"It can never be over," answered the queen. "Those joy days are ever present with me, not even when your brother has avenged your father's death upon his murderers shall I forget. My sun is dimmed for ever." And a look of hatred came over her face. "We will not talk of it," she continued, shrugging her shoulders in her quick French way. "You want to know about this England, children? Well, we shall go back to Somerset House. It is my own, given to me by my husband, and there we shall dwell. It is a beautiful place, full--as I have told you--of sunlight; very different from this gloomy Louvre."
"But we have been very happy here," said Agnes. "I fear our play-days are over."
The queen smiled and stroked the child's face. "You are growing a big girl, Agnes; we must think of something better for you than play, ma mie."
Patience coming in broke this strain of talk. She and the queen went to the farther end of the room together in consultation.
Indeed, for the next few months there was much planning and much talking. It was the month of May when King Charles went to England, and England became old England again in its festive gaiety. From the moment Charles set foot on English soil at Dover with his brothers the Dukes of York and Gloucester, and was met by General Monk and courtiers, who knelt to welcome him, England went mad concerning him. On the twenty-ninth of May, which was his birthday, he made his solemn entry into London. We are told the streets were railed, and windows and balconies were hung with tapestries, flowers were scattered in his path, and all was joy and jubilee. So he entered triumphantly that Whitehall where the king, his father, had suffered so cruelly. It was a strange metamorphosis. Those who had been the father's bitterest enemies now bowed before the son. They called him the "King of Hearts". From his people he would receive a "crown of hearts", they said; "the duty of all men would be to make him forget the past; he was to be the most glorious king of the happiest people. Such was his welcome!"
All this was reported to his mother, still living at the Louvre, waiting for her summons to go home, and the whole of that summer passed in joy and laughter. Princess Henrietta was courted by foreign potentates and even by kings, but the queen would not part with her.
"She has shared my troubles, she must share my joys; she must go home with me," she said.
In the autumn the queen set sail with her suite for England, and after what seemed to Agnes a weary journey by sea and land, they reached London, and were conducted through the city to Somerset House, the "Queen's House" as it was called.
Agnes kept close to the princess. Nothing Patience said to her was of any avail; she was determined; she set her lips and pushed her away.
"I will not leave the princess," she said, clinging to her gown.