Devil Water (30 page)

“Aye . . .” said Charles. He clenched his fists and, stalking to the fire, turned his back on the priest. “I loved him,” Charles said, his voice thick and barely audible. “Yet I hurt him often -- even at Barnet when I meant -- meant to make up the quarrel we’d had. I loved him --
why
could I never tell him so!”

The priest looked with compassion at the bowed head, the trembling shoulders. “Be sure he knows it now,” he said. “You may be sure he knows it now.”

Charles fell to his knees, and crossed himself. “I swear,” he cried, “by the precious crucified body of Our Lord Jesus Christ that James Radcliffe’s death shall not have been in vain, I swear it!”

“Amen,” whispered the priest.

EIGHT

Tuesday night, March 6, of that unhappy spring, 1716, was a night of wonder and supernatural fear all over England. It was a night of smoking clouds and globes of pale fire which rolled across the sky, sending forth streams of rainbow colors, while the horizon glowed with a flickering green. The folk of Northumbria had little doubt as to why God had made the heavens open to disclose His awful glories. Father Brown had no doubt, as he murmured prayers beside the hearse which was conveying the Earl of Derwentwater’s body home.

The fiery strangeness in the sky began precisely as the hearse entered the real North Country by crossing the river Wear at Sunderland Bridge near Durham, and Lady Mary Radcliffe, weeping, painfully hobbled out upon the Northern Road to meet it.

All of that weird flashing night, the darkness never came. But the people did. They flocked from the countryside for miles to gaze on the crimson velvet coffin. They came from as far as Dilston itself to join the cortege which next day would continue plodding mournfully towards the dear chapel where the Earl had asked that he be laid to rest.

“ ‘Tis a miracle!” cried Lady Mary of the flames in the sky, after she had kissed the coffin. “A sign of God’s Grace for him!”

“Or of God’s judgment on those who murdered him,” said the priest solemnly. “And, your ladyship, there have been other miracles!”

He told her of the happenings in London. Of two conversions brought about by Lord Derwentwater’s death, and of the healings brought about by touching his lordship’s precious heart. The heart, said the priest, in its silver urn, though unembalmed, remained whole, and fragrant, as with incense.

Lady Mary crossed herself and wiped her eyes. Her gaunt face quivered. “What is to be done with, with this relic?” she whispered.

“It will go to the Benedictine nuns at Pontoise, when her young ladyship can bear to part with it. They’ll say perpetual Masses for his soul there, though,” the priest added to himself, “I verily believe he does not need them.”

“And Lady Derwentwater?” How
is
she?” asked Lady Mary.

“Lamentably,” answered the priest sighing. “She cannot cease to mourn, though I told her ‘twas unbecoming when the angels and saints rejoice, and he himself is absorbed in joy. She wished to come North with us, but her mother restrained her, since the babe will soon be born.”

“Poor thing,” said the old woman turning away. “Ah, poor Ann. I feel such pity for her -- and pity even for that young scapegrace, Charles. Is there hope he may get off?”

Father Brown bit his lips and frowned. There seemed no hope at all that Charles would not be hanged. “We must pray so,” he said.

He glanced reverently at the coffin, while the sky lit up again in a great burst of flickering lights. Lord Derwentwater’s Lights, the priest thought, with a thrill of awe.

In London too, on that same night, darkness never came, while the sky was stabbed with arrows of emerald and ruby flame. Then at one in the morning the whole town suddenly grew light as noon, and the citizens were terrified. Some saw two armies fighting in the sky, others saw a monster with shining scales and fiery breath. The Tories cried it was a judgment on the Whigs for beheading Lord Kenmure and Lord Derwentwater. The Whigs said the phenomenon was sent to show Divine displeasure at the Jacobite Rebellion. And there was scarce a soul who did not think that the world might be ending, and make hasty prayers of profound repentance. Lady Betty Lee was not of those who were terrified. In the intervals of soothing her frightened little son and the servants, she watched the lights the whole night through from her bedroom window. No celestial fireworks could affect the suffering which she felt already -- the guilt, the fear, the agonized thwarted love.

She had thought to have suffered once before, when they told her Charles had done something monstrous, and that she could not marry him, that she must marry instead her dull cousin, Francis Lee. She had been frantic with rebellion, she had wept and pleaded and tried to run away. But the pain then was nothing like this. And it had dwindled at last into a state of resignation, then affection for the quiet, worthy husband they had given her. Frank was a good man.

Betty glanced back into the bedroom at the richly brocaded tent-bed, where behind the curtains Frank snored rhythmically. She knew how he would look, his tasseled nightcap pulled down over his ears, his embroidered nightshirt neatly swathing his stout body beneath the blankets. On his lips the contented smile of a man who prospered in his undertakings, who had no pangs of conscience, and who was happy in his home. And if she went to bed, creeping in no matter how softly, he would stir and grunt and reach for her hand in perfect trust. This she knew, and knew too that she no longer deserved the trust Frank had in her.

To the north over the Marylebone fields the sky dipped and wheeled again, Betty could see the lights beyond the new mansions they were building on Hanover Square, and below her window on George Street she saw the dirty cobblestones grow luminous, and the foul water in the central gutter sparkle with a greenish tinge. A sedan chair sped by as she watched. The chairmen were running, their faces were aghast, the gentleman inside the chair seemed to be shouting frantically. How ridiculous they were, Betty thought, to be afraid of what Frank had earlier explained as a rare but natural occurrence called by some long Latin name. Yet try as she would, she could not keep her mind on the behavior of passersby, or even the beauty of the lighted sky. Her thoughts returned ever to her misery which seemed to be settled in her breast, like a rat gnawing at her heart.

She had seen Charles but once since his brother’s execution. An unhappy interview which she continually relived in every part.

It was last Friday that she had gone again to Newgate jail, after waiting to see Frank set out for St. James’s Square, where he had business to discuss with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Robert Walpole. Betty did not dare take her chair again, lest the chairmen should gossip, and she hurried along the streets, shrinking into her furred hood, alone as any common trollop. For which indeed, the warder and the turnkey this time mistook her.

Muggles, at first, refused pointblank to let her enter Charles’s cell. “Ye can see ‘im, in the Press Yard tomorrow, sweet’eart,” said the turnkey, leering. “Many a whore gets in there by ‘ook or crook. An’ no good a-telling me you’re ‘is sister agyne. Sisters don’t clamor ter see their brothers alone, they don’t.” She had kept her temper, smiling at the oaf, and opening her purse. In the end it cost five guineas to see Charles. And where was the money for the next bribes to come from? She had nothing but her pocket money, nor had ever needed more. Frank paid all the bills, and knew in his just methodical way where every penny went to.

When the turnkey let her in the cell, Charles frightened her. He greeted her with apathy, as though he hardly knew her. His skin was flushed, his eyes heavy and too glittering. “Oh, my dear,” she cried. “You’re ill! Oh, I pray ‘tis not jail fever!”

“A touch, perhaps,” he said dully. “But would you expect me to be merry after what has happened?”

“I know,” she whispered, seeing how violently he still suffered from the shock of his brother’s death. “Oh, Charles, I
tried
to save him. Believe me, I did what I could. I even went to Lady Cowper.”

“Molly Clavering from County Durham,” said Charles in a dead voice. “Dear Lady Cowper, she’s saving all her worthless Northern cousins, but she wouldn’t save James.”

“No,” said Betty. “The King wouldn’t permit it, even had she wanted to. Charles, it’s past now. You must rouse yourself, take heart and think of your own defense! Your trial is coming on in May!” This she had found out by guile, asking innocent questions of the unsuspecting Frank. “We must make plans, think of some new plea which will move them!”

Charles turned his head and stared at her. She saw that he scarcely understood her, and he seemed very ill.

She looked distractedly around the cell, and saw on the floor a hamper. She went to it and found inside, a bottle of claret, cold chicken, and bread. “What’s this!” she cried. “You haven’t eaten, have you? In how long, Charles?”

He sighed. “I don’t remember.”

She made him eat, feeding him morsels of bread and chicken with her fingers, filling a tin cup with claret and holding it to his lips. She found a small flask of brandy at the bottom of the hamper and made him drink some of that too. In a few minutes he was better. The glaze left his eyes, he straightened his big frame, and took her hand.

“Betty,” he murmured. “Dearest Betty --why do you bother with me?”

“You know why!” she said sharply. “More than my honor or my life I want to help you.”

He leaned over and put his cheek against hers a moment, though he did not kiss her, for he knew his breath was foul with fever. “Will you do one thing for me, dear?” he said, staring at the tiny slitted window and its two iron bars.

“You need not ask! Oh Charles, have you thought of a plan? Do you see some way of escape?”

“No, no,” he shook his head. “ ‘Tis not that, Betty. Something very different.” He paused and went on slowly. “I have a child in Northumberland. A little girl called Jenny.”

Betty winced and drew back, feeling as though he had struck her, though he did not notice. “Is it the child of -- of that woman you married?” she said carefully.

“Yes. Meg Snowdon’s child. But, Betty, it was no marriage. Meg and I have never lain together since, and we are naught to each other. I could have it annulled. Or could if I were free. But to what purpose. Since now
you
are married.”

What sweet balm were these words to her, and yet what anguish too! Still, she felt her long pent hatred of the woman who had taken him from her dissolve, and she could say gently, “What
of
this child Jenny?”

“She is a marigold, growing in a dunghill,” said Charles in a far-off voice. “If she stays where she is she’ll be trampled. I can’t bear it, nor bear the thought that her future not be settled before I die.”

“You
will
not die!” cried Betty passionately. “Is it the fever that makes you talk like this?”

“Will you take her, Betty?” Charles went on, turning from the window, and looking at her piteously. “Will you take Jenny, and raise her in your home?”

Betty drew a sharp breath and was silent while her thoughts raced in perplexity. To rear that Border lass’s brat -- but it was Charles’s too! She had said she would do whatever he wanted, yet never envisioned anything like this. And what could she tell Frank? How explain the daughter of Charles Radcliffe, whose name and beliefs Frank despised. Yet the look on Charles’s face now -- humble, beseeching, lost. He who had been always so confident, so debonair.

“This child,” said Betty after a while, “whom you can scarce ever have seen . . . she means so much to you?”

“Yes,” he bowed his head. “I’m sorry I asked you, Betty, I see it was wrong. But I thought -- we have love for each other, you and I -- we have kinship too. I thought that with you, Jenny could -- be -- nearer to me.”

“And she
shall
be!” Betty cried, no longer able to stand the stricken look in the gray eyes, the futile, helpless motions of his hand on his knee. “Oh, my dearest, of course I’ll take her. Of course I will since you want it so!”

His gratitude, the brightening of his face, the love words he had given her, all these had been reward enough at the time. They had made hasty plans together before the turnkey bade her leave, and she had gone home in a happy glow which soon faded. For after all, what had been gained? Charles’s life was no more secure, and she had saddled herself with a child whose presence could not help but be awkward, and probably dangerous. If Frank knew whose child it was, he would refuse to receive it in his home, of that she was sure. He loathed all Jacobites, and above all he loathed what he had learned of Charles during the latter’s dissipated years in London.

What am I going to do? asked Betty of the Northern Lights. What am I going to do?

Alec had left on Saturday morning for the North; he was to bring Jenny down with him. Charles had had enough ready money for this journey. Simpson, a servant of Lord Derwentwater’s still in London, would attend Charles in Newgate for the present. The child might be here in a fortnight, and must be provided for. To do this would mean lies. A tissue of lies to hide Jenny’s identity. Which lie would best calm any suspicion Frank might have? And he could be not only suspicious but harsh, if a principle were involved. “Your nimble woman’s brain will think of something,” Charles had said, smiling at her with vague childlike trust, which brought her renewed fear. “Charles, you
must
get well! Eat and drink properly, call a physician, get blooded,” she cried, and he promised.

Indeed he was better, so Simpson reported. She met Simpson occasionally near the pile of building stone behind the unfinished St. George’s Church, since she did not yet dare go again to Newgate. More subterfuge and lies. Yet her anguished love for Charles grew greater daily, and she found herself as imprisoned by it as ever Charles could be by Newgate walls. If I could pray, she thought, but private prayer was not natural to her. Prayers belonged in church on Sundays, which neither she nor Frank attended any more often than appearances required. So no prayers came, and her thoughts jumbled into a miserable weariness as she watched the flickering sky.