‘What did you say?’ she asked, pressing the hand, but Marie-Louise spoke no more. She died an hour later, without ever regaining consciousness.
On 16 April at Culloden, the Jacobite army met the vastly superior forces of the Duke of Cumberland in battle. Apart from the rout at Prestonpans, and the inconclusive skirmish at Falkirk in January, it was the first battle the Young Chevalier’s men had fought. They charged bravely, fiercely, but this time they were facing not soldiers but cannon loaded with grapeshot on top of cannonballs, and they were ripped to pieces as they charged. Cumberland had given the order ‘No Quarter’, and the battle soon turned into a bloody slaughter. The Prince fought bravely, and tried to rally his men, though their companions lay dead three and four deep on the field, but when it was seen that all was lost, and those who were left began to flee, the Prince could do no more than escape. With a handful of companions, including old Sir Thomas Sheridan, who though he was over seventy had never left the Prince’s side, he escaped southwards towards Loch Ness, and took shelter for the night at Aird.
Here, on the following day, Allen parted company with him. The Prince and his companions were intending to seek shelter amongst the wild country of the west, where there were loyal clans enough to shelter them until they could take ship for France; but Allen had a promise to keep. He had to go back to Glasgow, and he hoped that from there he might be helped by Master NcNab. Colin had been killed in the battle, and Simon, who had escaped with him, was seriously wounded. Allen left Simon at Aird, knowing he was too badly wounded to travel, and rode alone for Glasgow.
It was a long and terrible journey. His name, and the fact that he was travelling alone, were what saved him, and he received such kindness as he would never forget and could never repay. His horse died under him south of Fort William, and from there on he went on foot, passed from man to man, hidden in huts or woods during the day and moved on at night. Some of the journey he made by boat, along the lochs. It would have been quicker by sea, but government frigates were patrolling the western waters, looking for the fleeing Young Chevalier. It was the middle of June when he was finally rowed down Loch Lomond to Tarbet, crossed the neck of land into Loch Long, and finally in a fishing boat from Strone Point sailed up to Glasgow.
McNab received him gravely, but did not hesitate to offer him shelter and help.
‘And the Princess – I mean, Lady Strathord – how is she? Is she still here?’ he asked eagerly. When McNab told him, he was too stunned to weep. He could not take it in, could not make it real in his mind. She was too full of vitality to be gone; his mind grappled uselessly with the concept of Marie-Louise, dead.
‘You must escape,’ McNab said. ‘You will be a proscribed man now. You must go abroad.’
Allen assented to the necessity. ‘If you can get me to Dublin, my kinsman Lord Chelmsford will help me.’
Nothing could be easier than to get him to Dublin, said McNab – all his westbound ships called in at Dublin. ‘But the baby – what of the baby? Shall you keep him here. I imagine you would perhaps be embarrassed by his presence.’ Allen looked at Alice as she said that, wondering if perhaps she might have taken a fancy to the child, born in such romantic circumstances, but Alice shook her head.
‘His mother’s dying wish was that the baby should be taken to her mother,’ she said. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes, indeed,’ Allen said. It seemed most suitable, that Henry should be put in the care of his grandmother, and Maurice would certainly help to get him there. ‘I had better take the baby with me, then, to Dublin.’
He sailed at the end of June for Dublin, accompanied by the wetnurse and baby Henry, posing as a widower, an Irish seed-merchant taking his son home to be cared for by his mother. It was a good enough story for anyone who might be curious. He said goodbye with deep gratitude to the McNabs, and promised to write to them by way of Charles to let them know he was safe. It was only on the long sea-journey to Dublin that he had time to think about things, to feel and understand his grief and shock, and to wonder about Henry’s existence. His mind went back to the time before he left Morland Place, and counting backwards he arrived at May, and a very disturbing conclusion; he became more eager, the more he thought about it, to hand over the responsibility of the child to either Maurice or Aliena, so that he need never think about it again.
As to his own future, he could not imagine what it would hold now. He was a fugitive, and he did not know if he would ever be able to go home again. France or Italy would have to be his home, for the time at least: Maurice, he hoped, might be able to help him there. He could not regret what he had done, though the outcome had been so disastrous, but he longed with all his heart to be able to go home to Morland Place. Around his neck he wore Jemima’s locket which Marie-Louise had given him, and he felt for it and closed his hand about it for comfort as the ship bore him over the grey sea into exile.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
One afternoon at the end of April, 1746, Father Guilfoyle came up the hill from having visited his flock in Esh Winning, and found Jemmy sitting on the bench outside the cottage, enjoying the first really warm sunshine of the year. He greeted the priest with a wave of the hand.
‘I’ve been committing the sin of vanity this morning, Father,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking at my reflection in the window, and I must say I rather like this beard. I think I might keep it.’
Father Guilfoyle came and sat down beside him to get his breath from the climb. Jemmy glanced at his face and saw that he was grave, and added. ‘Of course, I know you have guessed the real reason for my liking the beard: it’s because I cannot endure the thought of having to shave again. What news from the village? On such a sunny day I cannot believe that the roads are still impassable.’
The thaws had come a week ago, but the snow had been so heavy that winter that the melt-water had caused flooding, and the mud had made travel impossible.
‘No, I think you might really set out on your journey now, if it is what you wish,’ the priest said. ‘How is the leg? Does it still pain you?’
‘A little – not so much when I walk, but when I stop walking.’
The priest nodded. ‘It will be long before you are really sound. If you do want to leave, you must be sure to take the journey in easy stages, and never overtax yourself, or you may end up unable to walk at all.’
Jemmy sighed. ‘Yes, I know. I will be careful. Father, I have never really thanked you for what you have done for me. You saved my life—’
‘There is no need for thanks. It is no more than you or anyone would have done. And I must confess that I have enjoyed your company. Winter can be very lonely here, when the snows are down, and this winter I have not been lonely. Where is Pask?’
‘He went up the hill after a rabbit. I don’t think the rabbit had anything to fear, though – I think he was running for the pleasure of it. It is so good to feel the sun’s heat again.’
‘You have a good man there. A devoted man.’
‘I know,’ Jemmy said. ‘Pask was my father’s man before me. My father chose him when he was only a young boy, and he served my father well. He is the cousin of our steward, back home at Morland Place. Oh,’ he looked suddenly hungry, ‘how I long for Morland Place.’
The priest had been watching his face carefully, and now he said, ‘I had some news down in the village today which I feel I must tell you, though I am loath to darken this lovely day for you.’
Jemmy’s face seemed to become suddenly all bones, as it had been during his illness. ‘What is it? What have you heard?’ he asked, his mouth dry. ‘Is it news of my people?’
‘No – at least, not directly. I have no names for you, Jemmy. But the word has come down the valley that there has been a great battle in Scotland, in the far north, at a place called Culloden.’
Jemmy saw in the priest’s eyes all he needed to know.
‘Was it bad?’ he asked at last.
‘They are saying it was a massacre, a bloody m
assacre. The Duke of Cumberland wiped out the Jacobite army, and very few escaped. They are calling him “Butcher” Cumberland, because he gave no quarter. But the Young Chevalier escaped, along with a few of his closest companions. They say he is gone into the western isles, but I do not know if that is true. At all events it is certainly true that he has escaped. But it is an end. I am afraid, of the venture. Inverness surrendered and all in it taken prisoner.’
‘And my kinsfolk? Allen Macallan? And—’
Father Guilfoyle shook his head. ‘I have no names for you,’ he said again. ‘Consider how unlikely it is that I should. No one knows you are here.’
‘No,’ he said, and suddenly grew active, pushing himself up from the bench. ‘I must go home, I must start directly. That is where news will be known. You say some people escaped? They may have gone there, they may be on their way there this very minute. I must—’
‘Gently, my son, gently,’ the priest said, standing also and steadying Jemmy as he swayed. ‘You will start tomorrow – there is not sufficient of the day left today.’
At first light on the first of May they set off, Pask and Jemmy, on horseback, supplied with food for the journey and other necessities by Father Guilfoyle. He rode with them as far as the Roman Road, near the place of the trees, where Jemmy had fallen.
‘You think you can find your way back from here?’ he asked. Jemmy smiled.
‘Does a bird know its own nest? I could find Morland Place if I were blind, I am so eager to be home.’
‘Remember what I said – take the journey in easy stages. Rest that leg, if you want it to serve you at all.’
‘I will.’ He stretched out a hand, and the priest clasped it. ‘Goodbye, Father. I can never thank you enough. I will come back one day and visit you, and thank you again.’
The priest screwed up his eyes against the rising sun. ‘God bless you, my son,’ he said. ‘You will not visit me, but if you can, write to me and let me know if you have news of your people. Until then, I shall continue to pray for them.’
There was nothing more to say, and Jemmy and Pask rode away. When Jemmy looked back at the turn of the road, the priest was already a tiny and distant figure, cresting the rise of his bare hillside.
The journey took a week, though it could not have been above seventy miles, but Jemmy soon discovered that it caused him great pain in his damaged leg to keep it in the same position for any length of time, so they had to keep stopping and resting. Father Guilfoyle had told him that the bone had not just been broken, but also crushed, which had complicated the healing. He and Pask kept up a cheerful conversation during the journey, as much to take Jemmy’s mind off things as from light spirits, but when, on a perfect May day, they found themselves once again on Morland land, they fell silent. Jemmy’s heart was full as he rode through Ten Thorn Gap; Pilot suddenly pricked his ears and whickered excitedly, recognizing the smell of his home, and Jemmy had to restrain him from breaking into a trot, which would have jarred him painfully. Then they were at the drawbridge, and Jemmy, from sudden shyness, dismounted, feeling it would be somehow intrusive to clatter into the yard on horseback. He had barely gained the ground when something furry hit him fair and square, and he lost his balance and sat down abruptly, to find his arms full of Jasper, and the old dog’s frantic, crying, licking, tail-waving joy.
And then came the uproar, people running, calling, crying; disbelief and joy; hands touching, faces grinning or beslobbered with tears. There was Clement, hardly knowing whether to embrace Pask or help his master into the house; Father Andrews wringing his hands and shaking his head; brother George, with, astonishingly, tears running down his fat, red face; Jemima, taller than he remembered her, flinging round him arms as thin and white as withies, and exclaiming over the beard. They were in the courtyard now, and Jasper was barking non-stop as if he had gone mad, setting off all the other dogs, and for a moment, in his confusion, Jemmy thought it was bells being rung to welcome him home. Then Mary appeared on the steps, and Jemmy looked over the heads at her, and there seemed a sudden silence, in which she came forward, leaning on her ebony stick, descended the steps, and walked through the parting crowd to stand before him. Her eyes roved over him, taking in the beard, the thinness, the awkward way he stood to save his leg – did the shadow of a smile touch her lips at the realization that he was lame, too? – but she did not speak.
‘Mary,’ he said, ‘Mary.’ And then he understood her trouble – she did not believe it. ‘It really is me,’ he said foolishly. ‘I’ve come home.’
He held his arms out to her, and she stepped forward and embraced him, and he felt her small, thin body, braced like a shell, brittle and unsubstantial, and her arms, light and powerless around his body. He held her tightly for a moment, and then released her enough to kiss her forehead.
She pushed herself away from him and said expressionlessly, ‘I thought you were dead.’
And then her lips trembled, and for a moment her face seemed to waver as if it were about to break up into shards, and an extraordinary whimper broke past her clenched teeth. She was trying not to cry, he realized, and he hastened to put an arm round her and turn her towards the house.
‘Let’s go in,’ he said, covering for her. ‘I must sit down, or I shall fall down. And then you can tell me all the news, while I rest and drink some wine.’ Mary walked with him, bracing herself for his ugly limp, and felt a warm and treacherous gratitude for his sympathy, and for his big, warm body in the cold place beside her.
It was long, long afterwards, when Jemmy had sought the solitude of the chapel to assemble his thoughts and feelings, that Jemima came to him. He was sitting alone in the Master’s seat – alone except for Jasper, who would not let him out of his sight, and was sitting at his feet now with his head on Jemmy’s knee, staring at his face. Jemima came silently up beside him, and said hesitantly, ‘Papa?’
Jemmy turned his head slowly, and they exchanged a long, searching look, before he sighed and held out his arms, and she came slipping in onto his lap and put her arms round his neck and buried her face against him. Getting too big for this now, he thought, holding her tenderly; growing tall and womanly; he felt a surge of passionate regret for all of her life that he had missed sharing.
After a while she lifted her head and said shyly, ‘I rather like you with a beard, Papa. I never saw a man with a beard before, except in pictures. Will you keep it?’
‘Perhaps. If you like it, perhaps I will.’ She stroked it with the tips of her fingers, and then met his eye.
‘Papa, did you find them? Have you any news of – of Allen?’
‘No. I never saw them. I do not know where they are, or even if they are alive or dead.’
‘Oh,’ she said, but he saw that it was only what she had expected. Then, ‘Mama thought you were dead. She didn’t say anything, but I could see that’s what was in her mind. But I knew you weren’t. I could feel it.’
Jemmy closed his eyes for a moment, and pressed her closer, and then said. ‘Things will be different from now on, I promise you. I have not been – just to you.’ She did not deny it, and he smiled a little. ‘You are the heir, and you must learn all about your inheritance. I shall take you around the estate, introduce you to the tenants, shew you what they do, explain everything to you. You must learn about farming, about the stock, about cloth-making. I daresay you know nothing about cloth-making.’
‘Well, a little. Allen used to tell me things—’ she said, but Jemmy was not really listening.
‘I’ll take you to market – you must meet the merchants and agents. You will have to learn how to keep books and do accounts. I should have been shewing you these things, but – I was blind, Jemima, blind and foolish,’ he confessed suddenly. She did not ask, about what, and he hardly noticed the omission. ‘But you and I will be together now. I realize I know nothing about you, my own child. We’ll be friends, won’t we?’
A number of things ran through Jemima’s mind in the second before she an
swered: she thought of her mother, of her dead brothers, of Allen, of Father Andrews’s poor opinion of her; of the future, of being mistress of Morland Place, and of the time she would have to marry, and who would choose her husband for her – her father, or her mother? Did he really think that things were that simple? And she kissed his cheek, and said:
‘Yes, Papa. Friends.’
Allen reached Paris early in August. A number of other fugitives had also arrived, but there was no news of the Young Chevalier; no news, however, was good news to the extent that he certainly had not been captured. Allen first made his devoirs to the King at Fontainebleau, where he was kindly received and his immediate wants supplied. Then he had to face the difficult interview with Aliena at Chaillot. In a still and shadowy little parlour in the convent she came to him, her hands folded in her sleeves, her face, framed in the black veil and white wimple, like a carving in alabaster, calm, timeless, beautiful. She was approaching sixty, he was forced to remember; he searched her face for memory, but he had been a child when she became a nun. He had grown up thinking she looked like Marie-Louise, but of course she did not. She looked like Jemmy.
She sat in silence while he told her the whole, long, sad story, making no comment, even when he told her of the death of her only daughter, or of the desire she had had to send baby Henry to her mother, or of his suspicions as to Henry’s siring. She listened, gravely, attentively, and when at last he had finished she was silent for a long while, before questioning him.
‘Who knows of this? Have you communicated with the family? Has anyone?’
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 31