“You think I’ll marry Ross, bar sinister and all?”
“Richard told you, did he? Trust him to make a mull of things. Made you angry, didn’t it? Made you understand a thing or two as well, or you’re not the girl I take you for. You see what I’m aiming at now, hey? The name and the blood, at all costs. You and Ross—you’re a Tretteign through and through and at least he’s a man, not a counter-coxcomb like Richard. You see it now, don’t you?”
“Yes, Grandfather, but I don’t like it. Please, I beg of you, send for Mr. Foxton again and leave the Grange to Ross outright. That’s what you really want … you know it is.”
“Nonsense. I won’t have it go out of the family. If you won’t marry Ross, I’d rather it went to Richard. Fool though he is, at least he’s my blood, my daughter’s son. But what’s the matter with you, hey? I didn’t think to find you so squeamish. It’s no use trying to pretend you don’t want Ross, because I’ve watched you. Well, I’ve handed him to you, on a slaver. Trouble with him is, he don’t much care for women, not in the marrying line, that is, and I can’t say I blame him. Maybe you could have brought him round, given time, but time’s what I’ve not got, see? I want it settled before I go. And now, no more argument. I’m tired.”
Downstairs, Christina found her aunt on the lookout for her. “There you are at last. Is he very angry?”
“Grandfather? Why?”
“Well, you’ve refused them both, haven’t you? I hope you know what you’re doing, Christina, because I am sure I don’t. All I ask is that you don’t come crying to me for help when you find yourself homeless and the Grange full of soldiers—or worse.… Yes, Parkes?”
“If I might have a word with Miss Christina? We’re all topsy turvey in the servants’ hall I’m afraid.”
“The girls crying their eyes out, I expect, because the soldiers are gone. I saw your Betty, Christina, being a good deal more oncoming than I liked, but of course if you will promote a girl from the kitchen—”
“And such a pretty one.” Christina had risen to her feet “But, thank you, Aunt, for warning me. I’ll have a word with Betty. I most certainly don’t want to lose her now we have got used to one another’s ways.”
“‘Got used’ indeed. I wish you would try to overcome these Republican notions of yours. No wonder if we are under suspicion here with such an arrant Jacobin in our midst.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt.” Christina had no intention of letting herself be drawn into this kind of discussion. “You will excuse me?
She led Parkes into the dark little office she had made her own and watched while he took a careful look down the hall and shut the door behind him. “Well, how is he?”
“Feverish, miss. I wish you would make an excuse to come and look at him.”
“Oh dear.” She looked out at the marsh, where evening shadows were already beginning to thicken. “I can hardly be rubbing brasses in the dark. I know! I have been cooped up indoors all day. And I am terribly afraid of the smugglers.”
“No one’s going to believe that, miss. Not for a moment.”
“No? Well, never mind. Then I am afraid of being bothered again by the military. I shall brave the ghosts and take my walk in the cloisters. And you, Parkes, will be tidying away my things in the chapel. I don’t intend to go and see M. Tissot without your being within call.”
“Quite right, miss. Jem keeps an eye out in the chapel when I go.”
“Jem? He’s to be trusted, is he?”
“I should rather think he is, miss. His father—”
She raised a hand. “Don’t tell me, Parkes. I’d much rather not know.”
She found the Frenchman muttering restlessly on the cot, and wished, when she felt his hot, damp forehead, that it was possible to get a doctor to him. But since this was out of the question, she would just have to do her best with the little kit of medicines she had got used to carrying when she and her father lived miles from medical aid. M. Tissot was not violent, though delirious, and submitted to her ministrations willingly enough, though he gagged at the bitter draught she made him swallow, and then suddenly opened blue eyes very wide. “Ah, the ministering angel,” he said in his quick French. “Now I shall recover.”
“You will if you do as I tell you.”
Parkes was awaiting her anxiously in the chapel. “Will he do, do you think?”
“I hope so. He should really be bled, but that I don’t dare do. I suppose there’s no one …”
“No. Mr. Ross and I discussed it before he left. He must just sink or swim, Mr. Ross said.”
“If he dies, it will be our fault.”
“Well,” Parkes was reasonable, “think, miss. What will happen to him if he is discovered here? And to us, for the matter of that. No, no, believe me, Miss Christina, Mr. Ross knows best. We must just do as he says.”
“I suppose we must, but I do devoutly hope he hurries back.”
“So do I.”
But the days dragged out interminably and still there was no word from Ross. His grandfather was working himself up into a slow dreadful rage because he thought Ross was defying him by staying away. His mother was in a fretful fury for more or less the same reasons. And Christina was beginning to feel the strain of her long bout of secret nursing, particularly as the best time for ministering to M. Tissot was after the family were asleep at night. Worried by Parkes’ exhausted look, she had insisted that Jem take his place in standing guard for her when she crept down, with her candle, to change the dressings and administer the Indian draught that was, she hoped, gradually breaking the fever. It was a relief to find Jem a tower of strength, for all his deceptively youthful appearance. “You can rely on me, miss,” he had said the first night. “Father says you’re a proper Tretteign. Father—”
“Hush.” Once again she quenched the confidence before it could be made. But of course, if Jem’s father was one of the smuggling band, she had doubtless met him that first night on the marsh. She only hoped his had not been the voice that urged her death.
As if the strain in the house were not bad enough already, a wild northeaster had built itself up and blew in, night and day, day and night, from the Channel, so that even at the Grange, several hundred yards from the sea, the front windows were constantly misted with spray, and the air tasted of salt. Mrs. Tretteign huddled over the fire that blew gusts of smoke into the morning room. “It’s an invasion wind,” she told Christina. “If only Ross were back! What if they land in the night and he’s not here to protect us?”
“If they land,” said Christina, “we’ll need more than Ross to protect us. But, cheer up, Aunt, it’s not an invasion wind, you know. They need a southeaster to get across the Channel. And nothing so rough as this either. Those flat-bottomed boats of theirs wouldn’t last half an hour in weather like this.”
“Are you sure?” Mrs. Tretteign looked nervously over her shoulder as if she expected to see a Frenchman in the doorway. “Just think what it would be like if they did land—leaving the house, in the middle of the night perhaps … jolting across the marsh in the dark. And God knows where to. You know your grandfather won’t plan anything.”
“I do indeed.” Their orders were that, in case of an invasion, the whole marsh was to be evacuated to behind the new military canal that was being dug, but she had tried in vain to persuade old Mr. Tretteign to make any plans for such an eventuality. “I mean to die here where I have lived,” was all he would say, but it was no use frightening her aunt still more by telling her this. “Never mind, Aunt,” she said instead, “my guess is they won’t come till spring—if then.”
“And what makes you think that, pray?”
Dangerous ground here. In one of his lucid intervals, Tissot had told her of confusion and sickness in the invasion camps around Boulogne. Did she believe him? She was no more sure of this than she was of the real state of his health. Was he, in fact, better, and shamming it? But why? Parkes, whom she had consulted on this point, was convinced she was mistaken. “He’s
ill all right, miss. It’s just, I think, that he makes a special effort for you. If you had heard him speak, as I have, of his gratitude to you and your medicines … but he’s very weak still, no doubt of that. He can’t move so much as across the room unaided.”
Since he and Jem inevitably carried the burden of the heavier nursing, they should certainly know. She was tired, overwrought, doubtless imagining things.
The wind blew more wildly than ever that night, lashing the rain against her windows. Her bed looked almost irresistibly inviting. If only she could lie down and sleep the sleep of exhaustion all night through. But Jem would be waiting for her in the kitchen. She sighed, raked together the embers of her fire and huddled over it, forcing herself to stay awake until she had counted off, one by one, the familiar noises that told of the household’s progress toward sleep.
At last it was time. She changed into her warmest morning dress and hurried silently downstairs. Jem was nodding in front of the kitchen fire, but roused instantly at sight of her. “Did you bring the medicine, miss?” He picked up a heavy cloak that was warming by the fire. “You’ll need this. It’s a dirty night out. Mr. Ross wouldn’t mind.”
“No. I wish he was back.” Absurd comfort in putting on the well-worn cloak.
“So do I. He’s worse tonight, Mr. Parkes thinks. Rambling again. Couldn’t understand a word of it either, he said.”
“I suppose not.” A Frenchman’s delirium. “Well, let’s get it over with, Jem.”
Tonight it was too easy to imagine the cloisters haunted. The wind was worrying its way through gaps in the old stonework; water dripped here and there. Christina thought of falling stones and suppressed a shudder.
“Shall I come with you, miss?” Jem asked it anxiously as they stood in the doorway of the chapel. “I doubt if I could hear you call, against the wind.”
“Why should I need to call?” But it was tempting. “No,” she made herself sound decided, “you know we agreed you should stay here and keep guard.”
“Then be as quick as you can.”
“Believe me, I will.” She took the lantern he had been carrying and scudded, head down, along the side of the cloister. Absurdly, her hands were shaking so that she had to put the lantern down and use them both to fit the heavy key into its lock. The room was dark and silent and she stood for a moment in the doorway, steadying herself, quieting her own breathing so she could listen for the sick man’s. Yes, he was breathing fast and irregularly. Now, as she moved forward into the room to put her lantern down on the table, she could see him stirring restlessly on the bed. He began to mutter to himself in French, “Quick, quick, they’ll see you …” Some nightmare, no doubt, from his past.
She dropped the wet cloak on a chair and moved over to the bed. “M. Tissot!” Surprisingly, his forehead felt cold and damp under her hand. She had expected a renewal of fever. Was this better? If only she could be sure.
Either her voice or her touch had roused him. He sat bolt upright in bed. “Quick!” he said again. “Quick!” And then, “Oh, mademoiselle, it is you! A thousand pardons. I was dreaming.…” He pulled the bedclothes around his shoulders as if to hide the borrowed nightshirt.
“You’ve had a bad day?” She must decide whether to administer her draught or not. If the fever had already broken …
“Not so good as I had hoped.”
She could feel him shivering under the heavy blanket. “Let me see your wound.” And then, as he reluctantly emerged again, “Good God, you’re soaking!” The fever must indeed have broken. “Did Parkes leave a dry nightshirt?”
“I … I believe so. But I cannot allow you …”
“Nonsense.” She found the nightshirt where Parkes had hung it and brought it back to the bed. “Gently now.” Luckily, the bedclothes among which he continued to huddle as she eased the soaking shirt over his bad shoulder seemed dry. “There. Now you will feel better.” The change completed, she dropped the soaking shirt in the corner of the room and proceeded to remove the dressings from the wound. “Ah, splendid. There’s nothing wrong with that. I hope, now, you will be as good as new in a few days.”
“A few days! But, mademoiselle, are you not aware … tomorrow’s the night.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. Is Monsieur not back yet?”
“No. And no word from him.”
“Mordieu …” And then, “Forgive me … but … tomorrow. And no word from London?”
“None. But … he knows it’s tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“Then, never fear, he will come. Or send word. Now, try and get some sleep and don’t let yourself worry. It’s bad for you.”
“Not worry! Mademoiselle, you ask the impossible!”
She must hurry. Parkes might not yet be asleep and she must talk to him tonight. He would know what to do if Ross did not return. Or, at least, she hoped he would.
She was outside, turning her key in the lock when she remembered the shirt, hurriedly dropped in the corner of the room. No time to go back for it now. Parkes would just have to filch another from the chest in Ross’s room. She finished turning the key, pulled it out—and stifled a scream.
“Brave girl.” Ross’s voice, close beside her in the darkness. “I knew I could count on you.”
“I’m glad you think so. You frightened me nearly out of my wits, materializing beside me like that. Where on earth did you come from?”
“Nonsense.” He ignored her question. “Nerves of steel, Chris, and you know it. How is he?”
“Better … but far from well. Thank God you’re back. He can’t possibly go tomorrow, Ross. It would kill him.”
“Tomorrow? Oh … he told you?”
“Yes, just now. What will you do?”
“Go myself. There’s no alternative.”
“To France? Ross—you can’t!”
“You think not?” He broke into French as fluently idiomatic as her own. “What a fortunate thing nobody knows I’m back.”
“Nobody knows?” It was a momentary distraction from the point at issue. “But, how?”
“A method of my own, with which I do not propose to burden you. There’s enough for you to pretend ignorance of already. Who’s keeping guard for you?”
“Jem, Parkes is worn out.”
“He’ll have to be waked just the same. I can’t risk trusting Jem with this knowledge. His father …” He paused.
“Don’t worry. I rather think I know about Jem’s father. But, must you go, Ross?”
“If M. Tissot’s not well enough, I must. There is too much hangs on this.… Is he awake?”
“He was when I left him.”
“Come, then.” He took the key from her and turned it silently in the lock.
They found M. Tissot stirring and muttering on his bed, half asleep, half awake. He started up at sight of Ross. “At last! You have the packet?”
“Of course. But my friend here tells me you are not well enough to take it.”
“Absurd!” He sat up straighter in bed, his flushed cheeks and shaking hand belying his words. “All I need is some air … I ask you, cooped up for—how long? I’ve lost count … in a hole like this!” He ran a trembling hand through his hair. “If only I could stop dreaming! Are they dreams? There’s blood—oceans of blood, and the guillotine in the middle of it,—Madame la Guillotine herself, crying out for more. Tell me it was merely a nightmare!”
“Of course.” Christina’s voice was soothing as she laid her hand once more on his brow. It was still surprisingly clammy to the touch. “He has no fever,” she said, “but you can see … it would never do.”
“No.” Ross accepted it almost, she thought, with relief. “Very well, then, Chris. Send the boy to bed, wake Parkes, and send him here to me.”
“But …”
“No buts.” He was ushering her out again through the door. “And no time to argue either, or the boy will be coming to find what’s keeping you.”
It was true. “You’ll s
tay here?”
“Perhaps. I’ll lie low at all events. Don’t worry.”
“No? I’ll see you before you go?”
“Best not. You’ll look after him for me.”
“Of course. But … your …” She was going to say grandfather, then remembered. “Mr. Tretteign is asking for you. He’s getting very angry.”
“Oh.” He digested this, standing there in the cold darkness. “Very angry?”
“Yes. He thinks you’re deliberately flouting him.”
“Well, you know what you can do about that, don’t you, Chris? Tell him it’s been settled between us all the time.”
“You can’t expect me to!”
“No? You underestimate me, Chris. But I leave it to you. Only, remember, this is not child’s play I’m engaged in. If I think it worth the risk of my life, surely you can endure a little temporary inconvenience.”
She could not help a quick, sardonic laugh at this description of their engagement. “Well, if I must …” She let it hang. “But, Ross, how long will you be gone?”
“Who knows? It depends on the next shipment—and on other things …”
“You’ll be careful?”
“Of course. I’m always careful. Hush—here he comes.” He melted away behind her into the darkness.
“Are you there, miss?” She could hear Jem’s voice quite clearly and was not surprised when he went on. “I thought I heard you talking.”
“Just wishing M. Tissot good night. The wind’s dropped, thank God.” She managed an enormous yawn. “Well, bed at last, Jem.”
“Should not I see if he needs anything for the night?”
“No. He said he was dropping off to sleep already.”
“Lucky him.” Jem locked the door behind her and lit her back to the kitchen. There she paused. “You go on up, Jem. I must make myself some hot milk or I’ll never sleep.”
Luckily Parkes slept downstairs to be near his silver, the only servant who did. She made a little business preparing her hot milk, thus giving Jem plenty of time to get out of earshot to his attic bedroom, then crossed the kitchen to tap lightly on the door of Parkes’ room.
Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 11