Now Face to Face (70 page)

Barbara sank into a deep curtsy.

“You left us without a farewell.”

She came up out of the curtsy with the grace of a lily unfurling. “So I did, and I ask your pardon for it. I was so greatly grieved over the loss of Lord Devane, over the loss of Devane House, that I was not quite myself. Will you accept my humble apology and forgive me for my rudeness? I hope so. I want your forgiveness.”

“Do you think you may put yourself among us again, just as you left us, with no warning? Do you stay among us this time? Or will some whim take you off again?”

“I have something for you.”

Barbara knelt and Thérèse stepped forward and unfastened the wonderful knot of feathers in Barbara’s hair.

“Only a great warrior is allowed to wear this.” Barbara held out the knot of feathers to the Prince. “He has to have proved his bravery in battle again and again. These are the feathers of an eagle, the most fierce of birds in the New World. Will you accept this with my compliments? This is an Iroquois warrior’s knot. The Iroquois are the finest warriors in all the colonies. Governor Spotswood told me that if we did not ally ourselves with them, they could push us all out into the sea. The French woo them, want them to ally against us. Governor Spotswood says that no one here understands the importance of treaties with the Iroquois. It is an honor that I have this. I did not have to purchase it. I told them who it was for, and it was given to me, to honor you as a king’s son, and to honor your exploits in battle. For I told them you were a warrior also.”

The Prince ran a finger down the long feathers, along the beading where the feathers joined. Her gift was clever. He was happiest when soldiering, most in his element among men and animals and the smell and feel of war. Then, his roughness was only part of a larger brutality.

“And this”—Caesar stepped forward at her signal and held out a package—“is a cover made from a bear. Large, brown bears live in the mountains at one end of the colony of Virginia. They’ve left the paws and claws. The paws are as large as my head, the claws are as long as my hand, and the cover itself is huge. He was a magnificent beast. It is very warm. I hope it will give you pleasure and keep you warm and that some of the bear’s spirit will come to you as you lie under it. I wish only to move freely among you all again, as once I did. I would like that, and to have your regard.”

The Prince was glaring at Caesar, at Thérèse, at Montrose, at Carlyle, at everyone but Barbara. It was as if he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.

“I’m going to Hampton Court this afternoon to see His Majesty the King. Do you wish me to carry any message for you?”

The Prince shook his head.

“Have I your permission to retire now, to go and call upon the Princess?”

At his abrupt nod, Barbara backed away, the others doing the same.

When they were some distance away, on a path leading up in the gardens, Carlyle said, “Look.”

The Prince had walked over to Mrs. Howard and was holding up the huge cover. He was waving to them, stiffly, no smile, but waving nonetheless—this from a man who had no social graces.

“Let me accompany you to Hampton Court.”

“No, Tommy.”

T
HE
P
RINCESS
sat in a summerhouse, called a folly, her back to them. Positioned upon a slight hill, the folly was of white stone, shaped like a temple, its sides open to breezes. She sat with her favorite companions and the maids of honor. They were eating pears, slicing them with small, sharp ivory-handled knives they wore fastened to their gowns with belts of silver links. They laughed as the pear juice dribbled down their chins. As one after another of them saw her, Barbara felt she was moving across a vaster space than the ocean she had just crossed, into a well of silence and hate. The maids of honor were staring at her with grave faces, as if she were a moon fallen from the sky before them. They were young, fifteen and sixteen years of age, serving the Princess until they should marry. She could remember herself at that age; it seemed a lifetime ago.

Barbara stopped at the bottom step of the folly, her servants fanned out behind her. There was a long silence, into which Barbara curtsied.

“Lady Devane, you are unexpected.”

The Princess’s voice was cold, as cold, as unwelcoming as the expression on her face, an expression mirrored to some extent by everyone around her. Barbara took a breath. This woman she must make a friend, and if not a friend, at least not an enemy.

“But I hope not unwelcome, Highness. I’ve brought you something from Virginia: fifty-two candles made from the bay myrtle that grows there, in a basket fashioned by the oldest slave on my grandmother’s plantation. The design upon the basket is quite intricate, and the candles have an enchanting smell once they begin to burn.”

One of the maids of honor walked down the steps to take the basket. Barbara explained her other gifts, a child’s moccasins, a comb made from the bone of a whale, a board and cradle such as Iroquois mothers carried their children in. The Princess scarcely glanced at any of them.

“I wanted only to make my obediences before going to Hampton Court.”

“Obedience from you, Lady Devane? How you must have changed in Virginia.”

I won’t respond, thought Barbara. I’ll act as if all is well. “I wanted you to know I had returned. You have my humble service.”

“Humble?”

The Princess laughed, and there was no mirth in the sound. Barbara waited where she was, until the Princess was no longer laughing.

The women’s eyes met, both blue, one pair fierce, cool, disdainful, the other pair quiet.

“Yes,” Barbara repeated, clearly, “humble.”

Once they were away from the folly, she told her servants to wait for her at the boat. To Carlyle she said, “Let’s go and sit where we have a view of the river.”

When they had found a bench, she had to gaze at the river for a time. What he was about to say was going to affect her whole life. She could feel it. “Explain yourself. Tell me to my face what you tried to tell me in the letter.”

At last, thought Carlyle. He began to speak.

“Two springs ago, when everything was chaos, His Majesty’s most trusted servants were charged with high crimes. The royal family had partaken liberally of South Sea stock and bribes. And your husband was a South Sea director. It was he whom the South Sea Company depended upon to obtain royal approval and patronage in their doings, and he was wonderful in his task. When the price of the stock fell, and fell again, and when it was clear it would not rise, the howls of rage toward him, toward all the directors, were deafening. Roger’s carriage was stoned in the streets. He was accosted outside the House of Lords by angry holders of stock. He tried at first to pay friends who had lost out of his own funds, but that was useless. It was like trying to empty the ocean with a pail. And then he died. A tragedy, that. But perhaps also a stroke of luck—”

“Luck.” She could feel something—was it anger? Was anger this mighty?—like a flame in her from head to toes. He spoke truth. She was reacting to hearing truth.

“—for those who were trying to salvage the ministry and royal family. Public rage was turned not only toward the directors. As you must remember, the King and all his family and all his ministers and favorites felt it, too. You have seen the boys throw stones at the Shrove Tuesday cock, throwing harder and harder, even after the bird is dead, caught up as they are in their frenzy of bloodlust? Barbarous custom, but satisfying, too, a venting for rage and violence. The cries of rage against your husband, even dead, continued to build. It is my belief that they were inflamed a bit, once it was realized that a scapegoat had appeared, and such a convenient scapegoat, a dead one, unable to defend himself. After all, heap as much abuse, as much hatred as possible upon his head, and the others can somehow creep past the howling crowd that wants something for its woe, someone to rend and tear. Above all things, Barbara, Robert Walpole is a practical man. He bows to the inevitable. I was there; I saw the maneuvering and pretexts used to protect others. But when the subject of Roger’s fine came up, there was not the same intricate dance of defense; some zest, some purpose or determination, was missing. True, the hounds were howling loudly, but they had howled before. I saw Robert sit silent time and again, as Roger, a man who had helped both him and Townshend back into favor only two years before, was defiled beyond words. There watching with me were certain ministers, men as guilty as your husband ever was. Or guiltier. But they were alive, weren’t they? In the rush to plunder Roger’s estate, Robert neatly plucked out certain allowances, certain rights for other directors, all of them living. And all the while, Devane House was being pulled down, brick by brick, as London flocked to see it, and said, ‘See, we have our revenge. We are eating his soul.’”

She felt sick, dizzy, with fury.

“Do not take my word alone, Barbara. Ask the Bishop of Rochester, he whom they now claim has plotted against the King. ‘I kept my office because Lord Devane died,’ Sunderland told Rochester, and Rochester told me.”

She stood up, shook out the folds of her gown, but Carlyle was not fooled by her action, the calmness in it. Her face was very white, the dark patches placed on it standing out in contrast.

“Perhaps you speak from envy, Tommy, for what Robin has and you do not.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No.”

“A little advice from a seasoned courtier. Never, never reveal to another what you think, as you just did to me. It is fatal to do so, absolutely fatal. You are no longer in the wilds of Virginia, my dear. You are at court.” That reproof made, he put his hand over his heart. “I had the honor to be called friend by your husband, whom I loved. I remain his friend, even in death. For his sake, I am yours.”

She walked away from him at that, not looking back once, and Carlyle watched until she was just a tiny figure in the distance. He fluttered open his fan. Walpole, he thought, I may have you, after all.

She had left a rambunctious, scattered beauty and returned something else again. She was more grave, more aloof. The irrepressible mischief of her, chief among her charms, was transformed to a more mature willfulness, quite alluring in its way, and also a little frightening. In this court of whining complacency, she was unmistakable, gold among the dross. Has she the depth and strength necessary to challenge Walpole? he wondered. Will she? Was that do-or-die recklessness gone, erased by Virginia and by Roger’s death? Or did it simply lie dormant?

Someone sat down beside him. Carlyle turned and narrowed his eyes at Laurence Slane.

“I am to play cards with the Princess at three,” said Slane. “Do you know where she is?”

“Of course.”

“Who is the lady I saw you sitting with?”

Slane lazily sprawled himself out upon the bench.

“The widow of the Earl Devane, one Barbara Montgeoffry. She has just returned to us from Virginia, has just made her obediences to the Prince and Princess of Wales.”

“They were glad to see her?”

“His Highness had all the grace of an ox, freshly poleaxed. The Princess would have gladly stabbed her through the heart with one of the knives with which she was slicing pears.”

“A varied reaction.”

“Yes; extreme, from love to hate in a matter of moments.”

“And where does the lady go now?”

“To Hampton Court to see the King.”

“Will she arouse the same emotion?”

“I think she will arouse respect.”

“You smile like a cat who has seen a nice, fat bird.”

“Do I? Odd that you make no comment upon Lady Devane’s beauty. Beauty such as hers is quite rare, placing her at once into an aristocracy all her own. She may be stupid, ill mannered, vicious. It does not matter. With that face, any virtue seems twice magnified, and vices are ignored. Passions are set for and against her before she even speaks. Most men speak of her beauty right away.”

“Is she stupid, ill mannered, vicious?”

“No. Her late husband had an eye for that which was above the ordinary. He collected many beautiful objects, and he married her when she was just a child, not even sixteen years of age. He saw it then, I believe, that she would be above the ordinary in all ways. Of course, he was mostly interested in the property she brought with her as part of the marriage. When she returned to us at the end of 1719, after an absence of four years, she was all everyone talked of. All the women must have their gowns cut the way hers were, must wear their hair, place their patches the way she did. She’ll do the same again, this time with all those feathers and beads on her person. Ah, Roger. His eye was wonderful.”

“Do you go to Lady Mary’s gathering tonight?”

“Of course. Most of the Prince’s court will be there, perhaps Their Highnesses themselves. I would not miss it. Will you be there, Slane?”

“Of course.”

“And where do you go now?”

“To walk along the river awhile. I must have my wits about me to play cards. You’re wrong, you know. I did notice how beautiful she was.”

T
RAILING HER
hand in water, Barbara leaned over the rim of the boat that was taking her to Hampton Court. Her head was aching, and her heart was on rampage. Thérèse was pinning another set of feathers in her hair, and it was all Barbara could do to allow it. She had trusted Robin to take care of the disgrace, of Roger’s part in it. Carlyle’s words stirred up the grief and pain, the horror of two springs ago, when Roger had died despite her care.