Drop of the Dice

by Philippa Carr

  She reawakened memories in me. I could almost smell the Paris streets. ‘Hot bread,’ she said. ‘It is one of the most delicious smells on earth. It filled the streets when the bakers came in the Rue Gonesse with their baskets full of hot bread. Then there were the peasants with their farm produce… chickens, eggs, fruit and flowers.’

  I did remember the barbers, covered from head to foot in flour, with wigs and tongs in their hands… and the stalls of fish and apples in the market place.

  ‘I would go into Les Halles with my basket on my arm,’ said Aimée. ‘Maman said I could drive a better bargain than she could herself. I was quick… I was… how you say?

  ‘Ruthless?’ I suggested.

  ‘Ruthless,’ she repeated. ‘I was the one to get the price less and come home with the bon marché.’

  ‘I can well imagine it.’

  ‘So you think I am… adroit… little sister?’

  ‘I not only think. I know.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked rather sharply.

  ‘It is just something of which I have become aware.’

  She was ready to take offence over some matters. I think it was because she was not quite at home in the English idiom. I had thought she would be pleased because I had noticed her cleverness.

  ‘We were poor,’ she defensively. ‘We had to watch every sou. When our father died it made a difference.’

  ‘It did to all of us,’ I reminded her. I knew something of poverty in the streets of Paris.

  I told her about the cellar, and the horror of it all came flooding back as I talked.

  ‘But you had the good Aunt Damaris to rescue you.’

  ‘You had your mother.’

  ‘But we lived through the hard times. Is it not comforting to live in a rich household when you have been so poor as to wonder where your next meal will come from? If you have been poor like that once… you never forget it.’

  ‘You are right,’ I answered.

  ‘You appreciate… You find it good. Money brings comfort. You would do a great deal to get it… and keep it.’

  ‘I should be terrified to go back and live as I did in the cellar.’

  ‘Jeanne took you and cared for you, did she not?’

  ‘What I should have done without her I cannot imagine. I should still be there… Or perhaps I should have died of the cold or something by now.’

  ‘It has taught you what poverty is… and that is the good lesson. It will make you understand those others who have suffered it.’

  ‘Oh yes, I agree. Tell me about my father. Did you often see him?’

  ‘Yes. He came to us often.’

  ‘My mother did not know…’

  ‘My dear sister, a man does not tell one mistress when he is visiting another.’

  ‘I am sure my mother had no idea.’

  ‘No. But we knew he was living with her. We could not help knowing. She was the maîtresse en titre. You see, Hessenfield was like a king. He could do these things as he willed.’

  I tried to remember my mother and even though the pictures were hazy I could not believe she would ever have knowingly accepted such a situation.

  Aimée seemed to think it was something of a joke.

  ‘I am four years older than you,’ she said. ‘There is much I can remember. He used to look a little… how you say it?… out of place… in our rooms in the Rue Saint-Jacques. We lived there many years over the shop of a bookseller.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘I can still smell the books. Some of them not very nice… not savoury. He filled our little room when he was there. He looked so grand; he used to make us feel shabby… but he did not seem to notice. He was so happy to see us. He used to take me on his knee and say I was a little beauty. I was so… désolée when he died. Those were the unhappy years. We were poor then. The bookseller was good to us, though. My mother worked in his shop and I helped. We could have sold the watch and the ring but my mother said “No. Never.” She say, “One day, you go to England. When war is over…” Then she marry and I come to England. She did not want me when she married. She have the new family. Well, I found mine, did I not? Uncle Paul is good to me. If I was not his niece I would marry him. Then I have found my little sister.’

  She liked to shock me. She was constantly reminding me that I was a bastard; so was she, for that matter.

  ‘Love-children are the children of love,’ she said once. ‘That sounds romantic, does it not? I do not mind at all being a love-child… as long as I am cared for by my family.’

  She did admit that when she had seen the lords and ladies riding in their carriages she had been overcome with envy. Then there were the old dowagers in the sedan chairs in the mornings—usually going to Mass. She did not envy them so much because they were old and it was a fearful thing to be old. But always she had wanted to be a lady in a carriage, patched, powdered, bewigged and perfumed, riding through the streets, splashing the Paris mud on passers-by and attracting the attention of equally elegant young men in their carriages, pulling up, slyly making assignations, visiting the theatre and being admired by the male audience and envied by the female. Life in Paris had been very much more exciting than it was at Hessenfield, but Paris had meant poverty, and Hessenfield affluence.

  I felt as though I had been at Hessenfield a long time but it was only a week or so since I had arrived. My talks with both my Uncle Paul and with Aimée had made me feel I was part of the place. Uncle Matthew and Ralph were frequent visitors, and there were other people, mostly men, who came to the castle. Sometimes they dined with us and when they did I noticed there was a wariness about the conversation and I could not help realizing that the tension I had observed when I arrived increased rather than diminished.

  One day I went into my uncle’s private sitting-room. He was in the chair, the tartan rug over his knees, and I saw that some papers had slid to the floor. He had fallen asleep and dropped them. I hesitated. There were about six sheets, and some of them had fallen quite a little way from his chair. I went forward quietly and picked one up.

  I looked at it in amazement. There was a picture on it of a very handsome man. ‘James the Third, King of Britain’, was the heading. My eyes glanced down the page. It was an account of the virtues of the true King and it stated that he would soon be returning to claim his kingdom. When he did he must find his people ready to declare their allegiance to him.

  I felt the colour rush into my cheeks. This was treason to our crowned King George.

  I looked up. Uncle Paul’s eyes were on me.

  ‘You seem absorbed by what you are reading, Clarissa,’ he said.

  ‘I found these on the floor…’ I started to gather up the sheets and I could not help seeing as I did so that they were the same as the one I had read.

  ‘They slipped from my lap while I dozed,’ he said.

  ‘They are… treasonable!’ I whispered.

  ‘They would be called so, it is true. Nevertheless, they are being circulated in certain places.’

  I shivered. ‘If they were discovered…’

  He said slowly: ‘There is strong support for James in Scotland. There are even certain members of Parliament… men in high places who support him.’

  ‘Yes, so I have heard. My great-grandfather talked a lot about Bolingbroke and Ormonde… and men such as that.’

  ‘Give the sheets to me. I think they should be locked away in the desk, don’t you? Will you put them there for me? Thank you.’

  He started to talk of other matters, but I knew there was something very dangerous afoot. Of course they would be Jacobites at Hessenfield. My father had been a leading one. That was why he had been in France… working to bring King James back to the throne. That James had now died but there was this other James, his son, the Chevalier of St George.

  I wanted to talk to my uncle about this but he quite clearly did not intend to discuss the matter with me. I wondered what my Great-Grandfather Carleton would say if he knew Hessenfield Castle was what he would cal
l a hotbed of traitors. He was intolerant, of course. He never admitted that there might be another side to a question than the one he took. I felt as my Grandmother Priscilla did, that one side was not entirely right any more than the other was. I only wanted them all to be friendly together.

  My uncle said suddenly: ‘When I first invited you to come here I planned all kinds of pleasures for you.’

  ‘Pleasures?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I wanted you to meet the people of the countryside. Perhaps a ball or two. It may be that you are over-young for such. However, we should have made some attempt to show you that life is not as dull as you might think up here in the North.’

  ‘But I have not found it dull. I am having a very interesting time.’

  ‘It is fortunate that your sister is here. She provides the company. I am sure you would find it very dull otherwise. But it is not always so. My younger brothers are in Scotland at this time. Only Matthew is here.’

  ‘Something is happening,’ I burst out. ‘You are preparing for something.’ I was thinking of the papers I had found on the floor and thought of Great-Grandfather Carleton banging the table and talking of Jacobite plots.

  He did not answer me. He merely said: ‘Perhaps later… if you stay with us… we shall be celebrating. Then we shall show you a little castle entertainment. But just now…’

  ‘I understand. You cannot celebrate something which has not happened.’

  ‘We shall see. Now would you please go and find Harper and tell him I am ready for my beef tea.’

  Thoughtfully I went to the butler’s pantry and there found Harper already warming up the beverage my uncle took at this time. I understood now what the tension in the house meant. They were preparing for a coup, which meant that they were planning to bring James back to England and it was only natural that Hessenfield Castle—the home of staunch supporters of the Chevalier—should be at the heart of the plot.

  I thought of my great-grandfather, my Great-Uncle Carl and Lance Clavering. I did not believe the plotters could succeed and I knew that there would be war.

  I wanted to be alone to consider what this meant. As Priscilla had said, what did it matter which King was on the throne? But it mattered to fierce Protestants and perhaps fiercer Catholics. Wars, it seemed, were always about religion. Why was it that people who thought one thing was right wanted to force their views on others?

  Uncle Paul was mild and gentle normally but he had looked quite fierce when he had talked about the return of James.

  I wondered what the family at Eversleigh would do if there was war and I was up in the North, which I presumed could be called Jacobite country for the Scots would be more likely to support the Stuart line than the Hanoverian, although they were not of Catholic persuasion by any means—except perhaps in the Highlands.

  It was later on in the afternoon when I went to my uncle’s sitting-room. I had made up my mind that I would ask him to tell me more of what was happening. I knew that there had been a company of Jacobites whose goal it had been to set James on the throne, though during the reign of Anne we had not heard a great deal about them, but perhaps I had not been sufficiently interested to notice. They had been mentioned from time to time, it was true, and there had always been a colony of them on the Continent, but I could see that now a new branch of the royal family had been brought to England, they might consider it was time to rise.

  I came into the sitting-room but my uncle’s chair was not there. I was just about to leave when I heard the sound of a movement in the ante-room which led from the sitting-room. I went over to it, my footsteps silenced by the thick carpet. Then I heard someone—a voice I had not heard before—mention me. I stood still, listening.

  ‘But is it not strange that she should be here just at this time. I’ll warrant she’s acting as a spy. I suspected that from the moment I saw them on the road. She was with Eversleigh… General Eversleigh… though he was disguised as a plain citizen and there was another of them with him… a fop… who perhaps is not such a fop… Clavering. They were with the girl… priming the girl. That’s what she’s here for. Who would suspect a girl of that age… little more than a child?’

  ‘No, no.’ That was my uncle. ‘She came because I invited her.’

  ‘Why did you invite her… at such a time?’

  ‘It was before this seemed possible. Her visit was delayed.’

  ‘Delayed! Of course it was delayed. I tell you they had wind of it. That’s why she’s here… at this moment. She’ll be peeping and prying into everything. I tell you she’s a danger. She’s putting us all at risk.’

  I was too stunned to do anything, though I knew that at any moment the door could open and someone come out and find me here.

  Yet I felt it was necessary for me to stay and listen. On the other hand I wondered what they would do if they discovered me.

  ‘You are making a great matter over nothing, Frenshaw,’ I heard my uncle say. ‘She is young… innocent… she knows nothing of these matters. She is concerned with riding and what colour sash she will wear and visiting a family she has just discovered…’

  They have made a Hanoverian of her, Hessenfield. Don’t you see that? She’s here to spy. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if…’

  I turned but I was too late. The door between the two rooms was suddenly opened. I swung round. The man in the brown frieze coat and black stockings was looking at me, and his expression in those first seconds of confrontation was frightening. There was triumph and malevolence. He was proved right and at the same time he was face to face with someone whom he believed to be a spy from the enemy’s camp.

  ‘I came to see my uncle,’ I said as firmly as I could. ‘I was surprised not to find him here.’

  ‘He is with friends,’ said the man, advancing towards me.

  My heart was pounding so fiercely that I thought he must have noticed it beating against my bodice. I put my hands behind my back for fear he should see them trembling.

  ‘Then I must not disturb him now,’ I said.

  ‘Have you been waiting long?’ The eyes, I noticed, were grey and penetrating. I felt that he was trying to look right into my mind and was convincing himself that he found there what he suspected.

  ‘No… I had just come in.’

  ‘You must have heard us talking and known that he had visitors.’

  ‘I did not realize it until a moment ago.’

  He hesitated and for a moment I thought he was going to seize me and make me his prisoner. He was a fanatic, if ever I saw one.

  My uncle called out: ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It’s your niece,’ said the man.

  ‘Tell her I’ll see her in about an hour.’

  The man looked at me. I nodded and escaped. I ran to my room. I was still trembling. It was not pleasant to be caught eavesdropping, but to hear something which could be dangerous was quite terrifying.

  I had no doubt now that I had walked into intrigue. I had chosen this time to come when something important was about to happen. I knew now what it was and that they were planning to bring James back to England and crown him King. But George of Hanover would not stand by and let that happen. There would be war and at Eversleigh they would be staunchly for George, while here, in my father’s family, they were the leaders of the plot to bring James back.

  Aimée came to my room. I was lying on the bed, for I felt very shaken after that encounter.

  ‘Are you not well?’ she asked in astonishment.

  ‘A headache,’ I replied. I did not wish to talk to her about what I had heard and what I knew was happening. Not yet, at any rate—not until I had sorted out my thoughts.

  ‘I was just going out for a ride and hoping you would come with me.’

  ‘I won’t today, thanks, Aimée.’

  ‘Cá va. Au revoir. I will see you later on.’

  I was relieved that she did not want to stay and talk.

  It must have been about an hour later when I heard the sounds of d
eparture below. I went to my window and saw a party of men riding away.

  Then my uncle sent for me.

  When I went to his room he was sitting in his chair in the usual place.

  ‘Clarissa,’ he said as I entered, and he held out his hand to me. I went to him and took it and knelt down beside his chair. ‘My dear child,’ he went on, ‘this is so difficult for me. I have so enjoyed your being here… but the times are dangerous.’

  ‘I know,’ I replied. ‘I have gathered that there is a plot to bring James back to the throne.’

  ‘It has always been our desire to do that. All these years we have promised ourselves that we would. Your father, as you know, was devoted to the cause. You could say he gave his life for it. Had he not been in Paris on the King’s business he would not have died as he did. Yes, we have never forgotten, and this time we are going to do it. It is unfortunate that you should be here now. It would have been far better if you had come when I asked you. Then this was not imminent. Now… it is.’

  ‘Uncle Paul,’ I said, ‘when I was in your room and you were in the ante-room I could not help overhearing that man… Frenshaw, was it… talking about me. He thought I was here to spy. You don’t think that, Uncle?’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’

  ‘I knew nothing of all this before I came. It is true that I did come as far as York with my Great-Uncle Carl and Sir Lance Clavering, but that was only because they were coming this way and my Aunt Damaris wanted me to have their protection on the roads. You do believe that?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I believe you so entirely that I am going to trust you. A Jacobite rising is imminent. There are many Scotsmen who are with us, that is why it will start in Scotland. Lord Kenmure has already proclaimed James King at Moffat. Lord Mar is rallying an army. The Lords Nithsdale, Wintoun and Carnwath are coming to his aid. They are already preparing to cross the Border and James is on his way to England.’

  ‘Uncle,’ I cried, ‘there will be war… civil war!’

  ‘Now listen to me. You must go back to Eversleigh. My friends suspect you of spying. If we found ourselves in difficulties they would be ruthless. I want you to prepare to leave at dawn tomorrow. I will send for your grooms and prepare them. Get your things together but don’t let anyone know. In the morning I will tell them that you have been called away.’