Devil Water

by Anya Seton

  “Where is Lord Darntwatter?” said John Snowdon.

  The servant stared at the bearded old man in the black bonnet and dirty plaid, but he answered, “Mebbe at the castle by now. He’s been hunting young master through Dipton Wood, and thereabouts.”

  When they rode up to the castle, James was standing on the steps ready to mount again, and search for Charles in a different direction.

  “Praises to God and the Blessed Virgin,” he whispered when he saw his brother, but he saw too not only from the bandage on the boy’s head and the haggard look of his face but from the expression of the old bearded man that there was something still very wrong. He asked no questions while he urged the two of them inside, and told a lackey to bring food and drink.

  “I’ll tak’ a bite later, my lord,” said John Snowdon, “gin ye still offer it, but first I want a word wi’ ye alone.” His fierce unswerving gaze rested on Lady Constable, who was embracing Charles, and uttering cries of curiosity, lamentation, and relief, then it passed to Mr. Petre, who stood watchful and suspicious by the mantelpiece.

  James nodded and took Snowdon to the library.

  Two hours later the old man had gone. He had drunk nothing but water, eaten nothing but bread, and he would not stay the night though the light was beginning to fail. And James, still in the library, had been telling the appalling news to his chaplain. Charles had been interviewed and sent to bed, since he was running a fever and was half dead from exhaustion.

  “Poor Charles. Poor boy,” said James in a leaden voice, resting his head on his hands, “ ‘tis near as bad a blow as I can think of. How sorely he has paid for his youthful sin.”

  The priest made an impatient gesture. “The circumstance is awkward, my lord, but we must not exaggerate it nor give it undue importance.”

  “I tell you,” said James sharply, “the boy is married! Married by a minister, with witnesses. Snowdon showed me the marriage lines. And Charles admits it.”

  “Bah!” said the priest. “You can’t call that a marriage -- performed by a Dissenter -- not even in the Church of England. And Charles only sixteen and forced to submit at the point of a pistol! This is no marriage at all, and certainly not a Catholic one!”

  James winced. He picked up the inkpot and laid it down again.

  “Nevertheless,” he said, “it is a legal marriage, by the law of the land. And Charles says he did it of his own free will when he saw the girl’s condition.”

  “Nonsense! The whole thing is a farce. Give those people some money, then we’ll get it annulled -- I’ll write to Rome. If only those villains up there on the Border will keep their mouths shut.”

  James looked at his chaplain with sad disapproval. “The Snowdons will take no money, not even support for the child. I offered it. They were concerned only with having the baby born in wedlock. Which it was. They wish nothing more to do with Charles or us ever.”

  “Then,” said the priest, “we need never mention this.”

  “Perhaps not,” said James. “Except to Lady Betty. She can give out what reasons she likes for her match with Charles being broken off.”

  The priest bit his lips. He had forgotten Lady Betty. “It’s all excessively awkward,” he said. “It’s tragic, Mr. Petre,” said James quietly.

  PART TWO: 17I5 - 1716

  FIVE

  In 1715 on Lammas Sunday, August 7, Dilston villagers celebrated the Feast of St. Wilfrid, as their forefathers had done for a thousand years. The Earl of Derwentwater was delighted to honor the old custom, and much pleased to learn about the fiery Northumbrian saint, who, though educated by the monks on Lindisfarne, had introduced Roman church usage into the North of England. Also, Wilfrid in the seventh century had built the first abbey at Hexham -- the nearby market town, which had been, under Wilfrid’s regime and later, a most famous Catholic shrine and sanctuary.

  After Mass in Dilston chapel the Earl, his wife, and aunt, all dressed in mourning, walked to the marble summerhouse, or pavilion, which had just been finished on the edge of the new lawns, overlooking the Devil Water cascade. The pavilion was luxuriously furnished with armchairs, benches, and an inlaid table. Its shade was welcome on this hot August day, and so was the bowl of chilled syllabub which the servants had left.

  “Sit down, my love,” said James to his young wife, solicitously arranging cushions for her. “I trust you’re not tired?”

  The Countess shook her dark head with a grave smile, then she turned at once to her husband’s aunt --old Lady Mary Radcliffe, who had come yesterday from Durham for an extended visit. “Are you quite comfortable, my lady? I see you have your fan -- shall I fan you? ‘Tis so warm.”

  How like my Ann, James thought, watching his wife’s pretty courtesy and seeing that his aunt, who had looked cross, as she often did, responded with a softening of her craggy face, though she said, “I’m still able to fan myself, thank you.”

  James sipped the cool frothy drink and leaned back in his chair, allowing himself a moment of utter contentment. Never for an instant in their three years of marriage had he regretted choosing little Anna Maria Webb from all the available Catholic heiresses. She had developed as he had foreseen on that night at Dr. Radcliffe’s. The convent, and her dominating mother, had turned out an earnest, devout, and accomplished young girl, keenly aware of responsibilities; her rather serious character lightened by a love of music, and a wifely pleasure in whatever interested James. They had spent the first two years of their marriage at Hatherope, a manor in Gloucestershire which was lent to the young couple by her parents. This arrangement was at Lady Webb’s request since she could not yet bear to part with her daughter, and it also gave James time for the rebuilding of Dilston.

  He glanced through the marble pillars of the summerhouse towards his elegant new mansion. It was now nearly completed -- a nobleman’s seat as modern and magnificent as any in the county. The old Radcliffe tower was still there, but had been so shrewdly incorporated in the new fabric that one scarcely guessed where it stood. And its upper rooms served their earlier purpose as nurseries. Yes, that was another of the joys Ann had brought him. An heir. And she was pregnant again, so she had confided yesterday. The nurseries would soon be filled, as he had always prayed. James turned and searched the expanse of grass and flower beds until he spied his son playing near the Italian fountain. The two-year-old John was tripping and tumbling after a puppy, while the head nurse followed her charge closely.

  “I do hope Janet won’t let Johnny get near the peacocks,” said Ann, also watching her son. “And I wonder if all that noise and excitement is too much for him,” she added, frowning towards the commotion at the far end of the gardens near the village, where tables were being set up for St. Wilfrid’s feast, and two roving jugglers were practicing their skill with yellow balls.

  “Pish!” said Lady Mary, fanning herself briskly. “You mustn’t coddle the child, Ann. A bit of rough and tumble’s good for ‘em, and while I think of it, I’ve noted that you feed him too much porridge. Red meat’s what he wants, the bloodier the better. Meat and a gill of ale now and then.” Lady Mary gave a nod so decisive that the lappets jiggled on her lace cap. Like many a spinster, she had decided views on the rearing of children.

  Ann’s dark eyes looked resistant, but she was too polite to argue, and James interposed tactfully, “Anyway, Janet’s carrying the child into the house for his nap, my dear -- and look, there’s a horseman coming up the avenue. I wonder if it could possibly be Charles.”

  It wasn’t Charles, who had ridden to Newcastle two days ago to buy himself a new fowling piece though there were several excellent ones in the gun room already. James sighed and the precarious moment of contentment vanished. Charles was a man now. He’d be twenty-two next month. But he couldn’t marry, and he wouldn’t settle down. In these last years he had grown wild and extravagant.

  He had made a name for himself as a rake, even in London, where he kept a succession of actresses. He’d set them up in Bond Street houses,
lavish clothes, jewels, and parties on them, then tire of them and have to buy them off. Young Radcliffe takes after his grandfather, the “Merry Monarch,” wags snickered in the coffeehouses, a parallel which distressed James. Charles’s own income was certainly insufficient for this way of life; so he gamed, and he ran into debt, and, finally repentant, would be forced to come to James, who eventually rescued him -- each time hoping that the promises of reform were true.

  If Charles could only have married Betty Lee, James thought for the hundredth time. True, this lechery which had been his downfall might have cropped up even then, yet there would have been scant temptation at Ditchley Park and, besides, Betty might have had spirit enough to hold him. She had loved Charles.

  James shrank from remembering the dreadful scene with the Lichfields when they were told of Charles’s incredible marriage. There had been rage, tears, recrimination, and disgust. None of which James felt poor Charles quite deserved. Lady Lichfield, furious with disappointment, had demanded that nobody should know that her daughter had been so flouted, and not long afterward Betty married her staid cousin, Frank Lee. So nobody outside the family did know of Charles’s tie to the strange young woman on the Border. There was mild curiosity in some London circles that young Radcliffe should be jilted by Lady Betty, but it soon died away. And Charles began his dissipations.

  “I am quite eager to see my nephew Charles,” said Lady Mary acidly. “Since he never bothers to call on me in Durham, and now--” her voice lowered, the ivory fan ceased swishing, “with our recent losses -- so few left of the family.” She crossed herself. Ann and James also crossed themselves. James said, “God rest their souls.” His chair grated on the tiles, and he set down his cup of syllabub. He tried not to brood over the deaths that had come to them the past year. Old Dr. Radcliffe went first, his affection for the Derwentwaters unfortunately dimmed, because he had offered to leave the baby John a fortune if the child were reared as a Protestant. James had written an indignant letter of refusal. And so most of the Doctor’s money had gone to Oxford University. The next death was that of Lady Constable, who had returned with Sir Marmaduke to Yorkshire; and then shortly afterward Francis -- a sardonic gambler to the end -- had coughed away his life in London.

  James’s mind grew as somber as the black clothes they all wore. These family deaths were harrowing, but they were God’s Will, and they were done. They left no threats, no disturbances behind them, which was not true of another death. That had happened just a year ago. Queen Anne.

  James still felt the shock, like a blow in the stomach, when he learned that the Queen, feebly indecisive to the end, had not named her successor. And George of Hanover was immediately proclaimed King. Half the nation had been as horrified as James was. They had waited daily for King James to cross the water and claim at once his rightful throne. There had been excited demonstrations everywhere. People wore the white rose openly, they wore the Stuart oak leaves, they sang Jacobite songs, and wrote vicious lampoons against the Hanoverians. But nothing happened. Except that a fat German princeling stolidly -- even reluctantly -- landed at Greenwich, entered London, and was crowned in Westminster Abbey. All so quickly that the Jacobite party seemed to be paralyzed with unbelief. It could not be that England would accept a foreigner who spoke no word of English, who openly disliked the country he had been summoned to rule, who had imprisoned his wife and dragged with him to England rapacious German mistresses, one so fat she was known as the “Elephant,” the other so tall and thin she was called the “Maypole.” It could not be that England would crown a foreigner whose right to reign was so remote that it was said the Whig ministry had used a telescope to find it.

  But barring a few riots, England had accepted all this. Here was a King at hand, and he was Protestant. That was the real crux of the matter. Justice, loyalty, practicality, even, had all been jettisoned for fear of a Roman Catholic king.

  Personal distress for James had been severe during those first weeks when the news reached them at Dilston. He and Ann wept and prayed together, they had tried to believe that this bitter blow was, in some way, God’s Will or a testing. And then they had ceased to talk about it. Secure at Dilston, they lived their own lives among tenants and close friends. Often London seemed as far off as Cathay.

  Though recently there had been an annoyance. A rumor reached Dilston that the Government was about to revive an old law that no Catholic might own a horse worth more than five pounds. James, used to these fluctuating anti-Papist nuisances, had made light of the rumor; but Ann was frightened, so the best horses and the valuable gray stallion, Monarch, were sent to a Protestant neighbor’s for safekeeping until, as James wrote, “We see what will be done in relating to horses.” Miserable times, James thought, but I’ll not dwell on them today.

  “Look, my ladies.” He smiled, pointing to the group of villagers who were laughing and shouting around a colossal effigy made of painted canvas stuffed with straw and crowned with a bishop’s mitre. “They’ve set Saint Wilfrid on his throne! And I see they brought that dancing bear from Hexham. I hear the beast is comical.”

  Ann, always responsive to her husband’s mood, leaned forward to look. “They’re happy,” she said, watching their excited people, who were forming the procession which would presently pass the summerhouse.

  “And why wouldn’t they be!” snapped Lady Mary. “You do enough for them. And all those kegs of beer! They’ll be drunk by noon. I never heard of a manor lord so liberal as you, James.”

  “I want them to be content,” said her nephew. “And this is Dilston’s particular Gaudy Day. ‘Foul care begone! Let the golden sun charm every heart to mirth!’ “

  Lady Mary shrugged and tightened her lips. Soon unexpected guests arrived. Thomas Forster and his pretty sister Dorothy were en route to the little village of Blanchland ten miles south of Dilston. Blanchland had once belonged to Tom Forster, but financial straits had forced him to sell it to his uncle, Lord Crewe. The Forsters were easily persuaded to stop over and see the procession. “Blanchland’ll wait,” said Tom, loosening his waistcoat buttons as he settled back with a grunt. “ ‘Tis a poky old hole, not a soul worth passing the time o’ day with. If ‘twasn’t for collecting the Lammas rents for me uncle, I’d not go near it.” He scowled and reached out for the punch Ann had ordered when she saw Tom Forster coming. Even among the hard-drinking Northumbrians Tom was conspicuous for consumption. And he looked it, with his big belly, his broken-veined nose, his bloodshot little eyes. Tom was only in his mid-thirties, yet seemed older, particularly since he had become M.P. for Northumberland, and taken on a pompous air.

  “Do you always accompany your brother down from Bamburgh, Miss Forster?” asked Ann turning politely to Dorothy, and wondering why the attractive girl of twenty-five had not married.

  “Aye, my lady,” said Dorothy with her charming smile. “I try to keep Tom from mischief if I can.” She spoke lightly but her eyes were on the second cup of punch which Tom was downing. Like as not, she thought, he’d soon be so fuddled they’d never get to Blanchland at all. And they needed their portion of the rents. There were three pennies and a farthing left in Tom’s purse. A chronic state which the loyal Dorothy tried to impute to bad luck, never admitting the possibility of mismanagement and stupidity! Tom was all she had to love, or indeed seemed likely to have. Popularity with men was pleasant, though it had waned a trifle since her first girlhood, but it didn’t bring husbands suitable for marriage with a Forster whose aunt was the great Lady Crewe and who was besides kin to Lord Derwentwater. And Tom was unable to scrape together enough money for his debts, let alone a sister’s dowry. Besides, most of the lads who used to dangle about her were Catholics, and therefore quite ineligible. Dorothy smoothed the skirt of her shabby velveteen riding habit, and looked with momentary envy at Lord and Lady Derwentwater while the young couple murmured something private to each other. They were so exactly suited, both small, neatly made, young, and full of the dignified yet warm courtesy which is
the essence of good breeding. Both so rich.

  “Miss Forster,” said Lady Mary suddenly, “there was talk in Durham that your aunt, Lady Crewe, was unwell -- oppressed, they say, by the wretched state of our country. Is it true?”

  “I don’t know, my lady,” said Dorothy. “We’ve not been to Durham in some while. She has certainly suffered as we all have from this blow to our hopes for the rightful king.”

  “Suffered” repeated the older woman with exasperation. “What’s the use of suffering! Why don’t they do something, hey? That’s what I keep telling James here. Though ‘tis not so easy for Catholics to act in these shocking times, but what are they doing in France? Tell me that. And you, sir,” Lady Mary suddenly rapped Tom Forster’s fat thigh with her fan, “you’re a Protestant, and a Tory, you represent the county -- why are you sitting here on your backside swilling spirits, while your nation’s going to perdition?”

  Tom blinked, while James said, “Auntie, Auntie, I pray you! We agreed not to speak of this subject today; and I must ask you not to chide a guest. The good Lord will lead us aright in His own good time.”

  “That’s true,” said Tom with a thick laugh, moving away from the reach of Lady Mary’s fan. “Don’t see what we c’n do now. Ol’ Georgie Porgie’s on the throne, an’ how’re we going to get him down! What?” Tom chuckled and repeated this, which struck him as a fine bit of verse.

  “Hush, Tom,” said his sister, for the villagers had finally mustered their straggling line and the procession headed by the wobbly effigy of St. Wilfrid was approaching along the graveled path. James and Ann descended from the summerhouse and stood together smiling their welcomes.