Wintercombe, page 35
part #1 of Wintercombe Series
A boy, perhaps, but he was being treated with extreme deference and courtesy.
Silence, her heart painful within her ribs, was struck by a sudden, wild suspicion. If Nick has thoughts of doing me honour, she thought, this is a strange method indeed.
Wintercombe was in an uproar: she could hear it even as she descended the stair, the noise of voices and feet. Her palms were sweating, and she wiped them on that part of her skirt normally hidden beneath her apron. She paused in the little bay between the garden room and the Hall, to calm herself. The child in the courtyard would be the next King of England when he grew up, but he was still a boy, younger than Nat and Rachael, and surely not yet submerged by the cloak of stifling formality and rigid superiority that so notoriously enveloped his father.
She took a deep breath and walked briskly into the Hall, Mally as ever at her back. As she entered, so did a great troop of officers and gentlemen through the screens opposite. Hellier, neat and flamboyant in his Taunton blue and that brilliant scarlet cloak, was at their head, and by his side the boy who must, surely, be the fourteen-year-old Prince of Wales.
She saw Master Willis, who had only that morning resumed his lessons with Nat, standing open-mouthed under the southern windows, his pupil, rather less taken aback, by his side. He saw Silence and sent her one of his secret, mocking smiles; it heartened her considerably. She returned her attention to her uninvited and exalted guest with vastly increased confidence, and sank into the deepest curtsey of which she was capable.
She rose to find Nick regarding her with some amusement: he smiled, briefly and encouragingly, and then said, ‘Your Royal Highness, may I present the mistress of Wintercombe, my Lady St. Barbe.’
The Prince of Wales was taller than both the twins, though younger by some six months, and quite stockily built: he would be a big man. Silence recalled the stories about him, how his mother the Queen had been ashamed of his ugliness. Certainly he was no beauty: his hair, long and curled, was a dense shining black, and the skin of his rather plump face distinctly swarthy. But the dark eyes were bright with life, curiosity and humour, as he stared at her. She wondered what he thought of her, in her plain mulberry worsted gown with the mended tear at the back where her heel had caught it, the decorous collar with its narrow border of lace, and her mouse-brown, uncurled hair tucked beneath a plain cap. At least everything was clean, even if she did look like a farmer’s wife instead of the lady of the manor: certainly, she bore no resemblance whatsoever to the gorgeous satin-clad and silk-skinned ladies of the Court.
‘Welcome to Wintercombe, Your Highness,’ she said, hoping that she did not sound too nervous. Surely the Prince must know that her husband was in armed rebellion against his father?
If he did, it apparently did not matter. The dark, rather heavy face split into a cheerful grin that made it at once attractive. ‘I must beg your pardon, Lady St. Barbe,’ said Prince Charles. ‘Coming unannounced like this, it’s most discourteous. I do hope we’re not inconveniencing you — I’m afraid I persuaded Captain Hellier to bring me here, and I think it was rather against his better judgement.’
‘It’s no inconvenience,’ said Silence, warming at once to this direct and friendly child — was he really a King’s son? ‘You do us much honour, Your Highness — as long as you can put up with our somewhat disordered surroundings. And of course you must stay for dinner.’
‘That’s one of the reasons I’m here,’ said the Prince candidly. ‘I’ve heard all about your cook, and I couldn’t leave Bath without sampling his food. Besides, I wanted to see one of the garrisons for myself, and this is the nearest. Captain Hellier was in Bath, so I suggested that I visited Wintercombe under his escort. And Sir Thomas Bridges told me that poor Lieutenant-Colonel Ridgeley would be much heartened by my presence. I understand that you’ve been nursing him, Lady St. Barbe — how does he do?’
‘Not very well, I’m afraid, Your Highness,’ said Silence, feeling somewhat uneasy. ‘The wound in itself was not especially dangerous, but there has been some inflammation and a fever. He may be too sick to receive any visitors.’
‘Oh, well,’ said the boy, ‘I shall put my head round the door, all the same. Now, Captain Hellier was telling me that you have a stepson called Nat, who’s the same age as me. Is he here? I am lonely for other boys since I left my brother James behind in Oxford.’
‘He is here,’ said Silence, unable to suppress a smile. ‘Do you require his companionship for the day, Your Highness? I’m sure he’d be happy and honoured to oblige.’
‘Even though his father is fighting against mine?’ said the Prince, his black eyes suddenly, piercingly shrewd. Nonplussed, Silence stared at him: then Nat’s voice intruded. ‘He may be. I’m not. And if you’d like me to accompany you around Wintercombe, Your Highness, it would be my pleasure.’
He bowed, and the Prince inclined his head in acknowledgement. The two boys were almost the same age, and black-haired, but there the resemblance stopped. Nat barely came up to the Prince’s shoulder, and the other’s sturdy frame would have made two of his frail body. His white face and dark-ringed blue eyes were in painful contrast to Prince Charles’ air of rude good health, and his voice had not broken yet, whereas the Prince’s was already as deep as a man’s. Nor could his plain, everyday doublet and breeches of deep blue match the rich, gold-laced, scarlet satin of the King’s son.
With some uneasiness, for she did not want Nat to be hurt, Silence watched the two boys, so completely dissimilar, size each other up for a brief moment. Evidently, Nat liked what he saw: his pale face warmed into a smile that was echoed by the young Prince. ‘What do you want to see, Your Highness?’
‘Oh, I think the fortifications first,’ said his guest. ‘I have been hearing all about them from Captain Hellier. Did you really draw a map to show him where they should go? You must tell me all about it.’
And Silence, hoping that Nat would not tell the Prince every single detail concerning that map, was left standing in the middle of the Hall floor, watching as all the officers and gentlemen (and, probably, lords as well), moved out in a great body headed by the disparate figures of her stepson and the eldest child of the King of England. If she had not been consumed with anxiety about how this mass of uninvited guests was to be fed, she might have laughed.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Nick ruefully, and spread his hands. ‘There was no help for it — he’s a strong-willed lad, and insisted. Are you aware of the honour being done to Wintercombe? You’ll be able to dine out on this tale for years.’
‘Perhaps — but will the Prince be able to dine today? That’s what concerns me at the moment.’
‘Oh, kill a fatted calf,’ he said. ‘Remind me — I have a surprise for you later, but now I must follow them — forgive me.’
‘The impertinence!’ she said loudly, at his retreating back, and in conscious imitation of Dame Ursula — who would doubtless, Silence thought, have something to say about this latest crisis in Wintercombe’s war-ravaged existence.
She was right. Hardly had the heavy curtains closed behind Nick’s unrepentant figure, when they parted to admit the flat-footed Ruth, her pale eyelashes blinking in what passed, in her, for agitation. ‘M’lady, Madam d’ask ee to come up to her at once.’
She would, thought Silence. I have the house to order, the Prince of Wales is here, tables must be set up, we probably haven’t got enough pewter and not even Darby can possibly produce a dinner fit for royalty with less than an hour’s warning, and my domineering old mother-in-law wants to assail my ears with, most likely, nothing more than some virulent denunciation of the King…
No, she told herself with resolution, no — I will not be browbeaten at command. She will just have to wait a while, because I am not at her beck and call — I have more important duties to discharge. And something must be done about Ridgeley — he can’t be allowed to tell the Prince the truth of what happened to him.
Aware that she would undoubtedly rue it later, she faced the maid and said firmly, ‘Pray give Dame Ursula my regrets, Ruth, but I am at present too hard-pressed to spare the time. As the Prince of Wales himself has seen fit to honour us with a visit, I am sure she will understand. I will of course come up to her chamber as soon as I am able — but it probably won’t be before His Highness has returned to Bath.’
Ruth’s inexpressive face did not move, although she must surely have been surprised at such uncharacteristic defiance. ‘Very good, m’lady,’ she said, in the surly mutter in which she communicated with everyone, and turned to plod back upstairs. Silence, with a curious emotion bubbling within her, compounded of freedom and panic, went hot-foot to the kitchen.
*
Charles, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne of England, was thoroughly enjoying himself. Although he had been reared in the close companionship of a large family which, in these troubled times of war, had been reduced to his brother James, three years his junior, his father had thought it politic to surround his eldest son with adult councillors and advisors when he took up his new position as General of the Western Association. The King’s intent had been to ‘unboy’ him, and certainly the Prince was eager to attain his manhood. But he missed James much more than he cared to admit, and the company of another boy his own age was a luxury, to be savoured. He had not been especially impressed by Nat St. Barbe at first sight — was this undersized child really fifteen? He looked and sounded more like a ten-year-old. But he liked the rather cynical, worldly-wise air about the other boy, and by the time they had walked down the terraced gardens to the orchard, a rapport had sprung up between them, founded largely on a similar sense of humour.
He was shown the fortifications, and tried to hide his surprise: they were so small, so feeble, beside the vast ramparts and bulwarks that had been thrown up around Oxford. Captain Hellier, whom he liked for his lack of fawning pretension — Charles had early developed a strong distaste for toadies and hypocrites — obviously shared his disappointment. ‘I’ll freely admit, Your Highness, that the work is scarce begun. We have been hampered by the weather — it seems to have snowed or rained almost continuously since Christmas. We are also short of men, and proper equipment.’
‘I hope the other garrisons under my authority are not so poorly defended,’ Charles said dubiously. ‘Would it not have been better to have placed your bulwark upon the terrace? That looks a good stout wall, and you must have a better view from there, it’s easily thirty foot higher. Down here you can see nothing but the stream and the hillside.’
There was a small, awkward pause. Charles noticed Nat’s rueful expression. ‘Master St. Barbe — surely you can understand what I mean?’
‘I can,’ said Nat. ‘But my stepmother would be most distressed. She prizes her garden almost as highly as her children.’
‘Gardens can grow again — a kingdom once lost cannot,’ said the Prince; he had recently heard his cousin Prince Rupert saying something similar. He added curiously, ‘Do you have any guns here, Captain Hellier? I don’t remember seeing any — and surely you should have one or two, even if they’re only to frighten the enemy.’
‘Alas, Your Highness, there are few guns to be had, of any size — and they are needed for the defence of Bath and Bristol,’ the Captain told him. ‘And I doubt they’d be of much use. Even placed on the terrace, it would be very difficult to aim them anywhere but at the hillside opposite, or into the sky. You’d have better luck if you mounted one or two in the courtyard at the north side of the house — which is where an attack is most likely to come. Would Your Highness care to inspect the position?’
*
Within Wintercombe, the household was in a condition of barely controlled panic. Silence, the still centre of the storm, had ruthlessly repressed her own terror, and had marshalled her chaotic thoughts into a swift, precise stream of directives. Darby had promised to produce something, even the proverbial fatted calf, that would be suitable for the Prince of Wales and his high-born entourage. The common soldiers of his troop, some score in number, would have to share with the other men in the barton, plain coarse brown bread and cheese, rather old and hard, and a steaming cauldron of broth based on dried peas and a piece of salty bacon.
A clatter from the dining parlour indicated that Leah and Eliza were setting the table. Silence had chosen to have the dinner in this room, rather than the chilly vastness of the Hall, that seemed empty and echoing with less than three dozen in it. It would be rather a squash round the big oak table, but the smaller children could sit at the side-table by the hearth, under Doraty’s direction. Already the news of their exalted guest had reached them, and they were desperate to be allowed to dine in his company. And, seeing their urgent, pleading faces, knowing that Prince Charles came from a large and close-woven family himself, she could not bring herself to refuse them. Stern warnings about behaviour were unnecessary: they all knew the rules of polite table-manners, even William, and would not intentionally disgrace themselves on such a momentous occasion.
Rachael presented a different problem. Since her shooting of Ridgeley, two days ago, she had stayed in her bedchamber. The trays of food had been returned untouched, Doraty’s attempts to comfort her had been met with abuse and hurled slippers, and to Silence the girl had refused to say anything at all. Only Nat had seemed to be welcome, and he, loyal to his twin, would divulge almost nothing of their brief conversations. It was noticeable, however, that his intervention had no effect at all on Rachael’s black mood, and Silence had strongly suspected that the words ‘more fool you’ had featured largely in Nat’s utterances.
It would be easy enough to punish Rachael, were she not already doing it herself quite adequately. When Silence knocked on her stepdaughter’s door and, as usual, received no reply, she wondered if she were not being a fool to herself. Let the girl stew in her own bile: that was what Dame Ursula, and indeed Sir George, would say. But Silence, remembering her own deep misery as a rebellious, misunderstood fifteen-year-old, could not help but feel some sympathy. If only she could penetrate her stepdaughter’s hostility — but in nine years she had never completely succeeded, and she doubted sadly whether she ever would.
With trepidation, she opened the door.
Rachael sat at the table by the window, staring out. She gave no indication that she was aware of her stepmother’s entrance. Silence closed the door behind her, took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘We have a visitor, Rachael.’
There was a pregnant, inimical pause. Then the girl turned her head, very slowly and deliberately. Her face was as white and haggard as Nat’s had been after his illness, and the circles under her eyes were violet with strain. To a stranger, her expression might have seemed completely hostile: but Silence, who knew her better than her stepdaughter liked, saw with compassion the terror in Rachael’s eyes. She said, as if she feared the answer, ‘Who? What visitor?’
With sudden insight, Silence realised that she thought it was someone come to take her away, or punish her. For an act such as Rachael had committed, however great the provocation or the excuse, could earn terrible penalties for its perpetrator. She said, smiling reassuringly, ‘A most important one — Captain Hellier escorted him here from Bath. It’s the Prince of Wales has come to see us!’
‘Oh,’ said Rachael. Some of the tension left her body, but she looked distinctly unexcited, as if it were the slug-like Ned Apprice viewing the fortifications, and not the next King of England. Silence sighed with weary resignation. She longed to shake some sense into the girl, but knew from past and bitter experience that it would do no good at all. And how would it help to dissolve the agony she knew lay behind the wall of defensive hostility?
She said instead, on impulse, ‘Captain Hellier told me. There is no need to worry. What happened will not go beyond Wintercombe. Ridgeley won’t admit to being shot in such humiliating circumstances. His soldiers all wish they’d had the courage to do it themselves. No one else blames you.’
‘But I blame me!’ Rachael cried, suddenly passionate. ‘I shouldn’t have done it — it was wicked, a sin, I wanted to murder him — and how I wish I had!’ There were no tears: another, less fierce soul might have dissolved in self-pity, but though her despair and hopeless confusion showed clear on her face, Rachael did not break down. She added, more quietly, ‘I have been thinking and thinking about it — I know it was wrong, I ought to be punished, it’s only fair — and yet I wish I’d killed him. And no matter how hard I try I can’t see any way out — I should be punished. “Thou shalt not kill”, the Scriptures say — and even if I didn’t actually kill him, I meant to.’ Her blue eyes, distended with anguish, stared at Silence, and her last words came in a whisper. ‘If I am so wicked…will I go to Hell?’
‘Oh, Rachael,’ said Silence. All her own fears and sorrows seemed pale and faint beside the vivid sharpness of her stepdaughter’s agony: she reached out to touch the thin, rigid shoulders, feeling the shuddering tension beneath her hands. Then, suddenly, as if a spring wound too tight had snapped, the girl slumped into her chair and buried her face in her hands, sobbing as if her heart and spirit alike were broken. She made no resistance when Silence, tears in her own eyes, put her arms around her; and after a few seconds, Rachael returned the embrace.
It was the first time, in the nine years of their difficult, unrewarding relationship, that Silence had received any affection, any confidence at all, from her stepdaughter.
Much later, when Rachael had calmed a little, and her tears had dried, Silence said quietly, ‘Why do you think you will go to Hell?’
The girl’s face, no longer white and sharp but red and swollen with sobbing, was still pressed against her shoulder. She said, punctuated by hiccups, ‘Because — because I’ve been wicked, and the wicked shall be turned into Hell.’
