‘When we have got past Derby, we shall be in the south, and then my people will flock to my banner,’ he said. ‘I shall ride into London on a white horse – God has never wished me to spill the blood of my own countrymen, and he has seen to it that the necessity has not arisen. The people want my father back. They have a sense of justice and of right which cannot be perverted.’
They set off for Derby again in two sections, Lord George Murray making a south-western feint to draw off Cumberland’s army by making them think they were heading for Wales. Marie-Louise, to Allen’s surprise, rode sidesaddle after Manchester, and put on her own riding habit. He could not account for it to himself, except to suppose that being nearer the south and London had affected her vanity.
They reached Derby on 4 December, and Allen, as had become his normal routine, first found lodgings for Marie-Louise, to which she retired at once, saying she felt tired. She looked tired, he thought, and decided that on the following day he would again try to persuade her to go home. Derby was not so very far from York, though Manchester would have been nearer. The next morning another Council was held at Exeter House, where the Prince was staying, and Lord George Murray opened the debate.
By that night at the latest, he said, Cumberland would have discovered his mistake and would return to Stafford, between Derby and London; while Wade was still coming south, and a third army was being formed for the defence of London. These three armies together would number 30,000, as against the Prince’s 5,000, and if they were defeated there would be no chance of escape for any of them, including the Prince. The Scots, he said, had done their part in marching into England to support either an English rising or a French landing, neither of which had taken place, and they should now retreat to Scotland while they still had the chance.
The Prince was furious, and a long altercation followed, during which the Prince declared that he could not think of retreat after coming so far, that he was certain that a large part of the opposing army would desert to his side and that the people would flock to his standard once he got nearer London, and that those who counselled retreat were set to betray him. But the Scots had been losing courage the farther they got from Scotland, and though Allen and one or two others supported the Prince out of love and hope, the majority of the Council, and all the older, more senior members, were for withdrawing.
The meeting broke up, and Allen went to Marie-Louise’s lodgings to seek comfort. He found her still in bed, according to the good wife of the house.
‘Is she ill?’ he asked anxiously. The goodwife pursed her lips.
‘A benign sickness, sir,’ she said. ‘But what can you be thinking of, to let your wife travel about ahorseback in such condition?’
‘She isn’t my wife, good woman, she’s my – sister,’ Allen said, and the woman sniffed disbelievingly, and Allen realized too late that Marie-Louise might have told a different story. Blushing, he hurried up to her room, for a moment too embarrassed to realize what the housewife had said. Seeing Marie-Louise in bed, propped up on her pillows, her rough-cropped hair, already growing again, fiery against the white pillows, he remembered.
‘Is it true?’ he asked gently, coming to sit on the edge of her bed and taking her hand.
Her face seemed glowing, no longer tired; she laughed and shrugged, and said, ‘I suppose you would have had to know sometime. It was getting harder to hide it every day.’
‘You are with child?’ he asked, still scarcely crediting it. For answer she lifted her arms, to shew him how the bedclothes were humped over her belly. He blushed again, but his brain was scurrying on. ‘But – how?’ When? Who – I mean – did you …?’ He could find no possible way of asking the questions, just as he could find no possible way of accounting for her state to himself. He had been with her almost all the time since they met in Edinburgh, and she had not, to his knowledge—
Marie-Louise laughed again, having a fairly clear idea of his train of thoughts. ‘No, no, my dear Allen, it is not what you think. I have not been disporting myself with the soldiery.’
‘I didn’t – I never thought—’
‘Calm yourself, please. The truth is that I was – like this – before I left home. I am seven months advanced.’
Allen was profoundly shocked. ‘But Marie-Louise, it is dangerous for you to be riding about the countryside so far gone with child. You are risking your life, not to mention the child’s.’
Oh, the child can take care of itself,’ she said with a curious grimace. ‘I must say I have been finding riding astride uncomfortable, hence my change back into woman’s garb.’
‘Well there is no doubt now that you cannot continue with the army. It would be as improper as dangerous.’
‘But what is different?’ she asked, amused. ‘It is only what I have been doing all along. The only difference is that you know it now.’
Then Allen told her. ‘It is not all that is different. The Council today decided against advancing any further. We are to retrace our steps, through Lancashire and Cumberland, to Scotland. So you see there is no reason for you to go on risking your life and reputation. You can either stay here, or go home.’
Marie-Louise looked profoundly shocked. ‘Retreat? It is madness, madness! We must go on, march into London, now, while the country is with us! Surely the Prince does not—’
‘Oh no, he was for advancing, of course. But he was outnumbered, overruled.’
‘Then I certainly cannot leave him now. In success I might have done it, but never, never in retreat.’
Allen sighed inwardly, and settled himself for a long, wearying argument.
Jemmy was very ill for a long time. The priest did what he could with the leg, though he shook his head over it, and doubted that it would ever be much good; but the more pressing problem was the fever and the effects of having been soaked to the skin and exposed upon a cold hillside for so many hours. He nursed him with all his skill, brewing herbal decoctions and sitting up with him during his worst deliriums. Pask shared the tasks willingly, afraid that if he left his master for a moment, he would up and die on him. It was two weeks before he even thought of trying to send word to Morland Place, another two before he did anything about it.
Father Guilfoyle shrugged and said, ‘Write a letter if you wish, but there’s no one to take it. If anyone should come by, we can ask him to set it on its way – that’s the best we can do.’
‘But what about your people – the people you say Mass for? Wouldn’t one of them take it.’
He laughed at that. ‘My people? None of them has ever been further from home than the end of his outlying field. What could induce them to travel as far as York? It would be like asking them to go to Paris or Rome.’
‘At any rate, you could ask them to pass it on, if a traveller comes by. They would be more likely to see a traveller than we would, out of the way as we are.’
‘Certainly, certainly, write your letter if you wish, and I will give it to someone. But don’t hold out too much hope. We don’t have many travellers here, in this country.’
Pask wrote his letter, explaining what had happened, asking for help, and giving such directions as he could, and Father Guilfoyle took it with him to the village when he went to say Mass. Whether it was ever sent or not, Pask never knew, but by the middle of October, when Jemmy was pronounced to be out of danger, though still very weak and ill, nothing had been heard. Pask wrote again, and Father Guilfoyle, with a shrug, again took the letter to the village. When he returned, he beckoned Pask to the window of his cottage.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘look at the clouds there, over the hill. What do you think that means?’
‘Rain?’ Pask hazarded obediently. The priest shook his head.
‘If your people are coming to rescue you, they had better come quick. Those are snow clouds. By this time next week, we shall be snowed in for the winter, and you won’t be able to get south, nor they north, until the thaws. If you want to leave, now is the time to say so.’
‘I thought you would say that. Well, it will be the first time I have had company for the winter, and I must say it will be a pleasant change.’
On Christmas Day 1745 the Jacobite army marched into Glasgow. Of recent years Glasgow had improved its status from that of small town to increasingly prosperous city, largely on account of the tobacco and shipping trades. The tobacco lords, as they were affectionately known, were often also shipping lords, and some of them were immensely rich. One of them entertained the Prince at his mansion in the Trongate, but it was to another of them that Allen, with some relief, conveyed Marie-Louise. Alexander McNab was known by name to Allen, as the friend and patron of his step-brother Charles. It was in one of McNab’s ships that Charles had sailed to the New World on his last ‘herborizing’ expedition and it was McNab’s tobacco and shipping money that had financed the trip. Charles had spoken a great deal about him on his last visit home, and to Allen particularly, who had been his childhood companion, he had talked of Miss Alice McNab, the shipowner’s eldest daughter, whom Charles longed, though not with any great hope, one day to marry. Alice would be very rich, and was her father’s pride and joy, and Charles, though an enthusiastic and increasingly respected botanist, was penniless.
Marie-Louise had, since leaving Derby, taken to riding in the baggage carts, much to Allen’s relief, and he was aware that she was now feeling very tired and strained. He had great hopes that she would at last consent to leave off her pointless adherence to an already lost cause, and stay with the McNabs, if they would have her. Enquiries soon found out the house, and Allen paused a moment in respect at its size and newness: evidently Charles had not told him the half of it. They were received with a great deal of suspicion by the butler, who at first would scarcely surrender them the hall, and was determined not to disturb his master, and was sceptical about the rather bedraggled woman being the Countess of Strathord. But when Allen mentioned Mr Charles Morland’s name, and affirmed with great confidence that he was his brother, things changed rapidly. The master was disturbed, and came in person into the hall to greet him.
‘Charles’s brother – you are Charles’s brother? My dear sir – your name, I did not catch it. Brother Thomas I know – can you be Edmund?’
‘No, sir, indeed, I am Allen Macallan, Charles’s stepbrother, but—’
‘Allen Macallan! I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir, delighted. Charles has spoken about you a great deal, and with affection, sir, with affection I assure you. And this is your wife, I suppose?’ He looked enquiringly at Marie-Louise, tactfully ignoring her enlarged condition. Allen embarked again on his embarrassing explanation.
‘Not my wife, sir, but my cousin. May I introduce Lady Marie-Louise Stuart, Countess of Strathord.’
McNab’s smile disappeared and his eyes sharpened as his ready wits began rapidly to work.
‘I think I begin to understand your unexpected arrival here. You have come in with the Young Chevalier? I think you had better come into the drawing room and tell me everything, from the beginning. But do not be afraid, you will be quite safe here. Your brother’s name is enough to secure you my attention and protection for as long as you need it.’
Allen could only thank him, feeling quite weak with relief, and grateful for a mind which grasped essentials so rapidly and did not waste time on useless surprise and expostulation.
‘Angus, bring wine and have some food prepared for our guests. And ask Miss Alice to come down. And Angus, see that there is no gossip and no speculation in the kitchen. Our guests are here incognito. You may take their servants to the kitchen and make them comfortable.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the butler said with massive dignity, and led Colin and Simon away, though his eye was a great deal too sharp and observant to be reassuring.
‘And now,’ said McNab, ‘come in to the fire, and make yourselves at ease. When my daughter comes, I will ask you to tell us both your story. I think you will need her help and advice as well as mine.’
Early in January the Jacobite army marched out of Glasgow. At Perth there was a force of French soldiers who had landed on the east coast, under Lord John Drummond, and the Prince had sent word for them to meet him at Stirling, where they intended to besiege the castle which was held by government troops. Allen went with them, still in command of his troop and glad to be relieved of the burden of worrying about Marie-Louise; she, having at last admitted she was too heavy with child to travel further, had remained in Glasgow, on the condition that Allen would come back for her as soon as the campaign was over or she was able to travel again. The McNabs were generosity itself, and Alice McNab, a plain, sensible woman past the first flush of youth, had proved so sympathetic and understanding that Marie-Louise had taken her completely into her confidence, and was now enjoying the first friendship with another woman that she had ever had.
Simon and Colin both went with Allen, and Marie-Louise watched them ride away from the window of the room she had been given, with Alice McNab beside her. She was filled with a mixture of relief and disappointment.
‘They are going to fight for the Prince, as I meant to do when I left home all that time ago. All I have done is ride up and down the country uselessly.’
‘You could not help that,’ Alice said comfortingly. ‘There was nothing more you could have done.’
‘If I had been a man, there would have been,’ Marie-Louise said morosely. ‘My nature has betrayed me.’
On the last day of February, Marie-Louise had her child. It was a boy, and healthy, though the labour had gone hard with her. Alice McNab had attended her herself, along with a male midwife, not an unusual thing in Scotland since the Monros and William Hunter had begun to study midwifery as a science. The child was laid wrongly, and had to be delivered with forceps, which was a great trial to Marie-Louise. When she woke from her first sleep late that night, the first thing she asked was for news of the campaign, which scandalized the nurse, though it only made Alice smile.
‘No more news,’ she said, gently wiping Marie-Louise’s brow. ‘The Prince and his army are still in Inverness, and the Prince is very cheerful. They say he dines and dances every night in great spirits.’
‘I would I were there – dancing—’ Marie-Louise murmured drowsily. Then she remembered, and opened her eyes a little. ‘The baby? Is the baby all right?’
‘A son,’ Alice said, ‘and healthy. We are looking for a wetnurse for him this minute. Have you a name for him?’
Marie-Louise closed her eyes. She was silent so long Alice thought she had fallen asleep and turned away to leave her, but the murmuring voice called her back.
‘Henry. That is a good name. A royal name—’ And then she was asleep.
For the first few days the Princess was very weak, but on the fourth day she was able to sit up in bed and give directions about the christening. McNab was scandalized that she wanted the baby christened by a Roman Catholic priest, and refused to allow one to be sent for.
‘It is bad enough having taken Jacobite refugees into my house,’ he said, ‘and God knows I did it for love of your young man, nothing else. And that woman upstairs, with the name Fitzjames Stuart – can you imagine who she might be? But to have a Popish priest over my own threshold – that is too much to ask.’
Alice talked to him calmly, and eventually persuaded him that liberty of conscience was everyone’s right, and he finally agreed that the baby might be taken to a priest, if one could be found, but no priest might enter his house, and thus it was done. Alice’s own woman, and a footman with romantic views, volunteered for the task, and the baby was conveyed away secretly one night to the house of a Popish priest only three streets away, and baptized Henry Maria Fitzjames Stuart.
On the next day Marie-Louise seemed a little low; by the end of the week Alice was growing concerned about her, and the midwife was called back to examine her. He shook his head doubtful
ly.
‘It is always a danger, when forceps are used,’ he said. ‘The childbed fever seems more prevalent when there are difficulties about the birth.’
‘Is it childbed fever?’ Alice asked with a dry mouth. The midwife shook his head again.
‘I cannot say for sure. Time will tell.’
‘But cannot you do something? Perhaps if you bled her.’
‘Bleeding cannot help in these cases. I will give you the receipt for a febrifuge, but other than that, there is nothing to be done but wait.’
It was the fever. Over the next week it developed, and in the way it had, it came and went; sometimes she was delirious, crying and tossing in her bed, the sweat rivering from her; at other times she was quiet, lying lethargically, staring at nothing; sometimes she was rational and spoke cheerfully about being well. But each bout left her weaker, and after the first week Alice had no hope that she would recover.
She lingered on three weeks, always asking about the campaign, asking for news of the Prince, sometimes wondering how Allen was, but never mentioning the baby – she seemed, indeed, to have forgotten his existence. Only at the very end did she remember him. Alice begged her father to allow the priest to come to give Marie-Louise absolution, and this time McNab relented. The priest came after dark, well muffled up, and gave the dying woman the last rites. When he had gone, Alice came back to the bed, and held the Princess’s hand. She was failing now, her consciousness coming and going, her voice weak as she spoke out of the waves of darkness that were lapping over her. She spoke of her mother, and of Morland Place, and of Jemmy; Alice thought that she did not know where she was, or what year it was, and pressed her hand and murmured encouragement to her, wishing only to ease her departure from the world. Then she said:
‘The baby. I have a baby.’
‘Yes,’ Alice said gently. ‘A fine son.’
‘Henry,’ Marie-Louise murmured, and she smiled. Her eyes were closed, and it was difficult to hear her words. ‘A good name. A royal name.’ Sinking into her last darkness, Marie-Louise thought of the baby, thought of the Young Chevalier, and the King, her father, which was her pride. The baby should be taken to her father, she thought, to have a royal upbringing. ‘Take him to my father,’ she said, and Alice bent forward, unable to catch the broken words.
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 30