Lady of the Butterflies (49 page)

WHEN I WOKE, the morning of Friday the twelfth of June, it was to a greeting of more drums and fiddles and bawdy laughter. I dressed and went below stairs to find the tables laid with food and my husband happily breaking his fast with the new guests, who were arriving from the more far-flung villages to bring their congratulations.

Goodwill and joy rang through the hall until Thomas Knight burst through the doors in a state of great agitation. He climbed up onto one of the tables, trampling the flowers beneath his boots, and seized a musket from the wall. Silence fell instantly and completely, as if everyone had been turned to stone.

“This is no time for feasting,” he declared before anyone had had a chance to react. He clutched the weapon to his chest, excitement gleaming in his eyes. “Every able man must take up his arms and make ready. I have it from a messenger. The Duke of Monmouth’s fleet landed at Lyme at sunset yesterday. Hundreds are rallying to his support.”

I threw back my chair and ran outside to the orchard. Richard tried to grab my hand to stop me, but I would not be stopped. I needed air, sky, space.

Not now. It could not happen now.

The sun was still shining. The sky was a perfect summery blue and the birds were twittering. I was still newly married. But the wedding feast would not go on for twelve days. Instead of music and laughter, the air would reverberate again with the sound of cannon fire. Instead of sharing hospitality and good cheer, neighbor would turn once again against neighbor. Blood was to be spilled once more over Somersetshire’s black peat. I had wanted this marriage to begin favorably, in a blaze of color and in joy. Instead it was to begin in darkness and in battle.

RICHARD HAD HIS FEET UP on the wedding table, amidst the crushed flowers and debris of the abandoned feast. He was quaffing a cup of canary wine from a leftover flagon, his eyes strangely bright and glittering. I rested my hand on his shoulder, dropped a kiss on the top of his curly head. “I am so sorry that marriage to me has landed you in the West Country now,” I said softly. “If you had stayed away from me, far away from me, you might not have been embroiled in this rebellion.”

He reached back and laid his hand upon mine. Swinging his feet to the floor, he pulled me gently down into his lap. “I could not stay away from you, Nell,” he said, almost ominously. “I had to have you, even if it meant my damnation.”

They were words he might have intended as flattery, no more than that. They meant nothing. No. They meant something, though I did not know what. Did not in truth want to know, even to contemplate.

He tipped the cup to my lips for me to drink, but I pushed it away. “Will you go now? Will you go and help try to put down the rebellion?”

“You mean, will I fight for our crowned and anointed King?” With the backs of his fingers he traced the low, lace-edged neckline of my gown and he smiled that lovely inquiring smile of his. “I had a healthy regard for our second King Charles and his passion for wenching and wine,” he said. “But I can’t say I care as much for his brother. So maybe I should join the rebels instead, support the heroic Protestant duke? Would you like that, little daughter of a Roundhead, my little Puritan maid? Would you like me to turn renegade for love of you?”

I flung my arms around his neck. “All I want is for you to stay with me,” I blurted, close to tears. “I do not want you to support anyone.”

“Then perhaps I won’t.”

But I did not for a moment believe this studied indifference. He was blessedly unfettered by dogma, prayed like a perfect Anglican, but this rebellion was not just about religion, not for him. He had an unshakable alliance to the monarchy, and the monarchy was once again under threat.

I pushed back so I could see his face. “Thomas Knight and Ned and John Hort have already gone,” I said.

“Good for them.”

“They see it as their duty to fight for the cause their fathers fought for,” I added carefully.

“Hah! It is more that they are ready to fight for any cause, especially one led by a colorful popular hero such as the Duke of Monmouth. Albeit that he is King Charles’s bastard son, he is a very courageous and charming bastard. It’s not so very hard for the political agitators to rouse a band of young hot-blooded men, ready for action and glory. They’d ride into any battle so long as it gave them a chance to wield a musket or a pike and be a hero. You have a little boy. You know the games boys like to play.”

“Thomas and Ned are both older than you,” I said. I knew he was just toying with me, knew he would go and lead the militia, would be lured, like the rest of them, by the promise of action and adventure and glory. More than that, even if he would not admit it even to himself, he would surely also be lured by what he could not fail to see as a chance, finally, to avenge the death of his brother and the ruin of his family fortunes.

I linked my arms around his neck, threaded my fingers into the silken black curls and kissed him, frantic little kisses, all over his face. “I will not let you go,” I said. His eyes were so deep and so blue that I felt almost as if I could dive into them. How I wished I could. “If you do join the militia, then I am coming with you. I shall be like a camp follower in the war, the women who went to be with their husbands, to face whatever perils they faced. I will cook for you and make sure you fight on a full stomach. I will be there to tend to you if you are wounded. I will lay down my life and die on the battlefield with you, if it should come to that.”

“I would not have you put in danger,” he said. “Not for my sake.”

“But
you
will be in danger,” I cried.

He gazed at me as if he wanted to fix an image of me in his mind, and I saw in his eyes a fatalistic acceptance of the hand that might be dealt him.

“Are you afraid, love?” I asked him.

“Of scythe men and musketeers?” He shook his head. “No.”

“Of what, then?”

“I am afraid of losing you.”

“You will not lose me. Why would you lose me?”

He did not reply.

“You are frightening me, Richard. Don’t look at me that way.”

“What way?”

“As if you might never see me again.”

He stroked the stray tendrils of hair from my cheek. “I waited so long for you, my little Nell, so long. But maybe you were right. Maybe we should not be together. Maybe we do not deserve happiness, even now. Maybe I do not deserve it.”

I took his lovely face between my hands, forced him to look at me. “You do deserve it, Richard,” I said adamantly. “You do. And you shall have it. I shall make you happy.”

He kissed me, almost savagely, as if to defy a fate, or a God, that might break us apart, and then he left me. He swung himself up into the saddle and rode away from me and into battle.

BESS AND I WAITED together for news, even though the men we loved were fighting on opposing sides, even though good news for one of us must mean bad news for the other. We waited in the same empty rooms for the same empty, eternal days, when even the long hours of warm summer sunshine could not dispel the darkness that had fallen over Tickenham Court once again. As I tossed corn to the clucking hens, collected eggs, weeded the soggy vegetable patch, helped Sam do his father’s work and feed and groom the horses, waiting for them to be requisitioned for who could say which side, I did not feel like a new wife fresh from the marriage bed. I felt like a widow still, a widow who had lost not one young husband but two.

I was helping Mary with her Latin and Bess was sweeping the floor when Florence Smythe, John’s tall and elegant eldest sister, rode over with news, finally, but news that brought no relief to either of us, that made the waiting even more unbearable.

“Monmouth’s army is on the move,” she said. “It is now three thousand strong. The Devon militia to the west and the Somersetshire militia to the east are converging on Axminster to prevent their advance.”

I dropped my face into little Mary’s curly red hair. If it were not for her and her brother, I would have left for Axminster right then. I was sure this waiting was far worse than being at the vanguard of any fighting, no matter how brutal. But still we must wait, knowing now that a confrontation between the two armies was imminent. Still we must wait, dreading the worst.

Florence had promised she would come back as soon as she had further news, but when nearly a week had crawled by, I felt so certain something must have happened, I could wait no longer. I set out to ride to Ashton Court. A pale sun was struggling to break through the mist and as I rode through the deer park, a stag with enormous antlers appeared from out of nowhere and crossed the path in front of me, like a strange, majestic spirit.

I did not reach the mansion, but met Florence riding toward me, her cloak draped elegantly over her horse’s hindquarters. As she reined in and we faced each other on our mounts, I saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.

“How did you know?” she said. “I was on my way to tell you.”

I clutched the pommel of the saddle to stop myself from slipping off.

“Oh Eleanor, dear, do not be alarmed.” With a jingle of the bridle Florence leaned across to rest her hand on mine. “It is with relief that I cry, and more than a little trepidation, but not for sorrow.”

The herd of red deer over toward the ancient oak woods stopped watching us and resumed their grazing. “It is over, so quickly? Monmouth is defeated?”

“No,” she said, tightening the reins to hold her horse steady. “He is not. But it is over for our men. We have just had it from the messenger. Monmouth’s rebels sent cannon and musketeers to line the routes of entry into Axminster, and in the face of such determination the militia were forced to retreat. The army marched on to Chard. The militia met them again there but were routed, abandoning their weapons and uniforms by the roadside.” She laughed even as she cried. “It was a shamefully disorderly and humiliating defeat, and my brother will be so displeased. It means the way is left open to Taunton and then for Monmouth to try for a tilt at Bristol, but at least our men can come home to us and leave it to the royal dragoons.”

I could not share her relief. “But Florence, where are the dragoons?”

“They are on their way. The King’s commander in chief also, to inspect the city defenses.”

I turned to the left, where the mist was clearing now, revealing spectacular views across the city. “And if they do not hold? If Bristol should be taken?”

Bristol was too close. Much too close.

I DID NOT HEAR the hooves of Richard’s horse clatter into the yard, though I had been listening out for the sound all day, so quietly did he come back to me. He walked into the great hall as the light was failing, his riding boots caked in mud, his cloak splattered with it. Even the glinting sword buckled at his side was tarnished. There were several days’ growth of dark stubble on his face, his skin was gray with weariness and his eyes looked bruised. The instant I saw him, I checked myself from running to greet him and throwing myself into his arms, from giving him the welcome I could see he did not want, did not believe he deserved. I went and took his hand and kissed it. “My love, thank God that you are safe.”