A Dangerous Undertaking

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by Mary Nichols

‘Do you think it will work?’ A gleam of something akin to hope lit Roland’s face briefly.

  ‘What else is there?’

  ‘Nothing.’ A separation there would have to be, but, as Margaret had so rightly pointed out, an annulment was out of the question. He could simply set her up in a separate establishment and make generous financial provision for her and her child, as many a man had done before him when faced with the failure of his marriage, but usually the poor wife was ostracised and he did not want that for Margaret. Besides, she was carrying a Pargeter heir. She must go back to Winterford until her child was born. If he left her in sole possession of the Manor and stayed away from Winterford himself, then perhaps the evil lying so heavily on his soul would go away. She might survive, and their child too. But he needed a reason for leaving home which would satisfy Margaret, and any others with a penchant for gossip, and he thought he had it.

  He stood up and left his friend without so much as a goodbye, and went bounding up the stairs to Margaret’s room before his resolve could weaken.

  She was sitting up in bed talking to Kate. For the first time since her accident she had a little colour in her cheeks and her lovely kitten eyes were showing signs of her former vitality. He forced himself to smile at her and strode towards the bed. Kate quietly withdrew, shutting the door softly behind her. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took his wife’s hand. ‘Now that’s more the thing,’ he said, raising the back of her fingers to his lips. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Better, thank you,’ she said, wishing she could forget Susan’s revelations and the clear knowledge that he did not love her after all, had never loved her.

  ‘As soon as you are well enough to travel, I am taking you home to Winterford. You will do better there.’ He did not seem to be the self-assured man she had married, nor was he the worn husband who had sat by her bed for three weeks looking dejected. There was a purpose about him, a new determination.

  ‘I am well enough to go now.’

  ‘Good.’ He paused. ‘I have to go out. We will talk about the arrangements when I return.’

  ‘Very well.’

  There seemed to be little else to say, and he dared not continue sitting on her bed holding her hand lest he weaken. He stood up, looking down at her a moment before murmuring, ‘Forgive me,’ and then left the room, calling to Johnson as he went. Half an hour later, dressed in a buff coat, buckskin breeches and top-boots, he left the house, riding his grey mare.

  He rode to Horse Guards, where he knew he could find his former commander.

  William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, was still only twenty-six years old but he was a veteran soldier and had commanded the English troops at Culloden, when Charles Edward Stuart, pretender to the throne of England, had been so resoundingly beaten and where Roland himself had been wounded. He came forward with hand outstretched as Roland handed over his hat, cane and gloves to a footman. ‘Colonel Pargeter, how go you?’

  ‘Well, Your Grace.’ Roland bowed as he took the proffered hand.

  ‘No ill effects from your wound?’

  ‘None, Your Grace, but an itch…’

  ‘Itch?’

  ‘To exact revenge, Your Grace. I hear the Young Pretender does not know when he is beaten.’

  ‘Ah, you have heard I have need of you.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace. I came to offer my services. Farming becomes wearisome.’ It was far from the truth, but the truth was too complicated to explain. His Grace turned to a servant and ordered wine to be brought, then motioned Roland into the library. ‘Sit down, Colonel.’

  Roland obeyed and the Duke set about explaining what he required from the man who had served him well in more than one theatre of war.

  ‘Not every dog of a rebel was killed at Culloden,’ he said. ‘Some escaped to continue their nefarious plotting. They gather in holes and corners, a few together, spreading their godless sedition, planning to overthrow their lawful king. They must be rounded up, destroyed. His Majesty must be able to sleep easy in his bed an this country of ours is not to be bathed in blood.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’ He paused to take a glass of wine from the tray the servant held out to him. ‘Does anyone know where they are to be found?’

  ‘Not precisely, but I have intelligence that they are making for the east coast, no doubt to take ship and join their infamous master in France. What do they call him, the "king over the water"? Zounds, that is one king who will never sit on an English throne. Find them and earn your sovereign’s gratitude. Be one of them if it aids you.’

  ‘A spy?’ Roland queried, taken aback.

  The Duke smiled, examining the liquid in his glass. ‘If that is the only way.’

  ‘But I am a soldier, Your Grace; I serve King George in uniform, with a sword in my hand and a pistol in my belt, face to face with the enemy. I know nothing of spying.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I am persuaded you are the man we need. You know the region.’

  ‘The east coast, you say?’

  ‘Hull, King’s Lynn, Lowestoft, Yarmouth—my informant could not be more specific.’

  ‘They may not be intending to use a port at all, Your Grace. It is a smugglers’ coast, full of little bays and inlets, and every man a sailor. Who is to tell who is loyal and who is not? It is a small step from smuggling casks to smuggling human cargo.’

  ‘Exactly. That is why I need you. You know the people and their ways. It may be that there are only a handful of dissidents, no great threat, but on the other hand it might be a regular escape route, a network of safe houses and a vessel that can come and go at will.’ He paused, watching Roland over the rim of his glass with keen eyes. ‘Will you do it?’

  Roland bowed. ‘I am at His Majesty’s service.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I should like permission to escort my wife home to Winterford, Your Grace. She had an accident…’

  ‘Yes, I had heard of it. She is recovering?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace, but I am persuaded she will do better at Winterford.’

  ‘Then take her home. It will give you time to make your peace with her. Methinks she will not be pleased to part with you so soon after the nuptials.’

  ‘She will understand.’

  ‘Good. I will send word to tell you where and when to go. Report back to me when the task is done.’

  ‘Very well, Your Grace. I shall await your instructions with some impatience.’ Roland put down his glass, bowed low, picked up his hat and left. The die had been cast; he could not in honour refuse to do as he was asked, but it was very different from what he had intended when he had offered his services. A spy! A creature that neither side respected. A sewer-rat, a worm, an animal of the night, living in holes and corners, creeping up on the enemy from within instead of facing him on a battlefield to fight and die with honour. But perhaps that was all he deserved.

  ‘Oh, Margaret,’ he murmured as he rode back to Pargeter House. ‘You shall have your freedom, even if it costs me mine.’

  It was the beginning of August and a beautiful warm sunny day when they returned to Winterford. The roads were baked hard, jolting them from side to side as the wheels of their travelling-chaise lurched from one rut to the next. Margaret was glad when the last stage was reached and they were within sight of Winterford, not only because of the physical discomfort but because she and Roland had hardly had a word to say to each other the whole way. The closeness they had enjoyed for so brief a span before going to London had gone, and now there was nothing but a distant politeness. It was the same as it had been when he had first married her, before she had cut her hand, before they had made love for the first time. Two accidents with very different consequences. Not that she wanted him to make love to her now, she told herself, not after Susan Chalfont’s revelations which he had not even troubled to deny. Could you hate a man and love him at the same time?

  It was a very different Winterford from the one they had left. The trees were in full leaf, the
pastures were lush, the grazing cattle sleek and well-fed, and the sheep in their summer coats nibbled at the myriad wild flowers, gold, blue, white, that decked the grass on which they fed. On the high ground, the barley she had watched being sown in the spring was being harvested. In each huge field, made up of many strips, bands of men worked their way along the rows with sweeping scythes, and behind them others gathered up the fallen cereal, tied it into bundles and built the stooks. Children ran behind, chasing the birds away and picking up scattered ears of corn and filling bags that hung round their necks. No school for them for several weeks. Already along the new dyke the reeds had begun to grow to protect the banks, softening its straight lines. Yellow and blue irises grew in clumps near the water’s edge. Ducks and geese swam and dived for food, just as if the drain had always been there. Above them, the great arch of the sky was a clear cobalt-blue with hardly a cloud to be seen. In such surroundings, how could she be anything but hopeful?

  But hope was stillborn, she realised, when Roland told her after a silent dinner in which he had seemed to be weighed down by cares he could not share with her, that he intended leaving again.

  She laid down her fork, her appetite gone, her heart beating so hard that she could hardly breathe; so he was going back to Susan, after all. She would not beg him to stay. ‘When?’ she asked, so quietly and calmly that he thought she would be glad to see him go.

  ‘I don’t know. There are arrangements to make. Perhaps not until after the harvest is finished.’ His voice was flat; he could have been talking to his bailiff or one of his labourers.

  Half of her wanted to cry out, to beg him not to go, to tell him she needed him by her side; the other half rejected him as a philanderer, a man who used her too badly to be forgiven for it, so that all she could manage was a stiff, ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Some time. Five or six months. I will make arrangements for you to have sole rights to the income from the estate, to do as you please, just so long as you remain at Winterford.’

  ‘Do as I please!’ she exclaimed. ‘You mean to leave me here alone?’

  ‘You will not be alone. There are servants…’

  ‘It is not the servants I shall need when my time comes. Will you not be back before that?’

  ‘No, it will be impossible.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Like Mistress Chalfont, you are too impatient to wait——’ It was out before she could stop it. She had told herself that she would never mention it, that she might have dreamed the story of the curse in her delirium, but she could not rid her mind of it. It was with her day and night; it coloured everything she said and did. She found herself watching him for signs which might confirm or deny its existence. His earlier silence had seemed grounds for believing it was on his mind too, and now he had announced he was leaving her, and that, as far as she was concerned, was proof enough.

  ‘To wait for what?’ he asked.

  ‘To be free of me.’ In spite of the tight rein she was holding on herself, her voice rose perilously close to hysteria. Her eyes were bright and there was a high spot of colour on each cheek. ‘For me to die.’

  So she believed it too, he decided. In spite of all her protestations that she had no faith in omens and curses, she was afraid. He wanted desperately to take her in his arms and comfort her, to tell her it was all a fabrication and he loved her, but in her present mood she would not believe him and it would make it doubly difficult to leave her. ‘I pray fervently you will not,’ he said.

  ‘I do not believe you. Mistress Chalfont enjoyed telling me of that curse before she pushed me over the banister. You expected me to die, like your father’s first wife and the first wives of generations of Pargeters before that. Did your grandmother fill your head with that superstitious nonsense? The old lady was mad—mad, and wicked too.’

  She was determined to quarrel; so be it. If it made her feel better, then he would oblige her. ‘I advise you to think carefully before you malign my grandmother or accuse Susan.’

  ‘Think! I have had plenty of time to think while I have been ill,’ she said. ‘I have done nothing but think. I understand that bargain we made now. I was to be the sacrifice and if, by some chance, I survived, why, then I was to be paid off, the marriage annulled and no harm done. But the marriage has been consummated and annulment is out of the question now, and you couldn’t wait, could you? Not when you realised I might be with child.’

  ‘Margaret, you are overwrought.’

  ‘The impeccable Mistress Chalfont had to give fate a helping hand,’ she rushed on, like a runaway horse with the bit between its teeth. ‘Only I didn’t die, I survived. She must have been very disappointed.’

  ‘You imagined it. Susan would not——’ He stopped, unable to go on because she had only voiced his own suspicions. He wished heartily that he had not told Susan about the curse, but he had hoped to make her understand, not only why he had married Margaret in the first place, but why he had since come to love her. Susan, who had always been used to having her own way, had not believed his change of heart. That night in the gardens, she had said she would fight for him. And she must have spun a plausible story to her parents in order to persuade them to invite him and Margaret to the ball. If only they had not gone!

  Margaret laughed harshly. ‘You mean I imagined she was disappointed, or imagined she pushed me? You know, at first I thought I had dreamed it, especially when my head ached so dreadfully that I could not even think clearly. What did you use to keep me under? Laudanum, was it? Poppy-seed tea? What I cannot understand is why you did not have the courage to go through with it; why, after all that, you took me home and nursed me back to health.’

  ‘Because I love you, woman!’ he shouted.

  They sat at opposite ends of the dining-table and stared at each other in silence with his words hanging between them like tangible things, to be picked up and thrown back, except that she had lost her way between her loving and her hating and could find nothing to say.

  ‘Margaret,’ he said at last, getting up and moving round the table to sit beside her. ‘I beg you to understand. I had heard about a curse when I was growing up. To me it was just a family story told over the fire in the winter. I did not know the details, and it was only when I told my grandmother I wanted to marry that she reminded me of it. I was persuaded that I ought to marry a stranger as a sort of safeguard.’

  ‘But why me? What had I ever done to you?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. You were a Capitain.’

  ‘And that was enough?’

  ‘It was because of a Capitain that the curse was uttered in the first place.’

  She was calmer now. ‘Hadn’t you better tell me the whole?’

  ‘I told you the Pargeters and the Capitains were on different sides in the Civil War——’

  ‘So were many neighbours and friends, but they didn’t go round putting curses on each other——’

  ‘There was more to it than that. Please don’t interrupt. It is hard enough as it is.’

  She fell silent and he went on. ‘My ancestor, John Pargeter, was betrothed to Anne Capitain. The marriage had been negotiated between the two families and had everyone’s approval, but when the fighting started John Pargeter raised a troop of villagers to support Parliament and set off to march to Peterborough with them. He was denounced by one of the Capitains, who had given their allegiance to the King. The little troop was ambushed and only John himself survived, and that only because the attackers knew he was to marry their kinswoman and she had pleaded for him to be spared. It is hardly surprising that John broke off the betrothal. Anne still loved him and when he subsequently married a local farmer’s daughter, called Rosalind, she could not accept it and went a little mad. On John’s wedding-day, in the church, she swore in front of half the village that within a year of the marriage John’s wife would die.’

  So attuned was Margaret to the story, so sympathetic to those unhappy people who had lived a hundred years before, that she could
almost hear the demented woman shrieking. Poor Anne! But to swear a curse, a dreadful omen, and in church too, was asking for the wrath of God. ‘And it came about, just as she said?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It could have been coincidence, nothing evil at all.’

  ‘But it didn’t stop there. It happened at a time when Matthew Hopkins, the witch-hunter, was at his most powerful, and he heard this story and had Anne arrested. There were plenty of people to give evidence against her—after all, her family had been responsible for the massacre of many of their menfolk. She was sentenced to hang. It was on the gallows that she refused absolution and predicted that the same fate would befall all those who dared to marry Pargeters.’

  ‘Poor woman!’ Margaret said. ‘Vilified because of a love which took no account of war and allegiance to King or country. Is it any wonder she was deranged?’

  ‘No,’ he said slowly, realising that he was almost crazed himself. ‘But what she predicted came to pass.’

  ‘A fairy-story,’ Margaret said, though her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. ‘Do you sit there, a grown man, an educated man and a soldier, and tell me you believe it?’

  ‘It has been true ever since 1646 when it was made, so my grandmother told me, and I have no reason to doubt her word.’

  ‘Then you do expect me to die before the end of the year?’

  ‘No!’ He was almost shouting, but pulled himself together and went on in an almost normal voice, ‘I am persuaded that if we separate, if I go away, the curse will be broken.’

  ‘Why should that be?’

  He gave a twisted smile. ‘Because a Capitain will once again be in possession of the Manor. I, a Pargeter, am capitulating; the Capitains have won.’

  ‘And you are simply going to walk out and leave me?’ Her voice was flat, registering no emotion. She was too numb to feel anything. ‘I don’t call that love; I call it cowardice.’

  He stood up so suddenly that his chair fell back with a clatter. She saw his clenched fist rise and then drop to his side. ‘I think we have said all there is to say, my lady,’ he said, in a voice so cold, so devoid of any kind of hope, she found herself shivering. ‘Now please excuse me; I have a great deal to do.’

 

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