A simple gown was quickly made for me and then there was concentration on my Court dress. It was most elegant yet at the same time discreet. It was in a shade of blue that was almost lavender.
“Milord has said it must be the exact colour of milady’s eyes,” said the couturiere, who puffed and sighed over the garment as though it was to be compared with the finest work of art.
It was an exquisite colour and such as I had never seen before. The Parisian dyers were masters of the art and the colours they produced delighted me again and again. I was put in a canvas petticoat with whalebone hoops. The panniers of blue silk were ruched and gathered and the tight-fitted bodice was made of the same lavender blue silk. Beneath it was an underskirt of green so delicate in color that one was not absolutely sure it was green.
I had never seen such a dress.
“Of course you haven’t,” said Hessenfield, surveying me. “When it comes to fashion we’re years behind the French.”
My hair was dressed by a hairdresser selected by Hessenfield. She cooed over it as she combed and back combed it until it stood out round my head in a frizz; then she started to set it and I had to admit that when she was finished I was amazed by the effect. It was piled high on my head and brought up into a coil about which she placed a diamond circlet like a coronet.
When Hessenfield saw me he was overcome with delight.
“No one ever did justice to you before, my love,” he said.
He took me into see Clarissa, who stared at me in amazement.
“Is it really you?” she asked.
I knelt down and kissed her.
Hessenfield cried out in dismay. “You’ll wreck your skirts.”
I laughed at him and he laughed with me.
“Are you proud of her, Clarissa?” he asked.
Clarissa nodded. “But I like the other way too.”
“You like me however I am, don’t you, Clarissa?”
She nodded.
“And do I come into this magic circle?” asked Hessenfield.
“What’s circle?”
“Later we’ll talk,” said Hessenfield. “Come on, my dear, the carriage awaits us.”
So I went to St. Germain-en-Laye and to the chateau there.
I was presented to the man they called James the Third as Lady Hessenfield. James was younger than I. I think he must have been about seventeen at this time. He greeted me warmly. Although he had a regal manner, he seemed to wish to show his gratitude to those exiles who had gathered round him and particularly those who, like Hessenfield, had sacrificed a good deal to serve him.
“You have a beautiful lady, Hessenfield,” he said.
“With that I am completely in agreement, Sire.”
“She must come often to our court. We need all the grace and beauty we can get during this period of waiting.”
I said how glad I was to be here and he replied that he would have said he hoped I would stay a long time, but none of us wished to stay as the guests of the King of France a moment longer than we need.
“Let us say, Lady Hessenfield, that you and I will be good friends in Westminster and Windsor.”
I said: “I trust it may be soon, Sire.”
I was presented to his mother—poor sad Mary Beatrice of Modena. I was drawn to her more than to her son. She was by no means young and must have been about thirty when James was born. And she had suffered a great deal when as a very young girl she had come to England most reluctantly to marry James—the Duke of York—already a widower with an established mistress. I was sorry for her. She had been a beauty once but now she was so thin as though worn out with the sorrows of life. Her complexion was pale but with those fine dark eyes she must have been very beautiful in her youth.
She was as welcoming as her son and told me how glad she was to see me and I should be welcome at court whenever I wished to come. She had heard I had brought my daughter with me and she talked of children for a while.
“Lord Hessenfield gave such support to my husband and now gives it to my son,” she said. “I am happy for him to have his beautiful wife with him, and having seen you, my dear Lady Hessenfield, I understand his pride in you. You are a very beautiful woman and a joy to our court.”
Hessenfield was delighted that I had been such a success.
“I knew you would,” he said. “Beauty like yours is a rare gift, sweet wife. It is for me alone but I am glad to let others have a glimpse of it—a glimpse, nothing more.”
“I am not your wife, you know,” I said. “But everyone here seems to think I am.”
“You are … you are mine. We are bound together for ever … I have told you only death shall part us. I swear it, Carlotta. I love you. You must love me too. We have our child. I would marry you tomorrow if it were possible. But here we are married. Everyone believes it to be so … and after all, what people believe to be is true for them. So let the strength of their belief be ours. My love … I am happier than I have ever been in my life … You and the child … I ask for nothing more.”
I realised that this was a strange speech for a man like Hessenfield to utter. There had been little sentimentality in his life until now. I could see that what was there had been born out of the strength of his feeling for me.
I was tremendously happy riding back in the carriage to our hôtel in Paris.
Yes, Hessenfield had changed. He had become the family man. He was still the passionate and demanding lover by night, and I was amused that during the day he became absorbed by arranging his household.
The dressmaker who served the French court was often at our house. I was to be the centre of her attention. I recognized her skill and I had always been proud of my good looks so it pleased me, therefore, to discover that there were so many ways of enhancing them.
I heard that I was referred to as the Beautiful Lady Hessenfield and when I rode out people stood about to watch me.
I was vain enough to enjoy it.
Clarissa commanded a good deal of Hessenfield’s attention and one day he said to me: “We shall have to stay at St. Germains at times. There is work for me to do and it can only be done there. We can’t take Clarissa. We should have a good nursery governess for her. Someone who can teach her and look after her at the same time.”
“I should not want her to speak French entirely. It would change her somehow.”
“She shall speak both languages.”
“But a French nurse would not speak English to her.”
“We should do that. It is hardly likely that you would find an English nursery governess here. We must look round. I have already let it be known that we are searching for someone suitable.”
“It must be someone of whom I approve.”
He kissed me. “It must be someone of whom we both approve.”
It seemed the greatest good fortune when Mary Marton arrived.
I was with Clarissa when she was announced. I left the child and received her in the salon. She was of middle height, very slender, with pale yellow hair and light blue eyes. She had an extremely deprecating manner. She had heard that I needed a nursery governess for a young child and had come to offer her services.
She told me that she had been brought to France by her mother, who had followed her father, who had been in the service of the late King. Her father had died almost immediately and she and her mother had gone to another part of France—near Angoulême. Her mother was now dead and she had come to Paris to see if she could earn a little money as she had become very poor.
She had a family in England and hoped eventually to return to them, but as her father had been a Jacobite it would not be easy for her to return. In the meantime she had to earn a living.
She was well educated, was fond of children and qualified to take on the care of a child. In any case she would be most grateful for the chance.