The Jacobite's Wife

by Morag Edwards

  I bowed my head. ‘I am grateful, your majesty.’ I looked at her for longer than was perhaps acceptable, wishing to ask her the same question she had asked me.

  Mary Beatrice returned my stare with her cool grey eyes, her fine brows arched in amusement. ‘If a king wants to have a woman, the woman must respond. The king is directed by God. She is simply following God’s will.’

  ‘And if the woman is married?’

  ‘Her husband must agree, since he too must follow God’s will. Wise husbands know that they will benefit from such a liaison.’

  We smiled at each other. We had reached an understanding. It was never spoken of again.

  My father was injured in a riding accident in June and it was rumoured that, at seventy, he had been trying to impress an unknown woman with his horsemanship. But during his final weeks, no woman came forward to offer comfort or regrets. Dutifully, I sat by his bed whenever I could be spared by Mary Beatrice but was always glad to hurry back to her warm apartments, scented by fresh flowers, rather than delay in the rank odour of a broken old man. In his few wakeful moments, my father seemed to recognise me and although much of what he muttered made little sense, there was a moment when he clutched my hand and begged my forgiveness, whispering that he must change his will to leave me some money.

  Since it seemed without any doubt that my father was dying, I had already spoken with Grace about our precarious situation at St Germain after his death. If we had to leave and were given some choice about our future, I hoped we might be welcome to live with my brother, since he was settled and had a wife and young children. But I knew that he would not look kindly on me if it seemed that in my father’s last moments, I had persuaded him to change his will. Father had always been clear that my brother would inherit everything after his death and, as head of the family, would be responsible for his sisters. So I spoke to the priest who visited my father and instructed him that Lord Powis must not be allowed to change his will, no matter how much he pleaded.

  Father’s funeral was a more formal state occasion than my mother’s and the king, along with many of the more important men at St Germain, were present. Crushed between my sisters Mary and Anne, in my hot, tight mourning dress, I listened to the eulogy for this man I hardly knew and struggled to find some feelings of loss. My greatest concern was for myself and my status at St Germain. I knew there were women in the queen’s household who would question whether I should be allowed to remain and that they would waste no chance to remind Mary and Anne about my unorthodox position, without income or family.

  My sisters were housed in my parents’ apartment and in the days following the funeral, I helped them clear away all trace of our father. I listened to them reminisce, reminding each other of summer days at Powis when he taught them to ride and how he had terrified them at bedtime by pretending to be a bear. I watched their grief and helped wipe away their tears but the father they spoke of had not been mine. If I had hoped that we might be reconciled, any prospect was shattered when my father’s will was read. He had left nothing to his daughters except me, and I had been given the last piece of my mother’s jewellery. My sisters could not hide their disappointment at this unexpected favouritism and I guessed that my future at St Germain was lost. My sisters would expect the queen to release me and I would return to Anne’s household.

  Before their departure my sisters were invited to meet the queen to discuss my future but when Mary Beatrice insisted that I be present, I dared to hoped that my fears might not be true.

  ‘Your majesty,’ my eldest sister Mary said, ‘we have agreed that Winifred should return to the household of Lord and Lady Carrington in London, where we might find her a husband.’

  Mary Beatrice shook her head and spoke with her usual candour. ‘Not at all. Winifred must stay here. I need her to look after my children and it is essential that she supports me in my meetings with the French. You taught her well, Lady Carrington,’ Mary Beatrice acknowledged Anne with a tilt of her head. ‘Winifred is a fluent French speaker.’

  Anne flushed with pleasure and my sisters glanced at each other in unspoken agreement. ‘If that is the situation, your majesty, then of course she will remain here.’

  ‘And as for a husband,’ the queen continued, ‘leave that to me.’

  I felt my cheeks burn with relief and gratitude; I could remain at St Germain-en-Laye, under the protection of the queen. I would be entirely dependent upon her favour and generosity and I knew how unreliable she could be, but for now my future was secure.

  That night in my room, now empty of any remnant of Lucy, Grace helped me out of my robes and into my shift and we sat on the edge of my wide bed. I slipped my arm around her and told her that for now, we could stay at St Germain.

  Grace rested her head on my shoulder. ‘I’m pleased for you, Win. Your sisters are considerate but I remember how unhappy you were living with Anne and perhaps there wouldn’t have been a place for me.’

  ‘I think they were relieved. My father’s last act, thoughtless as ever, only deepened the rift between us and perhaps neither of us would have been welcome. Mary and Anne were seventeen and eighteen when he was imprisoned but I was only six. He barely knew me. Listening to them talk reminded me of what I lost when he was taken to the Tower.’

  ‘Win, you’re the youngest of six and I’m the eldest of four. We had a different childhood from our brothers and sisters. When I went home, I didn’t recognise the life they had after I’d gone. A life I helped to pay for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A condition of your mother taking me into service was that there would be no more children.’

  This shocked me. ‘That was too much of her to ask, surely.’

  Grace laughed. ‘She gave my mother advice on how to prevent more children and your father passed mine work. I think my family were one of your mother’s projects.’

  ‘I knew nothing about this. It feels like my mother took charge of your lives. What right did she have?’

  ‘But it worked. My mother and father were only fifteen and sixteen when I was born and without your parents what did the future hold for them? Instead they grew in prosperity and earned enough to build their own house and send my sisters and brother to school. Now they can do the same for my sister’s child.’

  ‘But you learned to read and write, Grace, how did that happen?’

  ‘Cook taught me and you left your books lying around, so I read those while I was supposed to be tidying your room.’

  ‘I didn’t know Cook was able read and write.’

  Grace pulled away from me and looked into my eyes. ‘Win! How could she have run the kitchens and dealt with tradesmen without being able to write and do accounts?’

  I felt ashamed that I had cared so little about people who had once filled every day of my life. ‘So what was it like when you went home?’

  ‘It was hard. I remembered the poverty we’d lived through but my parents didn’t like me to talk about it and I envied the younger ones. I never felt that I belonged.’

  ‘That’s it, Grace. That’s exactly how I’ve always felt. I didn’t belong. There was a family once but different from the one I knew, a family that I had been tacked onto. But I was lucky to have my sister Lucy and you, of course.’

  ‘We had each other, Win, that’s what matters.’

  Chapter 9

  Grace watched the courtyard below as I finished dressing my hair. Her voice was listless. ‘A carriage has just pulled in. It must be the young earl from Scotland. I can’t quite remember his name.’

  I studied my face in the glass, wiping powder from the corners of my mouth with the tip of my finger and turning my head from side to side to examine my profile. I smoothed the skin under my chin. ‘Grace, do you think I’m getting thick around the neck?’

  ‘I remember now,’ Grace continued. ‘It’s William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale. He’s from a very old Scottish family, or so the gossip goes. He’s here to pay his respects to our k
ing.’ The news that Louis XIV had recognised William of Orange as the King of England and Scotland had shocked our isolated community and visitors loyal to our cause had become rare.

  I joined Grace at the window and we looked down on the head of a young man, supervising his servants as they lifted boxes from the carriage. He wiped his face with a handkerchief and sensing that he was being watched, looked up at my window. We jerked back, covering our faces with the drapes and laughing until we fell on the bed hiccupping and choking like schoolgirls.

  In the afternoon, I joined the queen for her walk around the grounds. The other members of her household maintained a discreet distance, knowing Mary Beatrice liked to talk to me in private. Princess Louise Marie skipped ahead of us, followed by at least six of her servants who hovered in case she fell over, drowned in the fountains or suffered any other unimaginable accident.

  ‘The young man, Nithsdale, who joined us today, he is yours.’

  I was used to the queen’s assumptions but this was more blunt than usual. ‘What do you mean, your majesty?’

  ‘He isn’t married and he’s looking for a Catholic wife. I believe he has a good estate in Scotland. If you want him, he’s yours.’

  ‘I appreciate your majesty’s concern but how do you know he isn’t betrothed to an heiress at home?’

  Mary Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. ‘I have made enquiries on your behalf. You are almost twenty-seven. When I was your age I had been married for twelve years.’

  My age and unmarried state seemed to have become a general topic of conversation amongst the women and not always well meant. I didn’t welcome their prying but the pleasures of being a single, unchaperoned woman were fading and I worried in private that I might never have the chance to be married. It might be a relief to no longer rely on the arbitrary favours of the queen or the support of my mother’s few remaining elderly friends.

  The queen interrupted my thoughts. ‘Tonight at the ball, I will introduce you to William Maxwell. You have had much practice with young men, so you know how to capture his heart. But, Winifred,’ she stared at me with her cool grey eyes, ‘remember that this one is for marriage.’

  The moment I saw William, I knew she was right. He was mine. The queen escorted him across the room, his hand held high in hers and when she reached me she took my hand and joined it to his, saying, ‘And now you two will dance.’ She turned from us, cutting a swathe through the guests. He lifted my hand and kissed it. I noticed amused, brown eyes and a full face like a spaniel puppy. Best of all, he was taller than me.

  He held out his arm to lead me into the dancing, ‘Lady Winifred Herbert, I am honoured to make your acquaintance.’ His generous smile contradicted the formality of his tone. I caught his irony and took his arm, covering my grinning mouth with my fan and inclined my head in a small bow. ‘The pleasure is mine, Lord Nithsdale.’

  The queen’s advice had been clear and she was right. This felt different. As we turned and spun in giddying spirals, the dance reached its climax. There will be no fumbling in stairwells or lying on my back in the grass under the stars, I thought. Here is the man I will marry.

  We sought no other partners, reluctantly releasing hands as etiquette demanded. When we grew breathless, we walked onto the terrace. It was early spring and still cold. I leaned against him for warmth and he placed his coat across my shoulders. We stood side by side, facing the gardens, our elbows resting on the stone balustrade and talked as if there was no end to words.

  ‘I am told you are on your own, Lady Winifred.’

  ‘My parents were here but my father died trying to impress some ladies of the court who hunt. He took a jump that was too difficult for him. My mother died just after I arrived, so he’d been alone for five years. I think he must have been planning to take another wife, despite his age. I hardly knew him as a child and we did not meet a great deal here, so my grief was short-lived I’m afraid.’

  ‘I hardly knew my father either, since he died when I was a small child. You must be lonely here, without your family.’

  ‘I have Grace Evans, my companion and lady’s maid. She’s been with my family for as long as I can remember. We’re the same age. I’m also lucky to have special attention from the queen.’

  ‘I heard you were a favourite. What about the rest of your family?’

  ‘We lost our title and estates after my parents fled to France with the king and queen. My brother, who shares your name, married four years ago. I was estranged from him as people here feared he was a traitor but we have tried to be reconciled since my father died.’

  ‘Has the reconciliation been successful?’

  ‘In part – we do communicate but it’s hard to stay close to family when the whole world seems to be at war and we are so isolated here. I have a sister, Lucy, who is in a convent in Bruges and two older sisters in London. My eldest sister Frances lives in Scotland. We write to each other, more so now our parents are dead, but still not often.’

  He looked at me and frowned. ‘So you wouldn’t want to leave?’

  I appeared to give the question thoughtful consideration, rather than betray that I had already decided to leave St Germain and with him. ‘I’m ready to go. Eight years is a long time and the queen needs me less. Tell me about your family and your home?’

  I just wanted to hear him talk. His accent was different from the other Scots at St Germain; gentler, yet more precise. He had a way of moving his hands to make a point, turning his palms out then bringing his fingers together at the tips. His hands had never seen physical work, yet they were large and the fingers blunt. William told me that he had inherited the title from his father and he and his sister had been brought up by their widowed mother at Terregles House in Dumfries. His mother still lived there but his sister had married Charles Stewart, the 4th Earl of Traquair. How exotic these names sounded. My imagination was already spinning a Scotland of sophistication, beauty and wealth, quite different from the tales recounted by my sisters of painted clansmen, no better than savages but useful in a fight.

  William saw me watching him and stopped talking. He looked at me for longer than was comfortable, then leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. ‘I think we’d better go inside or people might notice how long we’ve been gone. But there is one thing I need to tell you. You are very beautiful.’

  When William was not with the young men at court, hunting or fencing, he was with me. The queen excused me from most of my duties provided I attended her evening toilette so that she could hear every detail of the courtship. I resented this because my bond with William felt private but I depended on her to protect me from the gossip at court and I had to trust that she would release me when the time came. So I fed her little bits of information, some true, some exaggerated and others total fabrication. Her eyes glistened with excitement and she would stop her servant’s hand and turn from the mirror to face me, so I might repeat a detail that fascinated her.

  Every morning I woke to the joy and amazement that William was part of my life and that he seemed not to tire of me. Despite our freedom from family, our courtship continued to be chaste and decorous, although we were able to exchange small kisses and hold hands when we walked, without a chaperone, through the forests around the chateau. Just as the trees were beginning to flower, we walked down to the River Seine through the terraces of the hanging gardens. It had been raining and the earth smelled of fungus and decay. Rain dripped from the bare branches of the trees and I trembled as a remnant of old fears touched the back of my neck. What if I lost William too?

  William stopped walking and turned to face me. ‘Are you unwell, Winifred? Do you want to go back?’

  I felt the heat and prickle of tears at the corner of my eyes. ‘These terraces remind me of the garden at Powis Castle. I miss my mother sometimes. Grace and I used to walk here after she died. It was just a bad memory, that’s all.’ But I began to shiver and William pulled my cloak tight around me and bent to kiss me with the unmistakable pass
ion of a lover. I heard the song of birds through the long, searching kiss and felt a familiar ache. It was time.

  I had never taken a man to my room at St Germain and my brief conquests at Marly or Fontainebleau had been furtive and secretive. It was believed that Jacobite support in England could be undermined if our court gained a reputation for failing to uphold Catholic teaching on moral behaviour. I was closely watched by the women of the exiled community; my mother’s friends too interested in my well-being alongside resentment and jealousy from those who had not known my parents and envied my position.

  We parted in the woods, planning that William would follow me half an hour later. If anyone saw him using my staircase, there were respectable reasons why he might be visiting a resident on the third floor. As I crossed the courtyard, Lady Strickland waved to me and I hurried over to speak to her. She peered at me with small grey eyes, made more piercing by a generous use of face powder.

  ‘My dear, how are you? It must be so difficult for you without your mother and father.’ She clutched my arm.

  I glanced towards the entrance to my staircase. ‘I’m well, thank you.’

  ‘Ah well, they miss you in the nursery – and your mother of course.’

  I made myself look straight into her eyes. ‘I’m lucky to have the love of William Maxwell and the companionship of Grace Evans.’

  Lady Strickland leaned towards me, as if to share a confidence. ‘There has been some talk about you walking out with him without a chaperone,’ she whispered. ‘I can arrange someone for you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure Grace can do that, but thank you for warning me.’ I tried to release my arm from her grip.

  ‘No, no my dear, she’s too close to the situation.’ Lady Strickland patted my arm and let me go. ‘I’ll arrange it for you. Come to my rooms tomorrow, I can see you’re in a hurry.’