Rebel Heiress (25 page)

She hurried to explain: ‘Yes, first to Richmond. There is a child there we must take to Shrovebridge with us.'

Too well bred to show his surprise, Simon changed the subject. ‘Have you heard the news, Miss Marchmont?'

‘No. Is it a battle, at last?'

‘No, no, nothing like that. Only that there has been an escape from the Tower.'

‘From the Tower? Impossible. Why, the prisoners there are guarded night and day.'

‘One of them has escaped just the same, and there is the devil to pay, I can tell you. The word is that it was planned from France. I would not be in his guards' shoes for all the tea in China.'

‘It is one of the French prisoners, then?' Henrietta asked, as the carriage turned out of the park.

‘A frog? What gave you that idea? No, it is a Yankee spy. Oh' — appalled recollection struck him — ‘I cry your pardon, Miss Marchmont, I had quite forgot.'

She laughed. ‘I am only too delighted if anyone can forget for a moment that I am partly American. But tell me more of this escape. It is an American, then?'

‘Yes, a noted spy — you must have heard of him — he passed for a while as an officer in their navy and went to and fro between here and France with advice, encouragement, and, it is said, money to aid their cause. What is his name? My cursed memory: Clacton, perhaps, or Frinton? No.' He shook his head. ‘But something like that.'

‘Not Clinton, surely?'

‘The very man. Good God, Miss Marchmont, you are not acquainted with him!'

‘Not exactly.' And she told him how, when she was coming to England, the
Faithful
had been stopped by the U.S.
Constitution
and boarded by two American officers. One of them had indeed been called Clinton. ‘A little dark man, with a pair of eyes very much too sharp for my comfort at the time. I remember thinking he was not just what I would have expected one of our ship's officers to be.'

‘Ours, Miss Marchmont?' Once again he raised an eyebrow too like his brother's for Henrietta's peace of mind.

‘Of course “ours”,' she said crossly. ‘I would be a very wretched Englishwoman now, Mr. Rivers, if I had not had some feeling for America when I lived there.'

He begged her pardon so disarmingly that she was bound to forgive him, and they conversed on indifferent subjects until they reached Richmond Park, where the coachman stopped for instructions. For the first time on this odd expedition, Henrietta found herself seriously embarrassed. If only she could tell Simon Rivers the whole story … But that was impossible. Instead, she merely asked him to tell the man to take them to the Pen Ponds and stop there.

‘He don't half like it.' Simon settled himself once more beside her. ‘He says this track's only fit for horses, not a good carriage like his.'

‘I cannot help that,' said Henrietta with unusual sharpness. ‘I have no doubt that we shall have to walk the last bit of the way, but we must have the carriage as near as possible. The child is far from strong.'

‘Surely you do not expect to find a child in this wilderness?'

‘Why, yes; as I told you, that is exactly why we are come. I only wish the man would hurry; the poor little thing may be in terror all this time.'

Simon lapsed into a puzzled silence until the carriage drew up at last at the side of the wood above the Pen Ponds. Refusing
to notice her coachman's grumblings, Henrietta alighted and led the way quickly up the rough path that led to the wood.

‘There is a keeper's cottage in the wood,' she said. ‘This path must lead to is, surely.'

‘I should think it most likely.' Simon took her arm to help her over a rough bit of the path. ‘But what is that?' He stopped for a moment to listen, a hand raised for silence. Borne on the fitful breeze came the intermittent, desolate sound of a child's hopeless crying.

Henrietta began to run. Brambles caught at her legs, a trailer of wild rose whipped across her face and tore her hand as she pushed it aside, but she took no notice and hurried on, breathless now, up the little path. Simon Rivers was close behind her, but the path was too narrow for him to pass her and she was the first to come out into the little clearing where stood a derelict hut, its windows boarded up, its door shut. From inside, quieter now, but no less hopeless, came that desolate sound of crying.

Hurrying to the door, Henrietta found to her horror that it had been effectively wedged from outside. Miss Muggeridge had made sure that little Caroline would wait until she was collected. No time for explanations, but she was grateful for Simon's help in removing the wedges, which had been rendered even firmer by frantic pushing from within. As they worked, Henrietta called soothingly to the child but got no answer except the continued desperate sobbing.

‘She does not speak,' she said as the door opened at last, revealing the sordid interior of the hut, and Caroline, curled up on a pile of old sacking, her face filthy with tears, her eyes huge with terror.

‘Oh, my poor lamb!' Henrietta took the unresisting child in her arms. Worn out with crying, Caroline was beyond recognising her, but at least made no attempt to struggle as she picked her up and carried her out of the musty, ill-smelling hut. Once outside, she sat down in the long grass and did her best to soothe the child, stroking the wild fair hair away from the high forehead, gently wiping the worst of the dirt from the ravaged face, murmuring words of consolation and encouragement all the time.

Simon stood by, puzzled but heroically unquestioning, until at last, with an anxious look at the sky, he said, ‘Deuced sorry to interrupt you, Miss Marchmont, but if you really mean to get
to Shrovebridge and back before night, we had best be moving.'

‘Of course. You are quite right.' Henrietta stood the child gently on her feet. ‘We must be going, Caroline,' she said. ‘We are taking you to a find new home, where no one will hurt you ever again.'

But the child was beyond reason, and, deprived of the immediate comfort of Henrietta's lap, burst once more into anguished sobs, clung to Henrietta's skirts and refused to move.

‘Best let me take her.' Simon said. ‘Here, missy, up you come.' And before Caroline had time to protest, he had swung her up on to his shoulder, steadying her there with one arm. At first she screamed with terror, but as he began to walk steadily down the hill, taking no notice of her cries, she paused, glanced sideways at his face, and then, to Henrietta's amazement, smiled at him and put her arm round his neck. By the time they got back to the carriage, she had fallen fast asleep and he managed to lay her gently on the seat without waking her.

‘Well?' He turned to look at Henrietta. ‘Is it to be Shrovebridge, then?'

‘It must be. I only hope we have not lost too much time. But I cannot take her back to Marchmont House.'

‘No, I should rather think not.' He helped her into the carriage, gave the order to the coachman and got in beside her. ‘I only hope you know what you are doing, Miss Marchmont. I am not so green that I cannot see who the child is, but what you are doing with her is more than I can understand.'

Henrietta coloured. She had hoped against hope that Simon would not realise who little Caroline was. Now she would have to revise the version of the truth that she had meant to give him. ‘I know it must seem strange,' she said, ‘but if you had seen the place where the child was, you would understand. I am taking her to a school run by the sister of a friend of mine. I am sure she will take her in for my sake. I shall say that I found her in the park — which is true enough — and took too much of a fancy to her to leave her straying there. And that is true, too.' She paused and looked at him almost defiantly. If she could avoid telling him about the plot against the child's life, she would do so. It reflected too frightfully upon Lady Marchmont.

To her relief, Simon seized upon another problem. ‘And your coachman?'

‘Thank you for reminding me. We will stop presently for some refreshment and I will teach him the story he is to tell. Briggs has served my father ever since he came back from India and is devoted to him, and, I really think, to me. He will not betray me.'

Simon still looked doubtful and said again ‘I only wish I was certain you knew what you were doing. Do you not realise what the world will say if this day's work gets out?'

Henrietta laughed. ‘That is why it must not. But come, Mr. Rivers, be reasonable. Even the tattling world can hardly claim that the child is mine, when everybody knows I only came to England this spring.'

But he only shook his head and turned, very gently, to settle little Caroline more comfortably on the seat and spread his greatcoat over her. ‘She is exhausted with fright,' he said. ‘We had best obtain a little brandy and milk for her when we stop. And for you, too, Miss Marchmont. This has been no sort of an experience for a young lady.'

Henrietta laughed. ‘I know I should be grateful to you for the compliment,' she said. ‘But you must know the world has long since decided I am insufficiently genteel, and I begin to think it is true. I do not see why I should go into spasms because we have been through some rough country, though I am afraid I must present but an odd appearance.' She put up her hand to her face, realising for the first time that it had been badly scratched and was bleeding.

‘I wish you would let me tend to that for you,' he said as she began to dab at the cut with her handkerchief. ‘We got plenty of practice at that kind of thing at Harrow, and you would prefer, I know, to arouse as little comment as possible when we stop.'

This was such obvious sense, that Henrietta submitted with a good grace as he cleaned up a deep scratch across her cheek and a still worse one on her left hand with his spotlessly clean white handkerchief. ‘There,' he said at last, ‘I fear you will be seeking for explanations for a few days to come, Miss Marchmont, but at least it is clean now.' Henrietta thanked him, did her best to tidy her hair, which had also suffered from the thorns she had hurried through, and then turned to look aghast at a great tear in the skirt of her habit.

He was looking at it too. ‘I hope you are genteel enough to carry a supply of pins,' he said, ‘for if so I think I can
make shift to cobble you up, if you will allow me. Has Charles ever told you about our amateur theatricals? I was always wardrobe master, being the youngest, and have become quite an expert at running repairs.'

Speechless now, Henrietta produced the paper of pins she carried in her muff and sat rigidly still while Simon pinned her up. ‘There.' He sat back to survey his handiwork. ‘I flatter myself your maid could have done no better. But look, the child is waking.'

Grateful for the distraction, Henrietta turned to Caroline, who was indeed stirring in her corner. She woke up all at once, as a child will, and gazed for a moment from Simon to Henrietta and back. Then, apparently satisfied with what she saw, she wriggled over so that she could put her head in Henrietta's lap and fell asleep again.

He looked at her with compassion. ‘She does not speak, you say?'

‘Never, they told me. Except once, when Lady — when somebody she loved was leaving her. But at least it means she can, if she wants to. I would have kept silence in that place myself.' But the less she told him about the Muggeridges the better. She changed the subject, questioning him instead about his life at Oxford and his plans for the future. It proved a painful topic. He had come to London, it seemed, in a last attempt at persuading his grandfather that he was not cut out for the church, and had failed dismally.

‘It is not his fault.' He was twisting and untwisting the handkerchief he had used on Henrietta's face. ‘He is old. He does not understand. He is still living in the last century, when younger brothers went into the church as a matter of course. There is a family living I can have, and that settles it.'

‘But what do you want to do?'

‘Why, at the moment, join the army, of course. How can I stay at Oxford with a parcel of mother's darlings when lives are being lost, and glory won, on the Continent?'

‘But the war will not go on forever, I hope.'

‘No, indeed, and that is just what I have been trying to explain to Grandfather. If I do not get there soon, it will be all over and I shall have lost my chance.'

‘And never be a general. Oh, poor Mr. Rivers.'

‘You are laughing at me and I do not altogether blame you. But the fact is I do not so much wish to be a general. Charles
will, I am sure. He has the ruthlessness it needs, but I do not believe I could bear the responsibility of all those lives. No, you do not understand Miss Marchmont. It is not so much that I pine for a military life — I sometimes think I should detest it — but — do not laugh at me — it seems to me my duty to go. Besides,' he added with a touch of honesty that pleased Henrietta, ‘I think it would be advantageous to me afterwards.'

‘Afterwards?'

‘Yes, when I take up my career, if only I ever manage to.'

‘What, as a clergyman?'

‘No, no. I do not mean to give in so easily. There is no making my grandfather see reason now but when your father comes back from Europe, I am sure he will understand and speak for me. My grandfather is not obstinate, really, he is just old. When he understands, he will let me have my way. And in the man's world I mean to enter, it will be necessary, I am sure, to have played a proper part in this war.'

‘I am afraid you go too fast for me,' Henrietta said. ‘What is this man's world you have your eye on?'

His laugh, surprisingly, was deeper than Charles'. ‘If only I knew! Politics would be my choice, but there is a difficulty there. Our family has been Tory time out of mind; I do not know what would happen if I come out as a Whig. And yet, I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to do anything else. I hope you will not construe it as a criticism of your father, Miss Marchmont. He and his friends have been in the right of it, I think, in their conduct of the war. I do not carry my Whiggery so far as to join the extremists of the party who cry for peace at any price. No, no, we must fight Bonaparte to a finish, but when we have done so, as, please God, we soon will, why, then, believe me, new men and new measures will be needed. We shall have the whole world to put to rights! A mangificent opportunity and, forgive me, I do not think the Tories, with their vested interests and their cut-and-dried thinking, are the men to take advantage of it. There is a something stirring in the country that will not, I think, be long denied. Politics must cease to be a family preserve, like the church. We must have a new law and a new justice, equal alike for rich and poor — oh, there is so much to be done — but forgive me, Miss Marchmont, for boring you with such a lecture. I cannot think what has possessed me to run on so.'