The French Mistress

by Susan Holloway Scott

  I pressed the sodden ball of my handkerchief to my eyes. Of course I’d heard of the pain and unpleasantness of the mercury treatments, and I was not eager to experience them for myself. But more important than any mere discomfort, I worried about the time it would cause me to be apart from the king.

  Sir Henry, however, was not yet done. “Regardless of the treatment, Your Majesty, Her Grace must limit her diet, her exertions, and her contact with others while the disease is in this period of activity. Naturally, she must be denied intimate congress of any sort with you until the cure has been effected and the rash has completely subsided.”

  Was Charles aware that at that exact moment he withdrew his hand from my shoulder? Or did that count as intimate congress, too, even if he’d not so much as touched my skin?

  “His Majesty’s health is our constant concern, Your Grace,” intoned another royal physician, Sir Edmund Cox. “His Majesty’s life and health must come before all else. Surely you must agree with us, Your Grace.”

  Sir Henry nodded vigorously. “For the same reasons, Your Majesty, we must also deny Her Grace any further contact with your son.”

  “His Majesty’s son?” I asked, my voice rising into a wail of bewilderment. “But he is my son as well. I am forbidden the company of my own child, my babe?”

  “Gentlemen,” Charles said quickly, “if you would please leave us.”

  Immediately the physicians bowed and backed from the room, likely as glad to be done with me as I was with them.

  Careful not to show him my blighted palms, I twisted in my chair to look up at Charles, standing behind me. “Charles is my babe, sir, my little angel. How can they forbid a mother her own son?”

  “It’s for the boy’s own sake, Louise,” he said with a heartiness we both knew was completely false. “Not for long, either. Only until you’re better. These fellows may seem like a pack of rascals, I know, but they’re the best there is to be found at their trade. You can stay here at Windsor for as long as your cure takes. I’ll make sure you’ll want for nothing, and they’ll have you back to rights by Christmas.”

  “Christmas, sir!” I cried plaintively, too distraught to bother with my handkerchief now. “But that’s months and months! My babe is only two, sir. He’ll not understand where his mama has gone.”

  I’d never seen Charles look less at ease as he stood there clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back, as if by force forbidding himself to touch me.

  “I tell you, sweet, it’s for his own good, and yours as well,” he said finally. “He won’t forget you. Children never do, not their mothers. Besides, the cures aren’t half so bad as they sound. I’ve survived them several times, and I’m none the worse for it.”

  “But, sir,” I said, those two words saying all that I couldn’t: that he was a man full of strength, while I was a woman, and not. What would become of my beauty? Would my skin ever be perfect enough again to delight him, or my body capable of bringing him the pleasure he’d so often enjoyed? What would I have left if that was gone? What would I be to him?

  “You’ll see,” he promised. “You’ll dance with me at Christmas and outshine every last one of them.”

  Everyone. Oh, I’d not wanted to consider that. I’d so many enemies at Court. There were those who hated me for being French or a Catholic, and more who envied me Charles’s devotion and the fortunes that had come with it. They’d all be rejoicing now, delighting in my fall, predicting how disfigured I’d become, jostling among themselves like so many jackals to replace me. It didn’t matter that on any given day of the year, likely half of Charles’s Court shared this same affliction to some degree (the most obvious at present being Mrs. Gwyn’s supporter, Lord Rochester). Now it was the duchess of Portsmouth. Now it was me.

  “They’ll know,” I said. “All of them. They’ll know.”

  Not even Charles could deny that. “Yes, they will. Not even I can do anything about that.”

  “Oh, sir,” I said, my voice breaking just as did my heart, “but worst of all is being kept from you.”

  “I’m sorry, Fubs,” he said gruffly. “It should never have happened to you. Not you. I’m sorry.”

  Yet he could not take me into his arms the way we both wished, or embrace me to prove he meant what he said. We both felt lost without it. Already I felt myself drifting away, like a little skiff that had lost her sturdy anchor. Truly my future was an unknown ocean: the forbidding, empty world of my life without Charles at its core.

  “My dearest sir,” I whispered through my tears. “Why is it I am ordered from you, but you were never ordered to keep from me?”

  His dark eyes filled with more sorrow and regret than I’d ever seen there before. I wouldn’t have dared ask such a question if I’d not been so consumed with despair, and even so I didn’t truly expect him to reply. He didn’t need to. The answer hung there unspoken in the humid air of that rainy day, and we both knew it. Because he was king, he was denied nothing. Because I was only—only!—his mistress and his love, I was obliged to grant him whatever he wanted.

  “I am sorry, Fubs. Truly.” He tried to smile at me, and couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  Then he turned on his heel, and fled.

  The next day, Charles sent a different royal doctor to me, a gentleman named Dr. Crimp, who was kindness itself. He promised to treat me there at Windsor in complete privacy and as much comfort as was possible, and to do his best to restore me in perfect health to Charles by year’s end.

  Two days later, the rest of the Court returned to London without me, and I humbly put myself in the care of Dr. Crimp. I took the hot baths and vapors of mercury that he prescribed, feeling quite like a fricassée de la Keroualle. I drank no wine, and took only the food that was prepared for me. I slept, and I prayed, too enervated by the rigors of the treatment to do much else.

  But I did write endless letters to Charles, of course, to assure him of my unconditional love and devotion. He in turn wrote to me twice a day and often more, letters that were full of affection and concern and news of our son, which was very gladdening to me and my poor aching heart.

  I wrote to Lord Danby as well, so that he would know how often the king wrote to me, that I’d not (yet) fallen from his favor, and was thereby still deserving of our “understanding.” I wrote to the Marquis du Ruvigny, and even to His Most Christian Majesty himself, reassuring them also of the king’s attentions. I had worked too hard to achieve my place at Court to lose it now.

  But despite my efforts, my situation was too delicious to be ignored by the tattlers and scandalmongers. The duchess of Portsmouth poxed! Who among my enemies could resist that? Removed though I was at Windsor, I still heard enough to make me cringe. I’d caught the pox not from His Majesty, but from one of my legions of lovers or, more titillating, from my confessor. I’d been blinded, or gone mad, or even died. Even in France I was discussed, to Charles’s detriment as much as my own: while the King of France was busily winning new provinces to add to his glorious kingdom (for he still continued to war with the Dutch), Charles was ridiculed for having won only the pox, which he in turn had gallantly passed on to me.

  To ease my distress, Charles sent me delicacies from the royal gardens and greenhouses, as well as two trinkets of a more lasting sort: a pearl necklace valued at £4,000, and a rare diamond, set into a ring, valued at £6,000. I was sweetly touched, and recognized them for what they were, part of his seemingly endless apology (and not, as the wicked tongues would whisper, my farewell gifts).

  I did not quite return to Court by Christmas 1674, but I was in the Banqueting Hall to dance on Charles’s arm for the queen’s ball on Twelfth Night. I was thinner than I’d been, more delicate, but my beauty was again without blemish, and because I wore the new diamond necklace that Charles had given me, no one would dare take notice of any infinitesimal flaw. For every courtier who welcomed me back, there was doubtless a score who cursed my return.

  But I didn’t care. I was once again where I belo
nged, on the arm and in the bed of the King of England.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON

  February 1675

  When I returned to Court, most everything seemed to be as it always had. Charles was with me as much as he could be, and truly it did seem that my absence had made his heart grow fonder, as the old poem claimed. I returned, thankfully, as if I’d never been away.

  The one thing that was much changed was my son, Charles. Four months to a small child is as much as a decade to a person grown, and in the time I’d been away, I vow he’d grown at least two more inches in height, and learned to chatter entirely in English.

  I was devastated that I’d missed so much of his life, and upset all the more when at our reunion, he hurried not toward me, but away, forgetting who I was. I crouched down at his level on the nursery floor and wept, heartbroken.

  Yet in a few moments he came slowly toward me, as unable as his father to remain unmoved by the sight of my tears. As he drew closer I smiled and coaxed him in French. At that he smiled, too, so sudden and wide he showed his darling dimples, and all trouble between us was forgotten. His hair had grown much thicker, with glossy black curls that were the very image of his father’s at the same age; when I saw old portraits, the resemblance between the two was astonishing. He’d become less a babe and more a small gentleman, and I marveled at the change, as every mother does.

  Yet even as I held my handsome lad, I wondered how the same time that had so changed him could truly have left me untouched. I’d turned twenty-six while at Windsor, and while my cheeks remained as babyishly plump as my own dear child’s, I lived in a Court that most prized the green beauty of fifteen-year-old girls. I remained nearly twenty years younger than Charles, and always would be, but was that enough to hold his love? He’d told me again and again how glad he was to have me returned, and yet in my heart lay shameful doubt: not of Charles, but myself.

  Did he love me still for my beauty, or did his devotion spring only from guilt for having given me the pox? Did I truly remain his “own dear life,” as he fashioned me, or was the phrase only a habit ingrained by use?

  It did not help that Lord Rochester had written a particularly virulent little poem about me at this time called “Portsmouth’s Looking Glass.” Just as he’d done with the couplet he’d once pinned to the door of my lodgings, copies of this new slander had been well circulated among the Court and the city’s coffeehouses before he’d finally had a confederate audaciously tuck a copy into one of the largest mirrors in my reception chamber.

  Methinks I see you, newly risen

  From your embroider’d Bed and pissing,

  With studied mien and much grimace

  Present yourself before your glass,

  To varnish and smooth o’er those graces,

  You rub’d off in your Night Embraces.

  Charles was furious, and banished Rochester from Court and off into the country for his sordid unkindness. Another thing that did not change, I thought, yet somehow I wasn’t as wounded as I once would have been. Perhaps I truly was growing old and weary, in my spirit if not my face. I couldn’t deny that the pox had changed me. I saw more the fragility of my life, and less its boundless possibility. Yet Court is a poor place for doubts of any sort, and I knew the moment I began to falter, a rival would rise to seize my place.

  Instead I draped myself with the brightest of my diamonds, composed my face into perfect serenity, and once again sailed forth, ready for battle.

  “Go look in my coat,” Charles said, pushing himself up a little higher against the pillows. “There’s a little something for you in my pocket.”

  “For me, sir?” I asked, rubbing my naked thigh against his in languorous invitation. We’d already shared one encounter this night, and at forty-four, Charles had reached the age for gentlemen that once was sufficient. But I also knew he’d prefer to believe that this was from choice rather than possibility, and thus I always took care to be as wantonly available as ever. “If it pleases you, sir, I’ll look for it later.”

  “I think you should look now,” he said with cheerful anticipation, for he loved to give me things as much as I loved receiving them. He linked his hands behind his head to make himself more comfortable. “Besides, I like to watch your ass when you walk across the room.”

  “You can do that anytime, sir,” I said, laughing. Obediently I slid from the bed, slipped my feet into my black silk mules, and crossed the room to where he’d tossed his coat. I made a show of it, knowing he was watching, letting the high red heels of my slippers slap lightly on my feet and the long strand of pearls (for another thing he liked was for me to wear my jewels to bed) swing back and forth across my bare breasts. He was a large man and his coat was even larger, and it was no quick task to search through his pockets—which, of course, was exactly his intention.

  “It’s not a box,” he said by way of a hint. “It’s folded.”

  “Folded, sir?” I asked, playing the game, but at once my heart began to beat faster. Folded meant paper, and there was only one paper I desired. At last I found what he’d hidden, the folds blunted by the heavy parchment, and I held it in my hands as if it were a far greater treasure than any jewel—which, if my guess were right, it was.

  “Is it, sir?” I asked, not yet daring to open the page and read it for myself. “Is it?”

  “It is, indeed,” he declared. “Go on, read it for yourself.”

  With fingers all a-tremble with excitement, I hurried to the nearest candlestick and tipped toward the light the patent (for so it was) for my son’s ennoblement, and I read aloud the titles he’d been granted. “ ‘For Charles Lennox’—oh, sir, I do like that name!—‘Baron Settrington, Earl of March, Duke of Richmond.’ Oh, sir! However shall I thank you?”

  “I expect you’ll find a way.” He grinned and patted the bed beside him. “But the boy deserves it, and so do you.”

  At once I’d recognized the spite behind this particular title. Frances Stuart had been the single lady at Court to spurn Charles’s advances in favor of marrying the Duke of Richmond. When this gentleman had tragically drowned soon after, leaving no heir and Frances childless, his dukedomes had reverted to the Crown for disposal. That Charles now granted them to my son was doubtless intentional, a warning for whoever might cross the royal will. Not that I would let Frances’s sorrow spoil my own joy.

  I hopped back into the bed, still clutching the precious patent, and showered him with so many kisses that he began to laugh.

  “There now, don’t smother me!” he said, laughing still, though it was clear he was thoroughly enjoying my attentions. At last he held me still, there against his chest, and to my surprise his expression grew solemn, yet fair overflowing with tenderness.

  “I mean it, Fubs,” he said softly. “You deserve whatever I give you, for all you have given and done for me, in every way. I cannot begin to tell you how much I missed you when you were away from me, or how much I regretted the circumstances.”

  “It’s done, sir,” I said, lightly pressing my fingers to his lips to silence him. “Far better to look ahead than behind.”

  He took my fingers, kissing each tip in succession as he held my hand. “Only if I know you’ll be here with me.”

  “So long as you wish it of me, sir,” I whispered. “I will stay.”

  “My dearest life,” he said, drawing my face close to his. “Then that will be forever.”

  We kissed, a kiss of such rare devotion that I wish I could have preserved it to keep with me always. Instead it ended, as all kisses must; this time the blame lay with the stiff parchment of the patent letter held in my hand between us, and poking him in his ribs.

  “Here now, take care of that,” he said as I quickly sat back on my heels. “I know you’ve felt I neglected our son, but I hope you’ll mark I didn’t even make him wait until his third birthday for the honors. I’ve raised Barbara’s last boy, Henry, today as well, and he’s eleven.”

&
nbsp; Instantly I was alert to any hint of favoritism, of Lady Cleveland’s boy receiving more than my Charles. “What will he be, sir?”

  “Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Northumberland,” he said, reaching out to pull me back with him under the coverlet. “But mind you, none of it’s legal until both you and Barbara have the patents signed and sealed by Danby. Within the next fortnight or so will likely be soon enough.”

  But I knew better than to wait so long, not where the future of my son was concerned. The last thing I wished was for Lady Cleveland to have her son’s patent sealed before mine, and thus ever after my Dukes of Richmond bound by precedence to follow after her Dukes of Northumberland. As soon as Charles left my bed for his own that night, I immediately dressed and had myself driven to Lord Danby’s house. It was well past midnight, but as I’d guessed, Danby was still awake and working at his desk in a flannel cap and a gray wool dressing gown over his shirt and breeches: another gentleman who seldom slept.

  “Is all well at the palace, Your Grace?” he asked with alarm as soon as I was shown in by a sleepy-eyed footman.

  “Perfectly fine,” I said, holding out my precious patent. “But I knew you were leaving for Bristol at dawn to visit your wife’s family, and I’d no wish to leave this until you returned.”

  He took the patent, and laughed. “Meaning you’d no wish to let Her Grace the duchess of Cleveland possibly surpass you.”

  I smiled, content in my triumph, though I did rather wish I could see Lady Cleveland’s face when she learned my son would forever have precedence of rank over hers. “I’m a good mother, Danby. No one will say otherwise of me.”