by Karleen Koen
“Scarlet ribbons in her hair…” Tim began to hum the old folk tune as they walked toward the house.
Her servants would sing another tune if Ormonde and James came and scattered them all to the four winds, burned this house to nothing or gave it away to loyal followers. To the victor belong the spoils, and well she knew it. She had seen it three times in her life alone, the victors dividing up the spoils. She’d been among the victors.
In her bedchamber, a bouquet of blue forget-me-nots, crimson pimpernels, and yellow agrimony lay upon her pillow.
The Gypsy, thought the Duchess. Bah.
When she woke the next morning, a handful of tiny strawberries, like little red babies, lay atop her book of sermons. But there was more: a chain of wild roses festooning Richard’s portrait and Barbara’s and strewn across the bed in which she slept.
Dulcinea pounced and killed a sweet rose.
“Things have come to a pretty pass,” she told Annie and Tim and Perryman, assembled like punished children, “when anyone may march about in my bedchamber as she pleases. I could have been murdered in my sleep. There is an invasion, in case you have forgotten—marauding Spaniards and Scotsmen, Jacobites who knows where.”
And to Annie, “It is bribery, pure and simple. You told her of my weakness.”
“I never said—”
“Bah. You, Perryman, tell me the truth of the Gypsy.”
“She does whatever is asked. There is no rude talk from her.”
“No talk at all from her,” put in Tim.
“No one in the household will eat with her or sit beside her,” continued Perryman. “No one will share the chamber in which she sleeps. Anytime a thing goes wrong, anytime a plate is broken or a finger cut, the others blame her, saying she put a curse on them. She is always alone, save for her babe, whom no one will touch. He has the look of an idiot to him.”
A Gypsy and an idiot in my household, thought the Duchess. Fitting. She had Annie summon Bathsheba from the kitchen.
“Is this your doing?” She gestured toward the twined roses across the portraits, across her bed, toward the strawberries lying on her book of sermons. She could see Annie drifting back and forth in the withdrawing chamber just beyond. Like a hen brooding over a cracked egg, thought the Duchess.
The Gypsy’s thin chest rose and fell, too rapidly. A sign of guilt if ever I’ve seen one, thought the Duchess. Guilty of wantonness with wildflowers, of bewitching bees. Off with her head.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
A soft voice. Soft voice, hard heart. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, why had she thought of that verse? But she knew. A sudden thought entered the Duchess’s head.
“What goes on at Ladybeth Farm?” she asked.
“Strange men come calling, late at night. Him that fell, the man—”
“Laurence Slane?” The Duchess was suddenly excited and intrigued.
“Yes. He came to see Sir John.”
Slane? Here again? Tony said he had a sweetheart nearby, but why would he call at Ladybeth?
“I see something in the tea leaves, something small, with a tail, spotted. It will bring trouble. I see muskets and swords and Lady Ashford crying.”
Second sight. The Gypsy had second sight. That and her knowledge of the goings-on at Ladybeth were enough for the Duchess.
“Do you know our Lord’s catechism?”
Bathsheba nodded her head, then shook it. “Hard to remember,” she said.
“If you can remember the catechism and be baptized like a decent woman, you may stay here. Cat got your tongue? Dulcinea, give the Gypsy her tongue. Answer ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ or ‘No, Your Grace’—and, mind, either answer suits me.”
“Yes, Your Grace. Thank you, Your Grace.”
Those eyes were the shade of fern fronds. They’d have their work cut out for them taming this one. Typical of Annie to pick a Gypsy to mother.
“I never said a word,” Annie said in defense of herself later, fluffing up pillows and pounding at imaginary dust upon the cushions, to have an excuse to find out what she could. “She’s a Gypsy. She read your mind.”
“Has she a way with plants?”
“Such as I’ve never seen.”
“Take her out of Cook’s hands and put her in the stillroom.”
Where she was half the time, anyway; but the Duchess did not need to know that, Annie thought.
“By the by, it was the Duke, you know, who was fond of strawberries, not I.” Roses had always been her undoing. The Duchess picked up one of the roses. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Tim put his head in the doorway.
“A boy has come from the village to say a carriage is passing through.”
Diana.
The Duchess had Tim carry her to the terrace. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Richard, Diana has ignored me for over a year, and now here she is. She wants something. She only visits when she wants something. The continual game between us.
“Mother,” Diana said.
The voice, unmistakable, low and husky, came from behind her. The Duchess did not turn or move or indicate that she had heard. Lips as cool as grass touched her cheek.
“Dearest Mother.”
The Duchess saw out of the corner of her eye Diana kneel in a rustle of skirt, an air of musky, heavy scent.
“You weren’t so sweet last summer, Diana, nor at Christmas. What has changed your mind? Come around here where I may look at you.”
Diana moved to stand before her. Unlike another, who might fidget and fuss under scrutiny, might blush or look away, Diana cocked her head to one side as she waited, as lazy, as uncaring, as a cat sunning on a fence. Her face was too thin, the lines from her nose to her mouth deeper. There were dark circles under violet eyes, eyes men had once dueled over, quarreling over the exact shade. It was still a face of matchless beauty, but now it was haggard, time-edged, hard. She leaned upon a cane, and one of her wrists was bandaged.
“What’s this? Has Walpole taken to beating you?”
“I fell. Never mind it.”
She lied. Nothing changes, and everything changes. Of her children, this child had done as she so pleased, always. Of her children, this child had said, Leave me be. She had cared for this child’s children, had paid this child’s debts, had dampened what she could of this child’s scandals, but she had not liked her. Yet there was something between them that went beyond regard, some fine-grained, steely quality each possessed and recognized in the other; and in the end, perhaps that was stronger than any affection. Amazing to think that out of Diana had come Barbara.
“Settle yourself, and tell me the gossip in London. When I was at Lindenmas, they were gossiping about the Bishop of Rochester. Do they still say he is implicated in treasonous correspondence by a letter about a little spotted dog?”
“Oh yes.”
Chapter Forty-one
THE SMALL VILLAGE OF TWICKENHAM WAS JUST ACROSS THE river from Richmond House, where the Prince and Princess of Wales lived in the summer. Barbara had the coachman find out where the Duke of Wharton lived. Wharton’s servant told her he was in the back garden. Walking back to it, she saw him in a chair by the river, saw, too, that he had been drinking. She called his name.
Wharton stood, steadying himself on the back of the chair, held out his hands. “My very dear Barbara, am I drunk or just dreaming?”
She hugged him.
“Drunk, I think. Oh, Wart, it is so good to see you.” He was her substitute for Harry. When you lost people you loved, you were less unforgiving of those left.
She looked around. There was no one but them and the river weaving its way greenly among reeds. She pushed him down in his chair, pulled another one close.
“Tell me about the invasion. Everything. No lies, but the truth.”
“There are plans for an autumn
invasion going forward, and my part is, as you may imagine, to be in the thick of it.”
So Duncannon lied? Barbara frowned down at a fold in her gown, disappointed—no, more than disappointed. No one now, except her family, and not even all of them, would be telling the truth, but she’d expected more of Duncannon.
“Tell me something, Wart. Tommy Carlyle wrote me that the fine Parliament put upon Roger need not have been so high, that the ministry, that Robin, did not defend Roger as they might have. That Roger was a scapegoat.”
“It is possible, Bab. Anything is possible.”
“What do you remember?”
“Only the vile baseness of the Hanoverians and everything their greedy hands touched. They were like highwaymen, piling up South Sea stock and selling it again. No one was worse than the Duchess of Kendall. And Walpole is beneath contempt. He always has been.”
“Why?”
“Because he has no honor, Bab.”
A woman was wading through the shallow part of the river, through the reeds, her skirts pulled up. Barbara recognized her, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was older than Barbara and Wharton, by perhaps a decade; her face was lightly marked with smallpox scars. There were no lashes around her large, dark eyes. The same smallpox that had marked her face had taken her eyelashes. The lack gave her an odd, staring, almost rude look. She walked forward into the grass, her feet bare and wet, the ends of her skirts dripping, at her ease.
“It is easier to come by river than by garden path, and I have to confess I enjoy wading in the river like a child. You’re Lady Devane, aren’t you? Yes, I remember, quite the loveliest young woman at court. I thought you were in a colony somewhere. Wharton, you’re drinking wine already, and I have walked over most particularly to invite you to one of my gatherings tonight. Try to be sensible when you arrive. Senesino, from the opera, is going to sing. His voice is divine, Lady Devane. You must come, too, though you haven’t to splash by river, as I have. Wharton, I depend on you to join me tonight and to behave. Good-bye, Lady Devane.”
She walked back into the shallows of the river, her gown dragging. Barbara watched her, remembering that Lady Mary’s sister was married to a Jacobite, one who’d fled England in 1715. Lady Mary is in the plot, thought Barbara. I’ll bet coins on it.
“I’ve been told there will be no invasion,” she said.
“Ormonde will come in the autumn, when the soldiers in Hyde Park go back to their garrisons. Do you think it will be possible to remain neutral, as you did in Italy? You had not a serious thought in your head then, Bab.”
“As if you and Harry were serious—”
“We were.”
“You were drunk.”
“But deadly serious, nonetheless. What are all these feathers and beads about your person? You look magnificent.”
“I go to see the King at Hampton Court. I must make an impression.”
“Playing both ends? Coward.”
She stood, irritated.
“I think you tilt at windmills, my friend. Did you see the number of soldiers in Hyde Park? And I was told that more were available, upon notice, from the Dutch. The war is lost before it is begun.”
“Never.”
“Dear Wart, please be careful, please. I would not want to see you beheaded. That is still the penalty for treason, you know.”
“Would you cry?”
“Indeed, I would.”
“Then you would be the only one. Did you hear of my hour of triumph, Bab? Lord Sunderland and I were like father and son. He was maneuvering to see me brought into service as one of the King’s ministers. Is that not amusing? We were maneuvering to see Walpole gone. How I want to see Walpole gone. Everything was right there, in our hands, Bab. And then Sunderland died.”
She was silent. She knew better than anyone the twists of Fate, when life seemed to spiral downward.
“It’s good you’re back, Bab. I am going to make you Jacobite. See if I don’t.”
“If Harry couldn’t do it, what makes you think you can?”
“I am more clever than Harry…. I miss him, Bab.” He looked ather, a tear in his eyes. The wine he drank brought emotion up.
“I do, too,” she said, softly.
At the gate, she turned to have a final look at him, Harry’s friend, and, when she’d gotten to know him, hers, too. He made gestures—see no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil—and then pulled his hand across his throat in a slashing movement.
What was it Harry had said to her so long ago, the night, in fact, she’d learned she was to marry Roger? Politics, it is all politics, my innocent little sister. Hanover or James III. King or Pretender. One is supported by a majority of the powerful men in the country. One is not. Not the divine right of kings, Bab, but the divine right of power.
Slane, who’d been watching from the window in Wharton’s house, walked outside once Barbara had gone. Wharton was slumped in his chair, hands under his chin, frowning at the green reeds in the river. Swans were among them, the swans of the river, which belonged to the King of England.
“What did she say?”
“She wanted to know about the invasion. She won’t betray you, Slane. I know her.”
“She said she’d told Walpole.”
“If she had, she would have told me, first thing. Trust me in this. She didn’t even mention you. She’s protecting you for some reason.”
“How can you be so certain what she will and won’t do?”
“Barbara is one of the only people in this world whom I trust. Where do you go?”
“Off to follow your trustworthy friend. I have no desire to end my days in a dungeon in the Tower of London.”
She wasn’t far. She was at the river, stepping into a boat in which three other people sat. Slane recognized the dark-haired woman at once as the woman in the church. Was she a friend? wondered Slane. Or perhaps a servant? Yes, she must be Barbara’s maidservant. That was why he felt he knew her. He’d likely seen her with Barbara in Italy. The two men in the boat he didn’t know, but they were laughing and talking with Barbara as if they knew her quite well. One of them had a crippled arm. There were various boxes and baskets in the boat with them.
What are they doing? thought Slane, walking closer as the men rowed the boat out into the river. They were heading to the opposite shore, where the crumbling archway of an old riverside palace defined the village of Richmond. Slane watched as the boat was landed, as the men helped Barbara step ashore without wetting her gown’s hem. She looked wonderful, with some kind of topknot of feathers in her hair, and beads braided into it. Pieces of softened doeskin, each decorated with hundreds of beads, were sewn to her gown in harlequin’s patches. She wore a waistcoat that was nothing but layer after layer of intricate beading, with a tail of white feathers cascading down its back. And her maidservant had a single feather in her hair.
New World finery, thought Slane, used well. The men were gathering up some of the baskets. Slane watched as Barbara beckoned a boy, gave him a coin, and the boy stepped into the boat with the remainder of the boxes. The four walked toward the crumbling archway.
She goes to Richmond House, thought Slane, to call on the Prince and Princess.
SLANE WAS correct. Barbara did know the two men with her well. They were Caesar White and Francis Montrose, and they had been servants in her husband’s household when she’d married him. They’d seen her grown from girl to wife in a space of months.
As she walked with them down the long avenue that led to Richmond House, she thought, Does my father’s ghost ever walk along this avenue, searching for old friends and allegiances? Richmond House had belonged to the Duke of Ormonde. They’re gone, Father, scattered to the four winds. New conquerors, Father.
Standing under one of the trees that bordered the avenue, Tommy Carlyle saw Barbara before she saw him. He stepped in front of her, huge in his shoes with their high red heels, blocking the way.
“You have abandoned Virginia. How delicious. What a shaking you sh
all give our weary little court today, afraid of invasion, yet bored at the time it begins to take Jacobites to make good their invasion threats. ‘There is an invasion,’ I shall tell them. ‘An invasion of one, come to ravish us all with her beauty.’ My dear, you are a dream come true. We’re dreary, Barbara, dreary and frightened and bored, and here you are, landing like an omen in our midst. What do you portend, divine one?”
Barbara looked up at him, meeting his eyes directly. “I received your letter and the broadsheet.”
“Send these minions on their way,” he said, waving his hand disdainfully at Caesar and Thérèse and Montrose. “I make myself your humble servant from this moment forth. Command, and I obey.”
“I’ll keep my servants, thank you, but join us, Tommy, for we must talk. Take me to see Their Highnesses, first.”
“I know precisely where everyone is. I make it my duty to know. The Prince is fishing. It is the first time he has allowed himself the pleasure since the invasion was found out. He was ready to lead a regiment, himself, and now chafes at how long it takes Ormonde to make an appearance. Let us surprise him.”
The Prince, in a satin coat and embroidered waistcoat, stood among the reeds, shallow water to his knees, soldiers upon the bank to guard him. Seated in a French chair some distance away was a woman dressed in a satin gown: his mistress, Mrs. Howard.
An attendant, seeing Barbara and Carlyle and the others, splashed out to the Prince, in the midst of casting his line. Impatiently, he turned to look, and the expression upon his face as he recognized Barbara would once have upset her. He threw down his pole, stamped out of the water.
“His eyes bulge more than usual, at the sight of you,” said Carlyle. “Who was it among our small court who named him Frog?”
It had been Barbara.
“Ah, trouble to the east of us. Mrs. Howard has seen you. She’s no longer sitting placidly in her chair. She is standing up and the expression upon her face is worth the price of a ruby necklace. Here he is…. Your Highness, I found this vision of loveliness wandering in your avenue and brought her at once to greet you.”