Devil Water (40 page)

Some folks are drunk in fine, and some in foul weather
And some, like His Grace of W -- n, are drunk twelve years together.

Drunk or not, Wharton was no fool. He occasionally made brilliant speeches in the House of Lords, and by judicious switching of sides at the right moment, he had managed to get himself endowed with extraordinary honors, first from the Pretender in France, then from King George here.

Though in May the Duke had spoken eloquently in defense of the Jacobite Bishop Atterbury, Wharton was still considered a Whig, no matter how erratic a one; and Byrd wondered whether there was any help to be got from that quarter in the matter of Virginia’s acting governorship. Other influential friends, though full of promises, had achieved nothing.

Last year Governor Spotswood had been quietly replaced by a nonentity called Drysdale. Byrd, overlooked again, had perforce remained content to be Virginia’s agent. This bitter disappointment sprang from two things, as Byrd well knew --that he held no English military title, and that he was born a Colonial. Yet bigger obstacles than that had been surmounted when pressure was brought to bear in the right places. And here was a channel not yet explored. Byrd stared thoughtfully at the Duke of Wharton. He abandoned that scheme upon seeing Mrs. Howard entering the room. Henrietta Howard was not only the Prince of Wales’s official mistress and had great influence at Court, but she was an old acquaintance of Byrd’s and invariably charming to him. He rushed up to her, bowing and smiling.

From the sofa in the ballroom the two girls also examined the company, Jenny with dazzled interest and Evelyn with a nervous urgency. Finally she gave a start, and whispered to Jenny, “Thank God!
There
he is! Look, just behind the screen!”

Jenny looked, saw a young man eying them intently, and knew it must be Sir Wilfred Lawson. He smiled and made a slight beckoning motion to Evelyn, who rose in confusion, “If Father asks, tell him I’ve gone to the Necessary House, tell him ‘tis the physic,” she whispered, and darted towards her lover.

Jenny nodded and stared hard at a statue of Juno, praying that Mr. Byrd would not come back and question. Her every sympathy was with Evelyn, though she was puzzled by her glimpse of Sir Wilfred. He was no taller than Evelyn, and rather square; even at this distance she had seen that he was not handsome. Hardly the romantic figure Jenny had pictured on all those nights when she stood guard and Evelyn had stolen down to the school garden-gate and met him. Love must be a very strange thing, Jenny thought, which was followed by a mature inkling. Did Evelyn’s passion for Sir Wilfred have something to do with her feeling for Mr. Byrd -- was it partly defiance of her father?

Jenny’s musings dissolved in panic as someone approached her sofa, and said, “Well!” in an emphatic voice.

It was not Mr. Byrd. It was a magnificent willowy youth, wearing diamond rings, and starry medals on the breast of his rose-brocaded coat. He was gazing down at her, a peculiar expression in his half-shut pale blue eyes, and Jenny jumped up with a frightened apology.

“No. Sit down,” said the youth, shoving her on the shoulder so she had to. “I’m Wharton.” Then, as Jenny looked blank as well as frightened, he added, “I’m the Duke of Wharton. Who are
you?”
He sat down beside her.

“Jane Lee,” said the girl, recovering her courage. She surveyed him almost as steadily as he did her, and discovered with a mixture of fascination and repulsion that he was not a youth but a man, though his face was painted and powdered like a lady’s, and he had a black crescent patch on his forehead. Also his breath reeked of something unpleasant she did not recognize, though it was certainly not wine.

“Where did you come from?” said the Duke. He pulled out his quizzing glass, and screwing it into one myopic eye, examined her insolently from the crown of her yellow hair to the undue expanse of silk-stockinged ankle.

“I came from school, with Miss Byrd, your grace,” said Jenny, resenting the appraisal. Inexperienced as she was, she knew it to be sexual and almost impersonal.

“Exceedingly young
--” he said with relish and a high-pitched laugh. He smacked his rouged lips, and ran one well-polished fingernail down her bare arm. “Don’t wince, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re the tastiest piece of girl-flesh I’ve seen since leaving Paris.”

Had Jenny been older, a dozen acid retorts would have occurred to her. As it was she simply voiced her prime amazement, “So you are the Duke of Wharton, Rob was running footman to!”

“What!” Wharton was startled out of his lascivious thoughts. “What do you mean?”

“I once knew a running footman who was in your service,” explained Jenny hastily, wondering if she had said too much. Never before had she dared mention Rob to anyone but Lady Betty.

“I’ve had many footmen,” said the Duke, raising a plucked eyebrow. “I shouldn’t have thought a young lady would interest herself -- but wait! Did you say your name was Lee? Are you Lord Lichfield’s niece?”

“No,” said Jenny. “I’m just, just a ward of -- of the Lees.” And she blushed uncomfortably.

“Ah --” The Duke gave a lazy laugh. “Now, I remember. The little bastard, of course,” he added to himself. Bastard either of his distant cousin Betty’s or of that paralytic lunkhead of a colonel she’d married. It had greatly amused him when he came back from abroad to find that there existed such an irregularity in the pompous Lee household. And what a byblow one of them had begot, to be sure! She’s exquisite, thought the Duke -- green fruit, and I would like to ripen it. “I know the footman you mean. I hired him away from Lichfield,” he said pleasantly. “Best runner I ever had. Robert Wilson. I grew quite fond of him -- fonder as it happened than he was of me -- great male hairy brute that he was.” The Duke gave a high laugh and a shrug, which Jenny did not understand. “I treated him very well -- but he left me, invested his savings in the South Sea Company, thought he was rich -- poor devil.”

“And isn’t he?” asked Jenny anxiously.

The Duke shrugged again. “Not if he was caught when the bubble burst -- like most of us.”

Jenny bit her lips and was silent. She knew about the South Sea Bubble. The Lees had lost a great deal of money in it, and Colonel Lee had suffered an apoplexy as a result. Valuable paintings had been sold from the mansion on George Street, the staff cut down to four, and Jenny could not have stayed at school without Lord Lichfield’s help; since Lady Betty had three children of her own to rear, and an invalid husband to care for.

“Guido!” called the Duke suddenly, and gestured towards his Italian secretary, who had been hovering some feet away. “Bring another brandy!”

“Wiz pleasure, your grace,” said the Italian, running over. “Then it is permitted that I begin the accompaniments? His lordship wishes la Signora Robinson to start singing.”

“Aye, indeed,” said Wharton languidly. “You can do your tweedling and twanging -- that’s what I brought you here for. Yet stay --” The Italian turned and waited. “What do you think of my discovery?” The Duke put his hand on Jenny’s neck, pinched it gently, then wound his fingers through her thick yellow hair, and pulled her head towards him. She shuddered at his touch; rage such as she had never known exploded through her body. She violently slapped the insinuating painted face which was approaching hers.

“Per Bacco!”
whispered Guido, appalled. One or two people turned to stare curiously, wondering who the pretty girl was who seemed to have discomfited Wharton. The Duke sat immobile on the sofa, pressing his hand to his rapidly reddening cheek.

“I’m s-sorry, your grace,” stammered Jenny, collapsing. “I can’t b-bear to be touched.”

The Duke looked at her without expression. “ ‘Tis plain to see you’ve peasant blood in you, my sweet,” he said. “I dislike coarseness.” He got up and walking away from her, seated himself on the other side of the room, which was rapidly filling up.

Jenny sat stiff-necked on the sofa, fiercely trying not to cry. She knew that by any of the codes she was being taught, she had been unbearably childish and ill-bred. One did not insult a duke who condescended to admire one, and who had not even hinted at what Mrs. Strudick warned all the girls were “dishonorable proposals.” Yet she was not contrite. The Duke, and that Guido too, emanated a sort of decay -- like rosebuds which never opened and remained hard and glossy but rotted within, giving forth at last an evil smell because of a hidden black worm inside them.

There was a bustle at the end of the ballroom. Guido glided onto the harpsichord bench, Mrs. Robinson stood up in her gentle stately way and waited for the rustlings and chair-creakings to cease.

Though longing to hear the music, Jenny looked around anxiously for Evelyn, and seeing neither her friend nor Mr. Byrd, she slid from the sofa, and got out the door, before the prima donna started the
Griselda
aria which had made her famous.

Jenny found Evelyn in the hall, very flushed, standing with her hand to her forehead, leaning against the wall. Mr. Byrd stood there too, scowling at his daughter.

Jenny came up to them timidly, and Byrd said with a start, “Oh, Miss Jenny, I’d quite forgot you. We’re leaving at once, the coach is coming.” He walked to the door to see if it was there, and Jenny whispered, “What happened?”

“He saw Wilfred with me in the garden,” Evelyn whispered back. “I denied it, but he’s pretty sure. He’s sending me away to Essex. To my cousins at Purleigh. Jenny, see that Wilfred
knows!”

Jenny squeezed her friend’s hand, and desolately resigned herself to missing the musicale, and to a thunderous drive back to school. But the surprises of the afternoon were not yet over.

Just as Mr. Byrd’s coach was announced, a lady came up the steps and, pushing past the footman, rushed into the hall.

“Lady Betty!” cried Jenny in amazement and delight. She ran towards the woman who had been the only mother she had really known, and curtseying, kissed her hand. Betty gave her a quick hug. “I came here to get you, dear,” she said. She glanced at Mr. Byrd and Evelyn. “What -- leaving already? Surely, I hear Mrs. Robinson singing?”

“My daughter has displeased me, my lady,” said Byrd heavily, for once forgetting all his gallantries. “I am sending her to the country, where she may repent of her behavior.”

“Dear, dear,” said Betty. “I’m sorry to hear this. Well, I’ll disembarrass you of Jenny. I’m taking her back to George Street with me. I’ve already notified the school.”

Jenny gave a gasp of pleasure, while Byrd bowed and Evelyn, looking hard at her friend, formed the words “George Street” with her lips. Jenny signaled agreement. She knew that Sir Wilfred lived on George Street, not six doors from the Lees. She could now manage to tell him directly about Evelyn.

The Byrds went out, and Jenny cried, “Oh, my lady. I’m so happy. May we stay and hear the music?”

“I think not,” said Betty. “I’ve come to fetch you, because of a very important matter. It -- it can’t wait.”

Jenny looked up curiously, seeing that her benefactress was different from her usual quiet self. There was a youthful sparkle about her, a suppressed excitement.

“Has something good happened, my lady?” asked Jenny. Betty’s pale, rather drawn face sobered. “In a way,” she said, “in a way. At least I’m sure
you’ll
think so.” She sighed suddenly. “Come, child, my coach is waiting.”

The long summer twilight filtered into the coach, and as they started back towards London, Betty turned to look at the girl. “Heaven!” she said. “That frock’s much too small for you. You’re growing up. I hadn’t realized. I’ll have one of mine cut down --” She broke off with an exasperated sound. “I
wish
I could buy you a new one.”

“I know, my lady,” said Jenny. “And you’re so good to me.” There was an unconscious tremble in the soft voice, and Betty put her hand over Jenny’s. “Tell me, dear, she said, “have you ever wondered about yourself -- where you came from?”

“Often and often,” said the girl after a moment. “And I confess it has -- has hurt me to find I’m baseborn.”

“Baseborn!”
repeated Betty sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

“Why, they say so at school -- the mistresses -- I heard them, and some of the girls have taunted me. And then today the Duke of Wharton, he called me a bastard.”

“Philip?” cried Betty in amazement. “Pay no attention to Philip. He’s a stewpot of all the vices, and is quite mad. Anyway he knows nothing about you, nor do they at school. Poor Jenny, I had no idea . . . Tell me, whose child do they say you are?”

“The Colonel’s,” said Jenny miserably. “I don’t think that’s true, because of that time long ago -- in the cellar at my Lord Lichfield’s . . .”

“You remember that?”

Jenny bowed her head. “Like a dream, but I remember.” “And you’ve never spoken of it?” “Never, my lady. I promised not to.”

“Ah, you’re a loyal child,” said Betty, on a long sigh. “Sometimes I think that loyalty is the only true virtue in the world worth having.” She gazed, unseeing, at the moving line of elms outside the coach.

“I’ve wondered, my lady,” said Jenny looking down at her lap. “I’ve wondered if --” she faltered. “Please forgive me, if I do wrong to ask, but perhaps
you
--” She stopped as Betty turned her head and gazed at the girl’s reddening face.

“No, dear,” said Betty very gently. “I wish you
were
my child, in a way you should have been -- but forget that. You are not. And, Jenny, though alas you may not talk about it, nor explain to anyone, you must know the truth. You are not baseborn, you are not anyone’s bastard. You were born in wedlock.”

Jenny breathed hard, and Betty saw in the widened eyes the light of incredulous joy, then the shimmer of tears. Her own eyes misted, and she squeezed Jenny’s hand tight. Then Betty spoke with a hint of her old gaiety. “That’s not to say that there isn’t a bit of bastardy further back in both our lines!”

“What,
my lady!” For a horrified instant Jenny wondered if Lady Betty was making fun of her, and if the precious assurance she had given was only a jest.

Betty went on. “Though a
king’s
bastards do not really count as such, especially if they are recognized and ennobled. Your great-grandfather, Jenny, and my grandfather were the same man -- King Charles the Second of England!”