The Love Child (6 page)

In such moments I suppose one should feel something intense, some premonition. I did feel an excitement which made me tremble, but that was because I remembered I had heard the name before and I realized that the events of which we had talked over dinner had moved nearer and that, remote in the country though I was, I was now being drawn into intrigue.

“I’ve heard of you,” I said.

“They murdered my father. They are after me. Please … Eversleigh is here, I know.

He’ll help. I know he will. Go and tell him. Remember … only tell Eversleigh … or perhaps Leigh Main if he is there, too. Tell him. Either one of them. But tell no one else. It’s dangerous … a matter of life and death. If they get me .

. .”

“I understand,” I told him. “You’ll be safe here until the morning. No one comes here. They think it is haunted. My brother should be back by now. I’ll tell him at once.”

He smiled and I noticed how handsome he was. In fact I thought I had never seen anyone so handsome, and I felt a great desire to help him.

I went back to the house to find that the others had returned.

“Where did you get to?” demanded Leigh. “Why, what’s the matter? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”

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I said: “Come inside. I want to talk to you. It’s very important. I’ve seen…

something.”

Leigh put his arm about me affectionately. “I knew it was a ghost,” he said.

“More dangerous than that,” I whispered.

We went to the schoolroom-Edwin, Leigh, Christabel and I. As soon as the door was shut I blurted out: “Jocelyn Frinton is in the shrubbery.”

“What!” cried Leigh.

“He’s dead,” said Edwin.

“No. It’s the son of that one. He’s being hunted. I went down there when I came in and I heard someone there. I shouted for him to come out and I threatened him with the dogs. Then he spoke to me and told me that he must see you, Edwin … or Leigh … because he wants you to help him. They murdered his father, he said, and they would do the same to him if they caught him.”

“God help us!” cried Leigh. “It is this monster, Titus Gates.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Christabel.

“We’ve got to help him of course,” replied Leigh.

“How?” asked Edwin.

“Give him food for one thing and find him a hiding place for another.”

“You can’t keep him hidden long in the shrubbery,” I pointed out.

“No,” replied Edwin, “but this madness is going to be over sooner or later. Gates is beginning to show up in his true colours. People will turn against him in time, I’m sure of it.”

“It could be a year… two years,” said Christabel.

“Nevertheless,” said Leigh, who had always been the man of action, “the first thing to do is to get him to a place of safety.”

“There is the secret compartment in the library where my father hid our treasures during the war and saved them from the Roundheads,” I said.

Edwin was thoughtful. “If he were discovered that would bring the family into it.”

“My father hates the Papists,” I said.

“There you have it,” replied Edwin. “The country is being divided. That is what happens when there is an affair like this. Before Gates reared his ugly head people did not greatly care how others worshiped. It is because of this anxiety about the succession and rumours about the King’s brother’s religion…”

“I know, I know,” interrupted Leigh impatiently, “but in the 41

meantime we have to do something about Jocelyn Frinton. If he is caught it will be the end of him. Where can we put him?”

“We shall have to be careful,” I cautioned. “We have a fanatic in Jasper. He would soon discover him if he remained in the shrubbery and there is no doubt what his reaction would be. He thinks Catholics are agents of the devil and talks often of the Whore of Babylon. He is a bigoted old man and a dangerous one.”

“Then it can’t be the garden and it can’t be the house,” said Leigh.

“I know a place!” I cried. “It would do for a while anyway. Your father was there, Edwin, when he came to England during the cornmonwealth. I remember my mother’s showing it to me. She came with your father. It was just before he was murdered.”

“All right. All right,” said Leigh. “Where is this place?”

“It’s White Cliff Cave on a lonely part of the shore. Few people ever go there. It would be a good hiding place.”

“It’s the best suggestion so far,” said Leigh approvingly. “Now we have to get to work quickly.”

He was silent suddenly, putting his finger to his lips. He was clearly listening.

Then he went quietly to the door and opened it suddenly. Carl almost fell into the room.

He grinned at us. “There’s a beef pie in the larder,” he said. “Ill get a great hunk of that for him. And some ale, too. I’ll take it from the back and they won’t know it’s gone.”

We were all astounded and realized how careless we had been. It might have been one of the servants-perhaps Jasper-instead of Carl.

Leigh gave him an affectionate push.

“Do you know what happens to people who listen at doors?” he asked.

“Yes,” retorted Carl, “they come hi and join in the fun.”

It was not difficult to get Jocelyn Frinton to the cave. Leigh and Edwin rode off with him that night after the household was asleep. If it was discovered that they had been out, the servants would shrug their shoulders and would believe that they had been in pursuit of those adventures which were characteristic of men in a lax society. Jasper would shake his head and prophesy hell fire, but no one else would take much notice.

Carl had been useful prowling round the kitchen; he was known to have a voracious appetite and if he were caught making off with food no one would have been very surprised.

Christabel and I gathered up some blankets which they had taken with them.

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A seriousness had settled on us all, for we knew-even Carl-that this was an adventure which could result in death.

It was midnight when Edwin and Leigh returned, for it was about three miles to White Cliff Cave. Christabel and I were waiting up and had been watching from my bedroom window. We had prevailed on Carl to go to bed, promising him that when Edwin and Leigh came up, we would let him know if he were still awake.

“Of course I’ll be awake,” he said; but I had looked in on him at about eleven o’clock and he was fast asleep.

He was very excited about the adventure and could be useful, but I would rather he had not been concerned in it.

“My father, who is quite tolerant about some matters, is fiercely against Catholics,”

I told Christabel. “He dislikes the Duke of York. More than that he feels it would be a disaster if he ever came to the throne. He says the people won’t allow it and there’ll be a revolution. He is all for putting Monmouth up as the heir.”

“What would he have done if he had found Jocelyn Frinton in the grounds?”

“I don’t know. He knew his father and he must have been aware that they were a Catholic family. But a little while ago no one thought very much about that. It is only since Titus Gates came along with his Popish Plot that people started to worry. I know that if there was a conflict my father would be on the side of Monmouth rather than that of the King’s brother. But that’s politics. I know religion comes into it, but my father is not a religious man.”

“No,” said Christabel, “that seems to be clear at any rate.”

“I don’t know whether he would give him up, but I don’t think he would help him or want us to. What Edwin does is his own affair because Edwin is a man and my father is not his father. What my mother would think I don’t know. She would be alarmed because we might be putting ourselves in danger. But there’s Carl, you see. My father dotes on Carl and Carl had insisted on becoming involved.”

“He enjoys it. It’s a wonderful adventure to him and I notice that he likes to be in everything.”

“I should imagine my father must have been just like that when he was young.”

“You could be sure of that.” There was a touch of asperity in her voice, reminding me of the Christabel I had known before the corning of Edwin and Leigh, which had worked such a subtle change in her.

“Listen,” I said, “they’ve come back, I think.”

I was right. We stood tense at the window, and hi a short time we 43

saw Leigh and Edwin come into the house. We waylaid them and they came into my bedroom.

“All is well,” whispered Leigh. “A very good spot. Full marks, Priscilla, for thinking of it.”

I glowed with pleasure.

“He has food for tomorrow and he’ll be all right provided no one decides to picnic there.”

“Picnic in November in that bleak spot!”

“Bleak’s the word,” said Edwin. “But the blankets will keep him warm.”

“How long can he stay there?” asked Christabel.

“Not indefinitely, of course,” replied Edwin. “We’ll have to try and think of something before the winter gets really cold.”

“He’d freeze,” I said.

“Priscilla is worried about Carl’s being involved,” Christabel told them.

“Yes, so am I,” said Edwin.

“He’s a good fellow,” added Leigh. “It would be his extra exuberance which might give it away.”

“I’ll speak to him hi the morning,” said Edwin. “Where is he now? In bed, I suppose.”

“Fast asleep. He wanted to stay awake to see how it went but I told him he should go to bed as normal. He did and was soon asleep.”

“We ought to try to get Frinton away somewhere before your father returns,” said Edwin to me.

I agreed with that.

Leigh said: “Well, it is late. We mustn’t stay chattering here. Who knows, we might be spied on. I don’t think anyone saw us, but we must all understand that this is no game and it’s no use treating it as such. It’s deadly serious. It could mean death for that young man and serious trouble for us. So … take care. Act as normal. We’ve done all we can for tonight. He’s safe temporarily. Tomorrow we’ll get some more food to him. We’ll ride out as usual … but we must take care.”

They tiptoed quietly out of my room and went to their own. I could not sleep. I doubted whether any of them would. Leigh was right when he said we were involved hi a serious matter. I kept thinking of that young man. There was something noble about him, something which had made me want to help him more than anything else.

My thoughts stayed with him hi White Cliff Cave.

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We all rode out together the following morning. I had told them in the kitchens that we were going into the woods and wished to take food with us as we did not want to go to the inn. This was reasonable enough but not something we could do every day.

I supervised the packing of a basket and was a little shaken when Ellen said: “You’ve got enough food there to feed a regiment.”

“There’ll be three hungry men to provide for,” I reminded her, “for when it comes to eating Carl can do as well as any grown man. One gets an appetite riding you know, Ellen.”

Sally Nullens, who was there because Carl was going with us and she still thought of him as her charge, said: “He’s eating too much of that pastry. More good red meat is what he wants.”

She was going over the provisions with a sharp eye and I felt uneasy. I was afraid of Sally Nullens-and Emily Philpots, too. She was more sullen than ever because Christabel was being treated as a member of the family-something which she had never achieved.

“After all I did for those children!” was her continual plaint; and I knew she spied on Christabel, longing to catch her out in some misdemeanour, and was, in any case, critical of everything she did. It might be a joke in normal times but we could not afford such spying now.

However, we got away all right, and I was wondering whether it would be wiser to warn Carl to be careful or to let it alone. He was heart and soul in the adventure, but it was true that he might be overzealous.

I shall never forget that late November day with the mist hanging in the air and the gulls shrieking overhead and the strong smell of seaweed in the air. We dismounted and managed to tether our horses to a rock and went down towards the cave, our footsteps loud on the shingle.

I imagined Jocelyn cowering in the cave, wondering who was coming.

Leigh went to the mouth of the cave. “All’s well,” he cried.

Jocelyn came out then and I saw him more clearly than I had the previous night. He was tall and slender with very fair skin, faintly freckled, and light blue eyes.

He had very white teeth and was indeed handsome. His breeches were light brown velvet and of the fashionable Spanish cut, and his leather buskins were of the same colour.

His coat, also of velvet, came to his knees. It was rumpled from the night spent lying in the cave, but he was clearly a very fashionable gentleman who had obviously ridden off in a hurry before he had been able to attire himself for a journey.

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Leigh said: “Come out into the open. We’re a party of picnickers. We shall hear anyone approach and in any case we can see for a long way. If necessary you can go back into the cave, but it won’t be necessary.”

We settled down and I opened the hamper.

“I don’t know how to thank you all,” said Jocelyn. “Thank God I remembered your place, Eversleigh. I guessed you would help.”

“Of course,” said Edwin. “You were right to come. It was luck that Priscilla happened to be in the garden.”

Jocelyn turned to me, smiling. “I’m afraid I scared you.”

“I thought you were a ghost,” I admitted. “In any case I always wanted to see a ghost.

I’m glad I was the one and not our old gardener.”

“You had come all the way from your home?” Leigh asked.

“Not from the country. From London. It was to the Piccadilly house that they came for me. There is something almost obscene about Oates and his men.”

“I know it well,” replied Edwin.

“Where is this going to end?” asked Jocelyn. “I cannot understand why he is not seen as the villain he is.”

“It is terrible to realize how easily people can be roused to violence,” said Edwin sadly. “One observes it often. Individually they would never be capable of such actions as they will take when they become a mob.”

“I am sure that philosophizing can at times be a useful occupation,” Leigh put in, “but this is the time for practical suggestions. Now, Frinton, this place is all right as a temporary haven, but we have to think of something better. You can’t stay here. You could be discovered.”