Worn out by months of waiting and repeated bouts of gaol fever Stewart did not deny his lack of fervour, and was rewarded with a sentence to be deported to His Majesty’s Colonies and to remain there for the rest of his life. He was then returned to Carlisle to await shipment from Liverpool and, dazed, he still did not know whether it was better to have died or to be forced to live forever so far from the home, the country which he loved.
Two days after his return Stewart was summoned before Carruthers, the Keeper of the Carlisle Gaol, and told he had a visitor. Carruthers was aware of the importance of Sir George Delamain’s evidence in securing leniency for Mr Allonby and smiled on him kindly.
‘You were lucky, Mr Allonby, in that your cousin spoke for you.’ Stewart looked at the floor. He was not proud of George’s intervention. He had also been surprised by it.
‘I know not whether I prefer death to a life of exile.’
‘Oh come, sir. They say his Majesty will extend a general pardon once all is cleared away. You will not be gone long. In the meantime I have a surprise for you. Miss Delamain who accompanied her brother to your trial is here to see you.’
‘Emma?’
Stewart’s eyes, sunk deep in his head with suffering, momentarily brightened.
‘Emma was there?’
‘You did not observe her in the crowd?’’
‘I have been in prison six months Mr Keeper. It does not make the senses alert. That and the prison fodder.’
The Keeper turned away and shuffled some papers. He had expected very few to survive their trials, certainly not Stewart Allonby. The prisoners from Carlisle had been very harshly dealt with. The Manchester Regiment who, after all, had played very little part in the war had been savagely butchered. The behaviour of the Scots was considered more forgivable than that of the English who had turned against their King. Carruthers was sorry that he had not treated Mr Allonby better. He was now trying to make amends.
‘You may use my room to see Miss Delamain, sir. I will have her brought to you.’
Stewart turned his back and gazed out of the window. He was uncertain whether he wanted to see Emma; how he felt about her. He heard her come softly into the room but still he did not turn.
‘Stewart?’
Stewart closed his eyes, his jaw working hard to hold back his emotion. He felt her hand on his arm, her fingers slowly tightening.
‘I look awful, deathly pale ...’
‘I know. I saw you in court. But alive! You are alive Stewart. You have a chance.’
‘Thanks to George.’
He felt Emma remove her hand and her voice was low.
‘I knew you would be bitter. But I did not care. I know how you felt about the Prince, how disillusioned you had become with the Cause. You told me in your letters. Not to die for him now, Stewart.’
‘Oh, Emma ...’
Stewart turned towards her and she threw herself into his arms. He was so weak that he could hardly support her and for a while they leaned on each other. How beautiful she looked, he thought, stroking her hair seeing the tears cascading down her cheeks. Weeping for him? What had he done to deserve it?
‘I am not worth the tears, Emma. I am not a hero, not even a brave man, not even dedicated.’
‘But you are alive and I love you.’
It was the first time she had told him. She looked up into his eyes, pale gaunt man that he was, tired and disillusioned. He had .lost stones in weight and dark shadows framed his eyes. But she loved him, had come to love him through his letters from prison, his need of her.
‘How can you love me?’
He pressed her close to him again scarcely believing.
‘I do. And I will stay with you, Stewart, wherever you go – to the West Indies or America – I will join you as soon as I can. Whatever your circumstances I will be by your side.’
So it was worth it. He had lost a cause, but gained the love of a woman he had always cherished. Was it true, after all, that good did come out of evil?
‘Oh, Emma, Emma, I do not deserve you. I do not deserve this.’
He hugged her again then pushed her gently from him and wearily went to sit on a chair. He felt his legs could scarcely support him any longer.
‘Unless I recover my strength I shall not survive the voyage. I shall die like those poor men in the transports in Tilbury.’
‘Don’t worry. I have the measure of Carruthers. He is anxious to please, seeing George is so powerful. You will be well fed.’
‘And Brent? What news of Brent?’
Emma’s proud noble frame, so upright in front of her lover, seemed to sink.
‘For some reason the authorities are treating Brent with severity. There are reports that he was ruthless in battle against the English, his own countrymen. He was seen to strike many down at Falkirk and Culloden. It is this that tells against Brent than anything else. When he was in London George made enquiries in the highest of circles; he even had an interview with the Duke of Newcastle himself. But the English Jacobites are not popular with the Hanoverian Court – hated even worse than the Scots.’
‘Then it is hopeless for Brent?’
Emma gazed at her beloved and her eyes again filled with tears. Would they could both be safe – lover and brother. It was too much to expect, too much to hope for. Brent would be hanged and Stewart live out a life of bitterness and misery in the undeveloped American colonies, far from home.
‘Our family has suffered too much for the Stuarts,’ she said, nodding her head in reply to Stewart’s question. ‘They have lost everything. They do not even have the advantage of admiration for the Prince although he is hunted all over the Highlands, a price of £30,000 on his head and none betray him.’
‘He inspires great loyalty, he has such charm,’ Stewart reached up and took Emma’s hand, putting it to his lips. ‘But he was not a good commander. He would not have made a good king. He was over fond of his own way, his own opinion. Nay, I’m disillusioned, I’ll admit. The Stuarts are surely gone forever and Hanover firmly entrenched on the throne of England. Would I were at my home on Lake Derwentwater, going out to hew wood. Would all this had never happened. The Cause lost and I humiliated by my cousin having to plead for me. Now Tom is dead, killed in battle and Brent sure to hang.’
Emma’s eyes were wet with tears and she pressed Stewart’s hand tightly.
‘I didn’t know Tom so well, of course; he was older than I and always lived abroad. Mother said he wanted to die if he could not win.’
‘How does your mother bear up to all this?’
‘She is very brave; also she has had comfort during the past months. The most curious thing, Stewart. Brent sent a gypsy woman with a sick baby to take shelter with us and Mother has become very fond of the baby. The gypsy woman, who was not the mother, has gone on her way and Mother has taken over the baby.’
‘Your mother has taken a gypsy baby?’
‘She thinks it is not. She is a dear little thing, very blonde with blue eyes, called Morella. She could almost be a Delamain. Mother mourns, of course, for Tom and Brent and you. But Stewart listen, there is the oddest story I have to tell you that Mary told me. And here I have hope for Brent.’
‘And that is?’
‘Before they were married a gypsy came to your home, do you remember?’
‘I do,’ Stewart said bitterly. ‘Well I remember her.’
‘It seems my brother was once enamoured of her.’
‘Mary knows that?’
‘Brent told her after the wedding. However the gypsy, Analee, has, by the most curious chain of circumstances, married my sister-in-law Henrietta’s cousin, Angus Falconer. They met in the war or something. I know not quite what.’
‘Lord Falconer has married Analee?’
Stewart could not keep the incredulity out of his voice.
‘He was much taken by her and cared not what people thought. Now she is always at his side. It is rumoured her strange gypsy powers even saved his life.’
‘So, what is the plan?’
‘Mary has gone to Falcon’s Keep to plead with Analee, whom she got to know well, to intercede with her husband to save Brent.’
‘’Tis a slim chance.’
Emma nodded. There was a knock on the door. Emma took Stewart’s hand and looked into his eyes. They had never made love, never even kissed. Now Emma felt she wanted this thin defeated prisoner more than anything in life.
‘Stewart,’ she said quietly. ‘I will follow you. I will find where you are and get a boat as soon as I can.’
‘But the conditions ...’
‘No matter what they are I will share them with you. I love you too much to let you go.’
Stewart looked at her and took her tenderly in his arms. The moment he’d always waited for had come too late.
‘How can I say no?’ he said brokenly. ‘Even though I have nothing at all to offer you.’
And for the first time they kissed, before the door swung open and the gaoler came to take Stewart back to his cell.
The Marchioness of Falconer sat at her escritoire in her own salon on the first floor of the mansion which overlooked the elaborate gardens and the lake in the far distance. Beyond that was the uneven range of the Cheviot Hills. She wore a simple pentelair that now suited her more ample figure. It had a round décolletage which emphasized her magnificent bosom and she wore it with a plain petticoat of the same dark green silk which rested on a domed hoop. Like a simple countrywoman a handkerchief was tied round her neck and she wore no rings or jewels except for her necklace which she never removed.
Her feet were bare and tucked under her chair as she tried to grasp the simple arithmetic of her household accounts which she prepared under the tutelage of his lordship.
Analee had taken to her new status with a natural dignity which impressed all who met her – the local worthies and the members of his majesty’s army who called to pay their respects to his lordship and wish him health and happiness. At night she entertained regally, dressed in the latest mode, her hair dressed and ablaze with jewels. But by day she wore simple clothes and on retiring she lay, as she always had, naked except for the close companionship of her loving husband.
Analee, looking forward to the future, aware of the child quickening inside her, the heir to the Falconer estates and fortune if were a boy, thought only sporadically of her former life and the happier she became the less she missed it.
She still loved to wander barefoot around the estate, and she and Nelly would talk of the old times, sometimes with laughter, and occasionally with tears when they thought of the fate of the Buckland gypsies, the harshness the war had brought to so many people.
But although Analee often thought of Morella she never spoke of her. She knew she was well looked after and that her future was as good as any she could give her. She felt she owed it to the Falcon to start a new life with him and, apart from telling him that the baby was safe, she had told him no more and he never enquired.
Mrs Ardoine had been replaced by a new and younger housekeeper and with her Analee took care to see that the staff, even the meanest, were well housed with ample food, that no one was ill treated or subject to cruel whippings. Analee infused the large household with her own vibrant personality and it became a happy laughing place full of vigour and good cheer.
Analee found it hard on this particular day in July, with the sky outside a clear blue and the birds singing in the park, to concentrate on her work and was gazing out of the window when a voice cried.
‘My lady! My lady!’
Analee, still unused to her new title, looked about her as though to see who could be meant, when Nelly burst in without ceremony, her face alight.
‘Oh, ma’am, who do you think is here?’
Analee’s face was alight with excitement and she jumped up, relieved to leave the accounts, and seized Nelly’s hand. ‘Who, Nelly? Who?’
No one was more delighted than Nelly at the elevation of her beloved Analee to the peerage or at her own promotion as personal maid to a Marchioness, but she still maintained the informality of their earlier relationship, at least when they were alone together. In public Lord Falconer insisted that his wife be treated with all the deference due to her station and then Nelly never spoke out of turn, or betrayed their intimacy in any way.
‘Analee, it is Mary – Mary Delamain and her brother John Allonby.’
‘Mary and John here!’
‘Oh, Mary is so excited to see you; but she looks sad and drawn ... I think the business is to do with her husband.’
Analee took Nelly’s hand and made quickly for the door running along the corridor and down the stairs, brushing aside the servant who hastily tried to open the door into the main drawing room.
She opened her arms as soon as she saw Mary and the two women embraced, Mary with tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Analee ... your ladyship ... I ...’
Analee put up a hand.
‘Analee, Mary, no ladyship from you! I am Analee the gypsy and always will be ...’
Analee stepped back and gestured towards herself, her simple morning dress, her lack of adornment. Mary threw back her head and laughed.
‘Analee, what does his lordship say about his wife’s bare feet?’
‘Oh,’ Analee clasped a hand to her mouth. ‘That was a mistake. I am allowed to do it, but only if no one is about. Nelly fetch me my stockings and shoes please.’
Nelly bobbed, stifling a giggle.
‘And Nelly is with you! Oh, Analee, I am so happy for you. I heard, we heard, about his lordship’s serious illness and his recovery...’
John Allonby had stood in the background and now came forward bowing stiffly.
‘Your ladyship, my felicitations on your husband’s recovery and your good fortune. May you be very happy ...’
‘We are, Mr Allonby,’ Analee, who had never known this dour man well, took his hand and smiled briefly. ‘Now what brings you here? Not bad news?’
John nodded and Mary cast her eyes to the floor.
‘We are here to invoke the compassion of Lord Falconer, your husband, hoping that he will help a distant member of his family now in dire straits.’
‘His family?’ Analee’s gaze went from Mary to John.
‘Brent, my lady. Brent Delamain, related to his lordship’s cousin by marriage, is in mortal danger. He is to be sent to London from Edinburgh to stand trial, and it is certain he will be sentenced to death. The record against him is black. He served in the Prince’s elite corps of Life Guards and he killed many of his own countrymen in battle. His cousin Stewart Allonby has been spared the extreme penalty and is sentenced to deportation; but there is little hope for Brent.’
‘But how can my husband help? He has no influence at court.’ Analee looked distressed.
‘The Falcon, ma’am? The bravest of soldiers, newly gazetted general? Surely well favoured by the King?’
‘Or is it that he would not want to help?’ Mary moved over to Analee who impulsively grasped her hand.
‘Oh, Mary, worry not that Angus knows anything about Brent and myself. That is a secret and forever will be. No, it is simply that his lordship has no time for the rebels, I fear. He says they put the country to a lot of trouble and suffering. He remembers well the gypsy camp ...’
‘But that was not Brent!’
‘Of course it was not. He knows in his heart that there were many fine and upright men on the Jacobite side, though you would not think it to hear him talk. But my lord is,’ Analee inclined her head as though searching for the right word, ‘he is not an easy man. He is personally a kind man and a wonderful husband; but ... stubborn.’
‘Not the Falcon for nothing,’ John Allonby murmured. ‘He has strong views on loyalty.’
‘It is a matter of ideals, Analee.’
‘I know, Mary, but Angus, for right or wrong, believes the Jacobites to be traitors to the rightful King of England. I know he will do nothing.’ She shrugged.
‘However, we can try. I will ask him. Unfortunately he has still not recovered from his serious wound which nearly killed him, and lies abed until nearly dinner time. But you will stay with us and see him then.’
Mary shook her head.
‘We must go at once. There is no time to lose. If only to say goodbye ...’
Mary leaned her head on Analee’s breast and gave herself up to a torrent of weeping. ‘Oh, Analee, and to know that he does not even love me. That he thinks only ...’
‘Shhh.’ Analee patted her shoulder looking at John who nodded and moved towards the door just as Nelly entered with Analee’s shoes and hose.
‘My lady ...’
‘Take Mr Allonby into the garden, Nelly. He wishes to take some air.’
Left alone Analee took Mary to the sofa and sat beside her.
‘There, my dear, cry to your heart’s content. How unhappy I am that Brent has behaved to you as he has; it spoils my own happiness. But if he could see, if he could know how happy his lordship has made me!’ She put a hand on her stomach, ‘and we are to have a child, Mary, to solder our love. I am nearly five months gone.’
Analee saw the expression on Mary’s face and smiled.
‘Are you shocked little one? We have been married only two months I know. But his lordship and I were always meant for each other; there was never any question ...’
Mary looked at the gypsy, now no longer a gypsy girl despite what she said. Analee had in some subtle way changed; she had the air and regality of a lady. With her customary sorcery Analee had already achieved the part. Why there she was, a real marchioness with one of the great lords of the land for a husband. Yet it seemed perfectly natural for her. It was not only the way Analee looked – it was her bearing and the way she held herself; a dignity as though she had been somehow born to it.
The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) Page 37