“Ross—don’t.” Christina’s voice was pleading, her anxious eyes fixed on the old man, who looked ready to burst with rage. “I think it an admirable idea, Grandfather, and I’m sure Mr. Foxton will draw up just the kind of will you want. I’ll write him at once. Come, Ross, we’ve been tiring Grandfather.”
“Your grandfather.” But, mercifully, Ross waited till they were outside to say it. “No kin of mine, I’m glad to say … the old bully. How can you bear him, Chris?”
“Why—because he is my grandfather, I suppose, and because, oddly enough, I love him. There’s a lot you don’t understand about love, Ross.”
“I begin to think you are right.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ross made his announcement at lunch the next day. “Mother”—how seldom he called her that—“I’ve applied to have my commission reinstated.”
“You’ve done what?”
“I’ve asked for my commission back.” And then, with an effort, as if he found the explanation distasteful, “You must see that I cannot do otherwise. There’s talk that my regiment is shortly to be ordered abroad—how can I stay here—”
“How can you do anything else?” Mrs. Tretteign’s voice rose. “Of all the monstrous, inconsiderate, ungrateful …” She buried her face for a moment in a lace-trimmed handkerchief, but watched him over it with a pair of bright, tearless eyes. “You can’t do it, Ross. To leave us here alone … unprotected … practically in the front line! And besides”—for her, this evidently settled it—“what will your grandfather say?”
“I’ve told him. He’s furious. I can’t help it. And, Mother, I’m sorry, it’s no use arguing. The letters have gone. Now it’s only a question of time.”
“You mean you did not even consult me—”
“What would have been the use? Remember, I’m a man, ma’am, with a man’s responsibilities.”
“Responsibilities!” This made her angrier than ever. “To yourself, I collect! I do not see much sign of your responsibility for us. What about me? I suppose I’m just a useless old woman—what matter if I’m raped by the whole French Army—don’t pretend to be shocked, Ross, this is no time for mincing words. But have you thought what will happen to the girls if you leave us here alone? To Sophie?” Here, said her voice, was another powerful argument.
“Of course I’ve thought. In a way, that’s why I’m going. This war must be finished, ma’am, this constant threat removed. If every man in England only felt as I do, it would be over soon enough.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Spitefully. “Your rejoining will make the whole difference, I take it?”
“It’s my duty, Mother.” And then, turning to Christina and Sophie, who had sat, so far, silent and embarrassed auditors, “You do understand, don’t you? You think I’m right to go.”
“Of course,” said Christina.
“Well,” Sophie’s voice was petulant, “I suppose if you are set on it—it seems monstrous foolish to me, I confess. From all, you have told me, campaigning is nothing but a dead bore: short commons, mud and a strong chance of death at the end of it.”
“That must be my consolation, Sophie.”
She looked merely puzzled; it was Christina who understood and answered him. “Ross! If you speak like that, I shall think you wrong to go.”
“I’m sorry, Chris, and—I take it back.”
“You promise?” Oddly, as her clear eyes met his, they might have been alone in the room.
“I promise.”
“I wish I knew what you two were talking about,” said Mrs. Tretteign crossly. “It would be more sense to promise not to go, Ross! Even if the letters have gone off, I’m sure Richard would use his influence to have them stopped. Sophie, try to persuade him.”
“Of course!” Sophie raised reproachful eyes to Ross. “You cannot be so cruel, Cousin Ross. To leave us here all alone, Tina and me, with no cavalier—it does not bear thinking of! Besides, you cannot have forgotten”—she spoke as one bringing forth a final argument—“you promised to take me to the Spring Assembly at Rye!”
“I’m sorry, Sophie. It’s true—I did promise. You will have to hold me excused.”
“And if I do not?” Sparkling now, teasing, challenging, sure of her power.
“I shall be sorry.” And then, seeing her color change at the flat rebuff, “But never mind, infant, they are not renowned for speed and efficiency at the Horse Guards. Who knows? My commission may not come through before the Spring Assembly.”
But already the evenings were drawing out. Coarse gray marsh grass seemed to turn green overnight and was embroidered here and there with tiny yellow flowers Christina had never seen before. There was a new quality in the light, too, and a soft freshness in the air. The lambing had started all over the estate and Ross was out most of the day superintending it, while Christina occupied herself with fighting moth and mildew in his uniform jacket and pelisse.
He found her busy in her office one evening of watery sunlight and sun-spangled showers. “There you are, Tina. I’ve been looking all over for you. You should not be working here in the dusk. Oh”—awkwardly—“I’ve got a present for you, from an admirer—”
“Oh?” She rose to meet him, oddly confused by his use of Sophie’s pet name for her.
“Yes, Jem’s younger brother. He picked them for you specially. Here …” Their hands touched for a moment as he gave her the little bunch of ivory-colored flowers.
“Thank you. But what are they?” She bent her head over them to conceal a rising tide of color. “They smell of heaven.”
“Your first primroses, barbarian! Yes—I’d forgotten how good they smell.” He, too, bent down and for a moment his dark hair brushed hers. “We used to ride over to Starlock every spring, Richard and I, to pick them under the hill. They don’t grow on the marsh.”
“They’re lovely, Ross. Thank you …”
“Thank Jem’s brother.” Once again an odd awkwardness in his tone. “Or—thank me, if you will, for bringing them to you. A fine booby I felt, riding about the marsh with a lady’s nosegay in my hand.”
“Poor Ross. I hope you met no one.”
“Not a soul. I hear you are thinking of setting up a school. Jem’s mother is in a seventh heaven of expectation.”
“I do hope I do not disappoint her. You do not mind, Ross?”
“Mind? Because you do what my mother has so signally failed to? I hope you don’t think me so poor-spirited as that, Chris. It just seems one more debt that I owe you.”
“Oh, don’t talk of debts …”
“But I must. You’ve changed my life, Chris, by your coming. You must let me tell you what it means … to be free at last to have my own life … to be able to think of a future.… You’ve done all this for me, and given me the courage to face it.… Chris!” And then, “Damnation! Yes, Parkes?”
“There’s an urgent messenger from London, sir.”
“Tell him to wait!”
“Yes, sir.” And then, “It’s Mr. Pitt’s livery, sir, white and blue.”
“Oh—in that case—confound it—you’ll excuse me, Chris?”
“Of course.” In the twilight, their eyes met for one unfathomable glance, then, alone again, she bent her head to drop a light kiss on the flowers she held. “Chris!” He had begun … what next? Maybe nothing … maybe.… No, she dared not even imagine it. She went out to the pantry and made a long, delicious business of putting her flowers in water.
Returning, she met Ross in the hall. “Chris!” He came toward her. “I have to leave at once!”
“Tonight?”
“I’m afraid so. Pitt’s sent for me to London—urgently. I don’t know what it’s about, but of course I must go.”
“Of course.” Why was he speaking so loudly? What was the message his eyes were trying to give her? “What can I do to help?”
“Nothing, thank you. I’ve told Jem to saddle up.”
“You’re riding?”
“Yes. I’ll
not be gone long—I hope. No need for heavy luggage. I’ll just take a cloak bag behind my saddle.”
What was he trying to tell her? “You’re starting at once?”
“In ten minutes. My good-byes will be soon said.”
“Will you see Grandfather?”
“What’s the use? Chris …”
“Yes?” And then, suddenly daring, “Let me ride a little way with you. I’ve an errand to do at East Guldeford.”
“So late?” He looked, at first, doubtful, and then, she thought, relieved. “Well, why not? No one would harm you, Chris. But no errands tonight, it’s too late for that. Only, if you felt like setting me a little on my way …”
“I should like to. I’ll run and change.” No time to ring for Betty, no time to think as she huddled herself into her riding habit. Fifteen minutes later they were riding side by side down the drive.
“Chris!” He turned toward her, his face dimly seen in the failing light. “I’m glad you chose to come. There’s so much I’d like to say to you—so much …” He stopped. “I’ve no right. If I come back—”
“If! What do you mean, Ross?” She was shivering now with a chill that had nothing to do with the coming of dusk.
“I ought not to tell you. Pitt said—but I must—I—there are limits. I cannot just disappear.”
“Disappear? Ross, what do you mean?”
“Pitt is sending me to France. Something’s gone wrong with his chain of agents. He’s had no word from there for weeks. And, it’s spring, Chris. Any moment, Villeneuve may be out again. If he eludes Nelson this time, the invasion we’ve laughed about may be a reality. Bonaparte needs only two days—twenty-four hours, perhaps—in control of the Channel, with the weather fair. You must see, I’ve got to go …”
“Yes.” She saw, too, the risks he ran. “But how?”
“A fast carriage is waiting for me beyond Rye. I’ll be in Portsmouth by morning. A British frigate is standing by to land me on a bit of coast I know in Brittany. After that … well, I’ve always been lucky.”
“But how will you get back?”
“The same way I go over—if I’m lucky. If not, well, there are always ways. It’s getting the news back that matters.”
“How long?” She tried to match his deliberately casual tone.
“A week, with luck. Less, perhaps. The frigate’s to stand in every night, waiting for my signal. So, you see, I’m probably making a to-do about nothing. I’ll be back next week, and no call for farewells. But—if not, Chris, if something should go wrong, you’ll say the right things? To my mother, to Sophie, to the old man?”
“Yes, Ross. And … to myself?”
“Ah, Chris. If we’d only had more time. But no, I’ve no right. I—the fool you’ve seen me, the besotted fool I’ve been. I can’t … and with my name, my scandal-spotted name! No, if I come back, if I can do what Pitt wants, do something, however little, that matters, something for liberty and the hope of man, then, perhaps … but it’s no use. Things don’t happen like that. No, Chris, this is the answer to everything. You’re all the heir the old man needs. You’ll look after the place, be good to my mother, be everything I’ve not been. Think of me kindly, sometimes, as of a fool who was wise enough to see his own folly.”
“Ross!” Now she was frightened. “You do mean to come back?”
“Of course. It’s my duty. And, besides, Chris, I want to—more than anything, I want to. When I do—if I do …” He stopped, changed his tone. “Dear Chris. Let me call you that, just once. But—it’s time you were turning back. There must be nothing odd about my leaving tonight, and, besides, it’s getting dark. You should not be out alone.”
“As if I cared.” Words choked in her throat. “Ross, be careful. For all our sakes. And for England’s.”
“I will. And now—good-bye, Chris.”
“Good luck.” She must not delay him, even for a moment. And already, it was too late. One long, strange look back at her in the dusk, and he was spurring on his horse toward Rye. She allowed herself the small indulgence of sitting quietly where she was, watching him disappear, with never another backward glance, into the low-lying mist. Something cold and wet fell on the hand that held her reins. Well, it did not matter now if unfamiliar tears were streaming down her cheeks.
But she must not look as if this had been anything but the casual farewell of a few days. Deliberately, she got herself under control before she turned homeward to face the battery of eyes and questions at the Dark House.
Luckily, no one seemed much interested. Mrs. Tretteign was only concerned with the shock her son’s sudden departure had given to her nervous system. Sophie was cross because he had left before she could give him various commissions to the London shops. “After all, if he is coming back in a few days, he could easily have matched my ribbons for me.”
Only Mrs. Tretton’s observant eyes saw Christina’s hands tighten on fork and knife. She intervened with a deliberate change of subject, and, later, when the evening seemed to stretch interminably with anxiety and small talk, she gave Christina her chance to escape. “You look to me, child, as if you had the headache. Why not make an early night of it?”
Christina was glad to get away, and yet the solitude of her room was torture. She had sent Betty off to bed, and now sat by the window, gazing across the bay, past the light on Fairlight Cliff, toward Portsmouth where, tomorrow, Ross would embark for France, and probable death. He had made light of the risk he ran, but now, alone in the dark, she faced it all. If he was caught, it would be as a spy, with death the only end. And—they might never know. The deaths of spies are private ones, unhonored, unreported. She jumped to her feet to prowl restlessly about the room. Suppose she had thrown everything to the winds—pride, modesty, all of it. Suppose she had said, “I love you, Ross, come back for my sake.” Might it have made a difference? She would probably never know.
Chapter Eighteen
All that long week it rained. Not the mild marsh drizzle Christina was used to ignoring, but wildly, with winds of gale force, exacerbating her anxiety for Ross. Suppose he had not even been landed yet, but was beating about out there in the Channel, risking death equally by shipwreck and by capture? Haunted by thoughts like this, she felt it the last straw to be cooped up in the Dark House the target of so many observant pairs of female eyes. But the weather was too bad even for her. To go out for her usual evening walk in a full gale must arouse comment, and comment was of all things to be avoided. Everything must go on as calmly at the Grange as if Ross was indeed in London, playing too high at Brooks’, as his mother seemed to think.
“Of course, it is tedious down here for him, with only us females,” sighed Mrs. Tretteign. “No wonder if he makes an excuse from time to time to run away to London.”
An excuse! Christina clenched her teeth to avoid speaking, and moved over to the window. The small saloon they were sitting in looked out on to the stable yard, but even here she could see the reflection of a red glow in the sky. “It’s clearing up at last,” she said. “It looks like a splendid sunset. I think I’ll just go down to the beach for a breath of air.”
“To the shore? So late? Not by yourself, surely?” But Aunt Tretteign had finally given in about what she called this unladylike habit. Her protest was merely formal and Christina made her escape without more ado.
It was good to be outside, wonderfully good to be alone at last, free to indulge the anxiety that had haunted her for seven dragging days. Out here, in the wind, nothing seemed quite so bad. The sun was setting in glory over Fairlight. Tomorrow should be a fine day. Perhaps it was a good omen; perhaps tonight Ross would come secretly down to a Brittany beach and be picked up by the frigate’s boat. He might even be home tomorrow.
Or—he might not. He might already have died a spy’s quick death in France. Down on the damp, gray sand, she shivered a little as the wind blew her hair this way and that about her face. The sky beyond Fairlight was fading fast. Now only a few crimson streaks remai
ned, reflected high up among the clouds. With the sun’s going, color ebbed from everything. The marsh lay dun and secret behind her, the sea dark and sullen in front. It was time to be going back to the Dark House—would she ever come to think of it as home?
She turned, when she got to the top of the beach, to look back across the darkening sea toward where, sometimes, she had been told, you could see the lights of Gris Nez, then climbed with quick, sure steps up the shingle bank, down the slope of the sea wall on the other side and past the battered old hut, where, when they were boys, Ross and Richard had kept a boat.
What was that noise? Ross? Here? Absurd! She had paused instinctively at what had seemed the sound of movement in the hut, was moving forward again, when a voice—M. Tissot’s voice—said, “A moment, mademoiselle. And silently, I beg.” He moved out from the doorway of the hut. “I’m armed, you see, and will shoot if you scream or run.”
“Why should I?” She wished she felt as confident as she made herself sound. Half a mile to the house. No hope of help; and the shadows thickening fast.
“Why indeed? It is but to do me the favor of a small visit in return for all the hospitality you have shown me. Be a little reasonable, and you shall come to no harm, I promise. You’ll do as I tell you?” A little movement of the gun he held underlined the seemingly courteous request.
One quick look around. Nothing but the silent marsh, a light showing, now, high up at the Grange—in her own room, perhaps, where Betty would be laying out her dress for dinner. And all, so far as she was concerned, as distant as the moon. Two men had detached themselves from the shadows behind M. Tissot and moved toward her.
“They’ll only tie your hands,” said Tissot. “And see you do as you are bid.”
Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 24