Devil Water (43 page)

Charles did not notice the plover, he was thinking of the good horseflesh under them, and mulling over the interview with Tom Errington three days ago at York. The new horses were a joy. Jenny’s chestnut mare was gentle and fleet. The girl had loved the horse on sight and named it “Coquet,” somewhat to Charles’s dismay. It was not the wild Borders which Charles wanted Jenny to remember in Northumberland, it was Dilston and the Radcliffe portions of the county which she did not yet know. But he had not protested. He found great pleasure in indulging Jenny. His roan snorted and shied a little as a hare streaked across into a patch of russet bracken. Charles stroked his horse’s neck, delighted to have something mettlesome to ride after years of plodding Flemish nags. Even Alec was now mounted on a fine big-boned hunter.

The horses, Jenny’s lace collar, gloves, and smart little silver-tipped riding crop, all were the result of an inspired bet Charles had made at the York races. Three guineas had brought him a hundred on the first race, and he had continued to win on the ensuing ones. They had merrily celebrated that night at the Black Swan in York, and next day Charles would have made more lavish purchases if Tom Errington had not arrived at the inn, by written prearrangement.

Errington was lean and serious as ever, and he very soon managed to dampen Charles’s exuberance. It might be unfair to think that he was actually sorry to see Charles, but in Tom’s conscientious gloomy way he indicated that this clandestine visit might be burdensome, and he expressed astonished disapproval at Jenny’s presence. The country was very unsettled, he said. The Whigs on Tyneside, as represented by William Cotesworth and the other big pit-owners were extremely powerful. And there were Government spies everywhere. “I’m not saying,” said Tom, “that most the tenants at Dilston aren’t still loyal to Derwentwaters. They worship the Earl’s memory, though they hate Lady Derwentwater, whom they think responsible for his going out in the ‘Fifteen. Most of them would probably protect you, but that’s only at Dilston. You’ve got to be far more discreet than this as you travel north. Too many enemies’d recognize you up there, especially with that scar!”

Charles put his hand to his cheek, in some surprise. He seldom remembered the scar. “Well, what do you suggest?” he asked slowly.

“Keep off the main roads,” said Errington. “Go west to the Durham fells, then up to Dilston through Blanchland. And by the bye, don’t think of visiting your aunt at Durham town.” Errington went on to explain at some length that old Lady Mary Radcliffe was having trouble with the Commissioners, who were still trying to impound her estates and inflict the Catholic penal laws. She did not wish to be embarrassed with an attainted exile.

“I certainly will spare Lady Mary,” said Charles dryly. He glanced at Jenny, who was sitting by the inn fire mending a rent in her riding cloak and humming to herself. Before they started the journey he had told her of her mother’s death, and she had cried a little -- though it was evident that she felt no great sense of loss. The relatives she had known in her early childhood seemed of far less importance to her than memories of the Dale itself -- of moors and hills and burns.

“You know very well the chief reason for my visit to the North,” he said, in a low voice. “I want
official
proof of Meg’s death; you didn’t send it to me.”

“I couldn’t get it,” said Errington. “She’s dead, I’m sure, but those Snowdons -- they’re wild as wolves and mad as March hares. They’re Covenanters, won’t go near the parish church, won’t tell where she’s buried.”

“Then what am I going to do?” Charles frowned, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice. “Go up and force a certificate out of them?”

“I don’t think that necessary. Rob Wilson is getting it. He’s gone to Coquetdale with his widowed sister-in-law -- Meg Snowdon’s sister -- that Nan Wilson who used to work for Cotesworth and warned you of the bailiffs coming to Dilston at the beginning of the ‘Fifteen.”

“I remember,” said Charles flatly, and turned as Jenny gave an exclamation.

The girl put down her mending and leaned forward. “Did you say Robbie Wilson?” she asked, her cheeks very pink, her eyes alight. “Oh, where
is
Rob?”

Errington was startled. “I didn’t know you knew him, miss. I presume that he is on his way to Dilston where he will meet your -- err -- Mr. Radcliffe.”

“Then I’ll see him!” Jenny cried. “I was so
hoping
that!”

Charles was astonished and not pleased by this enthusiasm, though fair enough to admit that Jenny had reason to remember the boy kindly. Still, he wasn’t a boy any longer. Wilson must be twenty-three, and hadn’t Betty said he’d gone north with a small fortune?

“What has Wilson been doing of late?” Charles asked, still frowning.

“Working the keelboats,” answered Errington with a shrug. “ ‘Twas either that or the pits, though he had money when he came back to Tyneside, big ideas too. Bought land near Gateshead, began to build himself a manor house. Then the South Sea Company did for him, as it has for plenty of others. You’ll find out, Radcliffe! Times are bad. We had floods last year and a drought this one. Dilston tenants all cry ‘poor mouth,’ and won’t pay their rents. As I wrote Lady Derwentwater in my last accounting, I can’t get out near the revenue I did when I first became her agent.”

“Oh, then,” said Jenny, her face clouding, “Robbie’s
not
got what he wanted after all. He hasn’t got the land he craved.” She looked at Charles with such innocent certainty of his sympathy that he smiled at her, and said, “Yes, it seems he’s right back where he started. It
is
a pity.”

Jenny said nothing more, but her lovely face was solemn for some time.

Her face wasn’t solemn
now,
Charles thought, as he twisted around in the saddle to see how she was doing. “Come up here, dear,” he called. “I think there’s room for us to ride abreast.”

She nicked Coquet and trotted up beside her father. “Are we nearly there?” she asked. “Not that I care. I could ride through the moors for ever and a day, and
never
weary of them.”

“You’re an odd child,” said Charles smiling. “And would you like riding the moors for ever and a day as well, without
me?”

“Oh no, sir,” said Jenny earnestly. “You’re part of it -- the--” She searched for words, and couldn’t find the exact ones to express this new feeling of being sustained and cherished. “Part of the ‘belonging,’ “ she said. “I never had that before.”

“I know,” said Charles quietly. “Jenny, do you think you could begin to call me ‘Father,’ or ‘Papa’ -- if you prefer?”

She gave a little chuckle, and looked up at him from under the green riding hood. “It comes hard,” she said. “I’ve had no practice all my life, and you don’t look much like a ‘Papa.’ “

Charles straightened himself, and said with mock severity, “Nonetheless, Miss Impudence, I’m sixteen years your senior; in fact I’ve just turned thirty, so I demand proper filial respect.”

“Yes, Papa,” said Jenny, her eyes dancing, and she made him a formal bow, from the saddle. They both burst into laughter.

Alec, watching from behind, thought, aye they’re happy those two, and ye can’t begrudge it to them, since neither’s had much of it, and God knows what the future’ll bring. What a pair they were -- so bonny, with their big gray eyes, their fair hair, cleft chins, the grace with which they both carried themselves; even their laughs had the same ring. You’d think they were brother and sister. But they weren’t. The girl had other blood in her too, for all the master wanted to forget it. The blood of that strange grim Border woman. It was bound to show sometime, and when it did would likely mean sorrow for the master. Alec shivered. He, too, was approaching the county of his birth, but he was not enjoying the moors as

Jenny did. With each mile they covered, he felt an increase of foreboding and reluctance. And he thought of the last time he had seen Dilston. Right after the shameful defeat at Preston, when he had had to break the news to Lady Derwentwater. Aye -- her poor little ladyship -- so fired with joy she’d been when from the tower she saw old Monarch coming through the gate, and had thought it was her lord a-riding home.

Alec thought somberly of that night; how they’d loaded the chests of Radcliffe papers into a wagon, which he had driven all the way to the Swinburnes at Capheaton. The chests were still there, hidden in a secret room in the attic. Her ladyship had done all she could, yet if there ever was a broken heart ‘twas in her ladyship’s breast.

Alec shivered again, and chided himself. Going all nervish and wambly he was, getting fey like his old granny used to be, the one that had “the sight” and was forever yammering about “presences.” It was Granny who’d scared off Molly -- canny wee Molly Robson years ago. “Alec’s na the mon fur
thee,
lass,” the crone had said, glowering. “Ye’ll niver hould him, fur his weird’s to follow Radcliffes, he mun iver follow alang wi’ Radcliffes!” Wuns! The old woman spoke true enough, thought Alec, but I wish master an’ me was somewhere else, even with those jibjabbering foreigners across the water.

Ahead of him the two riders drew up on the brow of a hill, and Jenny cried, “Why, there’s mist down below in the valley!”

“Yes,” said Charles. “There’s often mist in Blanchland. There was thick fog the night hundreds of years ago that Scottish raiders destroyed the monastery, and murdered all the monks.”

“Ah -- those Scots again!” said Jenny. “The bloody false thieving Scots!”

“My dear child!” cried Charles. “Your language is a trifle strong, and have you ever really known a Scot?”

She shook her head, slightly startled. “Why no -- but ‘tis what -- what the Snawdons used to say. What happened at Blanchland, Papa?”

“A fog like this one came down and hid the monastery from the marauding Scots, who lost themselves on the moors and could not find Blanchland. Then the wretched monks rejoiced too soon at their escape. They rang the monastery bells in Te Deums of thanksgiving, and thus guided their enemies through the fog. Pillage, fire, and murder was the result.”

“An’ yet ye wouldna ha’ me hate the Scawts!” Jenny cried indignantly.

“No sense in kettle calling pot black,” Charles laughed. “An’ I wouldna ha’ ye slipping back into a Nor-rthumbr-rian dialect either! Lady Betty’s taken far too much pains with your education for that.”

Again Jenny was startled, she had not been aware of the change in her speech.
“Je vous demande pardon, monsieur mon pere”
said Jenny in passable French, and she gave him a sweet, half-mocking smile, very like his own.

What a darling she was, Charles thought. An April child of quick enchanting moods. With her he forgot that he was a condemned man in hiding. He forgot the sad little household in Brussels. He forgot his intended marriage. Almost he forgot the Cause to which he had dedicated his life. The Cause which Jenny must be made to share. That she should had become of great importance to Charles.

“Master!” called Alec, trotting up to them. “The mist’s bad. We’ll not safely make Dilston tonight. We best find shelter in Blanchland?”

“I suppose so,” said Charles reluctantly. The clinging gray dampness now swirled around them, there was not even a sign of the village below, except orange blobs which came and went like witch-fire and must be candle-lit windows. “If this place were still Tom Forster’s,” Charles added fiercely to Jenny, “I’d not stop here for all the gold of Indies -- but Errington said Blanchland’s now part of Lord Crewe’s estate.”

“Who’s Tom Forster?” asked Jenny, pulling up Coquet as they groped across the Derwent River’s ancient stone bridge.

“Forster’s the cowardly swine who betrayed us at Preston,” said Charles through his teeth. “Ah, child, you don’t
know!
I shall see that you do -- see that you understand!”

Jenny was silent. This Jacobite pother was the chief thing about her new-found father which she did not understand. In fact she resented it. Because of that so-called “King” in Rome, her father was in constant danger -- though she had so far seen no evidence of it. Because of the Pretender, she had not even known who her father
was
until last month, nor now could publicly acknowledge the relationship. And why wasn’t one king as good as another anyway? Especially when one was Protestant, and the other a Papist who, according to Miss Crowe, was not even legitimate. Miss Crowe fully believed that the Pretender had been smuggled into his mother’s bed in a warming pan. And even if that weren’t true -- Charles had violently denied that it was -- still the “Cause” had been lost eight long years ago. Why not forget it? Jenny thought. Why not accept what all of England wanted, or so it seemed to Jenny, whose opinions had been formed by the Lees and the school, and also by unconscious memories of the talk she had heard amongst the Snowdons in her babyhood. And if Papa would only give up all this treasonable striving, Jenny thought, would go to King George and say he was sorry, then surely he would be pardoned. Everyone knew that Lord Bolingbroke had just been pardoned and returned to England from exile. Why even that Mr. Errington they’d met at York had been pardoned, though
he
was a Catholic. Then if Papa were free, everyone could know she was his daughter, they could live together openly, here in England, and be always as happy as they had been these last days. Thus Jenny reasoned, nor did she know of Charles’s commitment to Lady Newburgh, for he had not told her about it. I’ll coax Papa to change his ideas, Jenny thought, well aware of her power over him, and of his love, which she was beginning to reciprocate.

As they entered the village of Blanchland the fog lifted and changed to drizzle. They saw the ghostly shapes of gray houses, with their mossy stone roofs, they saw the dim outline of the old gatehouse, and guided by Alec, whose memory of Blanchland was surer than Charles’s, they stopped by a square crenelated tower which had once been the Abbot’s lodging four hundred years ago. “This was Forsters’ manor house, sir,” said Alec. “ ‘Twould be the place to ask for lodging.” He pulled the iron doorknocker, which gave out a hollow bang.

Presently the door opened a crack, and a stout woman in a white mob-cap and apron stood warily behind with a candlestick in her hand. “What d’you want?” she called in a clear incisive voice.