She actually laughed. “Well, John, I’ve never heard you show that sort of interest before. Your father would be delighted. The only difficulty is that he himself is a pioneer in the latest ways of managing land and knows there are many backward practices in outlying places. You can learn all you want from studying his methods.”
“I’d still like to do my own survey. It will mean more to me if I’ve seen for myself what goes on. Then if we did take Nether Horden Grange I could manage the land there in the best way. After I’ve had a little tour round – say a week or two – I could go back to France and bring Jeanetta over. I might even leave you the wee boy so you’d know I’d be back soon. Deb would be pleased. She’s determined that the first words he speaks will be English ones. Nurse isn’t even trying to talk our lingo. She gabbles to him in French all the time.”
His mother laid down her work and took both his hands in hers. “If you will bring Jeanetta here where she belongs at your side, dear boy, I will get you leave from your father to make your little tour of the county. It is good you should be known as a man of ideas and interests. Is it safe to return to France afterwards? Will you not be arrested as an alien?”
He laughed. “As the son-in-law of Comte Rombeau I can go anywhere I please.” He was thinking, there it is again, ‘get you leave from your father’! I am a man and should come and go as I like, but I will put up with it for now.
Somehow his mother persuaded his father it would be a good thing for him to study the farming methods in the county. “Take a notebook and pencil and let me see what you have found out,” was all he said. “Matt can go with you.”
John had every intention of taking Matt. Matt knew all about the people he had called upon in France on their way from Marseilles. Matt wanted adventure as much as he did. It had not been hard to convince him that James was the true king of the whole country of Britain. He rode off, alight with purpose at last. He would test all the Catholic houses he could trace with the password of ‘your wild, beautiful Scotland’.
From the first he found himself accepted as an emissary of Edouard le Vent and the days passed in a whirlwind of gathered heads, whispered words, glimpses at caches of weapons, oaths before icons of the Virgin and promises, promises, promises. At each manor house or farmstead he remembered to ask brief questions about the number of their sheep and cattle, what crops they grew and whether the land was loam, clay or – as it often was
– very stony.
He and Matt rode home on an early September afternoon under a drooping yellowing sky. He saw the grey solid shape of Horden Hall sitting against its sombre curtain of trees and grinned at Matt.
“The old place is not finished with history yet. You and I don’t want it to settle into its fields and woods and think its day is done.”
Matt, curly-haired, more sun-burnt than ever and now more a friend than a servant, chuckled back. “And that old devil,” he pointed to Sir Ralph, “can keep on waving his sword. He may see action again before he crumbles to dust.”
As they drew nearer John saw his mother sitting sewing on the bench as if she had never moved. Now she set down her work and held out her arms in delight. Grandmother Bel was coming down the front steps and waving something in her hand. She didn’t scamper as she used to do but held onto the rail that had been put up for her. The hectic two weeks he had been away seemed so long that he thought she must have aged during his absence. He dismounted and flung the reins to Matt. When it came to unsaddling and grooming Matt was again the servant.
Grandmother Bel held out a letter. “There you are, John. From France. It is not Jeanetta’s hand but I’m sure she will have put in a message. Eh, I could never have borne to be away from my Nat as long as this and my baby too.” She sat down beside his mother. “Have you any work for me there, Eunice? I can’t abide my hands idle.”
“I was thinking of going indoors till I saw it was John come home. We may have a thunderstorm.”
John walked a little way across the grass towards the statue of Sir Ralph and broke the seal. He had recognised Sophia’s hand which chilled his stomach. What if – after all his activity of the past two weeks – he was to learn that her father, Vicomte Neury, had died, his desk had been opened and the plot discovered?
But no! He ran back to the others. “Mother! Grandmother! Netta’s with child again. See how good the French air is for her. But Sophie says she’s more sick than last time. I must go to her.”
Deborah, hot and grubby, came round from the kitchen garden carrying Nathaniel’s basket. Ruth followed Grandmother Bel from the house. Everyone could hear horses’ hooves at Horden Hall and would come to see who had arrived.
He greeted his sisters “Deb! Ruth! Another baby for you. But I must take this one home.” He pounced on the basket and lifted the child out, the long clothes trailing. “Hey young sir, you’re to have a brother or sister next year. What do you say to that?” Nathaniel chortled with delight as he was thrown in the air and caught again. “I reckon he’s pleased.”
Deborah looked from Eunice to Bel and back to John. “Is this true?”
They nodded, smiling. Ruth skipped with glee. “I’ll have this baby all to myself!”
Deborah’s face was bleak. “But you’re going to take Nat back to France? You call France his home now?”
John was unmoved by her disappointment. She had become too obsessed with his child. Nat was his and Jeanetta’s and he was fun to play with now. He popped the baby back in the basket where he immediately raised a howl.
“Tell Nurse to start packing all his things,” he said to Deborah. “I’ll not be back till t’other’s born.” and he ran indoors to prepare for his departure. How thankful he was that he had achieved his work for le Vent before this news came!
Deborah bit her lip and picked the baby out again and cuddled him. “See how he treats him. Nat was so happy with me. I propped him up and he watched me while I was hoeing the cabbage plants. Now he’s to be snatched away and if we ever see him again he’ll be a little French boy and won’t even know who we are.”
Grandmother Bel was patting the bench. “Come and sit, my Deb, and let me have a little loving of him. Don’t be sad. He should be with his father and mother so if she can’t come here he must go to her.”
“But they leave him to the nurse all the time at the château.” And Deborah, to her own disgust and shame in front of her sister, broke into sobs.
Her mother tut-tutted. “Oh Deborah, that’s not like you!” But Grandmother Bel put an arm round her, enveloping her and the baby together. “You’ve been keeping these tears pent up since you came home. I know that. And this little one was your principal joy and he’s to vanish away.”
Deborah nodded.
“Are you also weeping for Lord Branford?” her mother asked. “You have told us nothing of your feelings for each other and your father is quite hurt about it.”
Grandmother Bel flapped her free hand at her. “Let her alone for now, Eunice. Hark! Was that not distant thunder I heard?”
Deborah, choking back her sobs, had heard nothing and Grandmother was getting deaf.
They all got to their feet and her mother gathered up her things. “I didn’t hearanything but the sky isdarkening. Go to your room, Deborah, and compose yourself. Can you manage Nathaniel?”
Deborah inserted him, protesting, into his basket and picked it up. Ruth, puzzled, peered up into her face. Then they all scurried indoors as, without lightning or thunder, a few large drops of rain began to fall.
Deborah delivered the baby to the nurse who had already received John’s orders to pack his things.
She said to Deborah in French, “He cannot go tomorrow surely? A baby needs so much for every day. Men! They do not understand babies at all. Ach! He is all wet and dirty again. He smells.” She babbled on to the baby in half scolding, half joking terms and Deborah left her to it and went to her own room.
I suppose I am a little squeamish, she admitted to herself, as Jeanetta sur
ely is and thankful to have someone else to deal with him, but oh! without him what is there here for me? And Father is hurt, is he? He has been very sweet and tender to me but I have not been able to confide in him, for what is there to confide? There have been no more letters from Frederick and why should there be any? His last was a goodbye.
She sat on the window seat, her head turned to see the rain blackening Sir Ralph’s statue. There came a knock on her door. She knew it at once. Her father’s knock. So there was to be no escape. ‘Deborah is upset. You had better go to her’ her mother must have said.
“Come in,” she called.
He came in, shut the door and came straight over to her and sat beside her.
“So what’s all this, my girl? Is it John’s sudden decision to go back to France and take Nat? It was bound to happen sooner or later but with Jeanetta expecting –”
She shook her head vigorously. “Of course he must go. I’ll get over it.”
“And it’s nothing to do with Lord Branford?”
She compressed her lips and breathed hard. How could she say it wasn’t? He waited. She looked at him sideways, lifting her eyes to meet his.
“There you are, you see,” she said at last. “I look upto you. For Frederick I have to look down. How can he stand that?”
“What! Is it still that old height problem? Are you saying you two could have made a match of it if he had been as tall as I?”
“I don’t know.” She burst out with tears again. “But he was – he is – a good man. Not exciting, not wild like Ranald, but steadfast. I didn’t love him till we were parted but now I think about him all the time and there are no other men in my life so how can I ever become a mother? And Ruthwill be wed in a few years’ time. All I will ever be is an unwanted aunt.”
“Ah that’s it, isn’t it? Well, we must look among friends and acquaintances. John has been meeting many local people lately and we can ask him if he came across any of suitable age and status. We will have a Harvest Ball in the grounds.”
Deborah looked out at the teeming rain and her shoulders began to shake.
“Well Father, don’t do it for me.”
“Ah, it’s good to see you laugh instead of cry. I can’t bear to see my girl unhappy. There are other men beside Lord Branford and we should try to find them.”
“And on the invitation cards we could ask them for their measurements.” If joking pleased him she could turn on the jokes.
Perhaps he guessed the effort she was making because he asked now, “Seriously, my Deb, did Lord Branford address you at all?”
“Yes, he addressed me as Deborah. We were Frederick and Deborah after the night of the fire.”
“But that supposes a closeness, an intimacy –”
“But not love, Father. I think he admired me too much to love me.”
That seemed to strike him forcibly. He pondered a little and nodded. “That may be very profound, my girl. I too was in awe of your mother for many years. I saw how strong she was and yet how dutifully she submitted to her father. Then she came through the plague, through loneliness and poverty, cruel servitude and then the fire. I almost dared not love her because how could I live up to her high standards?”
Deborah was thinking, is this the mother Iknow? And with that uncanny insight he sometimes showed he added as if he knew her thought, “It’s much harder for your mother to show her true character in prosperity and comfort. If I were to lose everything tomorrow she would come into her own.”
“I’m sure you are right, Father, but tell me how did you finally bring yourself to dare to love her? To believe you could be married to this paragon.”
He was thinking, trying to remember. “I sensed she was in love with me, but for her that was not enough. I had to convince her I was a good man she could honour in the sight of God. She had promised that to her father who was always desperate to keep her from men. When I thought she had faith in me I dared to propose.”
Deborah gave him an impulsive kiss on his cheek. “Dear Papa, that is very enlightening. But what I feel about Frederick is just the opposite way round. I didn’t fall in love – not as I did with Ranald, God help me! But I already know he is a man I could honour in the sight of God. I believe I could have had a happy marriage with him – but for Ranald.”
“Well, heis past history. You are older. That belief of yours in Frederick is a sound basis. If he knew you felt like that would not his admiration for you grow into the love you are seeking?” He straightened his long back and clapped his hands on his knees. “Surely our two families could arrange things between us. I am certain his grandfather had you in mind for him when he first wrote to your grandmother about him. It was the unlucky newspaper article that put a spoke in the wheel. Maybe your mother should not have urged you to leave him.”
“His mother said the same thing – I suppose to protect my good name.”
“But has he written to you since you parted?”
“Yes, to Rombeau to ask me to send Peter back to him.”
“And did you reply?”
“Yes, I sent Peter.”
“But a letter?”
“No, I felt it was all over.”
“Well, why should I not write to his grandfather and say I understand you and his grandson reached a pleasant level of companionship on your travels and would he consider promoting a match between you. Words to that effect. These things are done mainly by approaches of this sort among great families.”
“Oh no!” Deborah plunged her face into her hands.
“No?”
“I would feel so exposed. I was cold with him when we parted or I couldn’t have gone through with it, especially when he said ‘I can’t bear this, Deborah.’”
“He said that!”
“Yes, he didn’t want to be left with Will Smyth. He liked looking at things with me because I was enthusiastic. That’s all he liked, my enthusiasm.”
She was growing frantic now not to break down and upset her father again. Why had she not answered Frederick’s letter? Peter could have delivered it. Now she didn’t know their whereabouts or when they would be home. Maybe he would be caught up in the hostilities and arrested as a spy before he could escape from France. The word ‘spy’ jumped out of her thought and she saw how she could escape from this subject which was becoming too fraught with emotion.
Her father was looking tenderly into her eyes.
“Oh,” she said, “I’ve just remembered something I wanted to say to you. Nothing to do with this silly matter. Much more serious.”
His eyebrows shot up. “ Moreserious?”
“Yes. You let John go off round the county and I didn’t even know about it till he’d gone. What did you suppose he was doing?”
“John? How have we got back to John?”
“I’m worried about what he was up to.”
“Up to? Why just an exploration of his own into the farming practices of Northumberland.”
“And you believed him? When has he ever cared about such things?”
“Oh come now, Deb. I’ve been encouraging him to study agriculture for years. What did you imagine he was doing?”
“Stirring up a Jacobite rebellion.”
“What! Now that isnonsense. The last time you raised such a preposterous notion was in this room on New Year’s Day, seventeen hundred. Have you seen any signs since of such activities on John’s part?”
Deborah hesitated. Anything she said about Monsieur le Vent or Vicomte Neury would sound improbable when John had stoutly rebutted her suspicions at the time. She countered rather weakly with a question, “Well, have you evidence that he learnt anything of husbandry?”
“Yes, indeed. He passed me his notes not ten minutes ago.” He drew the scrawled entries from his pocket and looked at them. “Of course he was never much given to writing but he has set down here enough to expand into a scholarly paper if he chose. The notes would jog his memory.”
Deborah was shaken. Was John really clever
enough to disguise his activities and deceive father? And was there more to his sudden wish to depart to France than Jeanetta’s pregnancy? They only had his word that she waswith child. He could write a letter later that she had miscarried and they would all believe him. Perhaps he had met with le Vent by arrangement and was ordered to France with his information.
She got up, heaving a deep sigh. It was all too speculative and her father would grow angry. “Maybe I imagined it,” she said.
He stood up too and patted her shoulder. “No, our talk of marriage was distressing you and you needed a change of subject. I understand. We will let John and the wee one get away home to France and return to your affairs later when we are all calm and rational.”
She forced a smile and let him go. Her affairs, as he called them, were a tangle of fears and longings, regrets and might-havebeens. I will not question John, she decided. If he is innocent well and good. If he is not I will pray that his schemes end in failure. I do not want to make him lie to me. But how empty the Hall will feel when he has taken that precious child away – and Nurse and Matt have gone too!
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Horden Hall had its Harvest Ball on a cool September day when the rain just held off till evening. It was to celebrate not only the harvest but the birthday of the baronet’s two daughters. News had also just come of the lifting of the siege of Turin which had been going on since May. Prince Eugene and the Duke of Savoy had inflicted a heavy defeat on the French army and there was talk that surely now France would sue for peace.
There was an air of light-heartedness. Many young men were looking for wives and a few had the boldness to ask the baronet’s younger daughter to partner them in the country dances that were held on the lawns with the village pipe band playing. Ruth hardly sat down once on the benches that had been fetched from the schoolroom for the onlookers.
Deborah had been sitting with her mother and Grandmother Bel but they had been feeling chilly and had gone inside. Almost immediately she was approached by Bill Warner, the bearded mining engineer, but not to dance. He lowered his big bulk on the bench and stroked his beard.
Prue Phillipson - Hordens of Horden Hall Page 17