Now Face to Face (64 page)

Proof? he had asked after a moment.

Here was the hard part.

Nothing yet which will stand in court, though we have someone in Paris who is supplying information, Townshend and Walpole said. There’s the matter of reference to the gift of a dog which might aid us. It’s mentioned in letters we know are Jacobite.

His Majesty was not impressed.

How pleased I would be, said His Majesty, to see the back of this insidious plotting broken once and for all. Something like a trial, said His Majesty, someone significant losing his head would give people pause. How grateful I would be for pause.

Tap, went Walpole’s fingers upon the bench.

Rochester.

Would it be possible to capture the best-known, the wiliest, the most outspoken of Tory bishops? Rochester led this; all the signs in the letters pointed to him; a dying wife, his gout, his calling as a priest.

To convict him of treason.

Off with his head.

And so break the bad habit Tories had formed of consorting with Jacobites when things did not go their way? It would break the Church, too, make it more amenable to policy.

Tap went Walpole’s fingers upon the bench, once more.

There was knowledge, there was instinct; and then there was proof.

Could he prove Rochester guilty in a state trial that would linger in the public’s mind for years afterward? That ought to earn the King’s eternal gratitude.

What, precisely, did “eternally grateful” mean?

I think, said the King, that the man who crushes Jacobites once and for all must be my chief minister. For he will have the audacity and the coldness I most assuredly need.

Chapter Thirty-eight

M
AY MOVED TO ITS END
. D
IANA SAT AT THE WINDOW IN THE
bedchamber of her townhouse. The window before her was open to catch the breeze. Clemmie, taking away a slop jar, glanced over at her mistress and then away, knowing better than to be caught doing so.

A seller of gingerbread wandered onto the street. Dressed like a nobleman with ruffled shirt, white stockings, a cocked hat, he saw Diana and began his song: “Here’s your nice gingerbread, your spiced gingerbread, will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brickbat and be rumbling in your inside like Punch in his wheelbarrow.”

The sweet, spicy smell came before his words, and Diana put her hand to her mouth. Clemmie brought the slop jar over at once, soaked a cloth with water and gave it, silently, small eyes blank, to Diana, who held it to her mouth.

“I would kill for a bit of winter ice, just to allow it to melt in my mouth,” Diana said. She caught sight of herself in her dressing table mirror, staring a moment at herself.

She threw the cloth at the mirror, then a jar of rouge out the window, missing the seller of gingerbread but making a satisfying clatter of breaking glass outside, and silencing his song.

“What is the date?” she asked Clemmie.

“Eight-and-twenty days into May.”

“The King’s birthday fête tonight. I wish I did not have to go. If Ormonde weren’t coming, I wouldn’t, but we all have to be on our best behavior these days, Clemmie, or we’ll be thought Jacobite. Have I a gown I can wear?”

“If anything, you are more thin.”

“I won’t be for long.”

Clemmie scuttled downstairs to her lair in the kitchen. Her mistress had insisted upon hot baths for a week and had gone horseback riding early in the morning and again at dusk. Three days ago, she had tried a purge. The only recourses left were a visit by Clemmie to certain shops for selected pills and powders, and, if those failed, a fall down the stairs.

Let Robin Walpole try to save the nation; they had other things to deal with, here.

Chapter Thirty-nine

I
N THE LAST DAYS OF
J
UNE, A SHIP SAT AT ANCHOR IN THE
Thames River, not yet at its destination, London. Gulls, hundreds of them, had settled themselves into the rigging, but as sailors moved among the tall masts, the gulls swooped away in a gray-white, winged cloud. It was a beautiful sight.

“We’re moving, I believe, Thérèse. The tide must be in.”

“Tide and a strong wind,” said a sailor. “You bring us good fortune, Lady Devane.”

Barbara looked upward. Sails were descending, creaking and moaning in their journey. Gulls hovered above the masts, screeching and crying out and whirling away on strong wings as one by one sails opened to whipping majesty, the sailors’ calls mingling with the gulls’ cries, the sailors laughing, happy in their perilous perches in the rigging of the ship. The ship’s anchor was being pulled up.

Her heart was beating strong enough to shake the inside of her throat. A shudder shook the ship. Slowly, like a great and clumsy swan, the ship was moving. Now the tide had it. Wind was filling the sails and they billowed out, full and splendid. The ship settled into the tide’s current more securely. Around them were other ships, and ahead of them, and behind, all using the incoming tide to reach London Bridge—merchants’ ships, yachts, dinghies, skiffs, and wherries, sails unfurled to the wind, a procession on water toward London.

After a time, as the marsh and fens of the shore began to change to a line of houses and cottages, Barbara could see in the distance masts, the pennants and flags on them waving in the strong wind. They belonged to the ships docked at London Bridge.

She looked up at the pennants flying on this ship, brave and whipping in the wind. Home. I’m home. She felt as if her heart would burst.

“The Tower of London.” Thérèse, on deck beside her, pointed.

Oh yes, there it was, one of London’s most famous landmarks, England’s most famous prison. Massive, impenetrable, looking of another age with its turrets and bulwarks and moat, Queen Elizabeth’s prison and other kings’ and queens’, and even, once upon a time—for the briefest of times—her grandfather’s. The Tower of London was a symbol of Fate’s whims, for the being who entered through Tower Gate might emerge to become queen—or England’s finest general.

I thought I’d lost him, said her grandmother, spinning out a tale that had left her and Harry fascinated, one they played over and over again, imprisoning each other in an imaginary tower, but there is no prison made that could hold your grandfather’s spirit.

Barbara smiled, the smile dazzling. The sun caught and tangled itself in the red-gold strands of her thick hair, pulled up and caught by pins with heads of pearl. Her face had never been more heart-shaped, more true, and her heart itself, in spite of Hyacinthe, happy. That was a gift from Virginia, to know so clearly what those here meant to her.

She squeezed Harry so that he barked. “We are home.”

“They’re not expecting us so soon,” said Thérèse.

Grandmama. Tony. Jane. “No.”

Leaning against the railing, she looked down at the water cutting away in white-green spray from the ship’s hull. Droplets touched her face, like tiny blessings. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow, she thought, the familiar verse comforting. She’d call upon His Majesty, the Prince and Princess, then go home, to Tamworth, to her grandmother.

The ship took its place amid a crowd of ships. Lightermen rowed the small cargo boats called lighters among the anchored ships, like dozens of small insects upon the water. Barbara paced the deck, waiting for the order from the captain that would allow her to leave. There it was. Skirts bunched under one arm, she climbed down the rope ladder and into a small boat. A lighterman rowed them toward the dock, and men reached down to pull her upward. Harry, in his wicker cage, snarled and whimpered. Barbara put her foot down upon solid ground.

“Hush, silly dog,” said Thérèse. “We are home.”

There was the strong smell of river water and fish. There was the sight of fishwives with baskets of herring, Spanish onions, oysters, and cod to sell, calling out to one and all to buy, men unloading barrels and boxes, merchants bargaining for corn and coal and tobacco. They moved through bearers and customs men, beggars and street vendors, toward a street. There was a carriage for hire.

At once, Thérèse walked over, haughty, imperious, in her element, ready to bargain for a good price on this carriage ride, every inch of her a great lady’s personal servant, cynical, world-weary, imperious.

Barbara noticed soldiers standing guard on the quays. Others marched by in formation.

“Has there been a riot?” she asked the carriage driver.

Certain troops were always barracked in the Tower of London, while the rest were scattered about in different cities and villages. There was a continual quarrel between the King and his ministers and the Parliament concerning how much of a standing army to maintain. “Not much,” was always the vote.

“Oh no, ma’am. There’s to be an invasion. The Duke of Ormonde is coming with twenty thousand Spanish and Irish at his back.”

What? An invasion? “When is he coming?”

“We thought before now, my lady. You should have seen us a month ago. There wasn’t ten people on this quay. Old Robin the Skreen is holed up at the Cockpit, like a hunting dog, following every scent. Jacobites meant to kill the King, it’s said. I have no love for the Hanoverian, but, as I said to the wife, at least with the Hanovers, we know what we have, don’t we?”

“Did you hear?” Barbara said to Thérèse, inside the carriage. “I cannot believe it.”

“Come home,” Wart had written. “There is adventure happening.” Lying, duplicitous Wart. Telling the truth for once.

The carriage began to rattle down Fish Street Hill. The sounds of the street mingled with the clatter of the iron carriage wheels. Street vendors, as numerous as beggars, were working their trades, imminent invasion or not.

“Cabbages O! turnips!”

“Knives to grind!”

“A tormentor for your fleas!”

The carriage moved closer and closer to Saylor House; soldiers were everywhere on the streets. There was no one at Saylor House. The housekeeper who came to greet them was like a pot boiling over with words instead of water.

“Lady Devane, is it truly you come home? I could hardly believe my ears when the footman told me. The family are from town, madam. I’ll send a footman to the dock for the remainder of your trunks and boxes. I have scarcely closed my eyes at night these last two months, expecting any moment to see foreign soldiers marching down the Strand. The Duke has done nothing but travel back and forth from Lindenmas—”

“What is Lindenmas?”

“The new Duchess of Tamworth’s house, ma’am, belonging to her parents. He said we was to leave the house if they invaded and he was not here, said we was to go to Tamworth Hall or Lindenmas. But will there be time to leave the house? is what I ask. Do you desire to rest? Shall I have the bed made down for you? Is there a time you desire supper? Have you need of anything? Only tell me, and it shall be yours, the Pretender on his way to us or not. You’ll want to know that Lady Russel was delivered of a boy. We’re all so proud.”

A child? Charles and Mary had had a child?

“When?”

“Three weeks ago, now.”

“My grandmother?”