Now Face to Face (68 page)

Chapter Forty

A
T
T
AMWORTH
, T
IM LIFTED THE
D
UCHESS OUT OF HER CARRIAGE
, an ancient, unfashionable vehicle that she refused to replace. She was just returned from Lindenmas, half a day’s journey away. She had been there all of June, waiting for Ormonde to invade. She was tired of waiting now, and missed Tamworth, so she’d come home. I may as well die in my own bed, she told Tony. I’ll come to see about you, he said.

“Chapel, Your Grace?”

“I must rest first. Then, yes, chapel.”

“One of the hives isn’t thriving.” Tim glanced back through the opened door, but Annie was still outside, Dulcinea in her arms. He said, “It’s the Gypsy, I think.”

As he carried the Duchess up the stairs, he told a tale of sitting up all night on the summer solstice in the porch of the church because custom had it one might see the spirits of those who were going to die in the next year. Bathsheba, out gathering herbs for Annie—St. John’s-wort, fern frond, vervain, and rue, which must be gathered at night, and what better night than solstice?—had unpinned her long, lank hair, crept up to the porch church, and peered suddenly around its opening at him.

“I ran for a mile before I stopped. I thought her a witch. Now one of the hives isn’t thriving and there is quarreling among the kitchen maids,” said Tim.

Later, when Annie was fussing about the bedchamber, making certain everything was as it ought to be after their absence, the Duchess said, “I won’t have a Gypsy upsetting my household. She may well have cursed my bees. One of the hives isn’t thriving. How long has that Gypsy been here? She was only to stay until spring.”

“There is a letter. It came while we were gone.”

Some timbre in Annie’s voice distracted the Duchess momentarily. “Who is it from? And never mind preparing me. You will send me to my grave one day preparing me.”

“It is from Lady Alderley.”

Diana.

Annie held up the letter. The pair of them stared at it as if it would explode.

“Open it.”

Annie slit open the letter—it might have been Diana’s throat—and handed it over.

“She writes to tell me that she comes to Tamworth. From the date of this, she should be here today or tomorrow. Like Job, I have not enough suffering at the moment. Invasion, a Gypsy cursing my hive and my household, and now this. I doubt I will sleep a moment, and I am old, and I need my rest.”

“Then rest.”

“I won’t sleep. I won’t close my eyes.”

The Duchess closed her eyes and fell asleep at once.

L
ATER, IN
the evening, England’s wonderful summer evening in which light stayed for a long time, Tim took the Duchess to chapel, going by way of the hives so that she could see them for herself. They were kept at the garden wall, each straw skep shaped like a bishop’s hat, sitting in its own enclosure, built into the wall. He showed her the poor hive.

All kinds of flowers were planted here to entice the bees. Beyond the wall was her orchard—apple, pear, plum trees—and beyond that a field of clover, the fat heads of the blossoms growing up thickly together, moving gently, like waves on a sea, in this summer’s breeze. At the wall grew an ancient, vining wisteria and brambleberries, mint and violets and Queen Anne’s lace, rosemary and daisies and an old, varicolored damask rose planted so many years ago that no one knew how old it was. The bees loved it.

The Duchess breathed in the smell of the flowers, the sight of roses and clover. Bees were everywhere, their hum a wonderful chant to her, better than a choir at evensong. Now that war loomed, all was doubly precious. Each moment must be treasured. She must fill her eye with this view of Tamworth, her favorite. Barbara, she thought, I wish you were here, but if we’re to have war, I’m glad you’re not.

Chapel was as always, a cool dip of water for a hot, troubled mind. It was so peaceful. Tim helped her to sit in her favorite spot. Richard’s marble tomb, with its reclining figure of him, dominated all.

“Ormonde isn’t here yet,” she said to Richard. “Barbara is still in Virginia. You would approve of Harriet. The marriage is a success.” Weary not in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. She’d done well, led the family into further wealth. The Tamworth legacy was secure, buffered and enlarged by all that Harriet brought. Nothing could hurt it now. The remaining problem was Barbara, what to do about the debt, the shambles her dearest’s life had become. She closed her eyes and drifted into memories of her sons and Richard, of Barbara and Harry and Jane in other, younger days. Her head nodded.

Tim touched her shoulder.

“Tell those children I’ll cane them if they feed the pigs brandy again,” she said.

Tim bent down to pick her up in his strong arms. She looked at him. He was a bold-faced fellow. It was difficult to resist the smile in his merry eyes.

“Bah.”

He grinned, showing his broken front teeth.

“Shall I take you by the beemaster? Now that you have seen the Duke, you ought to be up to quarreling.”

“I do not quarrel. I never quarrel. What goes on at Ladybeth?” How did Sir John get on? Was he still ridiculously angry?

But Tim didn’t know.

They took a way back that brought them through Tamworth woods, verdant green and wonderfully shadowy. And there was the house, built in the time of King Henry VIII and his daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, rising ivy-greened and many-gabled before them. Octagonal bays in its front corners, woods and park, garden maze and iron gates opening to a curving avenue of lime trees, the house was a part of the life of everyone for miles around. The Duchess made Tim stop a moment, so that she could enjoy the view. Ormonde may not have this, not one acre, not one brick of it. I will die for it, she thought.

“Richard’s roses are at their best. Just look there.”

Together, they admired the crimson heads of the roses in the garden. It was the first day of July. July was a good month for roses.

“Scarlet ribbons in her hair…” Tim began to hum the old folk tune as they walked toward the house.

Her servants would sing another tune if Ormonde and James came and scattered them all to the four winds, burned this house to nothing or gave it away to loyal followers. To the victor belong the spoils, and well she knew it. She had seen it three times in her life alone, the victors dividing up the spoils. She’d been among the victors.

In her bedchamber, a bouquet of blue forget-me-nots, crimson pimpernels, and yellow agrimony lay upon her pillow.

The Gypsy, thought the Duchess. Bah.

When she woke the next morning, a handful of tiny strawberries, like little red babies, lay atop her book of sermons. But there was more: a chain of wild roses festooning Richard’s portrait and Barbara’s and strewn across the bed in which she slept.

Dulcinea pounced and killed a sweet rose.

“Things have come to a pretty pass,” she told Annie and Tim and Perryman, assembled like punished children, “when anyone may march about in my bedchamber as she pleases. I could have been murdered in my sleep. There is an invasion, in case you have forgotten—marauding Spaniards and Scotsmen, Jacobites who knows where.”

And to Annie, “It is bribery, pure and simple. You told her of my weakness.”

“I never said—”

“Bah. You, Perryman, tell me the truth of the Gypsy.”

“She does whatever is asked. There is no rude talk from her.”

“No talk at all from her,” put in Tim.

“No one in the household will eat with her or sit beside her,” continued Perryman. “No one will share the chamber in which she sleeps. Anytime a thing goes wrong, anytime a plate is broken or a finger cut, the others blame her, saying she put a curse on them. She is always alone, save for her babe, whom no one will touch. He has the look of an idiot to him.”

A Gypsy and an idiot in my household, thought the Duchess. Fitting. She had Annie summon Bathsheba from the kitchen.

“Is this your doing?” She gestured toward the twined roses across the portraits, across her bed, toward the strawberries lying on her book of sermons. She could see Annie drifting back and forth in the withdrawing chamber just beyond. Like a hen brooding over a cracked egg, thought the Duchess.

The Gypsy’s thin chest rose and fell, too rapidly. A sign of guilt if ever I’ve seen one, thought the Duchess. Guilty of wantonness with wildflowers, of bewitching bees. Off with her head.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

A soft voice. Soft voice, hard heart. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, why had she thought of that verse? But she knew. A sudden thought entered the Duchess’s head.

“What goes on at Ladybeth Farm?” she asked.

“Strange men come calling, late at night. Him that fell, the man—”

“Laurence Slane?” The Duchess was suddenly excited and intrigued.

“Yes. He came to see Sir John.”

Slane? Here again? Tony said he had a sweetheart nearby, but why would he call at Ladybeth?

“I see something in the tea leaves, something small, with a tail, spotted. It will bring trouble. I see muskets and swords and Lady Ashford crying.”

Second sight. The Gypsy had second sight. That and her knowledge of the goings-on at Ladybeth were enough for the Duchess.

“Do you know our Lord’s catechism?”

Bathsheba nodded her head, then shook it. “Hard to remember,” she said.

“If you can remember the catechism and be baptized like a decent woman, you may stay here. Cat got your tongue? Dulcinea, give the Gypsy her tongue. Answer ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ or ‘No, Your Grace’—and, mind, either answer suits me.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Thank you, Your Grace.”

Those eyes were the shade of fern fronds. They’d have their work cut out for them taming this one. Typical of Annie to pick a Gypsy to mother.

“I never said a word,” Annie said in defense of herself later, fluffing up pillows and pounding at imaginary dust upon the cushions, to have an excuse to find out what she could. “She’s a Gypsy. She read your mind.”

“Has she a way with plants?”

“Such as I’ve never seen.”

“Take her out of Cook’s hands and put her in the stillroom.”

Where she was half the time, anyway; but the Duchess did not need to know that, Annie thought.

“By the by, it was the Duke, you know, who was fond of strawberries, not I.” Roses had always been her undoing. The Duchess picked up one of the roses. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.

Tim put his head in the doorway.

“A boy has come from the village to say a carriage is passing through.”

Diana.

The Duchess had Tim carry her to the terrace. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Richard, Diana has ignored me for over a year, and now here she is. She wants something. She only visits when she wants something. The continual game between us.

“Mother,” Diana said.

The voice, unmistakable, low and husky, came from behind her. The Duchess did not turn or move or indicate that she had heard. Lips as cool as grass touched her cheek.

“Dearest Mother.”

The Duchess saw out of the corner of her eye Diana kneel in a rustle of skirt, an air of musky, heavy scent.

“You weren’t so sweet last summer, Diana, nor at Christmas. What has changed your mind? Come around here where I may look at you.”

Diana moved to stand before her. Unlike another, who might fidget and fuss under scrutiny, might blush or look away, Diana cocked her head to one side as she waited, as lazy, as uncaring, as a cat sunning on a fence. Her face was too thin, the lines from her nose to her mouth deeper. There were dark circles under violet eyes, eyes men had once dueled over, quarreling over the exact shade. It was still a face of matchless beauty, but now it was haggard, time-edged, hard. She leaned upon a cane, and one of her wrists was bandaged.

“What’s this? Has Walpole taken to beating you?”