“He’s right,” said Kirkwell. “I must go.”
“He is arranging it all. You will get to the coast, where he will have a boat waiting to take you to France. Oh, Kirk, it is terrible that you must go away, but it is for the best. It is the only thing that can be done.”
He put his arms about me, and held me close to him.
“Not to see you, Kate. Though every time you come I am afraid for you. But not to see you…”
“You will be safe. It will be settled in time. You will be back. This terror cannot go on.”
“I will be marked, though, as the King’s enemy.”
“That will surely be forgotten.”
“You say they have come here, looking for me?”
“That was what my father said.”
“It is noble of him to help…But of course there may be some risk to him if it were known that I was given shelter on his land.”
“Kirk, you have to go. It is the only way.”
“And leave you…”
I nodded. “It will not be long, I am sure.”
“And when I come back?”
“I shall be waiting for you.”
“And those doubts?”
“They are not there any more.”
“So, it has taken this?”
“Yes, it has. Oh, I was foolish. I don’t think I had grown up. Perhaps it takes a tragedy like this to make us understand ourselves. I have lost Luke. I know what it means now to have someone you love taken from you. If I lost you too, well, Kirk, I believe I should never be happy again.”
“So,” he said sadly, “there is something good in this. And now I am hearing it when I have to leave you.”
“Let us look to the future,” I said.
“Because the present is too sad to contemplate.”
“Kirk, Kirk,” I said. “You are coming back. Then we are going to be married. We shall be happy then, I know it, Kirk.”
“You do mean this? You do believe it?”
“I must. I could never be happy if it were not so.”
For a few moments we were silent and I knew that he was pushing aside everything that stood in our way—just as I was. We were letting our dream of future happiness envelop us and were forcing ourselves to believe in it. It was the only way to help us through the days ahead.
That night, as soon as darkness descended, my father, with Kirk and James, rode to the coast.
I waited for their return, which was not until the next morning.
My father told me then that all had gone according to plan. Kirkwell had got away safely to France.
My father had given him letters to friends of his and what he would need until he could fend for himself.
He would be safe there until the Monmouth rebellion was forgotten and therefore his part in it would be of no more interest.
Two days later the King’s men came to the house again. They then searched the grounds and discovered the Devil’s Tower, but it was of no significance. Kirkwell was safe across the sea.
The Return
THE WEEKS PASSED INTO months. Winter came, and then it was summer. All that time I hoped for news of Kirkwell, but none came.
I was with Christobel almost every day. Frequently we talked of Kirkwell and he was always in our thoughts.
Life was uneasy in England, as Kirkwell had known it would be under Catholic James, who was showing clearly now his determination to take the country back to Rome, while the majority of the people were determined not to go.
Christobel’s baby was the main source of delight to us all at that time. Christobel could not be entirely unhappy, however anxious she was about her brother, while she had her little son. And, of course, James was excessively proud of the boy.
Life at Rosslyn Manor had changed a good deal. My father was closer to me than he had ever been before, but he still persisted in his eagerness for me to marry Sebastian and so bring about the complete fulfillment of his plans.
I could never forget that it was his actions which had saved Kirkwell’s life and that he had done that for me, although, if he had done nothing, no one could have blamed him. If he had not acted as he had, for me, and Kirkwell had fallen into the hands of the King’s men, death would surely have been his fate, and in those circumstances I should surely be more likely to turn to Sebastian.
Sometimes I wondered if my father regretted his rash actions, for he was growing impatient.
“It is very probable that you will never see Kirkwell Carew again,” he said. “It would be unsafe for him to return. Trouble could break out at any time, and then you would see prompt action taken against those who have shown themselves to be the King’s enemies.”
I knew that he was right, but this separation from Kirkwell was heartbreaking. I could have borne it better if I had known what was happening to him.
I wondered if he would try to get a message through to me.
“He would be rash to try that,” my father pointed out. “If the letter went astray and passed into certain hands, you would be marked as the friend of a traitor.”
“He was no traitor.”
“Not to his country, perhaps, but he would be considered so to James. No, he would never involve you, for that is what it could mean.”
Lady Rosslyn’s attitude towards me had changed since Luke had saved her life during the fire.
Messages from her came to me by way of Margaret Galloway. I was invited to visit Lady Rosslyn, which I did quite often and we were becoming good friends. Although her voice had not fully returned and speaking was very difficult for her, she could hear well enough and understood perfectly, and we devised a means of communication by signs from her hands, which had not been impaired since her seizure.
I used to tell her about London life and the theater, which seemed to interest her.
Two years passed in this way. It was odd, for the days seemed endless, one very much like another, and the time seemed to slip by.
The King was having trouble with the bishops. There was talk of William of Orange having his eye on the throne. He was married to James’s daughter Mary, who was heir to the throne until James had a son; and William was also in line to the throne, his mother having been the eldest daughter of Charles I. Intrigue was rife and my father told me that many powerful men were making their way to The Hague and were showing quite clearly their support for William, because they realized that there would never be harmony in the country while James was on the throne.
Francine still flitted in and out of my life. I thought of her as a will-o’-the-wisp. I would not see her for weeks and then suddenly she would seek me out. She would be waiting for me outside the stables or without warning she would come to my room. It was as though she suddenly remembered me and wanted to talk.
She said one day: “Lady Rosslyn likes you now. She used to hate you. And then your brother saved her from the fire and she couldn’t hate him any more and, as you were his sister, she couldn’t hate you either. She was lying in her bed and the curtains round it were all on fire. Fire runs up the curtain like a little animal and then suddenly it’s all red and blue and it makes a crackling noise, as though it’s laughing at you because you can’t put it out.”
She laughed, and I said: “It is not very funny. It would have been terrible if my brother had not been there in time to save her.”
“But he was, and he picked her up and walked through the fire with her. It was a beautiful fire. If they hadn’t stopped it it would have burned up the house, all of it.”
“Let us be thankful that they did stop it,” I said. “You’ve talked of fires before, as though you have a fancy for them.”
She looked at me slyly and laughed. Then she was serious.
“They’re beautiful. They’re red and blue and you can see pictures in them. Your brother walked through it. I wish I’d seen him do that. It was brave of him…walking through the fire carrying Lady Rosslyn. She would have been dead if he hadn’t. The fire would have eaten her all up.
It does. I don’t like her, so…”
“So what?” I said.
“So nothing,” she said, and, laughing, ran off.
I thought again, as I had done so many times, that she had an unhealthy interest in fires.
And when the tragedy happened I told myself I should have seen it coming, and it should have held no surprise for me.
It happened so suddenly, when I was in the library one day. The library was a large room with its long narrow windows and its high vaulted ceiling similar to most of the big rooms in the house. At the windows hung long red velvet drapes. I was sitting there, browsing through a book and thinking, as I so often did, of Kirk, wondering where he was and whether he was thinking of me, when I was suddenly aware of the door being cautiously pushed open. I turned in astonishment and saw Francine.
She was creeping stealthily into the room and to my horror in her hands she clutched a lighted taper.
I stared at her in astonished silence, and yet, in an instant I knew what she was about to do…and that she had done the same thing before.
She tiptoed towards the curtains, holding the taper carefully, a beatific smile illuminating her features. It was as though she were about to perform some rite.
I stood up and the book which was on my lap crashed to the floor.
I cried: “Francine! Stop!”
She turned and, as she did so, the taper touched against her dress. I saw the flame catch it and run from the waist to the hem and then all over the top of her skirt.
I shouted something and ran to her, but by this time she was a mass of flames.
Panic seized me and I felt helpless.
I picked up one of the small rugs lying on the floor and tried to wrap it about her. It extinguished some of the flames but was not enough. I tried to beat them out. It seemed minutes before I succeeded. She was lying on the floor. Her hair was almost entirely burned away. I stood for a few seconds, staring at that poor burned figure which had been Francine.
Then I ran out of the room, calling for help.
Francine lived for only two days. It was merciful really, for she was so badly burned as to be almost unrecognizable, and life as she had become would have been intolerable.
She never spoke again and I was not sure whether she knew what had happened to her. That which had so fascinated her and with which she had so daringly played, had killed her.
Poor Margaret Galloway was shattered. She was blaming herself. She was in a dazed state of acute misery and every now and then I would see the tears falling down her cheeks.
Once she talked to me. She said: “You see, I knew. She had done it before.”
I said: “In Lady Rosslyn’s bedroom?”
She nodded. “I should have done something. I just did not know what. They would have sent her away. Where to? Who would have looked after her? They would never have let her stay here. There was nowhere for her to go. Fire…it fascinated her. Right from a baby. And there she was…no mother, no father. I was the only one. I had to keep her here. So…”
“You cannot be blamed for doing what you thought was best.”
“She would have killed Lady Rosslyn…and then she killed herself.”
I tried to comfort her, but she would not be comforted. Poor Margaret, frightened, relying on the favors of her cousin. But I believed Lady Rosslyn was genuinely fond of her; and it was true that she had softened considerably since she had come so close to death before being saved by the bravery of Luke. I think that had had a marked effect on her.
I could not believe that three years had passed since Kirkwell went away. I was no longer a young girl. I was twenty-one years old.
On my twenty-first birthday my father had said to me: “You cannot wait forever. Sebastian is impatient, and so am I.”
“This is my life,” I said. “I must live it my way.”
“I want what is good for you. While King James is on the throne Kirkwell cannot return.”
“I think he will.”
“If he came back, he would live in perpetual uncertainty. He knows that, and it is something he would never allow you to share. Every rising, every sign of trouble and he would be a suspect.”
“I think he might brave that.”
“He might. But would he subject you to it? As his wife you would be suspect too. He knows that. If he loves you he will not subject you to that. But, depend upon it, he will not return, and the time is passing.”
“I shall wait for him. I have promised.”
“You will change your mind. You could be happy, you know. Sebastian will be the best of husbands. You are living in a romantic dream. Come out of it and face reality. And anyway, what is happening to Featherston now? It will revert to what it was before Kirkwell took it in hand. There is a manager, but that is not the same. Look at James Morton and Christobel, with their little Luke, and expecting another. Perfectly content. There is nothing so satisfying as family life.”
It was something he had never experienced. He wanted to enjoy it vicariously through me. I felt very tender towards him at times. He desperately wanted this. He wanted those grandchildren, and that would compensate him for those sons and daughters of his own whom he had never seen playing in the grounds of Rosslyn Manor.
I wished I could please him. I was often in Sebastian’s company. He did not speak to me of marriage. He was too tactful. I think he understood me better than my father did. I had a feeling that he would ask me if the moment ever came when I gave up hope of seeing Kirkwell again and chose to take the way my father had chosen for me. But it was not yet.
Nevertheless, I was getting more and more fond of Sebastian. I recognized the kindliness and understanding behind that nonchalant exterior of his. I could enjoy a peaceful, serene life with his calm acceptance of whatever life brought him.
Meanwhile the rumblings of discontent went on throughout the nation.
The King was in conflict with seven of the leading bishops and, to the horror of many of his subjects, they were imprisoned in the Tower.
When they were released there was rejoicing in the streets, which was an indication of James’s growing unpopularity with the people, and it should have been a warning to him that the people were getting restive. More and more influential and ambitious men were slipping out of England and arriving in Holland. When the Queen bore a son, there was some misgiving in high places. If this son lived, then there would be a Catholic heir.
There were rumors about the child. It was said that there had been something suspicious about his birth. He was not the King’s son. They had tricked the nation. The King’s wife had given birth to a stillborn child and a healthy one had been substituted in a warming pan. All over the country people were talking of the Warming-Pan Baby.
Rumors said that the shipyards of Holland were working at full strength, and William of Orange was one of the foremost Protestants in Europe. His wife was James’s daughter, next in line to the throne, if one did not count this newborn child, the Warming-Pan Baby.
After some months of speculation, when it came it seemed inevitable.
On the fifteenth of November, just over three years since Kirkwell had left England, William of Orange landed at Brixham near Torbay. There was no opposition. Weary of the ineffectual rule of James, and his determination to ignore the will of the people, many were deserting him. The defection of Churchill, with the army, was the fatal blow.
There was little resistance. The inevitable had happened, and, as King Charles had prophesied, his brother James’s rule had not lasted four years.
My hopes were high. My father said: “Mayhap he has made a new life over there.”
There was a certain wistful look on his face. He did not want me to be unhappy, but he longed to see me married to Sebastian.
It was mid-November. I was in my room thinking: Will he come? Is it possible that he has indeed made a new life over there? Shall I ever see him again?
Then I heard Amy’s voice calling me.
I ran down.
>
He was there beside her.
He looked older, rather gaunt. He had changed, but he was still Kirkwell.
He looked at me and he smiled.
Then he said: “Kate…you waited.”
I was in his arms, touching his face to assure myself that he was real. I was exulting, overcome with emotion.
Then I said simply: “Yes, Kirk. I waited.”
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Mark Hamilton as Literary Executor for the Estate of the late E. A. B. Hibbert
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4804-0386-4
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
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THE DAUGHTERS OF ENGLAND
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Daughters of England Page 33