Devil Water (18 page)

How like my Ann, James thought, watching his wife’s pretty courtesy and seeing that his aunt, who had looked cross, as she often did, responded with a softening of her craggy face, though she said, “I’m still able to fan myself, thank you.”

James sipped the cool frothy drink and leaned back in his chair, allowing himself a moment of utter contentment. Never for an instant in their three years of marriage had he regretted choosing little Anna Maria Webb from all the available Catholic heiresses. She had developed as he had foreseen on that night at Dr. Radcliffe’s. The convent, and her dominating mother, had turned out an earnest, devout, and accomplished young girl, keenly aware of responsibilities; her rather serious character lightened by a love of music, and a wifely pleasure in whatever interested James. They had spent the first two years of their marriage at Hatherope, a manor in Gloucestershire which was lent to the young couple by her parents. This arrangement was at Lady Webb’s request since she could not yet bear to part with her daughter, and it also gave James time for the rebuilding of Dilston.

He glanced through the marble pillars of the summerhouse towards his elegant new mansion. It was now nearly completed -- a nobleman’s seat as modern and magnificent as any in the county. The old Radcliffe tower was still there, but had been so shrewdly incorporated in the new fabric that one scarcely guessed where it stood. And its upper rooms served their earlier purpose as nurseries. Yes, that was another of the joys Ann had brought him. An heir. And she was pregnant again, so she had confided yesterday. The nurseries would soon be filled, as he had always prayed. James turned and searched the expanse of grass and flower beds until he spied his son playing near the Italian fountain. The two-year-old John was tripping and tumbling after a puppy, while the head nurse followed her charge closely.

“I do hope Janet won’t let Johnny get near the peacocks,” said Ann, also watching her son. “And I wonder if all that noise and excitement is too much for him,” she added, frowning towards the commotion at the far end of the gardens near the village, where tables were being set up for St. Wilfrid’s feast, and two roving jugglers were practicing their skill with yellow balls.

“Pish!” said Lady Mary, fanning herself briskly. “You mustn’t coddle the child, Ann. A bit of rough and tumble’s good for ‘em, and while I think of it, I’ve noted that you feed him too much porridge. Red meat’s what he wants, the bloodier the better. Meat and a gill of ale now and then.” Lady Mary gave a nod so decisive that the lappets jiggled on her lace cap. Like many a spinster, she had decided views on the rearing of children.

Ann’s dark eyes looked resistant, but she was too polite to argue, and James interposed tactfully, “Anyway, Janet’s carrying the child into the house for his nap, my dear -- and look, there’s a horseman coming up the avenue. I wonder if it could possibly be Charles.”

It wasn’t Charles, who had ridden to Newcastle two days ago to buy himself a new fowling piece though there were several excellent ones in the gun room already. James sighed and the precarious moment of contentment vanished. Charles was a man now. He’d be twenty-two next month. But he couldn’t marry, and he wouldn’t settle down. In these last years he had grown wild and extravagant.

He had made a name for himself as a rake, even in London, where he kept a succession of actresses. He’d set them up in Bond Street houses, lavish clothes, jewels, and parties on them, then tire of them and have to buy them off. Young Radcliffe takes after his grandfather, the “Merry Monarch,” wags snickered in the coffeehouses, a parallel which distressed James. Charles’s own income was certainly insufficient for this way of life; so he gamed, and he ran into debt, and, finally repentant, would be forced to come to James, who eventually rescued him -- each time hoping that the promises of reform were true.

If Charles could only have married Betty Lee, James thought for the hundredth time. True, this lechery which had been his downfall might have cropped up even then, yet there would have been scant temptation at Ditchley Park and, besides, Betty might have had spirit enough to hold him. She had loved Charles.

James shrank from remembering the dreadful scene with the Lichfields when they were told of Charles’s incredible marriage. There had been rage, tears, recrimination, and disgust. None of which James felt poor Charles
quite
deserved. Lady Lichfield, furious with disappointment, had demanded that nobody should know that her daughter had been so flouted, and not long afterward Betty married her staid cousin, Frank Lee. So nobody outside the family did know of Charles’s tie to the strange young woman on the Border. There was mild curiosity in some London circles that young Radcliffe should be jilted by Lady Betty, but it soon died away. And Charles began his dissipations.

“I am quite eager to see my nephew Charles,” said Lady Mary acidly. “Since he never bothers to call on me in Durham, and now--” her voice lowered, the ivory fan ceased swishing, “with our recent losses -- so few left of the family.” She crossed herself. Ann and James also crossed themselves. James said, “God rest their souls.” His chair grated on the tiles, and he set down his cup of syllabub. He tried not to brood over the deaths that had come to them the past year. Old Dr. Radcliffe went first, his affection for the Derwentwaters unfortunately dimmed, because he had offered to leave the baby John a fortune if the child were reared as a Protestant. James had written an indignant letter of refusal. And so most of the Doctor’s money had gone to Oxford University. The next death was that of Lady Constable, who had returned with Sir Marmaduke to Yorkshire; and then shortly afterward Francis -- a sardonic gambler to the end -- had coughed away his life in London.

James’s mind grew as somber as the black clothes they all wore. These family deaths were harrowing, but they were God’s Will, and they were done. They left no threats, no disturbances behind them, which was not true of another death. That had happened just a year ago. Queen Anne.

James still felt the shock, like a blow in the stomach, when he learned that the Queen, feebly indecisive to the end, had not named her successor. And George of Hanover was immediately proclaimed King. Half the nation had been as horrified as James was. They had waited daily for King James to cross the water and claim at once his rightful throne. There had been excited demonstrations everywhere. People wore the white rose openly, they wore the Stuart oak leaves, they sang Jacobite songs, and wrote vicious lampoons against the Hanoverians. But nothing happened. Except that a fat German princeling stolidly -- even reluctantly -- landed at Greenwich, entered London, and was crowned in Westminster Abbey. All so quickly that the Jacobite party seemed to be paralyzed with unbelief. It could not be that England would accept a foreigner who spoke no word of English, who openly disliked the country he had been summoned to rule, who had imprisoned his wife and dragged with him to England rapacious German mistresses, one so fat she was known as the “Elephant,” the other so tall and thin she was called the “Maypole.” It could not be that England would crown a foreigner whose right to reign was so remote that it was said the Whig ministry had used a telescope to find it.

But barring a few riots, England
had
accepted all this. Here was a King at hand, and he was Protestant. That was the real crux of the matter. Justice, loyalty, practicality, even, had all been jettisoned for fear of a Roman Catholic king.

Personal distress for James had been severe during those first weeks when the news reached them at Dilston. He and Ann wept and prayed together, they had tried to believe that this bitter blow was, in some way, God’s Will or a testing. And then they had ceased to talk about it. Secure at Dilston, they lived their own lives among tenants and close friends. Often London seemed as far off as Cathay.

Though recently there had been an annoyance. A rumor reached Dilston that the Government was about to revive an old law that no Catholic might own a horse worth more than five pounds. James, used to these fluctuating anti-Papist nuisances, had made light of the rumor; but Ann was frightened, so the best horses and the valuable gray stallion, Monarch, were sent to a Protestant neighbor’s for safekeeping until, as James wrote, “We see what will be done in relating to horses.” Miserable times, James thought, but I’ll not dwell on them today.

“Look, my ladies.” He smiled, pointing to the group of villagers who were laughing and shouting around a colossal effigy made of painted canvas stuffed with straw and crowned with a bishop’s mitre. “They’ve set Saint Wilfrid on his throne! And I see they brought that dancing bear from Hexham. I hear the beast is comical.”

Ann, always responsive to her husband’s mood, leaned forward to look. “They’re happy,” she said, watching their excited people, who were forming the procession which would presently pass the summerhouse.

“And why wouldn’t they be!” snapped Lady Mary. “You do enough for them. And all those kegs of beer! They’ll be drunk by noon.  I never heard of a manor lord so liberal as you, James.”

“I want them to be content,” said her nephew. “And this is Dilston’s particular Gaudy Day. ‘Foul care begone! Let the golden sun charm every heart to mirth!’ “

Lady Mary shrugged and tightened her lips. Soon unexpected guests arrived. Thomas Forster and his pretty sister Dorothy were en route to the little village of Blanchland ten miles south of Dilston. Blanchland had once belonged to Tom Forster, but financial straits had forced him to sell it to his uncle, Lord Crewe. The Forsters were easily persuaded to stop over and see the procession. “Blanchland’ll wait,” said Tom, loosening his waistcoat buttons as he settled back with a grunt. “ ‘Tis a poky old hole, not a soul worth passing the time o’ day with. If ‘twasn’t for collecting the Lammas rents for me uncle, I’d not go near it.” He scowled and reached out for the punch Ann had ordered when she saw Tom Forster coming. Even among the hard-drinking Northumbrians Tom was conspicuous for consumption. And he looked it, with his big belly, his broken-veined nose, his bloodshot little eyes. Tom was only in his mid-thirties, yet seemed older, particularly since he had become M.P. for Northumberland, and taken on a pompous air.

“Do you always accompany your brother down from Bamburgh, Miss Forster?” asked Ann turning politely to Dorothy, and wondering why the attractive girl of twenty-five had not married.

“Aye, my lady,” said Dorothy with her charming smile. “I try to keep Tom from mischief if I can.” She spoke lightly but her eyes were on the second cup of punch which Tom was downing. Like as not, she thought, he’d soon be so fuddled they’d never get to Blanchland at all. And they needed their portion of the rents. There were three pennies and a farthing left in Tom’s purse. A chronic state which the loyal Dorothy tried to impute to bad luck, never admitting the possibility of mismanagement and stupidity! Tom was all she had to love, or indeed seemed likely to have. Popularity with men was pleasant, though it had waned a trifle since her first girlhood, but it didn’t bring husbands suitable for marriage with a Forster whose aunt was the great Lady Crewe and who was besides kin to Lord Derwentwater. And Tom was unable to scrape together enough money for his debts, let alone a sister’s dowry. Besides, most of the lads who used to dangle about her were Catholics, and therefore quite ineligible. Dorothy smoothed the skirt of her shabby velveteen riding habit, and looked with momentary envy at Lord and Lady Derwentwater while the young couple murmured something private to each other. They were so exactly suited, both small, neatly made, young, and full of the dignified yet warm courtesy which is the essence of good breeding. Both so rich.

“Miss Forster,” said Lady Mary suddenly, “there was talk in Durham that your aunt, Lady Crewe, was unwell -- oppressed, they say, by the wretched state of our country. Is it true?”

“I don’t know, my lady,” said Dorothy. “We’ve not been to Durham in some while. She has certainly suffered as we all have from this blow to our hopes for the rightful king.”

“Suffered”
repeated the older woman with exasperation. “What’s the use of suffering! Why don’t they
do
something, hey? That’s what I keep telling James here. Though ‘tis not so easy for Catholics to act in these shocking times, but what are they doing in France? Tell me that. And
you,
sir,” Lady Mary suddenly rapped Tom Forster’s fat thigh with her fan, “you’re a Protestant, and a Tory, you represent the county -- why are you sitting here on your backside swilling spirits, while your nation’s going to perdition?”

Tom blinked, while James said, “Auntie, Auntie, I pray you! We agreed not to speak of this subject today; and I must ask you not to chide a guest. The good Lord will lead us aright in His own good time.”

“That’s true,” said Tom with a thick laugh, moving away from the reach of Lady Mary’s fan. “Don’t see what we c’n do now. Ol’ Georgie Porgie’s on the throne, an’ how’re we going to get him down! What?” Tom chuckled and repeated this, which struck him as a fine bit of verse.

“Hush, Tom,” said his sister, for the villagers had finally mustered their straggling line and the procession headed by the wobbly effigy of St. Wilfrid was approaching along the graveled path. James and Ann descended from the summerhouse and stood together smiling their welcomes.

For the next two hours even Lady Mary responded to the laughter around her. The village girls wore wreaths of cornflowers and daisies on their heads, and some also had aprons full of flowers, which they tossed at the feet of the Derwentwaters crying, “Saint Wilfrid’s kick to ye, dear lord and lady!” The lads had flowers stuck behind their ears, and bells tied to their knees. They pranced by, jingling in time to the music of their band. Selby, the blacksmith, played the fiddle, while his idiot son shambled after him giggling. A carpenter played the flute, two old shepherds from Allendale played the Northumbrian pipes, the local tavernkeeper played the drum, and they all waved and shouted “Long live Darntwatter” as they filed by. Even Busby, the immensely dignified steward, had allowed bells to be tied around his knees and flowers on his hat brim, and later cut deft capers in the Morris dances, at which James laughed and applauded heartily, while Ann smiled and praised the children, who danced an intricate “Ring around a Rosy” for her special admiration.