Devil Water (41 page)

“King Charles?” Jenny repeated blankly. King Charles was somebody out of the history book, the “Merry Monarch who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one.” Miss Crowe always hurried over his career and that of his brother James to land with relief at the “Glorious Revolution.” And even that was long ago, before William and Mary, and before Queen Anne.

“It’s quite true,” said Betty, “though I can see you doubt it. You have royal Stuart blood.”

“But I can’t,” cried Jenny, her mind spinning. “I mean, aren’t the Stuarts --
Jacobites?’“

At Jenny’s expression Betty laughed outright. “You speak as though a Jacobite was a serpent, or a kind of ghoulish fiend! And so I dare say many people think. I know that you’ve been taught so, yet very soon I think you’ll alter your opinion -- at least you’ll modify it.”

Jenny slumped back on the red plush coach cushions. “I’m very muddled, my lady,” she said, “though I see two things which make me happy, or will if I can believe them. I am not baseborn and you and I have kinship. I’ve ever longed for both those things.”

“Then you may stop longing, my dear, and
be
happy!” said Betty with a faint smile. “In truth you don’t ask much.” Nor had she ever, Betty thought, looking back over the years in which she had cared for Jenny. The child had never made a demand, she had swallowed many a sorrow and uncertainty in silence. Only one wish had Jenny ever expressed, and that was about the big raw North Country lad, Rob Wilson. Yet it was three years since the lad had gone back North, and Jenny must have forgotten all about him, by now.

“My lady,” said Jenny, her lovely eyes anxious, “I was rude to the Duke of Wharton. I slapped his face, when he touched my neck.”

“Did
you!” said Betty. “Well, I’m sure he deserved it.” And she frowned, though not at Jenny. She knew Philip’s depraved tastes and suddenly perceived that Jenny’s budding beauty might bring many dangers.

“He said,” went on Jenny, relieved that Lady Betty wasn’t annoyed, “that I was coarse, and must have peasant blood. Is it true, my lady?”

“No. At least you could never be coarse, on that I’d stake my life. As for ‘peasant’ blood, perhaps in a way, your mother--” Betty stopped. How ridiculous to still feel a drumming in her ears and a clutch in the throat when she thought of Meg Snowdon. “Your mother,” Betty went on, “is a simple Border lass, her folk are farmers. I -- don’t know much about her.”

“There was darkness in the North,” said Jenny slowly. “I see a little tower by a black hill and I hear the sound of water. There was a woman who loved me, I think, but hardly ever spoke to me. She had long brown hair, and o’ nights would sit in the ingle, and read from a big book of Scriptures. Sometimes I think she wept, ‘greeted’ we called it, sometimes she was angry with a poor old daft man. My lady, was that my mother?”

“I suppose so, dear.”

“And my name -- was it not Snawdon?”

“No. Your name is Radcliffe, one of the proudest names in England, and your father’s line goes back unbroken through earls and baronets and knights to the time of the Saxons.”

“My father’s name was Radcliffe?” said Jenny, struggling with a strong sense of unreality.

“It
is
Radcliffe, said Betty emphatically. “He is alive and well, and he is in London. You’ll see him soon. That’s why I’ve fetched you today, yes, you may well look startled, and there is more to come!” Betty glanced at the coach roof to be sure the panel which communicated with the footmen was shut, and she lowered her voice.

“He is here incognito, Jenny. You know what that means? He should not have risked coming back, for in England he’s under sentence of death -- oh, rash and impetuous, daredevil as always --” Betty stopped, seeing the gray eyes grow rounder. “Never mind that. He is here under the name of Mr. Jones.”

“What had he done, my lady?” the girl asked in a small voice.

“He was out in the ‘Fifteen. He fought very bravely to restore the Pretender to the throne. He is in fact an entirely dedicated Jacobite. And another thing, he’s a Roman Catholic. I’m sorry to give you so many shocks at once, but it’s necessary now.”

Jenny was very still, looking down at her knees. The joy of finding she had the right to an honored name, and was kin to Lady Betty was almost completely canceled by discovering that the mysterious father was a Catholic Jacobite in hiding. And under
still
another name!

“Shall I now be Miss
Jones?”
asked Jenny with the faintest edge to her voice. “My lady, I fear I’m not very eager to meet this -- this gentleman. And I -- I wonder that you --”

She trailed off, checked by politeness, but Betty understood.

“You wonder that I should be party to a deception so against my principles? I’ve wondered myself, and don’t expect you to understand. So, my dear, there’s nothing for you to do except obey, and I promise you,” Betty smiled ruefully at the girl, “I believe I can assure you, that you’ll not find this meeting with your father as distasteful as you seem to fear.”

Two hours later, Betty sat at her husband’s bedside, reading to him from the last issue of the
Flying Post.
Frank particularly liked the Court news, and the lists of shares on the Exchange. Betty read the items out mechanically while she speculated on the interview between Charles and Jenny which was taking place in Frank’s erstwhile study downstairs.

Betty had made no effort to conceal Charles’s visit. None of the servants had ever seen him before, and she had explained him as a potential tutor for the children, and given this verisimilitude by sending in her own three, ahead of Jenny -- Little Charles-Henry, who was ten and called Harry, then Bess, who was six, and Caroline, named for the Princess, who was four. Charles, playing his part gravely, had immediately set all three some writing tasks appropriate to their various ages. Betty had removed the little ones when she took Jenny to the study, and waited only long enough to see father and daughter staring at each other in embarrassed astonishment.

Jenny’s exceptional prettiness might be no great surprise to Charles, who had seen her as a baby, though it must be startling to be confronted with a nearly grown daughter. Charles, however, must inevitably be another shock to Jenny, who had endured a good many of them in the last hour. Charles did not look like any father the girl could have seen. He was twenty-nine, and extremely handsome. The haggardness and prison pallor, of course, had long since gone. His body was filled out with muscle, his skin tanned and ruddy -- evidences that in exile he had managed to enjoy the outdoor sports he loved. The simple dark clothes (suitable to a Mr. Jones) became him; so did a more subdued manner. If he had lost all boyishness, and much of his swagger, and if there were faint lines of suffering around his mouth, and a hint of bitterness in his full bright gaze, to Betty at least, his appeal was but increased.

Frank on the bed gave an inarticulate grunt and waved his good hand.

Betty started and said, “I’m sorry, my dear, where was I? Oh, yes, we finished the shares, now would you like the Court news?”

Frank grunted again, and from long habit she interpreted it as assent. There had been many months of this, ever since the dreadful day when he had been forced to admit that the South Sea Company’s bubble had burst, that no amount of holding on and desperately inflating it with yet more cash, was of any avail. A hundred thousand pounds in paper profits -- these were gone. His own private fortune was gone, Betty’s legacy was gone -- all vanished into nothingness.

Throughout England there were myriads in a similar plight, though this was chill comfort to the Lees, especially as Walpole and a few astute ones had sold out in time. What madness was it that had overcome the staid, cautious Frank? He who would never permit the paltriest of social gambling in his home had yet succumbed to the lure of a “sound investment” backed as it was by the Bank of England. Shame and despair and perhaps the feeling that his best friend Walpole had in a way betrayed him -- all these had felled poor Frank. In the very act of rushing into the Exchange, he had collapsed on the sidewalk in a twitching, snoring coma.

The miseries of the next weeks Betty had mercifully forgotten. Her brother Lichfield had come to the rescue. He had settled debts, appointed a new land agent for Frank’s remaining Buckinghamshire properties, and helped her govern and apportion the little income that was left. And Lichfield paid Sir Hans Sloane, the great physician, under whose constant care and bleedings Frank gradually improved. Instead of a senseless hulk, he had become half a man. He could hear and think, he could respond a little with painful halting speech, but the limbs on his right side were still much impaired.

Betty glanced at him as she read, and found his eyes fixed on her with a dumb beastlike pleading. “Oh, what
is
it?” she said. “Frank, don’t look like that! You’re getting better. Soon you’ll be much better and can take the waters at Tunbridge. Sir Hans says so.”

His mouth twitched, there was a brightening of his dull eyes; she saw, that as so often, she was able to give him reassurance.

“Shall we have the children in?” she asked. “They’ll amuse you for a bit. And Jenny’s here today, too.” His lips moved in a question, and she hurried on. “The child had a half holiday, and I brought her home. You’ll see her later.” Betty pulled the bell rope, and when Frank’s valet appeared she told him to send in the children.

Harry came first, holding his new beagle puppy, treading solemnly, and not looking at his father, whose invalidism he never quite got used to. He was a sturdy, serious child, much like Frank.

The little girls, however, are like me, alas, Betty thought. Or as I used to be. They both had red hair and freckles, they were pudgy, and no amount of maternal fondness could call them anything but plain.

“Come over here, Bess,” said Betty to her namesake. “Can you say a new piece for Papa?”

“Yes, Mama,” said the child, curtseying. “I can say ‘Lithe and
lis
ten
gentle
men
that be of
free-
born
blood,
I shall
tell
you of a
good
yeoman, his
name
was Robin
Hood.’
I know all of it. I said it for Mr. Jones in the study.”

Betty saw that this allusion passed Frank by, though she thought it wise to say “I’ve been interviewing a possible tutor. George-Henry thinks it might be a good idea.” Which was true. The Earl had suggested that a tutor would cut school expenses.

Frank nodded. His gaze reverted to Bess, and he motioned for her to start reciting. Long past were the days when he concerned himself with every household matter. Time slipped by for him in a blur, where only the immediate event had much importance.

Bess earnestly embarked on the seventy stanzas of “Robin Hood,” while Caroline stood listening with her finger in her mouth and Harry played with his puppy. Frank’s lids gradually closed. At the thirty-seventh stanza, the door opened and Jenny came in. She curtsied to Betty and said, “The gentleman is waiting in the study, my lady.” The girl spoke steadily, but she looked dazed and very pale. “I’ll sit by the Colonel,” she said, with a pitying glance at the figure on the bed. She took the chair Betty vacated, and the children crowded around her; little Caroline clambered into her lap.

Betty could not help asking, “What is your opinion of Mr. Jones, my dear? Do you think he qualifies?”

Jenny raised her head and answered Betty’s look. “Aye,” she said, and her mouth curved into its dazzling smile. “Aye, my lady. I think he does.”

Before Betty went downstairs she entered her own bedroom, where she rearranged her hair, fluffing it, pulling little curls forward on her temples. Next she tentatively rubbed the new Bavarian red liquor on her cheeks, and was half shamed, half gratified by the improvement. As she dabbed jessamine water on her neck an inner voice jeered at her for a fool, but she quelled the voice aloud. “Why
should.
I look older than my years? Why need I be a frump? Bah! ‘Tis every woman’s duty to look her best, and I’ve been remiss of late.”

She put pearls in her ear lobes, selected her best lace handkerchief, and walked down to the study. Charles was standing by the open window looking out into the fragrant, sunny garden. He turned as she entered, and coming towards her kissed her on the lips. “At last, dear Betty,” he said softly, “we can really talk together.” He handed her to a chair, and took another one beside her. “How often in these years, I’ve wished for this.”

The kiss, the caressing voice so disturbed her that she blushed under the rouge, and said brusquely, “Now you’ve seen Jenny -- which is what I think you really wished for all these years! What do you think of her?”

His smile faded, and he spoke with utmost seriousness. “Jenny is everything a man could want in a daughter. She does you enormous credit too. I needn’t tell you of my gratitude -- sacred gratitude for Jenny’s rearing -- and for my own life.”

Betty was aware of an unreasonable chill. Was it gratitude alone that he now felt for her? Yet if so, why not rejoice, since the old passions were as unseemly today as they had ever been. “Charles” she said quickly, “why have you risked coming back to England? ‘Tis not for plotting, I devoutly pray! You’ve nothing to do with this recent foul conspiracy, Atterbury and that scoundrel Christopher Layer?”

“No,” said Charles. “I’d nothing to do with that. Though I do what I can for the Cause, I assure you. But in Brussels, where I live, we’re not in the midstream of King James’s plans. The time
will
come when I shall fight for my King again. And we’ll win, never doubt it! Yet I believe our best hopes now lie with a three-year-old boy -- the bonniest boy in Christendom!”

“Oh,” said Betty shrugging. If the Jacobites were transferring their ambitions to the Pretender’s son, little Charles Edward Stuart, there could be no immediate danger. “Why then are you here?” she repeated. “It is so rash -- if we’d
only
waited until the Act of Grace, you’d be pardoned like all the others instead of still being under the death sentence!”

“And do you think,” said Charles smiling ruefully, “that your chivalrous, generous, charitable usurper, George, would have allowed me to remain in Newgate until the General Pardon?”