The Pretender's Lady

by Alan Gold

  At five minutes past the hour of ten, François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire was introduced by the master of ceremonies, and as he entered the salon, looked around in surprise that apart from a young man gorging himself on a plate piled with food, he was the only one present. He beamed a smile at Chamblaine who nodded toward the corner where the prince had seated himself, and shrugged. Voltaire looked carefully once again at the young man whom he’d already noticed and saw that he was tall, drawn, and somewhat haggard. He was eating as though he’d never seen food before. Yet from his dress, he was obviously rich and well appointed.

  He walked over to the young man and bowed, saying, “Voltaire.”

  The prince wiped his face and his hands on a napkin and remained seated, according to the hierarchy of his rank. “Charles Edward, Prince of the House of Stuart.”

  “Ah!” beamed Voltaire, “conqueror and conquered in one body. I’ve looked forward to meeting you, young man. I’d heard that you were an undertaking of Madame de Pompadour, but voices told me that you were more in need of an undertaker than a patron. I’m surprised to see you in Madame’s salon, but I shall look forward to talking to you about your adventures.”

  Before the prince had a chance to respond, Voltaire had turned and was walking over to speak with Chamblaine when the master of ceremonies threw open the door, and introduced a tall and wan young man, shouting out to the nearly empty room, “Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau.”

  Voltaire turned and looked in shock at the young man who entered the salon.

  “Rousseau,” he spat in horror.

  “Voltaire,” said Rousseau, equally appalled at the presence of his bête-noir.

  “You were invited?” said Voltaire. “Madame de Pompadour asked you to be present?”

  The young man walked into the center of the large room and stood face to face with Voltaire. “I was asked to attend in order to expound upon my philosophy of the responsibility of the State to its citizens. I certainly didn’t expect to see you here. But in retrospect, it’s logical that Madame de Pompadour would want to have by her side a man with the skill to lick her feet at the same time as he’s eating her food.”

  “And now I can understand the reason for your presence, Rousseau,” snapped Voltaire, “for who else in France but you can compare the glory of our surroundings with the savagery of the jungle which seems to attract you so much. Tell me, have you brought any of your savages with you today?”

  “Why bring savages when this room is full of them?” Rousseau responded.

  “You would bite the hand that feeds you?”

  “There is enough food here to feed half of Paris. We gorge ourselves while citizens starve. If the king is the state, and Madame de Pompadour is the comfort of the state, what responsibility does the state have for those who are the foundations of its buildings? Treat badly the props which hold up the state, and the state will collapse.”

  Chamblaine walked over to separate the two men, but before he could say anything, the master of ceremonies again threw open the door of the salon, and announced Madame de Pompadour. She was ushered into the chamber and walked over to the two philosophers, shaking their hands and making them both welcome. Then she walked over to Prince Charles, who stood and bowed. She extended her hand, and he kissed her enormous diamond ring.

  “I’m so very pleased that you accepted my invitation to supper, my dear Prince. It’s been too long since we’ve met,” she said.

  “I am greatly honored that you remembered me, ma’am. I am aware of how difficult this invitation must have been for you to extend, and I assure you of my very best intentions,” he said.

  Chamblaine breathed a sigh of relief and introduced Rousseau to the prince. Having just returned from Switzerland, Rousseau had not heard about the scandals surrounding the prince’s recent history at Versailles, but he knew of him as the man who had tried to regain his family throne from the Hanoverians. He bowed, and Madame de Pompadour invited everybody to sit and eat so that after their supper, they could begin their discussions.

  “Is nobody else coming?” asked Rousseau.

  Madame de Pompadour smiled and shook her head. “A soiree should have a large measure of both genius and courage to keep all of the guests entertained. There is enough genius in the minds of the philosophers in this room for a dozen salons, and His Royal Highness has exhibited enough bravery for an entire army of men.”

  As they took their food, the prince returned to his place and continued eating. Chamblaine noticed with increasing concern that the prince had already finished his glass of Chablis and was now pouring himself a glass of Madeira. He also noticed a bottle of Burgundy had been seconded and was on the floor beside the prince’s seat. For a reason that worried Chamblaine, the prince looked as though he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with present company. It might be necessary for him to find a reason to distract the prince, suggest he leaves the salon, and have him escorted back to his suite of rooms. It would cause much gossip, but at least it would remove any scandal from Madame’s door.

  Madame de Pompadour turned to the prince and asked, “Highness, why are you removing yourself from our presence? Why sit on your own, when you could be sitting with the two greatest minds in all of France?”

  “I feel myself unequal to sit in the presence of your friends, ma’am. Though I am highborn, your friends are known to me and tower over my stature in their genius. I am a mere prince. How can a mere prince compete with intellectual kings such as Voltaire and Rousseau?”

  Voltaire sought permission from the hostess to answer. “Sir, to act in a truly modest fashion, a man must first be very arrogant. Neither Rousseau nor I would separate ourselves from the light which illumines in the court of France, for anywhere else and we would be diminished. We, my philosopher opponent and I, think very differently about the world, yet no matter how different our paths, we accept that we have the same end in sight, which is the betterment of our society. Yet while we think, we do not act. We see our worlds in our minds. You, on the other hand, my dear Prince, are a man of action. A man who does, rather than a man who speaks. You see your world in the stark reality of a battlefield, where life and death, victory and defeat are of the same coin but just the thickness of a sword apart.

  “You, Highness, are a soldier, and while we philosophers connive and cogitate and consider, you are in the field of battle, facing the sword and the dagger and the gun. So put away this false modesty, young man; have done with it; join us and tell us about your adventures. Her Grace has no doubt heard our philosophical arguments many times, and we can gain little from further explanation, except to add incrementally to the scales in which our arguments are balanced. But you have tales of gunpowder and shot and tactics which will fill an entire night with vicarious adventure.”

  The prince stood, and brought his plate across to the table at which the others were seated. He also carried the bottle of wine, which he poured into a new glass and drank in one mouthful, filling it a second time.

  “You want to hear about life on the battlefield, do you Voltaire? Do you, as well, Rousseau? What do you want to hear? That it’s all fluttering flags and gallant men marching and singing patriotic songs, and in an hour, we’re victorious and have gained all of our objectives? I could have gained all my objectives and had my flag fluttering above St. James’s Palace in London right at this moment if King Louis had come to my aid.

  “So is that what you want to hear, Philosopher? About my failures. For they’re well enough known. In the end, does it matter how many soldiers on either side die, just so long as one side is victorious? Does it matter how many women are widowed, how many parents will never see their sons again? Is that what you want me to tell you?

  “For if it is, then it’s obvious that you’ve never set foot near a battlefield, because if you had, you’d never want to talk about it. You’d have seen the bloodied corpses and twisted limbs and headless bodies and men screaming in agony and begging for death to relieve them of their p
ain,” he said.

  The prince drank another full glass of wine and refilled it from the bottle. Chamblaine looked in concern at what he was doing, and indicated his concern to Madame de Pompadour, who nodded in reassurance, though he knew her well enough to know that she was becoming concerned.

  “My dear Prince,” said Rousseau, “Voltaire and I may not have . . .”

  “Silence Philosopher, and listen to a soldier prince tell you about the realities of life in a war . . .”

  And for the next many minutes, to the increasing discomfort of the Hostess and the two other guests, Prince Charles Edward Stuart drank and told them about his glorious victory at Prestonpans, of reaching Derby in England and being forced to turn back because of the cowardice of his commanders, of his betrayal by King Louis of France who needed to send only ten thousand men and England could have been Charles’, and of the ignominious defeat at Culloden Moor. And as he reached the climax of his story, he finished another bottle of wine and indicated to the waiter to fetch another.

  By the time he’d completed his journey from enthusiasm to victory to defeat to frustration, he had already consumed two entire bottles, as well as half of another one. It was time to put the diatribe to an end.

  Madame de Pompadour looked at Chamblaine and indicated her apology. He had been right all along. It was silly to think that the prince could be redeemed. She put her hand on his arm and said gently, “Highness, don’t you think that it’s time to stop drinking. After all . . .”

  He turned to her and sneered. “You dare touch me? You, a commoner, the daughter of clerk, dare touch the heir to the thrones of England and Scotland. You dare tell me to stop drinking . . .”

  Voltaire and Rousseau reeled back in shock. Both were about to berate him for his extraordinary offensiveness, but they didn’t have an opportunity. Chamblaine stepped forward and grasped the prince by the arms, hauling him out of the chair. “Her Grace dares do whatever she wants, young man, for she is the particular friend of the world’s most powerful man, and you patently are not. It’s time for you to leave her apartments. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave Versailles this evening and never consider returning, for if you do, you will be shunned by everybody in the court. Return to Italy, Prince Charles and don’t ever seek our companionship again.”

  THE TOWER OF LONDON

  MARCH 21, 1747

  Flora Macdonald screamed in agony and looked at the man who was holding the evil instruments of torture. Her face was contorted in pain, her hands white and she was near to drawing blood from where her nails were biting into her flesh. She swore at her torturer and said to him, “Dear God in heaven, for if I survive this, I’ll kill you with my own bare hands, you spur-galled scut. Have you no mercy. Put an end to this. I’ll do anything.”

  He bent over her and turned to the woman standing beside him. “Soon,” he said. Then he lifted her skirts and felt between her legs, but Flora didn’t know what he was doing for the pain was too great.

  The woman standing beside him looked into the most private regions of Flora’s body and could see the advance of the babe’s head. She washed the vagina with vinegar and peppermint water and soaked her hands in the solution. Then she gently grasped the baby’s head as Flora screamed in the agony of the contraction. The doctor offered the midwife the instrument he used for pulling the head of a large baby out of the womb, but she knew from looking that the babe would come out with the next contraction and refused the offer.

  A twist, a tug, another twist, and as Flora screamed, she eased the babe’s head, then shoulders, and then his entire body out of Flora and into a swaddling cloth.

  Flora stopped screaming, and her entire body deflated like a winded bagpipe. She lay back and closed her eyes in the blessed relief, hearing the midwife smack the babe’s bottom. There was an echoing yell that reverberated off the walls of the chamber, and the door suddenly burst open and Flora’s mother, father, and fiancé rushed in.

  “A boy,” said the midwife. “A very fine boy.”

  Softly, as she received the babe from the midwife’s arms, her voice harsh and raw from yelling in pain during the birth, Flora whispered, “He shall be called James Charles Stuart Macdonald.”

  There was to be no argument.

  Part Three

  Chapter Fourteen

  HALIFAX, IN THE ROYAL COLONY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE DOMINION OF AMERICA

  JULY 23, 1772

  The air she breathed from the rowboat was different, subtly, yet unmistakably different. After day upon day cramped inside an ocean-going vessel smelling nothing but the salt-tang aroma of the ocean mixed with the stench of dank wood and rotting ropes, she’d thought that this trip in the rowboat up the river would refresh only her eyes and her heart. She did not expect it to enliven her sense of smell, but she was wrong. For while the air was warm and perfumed, full of fluttering leaves and floating pollen that drifted past her boat to the accompaniment of an orchestral drone of bees and the incessant tympany of insects, it was the fragrance of the air that captured her interest. In Scotland, the air didn’t smell of anything other than when the heather was in season. The air of North America, though, exuded perfume from its trees and flowers and grasses. The sweet smell of freedom was everywhere.

  The undulating land through which the river ran was replete with potential, as it should be. It was a new land, full of promise and excitement, and although she was beyond her fiftieth year and at a time of her life when she should be sitting in a rocking chair covered by a blanket, with her gray hair pinned up instead of fluttering in the breeze, she was eagerly viewing a strange and unfamiliar landscape with trees and leaves of a different shape and quality to those she’d lived with all her life. There were sights she’d never seen before, smells she’d never experienced and the excitement of tastes and touches that were to come.

  If she were like the other women of the Highlands, those few who remained after the mass murders and evictions by the late and unlamented Duke of Cumberland, she would have been playing with her grandchildren in some Highland garden and supervising her sons and daughters living their own lives. So few remained in Scotland, and all the talk was of further emigrations, whether voluntary or enforced. The English were populating all Scotland with their flocks and herds, and since the policy of Fuadach nan Gàidheal, the expulsion of all people who were Gaelic, nobody looked at the Scottish hills and lochs and saw their ancestral land anymore, only land that the English would now claim as their own.

  But for Flora, these were issues of the past. In her heart, she was singing as though she was a twenty-year-old. And this was the way it had been since her feet left English soil for the last time. Others on the ship had travelled in trepidation, fearful of sinking or drowning or being victims to piracy or some foreign navy, but Flora found every moment of the sea journey a thrilling experience, from the disappearance of the Liverpool coastline to the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, to the strange fish that the sailors pulled from the sea, to the huge beasts called dolphin that swam beside their ship ducking and weaving as though playing a game and whose eyes she looked into and truly believed that they could tell what she was thinking.

  The air was redolent with the scents of pine and birch and elm and oak, as well as the bouquet of other foliage that she had yet to identify. She trailed her hand in the warm water. She had been gazing dreamily at the riverbank as it flowed past the huge rowing boat, pulled by six burly sailors since they’d transferred from the ship. The crossing from the North of England to the North of America had been uneventful, thank God, better than for those other poor devils on the HMS Gordon, which had sunk the previous month with no trace of the 234 souls on board.

  Flora had smelled the land long before the sailor up high above the deck in the crow’s nest had shouted out “land hoy.” Of course, everybody had known that the land was just over the horizon, as the sea birds had suddenly appeared to accompany them into port, and the huge white albatross and gulls had spent the day
wheeling in circles around the masts. A tear had run down her cheek as the gulls accompanied her boat to land. She’d been cast back more than a quarter of a century to another time, another boat, and the horrific dangers of a summer storm.

  Flora was the only one on board who fancied that she could actually smell the blossoms and the flowers, the trees and the musk of bison and beaver and all the other exotic fauna that she’d spent the past year reading about.

  They’d pulled into Columbia on the coast of North Carolina and transferred into a shallow bottom boat, but they’d hardly begun their journey upriver when the captain determined that because of the lack of rainfall, the river was too low even for a craft that drew as little water as his. So they’d moored and transferred all the passengers bound for Halifax onto rowboats and now they were being taken up the Roanoke River to where they would spend the rest of their lives. They rounded bends and each pull on the oars delivered a new and extraordinary vista, both of gentle plains that formed the Roanoke Valley and beyond the vast grasslands and forests in the distance to the huge mountains that seemed to form a barrier to what might be beyond.

  She looked at Alan and felt saddened that they couldn’t have traveled to this new land while he was still a young and strong man. He retained much of the vigor and vitality that she’d always known, but during the past five years or so, he’d aged in mind as well as in body, and now perhaps he was too old to accommodate to the vitality and youth of America. Then her gaze shifted to Jamie and Angus and Lachlan and John, then over the other side of the boat to Ruth and Esther, all of her beautiful, wonderful children. Each of them welcomed . . . no . . . each of them was ecstatic about the move to America. All of her children loved Scotland and swore they’d never forget the islands and the highlands, but the thought of going to America and being able to hunt and fish and run free without some English lord telling them what they could and couldn’t do was so liberating that Flora thought they’d all burst with excitement before they even set foot on the ship in Liverpool.