by Anya Seton
At this Jenny could not help a frightened glance at the great casket covered with crimson velvet. She saw the brass inscription plate and the gilt knobs twinkling.
Her fear increased as she noticed the expression of her father’s face. “Open it,” he said in a thick strange voice. “Let me see my brother!”
“Have you her ladyship’s box ready?” asked the priest.
Charles made a sign of assent. Alec murmured a Pater Noster, gritted his teeth, and set to work with his tools. Except for the noises he made there was utter silence in the chapel while the rain spattered on the roof. Nobody saw the door handle turn softly, several times, as though someone pushed against the lock. Nobody saw a face appear and press itself against one of the south windows.
Jenny shrank tight into herself when Alec raised the coffin lid, her heart pounded, the image of the three men wavered and dimmed as she saw them lean over the coffin. She swayed and her mouth went dry as wool. Alec’s trembling cry revived her.
“Blessed Mother!” cried Alec. “‘Tis a miracle!” He fell to his knees on the altar steps.
Charles and the priest stood motionless, gazing into the coffin, then the priest made the sign of the cross, and said to Jenny, “Come here, my child. Of this you need not be afraid!”
Jenny rose and slowly obeyed the command, she came to stand beside her father, whose hands were clenched on the casket’s edge.
She looked down at what seemed to be a very pale young man, fast asleep. A young man in a full blond periwig, his small delicate hands crossed on his breast. Around his neck there was a broad linen band, faintly spotted with rusty blood. The lips were lifted in a gentle and yet enigmatic smile, the whole ivory-colored face with its closed eyes gave an impression of peace and exaltation. There was no sign of decay. On the contrary, it seemed to Jenny that she smelled a faint spicy scent like cloves, like gillyflowers.
She felt her father move beside her, saw him reach out and place a silver box on the shrouded chest above the quiet crossed hands. She heard her father whisper something about a sacred vow, and, “I swear it again by Almighty God and Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he pulled himself upright and leaning over kissed his brother on the forehead.
The priest stood transfixed, tears running slowly down his cheeks.
So bemused were they all, that a crash behind them of splintering glass seemed no more real than a distant clap of thunder. For a second even the shrill eruption of a man’s voice could not rouse them from the other-worldly quiet.
Then the priest turned as a man came stamping down the aisle, shouting, “By God -- Bunting was right when he sent for me! It is Charles Radcliffe! And the girl. You’ll not diddle me again as you did at Blanchland!”
It was Patten, brandishing a pistol, his hand bleeding from the shattered window glass, through which he’d forced himself.
Alec jumped up and reached for the crowbar. Jenny could not move, while Charles stretched out his arms as though he would shield the coffin. The priest stepped forward. “What does this brawling mean?” he said. “Brawling in my church!”
The Allendale vicar gave him a furious look, then stopped dead as he reached the edge of the open vault. He recoiled, and recovered instantly. “Oh, I saw you -- you Jesuit,” he cried, “through the window, up to some tomfoolery. Was that to be your new hiding place, Radcliffe?” He pointed to the vault, and laughed. “There’ll be no more hiding for you! I’ve six bailiffs outside, stout Hexham men, Bunting too, soon as I shoot this pistol, they’ll be here --”
“No!” said the priest in a tone so commanding that the chapel rang with it. “Even you, I think, would not defile the House of God! Approach and see what lies before the altar!” He motioned the others to stand aside.
Patten blanched as he saw the crimson velvet coffin, he tried to turn away from the priest’s steady, commanding gaze but he could not. He grasped his pistol tight, and warily came forward step by step. He mounted to the coffin and looked inside. He gave a gasp and turned violently as though to run. His legs would not obey. He looked again into the coffin, and his mean little face crumpled. The priest, scarcely breathing, thought he saw a light reflected upward onto it.
Patten stared down for a minute, then made a harsh noise in his throat. “Forgive me, my lord,” he said to the corpse. “I loved you well, despite --” He threw his arm across his eyes, and backed off until he reached the chancel wall, where he stood shaking.
The priest closed the coffin lid. “Aye --” he said on a long drawn breath. “And now, Robert Patten, will you still fire off your pistol?”
After a silent moment the man shook his head. “There shall be no more deaths through me,” he whispered as the priest bent to hear. Let him go! Let Charles Radcliffe go! Tell them, Mr. Brown tell them out there that I made a mistake, that they may return to Hexham.”
As the priest unlocked the door and went out to the waiting bailiffs, Patten sank onto the stone floor, and buried his head in his arms.
Charles, Jenny, and Alec left Dilston as soon as there was light. They went back south the way they had come, along the Devil Water, where the same sorrow, the same sense of doom pervaded Jenny, though now she knew the reason. She had learned about suffering since she passed this way before, she had learned about fear and death. Her thoughts went again and again to the pathos and grandeur of that motionless figure she had seen in the coffin. She knew that Alec considered they had witnessed two miracles, the extraordinary preservation of the body and the complete change in Patten. It might be so, she had no means of judging. She knew too that her father had hoped for another miracle, that of her own conversion. This had not happened. She felt awe, pity, wonder. She now understood why her father felt as he did. But in her innermost heart something still resisted, and her heart was sad and tired.
They passed through Blanchland and did not stop, they crossed again the high Durham fells, and for Jenny the bliss was drained out of them. She sniffed the heather and the moors, she heard the curlews cry, while only pain gathered in answer -- pain and the memory of a day on other moors near Tosson.
Mile after mile the subdued trio plodded on. It was not until the country changed completely, became gently green and rolling, that their spirits lifted.
On Saturday, September 28, Michaelmas Eve, they entered the village of Welwyn in Hertfordshire, and found a little fair in progress. The church porch was heaped with sheaves of grain, and apples; there were gaily painted booths set up beside the churchyard; in the lot across from it, a noisy cockfight was in progress; a troop of Morris dancers cavorted up and down the High Street, knee-bells tinkling, ribbons fluttering, and the clumsy hobbyhorse uttering realistic neighs. Best of all to Jenny, there was music -- a fiddler, a guitarist, and a man with a triangle who bawled out a very ribald song about a lusty young smith “with a jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle hi-ho!”
The village was celebrating its harvest festival. From the Swan Inn opposite the church there floated a delectable odor of Michaelmas geese a-roasting.
Charles and Jenny, forced to pull up anyhow to let the dancers pass, looked at each other and nodded in agreement. “Very well, poppet” said Charles, as eager as she for a bit of gaiety, “we’ll stay here tonight. ‘Tis a goodish ride into London tomorrow, but no matter! I’ll buy you a fairing,” he added indicating the little booths. “What would you like?”
“A bunch of blue ribbons,” she said laughing.
“To tie up your bonny gold hair? You shall have them -- as token of the gewgaws I’ll buy you when I can.”
She sobered. They had not spoken of her future since the strange foolish night at Dilston, yet their imminent separation had begun to hang heavy over both of them. They found rooms at the Swan, left Alec to tend the horses, and sauntered out to the booths. Charles bought her sky-blue ribbons, which she tied in bows at her temples with such a distractingly pretty result that Charles hurried her out of the crowd of leering, desirous yokels into the inn parlor.
“You can h
ear the music from here,” he said opening the window. “Not that I consider it suitable for a maiden’s ears!” He shrugged and laughed, as he recognized a raucous rendition of “The Jolly Tinker and the Landlady.” He pulled the bell rope, ordered roast goose and claret. After supper he cracked walnuts for her. She took a nut, and toyed with it a moment.
“When will you leave London, Papa?” she asked carefully. “I can’t bear to have you go, yet I’ve learned in how much danger you are!”
“I must leave at once, sweetheart,” he said sighing. “Ann’s death means that there’s a lot I must do for the children -- especially my nephew, the little Earl, who’s not strong. As soon as -- as all my affairs are settled, I’ll send for you at once.”
“Yes, Papa,” she whispered. She bent her head over the nuts, knowing that he could always read her face and would see dismay there. She longed to be with him, longed to see some of the wonderful sights he had promised her, yet she did not want to leave England. Why not? She asked herself sternly. Nobody in England really loved her except Lady Betty. Yet -- if there should be a letter, if someone should try to find her, and she were on the Continent . . . You idiot! cried Jenny to herself. That’s finished. All finished -- while underneath she heard the echo of her own voice saying, “ ‘Tis not so easy to cut love out, and throw it away.” Not so easy to dislodge a long, long loyalty, even in favor of a new compelling one.
She glanced sideways at her father, wanting to tell him something of her doubts, hoping he might help her rid herself of them, and was startled to see an odd expression on his handsome face. He was leaning back in his chair, absently cracking nuts in his strong fingers, while he gazed through lowered lids, past her head towards the doorway. Jenny turned and saw a coarsely attractive young woman standing there. She was well, if garishly, dressed in orange taffeta and a green velvet mantle. Her black pomaded hair was piled up elaborately, her black eyes were returning Charles’s stare with bold and obvious pleasure. “Is this the parlor?” asked the woman sweeping in. “I trust I don’t intrude?” Her voice was rather mincing, it had a hint of cockney.
Charles got up and made her a low bow. “Indeed not, madam. My daughter and I were wishful of company, though dared not hope it would appear in so lovely a form!”
“La, sir!” said the woman, airily tossing her head. “How too kind you are! My coach has broken down, and forced me to stay in the midst of these rustic revelries.” She waved a dirty hand loaded with cheap rings towards the street. “I presume your plight is somewhat similar?”
“Somewhat,” said Charles. “We must console each other, madam!” Their eyes met in a long look, which made Jenny go hot and bewildered. When the woman quitted the parlor for a few minutes, Jenny said incredulously, “Papa, do you like this lady? I don’t.”
“She’s not a lady,” he said in a cold, tense voice. “She’s a slut, and I believe an actress.”
“Then why ... do you . . .” She could not finish.
Why indeed? thought Charles. Why, because I haven’t had a woman since London, that’s why. “Go to bed, Jenny,” he said. “You could not possibly understand.”
She went upstairs, rebuffed and puzzled. Later she heard noises through the wall which divided her room from her father’s. High-pitched giggles, the creaking of a bedstead, once an excited cry, “La, sir! You are so bold!” Then quiet.
Jenny still did not understand, though she nonetheless suffered a variety of miseries. There was jealousy and embarrassment, there was sharp disappointment that their last evening alone together should be marred like this; yet running through these dark feelings, like a silver streamlet, was a curiously maternal pity for her father.
Four days later, Jenny was back at the Hackney School, and found it nearly impossible to believe she had ever left it. Miss Crowe and her singing lessons were the same. The dancing master and the French master were the same. The sour smells, and draughts and tasteless food were the same. But Evelyn was not.
It was as well for Jenny, that she had Evelyn Byrd’s heartache to distract her from her own, for she missed Charles desperately. She even missed Alec, and the journey to Northumberland now seemed a radiant dream, of which nothing remained except a kaleidoscope of poignant impressions -- and Coquet. The school allowed her to keep Coquet, since most of the young ladies had their own horses; Jenny spent many an hour in the stables, stroking the mare and talking to her, and sometimes weeping into the glossy mane.
Evelyn did not weep. She had hardened since Jenny had seen her last in July; the beautiful dark eyes held a defensive, almost cynical look. Her voice had acquired an edge, but that she suffered deeply Jenny knew, though it was some days before the older girl would tell her what happened. When she did, it was one night in their bed, before they blew the candle out.
Evelyn suddenly sat bolt upright, clutching the blankets around her, and said sharply, “Would you like to see the letter my father wrote me about Wilfred?”
“Of course, Evie,” said Jenny. “I’ve been longing to know.”
Evelyn jumped from bed and unlocked her gilt jewelry box. She took out a letter and thrust it at Jenny; then she climbed back in bed and lay rigid, staring up at the tester.
Jenny held the letter near the candle and read, skipping some of the pompous phrases, as she grew more appalled at the content.
The letter was headed “To Amasia, July 20, 1723.”
Considering ye solemn promise you made me, first by word of mouth, & afterwards by letter, that you wou’d not from thence forth have any Converse of Correspondence with the Baronet, I am astonisht that you have violated that protestation in a most notorious manner. The gracious audience you gave him the morning you left ye Towne, & the open conversations you have with him in the Country have been too unguarded, to be deny’d any longer. Tis therefore high time for me to reproach you with breech of duty & breach of faith, & once more to repeat to you, my strict and positive Commands, never more to meet, speak or write to that Gentleman, or give him an opportunity to see speak or write to You. I also forbid you to enter into any promise or engagement with him of marriage or Inclination.
I enjoin you this in the most positive terms upon the sacred duty you owe a Parent. .. And that neither he nor you may be deluded afterwards with Vain hopes of forgiveness, I have put it out of my power, by vowing that I Never will.
Jenny made a shocked sound, and put her hand on Evelyn’s arm. The girl did not move, she said through clenched teeth, “Have you finished it?”
Jenny shook her head and returned to the letter.
And as to any Expectation you may fondly entertain of a Fortune from me, you are not to look for one brass farthing, if you provoke me by this fatal instance of disobedience.
Nay, beside all that I will avoid the sight of you as of a creature detested.
Figure then to yourself my Dear Child how wretched you will be with a provokt father, & a disappointed Husband. To whome will you fly in your distress, when all the world will upbraid you with haveing acted like an Ideot? . . . For God’s sake then my dear child, for my sake & for your own, survey the desperate Precipice you stand upon . . . The idle Promises this man makes you will all vanish into smoke, & instead of Love he will slight & abuse you, when he finds his hopes of Fortune disappointed. Then you & your children (if you shou’d be so miserable as to have any) must be Beggers, & then you may be assur’d all the world will deservedly dispise you, & you will hardly be pity’d so much as by Him who would faign continue -- &c.
Jenny put the letter on the table, her cheeks blazing. “It’s cruel!” she cried. “Cruel! I thought Mr. Byrd was fond of you!”
“He considers this a proof of fondness,” said Evelyn in a toneless voice. “He can make himself believe anything he wants to.”
“What are you going to do?” cried Jenny, flaming with sympathy.
“Nothing,” said Evelyn. “There’s nothing to do. He wrote an even worse letter to Wilfred, and made me read a copy. I’ve not heard since from Wilfre
d, and I believe he’s gone to Cumberland.”
“Oh Evelyn,” Jenny said shocked, her eyes widening, “you mean Sir Wilfred gave you up? Oh, that isn’t worthy!”
“And when does one love a man, because he’s worthy?” said Evelyn.
Jenny was silenced, for she now knew that this was true.
“Wilfred loved me, he still does,” Evelyn continued in the toneless voice. “But he’s not a romantic fool, he has his career to think of, he’s not well off either. The dowry and inheritance Father always promised me would have been sufficient, Wilfred and I talked about it. But to marry a penniless Colonial whose father’s rage would be bruited all over a jeering London -- that’s another thing. And as for me --” she said suddenly turning and burying her face in the pillow, “perhaps I couldn’t stand to have my father view me as ‘a creature detested’ -- perhaps I couldn’t!”
She gave a shudder and began to weep quietly into the pillow. Jenny hugged her close, searching in vain for words of comfort. After a few minutes Evelyn raised her head. “I’ll love Wilfred ‘til the day I die. Father may think he’s won, but he hasn’t. For he’ll never be able to marry me off in accordance with his own stupid dreams, nor shall I ever in my deepest heart forgive him!”
THIRTEEN
On the morning of King George’s official birthday, May 28, 1725, Jenny joined Lady Betty Lee at breakfast, and exhibited such a serious face that Betty put down her chocolate cup, and said, “What’s the matter, dear? The doleful dumps?”
“I suppose so, my lady,” said the girl trying to smile. “It’s raining again,” she added inadequately. She curtsied to Lady Betty and nodded to the children, then seated herself and toyed with a rasher of bacon. She knew that the depression she had awakened with was not caused by the rain; it arose from a dream she had had last night. A dream about Rob Wilson in which she was blissfully lying in his arms on a bank of heather, while the sky above them shimmered gold and violet, and from somewhere came the music of the pipes playing a love song. She had awakened crying out “Robbie -- stay with me!” so vehemently that she frightened herself. What a stupid dream, when she seldom thought of Rob, and had received only one laconic note from him since their strained parting in Coquetdale nearly two years ago.