Now Face to Face (98 page)

“T
HERE YOU ARE.
Not trying to sneak out on me, are you, Bab?” said Pendarves some moments later.

“As a matter of fact, I am. I don’t think this is the night to approach her.”

“Now, Bab, you promised me.”

“Do I always have to keep promises? Why do I always have to keep promises? I am a creature of court and tell lies with the best of them.”

He didn’t answer.

“Go into the alcove at the end of the gallery,” she told him, and went to search the various chambers. She finally found her great-aunt playing cards. Aunt Shrew wore a black wig as dark as coal dust and a black gown with red ribbons; upon her shoulder was the Virginia blackbird with red topfeathers that Barbara had given her, the bird as silent and docile as if it were stuffed. It moved only to nibble at the diamonds hanging from her aunt’s ear.

“If Laurence Slane is a Jacobite agent,” Aunt Shrew was saying, “then so am I. Robert Walpole is just jealous of his handsome actor’s face.”

Barbara whispered to her.

“I’ve changed my mind, Bab. This verdict has put me off my feed.”

Barbara pulled the bird’s tail feathers. With a screech, he flew at the person across the table. Once the crow was caught, the coins and cards picked from the floor, apologies made, Aunt Shrew followed Barbara toward an alcove at the end of a long gallery.

“I’m a fool to do this,” she said, “Fool, fool, fool.”

“You promised. Look, he’s already there, waiting. Just hear him out. You haven’t to do another thing than that. It’s all he expects. He thinks he is dying. A physician has been to see him twice.”

“It is the only reason I agreed to see him, you may count upon that.”

Her aunt handed her the crow; Barbara walked a pace or so away. The gallery, long, filled with statues and paintings and heavy tables piled high with books, was empty of people.

“Lou,” Barbara heard Pendarves say, “forgive me. I’ve no words for what I’ve done, but she bewitched me, I swear it. If it were not for the fact she carries my child, there are times now when I think I could see her burned at the stake. The things she does, Lou, I could not withstand them; flesh is weak—”

“Good God, man, you’re not going to describe it for me, are you?”

“I think it is upon her mind to kill me with lust and then have my fortune. I’m afraid of her, I tell you. I no longer sleep there, not trusting her not to lure me to my death. Bab will tell you I’ve taken to sleeping in one of the townhouses. I know what a fool I’ve been, that it is you whom I love in my heart, have always loved. Forgive me, forgive an old man his foolish passions. I am so lonely without you. I am like a ghost. It is as if I do not exist anymore, I but wander about from place to place—”

“How I let myself be talked into agreeing to this, I will never know, except that Barbara could convince a saint when she is in the mood. You are a liar and a cheat and a coward—”

“Yes, Lou, you’re right, Lou, how I’ve missed talking to you, Lou, your honesty and forthrightness…”

After a time, the silence was just too intriguing. Barbara couldn’t help herself. She had to look. She tiptoed toward the alcove.

Her great-aunt sat in a chair. Pendarves was upon his knees before it; his face was in the lap of her gown, his arms were around her waist, and his shoulders were shaking. He was weeping. There was upon Aunt Shrew’s face the most curious expression: anger, pity, exasperation, consternation, self-mockery, all mingled together. Her hand, gloved in black, ten priceless bracelets above it if there was one, stroked the back of his neck gently, as if to comfort him. Or perhaps it was herself she comforted.

“What fools we all are,” her expression seemed to say. She saw Barbara and shrugged. Barbara opened her hands, and the crow flew from them to Aunt Shrew, took its place at her shoulder, then stared down with beady eyes at Pendarves, who hadn’t moved.

Barbara walked toward the stairs that led to the chambers below, where most of the guests would be. Coming up the stairs toward her was Wharton. His face was flushed. He’d been drinking.

“Have you gotten them together?”

“They are in an alcove at the end of the gallery.”

“She did not strike him on sight?”

Barbara shook her head.

Outside, alone, the night too cold to bear without a fur-lined cloak, she looked up at the stars, then went to the chamber given her and put on her cloak. Outside, again, she called for a carriage.

I
N THE
gallery, Wharton waited until Aunt Shrew saw him. She left Pendarves, who was wiping his face with a great white handkerchief and blowing his nose loudly.

“Word is he’s safe at his mother’s, outside Paris,” said Wharton. “He’s asked us to steal a royal swan for him and to rescue Gussy.”

“Thank God, oh, thank God. I haven’t slept in days,” said Aunt Shrew. “The bouquet of roses is off to Layer?” White roses would tell him he’d be taken care of on his execution day, given something to deaden pain.

“Done this afternoon.”

Pendarves joined them. “Always tell a woman you love her when you do,” he said, still wiping at his eyes. “It’s important. Nothing else in this life may be as important.”

“There’d be too many,” said Wharton. “I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Another drink, he was thinking, until I feel nothing. Sometimes he wondered if it might not have been better to have been arrested, though the fear he’d felt in those weeks when all was suspense as to who would be next was not something he wished to endure again. You’d endure arrest no better, said Slane. Was it true? He could see himself in a cell—now that he was certain he would not be put in one—nobly remaining silent, the way the Bishop of Rochester and Augustus Cromwell and Charles—bless him—did.

We wait, said Lady Shrewsborough, and see what happens. And when we know, we plan again. He who hath patience may compass anything. Another drink, and then patience was just possible.

A
SERVANT
led Barbara up the stairs to a small chamber in which sat Sir John and Lady Ashford. The room was dark except for the fire in the fireplace. Children lay sleeping in beds. Barbara went to them and kissed their foreheads.

“Where’s Jane?”

“In the chamber just beyond. She wished to be alone.”

“Where is King James?” said Jane’s mother. “He was to come, with his great general Ormonde, with his soldiers; he was to have triumphed, not left us all here, stranded, like fish who have swum too far toward shore, and the wave that brought us in is pulled back, and we struggle here in the sand, some of us to die. Our dear Gussy is going to die.”

Barbara took Lady Ashford’s hand.

“I know.”

Lady Ashford began to weep.

“You’ll wake a child,” Sir John said to his wife. “When the trial is over, Barbara, I will want an interview with the King.”

“He does not see Tories these days. I won’t be able to get it for you.” She made a helpless gesture, and Sir John nodded.

Barbara knocked on the door and opened it. Jane sat in a rocking chair, her oldest and her youngest child with her. Harry Augustus was asleep in her lap; Amelia was awake.

Barbara took Amelia, kissed her plump face, brought a candle near to look at her. Little one, she thought, you’re not so small that you don’t understand what lies ahead, are you?

“She won’t sleep,” said Jane.

No, thought Barbara, I don’t imagine she would. She sat down in a chair, kissed Amelia, began to stroke her face, her arms, to tell her she loved her. On and on she went, her voice quiet, reciting the rhymes and messages of girlhood.

“Fly, ladybird, fly, north, south, or east or west, fly where is found the man I love best.”

Lids on Amelia’s stubborn eyes were staying down. She was dozing. Barbara looked over to Jane. It was better the way Roger died, for I didn’t believe he would, and so I could bear it, she thought. “There is nothing I can think to say, Jane.”

“I’m glad you’ve come. It’s funny how everyone is talking of Laurence Slane. Last Easter, he persuaded Gussy to take me to Greenwich Hill. We tumbled down it as the sweethearts do, all tangled together. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. I keep thinking of that, of Greenwich Hill and that tumble. I’ve been amusing myself this night with last wishes. One more year than I had with Jeremy. One more tumble down Greenwich Hill. One more child, and every time I have a child I think I will die.”

Mother, thought Barbara.

“One more girl’s spring at Tamworth. Do you remember the way we used to wassail the apple trees so that there would be a good crop for the coming year? We’d all go to the orchards, everyone, your grandmother, Mother, Father, the laborers, and we’d sing to the trees, what did we sing, Barbara, what was it? ‘Old apple tree, we wassail thee and hoping thou wilt bear—’”

“‘For the Lord doth know where we shall be, till apples come another year,’” sang Barbara with her. Their voices were sweet together.

In the adjoining chamber Sir John, hearing them, stood and walked to a window, in his mind three wild children, two girls and a boy, running the woods of Tamworth.

“We’d sing to the trees and drink their health and pour buckets of cider on the roots. We’d shout and stomp to frighten away anything that might keep them from growing. And we’d leave bread soaked with cider in the trees for the birds. That was my favorite time of year, the spring, because of your grandmother’s apple trees. If I close my eyes, I can see them, smell them this moment. That’s where Harry and I fell in love, in the apple orchard. He was chasing me, and I fell and cried and somehow in comforting me, he kissed me, and we knew we loved each other.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen. No, fourteen.”

“Where was I?”

“Running ahead. You were always ahead of me, Bab. The only thing I’ve bettered you in is children, and anyone may do that.”

“Do you know how much I admire you?”

“Me?”

“To go from house to house as you have all these months. To write letter after letter. To sit in halls and parlors for hours, to be turned away and yet return. To persevere, as you have. All our lives, you will have my admiration for the courage you’ve shown in the last months.”

“Thank you, Barbara. I have a favor to ask. If Gussy is convicted, I want you to help me write a petition to present to the King. I am going to ask for his mercy toward Gussy. Will you help me write it?”

“Yes.”

Later, Sir John walked Barbara out to the street, insisting on waiting until he saw her into a carriage. Barbara gave the driver Aunt Shrew’s street. Her great-aunt was up, in her bedchamber, playing solitaire.

“Your mother is as big as three houses,” she said. “If I weren’t told otherwise, I would say she is further along than anyone guesses. Lumpy is worried for her. He says she believes she is going to die in childbed. How’s Jane?”

“How do you know I’ve seen her?”

“Everyone knows you left the gathering tonight, and most people made a shrewd guess as to why.”

“Did the King seem angry?”

“It is not yet a crime to be a friend in this town, though before he is finished, Robert Walpole may make it one. I have something interesting to tell you, Barbara. I’ve heard that Lord Bolingbroke is asking to return to England, asking to be pardoned by King George, asking for his estates and titles back.”

“Surely the King won’t pardon him! He was King James’s secretary of state!”

“It is said that ten thousand pounds is going to the Duchess of Kendall to help ease Bolingbroke’s way.”

“They will hang Gussy but forgive Bolingbroke?”

“Bolingbroke can give them information upon King James, upon agents. And he has tasted exile, tasted poverty. He will be more amenable this time around.”

“It isn’t fair.”

“No. Wharton left a note for you, Barbara.”

Barbara opened the note. “He’s safe in France,” it said. “Ask for nothing more. Burn this.”

“Why do you smile?” said Aunt Shrew. “Don’t tell me you have a yearning for Wharton. He is trouble, Bab, through and through.”

“…H
ANGED BY
the neck, but not until you are dead, for you are to be cut down alive, and your bowels to be taken out and…”