*
On a bright July day in 1717, Frances McNeill sat on the window-seat in the great bedchamber at Morland Place, watching two maids dressing Sabina for her wedding. The dress was of pale gold brocade, decorated with small green and white flowers, drawn back over a petticoat of apple green satin, much frilled. The bodice was laced at the the front and clasped with tourmalines, and was pulled in very tightly to shew off Sabina's small waist, and the sleeves, which ended at the elbow, were filled with three layers of lace. High headdresses had gone out of style at last, and the coiffeur basse for ladies was the thing. Sabina's black hair was curled all over, the side pieces drawn back into a roll at the back of her head which was decorated with fresh flowers, the back hair curled into heavy ringlets. Round her neck she wore the Queen's Emeralds.
‘How do I look?' she asked when the maids had finished. She came across to Frances and spun round on the spot. ‘Do the pleats at the back look well? Do you think my train should be longer?’
Frances smiled at that. 'What use to say it should, even if I thought so? There is no time to make a new dress now. Your bridegroom waits below.’
Sabina laughed. 'Very well, you have exposed my design. I do not want your opinion, I want only to be told I look well.'
‘Then your frankness shall be honoured. You look - very lovely.’
Not too old to be a bride?' Sabina asked anxiously.
‘You look no more than eighteen,' Frances assured her. The baby Allen, who was not yet two and was at the stage of wanting to push his fingers into everything, upset the box of hairpins with a crash, and Frances darted over to pick him up and set him against her shoulder. Her own son, John, was four years old and it was no longer possible for her to pick him up. He had become the province of a tutor, and she missed the feeling of a baby in her arms.
Sabina watched her, feeling faintly guilty. Frances's best dress, put on for the wedding, was of half-mourning grey, and she wore a cap and coverchief like a matron, though she was a few months younger than Sabina. She had loved her husband dearly, and mourned him so deeply she never spoke of him voluntarily.
‘You don't blame me, do you Fanny?' she asked abruptly. 'Allan was a good husband to me, and I believe I made him a good wife. But he's dead now, and nothing can bring him back.'
‘No,' Frances said.
‘And I have loved Matt ever since I can remember. When I was a child, and he used to come up to Birnie forthe summer, I swore I would marry him one day.' She bit her lip. 'You don't think . . .?'
‘Of course not,' Frances said quickly. 'God doesn't work in that way. As you say, poor Allan is dead. There is nothing to stop you marrying Man now. Be happy, darling. I'm very happy for you.’
Sabina hugged her gratefully, and kissed Allen's round pink cheek and said, 'Poor little boy, disinherited before he could ever walk. We will never get the estate back now. Well, at least he will have a father and brothers.’
As soon as she said it, she wished she had not been so thoughtless, for Frances's child had neither. She cocked her head speculatively and said, 'Fan, have you thought of marrying again? I mean, I have been watching the way Arthur looks at you? I'm sure he is interested in you. Has it occurred to you -'
‘No,' Frances said, too firmly to allow Sabina to carry on, and then, more gently, she added, 'things don't happen in just that tidy way, Sabina. You can't marry people to people just to get them out of the way. Arthur is a solitary man who enjoys his bachelor life; and I - well, I suppose I am still married, in my heart.'
‘I'm sorry,' Sabina said awkwardly. Frances put Allen down and took his hand.
‘I think it is time to go down. Are you ready?' she said. Sabina forgot her awkwardness at once, and her face lit up.
‘Yes,' she said. 'I'm ready.’
*
Father Renard conducted the service in the chapel, and Sabina's new stepsons, Thomas and Charles, served the altar. Matt was waiting for her, looking handsome and nervous in his new suit of emerald green satin and a wig of his own hair colour. His nervousness made him look younger than his years. He was attended to the altar by his cousin Arthur and his friend Davey, both very solemn and determined to play their parts correctly. Sabina walked up to take her place beside Matt, and he turned to her with such a smile that she saw and thought of nothing else all through the service.
Afterwards they went to the great hall to receive the long, long line of friends and tenants and villagers who had come to congratulate them, and then they went out into the gardens where, in view of the good weather, the wedding feast was to be held. Sabina was never able to move very far from the one spot, for as soon as one person had finished telling her what a good master Matt was and how happy they were that he was marrying again, another would begin. But over their heads she was able to watch the other guests grouping and regrouping; to observe the Countess, splendid in cornflower-blue silk, with her rough-coated dog always pressed against her legs, arguing some point vehemently with Arthur and a group of eminent architects; to see, with some anxiety, sixteen year old Jemmy being far too charming to the daughter of a wealthy merchant from York; to notice, with pleasure, that Frances was having what seemed to be a very interesting conversation with a well-set-up young man who was one of Matt's friends and who bred horses at a stud near Middleham.
Now and then Man was able to escape his well-wishers for long enough to address a word or two to his new bride.
‘Are you happy?' he asked her, anxiously, more than once.
‘Very happy,' she assured him. Since she had come to Morland Place, he had devoted himself to her welfare. When it became obvious to her that he wanted to ask her to marry him, she had had to bring him to the point at last by telling him she had always been in love with him, for his diffidence was such that he might have waited years before broaching the subject.
Now he said, 'It is strange, the way things work themselves out,' and she knew what he meant. Their marrying felt very right to her, a rounding-off of things. It was no wonder that she wanted, tidily, to complete Frances's life in the same way.
When the dancing began, Jemmy went first to ask his great-grandmother to dance, bowing very low, with a courtly flourish, and saying, Will you do me the great honour, your ladyship, of standing up with me?'
‘Provided you do not expect any great leaps or swift footwork,' Annunciata said, placing her hand in his. He carried it to his lips.
‘You are lighter than thistledown on your feet, my lady, as well you know. You should not make such obvious play for compliments.'
‘Now, Jemmy,' Annunciata said firmly, 'I have been watching you, and I hope you are not using me as practice for more serious conquests later.'
‘My lady,' he said, gazing into her eyes, 'What could be more serious than my attempt upon the citadel of your heart?'
‘Your attempt upon the citadel of that young lady's virtue,' Annunciata said, gesturing with her fan towards the languishing beauty Jemmy had been flirting with.
Jemmy looked at her out of the corner of his eye, and said, 'Oh she is all airs and graces, so affected she makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Why cannot young women behave naturally? The giggling and the play with the fan and the averted eyes - how they weary me!'
‘Jemmy, you are only sixteen years old - you cannot be world-weary yet,' Annunciata said gravely. 'And now can young women be natural when the world demands otherwise of them? They are told from the cradle upwards, poor creatures, that the sole purpose of their lives is to marry and that to marry they must be as unnatural and affected as possible. What would you have them do?'
‘I'll wager my new horse you were never like that,' Jemmy said, pressing her hand. 'Why can't young women be like you? You talk sensibly, about the things one is interested in.'
‘I was brought up in a different world,' Annunciata said. Jemmy sighed.
‘I know - and how I long for it myself! If only I could have been born fifty years earlier, when there was a real Court and a real King, and glor
ious battles, and adventure, and women like you!'
‘There were never any women like me,' Annunciata laughed. Jemmy's eyes shone in return.
‘I know. But if I had been born fifty years earlier, I could have married you - if you'd have had me.’
Just for a moment, Annunciata's heart turned over in her, and she told herself that it was ridiculous and unseemly for a woman of her age to have that kind of reaction, still less to have it for the words of a child half a century her junior. But he was Martin's grandson, with Martin's blood in his veins, and despite the dilution of the intervening generations, Martin looked out at her from those eyes more clearly even than in Matt.
‘If I were fifty years younger, Jemmy, I should not let anyone else have you,' she said, and Jemmy grinned and bowed and led her one more place up the set.
‘What do you think of my chances in the race tomorrow?' he asked after a moment and their talk turned to the perennially fascinating subject of horses.
*
On the following day, as part of the wedding celebrations, Matt had arranged a horse-racing meeting on the flat field that lay beside the boundary between Morland Place and Shawes, and since it was nearer to Shawes than Morland Place, Annunciata had offered Matt the use of her house for refreshments before the racing, and for a ball after it. All the invitations had been accepted: Annunciata noted with amusement that those people who had previously been inclined to 'cut' her because of her religion, her Jacobite sympathies, or her dubious past, were now eager to visit her, and were full of praise and admiration for her new house.
The races were exciting, and much better organized than those Ralph had initiated so long ago. The difference in the horses was very noticeable too - they were all becoming lighter in build, and faster, and there were no longer any farmers pitting their carthorses against the better animals. Jemmy rode his father's best horse, wearing Annunciata's ribbon, just as long ago Martin had ridden Ralph's best horse with her ribbon tied about his arm. Annunciata sat under an awning and watched, feeling happy and strangely tired, as though she had missed a night's sleep. She enjoyed the race, but did not feel inclined to go to the trouble of gambling on Jemmy, nor could she find the energy to stand up and cheer when he came galloping down to the winning post, in the lead. When he had dismounted and left his horse with a groom, he came running to where she sat and knelt at her feet, his flushed face wreathed with smiles, to offer her her ribbon and receive her praise.
When he had gone again, Matt came to say, 'I hope that boy of mine does not trouble you. I'm afraid he may forget himself. If he is insolent, you must tell me.'
‘He amuses me, Matt. He does not trouble me.' Kithra sat up and laid his heavy head on her knee and stared into her face in the way dogs have, and she said, 'The older I grow, the more time seems to contract. Sitting here, I can hardly remember what year it is, which race I am watching, whose sons are riding. It gives me a kind of contentment.' When Matt went away, Chloris came to look over her shoulder and say, 'You are tired, my lady. Perhaps you should go to bed, rather than to the ball.'
‘Nonsense,' Annunciata said. 'I am hostess - how can I absent myself?'
‘Then will you at least rest before the ball begins? Come now, and I'll undress you, and you can lie on your bed for an hour or two before it is time to dress for dinner.' ‘Just to please you, then,' Annunciata said, sighing resignedly. But she was glad of the excuse to rest. She was very tired, and as she stood up she met Chloris's eye and read in them the same question as was in her own mind -was this the beginning of the end?
*
The rest did her good, however, and she dressed for dinner and the ball feeling well and looking forward to the evening. I am a Palatine, she told herself as she went downstairs. We have good eyesight, sound digestions, and strong hearts, and we live to a great age. Compared with my aunt Sofie I am a mere stripling. I have many good dancing years in me yet.
Matt sat on her left, with Sabina beside him, and she gave Sabina an approving nod across his head. She liked Sabina, the more so since Sabina had confided in her about her lifelong love for Matt.
‘You are a good Morland,' Annunciata said, 'and you will make a good mistress for the house.' And Matt, Annunciata thought, was becoming quite a satisfactory person now that he had grown up, though it had taken a long time. With both his blind infatuation for India, and his sullen bitterness at her deception behind him, he had become an open-hearted, frank, and conscientious man, the very thing Morland Place needed. He would never, she thought, match his father in any way, but he would keep the Morland family safe. Jemmy, on the other hand - she observed Jemmy cautiously, as he flirted with two young women simultaneously halfway down the table - Jemmy had potential greatness in him, but that same potential could be ruinous to Morland Place if it were not properly channelled. She could control him, but she would not always be here. Suddenly she longed, passionately, for another ten or fifteen years of life, to make sure. What happened to Morland Place and to the family mattered so much to her.
The nap was drawn and the sweets and fruits were brought in, and with a nod to Gifford, Annunciata dismissed all but a handful of servants to get their own dinners. The conversation became more lively, and Annunciata was so absorbed in it that she did not notice the servant come in to speak anxiously to Gifford, nor did she notice Gifford himself until he coughed firmly and discretely in her ear.
‘Would you please come out to the hall, my lady? There is something that requires your attention,' he murmured. Annunciata glanced up at him but received no clue from his eyes; still, she knew he could be trusted not to call her for nothing. She excused herself and slipped away after him.
In the great hall she saw a heap of luggage and several strangers, giving all the appearance of a guest arriving for a long stay.
‘What is going on?' Annunciata asked in astonishment. Then the nearest stranger turned round - a woman of thirty in a neat travelling habit and a large feathered hat, under which a tired but beautiful face made Annunciata's heart falter and then race on.
‘I've come home, mother,' the stranger said. 'I hope that I may stay?’
Annunciata could only nod, for once lost for words. It was Aliena; and she was pregnant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The delicate political situation which existed when Holland joined the Triple Alliance in the January of 1717 forced the Regent of France, however unwillingly, to put pressure on the Pope to expel King James from the Papal city of Avignon, which was on French soil. So in February of that year the King set out for Italy, the last possible place for him to find refuge. He sent his household servants with the silver, plate and linen to take ship at Marseilles and sail to Leghorn, while he and the rest of his household, numbering about seventy, went over the Alps.
It was a terrible journey, over the snowbound passes, along rough mountain tracks; a slow journey in the bitter cold. Aliena, in midsummer, shivered at the memory of it as she told her mother about the crying, floundering horses, the comfortless coaches, lurching over bumps so that at the end of an hour you hardly knew where to put yourself to ease the discomfort. After ten hours, Aliena would be weeping; she was not the only one. Every now and then it was necessary to get out of the coach while it was levered by main force out of some rut or drift into which it had lurched, and then, standing sometimes knee-deep in the snow, they would get so cold as to lose all feeling in the fingers and toes. Later the sting of returning circulation was all but unendurable.
Whatever they had suffered, the King had suffered ten times more. He had been ill the autumn before with an extremely painful anal fistula, which had been operated on at the end of October. The operation had not gone as well as had been hoped, and it was a month before he could receive visitors, almost two months before he could go out again. The jolting of the coaches was agony to him, and riding on horseback, except for short periods, out of the question. Added to his physical agony he had the mental anguish to bear - or parting from his mother, whom
he was leaving sick and friendless at St Germain, and whom it was unlikely that he would ever see again; and the anguish of being thus sent further and further into exile, ever further from his own country and his rightful inheritance.
There was nothing Aliena could do to comfort him on that journey, other than simply to be there. Her position in the Court had ceased to arouse any comment. She was accounted for, officially, as 'my dear friend, who shared my childhood at St Germain' or 'one who is as dear to me as my late sister, whose intimate she was'. Unofficially, her precise relationship with the King was difficult to describe. Commentators from outside the Court often noted that though the King enjoyed the friendship and admiration of the women in the Court circle, he never seemed to be in danger of losing his heart to any of them. Some said he had taken his father's parting words deeply to heart, and there was some truth in that. Others said that he was, because of his strict upbringing, very young for his age, and sexually naïve, and there was some truth in that too.
‘But what would you say you were to him?' Annunciata asked Aliena during one of their many long conversations that summer, that seemed never to begin or end, merely to continue, broken into segments by the necessities of the days and nights. Aliena thought for a long time, and then she shrugged.
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