Devil Water (37 page)

God help us, Betty thought. And again she tried to pray.

On Thursday night at seven o’clock, Betty and Frank drove in their coach and six through the snowy streets to Lady Baltimore’s house, while Betty strove to hide her nervous shakes. Beneath the left breastfolds of her Roman matron’s costume, she had tucked a small piece of paper. A note which Rob had brought her from Charles last night. There were only a few words scrawled in muddy ink: “Whatever befalls, know that my heart is yours.”

When she was alone, Betty had kissed the note a dozen times, and all night long she had not slept.

“You’re cold, my dear,” said Frank crossly. “I hope you’ve not an ague. This outing is folly.”

“No! No!” she said laughing, and peering out the coach window, cried, “Look!” Two link boys with torches, and two footmen behind were escorting a strange figure up Lady Baltimore’s steps. Despite a mantle, one could see that the figure represented a fiery devil, with red horns and tail and shiny red spangles. They caught a glimpse of a profile, as the devil entered the house, and Frank said, “Ecod! ‘Tis young Baltimore himself. That boy has the most uncouth fancies. Needs a strong stepfather over him.”

Betty would ordinarily have agreed. She did not like her seventeen-year-old nephew, who had added eccentricities and overweening pride to essential stupidity when he succeeded to the title, but she had no interest in him now, except as a distraction for Frank. Her whole being was aware that Charles -- at this moment -- must be starting the first maneuvers of his escape.

In the hall her sister Charlotte greeted Betty with a preoccupied kiss and an appraising stare. “Do sit down, my dear. You look very wan, and really what a tasteless costume -- though I know you’re breeding, still it doesn’t show yet, and I should have thought -- and Frank not even costumed at all,” added Charlotte with a resigned shrug, glancing at her brother-in-law’s ordinary black satin evening suit.

Betty had thought she looked quite handsome and was at once deflated. Charlotte, who inherited all their mother’s beauty and was fifteen years older besides, always deflated her. Betty suddenly felt that the Roman matron costume was not only odd but dowdy. Clark, her maid, had run it up, according to her own ideas, since Betty had taken little interest. It consisted of a good many heavy white draperies, and was topped by an elaborately waved and diademed black wig. Her own red hair would have been too easily recognized later when they were all masked and enjoying the anonymity provided at the Haymarket.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was a French shepherdess, or at least the laced blue lutestring bodice, the gilded crook, and the enchanting straw hat would so indicate. Yet fidelity to her role had not prevented an alluring exhibit of bust and white shoulders, or powdered curls or a gold fan or a patch on her cheek, or diamonds in her ear lobes. Well, thought Betty sighing, Charlotte was on the lookout for a new husband, and it was silly to feel the old pang of envious inferiority. Betty sat down near the drawing room fire, accepted a glass of wine, and immediately began to wonder what was happening to Charles.

She was again interrupted by her sister. “Oh, Betty,” Charlotte murmured, “I forgot to tell you I asked rather a peculiar gentleman to come tonight. A Virginia planter, named William Byrd. He’s in his forties. A new-made widower, has quite a fortune in the Colonies, they say.”

Frank, who was hovering near his wife, broke in with some astonishment. “Why yes, I’ve met him in the coffeehouses. I found him a sound chap, fellow of the Royal Society and all that, well-bred for a Colonial, though to be sure he was educated
here.
Still, my dear Charlotte, I shouldn’t think him quite -- quite--” he broke off, frowning as a dreadful suspicion seized him. “I trust you wouldn’t encourage any attentions from
that
quarter!”

“Oh, la!” laughed Charlotte. “Not for a moment! Bury myself thousands of miles off in the wilderness with an American? Don’t be foolish, Frank! No, I’m nice to him, because of Baltimore.” She waved her fan towards her son, who leaned against the mantel in his devil’s costume, while languidly sniffing up snuff, and eying his mother’s guests superciliously. “I suppose the boy’ll have to go out to Maryland, someday,” continued Charlotte. “After all he owns the province, and should have a glimpse of it. With that in mind, I’m encouraging him to meet some Colonials.”

“Oh,” said Frank, “I see. Quite a good idea.”

Betty had already ceased to listen. Once she put her hand to her breast and felt the faint crackle of Charles’s note, and while the rest of the guests arrived, she sat in a kind of suspension, making mechanical responses when necessary.

The drawing room filled with bizarre figures, which Betty saw through a haze. Mrs. Walpole had come as Diana, with quiver and bow and a rather short tunic which on anyone else would have scandalized Frank. Mr. Walpole did not come at all. Urgent Treasury business had prevented him. There was a Miss Dashwood as a milkmaid, Mrs. Somebody-else as a harem slave. Mr. Byrd presently arrived accompanied by a young man called Sir Wilfred Lawson. Mr. Byrd was dressed as a grand mogul, in belted robes and a turban. Betty smiled as he was presented, noting vaguely that the Virginian was dark, quite handsome in a middle-aged way, and that he bowed over her hand with exaggerated courtesy. His companion, Sir Wilfred, was dressed as Robin Hood in hunter’s green, which suited him. He was a rather rakish young man, not tall, with a bold merry brown eye and a curly brown wig. When he greeted her she was aware of a trace of Northern accent, which was explained later on, since he had been born and raised in Cumberland.

Betty could not really rouse herself, until her brother appeared, last of all. The young Earl of Lichfield had come as a Franciscan monk. It was clear that Charlotte disapproved of this drab gray habit, though her respect for the new head of their house restrained her usual frankness. It was only Betty who saw real significance in the Earl’s choice, and noted the crucifix which hung from the scourge around his waist. Can it be that George will turn
Catholic
when he marries Frances Hales? Betty wondered in dismay. Nothing would more horrify the rest of the Lee family -- and especially Frank. As yet, nobody except Betty even knew of Lichfield’s love for Frances. How strange it was that she and her brother should both have secret attachments to Catholics -- but what a bond it made between them!

They were moving towards the dining room, now that the Earl had arrived, and as they passed through the doorway, he squeezed near to Betty and said low in her ear, “Any progress?”

“It’s
tonight,”
she whispered with an involuntary gasp.

“Good luck,” her brother said. Beneath the cowl a tremor crossed his lean ascetic face. At once they walked away from each other.

At the table, Betty found Mr. Byrd on her left, and because it was necessary to speak, and because she could think of nothing which was not in some way connected with Charles, she asked brightly, “Was it not
you,
Mr. Byrd, who sent over a little Negro called Juba who became page to the Duchess of Bolton?”

“Ah yes, your ladyship,” said William Byrd, much gratified. “It delighted me when I heard I had indirectly given pleasure to so distinguished and beautiful a lady as the Duchess.”

“Have you met her?” asked Betty on an acid tone.

Byrd shook his head regretfully. “Though when I married my poor late wife -- Lucy Parke that was -- many kind people compared her beauty to that of the Duchess.” He sighed. “Ah, ‘tis a heavy stroke to lose the companion of one’s bosom, the mother of one’s children. The smallpox -- and she had but just arrived in London, poor thing.”

Betty made murmurs of sympathy, though by the covert glances Mr. Byrd’s heavy-lidded sensual eyes sent towards Charlotte, and even towards the pert Miss Dashwood, Betty suspected that the gentleman was not inconsolable. “You’ve children?” she asked politely while she put down her fork and gave up the pretense of eating. Twinges of nausea had replaced the nervous shivers.

“Two girls, your ladyship,” answered Byrd. “Evelyn, who is nine, and Wilhelmina, only a year. Both are still in Virginia, but I design to bring them over here and --”

Betty did not hear the end of the sentence because Charlotte’s gilded mantel clock struck nine. Where was Charles
now?
By sheer force of will she tried to produce an image of him, and her hands clenched under the napkin. William Byrd talked on, charmed by the wide-eyed interest Lady Elizabeth accorded him. He did not notice that she was smiling at him fixedly, and that there was a glassy look in the attractive eyes. He was only aware that here was a lady who was that rarest of beings, a perfect listener. That she was also an Earl’s daughter and sister made her conduct even more endearing.

Byrd told her about his estates in Virginia, about his 43,000 acres of land, and his 220 Negro slaves, and his house on the James River, called “Westover,” which he intended someday to enlarge. So responsive was she that he alluded to his quarrel with Virginia’s present Governor, Spotswood, and hinted that there were some kind and prejudiced friends here in England who were so extravagant as to say that Byrd should be appointed Governor
himself.
He mentioned the names of these friends -- the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Orrery, Lord Percival, dear Mrs. Howard, bedchamber woman to Princess Caroline.

Betty continued to smile, and nod at intervals, until suddenly she was forced to yield more real attention, when she found that Mr. Byrd was becoming personal, was addressing her as “Lovely Lucrece, the worthiest Roman lady in history,” and was admiring her sable tresses.

“Oh fie, sir!” cried Betty, accepting the proper role. “The sable tresses aren’t mine! And I fear you are a flatterer!”

“Ah,” said Mr. Byrd. “Indeed I cannot flatter, and to express the esteem one has for a lady as charming as an angel, one needs an angel’s tongue, while mine is but a cloddish one.”

“I see you’ve a pretty turn for gallantry, Mr. Byrd,” said Betty. “Gallantries which would be more properly received by others perhaps. Forgive me, sir,” she added, for the nausea had increased, and parrying with Mr. Byrd seemed suddenly insupportable. “I must retire for a moment.” She left the table, and hurried to a little cabinet beneath the stairs.

Frank, at the other end of the table next to Mrs. Walpole, did not notice, because Mrs. Walpole, high-flown with wine, was being indiscreet about her husband’s opinions on the proposed treaty with France which would forever banish “James the Pretender” from that country.

Betty’s brother noticed her abrupt departure. He had seen the strain that she was under, had caught now and again the note of hysteria in her few remarks to Mr. Byrd. The Earl was very fond of his young sister and fully aware of the dangers she was in. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he considered the possibilities of soon ending her suspense one way or the other.

At the precise moment that Betty felt sick at the supper table, Charles in Newgate jail walked through the little door in the latrine, and entered the debtors’ side. Behind him in the “Castle” dungeon he left a crowd of roistering prisoners. For Charles had been giving a party there. It had not been hard to persuade Pitts that depressed by a year in prison, and the rumor that his execution could be no longer stayed, Charles had conceived the idea of a celebration. Mr. Pitts had accepted a gift of fifty pounds, and agreed to Charles’s request that Muggles might be appointed warder in the “Castle” for that evening. What harm could it do? thought the Keeper, if Mr. Radcliffe had a whim to be guarded that night by the man who had been his personal jailer all this time. Besides, the Christmas season was approaching, and bonhomie filtered even through the grim stone walls of Newgate.

Muggles was delighted, especially as Mr. Radcliffe laid in a cask of the best brandy for the party, and plum puddings and mince pies too. With all this good cheer, it did not take long for Muggles to reach the state where Charles wanted him -- drooling, hiccupping, and giggling mightily when Charles suggested that it might be fun if the warder pretended he were a prisoner. Leg fetters, for instance, and to be chained to that ring on the floor!

“Aw no ye don’t sir,” said Muggles, giggling harder, yet with a remaining spark of caution. “Ye’ll not put
me
in no leg hirons!”

“Only in jest,” said Charles laughing. “Only for a moment, old friend. Why you’d not deny me a bit o’ sport, tonight? And here’s something to make it worth your while!” He dangled a gold watch and chain before the warder’s bloodshot, gleaming eyes.

The other prisoners, all as drunk as the warder, crowded around, chuckling and cheering. One or two suspected that something was up, but they couldn’t imagine what. There was a turnkey stationed in the passage outside and no other way out of the “Castle” dungeon.

Muggles grabbed the watch, and consented. Charles slapped fetters on the warder’s leg, chained him to the ring and casually abstracting the key which would unlock the irons, said, “There you are, my man. And another cup of brandy to keep you content. As for me, I must answer nature’s call, and then we’ll have a round of merry glees!”

Charles stepped into the latrine, shoved a man out who was already there, then, groping in the darkness, slid back the bolts, so carefully prepared, opened the door, went through and bolted it after him. Alec was waiting for him in the dark attic on the debtors’ side. The two men gripped hands hard. Alec whispered, “Hurry, sir, they’ll soon call ‘Time’!” They descended some steps and came to a row of chambers in each of which whole families lived. There was the smell of cooking, and the sound of a baby crying. Through a half-opened door, Charles saw a woman sewing by the fire, while with her foot she rocked a cradle. Charles’s throat closed, and his heart gave a lurch. The homely scene excited him more than all the moments which had gone before. Alec hurried him on, and soon they mingled with other departing visitors. “Your hat and cloak, sir,” said Alec. “They’re m’own,” he added apologetically, ‘“but they’ll do. Mind, sir, if anyone questions, you’re me lawyer.”