The Black Madonna (Roundheads & Cavaliers Book 1)

by Stella Riley

  No such doubts would ever torment a visitor to Thorne Ash. Rambling and inconvenient as it undoubtedly was, it was a home; and Dorothy, with her tawny-green eyes and the incredible dark red hair which she had passed on to Eden and, rather less successfully, to Kate, was both a charming hostess and exceptionally easy on the eye.

  Kate. Too astute by half and with a trick of seeming to look through into one. Ralph grinned and said idly, ‘Astrology’s a strange interest for a young girl. Has Kate been studying it long?’

  ‘Not very,’ replied Dorothy, her head bent over her tambour-frame. ‘A cousin of mine visited us in May and inadvertently began it. Before that it was bees.’

  ‘Bees?’ echoed Ralph.

  ‘Bees.’ Dorothy lifted her head and gave him her lovely smile. ‘We got quite used to Kate drifting about swathed in gauze like some ghostly apparition. And the honey was delicious.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ralph was beginning to see. ‘And before the bees?’

  ‘The flageolet. Or was it moral philosophy? I’m afraid I lose track. But I do remember her taking up cookery for it gave us all a sharp attack of colic. Kate, sadly, is not inclined towards the domestic pursuits.’

  ‘So she forsook the kitchen in favour of learning how to fire a musket,’ said Richard, looking wryly up from his books. ‘The noise kept the hens from laying for a fortnight.’ He waited for the laughter to subside and then added, ‘We call them her Magnificent Obsessions. And since – thanks to Nathan – she’s still managed to acquire all the more usual skills, we see no harm in them. No real harm, anyway.’

  Mr Cresswell, an austere gentleman of some twenty-five summers, acknowledged this tribute with a thin smile and said, ‘It is easy for a teacher to shine through a diligent pupil. But I am unhappily aware how little I have accomplished with Amy.’

  ‘Quite. Fortunately, however, we don’t expect miracles.’ Richard closed the ledgers and stood up. ‘That will do for tonight, I think. Thank you, Nathan.’

  Inclining his head, Mr Cresswell gathered the books into a neat pile.

  ‘Then I’ll bid you goodnight, Cousin.’

  Dorothy looked at him kindly.

  ‘Won’t you sit with us for a little while?’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I have Toby’s essay to correct and some preparation for tomorrow’s lessons still to do. We are studying the decline of Byzantium.’ And on this sombre note, he bowed again and removed himself from the room.

  There was a tiny pause before Dorothy said carefully, ‘His sense of duty is quite admirable, isn’t it?’

  ‘Admirable,’ agreed Richard. ‘It’s just a pity he can’t leaven it with a grain or two of humour. However. Rome – or even Byzantium – wasn’t built in a day. And he’s only been with us six years, after all.’

  Eden grinned but said, ‘Why do you involve him in estate matters? You used always to prefer to act as your own steward.’

  ‘And still do.’ Richard moved to sit beside his wife. ‘I’m merely training Nathan to act in my stead – should the need arise.’

  ‘You mean,’ said his son slowly, ‘if the King should call a Parliament. But after ten years do you think it likely that he will?’

  ‘I suspect the time is coming when he’ll have to. Since the City refused to help finance the recent unpleasantness in Scotland, His Majesty has been in the awkward position of relying on Catholic donations. An unpopular move and one which I doubt does much to ease the strain on the royal purse.’

  ‘What strain?’ asked Ralph. ‘They say the revenue from the Court of Wards alone is stupendous.’

  ‘It is. Iniquitous systems generally pay well.’ Richard’s smile was edged with irony. ‘But Crown revenue has been declining for years and what there is costs a great dealt to collect – mainly because it passes through too many grasping hands on its way to the Exchequer. Also, His Majesty is committed to a number of expensive schemes – and can’t, I suspect, afford the Scots as well.’

  ‘Then it’s a pity he don’t leave them alone,’ growled Ralph. ‘If he must have a war, let him help the Dutch fight the Dons.’

  ‘He can’t,’ said Richard. ‘Without a policy of neutrality towards Spain, the gold trade would cease. Neither can he risk stirring up the Emperor Ferdinand and the whole of the Holy Roman Empire to get young Rupert out of prison. It’s a cleft stick, Ralph. We can’t afford a skirmish or two in Scotland – let alone a proper war.’

  ‘All right.’ Ralph shifted restlessly. ‘But how do you justify him imposing illegal taxes?’

  ‘I presume you’re talking about ship-money,’ came the patient reply. ‘And all I can do is to remind you that it’s been levied before and that the Navy has to be funded somehow.’

  ‘You mean you agree with it?’

  ‘I don’t agree with any tax that hasn’t been sanctioned by Parliament. I do, however, accept that the old system of placing the entire burden on the coastal towns was unjust.’

  ‘Do we pay it?’ It was Eden who spoke.

  ‘Since John Hampden lost his case against it in the courts – yes.’

  Ralph gave a bark of derisive laughter.

  ‘My father held back too – and suddenly found himself fined for infringing the forest laws. God! What’s happening to this country? It comes to something when the only ones left to mind their own business are the damned Papists.’

  Eden frowned slightly.

  ‘Aren’t you getting a bit carried away?’

  ‘No. It’s just that I have an opinion – which is more, I sometimes think, than you do.’

  Dorothy’s eyes widened a little and she stopped sewing.

  Eden, however, merely raised his brows and said calmly, ‘You’re entitled to think what you like. I just wish, occasionally, that you wouldn’t do it with your stomach.’

  Ralph glared at him and then grinned. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that, like you, I’ve been out of England for some time and therefore don’t feel myself qualified to judge. While we were at Angers, Francis quoted his father and you yours – and, as far as I can see, you’re both still doing it. Now the time may come when I echo mine … but meanwhile I’ll keep my mouth shut and try to assess things for myself.’ Eden paused and looked companionably across at Richard. ‘No disrespect intended.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘I thought you would be. Ah – and that reminds me. Guess who’s being made a viscount.’

  ‘Gervase Langley?’ suggested Richard, not noticeably impressed. ‘I imagine that’s one honour he could have done without. His present title’s already enough to preserve him from knighthood fines – and the feudal dues of a viscountcy are likely to cripple him. Still, I expect Mary is pleased.’

  ‘Knighthood fines?’ queried Eden. ‘What are they?’

  ‘The penalty for breaking a law passed over four hundred years ago,’ replied Richard. ‘How does the song go?

  Come all you farmers out of the country – carters, ploughmen, hedgers and all;

  Honour invites you to delights – come to Court and all be made knights.’

  ‘What he’s trying to explain,’ offered Dorothy, ‘is that owners of freehold land worth more than forty pounds a year should have applied for knighthood at the Coronation. And those who chose to remain mere gentlemen have to pay for the privilege.’

  Eden looked at his father. ‘Such as you?’

  ‘Such as me. What are you thinking? That it’s unfair?’

  ‘Well, isn’t it? What’s the King trying to do?’

  ‘Keep his head above water. Given the present tricky situation and no new revenues in ten years, what would you be trying to do?’

  ‘Call Parliament,’ said Eden trenchantly. ‘And make a lasting peace with Scotland.’

  ~ * * ~ * * ~

  TWO

  With only a few weeks between her lord’s homecoming and the date set for his return to duty at Whitehall, Lady Mary Langley – now created Viscountess Wroxton – wasted no time and, by the middle of Augu
st, Far Flamstead was filled with a glittering and select company. Days were passed in riding, hawking, witty conversation and laughing dalliance in the gardens; and in the evenings there was music, poetry, dining and dancing – and more dalliance, low-voiced and increasingly risqué in the golden pools of candlelight.

  Often the Maxwells were bidden to join the festivities and Dorothy was able to look, with interest but no regret, on the world that she and Richard had long ago abandoned. And if she was human enough to enjoy having Sir John Suckling lay his susceptible heart at her feet, it was largely because his sudden, lyrical devotion gave Richard new and thoroughly delightful dimensions to explore when they went home again. She did not and never could envy Lady Wroxton – whose elegant husband never teased or laughed, nor minded where she slept or with whom.

  But, with one or two exceptions, the company was pleasant enough and it was impossible not to like Sir John or his friend, William Davenant – that ‘sweet swan of Isis’ who they said was old Will Shakespeare’s bastard. Even more universally popular than these were Lord and Lady Falkland; he, grating of voice and jerky of movement and she, serious and almost religieuse … but both of them intelligent, sensitive and kind. Richard was content to talk business with his old friend Lord Brooke; and when, as so often happened these days, business became politics, they were usually joined by the prim-mouthed lawyer, Mr Hyde – whose only claim to notice, so Mary said, was his friendship with Viscount Falkland.

  The only fly in Dorothy’s ointment was Kate. For instead of integrating herself with the other young people and learning to be at ease in their company, she was still freezing them with forbidding looks and monosyllabic replies. In short, the experiment of introducing her to society had so far been a dismal failure.

  It had been a mistake, perhaps, to insist; and certainly the timing was unfortunate, colliding as it did with the harvest. Mary, naturally, wouldn’t have thought of that. But at Thorne Ash there was no rigid division between gentleman and tenant, house and Home Farm; and Richard was as likely to be found with his coat off mending a fence as ordering his bailiff, Jacob Bennet, to see to it. The result was that – with the exception of Amy, who’d been born with an in-built horror of soiling her hands – the Maxwell children had always been encouraged to join the tenants in the fields for the fun of bringing the harvest home. And, more than any of them, Kate loved it; so much so that, when Dorothy had suggested that she should forgot the pleasure for this one year, her response had been something approaching mutiny.

  ‘You want me to sit in the house with my hands folded in my lap while Eden and the twins are out on the farm?’ she had asked, aghast. ‘You can’t mean it!’

  ‘Actually, I do,’ replied her mother, not without sympathy. ‘I know it’s hard but it won’t really hurt you to miss the hay-making just this once. And I don’t think you’ll enjoy going to Far Flamstead looking like a lobster.’

  ‘I won’t enjoy going to Far Flamstead at all!’

  ‘How do you know? And at the moment, I’m concerned with your skin and what the sun invariably does to it.’

  Kate sighed. The twins became brown as gypsies and even Eden acquired a light tan. She just turned bright pink and peeled.

  She said, ‘I’ll wear a hat.’

  ‘Also, your hands get covered in scratches and your fingernails end up looking as if the mice have been at them,’ continued Dorothy flatly.

  ‘And gloves.’

  ‘Oh – Kate! However good your intentions, you’d drop them under the first bush and we both know it. I don’t want to take a scarecrow with me.’

  ‘I don’t see why you want to take me at all. I shall hate it and probably make an utter fool of myself. Why don’t you take Amy? She’s cross as a crab at being left out and I daresay she’d get on a lot better with Celia and her friends than I should.’

  ‘Amy,’ said Dorothy patiently, ‘is too young. You, on the other hand, are nearly seventeen and just ripe for a little social polish. And as for coping with the people you’ll meet – my own opinion is that you’ve enough character to cope with anything. And you’re due a new interest. Astrology’s palled somewhat, hasn’t it?’

  A reluctant smile dawned.

  ‘Are you suggesting I look on this as a new skill?’

  ‘As long as you open your mind, I don’t care how you look at it. But I’d hoped that you would do it to please me.’

  And that, of course, had been that.

  Kate had stayed out of the sun and been plagued, instead, by Amy. But although Dorothy had had her way, very little seemed to be coming of it. And, as if that were not enough, Eden was showing an alarming tendency to gravitate towards Lettice Cary, Lady Falkland. It was not particularly surprising; but Dorothy wished, for his own sake, that he would show a little more interest in the rest of the company.

  Prompted gently to this end, Eden had merely grinned and said that he left the poets to those who appreciated them – namely herself and Francis. Further enquiries elicited the information that the sophisticated Court beauties were all either tedious or terrifying … and that Lord George Goring, despite the graceful limp acquired at Breda, had a disappointing line in conversation.

  ‘He talks,’ said Eden simply, ‘of taverns, boudoirs and brothels. It’s amusing enough in its way but not what I want to hear about.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dorothy stared at him, nonplussed. ‘And what did you want to hear about?’

  He raised faintly astonished brows.

  ‘Cavalry tactics. The man’s supposed to be a soldier, isn’t he? And he’s fought in the German wars – as Ralph is doing now – so I’ve a certain curiosity to know what it was like. You look disappointed. Are you?’

  This might have been disconcerting had she not caught the familiar gleam in his eyes.

  ‘No. Merely bewildered. Your father said I should be prepared for the petticoat phase – and I am. It’s just confusing to find it wasted.’

  ‘Save it,’ advised her son. ‘Alternatively, you might comfort yourself with the thought that, though taverns and brothels hold no particular lure for me, I’ve nothing against boudoirs. It’s simply that, unlike Lord George, I don’t care to advertise my pleasures in discussion.’

  ‘Eden!’

  ‘Well?’ The gleam became a singularly disarming smile. ‘What is it now? Do you think I’m a rakehell?’

  ‘No,’ said Dorothy with strong feeling. ‘I think you’re outrageous.’

  ‘I know.’ Eden dropped a kiss on her cheek. ‘But whose fault is that?’

  * * *

  Like Dorothy – but for very different reasons – Celia Langley also found herself watching Eden’s progress through the bright, lazy days of August. He had changed, she decided; his silences were an enigma and his talk unexpected. Occasionally, she would catch his glance resting on her with an expression she half-recognised but it always vanished before she could be sure. And that made him a challenge. It was just a pity that he cared so little for fashion and finery. He was invariably neat, of course; but beside Francis or charming, carefree Sir Hugo Verney, with their bright, beribboned silks, embroidered baldrics and carefully ordered love-locks, he appeared positively austere. His preference was for plainly cut coats of black or the darker shades of green and russet and his only concession to elegance was the beautiful lace of his wide, scalloped collars. He did not even curl his hair.

  Once she tried teasing him about these things only to emerge feeling rather silly.

  ‘Even if I managed to dress like Francis,’ had said Eden cheerfully, ‘I doubt I could master all the attendant graces … so the transformation would be rather pointless, wouldn’t it? Rather like becoming a bird only to find one couldn’t fly.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Celia had said blankly. ‘What are you now?’

  He had smiled then; that slow, infectious smile that made her strictures suddenly very trivial. ‘I rather think, just at the moment … a red herring.’

  After a conversation like this which al
ways left her feeling that something important had eluded her, she turned with relief to the easy companionship of Sir Hugo. Him, she understood; and the undisguised admiration in his laughing brown eyes was both a balm and an invitation to the kind of pleasure that Eden never offered.

  In the late afternoons it had become the generally accepted custom to gather in the serenity of the walled garden to savour the last of the sun’s warmth. Someone usually brought a lute or guitar with them and the hour was passed in pleasant idleness.

  On one such day when the month was drawing to its close, the party was scattered in small groups around the garden. By the sundial, Lord George Goring was using his considerable charm in the seduction of lovely Anne Morton while, around the ornamental fishpond, Francis traded verses with Will Davenant and Sir John Suckling amused Dorothy with flirtatious banter. Bored, irritable and feeling at odds with the world, Kate sat on the periphery of a trio of the Queen’s ladies, modishly gowned and chattering like magpies; and, at Celia’s feet, Hugo Verney strummed lightly on a guitar and introduced her name into a dozen songs that had never held it before.

  ‘Ask me no more where those stars light that downwards fall in dead of night;

  In Celia’s eyes they sit, and there, fixed become as in their sphere.’

  Celia flushed, repressed a smile and shook her head at him.

  ‘Shame on you, sir! That isn’t how Mr Carew wrote it.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But it’s how he would have written it, had he been sitting where I am now.’

  A dimple peeped and was gone.

  ‘And where is that, pray? On the spur of the moment?’

  ‘Not at all, Mistress. I am in Elysium when you are by.’