Now Face to Face (28 page)

“Tell me whatever about it you know. Quickly, man, for I have been in an agony of impatience and doubt.”

As I know only too well, thought Slane. “The invasion is slated for spring, during the general election, as you advised.”

“Yes, everything will be stirred up then, men divided and quarreling. What else? What else?”

“There must be money raised to be sent abroad to the Duke of Ormonde, who will head the invasion force.” Ormonde, who had been Captain General of the English army under Queen Anne, was not of the stature of Marlborough or Tamworth, but he was beloved by Englishmen nonetheless.

“Ormonde! That is wonderful news,” Rochester said. “Do you know the story—that when Ormonde fled the kingdom rather than be tried for treason, Hanoverian George said to his ministers, ‘You go too far in your threats. You send to my cousin James the best of men!’” Rochester laughed, his square face alight, his eyes snapping and brilliant. “Ormonde. Excellent, excellent. He was loved by our troops, is loved by the people.”

“He’s to land at the spot you decide is best and lead troops from there to London.”

“What troops? How many? Who is supplying them? The French? The Spanish? The Swedes?”

Slane took a deep breath. Here it was. If he could navigate Rochester past this moment, the way was clear. “The troops will be ones you and the others secretly rally.”

“What?”

The word roared out of Rochester, hovered over their heads like a bad omen, then crashed and died upon the walls of the small chamber.

Slane walked to one of the arching windows and looked out to the courtyard below. It was the wrong move, but Rochester’s reaction was so much his own that, for the moment, he could not deceive. Slane’s eyes, under his dark brows, were like stones. No foreign troops, he’d thought to himself last night. We had foreign troops to aid us, before. What a chance we take, to invade without foreign support. But it was not Slane’s place to question, though he had sent off an immediate letter to Jamie doing so. Those in Paris and Rome had their tasks, and he had his. They must make a move, a bold move, and let the cards fall where they might. There would never be a time when everything was perfect. A man made his destiny, if he moved forward forcefully enough.

What had the Jesuits taught? To keep one’s eyes upon the goal desired, not upon the delays and impediments. There was within him the growing feeling that if they were not triumphant this time, it was over. Eight-and-twenty was too young to feel such futility. He bucked against it. Listen to what moves within you, his mother always said.

“An invasion must be backed by foreign troops, Slane,” Rochester said, his voice furious and impatient. He was the terror of the House of Lords, when aroused. “There isn’t time to raise the force we need, by April.”

Slane answered doggedly: “We have men in every court, from France to the Czar. Who knows what will have happened by April, what alliances will be formed, who will commit troops to us? We know for certain that the Irish in the French regiments will join Ormonde; the Catholic clans in Scotland will rise to help us, too, as always they have before. We select the best men in each county to raise troops, men who know their neighbors, know who can be trusted. Men have only to keep their mouths closed, to collect weapons, and, when Ormonde lands, to march. Nothing more. Then events will take over. Others will join. Their hearts will make them do so. It is possible even the English army will declare for King James. They still love the Duke of Ormonde, as you just said.”

Rochester twisted and turned in his chair, as if there was no place of comfort. His face set stubbornly. “I cannot agree to this plan.”

God in Heaven, thought Slane, you cannot desert us now. “We have a plan, which those in Paris have agreed to, which those in Italy have agreed to, which a man like the Duke of Ormonde risks his life to lead. Don’t you see, having a plan and moving with it is half the battle. Moving forward with confidence and courage is what is necessary now.”

Moving forward, not dithering like old women over their teacups, or old men. Old men lost their will. He and Wharton had talked of that the other night: The older Jacobites here were becoming too weary and too cautious, but would not allow the young ones their head.

“The Duke of Ormonde will make up the difference foreign troops might. I’ve heard it said you would follow Ormonde to perdition. Don’t you think there are soldiers in the army right this moment who feel the same way?”

“Perdition is here, Slane, in this chamber. I carry it in my heart. I curse the day all of this began. There have been three failed invasions since 1714, Slane, three. During one of them I sat in the House of Lords as discovered traitorous letters were read, and listened to my own words.”

“Your courage is well known. No one doubts it.” Display it now.

“I have the courage of a dozen lions, Slane, with the right plan. I cannot consent to this. It is too weak.”

“Another time like this may not come again soon. People still hold a grudge for the South Sea Bubble. Sir Alexander Pendarves and Lady Shrewsborough were talking of it only a day or so ago, and you know what a loyal Whig Pendarves is. Yet even he is troubled by the malaise that hangs over the kingdom. The time is ripe. The realm is unsettled, the dislike of the King as great as it was during the first year of his reign.”

“Others must be consulted. I will not bear the burden of this decision alone.”

Slane knelt before Rochester’s chair, the bones of his face hard, as was his voice, absolute in its sincerity, the eyes blazing, compelling, drawing one in, so that Rochester closed his own eyes, as if he must do so or be singed.

“You are our leader. Leave perdition to me. I am here to serve only you—that is my command, from the mouth of King James himself. You served his father, James II, and his sister Queen Anne, and you will serve him. Only you can bring him to the throne, and when he sits upon it, as is his God-given right, you will see that all wretchedness and all worry were worthwhile, and you will be rewarded, as no other man who serves him, for both your skill and your pain. I swear that to you. Where you lead, others will follow. Lead strongly now. I will be your right arm in all things. I am commanded to stay with you for as long as you need me. I will stay even past that.”

“I feel as our Lord Christ did in the wilderness during his temptation. Are you angel or devil, Slane?”

“A little of both, sir, like every child of God.”

“Nonetheless, I do not support this plan. I must talk with others.”

“And if they agree to the plan?”

Rochester was silent.

Slane closed his eyes so that Rochester should not see the rebellion and anger in them, his mind on the arguments there would now be as some men, already frightened, backed away from Jamie’s side, and thus frightened others off. We fiddle while Rome burns, Slane thought. And our leader does not wish to lead.

T
HE
P
RINCESS
of Wales yawned behind her hand. Ah, tedium. She played another card, knowing she would win the hand. Her mood was not improved even by the fact that her windows at Hampton Court had the finest view of the gardens, with their avenues, their fountains, and Sir Christopher Wren’s landscape canal, the Long Water, which reflected now a magnificent sunset. The day had gone well enough, with the Prince playing at bowls and winning; later, there had been strolls in the gardens. The mistress, Mrs. Howard, and the old Earl of Peterborough became lost in the maze, to everyone’s amusement and the Prince’s open irritation.

A broad-shouldered yet feminine man, walking like a bear in heeled shoes, appeared in the doorway of her drawing room. He wore an outrageously large wig, rouge, lead paint to darken his brows, and—what he had become noted for, even more than for the paint upon his face—a diamond earring in one ear.

“Carlyle”—the Princess put down her cards and held out her hands for him to bow over—“you rescue me from death by boredom. Hervey, take my place at the card table so that I may speak awhile with this awful man.” Tommy Carlyle had news, malicious bad news, about someone; it was in his face. It was one of the things she liked best about him. He could always be depended upon to know the worst, and to delight in telling it. He was a source of much information for her.

“Take me to the window,” the Princess said, “and let us admire the sunset.”

Once there, he handed her the broadsheet. The ink on it was so fresh it had been smudged by Carlyle’s fingers. That was the way they did things here, with little news sheets printed on secret presses, spreading scandal and rumor, vilifying one’s honor. People believed the written word, even if it was false. Her eyes ran quickly over the page: There had been a duel over the kingdom’s most beautiful woman, a woman ruined by the South Sea, a woman who had had to flee to Virginia to escape a prince’s lust. Lust, impiety, and immorality were the tokens of this reign, of this England ruined by parasites, bawds, and ugly whores who served His Majesty. There was another reference to the South Sea Bubble, a reminder of what all had suffered because of the greed that inspired it. “Ugly whores” was an insult to the Duchess of Kendall, the King’s longtime mistress. The “beautiful woman” could only be Barbara, Lady Devane. In an uncharacteristic gesture, the Princess wadded the broadsheet up into a ball.

“The Duke of Tamworth and Tom Masham have dueled,” said Carlyle. “I wonder if Tamworth’s marriage is off, then. I was in the tavern when the quarrel began. So ugly. Tom Masham had been drinking, and he said—”

And here Carlyle abruptly halted, putting his hand to his mouth as if stopping himself from making the most enormous of mistakes. The Princess knew he amended what he was now about to tell her, just as she also knew that Carlyle did nothing accidentally.

“Masham brayed for all the world to hear that though Lord Russel’s bed may be cold this winter, some Virginian’s will be warm. You are shocked by my news, I see it. It is distressing. Awful. These lines about the South Sea—” Carlyle took the wadded broadsheet from her hand, unfolded it, and began to read: “‘Ministers protected those who were the cause of the distress of millions, the sinking of credit, the discouragement of trade, the lowering of stocks.’ To my mind, Walpole didn’t protect Lord Devane as he should have.”

An expression of impatience crossed the Princess’s face.

“I bore you. Everyone wants to be ended with the South Sea. With your permission, Highness.”

As still as death, the Princess watched Carlyle go flitting like a giant moth from one person to the next, spreading the news. He had carried an extra broadsheet in his pocket. Of course. People were knotting into twos and threes, whispering what Carlyle told them now, what he had not said before: that Tom Masham had said that though the Prince of Wales’s bed would be cold this winter, some Virginian’s would be warm.

In a single moment, the Princess was transported back to two summers ago, when Barbara had walked through court and taken all hearts. And she, the Princess, who prided herself upon her calm, had been like a wounded lioness at her love-stricken prince.

The Princess hated court at this moment more than seemed humanly possible. Her image, if she had wished to walk close enough to see, was reflected back to her by dozens of pairs of eyes watching.

Does she know what was said? they wondered. Poor Princess, will she cry when she is alone? they asked. The Prince is not over his passion for Barbara; only look how he hangs upon her mother, Lady Alderley. Remember his grief at the news of Barbara’s leaving; remember his rage. Barbara would have become mistress if she’d stayed.

All of the Princess’s life was played out before others: No quarrel was secret, no grief; even her suffering in childbirth had to be public so that others might see that the children born had in fact emerged from her royal womb, and no one else’s.

The Princess could feel cold fury inside herself. Bad Barbara, wicked Barbara, how dare you walk among us again? If ever I am Queen of England, thought the Princess, I will banish you to a dungeon, the coldest, the darkest hole I can find, I swear it. And I will chain your mother there beside you.

Fury was good. It gave her the strength she needed to rise calmly, her gaze steady, and leave the drawing room with her expression serene. How can I hurt you, Barbara? she thought. Let me think of a way, I pray.

“H
IS
H
IGHNESS
asks permission to enter,” Mrs. Clayton, the Princess’s attendant, whispered a little later.

The Princess felt a terrible futility for a moment. Why must her husband come now, when Barbara’s name was still like a brand on her flesh? Except, of course, that he had no one else with whom to share the truth of his own feelings. And she had long ago accustomed him to the freedom of telling her everything, even when what he told could only hurt her.

It was one of her holds over him—a hold that cost her, but she had long practice at mastering emotion, at allowing good sense to rule. Now she glanced at herself in her mirror. Her hair was brushed to shining; there was an attractive bedcap upon it; her bedgown was thin, white, sheer. Much would be aroused in him. She loosened her nightrobe. Mrs. Clayton opened the door, and the Prince of Wales raged in, waving the broadsheet. He was squarely made, pale-skinned and pale-eyed, the eyes bulging slightly. He was brave in battle, stupid in policy.