The Chevalier Read online

  She came to crave sleep as her one relief from unremitting pain, for sometimes in her sleep she would dream of him, and wake with tears on her face. In her waking hours she could only go over and over every separate memory of him, peopling her darkness with images of him which could not comfort, for they only brought it home to her again that he was gone from her for ever. She had no hope left; even in death she would be parted from him, for their love had been forbidden, and she was an exile not only from her country but also from her church. With him she could have faced exile, gone anywhere in the world and made a life. Without him, her exile was absolute and terrible.

  Fand had spent most of his winter sleeping by the fire at her feet, roused only when Karellie dragged him out for exercise. For Karellie and Maurice exile was not so terrible. They had both lived abroad before, and both had their occupations. Maurice was kept happy and busy reorganizing the Chapel Royal choir and building up an orchestra to play the pieces he was composing for the King and Queen. Karellie had the company of his new friends, especially Berwick. Now there was no need any longer to conceal the fact that Annunciata was daughter of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and in fact every reason to reveal it, her family could reap the benefits of their royal blood. Berwick was a duke and the illegitimate son of a king; Chelmsford was an earl and the great-great-grandson of a king. They had fought together in Ireland and come to like each other, and in the enforced idleness of St Germain their friendship had blossomed.

  Through the winter, Berwick had been a frequent visitor to the apartments of the Countess of Chelmsford, and gradually he had been joined at her fireside by others, veterans of the Irish campaign, and veterans of Killiecrankie, known as The Jacobites, because in Latin their King's name was Jacobus. In the flickering light the voices would rise and fall, telling of old campaigns, of glorious charges, desperate stands, of courage and bitter humour, of dear friends fallen. Bored and lonely, the soldiers crept, like Fand, to her hearth, scenting sympathy and companionship, and though the Countess rarely spoke and seemed largely unaware of what went on around her, it was to her that they spoke.

  They told of the wars against the Turks, of sieges under the merciless desert suns, when the wounded would weep like children because their wounds were black with feasting flies. They told her of the campaign against Monmouth in the west of England, when they marched through mud into which they sank knee-deep at every weary step. They talked of the civil war, of the glorious cavalry charges led by her father, noble and tall on his white horse. They spoke of Bonnie Dundee in Scotland, Lauzun in Ireland.

  They spoke at length of the deaths of her own kin, her son Rupert at Sedgemoor, her cousin Kit at Killiecrankie, her brother Dudley Bard at Buda — Martin at the Boyne. She was a noble and beautiful lady, come of a great military family, and they brought her their stories because, poor men and exiles, it was all they had to give her. Their voices, through the winter, were an unreal background to the unreality in which she was living, but whether they knew it or not, whether she knew it or not, she heard them, and their open-hearted kindness laid a balm on her wounds. For death in battle was the common coin of them all, it was the holiness in them, and their quiet courage called to hers.

  But now, on this windy spring day, they were leaving.

  They had formed the King's private bodyguard, these hundred and fifty Scots Jacobites, most of them officers; but the King, struggling to support ever larger numbers of penniless exiles, could not pay them, and so they had asked the King's permission to leave him and enlist as private soldiers in the army of the King of France. The King, though loath to see them go, though ashamed that they should have to become common soldiers, could do nothing but agree. So they paraded for the last time, their helmets polished, their tunics immaculate, their beards neatly trimmed. Annunciata and her family stood behind the King on the steps with others of the Court, and the windows of the courtyard were crowded with white faces.

  Slowly the King walked along the line, stopping to speak to each man. He took down the name of each of them in his pocket-book so that he should not forget any of them; the hard little gritty wind whisked their words away, but their expressions were eloquent. Then the King returned to the steps and mounted them and took off his hat, and bareheaded in the cold sunshine, his face wet with tears, he bowed to them. The veterans knelt, and for the last time gave him the royal salute. Then they rose and marched away, officers no more, to seek their deaths as strangers in a strange land, fighting for another king but theirs.

  A week later, Karellie sought out his mother with a request. He found her in her apartment, and for the first time she was not sitting by the fireside, but at the window. True, her mind seemed far away, and he doubted whether she saw the gardens or the river, yet he sensed that since that day when the soldiers had left, she had begun to come back to them. He stood looking at her for some time before she noticed him. Her face was too pale and too thin, and there were traces of tears on her cheeks. She was wearing the black dress she had worn that day when Clovis had read Edmund's letter to them at Morland Place. It was growing a little shabby now. He remembered with pity how once there had been a time when she could not endure to wear the same dress thrice over, much less keep it for two years. Then Fand whined softly, and she made a small, fretful movement of her head, and turned to look at him.

  ‘My lady mother,' he said softly, coming to kneel beside her, so that their faces were on a level.

  ‘Karellie,' she said.

  ‘Mother, I have something I must ask you.' She shewed no reaction, but her eyes were still on his, waiting. 'I want your permission to ask the King of France for a commission.'

  ‘You want to leave me?' she said at last. 'Karellie - you will go away from me?'

  ‘Mother, I can't help it,' he said gently. 'I can't stay here for ever, doing nothing. We have been here six months already, and I have no money but what you give me. It is no life for me, you must see that.’

  She sighed, and he took it for assent and went on, 'So we thought -'

  ‘We?' she interrupted.

  ‘My lord of Berwick and I.'

  ‘Ah, Berwick,' she said, as though that explained everything.

  ‘We thought that we should try the French army. The King of France is mounting a new campaign in Flanders, and with our experience and birth, he would likely give us good commissions. He is going to ask his father this morning, and so I -' He could not endure her expression, and grew angry and defensive. 'I'm sorry, Mother, but you must see - our first loyalty is to the King, but . .

  ‘Yes,' she said, cutting him off. 'I do see.' She stood up and walked away from him and back, restlessly, as an invalid grows restless with pain. He rose to his feet and watched her, and she suddenly seemed to him not like his mother at all, not connected to him in any way, a stranger whose house he happened to share. At last she stopped, facing him, and he saw that she had braced herself as if for some effort.

  ‘Very well,' she said. 'Go to your good fight in Flanders, my lord Earl. But remember that your first duty is to your own King, if he should need you.’

  It was his permission, but he was dissatisfied, thinking she was angry. He hesitated, and made a vague gesture, as if to touch her. She shook her head, and then smiled, a strange, inconsequential little smile.

  ‘No,' she said, 'it's all right. God bless you, child., God bless you, Karellie.’

  *

  The convent at Chaillot was a convenient distance from St Germain to ride or drive, and the Queen was a frequent visitor there. The order was a sister to the one she had hoped to join before she was persuaded to marry instead the English prince, James. She liked to go and talk to the nuns, walk in the beautiful gardens, take the sacrament and meditate in the peaceful surroundings, away from the pressures of the Court. The head of the convent, Soeur Angelique, was a middle-aged woman with a sensible eye and a brisk manner, like a kindly, efficient squire's wife of the middling sort. She was the Queen's closest friend and confidante, and i
t was to her that Annunciata turned for help in the autumn of 1691.

  The woods through which she had ridden to Chaillot were beginning to be streaked with colours of Turkish splendour, rich crimsons and golds; the windows of the nuns' little parlour into which she was shewn were open, and below the window was a bed of marigolds, yellow and orange and dark-red, and scarlet windflowers.

  Soeur Angelique sat quietly, her hands folded, waiting for Annunciata to tell her what troubled her, but when the silence extended itself she said at last, 'You may speak quite freely here, milady Chelmsford. Nothing you say will ever be heard outside these walls.' Still Annunciata could not find the words. 'How may I be of service to you?'

  ‘I wish to come back into the Church,' Annunciata said at last. 'But - I fear I cannot.’

  The nun waited for elucidation, and then said gently,

  ‘Madame, God's love is greater than anything you can imagine, and for the truly penitent -'

  ‘Ah, but that is the trouble,' Annunciata cried. 'I cannot repent, because I cannot say I am sorry for what I did. If time could be turned back, I would do the same again, gladly, gladly.' And she told Soeur Angelique about her love for Martin. It did not come easily, it did not flow from her - it was hard and painful, and yet there was a relief in speaking of what she had never been able to discuss with anyone, other than Martin himself. When she had finished, she stopped, and sat as though exhausted, looking down at her hands.

  Soeur Angelique looked at her with pity, at the bent head with its loose, soft curls, which seemed so childlike to one accustomed to French ladies, who wore headdresses and elaborate fronts of false hair; at the long, beautiful hands which seemed somehow eloquent of grief.

  ‘It would be a poor world, Madame,' she said at last, 'if God were not more loving and more generous than man, would it not? There are many who would not find it in their hearts to condemn you, and should not God have greater understanding than His creatures? Of course, we must have discipline, for without laws we should have chaos. But God has given to us, alone of all His creations, the ability to question, and to decide, and to worship Him in the subtlety of our minds.’

  Annunciata looked at her with dawning hope.

  ‘Confession, Madame, is unburdening ourselves of our guilt, and of our sorrow and confusion. We tell God that we are sorry that we have offended Him, we beg His forgiveness, we promise to try to do better in the future. Now, milady, can you say those things and mean them with your heart? Are you sorry to have offended God? Will you try never to offend Him again?’

  Annunciata nodded, wordlessly, and Soeur Angelique stood up and held out her hand. 'Then come, Madame, come with me to the confessional. Father Dubois is here, who hears the sisters' confessions. Come and unburden yourself, and be forgiven, and then stay for Mass, and take the sacrament here with us.' Annunciata rose like an obedient child, and the nun led her towards the door, saying, 'The past is over and gone, and it is wrong to cling to it. Grief can come to be a vanity and a sin too, you know. God gives us life for a purpose. We must not waste His gifts.’

  Later, Annunciata remained alone in the visitors' section of the chapel, divided by a screen from the part where the sisters sat. On the high altar the banks of candles had been snuffed, and only the sanctuary lamp glowed its eternal light; but to Annunciata's left on the small lady-altar the candles were lily-flames of pale gold, lighting the white cloth, the gold-and-crystal candlesticks, and the statue of Our Lady. It was a wooden statue, the robes painted blue and white, the face and hands painted gold, and it reminded Annunciata of the statue in the chapel of Morland Place. But this one was not so old, and the hands instead of being extended, palm upwards, were folded at the breast over a painted wooden lily.

  She sat and gazed, alone, and at peace at last, once more returned to the bosom of the Church, to the safe and loving arms that had enfolded her all her life. She looked at the statue of the Lady, but what she saw was the face of the Lady at home, the worn, gentle, gilded face that she had adored so often; in the weariness of pain finally vanished, she could only think that it was the same thing, that all loves, in the end, are one - for otherwise, how could she feel closer to Martin now than at any time since they parted on the beach at Aldbrough?

  *

  In the spring of 1692 Karellie came back to St Germain, riding ahead of the main party. His mother's apartments were empty, but after a search he found Maurice in the chapel, alone, staring into space and playing odd unconnected notes on the organ. He betrayed no surprise when he looked up and saw Karellie, hands on hips, grinning down at him.

  ‘Just where I suppose I ought to have expected to find you,' Karellie said.

  ‘I was only thinking,' Maurice said. 'It's quieter here.' Karellie clapped his shoulder. 'Are you not pleased to see me, little brother?'

  ‘Of course,' Maurice said vaguely, and then frowned. ‘But what are you doing here?'

  ‘King Louis is back from Flanders, and Berwick and I have come to seek out our respective parents to give them the news. Great things are afoot, Maurice. And where is our mother?'

  ‘She is at Chaillot, at the convent. She goes there a great deal now.'

  ‘You sound disapproving,' Karellie said, mildly surprised.

  ‘Well, I wonder sometimes if they aren't trying to make a Papist of herb'

  ‘Why should that trouble you?' Karellie asked.

  Maurice looked at him for a moment as if wondering how much he would understand, and then said, 'You know the Queen is with child again?’

  Warned off, Karellie allowed the subject to be changed. ‘Yes, I heard. The King must be delighted. If it is a son, it will be a blow to the Usurper. And perhaps it will dispel the warming-pan stories once and for all. It's a good omen for our new venture.'

  ‘What new venture?' Maurice asked absently.

  ‘Oh how hard it is to arouse your curiosity, little brother,' Karellie laughed. 'The King of France has decided to launch another attack on the Usurper on our King's behalf!'

  ‘Has he? How kind he is,' Maurice said. 'But I suppose it is in his interest too, to remove Dutch William from the throne of England.'

  ‘Kind or not, he's lending us the whole French fleet, with which to take the fifteen Irish battalions at present in France across to England. If the help that has been promised in England meets them, it will be over in no time, and we shall be back in England by St John's Eve. Oh, think of it, Maurice, to have the midsummer celebrations at Morland Place again! The feasts, the dancing, the bonfires -' He caught sight of Maurice's expression and stopped. 'You don't feel the same way, do you? You have never felt homesick, like the rest of us.'

  ‘One place seems much the same as another to me,' Maurice said. 'A bonfire burns as brightly in France as in England. And hunger gnaws an Englishman's belly as much as a Frenchman's.'

  ‘But don't you long to go home?'

  ‘Home? The world is home enough for me. God's eye can see me wherever I go, so how can I ever think myself far away? I can't help it, Karel,' he added anxiously, 'I don't think about things in the same way as you do.'

  ‘I don't blame you for it. It's strange, that's all.' He hesitated. 'Why do you disapprove of Papism?’

  Maurice gave him the same considering look. 'I don't know if you'd understand. I don't know if I can explain it. It's too exclusive.' Karellie watched him, waiting, and Maurice went on, feeling for words, 'God made all of us, you see, and we invented different ways to praise him - the Papists one way, the heathens another.' Karellie was trying not to look shocked, and he said, 'Look, when your hound-bitch whelps, you make the litter a bed of straw in the warmest place in the stable, where they'll be safe and contented. If one of the pups thanks you by licking your hand, you may grow fonder of that one than the others. But you don't throw the rest of the litter out to die in the cold because they didn't.’

  Karellie turned his head away awkwardly. 'I don't think you ought to talk like that. It sounds - well, blasphemous to me.'

 
‘I knew you wouldn't understand,' Maurice said. There was a silence, and Maurice broke it by pushing his stool back and getting up. 'Would you like to ride over to Chaillot and give mother your news?’

  Will you come with me?' Karellie said doubtfully.

  He was afraid he had offended his brother, but Maurice said cheerfully, 'Yes, of course, I need the exercise.’

  They walked towards the door, and Karellie reached out a hesitant arm towards his brother, and Maurice, with a small private smile, moved closer so that the arm could be draped companionably about his shoulders.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The early part of June was always like a quiet haven between the storms of lambing and the storms of shearing. Little Matt had gone out early rabbiting on the edge of Wilstrop wood, and with two bucks in his carrying-bag he started home, taking the long way across Marston Moor, because he was in no hurry, and because the place fascinated him. And there he found his own sheep grazing on the good, sweet grass, and Old Conn sitting at his ease on the ridge known as Cromwell's Plump, because it was said to be there that General Cromwell had placed himself to dispose his troops at the battle of Marston Moor.

  Old Conn acknowledged Matt's arrival with a nod, and a comprehensive glance that took in the rabbits in the bag, but he wasted no words on meaningless greeting. Matt sat down beside him to get his breath back, and together old man and young boy stared out across the moor towards the woods, while Matt tried to imagine the battle, the men and horses and cannon.

  At length, as if he had heard Matt's thoughts, old Conn said, 'That were the year my son Conn, Davey's father, were born.'