And then they aU applaud her. Laughter I can forgive - anyone can laugh, and then regret it - but to applaud!
I pointedly keep my hands folded in my lap. Charles notices, and leans across. ‘They can seem a rough lot here at first,’ he says apologetically. ‘It is only their way of welcoming you.’
‘But why does she hate me so much?’
He gazes down at the stage, where Eleanor Gwynne is even now performing another dance, the audience’s applause beating out the rhythm. ‘She doesn’t hate you. It’s just Nelly’s way of having fim. Please don’t mind it, Louise. Nell does love her fun.’
Carlo
>
For a grand occasion, nothing beats an ice.
The Book of Ices
‘It is an attack on all of us,’ Arlington said. ‘Nell is Buckingham’s creature. He has not forgotten how he was made a fool of over the treaty. He has been waiting his chance.’
‘It is particularly an attack on France,’ Colbert said. The little French ambassador had joined our meeting on this occasion. ‘We cannot afford to ignore it.’
‘We should do nothing.’ That was Walsingham. ‘Nell’s satire may have made the king laugh, but its only effect is to have driven him further into Madam Carwell’s arms. He has not visited Nell since his sister’s death. Nor any of his other habitues, come to that. The Duchess of Cleveland has been reduced to satisfying her carnal appetites with a tightrope dancer.’
No one asked how he knew. Walsingham’s information was always assumed to be impeccable.
^Tou can ignore it,’ Colbert conceded. ‘But I cannot. The reputation of France is at stake.’
‘What will you do.>’ Arlington said ironically. ‘Strike back with a play about the Siege of Orleans?’
‘A ball,’ the ambassador said firmly. ‘I will give a ball. After all, it is only fitting that we celebrate His Majesty’s return to good health. And it will be an opportunity to show your countrymen how these things are done. No effort will be spared, none.’ He looked direcdy at me. ‘We will have ices, signor. Ices, for eight hundred guests. We must remind everyone where the king’s pleasures come ftom.’
It was not a request.
But in truth, even if the ambassador had given me a choice, I would have leapt at the opportunity his ball presented, I was going mad here in England, cooped up in this lithe court, this lithe country, making ices for such a small circle.
It was not only the ambassador who wanted to show them how these things were done in Versailles.
Gradually, the plans fell into place. We would take over St James’s Park, and fashion it into a replica of the pleasure gardens at Versailles. There would be a great palace of canvas and papier mache, erected for one night only, just as they were for Louis XTV’s divertissements. An orchestra of French musicians, brought in for the occasion. The noble guests themselves would all be masked, as if for a carnival.*
Even the ices would be especially remarkable. Colbert would be serving the petillnnt blnnc wine of Champagne which was such a symbol of Anglo-French co-operation: the wine French, the extra-strong bottles which made it possible invented by a member of the same Royal Society to which the Honourable Robert Boyle belonged.
And I - I would serve champagne sorbets.
The inclusion of alcohol, I knew well, made ices harder to prepare. Wine was particularly tricky; sparkling wine!even more so. But I was becoming confident enough in my own abilities that I wanted to try.
That was not to be the only ice on the menu, of course. After much thought, I settled on a pomegranate sorbet with a champagne sauce; an apple and chrysanthemum jelly, and a fennel-milk ^mnite. The ambassador’s kitchens were to provide the main course, a collation of French meats, but the desserts would be mine: a selection of sherbets, along with - at last! - the first public appearance of my creme-anpflaise cream ice, that noble
alliance, served in a double coronet of brandy snap to represent the happy union of kings.
Louise
The French ambassador wants to know if the king will attend his ball.
T have no idea,’ I say. ‘He is still in mourning for his sister.’
‘Of course,’ the ambassador murmurs. ‘How regrettable that lady’s death was - and yet I find I cannot regret it, because it brought you here. How fortuitous for France that the king has found solace in the companionship of one of our countrywomen.’
All his speech is like this - airy and overblown and assumptive. He makes some insinuation, and waits for me to contradict it; if I do not, he thinks that I have confirmed what he has in mind, when the truth is that it is simply none of his business.
‘I have ordered ices,’ he says after a moment. ‘Ices, in the hope that the king honours us with his company.’
‘Indeed,’ I say. ‘Let us hope that he does.’
Sure enough, two days before the ball three packages arrive, brought by liveried footmen. With them is a note.
Enough mourning - CR
Carolus Rex. Charles the king. A royal command.
Inside the first package I find a mask sewn with tiny red diamonds. The next contains a costume - a highwayman’s breeches, a short jacket like a conquistador’s, a three-cornered hat, all glittering with silver thread and made of shimmering silks. In the final package there are boots, a belt, a silver pistol.
I tie my unruly hair back into a man’s ponytail and paint my lips the same deep red as the mask.
4
Carlo
For a champagne sorbet; mix four cups of champagne, one cup of water and one cup of sugar in a pan, and boil with the zest of a lemon until all the sugar is dissolved. Cool, and add the lemon’s juice. While it freezes, fluff the sorbet with a fork.
Chrysanthemum and apple jelly: simmer flve or six green apples and a dozen chrysanthemum flowers in a pan, then sieve. Once it has cooled, add a cup of sugar syrup and a small amount of gum. Pour into goblets and chill, but do not freeze.
The Book of Ices
Still mindful of the need for secrecy, I employed only the staff of the Red Lion as my assistants. There was much to be done, and I threw myself into it, happy for once to think of something other than politics. For two weeks we laboured, storing'the completed sorbets on ice to keep them fresh.
I left my arrival at the ball itself as late as I dared - I knew that by the end of the evening the heat would be immense, and I wanted my ices to stay cool for as long as possible. So I was not surprised to find the crowds three deep around the park. What did surprise me, though, was the discovery that, far from being there to enjoy the spectacle, they were hostile.
‘Why do they shout like that.>’ I asked.
Hannah, riding at the back of the cart with the ice chests, said quietly, ‘They think France means to lure us into fighting the Dutch, and then, when we are weakened, turn on us herself.’
‘No war - no pope’ was the crowd’s chant, as well as ‘Send them home’ and ‘Catholics out’. As we tried to get into the park the cart itself was jostled, and it was all I could do to keep the ice chests safe. ‘Can the soldiers not keep order.^’ I cried in exasperation.
A man thrust a pamphlet up at me. ‘See the pictures, read the rhymes! The scandalous seductions of Madam Carwell, with etchings. See what old Rowley’s getting now—’ I pushed him away with my foot, and he went down into the muck.
Inside the tent, by contrast, all was decorum and elegance. Bewigged footmen stood at every turn, ready to serve my champagne sorbets from silver platters; there was French music and French conversation and the slow, stately dances of Versailles. I saw how the light from the four vast candelabra glittered on the cut-glass goblets, making the sorbets within flash like diamonds. Even the champagne bottles were being cooled in urns made from sparkling blocks of ice.