Comte Rombeau’s wide frame was again swaggering ahead of them as they explored the buildings and gardens. When he was not bowing to acquaintances he was turning round to see how delighted Deborah was with all this magnificence. John grinned at her wickedly. He had exhausted his own adulation at his last visit and found amusement in her efforts to maintain her enthusiasm. “The Hall of Mirrors and the Orangery,” she declared with truth, “are very fine.”
On their last morning the count managed to insert them into the crowds pressing into the King’s bedchamber for the daily ceremony of his dressing. Deborah thought this extraordinary and though they only saw some of the final layers of Louis’s elaborate costume being put upon him she would have liked to hide away. Instead she had the mortification of meeting the King’s eye and hearing him ask an attendant why the lady had climbed upon a box to look at him.
Comte Rombeau pushed forwards and fell heavily on his knees. “Forgive me, your majesty. She is sister-in-law to my daughter and is a very tall English lady.”
The King waved a jewelled hand to dismiss the matter, but Deborah heard a courtier mutter, “She could be added to the menagerie as a new attraction.” There were giggles as the Rombeau party retreated quickly and the comte’s affability with her was sorely strained from then on.
She was very glad next day when she and John climbed into the carriage without him to begin the journey back to the Château Rombeau. In her eye she pictured with pleasure her quiet reading bower until she remembered the mysterious visit of Monsieur le Vent. All this sight-seeing had put him out of her mind. Would he return? Why had John started at hearing his name? For the sake of harmony she refrained from questioning him again. He was edgy, anxious to be back for news of Jeanetta.
They were travelling amicably enough now, the road passing through misty morning fields, when they saw in a dip of the road ahead of them a thicker patch of fog. Shouts came from it and all sorts of strange shapes loomed out of it.
“What’s to do here?” John called to the Rombeau coachman. “Slow down and approach cautiously.”
A horseman emerged, seeming to trail wraiths of the mist behind him. He shouted to them, “Nothing to fear. Just some peasant woman evicted for not paying her rent. She and her boy were pushing their cart in the middle of the road. Idiots!”
He galloped off.
As they drew nearer Deborah could make out on either side of the road the scattered hovels of a small settlement next to a stream meandering through the valley. In the middle of the road was an upturned cart that must have been piled with the items of furniture and baggage that were now strewn across the road. A carriage approaching from the opposite direction was held up too and a woman in a shawl was wailing and wringing her hands at the edge of the road while a skinny lad struggled to pull the cart right way up. People running from the houses were doing nothing to help but were making off with anything they could carry.
Deborah saw that a gentleman had descended from the other carriage and was remonstrating with the plunderers. His servant seemed to be remonstrating with him and urging him back into the carriage as the poor sticks of furniture were dragged off the road and the way opened. But Deborah’s heart went out to the poor woman and her son. She jumped down and ran to her.
“Where were you going?” she asked her. “Have you some place to take these things?”
“My brother’s if he’ll have me.”
John had followed but at that moment a burly man trotted up on a pony and began laying about with a whip. “Leave the goods alone. She owes me them for the rent.”
Deborah was caught in a rush of people trying to dodge the whip and found herself pushed against the gentleman from the other carriage. He looked round and seeing this shape looming over him grabbed her arms and held them tight against her sides. His head butted her chin.
“I’ve been fooled once,” he muttered in English. “Not again.” Then to her in French, “You were trying to pick my pocket. I warn you I have a pistol in my belt.”
Deborah was too astonished to speak but the man’s servant hauled him off her.
“Get in the carriage, my lord. And let’s get out of here before more harm’s done.”
The gentleman found himself lifted bodily in. His mouth hung open as he looked up at Deborah’s face. “God in heaven! Is it really –? No surely – ?”
He was trying to touch his hat and bow to her as the coachman whipped up the horses and the carriage escaped from the general melée.
John came up and grabbed Deborah’s arm. “They do well to clear off. This is not our business.”
She saw his hat had been knocked awry and there was a red mark on his cheek. Matt and the Rombeau servants were fighting off several ragged boys trying to raid the carriage where Suzette was cowering on the floor squealing.
Deborah pushed some coins into the woman’s hand and shouted at the man with the whip, “Let her alone. Take only what is yours in law and let her and her boy go to her brother’s.” Something about her imperious tone, her height and her fluent French made the man lower his whip and the villagers melted away to their houses leaving a few broken bits of furniture and the woman’s bundle. Her boy loaded it onto the cart which he had finally managed to set upright.
“You can’t have my few clothes,” the woman screamed at the man.
“Nay, they’ll be full of fleas,” the man yelled, “but I’ll have the cart. You took it from my shed.”
John drew Deborah back to the carriage.
“For pity’s sake, let’s go. We can’t judge between them.”
With great reluctance she climbed in and comforted Suzette. The Rombeau coachman clicked to the horses. As they passed the woman she was shouldering her bundle and taking her boy by the hand to go on their way. Her hunched weary shape stabbed at Deborah’s heart.
She shook her head at John and gave a long sigh. “At home I would have taken her up and deposited her at her brother’s door but we can hardly impose that on the comte’s servants. And you, John? Did the whip catch you?”
He put his hand to his cheek. “The merest touch. What was all that to-do at the other carriage?”
Deborah thought of the face of the gentleman who had threatened her with his pistol. She couldn’t help breaking into laughter.
“I suppose he took me for a man in woman’s clothes. He must have been attacked by one before. ‘Not again,’ he said. He was English and his servant called him ‘my lord’ but he was not a very heroic figure when he was hauled back into his carriage. Although,” she added, thinking of when she had first noticed him, “he had got down himself to protest at what those thieving villagers were doing. That took courage for he was quite small of stature. But oh the redness of the poor man’s face when he looked me in the eye. I’m not sure even then that he was certain I wasa woman.”
John joined in her laughter.
The Branford hired carriage went on its way towards Versailles as the sun broke through the mist and touched the summer fields with flashes of brilliant green.
Frederick sat hunched and silent as Will persisted in haranguing him.
“But my lord, I implore you not to concern yourself with the affairs of other people. Will you give me an assurance that you will not leave the carriage again if we encounter troubles like that?”
Frederick shook his head, sat up straight and looked Will in the eye. “They were robbing that poor woman. The horseman galloped straight into the village when he could scarce see ten yards before him in the fog. The poor boy swung away from him and the cart went over. But the man didn’t stop for a moment. He might have killed her and the boy.”
“He is not permitted to stop. He was a King’s messenger.”
“I care not who he was. There is such a thing as humanity.”
“But you see, my lord, you again laid yourself at risk from robbery. Where there are crowds of desperate people there is always thieving.”
“And why are they desperate? Are not the fields produc
ing food?”
“Ah yes sir, and prices will come down at harvest time. This is the hardest month for many. Larders are empty. Rents are high.”
“Well well, it may be so but I do not believe we would have witnessed a scene like that in England. But now, tell me, Will, was that not a man who accosted me in the crowd? There was very little bosom that I could see under the bodice and when I looked at the face there was no beard but certainly a strong jaw. The hair piled up under that straw hat was so fair I thought it might be a wig.”
Will was grinning in a way Frederick didn’t like. “Assuredly it was a tall lady, my lord. I saw her get out of a fine carriage with a count’s crest. She went to the poor woman with an air of feminine compassion, though it is true that she moved like a man with large strides. She fell up against you because she was pushed by the surge of the mob fleeing the man with the whip, my lord.”
Frederick burned even more fiercely with shame. “You think it was a grandlady? And I pinioned her arms to her side and threatened her with my pistol! You gave me not a moment to make my apologies before you whisked me away.”
“Do not be anxious, my lord, you are hardly likely to meet her again in the whole of France. She doesn’t know your name. Let us forget the incident and endeavour to have no more such encounters. Keeping one’s distance from trouble is what I have learnt wherever I travel, my lord.”
Frederick fell silent again. The sprinkling of ‘my lords’ did nothing to mitigate his sense of being told off like a naughty child.
Deborah and John reached the Château Rombeau on a baking hot afternoon. Jeanetta was lying down. All the family appeared to be lying down and Suzette assumed that Deborah would wish to do the same.
“I get bag of ice for my lady, put on head.”
“Thank you, no, Suzette. I see the fountains are playing and I’ll stroll round where the air is moist and cooler.”
“Is my lady’s head not aching?”
“Not at all.”
“You wish me attend you?”
“No. Youlie down yourself with a bag of ice and let me be alone for a while.”
Suzette giggled nervously. It was a habit with her lately. Deborah found it irritating but couldn’t stop herself from provoking it. This being waited on and followed about was absurd and she longed to break through to the real Suzette and make a friend of her. She knew the giggles only covered Suzette’s inability to make sense of her new mistress of whom she plainly remained in abject awe.
Deborah went out through the empty passages into the garden which throbbed with heat and stillness. She reached the first fountain and stretched her hands into the veil of spray, tilting her head to let it spatter her face and even run down her neck.
“You long for the cool of Northumberland, n’est-ce-pas?”
She swung round. Edouard le Vent stood ten paces behind her.
“You – again!”
He grinned and she felt those black eyes boring into hers like gimlets. He stepped up smartly and seized her hand and kissed it.
“No.” She snatched her hand away, took a step back, tripped on the rim of the pool and sat down in the water.
He leapt to her aid with both hands outstretched but the absurdity of the situation convulsed her. Am I to fall over every time I meet this man? She nearly asked it aloud. She rejected his hands and leant back exulting in the cool cascade, her fury turned to laughter. He laughed too. After a few moments she did stretch a hand to his and he hauled her out.
“My dear Mistress Horden, may I escort you to the château to change your apparel?”
“I am not your dear Mistress Horden, I am a post, a post with sharp ears.”
She looked to see him disconcerted but though it was plain from his eyes that he was instantly alert to her meaning he remained all smiles.
“Ah, you do not know that all the packet boat captains wish to marry me off but I tell them the wind can settle nowhere. Nor may I say would I ever aspire to an English baronet’s daughter and certainly not to one so formidableas Mistress Deborah Horden. I admire your humour and your spirit and repeat may I escort you to the château?”
“I will walk about and dry in the sun, thank you.” She unpinned her straw hat which the fountain had not improved and shook out her abundant flaxen hair. She knew it was her best feature and took delight in displaying it to him.
“Ah that is indeed a sight for the eyes.”
“Then you may earn the pleasure of it by answering this question. Why do you keep appearing at Château Rombeau? Is it because I told you we were to stay here?”
She began to stride along one of the diagonal gravelled paths and he had to hasten to keep up with her at least till he answered her question.
“The Château Rombeau is but one of many havens to which this wind blows.”
“And to what purpose does it blow here?”
“Ah that is man’s business.” He made great flourishes in the air with both hands.
“Politics? Have you forgotten that England’s most renowned ruler of recent centuries was a woman?”
“But I am French and we see women in a different light. Their raison d’êtreis to be beautiful, which you are.” He checked his steps to face her. “But you have strength and dignity too which frightens men – unless perchance they are of unusually large stature?”
He was shooting her meaningful looks, his eyebrows and moustache working gleefully.
He cannot possibly know about Ranald Gordon, she thought. To cover her discomfiture she scoffed, “Dignity? In wet, steaming clothes? Come, Monsieur le Vent, you trifle with me. Always you turn away from my legitimate curiosity. You know much of me and my family and my French relations too and I know nothing of you.”
“The wind is unattached. As your lovely English Bible tells us, ‘it bloweth where it listeth.’ It has blown me to Scotland and back again and there I saw people of great families like the Campbells, the Frasers, the Gordons” – again a darted glance loaded with mischief – “and small people whose names no one remembers. But I pass by and they know not when they will see me again.” He bowed. “And, my dear lady, nor do you know, for if I can be of no service to you now I will take my leave.”
Another bow and flourish of his hat. His face she could see was glistening with perspiration but his dress made little concession to the heat of the day. He was equipped for riding and she noticed their walk had brought them near the door in the wall that led to the stables. He strode towards it, turned, bowed again and was gone.
“Infuriating man!” she said out loud. But she was not angry, she was frightened. Her brain was absorbing what he had said and her thoughts were galloping. He has delved into my history. He has probed my connection with a Gordon, a lowly and illegitimate one but still by birth a Gordon and one who fought for James! Am I being investigated for something that happened so long ago? And has he learnt about John’s boyhood adventures too? If he is a spy who are his masters? The Englishgovernment? Do they suspect a Jacobite rebellion while we are at war with France? But those Scottish clans he named I thought they had all accepted the status quo, some for reasons of expediency perhaps. Maybe things are stirring and I am ignorant. But why did he hint of his discoveries? To warn me? And what of the Vicomte de Neury? Is hebeing investigated? Le Vent must have been with him today and perhaps met John too. Does de Neury know my past and John’s? Dear God, please do not let that time rise up again to trouble us!
She had begun walking again in her agitation and found herself by one of the marble seats. She sank down, breathing the name ‘Ranald’ in a choking voice. She thought he had been laid to rest but that cauldron of emotion bubbled up all too readily. She shivered. A tiny breeze had curled round her and awakened her awareness of her saturated gown. She stood up abruptly and marched with long strides back to the château. Nothing had changed there. A footman was asleep by the door. Heavy heat lay over all the rooms. Leaving a damp trail behind her she made her way to her bedchamber and gave herself to the exci
ted ministrations of Suzette.
CHAPTER NINE
There was rejoicing in the château and letters flew to Horden Hall. Jeanetta was with child. She was in the highest spirits Deborah had ever seen her. Sickness had passed and she pranced about like a wild colt to John’s evident alarm.
There had been no more reappearances of Monsieur le Vent and when Deborah again questioned John he maintained he hadn’t seen him on that second visit but was prepared to agree that he might be working for the English government and investigating the activities of English travellers in France.
Deborah frowned. “So why would he proclaim his presence to me and hint that he knew of Jacobite connections from our past? Do not spies sneak about and keep their discoveries secret?”
John laughed. “He has taken a fancy to you, sister, and this openness is his way of telling you that you need fear no harm from him. He has found out things but decided they are no longer matters of suspicion.”
Deborah was sceptical about the first part but thought there might be truth in the second. “I am still puzzled though that you had heard the man’s name bandied about before as you put it.”
“That would be his cover. Let everyone think he is a travelling gambler, buyer and seller, a seizer of opportunities. Who would then imagine him as a dealer in secrets?”
“And his visits to Vicomte de Neury?”
“Gambling I feel sure. Sophia is worried about her father, Jeanetta tells me. She is afraid he has a hidden vice. Look, he is a nobody, a family hanger-on. Now tell me, Deb, do you wish to go travelling again when we are not sure where the war may strike next? I am inclined to wait here until our child is born. Jeanetta is fearful of my leaving her.”
Deborah was trying to keep up with reports of the progress of the intermittent fighting. Marlborough had had to withdraw his army from the Moselle because his Dutch allies had sent no reinforcements and France had hailed this as a victory but since then Marlborough, by a clever double bluff, had broken through the famous Lines of Brabant, believed to be impregnable. Again the Dutch held him back from pursuing his advantage and heading direct to France. It seemed certain then that for the moment the fighting would be confined to the country south-east of Brussels.
Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall Page 7