Love Child

by Philippa Carr

  Within an hour he was on his way to Eyot Abbas, his mother’s country home in Sussex, and we were all praying that Harriet might be at home and not, as she so much enjoyed doing, be on a visit to London. Harriet was not exactly a countrywoman; she liked the pleasures of Court, fine clothes, masculine admiration and above all the theatre; and as her doting husband, Sir Gregory Stevens, who, before he had inherited his title and estates, had been tutor to Leigh and Edwin (and it was at Eversleigh Court where he and Harriet had first met), always did exactly as she asked, there was a strong possibility that she would not be at home. If that were so, Leigh would have to go to London to see her, which would mean another week’s delay at least.

  Several days passed. We arranged that one of us took food to Jocelyn each day and did our best to keep his spirits up. He was embarrassingly grateful—especially to me—and he said that he regarded me as his saviour. I pointed out to him that Leigh was the one who was in charge of everything. We were all longing for him to come back.

  There were constant alarms during those days. Carl was caught sneaking out of the kitchen with a large piece of cold bacon. Ellen said the boy had become a thief and anyone would think he was starved. The bacon was taken from him and I could see that henceforth Ellen’s sharp eyes would watch the victuals.

  Leigh had been away a week. December had come and it was going to be a hard winter, they said. Sally Nullens could feel it in her bones, and they never lied, she added ominously. We had had no snow yet but the rain fell incessantly. Jasper said that there was more of it to come—cloudfuls of it. It wouldn’t surprise him if we were in for another flood. The world was wicked enough for God to want to drown it.

  “He’d tell you,” I said ironically, “and in good time so that you could prepare your ark to save the righteous. There wouldn’t be many. You would be the only one to qualify, Jasper.”

  He looked at me under his shaggy eyebrows. He believed I would be one of the first destined for hell fire. The Lord did not like a woman’s saucy tongue, he told me; and Ellen was always disturbed when—as she said—I came back “pat” with an answer for him. But at that time she was worrying about the disappearance of the remains of a tansy pudding to which she had been looking forward.

  “They’ll feel the vengeance of the Lord,” said Jasper. “The whole boiling of them! I reckon Master Titus Oates be bringing a few of them to their just deserts.”

  In the ordinary way I should have challenged that. But I realized we were getting onto dangerous ground.

  I was thinking of that scene in the kitchen as I rode over to White Cliff Cave. The rain, prophesied by Sally Nullens’s bones, had started to fall. Sally was full of old lore. “I saw the cat washing his face and ears extra well,” she had said, “and bless me if he didn’t lie on his brain.

  “‘When the cat lies on his brain/That do be a sign of rain!’ And my bones are telling me a story today. Mark my words it’ll be raining cats and dogs before the day’s out.”

  Emily Philpots said there was thunder about, too, because she always felt down in the dumps with thunder, and Jasper murmured: “Armageddon, that’s what it’ll be … and not before it’s due.”

  “You going off riding again, Mistress Priscilla.” That was Sally, reminding me that she had once been my nurse.

  “It’s good exercise, Sally.”

  “I reckon you’d do better staying in today.”

  I wished they wouldn’t watch me so closely. Was it my fancy or did they watch me more intently than they had? Had Ellen mentioned the denuded larder to Jasper? If he were on the trail we should be betrayed.

  So I rode out uneasily with the basket of food attached to my saddle and I wondered how long it would be before Leigh returned. We missed him. We needed his leadership when we were engaged in a dangerous exercise, as this undoubtedly was.

  I came out to the lonely stretch of beach. To my relief there was no one in sight. I tied up the horse where he could take shelter under an overhanging rock.

  I went into the cave. For a moment I could not see Jocelyn. The lantern we had taken to him was alight. Then I saw him. He was lying down fast asleep. He looked so young and handsome, like a Greek hero. He was even more handsome without his periwig, which now lay on the shingle beside him. His cropped fair hair curled about his head and he looked quite defenceless. I trembled for him. What if someone had strayed into the cave and found him asleep!

  I hesitated to awaken him for fear of startling him, so I tiptoed to the mouth of the cave and there I called his name softly. He sat up and smiled at me. Then he sprang to his feet.

  “It’s Priscilla. I was dreaming of you. I dreamed you came in and looked at me.”

  “I did. I was afraid because your lantern was alight and I thought someone might see it.”

  “Is there anyone about?”

  “No one.”

  “I haven’t seen anyone here since you brought me to the place.”

  “There, might be people in the summer. But you will be well away by then. I’ve brought you a partridge and a piece of sucking pig.”

  “It sounds delicious.”

  “I think you could come out into the open. I’ll keep watch. There’s no one about for miles. It’s stopped raining now but it’ll start again soon, I’m sure. Come, let’s make the most of the fresh air while we can.”

  I laid out the food. I had brought some ale, too, which he drank eagerly.

  He smiled at me and said: “Do you know, last night I was thinking that I was glad this happened. It brought me to you.”

  “You have had to pay rather a high price for the introduction,” I said.

  He took my hand then and kissed it. “It has been the most important thing in my life,” he said.

  “You’re alone too much,” I replied. “It makes you think these things. I have hopes that Leigh will have some solution when he comes back.”

  “We shall meet again when this is over … you and I. I am sure of that.”

  “Oh, I expect so. Edwin says that opinion is turning against Titus Oates and when it does that will be the end of all this. We shall go back to normal again. Our families will meet now and then. I daresay my mother will invite you to stay with us.”

  “I shall make every effort to bring that about. I have met you in extraordinary circumstances. I should like to do so … in a ballroom, say. Do you often go to Court?”

  “Not yet. I daresay I shall some time. They think I’m rather too young at the moment.”

  “You don’t seem to be to me.”

  “Do I not? How old do I seem?”

  “Seventeen. It’s the best of all ages. I know because I was seventeen two years ago.”

  I was delighted to be told I looked older than my years. People of my age always are, I supposed. One is always eager to throw off one’s youth when one has it and it is only when it is beyond recall that one wants it back.

  “Perhaps,” he went on, “seventeen was the age I wanted you to be.”

  “Why should my age be any concern of yours?”

  “Because I wanted you to be nearer to me.”

  “Listen,” I said, “I can hear something.”

  We were silent, straining our ears. Yes, there were voices from some way off being carried to us on the southwesterly wind.

  “Let’s get inside the cave,” I said. “Collect everything and take it in. We don’t know who this can be.”

  Hastily we gathered up the remains of the picnic. We went into the cave and listened. Jocelyn had become rather tense; so had I. I was imagining Jasper’s face. I could hear him as he betrayed us. “They be up to something. Food gone from the pantry, so my wife tells me. They’re hiding something … they’re hiding someone. It’s someone whose been up to sin, you can be sure of that. There’s something more sinful than usual in the air.”

  Jasper could always be sure of sin. It was there all round him and he was the only one he knew who had not been contaminated by it.

  The voices were undo
ubtedly coming nearer; I looked at Jocelyn and felt sick with anxiety.

  If Leigh were here …

  But Leigh was not here and I could not think what he would tell us to do but remain quietly where we were.

  In the distance I heard the crunch of boots on shingle. It was followed by the bark of a dog … more than one dog.

  We were seated side by side on the hard rock floor of the cave and suddenly Jocelyn reached for my hand. He kissed it and went on holding it.

  I whispered: “It’s someone coming along the beach. They’re coming this way.”

  “With dogs,” he said.

  “Jocelyn, do you think …”

  He nodded. “We have been betrayed. Oh, Priscilla, this will be the end … for me … for us …”

  “It might be people out for a stroll.”

  Out for a stroll! I thought. On a winter’s day with heavy clouds louring! Out for a stroll on the beach with dogs! The nearest house was a mile away. Leigh had mentioned that when he had said what a good hiding place it was.

  I whispered: “Come farther into the cave.” We crept into the recess and took everything there was with us.

  The rock overhung and we could crawl in even farther if we were on our hands and knees. We did so and lay down, very close, trying to hide ourselves. Jocelyn put his arms about me and we lay as one in that small space under the overhanging rock.

  I could hear our hearts beating. The footsteps were coming nearer. The dogs kept barking.

  Jocelyn’s face was very close to mine, his lips against my cheek.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t be in this …”

  “Hush,” I warned.

  “Bruno! Bruno!” It was a man’s voice. “What have you got, eh?”

  The dogs barked. They were close now.

  I felt sick with fear for Jocelyn. I believed in that moment that I was never going to be happy again. They would drag him away. They would kill him as they had killed his father.

  Nearer, nearer they came. They were very close now.

  Jocelyn said: “I must say it. It’s my last chance. I love you.”

  I put my hand over his mouth.

  There was a shadow in the mouth of the cave. It was one of the dogs. He had entered it and he came immediately to us.

  I heard someone call: “Bruno!”

  The dog stood over us.

  I thought of our dogs at home and I said very quietly: “Good Bruno.”

  He barked and then turned and ran out of the cave.

  I heard someone laugh. “Bosun. Come here, Bosun. You too, Bruno.”

  We lay still, Jocelyn’s arms still about me. We neither of us dared move, and then I realized that no one was following the dog into the cave. I could hear their voices farther away now. They had passed on.

  “They’ve gone,” I whispered. “They weren’t looking for us. They were out for a stroll after all.”

  I began to laugh. Then I stopped suddenly. “It may be a trick. Oh, no … why should it be? They could have caught us so easily if they had been looking for us.”

  I crawled out from under the recess and stood up. Jocelyn was beside me.

  “I’m going out to look,” I said.

  “I’ll go.”

  “No. If they are looking for you they wouldn’t take much notice of me. They’d be looking for a man.”

  I went out into the open. I could see two men with the dogs walking along the beach. One of them picked up a pebble and threw it from him. The dogs chased after it to retrieve it.

  The scare was over, but something had happened.

  Jocelyn took my hand and kissed it.

  “Now you understand,” he said.

  I had turned away to look at the sea, grey with white frills on the edge of the waves and the wind carrying the spray far up onto the beach.

  I said: “I understand how dangerous it is here. Leigh will come back soon.”

  “I shall have to go away then.”

  “It may be to Aunt Harriet’s.”

  “You visit her often?”

  “Oh, yes. I am a favourite of hers.”

  “I shouldn’t want to go if it meant not seeing you.”

  “You must go where you will be safe.”

  He kissed me suddenly. “It has been a great adventure,” he said.

  “It is not over yet,” I warned.

  “Let’s sit down close and talk.”

  We sat on the shingle and he said: “I wish you were older.”

  “What if I were?”

  “We could marry.”

  “They would say I am too young.”

  “People marry young. When all this is over I shall ask your parents for your hand. May I?”

  “Could I stop you?”

  “No, I don’t suppose you could. But I should want your consent, shouldn’t I?”

  “I know some people who have been married without their consent.”

  “You never would be. You would find some way out of an undesirable alliance, I am sure. Oh, Priscilla, I believe you have some feeling for me.”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “And it doesn’t displease you that I talk like this. You seem content to listen.”

  “At the moment I can’t think of much else but your lucky escape.”

  “Those people with the dogs …” He shivered.

  “I was terribly frightened, Jocelyn, weren’t you?”

  He was silent for a while, then he said: “I thought they had come to take me, yes. I thought it was the end. When they took my father and in a short time had murdered him—they called it execution, I call it murder—something happened to me. It was almost as though I felt there was no sense in working against fate. As I lay there with you in my arms, I thought: This is the end. But before I die I shall have known Priscilla and it was all this which brought me to her. You see, it is a sort of acceptance of fate.”

  “You are philosophical.”

  “Perhaps. If I am to die then die I must, but if fate is kind to me and preserves me from this, then I can think of my future and I want you to share it with me, Priscilla.”

  “You scarcely know me.”

  “In circumstances like this acquaintance ripens very quickly into friendship and friendship into love. You have risked a great deal for me.”

  “So have the others.”

  “But I prize what you have done most. Whatever happens I have had those moments with you in the cave when you lay close to me and your heart beat with fear … for me. I shall remember that moment forever and I should not have had it but for the fear which went with it. Most things that are worth having have to be paid for.”

  “You are indeed a philosopher.”

  “Events make us what we are. I know that I shall love you until I die. Priscilla, when this is over …”

  I felt in an exalted mood. Too much had happened in such a short time. That fearful experience and then a proposal of marriage. And I was fourteen years old! I was regarded as a child in my home—Edwin’s little sister. And that was how Leigh thought of me, too. Little sister! That had rankled coming from him.

  “Priscilla …” Jocelyn was saying, “will you remember this … forever? Shall we plight our troth here on this desolate beach?”

  I smiled at him. He was so handsome and melancholy in a way—a young man to whom brutal life had been revealed and it had made him accept it instead of rebelling against it. I admired him, and when he kissed me I was aware of an excitement which I had never felt before.

  It was so comforting to be loved. Moreover, he did not regard me as a child, I thought to myself, and it was as though I were talking to Leigh.

  “Jocelyn,” I replied, “I think I love you, too. I know that if they really had been looking for you and had taken you, I should have been more unhappy than I have ever been before.”

  “It’s love, my dearest Priscilla,” he said, “and it will grow and grow and wrap itself about us for the rest of our lives.”

&
nbsp; So we kissed and plighted our troth, as they say. He gave me the ring he was wearing on his little finger. It was gold with a stone of lapis lazuli. It was big and would only stay on my middle finger and even then was in danger of slipping off.

  It was hard to leave him then, but I knew that I must if I were going to get back before dark.

  He was reluctant to let me go but I reminded him that we must be more careful than ever now.

  “Do not have the lantern lighted when you sleep,” I warned. “It could guide people to you. Oh, do be careful, Jocelyn.”

  “I will,” he assured me. “I have the future to think of now.”

  Leigh came back that evening.

  We were all overcome with joy at the sight of him and the news was good.

  He told us about it as we sat over supper in the winter parlour after the servants had all gone away. Even so he spoke in whispers and warned us to do the same, and every now and then went to the door to make sure that no one was near.

  “Harriet says she will have him,” he told us. “He is to be John Frisby whose mother acted with her, and whom she knew as a child actor himself when she played in London. He can stay there for as long as he likes. She’ll brief him when he arrives and make sure that if any other actors come visiting her, he will be warned about them. She’s excited. She was excited right from the beginning of the prospect. She said she was getting a little tired of being in the country, but now it would be as good as a play. I’m going off now to see him. I shall have to get a horse for him somewhere. In fact I have one at a horse dealer’s … Shoulden way. I can collect it tonight and take it down to him. I want him on his way.”

  “Do we need food?” asked Christabel. “They are getting a little suspicious in the kitchen.”

  “No,” said Leigh. “He’ll have money and he can feed himself during the journey. Soon after he’ll be with Harriet. All he wants is the horse and directions how to get there. I think our part of the plot is almost over.”

  I told him about the people and the dogs and how terrified we had been—but I did not mention our conversation and its result.

  “Yes,” said Edwin. “I guessed it would be tricky there for more than a night or two. It will be a relief when he is with Harriet.”