‘A few days later it emerged in conversation that, having lived on the Rhine with dear Mama when she was married to that brute, von Haugwitz, I speak German fluently. Thereupon His Grace promptly told me I was just the man to fill the rôle of an extra A.D.C. and Liaison Officer with the Duke of Brunswick.
‘The Duchy of Brunswick now forms part of Westphalia, which Bonaparte created as a Kingdom for his youngest brother, Jerome. The late Duke, a Prussian commander of distinction, was killed at the Battle of Auerstadt in 1806 and his son, Duke Frederick William, upon whose staff I now am, nurses a most bitter hatred against the French for having deprived him of his dukedom. He is a charming and most courageous man. In 1809, he led a revolt in an endeavour to free Brunswick but, owing to the strength of the French garrison, it failed. Undismayed, the Duke and the troops who had risen in support of him retired into Bohemia; then they carried out a most remarkable enterprise—no less than fighting their way right across Germany until they reached the North Sea. British warships took them off and conveyed them to England, where the King gave them the name of his “German Legion” and, at their leader’s request, sent them to serve with our army against the French in the Peninsula.
‘So you see I am now well settled and eagerly anticipating the opening of the new campaign next month. Being a liaison officer I need spend only part of my time with the Germans, and at the Duke’s headquarters I now have a number of congenial companions, with several of whom I had been acquainted in London, and most of them senior to me by only a few years.
‘An officer of the 47th Foot who has to proceed to London in order to unravel certain complicated matters with the Paymaster’s Department will convey this to you. By the same hand I am despatching a missive to my beloved mother, and have endeavoured to divide my news between you; so each of you must read the other’s letter.
‘Owing to Boney’s enormous losses in Russia, one can hardly doubt that the back of his main army is broken; and, now that the Prussians have united with the Russians against him, it seems there is a good chance that by summer this war of a life-time will, at last, be over. My Lord Duke is in hopes that we will drive the French back over the Pyrenees before they are finally defeated by the Allies in Germany. Be that as it may, when the news does reach London that the French have been forced to surrender, I bid you, my dear love, to lose not one moment in setting about the preparation of your trousseau; for on my return I’ll brook no delay in putting an end to our six years’ engagement and making you, sweet Susan, the bride I have so long dreamed of.
‘Your ever devoted and adoring Charles.’
On reading those last few lines, Jemima’s mouth fell open, her dark eyes started from her head and, trembling with anger, she had to throw the letter from her to prevent herself from tearing it to pieces.
The mentions in it of ‘Uncle Roger’ had seemed strange, as Charles had never used that term to her on the very few occasions he had spoken of his mother’s great friend, Mr. Roger Brook. But, in every other way, the letter was one that Charles might have written to her and its opening had thrilled her with the belief that he was much more deeply in love with her than he had led her to suppose. Only the very end had revealed the horrid truth. He had written three letters at one sitting and, by mistake, put a friendly one for her in the packet addressed to Susan and his mother.
At one blow, all her hopes for the future had been shattered. How utterly wrong she and Maureen Luggala had been in their belief that the mutual affection displayed by Charles and Susan when together was due only to their having been brought up as brother and sister. It was now clear beyond all doubt that, ever since they had been old enough to feel attraction to the opposite sex, they had been in love and had planned to marry in due course. The fact that, during the past year or two, both of them had carried on flirtations with others meant nothing. Her face red with renewed anger, Jemima visualised them telling each other about their affairs and laughing together over the conquests they had made.
Snatching up the letter, Jemima jerked open her door, flounced across the landing and, without knocking, erupted into Lady Luggala’s room. The older woman was seated at her dressing table in a peignoir, smothering her face with grease while her yawning maid braided her hair for the night.
Imperiously Jemima snapped at the girl, ‘Get out! I wish to talk to Her Ladyship.’
Maureen Luggala had found Jemima difficult enough to handle before she had discovered that she was a cuckoo in the Luggala nest. Since then Jemima had learned that her real mother supplied the funds for the Luggala ménage, and that the woman she still called ‘mother’ in public was no more than a puppet who received her orders from the Irish witch. Headstrong and imperious by nature, Jemima had lost no time in making use of her knowledge. During the past few months she had dominated the household and the servants no longer dared question her orders.
After one scared glance at Jemima, the maid dropped the rope of half-plaited hair, gave a quick curtsey and, only too glad to get to bed, hurried from the room.
Being by now aware that in an angry exchange with Jemima, she would only get the worst of it, Maureen closed her thin lips firmly for a moment, then asked resignedly, ‘What brings you here at this hour?’
Still flushed with wrath, Jemima waved the letter. ‘’Tis this! A letter from Charles. A pox on him! Would you believe it; after playing up to me in no uncertain manner, he was all the time affianced to that bitch Susan, and plans to marry her the moment the war is over?’
Lady Luggala gave a gasp and her painted eyebrows shot up. ‘It cannot be true! The fondness he shows for her is no more than brotherly.’
‘Brotherly, my arse!’ exclaimed Jemima furiously. ‘He addresses her as “most beautiful and adorable of the Sex.” This letter was for her, but the fool put it in a cover addressed to me.’
‘Oh, mercy me! Then we are indeed undone.’
‘Undone I may be, but I’ll have his guts for this.’
‘Your disappointment is understandable. But you can hardly accuse him of having jilted you. According to the account you gave me, he did not even have you, let alone promise you marriage.’
‘True. Yet he gave me good cause to believe myself a hot favourite in the St. Ermins’ stakes. In no other girl did he show such interest. And I’ve not a doubt that all the time he was telling Susan that I was mad about him; while she, each time she saw me, must have pissed herself with secret laughter at my expense.’
‘’Tis possible your case is not so ill as you suppose. There’s much in the old saying that “men were deceivers ever.” Maybe he is playing a double game. He could have become affianced to Susan when they were only boy and girl, and he now regrets it, yet lacks the courage to break it off. There is at least a chance that, although he may not mention marriage in his letter to you, there will be evidence of great affection in it; so still hope for the future.’
For a moment Jemima was silent, then she said, ‘That might be so. I must find out. By now Susan will have read the letter meant for me and guessed that I, or some other person, received hers through Charles’s carelessness. Tomorrow, or later today rather, I’ll take her letter to her.’
‘Some weeks have now elapsed since she and the Duchess left town. The odds are they’re at Newmarket with the old, bed-bound Duke; but they may be elsewhere. In any case, it will mean a journey, so we had best take things for the night. No doubt they will offer to put us up.’
‘There is no need for you to do so. If you prove right and Charles has shown real warmth for me in his letter, that could lead to a confrontation between me and Susan. I’d prefer to face that red-headed bitch alone. Where they are I’ll ascertain in the morning.’ Calmer, but still frowning, Jemima wished the woman she now regarded as no more than a spineless duenna a surly ‘Good night’, and left the room.
Jemima had received a bitter blow, but she was not the type of young woman to cry herself to sleep, and she was resilient by nature. The odds on becoming Countess of St.
Ermins now seemed to be a hundred to one against her; but she did not mean to give up her attempt to get Charles as a husband. When she had seen Susan she would better be able to judge the depth of the girl’s feeling for Charles. After all, Maureen might well be right, and the bond between them no more than a tacit acceptance of an agreement made several years before.
That did not appear to be the case as far as Charles was concerned, or he would not have urged Susan to be ready to buy her trousseau in a hurry; but it might well be with Susan. Perhaps she would be glad of an excuse to be free from her engagement. If so, Jemima meant to win her confidence and incite in her a resolution to break it off; or, failing that, by some subtle means sow dissension between them.
9
The Power of the Frog
Roger had barely glimpsed the splash made by Mary’s body as it struck the water sixty feet below when his ankles were seized, and he was jerked away from the edge of the cliff. Fearing that, as had happened with Mary, the overhang of the precipice would give way beneath Roger, Leaping Squirrel dragged him back to safety.
When the Indian released his legs, Roger remained flat on his face, unmoving, his mind benumbed by horror. Only a few minutes ago, Mary had been beside him; gay, loving, courageous little Mary. He could still hear her laughter. Now she was gone—gone for ever.
It seemed impossible; he must be in the middle of a nightmare, the victim of an evil dream. Yet he knew that he was not. It had happened—happened within a yard of him. At one moment he had been looking up at the swooping eagle. The next, Mary’s scream had pierced his ears. He had flung out a hand to grab her, but too late. Already her head was on a level with his waist, her mouth gaping wide, her eyes starting from her head with terror, as she shot down into the void.
He had been married to Mary for only just over three months but, apart from their earlier affair in Lisbon, ever since he had come upon her again by chance in St. Petersburg, the previous October, they had not only lived together, but had hardly ever been out of each other’s sight.
Unlike the majority of couples, separated for the greater part of their waking hours, the man earning his living, the woman running the home, they had spent day after day for all that time either riding and walking side by side, together in the narrow confines of a ship’s cabin, or cheek by jowl in canoes and covered wagons. In Russia they had shared burdens while trudging through hundreds of miles of snow, and slept in one sleeping bag. Crossing the Atlantic they had endured sickness and tempest. More recently they had again faced below-zero temperatures and, muffled in furs, fed primitively round camp fires.
They had thus attained a greater degree of intimacy than could have been achieved by years of normal marriage. Their minds had become so closely attuned that they could anticipate each other’s thoughts. They had not had a single quarrel; and physical desire, which inevitably declines between lovers with long, constant association, in their case had not had time enough to wane.
It was not to be wondered at that Roger felt as though half of his own being had been suddenly torn from him with Mary’s plunge to death over the edge of the cliff.
When, years before, he had arrived in Martinique to learn that his wife, Amanda, had just died in giving birth to Susan, he had been so grief-stricken that he had made himself drunk for a week. Now he felt that, even had he unlimited liquor at hand, no bout of drunkenness, however long, could bring him to accept the loss of Mary.
They had been within an hour of getting safely over the border into Canada. Once there, it would have been only a matter of two or three months at most before they could be back in England. Only now he realised to the full how immensely he had been looking forward at long last to putting behind him the hazardous life he had led and making a home with Mary at Thatched House Lodge.
To return there without her would be an utterly different matter. Bitterly he recalled the year he had spent in England before, out of restlessness and boredom, he had accepted the mission to Sweden which had led to his again becoming involved with Napoleon and taking part in the retreat from Moscow.
In March 1810, he had persuaded his beloved Georgina to marry him as soon as he could get back to England. In June he had actually been about to take ship from Hamburg when arrested and accused of the murder of von Haugwitz, tried and sentenced to death. His sentence had been commuted to ten years’ imprisonment. The following October he had escaped and succeeded in reaching London, only to learn that Georgina, believing him dead, had succumbed to the pleading of the old Duke of Kew, and married him.
During the greater part of 1811 he had lived at Thatched House Lodge. Whenever Georgina had been in London, the two life-long lovers had again spent glorious nights together of companionship and passion. But for months at a stretch she had had to live in the country, and they had been able to snatch only occasional meetings. After the intensely active life he had led for so many years, those long periods of lonely inactivity had driven him to distraction.
Since the Duke had been stricken by paralysis, his doctors said that he might continue to live like a vegetable for many years. Meanwhile Georgina would remain tied to him. So, on returning to England without Mary, Roger would again be faced with the dreary, frustrating life he had lived in 1811. At the thought, he groaned aloud.
Ever since dragging him back from the precipice, Leaping Squirrel had been kneeling beside him, endeavouring to comfort him. Roger heard his words only as a murmur and their sense failed to register in his stunned brain. But now the Indian grasped his shoulders, shook him violently and cried in his Canadian-French patois:
‘Noble one, we cannot remain here. So far we have been fortunate in keeping lead of Mohawk trackers sent after us from French Mills; but travelling with the poor, beautiful one put brake upon our pace. Our enemies cannot now be far behind. Once across river we shall be safe. But we dare not delay. I beg you rouse yourself.’
With a groan, Roger forced himself to his feet, took a last, despairing look at the ground, now forming the edge of the cliff, which had given way under Mary. Then he automatically fell into step behind Leaping Squirrel.
When they had covered about four hundred yards they came to a gully which led to a narrow, zigzag path descending to the river. Between the water and the cliff lay a bank of pebbles about four feet wide. Turning back, they followed it toward the cluster of large rocks, separated here and there by narrow channels, through which rapids roared, but the rocks were not sufficiently far apart to prevent a bold traveller from stepping from one to another and so crossing the river.
They were just passing the pool beneath the overhang into which Mary had fallen, when Leaping Squirrel gave a loud shout and pointed. The nearest of the rocks, now only a hundred yards ahead, had a flat surface sloping slightly upward. On it, half out of the water, lay a large, furry bundle that, in the distance, might have been taken for a drowned bear.
Running and slipping on the large, uneven pebbles, the two men raced toward it. Within two minutes, outpacing Roger, the Indian had scrambled on to the rock and turned the bundle over. As he had supposed, it was Mary.
Gasping for breath, Roger joined him and stared down at the motionless figure. He was now a prey to the most agonising suspense. Was she dead, or had she only fainted? Obviously the racing river had cast her up on the rock. She could hardly have been submerged long enough to drown, but had her plunge into the icy water killed her by a heart attack?
Leaping Squirrel tore open her furs. Roger thrust his hand between them, down to her bosom. A second later he gave a shout of joy, ‘Her heart’s still beating! She lives! She lives!’
Outside, her furs were soaking, but their thick skins had, in most places, protected her body from the water. Frantically they pulled off all her furs and, while Roger slapped her ribs, Leaping Squirrel massaged her hands and feet.
A few minutes later she opened her eyes, then screwed up her face, gave a cry of pain and jerked her right foot away from the Indian’s grasp. He then realised, from
the limpness of her foot, that her ankle was broken. Meanwhile, Roger was smothering her face with kisses.
As soon as Mary was sufficiently recovered, the two men stopped massaging her. Roger wrapped her in his fur coat, and Leaping Squirrel put his fur hat, gloves and moccasins on her; then they set about the difficult task of getting her across the river.
Where the big rocks had flat surfaces, she was able with Roger’s support, to hop along on her sound leg, but over the rougher stretches they had to carry her; and, as some of the chasms between the rocks were nearly a yard wide, getting her safely from one to another was a nerve-racking business. The roar of the rapids was so loud that, as they passed her wet furs done up in a bundle and their camping equipment, across the rushing spates of water, they had to shout to make themselves heard.
In his bare feet the Indian was sure-footed, but Roger was far from being so. Several times he stumbled, and once his heart was in his mouth, for he tripped on a jagged stone, which caused him to let go of Mary a moment too soon. As she slid from his grasp toward the water, he was momentarily petrified by the fear that he had lost her, after all. But, just in time, Leaping Squirrel shot out a hand, caught her arm and hauled her to safety.
When over half an hour had gone by, Roger began to fear that they would never reach the opposite shore. The foaming cascades of white water sent spray that half blinded them high into the air and soaked them all from head to foot. But, at last, chilled to the marrow, with shivering bodies and chattering teeth, they crossed the final chasm and tumbled exhausted on the pebbles of the Canadian beach.
Leaping Squirrel was the first to recover. Roger had given his fur coat to Mary, so he had suffered the most severely from the icy spray. Taking off his furs the Indian threw them over him, then crossed the pebbles to a strip of earth that lay beyond them further inshore, and began to run for a hundred yards each way up and down it until he had fully restored his circulation.
The Irish Witch Page 12