The Reckoning (101 page)

There was some kind of commotion going on – shouts and
running footsteps. She distinguished Marcus's voice shouting
for Hawkins – why on earth didn't he just ring the bell? She
got up cautiously and went to the door, opened it a crack,
tried to hear what was going on.

Footsteps coming along the corridor. She closed the door
and went back quickly to the bed, looked round for something
to be doing, but there was no need – no time. There was a
scratching at the door, but it was flung open before she had a
chance to speak. Moss was there, her eyes taking up most of
her face.

‘
Oh my lady, come quickly, his lordship's calling for you!'
she cried. 'It's her ladyship – she's had a seizure. They've sent
for the doctor, and his lordship's in such a state! Oh, please
come quickly!’

*

With her hands in Marcus's – she would find bruises after
wards, he held them so tightly – she heard how he had gone
upstairs to the blue saloon, and found his mother lying on the
floor, unconscious. So she had never had the chance to say
anything to Marcus, Rosamund thought, guiltily glad. She
remembered that congested face as she had run out of the
room. Lady Barbara's rage, thwarted of expression, must
have overcome her. She must have fallen even as Rosamund
left the room. Now the guilt had no gladness: if she had
remained one moment more, she would have been there to
help the old woman sooner.

She and Marcus sat on hard chairs outside the bedroom
door while the doctor – not Knighton, there was no time, but
a local man, Sir Paine Walters – examined her, with her maid
and Moss in attendance. Rosamund was glad that Marcus didn't seem to want to talk. He was so shocked, he didn't
seem to have any curiosity about what she had been doing in
the blue saloon alone, still in her outdoor clothes, or whether Rosamund had seen or spoken to her.

The door of the room opened at last, and Marcus looked
up, painful with hope, as Walters came out.

‘
How is she?’

Walters met his eyes kindly, and shook his head. Such a
little, deadly movement. 'I'm sorry, Lord Chelmsford. I'm
afraid there is little hope of recovery.'

‘
What is it? Is it her heart?'

‘
A stroke. She has not regained consciousness, and I would
be raising your hopes irresponsibly if I were to tell you there
was any likelihood that she will.’

Marcus made a hoarse sound, clutching Rosamund's hands
more tightly. After a moment he said, 'Can I see her?’

‘
Yes, of course,' said Walters.

They went into the room. Lady Barbara's head on the
pillow looked strangely shrunken with her hair covered by a
nightcap. Her mouth was open, and she breathed through it
stertorously, and her face was mottled. Her elderly maid,
Ashby, was standing beside her weeping and wringing her
hands, the tears rolling unselfconsciously down her wrinkled
cheeks. There was one person, Rosamund thought remotely,
who really loved the old termagant.

Marcus went to his mother, took up one of her limp hands,
looked down helplessly at her. Then he looked at Ashby.

‘
Why did she come back?' he asked. 'Why did she come up
from Wolvercote?’

Rosamund glanced at the maid under her eyelashes. How
much did Ashby know? Even if she knew, would she tell, now
that her mistress was at death's door? How vile, even at this
moment, to have to think about self-preservation. She tried to
find some pity in her for Lady Barbara, but could find only a
closed-off, stony relief. Impending death had changed
nothing – they were both still what they were.

Ashby, speaking unevenly through her tears, only said, 'It
was the news, my lord – about the Duchess of York dying. My
lady thought she should pay her respects to the Duke, seeing
as they were such old friends. So she came up to Town. She
never thought – none of us ever thought –'

‘
No, of course not,' Marcus said meaninglessly. There
didn't seem to be anything else to say. They all stood around
the bed, avoiding each other's eyes, listening to the rattling
breaths, until at last the ghastly sounds stopped, to be
succeeded by an even more ghastly silence. And then Marcus
laid the white hand down gently on the sheet, and walked
away without a word or a look to anyone.

*

The enquiry into the Queen's conduct opened on August the
17th amid enormous notoriety. The Duke of York, arriving at
the House of Lords on the first day was greeted by a huge
crowd yelling 'Long live Frederick the First!’

The King had probably never been so unpopular amongst
the lower orders. He had discarded his old mistress, Lady
Hertford, for a new one, Lady Conyngham, a very fat lady in
her fifties who was referred to irreverently as The Vice
Queen, but who was thoroughly occupying his attention.
That, and the fact that the Duchess of Clarence was definitely
pregnant again, meant that his interest in the enquiry was
due more to the determination not to accord Caroline the
titles and privileges of consort, rather than any real desire to
remarry.

The mob, however, was firmly on the Queen's side, and
met and escorted her carriage with banners and cheers to and
from the House of Lords every day, booing loudly when they
passed Carlton House, which they called 'Nero's Palace'. The
Archbishop of Canterbury had already said that it was a
mistake to have begun the proceedings at all. Better, he said,
that the bill should be thrown out, with the higher orders
convinced she was guilty, than passed with the lower orders
convinced she was innocent. And a little ditty went around
the clubs:

 
Gracious Queen, we thee implore

To go away and sin no more;

But, if that effort be too great,

To go away at any rate.

 
The feeling in the Lords was that they would never get the
bill past the Commons, and that they should not try. Once it was dropped, they predicted, the mob would lose interest in
Caroline, and she could be bought off with a pension and a house, and got out of London before the Coronation, which
was set for next year, July 1821.

These matters passed almost unnoticed at Chelmsford
House, where the six weeks of deep mourning were succeeded
by no lightening of spirits. My lord and lady received no
callers, either separately or together, and refused all invit
ations. My lord shut himself away in his book-room all day.
At first my lady went out alone, without ever saying where she was going, returning hours later looking exhausted and
unhappy; but latterly she had shut herself away too, and saw
no-one. Within the house, the atmosphere was so tense and
unhappy that the servants crept around like whipped dogs
and quarrelled with each other over trifles.

One day in late September, Rosamund went downstairs
dressed for riding, and found Parslow waiting for her in the
hall instead of outside with the horses. She raised her
eyebrows enquiringly as she crossed the marble flags towards
him. His face was impassive as always, but his eyes scanned
her keenly, and she felt an apprehensive sinking of the heart.

‘Well, what is it?' she said unencouragingly.

‘My lady, may I speak to you in private?' he said.

She didn't reply at once, but returned his look evenly,
locking wills with his, though aware that she would never
defeat him. Then she sighed and said, 'Very well, if you
must,' and turned aside into the nearest room. It was called
the Trophy Room, a small, grim apartment, the walls lined
with glass cases of stuffed animals and birds. The small fire
place, in which no fire was ever lit, was surmounted by a
moth-eaten stag's head with spreading antlers, and the furni
ture consisted of a round wooden table and two uncompromi
singly hard chairs. It was used only as a waiting-room for the
least favoured of callers, where they might feel uncomfortable
until the butler came to send them away.

Here, under the gloomy stare of innumerable glass eyes,
Rosamund turned to face her groom. 'Well? What have you to
say to me?’

Parslow turned his hat round and round in his hands, a
sign of his powerful emotions. 'You're not looking well, my
lady,' he said at last.

She made an impatient gesture. 'Is that all? My health is
not your concern. Come, I wish to go riding –'

‘
Yes, my lady, it is, begging your pardon,' Parslow cut in
firmly. 'And I know why you want to go riding, and it's not
right.’

Not right?' she said incredulously. 'What are you talking
about?’

Suddenly he straightened, putting his hat down on the
table with the gesture of a man making himself ready for
some task that would need both hands. 'It's not right, as you know very well,' he said sternly, no longer man to mistress,
but more like father to daughter. 'All this galloping and
jumping day after day – and it isn't the first time, neither!
What would your mother say, my lady? And if she were here, you'd never have got away with it – she or Mrs Docwra would
have noticed long ago.'

‘
Stop it!' Rosamund said, frightened of what he might say
next. He took a step nearer, his face warm and human with
concern – concern for her, and as things were, how could she
bear that?

‘
Aye, you've been shockingly neglected – his lordship's late
mother being what she was, and Judy Moss with no more
sense that a martlet. And his lordship – well, he's young. But
as for me – how am I ever to face her ladyship if this gets out?
I should have taken better care of you. I knew about Mr
Farraline, of course –' Rosamund gave a little gasp at the
name, and he looked slightly distracted, as though she had
thrown an irrelevant question at him. 'Well, of course I did –
but then I thought it was none of my business, and I couldn't
have stopped you anyway. But
this –
oh my lady, it's not
right, and you know it!'

‘
Stop,' Rosamund whispered, white as paper. 'No more. I
can't stand it.' Her hands were trembling, and she folded
them together deliberately to keep them still. 'How can you
talk to me like that?' she said, but it was more perplexed than
angry.