The Chevalier

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Your husband is very fond of them,' Mrs Neville said with a hint of warning. 'He wouldn't like them to be turned out to go hungry.'

  ‘He's sentimental and foolish,' India retorted, but less briskly, for that foolishness was to her own advantage. She resolved to be rid of Father St Maur and Birch, however. 'I am going to reorganize this house, and things will be done the way I want from now on. And we must have some new furniture, and lots and lots of mirrors. In fact, I think it would be a good thing to pull this house down and build a new one.'

  ‘One thing at a time, madam,' Millicent said, and added, 'of course, Lord Ballincrea is mightily interested in architecture. Had you thought of asking him what he thinks of Morland Place?’

  *

  Clovis had been too busy since Caroline's death and Matt's marriage to worry about Arthur's future, and since his return to Morland Place, Arthur had been occupying himself with his own pleasures in such a way that Clovis had almost forgotten his presence. His spell at Court had matured Arthur, confirmed him in his vices, and taught him that reckless behaviour was not ultimately to his advantage. He hunted a lot, spent a great deal of time in York, in his favourite coffee-house, in the upstairs rooms of one or two inns where young men of like mind gathered, and in the discreet whorehouse in Skeldergate, and since he managed these things without getting himself into trouble, Clovis, bowed with work and worry, did not notice him.

  Arthur noticed India, but only to observe that she was handsome, that Matt was a fool, and that she would give Matt trouble enough before she was done. But that was before she turned her charm on him. A spell of bad weather in February 170z confined them all to the house, and Matt to his bed with a bad cold. India was all concern, and ran up to visit him every hour and soothe his brow and tell him he must sleep and have absolute quiet, and in between she sat in the drawing room with Arthur. Clover and Clovis, as usual, were busy in the steward's room with accounts, John preferred to read in solitude, and so India had Arthur to herself. She occupied herself with sewing, a dainty and ladylike pursuit; her pregnancy was hidden by the graceful folds of her pale blue dress with its loose overskirt of lace; her hair was dressed high on her head with pearls, and falling behind in a mass of dark curls; she knew exactly how she looked, and exactly what effect it would have on Arthur, when with shining eyes she looked up and fixed her gaze on him.

  ‘It is dull to sew without conversation. Pray talk to me a little, cousin Arthur. I do so want your opinion on what to do about this house, for there is no one else here who understands architecture as you do.’

  Arthur knew it to be the most blatant flattery, but the day outside was grey and bleak and wet, and she made a charming picture, sitting in the glow of the great log fire with her greyhound at her feet in its glittering collar. He stretched his legs out before him, gave her a smile of insolent ease, and answered.

  The wet spell lasted a week, and at the end of it, India told Matt that, while it was essential for her to have some fresh air, he was not yet strong enough to get out of bed. ‘You will bring your cold on worse than ever if you get up too soon. I shall only go out for a little carriage ride, very slowly, with the window half down, and Arthur can come with me to make sure I'm all right. You must not disturb yourself, my darling.’

  Two days later, Birch went to Clovis.

  ‘It's time you did something about Arthur, master,' she said abruptly. 'Did you not have some plans for him, before her ladyship wanted him sent to Court?'

  ‘Why - yes,' Clovis said. 'But what troubles you, Birch? Is he getting into trouble that I don't know about? I thought he was behaving himself very well these days.'

  ‘It's him and the new mistress, sir,' Birch said. Clovis stared.

  ‘Why, you surely don't mean that -'

  ‘I don't say there's any harm to it - yet,' Birch said implacably. 'But I know Arthur, and I can see the new one has nothing much to her.' Clovis frowned at that, but she went on notwithstanding. 'Idleness breeds trouble, master, and the two of them have nothing to do all day but get ideas into their heads. If you take the advice of an old woman that has seen it all before, you'll get Arthur out from this house and into some occupation.’

  Clovis hesitated, unable to believe that there was anything in it; but Arthur had always been a favourite of Birch's, and if she spoke against him - oddly enough, what convinced him was that she called him 'Arthur' and not ‘Lord Ballincrea' as she usually did. He nodded.

  ‘Very well. Say nothing of this to anyone. I will see what can be done.’

  Clovis worked quickly. The following day he took Arthur with him when he went into York, and for the next week kept him always about him on one pretext or another; and at the beginning of March Arthur was taken to meet Sir John Vanbrugh in York. Arthur went sullenly, feeling in the first place that his illegitimate pleasures were being interfered with and secondly that it was ignoble for a man of his birth to be expected to 'learn a trade'. But from the beginning of the interview his ideas changed. Vanbrugh brought Hawkesmoor with him - they were both on their way back to the site of the new Castle Howard after a trip to London - and Arthur took an instant liking to both of them. He knew both by reputation, of course, and Vanbrugh's bawdy plays were a recommendation in themselves to Arthur's mind. Moreover, the only thing in the world that Arthur was interested in, besides Arthur, was architecture, and as soon as the two men began to talk about their plans for the Henderskelfe site, his pose of weary superiority dissolved and within minutes he was leaning across the table and talking with an eagerness that made him look sixteen again.

  So matters were happily agreed, and Clovis guaranteed to pay Arthur a generous allowance for as long as he stayed with Vanbrugh and Hawkesmoor and behaved himself. India was no more than faintly annoyed at the removal of her admirer, but Millicent soon discovered from the servants what was at the back of it, and when she reported it to her mistress, India was furious, and determined at once that Birch should go. She confronted the old woman in the nursery, where Birch was going over the linen in preparation for the new occupant, expected in May.

  ‘Did you want something?' Birch asked coldly. India's eyes narrowed at the insolence.

  ‘I just came to tell you that you have interfered for the last time in this household. You would do well to remember that I am the mistress now.'

  ‘When you are worthy of that title, I will give it to you,' Birch said calmly, and went on with her sewing. India reached forward and snatched it from Birch's hands and threw it on the floor.

  ‘I warn you, old woman, you had better not cross me,' she said. Birch looked at her without fear.

  ‘You cannot harm me. I have been in this household more than thirty years. I spoke to Master Clovis for your good as well as everyone else's, as he knows well.'

  ‘Master Matt is my husband, and he has the final word in this house.'

  ‘Master Matt would not take your side against me. I was his governess before you were ever known to him.’

  India smiled with triumph. 'We'll see which of us he believes,' she said, and left in a flurry. A little while later, Birch was summoned by a servant child to speak to Master Matt. Matt looked embarrassed, and spoke to Birch without quite meeting her eyes. In the background, India sat, her hands folded over the bulge of her pregnancy, her expression gentle and meek.

  ‘Birch. the mistress tells me that you have spoken harshly to her, and refused to address her as "mistress". Now I know that you have been a long time in this house, and I know you sometimes speak more shortly than you mean to, but I must ask you to shew a proper respect to my wife.' India sighed, just audibly, and Matt added, 'And do exactly as she says, without arguing. It is very bad for her in her condition to be crossed in any way.’

  Birch stood rigidly, looking neither to left nor right. ‘Yes, master,' she said. Matt felt rather ashamed.

  ‘That will be all,' he said, and Birch went away without a word. A little later India contrived to meet her on the stairs, and gave her a smile of
sweet triumph.

  ‘You see?' she said. 'Don't cross me in future, or it will be the worse for you.’

  She passed on, and Birch continued her slow way to the nursery. She sat down in her chair by the window where she could get the best light, and picked up the lace-trimmed baby's shirt in which she had been making a tiny darn. Her eyes were tired and she could barely see what she was doing, but she would not let any of the other maids attempt the repair, for this was the silk and lace shirt that King Charles II had given to the Countess for the first of her babies, back in 1661, almost forty years ago. Birch remembered the hard time the Countess had had giving birth to the twins; it was during that labour that her own tender love for her mistress had been born. How long the Countess had been away! Birch was sixty-five years old, a good age for a woman. How much longer could she last? And would the Countess ever come home again? Birch missed her more than she had ever believed she could; and now she was obliged to call this shallow little flirt ‘mistress' in the Countess's place.

  Tears began to prick her eyes, and she put the baby's shirt carefully from her so that they should not fall on the delicate silk and mark it.

  *

  On the day after Matt's seventeenth birthday India gave birth to a healthy son. There was great rejoicing at this advent of a new heir for Morland Place, for there had been times, since the revolution, when the people had thought that the Morland fortunes were doomed. The baby was christened James Edward, which Clover, standing proudly as godmother, immediately contracted to Jemmy, and the nickname stuck, just as had her own.

  Clovis now felt able to spend more time in London, where other Morland matters had long since been demanding his attention. Matt, though still besotted with India -more so, indeed, since she had presented him with an heir - was gradually taking over the running of the estate, and with Clement and Father St Maur to watch over him, Clovis felt he would not go far wrong. India, in spite of what Birch thought of her, was proving an energetic mistress of the house, and though she left the day-to-day details to Mrs Clough, she had already dismissed some servants whom she said were inefficient, organized thorough cleanings and polishings, got in new curtains, counterpanes and bedhangings, and was gradually changing the look of the interior of the house.

  Thus it was that Clovis was in London when Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in June, by which the throne was to pass to Princess Anne on the death of the Usurper, and on her death to Annunciata's Aunt Sofie of Hanover. It was an extraordinary piece of work. Without half thinking, Clovis could name two score people with better claims to the throne than the Electress but, of course, they were all Catholics, and the Usurper, backed by the Whig party, wanted to make sure of a Protestant succession.

  Sofie of Hanover, Clovis thought, would make a good Queen, from what Annunciata had told him about her; and she was granddaughter to King James I, sister to Prince Rupert, and one of the best of the Palatines, intelligent, generous, able. But after her would come her son, George Lewis, as dull and unpleasant a creature as could be found, and after him his son George, both of them foreigners to the hilt. It occurred to Clovis to wonder whether the very unsuitableness of the Hanoverians might turn the tide in the Jacobites' favour. Perhaps the Whigs had at last overreached themselves? It seemed likely that Princess Anne would succeed peacefully to the Usurper, for she was well-loved, and daughter to the King; but she was not a strong woman, and might not live long. When she died, surely there could be no doubt that the country would prefer the Prince of Wales to the boorish Guelph family? And then another idea occurred to him: had Prince Rupert married Annunciata's mother, Annunciata herself could well have been named Queen by that same Act of Settlement and, being Anglo-Catholic, might have been the means of uniting the two opposing parties of Catholic and Protestant sympathies. Strange thought! Except for the trifling, though insurmountable, matter of her illegitimacy, she and George Lewis had exactly the same relationship to the throne of England, both being great-grandchildren of King James I through his daughter Elizabeth, the Winter Queen. Clovis contemplated Queen Annunciata all evening, and it made him chuckle. It was the only piece of amusement the Act of Settlement ever afforded a Morland.

  Clovis was still in London in September when the news came from St Germain that King James was dead. A letter from Annunciata followed very shortly with more details: the King had been ailing since March when he suffered a stroke, and during the summer he had travelled to Bourbon to take the waters, and had come back saying he felt better, but everyone had known it was only a matter of time. He had died quietly with his family around him at three o'clock in the afternoon of i6 September. King Louis of France had at once acknowledged the Prince of Wales as King James III of England, and the young King, now thirteen, had issued a manifesto setting out his right to the English throne.

  There were immediate diplomatic protests - the English ambassador at Versailles left without taking leave of King Louis, and the Usurper dismissed the French ambassador from the Court of St James - and King Louis wrote an apologetic letter to say that he had only acknowledged the Prince of Wales formally as his father's heir, but had no intention of attempting to restore him to the throne. The Usurper was not impressed, and put a Bill of Attainder through Parliament to say that James Stuart would be executed without trial if he ever set foot in England, and made it a treasonable offence for any English person to write to him or send him money.

  Meanwhile the Queen had written to Princess Anne asking her help in making reparation to her half-brother. Spain, Savoy, Modena, and the Pope followed France's lead in declaring James king, while Holland and Austria sided with the Usurper and formed a triple alliance against the France-Spain allies. It was obvious to Clovis that there was going to be another war in Europe, for France had now recaptured all the disputed areas of the Spanish Low Countries, and since King Louis's grandson had been proclaimed King of Spain, France controlled all the ports on the Channel coast. The rights of King James III would be a side-issue in what was truly a struggle to maintain the balance of power, but whether the war would favour King James or harm his cause it was impossible to tell. Wearily, and with a sense of futility, Clovis went home to Morland Place for Christmas.

  Sabine and her husband and little Frances had come down for the season but the Scottish Morlands were in mourning and stayed at home. Poor Cathy's son James had given up the unequal struggle for his life and had died on the third of December, just four weeks before his eighteenth birthday, leaving behind him no son, only a twenty month-old daughter Mary. When the news came Matt mourned his cousin genuinely, but gave no more than a thought of passing pity for Mavis, widowed at eighteen: so strong was India's hold on his heart. They had not yet resumed sexual relations, although India's 'other things’ continued to enslave and at least partly satisfy him. She had spoken to him frankly and openly about it.

  ‘Of course I want us to have lots and lots of children, darling,' she had said. They were preparing for bed, and she had come and sat beside him on the edge of the bed and captured his hand in both of hers, and was gazing into his face with a frank and innocent appeal that he found irresistible. 'But I don't want to be worn out with childbearing before I'm twenty. I've seen what happens to women, and you wouldn't want your wife to become a wrinkled old hag, would you? If I did, you'd run off after younger, prettier women and break my heart.'

  ‘Oh India, how could you think it?' Matt said. ‘I'd never, never -'

  ‘I know, darling,' India interrupted him, pressing her soft fingers over his lips, 'but I wouldn't want to put you to the test. Besides, if I am forever with child, I shan't have any time to devote to you, shall I? So let us have our babies a good bit apart, shall we?'

  ‘Of course, my dearest,' Matt said. 'Anything you say. You have only to say the word. We'll have as many babies as you want, and when you want.'

  ‘That's my good, sensible husband,' India murmured, leaning towards him, pressing her lips over his and allowing her hand to stray from his waist d
ownwards. Matt felt the familiar hot, feverish weakness stealing over him. In her hands he was helpless, as if all his bones were melting. He lay back upon the bed and, gazing up at her through half-closed eyes, he surrendered himself to her magical power and his overmastering love.

  Arthur came to Morland Place for Christmas, and Clovis thought him greatly improved by his months working on Castle Howard. He had an air of maturity now. He drank less, gave up smoking his foul pipes, since India said she could not abide the smell, talked to Clovis in a sensible and interesting way, and generally made himself pleasant. Matt made John Lord of Misrule for the season, and Arthur helped his brother arrange games and teases, and kept the fun fast but not furious. He also arranged the Boxing Day hunt, and at the ball in the evening danced with all the plainest girls who seemed to lack partners. Remembering Birch's fears, Clovis observed Arthur carefully in relation to his dealings with India, but he seemed to treat her with a perfectly grave courtesy as mistress of the house, and nothing else, barely sparing her a glance when she entered a room. There was obviously nothing between them, Clovis thought with relief.

  On the day after Boxing Day, India decided to go into York and visit her mother's cousin, her only living relative apart from her mother. Matt offered at once to go with her, but she would not hear of it.

  ‘She is old and tedious, my darling, and I would not by any means trouble you to be bored by her. But I ought to pay her my respects.'

  ‘Why do you not bring her here? I can send some servants to fetch her, and she can spend the season with us,' Matt said.

  ‘Oh no, that wouldn't do,' India said with a frown. 'She is old and frail and would not care to leave her home. No, it is best if I visit her.'

  ‘But I do not like you to travel alone at this time of year,' Matt said. India laughed gaily, making her long curls bob and sway.