Watch the Wall, My Darling

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  Then, like the dream, it was over, so quickly it was hard to believe it had happened. Silence again, and a little group of lights showing, down by the beach, moving about, perhaps in search? Then they formed up with military precision; Trevis’s men, no question about it. And their prisoners? No hope that they would come back this way. Trevis would go straight along the shore and take the track up from the first battery. Yes, there they went, flickering, yet in oddly precise formation along the beach. It was all over.

  All over but the waiting. She seemed, now, to have been waiting forever. What had Jem seen? And had he been caught too? She found the candle, lit it with a hand that shook so that it took three tries, and opened her bedroom door. Had anyone else heard the affray? Apparently not, since hers was the only room on the front of the house. At least all seemed quiet. Her excuse for going downstairs? Insomnia, and a book from the library.

  The air struck cold and damp in this seldom-used room, and she pulled her shawl closely around the low-cut shoulders of her muslin dress. To have changed would have admitted knowledge … perhaps it was already too late to pretend ignorance. She moved over to the heavy shutters that covered the window and pulled one ajar. The library, like the Great Hall, faced toward the sea, but down here her view was much more limited. Anyway, there was nothing to be seen but darkness; nothing to do but wait. Light a fire? No, this too would be to admit knowledge. She was just down here on a momentary errand, looking for a book that would send her to sleep. She had long since finished the set of Fielding. What now? Rasselas? Or Johnson’s Lives of the Poets? Volume upon volume of sermons, read perhaps by some more pious generation when the weather was too bad to get from the Dark House to church? This was no time to be reading sermons. Here was something better, an odd volume of Richardson’s Clarissa Harlowe.

  But it was impossible to concentrate on the elaborate, gossipy letters, even more impossible than usual to sympathize with poor Clarissa in her predicament. Besides, was that not a noise? She was back at the window in a flash and opened it a crack. Nothing to be seen, but now, unmistakably, the sound of footsteps, quick and would-be quiet on the shifting shingle. One man, alone. Jem? She picked up her candle and hurried out into the dark hall, where the grandfather clock ticked loud in the midnight stillness.

  A scratching at the big door. Suppose it was not Jem? They should have arranged a code of signals, but how could they? She opened it a crack, ready to put all her weight against it. “Jem?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  She pulled it open and he was inside in a flash. “Thank you, miss.” He was gasping for breath; the candlelight showed his face pale with fatigue—or with horror?

  “What’s happened, Jem? Come in here.” She led the way into the library, wondering, as she went, what on earth she would say if they were found there. “Sit down. Rest. Tell me …”

  He half fell into a chair, oblivious of convention. “Miss, it was terrible. And there was nothing I could do … nothing. I had to watch …” He was still seeing it.

  “They caught them?”

  “All of them—or nearly. Some got away, I think, in the confusion. Some … Barnes is dead, miss. I fell over his body. He should ’a listened to me. But he allays thought he knew best, Barnes did.”

  “But the boat—the Bel Ami? What of her?”

  “Got clean away. I dunno whether it was a-purpose or not, but the soldiers didn’t attack till the goods were all landed. I reckon they thought they’d have it all their own way in the confusion when the loads were being shared. They did too. Poor Barnes, he was no leader. They know it now, the others, for what it’s worth to them. Now Mr. Ross—”

  At last. “What of him?” Impossible to keep the tremor out of her voice.

  “Nothing, miss. No one stayed from the Bel Ami … just the goods as usual, that I did see.”

  “Oh, thank God.” Now she, too, sank into a chair. The candle, shaking in her hand, dropped a great gout of wax along the wooden arm. “He didn’t come.”

  “No, miss. And how he will now, God knows.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Next day, the Dark House was dark indeed. Betty brought Christina the news with her hot water. The battle of Jury’s Gut, as it came to be called on the marsh, had been a disaster for the smugglers. “They hadn’t got their right leader, miss. No one knows where he is. Everything went wrong.” She was so near to tears that Christina did not have the heart to question her further.

  At least no one was missing from the staff, but gloomy faces and the subdued tone of the servants’ hall told her that many a relative or friend must have been involved in the disaster. The smugglers, apparently, had been taken completely by surprise as they were dividing their haul—quarreling over it, she suspected. Five of them had been killed, including Barnes, and—in some ways even worse—another three had been taken prisoner. Would they betray their friends? The question ran like wildfire across the marsh.

  “At least,”—Parkes, who was much better this morning, had a comforting word for Christina—“they can’t betray Mr. Ross. Barnes was the only one who knew.”

  “Thank God for that.” Monstrous to be grateful that Barnes had been killed, but how could she help it? She had enough to worry about as it was. Ross was in France, cut off, possibly for the length of the war, by the hostile Channel, and, as if that was not bad enough, his grandfather was getting angrier and angrier at his continued absence. On his instructions, Richard had been invited to come down for Christmas and Christina was afraid she knew what that meant. She threw herself into the preparation of puddings and pies as a distraction as much for herself as for the servants, but with the three smugglers now lodged in Dover Castle, it was going to be a gloomy Christmas on the marsh.

  Inevitably, there had been a call from Lieutenant Trevis, very ready to be congratulated on what he called, with a rather uncomfortable attempt at modesty, his good luck. He also wanted to know whether anyone was missing from the staff of the Grange and Christina was glad to be able to reassure him on the point.

  “Your man didn’t look as if he loved me overmuch, I thought, when he let me in.” Trevis was no fool.

  “Well”—no use beating about the bush—“you must know by now how they hang together here on the marsh. I ask no questions, but I won’t pretend they are happy in the servants’ hall. I hope, Lieutenant, that you do not ride alone after dark.”

  He was so grateful for what he called her concern for his welfare that she wished heartily that she had not spoken. But nothing went right, those bleak December days. The Dark House was in mourning, a state all the more painful because it must not be admitted. Tempers frayed, quarrels flared up about nothing, rain beat day in day out against the window panes.

  “If this keeps up”—Mrs. Tretteign’s voice was even more querulous than usual—“I doubt if poor Richard will be able to get here for Christmas.”

  “Really?” Christina had been staring out at the sodden marsh, but turned quickly at this, the first hopeful bit of news since the battle of Jury’s Gut.

  “The roads will be beyond anything dreadful. There’s a proverb, I am sure, about Sussex mud and Sussex clay. I don’t quite recall what it is. And poor dear Richard has never been a good traveler. Not at all like Ross, who’d think nothing of riding all day and dancing all night.” Her tone suggested that there was something rather vulgar about such practices. “Do you realize how long he has been gone, Christina, and not a word? I tell you, I am out of all patience with him, and as for Papa—I expect a new will daily.”

  Christina managed a laugh. “If the roads are too bad for Richard, they will certainly prevent Mr. Foxton from coming. Grandfather will have to postpone changing his will till the spring. If it ever comes.”

  “I knew we should have gone to Bath before it was too late. I get more anxious about you every day, Christina! You were quite a handsome girl, when you came.”

  “And now!” Christina moved over to peer into the depths of an antique mirror. “Thank God
it’s too dark to see.”

  “You should let me lend you some of my rouge. Particularly before Richard comes. We don’t want to lose him too.”

  “Lose him? Oh … I see.” It had not, before, come quite so brutally clear to her that her aunt thought Ross had gone away because he could not face the idea of their engagement. Now, peering at the haggard face in the glass, she could see Mrs. Tretteign’s point. “Well”—she turned away with an impatient shrug—“let us just hope it rains steadily between this and Christmas and gives Richard a good excuse for staying in London, where, I am sure, he would much rather be.”

  The first part of her wish, at least, was granted. As the days dragged on, water stood higher and higher in the marshland dikes, and the unused gravel pits beyond the house threatened to overflow. Work had had to be abandoned on the military canal, and the foundations of the Martello Towers were all awash. But Richard arrived, just the same, as he had written, on Christmas Eve. And Christina was amazed to find herself actually glad to see him. He might bring new problems, but at least his was a fresh and cheerful face after the gloomy ones that met her at every turn in the Dark House.

  “Get here? Of course I managed to get here. It would have taken more than a little mud to keep me away.” He dropped his heavy greatcoat on a settle and advanced on Christina with the evident intention of giving her a cousin’s kiss. But she withdrew one step up the main stair, and, as he was already half a head shorter than she, he was reduced to planting his kiss somewhere below her left ear.

  “Dear Christina.” He was imperturbable. “And Aunt Verity!” Another, more successful kiss, which reminded Christina that she had never seen Ross kiss his mother. “And how’s Grandfather?”

  “Very well.” Mrs. Tretteign led the way into the small saloon where she and Christina usually sat. “You got your leave?”

  “Of course.” He was holding the door for Christina as he spoke and she thought the question had annoyed him.

  “Leave?” It was tiresome being taller than he was. She sank into a chair and gazed up at him with questioning eyes.

  “Did you not know?” His tone made it clear that he had not expected her to know. “My grandfather has asked me to stay for a month at least. He says he feels unsafe, here in the front lines, as it were, with a houseful of women.”

  “He does, does he?” She did not try to hide her skepticism. “And the lords of the Admiralty let you go so easily? Hardly flattering, Cousin, surely?”

  He colored with anger. “On the contrary, they parted from me with great reluctance and I shall make it clear to my grandfather that I am here at the greatest possible personal sacrifice.” A look from his aunt warned him that this was hardly a happy line to take, and he changed his tone abruptly. “Not, of course, that my heart will not always be here.”

  So that was it. Christina picked up her detested embroidery to mask her face. It was a conspiracy against her. They were all in it. Old Mr. Tretteign had decided that Ross must be written off, and had sent for Richard to take his place as her husband. And Aunt Verity—Ross’s own mother—had agreed to the plan. Worst of all, Ross would be only too happy to see her safely married off to Richard—were it not for the Grange. More honest than Richard, he had never pretended he wanted her for herself. Well, his honesty, if nothing else, deserved her support.

  She smiled up at Richard. “So we are to have the pleasure of your company for a whole month, Cousin Richard. What on earth will you find to do with yourself?”

  “God knows.” He was very far from being an accomplished play-actor, and she found herself liking him better every time he gave himself away. “There’s not even a billiard table fit to play on—not that there’d be anyone to play with, if there was.”

  “No? My father used to say I played a very reasonable game—for a girl, of course.”

  “What? Billiards among the savages?”

  “Oh”—she retrieved her mistake quickly—“we played at the local saloon, of course. Father did not altogether like my going there”—this in response to a shudder from her aunt—“but it was better than leaving me alone, exposed to who knew what danger, at home.”

  Richard managed a languishing look. “What a romantic life you have led, Cousin Christina!”

  “Have I not?” And then, determinedly practical, “And as to a table, the one in the greenroom here is very far from being beyond repair, if you could but persuade Grandfather to authorize the necessary expense. And I believe you can persuade him to anything, Cousin.”

  He was delighted. “Do you think so? Then, since you ask it, I will certainly make the attempt.”

  “Do,” she said heartily. “If you do not want us to go melancholy mad. Grandfather does not seem to believe in Christmas. A barbarous survival from classical times, he calls it. I had been looking forward to Drawing the King, and Etrennes and all kinds of quaint English customs, but he seems to think it quite enough if we have roast beef and plum puddings tomorrow—and I achieved them rather by guile than persuasion.”

  It was not a gay Christmas. But the twelve days dragged by somehow, enlivened by the news that Bonaparte had crowned himself Emperor of France in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

  “Much good may it do him.” Richard attempted a cannon off her ball and missed. “This table’s terrible.” The handyman had just finished working on it.

  “It’s better than nothing.” Christina took careful aim from the awkward position in which he had left her and sank her ball unerringly. “You think it may do him harm?” She returned to the question of Bonaparte, or Napoleon as he now styled himself.

  “Good God! What a piece of beginner’s luck.” In his surprise, he made a botch of his own shot. “Yes, of course it will do him harm. The French won’t like it—and the other sovereigns will be furious at having an interloper in their midst.”

  “I do wonder if you are right.” Once again she took careful aim and embarked on a winning break that left him gasping.

  “You play like a professional, Cousin.” There was a good deal more disapproval than admiration in his tone.

  “Oh dear. You find it unladylike? I was Papa’s only opponent, you see. I had to study to give him a reasonable game … and he was a wonderful teacher.”

  “I wish you would use that tone when you speak of me, Christina!” He moved around the table toward her, but she, in her turn, dodged to the far side and made a fending off business of chalking her cue.

  “Why should I?” She faced him squarely, the cue between them. “Father was everything to me—and I to him.” Her voice broke on the words.

  “Christina!” He took her moment of weakness for encouragement. “That’s just what I want to be to you—everything. Forget Ross, who has all too evidently forgotten you. He’s no good for you, I tell you. We grew up together … I should know. Women will never be anything but chattels to him. Forget him, Christina—marry me. Your wish shall be my law, my every aim to please you.”

  “But I don’t want a husband like that! Anyway, are you not ashamed to talk to me like this, when you know that I am engaged to Ross?”

  “I have our grandfather’s permission.” He spoke as if that settled it. “As for Ross, God knows where he is by now. Off on one of his mad starts again, I have no doubt. He does it, you know, when things don’t go to his liking at home. I remember once, when we were boys, our tutor beat him—unfairly, as he thought. He disappeared for weeks, and returned, when we had almost given him up, with some wild tale of sailing with a gang of smugglers. You can imagine what Grandfather and my aunt had been through, but did he care? Not Ross. He said it had been a very interesting experience and worth a month of Greek grammar. Well … I ask you! No doubt this time he’s shipped as a foremast hand in a navy ship or something equally fantastic—and, I can tell you, he won’t get away from that so easily.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  He hedged at once. “I don’t know it for certain, mind you, but there’s no doubt it’s a very likely prob
ability. And so I told my grandfather. It was my duty to do so.”

  “And …”

  Now he had the grace to look a little awkward. “Well … you know how it is, Cousin. He wants to see you safely married before he dies—to one of us. If Ross has really volunteered—or even been pressed—for the navy, he’s as good as dead for the duration of the war.”

  “I see.” She saw a great deal. Whether he had deceived himself, or merely his grandfather, made little difference, except in her opinion of him. Worst of all, he might even be right. She did not know that Ross had got to France. Suppose he had been captured—the rest would logically follow from that.

  “Dear Christina.” He had been quick to spot her moment of hesitation and had crept in, somehow, under her guard. “Stop fighting me!” One hand had got itself around her waist, the other, reaching up, was trying to bend her head to his.

  She thought a great many things at what seemed fantastic speed. Rage, her first reaction, was quickly checked. She must not make an enemy of Richard—for Ross’s sake, as well as for her own. Exert her full strength, laugh at him, half a head below her there, as she longed to do—and he would hate her. She looked down into his eyes. “Dear Richard.” She began, gently, to extricate herself. “Don’t.”

  “But why not? Since I love you, and there is no obstacle?” But he released her with what, laughing to herself, she recognized as relief.

  “Nonsense.” This much she would allow herself. “You don’t love me, Richard, and there is an obstacle—my engagement to Ross, to which I shall stick until he releases me from it.”

  “Grandfather will be very angry.” Here he came to the heart of the matter.

  “Leave me to deal with Grandfather.” She moved across the room, gave a sharp tug to the bell pull, and, when Frank appeared, “My compliments to Mr. Tretteign,” she said, “and would he spare me a few minutes?”

  “You’re going to tell him you won’t?” Richard looked at her almost with awe.