The King's Favorite

by Susan Holloway Scott

  “Forgive me, I must have misheard.” He raised his brows, still bristling with flecks of paint. “You, Nelly, know that the only reason he keeps either of us about is for our mischief. If we didn’t amuse him, he’d have no more use for us than he does the Swedish ambassador, and out we’d go.”

  He was right, of course: absolutely, horribly right, though I’d no wish to agree with him. “You are doing this to amuse him?”

  “I’m doing it to amuse myself,” he said, his bitterness unmistakable. He pulled off one of the velvet gauntlets he’d worn for his costume and thrust his hand out for me to see, shaking and marked with old sores. “If all the graybeard physicians can offer no cure to me, why, then they are no better than the mountebanks and charlatans they pretend to abhor. Why shouldn’t I take my place among their ranks?”

  I looked from his hand to his face. He’d declined further since I’d seen him last. Beneath Dr. Bendo’s paint and beard, his face was puffy, his eyes clouded and dull.

  “You see the decay for yourself now, don’t you, my dear?” he asked. “Not a fit sight for eyes as sweet as yours.”

  “I’d heard you were recovering abroad,” I ventured. “Dorset said when he’d seen you last at Adderbury, you’d planned to take this banishment in France, and—”

  “Dorset knows nothing,” he said sharply, and unnecessarily, too.

  “He knows you better than most, my lord.” Leastways, Dorset (formerly Lord Buckhurst, newly risen to his late father’s earldom of Middlesex and Dorset) had every right to know him, having been Rochester’s partner in the same frolics that had reduced him now. “I would listen to what he says of you, from a friend’s concern.”

  “Would you,” Rochester said, dropping into a nearby chair, his green robes falling about him as he reached for more wine. “Then did he tell you how I’m more blind than not, or that my stomach so roils and pains me as to tolerate no food, or that sometimes I quake so badly that I do not sleep for four nights at a time? Did he tell you how seldom I can keep a cockstand, or what it’s like to piss fire so hot I weep? Or perhaps he’s spoken of the indescribable shame of taking my dear lady wife to Hatton Garden to see if anything can ease the suffering I have brought to her, or worst of all, that my darling boy, my son, my heir, must attend that foul place, too?”

  “Oh, my lord,” I said quietly, for this was as sad as grievous news as could be. “I am sorry. I am sorry.”

  “Aye, and what shall all that sorry-ing do to help?” Beneath his fur cap, his smile was bleak. “You can understand why the corpse of a stranger in Epsom is of so little concern to me, when I may be on the closest of terms with my own grave far sooner than I’d wish.”

  I came to stand beside him and put my arms around his shoulders, for any words now would seem like an empty mockery of his plight. Thus we were together for how long I cannot say, for such is the comfort to be given and taken between old friends. Finally he was the one who roused, bustling up from his chair with a now-rare show of energy.

  “But tell me, Nelly, as one player to another,” he said, waving his arms with Dr. Bendo’s flourishes. “Didn’t you relish my show, eh, and the little jests I’d tucked inside the lines? Faith, how those cullies in the street did swallow it all!”

  I smiled and nodded, encouraging him however I could.

  “Yes, yes, how I wish I could bring the good doctor to Whitehall itself, for the illumination of the court!” He snatched one of the extra printed handbills from a nearby table, declaiming in the doctor’s voice as he read it. “ ‘Thus are the people kept and establish’d in Subjection, Peace, and Obedience, while He flourishes in Greatness, Wealth, and Power: so you see the Politician is, and must be, a Mountebank in State-Affairs, and the Mountebank is an errant Politician in Physick!’ ”

  I sighed with exasperation, exactly the reaction I suspected he’d desired. “Oh, aye, you deliver that pretty piece before His Majesty, and he’ll banish you straightaways to the moon. He’ll see himself in Dr. Bendo, and he’ll not thank you for it. ‘Mountebanks in state-affairs,’ hah!”

  “But you laughed when you heard it,” he insisted. “You know you did, Nelly, for you’re no better than I, jesting at will and hiding behind costumes and masks to make your sport.”

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m not.”

  “My pretty, witty, honest Nelly,” he said, and touched his fingers to my cheek. “Will you plead my case to the king, my dear? Will you ask him to take me back, the prodigal returned once again?”

  “Again and again and again and again,” I said. “But I’ll do it, my lord. For you—and not Dr. Bendo!—I will.”

  Considering how short his time on this earth could be, how could I ever do otherwise?

  Of all the great cities of the time, London was the most far-flung, and by those fine folk who lived in Paris or Rome or Madrid or Lisbon, even Amsterdam, our English capital was also the most lacking in civility and charm. Yet once visited, our city swiftly became a favorite of travelers. To foreign ladies, in particular, London seemed the greatest haven on earth, for we English women were permitted more license to conduct our lives and freedom to please ourselves than any others of our sex in Christendom.

  It should, then, have come as no surprise when, in early 1676, our court became a haven for a foreign lady seeking sanctuary from her mad Italian husband. To be sure, there was nothing frail about Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin. She was nearly as tall as Charles himself, a Roman beauty with black eyes and strong features who was as accomplished with swords and pistols as any gentleman, and could outlast most of them in the saddle and in bed. She was thirty years of age, and in his long-ago exile, Charles had once been a suitor for her hand. Instead, she’d wed an overbearing zealot with old blood and too much piety, whom she’d been forced to flee under circumstances that were never quite clear. Now she’d arrived at Whitehall dressed in men’s clothing, with a menagerie of animals and an African servant named Mustafa.

  Charles was dazzled. We all were. By August of 1676, Lady Mazarin had been given the old lodgings of the Duchess of Cleveland at the palace, and on occasion received the king in her bed, as well. I should have seen her at once as a rival, I suppose, but I liked her too well myself. She laughed easily, made jests in four languages, and taught me astounding new cheats at cards. Best of all, Lady Portsmouth hated her, and that was as merry a recommendation as any for me.

  Though the November sun was bright, the air was already chill with the coming winter as Charles and I walked together across St. James’s Park. Several respectful paces behind us and out of hearing followed a small group of courtiers and guards, with Charles’s usual pack of dogs running back and forth between us. The few remaining leaves that swirled rattling across the paths were dry and brown, while the pennants over Whitehall snapped and tugged on their poles, bright swaths of color against the cloudless sky.

  Yet I wasn’t cold. I wore a quilted petticoat and another pair of stockings over the first, and a muff of sable fur on a silk ribbon around my neck. My long scarlet cloak (for sentiment’s sake, I always made sure that any cloaks of mine were dyed the same scarlet as my old livery cloak from the King’s Company) was likewise lined with the golden fur, and even my gloves were trimmed with it. But what truly kept me warm was keeping pace with the king’s long legs, a challenge for anyone of my slight size.

  “Sir,” I said as we came to stop before the duck pond, “you will visit Her Majesty’s rooms this evening, aye?”

  Charles looked down at me and smiled, and as long as he’d been smiling at me (and looking down at me, too), he still brought a small catch of joy in my chest. He might as well look at me, anyway, for there were no fowl on the pond, they having too much sense to be about on so chill a day.

  “You know that’s my custom, Nelly. What have you planned?” he asked, intrigued. “What mischief, eh?”

  “Mischief, sir?” I asked, as innocent as could be. “I, sir? I?”

  “Not I, but you,” he said, pleased
to show a bit of mischief himself.

  “Then you must wait to see what I have planned.” I grinned both from the silliness of it and from the laughter we shared over nothing, and tipped my head against his arm. So long as I had this, I’d willingly leave the splendor and the ermine trimmings of the palace to anyone who wished it.

  “Promise to amuse me, sweet, and I’ll promise to be there when you do.” His smile turned bittersweet as he slipped his arm around my waist. “God knows I’ve had little enough opportunity for that of late.”

  It was, alas, the same old tale. Though England was removed from the ongoing war between the Dutch and the French, Charles and Parliament both watched the growing number of battles won by the French with concern for the balance of Protestant power in Europe. Shaftesbury and his “Country Party” were most vocal against the Papists, while Danby’s group likewise hated the French, but was closer to supporting Charles in the process. Unwilling to fight the French directly, they all continued to seek further persecution of English Papists and urged Charles either to compel his brother York to give up his Romish beliefs or to remove him from the succession.

  Cows would sooner sprout eagle’s wings and fly to Rome, yet that did not stop the two houses from battling with the king, and the king with them. When Charles finally lost patience, he’d prorogue them and send them all home. When he wished them to vote on funds or some other favor, he’d call them back and make some small concession, and the whole rigmarole would begin again. I knew not how it would ever end, except for badly.

  Of course, he’d not helped his cause with his warm welcome to Lady Mazarin. Not only was she from Rome itself, but she was the niece of Louis’s old advisor Cardinal Mazarin, and her sister warmed Louis’s bed in Paris. As far as Parliament was concerned, Charles could not have made a worse choice for a passing dalliance, and once again his judgment was questioned and his loyalties doubted.

  “You have seen Rochester of late?” he asked, seemingly from nowhere. “I know you have made him trustee in your finances to oversee your estate and expenses, so I suspect you must.”

  I nodded, guessing that Charles had intended to discuss the earl from the moment we’d left the palace. Had he discovered the truth of Dr. Bendo, I wondered? “I do hear from him often, aye, which likely you know, too. He is full of remorse for his behavior, sir, and does wish to recover his place in your favor.”

  “Then I wish you’d urge him to show a bit more decorum,” Charles said crossly, as if Rochester were a naughty child in need of a thrashing—which, alas, he too often was, being permitted to return to court only to misbehave and be banished again. “He’ll not leave Louise from his vile writings, and it makes her most unhappy.”

  I knew at once the poem he meant, a scurrilous little piece called “Portsmouth’s Looking-Glass” that Rochester had likely spun in a moment, but that had taken on a lasting life at court.

  “‘Methinks I see you, newly risen,’” I recited, “‘From your embroider’d Bed and pissing,/With studied mien and much grimace—’ ”

  “You see, now, that’s exactly what I mean,” he said. “She hates to be mocked for having the pox, and it is cruel.”

  “But you laughed when you first heard it, sir,” I said, remembering how Rochester had employed the selfsame argument with me. “Don’t pretend you didn’t, because you did. So did I. You and I have both been skewered by his pen and survived none the worse for it. You’ll never make him stop, for he cannot stop himself, which you know, too, else you wouldn’t keep forgiving him his sins. Besides, this poem’s not nearly so bad as the play.”

  “ ’Od’s blood, no,” he said with a shudder. Earlier Rochester had written an entire obscene play (called Sodom, a title indicative of the contents) mocking the court. He’d dared to base a woman’s role on Portsmouth and called her Clytoris, and for it had earned himself the longest banishment to date. “Nothing would be as vile as that.”

  “No, indeed,” I agreed. “You’re only concerned now by this little poem because when the Portsmouth’s unhappy, she turns shrewish and weepy and makes you unhappy, too.”

  “She doesn’t deserve it, Nell.”

  “Oh, sir, that’s true,” I said, unable to keep a bit of testiness from my voice. “How foolish of me to misremember! Since Lady Portsmouth was made a duchess, she’s grown so much more tender to satire than I.”

  He grumbled, as much as admitting that I was right. “Tell Rochester to apologize to Louise, and write to me vowing to keep from trouble of the sort he’d found at Epsom, and then he may return to us. If he would only leave off the business about the pox—”

  “Why should he, sir, when he has it, too?” I asked. “It’s much on his mind. His wife has been forced to visit Hatton, and he fears much for the health of his son as well.”

  “Poor lady, I’d not heard that,” he said. “Rochester should have taken more care with her. His son, too. Then I doubt Mrs. Barry’s been spared, either.”

  Elizabeth Barry was an acquaintance of mine from the playhouse, a pleasant if plain-faced young creature that Rochester and I had schooled in acting for the sake of a wager. Since then, she’d found great success in tragic parts, and Rochester had made her his mistress.

  “It is not an easy pairing, sir,” I said carefully, “nor is the match he made with his lady. For all His Lordship has entertained us with his wit, his own life has not been half so amusing.”

  “It’s been the same for us as well, hasn’t it, Nelly?” He sighed, staring out at the empty pond with its skim of new ice. “I’d have no sparkle at all in my life without you to leaven my days.”

  I leaned closer into him, my lips warm upon his chilly cheek. “Then it’s a fine, brave thing that you’re likewise my joy, sir, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Nelly, it is.” He kissed me, then laughed, as if kissing me alone was enough to lighten his spirits, and perhaps it was. “A fine, brave thing indeed.”

  There was a large crowd in the queen’s chambers this evening, and as I stood to one side of the doorway, I felt the old, happy anticipation of a full house waiting and eager for me to appear. Likely Charles had told others I’d planned one of my pranks, and word had spread, for there to be so many here tonight.

  It had been a while since I’d worn my old mourning costume, and I smoothed the heavy veil over my face. At least with it in place, no one would see if I forgot myself and began to laugh as well.

  I took one final deep breath and made my entrance.

  “Oh, my sorrow!” I cried in a heavy French accent. “Oh, my grief!”

  This time everyone recognized my portrayal of Portsmouth the Weeping Willow at once, and began shouting encouragement and suggestions as I staggered this way and that. I worked every tortured gesture, every moan of agony, as if I, too, meant to expire before them. Slowly I made my way to where Charles was sitting, with Lady Mazarin on a stool beside him. Portsmouth was there somewhere as well, for I’d heard her voice before I’d entered. I didn’t care if she watched me now, or if I’d already driven her from the room. Either way, I was sure she’d find it impossible to avoid hearing of my performance later.

  “Permit me to offer my heartfelt condolences, madam,” Charles said, scarce able to address me for his own laughter. “It, ah, pains us all to see such suffering.”

  “Ohhhh, such suffering, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” I cried. “You do not know, sir. You can never know, being a mere lowly Englishman!”

  He laughed heartily again at that wicked disrespect, and behind my veiling I thought of how far Portsmouth must in fact have slipped in his favor for him to relish my mockery of her quite so much.

  “I do not like to disturb your sorrow, madam,” he continued, “but to respect it properly, we would needs know who you mourn.”

  “Whoooo, sir?” I asked, my voice rising in anguish like the cry of a costive owl. “Whooooo, you ask, when in fact it is the departure of a what that gives me such sorrow!”

  “Then what might it be?” he demanded, as
eager as the rest of the room for the final twist of the jest. “Tell us, madam, tell us at once!”

  I lifted my veil to show my white-painted face, and heaved a final, mighty sigh. “Why, ’tis simple enough, sir,” I announced. “I mourn the death of the hopes of Her Grace the Duchess of Portsmouth, run through the heart by Her Grace the Duchesse de Mazarin!”

  Led by the roaring laughter of the king, the response was instant, as fine an appreciation as ever I’d had. Afterward, I heard that Monsieur de Courtin, the French ambassador, had found Louise crying inconsolably in her chambers, so humiliated that she refused to leave them. No one came to beg her to do so, least of all Charles. She had wept so long and so often that her tears had lost any sympathy they might once have earned for her.

  At Charles’s bidding, I sat beside him and drank canary in my mourning. When he asked me if I’d dance a jig to show Lady Mazarin, I happily obliged, my black-bordered petticoats swinging high like the merriest widow of them all.

  In the warmth of Charles’s delight, as drunk with that as with the canary, that night I dared another step further. Through a jest, I’d speak what I’d never dared before. My older son, Charles, had joined me there at the palace for the evening, and was playing some game or another with a group of highborn children in one corner of the room. Lady Mazarin asked to see him, and I rose and craned my neck to find him.

  “Charles, Charles, here!” I called, my voice as usual loud enough to call him if he’d been in the next county. “Come here, you little bastard!”

  At once the room fell silent with shock, and also eagerness, to see how the king would respond.

  “Nelly, Nelly, please,” he chided, frowning with dismay as our handsome son came running to join us. “Pray, don’t call the lad that.”

  I shrugged blithely and held my arms out to embrace my little rogue. “Why shouldn’t I call him that, sir, when it’s the only title he has?”