Watch the Wall, My Darling

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  The conversation became general, to pause for a moment when old Mr. Tretteign cleared his throat and drank Christina’s health. “A delicious dinner, my dear.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather.” She sat a little straighter in her chair, squaring her shoulders, almost as if to meet an attack. Sophie was flirting alternately with Ross and Richard. Flirting? The word was unfair. She was trying her strength on them, as a kitten might its claws. And they—don’t think about that. Think instead that Aunt Tretteign was looking increasingly put out. Sorry for her, Christina exerted herself to draw her into the conversation and was rewarded, as they rose to leave the room, by an approving look from her mother. “Character tells in the end, chérie” she said, as they moved together to the drawing room.

  “Do you think so?” Almost the worst of it, in a way, was to find herself, after all this time, so extraordinarily fond of Sophie. She could still remember the bitter, silent tears she had shed after she and her father were left alone. Many of them had been for the little sister she had loved and cared for. She still felt the same—how could she help it? How, even, blame Ross for his devotion? But hating her would have been easier.

  Luckily, there was little time for this kind of thinking. It was like having a friendly whirlwind come into the house, Christina thought, dutifully submitting to fittings for the morning dresses, the riding habit and all the other things her mother had insisted on buying her. They were being made up at home, since Mrs. Tretton had no confidence in the Hastings mantua makers, and a great deal in herself. “I’m sorry to say it, chérie.” She was superintending the second fitting of a dark blue walking dress of gros de naples. “But you might as well face it—manners may make the man, but clothes make the woman.”

  “Oh dear.” Christina wriggled among the pins. “I wish I had been a man.”

  “So you always used to say. But I tell you, love, you will find being a woman pleasant enough if you will only come to terms with it. It’s Christopher’s fault, of course. He wanted a son so badly—called you Chris, treated you as a boy. Ross does just the same.”

  “I know. It’s my fault, I suppose.”

  “Of course it’s your fault. Your grandfather’s getting impatient by the way. Silly old man.” She spoke in the same tones of affectionate impatience she used of her dead husband. “He’s talking of sending for Foxton again.”

  “Oh, Mother!”

  “Don’t worry, I talked him out of it before. I will again. What a fool your Aunt Tretteign is. She could have had such a pleasant life here, with just a bit of management.”

  Christina laughed as she wriggled into her new riding habit. “Mother, you’re a wonder!”

  “No—just French, and a little practical. Hurry now, love, or you’ll be late for your ride, and you know how men hate that.”

  “Not when it’s Sophie.” She was ashamed as she said it, but her mother only laughed.

  “Think a little, chérie. Would you really like to be Sophie?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well then—”

  “You’re right, and I’m a fool.” What an immense amount they managed to say to each other without in fact saying anything. “Bless you.” She bent to drop an unwonted kiss on her mother’s enamelled cheek, then picked up the train of her crimson habit and ran lightly downstairs to find Ross and Richard waiting in the hall.

  “There you are at last.” Ross was comparing his watch with the grandfather clock.

  “Five minutes late. How shocking!”

  Richard had been admiring her through his glass. “May I congratulate you on your habit, Cousin Christina? Bond Street surely?”

  She could not help laughing. “Hastings’ best and my own industrious hands! Your eye must be out, Cousin.”

  “But where is Sophie? It’s past the quarter.” Ross closed his watch with a snap.

  Hearteningly, Christina found herself irritated with him. “You sound as if you were planning a military operation, not a party of pleasure, Cousin Ross.”

  “Am I such a martinet?” He rather liked the idea.

  “You’re a terrible bully, Ross, and you know it.” This was Sophie, leaning over the banisters, a vision in blue velvet and swansdown. “Well, was I worth waiting for?” She ran down to join them.

  “Forever,” said Richard.

  “Well, let’s lose no more time,” said Ross.

  Since Richard and Sophie were both cautious riders, Christina soon found herself in the lead with Ross, jumping ditches where the other two took time to go around by the gate. It gave her a chance to ask if there was any news of M. Tissot “You’ll think me a fool, but somehow I don’t feel quite safe so long as he is at large.”

  “Nonsense. A mere man of straw—and why they are making such a dust about him at Whitehall is more than I can understand.”

  “Whitehall? What do you mean?”

  “Merely that they’ve told me to end the smuggling contact while he is at large. They think it too dangerous. Danger!” Scornfully.

  “Oh, poor Ross. And the smugglers?”

  “That’s just it. I can’t stop them. Parkes tells me the gang have elected a new leader and propose to resume operations. It’s lucky for me M. Tissot did not choose to betray my identity while he was at it.”

  “You’re sure he did not?”

  “Reasonably so. And those three unfortunates in Dover Castle have been pressed into the navy and shipped out to the West India Station.”

  “Oh, the poor things. Do their families know?”

  “They should by now. I fear it will not make the Captain—as they called me—any more popular on the marsh. It’s all blamed on him—on me. Just as well my secret has been so well kept.”

  “But you warned them.”

  “I did the best I could.” He shrugged. “Well, so long as it’s an unknown they’re blaming, it provides a harmless enough scapegoat, I suppose. One thing I know will please you. Villeneuve is back in Toulon.”

  “What! After getting clean away.”

  “Yes. Napoleon’s forgotten that lurking in harbor hardly makes seamen. They met a storm, came to grief and limped back to port to refit. So the news I brought was not so earth shaking after all.”

  “But it might have been.”

  “Oh yes. And Pitt’s grateful enough. It’s just—there’s nothing, now, for me to do here. If it were not for … tell me, Chris, as my friend, do you think—”

  He was interrupted by a shout from Richard. “Ross! Christina! Here, quick.”

  They exchanged startled glances, wheeled their horses and set them to gallop back across two long fields. “Dear God!” Ross turned back to Christina, as he entered the third field and saw Richard, dismounted, bending over Sophie, who lay half in, half out of a drainage ditch, while their horses grazed peacefully close by.

  “Hold my horse.” Christina pulled level with him and jumped down as she spoke. Hurrying forward, she was relieved to hear a passion of sobs and furious, incoherent speech from Sophie. “It’s all your fault, Richard. You should have told me … and my habit, my lovely habit, it’s ruined.”

  “But are you hurt, love?” As Christina bent over her, Richard withdrew, she thought with a touch of relief, to explain the circumstances of the accident to Ross.

  “Hurt?” Sophie let Christina put a supporting arm around her. “I’m furious! He should have told me. How could anyone jump a great river like that?” She picked up her plumed riding hat, which lay in the mud beside her. “And look at my hat—my best hat!”

  “But you’re all right? You don’t hurt anywhere? Try and stand up, pet, do.”

  Ross and Richard moved at once to help, and Sophie was set on her feet, only to exclaim again at the state of her habit. “All over mud—and look at my poor feathers. I’ll never ride on the marsh again. I hate it! And it’s raining too! It always rains here. I hate it, I tell you. I hate it, I hate it!”

  “Quietly, love.” Christina had almost forgotten Sophie’s tendency to hysterica
l outbursts, but now flashed a warning glance to Ross and Richard. “It’s only a little velvet, after all. I’m sure we can get you another habit just as good.”

  “Just as good! Don’t make me laugh.” A shrewish note marred the pretty voice. “This habit was made by Leroy himself. I expect it cost more than your whole wardrobe put together. And you talk of getting me another one here! Oh, I wish I had never left France. I’m sick of mud, and rain, and horses.” The tears were coming freely now.

  “There, love, there.” She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. “You’ll feel better directly. It’s the shock of the fall,” she explained for the benefit of Ross and Richard, who had withdrawn to a slight distance and were being very busy with the horses. “We must get her home.”

  “Of course. The shock.” Ross sounded relieved. “Never mind, infant, we’ll have you home in no time.” He brought her horse forward.

  “You don’t expect me to get back on that brute?”

  “Well,” he said reasonably, “how else can we get you home?”

  “Home!” The tantrum broke. “Home, you call it! I wish I’d never seen your dark old house, with its draughts and its damp and its dreariness!” She was sobbing harder than ever.

  “I’m sorry you find it so.” Something in his tone startled her. She stopped crying and put out a shaking hand for Christina’s handkerchief.

  “I’m s … s … sorry.” She raised big eyes, still all afloat with tears, to his. “I’m being very naughty, aren’t I? If you will help me, Ross, I’m sure I can manage to ride home.”‘

  “We’ll all help you,” said Ross.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Just the same, it was quite a little business to get Sophie back onto her quiet horse, and Christina watched with wry amusement as she shook her disheveled curls at the two men and thanked them prettily for their help. As a child, she had always been extra good after one of her tantrums, and now, laughing and cajoling, she soon had them apparently her slaves again. Christina, meanwhile, had quietly led her own horse over to the field gate and remounted.

  “Chris—I’m so sorry.” Ross had remembered her at last.

  “No need. Father made me learn to mount unaided. He said anyone as large as I was must learn to be self-sufficient.”

  “You’re splendid.” But already he was pushing his horse forward to ride close beside Sophie.

  It was the same when they reached home. Sophie was soon lying on the morning-room sofa, with Ross on one side and Richard on the other. Christina looked in at the door, then turned away, fighting a pang of bad temper that made her ashamed. Busy with Sophie, no one had seen her. Suddenly, intolerably, she was tired of it all, tired, more than anything, of herself. On an impulse, she crossed the hall to the cloakroom, wrapped a shabby old waterproof cloak around her, pulled its hood up over her head and let herself quietly out the side door on to the terrace. It was raining harder than ever and the wind worried at the skirts of her cloak, pushed the hood back from her face, teased out tendrils of damp hair. This was a kind of attack she could bear, even enjoy. She leaned forward against the power of the wind and took the path to the beach. Today, surely, it would be deserted. Trevis was a man of sense. He did not force his men to unnecessary duties. With this wind blowing, and from this direction, nothing could cross the Channel. The coastal guards would be snug by fires at headquarters.

  Yes, the curve of the beach stretched gray and empty at her feet as if not a soul was stirring between Fairlight and Dungeness. She loved it like this. Salt spray mixed with rain on her face. For miles around, people huddled over fires; only, here, among the lashing elements, she was free for a while from the burden of the Dark House.

  All alone. She lifted damp skirts and ran, scudding sideways against the wind, to where a long groin reached out to sea. A quick, high step and she was on it and walking down to where she could watch the green waves growling below her, feel the wind in her hair, listen to the mixed voices of sea and storm.

  A light, suddenly lurid, behind a cloud far out to sea warned her that somewhere, in majesty, the sun was setting. Soon it would be night. Time to go back to the Dark House, and all the misery it held for her.

  She turned to edge her way back along the narrow groin, the wind behind her now, trying to push her off. Suddenly, she paused. A man was coming down the beach toward her, carefully close in to the groin so as to be as little visible as possible. Lurking? Skulking? The unpleasant words fretted at the edge of her mind as she made herself go calmly forward as if nothing was the matter. A smuggler perhaps on his way to pick up some sunken cargo when the tide was low enough? If so, he would be more afraid of her than she need be of him. But then, why was he coming so definitely toward her?

  Now, at last, the shingle was nearly level with the groin on the side away from him. She jumped down and made herself start steadily up the slope, but his voice halted her. “Mademoiselle, a moment, please.”

  French. And, on the moment, recognition. M. Tissot! No need—or was there?—to be afraid of him. She turned and waited for him to come up with her. But once again his voice came, anxiously, from the far side of the groin. “Mademoiselle—if you would come here to me? It’s as much as my life’s worth to be seen talking to you. It’s urgent—a matter of life and death.”

  It sounded even more melodramatic in French. She did not much want to go back and join him on the sheltered side of the groin. But yet—a matter of life and death, he had said. Whose? She climbed back onto the groin and stood there above him, looking down. “This is near enough,” she said. “Speak from there.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t blame you, mamselle, I’m afraid I played you a low enough trick before, but, believe me, it was necessary—”

  “For you, perhaps. But, come, I should be home. What is it that it is so urgent?”

  “You must believe me, mamselle.” He had recognized skepticism in her tone. “It’s life and death, as I said, for all of you. Word’s got out that it is monsieur up there at the house who led the smugglers. Among the smugglers themselves, you understand? They blame him for everything, for the débacle here on the beach, the death of their friends. They know, too, that the survivors—the prisoners—have been pressed into the navy. Worse than death, mamselle, or so they feel it.”

  “How do they know all this?” She looked down at him, clear-eyed in the twilight.

  “It’s not my fault.” Defensively. “I had my orders. To break up this channel of communication. I’m a Frenchman, mamselle. I do my duty as it comes. Only when I told them—I had not intended murder.”

  “Murder?”

  “They mean to attack the Grange tonight. They’re—very angry. They’ll burn it down. You’ll all be killed. Worse. I couldn’t let it happen to you, mamselle, who nursed me. Besides”—he seemed to be talking as much to himself as to her—“it’s not necessary. The gang’s broken up. M. Tretteign will never be able to use them again for his own purposes.”

  She was not interested in his self-justification. “When will they come?”

  “As soon as it’s full dark, I think. There’s not much time, mamselle.”

  “No.” She was thinking at frantic speed. Ross would want M. Tissot caught and held. But she had no possible chance of doing so. Forget about that. Think only of the Grange, her mother, Sophie, the old man.… Go straight along the beach to Trevis for help? No—first she must consult with Ross. Besides, it would be quicker to ride—quicker for Richard to ride than for her, granted that Ross must stay and organize the defense of the Grange in case help should be slow in coming. She looked up and down the beach. Lights showed now at Rye Harbor, and, the other way, at the gun emplacements on Dungeness. “Could you not go for help?”

  “No.” It was final. “I have risked more than I should already for your sake. Now, I must go.” He turned and ran, slipping and stumbling on the loose shingle, and still keeping as much as possible under the shelter of the groin. Where could he be hiding? No time to think about that now. Nor
to wonder what purpose of his own he meant to serve by this warning. It was nearly dark. And at first full dark, according to him, the attackers would come. Fantastic—the marshmen, attacking Tretteign Grange. But—in these circumstances—possible.

  She lifted her skirts and ran up the shingle slope and along the path to the Grange. In at the side door; it was quickest. Where would she find Ross? She looked into her study, where he often sat, partly to catch up on the work she had done while he was away, partly, she suspected, to be away from the clatter of female tongues in the rest of the house. But today, the room was empty.

  In the saloon, her Aunt Tretteign was talking about her migraines. From the look of her mother and Sophie, she had been doing it for some time. “Always come on when something unexpected happens,” she said. “So inconsiderate of Richard.”

  “Richard?” Christina interrupted unceremoniously. “What’s he done?”

  “Gone back to London.” Aunt Tretteign took it as a personal grievance. “Tomorrow would have been quite soon enough. And as for riding all night—I never heard such a lunatic notion. It will bring on one of his bilious attacks, and so I told him.” And then, really looking at Christina for the first time, “My dear child, that is hardly the costume, surely, for the drawing room.”

  In her haste, Christina had not even paused to throw off her wet cloak. “No,” she said. “I must find Ross, at once.”

  “He could have stopped him.” Mrs. Tretteign was still concerned with her own grievance. “Richard always minds Ross—I can’t think why. But all he said was something about an urgent summons being an urgent summons. Not even sense.”

  “I think Ross went out to see Richard on his way.” Mrs. Tretton had been studying Christina closely. “I don’t think he intended to go far. You would probably meet him.”

  “Thank you, Mamma.” What else should she say? She looked at Sophie, bent gracefully over her work, her accident apparently quite forgotten. No need to frighten them yet. But—a long, speaking look from her mother. “I’ll go to meet him. You’ll be here?”