The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (26 page)

Only this time they would not. They were going to win. The Prince had landed in Scotland in July accompanied by only seven men. All the promises made by the French to provide arms and men had been broken. But such was his calm, his presence, his determination, his sheer magnetism that all Scotland was flocking to him. The faithful were rewarded, the waverers converted. He had raised his standard in August at Glenfinnan, proclaiming himself Regent in the name of his father King James III, and before it a body of 1400 Highlanders had assembled. Even from the beginning he had won small skirmishes against Hanoverian forces taken by surprise, and his progress south had been one of triumph.

Brent heard all this through the Scottish connections who ran arms to the border from the coast. Across the north of England and Scotland there was a line of information that stretched to the Prince and back down again. And the tales that were told of the Prince – of his gallantry, determination and wisdom for one so young. Of the way he had with the ladies and how he could melt the heart of the strictest Jacobite dowager. Now he had come as far as Perth and, according to the latest information received by Brent, was about to take Edinburgh.

The tide of enthusiasm that had swept Scotland had now crossed the border and was rolling remorselessly on as far as London. Some said the government was in disarray, others said it was not and that several large armies had been despatched north. Where they went would determine the Prince’s strategy. Either he would come south by Newcastle, or he would come via Carlisle as his father had done in ‘15.

Brent, who wished so much to see the Prince, hoped it would be Carlisle; but above all Brent wanted to be in at the fighting. He was not content just to smuggle arms.

The quay at Whitehaven was already lined with wherries putting in their catch or going out. Brent could discern, as always, the broad figure of Ambrose Rigg and waved to him. Rigg was on the deck of another of his boats, a genuine fishing smack groaning with herring and mackerel. Only about half of his fleet actively smuggled, it was the understanding he had with the customs men whom he paid well.

Rigg bounded off the boat he was on and came aboard the
Sarah,
named after his wife. He shook Brent’s hand and Matthew’s and the smile on his face indicated everything was all right. As well as arms, Brent was also carrying, as usual, brandy and tea that had come from the big smuggling port of Nantes in France and carried in bigger ships to the Isle of Man and Port Rush. The little wherries which scampered across the North Sea were ideal for the sort of smuggling that Rigg did on such a large scale.

‘Sarah bids me bring you home for dinner, Brent. She has a surprise for you.’

‘Oh?’ Brent was lifting out the baskets of fish from the hold, helped by Matthew and a young lad who worked on the quay. His mind was on fish, but from time to time he thought of the crates of guns on their way across the mountains or paths of Lakeland. He alone had smuggled in enough to equip a small army.

‘And Matthew, will you join us?’

‘No I cannot, thank you, Mr Rigg,’ Matthew said. ‘I promised my mother I would be home for dinner. She complains she never sees me.’

‘We’ve been busy,’ Brent said, ‘hardly a night’s sleep for ten days.’

‘I know. That’s why I thought a day or two resting, maybe, at Cockermouth. It can be done?’

Brent glanced at Matthew, saw how tired he looked. He guessed he must look the same. Well, nothing would be gained if their health broke down. Not that he’d ever felt better; just tired.

The devil of it was that his leg had never healed. He walked with a very slight limp and sometimes it impeded his work. It didn’t pain him so much; but it angered him. Still, he put it to good use at sea and he never complained. What worried him was what would happen if he had to march. He put it out of his mind; but when he was tired he was conscious that he limped more. Sometimes when he was fit and rested he didn’t limp at all.

Now he limped badly down the gangplank, his leg stiff from too much exercise and Matthew and Ambrose noticed and exchanged glances.

‘I have my coach waiting,’ Rigg said. ‘You can rest in that.’

 Brent looked at him and burst out laughing.

‘I’m no maid you know, Ambrose! You’ll be dosing me with laudanum and
sal volatile
for the vapours!’

Ambrose laughed and smacked him on the shoulders leaving one hand companionably around his neck. Sometimes he felt like a father to Brent.

After sluicing himself in the yard and a hearty breakfast of beef pie washed down by plenty of ale at the tavern on the quayside, Brent and Ambrose walked to where the coach was waiting at the back of the town, the driver of the pair well wrapped up against the cold.

It was a small coach because the road from Whitehaven to Cockermouth though important and busy was narrow in places.

As soon as they settled in Brent fell asleep, his long legs on the opposite seat. After his large breakfast he felt so tired and stupefied that he had not even asked Ambrose what surprise Sarah had in store for him.

Ambrose Rigg’s passion, besides the acquisition of wealth – which was an obsession – was extending his home. It had once been a yeoman’s low stone house, whitewashed and containing only one floor with a direct entrance to the barns. Indeed at one time, though Ambrose could not remember it, the cattle used to mix freely with the inhabitants of the house, considered just as important.

This land and the house had been in the Rigg family since anyone could remember. After rising from serfdom the ‘statesmen’ had acquired a special status. The inheritance had passed from father to son though the property still belonged to the lord or squire, monastery or landowner for whom they worked. However, they could not be dispossessed and the yeoman farmer acquired a special role of his own.

But Rigg now owned the house and the land around it outright. It stood on the hill above Cockermouth which gave a fine view not only of the town but of the Lakeland hills to the south and east. For Cockermouth lay flat in the valley of the River Derwent which entered the sea near Whitehaven twelve miles away. The imposing Rigg Manor was halfway up a bracken-covered fell and on either side was a forest of tall fir trees. Ahead was the centre of Lakeland, the mountains and fells surrounding Crummock Water, Buttermere and majestic Ennerdale; and the tips of Hen Combe, Great Borne, Starling Dodd and High Style towered above the soft, undulating folds of the lesser hills.

To the west even Skiddaw could be seen and on a clear day Lake Bassenthwaite glimpsed beneath it on the main approach from Cockermouth to Keswick. Sometimes the hills were obscured in the haze of high summer or the mists of winter and they appeared mysterious and even menacing; but on a clear bright day like this day in September they stood out sharply against the sky and seemed to roll on forever – some high, some low, some hidden or only half revealed – resembling a land of enchantment.

Rigg had bought this imposing site from the descendants of one of the barons to whom it had been given after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. There was still a village of Thursby and an Earl of Thursby, but, like the Allonbys, they had not always been wise in their support for the ruling party and had lost a great deal of land as a result. Lord Thursby was never to be seen in Lakeland; but a son and daughter-in-law lived in Castle Thursby and were on nodding acquaintance with the Riggs, largely because of Sarah, needless to say. The Honourable Mrs Rose Thursby would never have had anything to do socially with the former ‘statesman’ family of Rigg, no matter how well they’d subsequently done in business.

Like the Riggs the Thursbys had a young family. It had already crossed the mind of Ambrose that, if he worked harder and the Thursbys stayed as they were, in time his own progeny, half Allonby and therefore socially acceptable, would not be a bad match as far as the Thursby family were concerned.

Ambrose was a contented man as the coach, after climbing the hill, turned through the large gates he had just had installed after being wrought by an ironsmith in Cockermouth. They provided an important link in the wall he had had constructed around his extensive property.

They swung open to a long drive which had formerly been part of a field where his father grazed cows. Now it was being turned into soft lawns and gardens. Shrubberies and flower beds were appearing everywhere, and a fortune was being spent transporting plants and vegetation from the south of England.

The drive ended in a circular sweep in front of the building that had been grafted on to the small humble home where the Riggs had their origins, just a little croft house it had once been. In fact the original building was now part of the extensive stables, and a graceful mansion built by an architect who had studied with Mr James Gibb, architect of St Martin-in-the-Fields and other notable London buildings, had risen beside it.

Like its humble predecessor it was a house built of white stone, but its fluted doric columns supported a Grecian-style arch not unlike that which graced the front of the church of St Martin in London. The porch was wide and was approached by five steps. Double doors led onto a large hallway, showing a tall winding staircase, and a high ceiling from which hung a grand chandelier made of thousands of tiny crystals. It was a rich house, an elegant house, a big house and, if Ambrose had his way, it looked like being one of the grandest houses in this part of Cumberland, rivalling even Castle Thursby itself.

And there, dutifully on the porch to welcome him, were his wife, two small children and his brother-in-law. John Allonby stood behind his sister thus composing what seemed on that beautiful mellow September noon, a very charming family group.

There were even one or two retainers hovering in the background to make sure that the master was immediately served, and barking dogs scampered up to the carriage as it drew into the broad forecourt. A servant ran down the stairs to open the door and Ambrose nudged the sleeping Brent in the ribs. ‘Wake up. We’re there. ‘Tis dinner time.’

Brent, startled, looked out of the window.

‘We’re there already?’

‘You slept the entire length of the journey, my boy.’ Brent looked out of the window, rubbing his eyes. ‘My God. ‘Tis John. Is
that
the surprise?’

‘Aye’

‘I hoped it might be Mary,’ Brent said quietly, ‘I have not seen her for nigh a year.’

‘Ah but that’s who it might be
about
,’
Ambrose said winking and consulting the timepiece stretched on a gold chain across his large stomach. ‘You may have earned your spurs.’

Brent jumped down, and sprinted along the courtyard to where John was coming down the stairs. The cousins clasped arms.

‘John, how is it with Mary? No trouble?’

‘No, no, none at all. My, Brent, but you do smell.’

John retreated a yard or two and looked at his cousin with dismay.

‘Smell? Oh, fish. ‘Tis a good healthy smell and in the basket behind the coach we have some fresh herring and mackerel for our breakfast tomorrow.’

Ambrose climbed the stairs slowly because they were affecting his breathing more and more. Prosperity was making him put on too much weight. He greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek, aware that her belly was nice and rounded. She was presenting him with another child, or so he hoped. She had miscarried earlier in the year and this had worried him, not so much for her health, as lest she should opt out of her side of the bargain to provide him with a fine large family to rival the Thursbys.

But no, he had got her almost immediately with child again despite her protests and the doctor saying that she should rest. Doctors knew naught about it in his opinion; not as much as a healthy virile man like himself, even if he was on the stout side.

‘All well my dear?’ he enquired letting his hand casually caress the mound of her stomach. She blushed and looked about her to see if anyone had seen his gesture.

‘Of course, Ambrose. Desist,’ she said agitatedly pushing his hand away from her stomach, and moved away to greet Brent. The smell that had offended his cousin preceded Brent up the stairs and Sarah too backed away, but only with mock dismay on her face. She knew that the Rigg fortune was too well founded in fish to make any real protest about it.

‘Why, Brent ...’

‘I know I stink. I declare I had a good wash in the yard of the tavern before we came hither.’

‘Not a good enough one apparently. There is a fire in your room and I will have one of the servants take a tub thither and give you a good bath and fresh clothes.’

Brent laughed.

‘If you will.’

Then he bent to greet his little cousins, four-year-old Henry, and Elia, who was just one year old and in the arms of her nurse. Brent loved children and they responded to him. He knew he would enjoy being a father when he and Mary had children of their own.

Brent went up the stairs two at a time to his room which was at the back of the house overlooking the fell that rose behind. The lower part was green pastureland, but higher up the forest began which eventually skirted Lake Bassenthwaite.

As Sarah had promised a good fire roared in the grate and soon Thomas the head servant appeared with another carrying a big iron bath between them. Into this they poured jug after jug of steaming hot water brought up the back stairs by a succession of giggling scullery maids.

Brent sat in his bath and, after Thomas had scrubbed his back, said he would wash himself. As he got out and towelled himself before the fire he was aware of his long muscular body, his sinewy calves which had not lain between a woman’s legs for a year. Brent stopped drying himself and thoughtfully looked into the fire.

How had he known that? That he
had
a woman a year ago? Suddenly there was a stirring in his mind, a recollection of trees and moonlight ... it was like a vision or a dream. Or had it been reality? He remembered what they’d said about the accident. How he had been found. Nothing had disturbed Brent’s amnesia since the blow on the head; but now the mists were starting to part. And she ... He shut his eyes trying to recall who he had been with. He could somehow see her translucent flesh, smell a singular odour, a pungency. She was someone very special, he was sure of that. So why, how had he forgotten her? There was a knock at the door.