The Scandal of the Season

I
n the sixteenth century, England changed from a Catholic to a Protestant country when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and stripped the Catholic Church of its wealth. But Catholicism was never quelled; even though the official religion in England was Protestantism, vast numbers of Englishmen remained true to the Catholic faith. The Catholics resented the Protestants for taking away their wealth and privilege, and the Protestants feared a Catholic uprising that would someday oust them from power. For the next two hundred years, England would be immersed in religious turmoil.

By 1711, England was finally starting to feel secure. Queen Anne—a Protestant, but descended from the Stuarts—was on the throne and for the first time in centuries, the Protestants and the Catholics felt able to live in relative amity. The persecution of the Catholics declined. England was on the brink of unprecedented prosperity.

But one question remained. When the childless queen died, who would succeed her? A clandestine alliance had been formed among those who supported the return of a Stuart monarch. The allies called themselves Jacobites. Secretly, they conspired to bring back to England the Catholic King James III, presently exiled in France. So far, all attempted Jacobite plots had been discovered and prevented, but the Protestants in power could never be certain when the next rebellion was coming, or whether it might, after all, succeed.

London, 1711

T
he noise could be heard streets away. There were bursts of music and drifts of laughter and talk, louder when the revelers spilled into the courtyard. Every few minutes new shrieks of merriment echoed on the night air. It was the French ambassador's masquerade ball.

The embassy on the Strand blazed with candlelight. Every window along the façade was bright, and the courtyard was lined with a hundred flaring torches. More lights burned a corridor down to the river, where boats pulled up at a landing stage to unload groups of guests. Everybody was in costume: carnival figures, Russian princes, Chinese merchants, butterflies and bears, fairies and goblins, piping shepherds. Cases of wine were opened, supper was carried out in silver dishes, and the maskers danced on. Scattered groups lingered in the courtyard talking to one another in English or French, often a mixture of the two. More laughing, yet more talk; an endless movement of carriages.

A little priest left the embassy and made his way toward a hackney cab waiting outside the gates. As he walked away, a pair of masked ladies turned to greet him.

“Good night, Father.”

The priest bowed and stepped into his cab.

Across the courtyard, two figures called out to the driver, and then ran haphazardly toward the carriage, with much laughter and stumbling. They were dressed in the long silk gowns and black hoods of the domino costumes common among the masquerade guests; the robes almost entirely obscured the men's forms in dark folds. One of their hoods began to slip as he ran, and he pulled it back up clumsily, calling to his friend to slow down.

“Leave your damned hood behind!” the friend called back, a French accent inflecting his words. He ran up to the priest's carriage. “Father, will you be so kind…” he began, “my friend and I—”

Not waiting for a response, the Frenchman opened the door to step in, while the other fellow swept a low bow to a passing lady and gave a final pull to the costume. Then he, too, ran up to the carriage and scrambled inside as it drove away.

Behind them, the noise and light of the party continued unabated.

The priest smiled warily at the hooded men. He saw that they were both laughing, still out of breath. It had reassured him to hear one of them speaking in an accent—they were probably Catholics. The cab turned into the street and began to clatter across the cobbles.

After a moment's silence, he spoke. “Where are you traveling to, gentlemen?”

Neither of the men answered.

The carriage took a turn to the right. They were now on a road that was covered in straw to muffle the sound of horses' hooves, and the cab was suddenly much quieter. This street was empty and dark; the lamps had all guttered many hours before. He could hear the men's breathing, quick and rough, but he could not see their faces at all. They were no longer laughing. The darkness pressed on his eyes like a blindfold. He began to feel afraid.

He tried to stay calm, hearing his voice echoing in the intense blackness of the carriage as he repeated his question, “Where are you going to?”

Still there was no answer. His throat tightened. Perhaps they had not jumped into his carriage by chance. How easy it would have been for two figures in domino robes to stand unnoticed in the busy courtyard, waiting for him. He had taken little care tonight to be guarded about his visit.

“For God's sake, who are you?” he cried aloud. “What do you want?”

Neither sound nor movement from the two strangers. Suddenly the priest heard a rustle of fabric and a shuffle of feet. He shrank away, but felt the wall of the carriage against his back. He opened his mouth to call out, when a hand came out of the darkness to silence him.

He was struck violently onto the floor, and the back of his skull cracked against the seat. He felt a wave of dizziness; one of the men was upon him, pinning his body down. There was a rattling movement above as the other man closed the window shades. He knew that it was not necessary; nobody would see them on this deserted street. The gesture made him feel that a shade had fallen down upon his life.

He struggled free from the arm that stifled him. “You are too late,” he cried. “Others already know.” It was a gamble; the slimmest of chances.

There was a fraction of a pause.

“He lies,” came a new voice at last. An English accent, well-bred.

Before the priest could say more, he felt the cold edge of a steel blade pressed hard against his throat.

He struggled to retain a sense of what was happening. Again he opened his mouth, but as he did so he felt a prick of the knife going in like a needle. His throat felt suddenly loose, though a moment before it had been taut with fear, and his blood poured out as warm and soft as silk. He felt his skin and clothes become hot and sticky as it soaked into the fabric. The men remained silent, waiting while his life ebbed away. He could struggle no more. Already he was weak, his limbs heavy; even now he could barely frame clear thoughts; his mind was dim. He tried to hold fast to life, but the blackness closed in. It was over.

T
he worst of country life was that the houses were always cold.

Alexander sat as close to the fire as he could manage without blocking his parents' access to its modest heat. He suspected that his mother, at least, was suffering, but that she stayed farther back to allow him most of the warmth. Outside it was either snowing or raining; Alexander could not be sure which. It had been dark since three o'clock. They had dined at noon; tea had been brought in at four, and there were still another three hours before bed. His father had not allowed him to go to his chamber to write, because the fire had been overlooked during the afternoon and had burned out. He had not finished twenty lines of verse since Christmas, nearly a month ago.

The
Georgics
was open in his lap, and he had been reading the same poem for two hours. Virgil was all very well when Alexander was feeling that he, too, might write a poem as good as the
Aeneid,
but tonight Virgil's youthful verses reproached him. Will it always be like this if I obey my father? he asked himself. He heard his mother cough, and guessed that she was about to break in upon his thoughts.

“Sir Anthony Englefield asks you to pay him a visit,” she said, holding out a letter. “He offers to send his carriage. I think that you should go, Alexander. Are not Teresa and Martha Blount presently at Whiteknights?”

He made no reply. But his heart leapt at the sound of Teresa's name, and he looked up, knowing that he was blushing. The Miss Blounts were both about Alexander's age. Their family seat, Mapledurham, was an estate on the other side of the Thames, but the girls visited their grandfather Sir Anthony Englefield at Whiteknights several times each year. Like Alexander and his family, the Blounts were Roman Catholics.

“I do not attend to the details of the Miss Blounts' arrangements,” he said, in as careless a tone as he could manage.

“But you have not seen Sir Anthony since the beginning of December, Alexander,” his mother replied. “Your health is enough restored. And you must make yourself pleasing to women,” she added.

If only she knew how much he wanted to please Teresa, Alexander thought. But he said instead, “I think that Sir Anthony might have written the letter to
me
.”

Alexander's spirits rose excitedly, even as he began to feel nervous. It was always thus. Teresa loved to tease him, but she did so with a sly smile that made him like her even more. Not wanting to appear too eager to reply to Sir Anthony's invitation, however, Alexander turned to his father, who was reading a newspaper. “What news from town?” he asked.

“A priest has been murdered, and the body left in Shoreditch,” came the reply.

Alexander felt a surge of alarm. Shoreditch! Poor Catholics in London were still known to worship there secretly, in chapels above the taverns.

“Murdered?” Alexander echoed. “A priest?”

His father would never allow him back to town now. He had paid one short visit eighteen months before, after his first poems had been published, and had longed to return ever since. But the capital would always be haunted by the persecutions his father had once seen. Alexander's parents had been driven out when the Ten-Mile Act had been passed, forbidding papists to live within daily reach of the city. Years had gone by since then, and Catholics were returning to London, but Alexander's father was immovable. His son would not live in town. Alexander knew that the place had changed—for three glorious weeks he had seen it with his own eyes. But supposing he were to disobey his parents' strictures, only to find himself in danger?

He reached for the paper and began to read the story.

“This man was not a priest, sir!” he exclaimed. “Indeed he may not have been a Catholic at all. It says here that he was dressed in ecclesiastical costume to attend the French ambassador's masquerade. A ticket for the ball was found in his pocket.” He looked up with a smile. “So you see,” he finished, “the murderers made a mistake.”

Alexander's father gave a mirthless laugh. “If the men thought the fellow was a priest, it hardly matters if he was not,” he replied shortly. “The town is a dangerous place. I was sorry to see you so eager to visit last year.”

Alexander felt the protest rise within him. “I was there but three weeks, sir,” he burst out, “and staying in Westminster with my friend Charles Jervas!” His father knew perfectly well that Jervas was a Protestant, and that Alexander's contact with Catholics had been confined to the few wealthy families who kept houses in Westminster and St. James. There had been no secret masses in alehouse garrets—indeed there had been no talk of religion at all. “Queen Anne is a Stuart! You have said yourself that we have nothing to fear while she is on the throne.”

The older man's face remained grave. “I was not sanguine while you were there, Alexander,” he said. “I should be disappointed to learn that you have thoughts of returning.”

His parents rose for prayers, and Alexander was obliged to join them. His father darkened the room, old habit prompting him to make sure that they could not be seen. As he watched his father's bent head and the quiet movement of his lips, Alexander felt a pang of remorse. Had not his parents once been banished from their old home like vagrants, forced to leave the city where they had lived respectably? Ashamed, he bent his head, trying to feel the piety that he knew was proper.

After their worship was over, Alexander asked his father if he would leave the candles burning downstairs so that he could sit up by the fire to work.

“Late hours will make you ill,” his father replied, and waited until Alexander had gathered his books, following him up the stairs to his bedroom.

Alexander said good night and closed the door of his chamber, pushing a rug against the space at the bottom to mask the light of his candle. His father had been right—it was freezing cold, but he must finish ten lines before the end of the night. He pulled a blanket over his shoulders, spread another across his knees, and set to work. He wrote for an hour, ignoring the headache and sore throat that had begun to nag. It was not hard to do so. After so many years, the symptoms seemed like old, familiar foes, urging him to greater efforts, reminding him that his time was short.

He had been fourteen when he became ill. The sickness fell across his memory like a curtain, shrouding the weeks, and then months of pain that followed in suffocating darkness. At first the doctors had thought that he would not survive, but slowly he began to get better, the recovery more agonizing to him than the blank days and nights of feverish coma that preceded it. His clearest memory was of a morning when at last he had been able to stand up from his bed and walk to the window. Outside, the first marks of autumn were just beginning to rust the landscape, and he had been sad to find that he had missed a whole summer. His parents had come into the room, the physician following behind them. They had sat him down upon the bed and the doctor had told him the news. Though he had survived the illness, it would cripple his growth. His back would become hunched, until eventually he would be unable to move. The physician could not say when it would occur—perhaps by the time he was thirty, later if he was lucky.

And as it has turned out, he was lucky. At twenty-three, his back was bent, but if he stood up straight it was barely noticeable. He was not tall, but his face was handsome, he thought. And he was quick and funny. When he was in good health, he knew that he could be very charming.

An image of Teresa came to his mind, running across the lawn on a summer afternoon long ago. He had been completely well again after the sickness, restored to his old self, and she was fifteen or sixteen—it was before her father died. She had taken him by the hands, starting to tell a story about the convent school in Paris where she had been living. How lovely she had been then; how lovely she still was. As soon as his poems became famous, Alexander would claim her, and he believed that she would receive him once more with open arms. But he looked again at the pages on his desk. Still no closer to a finished poem. He needed a new subject, something that would give his talents their proper range. In his heart he knew that he would never find it in Binfield. Somehow, anyhow, he must get to London.

 

Two days later, Sir Anthony's carriage took him to Whiteknights. As he drew up outside the old house, Alexander saw that it was Martha Blount, and not Teresa, who had waited outside to greet him. He stepped down, and she came toward him, smiling and blushing. The sight filled him with affection.

“My dear Martha,” he said, taking her by the hands. “You look very well.” In thinking of Teresa, he had forgotten how nice it would be to see her younger sister.

“Alexander!” she exclaimed. “We knew that you were coming to see us today, but you are here so soon! My grandfather is abroad seeing to a tenant.” She pushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen across her face, but it slipped again, and she pulled it up with a little laugh. It was a gesture that Alexander had seen her make since she was a young girl.

Martha led him through the great entrance hall into a morning room where she had been working. As he took a seat beside her, Alexander found himself almost glad that the elder sister was absent. Martha's morning gown was covered in little threads from her needlework, which she had not noticed. Teresa would have picked them off instantly. He was determined not to ask where Teresa was, and spoil this moment that he and Martha had together.

“A cold day for Sir Anthony to venture out,” he observed. But he could not help himself, and after a little pause he asked, “Is your sister also out?”

Martha's face fell for an instant as she answered, “She is writing letters in her sitting room, and probably does not know that you are arrived.” Before he could speak again she composed herself, and smiled. “Shall we find her?” she asked, putting her sewing to one side.

When they entered the upstairs parlor, Teresa was reading a letter at her table by the window. The pale sunlight fell upon her face and on the delicate folds of her silk dress. On the desk was a little vase with a few snowdrops and narcissus, which Alexander guessed must have come from the hothouse. The curve of Teresa's arm rested beside the flowers, and the dark curls of her hair fell forward loosely as she bent over the pages.

“Teresa!” Martha exclaimed. “Alexander is come. Look—he is here to see us.”

She did not turn around immediately, and her smile was far less forthcoming than Martha's. It was arch and teasing. But how pretty she was!

“Here already indeed!” Teresa said in reply. “It is not done, Alexander, to visit a lady before eleven o'clock. If you are to be a man about town you will need to know such things.”

The note of provocation thrilled him. “I cannot bear to be a short coach ride from the brightest eyes in England, and yet remain apart,” he said, looking back at her with a playful smile.

Teresa raised an eyebrow. “Alexander is being very charming this morning, Patty,” she answered, looking away from him and calling her sister familiarly by her pet name.

“My office is to charm those who charm the world,” Alexander replied. He gave a bow, but as soon as he had done so he cursed himself. He was talking like a fool; the truth was that Teresa was making him awkward.

Martha watched closely as the exchange unfolded. She guessed that Teresa was nervous about seeing her old admirer again; she was always at her most contrary when she felt ill at ease. Martha blushed for her, and at the sight of Alexander's eager, anxious face. How little he understood her sister.

But Teresa and Alexander were sparring again.

“In speaking as gallantly as you do,” Teresa said, “I fancy that you try to imitate your London friend, Charles Jervas, of whom you love to boast. You are always copying the manners of those around you.”

Alexander knew better than to let this rattle him.

“Then I hope that I shall not omit to imitate yours,” he replied. “Your wit has a sparkle that makes it as precious to me as gold.”

Teresa looked away. “I fear that it shall likewise be as scarce,” she said. “My sister and I go to London tomorrow.”

He knew that his face betrayed the terrible sting of disappointment he felt. He had not expected this!

Martha rushed to join the conversation. “We were to tell you this morning, Alexander,” she said. “We are to travel up to town for the season with our mother, and to take a house in King Street.”

“Your grandfather is not afraid of your being in danger?” Alexander asked, turning to her with a look of appeal.

“Of course not!” Teresa interjected. “What do you imagine will happen? Plague and fire! Nobody is afraid of London anymore, Alexander.” Although it was the sort of impulsive naivety Teresa always showed, Alexander did not smile.

“Alexander is talking about the recent murder in Shoreditch,” Martha said, cutting her sister off. “We did think of postponing our journey, but Shoreditch is a long way from St. James. We believe Catholics of our sort are quite safe.”

Teresa tossed her head at the serious turn their conversation had taken, and began to gather up her letters, suggesting that they take a turn out-of-doors.