She flung her hands up in a gesture of comic dismay, and Chloris laughed and came across to help unlace her travelling dress.
‘I can see why Birch didn't like her,' she said. 'Poor creature! She's very young, you know, and may well improve with age. After all, contact with your ladyship cannot but teach her something.'
‘Ignorant and bold - and, sweet Mary, so remorselessly fashionable!' Annunciata said. 'I feel a hundred years old, Chloris. Oh long gone are the days when I led the fashion at Court! Do you remember when the outer circle used to copy my dresses and ornaments?'
‘And painted their faces to try to look like you without paint,' Chloris said, glad to see that her mistress had retained her sense of humour at least.
‘Do you think, if I asked her privately, Mistress India would give me advice on how to dress?'
‘I should think she might even be capable of that,' Chloris said and the two women began to laugh, and the thought of Annunciata asking India's advice amused them so much that they laughed until they had to sit down weakly on the bed, and Annunciata's hair sprang loose from its pins. When Birch came in a little later with two maids bearing cans of hot water, they were still sitting there, red faced and bright eyed, and to Birch's dim vision the Countess looked younger and prettier than she did fourteen years ago when she had last sat on that bed.
*
The wedding went very well, and Annunciata could find nothing to fault, except that the bride's dress had obviously been chosen by the mistress of Morland Place. It was so decorated with ribbons, artificial flowers, frills and lace that Annunciata was reminded of a clothes-horse on which several people's best gowns had been hung; and the bride's fontange was so high that she overtopped her bridegroom and was in danger of catching light on the chandeliers. Arthur, however, was almost as frilled and ribboned himself, and his blond periwig hung over his shoulders and spread over his back down to his waist, and was decorated in the middle of the back with a large blue bow. He was evidently happy with the marriage, and cast India several looks of great triumph, which Annunciata intercepted with some puzzlement. He had inspected his new property and found it better than he had hoped; moreover his new neighbours in Westmorland were disposed to treat him with a flattering degree of respect, and he had already received two commissions to design new houses for people of quality in the Lake country, which he promised he would 'fit in with his commitments at Castle Howard'. His neighbours were left with the impression that he alone was designing and building the Earl of Carlisle's new palace, and were deeply grateful that the viscount was so affable as to spare them the time. Gentleman, landowner, viscount, architect, and possessor of a beautiful and docile wife: Arthur saw himself as very comfortably placed, and crowed over what he hoped was India's discomfort at finding herself no longer required by him.
After the ceremony came the feast and entertainments, and they ate to the accompaniment of music. India had acquired from somewhere a fine counter-tenor and a small orchestra, which she felt would strike the right, sophisticated note; after the feast there was dancing, and India positively banned any of the usual rumbustious country dances, and ordered the orchestra to play only Court dances, for she did not want the Countess to gain the impression that they did not know how things were done up here in Yorkshire. Annunciata found it all very tedious, for she had no one interesting to talk to, and was continually having to give polite praise, for which India's appetite was voracious.
The next day was better, however, for while the new couple were paying their formal visits, Annunciata begged to be taken to the stables and shewn the horses, and when India discovered that the Countess did not scorn riding and hunting, she gave orders for a hunt to be organized, and for a mount to be placed always at the Countess's disposal.
‘I shall give myself the great pleasure of accompanying your ladyship,' India said, 'although I must take care not to ride over rough country.' She looked down with a becomingly modest blush. 'I think your ladyship may have guessed why. I am of great hopes that I may again be with child.’
Annunciata expressed her delight at the news - and indeed, it did argue a most convenient fertility - but begged India by no means to risk her health by riding with her. 'I have been riding over these fields since I was three years old madam, and am quite safe and happy riding alone, with a servant. You must take care of yourself, madam, I insist.' And India, delighted with the Countess's affability, allowed herself to be persuaded.
*
A visit to Shawes, in company with Clovis. The old house was partly in ruins, and much of the stone had been carted away by people to repair old buildings or begin new ones. ‘You have left it too long,' Clovis said. 'A good job you have come back now, before it all disappears.' The bathing house was all right, except that some of the glass had been broken, and inside the rain had damaged some of the plaster-work. But otherwise 'the Countess's folly', as the villagers called it, had not suffered. She walked from one room to another, admiring anew, and remembering: with Martin she had planned it, watched its building, and he had teased her about it, and he seemed present there, more than at Morland Place.
‘I'm glad this has survived,' she said. 'I will build the new house around it. And use the old stone for the new house. As Kit Wren says, a house must look as if it has grown from the ground it stands on. We will start at once, next week, if the men can be found.’
Clovis looked at her with amusement. 'You look like a child with a new toy,' he said. 'Can you really care after so long about a new house?’
She nodded slowly, looking about the ungrazed field where one day Henry Wise would lay her gardens. 'Life gives us nothing, Clovis, only takes away. But there are two things we can do to immortalize ourselves, two things that go on growing after we are dead. One is to have children, and the other is to build houses.'
‘I have never done either,' Clovis said, and she saw with quick contrition that his face was bleak. He really had minded very much about losing Clover. She took his hand and pressed it.
‘Morland Place owes more to you than to anyone,' she said. 'Without you, the family would have been lost. That is your immortality.' He smiled, but she could see he was not comforted. She drew his hand through her arm and walked with him, lifting her skirts clear of the long damp grass with the other hand. 'Tomorrow,' she said brightly, 'you shall take me to Twelvetrees and help me choose a horse. You promised me one of the good colts, Clovis, and I shan't let you fail me. And a dog. Has any of the good hounds whelped recently? I should fancy another blue like dear Fand, or what do you say to a brindle? You always had sound advice.’
That night as Chloris prepared her for bed, she said, 'We must devote more time to cheering Clovis. He has had so much work and worry and so little pleasure, and he of all people deserves to be happy now.'
‘Yes, my lady.'
‘And, Chloris, I have been wondering what happened to the Black Pearls. I don't see Miss India wearing them, as I would have expected, though she does seem very fond of the Queen's Emeralds.'
‘Ah, I heard about that from the servants, my lady,' Chloris said, coming closer and lowering her voice. 'It seems that everyone thinks the Black Pearls are lost, or have been stolen. There are rumours enough, and the favourite one is that someone conveyed them out of the house at the time of the Revolution and no one knows their hiding place. Thrown in the moat, one says, and down the well another, and a secret compartment in the outer wall yet another.’
Annunciata looked surprised. 'Have they not looked in the hiding place under the altar? I put them there myself during the siege.'
‘I did not ask directly, my lady,' Chloris said, 'but by indirect questioning I gathered that no one knows about that place.'
‘The priest - Father Cloud - saw me hide the things away, but he was killed, God rest his soul. Clement must have known about it, he was with the family so long, and his father was steward before him,' Annunciata said musingly.
‘Well, my lady, if he knows, he has not said any
thing. But the altar furnishings are in place - someone must have got them out.'
‘Martin would have done that as soon as it was safe. I suppose he didn't think about the Black Pearls.' She was thoughtful for a while. 'Well, I shan't say anything either. Let them stay where they are. They are safe enough - and I don't think I care for the idea of the present mistress wearing them. Do you think she would do them justice, Chloris?'
‘No, my lady,' said Chloris. 'They are better where they are.’
CHAPTER TEN
They were happy days, happier than Annunciata had expected or hoped for when she came back from exile, and there was nothing she saw at Morland Place to distress her. Little Matt, despite that strange innocence which Annunciata had noticed, made a kind and industrious Master, erring if at all on the conscientious side, for there were things which he could well have left to underlings which he did or oversaw himself. India, who was pregnant again, was being a model wife and mistress, except for a predilection to fancy herself unwell. Twice during the summer she insisted that it was too hot at Morland Place and that her health demanded a trip away; once for a week in Harrogate to visit the baths and take the water, and once, during the hottest part of July, for three weeks in Northumberland. Annunciata, seeing her bloomingly healthy face drawn into an expression of patient suffering, decided that she was merely bored and wanting a change of scene, and on the whole could not blame her too heavily, for she herself had found childbearing at Morland Place tedious when she had been young.
The household settled down with its additional members very well, and Annunciata curbed her desire to interfere over things she would have preferred done otherwise. Mrs Clough was still housekeeper, Clement the steward, and Father St Maur the chaplain, and between them they secured a continuity from which matters deviated only in detail. Birch alone seemed unhappy, and withdrew into herself, grim and silent. She retreated to the nursery, where at least in the presence of Flora and the babies she could feel herself in a familiar province, and there she stayed almost all the time, quitting it only when India paid one of her rare visits. Annunciata noted with approval that India was not disposed to interfere with the nurturing of her babies, and she herself went to the nursery only once, out of politeness to Flora, for the new generation was still at the uninteresting stage. Later, Annunciata thought, with a faint, pleasant anticipation, she might enjoy walking in the gardens with her great-grandchildren - when they had reached a more reasonable age.
For a moment, she had enough to occupy her without that. There were visits to be made in York, to the few acquaintances from the old days whom it was still possible to visit; and out of courtesy, to her tenants. She looked, desultorily, for a house to rent for the summers to come, for she did not think she would want always to stay at Morland Place. Once or twice she met Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor for dinner at the Starre, to discuss the progress of the building at Henderskelfe, and on one occasion they were joined by William Thornton, the local man who was building a new house for the Bourchiers at Beningborough. The Bourchiers were close neighbours and old friends of the Morlands, and Annunciata visited them in their old Elizabethan house and walked with them over the site of the new building, which was at a short distance, further from the river and on higher, firmer ground. Thornton was interested in the new ideas of Vanbrugh and his companion, and one day they all rode over to Henderskelfe together to see the site of Castle Howard. It was a journey of about sixteen miles from York, but the roads were such that it took them nearly four hours, even on horseback, and the visit and travelling occupied a whole day from dawn to nightfall.
A great deal of her time was taken up with her own building project, and on most days she rode, or walked over the fields, to Shawes to see how things were going on, and to talk to the foreman, a handsome and almost incomprehensible ‘incomer' from Newcastle, and the carpenter, John Molesclough, who was the son of Chloris's brother and very like Chloris to look at. Building a new house, she discovered, was very like having a baby - it seemed a long time from conception to delivery, and in the early days there was no indication, beyond imagination, of what the finished product would look like. But it was as satisfying as having a baby, and far less personally inconvenient, and Annunciata revelled in it.
When her time was not occupied with these things, she rode. She found she could not have enough of simply taking out her horse and riding over the familiar and long-missed land of her childhood, where every field, hedge, tree and eminence had its memory. Matt, in a manner reminiscent of his grandfather Ralph, made quite an occasion of 'choosing a horse for the Countess', and took the whole family over to Twelvetrees, where he had had an awning set up under which they could sit while the best of the young animals were paraded, and a picnic dinner of considerable style was served to them al fresco. India almost twittered with excitement over the daring and elegance of the occasion, and had to be restrained from extending the invitation to the whole of fashionable York.
Annunciata went along with it all, though from first glance she had no doubt as to her choice, for she firmly believed that choosing a horse had to be a matter of love at first sighting, or the proper rapport would never exist. All the animals brought out for her were handsome and had good conformation, and some of the blacks were magnificent, but she had always favoured the chestnuts which were the Morland speciality before the coming of the stallion Barbary, and it was a chestnut which now called to her. It was a four-year-old gelding, with the barb conformation - the combination of strength and delicacy that was so affecting - of his black great-grandsire, and the autumn leaf colouring of his Morland granddam.
He had no white hair on him; his mane and tail were so long that the latter brushed the daisies as he walked, and the former hung to his shoulder, fading from russet to orichalcum to pure gold at the fringed ends. He stood square beside the boy who led him, his delicate leaf-shaped ears pricked forward, his dark gentle eyes looking, it seemed, straight at Annunciata as if he had known her in the warm dream of his mother's womb and had only been waiting for the moment when they would meet. She stood up and went towards him, her fingers extended, and he whickered softly and shifted his small forefeet in the bright emerald grass. When he was saddled, Annunciata mounted and rode him round the paddock. Perhaps, she thought, there is reincarnation for the animals whose souls are too lowly for heaven; perhaps Goldeneye and Banner and this colt were all one. He was for her, she knew. She went through the motions of examining and trying others, so that Matt's occasion should not be lessened, and then made her choice aloud.
‘An excellent choice,' Matt cried. 'And what shall you call him?’
Annunciata had no hesitation. 'Phoenix,' she said.
Choosing a dog was a different matter, for a dog must be taken as a pup, and is chosen for its strength and size, its character being a matter for creation by its master. Matt gave her the best of the litter of the best brindled Morland bitch, a big strong whelp with a white breast-mark and an almost black face, which gave it the look of a diminutive highwayman. Annunciata called it Kithra, which, like Fand, was one of the family's traditional names for their hounds, and its training took up whatever time she had spare from everything else. It proved amenable to training and by the time she left Morland Place in October, Kithra was already in a fair way to becoming a good and useful companion.
The whole family turned out to say goodbye to her. Clovis, who had been up and down to London several times during her stay, had come to Morland Place for the harvest, and said, 'I shall be leaving for London soon. I shall see you there.'
‘I am stopping in Oxford for a week or two first,' Annunciata warned him, and he smiled up at her, resting his hand on Phoenix's shoulder.
‘Your new friend?'
‘It is pleasant to have an intellectual friend,' Annunciata said gravely, but her eyes sparkled with amusement. Clovis's tired face lit for a moment.
‘That is what I have always said about you, my lady. Well, I shall see you in London at the end of the m
onth, then. We can sample the new season's plays together if you have the mind.'
‘I look forward to it,' she said. A moment later she was riding away out of the yard, and looked back to wave one last time, seeing the bobbing, elegant headdress of India white above the grey head of Clovis and the shining bald pate of Father St Maur, and her mouth curved in a smile of sudden affection for them all.
It was the last time she saw Clovis. He set out for London in the second week of October, reaching Aylesbury on the nineteenth, where he broke his journey at the Rose and Crown. He had taken a little light supper and gone straight up to bed, saying he felt very tired, and asking to be called at first light. The servant who had gone to call him in the morning had found him dead in his bed: he had apparently died peacefully in his sleep - a death, Annunciata thought through her tears when the news was brought to her, that God reserves for those he specially favours.
*
By his own request, expressed in his will, Clovis was buried beside his parents at St James's Picadilly, and his funeral was so well attended that there were not seats enough for all, and many had to stand at the back and even in the porch, spilling over into the churchyard. It was a tribute to his selfless life, and his universal quiet kindness. The anthem was sung by the pupils of The Girls' Charity School in nearby Carnaby Street, a school for the daughters of poor people which had been founded by subscription in 1699 and in which Clovis had interested himself from the beginning both personally and financially. Merchants, courtiers, tradesmen, all classes were represented in the congregation, and the Queen sent her treasurer, Lord Godolphin, to represent her, for Clovis had been a faithful servant of the Crown in the Navy Office and later in the Treasury. Old friends from both offices attended, as did almost all the members of the Royal Society, and the entire staff of the Office of Works from Sir Christopher Wren downwards.
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