The King's Mistress (31 page)

She spent the snowy afternoon visiting with the queen and Charles’s cousin Elizabeth, the Princess Palatine. They were both engaged in needlework—the queen embroidering in silk and the princess making lace. Nearby, Martine sat with a basket of mending by her side, overseeing Minette’s efforts on a sampler of tiny stitches worked on linen.

“I feel useless just sitting,” Jane declared. “I pray you, Martine, give me something to occupy my hands as we talk.”

“Very well, mademoiselle, if you insist,” Martine said. “Here is a shirt belonging to His Majesty. The sleeve is pulling out from its seam, you see.”

“Ah, much better,” Jane said, putting a thimble onto her finger and threading a needle.

“Charles says that you quoted Virgil and Shakespeare to him as you travelled,” Princess Elizabeth said.

“Yes,” Jane said, “we have a shared love of poetry and plays, it seems. Though I have only had the pleasure of seeing one play performed.”

“What a pity,” tutted the queen. “We used to have many performances at court in the old days. My husband the king and I both had our companies of players, you know. And of course we frequently had masques—little performances, you know, with music and dancing, on allegorical or classical themes.”

“Little?” Princess Elizabeth laughed. “Like
The Masque of Peace
? One hundred courtiers and musicians in costumes constructed for the purpose, the scenery designed and painted by the great Inigo Jones, weeks of preparation, and all this costing as much as would build a battleship. Was that little, madame?”

“Bah!” The queen brushed aside the gibe. “It was little enough for the entertainment it provided. I loved even better to take part.”

“You performed, Your Majesty?” Jane couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice.

“Oh, yes,” the queen laughed. “There were no women among the players on the public stage, but the court masques were quite different. I danced as Divine Beauty in
Tempe Restored
, along with fourteen of my ladies.”

“And don’t forget
The Shepherd’s Paradise
, Your Majesty,” Martine said.

“Ah, yes,” the queen sighed. “I am afraid the poor little Cockpit theatre at Whitehall must be quite fallen into disrepair now.”

“There is quite a beautiful theatre here in the Palais Royal, you know,” Princess Elizabeth told Jane. “Alas, with things in such an uproar as they have been, there has been no time for plays. But perhaps one day before too long …”

“What authors do you enjoy best, Your Highness?” Jane asked Princess Elizabeth, turning the shirt in her hand as she finished the first part of the seam.

“You may think it strange—or perhaps not, perhaps you will understand quite well—but l became quite fascinated with the writings of Monsieur Descartes. A philosopher, you know.”

“Yes,” Jane said. “I know his name, but have not read his work.”

“He became a dear friend. He died last year, more is the pity.”

Her eyes were sad, and she looked down at the needlework in her lap, absently smoothing away a knot in the thread.

“I miss him so. And of course the exchange of ideas,” she added, glancing at Jane. “An interesting man, and one who welcomed debate. But he never did satisfactorily answer my one great question.”

“And what was that?” Jane asked.

“He argued that our minds and our bodies are separate beings. If that was so, I queried, how comes it that they interact with each other as they do? For if they were truly separate, would not our minds wander off, free from our corporal bodies?”

“For myself,” Jane said, “I can tell you that my mind wanders quite a bit, if I’m not careful.”

The women laughed, and even little Minette joined in.

“Very good, mademoiselle,” the queen said. “No wonder Charles enjoys your company so.”

T
HE NEXT AFTERNOON
C
HARLES CAME TO SEE
J
ANE AT HIS MOTHER’S
apartments.

“It’s a pity it’s so cold,” he said, looking out at the frost-tipped branches of the trees. “But my room is scarcely warmer, and I am so poor that walking is the only entertainment I can offer you. But come, I want to show you the Grand Gallery.”

Snow sparkled on the ground before the palace.

“So beautiful,” Jane said as Charles led her across to the Palace of the Louvre, holding her arm to keep her from slipping. “Like a field of diamonds.”

Many English country houses had long galleries, useful for taking exercise in inclement weather, but Jane was not prepared for the sight of the Grand Gallery, which ran between the Louvre and the Palace of the Tuileries. It must have been close to a hundred feet wide and stretched before her, straight as a Roman road, for at least a quarter of a mile. High vaulted ceilings arched overhead from treelike columns along either side of the gallery, and windows high above admitted the pearly grey of the winter sky. Most enchanting, artists and artisans of various kinds were at work along the length of the gallery ahead.

“It’s been a tradition for some two hundred years,” Charles explained, “ever since my grandfather built the gallery, that it provide lodging and workspace for artists, for craftsmen, of whom the royal family of France makes so much use.”

“A splendid idea,” Jane said, pausing to watch an old man using a tiny brush to apply gilt to a stunning vase with a ground of brilliant blue.

“Yes,” Charles agreed. “If I ever have a palace to my name, I’d like to do the same.” They walked on, nodding and smiling to the artists who pulled off their caps and bowed to Charles.

“Tell me the rest of what happened, when you had to go back to Trent,” Jane said as they walked on.

“Well, I left the story when we had escaped our pursuers so narrowly, did we but know it, and got to Broadwindsor. We went to the inn there, the George, taking the topmost room, thinking it the most private. But no sooner were we in, but comes in a great troop of soldiers.”

“Like at the Crown in Cirencester!” Jane said. “Tell me you didn’t blunder among them in the stable yard again?”

“No.” Charles laughed. “The stakes were too high to play at that game again.”

“What did you do?” Jane asked, pausing as her eye was caught by a weaver working on a great tapestry. The man bowed gravely first to Charles and then to her before resuming his work, threading the shuttle of his loom between the brightly coloured threads.

“There was nothing we could do,” Charles continued, “but stay within our room and pray that nothing should occasion them to come to search. And as it happened, there was a disturbance which proved a great help to us. For a wench that was with the soldiers was great with child, and began her travail.”

The cave and Marjorie rose to Jane’s mind, and the spectre of the child that would never be. The weaver was at work on a depiction of the Madonna and Child, she noted with irony, the Virgin in vivid blue, the chubby face of the baby Jesus rose-petal pink and white.

“The poor girl was in the kitchen, delivering of her child,” Charles said. “Somehow, the worthies of the village came to know of it, and fearful that the child and mother should become a burden to the parish, came to the inn, and a very hot conflict arose with the soldiers concerning provision to be made for the mother and the infant. As you may imagine, not a wink of sleep did we get, and yet the trouble likely saved us from worse.”

“The poor girl,” Jane said, imagining only too well the young woman’s distress.

Charles nodded at the weaver and he and Jane resumed their strolling.

“We waited to take our leave until the company of soldiers was gone, and then we got us back to Trent as soon as ever we could. Wilmot endeavoured to find me a boat, and all I could do was wait, locked in the bedchamber there.”

“I wish I had been with you,” Jane said.

“I wished so, too, every day.” Charles smiled. “The time would have passed much more quickly.”

They paused to watch a painter at work on a canvas, a still life of fruits and flowers, its vibrant colours jewel-like and almost glowing. Jane glanced sideways at Charles, longing to feel his mouth fierce on hers. She took his arm as they turned from the painter, and decided she must voice the question that had been rising in her heart since her arrival in Paris.

“Charles,” she murmured, “why do you not take me to your bed? I long for you so.”

Fire flared in his eyes, and he pulled her to face him, looking down into her face.

“I would not hurt you, my dear. It has not been long since you miscarried of the child …”

“I am well enough,” she assured him, placing a hand on his cheek. She was conscious that they were watched, but she didn’t care. She pushed from her mind the thought of the minister and his adjuration to sin no more. In Charles’s presence, nothing mattered but her love for him.

He kissed her cheek. “I have little privacy here, as you know. But let us see if we can find a way.”

He led her onward, her arm still in his. Two ladies in rustling silk were approaching from the opposite direction. At the sight of Jane and Charles, one whispered to the other. They bowed and smiled as they passed, and turning her head, Jane saw that the ladies had also turned back to look at her. Apparently what Charles did and with whom were matters of intense interest to the French court.

“Did you stay with the Wyndhams until Lord Wilmot found you a boat, then?” Jane wondered, wishing again that she had remained with Charles instead of leaving him at Trent.

“No. It seemed safest to leave. We made our way to another house, near Salisbury.”

“You must have ridden the way that Henry and I did, then,” Jane said. “Did you see the great stones?”

“Yes, I stayed looking upon them for some time, filled with a sense of something greater and infinitely more long-lasting than myself. I was glad of the accident in circumstances that took me there.”

“Henry and I stopped there for the night,” Jane said. “I felt in the presence of great magic and power, lying there among the stones with the stars wheeling overhead.”

They had reached the end of the gallery, but rather than continue into the Palais des Tuileries, Charles led Jane back the way they had come.

“And then where did you go?” she asked.

He squeezed her arm, linked in his, and the familiar gesture warmed her.

“It’s not worth the telling. Here and there for another fortnight before Wilmot was finally able to arrange for a boat at Brightelmstone.”

T
HE
E
NGLISH COURT SQUATTED LIKE REFUGEES IN A TINY CORNER OF
the vast complex of the French palaces, and for the first week or two she was in Paris, Jane had had almost no contact with any French people. She was touched and gratified, therefore, to receive a note from Charles’s friend Mademoiselle d’Épernon, inviting her to visit. Mademoiselle was dressed for the afternoon in a gown of carnation trimmed with ribbon rosettes in gold and flame red, and Jane was acutely conscious of her own plain garments and weather-roughened face and hands as her new friend ushered her into her own apartments.

“I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the kind gift of your beautiful cloak, mademoiselle,” she said, looking with admiration at the silk tapestries draping the walls and the intricate marquetry of the furniture.

“Mais non,”
Mademoiselle d’Épernon insisted. “It is the least I could do for someone who has risked so much and so bravely.”

Jane wondered if Charles had told his friend exactly how much she had risked and what she had lost. The lady was very pretty, too, but her easy and open friendliness reassured Jane that she was not likely to be more than a friend to Charles.

Mademoiselle poured steaming hot chocolate from a gilded pot into delicate porcelain cups, and passed Jane plates of tiny iced pastries. What a change from heavy wheat bread and cheese rummaged from the bottom of a leather bag, Jane reflected, sipping the rich chocolate and biting into an almond-flavoured pastry with rosebuds piped on the top.

“I shall be only too happy to provide you with any items you may need,” Mademoiselle d’Épernon said. “I have too many things, quite too many things. The gloves, for instance—I think they breed when I am not looking.”

Jane was grateful for Mademoiselle’s easy smile, which somehow made it seem as if Jane would be doing her a favour by taking some exquisite garments off her hands.

“Tell me, please,” Jane said, after they had exchanged small talk. “What is this Fronde that I hear about?”

“Why, it’s a kind of revolution. Some of the nobles have taken a grudge against the young king, and there has been such violence—they burned the Hôtel de Ville!—that he and his poor mother fled, you know, and are only just come back.”

“How dreadful,” Jane said.

“Yes. And so we sympathise so much with your king, and he is rather a hero for his successful escape. And you a heroine, mademoiselle, for your part in it. And I must tell you, your coming has sparked much curiosity and speculation among the ladies here.”

She tilted her head, an inquisitive but friendly smile curving her dimpled cheeks. Jane felt herself blushing and wondering how to respond as a flurry of questions flooded her mind. She had borne the flaming passion of her love for Charles as a secret for so long, and ached to confide in someone who would understand.

“Oh. Well. What do they wonder about?”

Mademoiselle blew out her cheeks in what Jane had already observed to be a quintessentially Gallic way.

“
Eh, bien,
it is said that you are the king’s mistress. And there are those here who worry that perhaps you might push them from his thoughts and attentions.”

Jane’s heart clutched in panic. “Who?”

Mademoiselle saw the fear on her face, and took her hand gently.

“Mademoiselle Lane, he speaks very highly of you, your Charles, and clearly holds you in high regard. But you must know that of course he is an object of interest. Handsome, romantically tragic. It would be strange if he did not, young man that he is, respond to this interest.”

“Of course.” Jane said the words but her heart was twisting in pain.

“He spends time with the Duchess de Châtillon, a young widow,” Mademoiselle said softly. “And also with Anne Marie Louise, Duchess de Montpensier, called the Grande Mademoiselle. But that is in the nature of a formal matter—for as a wife, she would bring him the money and power he so very badly needs.”