Minette

by Melanie Clegg

  I draw myself up stiffly. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  She sighs. ‘He’s too old for one thing and too sad and beaten by life. Rupert was already a soldier and a veteran of war and death by the time he was your age. You need a young man, full of vigour and passion.’ She leans towards me, enveloping me in her heady musky scent. ‘You need romance.’

  ‘You don’t think Rupert is romantic?’ I say in surprise, looking around the other court gentlemen with their pink, smug, pampered faces and mentally comparing them with Rupert’s withdrawn manner and smouldering dark eyes.

  Mary gives an elegant shrug. ‘Romantic? I suppose that is one way of putting it.’ She gives a languid wave to a passing acquaintance then turns to me again. ‘Surely you must know by now Stuarts make terrible life partners - I wouldn’t marry another one for all the gold in the Dutch bankers coffers.’

  ‘Poor Philippe,’ I say wryly. ‘Does he know what he’s letting himself in for, I wonder?’

  Mary laughs then, all tension gone. ‘He’s met Mam, hasn’t he?’ She takes off one of her pearl bracelets and fastens it around my own wrist, turning it this way and that so that she can admire the sheen of the perfectly matched pearls in the candlelight. ‘They do say that in in time, all women grow to become like their mothers. Think on that.’

  I stare at her in horror as she grins at me.

  As Charles warned me, Parliament sends a deputation headed by Mr Annesley to my rooms at Whitehall to officially welcome me to England and present me with £10,000 - an enormous sum which makes me gasp audibly and look round at Mary in astonishment when it is proposed.

  ‘You are very kind, sirs,’ I say haltingly in carefully rehearsed English when Mr Annesley’s lengthy and rather laboured speech has ended. ‘I am touched by your generosity and your…’ I frown, desperately searching for the right words and cursing my terrible English as the gentlemen all stare at me in awkward silence. In the end I give up and bestow upon them my very best smile. My Court Smile, as I call it. ‘I only wish I could do you proper honour in the English tongue but I hope that my wholeheartedly English heart will do instead.’

  The men all smile back then and there’s even a smattering of applause. ‘Madame,’ one of them says with a look of delight, ‘you have won all English hearts for your own.’

  ‘Well that went well,’ Charles remarks to me the next day when we pay a private visit to Westminster Abbey so that I may pay my respects at Harry’s final resting place. Mam has already visited soon after our arrival in London, alone and heavily veiled with black gauze and now it is my turn.

  ‘I think that they liked me,’ I say with a smile as we walk together up the nave, a small group of courtiers discreetly trailing a few paces behind us. ‘I only wish that my English was better,’ I add ruefully. ‘It feels strange to not know the language of my own country.’

  Charles sighs and gives me a sad sidelong look. ‘It can’t be helped,’ he says. ‘Perhaps I should give you an English tutor as a wedding present?’

  I laugh, an embarrassingly discordant sound in this hallowed place. ‘I was hoping to be done with tutors once I am a married lady,’ I say merrily.

  We make our way to the lady chapel at the far end of the abbey, where some of our ancestors lie buried together and I gasp in wonderment as we step into that lovely space with its beautiful stained glass windows and wonderful fan vaulted ceiling, with decoration as intricate as lace. Behind the altar there rests the bodies of Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth, the founders of the short lived Tudor dynasty which we Stuarts so rudely supplanted.

  However, splendid though their black marble and polished gilt tomb is, it isn’t the focus of our visit and instead Charles gently directs my steps to the north aisle where our great grandmother, Mary of Scotland has her memorial. ‘She never once set foot in London during her life, despite her ambitions to reign as Queen here,’ my brother says as I stare in amazement at Mary’s spectacular marble tomb. ‘Our grandfather, her son James, had her body moved here after he became King of England as well as Scotland. Originally she rested in a mean little tomb in Peterborough Cathedral close to where she was executed.’

  I smile at him. ‘In France it is considered a shameful thing to have an execution in the family,’ I say. ‘However, it would appear to be a mark of distinction over here.’

  My brother laughs. ‘All the best families in England have a beheading or two - mainly thanks to the eighth Harry but we have contributed our fair share as well.’ A flicker of something crosses his face and I know he is thinking of the men he ordered executed after he became king.

  I touch his arm gently to distract him. ‘Is this where our Harry lies?’ I ask in a low voice as I reach out to stroke Mary’s cold marble cheek with my finger.

  Charles nods. ‘He and many of our family,’ he says softly. ‘I plan to lie here too in the vault beneath when my time comes.’

  ‘Was our father buried here also?’ I ask, looking down at the pavement beneath our feet and wondering how big the vault beneath is.

  My brother shakes his head slowly. ‘No, he lies at Windsor. Cromwell did not want his tomb to be accessible to royal sympathisers and so ordained that our father’s remains should be carried out to Windsor and buried in secret in the tomb of the eighth Harry and one of his wives.’ He shrugs. ‘Of course, Cromwell decided that he himself should be buried here in Westminster Abbey.’ His expression is carefully blank, as if all of his usual humour and kindness has been completely locked away. ‘In this very chapel in fact as if he were one of us.’

  I gasp and instinctively look about myself. ‘Does he lie here still?’ I ask in astonishment.

  Charles’ eyes as he looks at me are dark with anger. ‘Not for much longer,’ he says grimly.

  Of course Mary is only too happy to fill me in with all the gory details once I return to my rooms in Whitehall, where she is already waiting for me in the pretty little closet attached to my bedchamber. ‘Parliament voted just last week that the bodies of Cromwell and his vile cronies should be dug up from their graves and then taken to Tyburn on the anniversary of our father’s execution to be hung and beheaded as they should have been in life.’

  ‘Is that what Charles wants?’ I ask, thinking it impossible that my generous natured, kindly brother could willingly preside over such a thing.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mary shrugs then relents. ‘He’s not pleased but what else can he do? His position is a precarious one and he needs to show his hand, he needs to remind Parliament who is the king here.’

  Despite all this, I am perhaps the happiest that I have ever been as we prepare for a grand family Christmas all together. Mary and I throw ourselves into the preparations with enormous excitement, spending hours together directing the servants as they hang great heavy boughs of ivy, holly and mistletoe throughout the palace, wrapping presents and preparing sweetly fragrant hot mulled wine with our own hands.

  Even Mam begins to cheer up when the preparations for Christmas get under way and there’s a decided spring in her step these days as Charles gives her free rein to recreate the happy family celebration that she she had presided over at our father’s side. There’s to be a ball in the state apartments of course as well as an enormous state banquet with roasted fowl, steamed plum puddings and an enormous cake decorated with a gilded marchpane nativity scene.

  There will be private family celebrations of course when we will gather together around the fire to tell ghost stories, eat nuts and exchange gifts. James whispers to me that he is hopeful that Mam will relent and meet his wife and son over the Christmas period and I pray that this will indeed happen.

  Charles, open handed as ever, gives Mary and I huge bags stuffed full of gold to spend on gifts for ourselves and we gleefully request the finest dressmaker in London to come to my apartment and show off her wares. We drink sweet wine and feast on honey cakes as gorgeous fabrics, silks, satins, brocades and velvets are tumbled across the carpeted floor by her gaggle of
pretty assistants.

  ‘Oh this would look wonderful on you,’ Mary exclaims, holding a pale shimmering green satin up against my face. ‘It brings out the gold lights in your eyes and makes your skin look like alabaster.’

  I look down dubiously. ‘Am I not a little too pale already?’ I ask, touching the soft satin wistfully. I am not yet used to the fact that I can have anything that my heart desires and even now I look at such lovely precious things and wonder how many dinners or loads of fuel they will pay for.

  Mary clicks her tongue. ‘You can never be too pale, my dear and ruddy cheeks are very definitely not in style nowadays if indeed they ever were.’ She looks at the dressmaker for confirmation and receives a decided shake of the head. ‘Imagine Philippe’s eyes if he were to see you in this. I swear they would pop right out of his head.’

  I blush then, remembering his last letter to me, which arrived this very morning and was perhaps the most shockingly passionate yet. Who knew that such things were possible? ‘Perhaps then…’ I nod to the dressmaker and she puts it aside on top of my already huge pile of loot which includes pale flower coloured satins, exquisite lace and ribbon trimmings and several pairs of silk stockings in palest lemon, pink and green.

  Mary spots my red cheeks and laughs with delight. ‘Gracious, what has our cousin been writing to you?’

  I blush even more furiously. ‘Nothing,’ I mumble, looking over my shoulder as I half expect Mam to come bursting into the room. I catch Mary’s eye and grin, I can’t help myself. ‘He is very keen to be married,’ I say, turning away to examine a bolt of velvet the same soft fawn colour as Mam’s little pugs. ‘Especially now that he has caught wind of the Duke of Buckingham’s attentions to me.’

  ‘Oh dear, I wonder which little bird let that titbit slip?’ Mary says with a look of annoyance. ‘He is raving with jealousy?’

  I laugh. ‘Absolutely demented,’ I say. ‘He’s threatening to come over here and challenge Buckingham to a duel if he doesn’t leave me alone.’ That’s not all he has threatened to do in fact but I don’t want to mention the rest of his rantings in front of the dressmaker and her girls who are already agog with curiosity.

  Mary stares at me. ‘Gracious.’ She picks up a piece of fine lace and holds it against her wrist to judge its shade against her skin. ‘And how does it feel to have men fighting over you when you are not even seventeen years old?’

  I shrug, affecting a magnificent disdain that I think would do even Athénaïs de Rochechouart proud. ‘It’s all very tiresome,’ I drawl before we both dissolve into laughter.

  And then it all goes wrong as it must always do.

  My family are in the habit of dining together at least twice a week in Charles’ private chambers at Whitehall and I am waiting there with Mam and my brothers when a message arrives from Mary to plead a headache. ‘I need only good night’s sleep to be myself again,’ she writes. ‘My best love to you all.’

  Charles is worried and instantly orders that his most trusted physicians be sent to our sister but James remains cheerful and reminds us that Mary has been threatening to come down with a cold for days now. ‘She never did like this frosty weather,’ he says, warming his own hands over the blazing fire, which smells sweetly of the handfuls of rosemary, lavender and thyme that the maids have heaped upon the logs. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Mam grimaces. ‘She used to catch every cold, chill and fever going around from November until March,’ she says with fastidious annoyance. ‘And never would learn to carry a handkerchief around with her either.’

  We’re a merry group that night and with my brothers’ connivance I even manage to have more than one glass of Charles’ excellent red wine while they distract Mam’s attention from the steward who smilingly tops up my glass. ‘I am so pleased to have you all around me again,’ my mother says more than once and I wonder how much wine she has had as she smiles with fond delight upon us.

  ‘It’s a pity Mary could not be here,’ Charles says with that same look of worry. ‘I will send for my physician later and see what he has to report.’

  ‘It won’t be anything that a few days in bed and some honey and lemon drinks can’t cure,’ Mam says, popping some delicious cake soaked in orange blossom syrup into her mouth. ‘She always was such a sickly child.’

  ‘Perhaps I should go to her,’ I say hopefully, thinking how pleasant it would be to take Mary some treats from our dining table and spend a little time gossiping with her. ‘I should think she is very bored and lonely by now.’

  Charles smiles and hands me the sweet contents of the walnut that he has just cracked open. ‘Perhaps,’ he says softly. ‘Let me speak to my physician first though, it may be that she is too tired to see any one.’

  There is a soft tap on the door then and a page boy, a new one that I have never seen before, enters shyly with an appreciative look over the table, which is covered with delicacies. ‘Your Majesty, the doctors have sent a message.’ He proffers a twisted piece of paper. The boy blushes as he hands it over. ‘I haven’t read it,’ he mumbles, staring at Charles with something alarmingly close to hero worship. I know that expression well for I wear it too when I look at him.

  My brother looks amused then. ‘I know that you didn’t, Dickon,’ he says softly as he opens the note and I wonder if he knows the name of every single page boy in the palace. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if he did. ‘I know,’ he repeats as his eyes scan the paper and his expression changes, draining of colour and merriment just as it did when we stood together in Westminster Abbey and he told me about our father’s burial.

  ‘Is it Mary?’ Mam asks shakily, throwing her napkin on to the table and half rising to her feet. She’s gone a little pale and before Charles even speaks I somehow know what is coming and just for an instant my heart goes hard and tight within my chest.

  Charles looks at us then, his gaze resting for a long, thoughtful moment on my face. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he says at last and I can tell that he is carefully controlling his voice, is trying not to let his true emotions show. He had to learn how to master himself, to hide his thoughts, during all those long years of penury and exile and now he is putting those lessons to good use. ‘My physicians tell me that Mary has small pox.’

  My heart explodes. ‘I must go to her,’ I hear myself say even as James catches hold of me in her arms and holds me tight. ‘We cannot leave her on her own,’ I say as I struggle against my brother’s grip. I turn to my mother, who sat down heavily on her chair as soon as the word we all dread so much was uttered and is now sitting staring into space, too distraught to even cry. ‘Mam, we should go to her at once,’ I plead but she can’t or won’t hear me.

  ‘She won’t be alone,’ Charles says quietly then and we all look to him. ‘I will stay with her for as long as it takes.’ He looks at me sadly. ‘I cannot risk your health, Minette,’ he says, kissing my hand then holding it to his warm cheek. ‘I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you.’ He looks past me to James and his manner becomes brisk and business like. ‘Make immediate arrangements to move Mam and Minette and their households to the palace of St James. It’s close but hopefully far enough away to have escaped any infection.’

  ‘Please don’t send me away,’ I plead, crying now and clutching at Charles’ hands. ‘Mary is my only sister and I feel like we have only just started to know each other.’

  He shakes his head, resolute. ‘I know, Minette, but God willing, there will be time enough for you to know each other when this crisis is at an end.’

  The palace is in uproar as James takes Mam and I down to the courtyard, having despatched a footman ahead to warn the stables that we would require a carriage and another one to our apartments to order our maids and the ladies in waiting assigned to us while we are in England to start packing up our things, which will be sent after us to St James’.

  Mam is still in shock and biddable as a child as James helps her up into the carriage and settles her comfortably into the se
at. I cannot move though and press my back against the wall and shake my head at him when he offers me his hand. ‘I won’t go,’ I whisper. ‘Not while Mary needs me.’

  James’ face is pale in the moonlight and his breath turns to mist, dragon smoke as we used to call it as children, in the freezing air. ‘Please Minette, don’t do this.’ He sounds weary and I realise that he must be worried about his wife and baby son. ‘The air at St James’ will be safer for you and I promise to send word as soon as Mary improves.’

  I shake my head. ‘Let me stay,’ I say. ‘I won’t be any trouble to any one. I will stay in my rooms and only come out when you bid me.’

  ‘Minette…’ He sighs and his grey eyes are bright with tears. ‘I was here when Harry died. This is not the place for you.’

  I open my mouth to reply, to plead some more when suddenly a dark shape moves out of the shadows and wordlessly, our cousin Rupert appears, his gaunt face thrown into sharp relief by the flaming torches held by the footmen. He looks at me sadly for a moment then bends and sweeps me into his arms as if I were no heavier than a kitten. ‘You must go,’ he says gravely as he deposits me without ceremony into the carriage. ‘Your life is too precious to be put at risk.’

  ‘Rupert…’ I lean forward in my seat and clutch at his hands but it’s too late and he’s already slammed the carriage door shut and ordered the driver to take us away with all haste.

  I find a note from Charles waiting for me in my chamber at St James’ Palace, hastily written and sent on ahead by a messenger who must have sprinted across the snow covered park to reach my apartments before me.

  ’The kindness I have for you will not permit me to lose this occasion to conjure to you to continue your kindness to a brother who loves you more than he can express, which truth I hope you are so well persuaded of, as I may expect those returns which I shall strive to deserve. Deare sister, be kind to me, and be confident that I am entirely yours. C.R.’