Will heaved a deep sigh. “Have you considered this carefully, my lord? Will it not be interpreted that you and the lady are affianced? Although even if that were the case would it not be damaging to the lady’s reputation? I trust it is notthe case, my lord. Your grandfather must be apprised of any suitable lady to be a future Countess of Branford so that he can approve your choice.”
Frederick frowned as fiercely as he knew how. “There is no question of an engagement and don’t let me hear you mention such a thing again. But have you forgotten that it was my grandfather who proposed us meeting with the members of the Horden family for old times’ sake.” He was thinking to himself, I am a grown man, a widower, and if I were ever to remarry it would be my own choice for my countess. But he had learnt to confide much less in Will now that he had more congenial company.
Will had put on his most obstinate expression, standing feet slightly apart and hands on his hips. “I must speak, my lord, and risk your anger again. I am sorry that your grandfather failed to warn you that many young ladies would be after you. If Mistress Horden has asked you to escort her to Italy it is only as I predicted. She has set her sights on you, my lord.”
“You aremaking me angry and I’ll have you know, Will Smyth, that Iasked Mistress Horden, not the other way about.”
“But she acceded readily, my lord.”
“You can sprinkle ‘my lords’ all you like but they do not lessen your rudeness in raising this matter to me.”
Will’s eyes blazed with fury. He turned on his heel muttering, “No one ever called me rude before.” At the room door he bowed stiffly. “I will go and make the arrangements you requested, my lord. Which day shall I book passage and do you wish oars or sails, my lord?”
“Let us say three days from now. And sails of course. I hope you are not suggesting a horrible slave galley. Those feluccas in the harbour go to Genoa, do they not?”
“Yes, my lord, but they also keep close inshore like the oared vessels because of Barbary pirates. But you know best my lord.” He bowed again and went out.
Pirates! Frederick echoed. Will is maliciously trying to frighten me. But into what dangers am I leading Deborah Horden? If we miscarry her family will never forgive me. Yet they say the route by road is mighty hazardous too especially as we draw in towards winter.
Even as he was half-regretting his impetuosity he was thinking how stalwart and unperturbed Deborah had shown herself in every situation they had met. Her confidence in the language and in dealing with the native French had already frequently smoothed their way. I believe I am looking on heras myprotector, he was ashamed to admit to himself as he changed into fresh linen and prepared to go downstairs. Nevertheless, he was thinking, this is my first great adventure. Maybe it should have come when I was much younger for now I cannot foresee where it may lead and that is unsettling at my time of life.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Letters! At last!” Daniel could hear his mother calling from the kitchen. His heart sang with relief.
Letters were brought to the back door of Horden Hall and he knew his mother was more likely to be in the kitchen than any other room on a wet November day that had scarcely become light. She came bounding into the hallway under the ornamental plaster archway with the letters bundled in her apron. She was young again.
Daniel had emerged from the estate office and Eunice from the parlour. Eunice’s face was crumpled with tears of joy. “Thank God, thank God, thank God.”
His mother extracted one from her apron and peered at it. “This must be the latest. Deb dates them outside and inside. Oh what can have held them up? Is there fighting going on? They have come in a bunch all together.”
“Let us spread them on the library table,” Daniel said. “Read them in order.”
“But I must just look at the last first that we may see the dear souls are well.” Bel’s rheumatic fingers were already trying to ease the seal apart.
Daniel took out his pocket knife and slit it for her. “Go on then, Mother. You will have your way.” He handed it to her and she took it to the library window to get what light she could.
“It is headed Lyons and then further down, Marseilles. Where are those places? Are they somewhere near Rombeau? But what is this? Deborah and John have parted, she for Italy and he back to Rombeau.”
Eunice cried out, “Have they quarrelled? Please God it is not that. I trust neither on their own.”
Daniel felt sick at heart. It had been such joy to hear anything after so long a wait but now this could only be bad news.
His mother was having trouble with the dim light.
“Let me.” He took the letter from her and glanced quickly through it. “She is with Lord Branford. We must look back at these other letters. Mother, what have you done, agreeing with the old earl that they should meet? Now he has got hold of our Deb and has dismissed her brother and is prancing about the continent with her. She will be infatuated as she was with that Ranald and the next thing we’ll hear is that she’s expecting his child.”
Eunice sank down onto one of the library chairs and put her head in her hands.
“Why did I ever let both my children go? You did it without my consent, Daniel. I thought it was the war we had to fear but that has been nothing. And now they are apart and she is in a strange man’s clutches!”
Bel was unsealing an earlier letter with Daniel’s knife. “This is clearer writ, with a better quill. You shan’t blame me, either of you. Hear what Deb writes of Lord Branford when he came to Rombeau. ‘He is a little man. I am a giant to him. He is shy and not at all earl-like.’ Well, her head will not be turned by him.
Eunice lifted her eyes to Daniel’s. “But she should not be travelling alone with an unattached young man. When I think how my father kept me confined!”
“We are all getting over excited.” Daniel saw he must take charge. “We will do what I said first. Lay the letters out in order of date. I see how it is. John and Deb have set off travelling again shortly after her last one to us when she described Paris and Versailles. That was despatched by the Rombeau servants when they were back at the château. The delays have happened since then. Once John and Deb were on the move again in a hired carriage letters sent to England from French inns may have been intercepted and scrutinised. At all events they have come.”
So he read aloud the account of the Loire valley, Orleans, Nantes and the Atlantic waves. ‘Suzette was frighted by the great rollers pounding in.’”
“You see,” his mother interrupted, “she has her French maid with her and John has Matt. Lord Branford seems to have a host of servants too.”
Daniel dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Servants don’t count.”
Eunice slapped her hand on the table. “Servants are people too. I won’t have you say that, Daniel.”
Bel squeezed her shoulders. “You are right, Eunice, and we needn’t feel so anxious about them. From what we know of Lord Branford he was not used to so much attention but it is well that he has it now.”
“But let us see the next one where they speak of parting company.” Daniel could see Eunice was still tense with anxiety. “John is so young and innocent and Matt is not a solid character. He will go along with any mad scheme of John’s. And they are travelling in a hostile country too. What happens if they are surrounded by a French army?”
Daniel was already studying the latest letter. He looked up. “I wager the armies will all be in winter quarters now. John will be safe back at Rombeau and Deborah and Lord Branford will be in Italy where there is no fighting at all.”
“So you are a little calmer now, son?” Bel was pushing her spectacles back up her nose and giving him her twinkling smile.
“I may seem calmer but it irks me sorely that she is travelling with this man we have never met.”
“And she and John have not fallen out?”
“No, Deb writes of it as the most natural thing that John should be eager to get home for Christmas with Jeanetta and her family and b
e in time for the birth in January. She points out that she and Lord Branford both wish to go into Italy which indeed was the plan for her and John this winter.”
Eunice said, “And you truly think John may be safe in Rombeau now.”
“If he and Matt took horse and stopped as little as possible.”
She lifted her face and tears were still running down. “I cannot bear to be away for the birth of our first grandchild. I want to see my baby John as a father.”
“They will come to us as soon as is wise in the springtime.”
Bel clasped her hands before her face. “And that I should live – God willing – to be a great-grandmother!”
“If only he had married a local girl,” Eunice said.
Daniel laid down the last letter and got up to pace about the room. “It is Deborah I am thinking of. What can be her real state of mind? She has had weeks of intimacy with this man. She speaks of him as pleasant company but what is she hiding from us? What are hisfeelings about her?”
He could say no more. Tears were welling up. Experiences were happening to his precious girl and he was cut off from them. He gathered up all the letters and took them to the estate office to study more closely. His mother and wife were following, clamouring for them. “You’ll get them all back,” he managed to say and went in and closed the door.
Deborah and Frederick Branford had indeed reached Italy but were still far from their destination of Genoa. The feluccain which they had been travelling had been forced to put into port by bad weather. Deborah was thankful that neither she nor Frederick Branford had been seasick but she was happy to find herself in harbour at San Remo though the boat still rocked a little and Suzette for whom the voyage had been a terrible ordeal was still feeling ill. Deborah was the only member of the party with fluent Italian so the captain addressed her.
“It is almost nightfall, good lady. I know of an excellent hotel in San Remo and can conduct you there at once.”
Before she could answer she found Will Smyth at her shoulder. He appeared never to be ill by sheer strength of character.
Now he whispered urgently, “Don’t trust him. We will fare better on the mattresses under the awnings. The masters of the feluccas always want the passengers to go on shore for they and the crew can be more comfortable without them.”
She could see that Lord Branford was ready to follow the captain who was gesturing for them all to go ashore.
Deborah smiled at Will. “We’ll try the inn.” He stepped aside, shaking his head.
Lord Branford held out his hand to help her onto the steps. “They can surely give us a supper and now that we are off the sea I am quite hungry.”
She took his hand even though her stride was longer than his and she could manage perfectly well herself. His grip was firm and she liked the feel of it. She could hear Will muttering behind as he helped Suzette. Peter and Joseph followed. Peter was permanently hungry for the ‘b-b-beef of old England.’
It was dark now but the captain carried a lantern and led them up an alleyway at right angles to the coast until they came to a stone stairway between two buildings. Turning to Deborah he told her that the patronup there would give them fine entertainment and she and her maid would have the prettiest room in San Remo.
Will bustled forwards. “What said he, Mistress Horden?” She knew he hated to admit that his Italian was very meagre. His eyes had opened wide when he had first heard her speaking it as eloquently as French.
“We are to go up,” she said.
The captain was holding up his lantern to point the way and indeed there was an open door at the top of the stairs from which candlelight shone and voices could be heard. Will shook his head again but obviously thought it his duty to venture first. He only murmured to Lord Branford, “Let them see you have a pistol in your belt, my lord,” as he began to mount the stair.
Lord Branford looked round at Deborah. “I really dislike wearing this thing.” She caught the gleam of his teeth as he smiled at her. “Can you see your way? Pray take my hand.”
“I need to lift my skirt and hold onto this rail. These steps are none too clean. Suzette, take hold of me if your feet slip.” And so they made their way up towards the light and noise, Deborah delighted with this first mysterious taste of Italy.
The room they entered was a general common room where rough-looking men sat about drinking. It opened at the left hand end to a kitchen from which floated a strong aroma of onion and garlic. Next to the kitchen, at the far end of the wall opposite, were two doors. The right hand one stood open showing a narrow stair leading up. What was below, Deborah wondered. She couldn’t imagine what this place would look like in daylight.
They had emerged into the centre of the room and the men at the tables glanced round and then grinned at each other. No one else appeared to greet them.
Will Smyth walked over to the kitchen door and called out in English, “Is there no service here?”
A stout woman ambled out wiping greasy hands on her apron. Deborah stepped towards her and asked in Italian what chambers there were available for their party and could a supper be served there. The woman looked up at her with her mouth hanging open. Deborah realised that both her height and her Italian had astonished her. She gave her a winning smile. Then the woman peered round at Lord Branford, cocked her head on one side, suppressed a grin, and counted them all on her fingers before screwing up her face and babbling something very fast at Deborah.
Deborah couldn’t help chuckling at Lord Branford. “I think she takes us for husband and wife and can give us the best room. I will explain.”
After more talk she turned to him again. “She has two rooms. Suzette and I can share one and you and Will the other. She can give Peter and Joseph mattresses in here. Well, we would have been more crowded on the feluccaand not as warm.”
“Not so likely to be robbed though,” Will muttered.
Peter piped up. “Are we to be f-f-fed, Mistress Horden?”
Deborah laughed. “Nothing comes before your stomach, does it, Peter? She says, if I understand her dialect of Italian, that she will see what she can do.”
The woman picked up a candle from one of the tables and beckoned to the four of them that were to be privileged with separate rooms. They followed her up the narrow stair in the corner into what seemed by the lowness of the ceilings to be attics. To the left at the top was a very small room containing nothing but a wooden bedstead. To the right a larger one boasted a set of shelves too and a rickety table. Between on the outer wall of the square of landing was a roughly boarded up door.
Deborah indicated the left-hand room. “Suzette and I can be very snug here.” She said it brightly though she had to bend her head and shoulders to get in, the tumbled bedding looked none too clean and there was a strong smell of mould.
Lord Branford peered in. “No, I protest. Will and I could bed down there.”
But Will had already carried his lordship’s valise into the other room. He popped his head out again to say, “I noticed a bolt on that other door, my lord. Mistress Horden and her maid can lock themselves in. I will bring a blanket out here and sleep on the landing.”
The woman had by now lit a candle in each of the rooms and was preparing to descend. Deborah asked her if they could after all eat in the common room.
“I don’t want you to have the trouble of carrying food up that narrow stair,” she told her sweetly. The woman grunted and descended.
Deborah could guess at Frederick Branford’s rueful expression as Suzette laid her mistress’s small travelling bag on their bed. The candle was in a bracket attached to the wooden bed head and lit up the cobwebs that linked wall and ceiling in a festooning net.
“This is the worst we have ever seen,” he said. “You can’t spend the night there.”
“Nonsense. We’ll survive. And if our door is bolted Will has no need to be on the landing. Let us go down and see if they can do better in the provision of supper.”
Unfor
tunately this proved not to be the case. A man-servant with dirty hands threw onto the table a wooden platter containing slabs of rock-hard cheese, a few hunks of stale bread, a small knob of butter and several raw onions. These had to be washed down with a very inferior wine. There was a jug of water but none of them dared to touch it.
Frederick Branford said, “If we can sleep after this it will be a miracle.”
But Deborah found that by the time she had persuaded Suzette to use the chamber-pot they found under their bed and then to get into the bed beside her mistress, both keeping on their outdoor clothes, she was so tired that she fell asleep as soon as she had curled her long legs to suit the shortness of the bed.
She didn’t know how long she had slept before Suzette woke her, squealing that she was bitten all over and Deborah realised she too was being attacked. The grimy skylight above them showed no vestige of daylight. Their candle was out and she had no means of relighting it. This was truly misery. She thought of the scented linen at Castle Rombeau and wondered if John was enjoying it now. To Suzette she could only say, “When we are safely out of here we will laugh about it. Let us just cuddle up together and pray for morning.”
Deborah thought she had scarcely gone to sleep again when cries and shouts invaded her dreams. She tried to pull the covers over her head, desperate for sleep. But then there came a thunderous knock on the door and Will Smyth’s voice yelling, “Come out. There is a fire below. Wake up.”
Deborah’s stomach lurched. She was out of the bed and dragging Suzette after her while he was still speaking. Her feet found her shoes. She felt about and located Suzette’s and thrust them at her. Straightening up she banged her head. Which way was she facing? She flung out an arm and struck the door with her knuckles. Now she felt frantically for the bolt and dragged it back. Smoke met her, acrid and stinking. The foot of the stairway was lit by a sinister glow showing all round the doorframe. From underneath it the smoke was curling in evil swirls.
She was sickeningly reminded of the time when she and John were trapped as children in the Catholic Chapel in Newcastle. An inflamed mob had deliberately tried to burn down the door. Fire will pursue me all my life, she was inwardly screaming. I was born when Horden Hall was on fire. Mother was always afraid of her fire baby. Oh God, Father will learn that his girl was burnt to death in a stinking Italian inn.
Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall Page 11