Now Face to Face

by Karleen Koen

  She left the bedchamber to roam in and out of rooms on the lower floors; everything about her—the dark Jacobean paneling, the ancient chests and cupboards, the creaking steps and floorboards—was familiar and welcoming, a comfort to her, a touchstone of her girlhood. In the attic rooms she touched the things that had belonged to her brothers and sisters, held a doll a moment to her breast. Never would she have believed that out of them all, only she would survive.

  In Annie’s straightforward, neat chamber, she noticed the corner of a book peeping out from under a pillow. At once a spark of old mischief was in her to see what Annie hid. The intrigues of Tamworth, precious beyond words.

  “‘The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders,’” she read. Interesting. She put the book in the pocket of her undergown. She would change and walk to chapel. Later, in the quiet of the evening, she would give her gifts and begin to tell her grandmother of Virginia.

  In the woods, Harry ran ahead of her, roaming but always circling back to keep her in view. In the stream that ran through her grandmother’s woods stood the new servant someone had spoken of. Bathsheba. She was silent, Cook said. Perryman called her a Gypsy and sniffed dismissively: Annie’s whim. Standing bare-legged in the water, her skirt pulled up and bundled into the band at her waist, the woman gathered something, pulling green bunches of it and tossing them near the stout basket that must contain her babe. An idiot, said Cook. Pitiful, said Perryman.

  “What do you gather?” called Barbara as her dog ran forward and barked. “I am Lady Devane, come to see my grandmother.”

  The woman did not answer, in fact stood more still than Barbara would have believed a being could stand, her hands filled with mint and water flags, with their purple banner of a flower. But her eyes went to the babe, a pale green flicking, as Barbara bent down to the basket and pulled back the ragged linen with which the child was covered. He lay there smiling. Sweet little idiot, thought Barbara, precious child of God.

  “Your child has eyes the color of the mint you gather. He’s beautiful. I leave you to your harvest.”

  Bathsheba tucked the linen carefully around her child, put the mint and water flags into the basket with the child, and hoisted it up.

  “Voice be the same,” she said to the child, “but the heart be different.”

  INSIDE THE chapel, dust motes leaped and danced in the afternoon sun. Barbara walked to the marble bust of Roger and stood a long moment, her hand against the cold cheek of the face.

  She went to the bronze plates that commemorated her uncles, her brothers and sisters, touching the plaques tenderly, remembering them all; though she was surrounded by the dead, though their coffins were in the large vault under her feet, she felt no fear. There was nothing frightful here, only people she had loved. The dead are not dead, sang the slaves, they are in the tree that rustles, in the wood that groans, in the water that sleeps. The dead are not dead. Good words, thought Barbara. A tablet for Hyacinthe must be added.

  Duncannon came into her mind, and Rochester. Yes, the Bishop of Rochester had told her, Roger’s death was neatly used. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. No, thought Barbara, it is mine, too. The book chose that moment to fall from her pocket. She picked it up, went to a bench, and began to read absently pulling at a curl. “‘The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine….’”

  Outside, the sun moved farther west. Trees threw longer, slanted shadows upon the stones and table tombs of the churchyard, some of which were so old that the marks, made to last forever, had weathered to nothing. Somewhere a bell sounded, as sheep came to the stream to drink. Blue dragonflies darted above bluer forget-me-nots. In the cornfields, the scarlet pimpernel, called poor man’s weatherglass or shepherd’s clock, closed its deep-dyed petals; that was a sign of rain. Stillness settled and became profound as afternoon at Tamworth moved to long summer twilight and Barbara sat reading in Tamworth’s chapel, at peace, at home.

  She looked up from the book. It was near dark now; she’d read longer than she’d meant to. Noticing the basalt vases lacked flowers and thinking to pick some before it was too dark to see, she walked out of the chapel, and there, on the steps before her, were water flags, dozens of them in purple and green glory, inside a pail of water. She’d not heard the Gypsy’s step, and neither had her dog.

  At the house, there was a carriage in the drive. Who’s here? thought Barbara. She meant to walk to Ladybeth to visit Sir John and his wife, ask after Jane, but if her grandmother had visitors, there would not be time. She looked up. A full moon tonight. She would walk over to Ladybeth in its light, later.

  She met Annie halfway up the stairs.

  “Prepare yourself,” said Annie.

  “Who’s here?”

  “Everyone. The Duke, his Duchess, Lord Russel, Lady Russel, the baby, Lady Saylor. Come to see you.”

  “Tony? Tony’s here? And Mary and the baby? Where?”

  “They’re in the library. Where are you going? Aren’t you even going to change your gown?”

  But Barbara was running back down the stairs. Rushing into the library—it was filled, as Annie had warned, with people—she saw that Perryman was just beginning to light candles, struggling with the breeze wafting in through the opened doors. There was Tony. She called his name, ran to him, and hugged him fiercely enough to make him stagger.

  “A husband, are you? You look no different.” She pinched his cheek hard, before going from one to another, almost dancing in her joy.

  “You are Harriet,” she said to a dark-eyed young woman. “I remember you from court. I am so glad you are part of the family.” She leaned forward and kissed Harriet’s cheek. “You’ve married the best one of us.”

  There was Mary, the baby in her arms. Barbara kissed her cousin, held out her arms for the baby.

  “He is beautiful, Mary, quite, quite beautiful! I congratulate you. Hello, nephew,” she crooned to the baby. “You have your Uncle Tony’s eyes.”

  Charles walked up to her. “They’re my eyes.”

  Barbara nodded gravely to Charles, then saw her aunt and went forward and kissed her. Abigail was as stiff as if she had swallowed a fireplace poker. Her mostly uncovered bosom was heaving, always a sign of emotion. Barbara wanted to laugh. She hates me still, she thought. Nothing changes and everything does. How delightful.

  It’s summer at Tamworth, with Grandfather’s roses in full bloom, scenting the air. I can smell them this moment. My dear Tony is here with his new wife, and I’m holding Tamworth’s first baby in many a year. Mother watches everything with sardonic violet-blue eyes. I had not noticed her limp, her cane. What has happened?

  And there is Grandmama, in her favorite chair, queen of us all, unhappy with this unexpected visit, see how her hands clench and unclench the lion’s-head top of her cane, how she looks from one to another, assessing. She is willing us all to behave, to have no untoward emotions. Awful family, dreadful family, dear family, passions and needs in us intertwining and falling over one another, how glad I am to be among you all once again. Which of you will help me take Robin?

  THEY’D EATEN a late supper served in the library, picking apart the roasted chicken and fish with their fingers, exclaiming over steaming pear tarts dusted with sugar and fresh mint. They’d talked of the invasion, of the gossip swirling around the Bishop of Rochester. Barbara had talked about Virginia and held the baby until he began to cry and Mary told a servant to take the child to his wet nurse to be fed.

  Now, at last, dark had fallen on the house, the terrace, the lawn, the woods. It was late. Mary was gone to see about the baby. Diana and the Duchess, Tony and Harriet played cards while moths fluttered in at the candles. Charles sat apart from them, watching the terrace through the opened doors. The moon spilled ivory light onto it, and Barbara leaned her elbows on the stone balustrade in that moonlight.

  Because she was not there, they talked of her, describing to Diana and the
Duchess the sight of her upon the barge with the King and his mistress and his granddaughters, the gossip about her gifts to the royal family, her interviews with them.

  “The Prince is still caught, if he’s the catch you want for Barbara,” Charles said to Diana, and Harriet pulled up her nose as if in disgust.

  “I don’t care to see Barbara as mistress to the Prince,” said Tony.

  “Everyone is talking of her, are they?” Diana was blooming. It was as if she had never been ill.

  “It is said she will have a place at court, like that.” Charles snapped his fingers. “In spite of the Princess’s dislike. She isn’t happy that Barbara is back, is she, Harriet? Go on, you’re among family, tell us the truth. Tell us what the Princess says.”

  Harriet blushed, looked down at her cards.

  “Jealous, is she?” said Diana. “Well she should be.”

  Charles stood, walked out to the terrace.

  Watching him, Abigail changed color, and Diana said, “I doubt there will be a seduction on the terrace before us all. Rest easy, Abigail. She can do far better than Charles.”

  A place at court, thought the Duchess. Yes, it is fitting; it is, in fact, perfect. It will help to resolve the debt. It could be a form of protection. Barbara has the stamina, the guile, now, for court. She could always lie to me without blinking an eye. A position would give her the beginning she needs to become all that she may, again. I would not have to fret so. And, of course, she could help the family.

  Across the table, Harriet rolled her eyes at Tony, but he was gazing out toward the terrace.

  “I hate you,” Abigail said to Diana. “I always have, and I always will.”

  Diana laughed, a sound like a hundred small silver bells. “I wondered when you’d break down and say it.”

  Abigail was enraged. “She is like you.”

  Diana tilted her head. “I’m gratified. Thank you.”

  “Enough,” said the Duchess. “If you two must quarrel, go and do it in another chamber before you disgrace us before Harriet.”

  “Disgrace? Your daughter is the disgrace, and your granddaughter! Let it all tumble about our ears. I don’t care!”

  For a moment, the only sound was the hissing of Abigail’s skirts, expressing her anger, as she left the library.

  “Your play,” Diana said to Harriet, who looked startled, then quickly laid down a card.

  “Wherever is your mind?” purred Diana, picking up the card and taking it as her own.

  ON THE terrace, Barbara observed the play of moonlight over Charles’s face, over the bones of his cheeks, over his mouth, a mouth she had kissed more than once in passion and with more than something of love. All this evening he had been light and taunting to Mary, who became quieter and quieter with each flicking, lightly stinging comment he made. It was clear he was indifferent to her. As he would have been to me if we had married, thought Barbara, or been lovers long enough. He only loves that which he cannot have. I would have had to be unfaithful for him to continue wanting me.

  She could see him in ten years, the smoothness of his even face bloated, the belly even bigger, the eyes red-rimmed and restless as they moved over every woman in every room. He had not even the kindness to hide his contempt for his wife; he displayed little if any interest in his son.

  “You’re getting fat, Charles. I noticed it at once. There in your stomach. Too much wine and too many late nights.”

  “I thought of you often,” he said, in his old beguiling way, except that it did not beguile. “Had you a lover in Virginia?”

  “Dozens.”

  “You said tonight you’d seen the Bishop of Rochester. I want to warn you away from him, Barbara.”

  “He was an old friend to Roger.”

  “It’s not safe—”

  “Safe? One does not fret about safety in seeing a friend.”

  “In times like these, wise men do.”

  “Will Robin put me upon a list for visiting the Bishop of Rochester? I really don’t care, Charles.”

  “How like you. You’re as heedless as ever. You’ve been gone for a year. You have no idea how dangerous these times are. There is evidence of an attempt to invade. This is not some child’s game. There will be no mercy for those who are found out to be traitors. I try to warn you, Barbara, out of concern. And out of old memories between us.”

  “My memory of you in Virginia was of something larger. You’ve grown smaller in my absence, Charles.”

  IN THE library, Tony put down his cards, stood abruptly, and walked outside to the terrace.

  Glancing at Harriet, who stared very hard at her cards, the Duchess suddenly sagged. “I’m tired.” Her voice was trembling, and at once Tim was bending down to pick her up.

  Diana swept up the cards, shuffled them, dealt them out.

  “Just you and I, Your Grace,” she said to Harriet.

  Harriet stood. “No, just you.”

  Outside Tony said, “Do I interrupt?”

  “Yes,” said Charles.

  “No,” said Barbara.

  Charles bowed stiffly and walked back into the library, where only Diana was now. She motioned toward an empty chair. “We must talk, you and I.”

  TONY STRUGGLED for what he wished to say. He felt as if he had taken no wedding vows, such was the rampage in his heart at this moment. He felt capable of anything. But in that was feeling for Harriet.

  “I never kissed you in passion,” he heard himself saying. It wasn’t what he meant to say, at all.

  IN THE library, Charles stood, as if he’d been touched with a heated iron, and looked down at Diana, a muscle in his cheek working. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Believe me.”

  “How do I know it is mine?”

  There was silence.

  Charles tried to recover. “There is nothing I can do, Diana. It was part of the chance we took. You knew that.”

  “You could offer support; or, if not that, regard. Or perhaps, at the least, condolences—”

  “I interrupt.” Harriet stood in the doorway. “I was looking for Tony.”

  “He is where he was when you left, on the terrace enjoying his visit with his cousin. Charles and I quarrel,” Diana spoke lazily, easily, flicking at imagined dust upon her gown, her violet-blue glance whipping in and about Harriet. “Come in here and make Charles behave. He is quite cruel to me.”

  “Cruelty seems to be Charles’s forte, at least with women,” said Harriet. Breathlessly, as if she were walking before tigers, she walked across the library to the opened doors.

  “Shall I close these?” she asked.

  “No,” said Diana. “We won’t quarrel anymore.”

  Harriet took a deep breath. “Good.”

  Diana smiled, a brilliant glittering smile that matched the light in her eyes.

  “What a worthy Duchess of Tamworth you make. You know, for a time, I so hoped my Barbara would be duchess. Tony was wild for her, wasn’t he, Charles? Everyone knew it. But he made the wiser choice, didn’t he? Head over heart.”

  On the terrace, Harriet saw that Barbara and Tony were talking seriously to each other, Tony’s head bowed gravely in a way he had. Moonlight played with shadow and expression.

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, thought Harriet, striding toward them. The heels on her shoes made defiant clicking sounds on the terrace stones. Barbara and Tony turned their heads toward her. Tony’s expression was strained, Barbara’s fierce.

  “Tony and I were just talking of the wedding. I wish that I might have been there. I’ve brought you a wedding gift from Virginia, but I wish I might have seen you married. I’m going to walk on the lawn for a while. Tony says he is too tired. Will you walk with me, Harriet?”

  “Yes.”

  Tony watched his wife and Barbara make their way down the grassy steps, arm in arm. She had told him Walpole betrayed her. She wanted his help in somehow avenging that. Walpole had done what he could, Tony argued. The trouble was the circumstances, not Walp
ole. Tony felt as if nothing made sense, as if all were out of balance. The emotion in him was so strong. I ache inside, he thought. For what? For them both. I wish I could have them both.

  “Temptation.”

  Tony turned. Charles had come out to the terrace again and stood beside Tony, watching the two women walk down the steps.

  “Temptation separates the saints from the sinners, Tony. We are all of us saints until tempted. Then—well, then is another story. It was easier when she was in Virginia, wasn’t it? Duty, I mean; honor; the keeping of vows. Welcome to the world, pilgrim.”

  I would like to strike him, thought Tony, there above the nose, not once, but twice. Blood would gush out everywhere. I would like that. But he said, in even tones, “Good night, Charles.”

  Inside the library, Tony saw that Diana was alone. There was a forlorn expression on her face. “Play me a hand of cards,” she said to him; then, very quietly, “Please.”

  Not knowing why, he sat down.

  “I ADORE this place,” Barbara said to Harriet. She stopped every so often to take in a deep breath, as if she must breathe Tamworth, its moonlight, to her soul. “It is as if my heart resides here. Listen to me: My mother wanted me to marry Tony, wanted me to be duchess. She will do and say anything to hurt you because of that. You have three choices with her: Play her game—and I warn you, she is ruthless; hide when you see her; or ignore her. Jealousy is an awful thing, isn’t it? I know. I was so jealous of Roger and his lover I thought I would die from it. I did a hundred things to make him love me, and now I don’t know if you can make someone love. They do, or they don’t. Marriage seems to agree with Tony. I like what I saw tonight.”