I gathered that Lady Letty was something of an enigma. It appeared strange that she should interest herself in the life of the village because she was more often than not at Court. Sometimes there was entertaining at Westering Manor when the fashionable arrived from London. Once the King himself had come. That had been a very grand occasion.
I certainly enjoyed hearing about her life.
“It seemed as though it would go on and on and never change,” she said. “I saw myself growing older and becoming exactly like Mrs. Connalt … dried up, shrivelled like a walking corpse who is really finished with life and somehow continues to make the motions of living. Joyless, seeing sin in pleasure…”
I thought how strange it was that she should refer to her mother as Mrs. Connalt—as though she rejected the close relationship between them.
I was beginning to understand her. She was attractive in appearance in an unusual way and more than normally clever; she had yearnings for a more interesting life and she felt frustrated. She hated being patronized by the Westerings; she was a lonely person because there was no one to love her, no one to whom she could explain her feelings.
I was glad that she could talk to me, yet I was sometimes aware of that strange resentment towards me which I sensed was often present, though she sought to hide it.
Two weeks after her arrival my parents went to our house near Whitehall to be present at several Court functions.
“It must be most exciting,” said Christabel. “How I should like to go to Court.”
“My mother doesn’t really care for it,” I answered. “She only goes because my father likes her to.”
“I daresay she feels she must be with him.” Her lips tightened a little. “A man like that …”
I was puzzled. I thought she implied some criticism of my father, and I had known for some time that he had an effect on her. She was always uneasy in his presence. I wondered why since he had taken the trouble to bring her to the house, and if she was happier with us than she had been in her rectory home—and it was hard to imagine that she could be less so—then she owed that to him.
Our days slipped into a routine—lessons in the morning, riding or walking after the midday meal and then a return to study about five o’clock. It was dark then and we would sit in the candlelight and she would usually spend the time questioning me on the morning’s study.
I asked her once if she were comfortable in our house and she demanded angrily: “Why should you think I am not? This is the most comfortable house.”
“I am glad,” I said.
“You were one of the lucky ones.” She spoke resentfully, and although I could not see the tightening of her lips I knew it was so.
One afternoon we went riding, and on our return, as soon as we came through the gates and into the stables, I knew something had happened. I was aware of a bustle of activity before I saw the horses. I thought at first my parents were home. Then I realized that it was not they who had returned. I half guessed and excitement possessed me. I could scarcely wait to get out of the saddle and hurry into the house.
I heard their voices and called: “Leigh! Edwin! Where are you?”
Leigh was at the top of the stairs. He looked magnificent in uniform. He was so tall, with rather gaunt features and wonderful blue eyes which contrasted with his black hair, just like his mother’s. These eyes lighted up when they saw me, and I felt a glow of excitement which coming upon Leigh unexpectedly always gave me.
He dashed down the stairs and picked me up in his arms, swinging me round and round. I called: “Stop it. Stop it.” He did stop, and taking my face in his hands gave me a smacking kiss on the forehead.
“You’ve grown,” he said. “Yes, you have, fair coz.”
He always called me “fair coz.” He had heard the term somewhere, and when I protested that we were not cousins and not even related, he retorted: “Well, we ought to be. I’ve seen you grow up from an ugly little brat to the lively little sprite you are today. You were like a little monkey when you were born. I really thought you were one and then you grew into a gazelle, my own fair coz.”
Leigh talked like that, rather extravagantly. Everything was either wonderful or terrible. My father used to get impatient with him, but I rather liked it. The fact was that I liked everything about Leigh. He was the perfect big brother and I used to wish he were my real one. Not that I did not love Edwin. I did. Edwin was meek and never hurt anyone if he could help it. He was courteous to the servants. They were devoted to him naturally, but the women preferred Leigh, I knew.
Leigh was now aware of Christabel, her face slightly flushed from the exercise and her dark curls only very slightly ruffled under her hard riding hat.
I introduced them and he bowed gallantly. I was very much aware that Christabel was assessing him. I did not want to mention then that she was the governess, I would tell him that privately. I felt she resented having to work for us and would like to be mistaken for a guest … if only for a short while.
“We have been riding,” I said. “When did you get here? Is Edwin with you? I thought I heard his voice.”
“We came together. Edwin!” he shouted. “Where are you? Priscilla is asking for you.”
Edwin appeared on the stairs looking very handsome-more so than Leigh really, though less tall, less robust. My mother had always feared for his health.
“Priscilla!” He came towards me. “How good it is to see you. Where is our mother?” He had turned to Christabel.
“Mistress Connalt,” I told him. And then to Christabel: “My brother. Lord Eversleigh.”
Edwin bowed. His manners were always perfect.
I said: “They are at Court.”
Edwin lifted his shoulders to register disappointment.
“Perhaps they’ll be back before you go. Can you stay awhile?”
“A week … perhaps longer.”
“Three … four …” suggested Leigh.
“I’m so glad. I’ll have your rooms made ready.”
“Don’t worry,” put in Leigh, “Sally Nullens has already seen us and is running round in a flutter. She is so pleased to have her little darlings home.”
“You know what nurses are, Mistress Connalt,” said Edwin, “when their charges return to the fold.”
He had realized that Christabel was uneasy and aloof and was trying to put her at ease. I knew that she was glad her status had not been revealed, although it would have to emerge eventually.
“I never had one so I can’t say,” she said.
“So you escaped that bondage,” put in Leigh lightly.
“We were too poor,” Christabel went on almost defiantly.
I felt uncomfortable and that I had to explain. “Christabel has come here to teach me. She lived in a rectory in Sussex.”
“How is Carl getting on at the rectory?” asked Edwin. “And where is he, by the way?”
“Out in the summerhouse, most likely, playing his flageolet.”
“Poor lad! He’ll be frozen to death.”
“At least we are spared the fearsome noises he can make,” said Leigh.
“What were you proposing to do?” asked Edwin.
“We were going to wash and change and then it will be suppertime.”
“We’ll get out of our uniforms,” said Leigh. He grinned from me to Christabel. “I know they make us look devastatingly handsome and you’ll suffer a shock at the transformation, Mistress Connalt. Priscilla is used to us, so I don’t have to prepare her.”
I was glad he was trying to draw Christabel into the family circle. She reminded me of a child dipping her feet into water—wanting to plunge in and not daring to.
I studied them in their felt hats with the glorious plumes falling over the sides, their elaborate coats, their knee breeches, their shining boots, their swords at their sides.
“Quite handsome,” I said, “though not devastatingly so, and we know it is only the uniform that makes them so, don’t we, Christabel?”
She smiled and looked beautiful then. I could see that between them they had managed to charm away her resentment.
“Come on,” I said, “we must wash and change … all of us. The food will get cold and you know how they hate that.”
“Orders!” said Leigh. “Odds fish, you’re worse than our commanding officer. A sign we’re home, eh, Edwin?”
Edwin said gently: “It’s good to be here.”
Christabel looked very pretty that evening. It might have been the candlelight which gave her that added lustre, or it might have been something else. My mother always said that candlelight was more flattering to a woman than any lotions or unguents. She wore a beautiful gown, too. The long pointed bodice was cut rather low, and worn without kerchief or collar showed her attractively sloping shoulders. One curl had been allowed to escape from those tied in the nape of her neck and hung over a shoulder. Her gown was of lavender silk and under it was a grey satin petticoat. I wondered at the time how she had come by such a dress in that cheese-paring rectory and I learned that it had come from Westering Manor. As she said, it was one of the “cast-offs for the needy,” and when I saw it in daylight I would see that it had become too shabby for her ladyship’s use.
I wore my blue silk, and although I had previously thought it rather charming it seemed insignificant beside Christabel’s.
Both Edwin and Leigh changed from their elaborate uniforms, but I thought they looked very fine—both of them—in their knee-length breeches and short jackets which were fashionably beribboned, Edwin’s slightly more so than Leigh’s, for Edwin followed the mode more slavishly than Leigh who I suspected was more than a little impatient with the laces and ribbons which had come into vogue as a kind of turnabout after the puritanical style of dress.
Carl was full of excitement because of the arrivals and we were a very merry party at the table. The servants were delighted as always to have the men home, and I knew how disappointed my mother would be to miss them.
They talked of their adventures. They had been serving in France, from which country they had recently come, but what I remembered from that night and what was really a prelude to the events which were about to begin was the talk of Titus Oates and the Popish Plot. It was like the overture before the curtain rises on the play. Being so much with Harriet had made me think that all the world was truly a stage and the men and women merely players.
“There’s a feeling in England,” said Leigh, “that wasn’t there when we left.”
“Change can come quickly,” added Edwin, “and when you’ve been away and come back you are more aware of it than those who have had it gradually creep up on them.”
“Change?” I cried. “What change?”
“The King is not an old man,” said Edwin. “He is past fifty.”
“Fifty!” cried Carl. “It’s ancient.”
Everybody laughed.
“Only to infants, dear boy,” said Leigh. “No, Old Rowley will live awhile yet. He must. A pity he hasn’t a son.”
“I was under the impression that he had several,” said Christabel.
“Alas, born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
“I’m sorry for the Queen,” said Edwin. “Poor, gentle lady.”
“To accuse her of being involved in a plot to kill the King is the utmost idiocy,” added Leigh.
Carl leaned forward, forgetting his lamb pie—a favourite of his—in his excitement. Carl was old for his ten years. My father had always wanted him to grow up quickly and he had. He understood about the King and his mistresses and the right and wrong sides of blankets—a fact which Sally Nullens deplored. She would have liked to keep him in her nursery until he married.
“Was she?” he demanded. “Did she want to kill the King? Has she got a lover?”
“What a blase old fellow this is!” cried Leigh. “My dear Carl, the Queen is the most virtuous lady in England-present company excepted.” He bowed to us each in turn. “This Titus Oates will hang himself if he doesn’t take care.”
“In the meantime,” said Christabel, “he has succeeded in hanging several others.”
“If only it could be proved that the King had married Lucy Walter that would make Jimmy Monmouth the next to wear the crown.”
“Is he suitable?” asked Christabel.
“I believe he is rather wild,” I added.
“He is fond of feminine society, yes. Who isn’t?” Leigh included us both in his smile. “None could be more devoted to your sex than the King himself. But Charles is wily, clever, shrewd and witty. He once said when he returned to England after that long exile that he was determined never to go wandering again, and I believe he meant that more than he ever meant anything in his life.”
“The people love him,” said Edwin. “He has that unmistakable Stuart charm. A good deal is forgiven to anyone who possesses that.”
Leigh took my hand and kissed it. “Look what you forgive me, fair coz, for my unconquerable charm.”
We were all laughing and it was difficult to treat any subject seriously, and how could any of us have guessed that moment that the politics of the country could be of any importance in our lives?
Christabel sparkled that night. She looked quite beautiful in Lady Letty’s cast-off gown; she was delighted to sit at our table and I was interested to see how between them Leigh and Edwin swept away that inner uncertainty or whatever it was that set the resentment smouldering. She was eager to show that she had a greater grasp of the country’s history than I had and she turned the conversation back to current affairs.
“Perhaps the King will divorce his wife, marry again and get a son,” she suggested.
“He never would,” replied Leigh.
“Too lazy?” asked Christabel.
“Too kind,” parried Edwin. “Have you ever been presented, Mistress Connalt?”
The bitter smile appeared momentarily. “In my position, Lord Eversleigh!”
“If you had,” went on Edwin, “you would see at once what a tolerant man he is. Here we are talking of him thus. That would be dangerous in some reigns. If he could listen to us he would join in the discussion of his character and put us right even to his own disadvantage. Our assessment would be a source of amusement not irritation. He is too clever to see himself other than what he is. Is that not so, Leigh?”
Leigh said: “I am in wholehearted agreement on that. One day it will be realized how clever he is. It is a devious game he plays. We saw a little of that in France. The French King thinks he leads Charles by the nose. I would say that it might be the other way round. No, while Charles is our King, we shall get along. It is the succession which concerns the nation. That is why we deplore that with so many sons who according to convention should not have been born—and who are a perpetual drain on the exchequer—he cannot produce one who would be worth a little expense and give the answer to the burning question, Who next?”
“Let’s hope that he lives on and on,” I said. “Let’s drink to the King.”
“A health unto His Majesty!” cried Leigh, and we all lifted our glasses.
Carl was getting a little sleepy at this stage and trying desperately to stay awake. My mother had protested about his being allowed to drink as much wine as he liked, but my father said he must learn to take his liquor. Carl was learning.
Christabel drank sparingly, as I did, and the soft colour in her cheeks and the shine in her eyes was not due to the grape. She was different from the girl she had been so far. I realized that she was enjoying this with a sort of feverish excitement and I was sorry, for such occasions as this were not unusual in our household. We always had celebrations when my parents returned from Court or I or Carl had been away on a visit. How dreary her life must have been in that gloomy rectory!
She was far more knowledgeable about affairs than I was and she seemed anxious that both men should have no doubt of this.
“It’s really a religious conflict,” she said. “Political conflict almost always is. It is not
so much a question of Monmouth’s legitimacy as shall we allow a Catholic to ascend the throne.”
“That’s exactly the case,” said Edwin, smiling at her. “James is a Catholic—no doubt of that.”
“I have heard it whispered,” said Leigh, bending forward and speaking in a whisper, “that His Majesty toys with that Faith …but let it not go beyond these walls.”
I glanced at Carl who was nodding over his platter. Leigh was inclined to be reckless.
Edwin said quickly: “It is only a conjecture. The King would never wish to displease his subjects.”
“What is he going to do?” I asked. “Legitimatize Monmouth or let his Catholic brother come to the throne?”
“I hope …most fervently … that it will be Monmouth,” said Leigh, “for there will be a revolution if we ever have a Catholic King on the throne. The people will not have it. They remember the fires of Smithfield.”
“There has been religious persecution on both sides,” said Christabel.
“But the people will never forget Smithfield, the influence of Spain and the threat of the Inquisition. They’ll remember Bloody Mary as long as there is a king or a queen to reign over us. That is why it is imperative for Old Rowley to go on living for another twenty years.” Leigh lifted his glass. “Once more, a health unto His Majesty.”
After that we talked of the man Titus Oates who had caused a stir throughout the country by discovering, as he said, the Popish Plot.
Edwin told us that he had taken Holy Orders and had had a small living which had been presented to him by the Duke of Norfolk until he was involved in some legal trouble and had had to retire, after which he became a chaplain in the navy.
“He is a man who lives by his wits, I’m sure,” Leigh went on, “and this discovery of the Popish Plot is meant to work to his advantage in some way.”
Lament for a Lost Lover Page 40