Devil Water (56 page)

It was onto this scene that Lady Newburgh walked. She had been searching some time for Charles and finally thought of the Tapestry Room. For a moment she was stricken dumb at the sight of the two blond heads so close together, of Charles on his knees, embracing the weeping girl. Nor was she pleased by the guilty start Charles gave, though he recovered at once, and jumping to his feet said, “My lady, I’ve been scolding Jenny, as we agreed last night. I’m sure she’s convinced now, and acknowledges King James as her true King.”

“Do you, Jane?” asked the Countess coldly. “Yes, my lady,” whispered Jenny.

“You see!” cried Charles in triumph. “And now, Jenny, repeat after me the oath of allegiance.” He drew the crucifix King James had given him from under his waistcoat. “Kneel down and touch the cross!”

Jenny obeyed, and she repeated after him in a faint toneless voice, “I swear by the Holy Trinity, and by this crucifix, that I will bear faith and true allegiance to my sovereign lord, King James the Third, and serve him unto death -- so help me God.”

“You may get up now,” said Lady Newburgh.

Jenny rose slowly. What did all this matter? What did anything matter except peace. Let me alone, she thought. Oh, let me alone. It was not Charles and Lady Newburgh that she meant. It was to her misery that she spoke -- the realization of it, which she had fought off so long and was still fighting.

A month passed, one of some outward gaiety. There were large family sightseeing parties, organized by the Countess, whenever the bitter weather permitted. In the great gilded coach they would set off from Versailles, where they caught a glimpse of the young French King, Louis Quinze, at his levee; or they went to St. Germain and saw the outside of the Palace which had used to be the Stuart court. Jenny and the little girls were also shown the improving sights of Paris, the King’s library, the new facade of the Louvre, the Sainte Chapelle.

Jenny was much moved by Notre Dame, its Gothic statues, its dark mysterious aisles -- a stone forest smelling of incense, the hundreds of shimmering taper-tips, the gorgeous jewel tones in the rose windows. She delighted Charles by her appreciation and when she said how much more beautiful Notre Dame was than St. George’s bare new whiteness at home even Lady Newburgh was pleased.

“I hope you’re beginning to see, Jane,” she said, “the difference between the old True Faith and the empty travesties of Protestantism.”

Jenny acquiesced. Why not turn Catholic as they all wished her to? Nothing seemed worth the trouble of combatting, and Lady Newburgh was kinder to her, when she began to have hopes of Jenny’s conversion. And then Father Brown arrived from Pontoise on a visit.

The Jesuit had left Dilston many months ago, having found a monk to take charge there. He had resumed clerical duties in France.

After supper on the night of his arrival, he sat long at the table drinking port with Charles. They ceremoniously toasted King James and the royal family, then the priest said abruptly, “What’s happened to Jenny, my son? She’s like a blown-out candle.”

“Why, I think she’s well,” said Charles startled. “Beginning to settle here -- to be sure she had an accident last summer, but she’s all over that -- only her leg aches sometimes where it was broken.”

Father Brown interrupted. “I don’t mean body aches, I mean soul sickness. Something is wrong.”

“I don’t know
what,”
said Charles frowning. “Of course, at first
my lady was perhaps not as cordial as she might be, yet she’s better pleased now that Jenny has become a Jacobite, and is showing interest in Catholicism. You’ll help with that, Father. Give her instruction while you’re here.”

“Certainly,” said the priest, “if she wants it. Yet I doubt she’ll make a Catholic now. If conversion comes ‘twill be in God’s own time.” He took a thoughtful sip of port. “Jenny isn’t by any chance in love, is she?”

“In love!” repeated Charles finding the idea as repugnant as it was ridiculous. “Who with, I’d like to know! Oh, Lady Betty did write me that Peterborough’s grandson, young Mordaunt, paid Jenny marked attentions, but Jenny’s mentioned him herself, said he blinked and looked like a spotty pig -- that doesn’t sound like love!”

“No,” said the priest smiling. “All the same, my son, I believe there’s a great deal you don’t know about your little girl. I don’t mean that she’s deceitful -- far from it, yet the very circumstances and mysteries of her life have taught her an unchildlike reserve. Also, as she wishes to please you, she cannot help having two natures which get into conflict. In thirty years of trying to help distress, it’s been my observation that most unhappiness springs from conflict or grief. I believe that Jenny is suffering from both. Though --” the priest continued in a musing voice, “the devil sends fear too, to afflict the human soul. As the old French saying has it,
L’eau benite du diable c’est la peur!
-- Fear, the devil’s holy water. The devil is always alert to sprinkle it, one must wipe it off with Faith -- Faith and the Love of God, as our blessed Saint Ignatius Loyola has said--”

“Yes, yes sir,” interrupted Charles. “Quite true, and if you think Jenny is doleful, I’ll give a ball to divert her.” He spoke impatiently, thinking that the old priest had grown irrelevant and garrulous, and at the same time Charles wondered whether he could really persuade Charlotte to give a ball. It would be fun to show Jenny off to the neighboring seigneurs and the Parisian Jacobites. It would also be interesting to invite Madame de Montfort, to see her for once without the need of secrecy and intrigue. Charles’s thoughts ran happily for a moment on the charms of the vivacious Marianne de Montfort, and on tentative plans for their next amorous rendezvous at the secret little house in the Faubourg. Then he happened to glance at Father Brown and received a severe check. All this would have to be confessed on Saturday night, and there would certainly be a stern lecture and most arduous penance.

On the night in which the letter came which changed Jenny’s life, there was a small party at the chateau. Lady Newburgh had not consented to giving a ball, and when she announced complacently that she was pregnant Charles could not insist. She did, however, invite a few people in for cards in honor of George Seton, the Earl of Winton, who had turned up unexpectedly on his way from Rome to the Netherlands.

Charles was delighted to see his old friend, who was now forty. Winton’s lean otter’s face was a trifle wizened, yet the small brown eyes were as bright as ever. The Earl appeared one afternoon at the chateau, riding a very jaded dirty nag, and with no luggage except saddlebags. When he had finally got past the scandalized Newburgh footmen, he cheerfully explained himself to Charles and the Countess.

“I’m off to Scotland, for a bit of a surreptitious visit, ye might say! I’ll find me a ship at The Hague.”

“But how imprudent!” cried Lady Newburgh. “You’re under sentence of death in Britain!”

“So is your husband, my lady -- and I believe he took a wee jaunt to England once, which is far
more
imprudent,” said Winton laughing. “Scotland’s a verra different matter. Most Scots’re Jacks -- ‘tis partly for that I’m going. His Majesty wants me to alert some of his good friends there, like the Murrays, and Lords Balmerino, Tullibardine, the Cameron o’ Lochiel, others.”

“You mean there’s really hope of an invasion!” cried Charles eagerly. “My instructions’ve made no mention of it -- though to be sure I’ve not had any dispatches lately from Rome or Spain. The weather’s been too bad.”

“There’s been hope ever since the Vienna treaty, as ye know,” said Winton, “though I’m not saying it’ll come tomorrow. When we strike ‘twill be in Scotland. Spain’ll send a fleet to help us. They want Gibraltar and Minorca back, Austria’s with us, and France should be too, though I’m bound to admit this king is pretty much of a lukewarm fainéant!”

“Yes,” said Charles shrugging. “Louis has time for little except making love to his young wife just now.”

“What’s wrong with that?” said the Earl with a faintly mocking bow towards Lady Newburgh. “I intend to see m’own wife in Scotland if she’s still alive. I’ve missed that braw lassie from time to time.”

“I didn’t know you had a -- well, a wife,” said Charles grinning and remembering the tawdry fair-haired woman called Magdalen whom Winton had brought to Widdrington Castle and presented most unconvincingly as his “Countess.”

“I wed her by Scottish law wi’ an exchange of vows in the Tower, just before my escape,” said Winton, “and I’ll tell ye why. She was near term with my brat, which I heard later she was brought to bed of in your own Northumberland, Charles -- at Bellingham, while she was fleeing north. The boy’s still there, being raised by a saddler called Carr. He must be ten now.”

“Good gracious,” said Lady Newburgh. “I trust you can get him away from that sort of life!” She found the Earl rather crudely eccentric, but his name and title were impressive and he had been the richest of all the Scottish lords captured at Preston in the ‘15.

“Time enough for that, my lady -- when King Jemmie ‘hae his own again’ and I my estates. ‘Twon’t hurt him at all, to learn a trade, didn’t harm
me
any. He was named Charles, by the bye, Charles Seton. I feared you’d be hanged, y’know, man.” He turned to Charles. “And ‘Id leave nobody behind ye -- a sentimental gesture!”

“For which I deeply thank you,” said Charles, smiling. “But I
had
someone to leave behind me whom you didn’t know about!” He indicated Jenny, who was sitting across the salon, playing at draughts with young Derwentwater. Lady Newburgh stiffened, as she saw the warmth in her husband’s eyes duplicated in Lord Winton’s.

“She’s ravishing,” Winton said. “What a lass to be proud of! I never saw such hair in m’life!”

“It’s very untidy,” said Lady Newburgh, peering across the room. “I’ve told her not to wear her hair so loose, she takes little trouble to obey me.”

“O-ho,” said Winton under his breath, “so that’s the way the land lies.” His bright gaze rested on Charles’s doting face as he looked at his daughter, then passed to the dark discontented face of the Countess.

The following evening a half-dozen friends arrived at the chateau to play at ombre, piquet, and hazard. There were also musicians installed in the hall, a flutist and a violinist. These were Charles’s idea. Lady Newburgh had thought that Jenny might as well spend the evening at the harpsichord, since it would save the expense of hiring anyone, and the girl didn’t play cards anyhow. Charles had been adamant; he had in fact been so annoyed that his wife was a little frightened. She gave in, but her affection for Jenny was not increased, nor was it by the girl’s appearance in the magnificently becoming rose taffeta dress her father had sent her.

Charles and Lord Winton had been drinking champagne for some time, and were both in high spirits. “Come here with me, darling!” Charles called to Jenny as she shyly appeared in the doorway. He put his arm around her waist and introduced her to the guests -- Lord Middleton, Mr. and Mrs. Stuart, Colonel Greene and his wife, staunch Jacobites all of them. There were besides a French marquis and a count accompanied by their ladies. “Sit down with Winton and me, Jenny!” said Charles exuberantly. “We’ll teach you to play hazard, and perhaps one of the ladies will join us?”

Mrs. Greene said that she would. The others, including Lady Newburgh, arranged themselves at various tables for ombre or piquet. Father Brown came in, bowed to the company, and sat down quietly by the fire to listen to the music. Charles provided Jenny with a louis d’or’s worth of change, and soon had her rattling the dice box and assessing her throw as well as any of them.

The watching priest saw that the girl smiled a little when she won, that she turned affectionately to her father, who spoke to her in his most wooing voice, and kept his arm around her shoulders. Yet the priest saw plainly the muted, strangely frozen quality about her. As though her inner self were not really there.

At ten o’clock McDermott, the equerry, entered the salon carrying a small black leather bag. He went to Charles and stood waiting until Charles, after a lucky cast, triumphantly raked in a pile of coins, then looked up and said, “Well, what is it, McDermott?”

The tall Scot bowed. “I’ve picked up these letters for you in the Faubourg, sir. I thought they might be important, and you’d want them immediately.”

“Quite right,” said Charles. He turned to Lord Winton and Mrs. Greene. “You will forgive me a moment if I glance at these? There may be important news.”

Charles fished two letters from the bag, they were both addressed to “Mr. Jones” at the accommodation address in the Rue St. Germain. He opened the larger one, looked through it quickly. “ ‘Tis from the Duke of Ormond in Madrid,” he said. “Nothing of great import, except that the Spanish court is increasingly warm towards giving us an expeditionary force. Oh, and that lunatic of a Wharton has turned up, is making a drunken nuisance of himself, babbling all manner of indiscretions to the English minister.”

Jenny shrank back on her chair, her heart began to thump. Wharton. The Duke of Wharton. She hadn’t seen him since the tavern table at Queen Anne’s Gate on the King’s birthday. Why then should his name bring a suffocating fear, why did she see his face like a leering mask of evil, floating amid red shrouded figures, why did she feel a scream rising now in her throat? She clenched the edge of the table and sat petrified, all her forces bearing down on the control of that scream.

Charles finished Ormond’s letter, and looked at the other one. “This is from London,” he said. “It’s gratifying to think how many agents we have there, and how our cause is growing.” He broke the seal. “Why, the letter’s for you, Jenny! Lady Betty perhaps? Though it’s not her writing. Would you like to read it now? What ails you, dear? You look very pale.”

“I feel a little faint,” said Jenny with tremendous effort. She took the letter in her hand and recognized through giddy swirling waves Evelyn Byrd’s writing on the direction “Miss Jane Radcliffe.” “May I retire?” she whispered.

Charles nodded in concern. “Lie down for a bit. Her ladyship’s maid shall bring you restoratives. I’ll send her.”