Minette

by Melanie Clegg

  Too late to help his wife, my father arrived in Exeter a month later and insisted upon having me baptised in the nave of the beautiful cathedral in front of a small crowd of loyal witnesses. My name was to be Henrietta in honour of my poor Mam. He stayed just a few more days before he too had to leave like a thief in the night to rejoin his armies. I never saw him again.

  When I was reunited with my mother in Paris two years later, she paid for several Masses to be said in honour of my safe arrival. She also gave me a new name: ‘Henrietta-Anne’, to honour Tante Anne and thank her for her great kindness to we poor exiles. I’ve been Henrietta-Anne ever since, although very few people call me that. It hardly trips off the tongue, does it.

  Tante Anne never forgets anything though. ‘You are the daughter that I never had,’ she used to declare when I was a very little girl, showering me with chocolate bonbons, little gifts and kisses and plaiting my auburn hair as I sat obediently in front of her on a crimson silk cushion. These displays of affection are partially intended, I think, to annoy my cousin Anne-Marie, who was also named for Tante Anne and dances desperately for her approval.

  Mam told me that when Louis was born, eleven year old Anne-Marie, pert and disagreeable even then, declared to all the court that he was her ‘little husband’ and began to make up ridiculous and elaborate fantasies about their future wedding day. Tante Anne was irritated beyond all endurance but what could she do but laugh it off as a ridiculous and childish foible?

  Seventeen years have passed since then and Anne-Marie, an overgrown, undignified girl of twenty eight who really should have been married off long ago, is just as determined as ever that she will one day marry her little cousin Louis and rule as Queen of France in Tante Anne’s place. She hardly seems to care that Louis can barely tolerate her company for more than a few minutes at a time and has yet to forgive her for turning a cannon on his troops.

  ‘My dear sister would rather see her precious son married to a scullery maid than caught in Anne-Marie’s clutches until death do they part,’ Mam whispers. ‘Mademoiselle is not at all the sort of wife that Anne wants for Louis. She wants a little mouse that she can boss around.’ She sighs wistfully. ‘She wants to carry on being queen.’

  Am I that little mouse? Was Charles wrong when he told Mam that our aunt would never agree to a marriage between Louis and me? I think back over years of careless kindness from Tante Anne; of gifts, pats to the cheek and soft words and have no idea what to believe.

  Christmas at the Palais Royal is sad without my brothers here to celebrate with us. I mope around the gallery on my own, Mam’s dogs trailing sadly at my heels, thinking about the way Charles used to insist upon stripping down to his shirt and pinning up the heavy green boughs of holly, ivy and mistletoe himself, while James had the important job of lighting the Yule log on Christmas Eve and Harry mixed a spiced, sweet wassail wine from a precious recipe that Mam brought with her from England.

  Our last Christmas together was the happiest that I have ever known. The long table in our dining room was covered with orange scented beeswax candles and our very best polished silver and gold dishes. It groaned beneath the weight of festive treats like plum porridge, roasted geese, spiced Christmas pie shaped like Christ’s manger and filled with meat, cinnamon and fruit and, most important of all, a roasted boar’s head with an apple stuffed into its mouth, which Mam’s steward brought out with great ceremony as we all stood and applauded.

  ‘The boars head in hand bear I, bedecked with bays and rosemary! And I pray you, my masters, be merry! Quot est is in convivio!’ Charles and James sang together in their pleasing baritone as the boar’s head was carefully placed in the middle of the table.

  Afterwards we joined all of the courtiers in the long gallery to sing carols, dance and play games. I was too young to join in with most of the fun, which became very raucous as everyone sampled Harry’s wassail wine and so sat on a cushion beside my mother, wearily resting my head against her leg and smiling as I watched Charles enthusiastically kiss all the ladies beneath the kissing bough that he and Harry had erected in front of the windows. Every time someone is kissed beneath the bough, they have to pick off one of the mistletoe berries until they are all gone and the kissing then has to stop. Charles, of course, decided to bend the rules and started plucking all the leaves off as well until finally the poor old bough was completely naked. ‘I should hate to disappoint the ladies,’ he announced with a great flourish as all the gentlemen cheered and toasted him with warmed hippocras wine.

  That was two years ago now and this year it is very different. Mam makes a great show of inviting the courtiers in to share our Christmas and the table is heavy with treats just as always but none of the noise and fuss and singing can disguise the fact that my brothers are all somewhere else.

  Tante Anne takes pity on me and decides to give me a party in her apartments in the Louvre. ‘Poor Henriette must really miss her brothers at this time of year,’ she says to Mam, who gives a tight lipped smile but doesn’t reply. ‘It’s all so very hard on a child of her age, isn’t it?’

  I wear a brand new dress of pale primrose yellow satin, bought with money that my sister Mary sent with her last letter. She knows that Mam rarely has any money spare to buy me new clothes and so each missive is accompanied with enough coins to buy a dress and some matching shoes as well as small presents of gloves, hats and furred stoles. This Christmas she sent a pretty polished coral necklace which I proudly wear with my new dress, despite it not really matching. This makes my mother, a true Parisienne, wince with horror and offer some of her pearls but I remain adamant that Mary’s necklace will be worn.

  A request to be allowed to use some of Mam’s precious carnation pink rouge is firmly turned down and instead I sulkily pinch my cheeks and apply a little of her best lily of the valley scent behind my ears, to my wrists and then to the base of my throat.

  ‘You look so pretty, Minette,’ Mam says as I sit pensively in front of my dressing table. ‘A sweet faced girl like you doesn’t need rouge to make herself stand out.’

  I don’t want to be sweet faced. I want to be beautiful. I look at my face in the mirror and turn it this way and that, enjoying the way that the little pearl earrings that I have borrowed from Mam glow softly in the candlelight. I pick up my fan and open it flirtatiously in front of my face. ‘I wish that Charles were here,’ I say.

  ‘Your cousin Louis will lead you out for the first dance,’ Mam says as if I had not spoken. ‘It is a great honour.’

  I pull a face. If it wasn’t for Louis, Charles would still be here.

  We hide our finery beneath warm fur lined wool cloaks and hoods and walk the short way across from the Palais Royal to the Louvre. There was snowfall earlier in the evening and the ground is still carpeted with soft white flakes. Lord Jermyn moves close and takes hold of my elbow to prevent me slipping. It’s the first time I can ever recall him touching me and I look up at him, startled.

  A small crowd of women has gathered outside the Louvre on the Rue Saint-Honoré to watch the guests arriving. I try not to look at them as they look so cold in their thin woollen dresses and shawls, but Mam nudges me and hisses: ‘Smile and wave. They have come to see you.’ And so I do, although really I just want to tell them to go home and get warm in front of their fires.

  ‘God bless the little princess of England,’ someone says as Lord Jermyn pulls out his purse and scatters coins among them. ‘May God send her a long life.’

  ‘Long live the future Queen of France,’ someone else cheekily shouts and I blush and turn away.

  The windows of the Queen’s apartments are ablaze with light and as we walk through to the huge entrance hall, I can hear faint strains of music and laughter floating down to the street below. For a moment, my heart fails me and I wish that I could run back to my little room where no one expects anything from me. As if she senses my sudden reluctance, Mam takes hold of my arm and firmly steers me on through the hall and up the sweeping marble stai
rcase which is lined with huge paintings of leering gods and plump bottomed nymphs rolling gleefully around in grottoes or on top of soft white clouds.

  The party is being held in Anne’s beautiful long gallery, which overlooks the Seine, although it is too dark to see the water and the only clue that it is there is the occasional damply fetid waft that floats in through the windows and the cheerful shouts and singing of the boatmen as they steer towards the Pont Royale.

  Thousands of candles have been lit along the length of the gallery and in the huge brass candelabras that hang from the painted and gilded ceiling, bathing everything in a soft amber glow. Anne promised that it would be just a small party but as usual she couldn’t resist inviting half the court so the gallery is already lined with people, who all turn to stare at us as we walk in. The women are all dressed in shimmering taffeta and satin with beautiful lace cascading from their perfumed shoulders and pearls and diamonds twisted in their curled and beribboned hair, while the men look no less gorgeous in their brightly coloured silk suits with crimson ribbons in their long musk scented ringlets and precious pearls swinging from their ear lobes.

  The first person that I see as I enter the room with Mam and Lord Jermyn on either side is my cousin Philippe, who is lounging by the door with his handsome chestnut haired friend. They look us over then smile at each other. I don’t much like Philippe - he is spiteful and used to pinch me when I was a little girl. He still does, in fact, if I make the mistake of letting him get too close. He also tells tales, which my brothers assure me is the most heinous of all crimes. I would rather suffer any punishment than tell tales but Philippe is always running off to his mother or, worse, mine to let them know what my brothers and I have been up to. He then stands aside with an air of assumed innocence that is belied by the smug gleam in his dark eyes as punishment is doled out.

  Mam, however, simply adores Philippe and I have to arrange my face to stop myself grimacing as he sidles up to her and takes her hand in his. I notice that he has painted his nails a pretty pale gold shade. ‘Madame aunt,’ he simpers, kissing her fingers and leaving a slight smudge of pink rouge behind which she surreptitiously wipes on her black taffeta skirts. ‘What a delight to see you and looking so well too.’

  I curl my lip then catch the eye of his friend, who is still lounging against the wall and looking us over with his generous mouth turned up at the corners in an amused smile. I notice for the first time that he has bright hazel eyes like my brother Harry’s and this makes me dislike him a tiny bit less. ‘Your Highness,’ he murmurs and bows to me. He’s almost as tall as my brother Charles, who is the tallest person that I know, but is heavier and has broader shoulders. It suits him. I realise that I am staring and hastily look away.

  ‘Armand, stop it, you are making my baby cousin blush,’ Philippe says sharply to his friend, who gives a casual shrug and turns to talk to the girl standing beside him who has her blonde hair arranged in two frizzy bunches on either side of her plump face. As I watch, he slides two of his fingers down inside her lilac watered silk bodice as she giggles and goes pink. I decide that I don’t like him any more.

  Tante Anne bustles over to us, her plump white hands held out in welcome while her high heeled red leather shoes click imperatively on the polished parquet floor. She used to be a beauty once upon a time, when she first came to France as a little Spanish Infanta to marry Mam’s elder brother. I’ve seen portraits of her in her younger days, with softly curled blonde hair lightened and made more yellow by saffron water and wearing fabulous dresses encrusted with pearls, sapphires and diamonds. Like Mam, she only ever wears mourning nowadays but clearly delights in the way that her shimmering black satin and taffeta gowns trimmed with jet and pearls make her already fair complexion appear even paler and more luminous.

  She and my mother greet each other with enthusiastic kisses on both cheeks and then she turns to me.

  ‘Henriette-Anne, how tall you are getting.’ It’s a lie. I never seem to get any taller, but I’m grateful to her for saying so. ‘You are getting to be very pretty indeed.’ She embraces me, surrounding me with her sweet, spicy scent of carnations and leads me to her chair in front of the huge pink marble fireplace above which hangs an enormous portrait of her sitting proud as punch in pale pink silk with her two sons, who stand pop eyed in their little boy frocks on either side of her. I smirk a little at the way Louis is portrayed standing with his hand on his hip like a little Emperor, when he must have been about four at the time.

  Mam told me once that it took almost twenty three years of marriage for Anne to produce a child. They’d given up hoping that she would have a baby many years before and everyone had expected my uncle Gaston, Anne-Marie’s sharp tongued and rather louche father, to succeed to the throne after his brother died. Which just goes to show that it never pays to assume anything when it comes to our family. Anne was so grateful to be a mother at last that she built the beautiful church at Val de Grace to give thanks for this unexpected event and since then has never ceased to fuss over Louis, her miracle baby, even though he is now seventeen and almost a man.

  There he is now in fact, standing in the middle of a cluster of friends with Olympe de Mancini, beautifully dressed as ever in sea green satin and gauze and pearls twisted in her dark ringlets, at his side. She is standing very close to him and is gazing up into his face with an expression of rapt attention. For his part, Louis is listening intently and occasionally laughing dutifully at a story that one of his companions is telling. I notice that every so often he glances towards his mother, blushes a little and then moves away from Olympe, only for her to snuggle up even more.

  ‘I’m not at all concerned,’ I hear Tante Anne whisper to Mam. ‘I have the Cardinal’s assurance that Olympe regards Louis as little more than a brother.’

  Louis lifts Olympe’s hand and holds it to his lips for a fraction too long. ‘Is he sure about that?’ Mam asks. ‘I was not aware that we had Borgia blood in our family.’

  The music starts and I wait expectantly at my mother’s side for Louis to come and take my hand and lead me out into the middle of the gallery to officially start the ball. There’s a lengthy pause as we all look at him and he blankly looks back at us then down at Olympe, who has gone pale, her crimson rouge standing out against her high cheekbones. There’s no mistaking the expression on her lovely face: she’s longing for him to show his hand, to be a man, to snub me and pick her instead.

  ‘My son…’ Anne’s tone is imperious and not to be ignored.

  Louis rolls his grey eyes and steps away from Olympe, who stares after him disappointedly as he strolls slowly over towards us. I hold my breath, waiting for him to stop in front of me and offer his hand but then let it out shakily when he walks straight past and instead bows to Olympe’s pretty fair haired sister, Laure, who is married to my cousin, the Duc de Vendôme and holds his hand out to her.

  Laure, to her credit, hesitates and looks uncertainly over at my aunt. Everyone knows that the party is being held in my honour and that Louis is expected to start the dancing with me. On one hand she risks offending the King of France if she refuses to give him her hand, while if she accepts his invitation she will almost certainly displease Tante Anne. She goes pink and slightly shakes her head at him. She isn’t going to dance. Louis goes crimson with mortification and abruptly straightens up.

  ‘Louis,’ Tante Anne hisses from between her gritted, falsely smiling teeth, ‘my son, have you forgotten that you are to partner your cousin, the Princess of England for the first dance?’

  Louis pauses then calmly looks me over, from the top of my auburn curls to my pale pink silk shoes, which peep out from beneath my buttercup yellow silk skirts. His gaze pauses momentarily and without interest on my face, which I can feel becoming increasingly hot and red with embarrassment then passes on. ‘I do not like little girls,’ he says sulkily.

  ‘It is of no consequence,’ Mam says, rushing in as usual to clumsily try and placate everyone while actually pl
easing nobody at all. ‘My poor Minette has hurt her foot and cannot dance.’

  ‘It is of every consequence,’ Tante Anne insists angrily as her son stares moodily down at the floor. ‘If my niece, the highest ranking unattached lady present cannot dance then nor can my son.’ She pronounces this with great satisfaction then waves airily at the empty gilded chair beside her. ‘Louis, you will sit down and let your brother dance instead.’ Philippe does a little twirl at this, clearly delighted by the prospect of being centre of attention for once.

  Louis looks as though he is on the verge of storming out. ‘I will do no such thing,’ he says in a low voice. ‘You are being utterly unreasonable, Madame. Can I not be trusted to choose my own partner?’

  ‘Clearly not,’ Tante Anne snaps, unfurling her ostrich feather fan, which has been dyed black to match her dress and has rubies set into the ebony handle.

  I’ve had enough. ‘I don’t want to dance with Louis anyway.’ I put my hands in front of my mouth, utterly aghast, but it’s too late. The words have flown away and can never be unsaid.

  Philippe gives a yelp of laughter which he hastily hides behind his hand. ‘Oh dear, ‘ he says.

  They all stare at me and Mam gives my arm a quick little pinch. Oh, I’m in serious trouble now.

  ‘Why not?’ Louis asks softly, breaking the awkward silence. He knows why though, I can tell. I’ve barely spoken to him since he sent Charles away. I didn’t think that he had noticed but clearly he had. ‘Well?’

  I don’t want to say anything in front of Mam and so mutely shake my head.

  Louis looks at me for a long moment in silence and then gravely offers me his hand. ‘Madame, if you would do me the very great honour,’ he says.