.
The Duke’s newest daughter, baby Catherine, has joined them for the meal, and is sitting on her nurse’s lap, mumbling a crust of bread. She has a sticky cascade of saliva running down its bed of crumbs from her lower lip onto the lace of her mantle. A few more crumbs come out every time she smiles, but all the same her smile is beautiful, and Anne has a most excellent way to bring it out. If she sounds one pair of strings on her guitar, the corners of Catherine’s mouth will begin to turn up; if she thrums all the strings at once, then the baby smile will break out in its full glory. Pushing the experiment a little further, she plays the first few notes of the chaconne that Signor Corbetta has been teaching her this last week, and now the baby is more delighted than ever, crowing and waving her newly unswaddled arms about until the crust flies out of her hand.
Sarah Jennings rushes to pick it up, but Mary Cornwallis gets there first. She is the York sisters’ oldest friend, and has been stationed at Anne’s side all afternoon, ready to assist. She is unable to get as sure a grip on the crust, however: the baby has mushed it to paste and there is nothing to do but wipe the mess off her hand on the grass.
‘Not such a prize after all,’ says Mrs Jennings. ‘Too bad.’ Catherine’s nurse reaches into her pocket and produces another crust, which the baby snatches.
Anne can hear her sister Mary, still engaged in her tête-à-tête with Mrs Frances Apsley. She is admiring the cornelian ring Mrs Apsley is wearing, saying how well it becomes her, how it draws the eye to her elegant hands. Having Mrs Apsley to love makes Mary happy; if you are to make a proper figure at Court, having someone to love is essential, and there are right and wrong ways to go about it, as there are right and wrong ways to dress, to walk, to dance, and to play. Anne strikes a thoughtful chord, catching first Mrs Jennings’s eye, then Mrs Cornwallis’s.
‘Your Highness.’ It is Mrs Jennings. ‘Will you play the whole tune, or are you meaning just to thrum at us?’
‘Oh yes indeed, do play us the tune!’ cries Mrs Cornwallis. ‘It’s a new one, isn’t it? You play so well, it is always such a pleasure to listen!’
So Anne plays the rest of the piece, for the company, and the baby, and for Mary Cornwallis.