Cole returned while they were still rummaging through his cupboard. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Go back to the mews, Cole,’ she said, ‘and hitch up the chaise. Sir Spender and I—’
‘But I just got the coach ready.’
‘So now hitch up the chaise,’ said Cecily.
‘We’re going on to the Belle before you,’ Sir Spender interjected, with a hand to his pocket.
‘You’re wha’?’
‘Quickly, Cole.’ Cecily began to push him towards the door. ‘And, Cole, when Tyler comes in, tell him I’m going home.’
‘Tyler? Tyler’s—’
Before he could say in his confusion that Tyler was at the Belle, Cecily said: ‘When he comes in, tell him I’ve gone home early. He’s to fetch my lace from Brodin’s. I was to do it myself in the morning.’
Cole wasn’t as bovine as he looked. He nodded.
‘And, Cole,’ she said, ‘take care of Eleanor.’
When the man had gone, Sir Spender said: ‘Should we encounter any other acquaintances, dear lady, a simple “goodbye” will be sufficient. We don’t wish to arouse curiosity.’
There was only time for her to cram some necessities into a travelling bag before the chaise was at the door. Cole held the horse’s bridle while Sir Spender, humbly lowering his head, helped Cecily in, got in beside her and took the reins, the perfect manservant.
It was nakedness to be outside. Every bollard, the very window boxes, seemed capable of challenging them: Stop, traitor. What would she say if Cameron emerged from the crowd at the top of the street that minute? Just ‘goodbye’ it seemed. Suppose he protested, attracting attention, or making Sir Spender shoot him?
But he won’t. He’ll see his wife riding off with the wanted Jacobite he’s warned her against. He’ll feel disgust. He’ll just let me go.
Damn you, she thought, I’m doing this for you. And you’ll never know it.
Church bells rang out, ‘No Slavery, No Wooden Shoes’. As if it were lava escaping a volcano, news of the people’s victory ran through the streets and set them alight with bonfires and torches and blazing fat dummies. By the time the carriage reached Highgate Hill, Cecily, looking back, saw London twinkling in the darkness below her like a new constellation.
Chapter Fifteen
They avoided inns and stayed overnight at the homes of Jacobite sympathizers: a bakery in Potters Bar, a farm outside Cambridge, a run-down manor at Downham Market.
Nobody stopped them. The hunt was on for two male Jacobite agents, one a killer: if huntsmen saw the sedate and monogrammed chaise, their eyes – human nature being what it is – went to the elegant lady in it and not the stolid, dun-coated servant who drove her.
Cecily was aware that, whatever the outcome, she was likely to die at the end of the journey. The zest with which the country was coming into spring, flickering lambs’ tails, hawthorn emitting pale scent, newly minted leaves on beeches, accentuated the knowledge that she had finally gained all the happiness life had to offer – and was now about to lose it.
She tried reminding herself she was going north over ground she had last travelled southwards on the night that Da Silva had abducted Quick and Eleanor. Compare your condition now to the woman who begged God to accept her life for Eleanor’s – and be grateful.
She was: He’d blown so cold on her that night the wind could never be so chill again. It was merely her personal tragedy that He was calling in the debt when bluebells carpeted the woods at the sides of the road and when the slide of rivers under the bridges she crossed reminded her of the Mimram and the man who’d fished it.
But, as she travelled, she saw the larger tragedy about to be enacted against this English spring. Her Jacobite hosts were resurgent, like men and women waking from sleep – not to the life burgeoning around them, but to expectation of war. Once they were sure that the Pretender had landed, Sir Spender said, his English troops were to make their way to Oxford ready for the unfurling of the Stuart standard at the end of the month. Muskets and pikes that had last seen the light in the cause of his father were being brought down from attics to be oiled and refurbished for use against the enemies of James the Third.
It’s too late, she wanted to shout. You’ll be killed. You’ll kill your countrymen. And it’s too late.
And she was too late in understanding. Watching the Potters Bar baker whet the edge of his pike she saw the wound it would inflict equated with her informing and letter-writing. With the fretful desire for revenge on a government that had done her wrong she, Cecily Fitzhenry, had helped to activate the muscle that would plunge that weapon into somebody’s bone. Icons, princes, loyalties, in the end they translated into carnage as terrible as, and more wholesale than, Dolly’s death. An escalation of wrongs. Too late to see it now. Perhaps.
The Potters Bar baker waved them off from his gate, shouting: ‘To the twenty-ninth of April, Sir Spender.’ Cecily wondered why he didn’t employ the town crier. And Sir Spender shouted back: ‘To the twenty-ninth, Master Tippet,’ as though they planned a village outing and weren’t laying a trail of gunpowder that would explode the world – if it didn’t blow them up first.
‘How many men has James got with him?’ she asked.
‘Only a few.’ The French had refused to participate in the plan – Sir Spender always called it the Grand Design and damned them. A certain Mr Robinson, silver merchant, was to slip ashore at Hempens unseen. From there he’d proceed to Oxford where the might of Jacobitism would be waiting. As soon as he’d landed, the West Country and Scotland would propel their forces east and south respectively in a pincer movement. A smaller force in London would simultaneously capture the Tower, the Exchange, the Hanovers, etc., etc.
‘Walpole’s prepared for a Rising,’ Sir Spender said. ‘He’s increased the watch on those coasts likely to expedite James’s passage ashore. But not East Anglia. Sir Robert’s own birthplace? He’ll not expect our audacious king there.’
It had also been the birthplace of arch king-killer Cromwell. Hempens was, perhaps, the only unsuspected Jacobite house in anti-Jacobite territory providing easy access inland. But because it was in anti-Jacobite territory, James Stuart must land only there: he dare not go wading about in hostile fenland. Hempens and its Lantern were vital; Cecily, lord of Hempens, was vital, to the Grand Design.
She wanted Tyler. Whichever way the cat jumped, she wished Tyler could be with her when it did. In a time of crisis, she’d be happier with her old comrade-in-arms beside her. Her attempt to get a message to him via Cole had been clumsy but as good as she could manage. ‘Tell him I’m going home.’
When she didn’t arrive at the Belle, Tyler might wonder which other home she’d meant and follow her to Hempens. It was a long shot – they didn’t come longer. Considered now, it felt uselessly short.
It was hard to pass the Belle.
As they crested Mardley Hill, the stubby tower of Datchworth church welcomed her home from its vantage point across the valley. There, below, glimpsed through the trees, were the inn’s roofs and chimneys. She hung over the side of the chaise as it swept round the bend at the bottom of the hill so that she could be a few inches nearer.
The Grantham coach was in. During the seconds it took to pass the open gates she etched the scene on to her memory for ever: the passengers alighting, Marjorie bobbing a curtsy, Ned unharnessing the horses, the Roman trough, the stable where Eleanor had been born…
A little further along, they had to draw up to pay at her tollgate. ‘Evening, missus. Hear you got our Nellie back safe.’
She managed to nod. ‘Evening, Tom.’
Flicking the horse to a trot, Sir Spender said: ‘I feel for your tears, dear lady. These toll prices are outrageous. Sheer Whiggery.’
* * *
The fen where Edgar lived turned green then silver as breeze flipped the willow leaves down-side up and back again. The weathercock on Edgar’s thatch was pointing east.
‘Where’s your boatman?’
demanded Sir Spender. The cottage, usually full, contained only a small girl plucking a duck who said her father hatta goo moolin’ and the booys was buds’-nesenin’.
‘Mole-catching,’ translated Cecily. ‘The rest are bird-nesting. They’ll not be back until night.’
Sir Spender was alarmed. ‘We can’t wait till then. He comes tonight.’
If there was no boatman, there was a boat, rocking lightly in the breeze with oars lying in its bottom. ‘Can you row?’ asked Cecily, who could but didn’t intend to.
He said with dignity that he was an Oxford man. Cecily sat in the stern and watched him lose sweat and weight from a skill he hadn’t practised since university days.
The carr closed in almost over their heads, occasional catkins brushed the oarsman’s cap, the river divided itself to pass islands of reed and kingcups, meandered through meadows grazing small black cattle and again became the tunnel floor of a green arcade.
‘Damn wasteland, this,’ puffed Sir Spender. ‘Empty.’
Not wasteland, not empty. No country teems with life like the fens. In the waterweed below us are eels and fish to heap the tables of England, in the banks water-rats and otters, coot and moorhens, in the reed pochard, shoveler, wigeon, grebe, teal and mallard. A million eyes are watching us, Sir Spender, some of them human. And I command them all.
She’d done one good thing and done it early, immediately after the Pretender’s visit. ‘I may come back and light the Lantern to guide that gentleman to Hempens again,’ she’d told Edie. ‘But if I do, nobody, nobody – do you hear me, Edie? – is to help. Not Edgar to ferry, not you to be here. Shut up the house and go back to the fens.’
It was an older allegiance than the one to princes, the oldest duty she had – to protect her people. If the Rising failed, they could not be accused of aiding it. If it succeeded, they could not be impressed into its service. If it turned bloody, they would stay alive. Most free of all the English, they should remain free.
One other thing she’d done: she’d taken the key to the Lantern. It was in her travelling bag. She was Cecily the Wake and she would say who came and who didn’t. She clutched the bag to her lap like a piece of armour.
Cecily the Very Frightened. All very well to be high-minded when there was no danger but now she wanted to scream out for Edgar and his brothers and to hell with what happened to them. She wanted Tyler. She was afraid of Maskelyne.
The sun was beginning to slant as a clatter of disturbed uprising birds and a scent of salt told them they’d come to Windle Mere. Sir Spender flopped over his oars, cursing, then bent to them again.
There stood her poor house and there the phallic Lantern. What fool had seen it as a symbol of romance? Now she thought of rape.
By her own orders, there was no friend on her island, only Maskelyne roaming it like the rogue animal he was. He’s my end. He was nemesis. The Devil to whom she’d sold her soul had smudged her life with the man as a warning of hell to come.
Perhaps he drowned getting here, she thought.
By the shadows gathering in the carr behind her, by the heightened instinct indigenous to her fens, she knew he had not – even before she saw his miniature standing on the jetty, swelling with every pull of the oars. He’ll be the one who kills me.
Sir Spender missed a stroke as he turned to look. His voice skipped across the mere, sending up more ducks. ‘Well met by water, good Masky. How was the going?’
The rope Maskelyne threw came with a force that rocked the boat. He was muddy and murderous: the going had been rough. ‘Not a bastard to row me. But I found one, I found one. Hid in the fucking rushes then leaped in the fucker’s boat.’ His voice was high, the accent pure Cockney. ‘Even then the cunt wouldn’t row me, not till I swore I’d shoot ’im. Orders, he said. Her orders.’ Maskelyne’s foot kicked towards where Cecily scrambled on to the jetty. ‘Nobody does nothing round here lessen Madam Prick-scourer tells ’em.’
‘An obstinate Anglian,’ said Sir Spender, soothingly. ‘Yet it’s to be hoped you didn’t—’
‘He dived in the lake like a fucking fish,’ Maskelyne said. ‘I shot at him but I missed the bastard.’ He’d been gabbling. Now he stopped. He preened his neck to adjust his collar, getting himself under control; the fear brought on by isolation relieved. The mask of withdrawn dislike was tighter for having slipped. He drawled: ‘Supposed this to be a gentleman’s place. No servants, no welcome, everything locked. No food. I thought you told her to be ready.’
Sir Spender said: ‘Come, Masky, we can hardly blame Lady Cecily under these precipitate circumstances.’
‘I brought bread from Downham Market,’ Cecily said, eagerly, ‘and there’ll be hams in the smokehouse. I’ll go—’
‘No, no.’ Sir Spender caught her sleeve. ‘First, the light. It’ll be dark soon. Where is the famous Lantern?’
‘Beyond the house,’ Maskelyne told him. ‘Locked, like every other bloody door.’
‘Where’s the key, dear lady?’
‘Hanging in the kitchen passage. I’ll get it.’ Cecily picked up her travelling bag and went ahead of them, across the incline of grass towards the front of the house. Trying to assume the gait of a hostess, the weakness in her legs gave her a sensation of waddling.
There was no need to unlock the house: Maskelyne had taken the axe from the woodpile to chop a hole in the front door.
She went into a hall streaked with auburn light from the setting sun. It smelt of damp and memories.
Now. It must be quick. It must be now. How far behind her were they? Still ambling across the lawn, talking. Cecily unbuckled the travelling bag and fished out the Lantern key, a massive thing which alone would slow her down. Drop the bag.
She gathered up the front of her skirt with her free hand and ran. Past the staircase, down the passage, past the silent, cold kitchen. As she fumbled with the bolts of the back door the Lantern key dropped on the stones with a clang audible to Ely. She let it lie, tackled the bolts, opened the door, picked up the key.
The men were in the hall, alerted by the noise and sudden draught. Maskelyne’s voice came echoing: ‘Where’s the bitch gone?’
She was out, dodging the backyard pump. The wind caught her hoops and slowed her down as she made for the wide, wide stretch of unkempt grass between her and the Lantern. Run. Oh, God, it would take an age. They were out and chasing, shouting. He’ll kill me. Another age to manhandle the key in the door. Don’t be rusted, don’t be rusted. He’ll shoot.
The Lantern reared up, closer, the thick base with its side lump of candle house filled her field of vision. The great door was arched, like a church’s. Sanctuary. Don’t dare trip. Not now. As she ran, she held the key in front of her like a cavalryman’s sabre, aiming it at the ornate steel lock, missed first go and scraped it into the hole. Turn, you bastard. Both hands, every muscle.
They were closing on her. And the door opened outwards. She leaned back in her effort to pull on the great ring that was its handle. Like a reluctant bull, it resisted. Her back was a spasm expecting a bullet. She could hear the men’s feet pounding the grass. There was a gap. She twisted round the jamb of the door to get herself inside and bent back, almost horizontal, pulling it to.
Immediately she was in semi-darkness.
As fingers scrabbled for the ring on the other side, Cecily shot the first bolt home, felt for the next and rammed it into place, then the one at the bottom – and collapsed on the floor with her head between her knees. Gone to ground.
Through the keyhole came air and Sir Spender’s wheedling. ‘Dear lady…’
She heard Maskelyne’s voice: ‘I’ll fetch the bloody axe.’
Without raising her head she felt for the keyhole guard and snapped it down. Fetch a bloody regiment, she thought. The door was nine-inch Kentish oak reinforced with iron, too thick to break, built to withstand storm, flood and siege. When Dutch pirates had ravaged the East Anglian coast, seventeenth-century Fitzhenrys with their servants and valuables had taken
to the Lantern to sleep, just in case – uncomfortable but secure.
Even so, she shook with every vibration of the door as the axe swung against it. There was a judder, then nothing. Still sitting, Cecily raised the keyhole guard and heard swearing (Maskelyne) and sympathy (Sir Spender). The axe had glissaded off one of the door’s closely packed iron bosses and wounded its wielder.
They might try to stave in the roof of the candle house, though even there the stones were so curved and cemented as to leave little purchase for prising up. For precaution she stretched forward and bolted the tiny door, almost as strong as the Lantern’s, which led to it.
They were going away. Back to the house for bandaging and restoration. They’d break into the cellar, of course. Maskelyne in drink came nastily to her mind’s eyes.
Still, she’d won the castle. Now to see if she could hold it.
As she got up to climb the stairs, she was held back by her skirt hem which had got caught by the door. She tried to cut away the restraining part with scissors from her hussif but her hands were too enfeebled with trembling. Eventually she wrenched herself free, tearing a section of silk to the hoop.
She dragged herself up the steps, resting on each landing. Where did I find the energy to do this? How did I dare? She heaved up the trapdoor to the Octagon and climbed in.
The room was beautiful in itself. From outside, the eight glass walls winked like crystal but from inside their thickness allowed in a light tinged leek-green, wavering and subtly darkening the view of the surrounding landscape into a painting laminated with age. Candles, readied by Edgar, clustered like a grove of slender, creamy in the massive holders bolted to tiles in the floor. A window-seat ran round the Octagon, its top a series of lids which gave access to cupboards holding lighthouse paraphernalia: tinder fungus, flint, buckets of water and sand, cloths, candle-snuffers, wick-trimmers…
Everything but food. Cecily was at once ravenous. If the Pretender didn’t come tonight she might have to keep the Lantern until tomorrow night. Or the next.
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