A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwall

  'Not up to parsons' wives tonight, Mounter. Give her my best respects.' He clumsily poured another glass. 'Go on with you, man!'

  Few at the Castle would be drunk so quickly as the Lord of Lazen, but few had such good reason. All had good means. The frumenty was a speciality of Lazen, brewed for days in the great vats at the brewhouse. Despite the bad harvest the Castle had kept sacks of wheat aside that had been husked, then boiled in milk. When the mash was thick it was mixed with sugar, allowed to cool from the boiling point, and then liberally laced with rum. The recipe claimed that enough rum should be added to make a man drunk with the fumes, at which point the amount of rum should be doubled. The frumenty was cooled. At the last moment, before serving, it was heated again, mixed with egg yolks, and brought to the hall before it could boil. It was drunk only on Christmas Eve, it was too strong for any other day. The Reverend Horne Mounter, who allowed himself some sips of the Castle sherry on this night, secretly believed that the frumenty was a fermentation of the devil, but to say so was to risk the Earl's displeasure.

  In the Great Hall Lord Culloden watched in amazement as the liquid was served. He had taken a cup himself and drunk it slowly, but the tenants and townspeople were drinking it like water. He smiled at Campion. 'How long do they stand up?'

  'Long enough. They deserve it.' She smiled up at him. 'You're not bored?'

  'Good Lord, no! Why should I be bored?'

  'It's hardly London, my Lord.'

  He looked at the noisy, shouting, drinking throng. 'I always enjoy birthdays.' He laughed.

  The local gentry had come, and Campion saw how they kept themselves at one end of the hall while the common folk kept to the other. She walked through both ends, greeting old friends and neighbours, introducing the tall, golden haired cavalry Major at her side. Already, she thought, we behave as though we were married. She looked constantly for a tall, black haired figure, but the Gypsy could not be seen.

  The dances were hardly the dances of London. They were country dances that all the guests knew, dances as old as Lazen itself. The Whirligig was followed by Hit and Miss and then Lady Lie Near Me. The church orchestra played fast and merrily and the dancers slowly mixed the two ends of the hall together. Once in a while, in a gesture towards the gentry, Simon Stepper, the bookseller and flautist of the church orchestra, would order his players to provide a minuet.

  There was applause again when Campion and Lord Culloden danced to one such tune. The floor seemed to clear for them.

  He danced well, better than she would have expected. He smiled at her. 'Your father spoke to me today.'

  'He did, my Lord?' The room turned about her in a blur of happy faces, candles, and firelight on old panelling. Lord Culloden made the formal, slow gestures with elegance. The month's easy living in Lazen, she saw, had thickened his neckline so that the flesh bulged slightly at his tight, gold-encrusted collar. He smiled.

  'He wanted my advice.'

  Campion smiled at Sir George Perrott who, bless him, had led Mrs Hutchinson onto the floor. For that, she thought, she would give Sir George a kiss under the mistletoe. She could not see the Gypsy. 'About what, my Lord?'

  'Your cousin.'

  'Oh Lord!' Campion said rudely. She smiled at the miller who, with pretensions to gentility, had insisted on dancing this minuet with his wife and had bumped heavily into Campion's back. 'About Julius? What about him?'

  Lord Culloden frowned as the tempo of the orchestra underwent a frumenty-induced change. He adjusted his steps. 'It seems he has written asking for money.' He had to speak loudly to be heard over the riot of conversation and laughter from the lower end of the hall. 'He's in bad debt!'

  'Again?'

  'That was your father's word.'

  Uncle Achilles, with grave courtesy, was leading Lady Courthrop's nine year old daughter about the floor. The townspeople, she could see, were laughing at the odd looking Frenchman. She planned another kiss under the mistletoe.

  Lord Culloden turned at the upper end of the hall, his feet pointing elegantly in the small steps and glides. 'It seems that he's spent his allowance for the next ten years. Can you believe that? Ten years! I mean a fellow has to live, but hardly ten years at a time.' He smiled. Campion supposed that all tonight's guests were waiting to see if she kissed Lord Culloden under the mistletoe. She thought she would not like to kiss a man who wore a moustache.

  'I'm hardly surprised,' Campion said.

  She did not want to talk about Julius. She disliked Julius intensely. He was the son of her father's younger brother, her uncle who had died in the war against the American colonists. That uncle, she knew, had had the reputation of a rake, and Julius, with a foulness all his own, seemed determined to outdo his father. When Campion had been sixteen, and Julius twenty-two, he had attacked her in the stables, and though it had not been as horrid as the attack on the heath road, she had never forgotten it. He had pawed at her, pushed her into the straw, and it was only the intervention of Simon Burroughs, the castle's chief coachman, that had ended what Julius had whined was 'cousinly fun'. Burroughs had broken Julius's nose, a wound that had to be blamed on a fall from a horse. The Earl, at Campion's insistence, was not told of the incident.

  Lord Culloden bowed to her as the music raggedly ended, then politely applauded the musicians. He offered her his arm. 'Your father believes that no more money should be sent.'

  'I trust you agreed with him, my Lord.'

  'It's hardly my place to agree or disagree, is it?' He looked at her with a smile. 'I would not want you to think me presumptuous.'

  'If my father asked you, my Lord, then I would not think you presumptuous.'

  Campion climbed with him to the dais where the top table was set with wine and punch. She took a glass of claret and sipped it. She might look after Lazen, but there were some things that her father kept from her. The allowances to his English relatives was one of those things, and Campion had never been consulted, nor sought to influence him. She looked at Lord Culloden. 'You must say whatever you think best, my Lord.'

  He was marking her card, she thought, demonstrating that he was already a part of the family. She wondered whether he had already approached her father to ask for permission to seek her hand in marriage. She wondered what she would say when that moment came, if it did come, and the thought made her search the great, happy room for a sight of the Gypsy. The dance now was the Old Man in a Bed of Bones, violently native in its crude exuberance, and, seeing no sign of Gitan, she wondered if he had stayed away in wariness of such an overwhelming English occasion. She smiled as she saw Uncle Achilles, who had no such inhibitions. He capered wildly with two girls from the town.

  A crash sounded from the far end of the room and Campion knew that someone had fallen down drunk. They would not be the last. The orchestra, without missing a beat, moved into the Friar and the Nun, provoking laughter, and she looked up at the hooded eyes of Lord Culloden. 'You know this dance?'

  'Indeed, no, my Lady. My education was sadly lacking.' He smiled. 'Are you going to teach me?'

  She grinned happily. 'No, my Lord, you're going to watch me. Sir George?'

  Sir George Perrott had danced these tunes before Campion's mother had been born. An ironic, happy cheer went up as the two stepped down to the floor, for the privileged of Lazen were expected to join in these revels. Lord Culloden, smiling and watching from the dais, thought he had never seen her face so happy and so vivacious. He laughed as they mimed the old story that, each year, shocked the Reverend Horne Mounter and his stout, proper wife.

  Culloden joined in the applause. Simon Stepper waved his flute, shouted, and the orchestra went rumbustiously into a new tune. The hall cheered, Sir George laughed, and Campion linked her hand with the old man's for Cuckolds All in a Row.

  The music filled the hall, the clapping from the crowds at the room's edges seemed to shake the floor, to shiver the air with this day's happiness. This was the Little Kingdom at its best; united and glorious. Campion's face was
lit with the joy of it. She let go of Sir George's hand and, laughing and smiling, she was swung from man to man, from servant to miller, miller to brewer, brewer to squire, squire to farmer, and farmer to Gypsy.

  His face caught her utterly by surprise. The touch of his hand seemed to freeze her, made her pause on the next step and run to catch up. Her missed beat provoked a cheer from the hall.

  She turned at the end, looked for him, but he seemed to have gone as quickly as he had come. It was as if the touch of his hand and the single glance from his blue eyes had been a dream. The music was speeding again, she went forward, her hands holding her dress up so that her ankles showed, and then she was whirled violently about by Sir George, she went backwards beside the innkeeper's wife, and the music ended. A huge cheer went up. The musicians, hopefully, went into Up Tails All, but Campion, thinking that dignity must have a limit, smiled and shook her head.

  She walked back with Sir George who, with the licence of old age and old friendship, put an arm about her waist. They're getting very drunk, my dear.'

  'You sound like Mrs Mounter, Sir George.'

  He laughed. 'God forbid. Where is the lady?'

  'Probably looking for dust in the Garden Room,' Campion laughed. The rector's wife terrorized the parish with her visitations, and even LazenCastle had been reprimanded for slovenly housekeeping. Campion steered Sir George to the left, and checked him beneath the mistletoe.

  He looked at her. 'My dear?'

  She kissed him on both cheeks. 'A happy Christmas, Sir George.'

  He laughed. 'It will be now, if the excitement doesn't finish me off. Come, my dear, I must give you back to your handsome young officer.'

  Even Sir George, she thought, considered that Lord Culloden was her man. His Lordship smiled as she climbed the steps, clapping her gently by touching the tips of his fingers on the opposite palm. 'Some food?'

  Her eyes were shining, her whole face suffused by happiness. Even without the diamonds and pearls she glowed this night. She smiled at Culloden and let him lead her to the Old House's Garden Room where chafing dishes waited for the guests of quality.

  The servants who had drawn the short straws of the lottery and thus had to work this evening welcomed them to the Garden Room, held their chairs, then brought plates of food and a cooler of champagne. Lord Culloden had led her to a private table, set in a window alcove that was curtained against the raw night outside. The music was distant now. He smiled at her. 'It's a magnificent Christmas.'

  'You really think so?'

  'All Christmasses should be like it.'

  She laughed, pleased with the compliment. Christmas at Lazen was special to her. 'It was better when my mother was alive. She used to dance them all off their feet, all of them!' She smiled. 'I was little. I used to watch from the stairs. Toby and I liked to watch the drunks.'

  'No one minds them getting drunk?'

  She laughed. 'It's Christmas! Some of them have to be taken home in farm carts. Church tomorrow will be groaning with regret.' She sipped her champagne. 'You're sure you're enjoying it, my Lord? Our country ways are not too crude?'

  'Aren't country pleasures the best?'

  It was deftly said. Country pleasures were pleasures of the flesh, the tumbling of bodies in hay, yet he had merely picked up on her words, teased her, and she could do no more than smile.

  'Speaking of which,' Lord Culloden went on, 'are you riding on Tuesday?'

  She nodded, her mouth full of pie.

  'Your father,' he said carefully, 'would like me to stay through the season.'

  She suspected that he wanted her approval for the idea. She gave him a bland answer instead. 'The Blues keep you that busy, my Lord?'

  He smiled. 'I'll have to go to the regiment for a week or two, just so they don't forget me. I'd like to stay, though. You must have the fastest hounds in England!'

  'They should be.' Her father, whose accident had been on the hunting field, still had a passion for the sport. He had appointed a huntsman to breed lighter hounds, for even if the Earl could no longer follow the pack he was determined that his guests should be thoroughly rattled by the chase. He was regarded as a dangerous innovator by those who preferred the fatter, staider, more traditional hounds, but it was obvious Lord Culloden liked the quicker sport.

  He began talking to her about the Lazen hounds, saying how much sharper the hounds appeared when they were hunted with a few bitch couples among them. She nodded, smiled, made the right responses, but her thoughts, with the dreadful inevitability that she feared, insisted on remembering the sudden, warm touch of the Gypsy and the startling look of those odd blue eyes. She had been astonished by the shiver that had tingled throughout her body as his fingers so lightly gripped hers and passed on. Her uncle had said, before she dressed, that lovers look for small coincidences as signs of heaven's favour, and she found herself dreaming that the shock of the Gypsy's touch was just such a sign. Dear Lord, she thought, but this was madness!

  Lord Culloden had spoken to her, and she had let the words go straight past her. She looked at him and smiled. 'I'm sorry, my Lord?'

  'You were miles away,' he said with a smile.

  'I was wondering if Carline had remembered the puddings. One year they boiled dry.'

  He smiled again. He was looking into her face that was so quick to smile and laugh. 'Did you not hear what I said?'

  She looked contrite. 'Truly not, my Lord.'

  He looked down at her ringed hand, then his hooded eyes came up again. He had, she thought, an oddly attractive and crooked smile beneath the moustache. 'I hope I offer you no offence, my Lady.'

  She smiled. 'Offence?'

  'I want to stay, but not just to hunt the fox. I would have you know that, my Lady.'

  She sensed the eagerness with which he sought her reassurance, and though his words were undoubtedly too eager, even verging towards insolence, she knew, too, that his actions on the heath road had given him the right to ask for reassurance.

  She smiled. 'If my father has asked you, my Lord, then no further invitation is needed.'

  He ignored her evasion. 'From you, my Lady, I would ask such an invitation.'

  She guessed from his words that he had not yet asked her father for her hand, though her reply to this question would undoubtedly influence whether or not he did. The music still played. She heard laughter and shouts from the hall. She found herself wishing, suddenly and profoundly, that this conversation was not taking place.

  'My Lady?'

  To say yes, she thought, was to set in motion the pavane that led to marriage. He would ask her father, he would ask her, and what then? Marriage, pregnancy a year from now?

  And why not? Love was only something that fell from the stars to gild the world for fools. Marriage, she had decided, was a compromise, it could be nothing else. And if CL and LC was a happy coincidence pointing to fate's hand, then how much more was the coincidence of their meeting on the Milett's End road?

  'My Lady?'

  She stared unseeing at the champagne bottle and, as unbidden and unwelcome as ever, the image of the Gypsy swam before her eyes and she felt an anger at that unworthy attraction. I am not worthy, she thought, not worthy.

  She had known this man just a few weeks, yet the suddenness of their introduction, the horror of the man pawing at her on the heath road had led so swiftly to this question. Marriage, she thought, should be a blaze of glory, not something insidious and relentless, creeping up on her with all the appeal of a winter fog.

  She smiled at that. Marriage, her father had once said, is like buying a horse. Look at the teeth, the legs, and don't expect a unicorn. She smiled because she knew that somewhere in her life she had been infected with the disease of romance, the expectation of a unicorn. It was unfair on this man, this good man, and she looked at him with her eager, bright, welcoming eyes, and smiled. 'Of course, my Lord.'

  What else, she thought despairingly, could she say?

  He took her hand, his eyes still on her
s, and raised it close to his mouth. 'I am your servant, my Lady.' He kissed her fingers. The moustache pricked at her ungloved knuckles.

  By such small words, she thought, and tiny, polite deceptions are the courses of our lives fashioned.

  A scream interrupted them, a scream that pierced from the hall. Lord Culloden stood, his hand moving to his sword hilt.

  Campion smiled. 'Someone's drunk, my Lord. Fighting over one of the girls, I expect.' She wiped her fingers on the napkin and stood beside him. 'Perhaps if I appear it will calm things down.' Lord Culloden still frowned, and she put her arm into his as they walked towards the Great Hall. 'It happens every year.'

  There were shouts now, the crash of breaking plates, and Lord Culloden pushed through the people who crowded the dais to stare at the bedlam on the floor.

  It was a fight, but such a fight as Campion had not seen for many a year. A dozen of the town lads were hammering at each other, while as many of the men were trying to pull them apart. Women screamed while the Reverend Horne Mounter was trying, without success, to shout silence and calm into the melee. Simon Stepper and his musicians, oblivious to it all, were playing the dance Dissembling Love.

  Lord Culloden's parade ground voice made the musicians pause, but no more. 'Stop it! Stop it I say!'

  A boy reeled out of the fight with blood coming from his nose. He staggered, fell, then forced himself upright and charged back into the mill of fists and boots.

  Campion was laughing.

  Two of the town girls were screaming encouragement and she guessed that they had started the fight. The drink was helping it along. Most of the townspeople grinned as they watched. There was nothing for the fighters to damage except themselves, and Christmas at the Castle was hardly Christmas without one good fight to talk about in the coming nights. Why else was all the valuable furniture and china moved from the hall?

  Simon Burroughs, the coachman, bobbed his head at Campion. 'You want me and the boys to knock their pates together, my Lady?'