Death and the Chevalier

by Robin Blake

  From my own encounters with the soldiers, I was ready to accept this. Furzey was less sure. He had been sitting at his desk while fixing the Highlanders with a rigid glare. Referring again to his paper, Lucas said something in Gaelic, and all three marched out into Cheap Side. I stood at the door and watched them ascend the next steps to rap the knocker of Burroughs’s house.

  I returned within and found Elizabeth sitting on the stairs.

  ‘So!’ I said. ‘We are officially a billet. Even our own bedroom is pressed into the Prince’s service.’

  She laughed. Her ill humour had left her, though her opinion of the Captain had not changed.

  ‘That is a bad-mannered fellow, but young. He may learn how better to present himself one day. Meanwhile, we must make the best of it. Shall you and I sleep in the attic and Hector with us? It will be an adventure.’

  ‘The beds up there are single and so narrow. I’ll miss having my wife beside me.’

  ‘And I my husband, so we shall push them together. Now, Matty and I must get on with changing the beds.’

  A few moments after she left me, there was a knock on the door and I went to open it. Luke Fidelis stood on the step.

  ‘I am turned out of my house!’ he said. ‘It is to be filled entirely with soldiers. They are milling around at my end of town in their thousands, complaining that they do not have enough tents.’

  Fidelis’s house was on Fylde Road, outside the Friar Gate bar where the Pretender, on entering the town, had left most of his troops.

  ‘Then you must take refuge with us,’ I said, standing aside to let him in, and then leading the way into the parlour. ‘We have a full house except for an attic room with a flock mattress and a feather pillow. I’m afraid you will not be extremely comfortable there, but it is dry and tolerably warm.’

  ‘I am grateful, though I fear for my chemical laboratory with its glass vessels. Soldiers have a habit of breaking things. But I accept with gratitude your attic and lumpy bed.’

  ‘We are having to remove to the attic ourselves. A captain from the rebel army was just here, and has pressed all our bedrooms except for Matty’s, which must be too mean. We have been led to expect grandees.’

  ‘I suppose they shan’t stay for long. Preston is far from being a stronghold, as the rebels found in ’fifteen. They will not want to fight the government here – not again.’

  ‘Which I imagine is why they have crossed the river and secured the bridge. They mean to cross it and press on south.’

  Matty came in with an offer of tea, which Fidelis refused, saying he must go out again.

  ‘I have a patient in Penwortham in a bad way after an injury. He is lucky he lives as near as that, as I have no mount. I hid my horses before the rebels invaded the house. I will not allow them to be taken as a tax.’

  ‘You will be taxed anyway if you go over to Penwortham,’ I said. ‘Make sure to have two silver sixpences in your pocket.’

  I returned to the office and found Furzey fretting. Being unmarried, he lived with his widowed mother, whom he now imagined under siege from marauding Highlanders. I sent him home to repel them.

  Looking once more into the Market Place, I saw that the Prestonians who had greeted the Prince so warmly were still out there, talking excitedly and in some cases singing Jacobite ballads and songs such as ‘When the King comes to his own again’. Here and there, Scotch troops had joined them, and I heard the wheedling sound of bagpipes. One or two peddlars were also plying their trade, patrolling the area with trays that displayed goods of interest to a soldier with a few pennies to spend.

  I went back to my writing table and tried half-heartedly to sift through some affidavits in a civil case I was pursuing on behalf of watchmaker Oldswick, a notorious litigant. But my mind continually wandered, dwelling on the present danger and on the uncertain future. How split and splintered our country had become – and how enraged so many of our people were. Who would be governing us come Christmas, and what bloodshed would have decided the issue? The old political battles between Whigs and Tories, which had once seemed implacable and destructive, now felt a comfortable, even benign, natural state. The eruption of Prince Charles Edward in our midst signalled something newly dangerous and dismaying – the stirring of a more atavistic conflict, previously half hidden and now showing itself in full view, armed with battle standard, musket and sword in hand.

  Restlessly, I went back into the house, where Elizabeth and Matty were still putting the bedrooms to rights for our enforced guests. I took Hector into the parlour and distracted myself playing peep-oh and other simple games with him. We were halfway through Ride a Cock Horse – with him bumping up and down astride my knees and laughing uproariously – when I had to answer another hammering at the front door – the door of the house rather than the office.

  In the fading light a woman confronted me, accompanied by a young officer in full uniform. She wore a riding costume with a large hood shadowing her face.

  ‘Mr Titus Cragg?’ said the officer.

  I said that I was, and, without another word, he pushed past and displaced me at holding the door, then bowed to the lady. I can only describe the way she entered my house and lowered her hood as stately. Her chin was up, her back straight and her gaze steady. I raised the candle in my hand so that I could see her face. It was possibly one of the most perfectly beautiful female faces I had ever seen.

  TEN

  The escorting officer – a sturdy fellow of about thirty – introduced himself as Captain David Brown.

  ‘I have the honour of bringing this lady to her billet. You will also be providing a room for me, and another gentleman – a most important gentlemen, I will add – who you may expect to come here soon. We are all very tired after a long day on the road, and we desire above all to eat and rest.’

  The lady entered. I knew little enough of armies on campaign, but the last person I expected to be billeted in my house was a female rebel – and not only a beautiful one but an important one, to judge by what we had been told by Captain Lucas. I covered my surprise by making a deep bow.

  ‘May I ask your name, madam?’ I said.

  I was answered with nothing more than a twitch of her lips.

  ‘This is Madame Manon Lachatte,’ said Captain Brown, in a tone of voice suggesting I must surely have heard the name.

  She was, I guessed, about twenty-five. Covered with neither powder nor face-paint, her skin was unblemished and unlined. Her eyes were a deep and liquid green, and her hair was a rich red. Suddenly, I felt awkward and out of my depth. I called for Elizabeth to come down to us.

  ‘Oh!’ said Elizabeth. Immediately getting over her surprise, she smiled in welcome. I repeated our guests’ names and said they were tired and would like to see their rooms.

  ‘Which room would you prefer, Madame?’ Elizabeth asked the woman when we had shown off the three rooms that Captain Lucas had picked out and were standing on the first-floor landing. Madame Lachatte had said not a word during the tour. ‘This room here is normally our own bedroom. It is the largest but overlooks the market and you may find it noisy. The other rooms are smaller, but both have a pleasant quiet view over our garden. The one above is our child’s room but we have removed his cot. The bed in that room is rarely slept in.’

  Those perfect lips still didn’t open, and it was not even clear that she had understood. Brown pointed to the room across the landing and said a few words to the lady in French – firm words, I would call them, though I did not know their meaning. She replied with the faintest nod of her head.

  ‘Madame Lachatte will take this room,’ said Brown, indicating the same room. ‘The larger, with the aspect over the market, has already been reserved for the use of your third guest. I myself shall take your child’s room upstairs.’

  Captain Brown soon left the house, saying he must arrange for the baggage to be brought. Elizabeth and I retreated downstairs, leaving Madame Lachatte to settle herself. The identity of the rebel who woul
d be occupying our marital bed was still unknown to us.

  ‘Oh, I am sure it is the Chevalier himself,’ said Matty when we had gathered in the kitchen. ‘What a splendour that’ll be! I won’t know where to put myself, I won’t.’

  ‘Matty, you must contain yourself,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He will certainly not come here, as there are many better-appointed houses in Preston, starting indeed with Patten House. If that’s good enough for Lord Derby, it is suitable for the Prince. I expect, however, we might be receiving one of the generals. What do you think, Titus? Have you heard the names of the leaders of the army – the cavalry, infantry and so forth?’

  I gave her the names Mitchell had told Furzey.

  ‘There will be many other senior officers, of course, who make up the Pretender’s council.’

  ‘Lords and Dukes!’ exclaimed Matty. ‘Have ever such titles been seen under this roof before?’

  ‘And may not be now,’ said Elizabeth crisply. ‘But the lady upstairs, Titus: what are we to make of her? When I asked which room she would take, the captain translated it as an instruction that she could not take the larger room but must have the smaller at the back.’

  Elizabeth’s advantage over me here was that she had much better French, having spent almost two years at school in Belgium.

  ‘I did not catch what he said to her, but he seemed perfectly polite,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed, he was polite. But he would not be argued with, all the same. As to Madame Lachatte, I wonder what she is doing with this army. I wonder indeed if she is somebody’s—’ Elizabeth mouthed ‘mistress’ to avoid Matty’s blushes.

  ‘This important gentleman’s, perhaps,’ I said. ‘I wonder who he is.’

  ‘We must wait and see.’

  We did not have long to wait and see, as Captain Brown returned out of the darkness half an hour later, in company with Captain Lucas. The latter told us to prepare for the arrival of ‘the Marquis’, and to make sure to provide a meal for him, as well as for our other guests.

  ‘A marquis, is he?’ said Elizabeth. ‘What is his name?’

  ‘He is Alexandre de Boyer, Marquis d’Éguilles,’ said Lucas. ‘As a French nobleman, he will expect the food to be hot. See to it, please.’

  As Lucas hurried away, Brown went up to his room. Elizabeth clicked her tongue.

  ‘“See to it!”? That boy gets even further above himself every time he opens his mouth.’

  ‘So we have a marquis to entertain,’ I said. ‘A real French nob to be politely polished.’

  ‘Don’t be coarse, Titus. Anyway, where he comes from, marquises are two for a penny. La France is enormously overstuffed with nobility.’

  She had considerably greater knowledge than I, who had been only the shortest of times in France. However, whether he was minor or major nobility, Lucas was making much of this fellow and had earmarked our best room for him.

  Twenty minutes later Lucas was back again with a man a little younger than me, dressed in riding clothes and wearing his natural hair under a tricorn hat. This was the Marquis d’Éguilles, who strode in with a trooper carrying his box. The Marquis was rubicund and brisk of manner, and his coat was cut in a somewhat military style. He wore a sword and pistols on his belt, yet, for all that, he did not quite persuade as a soldier. He looked more of an excise officer or a gentleman-farmer on his way to attend militia drills. I showed him up to his room in person, followed by the trooper and box.

  At the beginning it was an awkward, over-polite gathering around our dining table that night. Elizabeth laid out a more than serviceable meal of potato soup, thick slices of pickled pork and a beautiful cheese, and I decanted some of last year’s excellent elderberry wine. But the meal began unfortunately. I noticed the Marquis eyeing the wine decanter avidly, so I quickly poured him a full glass. He raised it, held the ruby liquid to the light and made pompous exclamations to Elizabeth, who was beside him, as to its virtues. But the Marquis was evidently expecting a good Burgundy, for when, in what may have been a further gesture of appreciation, he drained his glass in one tip, the results were extraordinary. As soon as the wine hit his palate, his eyes popped and he began to choke. He clamped his mouth shut, heaved once, then again, and the elderberry wine began to spurt back out through his nose and on to his shirt and the table.

  Elizabeth exclaimed, and then burst out laughing while saying something to him in French. The Marquis was stiff with embarrassment, but as she picked up her napkin and dabbed at his shirt, still laughing but also apologizing, his discomfort melted by degrees and before long he smiled. Taking his own napkin, he wiped his face and, catching Elizabeth’s hand, he kissed it and indicated he would be willing to give the elderberry wine another try.

  I found it difficult to read the true relations between him and the woman sitting beside me. Both had a certain hauteur. I supposed she was his mistress but, if so, the two were noticeably cool towards each other. My companion’s coolness, indeed, may have had something to do with the fact that the Marquis showed every sign of being much taken with my wife. He talked to her almost exclusively and looked fondly at her, with more than the suspicion of a rolling eye.

  ‘I am sorry, madam,’ I heard him saying laboriously, ‘I do not speak English very good.’

  ‘Then we must speak in French,’ Elizabeth said gaily and began chattering away in that language. Before long the pair were freely talking and laughing together, occasionally including Captain Brown in their discussions, so that I was left to attempt conversation with Madame Lachatte.

  ‘Vous avez fait un voyage confortable, j’espère?’ I said.

  There was a fugitive movement of her lips, which might have been the wisp of a smile. How fatuous my question was! Of course she had not had a comfortable journey. I was speaking to her as if she were a clergyman’s wife just come in by the Lancaster coach. Madame, by contrast, had been with an army, in the middle of a war, surrounded by hairy-armed men in tartan plaid. I tried once more, this time on the safer subject of our dinner.

  ‘La soupe vous plait?’

  With spoon halfway between plate and mouth, she nodded fractionally while widening her eyes. Was the ice melting at last?

  ‘Voulez-vous du vin?’ I ventured.

  She had already sunk one glass, but I wasn’t sure how to say more wine. Nevertheless, she nodded again and I poured. Then, fluently and with not a trace of a French accent, she said, ‘I adore elderberry wine. You can’t get it in Paris. They turn their noses up at anything that isn’t grape juice.’

  ‘Madame!’ I said in relieved surprise. ‘I did not suspect you of speaking English!’

  ‘Well, why wouldn’t I?’ she said brightly. ‘Am I not from Bandon in County Cork, where the elderberries are the juiciest you ever saw?’

  ‘Oh! You are Irish?’

  Another clot’s question! I bit my lip.

  ‘I was Mary Flarty,’ she said, ‘though now I am called Manon. My father took the notion of serving King Louis and we left for France when I was quite small. He went into one of His Majesty’s Irish regiments.’

  ‘Can you remember Ireland?’

  ‘A little. My family kept cows, so I still have the smell of the dairy in my nose. It had a sweetness for me. After he stopped soldiering, my da become a merchant in milk and butter in Paris. He used to say that in God’s eyes drawing the white stuff is better than drawing the red stuff. Anyway, it pays more, and he soon got enough money to give my sisters and me schooling and manners so that we could find suitable – as he thought – husbands.’

  I replied with another question even dafter than the previous ones.

  ‘And your husband is well, I hope?’

  She took another sip of wine.

  ‘He’s dead, I’m happy to say. Lachatte was an old fool, a born drunkard and a spendthrift.’

  So much candour in so short a time, whether or not it was provoked by wine, was disarming. And now that we could speak freely in English, I began to lose my awkwardness and relish our co
nversation as much as they were enjoying theirs at the other end of the table.

  We did not broach military affairs, such as the rebels’ strength and final objective, while delicacy prevented me from probing into what had driven Madame Lachatte to throw in her lot with the Jacobites’ invasion of England. We stuck instead to everyday observations and anecdotes while, at the other end of the table, the French conversation flowed in a similar manner.

  Towards eleven the party came to an end, by which time I had completely forgotten that the three guests were part of an army come to conquer us. As they withdrew to their rooms – the Marquis with notable reluctance – I threw on a great-coat and called Suez. The dog bounded up to me, his tail thrashing, and led me joyfully out for his nightly promenade. Groups of rebels were wandering the town or warming themselves around open fires in Market Place under a light snowfall. As we approached the shop of Curtis the cutler in Fisher Gate, my ear picked up the scream of his whetston, and only then did I notice the quiet file of men, extending to thirty or forty soldiers, who waited patiently, past midnight as it was, to have their claymores and dirks sharpened.

  As on many evenings, I took the dog on to the green south of Fisher Gate where the playhouse was. Here we found more fires scattered around, more groups of soldiers huddled in their plaids around them, smoking, arguing and sleeping. Passing one of these, I saw that they wore the same tartan as that of the murdered Highlander at Ribchester and I approached them. I addressed a lanky fellow that sat on a box beside the fire.

  ‘Please excuse the question,’ I said. ‘But what is your plaid? What tribe, I mean?’

  Every firelit eye turned towards me.

  ‘Tribe? We are no tribe,’ said the tall soldier.

  He spat into the flames in contempt at my ignorance.

  ‘We’re Clan MacGregor. Ya’ll have heard of Rob Roy?’

  A large hound swathed in russet hair arose from the fireside. The dog would have looked menacing any time, but in this flickering firelight its cavernous mouth, great teeth and yellow eyes appeared almost demonic. Suez turned towards this drooling marauder and began heartily yapping.