Now Face to Face (52 page)

His horse stumbled. Slane patted a haunch. With the paths this muddy, it would be two days before he was in London. He heard a bird singing and looked up, his hands slack on the reins. The horse stumbled again, falling almost to its knees, and he was thrown out of the saddle, falling headfirst over the horse’s neck. Shock kept him still a moment, then he got to his hands and knees. I didn’t break my neck, he thought, but I’m bleeding like a slaughtered pig.

There was a fallen log. He lay back against it, face skyward, and picked up a handful of snow and held it to his brow to stop the bleeding. The snow burned, and he felt sick. When I stop bleeding, he thought, I’ll remount. But the bleeding didn’t stop.

T
RYING TO
decipher the spidery handwriting of some Tamworth housewife from long ago, Jane bent over the old leather-bound books in the Duchess of Tamworth’s stillroom. She loved this room, its jars of preserves and dried flowers, its wooden and marble bowls. It was a refuge, a place of memory, of solace, of girlhood. In the autumn there were apples on shelves, and the last of the roses for the Duchess’s potpourri, just as there had been for as long as Jane could remember. In the spring, flower after flower lay upon shelves, drying. Barbara had used to sneak away the jars of jellies for them to eat in the apple orchard. She and Barbara had used to hide in here and play for hours in the cool and shadows.

Last night she had dreamed of green gloves and the pale green eyes of the Gypsy woman who’d been made to sit before the church three Sundays in a row, her distended abdomen the evidence of her crime. The woman’s eyes had been downcast, her face pale, while above her, from the wooden pulpit, which was built so that it seemed suspended in air, Vicar Latchrod had thundered about wicked women and sins of the flesh. I could not do it, thought Jane, watching the woman. I would weep or go mad at the shame. Perhaps Gypsies don’t feel shame. Later, parish officials had walked the woman to the boundary of the parish, told her to be gone.

Every time Jane walked the woods, she thought of the woman. Where could she go? How would she survive? It’s the law, said her father, irritable the way he was when he didn’t quite agree with the law. We in the parish don’t need a strange mouth to feed. We have enough of our own. If the baby was born in the parish, her father and others would have to be responsible for it. She’ll find other Gypsies and be fine, said her father. You think too much on it, Jane.

I think Gussy loves you very much, said Laurence Slane.

Last night her mother had locked Amelia in the cellar for badness. You are too easy on that child, her mother said. You have been since Jeremy died. She is out of hand. Amelia was in a little sobbing heap at the top of the cellar stairs when Jane opened the door. She had wrapped her arms and legs about Jane like a burr. Dark, Amelia had said through her sobs. Be good, Jane whispered, be good tonight and I will take you with me to the Duchess’s tomorrow. Spare the rod and spoil the child, said her mother. You think too much upon it. Jeremy’s death, her mother meant. It is time to let it go. You have other children. Grief has its own progress, said the Duchess. It cannot be hurried. I saw Gussy weep for Jeremy, or perhaps it was for you, Slane said.

There was some new tension between her mother and father. Her father had brought it back with him from London at the New Year. There was the sound of raised voices from behind the heavy thickness of their bedchamber door. Her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed at times, as if she had been crying. Her father’s answer to any question was short, and the children bothered him, when never they used to. Strangers came to call, late at night, when the house was asleep. Jane woke from her bed and peeped out the window, saw her father leading their horses to the stable. What was the secret? When she asked her mother, her mother told her to be quiet, not to speak of it again if she had any care for her family.

And then Laurence Slane just showing up one afternoon. An acquaintance from London, said her father, an actor. She saw him and her father walking in Tamworth’s woods. What did her father talk of with an actor? Why did Slane ride five and six miles away to an inn in another village? He is hiding from those to whom he owes money, her father said. The theater in London always closed for the winter, so an actor might owe funds.

Why did she feel that wasn’t true?

Come to London and see Gussy, said Slane. He must come to me, she answered. Do you want to be right, asked Slane, or do you want to be happy?

The stillroom was suddenly too silent.

“Amelia, come and give Mama a kiss.”

No answer. She looked under the table, where her daughter Amelia had been playing with Dulcinea. No one was there.

“I
T’S MORE
than I can bear, Annie,” said the Duchess. “Thirty years we’ve known each other, and now we might be strangers. He returns my notes to him unopened. Unopened.”

Annie, brushing the Duchess’s hair, didn’t reply. The Duchess continued to attempt reconciliation with Sir John, and he would not allow it. She would not give up, and he would not give in. Annie didn’t know how it would end.

“And this letter from Barbara,” said the Duchess. “I cannot believe Hyacinthe is kidnapped.”

“You’re shivering.” At once, Annie put a shawl around the Duchess’s shoulders, then went to the fire and stoked it higher.

“You’d think it February instead of the beginning of March.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone in the doorway, someone small. The cat, Dulcinea, sauntered into the bedchamber.

“Look whom Dulcinea brings,” Annie said to the Duchess.

Jane’s daughter Amelia walked forward to the chair where the Duchess sat, glancing at the Duchess with a wise, sideways look. She pointed to the magnificent portrait by Watteau.

“That is Bab. I love Bab.” Amelia’s face was plump; her neck was plump; her arms were plump.

I wager the little legs under that gown are plump, thought the Duchess, staring down at the child, who gave her back stare for stare. She’ll know something. Children always know something.

The Duchess patted her lap to Jane’s child. “Come and sit here.”

“Yes, Your—what am I to call you? I forget.”

“Your Grace.”

“Your Grace.”

Two peas in a pod, thought Annie, going behind the Duchess’s chair and beginning to pin up her hair.

“Who visits your grandfather these days, Amelia?”

“A man with black brows. You are very old. I am four. How old are you?”

“A hundred and four. A man with black brows, heh?”

“Amelia.” Jane stood in the doorway.

Amelia rolled her eyes at the Duchess, as if to say, We are in trouble now.

“Ha! This child is the image of her grandfather, Annie, may she lead him a merry chase. In another few weeks, all over England, men will be voting for who will sit in the Commons for the next seven years, and for the next seven years, Tamworth’s man will wear an earring. An earring.”

The Duchess referred to Tommy Carlyle, who was Tony’s choice to represent Tamworth.

Jane heard what you said, thought Annie. It is no good trying to pretend you were talking of something else.

“Jane, you and this child stay and have crumbling cake with me.”

It will do you no good, thought Annie. Jane never tells much.

“Annie, ring for cake and tea. Amelia, we will have crumbling cake and honey rings. Bah. This might be February. The only thing which tells me it is March is all the robins.”

“Their red breasts are crimson surprises.”

“A pretty image, Jane. Crimson surprises amid the dreariness.”

“Dreary, dreary, dreary,” said Amelia. “Grandpapa is dreary.”

“Crumbling cake gives her wind. I will be up half the night.” Annie, on her way to obey the Duchess, whispered to Jane: “Watch her. She can’t be trusted.”

“Well, now, Jane, who is this man with the dark brows I hear about?”

Jane stammered, caught off guard by the Duchess’s directness. She was certain her father would wish her to say nothing.

“A—A friend from London.”

“What friend?”

Jane was saved from answering by the Duchess’s steward, Perryman, who as always resembled a pigeon with his puffed-out chest. “Forgive me for interrupting, Your Grace, but Tim has found a person in the woods over near the next village,” said Perryman.

“And what is Tim doing in the next village?”

“A sweetheart, I believe. Thrown from his horse—”

“Tim’s been thrown from a horse?”

“The person.”

“Well, send a carriage to fetch this person. I’m surprised that you had to ask. Things have come to a pretty pass when we don’t help our fellowman here at Tamworth. Now, then, Jane, who is it you said visits from London?”

I didn’t say, thought Jane, as you well know. “I don’t think you know him.”

“I know many people, Jane.”

“Have you heard anything further from Barbara?” Jane crossed her fingers for luck. It might work. Sometimes, the Duchess’s mind floated away like a cloud in a summer sky.

“Not a word, other than that dreadful letter to say Hyacinthe was gone. I’ve written her to come home. Louisa, my sister-in-law, wrote to tell me London was in a ferment about it, that there was a broadsheet bringing up the South Sea Bubble again. Barbara’s had her share of sorrow, Jane, more than her share. She loved Hyacinthe as if he were her own child. Spoiled him. The tricks he pulled when he was here with me, letting my geese out, fighting with stable boys. ‘You ought to cane him,’ I told her. She didn’t listen. Tony promised he would call upon the King on Barbara’s behalf, but what can any of us do from here? Tony ought to go to Virginia. I’ve written to Abigail to tell her I think he should go. I should never have sent her there in the first place. I regret it now. Pirates. I had a thought of pirates. Annie will tell you. I dreamed of them, last fall, long before this happened. Pirates took Hyacinthe. I know it. I feel it. Pirates are said to roam up and down the colonial coast, even though the worst of them were hanged several years ago….”

Safe, thought Jane, I’m safe.

An hour later, as Jane left Tamworth, the carriage was rumbling down the drive. She and Amelia stood near a tree to watch, both of them equally curious.

“It’s Grandfather’s friend,” said Amelia, as footmen carried Laurence Slane into the house.

F
ROM
T
IM’S
arms, the Duchess stared down frowningly at the actor, Laurence Slane, whom she’d seen in London. Was this the man with dark brows who visited Sir John? It would have to be. Now, why would Laurence Slane visit Sir John Ashford? The Duchess pursed her lips.

Slane was muttering, and his movements were restless, dangerous, his arms flailing out, so that Annie, who was trying to tend the deep gash on his brow, said to Tim, “Come and help me. Hold his arms.”

“It’s not French he’s speaking,” said the Duchess, listening intently. “I know French.”

“What then? Spanish? I’m going to have to sew this.” Annie shook her head. “We’ll need someone else to help hold him. It is going to hurt.”

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Lucius laughed to himself and hid behind the altar. The King, his friend James, was visiting, and though James was six years older, making him fourteen to Lucius’s eight, they played hide-and-seek. It was an honor to his family for the young King to visit.

You make him smile, Lucius, his mother said. He has great need of that.

The king moved slowly down the aisle, one hand on the hilt of the sword tied to his belt. Lucius put his head out, then pulled it back in quickly, laughing to himself. The King was close now. He was walking up the altar steps. Lucius backed into a corner of the marble altar, holding his breath. He could see the King’s legs. Suddenly, he lunged, grabbing an ankle, and Jamie shouted, and Lucius began to laugh, and Jamie, dark eyes shining, suddenly did, too, high laughter, clear laughter, the laughter of a boy. His courtiers forget, his mother said, that he is still a boy. Jamie’s father had died in the last year. All hope now rested on Jamie.

You frightened me, Duncannon, the King said, but he was smiling. He pulled off a ring, giving it to Lucius. You’ll be the best of my servants, someday, the one I trust most.

“Italian, I think,” said the Duchess.

T
HE NEXT
afternoon, Jane walked through the woods that separated Ladybeth from Tamworth Hall. Her father was waiting for her near the stream.

“He is not awake yet, Father. He is feverish, making no sense, Annie said. I saw him. Annie let me go in and put the plaster Mother made upon his forehead, but I couldn’t give him the letter. The Duchess asked if he was the man who’d been visiting you.”

“Bloody hands of Christ Jesus our Lord! How does she know that? Has she spies behind every tree? She is impossible, she has always been impossible, and she will never change. What did you say?”

“I said, no, that I did not know him, that he had not been to Ladybeth.”

“Good, good.”

Her father was almost feverish himself. “Go again tomorrow and see how he does. They’ll think nothing of your visiting. I’ll have your mother make something else to take him. And if he is awake, you must give him the letter.”