I went to the nursery.
“Where is my father?” asked Clarissa. She always called him my father. I think it implied that she had only recently acquired him.
I said, “He has gone to see the King.”
“He left in rather a hurry,” said Mary Marton.
“Oh, yes,” I answered. “Important business.”
“He looked a little distrait, I thought,” said Mary.
I lifted my shoulders.
Clarissa said: “Where are we going today?”
“I want to buy some lace,” I said. “Mademoiselle Panton”—she was my couturiere—“wishes to trim a dress with it and for once she is most anxious that I should choose the colors.”
“I expect it is unobtainable,” said Mary with a laugh, “and she will want to blame you because you will have to take a substitute. ‘It was of Madame’s choosing,’ ” she said, imitating Mademoiselle Panton to perfection.
“Mary can be Mademoiselle Panton and Jeanne and me …” said Clarissa looking with admiration at Mary.
We all went to choose the lace. We came back to dinner, and then in the afternoon Clarissa slept and I rested in my bedroom, reading. It was the quiet hour when everyone was either eating or digesting what they had eaten. By five o’clock the streets would be noisy again.
I wondered what Hessenfield was doing and what measures he would take to find out who had betrayed them. It was disconcerting to discover that there were spies in our midst.
It was a lonely evening. It was at times like this that I realised how much I missed him.
I was now deeply in love with him. Our union seemed to be perfect; he was what I had always wanted; I believed I was the same to him.
We were adventurous spirits, both of us. This life suited him and it suited me. I wondered what it would be like if they brought James back to the throne and we returned to England where we would lead the lives of an ordinary nobleman and his wife … except that I should not be his wife. I could not imagine it. Hessenfield would always have to have some plot to be involved in. In the old days he would have gone to sea and plundered the Spanish galleons. In the Civil War he would have behaved in much the same way as he did now, I suppose. He was a man who had to have a cause. Danger was a fillip to his existence. There were men such as that.
But what happened to them when they grew old?
I thought of my grandfather then. He had been such another. What a life he must have led when he was holding Eversleigh during the Protectorate—an ardent Royalist posing as a Roundhead. That would have suited Hessenfield well.
The evening passed slowly without him. I was with Clarissa until it was her bedtime. Mary Marton put her to bed and I stayed with her telling her stories until she went to sleep.
Then I returned to my lonely bedchamber and slept.
I awoke early, took the usual bread and coffee and then went along to Clarissa’s room.
She was sitting up in bed playing with a doll I had bought for her the day before.
“Mary’s gone out,” she said.
“Gone out! At this hour? She can’t have.”
Clarissa nodded.
“Yvette’s got blue eyes,” she said, holding the doll out to me. “Look.”
“I am sure Mary is in her room,” I said. “I’m going to see.”
Clarissa shook her head, but I went through to Mary’s room.
The bed was made. Could it be that she had not slept in it last night? Unless she had made it before she left, but one of the servants usually did that … later in the morning.
I looked round the room. I opened a cupboard. Her clothes had gone.
Then I saw the note. It was lying on the table and it was addressed to me.
Dear Lady Hessenfield, [I read]
I have had to leave quickly. I had a message from my aunt who is dangerously ill in Lyons. The messenger came after you retired and as you have had an anxious day I did not want to disturb you. There was just time to catch the coach to Lyons. So I left at once. I will come back and see you when I can leave my aunt. Thank you for all your goodness to me,
Mary Marton.
The paper dropped from my hand. Something strange was going on. I knew it.
Why had she gone like that? When had the messenger arrived? Surely I would have heard him come? She had never mentioned an aunt in Lyons. I had understood she had had no family but the parents of whom she had spoken.
My thoughts immediately went to Matt.
That is it, I thought. She was in love with him and he must have made her understand that he did not love her. Mary had always seemed a strange girl to me; she was aloof and although she had got along comfortably with Clarissa, I fancied she had never felt completely at ease with me. I had been delighted by her friendship for Matt and had immediately presumed that it was serious. The answer to the question of her hurried departure seemed to be that because her love affair with Matt was at an end she wanted to cut herself adrift completely; she did not want probing questions asked. A quiet, controlled person, such as I had imagined her to be, could act in this way.
Hessenfield returned the next day. He had been away two nights.
He looked exuberant now, his old self.
He could scarcely wait to embrace me.
He said: “I want to see that governess woman at once.”
“Oh, the strangest thing has happened. She has gone.”
“Gone!”
He looked at me blankly and I said quickly: “Yesterday morning I went to her room. Her bed had not been slept in. There was a note. She had gone to a sick aunt in Lyons.”
“A sick aunt in Lyons! Oh my God, she’s got away. She was the one. The leak … it came through her.”
“Do you mean that … she was a spy?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I told you I was going to find out how it happened. She was one of the first I checked and got right to the heart of the matter. It must have been someone in the house. That was the only time it was mentioned. That day they came to me and I had them in my study … we worked out the route. It was only then that the name of the place was given away. I didn’t even put it on paper—it was so secret. Everything has been passed by word of mouth. I guessed it was someone in the house … who overheard and immediately passed on the information. I decided to check on the backgrounds of everyone. It was an easy task because I started with her the latest comer. Her parents are in England. She has been working as a spy for the Queen’s government. They are determined to wipe us out. They knew these shipments were getting in, that they were being landed at quiet spots on the coast and that the arms were being hidden until the great day when we should use them. Thank God, she was one of the first suspects and I hit the mark right away.”
“I can’t believe it of Mary,” I said.
“One never can of the good spy. She was that, I grant you, and now we have lost her … unless we catch up with her somewhere, which is hardly likely. At least she won’t dare come out to France again. It would be too dangerous for her.”
“I should have seen it,” I said. “I remember the day you were here with those men. I heard Mary on the landing. I thought I heard a door open. I went down and she was going out as I came down the stairs. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought she was only creeping out for a rendezvous with her lover.”
“With her lover?” said Hessenfield sharply.
“Oh, with Matt Pilkington. You know we thought there was something between them. I thought at first that she had left because something had happened with him … that he had told her he didn’t want her. That’s what the servants think. They talk about it all the time. They love anything that has a hint of romance in it.”
“Let them go on thinking it,” he said thoughtfully.
The incident had had a sobering effect on me, but Hessenfield quickly recovered his optimism. “It is the fortunes of war,” he said. “Sometimes success, sometimes failure. We can only go on in hope.”
He was gay
and lively and we resumed the old way of life; but I could not help those moments of reflection which kept intruding. I kept remembering details about Mary. I should have seen that she was no ordinary nursery governess. I should have checked her story more thoroughly. That she had been a spy in our household and that I was the one who had brought her in, distressed me. Moreover, Clarissa was continually asking questions. I had told her that Mary had gone to her sick aunt in Lyons, which seemed the easiest way of dealing with the matter. And, as Hessenfield had suggested, that was the story which was circulated through the household. The servants thought it a little odd that she should have gone away without telling anyone, but she was English, and, as I overheard Jeanne say, the English often did odd things.
It was a week after Mary had left when I was out with Clarissa and Jeanne. We had shopped in the market for vegetables and were returning home along by the river when we noticed a crowd and a commotion.
Naturally we were curious and went over.
Jeanne turned to me and whispered: “Not for La Petite, madame.”
La Petite was immediately all ears.
“What is it? What have they found?” cried Clarissa.
“Oh, it is something they have dragged out of the river,” said Jeanne.
“What? What?”
“I don’t suppose they know yet. And I have the dinner to see to.”
“Maman.” She had already taken the French form and used it all the time. “Let us stay.”
Jeanne was throwing anxious glances at me.
I said firmly: “No, we must go home. It is nothing much.”
“Just a bundle of old clothes someone has fished out of the river,” said Jeanne.
“Who threw them in?”
“Well, that is what we don’t know,” said Jeanne.
“Who does know?”
“Whoever threw them in.”
“Who did?”
“Oh, Clarissa,” I cried, “we know no more than that. We are going home now so that Jeanne can cook the dinner. You want some dinner, don’t you?”
Clarissa considered. “I want to know who threw his clothes in the river first,” she said.
“You won’t say that when we are having dinner and you’re waiting to hear about river-sodden clothes,” I said.
“What’s river sodden?”
It was the opportunity. I took her hand firmly and more or less dragged her away.
Later that day Jeanne sought me out.
“I thought madame would want to know. It was a man they pulled out of the river this morning.”
“Oh, dear, some poor unfortunate man. He must have been unhappy to take his life.”
“They’re saying that he didn’t, madame. They’re saying he was murdered.”
“That’s even worse. I am glad we didn’t let the child see or hear. Don’t tell her, Jeanne, or let any of the others.”
“No, madame, I will not.”
I knew that something had happened even before they told me. There seemed to be a perpetual buzz of conversation in the household—but more subdued than usual and it stopped at my approach.
Finally Jeanne could restrain herself no more.
“Madame,” she told me, “they know whose was the body in the Seine. … They know who the man is.”
“Oh,” I said, “who was it?”
There was a short pause then Jeanne said quickly: “It was the gentleman who used to come here so much.”
“What!” I cried.
“Monsieur Pilkington.”
“No,” I whispered. “It can’t be.”
“It is, madame. And he was murdered. Shot, they say.”
I was terribly shaken. I stammered: “I don’t believe it. Why should anyone shoot him?”
Jeanne looked sly.
“Someone who was jealous, madame?”
“Jealous. Who would be jealous of him?”
Jeanne lifted her shoulder.
“I thought you should know, madame.”
“Yes … yes … thank you for telling me. Please see that none of this reaches my daughter’s ears.”
“Oh, no, madame. Certainly not. It would not be good for La Petite.”
I shut myself in my room. It was hard to believe it. I felt sure there must be some mistake. Matt … dead … murdered. His body thrown into the Seine.
I went out. They were talking about it in the streets, in the shops. Those who knew me looked at me oddly as though they were speculating about me.
Good heavens, I thought, they cannot think I had anything to do with it!
I came back to the house. That same hush, that whispering. As I went up the stairs I heard two of the servants talking together in one of the rooms.
“Crime passionnel,” I heard. “That is it … It is love.”
“Fancy having someone killed for love of you.”
“Well, that’s what a crime passionnel is all about, silly.”
I fled up to my room.
What were they saying? What were they hinting?
Hessenfield came in late that night. I was waiting for him.
He looked unruffled. I wondered if he had heard of the body which had been brought out of the Seine and the rumour that it was Matt Pilkington’s.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
I told him.
“Matt Pilkington,” I cried. “Murdered! There must be some mistake.”
“There is no mistake,” he said.
I cried: “You … you did it.”
“Not personally,” he said. “It was decided on and carried out. The man was a spy.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“My dear Carlotta, you are new to all this. I blame myself for not seeing it earlier.”
I stared at him. Matt a spy. I thought back quickly. He had stayed at Grasslands for a long time when he was courting Damaris. He had talked of estates in Dorset and a post in the army. He was in the army in a way, I supposed, and was available when he was needed. He must have been having a long leave of absence when he was at Grasslands. Then I remembered. … On the night when I had left England he had been near Eyot Abbass. Then events seemed to fall into place. He had known that Hessenfield was there. He was looking for him when he came to Eyot Abbass; and I had been vain enough to think he came for me! I was the excuse … and a good one. It was because of him that we had narrowly escaped being taken. They must have been close to have shot at us as we rowed out to the boat.
“Matt was a spy. Suppose he and Mary Marton had been working together.”
Hessenfield nodded. “She got the information. She must have been hiding in the next room when we discussed it.”
“And,” I said, “she passed it on to Matt Pilkington. That was why she went out to meet him.”
“So I believe. It was fortunate that you saw them meet after she left. That put me on to him. He was caught … red-handed, one might say. There were letters on him which exposed him absolutely.”
“And you killed him.”
“We could not afford to let him live. He was shot and his body dumped in the river.”
“And now he has been found.”
“And people are looking towards me,” said Hessenfield. “Do you know why? They suspect that Pilkington either was or was attempting to be your lover. They think I killed him out of jealousy.”
“That must be stopped.”
“On the contrary, no. That is what I wish to be generally believed.”
“But they will brand you as a murderer.”
“That does not worry me.”
“What of the law?”
“It is inclined to turn a blind eye here on crimes of passion. Besides, I can prove he was a spy. His was the fate spies must expect.”
“So they are saying that …”
“Yes, and I want them to go on saying it. They know my devotion to you. They know Pilkington called often at the house. You are an outstandingly attractive woman. It is for our enemies to believe that he was killed through je
alousy, not because we know that he was one of their spies.”
I shivered.
Hessenfield put his arms about me.
“Dearest Carlotta,” he said, “this is not an amusing game, you know. This is a matter of life and death. We are facing death all the time, all of us. Pilkington knew it. Mary Marton knew it. We live dangerously, Carlotta. And you’re one of us now. We die for the cause. We accept all that fortune throws at us if it is all for the cause. I don’t forget that, ever. Death is always there … leering round the corners waiting to catch me unawares. He is often at my heels. If you are afraid I could send you home. It would not be very difficult.”
“You would send me away? Then you are tired of me.”
“You are a fool if you think that. Don’t you know that it is because I love you that I would send you back … away from our plots … away from danger.”
I threw myself into his arms and clung to him. “I will never leave you,” I said.
He stroked my hair. “Somehow I knew you would say that.” He laughed. “That was why I offered to send you back.”
We were wildly passionate that night; but I could not feel light-hearted. I wondered if I ever could again. There was so much to come between me and peace of mind. There was Damaris, there was Benjie, and now I could not get out of my mind the thought of Matt’s murdered body lying on the banks of the Seine.
Two Pairs Of Gloves
IT WAS NOT MY good fortune to meet Louis XIV, the Sun King, until he had passed into the last phase of his life. He was an old man then and had been married for some twenty years to the pious Madame de Maintenon and was more concerned with the glories of heaven than of earth. He must have been about sixty-seven years old then and in that case he could have been on the throne for sixty-two years. He was indeed the Grand Monarque.
He was all that one would expect of a king and a King of France at that. Protocol was far more rigid at the court of France than ever it was in England. One little slip and a man could lose all hope of favour. I remarked that the life of the courtier must be a very hazardous one.
Hessenfield had primed me again and again on what I must do. He was perfectly at ease and like all friends of James received graciously by the King of France, for there was no doubt that at this time Louis must have been growing very anxious on account of Marlborough’s persistent victories.
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