“What do you mean? What can you mean?” A long pause. And then, “Christina Tretton, if you have gone behind my back and engaged yourself to my son! What are you doing?”
“Ringing for your maid. I was afraid it would be a shock to you, Aunt.”
“A shock! Well, you mark my words, girl, it’s nothing to what it will be to you. And don’t come crying to me for comfort when he ill-uses you. Bad sons make bad husbands, Christina, and that’s my last word on the subject.” She folded her lips angrily over it.
“Yes, Aunt.” Don’t say anything about bad mothers. Don’t say anything.
The day was endless. Taking her afternoon walk on the beach, Christina was aware of unusual activity at the gun emplacements between there and Rye Harbor. Straining her eyes in the other direction, she thought she could see the flash of arms also at the old batteries on Dungeness, which had recently been overhauled and made fit for service. And, all the time, the French privateer hung on and off the horizon, at once a warning and a challenge.
She shivered in the cold wind. Would Parkes get her message to Ross? And, if he did, what use would it be? The assignation with the French privateer could not be changed. It was all very well for Parkes to talk about powerful friends in London. What would they avail Ross in a running fight between his smuggling band and the soldiers?
Lieutenant Trevis met her on his way back from his round of the batteries, and she forced herself to congratulate him on the stir of activity along the beach. “Yes”—he smiled down at her from his big chestnut—“we’re ready for them, all right. Lock up carefully tonight, Miss Tretton, and early.”
“Here again?” Surely anyone would ask that question.
“We believe so. We have our sources of information too, I’m glad to say. Money’s a powerful argument.”
“Yes … yes, of course. You’ll have a rough night of it, I’m afraid.” Huge gray clouds were massed along the horizon, and a sprinkling of rain was beginning to fall.
“Never mind about that, if we catch our men! But you will get wet. Let me have the pleasure of escorting you home, Miss Tretton. I do not like to see you walking alone here on the beach.”
“What, in broad daylight? And with your men everywhere. I cannot tell you how safe I feel.”
She had hardly taken off her damp cloak when Greg tapped on her door. “Mr. Tretteign would like a word with you, miss.”
Again! She found him dressed in his old-fashioned snuff-colored suit and sitting bolt upright in his big wing chair.
“Christina! I won’t be trifled with.” He had hardly given Greg time to close the door behind her. “What’s this about you and Lieutenant Trevis?”
“Me and—oh, you are well informed, Grandfather.”
“I need to be. Seeing him alone this morning, and then running off to the beach for a further assignation this afternoon! It hardly sounds like the conduct of an engaged young lady to me. Mind you, I don’t set up for a high stickler like your Aunt Tretteign, but it is no wonder if she is alarmed.”
“Alarmed! Aunt Tretteign? On her son’s account? Grandfather, you amuse me strangely.”
“Amuse you!” Shaggy brows drew together over the angry old eyes. “That is very far from being my intention. Explain yourself, miss, before I lose my temper.”
“What have I to explain?” Angry glances met and locked.
His eyes fell first. “Why, your conduct, or lack of it. Your intentions with regard to Lieutenant Trevis, if you want it spelled out for you.”
Anger was the best answer. She let it come. “I am twenty-two years old, Grandfather, and have not yet found it necessary to apologize for my conduct to anyone. My aunt has already scolded me for seeing Mr. Trevis alone. I did not take this from her, nor will I from you. I’m not a schoolroom miss who is not to stir without her governess at her side. I’m a free American woman. If you do not like my behavior, I will go away. I warn you, I’m too old to learn new tricks.”
“Good girl, good girl!” He rolled his head delightedly from side to side in the big chair. “You sounded just like your father then, in one of his tantrums. Well, I like a bit of spirit—within reason. Gave your aunt a setdown, did you, for finding fault? Well, I can’t say I blame you for that. She’s a fine one to be talking of conduct.… I thought she was pretty quick with her talebearing. But, just the same, what’s this about meeting Trevis on the beach, hey? What have you got to say to that, miss?”
“Why, that I met him there by chance. You know as well as I do it’s the only place where I can walk. I’m used to an active life, Grandfather. It may satisfy Aunt Tretteign to move no farther than from breakfast room to parlor, but I’d go mad. And don’t say I ought to take someone with me either, because you know it’s nonsense, and there’s no one I could take. If you must know, by the way, Lieutenant Trevis was reading me a lecture on very much the same lines. He thought it his duty to see me safe home. Safe home indeed? I suspect I’m a good deal safer—as a Tretteign—here on the marsh than he is.”
He gave a delighted cackle of laughter. “You’ve hit the nail on the head there, and no mistake. I’ll say that for you, girl, you’re a Tretteign through and through. Try as I will, I can see no trace of that French mother of yours in you, and thank God for that. Now, now, don’t flare up at me again. Kiss and be friends, hey? But I wish, just the same, that Ross would come back.”
“So do I, Grandfather.” She bent to kiss the papery cheek.
And it was still only dusk. At this time of day, the servants were always particularly busy. Lamps had to be lit, fires made up, bedrooms prepared for the night. It was a time, she knew by experience, when there was no possibility of speaking privately to Parkes. Anyway, she told herself, her second conversation with Trevis had added little to the first one.
She could tell herself that as much as she liked, but churning anxiety still kept her in motion. From her bedroom window, she could peer out over the darkening marsh toward the sea. Fairlight was lost already in cloud and evening shadow and, in the other direction, the Dungeness light was just beginning to show. Out to sea, nothing. The privateer might be there, lying in darkness.… If only she knew where the rendezvous was … not here, Parkes had said. Then where? Straining her eyes, she could see the lights of the army camp at Fairlight. In the old days, Betty had told her, there had been a lively smugglers’ traffic from that series of coves—but now? With the army so near? It would be madness.
The gong, rumbling downstairs, told her that at least another section of this interminable day had been got through. She found her aunt, sharp-eyed, waiting for her in the dining parlor. Of course, in her anxiety about Ross, she had forgotten all about the affair of Lieutenant Trevis.
“Well, Aunt?” She took her place at the oval mahogany table. “I trust you have had a satisfactory day.”
“Satisfactory? What can be satisfactory about life in this dismal house?”
“I don’t know—Grandfather seems in good spirits tonight.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“Yes. He asked me my intentions with regard to Lieutenant Trevis. I had always thought the boot was on the other foot, but it must be a comfort to you, Aunt, to think that Grandfather has Ross’s best interests so close at heart. Won’t you try a little of this patty of cockscombs? It’s something Cook and I worked out together.”
“I thank you, no. It is a lady’s duty to think of her figure.”
“What a terrible deal of duties ladies have.” It had occurred to her that, if her aunt were to go early to bed, she would be freé to visit Tissot. But the provocation must be just right. She did not want an hysterical scene, with the entire household upside down, just a small degree of huff would do. “I believe I shall never learn to pass as one.” She leaned her elbows negligently on the table and pretended to stifle a yawn with one brown hand. “Ross will just have to put up with me as I am.”
“Look at you now!” Her aunt rose to the bait. “My maid Rose would know better. Take your elbows of
f the table at once, Christina! Did that frippery French mother teach you nothing? I tell you, I begin to think it just as well that you have plumped for Ross rather than Richard. He would never be able to bear such common behavior. Ross, I fear, would hardly notice.”
This conversation was not going at all as she had intended. What now? “So you will give us your blessing after all? Dear Aunt, I knew your maternal feelings would get the better of you. Ross and I will deal admirably together, I assure you. He is blunt and I am vulgar! Just think what an occupation you will have in trying to see that your grandchildren are not complete little barbarians. Living down here in the country, as we intend to do, you will be their only civilizing influence. I shall rely on you to make English ladies of all my daughters—and I warn you I intend to have a perfectly enormous family. After all, what else is there to do but breed, down here at the end of nowhere.”
“Christina!” Now, at last, Mrs. Tretteign rose to her feet. “Your language appals me. Have you no modesty, no female pride, no shame!”
“Shame, Aunt? You mean, one may do these things, but not speak of them?”
“My God!” Her aunt turned dramatically at the door. “I actually find myself sorry for Ross.”
Left alone, Christina found herself, for a moment, sorry for her aunt. She peeled an apple, smiling a little to herself, then twisted her lips, wryly as she remembered her aunt’s insulting description of her mother. Her “frippery French mother,” indeed, and this from a woman whose misbehavior had caused her own husband’s death. Not for the first time, she wondered if the scandal of Ross’s birth had been so successfully hushed up that his mother had actually managed to delude herself that none of it had ever happened.
But Mrs. Tretteign had had plenty of time, by now, to get upstairs to the comforts of Rose and sal volatile. Christina rang the little silver hand bell.
Parkes should have answered, but instead the footman appeared, locking flustered. “Mrs. Tretteign will not be taking tea tonight,” Christina said. “Mr. Parkes is not indisposed, I hope?”
“Miss!” The man became suddenly human. “He’s vanished.”
“Parkes? What do you mean?”
“Just that, Miss Christina. He served your dessert, just like he always does, and came back with the dishes to the kitchen. One minute he was there, telling Cook what you’d said about the patty—the next, hey presto, he’d gone. I always said this house was full of ghosts.” Here an anxious glance over his shoulder to where heavy velvet curtains moved restlessly.
“You mean draughts.” But Christina was on her feet. “How long has Parkes been gone, Frank?”
“Well …” Time meant little to the lower orders. “Since he brought your dessert, miss.”
Twenty minutes or so. Too long merely to have taken food to M. Tissot. A message from Ross perhaps? “I’d best come out to the kitchen and see what Cook has to say.”
“I wish you would, miss, we’re all at sixes and sevens there. And short-staffed too.”
“Oh?”
“Did you not know? Jem and Thomas have leave for the night. Not that they’re much help indoors … but if it comes to a search …” He held the door for her and followed her down the draughty hall to the servants’ quarters.
Here, confusion and anxiety reigned. Meg, the kitchenmaid, who was Parkes’ niece, was blubbering over a pile of dirty dishes, while the cook was trying to organize the rest of the staff into a search of the house. “He can’t be far,” she explained to Christina. “He’s only been gone since I put the kettle on.” But the huge kettle was boiling furiously. “He’d never be late for serving your tea, not a-purpose he wouldn’t.”
“No.” This had been precisely Christina’s thought. Who could she trust here? Nobody. The answer was instantaneous. “I wonder if he can have gone out to the chapel to fetch my drawing materials. I did speak to him about them.” It had finally become impossible to carry the brass-rubbing pretense any further, but she had taken the precaution of leaving her crayons there against just such an eventuality as this. “I will go and see.”
“Oh, miss, to the cloister! In the dark! Someone should go with you.”
Not I, implied the cook’s tone, and the faces of the other servants echoed the sentiment.
“D’you think the Abbot’s ghost has got him?” This was the kitchenmaid, sobbing harder than ever.
“Nonsense!” said Christina. “But he might have fallen in the dark and hurt himself. Find me a lantern, someone. And one of Mr. Ross’s pistols.”
“A pistol?” The cook sounded horrified.
“Yes. I can use it, too, if I meet your ghost—or anything else. And a cloak, please, Frank. It’s blowing half a gale out.”
“Yes,” said Cook with grisly relish. “Invasion weather. D’you think the French have landed unbeknownst to us, and caught poor Parkes?”
“Nonsense,” said Christina again. “You know as well as I do that those cockleshells they’ve got at Boulogne wouldn’t stand ten minutes of this. Thank you, Frank.” She let the footman wrap a cloak around her shoulders, then took the little gun, and the lantern the cook had lit for her.
“I’ll come with you, miss.” Frank, the footman.
Could she trust him? Better not. “No need. You had much better set about searching the house.”
Chapter Nine
The flickering light of her lantern made the darkness of the stable yard seem even more absolute. Should she have made Frank come with her? But—was it hysterical anxiety or something more rational? At all events, she did not trust him. “We have our informants too,” Trevis had said, only that afternoon. Monstrous that his informants should be her enemies, but—face it—true. If only Jem were here … but Jem, and no doubt Thomas, too, must be out with the smugglers. Knowledge of this had hung heavy in the charged air of the kitchen. No, the pistol, solid in her hand, was her most reliable companion.
The chapel door at last. Nothing here, of course—she had not expected there to be. The door into the cloisters was locked, but this meant nothing. They had agreed that Parkes would always lock it behind him when he went to visit M. Tissot by himself, as Jem’s absence must have compelled him to do tonight. She fitted the spare key Ross had given her into the lock and pushed open the door. Thick darkness in the cloisters, and a spatter of raindrops on her face as she passed the place where the roof had fallen away. Don’t walk too fast, the lantern might blow out. And yet she badly wanted to hurry. She might not believe in ghosts, but she did not like this place in the dark.
At last her hand found the door of M. Tissot’s room—and felt it swing away from her. Unlocked! “Parkes?” she whispered.
Silence. No—heavy breathing. Well, of course, M. Tissot. But she cocked the gun before she moved forward very cautiously into the room. Now her light found the cot in the corner, and the figure on it. White hair! Not M. Tissot, but Parkes, lying very still, his hands, she now saw, tied behind him, his mouth gagged. She freed him, her own hands shaking; found water; found the smelling salts she had used for M. Tissot. Where was he? In the cloisters somewhere? With one quick, anxious movement she was at the door and locking it. Leave the key in the lock: he won’t be able to use the other one.
Then back to Parkes with the smelling salts. He stirred as she held them under his nose; his eyelids flickered up, then down again. He looked very old, very frail in the dim light. She should not have let him come here alone. But why should they have mistrusted M. Tissot? She bathed his forehead with cold water, things fitting themselves together in her mind as she did so. She had wondered, once or twice, whether M. Tissot might not be better than he admitted, had even asked herself if he might be trying to avoid returning to France. She must have been right. And, last night, when she had found his clothes wet, he must have been out, exploring the cloisters in the rain, his delirium faked to deceive her. But—more important than any of this—where was he now?
At last, Parkes stirred, raised a feeble hand to his head and opened his eyes. “Mis
s Christina!” And then, “Where is he?”
“I wish I knew. What happened, Parkes?”
“I don’t know. I opened the door, put the lantern down, as usual. Something hit me on the head … then, nothing … Yes, there.” Her gentle fingers had found the lump under the straggling white hair. “Lock the door, Miss Christina!”
“I have. He must be in the cloisters, hiding.… The chapel door was locked. He can’t have got out that way.”
“Unless he found the tunnel.”
“Tunnel?”
“Did Mr. Ross not tell you? Should I?” A shaking hand plucked at the blanket she had thrown over him. “I tell you, I don’t know what to do for the best … but if he’s escaped by it …”
“Of course you must tell me, Parkes. Mr. Ross would want you to, I’m sure.”
“Yes … yes, I think so. I wish my head did not ache so. How can a man think?”
“Don’t worry, Parkes. It will all come right.” How she wished she believed the easy, comforting words. “Only … we must think fast.” Not just fast—desperately. By his escape, M. Tissot had declared himself an enemy. What might this mean? “Parkes …”
“Yes, miss?” He was looking a little better, shocked into self-control.
“Suppose the very worst. Suppose M. Tissot has been shamming it for some time. How much will he know? Mr. Ross came by the tunnel last night, I take it?”
“Yes—and left that way.”
“So M. Tissot must have been watching and spotted the entrance. Well then, what may he have heard?”
“My God!” Recollection blanched his face still further. “We made our arrangements, Mr. Ross and I, out there in the cloisters.”
“And he heard?”
“He could have. Oh God, what a fool—”
“My fault, Parkes. I was in charge. He fooled me—no time for that now. What were the arrangements?” And, as he hesitated, “You must see, Parkes, you have to tell me now. Otherwise, Ross may walk into a trap.”
“You think he’ll go to the soldiers, miss?”
Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 13