The French Mistress (29 page)

He deftly perceived my loneliness, and how much I yearned to quit the sorrows of the Palais-Royal. He told amusing stories to make me laugh, something I’d nearly forgotten how to do in those melancholy times, and he was never above mimicking others to make his jests more amusing. I ignored Madame’s warnings of how faithless the duke could be, and likewise ignored my own misgivings, not the least of which had been the way he’d grabbed my arm by the canal. Granted, I was young and foolish and more vulnerable than I realized, but he was also quick to see how ready I was to leave off my old world for a new one with more promise, and he fed my ambitions. Whenever he could contrive to be with me, he took care to fill my willing ears with whatever he calculated would please me best—a dubious companion for any lady, as later I would come sadly to understand.

But then I gladly listened as he praised my face, my form, my grace, and predicted that not just the king, but all England, would come to admire me. He painted himself as my champion, and took full claim for my new advancement. He swore he’d been the one to convince His Most Christian Majesty to part with me. He told me again of his scheme to use me to displace the duchess of Cleveland from favor, and also more of the confidential plans for a royal divorce. He spun wild fancies of banishing the present queen to a distant island for safekeeping, and of me, garbed in cloth of gold and strands of pearls, placed on the throne in her stead—such glorious, romantic fancies that I indulged in again and again until they began to take on the golden luster of reality. In his company, I could forget that I was meant to be a spy (a most perilous forgetfulness), and instead thought only of being loved by a king.

Three days alone in a coach with the duke, however, had stolen some of the glow from this new champion of mine. At his insistence, we’d traveled without stopping except for refreshment and to change horses, stealing sleep as best we could in the coach.

Or rather, the duke slept, and I did not. Newly fortified with wine at every stop we made, he sprawled with abandon across the seat opposite from mine in the carriage, perfectly unconscious of my presence. He rested his boots, dirty with the muck of the various inn yards, on the leather cushions, closed his eyes, and instantly snored away, the ends of his mustache blowing gently with each puffing, noisy breath.

I had never spent any time in such close and constant contact with a gentleman, and as my despairing exhaustion grew, I could not help but feel my own discomfort, and be more convinced than ever that I’d not the fortitude for Christian martyrdom. Weariness sharpened my critical faculties as well, and as the carriage rolled through the countryside, I took note not only of the duke’s ceaseless snoring, but the sourness of his breath, the flecks of tobacco on his waistcoat, and how his linen was not exactly as fresh as a great noble’s should be.

By the time we finally reached our inn in Dieppe, I could have wept with joy. Politely declining his offer to share dinner, I fled upstairs to my room, undressed and, after washing with Bette’s assistance, fell into a deep sleep, blissful in my duke-free solitude.

I awoke the next morning greatly refreshed, my room filled with cheery sunlight and Bette drawing back the curtains to my bed to present me with my morning chocolate and biscuits. But along with my breakfast, she brought me disturbing news.

“The innkeeper wishes me to tell you, mademoiselle,” she said as she handed me a porcelain cup, “that His Grace the Duke of Buckingham departed last night, and sailed for England with the tide.”

I gasped with surprise. “That cannot be, Bette,” I insisted. “The innkeeper must be mistaken. His Grace would never abandon me like that, and risk displeasing His Majesty.”

“Forgive me, mademoiselle, but he has,” Bette said sadly. “I did not believe it myself, and after he told me, I asked others to make certain. There was a letter here awaiting His Grace, a letter written addressed in a lady’s hand. His Grace read it as soon as it was presented to him, exclaimed loudly in English, and immediately made plans to find passage and sail.”

“Then surely he left a letter of explanation for me,” I said promptly. “Doubtless he’d no wish to disturb me last night when he was called away, and chose to explain his departure in a letter. He wouldn’t leave without that courtesy.”

But Bette only shook her head, the long lappets of her linen cap swaying gently back and forth against her cheeks.

“Forgive me, mademoiselle, but there is no letter,” she said. “His Grace is gone, and without leaving word for anyone as to when he would return.”

I dressed at once, determined to find the answer to this mystery for myself. The cold truth brought little comfort. His Grace had in fact received a letter from a lady, his mistress the wanton Countess of Shrewsbury. Waiting in Dover for him to return to England, she had felt that her time had come to be delivered of their bastard, and had written to beseech him to join her as soon as was possible.

I could now understand his haste on the road from Paris, and why, too, he’d felt such urgency to leave in the night. A woman giving birth is always in peril, no matter whether the child is legitimate or not. But I’d scant sympathy for his abandonment, and none at all for his having done so without so much as a hasty note of explanation or promise to return. He’d not only disappointed me, but his master His Majesty as well. I had been left behind with as little ceremony as a broken wheel, and with as little warning, either.

Having always been well cared for in my life, for myself or as part of a larger party, I’d no idea what to do next beyond waiting. I could only pray that His Grace would in time return for me, or at the very least send the royal yacht to collect me, as he’d promised. Not even a gentleman as blithe as the duke would dare risk the displeasure of two kings.

But the innkeeper and his wife viewed my situation in a different light. They considered first my youth and beauty together with my costly clothes, and then balanced that against the duke’s much older and more worldly appearance and his hasty disappearance, and finally decided that I represented a seduction followed by a disappointed elopement. Delicately the innkeeper’s wife inquired whether I would soon be expecting the arrival of my father, or perhaps an older brother, to retrieve me home. Loath to confess my true situation (and truly, who would believe it?), I could only sigh forlornly and shake my head.

But as the days stretched into a week and my letters to His Grace went unanswered, the innkeeper began to regard me with less charity. An unattached yet beautiful young lady residing in a public inn without a suitable escort or companion too often attracts unsavory mischief, and can quickly become a bane to those who wish to keep a respectable house. Further, my dwindling personal funds were casting me nearer each day to impecuniousness, and in desperation I finally wrote to the English ambassador, Ralph Montagu, in Paris to advise him of my plight, and beg for assistance.

At once Mr. Montagu wrote to reassure me and apologize for the duke’s neglect, and soon after an escort drawn from his own household arrived in Dieppe to join me. More important, he wrote to Lord Arlington in London, describing how Lord Buckingham had seemingly forgotten me. Immediately that good gentleman sought to repair everything that the duke had put awry. He dispatched a royal yacht to collect me along with the ambassador’s escort from Dieppe, and further, he and Lady Arlington invited me to come directly to their own lodgings in the royal palace (instead of the French embassy, as had been previously arranged) as their guest.

He also regretfully informed me of the depth of Lord Buckingham’s neglect: for though the duke had left me for his mistress, that lady’s distress had proved premature, as is often the case. But instead of returning to me in Dieppe, the duke had gone with his paramour to London, and thrown himself once again into the merry distraction of the town without a single thought to spare for my welfare.

I was by then thoroughly weary of Lord Buckingham and disgusted by his careless ways, and ready to confess that, in choosing my English allies, I’d erred mightily. Lord Arlington with his black-plaster’d nose might be less amusing than the duke, but he was also vastly more reliable, and with grateful relief I accepted his invitation.

In my lonely hours at Dieppe, I’d had much time to reflect on my situation. I’d resolved not to be led again, as I had been by Lord Buckingham, and to listen more closely to my own counsel than to that of others, who would wish to use me for their own purpose. In the final reckoning, only I would be accountable for my success or failure, and my misadventure with the duke had only served to hone my ambitions to a keener edge.

Thus on a brisk, brave afternoon in September, I finally arrived in London, and made ready to claim it as my own.

 

 

Just as Paris was to France, London was the greatest city in the country of England, and also like Paris and the river Seine, London straddles a river of its own, the Thames.

Beyond that, on that first day on the deck of the yacht, I could see no other similarities.

Paris is an ancient and elegant city, filled with fine houses, palaces, and churches handsomely made of stone, with gardens and parks, all carefully planned to please the senses. I had heard that London was an equally ancient city, first contrived by the conquering Romans of the mighty Caesars. But my first eager glimpse as I arrived by the river showed little to reflect so glorious a beginning. The most substantial edifice of stone to be seen was a walled, fortified castle called the Tower of London (or so I was told by one of the sailors, who also proudly pointed out the place’s pet ravens—a macabre sort of pet, by my lights); here both the highest prisoners of the state as well as the crown jewels were secured.

The rest of the buildings we passed were a squat jumble of timber and plaster, with only a few wrought of stone and brick, and everything crowded to the very edge of the river’s banks. Instead of inspiring towers of cathedrals rising high into the sky, there were only shingled roofs and a forest of dirty chimneys, each spewing a foul smoke that I later learned came from the Londoners’ preference for sea coal in their fires.

Because London served as a port, I saw more symbols of trade than anything else, unappealing warehouses and goods stacked high. The river itself was so clogged with vessels that it made for an incommodious passage, and an unpleasant one, too, from the numbers of coarse watermen and sailors calling and shouting fierce oaths at one another. The fact that I was sailing in the king’s own yacht made no difference, either, and I was shocked by the lack of respect shown to it.

“They know His Majesty’s not aboard, mademoiselle,” explained the Comte de Grammont, one of those carefully chosen and sent to escort me by Mr. Montagu. This agreeable French nobleman was a fond acquaintance of the English king and had lived for many years here at his Court, having been banished by Louis from France for some long-forgotten peccadillo. I could have no better guide upon my entry to London, or one more willing to speak freely by way of educating me.

“Sailors are clever enough to guide their ships by the stars and the moon,” His Lordship now continued. “It’s no wonder they can tell when their king is about, too. Otherwise they would be showing his yacht more regard.”

“But how can they know for certain, my lord?” I asked, indignant on the king’s behalf. “His Majesty could merely be below in the cabin, away from their view.”

“They know he is not, because we do not fly his pennant from our staff,” the comte explained kindly. “His Majesty is very popular with his subjects, mademoiselle, and because he often goes out among them, they are well tuned to recognize his presence.”

Perplexed, I frowned, striving to make sense of this explanation. I couldn’t fathom a king who would wish to go among his people. Louis seldom did. After the travails of his childhood during the Fronde, he disliked and mistrusted the common people of Paris almost as much as he did his nobles, and preferred to keep them all at a distance.

“If that is so, my lord, then they must also know His Majesty’s program for each of his days,” I said, remembering the rigorous, unvarying program of Louis’s day, so punctual a routine that his courtiers claimed a pocket watch could be set by the king’s movements. “I suppose in that fashion they must know that he would not be sailing at this hour.”

“No, mademoiselle,” the comte said with a polite small sigh. “They’d know no such thing, for the King of England keeps no program. He acts upon whim, and follows his fancy for each moment. He is a busy monarch, to be sure, and seldom at rest, but it is impossible for his courtiers to predict where he might be in the course of a day or evening.”

“But how can they properly serve His Majesty if they’ve no knowledge of where he might be?” I asked, shocked. “How does his watch know when to guard his person?”

“That is only one of the challenges of the English Court, mademoiselle,” His Lordship said. “Though to be fair, it is the same as any other royal Court. If one wishes to prosper, one learns the monarch’s ways, and adjusts one’s self to follow, and to please. As will you, mademoiselle.”

I considered this in thoughtful silence. I remembered how, in Dover, the king’s activities had often been impulsive and seldom predictable, but I’d judged that to be only on account of the circumstances. I was realizing I’d even more to learn than I’d first believed. Yet as His Lordship so wisely said, I would adjust.

Near the Tower, we were forced to leave the yacht behind, with our baggage unloaded and carried the remainder of the way by cart. The comte and I (and my maidservant, Bette), however, simply shifted to a smaller craft sent to meet us from the palace, a long, low boat with liveried oarsmen—an inconvenience made necessary because the yacht’s sails were too large to pass beneath London Bridge. Deftly the oarsmen steered us through the narrow archways, skirting through the foaming currents with a speed that made me gasp and cling to my seat as the spray flew over my cloak. I’d only a glimpse of the bridge above me, a huge and wondrous affair, with shops and houses built on its crossing span, and the decayed heads of long-dead villains on pikes on one end.