“Oh no,” said Christina cheerfully, “I’ll wrap up warmly.” She rang the bell and when, as she had hoped, Parkes appeared, she explained what she wanted.
He looked very old this morning, she thought, and shaky, but took her point at once with a quick, scarcely perceptible flash of red-rimmed eyes. “Brass rubbings in the chapel? Of course, Miss Christina. I’ll make the arrangements directly.”
“And I will come and show you what I need.” She ran upstairs to put on the warm fur jacket her father had had made for her, and joined Parkes in the chapel. Standing in the doorway so she could make sure no one was near enough to overhear them, she asked, “How is he today, Parkes?”
“Poorly, miss. I’ll be right glad to have you take a look at him. Mr. Ross says you’re a first-rate nurse and will know what to do.”
“I wish I were, but I’ll certainly have a look at him, if you will keep watch here.”
“Gladly, miss.” He handed her the key that unlocked both doors. “You’ll be as quick as you can?”
“I will indeed. If anyone comes you’ll just have to say I took a fancy to walk in the cloisters—while Ross is not here to prevent it—and stop them coming after me.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.”
Alone, she found the quiet of the cloisters oddly disconcerting. But there was no time to waste on imaginary ghosts. She hurried down the near side and opened the door to the windowless room where the Frenchman lay. He was unconscious still, but his pulse was steadier and there was little trace of fever. With luck, she thought, he should come about. At least, for today—she was busy removing the dressings from the wound—the question of meals would not arise to trouble them. She was convinced that he would be best without food. Parkes, she saw, had put a fresh jug of water and a solid pewter mug within his reach, and by the look of things he had drunk a little from it. Perhaps, after all, they would be able to pull him through without benefit of a doctor.
The wound was healing nicely. She dusted it with basilicum powder and put on a clean dressing, remembering, as she did so, her Indian nurse. “Keep ’um plenty clean and dry,” old Nelema had said, “and they mend themselves.” This time at least, it looked as if she might be right.
For a fleeting instant, as she drew the new dressing tight, Christina had the odd feeling that he was conscious and watching her from veiled eyes. But why should he? If he remembered anything, he must know her for his friend. Anyway, she had no time to linger. She poured more water into the mug, settled the blanket around him and hurried back to the chapel.
And only just in time. She had the chapel door shut behind her and was turning the key silently in the oiled lock when she heard Richard’s impatient voice from the stable yard. “What do you think you are doing, blockhead?”
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, Mr. Richard.” Now she could see Parkes standing squarely across the far doorway. “It’s been such a morning, with soldiers all over the house, and the old master frailer than I’ve seen him for years.… I really don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels.”
“You think old Mr. Tretteign ill?” Richard rose to the bait.
“I’m anxious about him, sir, I truly am. He’s too old for such carryings-on. Stands to reason it’s taken it out of him. I’m just glad you were here, sir, to take charge.”
“One does one’s best, of course.” Richard sounded mollified. “But where’s Miss Christina? I came to see how she is getting on with this mad plan of hers.”
“Oh, she’s here right enough, Mr. Richard, working away.” And now, at last, he moved aside and let Richard enter the room to find Christina very busy measuring a sheet of paper against the largest of the brasses.
“I’d be truly grateful, sir,” Parkes went on, “if you were to give her a hand instead of me. I’ve got a thousand and one things to see to after the morning we’ve had.”
“Of course. You may go, Parkes.” And then, to Christina, “That old dodderer gets more intolerable every day. I wish my grandfather could be persuaded to pension him off. He might just as well have ordered me to come and help you. Not that I’m not delighted to do so, of course.” A comic change of tone here. “But surely you should not be out here in the cold, a delicate young lady like you.”
“What’s delicate about me?” When she stood up from the paper she had been measuring, she towered half a head above him. “But you will be cold, I am afraid, without your greatcoat.”
“No matter. It would be worth influenza—or even worse—to snatch a word alone with you, and in the house, you know, it’s impossible, what with Greg listening at keyholes, and my aunt as inquisitive as she can hold together. How do you bear her, by the way?”
“You should rather ask how does she bear me. She has been wonderfully patient, I think, considering the way I seem to have come in and taken over.”
“And about time, too. I tell you, I positively shuddered when last I was here, to think of the waste that went on in the servants’ hall.”
“Did you really? How very observant of you.”
He missed the irony in her tone. “I think you will find, Cousin, that I am a man who can see what’s before him as well as the next one. And that brings me to what I have been wishing to say to you. First, let me condole with you about this monstrous proposition of our grandfather’s. I had not thought even he could do anything so out of the way. Could he be proved mad, do you think?” He threw it out as an idea that had just occurred to him.
“Of course not. He’s as sane as you or I, and you know it.”
“All the less excuse for him. To put you—a delicately nurtured young lady—in so invidious a position—”
“I wish you would stop calling me delicate,” she interrupted him impatiently. “You must see how far from the mark it is.”
“I see that you are magnificent, Cousin Christina. An Amazon … a Penthesilea—”
“I am afraid my classical education has been neglected,” she said dryly. “If you wish to pay me compliments, you had best do it in English, Cousin, so I may understand you.”
“Compliments! Nothing was further from my thoughts! It is sympathy I am offering, Cousin, in the predicament in which you find yourself. To be given no option but to engage yourself to me—it is an intolerable thing, and what no young lady of spirit, which, compliments apart, I know you to be, could possibly be expected to put up with.”
“No option? What, precisely, do you mean by that? Can you be suggesting that our cousin Ross is already married?”
“‘Cousin Ross’ indeed!” A dramatic pause. “Has no one told you …”
“Told me what?”
“I suppose I should have known. But … how can I tell you? It’s far from being a proper subject for a …”
“Delicately nurtured female?” she put in. “Well, let me reassure you again, Cousin, I’m a woman from the American west. Anything you can bring yourself to say, I shall hear without blushing. But what is this monstrous thing? Tell me quickly.”
“I must, I suppose. But believe me, with the greatest possible reluctance.”
“Of course. We will assume your reluctance.”
“Well, then—but how can I? My grandfather should have told you. It’s monstrous—”
“I’m sure it is, but … what?”
“Have you not noticed that Ross never calls him grandfather?”
“Yes, I had, as a matter of fact.”
“And for reason good.” He was fairly into it now, and hurried on. “Because he’s no kin of his. Ross was born, Cousin, when my uncle, who should have been his father, had been out of the country twelve months on a diplomatic mission.” And then, anxiously, “Do you understand me?”
Try as she would, she could not help a spurt of laughter. “Just, Cousin.” And then, sorry for his scandalized expression, “Forgive me. I should be shocked, should I not? Swoon perhaps?”
“It’s no laughing matter, Cousin. You have not heard what came of it.�
�
“No. What?”
“A duel, of course. What else? Had you never wondered how my father, and Ross’s, both came to such untimely ends?”
Now there was no need to pretend shock. “You cannot mean …”
“Ross and I are half brothers. Mr. Tretteign—Aunt Verity’s husband—was away for a year in Berlin. My father was”—he colored—”here, with my mother. When my Uncle Tretteign returned from Berlin, Ross was a few days old. Aunt Verity confessed everything …” Here a touch of scorn. “Of course a duel was inevitable. They fought in the cloisters, by moonlight …”
“And?”
“Ross’s supposed father killed his real one—mine. Ours, I should say.”
“You’re half brothers.” It was hard to grasp.
“Precisely. And not proud of it.”
“But what happened to Mr. Tretteign?”
“He had to flee the country. Even here on the marsh it was impossible.… They fought without seconds … madness. He died, not long after, in the West Indies.”
“Good God! And your mother?”
“Died soon after, when I was born. So Aunt Tretteign remained, the only female of the family, and brought us both up, Ross and me. It was all hushed up, you see. Grandfather wanted an heir. Ross could bear the name. I could not. But … he made his terms. Now you must see how the entail came to be broken. It was a promise made by Aunt Tretteign,’ on Ross’s account.”
“Which Ross chose to honor?”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that. But for Grandfather to turn round now and give him a chance at it all, and without even telling you that you’d be marrying a—forgive me, Cousin—a bastard! Do you wonder I suspect the old man of being out of his senses?”
“I’m sure my grandfather knew he could rely on you to tell me.” Her thoughts were racing. This explained so much that had puzzled her. And something else that she would hardly let herself think. Her father had always been against her coming back, for fear, he had said, that she might marry one of her cousins. “I know it’s not forbidden”—she thought she could hear him now—“but marriage between cousins is a mistake, Chris my love. Don’t do it.” Well, Ross was no kin of hers. The electric shock that had run through her when they first met, when his firm hands held her captive, had had nothing to do with blood relationship.
Richard had gone on talking all this time and she had not heard a word of it. “I … I beg your pardon, Cousin. What did you say?”
“No wonder if it disturbs you. I can only ask your pardon, once again, for being the reluctant teller of so sordid a story. But now you will understand that you have no choice in the matter. It was hushed up, of course. Grandfather did his best. But, equally of course, everyone who counts for anything knows all about it.”
“I am sure they do.”
“So there you are. Even his mother, I am sure, has more niceness of mind than to think it possible for you to marry Ross. And, believe me, Cousin, it is all for the best. He will doubtless propose for you as soon as he comes back from this mad excursion to London, but you must know as well as I do that it is only the Abbey he wants. Absurd that he, who has no claim to it, should pretend to care so much. Working as Grandfather’s agent, forsooth! Did you know he sold out of the Thirty-third to do so?”
“No, I had no idea. He talks so little about himself.”
“Why do you think he’s such a bigwig with the Volunteers? Oh yes, that was part of the price of his waiving the entail. Grandfather bought him his commission in—I don’t remember—’94, was it? And of course he’s just the kind of daredevil—excuse me, Cousin—the kind of character to do well in the army.”
“He did well, did he?”
“Well enough, I believe.” Grudgingly. “He served in that unlucky business in the Netherlands. You’ve never heard of it.”
“In ’94? You mean
‘The grand old Duke of York
With twice ten thousand men—
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again’?
I can remember laughing about that when I was in the nursery.”
“The Duke of York is our king’s son.” Stiffly. “And, I can tell you, it was no laughing matter to Ross. He didn’t care a rush for his life, they said. I suppose that’s how he came to be mentioned in dispatches. An odd business, though. He served right through till 1802 and sold out at the peace of Amiens. Apparently he’s been content to lead a slug’s life here on the marsh ever since. I thought he was sure to rejoin when war broke out again last year, but not a bit of it. Tired of being a hero, I suppose. At least he seems content enough leading his bumpkin’s life of sheep and turnips down here. And I warn you, that’s what you’d find yourself in for if you should be so foolish as to let him talk you round. And—not that he cares a straw for them—he has a way with the girls, I know. I’ll not tell tales out of school, but—”
“No, I am sure you will not.”
“Quite so. Of course not. I am just trying to show you, Cousin, how fully I sympathize with you in the predicament in which you find yourself. That it is intolerable, we can only admit, and then set about contriving expedients to mend it.”
“Expedients?” She might as well get this conversation over with.
“Yes. Of course, I can quite see, that to a young lady of your spirit, the first impulse must be to wash your hands of the whole pack of us. But, what could you do? Where could you go?”
“Where indeed?”
“Of course, the old curmudgeon may change his will, but, frankly, I doubt it. He was always an obstinate old brute.”
“You are referring to our grandfather?”
“Who else? He signed that crazy will this morning, you know. Foxton has taken it back to London with him. I rather thought he meant to suggest it would not be safe here. But no use quarreling with him. After all, he may be serving our interest yet.”
“Ours?”
“Yes, ours. Yours and mine. Cousin!” Here he caught her reluctant hand. “I know you must have had a young lady’s dreams—moonlight, music, the man of your choice.… It is our grandfather’s fault that we must do it thus in hugger-mugger. But never mind. These days marriage is no bar to romance.… That may come later. It’s quite the thing, you know. The Duchess of Devonshire has had I don’t know how many lovers … her husband’s just the same. And as for the Oxfords! Well, their children aren’t called the Harleian Miscellany for nothing! And you and I will not even have the problem of heirs for an estate, since my plan—and I am sure you will agree with me—will be to sell off the whole place the minute the old tartar is safe in his grave. With what it fetches we should be able to take a house in one of the squares. You shall have your own carriage, your own life—a little entertaining on my account, perhaps, I have no doubt that once I can show a proper face to the world, promotion at the Admiralty will follow. I only get a beggarly two hundred pounds now as a junior clerk. It all goes by favor, of course, and where’s my influence? My grandfather never raised a finger to help me. But you—a handsome creature like you—driving your own matched bays in the park, cutting a dash in society. I can just see it. What will they call you, I wonder, if you take? La Belle Sauvage, perhaps? It cannot help but do me good. Melville’s an old stick, of course … you can hardly hope to catch his fancy, but why look so low? With me to show you the ropes—society’s a tricky business—but, who knows, we might even catch one of the royal dukes.”
She was so angry she could hardly speak. And yet, would it be wise to quarrel with him? “Why not the prince himself?” she asked.
“Prinney? Why not? He’s at outs with both his wife and the Fitzgerald, they say. And he’s always liked a fine figure of a woman.”
“You really mean it!”
“When you blush, Cousin, you are magnificent. Prinney it shall be.”
“I am not blushing.” Her control gave with a snap. “I am so angry, I could …” She saw him flinch. “Don’t worry, Cousi
n, I would never hit someone smaller than myself. As for your proposition, the kindest thing I can do for you is forget that you ever made it.”
His dismay was ludicrous. “But the Abbey? You cannot mean to let it go to the Patriotic Fund? Your family pride must revolt at the idea!”
“Must it? Yours finds no difficulty, it seems, in planning to sell it. Besides, with a little conversion, think what an admirable fortress it should make. Who knows? They might decide to pull it down and use the materials for one of the Martello Towers you keep talking about.”
“I wish you would be serious, Cousin.”
“Do you? I think you should be grateful I am not. If I were to take you seriously, I believe I should see no alternative but to call you out.”
“Fight me? You? A woman? Now I know you are teasing. I should just like to see you handle a gun.”
“Would you? What did you call me? La Belle Sauvage? Well, you’re right: I’ve been brought up like one. I can hit a pigeon on the wing, Cousin. I could draw and have you covered before you had so much as closed your snuffbox. Perhaps you will be so good as to remember that before you come to me with any more of your ‘propositions.’ And now, I should be glad to be left alone. We will forget what has passed, though I confess I should find it easier to do so if urgent business were to call you back to London.”
“But what shall I tell the old man?”
“Mr. Tretteign? Oh, if you wish to justify yourself with him by telling him you have tried, and failed, I will be happy to confirm your story. It cannot but do me good in his eyes.”
“You’re playing for the whole! Infamous.”
She had been half leaning, as they talked, against the tomb whose brass top she intended to rub. Now she rose to her full height and towered over him like a fury. But her words, when they came, were mild enough. “Cousin, I do beg you will leave me before I say something I shall regret.”
Chapter Seven
Richard Markham left for London that evening after a stormy interview with his grandfather. “Failed with you, did he?” The old man had lost no time in sending for Christina. “Well, I thought he would. Thought I could trust your judgment, girl.”
Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 10