“Ah but you clung to that memory. Even the distractions of Cambridge University didn’t wipe her out of your heart.”
“So why are you saying all this now?”
“Because I don’t want you to lose her. Changing coaches in London reminded me of that visit when Great Aunt Henrietta brought her granddaughters over from France to show them London.”
“And hoped to wed one of them to me. Jeanetta knew that and was determined shewould be the one.”
“Are you saying it was a trap? She didn’t love you truly? I saw you together before the end of that visit. Oh I knew youwere smitten. But she loved you too. And she still needs you. She looks to you to be gentle and patient with her moods. We will get to France at last and she will brighten up and be your lovely girl again.”
John ran his hand through his hair. She had embarrassed him, she could tell.
She added, “And think of the obstacles you overcame to get her. Puritan Mother accepting a Papist daughter-in-law!”
He grinned and scratched his head. “I never did see how she came round.”
“It was Grandfather Nat, of course. Surely you remember his dying speech to Mother.” She intoned it in Grandfather’s low voice. “‘They love each other, Eunice. They can have a marriage like Bel’s and mine. Say not it will be two beliefs in one family for is there not one Lord? The nearer I get to meeting Him the more I am sure that He yearns less for outward ways of worship than the love of a true heart.’ He was very ill at the time and that impressed Mother deeply.”
John nodded. His deep, luminous brown eyes had become round and solemn as they had been when he had seen the colour and ornament of a Catholic Chapel for the first time as a little boy. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “I’d better go and see how she is.”
She heard his footsteps go up the wooden stair. Bless him, she thought, he is persuadable as a child. But under wronginfluences too? I pray not.
In the waiting years since that first day of the new century she had become convinced that her warning to their father was right. John’s heart – if not his head – waswith the Jacobites. She sat gazing at the fury outside and recalled comments he had thrown out to her on the spur of the moment. When the Protestant Princess Anne, Willliam’s appointed successor, lost the last of her twelve children, John had muttered, “Is not God removing them so that James can come back?”
In 1701 the Act of Succession became law. The crown must pass to James’s nearest Protestant heir. “Who would that be?” he asked Deborah because he knew she would know.
“The Electress Sophia of Hanover, and then her son, George.”
“They are foreigners! James may be in exile but he has a son.”
“Brought up a French Catholic. Do you not recall how James was besotted with power and put all his Catholic friends in high places when he was king? We need moderation as Father always says.” John just pursed up his lips and frowned.
Then in September of that same year of 1701 James died.
“The young prince is the true King of England and Scotland,” John declared. “They say Louis swore to James on his deathbed to recognise his son as King. Perhaps he will send him over with a French army to back him.”
“And what would you do if we were in France at the time? Join in?”
John laughed it off. “I’d have to wait and see the outcome.”
Deborah snapped back, “England will go to war with France first to prevent Louis putting his grandson on the throne of Spain and making a great league against us and the Dutch and the Emperor. Louis’ generals won’t let him take risks for a thirteenyear-old boy whose upkeep at Saint Germain already costs a fortune.”
“Well, I don’t understand Europe at all,” John grumbled. “Father fought the Dutch when he was young and we didn’t exactly win but now we are their allies and have a Dutch King.”
That however was not for much longer as William died in February 1702 and Anne succeeded. John borrowed the newspapers and read that in Scotland many were openly declaring that the young Prince James Frances Edward Stuart was now James the Eighth of Scotland and Third of England. “I have to agree with that,” he told Deborah, “but don’t tell the parents I said so.”
“And what do you intend to do about it?” she asked. “I suppose Jeanetta wants you to raise a troop of Northumberland Catholics to march on London?”
He made a great show of being offended. “You think she and I are fools because she’s not as clever as you?”
Deborah sat listening to the howling of the gale. Maybe it is all noise with him, she tried to reassure herself, like that wind out there. But I do believe he was secretly received into the Catholic Church before they married and goes in when he takes her to their private Mass in Newcastle. Mother believes he has a walk by the quayside. How blind she and Father are! God send him wisdom and for us a calm day tomorrow.
CHAPTER THREE
Next day, rising early in the cramped room the three of them had shared with Maria, Deborah looked out of the tiny window and saw blue sky. She listened. The groaning wind was still. She told herself gleefully, my prayer has done more than all Jeanetta’s candles. We will sail today. For the first time ever I will leave the shores of England.
She stirred Maria on her straw mattress on the floor. “Fasten my corset before your mistress wakes, then I can attend to myself. See the day is calm. We can sail but we must be at the quay early for there will be a great crush for the packet boats.”
Maria had slept in her clothes and was up in a moment. On tiptoe she peered out of the window.
“Oh Mistress Deborah, there are still waves. Madam will be fearful.”
But she came over and tied Deborah’s laces. Deborah patted her arm.
“They are bluewaves, Maria. That makes all the difference.”
“Does it, Ma’am?”
Sadly, it didn’t. They soon found themselves wedged on board with four times as many passengers as there were berths below decks. John insisted that Jeanetta must lie down. The fare for the crossing was only a guinea a head but Deborah saw him slip extra silver into the steward’s hand to procure a side berth for her.
“I shall stay on deck in the fresh air,” Deborah said. “I must see the coast of England disappearing from sight.”
Matt had seen their baggage bestowed and was joking on deck with a group of other menservants, but Jeanetta kept Maria at her side and implored John too not to leave her. While they were still in harbour she cried that the motion of the boat was making her ill.
Deborah clutched the wooden side as the sails were spread and the boat surged into the waves. Oh glorious, glorious, she was telling herself, when suddenly the sensation of rising up and leaving her stomach behind as the boat plunged again made her gasp with astonishment. So that’s what sea-sickness is, she muttered, but I shall not succumb to it. She took deep breaths of the sharp air, much colder as they found themselves in the open sea. She looked back at the land to keep her eyes and mind occupied but the white cliffs were rising and falling. She looked at the horizon but it too was heaving up and down.
She realised that the face of a moustachioed gentleman holding onto the side next to her had turned a greenish white. Meeting her eye he tried a grin. “One can never become accustomed to it.”
She laughed. “It’s my first voyage. You are much travelled perhaps.”
“Back and forth all the time. Even so –” He turned his head and was copiously sick over the side.
Deborah jumped back as some of it blew towards her. Her foot slithered from under her and she sat abruptly down on the deck. The stench told her that she had slipped in a pool of vomit.
The moustachioed gentleman extended his arms at once and, clutching him, she hauled herself upright. They swayed together till they both grabbed the side again.
Deborah had never been gripped and held like that by a man since the time of Ranald Gordon. She looked at this man with a new intensity. That he had flecks of vomit adhering to his moustache was, she fel
t, irrelevant. Who was he? He spoke English well but looked French. His dress was more flamboyant than that of a travelling English gentleman but it was his face she studied, especially his eyes. They were so dark they were almost black but shining with intelligence and humour. His lips were curvy and full. The colour was returning to his cheeks and she could tell that their natural tone was a ruddy red.
Ignoring the state of her skirt she smiled at him. “Thank you for your assistance, sir. May I know your name?”
He smiled back, studying her too from top to toe.
“Le Vent. Edouard le Vent. I must say you are an unusual young lady to be treating with indifference the damage to her apparel. May I also know the name of my interlocutor?”
“Deborah Wilson Horden. Le Vent? The wind? And you travel back and forth all the time like the wind?”
He lifted his brows and nodded several times, compressing his lips, assessing her. She enjoyed his scrutiny. He produced a handkerchief to wipe his moustache with a flourish. She thought, he is not ashamed of his sickness and I shall not be ashamed of my unpleasant condition. It seems to impress him that I can rise above such things. He is not as tall as my Ranald but at least he is not shorter than I. We are the same height and that does not appear to have frightened him unduly.
“You understand some French, Mistress Horden?”
“I read it easily but have had little practice in speaking it. Your English is excellent.”
“I love your England.” There was a pause before he added in a low, almost reverend tone, “and your wild, beautiful Scotland.”
He can’t possibly know my connection with Scotland, she thought. There was no reaction when I gave him my name. Why the special emphasis then on our northern brethren?
She realised they were still bouncing along in the waves and her stomach had adapted itself to the motion. Their dialogue appeared to have taken his mind too off his sickness. He was patently interested in her and she was a little disconcerted to find how excited that made her.
“You have visited Scotland?” she asked.
“Several times and you?”
“Once.” She threw the word out lightly but it was there with her, the moonlight night, the horse beneath her, the exhilaration, the desperation, the fear.
“And you come from – ?” he asked
“Northumberland.”
“Ah – so near to Scotland – and yet –?”
“We are not a travelling family.” She laughed at herself. “Till now, I should say. How long do you think before we reach France?”
He shrugged. “I have known nine hours for a crossing and I have known three, less if the wind is most favourable but that is rare. Let us guess at four today.”
“I believe I can stand here, holding on like this for four hours. I have no wish to join my brother and his wife below.”
“No no, it is hell below decks. Even here in the air –” He waved one hand around and Deborah reluctantly turned her head and surveyed the deck. Figures were huddled, white-faced on the benches, and more were prone on the boards despite the vomit that sloshed around on the deck. Seamen leapt among them none too gently when they had to adjust sails. Deborah looked quickly back at the water creaming by the gunwales. She gulped and swallowed and breathed in deeply.
“I am all right here.” She looked boldly into his eyes. “Are you?”
“With your company, Madam, I am indeed.”
He wasinterested in her. He asked where in Northumberland they lived and she found herself telling him he must have passed not far from Horden Hall if he had been to Scotland from London.
“We are but four miles north of the town of Newcastle and our land reaches nearly to the Great North Road which is the stagecoach route into Scotland.”
“Your land? You are big people? Aristocracy? I am perhaps addressing LadyHorden, the Countessof Horden?”
His black eyes were bright with humour but he was not teasing her. She laughed freely. “Mistress will do very well. My father is quite a small baronet.”
He held out a hand about five feet above the deck. “Small so? And his daughter so tall?”
It was the first allusion to her height but it was impossible to mind it, his smile was so charming.
“I think you know I meant ‘lowly’ in the hierarchy of our English people of title. A baronet, especially one created by James the First to raise revenue, is not a nobleman. Although with a different emphasis he is certainly a nobleman.” She thought fondly of her father. One day she would tell him of this encounter.
“You alluded to James the Sixth of Scotland. I understand that natives of Scotland refer to the young James in exile as the eighth James. They were not so happy with Dutch William I believe and your Queen Anne has no living heir?”
Ah, so we are onto politics, she thought. She answered cautiously, “There are many who agree with the English government that the union of our two countries is desirable. Scottish trade would prosper. But yes, there are those who wish to see a Stuart on the Scottish throne. The difficulty lies in the Presbyterian form of religion which Scotland has embraced as its national church. There is a general suspicion of Catholicism.” She gave him a very straight look. “Of which no doubt you as a Frenchman are an adherent.”
He tossed his head and waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “Catholic, Protestant – I keep away from such things.” A sudden squall of wind blew a shower over them. He clasped his hands together and pointed them upwards for a moment before grabbing again at the side. “Of course I pray for a safe landing.”
Was he mocking religion? She couldn’t be sure. Or was he implying like Grandfather Nat that God could not be confined to one sect? If that were so she could agree with him heartily.
He was hanging onto his hat now as the squall passed. Her own was held on by a silk scarf fastened over it. She didn’t mind the rain on her face but it was over quickly and sunshine suddenly lit up the waves.
“May I know where in la belleFrance Mistress Horden is heading?” he asked now and, seeing her eyes widen with excitement, he looked round. “And yes, there she is, the line on the horizon. My beloved country.” He placed one hand over hers for barely a second. “And your very first visit to it.”
The touch expressed an intimacy they couldn’t have reached in so short a time. She knew it in her rational mind but the feel of his fingers through the fine calf leather of her glove spurred her to talk freely. She told him of the Château Rombeau and her sister-inlaw’s family and their mutual great-grandfather. She even explained that she had felt unable to leave her sick grandfather and travel to her brother’s wedding.
“I should have attended on the bride with her own cousin’s daughters but how could I overtop them all? The bridal procession would have excited ridicule rather than solemnity.” Was she drunk with the heady sea air that she would make fun of her own height to a virtual stranger?
He gave her such a merry understanding smile that she did not regret it.
“That was, perchance, a stronger reason than your grandfather’s illness for your withholding your presence?”
She was about to deny it vigorously when she acknowledged for the first time ever that he was probably right. Grandmother Bel had urged her to go. ‘My Nat is not so near death. He will be here when you return.’ And he hadlived three more years. She smiled. “There is a nugget of truth in what you say. I am a firm believer in honesty and the hardest thing is to be honest with oneself. I admit I did not want to be conspicuous. My sister-in-law is slight of build and her bridesmaids were mere children. My young sister took my place. She is both petite and pretty.”
“I admire and share your love of honesty. To be open and frank with all men is admirable.” He paused very deliberately and added, “Though it may not be given to all in all circumstances.”
She nodded. “You are thinking of the demands of tact and courtesy.” I am liking this gentleman more and more, she thought, and then Maria appeared at her elbow.
&nbs
p; “Oh Mistress Deborah, are you well? Master and Mistress sent me to find out.” The poor girl’s clothes were more stained than Deborah’s. Her pallor was a shock. She seemed hardly able to stand.
“I am as you see, Maria, in good health if a little discommoded as to my dress. How are my brother and your mistress? He at least could come up here for some air.”
“Oh they are both quite laid out and say they only want to die. I too. The motion is as bad everywhere.” She retched over the side but nothing came up.
“I am quite empty but still sick,” she moaned.
“Go and lie down if you can. Tell them I am not ill at all.”
Maria brushed sodden, sticky hair from her eyes. “You are the only one in the boat then.” She scurried below.
“ La pauvre fille!” exclaimed Monsieur le Vent.
Deborah turned to him with renewed pleasure. It waspossible to keep sickness at bay if the mind was pleasantly engaged. She said, laughing, “Life is seldom kind to Maria, which is sad since her mistress needs a cheerycompanion. S hesees the black side of everything, yet she will have none but Maria as her lady’s maid.”
He inclined his head towards her. “While you, I am sure, are happiness itself.”
“I try to be.” She was looking beyond him to the coast of France becoming clearer. This was to be the most thrilling moment, the landing on a foreign shore. She met his eyes again. “Oh, Monsieur le Vent, pray let us converse in French from now on.” She broke into French herself as she went on. “Tell me how it will be in Calais and what we should see in Paris when we get there. I have read books but to be told by a real Frenchman – ! And please correct my accent and many mistakes.”
He took this seriously and though he could not fault her grammar he showed her how to achieve a French r and avoid an English inflection in her sentences.
She practised everything he pointed out with the same assiduity she had always shown in the business of learning. She well remembered how it had astonished her family when she was a child. I had just started to study Hebrew, she recalled, when Ranald came into my life. This man is as pleased with my dedication to learning as Ranald was, though he, God bless him, was in men’s eyes a rough, uncouth giant.
Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall Page 2