The French Mistress

by Susan Holloway Scott

  And why, when thoroughly English (and thoroughly common and vulgar, though no matter that) Mrs. Gwyn had just borne the king his latest bastard son, did he insist in dallying with a Frenchwoman like me?

  “You can see, Louise?” The queen leaned forward in her armchair, anxiously looking down past the other ladies sitting along the front of the playhouse box to find me. “So far you are! Are you sure?”

  “Thank you, ma’am, I can see the stage well enough.” I smiled halfheartedly at her, as much open complaint as I could dare. I couldn’t whine or pout, or go against the accommodating persona I’d worked so hard to build with her. But even she’d noted it: my place was the worst among our group. From the luck of placing when the royal party had entered the playhouse, this last seat in the front row of the box had fallen to me. No one would notice me here, tucked back between one of the queen’s dullest Portuguese attendants and a thick support column. “I am well enough where I am.”

  “Don’t be so obliging, mademoiselle,” Charles called from the queen’s other side. “Come, take this chair by me.”

  Now this was better luck, I thought with satisfaction. I hesitated demurely, waiting while he unceremoniously sent the gentleman beside him to a different chair in the back of the box.

  “Here you are, mademoiselle,” Charles called again, patting the now-empty seat beside his. “Don’t be shy about it. Unless you’d prefer the company of that wooden pillar beside you, eh?”

  Of course after that, I’d no choice but to shift my place. Hiding my pleasure behind many apologies, I gathered my skirts closer to my legs and inched my way in front of the others to be more near to the king. He pulled the empty chair closer still to his own, and as soon as I sat, he patted my knee fondly.

  “There,” he said with satisfaction. “One never wants to miss a moment of Mr. Dryden’s plays, and now you won’t.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I smiled, as I couldn’t help but do whenever I was with him. This was where I should have been from the beginning, at his side, and where I was sure I belonged.

  “You look lovely tonight, sweet,” he said, studying me with approval. I had been in London for three months now, and while most of the Court had put aside their mourning for Madame, I still kept to somber grays and dark blues, albeit adorned with fashionable lace and ribbons, but subdued enough to subtly remind him of my connection to his sister. “I’m glad you like the pearls.”

  “Oh, sir, how could I not?” I said, touching my fingers to the heavy pearl drops that swung from my ears, his first gift to me and the first pearls I’d ever owned. I was glad he’d noticed, his gaze returning again and again to the pale column of my throat. I’d observed how greedy Lady Cleveland was, only acknowledging the presents he gave her as her due, and I’d learned from it. When Charles had given me the earrings, I’d wept with joy, refusing them at first as too valuable, and finally accepting them only if he’d put them in my ears for me: a pretty, gracious ceremony he’d much enjoyed, and one I hoped would soon garner me more such baubles as presents.

  “I’m glad you wore the pearls,” he said, as if sharing my thoughts. “They suit you. I’ve always thought pearls look best against fair skin.”

  “That they do, sir,” I said, tipping my head coyly to one side to make them swing. “And what more beautiful way to show to others how kind and generous my dearest friend can be?”

  He laughed, pleased, and touched a single finger first to one of the pearls, and then lightly along the side of my throat.

  “Let them look their fill, my dear, let them look,” he said, his eyes darkening with desire. “I’m the fortunate one to have you beside me.”

  I should note that this was all being acted out as if we were players, too, as we both knew perfectly well. In the time before the play began, the waiting audience usually turned away from the stage to ogle the grand folk in the royal box. Depending upon who had use of the seats, it could well be a better show than the one they’d paid to see.

  Of course Charles was long accustomed to this constant scrutiny, while I was still learning. It felt odd to be recognized, to be remarked by name in shops or in the park, and sitting beside the king like this would only enhance my fame. Thus when I impulsively reached for his hand, I understood the gesture wasn’t simply one of affection between us, but a declaration that the rest of London would see and note.

  He understood, too, and raised our linked fingers to kiss my hand, there for all the world to see.

  “I’m glad you’re beside me, sweet,” he said softly, the warmth of his eyes echoing his words. I’d come to love his eyes, how dark and deep they could be when he looked at me, and how when he smiled, the tiny lines would spread from the corners like the rays of the sun. “It’s exactly where you belong.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me, his hand sliding beneath the swinging pearl to tangle in my artful curls. That was a declaration, especially sitting so near the queen. Now I know that we French have a reputation for romantic encounters, but at least at Court, discretion was the custom, and no one flaunted their intrigues. Even Louis, who had had at least as many mistresses as Charles, was never seen to exchange a single untoward embrace. The only reason we’d ever known he visited the apartments of Madame du Montespan was because it was announced as an item in his daily program. But Charles—Charles seemed to have no modesty at all. He kissed and embraced and fondled at will, without the least regard for who saw him. On warm days, he would even go to the bank of the Thames near the palace, remove every piece of his clothing, and swim in the river, naked for all of London to see and admire.

  “My sweet Louise,” he said when he was done kissing me, the endearment expressing much. Then he winked, and settled back comfortably in his seat to wait for the play to begin. Blushing with pleasure, I tried to do the same.

  Though I’d seen many plays in Paris, I hadn’t attended a playhouse until I came to London. There hadn’t been any need to. All the best French playwrights, like Molière and Racine, were under royal patronage, and presented their latest works in full-staged productions first for the Court. Louis would never have ventured into a place as raucous as this one, the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane.

  Only a few years old, the playhouse had been built in the manner of many of London’s newer buildings: sturdy enough to withstand the rough usage imposed upon it by the city’s impetuous citizens, yet with a gloss of gaudy gilding and scarlet paint to give it an air of tawdry gentility. Three tiers of boxes rose along the walls that encircled the stage, with the royal box in the first tier, and with the choicest sight of the players. The boxes above had wooden benches instead of chairs, with tickets costing commensurately less.

  On the floor of the playhouse were more benches, and this space was justly called the pit. The audience who chose to sit there consisted of apprentices, bachelors, blades, and other ill-assorted men of the town, plus an unhealthy smattering of common drabs and more costly whores in black vizard masks, covering half their pox’d and patched faces while their whole jutting breasts were laid bare to their trade. The last low form of female to be found in the pit were the orange sellers, brash young women who wandered through the audience crying oranges and nuts and, only slightly less obviously, themselves as well.

  If the play was slow or ill performed, this stew would often boil over, with brawls between the women and flashing swordplay among the gallants, or assignations so brazen that I was sure many couplings took place between the crowded benches. The players themselves were only slightly more elevated than those in the pit, as ready to hurl an oath and an orange back at a too-vocal critic as they were to deliver the sweet cadences of their lines. The tiring-rooms behind the painted sets were no better than bawdy houses, and every painted actress could be bought by any gentleman who had the price in his pocket. This was where Charles had first plucked up Mrs. Gwyn (one more thing that the fastidious Louis would never have lowered himself to do), and how heartily I wished Charles had left her there, too.

 
I didn’t wonder that he loved the playhouse, though, and attended as often as he could. It was exciting and amusing and filled with wild company, and it asked nothing from him in return except that he enjoy himself. I suspect he also loved it for the same reason that I did: nothing shown on its stage was real, a blessed relief from the machinations of Whitehall.

  But to my sorrowful regret, that lovely condition was about to change for me. The last songs and dances were finally done, and the audience quieted as much as it ever did. The play tonight was a new one, The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden, set against the struggles of the Christian Spaniards against the pagan Moors. The queen and the other ladies had spoken incessantly of this playwright, and his gift with dramatic history plays filled with love, betrayal, and honor. First, of course, would come the prologue, and I leaned forward in eager anticipation.

  Instead of a bold Moor or Spanish maiden, however, the figure that came shuffling out to the center of the stage was Mrs. Gwyn, and inwardly I winced to see her. Her tiny figure was absurdly dressed in outsized men’s clothing that dwarfed her: a ridiculous wide belt, a cropped jeweled doublet, a gruesome crucifix on a chain around her neck, and an enormous flopping cartwheel hat that she had to hold up from her face with both hands.

  Beside me Charles roared with laughter, as did the entire rest of the house before she’d spoken a single line. The more she preened and pranced about, the greater response she drew. Clearly there was some inner, English jest that I didn’t understand, and irritated beyond measure, I leaned closer to Charles.

  “I beg you, sir, explain the jest to me, if you can,” I asked impatiently, wanting to be included. “Where is the amusement?”

  “It’s Nell,” he said, so overcome with his laughter that he could scarcely find the breath to speak. “She’s dressed the same as Jamie Nokes from The Cautious Coxcomb. You remember, sweet, the play we saw at Dover.”

  “I didn’t see it, sir.” As much as I wished otherwise, I was beginning to understand the reasons for so much laughter around me. “Madame was unwell that night, and I stayed with her in her rooms.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sorry to have forgotten,” he said, his gaze still directed toward the actress’s foolish antics. “Nokes played a worthless fop of a fellow named Arthur Addell, played him wickedly well, too. But it was his costuming that made us laugh aloud, made to ape those rascals that came with Minette’s party.”

  “Now I recall, sir,” I said, my uneasiness growing. “I heard the talk afterward.”

  What I’d heard had not been so amusing. The French gentlemen accompanying Madame had been dressed to honor the visit’s significance, in the latest and most costly styles from Paris—as, for that matter, had I. But the English had deemed the modish Frenchmen no more than preening fops and peacocks, and when this play was presented as an entertainment, the lowest comic character had been dressed to ridicule the Frenchmen’s dress. The French gentlemen had been so incensed by this mockery that it had taken all of Madame’s persuasive gifts to keep them from withdrawing altogether from Dover.

  Now Mrs. Gwyn was repeating the insult, even increasing it. The audience would indeed understand. The huge hat was meant to symbolize France’s overweening ambition to devour all the rest of the Continent. The enormous cross represented the evils of the Catholic Church. The spangled doublet mocked French wealth and fashion, while the wide cinched belt proclaimed effeminate perversion, such as practiced by Monsieur and the Chevalier de Lorraine.

  Finally, little Mrs. Gwyn herself represented plucky England, refusing to be swallowed whole by evil, overbearing France.

  It was, in short, insufferable.

  For any half-wit in the audience who still didn’t comprehend, Mrs. Gwyn now smiled directly at Charles and bowed low. Then she spied me beside him. She screwed up her eyes, and squinted at me.

  “Steady yourself, my dear,” Charles warned, squeezing my hand to give me courage, even as he continued to laugh.

  How was I to steady myself before such an insult? What I wished most to do was to rise and leave, to turn my back forever on this impudent rude creature. But I couldn’t go without Charles’s permission, and I knew better than to ask for it. All I could do was look away from the stage, and see instead the scores of faces turned up toward us, laughing, too, with the scorn and derision that Mrs. Gwyn had inspired.

  Finally the laughter began to fade, forcing her at last to speak the prologue, some nonsensical piece that had nothing to do with the play that followed. But my pleasure in the play was spoiled and done, and later I could recall not so much of a single character’s name from it. Afterward Charles and several of his gentlemen went to the tiring-rooms, ostensibly to congratulate Mr. Dryden and the players. I suspected he wished to see one impudent player in particular, and I left the playhouse with the queen and her ladies in her coach.

  As soon as I was alone, I yanked the pearls from my ears, and raised my hand to hurl them at the wall, determined to show exactly how little I thought of Charles and his insolent actress.

  Yet at the final instant, I stopped and slowly lowered my hand. The pearls were too valuable to treat like that. They weren’t some simple, faithless trinket. Far from it. They represented my rising place in the king’s affections and at his Court, and my success on behalf of my country. When I opened my fingers, I could see the imprints the earrings had pressed into my palm as I’d clutched them close, my flesh streaked red and white and my hand still quaking with emotion.

  Hold tight, I thought, and leave a mark: as good advice as any. Carefully I wiped the pearls with my handkerchief and put them back into their plush-covered case. There’d be time enough to counter Mrs. Gwyn, time enough to keep the king for my own. And I’d be the one who held tight, and left my mark.

  It wasn’t until the following morning that Charles came to speak to me alone, pulling me aside in the hall outside the queen’s presence chamber.

  “I swear to you I did not know about the prologue last night, sweet,” he said contritely. “Nelly likes her surprises.”

  I searched his face, wanting to believe him. I knew I must rein my temper, and instead let him see the wound he’d caused me. “I thought she’d left the stage, sir.”

  “It seems she could not keep away.” The corners of his mouth twitched beneath his mustache. “You must admit it was rare sport.”

  “But it wasn’t, sir!” I cried softly. “Not at all!”

  “It was,” he said firmly. “I’ve told you before, Louise. You must not be so tender over little things like this, else you’ll never survive.”

  I raised my chin. I’d guessed he’d try this course with me, unfairly turning her error into becoming mine. For whatever reason, he insisted on making excuses for her and protecting her the way a well-meaning parent will for a spoiled child. But I’d prepared myself, and planned my defense, both for my own sake and for France. And in case I faltered, I’d worn the pearl earrings as reminders not to lose my purpose.

  “I can ignore them when they laugh at me, sir,” I said sorrowfully, “and when they mock France. It pains me, yes, but I can forgive their ignorance.”

  He looked relieved, as all men do when they think they’ve escaped a woman’s wrath.

  “That is wise of you,” he said. “I told you, Nelly means nothing by it, nor did the audience.”

  Nothing, ha, I thought grimly, for I was certain the actress meant every word and gesture. Yet before Charles, I purposely kept such thoughts to myself, and with care composed my features to show only how troubled I was for him.

  “I try to understand, sir, and to forgive,” I said. “But when they laugh at you, oh, that I cannot bear, not at all!”

  “My dear Louise,” he said, all fond indulgence. He took my face in his hands, his palms warm against my cheeks. “Considering all I’ve survived until now, a little laughter will not kill me.”

  “But it’s more than that, sir,” I insisted. “I’m bringing you trouble. You saw how it was last night. You said I
belonged at your side, but truly it would be far better for us both if I left now, and returned to France.”

  “Return to France?” he asked, clearly surprised. “Why would you wish to do that?”

  “It’s not that I wish it, sir.” I slipped free of him and turned away, matching my actions to my words. “I’d never wish to leave you. But when you are kind to me, sir, your people don’t understand, on account of my being French.”

  “Let them understand or not,” he said, his hands at my waist, restlessly sliding them up and down. “I’d rather have your trouble.”

  “But at what cost, sir, what risk?” I turned back towards him, letting him see the tears in my eyes. “What if my presence puts the treaty in danger, and everything that you and Madame labored so hard to achieve? What if every time your people see me with you, they likewise only see what they fear most of France?”

  “What if they do?” he asked. “What of it?”

  “Because I will hurt you, sir,” I said, letting the first tears trickle down my cheeks. “Because being with you, I hurt you, and harm you, and put your person at risk. And I’d never want to do that to you, sir, never.”

  “You won’t,” he said with a conviction that thrilled me. “I won’t let them.”

  “Oh, sir, you are so brave!” I whispered. Much of my speech might have been calculated, but this part was real enough. He did seem extraordinarily brave to me, always confronting his unruly people, the same people who’d martyred his father. “Alas, I’m not as certain. I do not believe anyone would have noticed me with you at all until Mrs. Gwyn summoned their attention, and it—it frightened me, sir. I feared for you.”