A little while longer, and then there were goodbyes to say. Annunciata had lived through so many of them in past years, that she had no words for Karellie, only a silent embrace that told him everything, all her love and pain. There was little chance that she would ever see him again. Diane she kissed with respect and affection.
‘I should have been proud to have you as my daughter-in-law,' she said, 'and I am proud to have known you, all the same. God go with you on your journey, and God bless you for what you have done for Karellie.' And she gave her the pearl and amethyst cross that had belonged to Anne Boleyn. 'I always meant to give this to Karellie's bride when at last he married,' she said. 'I don't suppose he will marry now. In any case, it is you that I shall always think of as his bride. Take, wear it, for me, with my blessing.’
Diane kissed her in return, and a few moments later the three were off on horseback. They had sixty or more miles to go before morning.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was some time after six in the evening when they left London, and it was full light when they rode into Dover, under the lowering bulk of the great grey castle.
‘We must be quick now,' Diane said in a low voice to Karellie. 'Papa said the tide turned at eight, and it must be close to that now. If we miss the tide we will have to stay here all day, and they will surely soon be looking for a tall man travelling with two young women.'
‘Where is the boat?' Karellie asked, urging the tired horse along.
‘I don't know - we must ask. Papa says she is called the Songthrush. But I will do the asking - you sound too much like an Englishman. Both of you, remember that you don't speak any English. Whatever anyone says to you, just stare at them blankly. I will do all the talking.’
They rode down the main street towards the harbour, and Diana stopped the first likely person she saw, and asked in a prettily broken accent the whereabouts of the Songthrush. The man directed them to the harbour office, and they rode on. Outside the harbour office they halted, and Diane dismounted and went in, leaving Karellie and Alessandra outside. The officer knew the Songthrush.
‘She's been hired to take a Venetian party over to Calais - is that you?' he asked. Diane did not understand at first, for he pronounced the French town as 'Callus', and the misunderstanding strengthened the impression she wanted to give.
‘That's right - me and my husband and daughter.’
She glanced out to the others, and the officer looked too, and said, 'Why, miss, that young lady is too old to be your daughter.' Diane went cold, and her fingers closed into her palms. The officer went on, grinning broadly, 'You are too young and pretty to have a daughter that age.’
Diane breathed again. She looked at him haughtily, and said, 'But of course, she is my step-daughter. What did you think?’
The officer took her outside and gave her directions to get to the Songthrush.
‘But what about your horses?' he asked.
‘They are to be collected from the Sun and Stars Inn,' Diane said. 'Perhaps you can tell us also where that is?'
‘Oh, don't you worry about that, miss,' the officer said. 'There are plenty of boys hanging around the harbour. I'll get one of them to take the horses up. You had better hurry, if you don't want to miss the tide.’
So they unpacked their small bundles from the horses' saddles and left them there and walked rapidly down to the harbour side.
‘We have had such luck so far,' Karellie murmured, 'I can hardly believe it.'
‘Hush,' Diane warned. 'Where we are.’
The captain of the Songthrush was looking out for them, and bundled them aboard without ceremony.
‘Go into the cabin, if you please, while we get under way. I'll tell you when you can come on deck,' he said and, grateful to obey, the three of them got under cover, while the sailors cast off and made sail. They felt the ship turn from an inert to a living thing, felt her spring to the tremendous leverage of her big mizzen driver, like a fresh horse leaping under the rider's hands. They felt the difference in the movement of the waves when they cleared the shelter of the harbour bar and came out into the open sea, and then they sighed with relief.
‘Unless they send a faster boat after us, we must be safe now,' Diane said. Karellie nodded.
‘All the time I kept thinking how suspicious it must all look, three of us, rich enough to hire a boat, yet having no servant and no luggage between us. And borrowed horses, not hirelings. Anyone might have stopped us. When the man at the harbour office talked to you -’
Diane looked thoughtful. 'I wonder if they were all as stupid as it appeared. Papa said he had no trouble getting a boat to take three people to Calais on a certain date. Perhaps they all know what we are, and want to help us escape.’
‘But the hue and cry cannot have reached here yet,' Karellie said. Diane shook her head.
‘I don't meant that - I mean anyone trying to get across to Calais in suspicious circumstances is likely to be a Jacobite. Perhaps they guess we are Jacobites, and don't mind.’
A moment later the captain stuck his head round the door. 'You can come on deck now if you like, but I warn you the wind's a bit fresh. Very favourable, mind you. It'll be the quickest passage I've done in many a long year.' He smiled at them with a faint air of enquiry and added, 'The wind couldn't have served you better if you were flying for your lives.' Then he withdrew, leaving them bemused.
*
In England the enquiries went just as Annunciata had expected. A very short time after the fugitives had left, an officer and half a dozen armed guards came knocking on the door of Chelmsford House, looking for the Earl of Chelmsford, and demanding to be let in, to be allowed to search, to have the earl given up to them. Everyone played their parts well, delaying opening the door for as long as possible, and then allowing only the officer in. Maurice was finally fetched, and was suitably furious at having been disturbed when he was writing. He berated the servants in front of the officer for calling him against his express orders, was short with the officer himself, and denied any knowledge of his brother's whereabouts.
‘You have not been to see your brother in the Tower at all, sir?' the officer asked suspiciously.
‘I have not,' Maurice said shortly. 'I am a servant of King George - he is my patron - I disapproved of the whole thing.'
‘Then you were glad your brother was to be executed?' the officer asked disbelievingly.
‘Of course I was not glad. But rebels must be executed. He had done wrong under the law and was to be punished. There was nothing I could do about it. If he has escaped I am glad, but I certainly did not help him. And now perhaps you will go away and let me get on with my work.’
He turned away, but the officer called him back.
‘I'm sorry, sir, but it isn't as easy as that. I beg your pardon for suggesting it, but you could be lying, and concealing your brother about the house.'
‘I assure you I am not,' Maurice said.
‘I wonder sir if I could see your mother, the Countess, for a few moments.'
‘My mother has retired to bed. She was greatly distressed by this afternoon's visit, and came home in a state of collapse. Her maid put her to bed at once.' He saw the quick suspicion flare up in the captain's eyes, and fed it. ‘I cannot in any circumstances allow her to be disturbed.’
They managed to waste another half hour in arguing whether or not the Countess should be disturbed, and when it was decided to call her, there was another long delay while Annunciata was dressed and made ready to receive a visitor. When she finally appeared and was seen to be the Countess, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, the earl in disguise, the captain wanted to search her apartments in case the earl was concealed. Annunciata expressed a righteous indignation.
‘I rejoice that my son has escaped from this unjust punishement, but I have had nothing to do with it myself, and I cannot permit you to disturb this house any longer. If you wish to do so, you must return with a greater authority than you have now. Leave me, Capta
in, at once.’
The captain, in the face of Annunciata's age and authority, had no choice but to withdraw, and the first round of the delaying game was won. Over the next few days other enquiries were made, the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower himself called upon the Countess, and she was invited to St James's Palace to be interviewed by members of the Privy Council, and to describe what had happened on that last visit to the Tower.
‘My grief overcame me, I felt myself fainting, and my maid conducted me out to the coach, which brought me home. And that, my lords, is all I know.'
‘So you left your son in this room with - whom?'
‘With Lady Diane. She and my son were to be married, and she had her own farewells to say.'
‘And now Lady Diane is - where?'
‘I cannot tell you, my lords. I hardly knew her.' ‘Hardly knew the young woman who was to marry your son?’
And so it went on; but to no avail. Annunciata was finally left alone, though whether she had really persuaded them of her innocence she could not tell. For several weeks her house was haunted by strangers - servants out of work seeking a position, pedlars who did not seem much interested in selling their goods, idlers lounging in the street outside - and her servants were put under a great deal of strain by friendly, sharp-eyed men asking them apparently casual questions in the street as they went about their business. She suspected her mail was being intercepted, but it made no difference, for it was almost startlingly innocent of significant correspondence.
The network she had inherited from Clovis functioned sm000thly and secretly as it always had, and she was able to send both letters and money ahead of the party to various places along their route. It was a long and unpleasant journey across Europe in the dead of winter, and she knew that they would need all the help they could get.
*
One consequence of travelling as husband and wife that Karellie had not anticipated was revealed to him on their first night, when they stopped at an inn on the road to Lille. Presenting themselves as husband, wife and daughter they were given two tiny rooms, and the inn servants conducted Karellie and Diane to one, and Alesandra to the other, in such a way as to make it impossible for them to change over. Karellie faced Diane with distress when they were left along together.
‘I had not anticipated this, Principessa. What can we do? Naturally I had supposed that you and Allessandra would share a bed - I had not thought -’
Diane laughed. 'My dear Karellie, it is perhaps the most endearing thing about you, that you had not anticipated this. But of course we will be given a room to share! We are husband and wife in the eyes of the world. We have chosen to be.’
Karellie looked about the tiny room in despair. 'You will have the bed, and I will sit on that chair, and wrap myself in my cloak. And tomorrow -'
‘You would not be fit to ride tomorrow if you sat up all night on a hard chair,' Diane said, amused.
‘Tomorrow -' he went on firmly, 'we must change our disguises. I must become your foot man or uncle or something of the sort.’
Diane came closer, and despite the chill and damp of the inn room, Karellie began to feel rather warm. 'My lord Earl, can it be that you are afraid of me? You who have faced the cannon's roar, and the yelling of barbarian hoards? You who have charged the enemy's ranks a thousand times, afraid of a simple young girl?' Karellie said nothing, watching her doubtfully. She put her hands against his chest and smiled at him.
‘Tonight, my lord, you will sleep in this bed, as will I, and I promise you will come to no harm.’
Behind her teasing smile he could see there was some serious purpose about her and despite himself his body stirred at her nearness.
‘We will sleep in the same bed,' he made one last effort,
‘but I will stay outside the sheet, while you sleep under it.'
‘Sheet? In an inn like this?' Diane said. 'I doubt if there will be more than a couple of rough blankets.' She began undoing the buttons of his waistcoat, and he started to tremble. She looked up at him, her eyes seeming to slant, catlike. The lids were heavy, her lips were soft and full, she seemed almost slumbrous with desire.
‘Diane,' he said. His hands went behind her shoulders, and no longer able to control himself, he pulled her hard against him and kissed her, long and deep, feeling her ready response. She really meant to do it, his mind told him in distant surprise. When at last he released her, panting, she smiled up at him with a confidence that made his blood sing round his body.
‘Tonight,' she said, 'and all the nights between here and Venice. It is my holiday from life. I love you Karellie. I shall never love anyone but you; but I cannot marry you, except in this way, in masquerade. Let us enjoy what we have while we have it. Come, husband, come to bed.’
*
At the beginning of April, Annunciata left London and went back to Shawes, and it was there, a week later, that the message reached her that Karellie and Diane and Alessandra had reached Venice in safety. By that time, the attempt to restore King James to his throne was over. The King himself, arriving too late in late December, had left for France again in February, but there was no home for him anywhere in French territory. With Old King Louis dead, the Duc d'Orleans was Regent for the infant Louis XV, and he had no sympathy for the exiled King's plight. Any country that depended either on France or on George Lewis must refuse to accept James, or even to allow him to pass through, and in the end the only place open to him was the Papal city of Avignon.
Before setting out for Avignon, the King sent five ships to Scotland to rescue as many of his supporters as possible. By then Derwentwater and Kenmuir had been executed, two score simple men had been hanged, and several hundreds transported. Nithsdale and Wintoun had both escaped, and later several others did the same, including Thomas Forster, who had led the Northumberland rising, and General Mackintosh, Old Borlum, who broke out of Newgate jail with thirteen others by the simple expedient of rushing the gates and overpowering the guards.
For a long time it was not known what reprisals would be taken against those known to have, or suspected of having, taken part in the rising, but as time went on it became plain that those who had not actually been captured in battle were to be left alone. For some time Annunciata considered whether it would be necessary or advisable for her to go abroad, but she thought of the prospect with no pleasure. The idea of the exiled Court at Avignon, crammed with penniless Jacobites and living far more precariously even than it had at St Germain, attracted her not at all. She was too old to travel, too old to be without physical comforts. Besides, now that her great passions had died down, she was happy in England, even despite the presence of a Usurper on the throne. She had Shawes, which she knew she would never quite finish adapting and improving; she had Matt and Morland Place to oversee; she had young Jemmy to cheer her old age with his flattering interest in her stories and evident delight in her company.
Annunciata had been at Shawes only two months when a letter came from Maurice to say that his younger daughter Giulia had caught smallpox and died. Despite the heat, Annunciata went up to London at once, for the tone of Maurice's letter was deeply distressed. She found him sunk in despondency from which she could not, for all her efforts, rouse him.
‘What have I to shew for my life?' he asked miserably. ‘I'm forty-four, a widower, and childless. My life has been wasted.’
In vain did Annunciata point out that he had another daughter — out of sight was out of mind to Maurice in his black mood. In vain also did she point out the music he had written, the operas he had performed: to an artist, only the next work is important, and at that moment he found himself devoid of ideas. At last in exasperation, she said, 'Oh, why don't you go back to Italy? Write some more operas, marry another Italian beauty, have some more Italian brats, then perhaps you'll feel better!’
She meant it more or less in jest, but within a few days the idea had taken root in the fertile soil of Maurice's discontent, and by the end of June he had left London for Naples
, where his former father-in-law was still Maestro di Capella of the chapel royal.
Annunciata remained in London a few weeks more, in order to tidy up affairs and to find a tenant for Chelmsford House, which she had decided once again to let. 'I don't think I shall come back to London,' she said to Chloris. ‘It is a dead place to me now. London for me was always the Court, Whitehall, St James's, and the people of the Court. It can never be so again, with George Lewis and his dull son to come after him.'
‘Do you not think the King will ever regain his throne, my lady?' Chloris asked. Annunciata pulled Kithra's ears thoughtfully.
‘No, I don't think so. It has been too long now for England to rise, and Scotland alone is not strong enough to turn the Guelph from the throne. No, Chloris, there will be no more Kings. George Lewis does not rule - he is ruled by the politicians who gave the throne to him, and his son will be ruled also. A nation ruled by politicians, that is what we shall become.’
Chloris thought of her own son, who had died in battle for King James, and of all the Morlands who had fallen. ‘Was it all worth it?' she said, unconsciously echoing Matt's words. Annunciata stared out of the window and thought back over her long life in the service of the throne, and wondered what life would be like for Englishmen without a true King to follow.
‘Twenty-five years ago,' she said, 'Martin walked out of his house - his safe home - an ordinary gentleman, with no experience of battle, to take his sword and fight and die for his King, giving the service all men must ultimately owe.
No Morland will ever do that again. If there are wars in the future, they will be fought by soldiers; no private gentleman will go out to die for a Hanoverian. There will be no more Kings, Chloris: that world is gone forever, and you and I will be strangers in the new one.’
She turned back to the room, and patted her friend's frail shoulder. 'We'll go back to Yorkshire,' she said, 'and have a little peace.’
There was one more curious little incident before she left London, which was the arrival of a letter with the Royal Seal upon it. It said, simply and without explanation, that the Act of Attainder against Charles Morland, Earl of Chelmsford and Baron Meldon, had been reversed by command of King George I and with the approval of the Houses of Parliament. Annunciata read it through again disbelievingly, and then laughed. So, after all, the cold, codeyed man had not been able entirely to ignore the claims of blood! Perhaps in memory of his mother, or in recognition of Karellie's courage and Annunciata's resourcefulness, or simply because, now that Karellie had escaped, it cost him nothing - but he had done it. Karellie could come back to England if he wanted, and the title could be passed on. It would probably make no difference to anyone, Annunciata thought, but it was something pleasant to reflect on during the journey north.
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