Herald of Joy, page 8
part #2 of Wintercombe Series
If she had thought to provoke him to some display of suitor-like behaviour, she was doomed to disappointment. Master Harington said merely that he hoped too that he would have occasion to ride this way in the near future, though not alas in circumstances any happier, thus leaving Rachael in no doubt that he meant the occasion of her father’s funeral. Since she was still trying to convince herself that this was but a passing sickness, serious but not mortal, she found tears filling her eyes. Embarrassed and angry with herself, she turned her head aside and surreptitiously wiped them away with her hand, like the child she had taken such pains to suppress.
A door banged behind the screens and young voices erupted loudly, but were almost immediately hushed. Rachael jerked angrily round and saw Kate, her cap askew, her hair flying, dance in through the curtains. As soon as she noticed the stranger, the little girl stopped, her mouth a roundel of astonishment, and said in her bright voice, ‘Who’s this, Rachael?’ Then, belatedly courteous, she dipped a swift curtsey and stood quite still, her hands decorously folded but her small pointed face sparkling with mischief.
Rachael longed to shout at her, to send her packing, but what would Jack think of her if she did? Struggling to keep the fury out of her voice, she said with a smile that did not deceive Kate in the least, ‘Master Harington — this is my youngest sister, Katherine.’
Jack looked completely nonplussed. The child, with the directness that Rachael had dreaded, surveyed him with interest, and said, on a note of discovery, ‘You’re the one that Rachael’s going to marry!’
‘I think that’s quite enough from you, young lady,’ said Patience, coming through the screens to complete Rachael’s discomfiture. She wore her everyday blue gown, but its quiet air of fashion — not for nothing was she a draper’s daughter — the immaculate collar and cuffs and her tumbled, gleaming brown curls, all contributed to a picture at once modest and attractive. She turned to Jack with a charming smile and a swift curtsey. ‘I am so sorry, Master Harington. Kate can be shockingly impertinent.’
Jack was gazing at her like a lost sailor at a beacon. Bitterly, Rachael acknowledged that beside her stepmother’s sister she was nothing, a skinny, gawky little girl trying on adult attitudes that did not fit her. Patience was only three years older, but, it seemed, a century more mature. She had already stolen the children from her: was she trying to steal Jack, too?
Patience realised, belatedly, that it might be very unwise to flirt with Master Harington. She was sorely tempted: he looked such a boring, godly person, that it would be most amusing to lead him on and shock his prim Puritan principles to the core. But there was Rachael, staring at her like a basilisk, to consider, and Patience, who was well aware of the younger girl’s resentment and had by now guessed the probable reason for it, did not really want to make an enemy of her. It would upset Silence, and she had no desire to add to her sister’s considerable burden. She said briskly, ‘I am Lady St. Barbe’s sister, come from London for a visit. Pray excuse me, sir — the children must be attended.’ And in a faint, delicate fragrance of roses and orris root, she took Kate’s small brown paw firmly in her grasp and whisked her unceremoniously from the hall.
It was fortunate that Carpenter returned at that moment, thus saving both Rachael and her betrothed the necessity of finding something further to say to each other. ‘Sir George is ready to see you now, Master Harington. And he directed me to ask you to attend on him also, Mistress Rachael.’
They were ushered into the chamber together. Jack Harington, who had last seen his future father-in-law at his sister Moll’s wedding in January, was shocked by the change in him. This grey, wizened, gasping old man, propped up on pillows, looked to be at death’s door. Jack mentally compared him with his own father, the same age but still hale and hearty, and knew that the end could not be more than a few days away. It was a pity, for his father had wished to see his old friend once more, but even if the summons went out to London today, he could not reach Wintercombe in time.
Formally, he expressed his sympathy, and his father’s, and uttered the pious hope that the dying man in front of him would soon recover his former vigour.
‘Nonsense,’ Sir George whispered. ‘Dying — know it well.’ His head turned, painfully, towards Rachael, who was standing miserably beside Jack. ‘Glad — see you with him — chance of talk.’
Over the past few days, as her father’s breath had become ever more limited, Rachael had grown accustomed to the brevity of his words, and understood what he meant to convey. ‘Yes, Father. We have talked — a little. Master Harington is to stay for dinner.’
‘Good,’ said Sir George. He began to cough, splutteringly. Stone, his manservant, who had shared the nursing duties with Silence, held a kerchief to his lips, and supplied him with a cup of honey and betony water to ease him.
Jack, stalwartly healthy himself, began to feel distinctly depressed by the overwhelming atmosphere of sickness within the chamber, the dread imminence of death. Silently, he began to pray, both for the man in the bed and for his own continued freedom from accident, ailment and disease. So intent was he upon this task, that Rachael had to call him back to reality with an urgent whisper. ‘Master Harington!’
He became aware that Sir George was beckoning them closer to the bed. Rachael, who had only just stopped herself in time from digging her betrothed in the ribs, moved forward, and Jack, hiding his instinctive repulsion, joined her.
‘Daughter — hand,’ Sir George wheezed, his skeletal fingers twitching on the coverlet. Rachael, her face flushed with distress, leaned over and took it in hers. Her father shook his head impatiently. ‘No — his!’
Suddenly shy, flushing deeper, Rachael turned to the tall young man standing beside her, wearing an expression of complete bewilderment on his face. She hid, successfully, the surge of irritated impatience, and said softly, ‘My father wishes us to join hands, Master Harington.’
After a pause, he raised his fingers to touch hers. His palm felt sweaty and hot. She had expected some frisson of emotion at the contact, but there was nothing. She told herself that this situation was hardly conducive to romantic feeling, but there was, nevertheless, a lingering trace of disappointment. Resolutely, she turned back to Sir George, Jack’s hand tentative in hers. ‘Yes, Father?’
‘Betrothed…good,’ said the sick man painfully. ‘Both agree?’
Rachael’s fervent nod coincided with Jack’s more formal, ‘Yes, indeed, I thank you, Sir George.’
‘Good. My blessing…on you both. Wedding…not too soon, not seemly…mourning…New Year…’
Rachael opened her mouth to say that the wait was far too long, and closed it again. Her father was right, as always. If, if he was going to die, then a delay of at least six months before the marriage festivities was only right and proper. And she thought, glancing shyly at the stranger who held her hand, it would give her the chance to become better acquainted with the man to whom, so astonishingly, she would be wed.
‘Son…old friend…what we both wished…pay my respects…to your father,’ Sir George whispered, and his mouth stretched to a ghastly semblance of a smile. It turned to a prolonged fit of coughing, and this time it was Rachael, as she had done so often before, who held the soothing water to his mouth, and wiped his brow. At last her father, a little eased, lay back on the pillows and gulped air with hoarse, rasping breaths. Then she stared unhappily down at the bed, unwilling to weep in front of Jack. It was her helplessness that distressed her the most. If love and will could save him, she would give all she had, but nothing that her stepmother’s nursing or the physicians’ nostrums could do seemed to have the power to arrest this terrible and relentless decline.
‘Are there no doctors in attendance?’ Jack asked her. His own father, who suffered minor maladies with the exaggerated attention of one who was never seriously ill, always availed himself of their services. Bath, after all, was full of them, from respected and competent physicians, graduates of Leyden or Padua with charges to match, to quacks and charlatans scraping a meagre living from those too poor, ignorant or foolish to demand any better.
‘Of course,’ Rachael said, hearing the note of surprise in his voice.
Sir George, who had also heard, opened his eyes and added, ‘No good…all quacks…send ’em packing.’
‘You can’t say that, Father,’ Rachael cried, and even Jack noticed the anguish in her words. ‘They might be some help!’
‘No help…the Lord’s will…’ said Sir George. Before Rachael could protest, he went on, ‘Now…all pray.’
And his daughter, on her knees beside the bed, fighting her tears and her grief, bent her head and silently demanded the impossible, with all the fervour and ferocity of which she was capable.
*
Silence, informed that her stepdaughter’s betrothed had arrived and was staying for dinner, was conscious of mixed feelings. Jack Harington was a worthy enough boy, she was sure: it was just that she did not think him at all suitable as a husband for the intense and moody Rachael. She did not relish the prospect of making polite conversation with him, of hiding her true feelings once more behind the hypocritical mask. On the other hand, perhaps in less formal company, a quiet family dinner surrounded by children, he might reveal qualities hitherto unsuspected.
But, as ever, nothing seemed to turn out quite as she had imagined. Kate began it. She came up to Master Harington as they gathered in the hall before the meal, curtseyed with her usual flyaway grace, and said, with apparently genuine remorse, ‘Aunt Patience says I am to apologise to you, sir, for being so rude before.’
Jack, completely unused to children, stared at her in astonishment, and muttered something. Kate, smiling prettily, then compounded her earlier felony. ‘Are you really going to marry Rachael?’ she asked, in tones of complete disbelief.
Embarrassment and outrage warred on Jack’s rather heavy, stolid face. Silence saw Rachael’s horrified expression and felt she should come to the rescue. ‘Kate! One more word out of you, and you’ll be sent back to Doraty in disgrace. Only children who behave themselves are allowed to dine with our guests.’
Kate, wilful and forward as she was, nevertheless heard the note of absolute authority and dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘Yes, Mama,’ she said, so subdued that Silence was tempted to laugh.
Despite all her efforts to make dinner a relaxed occasion, the atmosphere in the dining parlour soon became stilted and awkward. Rachael, obviously nervous and too keen to make a good impression on her betrothed, chattered inanely until, obviously, a prod from her irreverent twin brought her to a flushed, resentful and self-conscious halt.
William and Deb, normally so outgoing and cheerful, did nothing to fill the gap. They had decided between them that, if this rather ponderous-looking young man were really to be admitted to the bosom of the St. Barbe family, they must set a good example and try to cancel out the harm that Kate’s childish prattle had already done to their reputation. Silence, looking with amusement at their unwontedly virtuous faces, the perfect offspring, seen but not heard, wondered what on earth Jack Harington must think of her ill-assorted brood.
He was, in fact, too intent on his platter to pay much attention to his betrothed or to her family. He had dined at Wintercombe before, but not for some time, and the tenderness of the sweet spring lamb and the fresh carp, each perfectly complemented by sauces of spearmint and fennel, delighted his hungry belly. However, when his appetite was almost satisfied, and when the second course, comprising a chicken fricassee, buttered eggs, a currant and raisin tart and new cheese, had been placed on the table, he found Sir George’s heir, seated opposite, engaging him in pleasant conversation. Earnestly, Jack discoursed of local affairs, of his father’s failed hopes of setting up a classis of the Presbyterian worship in North Somerset, and the preacher in Bath who had spoken for two hours on redemption through grace, and had never once repeated himself.
Silence, listening, smiled inwardly. Two more different young men could hardly be imagined, despite the similarity in their ages and upbringing. Nat, the younger by a couple of years, had always possessed an old head on young shoulders, with the wisdom and cynical humour of his grandfather, dead these seven years. Jack, his future mother-in-law realised, would never allow any question of levity, any joke however mild, to lighten his earnest, plodding progress through life. He did not appear to have discerned that Nat, at this moment seemingly as pious and godly and pompous as himself, was making gentle game of him. However, it was alas obvious that Deb and William, bright-eyed and prick-eared at the nether end of the table, had realised it.
So had Patience. Up until now, mindful of Rachael, so jealous and insecure, she had sat decorously on Nat’s left hand, applying herself to her food and to the children on her other side. But as the conversation between Nat and Jack grew interesting, she found herself listening to it, while trying to attend to Kate and Tabby as well. A spark of mischief flowered in her mind. For once, Nat’s teasing, clever brain was not employed at her expense: and just so had she privately mocked the earnest divines present at those treasonous gatherings at the house of Minister Love. She waited for a suitable pause in the talk, which had turned to affairs of state, and then said, with every appearance of seemly modesty, ‘That all our enemies are confounded, and at peace with us, must mean that our actions are pleasing to God — as it says in Proverbs, chapter sixteen, verse seven. Do you not think so, Master Harington?’
Since this was an oft-voiced opinion of his father, Jack had no choice but to agree. Patience bestowed upon him one of her most dazzling smiles, and added, ‘Of all things, civil war must be the most displeasing to the Lord. We must bless God for his mercy, that he has favoured our cause and thereby brought peace to this suffering and discordant land.’
Silence, listening astonished, did not dare look at any of her children. As Patience, lately discovered plotting for the King of Scots, waxed lyrical upon the benefits of the peacemakers, God’s children, she stared intently into space, furiously repressing the bubbles of laughter springing up inside her. She was thankful that no one else at Wintercombe knew of her sister’s dubious past: she could imagine only too clearly how Nat, in particular, would delicately, subtly, turn her argument on its head and tear it to shreds.
But Patience’s excesses must be curbed, and quickly, or Rachael would surely explode. The meal was all but ended: she rose to her feet, and suggested that wine be taken in the winter parlour, which looked out on to the garden. Then, ushering her family and Jack from the room, she caught her sister’s arm to detain her, and hissed, ‘Please — remember Rachael!’
It was hard to forget her: all through that mischievous conversation, the girl’s hot blue eyes had been burning with hatred. Patience, suddenly and genuinely contrite, gave her sister a remorseful smile, the mirror-image of Silence’s own. ‘I know. I’m sorry — I couldn’t resist it. Shall I take the children into the garden?’
Silence assented, with heartfelt relief. It would not look very well if Jack Harington’s betrothed were incited to attack her supposed rival in his presence.
Fortunately, there was no further incident, and Rachael relaxed so far as to exchange a few words with her suitor in a manner that was almost natural. But Silence, who had found Jack’s conversational style somewhat lacking, was not sorry to see him leave an hour or so after dinner. To have Patience, from pure mischief, deliberately set out to ensnare Rachael’s future husband, was a complication she had never dreamed might arise. Surely, surely, even her Imp could see the harm she would do thereby?
But she had no chance to speak with her further, for that afternoon George took a sudden turn for the worse. The doctor was again summoned from Bath, despite her husband’s feeble protests, and stayed all night. By the morning, he had sunk into unconsciousness, and the end, the physician told her gravely, could not now be more than an hour or so away.
The children were brought, unnaturally subdued, to bid farewell to their father. Silence wondered what their true feelings might be as they gazed down at the comatose, gasping man lying in the bed in which their grandmother, also, had died. Would William, with his cheerful, untidy mind, and complete absence of any sense of sin, grieve at the passing of the parent who had done his utmost, in vain, to beat, coerce and cajole him into a proper respect and obedience? True, Deb was weeping, but tears and contrition came very easily to her, and she, by nature loud, demanding and self-centred, had never accorded well with her father either. But William’s dark eyes were dry, his expression serious, as he stood by the bed.
Tabby, her beloved, shy, secretive Tabby, was also solemn, but there were no tears on her face either. The early, gazelle-like promise of beauty, the small pointed face, the clouds of honey-gold hair, had come now to flower: soon she would be fifteen, as unaware of her loveliness as a lily of the field. She had never chosen the path of confrontation with Sir George, save only in her music: she was as fanatical and obstinate in its defence, as were others for their religion. Father and daughter had inhabited completely separate worlds, and there had never been any understanding whatsoever between them. Because she was, first and foremost, her mother’s partisan, and had a hidden streak of fierce and ruthless justice, Silence knew, with sudden insight, that Tabby would be remorselessly glad that her parents would no longer have the power to fuel each other’s unhappiness.
That concealed vein of ferocity in her supposedly sweet, gentle eldest daughter was something which had once deeply disturbed Silence, but which she had reluctantly been forced to accept. It was a trait she shared with her half-sister Rachael: but the elder girl, until recently, had never made any secret of her tempestuous nature. She had taken up her position on a chair by the bed, as close to her father as she could, and Silence knew that it would be pointless to persuade her to move until all was over. Already, her heart quailed at the explosion of grief and fury that would erupt from Rachael at her father’s death.
Not so Nat. There had never been much love lost between her stepson and Sir George, who had early discarded him as a feeble weakling, unlikely to survive long, and of no particular account. But, against all prediction, Nat had lived, and grown to manhood, not vigorous, but no longer so delicate, while the beloved eldest son, Sam, his father’s pride and joy, had been cruelly slain in the service of Parliament. Nat was now his heir, but to George perhaps even William, harum-scarum, undisciplined but delightful, was preferable in his heart to the young man whose independence of mind and lack of filial obedience and respect, had made in recent years an enemy of his own father.
A door banged behind the screens and young voices erupted loudly, but were almost immediately hushed. Rachael jerked angrily round and saw Kate, her cap askew, her hair flying, dance in through the curtains. As soon as she noticed the stranger, the little girl stopped, her mouth a roundel of astonishment, and said in her bright voice, ‘Who’s this, Rachael?’ Then, belatedly courteous, she dipped a swift curtsey and stood quite still, her hands decorously folded but her small pointed face sparkling with mischief.
Rachael longed to shout at her, to send her packing, but what would Jack think of her if she did? Struggling to keep the fury out of her voice, she said with a smile that did not deceive Kate in the least, ‘Master Harington — this is my youngest sister, Katherine.’
Jack looked completely nonplussed. The child, with the directness that Rachael had dreaded, surveyed him with interest, and said, on a note of discovery, ‘You’re the one that Rachael’s going to marry!’
‘I think that’s quite enough from you, young lady,’ said Patience, coming through the screens to complete Rachael’s discomfiture. She wore her everyday blue gown, but its quiet air of fashion — not for nothing was she a draper’s daughter — the immaculate collar and cuffs and her tumbled, gleaming brown curls, all contributed to a picture at once modest and attractive. She turned to Jack with a charming smile and a swift curtsey. ‘I am so sorry, Master Harington. Kate can be shockingly impertinent.’
Jack was gazing at her like a lost sailor at a beacon. Bitterly, Rachael acknowledged that beside her stepmother’s sister she was nothing, a skinny, gawky little girl trying on adult attitudes that did not fit her. Patience was only three years older, but, it seemed, a century more mature. She had already stolen the children from her: was she trying to steal Jack, too?
Patience realised, belatedly, that it might be very unwise to flirt with Master Harington. She was sorely tempted: he looked such a boring, godly person, that it would be most amusing to lead him on and shock his prim Puritan principles to the core. But there was Rachael, staring at her like a basilisk, to consider, and Patience, who was well aware of the younger girl’s resentment and had by now guessed the probable reason for it, did not really want to make an enemy of her. It would upset Silence, and she had no desire to add to her sister’s considerable burden. She said briskly, ‘I am Lady St. Barbe’s sister, come from London for a visit. Pray excuse me, sir — the children must be attended.’ And in a faint, delicate fragrance of roses and orris root, she took Kate’s small brown paw firmly in her grasp and whisked her unceremoniously from the hall.
It was fortunate that Carpenter returned at that moment, thus saving both Rachael and her betrothed the necessity of finding something further to say to each other. ‘Sir George is ready to see you now, Master Harington. And he directed me to ask you to attend on him also, Mistress Rachael.’
They were ushered into the chamber together. Jack Harington, who had last seen his future father-in-law at his sister Moll’s wedding in January, was shocked by the change in him. This grey, wizened, gasping old man, propped up on pillows, looked to be at death’s door. Jack mentally compared him with his own father, the same age but still hale and hearty, and knew that the end could not be more than a few days away. It was a pity, for his father had wished to see his old friend once more, but even if the summons went out to London today, he could not reach Wintercombe in time.
Formally, he expressed his sympathy, and his father’s, and uttered the pious hope that the dying man in front of him would soon recover his former vigour.
‘Nonsense,’ Sir George whispered. ‘Dying — know it well.’ His head turned, painfully, towards Rachael, who was standing miserably beside Jack. ‘Glad — see you with him — chance of talk.’
Over the past few days, as her father’s breath had become ever more limited, Rachael had grown accustomed to the brevity of his words, and understood what he meant to convey. ‘Yes, Father. We have talked — a little. Master Harington is to stay for dinner.’
‘Good,’ said Sir George. He began to cough, splutteringly. Stone, his manservant, who had shared the nursing duties with Silence, held a kerchief to his lips, and supplied him with a cup of honey and betony water to ease him.
Jack, stalwartly healthy himself, began to feel distinctly depressed by the overwhelming atmosphere of sickness within the chamber, the dread imminence of death. Silently, he began to pray, both for the man in the bed and for his own continued freedom from accident, ailment and disease. So intent was he upon this task, that Rachael had to call him back to reality with an urgent whisper. ‘Master Harington!’
He became aware that Sir George was beckoning them closer to the bed. Rachael, who had only just stopped herself in time from digging her betrothed in the ribs, moved forward, and Jack, hiding his instinctive repulsion, joined her.
‘Daughter — hand,’ Sir George wheezed, his skeletal fingers twitching on the coverlet. Rachael, her face flushed with distress, leaned over and took it in hers. Her father shook his head impatiently. ‘No — his!’
Suddenly shy, flushing deeper, Rachael turned to the tall young man standing beside her, wearing an expression of complete bewilderment on his face. She hid, successfully, the surge of irritated impatience, and said softly, ‘My father wishes us to join hands, Master Harington.’
After a pause, he raised his fingers to touch hers. His palm felt sweaty and hot. She had expected some frisson of emotion at the contact, but there was nothing. She told herself that this situation was hardly conducive to romantic feeling, but there was, nevertheless, a lingering trace of disappointment. Resolutely, she turned back to Sir George, Jack’s hand tentative in hers. ‘Yes, Father?’
‘Betrothed…good,’ said the sick man painfully. ‘Both agree?’
Rachael’s fervent nod coincided with Jack’s more formal, ‘Yes, indeed, I thank you, Sir George.’
‘Good. My blessing…on you both. Wedding…not too soon, not seemly…mourning…New Year…’
Rachael opened her mouth to say that the wait was far too long, and closed it again. Her father was right, as always. If, if he was going to die, then a delay of at least six months before the marriage festivities was only right and proper. And she thought, glancing shyly at the stranger who held her hand, it would give her the chance to become better acquainted with the man to whom, so astonishingly, she would be wed.
‘Son…old friend…what we both wished…pay my respects…to your father,’ Sir George whispered, and his mouth stretched to a ghastly semblance of a smile. It turned to a prolonged fit of coughing, and this time it was Rachael, as she had done so often before, who held the soothing water to his mouth, and wiped his brow. At last her father, a little eased, lay back on the pillows and gulped air with hoarse, rasping breaths. Then she stared unhappily down at the bed, unwilling to weep in front of Jack. It was her helplessness that distressed her the most. If love and will could save him, she would give all she had, but nothing that her stepmother’s nursing or the physicians’ nostrums could do seemed to have the power to arrest this terrible and relentless decline.
‘Are there no doctors in attendance?’ Jack asked her. His own father, who suffered minor maladies with the exaggerated attention of one who was never seriously ill, always availed himself of their services. Bath, after all, was full of them, from respected and competent physicians, graduates of Leyden or Padua with charges to match, to quacks and charlatans scraping a meagre living from those too poor, ignorant or foolish to demand any better.
‘Of course,’ Rachael said, hearing the note of surprise in his voice.
Sir George, who had also heard, opened his eyes and added, ‘No good…all quacks…send ’em packing.’
‘You can’t say that, Father,’ Rachael cried, and even Jack noticed the anguish in her words. ‘They might be some help!’
‘No help…the Lord’s will…’ said Sir George. Before Rachael could protest, he went on, ‘Now…all pray.’
And his daughter, on her knees beside the bed, fighting her tears and her grief, bent her head and silently demanded the impossible, with all the fervour and ferocity of which she was capable.
*
Silence, informed that her stepdaughter’s betrothed had arrived and was staying for dinner, was conscious of mixed feelings. Jack Harington was a worthy enough boy, she was sure: it was just that she did not think him at all suitable as a husband for the intense and moody Rachael. She did not relish the prospect of making polite conversation with him, of hiding her true feelings once more behind the hypocritical mask. On the other hand, perhaps in less formal company, a quiet family dinner surrounded by children, he might reveal qualities hitherto unsuspected.
But, as ever, nothing seemed to turn out quite as she had imagined. Kate began it. She came up to Master Harington as they gathered in the hall before the meal, curtseyed with her usual flyaway grace, and said, with apparently genuine remorse, ‘Aunt Patience says I am to apologise to you, sir, for being so rude before.’
Jack, completely unused to children, stared at her in astonishment, and muttered something. Kate, smiling prettily, then compounded her earlier felony. ‘Are you really going to marry Rachael?’ she asked, in tones of complete disbelief.
Embarrassment and outrage warred on Jack’s rather heavy, stolid face. Silence saw Rachael’s horrified expression and felt she should come to the rescue. ‘Kate! One more word out of you, and you’ll be sent back to Doraty in disgrace. Only children who behave themselves are allowed to dine with our guests.’
Kate, wilful and forward as she was, nevertheless heard the note of absolute authority and dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘Yes, Mama,’ she said, so subdued that Silence was tempted to laugh.
Despite all her efforts to make dinner a relaxed occasion, the atmosphere in the dining parlour soon became stilted and awkward. Rachael, obviously nervous and too keen to make a good impression on her betrothed, chattered inanely until, obviously, a prod from her irreverent twin brought her to a flushed, resentful and self-conscious halt.
William and Deb, normally so outgoing and cheerful, did nothing to fill the gap. They had decided between them that, if this rather ponderous-looking young man were really to be admitted to the bosom of the St. Barbe family, they must set a good example and try to cancel out the harm that Kate’s childish prattle had already done to their reputation. Silence, looking with amusement at their unwontedly virtuous faces, the perfect offspring, seen but not heard, wondered what on earth Jack Harington must think of her ill-assorted brood.
He was, in fact, too intent on his platter to pay much attention to his betrothed or to her family. He had dined at Wintercombe before, but not for some time, and the tenderness of the sweet spring lamb and the fresh carp, each perfectly complemented by sauces of spearmint and fennel, delighted his hungry belly. However, when his appetite was almost satisfied, and when the second course, comprising a chicken fricassee, buttered eggs, a currant and raisin tart and new cheese, had been placed on the table, he found Sir George’s heir, seated opposite, engaging him in pleasant conversation. Earnestly, Jack discoursed of local affairs, of his father’s failed hopes of setting up a classis of the Presbyterian worship in North Somerset, and the preacher in Bath who had spoken for two hours on redemption through grace, and had never once repeated himself.
Silence, listening, smiled inwardly. Two more different young men could hardly be imagined, despite the similarity in their ages and upbringing. Nat, the younger by a couple of years, had always possessed an old head on young shoulders, with the wisdom and cynical humour of his grandfather, dead these seven years. Jack, his future mother-in-law realised, would never allow any question of levity, any joke however mild, to lighten his earnest, plodding progress through life. He did not appear to have discerned that Nat, at this moment seemingly as pious and godly and pompous as himself, was making gentle game of him. However, it was alas obvious that Deb and William, bright-eyed and prick-eared at the nether end of the table, had realised it.
So had Patience. Up until now, mindful of Rachael, so jealous and insecure, she had sat decorously on Nat’s left hand, applying herself to her food and to the children on her other side. But as the conversation between Nat and Jack grew interesting, she found herself listening to it, while trying to attend to Kate and Tabby as well. A spark of mischief flowered in her mind. For once, Nat’s teasing, clever brain was not employed at her expense: and just so had she privately mocked the earnest divines present at those treasonous gatherings at the house of Minister Love. She waited for a suitable pause in the talk, which had turned to affairs of state, and then said, with every appearance of seemly modesty, ‘That all our enemies are confounded, and at peace with us, must mean that our actions are pleasing to God — as it says in Proverbs, chapter sixteen, verse seven. Do you not think so, Master Harington?’
Since this was an oft-voiced opinion of his father, Jack had no choice but to agree. Patience bestowed upon him one of her most dazzling smiles, and added, ‘Of all things, civil war must be the most displeasing to the Lord. We must bless God for his mercy, that he has favoured our cause and thereby brought peace to this suffering and discordant land.’
Silence, listening astonished, did not dare look at any of her children. As Patience, lately discovered plotting for the King of Scots, waxed lyrical upon the benefits of the peacemakers, God’s children, she stared intently into space, furiously repressing the bubbles of laughter springing up inside her. She was thankful that no one else at Wintercombe knew of her sister’s dubious past: she could imagine only too clearly how Nat, in particular, would delicately, subtly, turn her argument on its head and tear it to shreds.
But Patience’s excesses must be curbed, and quickly, or Rachael would surely explode. The meal was all but ended: she rose to her feet, and suggested that wine be taken in the winter parlour, which looked out on to the garden. Then, ushering her family and Jack from the room, she caught her sister’s arm to detain her, and hissed, ‘Please — remember Rachael!’
It was hard to forget her: all through that mischievous conversation, the girl’s hot blue eyes had been burning with hatred. Patience, suddenly and genuinely contrite, gave her sister a remorseful smile, the mirror-image of Silence’s own. ‘I know. I’m sorry — I couldn’t resist it. Shall I take the children into the garden?’
Silence assented, with heartfelt relief. It would not look very well if Jack Harington’s betrothed were incited to attack her supposed rival in his presence.
Fortunately, there was no further incident, and Rachael relaxed so far as to exchange a few words with her suitor in a manner that was almost natural. But Silence, who had found Jack’s conversational style somewhat lacking, was not sorry to see him leave an hour or so after dinner. To have Patience, from pure mischief, deliberately set out to ensnare Rachael’s future husband, was a complication she had never dreamed might arise. Surely, surely, even her Imp could see the harm she would do thereby?
But she had no chance to speak with her further, for that afternoon George took a sudden turn for the worse. The doctor was again summoned from Bath, despite her husband’s feeble protests, and stayed all night. By the morning, he had sunk into unconsciousness, and the end, the physician told her gravely, could not now be more than an hour or so away.
The children were brought, unnaturally subdued, to bid farewell to their father. Silence wondered what their true feelings might be as they gazed down at the comatose, gasping man lying in the bed in which their grandmother, also, had died. Would William, with his cheerful, untidy mind, and complete absence of any sense of sin, grieve at the passing of the parent who had done his utmost, in vain, to beat, coerce and cajole him into a proper respect and obedience? True, Deb was weeping, but tears and contrition came very easily to her, and she, by nature loud, demanding and self-centred, had never accorded well with her father either. But William’s dark eyes were dry, his expression serious, as he stood by the bed.
Tabby, her beloved, shy, secretive Tabby, was also solemn, but there were no tears on her face either. The early, gazelle-like promise of beauty, the small pointed face, the clouds of honey-gold hair, had come now to flower: soon she would be fifteen, as unaware of her loveliness as a lily of the field. She had never chosen the path of confrontation with Sir George, save only in her music: she was as fanatical and obstinate in its defence, as were others for their religion. Father and daughter had inhabited completely separate worlds, and there had never been any understanding whatsoever between them. Because she was, first and foremost, her mother’s partisan, and had a hidden streak of fierce and ruthless justice, Silence knew, with sudden insight, that Tabby would be remorselessly glad that her parents would no longer have the power to fuel each other’s unhappiness.
That concealed vein of ferocity in her supposedly sweet, gentle eldest daughter was something which had once deeply disturbed Silence, but which she had reluctantly been forced to accept. It was a trait she shared with her half-sister Rachael: but the elder girl, until recently, had never made any secret of her tempestuous nature. She had taken up her position on a chair by the bed, as close to her father as she could, and Silence knew that it would be pointless to persuade her to move until all was over. Already, her heart quailed at the explosion of grief and fury that would erupt from Rachael at her father’s death.
Not so Nat. There had never been much love lost between her stepson and Sir George, who had early discarded him as a feeble weakling, unlikely to survive long, and of no particular account. But, against all prediction, Nat had lived, and grown to manhood, not vigorous, but no longer so delicate, while the beloved eldest son, Sam, his father’s pride and joy, had been cruelly slain in the service of Parliament. Nat was now his heir, but to George perhaps even William, harum-scarum, undisciplined but delightful, was preferable in his heart to the young man whose independence of mind and lack of filial obedience and respect, had made in recent years an enemy of his own father.
