Now Face to Face

by Karleen Koen

  “I must change my gown. My servant is coming here to help me change, turnkey. Let me know when she arrives, please. I can’t go to the King in this gown.”

  Jane dropped a coin into the turnkey’s hand; she and the woman went inside, and Jane continued to talk, to Gussy now, chattering on as the woman took off the hooded cloak she wore, took off the second cloak under that, and then began to take off her gown. Under it was another gown.

  Jane picked up her skirts, and fetching out of a pocket in her undergown the wig and little bag of rouge and powder she had brought, she dropped these on the bed. As Gussy began to pull the gown over his head, Jane walked through his opened cell door and down the twisting stairs with the woman, saying to her as they crossed the wardroom, “My servant should be in the chamber below. Send her to me, or I will be late to see the King. Hurry. It will be dark soon.”

  She walked the woman out the door, walked halfway down the stairs to meet Annie.

  “Thank you, God bless you,” she whispered to the woman. “Be gone from London now.” The woman nodded her head.

  Annie had the hood of her cloak up over her head and a handkerchief to her face. She was weeping loudly.

  “Never mind crying, my dear friend.” Jane patted Annie’s arm. “I am to give the King my petition tonight, and I know all will be well.”

  Annie climbed up the short, twisting stairs to the cell with Jane, Jane talking all the while, Annie crying behind the handkerchief as if her heart would break. Gussy had on the gown and wig.

  Quickly, Annie pulled off her cloak, stepped out of the tall heeled shoes she had worn. Jane was still talking of this and that, whatever she could think of—one did not know if a guard or the turnkey might come up the stairs a step or two to listen.

  The door must be kept open, for once closed it could be opened again only with a key. She brushed powder on Gussy’s face, while Annie rouged him. Jane found she had to stand quite still for a moment. She saw Annie look sharply at the expression on her face.

  Annie took hold of her arm, but Jane shook her off. “I am well. Put on the other cloak. Let us go now, before I lose my courage. Keep the hood of it down. If they don’t notice you, Annie, we may have done it.”

  As Jane’s foot touched the bottom stair, she moved quickly across the chamber yet again, saying to Annie, “My dear friend, go and see if my servant is below. She can’t know how late it is. Has she forgotten I’m to give the King the petition? If I don’t present it tonight, he will not receive it at all! Tell her to hurry. I shall be on pins and needles until she arrives. This is dreadful, that she should be so late.”

  A guard opened the door, and Jane walked to the top of the stairs with Annie, watched as Annie moved down the stairs. She put her hand to her back, the pain there deep, the cramp in her abdomen growing.

  I must hurry, she thought. Half running across the wardroom, she went back up the stairs. Gussy wore the hood that Annie had pulled up over his head. In his hand was the handkerchief Annie had held to her face as she pretended to weep. If no one looked too closely, if they were all half blind, he just might be the weeping woman Annie had played.

  Gussy and Jane held hands a moment.

  “God fare you well,” Jane whispered.

  The moment of truth has arrived, she was thinking. Silly plan, foolish plan, now they catch us.

  She took his hand, started down the stairs, chattering wildly, as it seemed she’d been doing for hours. “Well, there is just nothing for it! Come along! Come along! I cannot believe this has happened this night of all nights. Hurry, my dear, hurry!”

  Behind her, Gussy had raised the handkerchief to his face, was making weeping sounds, false to Jane’s ears; surely they were as false to the guards’. Jane put her arm through his as they crossed the wardroom, an eternal crossing, it seemed, but here they were at the door, and no one was stopping them.

  “For the love of God, run quickly to my lodgings,” she said. “You know where they are. Bring my maid to me. At once.”

  She walked with Gussy to the stairs, walked down with him. There was Annie in the downstairs chamber. Jane pushed Gussy toward Annie.

  “Don’t look back,” she whispered.

  She turned and walked back up, stopping once at the pain, which was bad now. Inside the wardroom, she brushed at tears. She couldn’t help herself.

  “The maid will come, Mrs. Cromwell,” said one of the guards.

  She stopped where she was, put her hands to her face.

  “Don’t weep, Mrs. Cromwell,” said another.

  “I’m just going up to say good-bye to my husband; then I must go. I have to give the King the petition.”

  She wiped at the tears running down her face, as they all watched. This cannot be happening, thought Jane. They believe me. Any moment one of them is going to say, You’re caught, Mrs. Cromwell. Two women went up to your husband’s cell, and three came down.

  Expecting this, her whole body tensed for the words, she walked up the short flight of twisting steps into the cell, talking to Gussy as if he were still there. “There is nothing I can do but leave this moment. Give me a kiss, my darling. If the Tower is still open when I have finished with the King, I will return tonight. If not, I will see you in the morning.”

  A long cramp took hold of her and made her gasp. When it was passed, when she thought she could walk, she went to the stairs—everything felt strange now, she felt as if she were moving through water—and shut the door of Gussy’s cell. Now, only the turnkey could unlock it again. She walked down the stairs.

  In the wardroom, she said to the turnkey, “I must go. If I finish in time, I’ll return. My husband desires to pray awhile.”

  She put another coin in the turnkey’s hand.

  “I beg you, allow him quiet this evening. Never mind bringing up candles later. I’ve shut the door. You can go and see, but I beg you, don’t disturb him. I need his prayers this night.”

  “God bless you, Mrs. Cromwell, I hope all goes well for you this evening. You’ve my prayers, too.”

  The turnkey walked her to the door and opened it himself. Jane walked out to the stairs. Her head was dizzy. Had this happened? Did they sense nothing? Had she taken Gussy from the Tower? Was it this easy?

  Three brown cloaks, a woman’s gown and wig, was that all it took?

  She waited a moment for a guard to open the door behind her and bellow out her name. It was a silly plan. What on earth had made her think it would succeed? The pain was bad.

  Can I walk down these stairs? she thought after a time, when the door behind her remained closed. She did it, walking outside, into growing twilight, walking onto the grounds, as guards moved about lighting candles in the hanging lanterns. She walked through the entrance gate, nodding to the guard there, as always she did. How far away the bridge across the moat seemed; she leaned against the wall, considering it, but there was Annie, hurrying toward her, dear Annie, strong Annie, stern Annie, the Annie of her girlhood and Barbara’s, glorious girlhood, apple blossoms and country charms, fairy cups on the hillock….

  “Is he—”

  “Safe with your father. Already on his way to Gravesend.”

  “Annie—” The word was a sob, for the pain, for the cramp.

  “I know,” said Annie, holding her arm, catching her own through it. “Walk with me down this walk, through that arch, yes, keep going, then we will walk through the yard, and then Tim will be waiting for us. We have a carriage for you, my Jane, so that you may rest. Just a few steps. Think of your husband and children waiting, waiting for you in Gravesend, think of your triumph. You’ve snatched him away, yes, you have. Lean on me, and I will see to you, that I promise. Annie is here, Jane. We’ll keep that baby if we can. And if not…well, there will be another one.”

  Yes, thought Jane. Annie is here.

  IN DEVANE Square, dusk had come. Barbara walked away from the garden. Philippe, she thought, shall I set you and Andreas against each other for the honor of building on Roger’s
square? Smiling at the idea, she walked up the stairs to the first townhouse, unlocked the door, walked up more stairs to the parlor with its windows along three sides. She would be in by Christmas Day. Some furniture was already here in the parlor, covered in cloth. There was a portrait leaning against a wall. She moved the cloth from it. Roger.

  I thought I would not get over you, and now I have, she thought. Someone else has my heart, but you’re in there, also. Nothing changes and everything does. It is nearly the New Year. Shall I give you a final gift, Roger, before we part forever?

  “Tell us, thou clear and heavenly tongue, where is the Babe that lately sprung? Lies he the lily-banks among….”

  Her lovely contralto echoed in the chamber as she sang one of the beautiful carols of the season.

  “Bravo.”

  It was Colonel Perry standing framed by the doorway. How long had he been there? In one hand was a bottle, in the other two goblets and winter violets from Saylor House’s hothouse.

  “Peach brandy,” he said. “I waited at your mother’s, but Bathsheba whispered she had a feeling you’d come here. These were sent you just before I left. Well?”

  From Annie, violets for Tamworth’s wood violet. Gussy was rescued. They were on their way to Virginia. Was it possible? Had the great and powerful Walpole been bested by a woman, a meek and quiet woman? Oh, it was too wonderful for words. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to weep.

  “It’s done. The fine is relented.”

  He poured brandy into the goblets and handed one to Barbara, seeing, as he did so, the uncovered portrait.

  “Is that Lord Devane?”

  “Yes.”

  “A handsome man.” He lifted his goblet. “To triumph over adversity, to courage in the face of fear. The courageous person is not the one who does not feel fear. The courageous feels fear and proceeds in the direction of dreams anyway. To you.” He drank the brandy.

  She could feel them, the tears. If I begin weeping, she thought, I won’t stop, but they were seeping out, running down her cheeks, betraying her.

  “Tell me.”

  Gentle man. Dear friend. Angel. The words stuck in her throat. “Roger, my brother, my marriage, Hyacinthe, the dream, the dream I had.”

  Jane. Jane has triumphed. She has her husband and her children. Grandmama. Now you can’t die, for Gussy isn’t going to die.

  “Yes. You’ve lost much. Let us drink to that before we leave. It is cold here, and we must go. You must rest from your labors, Barbara; rest is welcome and necessary. Come. Lift your glass, let us drink to all that is gone, all that you’ve lost.”

  It seemed to her she drank in more than sweet brandy. Her heart hurt. Life is never finished, said her grandmother, never. That is its terror and its beauty.

  “Now,” Colonel Perry said, “let us drink to all that is to come. So much, my dear, so very much.”

  ANNIE LEFT Tim at the back garden gate of Saylor House, moved quickly down gravel paths, the hood of her cloak over her head so that no one should know her, past the stable, through a side door and up the back stairs to her chamber.

  It was done. The last she’d seen of Ashfords and Cromwells, they were awaiting word from the captain to board ship. She boiled water, steeped tea leaves, strained a portion of them out, drank her tea. That done, she looked down at the tea leaves left.

  They’d make it safely to Virginia. Mistress Barbara and the Duchess would survive the disgrace. Annie and Barbara were agreed; they’d tell the Duchess of their parts in the escape later, when some of the first noise about it died down. Mistress Barbara. Her life was a wonder. There’d be disgrace over this, but also triumph.

  The tea leaves. Sometimes they told too much. A death had been in them just now. Whose? Annie’s mind went moving over all those she’d seen go from this life, the Duchess’s two sons from smallpox, Diana’s children, too. Harry from suicide, the Duke, Richard, from his mind. What was it she remembered from one of the Duchess’s letters, that Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said there was a cure for smallpox, a putting of the pox on a small, opened place on the skin. Then fever, a few spots, but nothing more, nothing of the horror and rotting flesh and almost certain death that was smallpox.

  Had the cure always existed? Were there other cures existing, out there? Would there be a day when women did not die in childbed and men’s minds did not make them break inside like dried-out twigs? Annie touched her face. Tears for Jane, there.

  Mistress Barbara had told them the stories of the fierce Indians of that world across the sea, Indians who sang songs to proclaim their deeds, warriors’ songs, Mistress Barbara had said, rising to the skies like hawks. Did Jane sing now, on the ship, sailing away from here? Sing loudly, thought Annie, proclaim yourself. What is my song? she thought. What is anybody’s? There has to be a song, for us all. It was a round of years, wasn’t it, an up and down, a lesson to be learned, then learned again, until we were spun pure as gold and like the angels themselves.

  She touched her face, brushed away the tears, for Jane and Barbara, for two girls who had played at tea under Tamworth’s oaks, girls using acorn tops for cups. Fairy cups, they said. Warriors, now, the both of them.

  Spring

  …but the greatest of these is charity.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  BARBARA SAT IN ALEXANDER POPE’S GROTTO. I AM MAD TO DO this, she thought.

  Walpole hanged poor Christopher Layer next month, May. The pitiful man sat in his cell with chains around his ankles. They said he howled like a wild dog in his cell, howling that he had been betrayed, that Walpole had promised life for testimony. But since Gussy’s escape, Walpole had been like a demon. If he could have proved anything against Barbara, he would have. As it was, she knew she lived on borrowed time; somehow he was going to see her disgraced, removed from her office.

  The truth was, she was ready to leave all the scheming and machination, except that she had a new love, tiny, only a month old. Her brother. Someone was waiting for her in France: one Lucius, Viscount Duncannon, who asked her to come and visit his mother.

  The trial against Rochester was going on; it was all people talked of, as Rochester refuted each and every charge against himself. He’d be banished, however, that was certain.

  No word yet from Jane. Lord Bolingbroke, the great traitor, had been pardoned. Ten thousand pounds made him traitor no more.

  She sat in this amazing cave Pope had built in his garden along the Thames, pieces of shell and stone glittering into the twilight this grotto made, waiting to meet the one who was the new head of the Jacobites. Life unfurled like a many-petaled flower. Which path did she take?

  You have to do nothing but listen, Philippe had said. He was her ally now, because of Walpole. He schemed and planned for her as if she were his daughter. Don’t leave the King’s household, he said. We need you there. Barbara tossed her head. If you go, said Philippe, I will see you made lady-in-waiting to the new Queen of France. That will serve my purpose just as well.

  The new leader of the Jacobites, Philippe said, was Rochester’s chief adviser in all this, one of the original planners of the plot, a longtime ally whom King James could not do without.

  She heard footsteps, bit her lip.

  Her grandmother’s last words to her before leaving for Tamworth had been to keep her heart. There was a rustle of skirts, the sound of bracelets jangling, ten bracelets if there was one. Startled, Barbara looked over to Philippe.

  “Never mind looking like that, Bab,” said Aunt Shrew. “You and I have talking to do. Go away now, Prince, and leave us be.”

  QUIET, WAITING, Blackstone squatted, listening, the way the slaves had taught him. Even so, Kano heard before he did, and touched his arm with a finger. Blackstone stood and watched the man stepping out into the clearing. He was older, heavy, his face tired, haggard; there was quite a party of people with him, back in the trees: a woman his age, a younger woman great with child, a tall, stooped man, and at least four children, all of them travel worn, with tha
t look that came from crossing over in a ship, landing in a strange land, a fierce and forested land.

  “Jacobite,” the letter this older man had brought to him yesterday said. Blackstone knew the writing at once. It was the same writing that had made him a freed man. “I send you my dearest friends…trial…escape…secrecy and care…settle them beyond the Huguenots.”

  I am Sir John Ashford, the man said, and my telling you that puts my life in your hands, or it will when ships with the news of the London Jacobite trials arrive, but Lady Devane told me I could trust you. We’ve been hiding since we arrived. It has taken us days to make our way to you. My daughter is near her childbirth. We are so tired. Can you help us?

  “Help them,” Lady Devane wrote.

  Well, of course. That was what friends were for.

  Blackstone stepped out from his hiding place, smiling, teeth bold in his wild beard.

  “Well, now, Mr. John Ashford, just what is it I can do for you?”

  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.

  Epilogue

  TWO YEARS LATER: 1725

  THE LINES FROM THE SLAVE SONG FLEW IN AND OUT OF THÉRÈSE’S head, with the same quickness, the same darting motion of the purple thread she drew in and through the fold of material in her hand. She was embroidering flowers, violets, dozens of them, all along a sleeve. I want violets, Thérèse, Madame had written, all along the hem and sleeve. She desired violets. She would have them. It was her wedding gown Thérèse made, with all the joy and skill her hands and mind could command.

  The dead are not dead, went the slave song in her mind.

  “Someone to see you.” A fellow servant stood at the door.