Mam lied. Of course she did. Charles had barely left Paris behind him before she starts on Harry again, enlisting her ruddy cheeked and bombastic Grand Almoner, Abbé Montagu in her cause, which he takes up with the greatest enthusiasm imaginable. He rubs his plump hands together with glee as he watches Harry over dinner, clearly anticipating the welcome he will receive in Heaven should he successfully save our heretic princeling and bring him back in glory to the one true faith.
Abbé Montagu is the son of Earl of Manchester and has all the pompous and vainglorious zeal of a recent convert, having become a Catholic as a young man during a visit to Paris. He is one of my mother’s closest friends but my brothers, particularly Charles loathe him. ‘A prating, preaching, soft faced worm of a man,’ he calls him with disgust. ‘A puffed up, spineless, self serving good for nothing who spews self righteousness from his greasy pores.’ The good Abbé would dearly love to get his hands on Charles but he knows a lost cause when he sees one so mostly leaves him alone. He makes no secret, however, of the fact that his dearest wish is to see Charles married to our cousin Anne-Marie and raising a brood of half Catholic princelings.
Harry is terrified of him.’I don’t know what frightens me more,’ he says as we lie on the grass in the Palais Royal gardens one fine late summer day. Mam’s precious rose bushes are in full bloom and the warm, heavy air is heady with their scent and the lazy buzzing of a thousand bees. My eyelids are beginning to droop with sleepiness. ‘Eternal damnation, the Jesuits or the prospect of spending the next few months cooped up with Montagu in his abbey at Pontoise.’
I sigh and roll onto my back, squinting up at the sun from between my fingers. ‘I know which would frighten me the most,’ I say, ‘and it’s not damnation or the Jesuits.’ Abbé Montagu is always talking loudly at dinner about Pontoise - it sounds like a most cheerless place and not at all like our own Chaillot, where the nuns are content and happy.
‘Mam says that it is either the Jesuits or Pontoise,’ Harry says miserably. ‘I’ve begged her to let me go back to the Netherlands but she either pretends not to hear or tells me there’s no money left to send me.’ He wipes away a tear. ‘If it wasn’t for you, Minette, I would wish that I had never come here.’
‘You can still wish it,’ I say gently, taking his hand in mine. Mam has asked me several times to try and persuade Harry to convert to Catholicism, but I won’t do it. When I was little she tried the same thing with my Protestant governess, pretty Lady Morton. ‘Do your best to save her,’ Mam would say with an intent look. ‘My dear, as you are so devout yourself, you should do what you can to convert her. You don’t want Lady Morton to end up damned and enduring the torments of Hell for all eternity, do you?’
To my shame, I did my best. I wept over dinner and at bedtime over the thought of my poor lively governess with her bright blue eyes and dark shiny ringlets being burned and poked by the Devil’s imps because I had made no effort to save her. When she fell into my trap and laughingly asked me what was wrong, I made my eyes very wide and put my arms around her neck before imploring: ‘Dear Morton, Mam says that you must be a Catholic to be saved. Please become one of us and then I shall be able to love you all the more.’
Lady Morton stopped laughing then and pulled away from me before taking both my small hands in hers. ‘Henrietta, you must stop this now,’ she said seriously, her blue eyes on mine. ‘Faith is such a very personal thing and you must know that if you can bribe someone into changing their religion then they make a very poor sort of convert.’ She relented when I began to cry again and gently kissed my cheek. ‘My child, you must never make your love conditional on the way that another person chooses to worship their God.’ She sighed and I know now that she was thinking not of herself but of my brothers, who can never become Catholics or they will lose everything.
She left us shortly afterwards to return to her own family in Scotland and a few months ago I heard that she was dead after being struck down by a fever. I mourned her most sincerely and walked quickly away when Mam lamented that it was a pity that she had not been converted and saved before dying.
They start by dismissing Harry’s tutor, Richard Lovell, who was appointed by our father and has been with him since he was a small boy. The poor faithful man, a pale faced graduate with a gentle manner and shy smile, breaks down and cries as he is turned out of the Palais Royal without being allowed to say goodbye to my brother, who watches from his bedroom window above and bangs impotently against the glass. Mam has taken the precaution of locking him into his room and won’t let me go to him until Lovell has long gone.
Harry is distraught. ‘He left England to be with me,’ he rages, picking up a chair and throwing it onto the floor. ‘He can’t go back now so what is he to do?’
‘He will find other work here in Paris,’ I say without conviction. ‘I heard Lord Jermyn promise to help him.’
‘I don’t want him to be someone else’s tutor,’ my brother roars before breaking down into hopeless tears. ‘He was there with us when Lizzie died. He’s the only other person I know who remembers her.’ Lizzie was our other sister, a pale, bookish girl who had shared Harry’s captivity in London and gone with him when he went to say his final farewell to our father. She died a year later after they were moved to Carisbrook Castle on the Isle of Wight. When they found her body, she was resting her head on the Bible that our father had given her before his execution. Harry says that she had been coughing and ailing for years. Mam insists that she was poisoned by Cromwell.
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Harry says. ‘He liked to sit and talk with Lizzie about scripture. He was so gentle with her…’ It seems odd to me that my brother should have spent time with Oliver Cromwell, whom my mother regards as the chief architect of all the terrible misfortunes that have befallen our family.
‘What is he truly like?’ I ask. If Mam is to be believed, Cromwell is a nasty squat little man with warts all over his face and the devil himself winking from a perch on his misshapen shoulder.
Harry sighs. ‘He’s not an evil man, Minette,’ he says. ‘I know that I ought to think so because of what has happened to us all, but I just can’t believe it. He has children of his own, you know, and loves them most tenderly.’ His eyes take on a faraway look and I know he is remembering what it was like in London. ‘When he used to come and see us, he would take us both on his knee as if he were our father and ask us about our lessons and if there was anything we would like to have. I would always ask after our father and he would tell me how he was and where he was being kept.’
I nod. ‘Did he ever say bad things about our father?’ I ask, not a little unnerved by this apparently cosy scene of the Lord Protector with my brother and sister on his lap.
Harry shakes his handsome head. ‘No, not really,’ he says. ‘He once said to me though that all our father’s estates would not make half satisfaction for all the wrong that he had done the kingdom.’ He laughs. ‘He was joking about setting me up as a cobbler’s apprentice at the time and I refused to go, saying that I would rather have our father’s estates to look after than be some other man’s servant. What a little fool I was.’
‘Mam thinks that Cromwell wanted to make you a king instead of our brothers,’ I say, keeping my tone carefully light.
Harry’s face closes shut and he looks away. ‘I never heard of such a scheme until I came here,’ he says simply before changing the subject.
And then one morning, Harry himself is gone.
When he doesn’t appear for breakfast, I’m not particularly worried as he often rises before everyone else to go riding in the Bois de Boulogne with his friends or take a stroll along the Seine. He loves to cross the Pont Royale in the early morning and watch with eager eyes as the city comes to life for another day. He usually comes home in the late morning, ravenously devouring a meat pie or apple tart bought from one of the patisseries that line the Rue Saint-Honoré.
I spend the morning having music lessons then take a turn around the
garden with Mam’s little dogs, who yap and snap delightedly at my ankles. Autumn has come with a vengeance and the grass is now covered with leaves from the sadly denuded trees. The beautiful rose bushes that had bloomed so gloriously throughout summer look twisted and sad now.
Harry isn’t there when we go in for dinner and there’s no mistaking the air of triumph that hangs about my mother as she pours herself a large glass of red wine and with unusual relish tucks into the roasted chicken and salmon in aspic on her plate
‘Where’s Harry?’ I ask at last, my mouth dry with apprehension.
Mam takes a sip of her wine and carefully puts the glass down on the table. ‘He’s not here,’ she replies defiantly. Her eyes won’t meet mine though.
Lord Jermyn, who is sitting between us at the long dining table, makes a small noise then stares down at the pile of untouched oysters in front of him. I gaze at him for a moment then turn again to my mother. ‘Where is he?’ I say.
Mam looks at me then. ‘He has gone to Pontoise with the Abbé Montagu to begin his instruction in the Catholic faith,’ she says.
Silence. ‘But Charles said…’ I begin.
‘What do you know about what Charles said?’ my mother interrupts me, her dark eyes cold. ‘It’s none of his concern.’
I glance again at Lord Jermyn, who is looking very awkward now. ‘That’s not true,’ I say, standing up and throwing my napkin down on the table. I have never in all my life defied my mother before and I’m shocked to find that my legs are shaking uncontrollably beneath the russet silk of my gown. ‘It is completely Charles’ concern because it affects him more than any of us.’
‘You know nothing whatsoever about the matter,’ Mam replies furiously but I’m already gone, running out of the room and almost tripping over my skirts in my haste to get away.
I go straight up to my brother’s bedchamber. I don’t know what I expect to find there: an overturned chair, rifled bedlinen and some signs of struggle, perhaps? A farewell note hidden beneath his pillow? I push the door open and step into the room.
Everything is perfectly neat. His bed has been made, the chests are empty of all his clothes, his book are gone and there’s nothing to show that he was ever here other than a faint tang of leather from the saddle, his most prized possession, which he kept in the corner and the aroma of rosemary cologne in the air.
‘Oh, Harry,’ I whisper, sinking down to sit on his bed. A shaft of bright autumn sunshine glides through the window, warming the wooden floorboards and making the shabby gilt paint decorating the panelling gleam softly. Outside, I can hear the rumble of carts and carriages going down the Rue Saint-Honoré and the aggrieved murmurings of the exiles as they stand in the courtyard below and loudly gossip about this latest development. I hear them all wonder what calamity will next befall us all. ‘We should have gone with the King,’ they say. ‘The Queen will ruin us all with her Popery and ridiculous caprices.’ If I go to the window now, they will see me and fall into shamefaced silence. Instead, I curl up very small and pull Harry’s pillow to my stomach as if fending off a blow.
That night I sit at the small lace and ribbon festooned dressing table in my bedchamber with a piece of paper and pen filched from Mam’s closet lying in front of me. Everyone thinks that I am in bed, but as soon as my maid left, I leapt from my bed and with shaking hands relit my candles with a borrowed tinderbox.
I want to write to Charles and tell him what has happened but he is far away in Cologne now, presiding over his own exiled court with our sister Mary at his side. His last letter was full of descriptions of balls and parties given by the local nobility in their honour. It wasn’t all good news though. ‘I have run out of French gold,’ he wrote somewhat ruefully. ‘Which causes some embarrassment.’
There’s also the small matter of his being forbidden to return to France, which makes him of little practical use right now. I know where James is though and after a moment’s hesitation, pull the paper towards me and quickly begin to write, impatiently crossing out mistakes as I go.
‘My dearest brother, I hope that you are well and that Marshal Turenne is looking after you. Matters are not as they should be here in Paris. Before he left for Spa, Charles made Mam promise not to convert Harry but she must have had her fingers crossed behind her back for Harry’s tutor has been dismissed and he has been sent to Abbé Montagu’s abbey at Pontoise. They are talking of preparing him for the Jesuits. I think that he has been sent against his will. Please, James, help him if you can. Your loving and obedient sister, Minette.’
I look at the letter for a long time, wondering if I should say more but then decide that I have said enough. I hastily seal it with wax, pressing my little signet ring into the hot molten droplet then wait for it to cool before slipping it under my pillow and going to bed.
In the morning I slip the letter beneath Mam’s own letter to James. She writes to him every week to remind him to say his prayers, avoid drink and women and stay out of harm’s way. The epistolary equivalent of spitting on a kerchief then using it to wipe his grubby face.
There are troubled faces at the Palais Royal. Half of the exiles left Paris with Charles and are now living in Cologne and the ones that are left watch Mam and me closely and seem to spend a lot of time whispering in corners then falling silent when I walk past. More nasty pamphlets and leaflets start to appear in our rooms, this time with pictures of Mam kissing monks or throwing children onto great burning pyres. Catholic Whore, they proclaim. Even Lord Jermyn, who has been Mam’s most faithful friend and defender for as long as I can remember, looks downcast and worried. ‘She won’t be brought to reason,’ I hear him whisper to the Duchess of Richmond. ‘She doesn’t grasp how much damage this could do to Charles’ cause should word ever leak across to England.’
I step out of the doorway and they both fall silent.
Chapter Four
Paris, November 1654
James arrives back at the Palais Royal later that week, covered with dust and mud after his long journey from the front. He ignores the chattering courtiers who stop to stare at him as he goes past and without stopping to change his dirty clothes and boots, strides straight to Mam’s closet and slams the door behind him. The courtiers look at each other with raised eyebrows then move a little closer to the door. They all feign unconcern about what is being said on the other side of the flimsy wood and panelling but really they are desperate to overhear some juicy little titbit.
‘It’s about young Harry,’ they whisper to each other behind their painted fans. ‘Someone must have told Jemmy that he’s been dragged off by Abbé Montagu.’ They all wonder who dared to betray the Queen to her son and look at each other accusingly. ‘Was it you?’ No one notices me as I turn and silently run up the stairs to my room.
Afterwards, James comes to find me in the long gallery, where I have tucked myself into a window seat and sit despondently watching the rain lash against the dusty and slightly mildewed window panes while I idly stroke the soft head of one of Mam’s pug puppies, which is sprawled gracelessly across my lap. My book of poetry lies forgotten on an overstuffed crimson velvet cushion beside me as I am not in the mood right now for bittersweet outpourings of forbidden love. ‘I didn’t tell Mam that it was your letter that brought me here,’ he says after kissing me on the forehead. His handsome face is pale with anxiety and there are dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his grey eyes. ‘It would have broken her heart.’
I blush, feeling like a traitor. ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ I say.
James nods. ‘You did the right thing,’ he replies before collapsing wearily at the other end of the window seat. I draw up my bare feet to allow him more room and he smiles at my grubby toes. ‘Can’t we afford new shoes this month?’ he jokes.
I laugh. It sounds unnaturally high pitched in the silent gallery and a group of courtiers huddled around the meagre fire that has been lit in the enormous pink marble fireplace break off their gossiping, turn and look at us with curious
faces. ‘That was last month,’ I say.
James sighs. ‘If only…’ he begins but I lean across and put a finger on his lips.
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘I know that things should be different for us all. I know that you, Charles and Harry should be as carefree as our French cousins. I know that I should have lots of pretty dresses and foreign princes lining up and clamouring loudly for my hand in marriage. I know that father should still be alive and Mam should be an honoured queen instead of living on the charity of others. I know all of this but still, I think that it doesn’t really matter so long as we are all happy together.’
James looks at me sadly. ‘Are we happy though?’ he says wearily and leans his handsome head back against the window pane. A long silence falls between us before he begins to speak again. ‘I was not quite eleven years old when our father raised the Royalist standard at Nottingham Castle. That’s much the same age as you are now, isn’t it?’ I nod and he carries on. ‘I’d never known anything but the luxurious and protected life of a royal prince until then. It was all soft sheets, fine food, rooms full of toys and smiling faces wherever I looked. I took it all for granted and it never occurred to me just how fortunate, how pampered we all were until it was taken away from us.’
I stare at him. ‘I’ve never known anything but this,’ I say. ‘I try to remember what it was like in England, but…’ I shrug. Sometimes I try to grasp at the memories. It feels as though I am standing on a high precipice with my arms flailing before me as I try to catch them. I have a brief glimpse of Lady Morton laughing down at me; a diamond earring sparkling in sunshine; a man’s voice singing my favourite song ‘Go catch a falling star’ in a pleasant baritone; my own small hand using a stick to turn over a fallen apple only to reveal that it is covered with wasps. I see all of this and then it’s gone. ‘I’ve lived in France since I was three,’ I say, feeling a sudden pang of loss for England, the country that I have never really known. ‘I don’t feel English at all.’
Minette Page 4