Devil Water

by Anya Seton

  “Why, what ails you, Mrs. Wilson?” cried Mrs. Clarke, interrupting herself in a thrilling description of her eldest grandson, who had won an exhibition at Eton. “Are you seasick?”

  “No, no,” said Jenny hardly knowing that she answered. “ ‘Tis the tune he’s playing.”

  Mrs. Clarke looked astonished, and listened. “An old dance, ‘Sir Roger de Coverley,’ I believe,” she said.

  Against the flowing blue waters of the bay, Jenny saw her wedding day etched sharp, the scene in the old parlor at Westover, Rob playing the pipes at Evelyn’s request, and herself dancing, dancing frantically with William Byrd.

  Jenny spoke again without volition. “Here we -- ” She checked herself. “Here they call it the ‘Virginia Reel.’“

  “Indeed,” said Mrs. Clarke, hoping that her cabinmate was not a trifle odd. “There’s no accounting for what they do in my opinion. Now as I was saying, Basil’s an extraordinary child and -- ”

  The fiddler changed his tune. Jenny’s pain receded. She looked down at her wedding ring, the little twisted gold wires. She had not left it on the pillow in their bedroom, as she had meant to. Though she slid it up and down her finger now, she could not quite fling it into the heaving waters of the Chesapeake. Why not? The Radcliffe ring was on her other hand, its massive gold, encrusted with diamonds at the sides, its bull’s head crest, its peculiar motto, “To hope is to fear.”

  “My dearest Jenny, you can’t have it both ways. A house divided ‘gainst itself must ever fall.” That was Lady Betty’s voice, years ago about some childish choice, no longer remembered.

  Jenny pulled off her wedding ring, and put it into her pocket. Later on, no doubt, she would get rid of it.

  The nine-week voyage pursued a normal course. There were calms, there were squalls, there was a pirate scare. Once they were a day from shore, the passengers forgot Virginia and could not envision England. They were locked in a separate world of their own, where shipboard incidents alone had meaning. Jenny grew very tired of Mrs. Clarke, and through the kindness of their Captain -- Judson Coolidge -- escaped into reading. The Captain owned several entertaining books, among them Gulliver’s Travels, Pamela, and Robinson Crusoe. There was also a volume of Edward Young’s, Night Thoughts, but Jenny let it alone, after discovering that Lady Betty’s husband had produced the gloomiest of poesy, dealing mostly with death.

  Though on some mornings Jenny felt queasy and their breakfast porridge revolted her, she thought little of that; even the dauntless Mrs. Clarke had seasick moments. It did occur to Jenny one day that the time for her monthly courses must be past, yet she did not allow this thought to disturb her protective insulation. Shock and sea voyages often produced untoward effects on the female; or perhaps it was the beginning of “the change.” She had scant knowledge of feminine physiology, nor means of acquiring it; but Peg Turner, her only informant, had already had the change, and Shena had ceased breeding. Jenny plunged into a volume of the Spectator she had unearthed at the bottom of the Captain’s book locker.

  Captain Coolidge found Jenny very attractive. He made her sit next to him at meals, he paid her compliments, and tried to squeeze her hand after he had had a round of grog. Jenny smiled at him, listened to his yarns, and took an interest in the cargo, which was mainly hardwood, furs, and a few belated hogsheads of tobacco from last year’s crop.

  One morning they passed the Scilly Islands, and presently saw Land’s End to the north. “Land ho!” the lookout called. “Land ho --!” The passengers rushed to the rails. The fiddler came running and struck up “A song, a song for England, her woods and valleys green, Huzzah for good old England, and England’s King and Queen!”

  The passengers sang, the crew joined in -- unchecked by Captain Coolidge. Jenny sang too, though her voice faltered, and her eyes were full of tears. She descended the ladder to the main deck, where she had spied Alec sitting on a hatch and smoking a clay pipe. He arose instantly and bowed, as she approached, putting down the pipe. “We’re almost there, Alec!” she cried.

  “Aye, madam,” he replied solemnly. She had persuaded him to drop her title, since anonymity was essential. “An’ I’ve a creeping up me spine,” he added with a twisted smile, “for only God and His holy angels know what awaits us.”

  She nodded, and from then on during the days the Elizabeth sailed along the southern coast, then around the Foreland and into the Thames estuary, Jenny was no longer easy, nor could lose herself in reading.

  On October fourth at Gravesend they picked up a pilot. Jenny, gazing at the cluttered little seaport, thought of Pocahontas, the homesick Indian princess who was buried here. And that was the last time for many weeks that Jenny had any conscious thoughts of Virginia.

  Captain Coolidge stepped back as the pilot took charge, and Jenny, moistening her lips, put her head through the wheelhouse door and said to the Captain, “Could you -- I mean would it be possible to ask him, sir, what’s the news of the Rebellion?” Jenny gestured towards the pilot.

  “Why o’ course!” said Coolidge heartily. “Ask him yourself, ma’am. Ye won’t disturb him. Jeb Sykes can sail the Thames blindfold, can’t ye, Jeb?”

  “Ar-r--” the pilot agreed. “Wot’s the lydy wanter know?”

  “The Jacobite Rebellion,” said Jenny, “what’s happening?”

  “Ain’t nuffink ‘appening.” The pilot took his eyes from the river for an instant, and stared astonished at his questioner. “ ‘Tis all deader’n mackerel. The young Pretender ‘e skulked abaht fer a w’ile in Scotland, but ‘e’s safe in France naow. We been ‘anging and be’eading most of the other rebels ter wind up the business tidy, ye might sye.”

  “Rebel prisoners in the Tower?” Jenny asked faintly.

  “Them Scotch lords!” said the pilot, shrugging. “They be’eaded two of ‘em in August -- Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock. They died beautiful -- I saw ‘em -- ‘twas a fair treat.”

  “It seems to me -- ” said Jenny. She stopped and started again. “Did I hear in Virginia that there was a French earl -- count, I mean, in the Tower, a name like Derwent?”

  The pilot nodded. “Oh ‘e’s still there. Some question abaht ‘im, abaht ‘oo ‘e is. Lord Lovat’s in the Tower too -- they finally got ‘im, the old villain -- I ‘ope ‘e ‘angs.”

  Jenny dared ask no more. She thanked the pilot and went in search of Alec, to whom she gave the information. Now and then on the voyage they had each had moments of great hope. The news of Culloden might have been exaggerated, or the French might have landed to reinforce the Prince, who might yet have been victorious.

  “Thank God, Father’s still all right,” Jenny whispered, “but the Prince is gone, he went back to France.”

  Alec sighed, he creased his thin mottled face. “A failure,” he said. “Like his father afore him, yet I didn’t think this bonny young prince’ld fail. And I canna see why he turned back at Derby. London was in a panic, they was scurrying and hiding and fleeing. I was there, an’ I know. And the Usurper’s armies was behind the Prince. ‘Butcher’ Cumberland to one side, General Wade far away. The Prince could’ve took London, and even if he couldna’ve held it, my master’d’ve been released.”

  “I know,” she said, and added in a whisper. “The Stuart Doom.”

  “Don’t ye say that, madam!” cried Alec fiercely. “Don’t ye even think it! That’s no way to help him!”

  “You’re right,” said Jenny. She looked at the riverbanks gliding by, saw that the cottages grew closer together, recognized ahead the Palace at Greenwich. London was very near.

  Jenny’s heart gave a frightened thump, but she spoke with determined briskness. “Have you decided what’s the best way to present me at the Tower?”

  Alec shook his head. “I’ll not be sure till I’ve been there m’self -- see who his warders are now -- and, Blessed Mary, I hope he’s got hold of some money, we’ve only nine guineas left.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Jenny slowly, “that instead of me going to
those costly lodgings in Piccadilly, I’ll find me a job in a tavern as barmaid, and I can sing a bit. Aren’t there music taverns in London?”

  Alec was shocked. “Madam, ye could not demean yourself like that! Fancy you serving in a tavern!”

  She smiled at him. “Oh, I’m not made of delicate stuff. And I’m very used to work, besides what difference does it make, since no one in London knows me anyhow?”

  Alec, though reluctant, could not deny the practicality of her plan. And she was no helpless girl now. She was, Alec thought, a real “ladyship,” with an air of quiet authority which should handle any rough men who’d try liberties. And they’d try for sure. She was still a beauty, her yellow hair curling under her hood, her lashes dark and thick around the long eyes, her wide mouth red above the cleft chin, and the graceful way she moved her slender body, which seemed tall but wasn’t. Ingrained loyalty prevented him from ever criticizing a Radcliffe, even privately; yet he did wonder what madness had possessed her to lower herself to that brute of a Wilson.

  The Elizabeth docked in the Pool beyond the Tower. Jenny glanced once at the forbidding gray fortress as they passed it. She made no comment, nor did Alec.

  After they had landed, Alec hired a hackney, stowed their skimpy luggage in the boot, and started off with Jenny to find her lodging and a job. The coachman, when consulted, proved sympathetic, and suggested a couple of nearby inns which might prove likely. While they drove to the first inn, Jenny had much ado to keep up her courage. The smells, the noises, the bustle and confusion of London appalled her. Had it used to be like this? There was stench from the open sewage gutters, from pigs rooting in garbage, and the all-pervasive coal smoke. She hadn’t smelled coal smoke in twenty years. And then the racket, the rumbling of drays on cobbles, the constant clop of horses, the creaking of signs, the screaming street cries -- “Who’ll buy my oranges?” “Milk below!” “Old shoes to mend!” “Cockles and oysters alive, alive oh!” -- interwoven with the jangling bell of the muffin man and the whine of beggars -- “A penny for the love o’ Gawd, a penny, kind masters!”

  There were so many people, crowding, shoving, shouting on the sidewalks, as the coaches and hackneys and drays went by spattering mud. “It’s bedlam,” said Jenny, putting her hands to her ears.

  Alec, who was pleased to be back in London’s bustle, and heartily sick of wilderness and shipboard, said grimly, “Well, ‘tis quiet enough i’ the Tower.”

  “Aye -- ” she said. She let Alec go and inquire at the first two inns whether anyone wanted a barmaid. They did not. The coachman had no other suggestions, and Alec, who was anxious to get her settled so that he could see his master, said they’d better go to Piccadilly after all, when Jenny was seized with an idea.

  “Wait!” she cried. “There used to be an inn where they had music, and splendid pork pies. Mr. Byrd took Miss Evelyn and me there once when we were at school in Hackney. It was at Spitalfields -- the King’s Arms, something like that. Tell the coachman!”

  They went back through the City and up Bishopsgate, where they turned right for the Spitalfields district, which was the center of London’s silk industry. The narrow streets were lined with weavers’ cottages, here and there were studded the more pretentious houses of silk merchants. The weavers had a second trade, they caught and sold singing birds. Little cages containing thrushes and linnets hung before the cottages. In the center of the district was a market square, nearby it a long half-timbered building with Michaelmas daisies growing by the door. This was an inn, the King’s Head, the one for which Jenny was searching.

  She left Alec in the hackney this time and went inside herself, spurred by memory and intuition. The inn was very old and built around a courtyard. She went past the taproom, where two men were drinking. She heard from another room upstairs the tinkle of a harpsichord, the squeak of a fiddle. She had some trouble finding the landlord and his wife, until, directed by a chambermaid, she knocked upon the door of their private parlor.

  The landlord was called John Potts. He was stout, ruddy, and had a wary eye. The landlady was also stout and ruddy and decisive. She had iron-gray hair under a mob-cap trimmed with mauve bows; her eyes were black, and shrewd like her husband’s. They were both in their mid-fifties. He had his feet on the hob and was smoking a pipe and reading the Gazette. Mrs. Potts was knitting, having finished a pint of bitters, and the hour being a slack one in the King’s Head.

  They both turned in some annoyance as Jenny entered and dropped a curtsey.

  “Well, wot d’ye want?” said Potts, who didn’t like his privacy disturbed. He took another look at Jenny, and sketching a rise to his feet, added “madam” uncertainly.

  “Please to forgi’e me, sir,” said Jenny softly. “I’m looking fur wark, and wondered would ye have some? I can sairve bar or tables, I can sing a bit.”

  Both Pottses contemplated her suspiciously. The landlady noted the good stuff, though worn, in the out-of-date clothes, and she noted in the voice a fluctuating and familiar accent. The landlord saw a pretty woman, with an air about her which might please his Friday night musical customers, who were mostly quality.

  “Wot can ye sing?” he said. “Let’s ‘ear!”

  Jenny cleared her throat, and after a quavering start sang a verse of “Begone Dull Care.” As neither of her listeners said anything, she sang “My Lodging’s on the Cold Ground” with a plaintive charm which would not have disgraced her great-grandmother, Moll Davis.

  “Not so bad,” said Potts grudgingly. “Though very old-fashioned!”

  “I could ler-rn new ones,” said Jenny eagerly. She turned and looked pleadingly at the silent landlady. “I beg ye, ma’am, ter gi’e me a chance. I’m in gr-reat need o’ board and keep.”

  The landlady pursed her lips, a faint twinkle appeared in the small black eyes. “I’m a-wonder-ring,” said Mrs. Potts meditatively, “why ye speak a bit like a Northumbr-rian, and sing like Southron gentry.”

  At the lilt in the questioning voice, Jenny was sure. Her dim memory had been correct. It was during the last month of her school days that Byrd had taken the girls here, and said, “The landlady comes from the uncivilized North somewhere near the Border, and I’ve heard is even a Jack, but we’ll overlook that in favor of a pork pie, and a ballad or two.”

  “I’ve ler-r-ned m’speech in different places,” said Jenny, giving a brilliant smile to Mrs. Potts.

  “She sounds like a Scot ter me!” interposed Potts with renewed suspicion. “I don’t want no Scots ‘ere!”

  “John, you booby,” said his wife impatiently. “Can’t ye iver-r tell the difference? Whate’er she may be, she’s na Scotch.”

  The landlord grunted. Mrs. Potts continued to knit. Jenny decided on a bold move.

  “Isna that dried heather, ma’am?” said Jenny pointing to a jug which stood on the mantel. “I’m a lover-r o’ heather-r, especially white, though I’ve found none masel’, an’ I’m a lover-r o’ white roses -- though ‘tis too late i’ the season for them.”

  “Faw!” said Potts, knocking his pipe out against his boot, and lumbering up from his chair. “Wot crazy talk. Belike the woman’s drunk. Get rid o’ ‘er, Bella. I’m off to the cellars, to fetch up the port.” The door slammed behind him.

  Mrs. Potts continued to contemplate Jenny steadily. “Would ye knaw a song about white r-roses?” she asked quietly.

  “I could hum one,” said Jenny, and she hummed the tune of “When the King Shall Enjoy His Own Again.”

  Mrs. Potts’s eyelids flickered, the color deepened in her apple-red cheeks. “Are ye truly Northumbr-rian?” she said.

  “Aye,” said Jenny with a sigh. “And so are you, ma’am. I beg o’ you to help me.”

  “What is it?” said Bella Potts after a moment. “You’re no sairving maid, an’ shouldna want to be.”

  Jenny bit her lips, then spoke in a desperate rush. “I’ve come to London to -- to be near someone who’s in prison. He was captured in the Rising. I fear greatly for him
. I’ve no money, and must find work.”

  “Your husband?” said Mrs. Potts.

  Jenny shook her head, afraid to say too much, uncertain what clues might lead to the identification of her father. “Your sweetheart then?”

  Jenny implied assent, she put her right hand to her hair, and pushed a lock back nervously.

  Mrs. Potts started. She got up and came towards Jenny so quickly that Jenny had no time to move. Mrs. Potts grabbed Jenny’s hand in a vicelike grip, and peered down at the ring. “What’re ye doing wi’ this!” she cried. “Did ye steal it?”

  “No,” Jenny cried turning white. “ ‘Twas given to me! And, and what’s it to you!” She snatched her hand away and put it defiantly behind her back.

  Mrs. Potts gave a small bitter laugh. “D’ye think a body bor-rn in Cor-rbridge wouldna knaw the Radcliffe crest?”

  Jenny did not move, there was a roaring in her ears, her heart beat in sickening thumps. What a fool to come here! What a wicked fool to forget to turn the ring under as she had meant to!

  The landlady suddenly sat down, and motioned Jenny to the chair Potts had vacated. “Divven’t gawp at me like that!” she said in a softer tone. “But ye better speak the truth, lass. Ye needna fear me. M’first husband was out i’ the ‘Fifteen wi’ the Erringtons under James, the Earl o’ Darntwatter. M’man was hanged at Lancaster. I’ve had no traffic wi’ the rebels since, an’ I want none, yet I’ll not betray one neither, especial if they’re from the North.”

  Jenny collapsed in the landlord’s chair. Different possible stories sped through her mind, denials -- some lord had given her the ring, she hadn’t known what it was -- she was going to sell it for benefit of the sweetheart in -- in Newgate. Careful! she thought. Already she had made a bad mistake.

  Mrs. Potts put down her knitting. “Lyeuk here, lass,” she said briskly. “Ye needna tr-rouble yoursel’ fadging up a tale fur me. Time an’ time agyen I’ve seen Charles Radcliffe i’ the Angel’s taproom at Cor-rbridge, thirty years agone it was, yet a blind mole c’ld see ye’re his kin. An’ if ye want a job here, ye’ll be honest!”