Authors: Rob Griffith
My sister caught up with me as I put on my cloak and hat. She didn’t say a word to me. She just placed a warm scarf around my neck and kissed me once on the cheek, and then turned and left me alone. I walked rapidly out of the house and out into the snow. The air was crisp and the snow crunched beneath my feet. The sky was ice blue and free of clouds, a low sun cast long shadows over the pristine white landscape. There was no dirty stain of soot out here in the country.
James’ grandfather had landscaped the small park around the house and most of the trees were still little more than saplings. I followed a path up to a small and poor imitation of a temple to Aphrodite. There, on cold stone, I sat and took the packet from my pocket. I looked at it for several moments and then I broke the seal, scattering crumbs of scarlet wax on to the thin dusting of snow. I unfolded the thick paper and quickly read a terse covering note from the Alien Office requesting that I didn’t use them as a postal service. I then opened the enclosed letter from Dominique; that the flowing script was hers I had no doubt. The letter was short, a bare few lines with some smudges that I imagined were tears, I even fantasised that I could smell her scent on the dry leaves of paper. I can repeat her words now, from memory, without consulting the creased and folded original that I still keep in my desk.
Mon cher Ben,
Claude has been captured. Lacrosse has him in the Temple prison. Claude is not strong. I fear for his health, for his life. I have a plan to set him free but I will need your help. You are the only person I trust. Once he is at liberty again then I too will be free, we will come to England. Please come.
With all of my love, Dominique.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It is amazing what cold stone freezing its way through your breeches will do for clarity of thought. Sitting in that frigid temple I quickly came to the obvious conclusion that getting to France was not going to be that easy. Brooke did not seem inclined to utilise me for another mission and it wasn’t as if the packets were still running daily from Dover. My only chance was to overcome Brooke’s doubts and be placed at the top of the rather long and dubious list of those willing to risk all for King and country, or at least those mad or desperate enough to maintain the pretence. There were two possible ways for me to achieve this goal; I could prove myself worthy of the honour by tireless and dedicated work, or I could get someone to lean on him.
Naturally enough I chose the latter path. Not that I doubted my evident talents of course, it’s just that I didn’t have the time to spare. Having chosen the ‘who you know’ route to advancement I was faced with the rather harder decision as to just who I did know that had sufficient, or indeed any, pull with Brooke. There were a couple of gentlemen of the ton who still owed me money; Freddie Lamb, son of Lord Melbourne, owed me a hundred guineas and might be persuaded to bend some ears if I let him off the debt. I wasn’t likely to see the money anyway since both father and son had the habit of spending all their gelt on the fairest ladies in London. Unfortunately, I doubted Freddie knew anybody with enough influence to change Brooke’s mind on what he wanted for breakfast never mind anything of greater significance.
I had done one of the sons of Lord Sligo the favour of persuading another titled gentleman that an indiscreet remark was not worth fighting a duel over but the said son of Lord Sligo had slunk back to Ireland after an embarrassing incident with a young groom. Perhaps I would have to resort to merit after all; not an appealing prospect. In fact so unappealing that I thought of the one man desperate enough for my goodwill to help and in a position to be of some aid. I’d have to go and see my father. I folded Dominique’s letter and strode with purpose towards the stables. Father would be at his estate just north of Banbury, half a day’s ride away and if I paused to think about what I was doing I would talk myself out of it. I hated to do it but the truth is that there is nothing like nepotism to get things moving.
The long ride to Banbury gave me far too much time to think. I worried about Dominique, about Claude and I worried whether my father would be inclined to help me. If he didn’t I had no second plan; I would not be able to get to France. I stopped and asked directions at an inn in Gaydon and relished a restorative pie and ale next to the fire before pressing on. It was bitter cold and by the time I saw the church spires of Banbury my face was raw, stung by ice and snow whipped up by the east wind. Any passion with which I had left Leamington Priors had cooled and I began to plot my approach to my father. I would not demand his help; I would appeal to his heart. I would not badger and berate him for past failings but we would start anew. My brain must have been addled by the frost.
I rode through the gates to my father’s estate and nodded as the gatekeeper doffed his hat, welcome for the pause in his endless bid to keep the road free from snow. I had never been allowed through those hallowed gates before. I don’t think even my mother had been allowed to see the ancestral home of the man she had so nearly married. I deliberately stopped that train of thought lest it result in harsh words to my father rather than the toadying tone I knew I should adopt.
The main house was not in sight and the drive led through elegant parkland blanketed in a white shroud. It was the starkness of the scene that enabled me to spot the rider weaving his way through the oaks. He was half a mile away but I knew it was my father straight away. I turned the mare from the drive and urged the reluctant beast into a trot. I had thought to find him warm in his library and sit for a quiet talk over a brandy. However, any plan ceases to signify once the enemy is sighted.
My father stopped beneath the bare skeleton of a beech tree. Steam rose from the flanks of the big chestnut hunter he was riding and the horse snorted as I approached, clouds of breath condensing in the cold air. The fifth Lord Marsden, ruler of all he surveyed, wore a stained black cloak and a thick woollen scarf. His eyes peered from beneath the brim of a battered old tricorne hat that curled as uncontrollably as a dandy's lip.
“Benjamin, an unexpected pleasure,” he said with no irony that I could detect.
“Good day to you father,” I said. “I’m staying with James’ parents, thought I’d ride over and wish you a merry Christmas.”
“Yes, of course you did. Come, let’s get you in the warm and that mare fed and watered before one of you freezes and the other goes lame. Then we can talk about whatever it is you need.”
It is a sad fact that parents are as never as stupid as you assume. I could say nothing and rode alongside him as he turned his hunter towards the chimneys, just visible now over the rise.
“I trust your family is in good health?” I asked to fill the silence. He looked at me suspiciously but eventually took the question in the spirit it was meant.
“They are, and don’t worry – your half-brothers won’t be making an appearance. I doubt we’ll see them before dinner after their indulgences last night.”
“Oh, what a pity,” I said.
“Has Lucy managed to thaw Lady Arabella’s heart yet?” my father asked, choosing to ignore my previous remark.
“She has one then? James’ sister has taken to her, and his father, but I fear the siege of Lady Arabella hasn’t progressed much beyond the digging of trenches and positioning of batteries as yet.”
“She will win through, eventually. There isn’t much that Lucy can’t do if she’s a mind to it. I’d offer to put in a good word but your sister seems more than capable of managing her own affairs.”
“On that, we can agree,” I smiled, disregarding the inference that I could not manage my affairs, not out of deference or restraint but more that I couldn’t argue against it.
As we topped the gentle slope the house was laid before us in all its glory. I had imagined some huge and pompous extravagance, perhaps in the latest classical style, or worse an Elizabethan house remodelled with Grecian pillars and porticoes stuck on like actors’ false noses. Instead, I beheld a modest and elegant Restoration house of golden stone with tasteful Baroque flourishes.
We rode up to the stable block and gave the horses to a groom. I was stiff and sore after my ride and waddled rather than walked after my father who seemed more than slightly amused by my discomfort. We entered the house through a side door and hung our coats on pegs in a whitewashed hallway. I hadn’t expected to be led in by the servant’s entrance, but I supposed that bastards of the family deserve no better. I tried to keep my resentment at a simmer rather than let it boil over. Indeed, the metaphor seemed apt when I was shown in to the kitchen.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Simpkins. Do you mind if we warm ourselves by the fire?” My father asked a thin, grey and spare looking woman who did not seem to fit into the fat and rosy cheeked cliché of cooks favoured by many of the more popular novelists. But what her body lacked in girth her warm, soft West Country accent more than made up for.
“Of course not, my Lord. There be tea in the pot and the bread is just out of the oven.” She took off her apron and fussed around my father whipping tea, bread and butter onto the table in seconds. I was ignored and not introduced. My resentment began to rattle the lid of the saucepan.
Mrs Simpkins placed a thick slice of steaming bread on the plate in front of me, the butter melting and sliding along it. A mug of tea followed, hot and sweet.
“There you go Master Benjamin. It is very nice to finally meet you. Your father used to love his bread and butter when he was a nipper, begging your pardon, my lord.”
“Not at all Mrs Simpkins. The warmth of your welcome and of the bread has always made the kitchen my favourite room in the house,” said my father.
“Nonsense, sir. And you with all those fine grand rooms upstairs. If the old Lord Marsden could hear you now.” She fussed around for a few moments more, taking pans off the stove and putting more wood on the already blazing fire, before she withdrew discreetly with a slight curtsey to my father who thanked her kindly for the tea and complemented her on the bread. It occurred to me then that I wasn’t being hidden beneath stairs lest his wife or sons see me. He was sharing something more private with me, somewhere where he felt at home, safe and warm. I was astonished that an aged family retainer like Mrs Simpkins knew of my existence, still more that my father had mentioned me sufficiently often and in enough detail for her to recognise me. Once again, my father had confounded my expectations. It was beginning to get annoying.
“So, Benjamin. Pray tell what is sufficiently urgent for you to risk not sitting for a month by riding all the way to see me? I don’t think Yuletide wishes would be adequate reason on a day like this,” he said as he spread another piece of bread with butter and pushed it across the table to me.
I said nothing for a few moments and he did not press me. I tried to think of some story to tell, some yarn to spin, but the truth began to fill the lengthening and uncomfortable silence. I told him everything. For the first time I left no detail out, spared no blushes. I don’t think I had ever been quite so honest and afterwards I felt cleansed and empty, much like a patient of a fashionable spa undergoing a purge.
He said nothing, made no comment. He just refilled my tea and offered me more bread as I told my sorry tale. At the end of it, he stood and walked over to the fireplace, warming his hands and then his buttocks on the fire.
“So, you’d like me to ask Brooke to send you back to France so that you can help this French girl?”
“Yes, please,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“I am not sure I can countenance such an abuse of public funds.”
“I would, of course, give any mission that Brooke required of me priority.”
“Very good of you, I’m sure,” he said turning his back on me and warming his hands on the fire again. Nothing was said for several minutes, and then he turned back and looked me in the eye. “I suppose that I have some responsibility for this mess, given that I suggested you to Brooke in the first place.”
“The mess is of my own making, father, and I will make it good. But I have to get back to France.” I said. Perhaps it was my humility that swayed it. It had worked with women many times but it had never been a tactic that I had tried with my father before.
“I will write to Brooke today, but I can make no promises. I am already in his debt for our original arrangement. Pray do not let your own business interfere with whatever task he deems fit to give you. I hear rumours that all does not go well in France for Brooke and his agents.”
“I promise that I will do my duty first,” I said. I could not help but wonder what problems the Alien Office was having in France and whether the traitor had been caught. Dominique had made no mention of it in her letter. The mix of relief and concern must have been evident on my face because my father came and put a hand on my shoulder.
“It will be alright, Ben. You’ll see. I have faith in you. You have the passion and the stubbornness to follow your heart no matter the consequences. I did not, and have regretted it ever since,” he said.
“Passion or stupidity?” I asked.
“It’s a fine line where women are concerned, and you won’t know which unless you go to her, my son.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I was pacing again, like one of the lion’s in the Tower menagerie, back and forth and probably with the same look of frustration and boredom. We’d been back in London a week and I had heard nothing. Nothing from my father and nothing from Brooke. I was becoming ever so slowly unhinged. I could think of nothing but getting back to France, back to Dominique. She needed me. I wasn’t sure if anybody had ever really needed me before. People had liked me. Had found me pleasant company, or witty or diverting. Women had even loved me once or twice but no one had ever needed me. Mother had probably needed me but I had caused her so much worry and heartache, and like all sons I had taken her for granted, letting her down in so many ways. I wasn’t about to let Dominique down, I’d get back to France even if I had to swim.