It was convenient, he thought as he carried his rare book with the letter hidden its priapic pages, that the Gypsy was in London. The Gypsy would carry this letter, for the Gypsy was a servant of Lord Paunceley, and this letter concerned the matter upon which the Gypsy was engaged. His Lordship, as he climbed into his coach, peered up into the smoky darkness of London's sky as though he could smell in that sooty blackness the tendrils of evil and intrigue that went from here to Paris and to every capital of Europe. Evil, intrigue, plots, and strategems; those were the business of Lord Paunceley, that ancient, most savage, most clever and secret man.
—«»—«»—«»—
March brought a thaw to the valley. It brought brisk winds that tossed the bare trees and drove grey clouds low over Lazen.
It also brought to the valley a Festival of Loyal Britons that declared, not to anyone's surprise, that Republicanism would never sully this corner of Dorset, and that if the Damned French marched up the Dorchester Road
then they could expect many a stout blow from Lazen men. The Festival, in truth, was not so much an affirmation of patriotism as an excuse to force the Earl to provide two oxen that were roasted whole, a dozen hogsheads of beer with which to toast the monarch, and wine for the men of substance to drink in the Lazen Arms' Assembly Room that overlooked the humbler festivities in the main street. A good time was had by all, undisturbed by Republicanism or French invaders. George Cartwright, whose jealousy had blazed at Christmas Eve, married the heavily pregnant cause of that jealousy. Spring was coming. Marriage was much in Lazen's mind.
Yet March did not bring a proposal of marriage to the Lady Campion Lazender.
April's first day brought sunshine to light the primroses in Lazen's hedgerows. The second day brought a letter from Toby.
The Earl of Lazen showed the letter to Campion. He watched her as she unfolded it. 'What is it? You look as if you've seen a spider.'
'Nothing.' She laughed. Instinctively her heart had quickened at the thought that the Gypsy must have brought the letter, yet she dared not betray her interest by asking. She tilted Toby's letter to the window.
He was well. He was fighting. The Vendee was in full rebellion, Frenchmen fighting Frenchmen. He had, he wrote, adopted a nickname to frighten his enemies. Campion laughed.
'What?' her father said. Caleb Wright had just brought him luncheon on a tray. Campion knew he would eat little of it.
'Calling himself Le Revenant!' A revenant, in English as in French, meant a creature come back from the dead to haunt the living. She laughed again. 'He should call himself carrot head.'
Her father smiled. 'Young men are full of fancies, my dear. I know another young man who suffers the same way.'
'Who?'
'Look out the window.'
She did. She dropped the letter. She put her hands to her mouth. Her father thought it was a gesture of delight. 'Go down.'
'Father!'
'Go on! Caleb and I will watch.'
She went downstairs, out to the forecourt, then to the lakeside where a line of amused servants stood waiting for her. Lord Culloden bowed as she approached. In his hands was a white rope.
At the far end of the rope, graceful and gleaming, floated a pleasure barge.
Campion knew that the barge existed. The second Earl was supposed to have built it, and Campion remembered seeing the old boat, its paint long flaked, upside down on hurdles in one of the dim, dusty Castle buildings. Over the years it had been stacked with timber, had been home to mice, sparrows, and cats, gathering dust and cobwebs like so many other half-forgotten splendours in the Castle's storerooms.
Now Lewis Culloden had rescued it. He had more than rescued it. It looked new. It gleamed with white and gold paint.
The barge was thirty feet long with benches for six oarsmen at the bow. Above them, rearing proudly upwards, was a gilded, carved prow that bore the arms of the Lazenders in fierce colours.
The stern half of the barge, where the gunwales flared outwards, held a small pavilion, curtained beneath an elegant, white-painted, wooden roof. The curtains were drawn back, showing cushions heaped about a table spread with food. Behind the pavilion was a small platform where a helmsman could stand.
Lord Culloden smiled. 'If we were doing it properly we would have a second barge, with musicians.'
'Doing what properly?'
'Our voyage of discovery.' He bowed and offered his hand to let her step on board.
'Voyage!' She laughed. It was a forced laugh. She knew why this thing of beauty had been rescued and repainted. She guessed that all the servants knew too, and that their smiles and laughter were not just for the boat, but for the question they knew would be asked within its curtained pavilion.
She took his hand, stepped precariously on board, and the servants clapped her as if she had done a great thing.
Lord Culloden followed. He shoved at the spongy bank with his foot. 'Into the cabin, my Lady!'
The servants were laughing. The barge rocked alarmingly as Lord Culloden took up a long pole and thrust it into the lake bed. The barge moved from the bank.
Campion peered from beneath the carved canopy. 'Aren't we to have oarsmen?'
'Your servants are all landlubbers!' Lord Culloden said.
'You're going to pole us? We're going in circles!'
It was true. The barge, rather than cutting a straight, elegant course into the lake's centre, lumbered in an erratic circle as Lord Culloden thrust the unwieldy pole into the water. He drew it out, weeds and mud dripping from its tip, and swung it inboard. 'We shall drift, my Lady.'
Drifting into marriage, she thought. She had wondered, as winter turned to spring and the bright leaves showed budlike on the trees, why Lord Culloden had not asked for her hand. Her father's permission had been given, and then nothing had happened! Now that the moment had come she felt oddly unprepared, though she had thought of little else in her private moments.
She leaned back on the cushions. She wondered, for the thousandth time, what she would feel when the question was asked. She decided it was all rather embarrassing. Perhaps, she thought, these things would be better done by letter. She laughed at the thought and Lord Culloden smiled to see her happy.
The sun was reflected in ripples of light on the white-painted pavilion ceiling above the lavish food. There was a cold pheasant with sauce, a frilled ham, two raised pies, tarts, a custard, and three bottles of white wine that lay in ice. Lewis took a corkscrew and opened the first bottle, carefully pouring the liquid into the crystal goblets.
Campion threw bread for a duck that swam past. The servants, as the barge drifted away, turned back to the Castle.
He handed her some wine. 'Your health, dear lady.'
'And yours, my Lord.' She supposed that, once the question was put and answered, he would kiss her. It all seemed rather indelicate. One of her friends who had married the year before had told Campion not to worry. Being kissed was just like being nuzzled by a horse.
Luncheon was delicious, unsullied by any proposal of marriage. He fed her plate with the best morsels, and kept her glass full. The barge, turning with the small breeze, finally lodged gently on the mud by the reeds at the western bank, swung broadside to the lake and stopped. Lewis undid silken cords that let three of the curtains fall, thus making a pavilion with an open side that looked out onto Lazen.
Campion, sitting with her knees drawn up, stared at the Castle. 'It's beautiful.'
'More so than any house I know.' He grunted as he pulled the second cork.
The house looked wonderful, its elegant facade showing against the bright emerald leaves of early spring and the gentle hills where the lambs were growing. She smiled. 'Perhaps the barge should be left here. We could come and sit and watch Lazen through the seasons.'
'I think it intends to stay anyway.'
'What!'
He laughed, cleared some cushions and rugs, and lifted the boards. The water was dark in the bilge beneath them.
'We
're sinking!'
He smiled at her. 'I think it would be more accurate to say we have already sunk. George Hamblegird said we should soak the thing to let the wood expand, but if we'd have waited for that we'd be waiting till summer.'
'How do we got off?'
'I shall summon a boat.' There was a small dinghy that was kept by the old church on the Castle forecourt, used to clean the lake's banks and cull the lilies that threatened to spread over the entire surface. Lord Culloden put the boards back. 'We'll sink no further.'
She leaned back on the cushions, still staring at the Castle, and listened as he told her of the secrecy that had surrounded the rebuilding of the barge. Three of the estate's carpenters had worked on it, under Hamblegird's instructions, always fearful that she might discover the gorgeous craft in their long workshop. Lord Culloden admitted that he had half expected the boat to sink the moment it was launched.
'Didn't you caulk the seams?' she asked.
'Are you trying to teach us sea-faring men how to make ships? Of course we did. Still sunk, though,' he laughed.
She turned to look at him. His downward slanting, hooded eyes looked amused. His moustache was flecked by the custard. She decided she did not like his moustache. The water slapped on the boat's side. She laughed at the thought of sinking.
He held out the bottle. 'More wine?'
She wondered if he was using the wine to raise the courage to propose to her. She suddenly thought the whole thing was funny and then she thought how mortified he would be if he knew, and that thought also seemed funny to her, and to cover her untimely hilarity she held out her glass for more wine. 'We should do this every day.'
'Sink?' He smiled and leaned back on the cushions. He looked at her, his face suddenly serious.
Dear Lord, she thought, here it comes.
He frowned. 'I must go to London in two weeks.'
'You must?' She thought she had sounded rather relieved, so she repeated the words in a more anxious tone.
'I have some small business with the regiment.' He shrugged as if it was unimportant, and poured her more wine. 'You had a letter from Toby?'
She began to think that perhaps he was not going to propose after all. 'Yes.'
'How is he?'
'He's tediously bloodthirsty. He claims to have killed eight French soldiers. I'm not sure if I approve.'
'That's because you're half French.'
'True.' She closed her eyes. It was warm. The three closed curtains had stopped the wind coming into the pavilion. She decided that if he was going to ask he would have asked her already. Then came the thought that perhaps he wanted her to sleep so that he could wake her with a kiss. She wondered if the Sleeping Beauty's Prince had a moustache. She decided the wine had made her sleepy. She wondered if people always got drunk to propose marriage. Perhaps that was the best alternative to an engagement by letter.
Lord Culloden said nothing. He stared at the fitful sunlight on the grey water and saw the clouds thickening to the north, and then he looked down at Campion and saw the extraordinary delicacy of the girl, the clearness of her skin, the beauty of her face. Her eyes were closed. He thought of their meeting, and he knew that if it had not been for his slicing sword on the winter road, he would not be here now. He smiled at the memory.
'What's funny?'
He looked down to see her very blue eyes staring at him. 'I thought you were sleeping.'
'I'm not. Why are you smiling?'
'It's forbidden?'
'When you're in a sinking ship, yes.'
'Sunken?'
She laughed. She closed her eyes again. The water made a pleasant, gentle slapping sound against the gleaming paintwork of the barge. Occasionally the craft would lift sluggishly as the wind tugged at the pavilion and bellied the curtains. Campion felt the barge move as he shifted his weight on the cushions, coming closer to her.
'Will you marry me?'
The question came so suddenly, in just the same, bantering tone of voice that he had been using about the old sinking barge, that Campion was startled. It was as if the cold, lapping lake water had suddenly risen into the pavilion.
She opened her eyes.
He smiled down at her, a quizzical look on his face.
She had been waiting for the question since January. Now, suddenly, with the question finally asked, she seemed struck dumb.
His fingers brushed her forehead, stroking her gently. 'You don't have to answer me now. I've thought long about it, my dear, long and hard, and it is only fair that you should do the same.' The words sounded stilted. She supposed such words always did.
She sat up, driving his hand away, and turned to face him. 'Lewis?'
'Campion?'
She was not sure what she wanted to ask. She had thought, when she had thought about this expected moment, to say 'yes' on the answering beat of the question, yet now, quite suddenly, she found her practical, sensible mind wanting to probe, to explore, and she shook her head uncertainly. 'Marry?'
He smiled. 'People do it, you know.'
She smiled back. She wished there was not custard on his moustache.
She thought of her father and his wishes. She should marry. She looked at Culloden's pink face, a hint of fleshiness about the eyes, and she supposed that her father was right. This man, this solid, dependable man would hold Lazen against an uncertain future.
He took her hesitation for doubt. He sat up straighter and drew his knees up as hers were drawn up, making the barge rock slightly on its muddy bed. 'I don't want to spoil your life, I wish only to make you happy.' He touched both ends of his moustache. 'I'll leave the regiment, of course, that's why I'm going to London, to sell the commission. Lazen is your life, it has to be, and even when Toby is back we'll live close by.' He shrugged. He seemed as uncertain again as the first days after they met. She thought of the bones on Two Gallows Hill. She thought of her father decrying certainty. She thought of LC and CL traced scarlet on a mirror.
He smiled. 'I know how you feel about London. I wouldn't ask you to live there, and…'
'Lewis!'
He stopped, surprised.
She smiled, shaking her head. She had listened to him and felt a sudden pity for him. He had done all that he could to make this day special, to bring her to a magic place, to make it a day to be treasured in her memory, and then he had seen that she wanted practical, sensible proposals instead of a moment that should be wreathed in gold as splendid as that which circled the Lazen crest on the boat's prow. She took a deep breath. Her decision, of course, had been made weeks before when Cartmel Scrimgeour had visited the Castle and drawn up the marriage agreement. This conversation in the barge was merely a polite formality and she must play her part as nobly as Lewis. The words seemed to need a great effort, but she managed to give her answer a smiling certainty. 'Of course, Lewis, of course!'
He stared at her.
She smiled. 'Yes!'
'You mean?'
'I mean yes! Yes!' He gaped at her in amazement, and she laughed. 'Did you expect me to say no?'
'I thought…'
'Thought what?'
'That I am not worthy of you.'
'Lewis!' She reached for his hands. How could she tell him that it was she who was not worthy, that it was she who had harboured thoughts of such shame that she could scarce admit them to herself? This very morning, when her father had given her Toby's letter, had not her first thought been of the Gypsy? 'Lewis,' she had to think of what she ought to say in this circumstance. 'I shall be most fortunate in you!'
He took her hands and looked bashfully into her eyes. 'I have thought much about it.'
'I know.'
'I will do all for our happiness. You do know that?'
'Of course!' She wondered why it all seemed so unreal.
He drew her towards him, clumsy on the cushions, and he put his arms about her and kissed her on the mouth.
She closed her eyes.
She had never been kissed like this. She had ofte
n wondered what it was like and she wondered why there was not one single touch of mystery about it. She pushed her lips against his, wondering if the magic came later. His moustache was definitely uncomfortable. It pricked and it tickled. Being nuzzled by a horse was definitely nicer.
'My dear Campion.' He leaned back from her, reached over her shoulder and pulled the cords of the last curtains, shaking the green cloth down so that it seemed they were in a closed, luminous tent that lay on water. 'My dear, dear Campion.'
He pulled her gently, turning her, stretching her on the cushions and his hands were gentle on her face, on her neck, and he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, and she knew he was being gentle and she wondered why she had this terrible, dreadful need to laugh. His kisses pushed her lips onto her teeth. It was uncomfortable, and then she felt his hand slide down to her body. 'No, my Lord.'
He smiled. He stroked her breasts, the silk dress smooth to his touch. 'No?'
She put her own arms about him and pulled him down so that his face was beside hers.
His hand, denied her breasts, slid to her thighs and she found herself wanting to laugh again. It was so silly! All this fuss over marriage and having children? His hand moved upwards and she pushed him away. She smiled. 'No.'
Somewhere in the back of her mind a tall, black haired, blue eyed man laughed at her. She blotted the vision away, angry at herself. She sat up, her hands rearranging her hair. 'When I marry, my Lord, I will come to you,' she hesitated, 'as you would want your bride to be.' God! She thought, but this is embarrassing! 'Besides.' She smiled.
'Besides what?'
'The servants! They'll be thinking the Lord knows what!' She pulled one curtain back and tied its cord.
He untied it. 'Let them think.'
'No! They shall know we are to be married.' She was tying the cord again. 'And they shall know that we are to be married properly.'
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 14