by Deryn Lake
Melior Mary had laughed.
‘It is not quite like that. I have not really absconded because I intend to return when this daring scheme is all played out.’
‘But what of your father? Will he not thrash you to within an inch of your life?’
‘Quite probably. But he will forgive me in the end.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
Melior Mary had turned to look at her and Tamsin had seen a tear form in eyes that had grown dark.
‘Because of Sutton Place. Because of the house. I am the heiress and my father would do anything rather than see it pass from my hands. He wants me to marry my cousin to secure the inheritance, but he would let me stay single rather than take from me what is rightfully mine.’
‘And what of O’Toole?’
‘Hyacinth? I want him to share the mansion house with me.’ Her face grew hard. ‘But I must be the mistress — I’ll never play second fiddle.’
‘Sutton Place means a very great deal to you, doesn’t it?’
The tears spilled over the high boned cheeks.
‘I am part of it. That is how I feel. It is more than a building — it has life. It takes command. One day I think it will consume me.’
Mrs Missett shivered.
‘I am not sure that I should altogether like that. But what if your father makes you give up Hyacinth in order that you may inherit?’
‘Then give him up I shall. for the man is not yet born who could be more important to me than the house.’
Mrs Missett shook her head, bewildered and perturbed.
Early the next day, soon after sun-up, Captain Missett and Mitchell rode off alone and were back by nightfall. Contact with Chateaudeau — the Princess’s Gentleman — had been made and the date for the rescue fixed; two days hence, on April 27. Now there was nothing to do but wait and anxiously watch the deteriorating weather. By the morning of the day on which all their brave hopes were pinned it was snowing heavily.
It was Mitchell, who had ridden out in the disguise of a knife grinder, who came back with a message from Princess Clementina’s mother.
‘Sir, I managed to mutter to Chateaudeau while I sharpened up the Mother Superior’s killing blade...’
Wogan looked surprised and Mitchell allowed himself the rare experience of a smile.
‘It’s for chickens — or so I was told! It would seem that the old Princess is oot her mind with worry about the icy conditions.’
Wogan snarled.
‘Then she’ll have to worry on. The rescue proceeds tonight. Mitchell, go back and get word to Chateaudeau. Tell him snow hinders everyone, not just us.’
‘She’ll no like it!’
‘And neither do I like it,’ said Jenny, from the door. ‘I knew that this was no ordinary elopement, Captain Wogan. I knew that you wouldn’t have all these people together and my mistress putting herself out, simply for a friend. If you think I’m getting into trouble just for you lot and your precious King James, you can think till the last trump. I’m off and nobody can stop me.’
And the pert slut would listen to neither pleas nor threats. She packed her belongings in a tablecloth, pocketed the money for her part in the affair, and hitched herself a ride in a haycart with a handsome farm lad. She was last seen leaning against him heavily, swearing that she did so to keep out the cold, and all the while her hand plucking at the material of his breeches in a way that left none of them in any doubt as to where she would sleep that night.
‘The stinking whore!’ shouted Wogan, bringing his riding whip down onto a chair. ‘I hope she finds herself at the bottom of a ravine.’
‘Too late for that now,’ answered Gaydon. ‘What the devil we do is more important.’
It was as inevitable as if it had always been meant that Melior Mary should step forward. In fact Tamsin Missett wondered if she was being fanciful in thinking that this was the hand of fate, that destiny had sent this wild and beautiful girl, full of passion and courage, to bring Princess Clementina out of prison, instead of the clod-hopping and surly Jeanneton.
And that night as she wrapped the girl in a cloak of fox and tied a hood upon her to conceal the silver hair and shadow the face, she wept in gratitude. God had answered all their prayers. A worthy substitute would be smuggled in past the porter’s lodge, posing as Chateaudeau’s amorous conquest.
But, though all the men stepped forward to lift the heiress onto her horse, it was Mitchell who shouldered them aside, pushing Hyacinth quite roughly as he did so. His strange scarred face was within an inch of Melior Mary’s as he put her into the saddle.
‘I’ll no ride with you, Missie,’ he said, ‘for it is Captain Wogan’s prerogative to rescue Her Highness. But don’t think I’ll leave you rotting there. Just give me two days and I’ll have you oot.’
He raised her hand to his lips and she felt his mouth hard against her fingers.
‘I’ll never let you go,’ he said, so quietly that even she had to strain her ears to hear him.
But she could not answer for Wogan had swung onto his horse, which stamped as impatient as its rider. But long after the others had turned back into the warmth of the inn, Mitchell still stood there, frozen to the bone, watching where Melior Mary had vanished into the million crystal flakes that rent the blackness of that momentous evening.
*
It was the bleakest of cold midnights and Melior Mary was alone in the whiteness, only the gleam of a lantern from the porter’s lodge showing her that anyone in the world was alive at all. From where she rode the convent in which Princess Clementina and her royal mother were incarcerated was black as pitch against the snow sweep of the valley and Melior Mary’s brain ran fancifully for a moment over those huddled figures that slept in their meagre cells or prayed in the darkness with nobody to see them but God. She imagined gnarled fingers telling beads that they could only feel and tired old knees bent like sticks in the ancient attitude of reverence. What were they praying for? A hot fire; warm tasty soup; someone to put their arms about them and tell them that this endless sacrifice had been worthwhile? She pitied them even though they kept the Princess and her mother in their midst against their will.
‘You must go straight to the lodge,’ Wogan had said. ‘Chateaudeau has already given the porter a bribe. He believes you to be a...’ His voice had hesitated and then he coughed. ‘...a girl from the village going in for an hour or so.’
Despite the cold and despite the danger of it all Melior Mary’s smile had gleamed in the darkness.
‘And this Chateaudeau — my supposed lover — is he the kind of man who would smuggle in a woman? Suspicion has not been aroused?’
Wogan had laughed in his unbridled way.
‘God bless your heart, no. He’s a dandy-cock if ever I saw one. Nobody would think twice of him having two little doxies in a night. Begging your pardon, my dear.’
‘I hope he will take me straight to the Princess!’
Wogan laughed again. His immediate rapport with Melior Mary had grown into something else. Despite the difference in their ages he knew that for this woman he would have given up the life of a roving spy and settled for King James’s service in Rome if she could but have been his reward for doing so.
He squeezed her waist where she sat next to him on her black horse and said, ‘You little box of sauce! If you’ve any trouble with him kick his arse and remind him that business always has the advantage over pleasure.’
She smiled up at him beneath her snow covered hood. She thought him one of the most captivating men alive. And now as she crossed the short distance between the thicket — where he lay hidden and watching her — and the lodge, she wished that he could be with her.
‘Jeanneton?’
The voice at her side was a whisper but nonetheless she started. She had not seen the black-cloaked figure detach itself from the shadows and take hold of her bridle.
‘No, it is not she. I have taken her place.’
The man hesitated, peering up
at her, and Melior Mary pulled the hood protectively about her face.
‘You are Chateaudeau?’ she asked.
For answer there came an exclamation and then a voice said, ‘Damme odds my life! I don’t believe it!’
‘It is true. She ran away. I was the only person young enough to substitute.’
For answer there came a muffled laugh and the voice continued, ‘You may be young, Ma’am. But for all that you’ve got silver hair.’
There was no way he could have known. The fox fur hid her entirely.
‘Who are you?’ she said suspiciously.
‘Someone’s who’s getting his prinkum prankum damnable wet in this blasted blizzard.’
There could be no mistaking that voice. As he looked up in the moonlight Melior Mary’s astonished gaze looked straight into that of her uncle Joseph Gage.
*
Beneath that same frost-streaked moon Sutton Place lay icy, the reflected beams shining through the Great Hall windows and casting blobs of colour onto the cobbles of the stone flagged floor. Not a creature stirred for miles and yet suddenly in that cold strange hour before dawning both John and Elizabeth Weston woke and were at once alert, sitting bolt upright in the darkness and straining their ears for the noise that had disturbed them. It was an odd sound — so faint that it was impossible to tell what it was or from where it originated — but for all that insistent and a little frightening.
Reminded rather too sharply of Melior Mary’s haunting — five years ago now — John swung his legs out of bed. ‘What is that noise?’
Elizabeth’s voice was fearful in the blackness.
‘I don’t know.’
‘It sounds like a banging cane.’
‘I’ll go and find out.’
But she insisted on accompanying him and together they left their bedroom, crossed the Great Hall and went towards the Long Gallery, climbing the East staircase.
Despite all John’s intention to have the Gallery restored it still lay, partly sealed off, very much as it had done since the fire that had part consumed it during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. And now it had that odd light look which the servants said was the blaze re-living its fury but was, in reality, the first streaking rays of dawn reflecting in the mullioned windows.
And, to add to the strangeness, from beyond the partition that cloistered off the most damaged portion John and Elizabeth could hear the sound. It was a clattering — rather like a child running a stick along a wall — and very faintly, combining with it, it seemed to them that a man was humming a tune. And then, to make Elizabeth grow pale and turn into the protection of John’s arm, the noise came through the division, though nothing was visible, and the stick rattled along the wall just beside them.
‘Is it the Fool?’ whispered Elizabeth, for the story of the jester who wept whenever disaster was to strike the family was well-known.
‘Aye, I think so. But I’ve never heard tell of him like this.’
That strange, long-dead voice was like the crackle of dried leaves as it moved away from them in the direction of the musicians’ gallery. And then Elizabeth, just for a second and even then not sure that it was not merely a blink of her imagination, saw him. He was skipping nimbly round, his back towards her, his head first on one side and then the other, running his Fool’s stick with its funny belled head along the walls as merry as a small boy free from lessons.
‘John, look!’
But the Fool had gone and the sound was suddenly stilled.
‘Did you see anything?’
‘He was happy, John. He was happy. I do believe that something momentous is going to take place.’
And John, knowing for sure that his spirited daughter had gone off with Matthew Banister to rescue a bride for King James, put his head back and laughed aloud.
*
‘But you’re only a girl,’ Melior Mary exclaimed.
She had not meant to be rude to a Princess of the blood but the bouncing ball of energy into whose miserable cell she had quietly slipped while Joseph stood at the door to watch for any late walkers was so unlike her preconceived idea of a royal personage that she was unable to help herself.
Clementina giggled into her handkerchief. She was amazingly pretty with eyes like dark suns and bobbing brown curls. She could have been no more than seventeen but with her tiny frame and delicate little features could have passed for considerably less.
‘I am zo happy to see you,’ she whispered. ‘We shall change clothes you and I. No? Here is Mama to help us.’
If the two Princesses had been put into prison any hope of rescuing the bride royal would have been impossible but despite their longing for England’s support the Austrian government would not have dared such a slight even to a minor power like Silesia so the two women had been placed in mean, but adjoining, rooms in a remote convent lying on the outskirts of Innsbruck.
Melior Mary curtsied as Joseph hissed from the corridor, ‘Silence, I beg all three of you. If anyone should chance upon this we are lost.’
Princess Sobieski nodded her head. She was a very serious looking woman with none of her daughter’s vivacity, though they had in common the same sparkling eyes. She fixed these now on Melior Mary and made a sign for her to disrobe but as the heiress threw back her fur hood the older Princess’s eyes widened in disapproval. The abounding silver hair was so unlike her daughter’s that it seemed impossible that the two young women could masquerade as one another.
‘Mr Gage,’ she said beneath her breath.
He looked in at the door and seeing the Princess Mother pulling faces he walked — quiet as a stalking panther — into the room.
‘Your Highness?’
‘Zees girl will not do. ’er ’air! It eez quite the wrong colour.’
A grim expression crossed Joseph’s face and he said, ‘Highness, this is the only girl brave enough to take on the mission. The other one defaulted for fear of the consequences. My niece shall wear a headdress and with God’s will the substitution may go unnoticed until the Princess has left Austrian soil.’
‘Will zere be reprisals against us? I am no coward, Sir, but what will ’appen to those left behind?’
‘You’ll be set free, Madam. There is no bargaining power in you once your daughter has escaped. And Melior Mary and I must take our chances of imprisonment.’
‘Oh, eet is all so terrible.’
The elder Princess moaned and wrung her hands. She was a natural worrier and could not have been a worse person to face up to imprisonment and subsequent rescue parties.
‘I shall build a church — no, a cathedral — if we all come out of zis alive.’
But nobody looked at her for Joseph was suddenly sprinting back to the doorway as silently as he had come in. They all turned their heads and a second later he was back in the room dragging with him, his hand clapped over her terrified mouth, a mouse-like little nun who struggled hopelessly in his arms.
‘Oh my God,’ said Princess Sobieski, ‘we are undone, we are undone!’
And she sank down heavily upon her daughter’s bed. ‘Nonsense,’ said Joseph. ‘Get your daughter changed, Highness. And in silence too.’
The three women then began to enact a scene which — Melior Mary thought long afterwards — must have seemed more than funny should anyone have been there to observe it but which, to them, was one of the most terrible of their lives. Without saying a word Clementina and Melior Mary began to exchange their uppermost clothes while, at the same time, watching with a horrid fascination Joseph stripping the wretched nun’s cowl from her head and gagging her with it.
Over the top of the black band her sad little eyes rolled piteously and the expression on what could be seen of her face was pathos itself as Joseph tore off her habit and trussed up her arms and legs like a chicken. Melior Mary stared in frank astonishment. She had no idea at all what her uncle could be doing here; he whom she had always considered the greatest rakehell of his time and far too lethargic to even be interested in the
Jacobite cause, let alone take an active part in the rescue of the Princess.
But on the matter of his lethargy she realized she had been totally wrong. The man who stood before her now rending the miserable nun’s garments to shreds was a merciless machine. If he had had to kill the Bride of Christ in order to save the Princess he would have done so.
Eventually Melior Mary could bear it no more and — having dressed herself in Clementina’s golden taffetas and pushed every lock of her hair into a lace coif — she crossed to his side and whispered, ‘What’s to be the Sister’s fate?’
He tied the last knot into place and said rather savagely, ‘They have a remote attic here where they keep rummage. Nobody will hear her though she shout till Kingdom come.’
‘But she can’t shout in that gag.’
‘Precisely.’
Melior Mary looked at him closely and said, ‘Why do you hate her so?’
Her uncle stared at her in surprise.
‘I don’t hate her, she just got in our way. It is as simple as that. I feel rather sorry for her in truth and when they discover the substitution I shall tell them where she is hidden.’
‘I have never seen you like this. I always thought you so foppish.’
‘You are young yet, my girl. In every one of us there dwells two people — often quite opposite to the other. In some there are more than two.’
‘In everybody there are these separate characters?’
‘Oh yes, without a doubt. The strongest can be made weak by their love for a child, a woman. The weakest wretch with no will power of his own can fight like a rat for what he considers rightfully his. You have much to learn, Melior Mary.’