‘You’re so like your mother,’ he said gently.
It wasn’t exactly true ‒ Dick Randell had told him she was as beautiful as Anne, but he, Robert Turnbull, who had memorized every expression of Anne’s face with the eager diligence of a lover, knew that she was not as beautiful. Anne’s had been a more delicate face, a gayer face. This girl had a certain toughness and directness Anne had never known. She was modishly dressed in a travelling costume of blue velvet which became her skin and hair wonderfully; it was tightly fitted to her pointed young bosom. Her body was provocative and arresting, and when she moved towards him she managed herself with an instinctive, undeniable grace.
He instantly liked and respected what he saw. The thought crossed his mind in those first few seconds, that perhaps, after all, the Blakes were to have their miracle.
Their hands met briefly, and then Robert went to the chair Jane indicated on the other side of the fire. They studied each other carefully.
Jane saw a man of about her mother’s age, with dark hair turned almost completely grey, and weathered skin that told her he spent much time in the sun and wind. He was not tall, but broadly and powerfully built, with strong hands covered thickly with hair; his eyes were remarkable, dark brown and deeply set, almost too sensitive in that rugged face. He did not dress as she imagined a country attorney would; his clothes were immaculate and of excellent cut, though the colours were discreet. If he had lived in London, she thought he might have become a dandy. The only thing out of fashion about him was the absence of a wig. His might have been any one of those cosmopolitan faces she had glimpsed in the coffee-houses or in Bond Street. It was a calm, intelligent face that looked at her now, and waited.
III
Kate came and served them wine in smeared glasses, carelessly set on a tarnished silver tray. Her old hands shook with excitement as she poured from the decanter; a smile played on her lips each time her gaze fell on Jane.
‘This is a great day for Kate,’ Robert said, when she had gone. ‘To her you are Anne come back again. You and William are young, and for the old, there is always hope in youth.’
Jane’s eyes regarded him gratefully over the rim of the glass.
William was brought in then to be presented. Patrick stood silently in the doorway watching as William made his bow to Turnbull. Then, tugging at General’s collar, the child went to Jane’s side quickly, and from that vantage point, viewed the stranger eagerly. He answered Turnbull’s questions about his lessons, but he was watching to try to sense Jane’s own reaction to the man before giving himself too readily. Patrick’s anxious face softened a trifle; he glowed with pride as Jane described to Turnbull his years of service to Anne.
Then the servant took William back to the kitchen. As the door closed behind them, Robert spoke softly.
‘A child of nine years is a burden for a young woman to take on … And Anne’s servant …’
Jane shrugged. ‘What else was there to do? When Anne died, Patrick was as helpless as William. Over the years he had grown to expect Anne to decide everything for him. Without her he was lost. As for William … no one can turn out a child who’s been gently reared to fend for himself. William’s no baby, but he knows more about the fashionable life in London than he does about earning a shilling or two …’
‘And so you took them both?’
‘I had no choice.’
The formalities were completed between them; they moved on to the business of understanding each other.
It was less difficult than they thought. Kate brought in supper; it was jugged hare, poorly cooked and served on chipped plates. With it she brought coarse, blackish bread and a large slice of stale Cheddar cheese. It was many years since Robert had taken a meal at Blake’s Reach, and he was appalled by what he saw. But the wine, brought up from Spencer’s cellar, was excellent. When the dishes were cleared away they lingered over the wine, and they grew comfortable with each other. Their talk became easy and unfettered; Jane realized quickly that if she was to remain at Blake’s Reach she needed Robert Turnbull ‒ among all these strangers she had to trust someone, and she decided to trust him. It was obvious that he knew Anne’s history in some detail, and when he pressed for more information, she decided that it was safer to tell him everything than to play with half-truths. As her ally he could be invaluable, and already he was almost that. Without holding back, then, she told him of the years at The Feathers, and how she had come to London in a wild flight and been absorbed into Anne’s strange household. She told him of how Anne had died, and how Patrick, O’Neill, Jerome Taylor and herself had schemed to take whatever could be taken from the creditors. She told it matter-of-factly, and was startled to see the distress in his face.
‘I hate to think of Anne … to die that way, in debt, troubled by creditors …’
‘Don’t waste your pity, Mr. Turnbull. Creditors never troubled Anne. She never spared a moment’s thought for them. She died in a comfortable bed, with people who loved her all around her. She had soft and pretty things all her life, and gaiety. I don’t think she even minded dying because it spared her the pain of growing old.’
‘But leaving William to you and no provision made for him …?’
She shrugged. ‘I see it this way. To-day I have a trunkful of beautiful gowns, a carriage and two fine greys, and I have some gold to jingle in my purse. When I left The Feathers I had Sally’s old shawl and a few pennies.’ She spread her hands emphatically. ‘If I also have William, then that’s only to be expected. Fair exchange, Mr. Turnbull!’
He smiled, half-reluctantly. ‘Most people wouldn’t call it fair exchange ‒ but I applaud your spirit.’
‘That’s as you choose, Mr. Turnbull ‒ I’d rather fight to make my own way, than sit and wait for things to happen. I almost waited too long at The Feathers. No more of that for me! From now on I take every chance that comes ‒ every one!’
He nodded. ‘Then they’ll come … or you will make your own chances.’
‘I will ‒ if I can.’ She went on quickly. ‘Living at The Feathers has taught me things gently-bred people don’t know. You had to be sharp there, or you were taken in. An innkeeper on a busy road has to know more than two and two make four. I’ve learned things from him, and they’ve stuck with me.’ She added, with a touch of pride: ‘The idea of selling the things off quietly from Anne’s house ‒ that was mine.’
‘I heard that Hindsley had given Anne jewels,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t they have fetched something?’
‘The jewels were sold long ago. Anne had paste imitations made, because it wouldn’t have done for the people she borrowed from to know that the jewels were gone.’
Again Robert gave a half-smile. ‘It’s an inherited talent with the Blakes to conceal the state of their finances. In the old days Spencer also was cunning in hiding his difficulties from his neighbours.’ His face sharpened suddenly. ‘He had a purpose, though. He had planned a good match for Anne from the time she was a child, and when she was fourteen he had the man picked out and ready. Roger Pym would have given half he possessed to have married Anne. He was a young man, just come into his father’s estate, and he was more than ready to lend Spencer large sums on the understanding that Anne should marry him when she was eighteen. There wasn’t any real wickedness in Roger Pym, I believe ‒ but in Spencer’s hands he was an inexperienced child, and he hadn’t learned that his money couldn’t buy everything he wanted.’
‘Anne wouldn’t have him?’
‘Flatly refused to consider him! To marry Roger Pym would have meant burying herself in the country. It would have meant a life-time of paying a lip service to all the past glories of the Blakes. She was appalled at the thought of taking up the dull job of running the estate, and giving a child to Roger every year. None of that was for Anne. Tom Howard presented himself, and she ran off to London with him.’
‘She couldn’t have stayed …?’ Jane said musingly.
He leaned towards her. ‘You must realize that
Anne didn’t give a fig for position or family or almost anything else. She didn’t care in the least for what the Blakes were then or had been. She was a creature of such gaiety ‒ like a bright and improbable flame here among all these solid country squires. She was too lovely and too spirited to be tied down …’
Jane knew the familiar tones the attorney used. Ever since she could comprehend them, these were the tones the people who had loved Anne had spoken in. It was clear that Turnbull had loved her mother. She accepted the knowledge, not as something strange, but as a fact that was decidedly to her own advantage. Having loved Anne, Turnbull would feel nothing but warmth for a daughter who resembled her. She fixed her attention firmly on him, encouraging him with her eyes to continue talking.
‘Spencer never recovered from the blow of her running away,’ Turnbull said. ‘She had hurt him financially, and she had wounded his pride beyond bearing. He grew old very quickly … and bitter. He didn’t trouble any more to keep the Marsh from knowing what was happening to Blake’s Reach. He hated Anne, and I think he took a fiendish delight in making sure that there should be nothing left for her to inherit. He grew to a stage of bitterness when he could laugh openly at Anne’s misfortunes ‒ Tom’s death, and Viscount Hindsley’s.’ Turnbull’s voice was sour at the memory of it.
‘Then,’ Jane said, ‘if he were alive yet, William and myself would not have been received at Blake’s Reach? … strange how certain I was that he would welcome us. Anne told me what to expect, but I wanted to believe what that sailor, Adam Thomas, had told me.’
‘Most assuredly he would not have welcomed you,’ Turnbull said dryly. ‘And as for Adam Thomas … well, people about here feel for the Blake family. It’s part of their tradition. They can’t think of the Marsh without a Blake. Adam Thomas was loyal ‒ but misguided.’
She stirred suddenly in her chair. The firelight caught the red of her hair, burnished it like copper. Her face had grown sharper and whiter.
‘And you ‒ you, Mr. Turnbull ‒ think that I was misguided to come here? Blake’s Reach doesn’t belong to me!’
‘It’s unfortunate,’ he answered, ‘that Spencer didn’t know how good you would have been for Blake’s Reach. The family have never needed one of the General’s kind so badly … Spencer didn’t know that you were one of the General’s kind, Jane.’
She said quickly, jealously, ‘And Charles? ‒ what will he do for Blake’s Reach?’
‘Ah, Charles … let me tell you about Charles.’
She leaned back, her lips folded tightly.
‘He was the only child of Richard, Spencer’s brother ‒ the one who married the Frenchwoman. Charles was born in France, and brought up there. For some strange reason, when his parents both died within days of each other from a fever, his father’s wishes had been that he should come to Spencer to be cared for, instead of staying with his mother’s family. She was related to the Poulac family, one of the oldest in France, and they were willing to have the child. Charles didn’t want to go to England, but Spencer wasn’t prepared to pamper a child’s whim. Besides that, Spencer was to have an income from the French estate for Charles’s education. He wasn’t going to give that up! Charles came over to Blake’s Reach ‒ a very unwilling little boy, I recall. I fancy he was nine or ten years old then … about five years or so younger than Anne …’
‘Yes, yes!’ Jane said impatiently. ‘But tell me about Charles? What sort of a person was he?’
‘It’s difficult to know. He spoke only French when he arrived … and I didn’t quite know what to make of him. He was handsome, certainly ‒ very handsome. And intelligent, too ‒ quick to learn. After a time he spoke English very well. And I remember him on his pony. He could handle that, or even a horse, as well as a man. He was very dark … like his mother, they said. People thought he was sullen, but I think it was his shyness over the strange language in the beginning ‒ and at the end because there was no one he cared to talk to.’
‘And what did Anne think of him?’
He waved her to silence. ‘I was coming to Anne. I think she was very important to Charles, but what she felt, I’m not sure. It was plain that he adored her. She must have seemed so light and gay among all these others ‒ almost French, I suppose. She was kind to him when she remembered he was there … he was just a little boy, and she was growing into a young woman with thoughts and occupations of her own. But I remember they used to ride together on the Marsh. You’d see them in every kind of weather ‒ he was such a splendid horseman, and he wanted her admiration so badly. He’d dare her to jumps she shouldn’t have been allowed to take, just to show her how well he could manage them.’
His tone grew reflective. ‘It must have been terrible for him when she ran away. Spencer had never taken much notice of Charles before, but when Anne left, the child was forgotten completely. Spencer used his money shamelessly … and Charles grew too tall for his coats and breeches, and he had holes in his stockings. In the end he settled the matter for himself by riding his pony to Dover, selling it, and paying for his passage to France. He went to his mother’s family. Spencer clung on to the money from the estates until Charles was eighteen and could inherit. It was a bitter and vicious wrangle over the money …’
They listened to the rain and the crackle of the fire, and Robert’s thoughts were back in those years. Jane looked about the room, seeing it suddenly with the eyes of the little French boy whom Spencer had ignored ‒ the boy in his jacket grown too short and worn at the elbows. This had been Spencer’s room, and the boy must have watched him here with fear and loathing.
Suddenly Robert spoke. ‘I suppose he was the loneliest child I’ve ever known … After Anne went he used to spend a great deal of his time in the tower of the church up there on the hill. On a clear day you can see the French coast from there. He was eating his heart out …’
‘And now he’s eating his heart out in Paris ‒ in prison!’ she said.
He nodded slowly, ‘I suppose that’s true. He’s been in prison more than a year. I wonder if England seems a free and happy place to him now that he has seen France overrun by Revolution …’
She interrupted sharply, ‘Over a year! When does he come to trial?’
He shrugged. ‘Who can say? We’ve already had one report of his trial and execution … and later found that it was false. I try by every possible means to get news of him. Some English interests are still functioning in Paris, but I’ve had no direct contact with him. I still am not sure that the letters I’ve bribed certain people to get to him have ever been received.’ He began to shake his head. ‘His cousin, the Marquis, is dead, and other members of the family, so I’m told. If Charles ever comes to trial I have little hope for him. The excesses of the Revolution grow worse daily …’
‘What is his crime?’
‘His connection by birth with a noble family ‒ though I’m sure the Revolutionary courts will find some other name to call it by. I have very little hope,’ he repeated, ‘less and less as time goes on. I have a feeling that he will die.’
He stopped speaking, and a deep silence hung between them. Jane began to wish, vainly, that she had not questioned Turnbull about the unknown Charles. Before, he had been a phantom with no substance, demanding nothing of her. His only reality had been given him by Anne when she had called him ‘Charlie.’ Now he was clothed in flesh and blood, he was a shy, dark-haired boy, growing out of his jackets and breeches; he was a lonely child gazing towards the coast of France from the old cliff face. He was that child grown into a man, rotting in a Paris prison, waiting trial and almost certain death. Now he had become too real, a phantom no longer. Pity had stirred and awakened in her, and she could never be free again of the vision of Charles. By yielding to pity she had involved herself in him, in the question of whether he lived or died. Blake’s Reach could be hers only by the death of Charles … and he was a stranger no more.
Turnbull spoke her thoughts. ‘So … you will likely inherit after all …’
‘He has no wife or child? No heir?’
He shook his head. ‘There is no one, I am told. The new French Government has confiscated his estate … They would take Blake’s Reach also if they could.’
Jane gripped the arms of the chair. ‘And if I inherit …. what is there for me? How much has escaped Spencer?’
‘Very little. The inheritance is slight … almost nothing. Perhaps fifty acres, and some sheep. This house and the outbuildings … two horses and a few head of cattle …’
‘Is there a kitchen garden? Are there some hogs?’
He looked startled. ‘Why … yes, I believe so! But Kate is old and a poor gardener. There’s been no one to care how things were done at Blake’s Reach for so long. The hogs get swine fever, and Spencer couldn’t keep a good shepherd, so at lambing time the flock has suffered. He hasn’t bought a good ram for many years, and the quality of the sheep is poor …’
She cut him short. ‘Cows, hogs, chickens … a kitchen garden … I could live on that, Mr. Turnbull. To some people, that would be riches!’
‘It’s not riches to a Blake on the Romney Marsh.’
‘But it would do!’ She said eagerly, ‘It would keep us going until I could build things up … until I could build up the flock, buy some rams. It would certainly do, Mr. Turnbull!’ Her face was alight, and glowing.
He looked grave. ‘Those things aren’t done in a week, or a year, Jane. And meanwhile the roofs leak, and the damp rots the wood … the mice take over all these unused rooms. Can you wait to build up a flock while the house tumbles about your ears? Do you want to give all your youth to a kitchen garden and a pigsty?’
The glow faded slowly, and was replaced by a look of stubbornness. ‘What else can I do? There’s William to think of … neither of us can live on air.’
He rose from his chair slowly, and went to stand before the fire. The moving light fell on his greying hair, and deepened the lines on his face. He stood there, with head bent, and hands clasped behind him for some minutes. Then he turned to her.
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