Now Face to Face (74 page)

The Duchess’s heart was fluttering, birdlike, in her chest, making her dizzy. Diana laid the sheaf of bluebells in the Duchess’s lap, and the Duchess stared down at the color, which seemed to swim at the edges of her vision like deep blue water. She lost herself a moment to time and space, became suspended in the blue. A young Diana looked back at her, chin lifted, the way Barbara lifted her chin. I will do as I please. And so she had, always.

“Leave it be.” Diana balanced on the cane. “Tell the Gypsy to do as I ask. She knows the herbs that will do the deed. Order her, Mother, I beg you. When, in all our life together, have I ever begged you? I beg now.”

Swirling, swirling blue. The third child was a girl child. At last, said Richard, holding the naked, squalling baby aloft to the nymphs painted upon the ceiling, none of whom were as beautiful as this child would grow to be. My pet, my sweetling, my lovely little girl, crooned Richard. Diana.

“N
OT ONLY
have the French betrayed us, but so has someone else, someone among ourselves, at the highest levels. I don’t know whether from France or from Italy.”

The Bishop of Rochester sat without moving. Lord Oxford closed his eyes, placed his hands, which Slane noticed were trembling, in his lap. Oxford, you were considered the most treacherous, the wiliest man in Queen Anne’s court, thought Slane. We need that guile now. Where is it? Did you leave it in the Tower of London? Old man, old man, go home and close your door.

Wharton went to a sideboard, poured himself more wine. Aunt Shrew, playing a game of solitaire, had stopped somewhere in the midst of Slane’s speaking to gaze out a nearby window. Dr. Freind was silent. Will Shippen swore softly. Gussy pinched at the bridge of his nose, a quiet gesture that for some reason angered Slane.

Is that where your heartbreak is? thought Slane, watching him, watching them all. Others—Lord North, the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Arran, Lord Cowper—were not here. Divisions deepened as summer progressed.

“North, Norfolk, Arran, Cowper must be told,” Slane said, looking to Rochester, upon whom most of the King’s suspicion rested. The gossip at Lady Mary’s gathering had been that Rochester would be arrested within the week. Lady Mary and Alexander Pope had both reported hearing it.

“I can have you escorted from the country within two days. King James will receive you with all love and appreciation,” Slane said to him.

“Leave the grave of my wife, the country of my birth, my parishioners, my church, my daughter and grandchildren, my friends, never to see them again? Upon Robert Walpole’s vindictive use of rumor and fear? No. I will see it out. Walpole toys with me.” Rochester spat the words out. “He tries to break my nerve.”

Slane met Aunt Shrew’s eyes. If Rochester is arrested, she had asked him, forthrightly, the way she would, will he betray the rest of us, or not?

He will not, Slane had replied.

Word had come to him from Paris this morning. The Duke of Ormonde was in Spain, fighting off his debtors, for he had mortgaged and borrowed upon everything he had to buy arms for the invasion. The French had ordered all Irish soldiers back to their regiments, on pain of hanging. Officials all along the Spanish coast had been ordered to put embargoes upon any suspicious ships. Two—Jacobite, sent to help Ormonde—were already embargoed. King James wrote letters to keep up the spirits of those here, sent them medals in appreciation. “Plans are simply put back,” he wrote. He could not yet accept truth. Slane would tell him truth.

People here were exhausted. This was the fourth time in ten years that they’d hoarded coins, mortgaged lands, sent money abroad to support an invasion. I’m bankrupt, Wharton had said today, with his odd, cruel smile, as if it were nothing. He’d given nearly everything he owned toward this invasion, and told his bailiffs, who questioned him about the emptiness of his coin boxes, that he had gambled and lost. His patrimony was in ruins. Oh, don’t look so upset, Slane. I can hold off those I owe. Wharton didn’t complain, and Slane loved him for it. He’d drink himself to death instead.

There was a knock at the door. Gussy went out to talk with the servant who knocked.

“Lady Devane, on her way to Tamworth, is below, wishing to speak with you,” Gussy told Rochester.

Slane saw Rochester’s face soften.

“You will forgive me, I hope, if I take a moment to visit with her. Her husband was a great friend to me, as was her father. I am touched that she takes time to see me.”

Rochester stood unsteadily, as Gussy helped him with his crutches. Everyone was silent as he limped from the chamber.

I am a leper among my own, he’d said today. Those who are not afraid to be seen speaking with me do not trust me and won’t speak to me. I’ve made my own hell, Slane. I won’t betray, no matter what befalls. Slane believed him. Everyone’s courage was showing. There was in his throat a growing knot at seeing it—the loyalty they gave Jamie, the sacrifices made, which they must live with ever after. He must salvage as many of them, as much of their time and trouble, as he could before leaving. He must, or die trying.

“He’ll betray us,” said Will Shippen.

“I think not,” said Slane.

“I must remember to tell Jane Lady Devane is home.”

Gussy spoke to no one in particular. He had the stunned look of someone who has been given a great shock. Like Wharton, like Slane, he had harbored hopes of an autumn invasion.

Jane had become a favorite of Slane’s. She came to London often now to visit, the children with her, and they piled into Gussy’s small chamber like pumpkins. Slane liked those days Jane came to stay, the chamber lit by candles in the evening, Gussy stirring some thick soup in a pot, Jane putting children to sleep in the bed, she and Gussy fretting and fussing over them. There was something warm and comfortable and good in Gussy’s chamber on those days. A time or two, he had watched over the children for them. He had given Gussy a key to his own lodging, and he always liked to see their faces when they returned, Jane beginning to blush, as Gussy explained, in too long and detailed a manner, how they’d seen the lions at the Tower or gone to view the waxworks, as if a man could not rejoice that he took time to make love to a beloved wife.

“No one is arrested yet. As far as I am concerned, we have come out of this beautifully,” said Aunt Shrew. “In another two years, who knows what will have happened? Walpole may be dismissed. The King may die. That would be a mercy, for the Prince of Wales is openly despised by those who serve him. It will come together again if we do not lose hope. In 1715, two of my dearest friends lost their heads on Tower Hill. I saw Bolingbroke, Marr, Ormonde, Alderley flee, and the Hanovers take their estates. Lord Oxford here was sent to the Tower to rot. He is free now. We still have our heads, and what’s more, we still have our freedom. Rumor may nip at our heels, but rumor is not proof.”

B
ARBARA WALKED
down a gravel path in Rochester’s garden. She slapped her gloves in her palm absently, her head, her thoughts, her heart awhirl. Rochester had confirmed Carlyle’s words. Walpole had sacrificed Roger, the debt, and therefore her, to his own purposes. A false friend—no friend.

She opened the garden gate; across the road was the flash of sun on water. The river. She walked to it, leaned against a willow. In her mind was a memory from Virginia: the morning she’d killed the stag.

She remembered her surprise at herself, the surging triumph she had felt as she saw the animal stagger, run a few feet, then drop. Later, riding back, the stag hung by its hooves upon a pole carried by the slaves, she had known a new thing: that—in spite of her laces and skirts, her birth, her manners, her sex—savagery was within her, just as deeply as she had imagined it within the slaves, with their braided hair, scarred faces, and angry eyes. She called on that savagery now.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. The game Robin played was subtle and brutal. The better part of valor is discretion, Colonel Perry had quoted when she’d insisted she would tell the Governor about Bolling’s smuggling. She would be discreet. She would have to be. Robin was the stag.

A stone went skimming across the water of the river, three leaps before it sank. She turned to see the boy who threw it, and there he was: Duncannon. He skimmed another stone before he joined her. Willow touched the cloth of his coat at his shoulders. How tired he looks, thought Barbara, how sad.

“Walpole makes inquiries about you,” he said. “I overheard him. About you and your brother in Italy. Be careful, Lady Devane. Beware.”

“You lied to me about the invasion.”

“So I did. Forgive me. I do not lie now. There will be no invasion.”

Great emotion, great sadness was in his voice. I feel as if I’ve known you forever, she thought. So much to tell him: that she had not betrayed him to Robin; that she was after Robin herself, now.

“Walpole won’t reduce the fine,” he said.

He’d promised, she had just heard him promise it. “Why not!”

“He was given information that is valuable, and not reducing the fine was the price.”

How I hate Robin, thought Barbara. “Who asked him not to?”

“The Prince de Soissons.”

Philippe. I hate you, too. But I always have.

“What name do you go by, here?” she asked.

“Laurence Slane. I am known as Laurence Slane.”

She repeated it: “Laurence Slane.”

He kissed her then, leaning forward easily, a light kiss, on the lips, surprising her. He said nothing, and neither did she.

In another moment, he was across the road, going wherever it was he went. She looked down at her hand. He had put something into it, a stone. She had no memory of his giving it to her.

Could she still skim a stone across water? When she was a girl, she could do it. Yes, three leaps, as good as his.

Later, in the carriage, she put her fingers to her lips; his kiss was still there. How odd she felt, as if some spell upon her were lifted. Roger’s no more, she thought, and in that was sadness, but also joy. When she was a girl, she’d known exactly what she wanted. Her feelings had told her where to go and what to do. It had taken cruelty and betrayal to mix her to pieces. Loss to make her find herself. Like the girl of old, she knew what she wanted now, Robin’s head, Devane Square’s rise, and perhaps, Laurence Slane.

“To Tamworth,” she told the coachman. She’d rest there for a time before beginning. It would be peaceful.

“S
HE VOMITS
again, but nothing more,” reported Annie. “No sign of blood.”

The Duchess had Tim carry her to the bedchamber in which Diana rested, wan, pale, white-faced against even whiter pillow coverings. The crimson hangings of this chamber were overpowering; for once, they even overpowered Diana. When these chambers had been built, Richard had been upon his rise. His beloved daughter must have whatever she wished; he’d lure her to Tamworth with a bedchamber hung with finest crimson cloth. Diana had been like a lovely, dark moth in them. She was the wickedest woman at court, which he would not see. Or did he see, and yet love anyway? Oh, Richard, it would have been the way you loved, accepting all that was in another, the good and the bad, loving simply and purely. You were always better at love than I, thought the Duchess.

She made Tim and Annie leave, though she allowed Diana’s faithful fool, Clemmie, to remain. What that serving woman had seen in her years of service would most likely put another in the grave.

Diana was waking. Her hands atop the covers went at once to her abdomen. She looked to Clemmie, whose expression, as far as the Duchess could see, did not change. But Diana and Clemmie must have an unspoken language such as the Duchess and Annie did, for Diana turned her head away, brought her hand up to wipe at her face.

A true tear? thought the Duchess. If so, it would be worth the price of a diamond for its rarity. Diana’s cast-off lovers would rise from early graves to see it.

“I’ve been thinking, Diana. Is there no fool among the men you know who will marry you?”

Diana made a face of disgust. “After Kit died, I vowed I would never put myself in another man’s hands again.”

“You put something there, however, didn’t you? Now, listen a moment. I assume you still believe, as always you did, that coins are there for the spending, and nothing else. A marriage might be just the thing. It would give you a resting place for your old age. You are not becoming any younger, you know. Barbara received my land of Bentwoodes as dowry, but I have a farm or two all mine that I might give you, some bank funds invested I might be persuaded to part with as bribe to a reluctant bridegroom, if need be. Could you not make Walpole think it is his, have him arrange that one of his minions marry you? You’ll soon see the darker side of your years, Diana, and this child, who seems determined to stay among us, will take its toll. Think upon it, it’s all I ask. Clemmie, call my footman to come and fetch me. Your mistress has, as usual, exhausted me.”

“Mother…”

The Duchess waited, fearful of what else Diana might ask. Nothing was ever simple between them. Always, always, they bartered.

“May I stay awhile, here? At Tamworth?”

A pain as piercing as unrequited love squeezed the Duchess’s heart. She nodded.