Women of Courage (162 page)

“But has Monmouth no regular officers as well?”

“A few who he picked up in Holland, perhaps, or persuaded to come with promises of high office - such as my estates, now that I have disobeyed his royal command.”

“Disobeyed his command? What do you mean?”

An ironic smile dimpled Churchill’s youthful face as he glanced around him, to be sure of his audience. Clearly the joke was too good to be shared with Ann alone.

“Oh, have you not heard? While I was at Chard I received a letter, most impressively sealed with some new concoction I had not seen before, from my old friend James Scott, Duke of Monmouth. Most courteous it was too, and better writ than many of his. It advised me, so far as I remember, that he had heard I was so far mistaken as to be in command of some troops raised in opposition to his royal authority, but advised me - wait, gentlemen, this is the best - that he had been persuaded by some counsellors friendly to himself that this was only some inadvertent mistake of mine, due to my not having heard of his being proclaimed King; and that he would overlook this venial fault if I would but repair to his royal camp forthwith.”

His words were greeted with an uproar of laughter and astonished exclamation, in which Ann’s small voice was quite lost. Then Lord Feversham’s voice carried through the rest.

“And what answer did you return to zis most gracious message?”

“Why, my lord, the only answer I could give. I bad my trumpeter sound me boots and saddles at once, and set out immediately for his camp. But I found, as you did at Bristol, that our new monarch has a somewhat curious idea of hospitality. By the time I arrived, the birds had flown, so I sulked and came to you instead.”

Amid further laughter, Colonel Weston called out: “I hear the Duke of Albemarle had such a letter too! But I wish I had! It seems our friend James has forgot his lesser friends, or indeed half of us round this table should have had one!”

“Aye, and he could at least have remembered me, after the scrape we got him out of at Maastricht!” said the tall, cadaverous officer next to Colonel Weston.

“And we at Mons!”

Ann watched and listened as four or five of the officers round the table vied with each other for stories of how they had been close to the Duke of Monmouth, and should have had a royal letter from him. She was surprised that there seemed to be no embarrassment, no sense of divided loyalty or fear that one of them might obey such a command if it came. Churchill’s letter was just a joke, about a man whom they had once known and respected, but who had now stepped outside the pale, cut himself off from the rigid rules of their club.

She remembered her own father’s serious, agonised soul-searching about whether to join the rebellion; and Monmouth himself, spreading his arms in boyish delight and gratitude for the love of his followers at Taunton. It all seemed a world away from the hearty, unquestioning loyalty that surrounded her here. Surely one of these men must feel something for their old leader, some doubt about their own cause? She saw Lord Feversham watching the others too, perhaps wondering the same thing. But she saw no doubt on their faces - only bullish confidence and laughter.

“You’ve met the Duke of Monmouth, haven’t you, Robert?” she asked, as the conversation began again around them.

“Not to speak to. I was at a party with him once, in London.”

“What’s he like?”

The lift of the eyebrows told her the stupidness of her question. After all, she had seen the Duke herself, as much as Robert had. But he played the game, his words answering her even as his eyes told her to drop the subject.

“Tall. Handsome. A bit of a gambler, I believe. Though it looks as though he’s made his last throw now.”

They looked at each other, alone together for a moment in the hubbub of conversation. He smiled, flushed with the wine, aware that the words had hurt her. Then his face tensed and she saw the pain and hope conflict in his own eyes, and felt how simultaneously strong and vulnerable her enhanced beauty made her.

“What … will happen to the rebels, if you … when Lord Feversham wins?” She changed her words as she became aware that Colonel Weston was listening again, eager to break in.

“I suppose the leaders will be executed,” Robert answered. “That is the usual way.”

“Aye. It’s the chopping block for friend James now. Unless he escapes.”

Colonel Weston wiped his red face with a napkin. Ann ignored him, sensing that there was something Robert was trying to spare her.

“And what about the rest? The ordinary men in the army?”

“It depends upon the King, I suppose, and Lord Feversham.” Robert paused, frowning, and now she was sure he was trying to hide something. “Some will be hanged, of course, for it’s a capital offence. But the rest may be pardoned and sent home, like the Scots after Bothwell Bridge.”

“No, not this time, laddie.” The harsh voice of Colonel Weston boomed confidently across the table. “A rising of Scots is one thing - at least they’ve got the excuse of being foreigners. But this lot are Englishmen trying to unseat their own King, for all he’s a Papist. He’s got to put ‘em down hard, to see they never do it again. We should have done that to the Scots in the first place, if it hadn’t been for Monmouth. Rebellion’s an ugly thing.”

“Have you tried this salad, Ann? It’s Mrs Taylor’s speciality.”

“Yes, thank you, Robert. ‘Tis very good.” Ann brushed aside his clumsy attempt to spare her, and turned back to confront the delighted Colonel Weston, pale under her powder. She sipped her wine to give her courage.

“And what do you mean exactly, Colonel, when you say you’ll put them down hard?”

The Colonel grinned, mistaking her grim determination to know for a desire for vengeance.

“Well, miss, the law’s penalty for treason is the chopping block for gentry, such as our friend James Scott. As for the common man, they are to be hanged, of course, as your lover here says. But he didn’t tell you what they do afterwards, did he? It doesn’t mean that they are hanged until they are dead, you understand. There’s a lot more to it than that. They cut them down before they’re dead, and cut pieces off. They start between their legs ... “

“No!” Ann dropped her glass with a clatter, and the wine spilled across the table like blood.

“Stop it, man! That’s enough! It’s not decent to inflict these cruel stories on a lady!” Robert sprang to his feet and reached out across the table to grab the Colonel by the collar. The Colonel knocked Robert’s arm away angrily, and stood up in his turn, his red face almost beetroot with fury.

“How dare you, sir! Keep your hands to yourself, damn you! I demand an apology!”

“Leave the lady alone. It is for you to apologise.” Robert’s voice shook slightly, but it was quiet and cold, cutting through the Colonel’s hot, blustering roar like a breath of winter wind.

“Then you had better name your weapons, sir, and find some seconds. I am not likely to apologise to a young captain of horse scarce out of the nursery.”

“Gentlemen, zat is enough! You are a disgrace to our table. Zere will be no duelling in zis army while I have command of it!” The glaring eyes of the two antagonists turned to Lord Feversham reluctantly, as to an irrelevance.

“Then the Colonel should apologise, my lord. His behaviour was deliberately indecent and a disgrace to this house.”

“I hardly see what is indecent about explaining the due processes of law to a young lady who asks about them. It is only that this young popinjay is so uncertain of his own charms that he cannot bear his mistress to speak to anyone else, for fear she might change her mind!”

Robert’s face paled still further at the stir of laughter with which one or two officers greeted this remark. Ann saw his lips tremble, and his right hand unwittingly grip a fork and press its point down into the wood of the table.

“I shall have satisfaction for those words too.”

“Gladly. Captain Farquahar will be my second, I believe.” The cadaverous officer beside the Colonel nodded gravely.

“Not in my army! Gentlemen, I forbid this duel to take place until we have beaten ze enemy. You will obey me, or lose your commissions.”

“Don’t fight over me, please. It doesn’t matter, Robert, really. I was just a little shocked at what the Colonel said, that’s all. But I did ask him.”

“It matters to me.” Robert’s cold glance cut her out of the quarrel altogether. No-one else appeared to have heard her at all.

“I will stand second to Captain Pole, my lord, if he will have me.” Robert nodded his agreement to Lord Churchill. “Thus you may be sure that it will not conflict with military discipline.”

“Be sure it does not. And now, perhaps, gentlemen, you could endeavour to forget the matter and resume our evening’s entertainment, which you have so rudely marred.”

Robert and Colonel Weston sat down, and the conversation resumed in subdued tones around them. Colonel Weston began talking rather pointedly to his friend, Captain Farquahar, about other duels he had been in, while Robert glared at him in silence. Ann too was silent, feeling herself rejected and foolish. She had started this, but did not know what to do to stop it. Her mind was still numbed by the ghastly thought of her father being treated as Colonel Weston had said. They
must
win, if that was the price of losing! And what other horrors were there, that Robert had stopped him from telling?

Marianne attempted to rescue the situation, by suggesting that the ladies withdraw. She hoped that the gentlemen might not be too long in joining them, she said, so that they might have some music together. Ann rose, and followed the ladies into the withdrawing room.

“Well, my dear, you seem to have made quite a stir,” said Marianne, settling herself comfortably near Ann in the window seat. “Two officers quarrelling over you already, and Lord Churchill and Lord Feversham almost contradicting each other! Quite an achievement for one night!”

“Oh, I am so sorry, Mrs Ashley,” said Ann miserably, hanging her head so that the elaborate curls half obscured her face. She hated them now; they felt so conspicuous. “I didn’t mean to spoil your party, really. I should never have come here.”

“Nonsense, girl! Spoil it? You have made it! We will be the talk of the town for months!”

“But … what if they fight? Robert may be killed; and really there is no need for it. Colonel Weston didn’t mean to insult me, I’m sure.” She felt close to tears. It was all so stupid, so cruel, and so impossible to change.

“‘Twasn’t an insult exactly, but he wanted to see you scream or faint, girl, which is much the same thing.” Ann turned to a large, matronly woman, Mrs Woodham, wife of one of the horse officers. “I’ve seen that man do the same thing many times. ‘Tis about time someone pulled his nose for him.”

“And cousin Robert can take care of himself,” said Marianne. “He is supposed to be one of the best marksmen in Lord Oxford’s Horse, I believe.”

“It just seems such a stupid thing to fight about. Especially when I do not feel insulted.”

But Marianne’s cheerfulness could not be dampened. “Men are like that, my dear, surely you have realised that by now! All this business of a lady’s honour and insults that they fight over has nothing to do with how we feel about it at all. That hardly comes into it - it is their feelings that matter. You should be delighted to have them squabbling over you. Robert is paying you a great compliment, you know, to stand up for you like this.”

Again the knowing, conspiratorial smile, that only made Ann feel worse.

Ann knew it was a compliment, but she could not feel it. She sat quietly, listening to the conversation of the other women, feeling quite out of place, like a sparrow in an aviary. These people were not just different from her in their clothes and their possessions, but in their whole way of thinking. There had hardly been a reference to religion the whole time she had been in the house, and no-one but herself had expressed any doubts about the failure of the rebellion, or voiced the opinion that it ought not to fail. And yet these were the very people who had known the Duke of Monmouth personally, been his friends, fought at his side.

She wondered if the Duke knew how his old friends were talking about him, and where he himself had got the confidence to lead a rebellion against them with an army of people of her own sort, honest God-fearing Puritans like her father. She wondered if her father had known the penalty of the law for rebellion when he had told her mother he was going, and if he had joined the army in spite of knowing it.

The men came to join them after half an hour or so, red-faced and hearty, their conflicts apparently forgotten for the time, and the rest of the evening passed in conversation and song. Marianne sang to the accompaniment of her husband’s lute, and several of the men joined in a concert of lute, harpsichord, viol and flute, which would have delighted Ann had she felt more at ease. As it was she felt her spirits soothed, and she smiled at Robert, remembering their singing the night before. She wondered if tonight would have the same sequel, and saw Marianne wink knowingly at her husband.

About ten o’clock Lord Feversham left, warning the others that there would be an early start next day, and most of the other officers left soon after. Robert lingered behind. For most of the evening he had sat near Ann without speaking. Finally, they were alone in the room on the window-seat, while Mr Ashley and Marianne showed the last of the guests to the door. He took her hand, turning it over in his, examining it with that earnest frown of his as though he had never seen it before, running his fingertips across her palm and along her fingers.

“You looked beautiful tonight. I haven’t told you.”

“You should have told me before. I don’t feel beautiful now.”

“Why not? Because of what that old fool said to you?” His hand tightened around her own, so that she moved the other to loosen it.

“No, not because of that. Because of you as much as him.”

“Because of me? Why? What more could I have done?”

“You could have done less. Oh Robert, I know that I should be proud because you are going to fight a duel for me and defend my honour and all these fine things, but it just seems stupid to me. ‘Tis not my way - not what I’m used to. You could get killed, and all for a few daft words from a half-drunken old lecher. If you really wanted to help me you’d save my father from what those words meant - from being hanged and ... cut up like that just because he’s fighting for what he believes in, for his true religion and a Protestant King!”