Devil Water (55 page)

“She hasn’t,” said Betty in the voice which Jenny knew meant she was trying to keep her temper. “Am I to understand that Jenny will make her home with you? And in that case perhaps her own wishes should be consulted.”

“I can’t see why,” said Lady Newburgh. “A minor child obeys its father’s commands. And I believe that you are selling this house? And have -- er -- well, various embarrassments, and will be relieved to get rid of one of them.”

Betty flushed. “It is true,” she said slowly “that through His Majesty’s kindness we are going to move to a ‘Grace and Favor’ lodging in Somerset House, and lucky to get it. Wherever we go there’ll always be room for Jenny.”

“Most kind of you,” said the Countess. “Mr. Radcliffe has frequently expressed his gratitude towards you, but he has quite decided on this procedure, and I’ve given my consent. There can be no argument about the matter. Jane will be treated as well as my Clifford daughters and my niece-at-law, little Anne Maria Radcliffe. Fortunately I have a large establishment at Vincennes.”

That had been the tenor of the interview, during which Jenny had said nothing. Indeed she spoke little nowadays. All strong emotions seemed to have drained from her, after she had finally recovered enough to be told about Rob. Her leg healed, and her head healed; yet so often there seemed to be a veil between her and the world, a veil she was too listless to penetrate. She knew that this worried Lady Betty, and tried to rouse herself, though the dullness persisted. She had acquiesced later after the Countess left when Lady Betty with one of her impulsive changes of heart, had cried, “Perhaps this
is
the best thing for you, dear. New scenes often raise low spirits, and I can do so little for you any more. I can’t say I fancy your stepmother -- but you love your father.”

“I did,” said Jenny. “I suppose I do. Dear Lady Betty, forgive me, I don’t much care where I am.”

The trancelike state had lifted twice before she left London. At the end when she kissed Lady Betty goodbye, and they both wept. Also the time when she saw Evelyn.

Jenny shifted suddenly on the bench in the draughty Calais customs house. She didn’t want to think about her farewell interview with Evelyn, pain had come too close, the protective veil had almost shredded because Evelyn mentioned Rob. Nobody else ever did. Evelyn had spoken of him tentatively and with sympathy, while watching Jenny’s face and then she had stopped short, crying, “Jenny, don’t look like that! He’s all right, wherever he is. Virginia’s not the African jungle, you know!”

Lady Newburgh, having finished half the chicken and two mince tarts, wiped her mouth on her handkerchief and said, “You’ve a bad habit of fidgeting, Jane. I trust you’re not a nervous girl.”

“I’m sorry, my lady,” said Jenny, who had been twisting her fingers in and out around a fold of her mantle.

“And,” continued the Countess, “I am surprised that Lady Elizabeth permitted you to wear beauty patches, you’re far too young for such vanity.”

“I -- I
don’t,
my lady,” said Jenny in astonishment. She touched the little black mole on her left cheekbone. “This grew on me, I can’t help it.”

“Oh,” said the Countess, slightly discomfited. She was extremely myopic, and between the general annoyance of travel and the annoyance of adding an unwanted member to the party, she had scarcely examined Jenny at all. She now perceived that the girl had a showy sort of looks, and also that there was a discreet ring of porters, vendors, and urchins all staring at Jenny and making complimentary remarks.
“Quelle est belle, la petite anglaise -- eh la jolie blonde! Donne-moi un petit sourire --eh cherie?”

Lady Newburgh frowned. “Pull your hood over your hair,” she said, “and keep your head modestly bowed.”

Lady Newburgh’s exasperation grew during the night at a Calais inn, and during the three days of travel together in the post chaise the Countess had hired. Jenny caused attention everywhere; at every posting stop there would be a barrage of bold Gallic stares, lip-smackings, and occasional whistles. On their last night, at Beauvais, an infatuated French youth actually fell to his knees on the inn courtyard, and made a declaration of love before anybody could stop him.

Lady Newburgh was forced to admit that the girl never exactly did anything to incur these advances. In general she hardly seemed to notice them, but her appearance was provocative -- the long brilliant eyes and the way she used them, the fullness of her red mouth above the cleft chin, the narrow waist and round high breasts, the startling abundance of her curly yellow hair.

And by now the Countess had discovered Jenny’s close resemblance to Charles, which also displeased her. She loved her husband in her own forceful way, and had hoped that their baby -- James Bartholomew, born last August -- would resemble him. Instead it was a very plump and black-haired infant. It might not have been Charles’s child at all -- except for the unfortunate little defect, the Stuart fingers. The proof of Stuart blood. One had accepted this defect with Christian resignation, and one must accept the company of this girl with Christian resignation too, thought the Countess determinedly, though by the time they reached Vincennes her misgivings were frequent.

The Countess had rented an old chateau a mile outside the Paris walls on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes. The park had clipped formal gardens, now bare and covered with hoarfrost. The chateau was square, gray, and turreted; the surrounding leafless trees were carefully placed to form radiating avenues. It all looked very cold, and very neat to Jenny -- not like a place to live in.

The great front doors swung open as the post chaise approached, rows of liveried flunkies in powdered wigs were disclosed drawn up inside a huge stone hall. There were children too, three small girls curtseying, a pale undersized boy of thirteen. Jenny saw them vaguely, then she saw her father coming towards them down the marble steps. He peered into the chaise and greeted her with a joyful flicker of the eyes, though he confined his exclusive attentions to Lady Newburgh, as he handed her out of the chaise, crying, “Welcome home,
ma bien-aimee!”
and kissed her ceremoniously on each cheek. Not until the Countess was inside the hall with her two daughters, and Anna Maria Radcliffe, and the little Earl of Derwentwater, did Charles reach his hand into the coach and extract Jenny. “Thank God you’ve come, darling,” he said and kissed her full and long on the mouth.

She gave a gasp which was largely dismay. Nobody had kissed her lips since Rob had, in the garden. She had forgotten the feel of that, as she had forgotten so much afterwards. But her body had not forgotten the feel. It came back with an agony of longing as her father kissed her.

“My sweetheart,” said Charles below his breath. “How lovely you are!”

“Radcliffe!” the Countess called sharply from the entrance. “Bring Jane inside. The open door is chilling us.”

There was more of chill than the wintry air for Jenny in that chateau, she soon discovered. Lady Newburgh’s influence pervaded it, as her money had provided it. There was much ceremonious grandeur and little comfort. The sparse furnishings were dark and medieval, the wood fires warmed only a section of the great rooms. There were dozens of servants, all of whom treated Jenny with subtle contempt, knowing well their mistress’s inner attitude. The exception was Alec, who welcomed her enthusiastically. Yet he had changed. His hair was pomaded, his clothes were of satin like his master’s. His sole duties were the valeting of Charles, between times he flirted with the maids and lorded it in the servants’ hall.

The three little girls, Frances and Anne Clifford and Anna Maria Radcliffe, were quite indifferent to Jenny. She was too old to be one of them, not old enough to have authority. John, the Earl of Derwentwater, tried to be kind. He asked her questions about England, which he longed to see, he asked her about Dilston, which he referred to pathetically as “my own true home”; but he was a sickly, feeble boy, he coughed a great deal, and spent most of the time in his suite with his French tutor.

There was warmth near Charles -- when they were allowed to be alone together. Then they both recaptured something of the intimacy they had enjoyed on the trip to Northumberland. These moments were few because Lady Newburgh always seemed to be there, and Charles treated his wife with a rather anxious deference. This hurt Jenny, who had never seen him deferential. It diminished him. There were other slight changes in him too. He was heavier, there were faint pouches under his eyes, he drank a lot of
eau de vie,
and did not ride out daily as he used to. Lady Newburgh did not care for riding, and, besides, in France gentlemen did not live on horseback as they did in England. A
grand seigneur
always used his coach.

Shortly after his arrival Charles took Jenny to the nursery to see his heir, while Lady Newburgh was engaged in giving orders to her maître d’hôtel.

The wet nurse stood up and curtsied as Charles and Jenny came in.
“N’est-ce-pas qu’il devient grand et fort, monsieur?”
she said proudly of her charge, who lay in a canopied cradle waving his arms and cooing.

“Behold your brother, Jenny,” said Charles laughing. “Viscount Kinnaird!”

Jenny smiled and leaned over the cradle. “He seems rather young to be a lord,” she said. “May I call him Jemmie?” Then before she could stop herself, she added, “Oh, what
is
it with his hand?”

She gazed horrified at the baby’s left hand where the two middle fingers were fused into one, which was curled inward like a tiny hook.

“Oh,” said Charles with a rueful shrug. “His title he derives from his mother, but the webbed fingers came through me. Our little Prince has them too. ‘Tis the mark of a Stuart.”

“Of all
of them?” cried Jenny, staring. “But you haven’t. . .”

“No, child. Not all of them, of course. It crops up from time to time. Ever since James the First, I believe. His Majesty was most interested when I wrote him about this baby’s fingers. The King is James Bartholomew’s godfather.”

“And his godmother?” asked Jenny looking at the dark wriggling baby and trying to realize that this was actually her half brother.

“Lady Middleton,” said Charles frowning. “Not Queen Clementina as we’d hoped, because she’s been acting very strange since the birth of Prince Henry, and has retired to a convent. This greatly distresses His Majesty.”

“Oh, I didn’t think
he
would care!” said Jenny impulsively.

Charles glanced at her. He leaned over and patted his son, then he said, “Jenny, I want to talk to you. We’ll go to the Salon de Tapisserie.”

The Tapestry Room had a small fire burning, but it did little to mitigate the drafts which blew the dark old tapestries in ripples against the stone walls, yet the room was secluded and Charles wanted no interruption for the lecture he was about to give Jenny.

The lecture was delivered at Charlotte’s request. After she and Charles had retired last night, she had made clear her stand in regard to Jenny.

“The girl has many stubborn Whiggish fancies. And I shall not criticize Lady Elizabeth, but I really can’t see that Jane has had any religious education to speak of, even Protestant. Perhaps that’s just as well. However, she has now entered a Catholic family, whose members are all dedicated to the restitution of England’s rightful king. I’ve tried talking to her, and she simply doesn’t attend. I sometimes wonder if she has
quite
all her faculties, Charles? After all, her mother was an ignorant peasant -- or possibly that peculiar blow Jane somehow received on the head -- pray don’t scowl at me like that! I’ve already discovered that you dislike any comment on the girl. I make this one for her own good. She’ll be very unhappy with us if she doesn’t alter her wicked little prejudices. I beg you to talk to her -- and I think --” she had added in a weaker voice, “that you might do that much for me since I’ve done what
you
wanted, Charles --”

Charlotte’s dark skin flushed, her eyes suddenly grew wistful, much younger. “Didn’t you miss me at all while I was in England? You haven’t said so.”

Charles had gallantly reassured her. He had also made love to her, while she astonished him as she often did by the abandon of her passion. And he had promised to lecture Jenny.

He began now by asking, “What did you mean by saying that you didn’t think that King James would care whether the Queen had left him or not?”

“Why,” said Jenny uncomfortably, “ ‘tis what I’ve always heard that the Pre -- the Chevalier neglected her frightfully, and has many mistresses, with whom he openly insults his wife.”

“Mother of God!” cried Charles. “These are
lies!
My dear girl, don’t you realize that Walpole has set up a whole machine to discredit our King, that there are agents who spend their entire time forging letters and inventing rumors?”

“I didn’t know, Papa,” said Jenny.

“And don’t you realize that now when there is hope that Austria and Spain will aid France at last in restoring our King, that filthy hog who usurps England’s throne is quaking, and no slander is too foul for his use?”

“I -- I didn’t like King George much,” said Jenny feebly, awed by her father’s vehemence. “I know most folk don’t, but they like the Prince of Wales -- and Papa, please don’t be angry. England just doesn’t want a Catholic King. They’re afraid.”

“Bah!” said Charles. “The same old dead horse to flog! In the first place, King James would not impose his own faith on his subjects, and in the second place -- though this I don’t quite approve -- little Prince Charlie is, I believe, to join the Church of England. So where is
that
argument?”

“I don’t know, Papa. But I don’t think war is right. I don’t see how you can, after what happened in the ‘Fifteen, after what happened to the Earl of Derwentwater.”

“That’s just
why!”
Charles shouted, turning on her in a fury. “You little idiot -- Holy Mother, I wonder if Charlotte’s right, and you’ve gone soft in the head!”

Jenny winced, she put her hands to her face and began to cry without sound. He stared at her a moment, while his anger melted. He walked over, and kneeling down put his arms around her. “There, there, darling,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean it. You know I love you, there, there.”