The Song of the Siren (30 page)

“Who might not even be the true Prince,” grumbled my grandfather. “There was a bit of a mystery about his birth.”

“Surely you’re not thinking of that warming pan scandal,” said my grandmother.

“What was it?” asked Damaris.

“Oh,” said my mother, “before the boy was born they had had other children, none of whom had survived. There was a rumor that the Queen had given birth to another stillborn child and the boy James was smuggled into the bedchamber in a warming pan.

It was such utter nonsense.”

“It was an indication even at the time of the unpopularity of James,” said my grandfather.

“He should have seen what was coming and given up his adherence to the Catholic faith.

Then he would have kept his crown.”

“The trouble,” said my mother, “is that we rarely see what is coming. It would be so easy to avoid it if we did. And to ask a man to give up his faith is asking a good deal.”

“We’ve got a warming pan,” Clarissa told Damaris. “I wonder if we’ve got any babies in it.”

“Now,” I said, “you have started something.”

219”I’d like a little baby in a warming pan,” mused Clarissa.

“Clarissa,” I said sternly, “warming pans are for warming beds. They are not meant for babies.”

Clarissa opened her mouth to protest, but my mother laid a hand on hers and with the other put a finger to her lips.

Clarissa was not to be so easily subdued. She opened her mouth to speak, but my grandfather startled her by banging on the table. “Little children are here to be seen but not heard.”

She looked at him fearlessly in much the same way as I imagine I did at her age.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because,” he said, “what they have to say is of no interest to their elders and betters.”

Although Clarissa was not surprised to hear that there were people in the world older than herself she was momentarily taken aback to think that they could be better.

Uncle Carl said: “There’s going to be trouble from the Jacobites at some time, I’m sure. They’re not going to give up easily, you know.”

“They’ll never succeed. We’re never going to have the Catholics back here, depend on it,” said my grandfather. He brought his brows together; they had grown very bushy in the last years and had fascinated Clarissa from the moment she had seen them.

Now she was absorbed by them and forgot to ask why.

My grandfather had always been staunchly Protestant. He had supported Monmouth because he represented the Protestants against Catholic James. I vaguely remembered the terrible time that had been when he had come before Judge Jeffreys and been miraculously saved at the eleventh hour.

“Some of them,” said Carl, “are fighting with Louis.”

“Disgraceful!” said my grandfather. “Englishmen against Englishmen.”

“Fighting in a stupid war about Spain!” put in my grandmother.

“Of course the King of France offered hospitality to James and his Queen and his son,” said Carl. “I daresay they feel they wish to repay him.”

“Oh, yes,” added Edwin. “A herald was at the gates of St. Germam-en-Laye when the King died, and in Latin, French and English

220proclaimed the Prince as James the Third of England and the Eighth of Scotland.”

“I wish I were young enough to take up arms against him,” said my grandfather. “How many of these Jacobites are there, do you think, Carl?”

“Many in France. They come over here quite often I believe ... spying out the land.”

“And we allow that?”

“They come in secret, of course. It’s so easy, isn’t it? A ship brings them over...

a little boat is let down ... near some lonely stretch of coast and they’re here.”

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Assessing the possibilities of victory. Finding out how many supporters they have.

Believe me, there are a considerable number. They decide where a landing would be possible if they came with an army. They need to know where they are most likely to get a footing.”

“And,” said Harriet, “do we do nothing about this?”

“We have our spies as they have. There must be many ... even at the Court of St.

Germain. What we need to do is to get the ringleaders. There are a handful of men who are the very core of it. Men like Lord Hessenfield.”

“That fellow!” said my grandfather. “The Hessenfields of the north. They were always Catholics. They plotted in the reign of Elizabeth and tried to get Mary of Scotland on the throne.”

“Well, it is not surprising that he is one of the Jacobite leaders, I suppose,” I said, and hoped my voice sounded normal.

“It’s not so much a religious conflict now,” said Edwin. “True, it was religion which drove James from the throne. Now it is a question of right and wrong. Many would say that James is the true King and his son James is the Third of that name. It’s a reasonable assumption. And if William and Mary had not deposed her father and taken the throne, this young man who calls himself James the Third would indeed be our King.”

“You talk like a Jacobite,” growled my grandfather.

“No, indeed I do not,” said Edwin. “I merely put forward the facts. I can see reason in the actions of Hessenfield and his kind. They believe they are fighting for the right and it is going to take a great deal to stop them.”

221”Hessenfield got General Langdon out of the Tower and away to France,” commented my grandfather.

I felt so emotional that I dared not attempt to speak again. I was aware of Harriet, watching me.

“A daring thing to do,” said Carl. “We have to be wary of a fellow like that. Clearly he’s a man to reckon with.”

“There are others like him,” added Edwin. “They are all dedicated men. Otherwise they would not have given up so much to serve what might be a lost cause.”

“Ah,” put in Harriet, “but they do not see it as a lost cause.”

“It must be. With Anne on the throne and men like Marlborough to fight for her.”

There was a brief silence and the conversation turned to local matters.

I told them I had decided to sell Enderby Hall. They applauded, every one of them.

“So you have seen sense at least,” commented my grandfather.

“I wonder who’ll buy it?” said my mother.

“It’s not the best proposition,” added my grandmother. “It’s a gloomy old place and standing empty so long ...”

I looked at Damaris, who was smiling at Clarissa.

“What’s gloomy?” she was asking.

I turned to my mother. “Will you show people round if they want to see it?” I asked.

“Someone from the house will,” she said.

“We’ll have some keys here,” said my grandmother. “Prospective buyers are almost certain to come here.”

Then we talked of other matters and I was glad. Enderby Hall was almost as affecting as talk of Hessenfield and his Jacobites, but in a different way.

^^ The weeks passed and we were still at the Dower House. Damaris’s

j^Bj attitude toward me had not changed. It was blank, as though she was

^H scarcely aware of me. When I remembered what she had been like in

^H the past I felt I was with a different person. Not that I was ever with

^H her alone. I wondered what would happen if I were, but I did not

^B want to test it.

N

222August came and there was news of Marlborough’s victory at Blenheim.

There was great excitement at Eversleigh and Carl and Edwin fought out the battle on the dinner table using dishes and salters for the troops and the guns.

Apparently it was a resounding victory. Louis had hoped through the battle to menace Vienna and strike at the very heart of Austria, but Marlborough had once more thwarted him, and the French troops in Blenheim were surrounded and at length forced to surrender.

The French were no match for Marlborough’s cavalry and had been forced to retreat beyond the Rhine.

I wondered how the news had affected Hessenfield as I listened to the rejoicing at Eversleigh.

I went once to look at Enderby Hall with my mother and Leigh.

I stood in that Hall with its strange brooding atmosphere. I could see that it had an effect on my mother and Leigh.

“Come on,” said my mother briskly. “Let’s go through the house and get it over with.”

So we went through. I went into that bedroom of many memories.

“That’s a very fine bed,” said my mother. “I daresay anyone who bought the house would want the furniture too.”

I was glad to get out of the room. I never wanted to see it again. Once I had loved it. Beau used to call it Our Sanctuary with that half-amused smile which indicated that anything with a trace of sentiment in it was something of a joke.

We came out of the house and I saw that that part of the land which had been fenced in was so no longer.

Leigh saw my surprise and said: “It was a waste of land.”

“I could never understand why you fenced it in in the first place.”

“Oh, I had ideas for it, but I never did anything about them. There never seemed to be the time. Now we are growing flowers there as you see.”

“I have my rose garden in there-my very own,” said my mother. “I planted it myself and I have given orders that it is completely mine.”

“Woe betide anyone who tramples on her flowers,” said Leigh.

“So it is still forbidden territory?”

223”Forbidden territory?” said my mother sharply. “What a strange way of putting it.”

“Well, it makes a beautiful garden,” I said. “And not too far from the house.”

“And my own,” said my mother. “My very own.”

We went in and looked around.

She had left a good deal of it wild, which was very attractive, and here and there she had her flowers growing. And there was her rose garden, which was full of lovely roses of all kinds including a goodly array of damask roses, which were especially favoured in the family because an ancestress had been named after it when Thomas Linacre first brought the flower to England.

It would soon be September, time we returned if we were to do so before the bad weather set in.

On the last day of August we set out for Eyot Abbass.

There was a faint mist in the air when we left-a sign that the autumn would soon be with us. Some of the leaves were already turning to bronze and Harriet remarked that we were wise to depart while there was a little summer left to us.

Clarissa had taken a tearful farewell of Damaris. “Come with us,” she kept saying.

“Why can’t you? Why? Why?”

“You must come again, darling ... soon,” said my mother.

And Clarissa put her arms round Damaris’s neck and refused to let goIt had to be Damaris who gently unclasped them.

“We shall see each other soon,” she promised.

As we rode away Clarissa was quiet and could not be comforted even by a sugar mouse which my mother had put into her hands at the last moment.

But after an hour or so she was looking out of the windows and calling our notice to a goat tethered to a stave and telling us that a goat would tell you what the weather was going to be like.

I said, thinking to bring back her spirits and mocking her a little: “Why?”

“Because he knows. If he eats with his head to the wind it’ll be a fine day; if he eats with his tail to the wind it’ll rain.”

224”Who told you that?”

“My aunt Damaris.” She was at once sad. “When are we going to see her again?”

“Oh, my dear child, we have just left. But soon.”

She was thoughtful. She took the sugar mouse from her pocket and regarded him sadly.

“If I bit off his head how would he see?” she said.

She was silent for a while and then she leaned against me and slept.

It was afternoon. We had picnicked by the roadside. My mother had put a hamper of food in the coach ... enough for several alfresco meals. “For,” she said, “you don’t want to have to make for an inn during the day. You can eat by the roadside whenever you have the fancy to.”

It proved a good idea and Clarissa was so intrigued with the idea that she ceased to fret about leaving Damaris. It gave the horses a good rest too. We found a pleasant spot on the road and under a great oak tree we had our feast.

The two grooms joined us and Clarissa plied them with questions about the horses and told them a story about a pig and a hedgehog which Aunt Damaris had told her.

It ended with: “And they all lived happy ever after.”

Then she went to sleep.

It was a beautiful day and the sun was warm. We dozed a little, which meant that we stayed later than we had intended to.

Finally we were back in the coach and rumbling on our way.

As we were passing a wood through which a path had been made, a man on horseback stepped out of the shadows.

I vaguely saw him as he flashed past the window. Then the coach drew up with such a jolt that we were thrown forward in our seats.

“What’s wrong?” cried Harriet.

A face appeared at the window. It was a man and he wore a mask over his face.

“Good day, ladies,” he said. “I fear I am going to inconvenience you somewhat.”

Then I saw that he held a blunderbuss in his hands and I realised that we were facing the situation which we had heard so much about and until now had had the good fortune to avoid.

225”What do you want?” I cried.

“I want you to step out into the road.”

“No,” I said.

His answer was to lift the blunderbuss and point it towards me. Then he wrenched open the door.

“Pray step out, ladies,” he said.

There was nothing we could do but alight. I held Clarissa’s hand tightly in mine.

I did not want her to be frightened. I saw at once that she was not but she was regarding the highwayman v.’ith intense interest.

As I stepped out into the road I saw the two grooms. There was a second highwayman, who was covering them with his blunderbuss, and I prayed that someone might come along at this moment and

rescue us.

Then the highwayman said: “What great good fortune. My lady.” He bowed to Harriet, repeated “My lady” and bowed to me. “’It is rarely that one meets such beauties on the road.”

“Why are you stopping us?” asked Clarissa in an excited voice.