Treason's Gift, page 27
part #4 of Wintercombe Series
Besides, he owed it to Phoebe to do what he could for her brother. While he still had useful contacts and influence, he would employ them, discreetly and to the best of his ability, to thwart Charles’s overweening ambition.
*
The King left Wintercombe replete, and well satisfied with the day’s events. The tour round the village had been most illuminating and interesting, and the cheers of the inhabitants, simple peasants though they were, had greatly warmed and heartened him. And young St Barbe had fulfilled all his expectations: personable, devout, loyal, a man to be fostered and encouraged. If only, James thought with a sigh, there were more Catholics of his stamp spread across the country, his mission would be made so much easier.
Still, it would be a simple matter to reward St Barbe as he deserved. He was a little young and untried, as yet, for a court position, but experience of local responsibility, as a Justice of the Peace, would prepare him for the future. Of course, all men who aspired to such posts were obliged, by law, to swear their allegiance to the Church of England, and naturally no devout Catholic could comply. But he, the King, had the power to dispense with such requirements, and indeed had already done so several times, as part of his avowed policy to introduce Catholics to positions of authority. It would take as little to make Charles St Barbe a magistrate as it had done to appoint Francis Carne Master of the Bath Free School. And very soon, as more and more Catholics rose to prominence, and were seen by his suspicious and prejudiced subjects to be as capable and trustworthy as any Protestant, the hostility against them would dwindle away from lack of substance, and his dream of returning England to the true religion would be appreciably closer to reality.
It was not, alas, a dream shared by the majority of his people. And the good citizens of Bath, who were hardly famed for sedition or radical Dissent, were still more offended when their Abbey Church, on the day after the King’s visit to Philip’s Norton, was used to stage a display of Popish superstition. With great ceremony, James touched a procession of poor people to cure the King’s Evil, a practice now regarded with some doubt by many physicians: and to make matters worse, during divine service Father Huddlestone, the Roman priest who had attended the previous King on his deathbed, preached a Papist sermon with missionary zeal. Those Catholics in the congregation, amongst them the King and Queen and a considerable proportion of their court, listened avidly, as did the Carne family, Charles St Barbe and his mother, and the other members of the tiny Romish community in Bath. The rest looked on with interest, or shocked amazement, or disgust, according to the degree of their prejudice.
Afterwards, many lingered outside the Abbey, or walked in the gardens, discussing what they had just witnessed. Lukas, who had a child’s simplicity of belief, was outraged that a Papist ceremony should have been allowed to take place in a Protestant church, and his outspoken indignation turned several heads as they emerged into the bright sunlight outside the Abbey’s ornate west front. Hastily, Phoebe hushed him. ‘Not here, Lukas, not now. We can talk about it later, if you like, but for now I think it would be more tactful to hold your peace.’
Louise, dressed in her best summer mantua, in a strikingly striped yellow and white silk, had already noticed several pairs of masculine eyes lingering appreciately in her direction. Since giving birth to Kitty, her figure, once lean and almost boyish, had filled out considerably, and the demure lace of her tippet no longer fell almost fiat from her shoulders. Enjoying her new freedom from maternal duties, she gave her stepson one of her dazzling, mischievous smiles. ‘Shall we walk in the Abbey Garden, Lukas? And perhaps we might even have time to go down by the river before dinner.’
‘You will have to excuse me,’ Phoebe said, as Sir Hugh Trevelyan, his face somewhat flushed, appeared at her side. ‘I do not feel equal to a stroll this morning, even if the sun is shining, and I am sure that I shall be adequately escorted home. Dinner will be at eleven, and I shall see you then. Goodbye!’
Lukas and Louise watched as she was led away, supported by her stick and by Sir Hugh’s stalwart arm, and grinned at each other. The couple were so wildly mismatched: Phoebe thin, limping, black-haired and plain, Sir Hugh tall, solidly built, and resplendent in a green suit heavily encrusted with gold lacing and buttons, topped by a vastly extravagant periwig. And yet, curiously, they did not look in the least comical together.
‘My lady,’ said Lukas, with the grave and charming formality which he could adopt at will, ‘pray permit me to escort you to the gardens.’
‘Enchantée, Monsieur van der Linden,’ Louise said, laughing, and gave him her arm.
There was a man in the crowd who had been looking at her intently: she possessed an infallible instinct in such matters, and could sense the warmth of his regard. Careful not to give him open encouragement, she had risked no more than a brief glance at him, noting only that he was young, dark, and very fashionable dressed, with a short wig in the French style. Handsome, certainly, and once she would have been attracted to him.
More and more, she was realising that despite what he had done to her, and utterly against her wishes, she was still, somehow, in thrall to Alex.
She hated herself for such stupidity, she hated him even more for possessing such power over her even at this distance of months, and miles. But she suspected now, with anger and frustration and bitter regret, that no man would ever again engage her emotions, her heart and her soul, as Alex once had.
She put her thoughts firmly aside, determined to enjoy the morning sunshine: it had been such a dreadful summer, often wet, windy and cold, that this bright warmth was a most welcome change. Lukas was, as usual, an entertaining companion, and it was not his fault that he bore such a heartbreaking resemblance to his father. She wondered if Alex as a child had been like this, and then smiled wryly, chiding herself for her foolishness. What hope of a fresh start, of any amusement in this glittering company, if she was still yearning, like a lovesick schoolgirl, for a man whom her mind, if not her heart, regarded with loathing?
‘Oh,’ Lukas said, in the middle of his chatter, and stopped dead.
A man stood in front of them, just at the entrance to the Abbey Garden, and for a moment, in the brilliance of the sunlight, and dazzled by the silver braid on his blue coat, she did not recognise him.
Then, she saw that it was Charles under the ludicrously elaborate wig. Involuntarily, her hand tightened on the child’s, and Lukas glanced up at her, his sapphire-blue eyes anxious.
‘Hullo, Lou,’ said her cousin and the longing note of adoration in his voice made her heart sink. ‘I hope you don’t mind me meeting you here — I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again.’
‘Unfortunately, I can’t say the same,’ Louise told him, trying to make her tone as chilly and discouraging as possible. ‘Now, if you would kindly excuse us, Lukas and I wish to continue our stroll in peace.’
Charles ignored her. His eyes, a rather protuberant grey-blue, rested imploringly on her face. ‘We’re cousins, Lou, if nothing else — there is no need for such coldness.’
‘Is there not?’ Louise drew herself up to her considerable height, and stared at him challengingly down her long nose. ‘I do not wish to remind you why I should feel such hostility towards you, Charles, with half of Bath passing by us, but you surely cannot pretend that it is possible for us to be acquainted, let alone friends. Now please stand aside.’
‘No, I will not!’ His voice had risen a fraction, and Lukas’s fingers tensed on hers. ‘No, Lou — not until you’ve listened to me. Come back to Wintercombe — it’s your home, you belong there. I’ll make you more than welcome, I promise you, you won’t have to live in that poky little house — ’
‘And what about Kitty? Will you welcome her, too?’
‘Kitty?’ Charles stared at her in bewilderment. ‘Oh, yes, the baby. Well, you won’t have her with you, will you? She’s at nurse.’
His dismissive tone stung Louise’s quick temper into life. ‘Of course Kitty would be with me. Her nurse only lives round the corner from Phoebe’s house, and I see her for several hours a day. Did you think I would forget her as readily as you seem to have done? She is my daughter, as well as Alex’s, and wherever I go, so does she.’
Charles had flushed. ‘But — I thought — ’
‘You thought that because Alex and I are estranged — which was your doing, and your horrible mother’s – I would happily cast Kitty aside. Well, you’re wrong, Charles – you may think her of no account, but I can assure you that I do not. And even if I did, I have no intention of ever again setting foot over the threshold of Wintercombe while you remain in residence.’
‘Louise, please, don’t be angry.’ Charles was almost abject now, his eyes beseeching her. ‘Wintercombe is mine, legally. Alex has given it to me. Face reality, Lou — he’ll never come back, he’ll live out his days in a drunken stupor in Holland, and we’re all well rid of him. Forget him, Lou – forget him, and come back to Wintercombe.’
Impassioned, his voice had become rather loud, and several people had paused to stare with frank and discourteous curiosity. Lukas’s normally pale face was rosy with embarrassment. Louise said furiously, ‘You are flogging a very dead horse, Charles. Now, let us pass.’
He did not move, but stood there, stout and stubborn, blocking their path. To her dismay, she recognised several faces in the growing crowd around them: once more, the St Barbes would provide ample fuel for the gossip rife in Bath. With a sick feeling of rage and despair, she said, ‘Please, Charles. People are looking.’
‘Is this — gentleman — bothering you, Madame?’
The voice was deep, smooth, and unmistakably accented. Louise turned to find the dark man who had been watching her earlier, his face a picture of well-bred concern.
‘A little,’ she said, surprised and suddenly worried. Such men of honour and fashion usually thought nothing of fighting duels on the flimsiest pretext, and however much she loathed Charles, she did not wish him to be fatally transfixed by some short-fused Frenchman. ‘But pray do not trouble yourself, sir — he is my cousin, and means me no harm.’
‘Really? Appearances would seem to suggest otherwise,’ said her deliverer, with raised brows. ‘But in any case, Madame, the question is academic — your cousin has gone.’ A stir in the throng of people indicated where Charles, thinking better of his stand, was elbowing his way into the Abbey Garden. Louise gave the Frenchman one of her most dazzling smiles, and saw his face light up in response. ‘My sincerest thanks, sir. You intervened at a most opportune moment, and we are very grateful to you.’
‘It was nothing, Madame — any true gentleman would have done the same.’ He smiled, and bowed with elaborate courtesy. ‘Edmond Everard, Madame, at your service. And you are Lady St Barbe, I understand.’
‘I am — but how did you know?’
‘Madame, a lady so enchantingly beautiful cannot remain anonymous, even in this city full of beauties. Permit me, please, to escort you in this lovely garden.’
She had Lukas with her for a chaperon, and besides, she was a married woman. Doubtless people would notice, but some of the Bath gossips would discuss her to her detriment even if she never stirred out of doors. And it was a long time since such appreciative masculine admiration had been directed at her, without complicating emotions attached.
She smiled at him. ‘Of course, Monsieur Everard — I would be delighted.’
Lukas was looking rather doubtful as she gave the Frenchman her arm. Since Alex’s abrupt departure, he had been almost comically protective towards her, as if trying to assume the role which his father had so brutally abdicated. She sent him a reassuring grin. ‘How fortunate I am — now I have two handsome gentlemen to lead me!’
They made a leisurely circuit of the Abbey Gardens, attracting not a little attention from those strollers who had earlier formed an audience to her quarrel with Charles. Louise had never taken much notice of people who had nothing better to do than to gossip about her: indeed, like Alex, she often had the regrettable impulse to provide such scandalmongers with suitably shocking smoke for their fires. She smiled charmingly at an elderly, prune-faced widow, a near neighbour in Nowhere Lane, who was well known for her assiduous spreading of malicious rumour, and nodded to another, younger woman who was everyone’s friend to their face, and a vicious foe to their back. Lukas stepped beside her with the grave reserve he always adopted in the company of strangers, and she was able to converse, in a most amusing way, with Monsieur Edmond Everard.
He told her that his family lived near Blois, and this provided an immediate link between them, for she had spent some time at a Protestant school in that city, a sore trial to her teachers. For three years now, she had thought herself English, she had English friends and had married an English baronet, and until this chance meeting she had felt only mild nostalgia for the country in which she had grown up. But it was not until she caught sight of Lukas’s baffled, politely indignant expression that she realised that, without being aware of it, she had begun to talk in French. And of course Monsieur Everard, with great wit and fluency, had responded in kind.
Lukas was bilingual in Dutch and English, and his Latin was now extremely competent, but he knew as yet only the barest essentials of French. With a pang of guilt, Louise switched hastily back to her mother’s tongue. ‘Forgive me, Lukas — it is so long since I have been able to converse with someone from my own country.’
‘But you are English now,’ said her stepson, still with that faint look of hurt bewilderment.
‘No French man — or woman — can ever lose their first attachment to the land of their birth,’ said Everard, with a friendly smile at the boy. ‘Just as you are English, and wherever you travel in the world, English you will remain.’
‘But I’m not English,’ Lukas explained, with that touch of pedantry that both Louise and Phoebe found so endearing. ‘My mother is Dutch, sir — although my father is English.’
Louise realised, belatedly, that she had not introduced him. ‘Lukas is my stepson, Monsieur Everard — my husband’s son’s.’
‘His natural son,’ Lukas said seriously, his wide, sapphire-blue eyes frowning at the Frenchman.
Louise realised suddenly that he did not like Monsieur Everard. It would be easy to dismiss it as the immature judgement of a child, but she loved the boy, and respected his feelings. She disengaged her arm from the Frenchman’s, and said with a smile, ‘I regret, Monsieur, that we must leave you now — we shall be dreadfully late for dinner as it is. But we are most grateful for your assistance this morning. Matters might have turned out very awkwardly, had you not come to our aid.’
‘It was nothing,’ Everard said, with that rather too handsome smile. ‘And since my intervention has led to this very pleasant conversation, and to a better acquaintance with a most beautiful and charming lady, then I could dare to say, Madame, that I am glad that your cousin behaved so boorishly. Au revoir, Lukas — au revoir, my Lady St Barbe. I feel sure that we shall soon meet again, and I look forward to it eagerly.’
‘And I also, Monsieur,’ Louise said. There was an exchange of courtesies, he kissed her hand, and smiled at her, and walked away through the promenading Sunday morning crowds.
They were not, in fact, late for dinner, but walked back to Nowhere Lane quite quickly. For a long while, Lukas was silent, lost deep in thought: then, as they crossed Stall Street, he said suddenly, ‘Louise — did you like that man?’
‘Monsieur Everard? Yes, he seems most pleasant — and he certainly arrived at a very opportune moment.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Lukas, frowning.
‘But you didn’t like him? There’s no law which forces you to like people, you know — I won’t be upset if you don’t.’
‘Well … I didn’t very much,’ said her stepson at last. ‘He seemed too — too smooth and slippery, somehow. All politeness and courtesy and nothing else, as if there wasn’t anything behind him.’ He gazed up at her with disarming honesty. ‘I can’t explain it any better, Louise – I just didn’t like him.’
‘Well, I can’t personally see any reason, as yet, to dislike him,’ she pointed out. ‘So we shall just have to agree to differ. And I must say, it was wonderful to talk French to a Frenchman again. No doubt of it, few English people can speak the language without tearing the pronunciation to shreds.’
Lukas gave her a sudden grin that reminded her, with pain, of Alex. ‘Including Aunt Phoebe?’
‘Oh, Phoebe is the exception that proves the rule. She’d make sense of the Tower of Babel.’
He laughed at that, his usual good humour apparently restored. ‘I’d like to learn more languages – I can’t imagine anything worse than travelling in a foreign country and not being able to understand what people were saying. Will you teach me French, Louise?’
‘Of course I will — but with school every day from six to five, and study at home besides, how will you find the time?’
‘Oh, I’ll find it,’ said Lukas confidently. ‘And after French, I’d like to learn Italian perhaps, and Spanish, and then German — I want to learn everything in the whole world!’
She could not laugh at him: his enthusiasm shone like a beacon from his face. She said, smiling, ‘It’ll take a lifetime, you know — several lifetimes.’
‘I don’t mind — trying hard is the important thing, Papa always says.’ The life abruptly drained out of his face, and he stared up at her with anguished eyes. ‘Louise — is he ever going to come home?’
‘I don’t know,’ she told him, with sad honesty. ‘Oh, Lukas, I don’t know.’
‘Do you know where he is? I asked Aunt Phoebe and she said she didn’t, but I don’t think,’ said Lukas miserably, ‘that she was telling me the truth.’
