“Small?!” Edwin said incredulously. “It looks huge to me!”
“That’s because you’re not used to it. Look at Harriet’s place, for example. I think she told me it’s a four mile ride around the perimeter, and that’s just the garden. She owns half the county. Ours is very small by comparison to that, about one and a half miles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t impress. Everything just needs to be to scale, that’s all. Anyway, Cobham’s boat would be too big for Percy to row. But I want something ornate that’ll carry half a dozen people or so. Of course we need to finish the lake first. We can think about the boat later.”
Having reached Freddie the fond parents, as one, knelt down next to him to see what had captured his interest.
“What’s he called?” the little boy asked. Clearly somewhat apprehensive of the large pincer-like appendages on one of the two black beetles he was observing, Freddie was sensibly making use of a stick to stop them running away, blocking their path with it every time they moved a few inches away and forcing them to turn in another direction.
“They’re stag beetles,” Caroline said. “See, the big one looks as though he’s got antlers, like a stag deer.”
“Is he hurting the little one?” Freddie asked.
“Er, no,” Edwin said, blushing slightly, to Caroline’s amusement. “They’re…um…”
“Making babies,” Caroline finished. Edwin’s face reddened even more.
“Ah,” Freddie said. “Can I keep them? In a box?” He looked up at his father hopefully, knowing him to be the one most likely to give in.
“No,” Edwin said, adding, before his son’s face could crumple, “They belong outside, in the grass. They’d be very sad if you put them in a box. You wouldn’t want them to be sad, would you?”
“No,” Freddie said uncertainly.
“Come on then, let’s leave them to…make babies,” Edwin continued. “I need you to hold my hand.”
“Why?” his son asked, reluctant to leave his new plaything.
“Because I’m tired and I’ve got to walk up that hill, and I need you to help me go up it.”
“You’re a wonderful father,” Caroline said a few minutes later as the family progressed up the slope at the very slow pace of a three-and-a-half-year-old. Edwin smiled.
“That’s another reason I’m sick of politics right now. I don’t see enough of you both.”
“But you’re doing important work,” Caroline said.
“Nothing is as important as what I’m doing right now,” Edwin replied. They arrived at the top of the slope, and he inhaled deeply as he took in the view that was revealed to them.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Caroline said.
It was. A glorious patchwork of fields and woodland was spread out before them, reaching as far as the eye could see, broken only by a small hamlet complete with a church whose spire rose above the cluster of houses, the whole rendered picturesque by distance. It was a quintessential English country vista, and Edwin’s spirits lifted along with the lark that they could hear singing as it rose higher and higher in the warmth of the perfect early summer day.
“I am so lucky,” he said, almost to himself.
“Not at all,” Caroline replied practically. “You’ve worked hard for this.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, still staring at the view. “But that’s not why I’m lucky. If someone had told me that night when I met you at Thomas’s dinner party, that nine years later I’d be standing here in my own enormous garden, married to the most beautiful woman in the world, with a perfect son, looking at a wonderful view, I’d have called him a madman. But here I am.” He turned to look at her and smiled, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. Caroline observed this with alarm.
“Let’s go back,” she said. “You’re very tired.”
“I am,” he agreed, “but I’m also very happy. If it worries you when I tell you I love you, then clearly I need to do it more often.”
“You don’t need to,” she replied. “I know without you telling me.”
“Even so,” he said, returning his attention to the view. Caroline frowned.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Let’s go back,” he said. “What else are you planning?”
Caroline’s frown remained, but she took the hint and the three of them turned for home.
“I thought we could have a kind of terrace on both sides of the building – maybe one that runs all the way round it,” she said, “so that people could have dinner looking at the beautiful view, after which we could have music or some other entertainment, and then they could come to this side of the building and see a firework display. We could set that up on the lawn near the lake, so that the fireworks would be reflected in the water. Yes, that would be very nice. And if anything went wrong with the display there’d be plenty of water on hand to put it out,” she added, with the wisdom acquired from attending a great many aristocratic firework displays in her youth.
“Isn’t this all going to be very expensive?” Edwin asked as they headed back past the lake-to-be.
“Yes,” Caroline said happily, her frown disappearing. “That’s part of the point of it. The more wealthy you are, the more impressed people will be. And the more impressed people are, the more likely they’ll be to listen to you when you present a bill arguing against public executions or the treatment of slaves in the Colonies, or…there is something wrong. What is it?” she asked, noting the look of distress that had passed across his face.
Edwin sighed.
“You know me too well,” he said. “I can’t hide anything from you. But it’ll keep until we get indoors. Let’s enjoy the walk back together first.”
With an enormous effort Caroline refrained from pestering him to reveal whatever it was that was on his mind. If it was the expense involved in this project of hers though, she could alleviate his worries immediately.
“So, as I was saying, when it’s finished and people come to visit, not only will they enjoy themselves, but they will believe you to be rich, and wealth implies power, which can only help you. In the meantime I’m enjoying myself enormously here. And no one need know that Harriet’s paying for it all. She certainly won’t tell anyone.”
“Harriet’s paying for all this?” Edwin asked.
“Yes. Who did you think was paying for it?”
“I thought…your dowry…” When Caroline had married Edwin her father had refused to pay her £3000 dowry, but now, having seen his formerly despised son-in-law knighted by the king, he had changed his mind and had released it to her, Edwin wanting nothing to do with it.
“God, no. This is going to cost around £20,000 by the time it’s finished. Maybe more,” Caroline said. “But that’s nothing for Harriet, as you know. She’s richer than Croesus. She wants me to keep the dowry anyway, ‘in case those bloody Tories get in’, as she put it. She told me it’ll be worth the expense to watch Percy have an apoplexy when he has to row her and Fred across the lake.” She laughed. “She has imposed one condition, though. I have to build a hothouse so she can show me how to grow bananas and lemons.”
She chattered on about greenhouses and shrubs, and the ha-ha that William Kent had planned to put behind the house so that they could observe animals grazing in the distance without having them trespass on the property and cover the lawn with unwanted manure. This continued until they reached the sanctuary of the library, the cosiest room in the house and at present the only one completely finished, and as soon as Freddie had been passed over to his nurse, Caroline pounced.
“What is it? Tell me now, because nothing could be worse than what I’m imagining,” she said.
Edwin sank down into a chair and kicked his shoes off. He looked suddenly utterly exhausted, but as sympathetic as Caroline felt towards him she needed to know the news, whatever it was.
“I’ve finally managed to find out what happened to Beth after she went to denounce Anthony to the Duke of Newcastle,” Edwin said. He had been
trying to find out without arousing too much suspicion for months, but had met with a wall of silence. “That’s one reason why I’m tired. I took Newcastle’s servant Benjamin out last night and got him drunk. Which meant I had to drink too. Not as much as he did, but you know I’m not a great drinker.”
“So you’re crapulent,” Caroline said.
“Not so much now, no, though I was very sick this morning, only managed to get an hour’s sleep and then I rode like the devil all day to get here. I wanted to see you and I was going to tell you straight away. But it was so lovely walking round the gardens listening to you telling me all your plans that I didn’t want to spoil it.”
“Tell me now then,” she said.
“Beth didn’t denounce Anthony,” Edwin replied.
Caroline sank down into a chair opposite her husband.
“Thank God for that,” she said. Edwin cast her an astonished look, which she intercepted. “If Beth had betrayed Anthony, for whatever reason, I don’t think she could have lived with herself. I know you thought she should, but I didn’t and still don’t, for her sake if not his. What did she do, then?”
“She denounced Richard instead. She told Newcastle that Richard knew Anthony was a spy, but accepted the money to buy a commission in the army to keep quiet, and that he warned them when Lord Daniel found out he was a fraud, so they could get away.”
To his further astonishment, Caroline started laughing.
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” she said between giggles. “Perfect! I can’t think of a better revenge. I didn’t think I could love Beth any more than I do already, but this…Richard will have a fit. Does he know?”
Edwin leaned forward, his expression so serious that Caroline stopped laughing abruptly.
“Caro, Beth’s been transported for life to Antigua, in the West Indies, as an indentured servant,” he said.
Caroline sat for a moment frozen, clearly convinced that she’d heard him wrongly.
“No,” she said finally. “No, it’s not possible. She’s a lady! No noblewomen have been transported! And there’s going to be a general pardon soon, you told me so only last week!”
“There is,” Edwin confirmed. “It will be published in the next few days.”
“Well then, she can come back!” Caroline said. “We can pay for her to come back. I can’t believe it. Antigua? Are you sure Benjamin was telling you the truth?”
“Yes, he was. I’m sure of it because this morning he was horrified, said that Newcastle would…er…do something terrible to him if he knew he’d divulged what had happened to her. I promised to keep his confidence, providing he informed me of any more information that came through about her. Which means you mustn’t tell anyone, not even Sarah.”
“You blackmailed him?” Caroline said incredulously. “You?!”
Edwin reddened.
“I care for Beth very much, you know that,” he said. “It was the only thing I could think of to make sure that we find out what happens – assuming he hears anything, of course.”
“He could just tell you that he hasn’t heard anything, whether he does or not,” Caroline pointed out.
“He could. But I don’t think he will. He also told me that he admired her courage and thought the duke was very harsh on her. I promised not to say anything about that too. I do have a reputation for discretion, which helped. He trusts me to keep my word and providing I do, I think he will keep his.”
Caroline sat back in her chair, thinking hard.
“It seems unfair not to tell Sarah,” she said after a minute. “I trust her not to say anything to anyone else.”
“I know you do and you’re probably right, but we can’t take the chance,” Edwin said.
“We have to find out who bought Beth’s indenture and offer them enough money to put her on the next ship back,” she said. “I don’t know how we—”
“We can’t,” Edwin interrupted. “She won’t be included in the pardon. There are a lot of exceptions, including Anthony, all the leaders who escaped to France and anyone who was transported before the Act is published, among others. If she came back she’d be arrested, possibly executed. I thought about it all the way here. There’s nothing we can do for her.”
Caroline covered her face with her hands. A full minute passed in silence.
“I’m so sorry,” Edwin said helplessly after a time. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. But I knew you’d want to know.”
She took her hands away from her face. Tears spilled over her eyelashes and ran down her cheeks unheeded. Edwin moved to kneel by her chair and took her in his arms.
“I can’t believe that vicious bastard would condemn her to a life of slavery, just because she wouldn’t give him what he wanted,” she said fiercely into his shoulder. “Flora MacDonald is being treated like a romantic heroine because she helped Charles escape. Lady Mackintosh raised her whole clan to fight for Charles while her husband was out with Cumberland, but she was only in prison for a few weeks! All Beth did was protect the man she loves, yet she’s shipped off to be a slave! It’s so unfair!”
“It’s not the same thing,” Edwin said. “Flora MacDonald was coerced into helping Charles – she said herself that she would have helped anyone, including Cumberland, had he been in the same position. Anne Mackintosh was released to her husband’s custody because he was loyal to the king. But Anthony was the most dangerous spy we know of. God knows what secrets he passed on to the Pretender and Louis. He made a fool of everyone, even the king. Beth was his willing accomplice; she admitted that freely. She’s as bad as Anthony, in Newcastle’s eyes.”
“No,” Caroline said, taking out her handkerchief and blowing her nose fiercely. “Maybe that’s partly true, but a lot of this is to do with her being a woman and daring to stand up to him. He can’t have her executed because none of the women have been, so he tried to have her starved to death. Now he’s trying to kill her in another way. Didn’t you tell me the death rate of slaves is really high out in the West Indies? Higher than in the American Colonies?”
“Yes, but that’s not just slaves; over half the new settlers die too. It’s one of the reasons why we haven’t succeeded in trying to take the French and Spanish islands. Most of the troops we send out die of swamp fever or bloody flux before they get a chance to fight. But it is worse for the slaves, yes. That’s one of the reasons I’m fighting for better treatment for them. I can’t get anywhere by talking about humanity, so I’ve started looking at economics, to see if it’s cheaper to treat slaves well than to buy new ones when they die.”
“Newcastle’s done this because he wants her dead. This is nothing more than spite on his part. We have to do something.”
“I don’t see that we can,” Edwin said.
“Can we find out where she is exactly, and maybe write to her? At the very least we can let her know that we care for her. And maybe we can pay whoever’s got her to release her and let her go to France, or Rome – somewhere she’ll be safe, if she can’t come home. We could do that!”
Could they? They sat in silence, thinking about it.
“You can’t be implicated in this,” Caroline said after a while. “Nor can I, for that matter. Newcastle would ruin you if we succeed in thwarting him. And Benjamin would suffer too. But if we can find out where she is I think Fred would help again. And it would do his reputation no harm to do so. I want him to know what Newcastle’s done. And then when Fred becomes King, which surely can’t be long in coming, I’m going to help him in whatever way I can to destroy that evil bastard.”
Edwin regarded his wife with a mixture of awe and trepidation.
“Remind me never to make an enemy of you,” he said.
“I haven’t loved many people in my life, you know that,” Caroline replied, “but Beth is one of those people. I will do a lot, almost anything for the people I love. And she’s done nothing to make me stop loving her. As for you, you aren’t capable of doing anything to make me stop loving you.”
&nbs
p; “And Anthony?” Edwin asked softly.
“Yes, I loved him, I’ll admit that,” Caroline replied. “But if he did leave Beth to her fate to save his own skin, and I find out who and where he is, I’ll give him over to the authorities without a moment’s regret. But I don’t believe he would do that. I think Beth was right. I think he’s dead. And so will you be if you don’t get some sleep. You look dreadful. Go to bed. We can think this through later. How long are you staying for?”
“I can stay tomorrow, but then I have to go back to London. I’ll come back when the session ends on the eighteenth. The king intends to dissolve Parliament then.”
“Dissolve it? Why?” Caroline asked.
“Because Fred, as you call him, is causing trouble again. He wants a more active role, and the king refuses to grant him one. So he’s trying to influence the boroughs to get as many of his followers into the Commons at next year’s elections as possible. And his current supporters are trying to form an alliance with the Tories right now. Which is why the king’s dissolving Parliament, to thwart him. And I haven’t told you that, either.”
“Hmm,” Caroline said. “That’s interesting. We’ll have to tread very carefully here, Edwin. You can’t afford to annoy George, but you need to keep Fred on your side too.”
Edwin sighed tiredly.
“Let’s hope that having Great-Uncle Percy row him across our lake will do that, then, because I daren’t express any pro-Leicester House sentiments in Parliament at the moment. The king is not in the best humour about the prince’s actions.”
“Go to bed, Edwin,” Caroline said. “We can talk about that when you come here for the summer. After all, the elections aren’t until next year, and you’ll win the seat anyway with Harriet behind you. I think it’s more urgent that we try to work out how to help Beth, if we can.”
* * *
Martinique, June 1747
Beth was in the middle of breakfast, which she’d elected to eat outside on the porch, the sun having not yet reached its full power, when Raymond appeared to tell her that the master would like to see her in his office once she’d finished eating.
Tides of Fortune (Jacobite Chronicles Book 6) Page 14