Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 05] Read online

  Sometimes she wore her magnificent hair in curls tied back with ribbons, at others she dressed it high and set glittering ornaments in it. The children thought she must be a princess to possess such jewels and I hadn’t the heart to tell them that they were the cheapest paste. On her they looked real; she had the power to transform anything she put on.

  We were all becoming quite knowledgeable about plays, and lessons often took the form of dramatic acting. She would assign our parts, taking the best for herself—but how could I blame her for that?—and rehearse us, promising us that when we were ready we would perform for the servants and the Lambards.

  We were all caught up in the excitement, particularly myself.

  She said to me once: “You would have done quite well on the stage, Arabella.”

  She had completely won our hearts, and I was afraid that one day she would grow tired of us and decide to rejoin the company of players, but she showed little sign of doing that and seemed perfectly content with our way of life. She made a habit of coming to my room after the others were in bed and we would talk—or mostly she talked and I listened.

  She would always sit near the mirror and now and then glance at her reflection. I had the impression that she was outside the scene, looking in on the play. Sometimes it seemed to amuse her.

  One night she said: “You don’t know me, Arabella. You are as young as innocence and I am as old as sin.”

  I was always a little impatient with these theatrical utterances, largely because I felt they impeded the truth and I was anxious to discover the truth about Harriet.

  “What nonsense,” I said. “I am seventeen years old. Is that so young?”

  “It is not necessarily years which determine our age.”

  “But it is exactly that.”

  She shook her head. “You are gloriously young at seventeen … whereas I at twenty …” she hesitated and looked at me mischievously … “two,” she added. “Twenty-two … yes, not a day more, but since I am in a confessing mood tonight, I will whisper to you that I have been twenty-two for more than a year and sometimes I am merely twenty-one.”

  “You mean you pretend to be younger than you are!”

  “Or older. Whichever seems expedient. I am an adventuress, Arabella. Adventurers are made by fate. If I had had what I wanted from life I shouldn’t have had to go out and adventure for it, should I? Then I should have been a high-born lady living quite contentedly. Instead of which I am an adventuress.”

  “High-born ladies have become exiles, don’t forget, so perhaps they have to adventure a little in these times.”

  “It’s true. The Roundheads have made schemers of us all. However, I always wanted to be an actress. My father was an actor.”

  “That explains your talents,” I cried.

  “A strolling player,” she mused. “They used to come through the villages and stay where business was good. It must have been very good in Middle Chartley, for they stayed long enough there for him to seduce my mother, and this seduction resulted in the birth of one destined to become the finest jewel in the world of the theatre. Your own Harriet Main.”

  The tone of her voice changed. She was a wonderful actress. She could make me see the strolling player, the simple country maiden, who was enchanted by his performance on the stage and equally so it seemed by that other performance under hedges and in the fields of Middle Chartley.

  “It was August,” said Harriet, “for I am a May baby. Little did that simple country maiden realize what would happen when she dallied in the cornfields with her lover. He was very good looking—she told me afterwards, for I never saw him, nor did she after they left, for she did not know then that besides planting the seeds of love in her heart he had planted something else in another part of her anatomy.”

  Her conversation grew racy and there were times when I was unsure of what she meant, but I gradually learned; she certainly was educating us all—myself no less than the others.

  “In those days,” she went on, “there were no women players. Their parts were played by boys, which was trying for strolling players if they wanted women. No wonder they looked to the village maidens to supply their needs. Sometimes they played in big houses … castles, mansions. That was what they looked for, but they did very well on the village greens, because there was little that appealed to country folk so much as fairs and strolling players. So he played his romantic roles, Benedict, Romeo, Bassanio … He was one of the leading players and took these roles on account of his good looks. It was a busy life for him—always on the move, learning new parts, searching for girls and persuading them to supply his needs. Oh, yes, he was very handsome. My mother said he was, and I don’t think she ever really regretted what happened.

  “The players moved on and he promised to come back for her. She waited but he never came. She used to make up all sorts of reasons why he hadn’t come back. She thought he had been killed in a brawl, for he was a great fighter and, she said, would pick a quarrel as easily as wink his eyes if anyone upset him. But she had her own burden to bear. A child whose father had disappeared. It was a great crime in the eyes of those who had never had the inclination or opportunity to be other than virtuous. Of course some girls would have gone to the river—there was one conveniently close to Middle Chartley—but my mother was not the sort for it. She had always had a great zest for life and she believed there was something good round the corner. She refused to see the dark side, and even when it was presented to her, black as soot, she’d swear she could see the light round the corner. ‘Only a matter of waiting,’ she used to say. ‘It’ll sort itself out.’ But of course my existence soon become apparent, and there were scenes of recrimination in the cottage on the village green. All the maidens who had succeeded in not getting caught, as they called it, were deeply shocked by my mother who had; they had to show their horror to prove their own innocence, you understand. She lived through that time, she told me after, because she was always hoping that he would come back. I was born and my mother worked hard in the fields and I was a constant reproof to her; all the local men thought that being no longer a virgin she was there to provide sport for them. She learned how to fight, for she was determined, as she said, to wait for my father.

  “I was five years old when we went to the Hall. Squire Travers Main had taken a fancy to her when he was riding by with the hounds. In fact so taken with her was he that he decided that my mother was more interesting prey than the fox. I was with her at the time and he stopped, so she told me, to compliment her on the pretty child … myself. He was a kindly man with a wife who had had a hunting accident a year or so before and was an invalid. He was no lecher. He had the occasional mistress, which was understandable with a wife in such a condition. However, the outcome was that my mother was invited to the Hall to be a housekeeper or serve in some way … in the beginning undefined, and she went on condition that I went with her.

  “Our fortunes changed from that day. My mother was companion and lady’s maid to her ladyship, who was also rather taken with her, and from this it was a short step into the Squire’s bed. There were no children, and both the Squire and Lady Travers Main took an interest in me.

  “I was taught to read and write, at which, my dear Arabella, I made great progress. By this time I had decided I would be a lady. I had had a taste of cottage life. I had been informed by village hobbledehoys that I was a bastard, and I found the taste bitter. It was different at the Hall. The Squire and his lady never called me bastard; indeed their attitude towards me suggested that far from being not on an equal footing with the village children, I was superior to them; and they were determined to make me more so.

  “My mother’s position grew more and more secure. Lady Travers Main relied on her. So did the Squire. He did not entertain very much, nor was he entertained; I think at that time everyone was becoming anxious, wondering what would happen in this conflict between the King and Parliament. It didn’t occur to any of them I was sure that there would be
victory for the Roundheads. They all believed the army would soon deal with them.

  “The Squire was too old for the army. We were far from any big town and it seemed to take months for news to reach us. We went on in the old way. They were so fond of me that they had a governess to teach me, and my mother was like the châtelaine giving orders. Her ladyship didn’t seem to mind. She realized that the Squire must have his woman, and she preferred it to be my mother rather than anyone else. It was a comfortable, cozy atmosphere I grew up in.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Now I’m not one to believe all that much in luck. You make your own luck. That’s how I see it. My mother kept herself to herself … until the Squire came. Then she was faithful to him … although she was pestered. She had something. Some women do.” She smiled when she said that, implying to me that she was also the owner of this desirable something. “But she never strayed and the Squire was grateful.”

  “You took your name from him.”

  “Well, it seemed wise. When I was about fifteen the Squire had a riding accident. My mother nursed him but within a year he was dead. Her ladyship was failing too. My mother was growing a little worried because she could see that life was going to change and the easy days might well be over. For a year or two it went on. The servants resented my mother a little because the Squire was no longer there to give her position in the house some standing, you might say. Who was she? they began to ask each other. Why was she better than they were? They remembered that she had produced me out of wedlock and I heard that word bastard again.

  “When her ladyship died, a cousin came to the Hall. He saw how my mother ran the place, and as I told you she had that something which appealed to men. I think he was ready to step not only into the Squire’s shoes but into his bed. My mother didn’t like him. He was not like the Squire. We had to think quickly. But nothing offered itself then. It was when the cousin cast his eyes on me that my mother said we were leaving.

  “So we took with us a fair amount of baggage which we had collected over the years, for the Squire had given us both rather extravagant presents from time to time—as had her ladyship, so we were not penniless. The war was over. Oliver Cromwell was our Lord Protector and all the theatres were closed and there was no more merrymaking to be enjoyed. It was a dreary prospect. We had no idea where we should go. My mother thought we might get a little house somewhere and perhaps live frugally on what we had managed to save.

  “A few days after we had left we went to an inn and there was a company of strolling players—no, it was not what you are thinking. My father was not among them, but when my mother mentioned him they knew of him. He had done well in the old days, they said. He had played before the Court and the Queen had complimented him. She was particularly fond of playacting. But now the King had lost his head and the Queen was in France and so was her son the new King. There would be no life for actors until the new King was restored to his throne, they said. And they secretly drank to the downfall of the Protector, which was a daring thing to do. But they had plans. They were going to find their way to France because there the theatre flourished. The French loved the theatre. There actors could live like lords. There was no hope for England while the Puritans ruled.

  “They stayed a few days, and strangely enough my mother became enamoured of one of the leaders of the troupe, and he of her. As for myself …” She smiled secretively. Then she said: “But what am I saying? I am talking too much.”

  “I find it very interesting.”

  Her eyes were veiled. “My tongue runs away with me. You understand little of these ways of life.”

  “But I should learn, should I not? You have become our governess. It is your place to teach us. And, Harriet, there is so much I have to learn.”

  “That is true,” she said, and she fell silent for a while; and shortly afterwards she bade me a rather abrupt good night.

  For some days she seemed rather reticent and I guessed she was wondering if she had told me too much.

  What excitement there was when we did our little play on the dais in the hall. Our audience were Jeanne, Marianne, Jacques and the Lambard family. It was a short drama in which Harriet played the lead, of course; Lucas was her lover and I was the villainess who sought to poison Harriet. The children had parts, and even young Fenn came in and brought a letter, saying, “This is for you,” which for some reason unknown to the rest of us sent him into transports of mirth which he found it impossible to control. When I drank the poison draught which I had prepared for Harriet and fell sinking to the ground, Madame Lambard grew so excited that she cried out: “Though you don’t deserve it, Mademoiselle Arabella, what you want is a drop of my agrimony cordial.”

  “She’s too far gone for that,” said Jeanne. “And it wouldn’t be right to save her, her being what she is.” Then Fenn burst into tears because he thought I was dead. So the drama threatened to become a farce, and it was fortunate that my sinking to the floor in my death agony was the end.

  Afterwards there was the supper just as we had had on the night when the players were with us. Monsieur Lambard brought in some of his wine and Madame Lambard had baked a great pie with a stage worked on it with strips of paste and we were all very merry except Fenn who kept hold of my skirt all the time to reassure himself that I was not dead.

  When I think of that night and how simple we all were and how amused Harriet must have been, I look upon it as the end of an era, and I sometimes wished that I could have stayed as I was on that night forever, believing that everyone in the world was good.

  Harriet was happy too. She was the centre of our lives at that time. There wasn’t one among us who did not realize that the exciting turn our lives had taken was due to her.

  The day after the play a rider called at Congrève with letters from my mother. There was one for each of us—even Fenn.

  I took mine to my room that I might be alone while I read it.

  My dearest daughter,

  It is so long since I have seen you. I think of you all constantly. There is change in the air. I have a feeling that before long we are all going to be together. News has come from England that in September Oliver Cromwell died, so he has now been gone for some months. This is going to mean change. Your father thinks that his son can never command the same respect, and that as the people are growing weary of Puritan rule, they may ask the King to return now. If this could come about our lives would be completely changed.

  This is the best news we have had since the King’s father was martyred.

  Another piece of news for you, my dear. Lord Eversleigh, who is here with us, tells us that his family have taken a house quite near Château Congrève. Your father and I thought it would be pleasant for you to meet them. They will be getting into touch with you and may well ask you to stay with them for a while. Congrève is hardly the place for you to entertain, I know, but if that should be necessary, everyone understands the difficulties in which the times have placed us. If you have an opportunity of visiting them you and Lucas should take it. I know the Lambards, with Marianne, Jeanne and Jacques, would look after the little ones. It would be an opportunity for you to meet people. Your father and I are often worried about your spending day after day in that place. If only things were normal we should be arranging for you to meet young people of your own age and kind. Alas, it is impossible now, but who knows perhaps before long, it will be different. In the meantime it would be interesting for you to meet the Eversleighs. I have been unable to come to see you because so much is going on here. Imagine the excitement after Cromwell’s death!

  But I hope to see you before long, dear Arabella. In the meantime keep your spirits up. At least you are in safety where you are and you are old enough to remember what it was like in those days at Far Flamstead and even later at Trystan.

  Much love to you and always remember that you are ever in my thoughts.

  Your devoted mother,

  Bersaba Tolworthy.

  I could
see her as I read the letter. I had admired her fervently from my earliest years. She had always seemed so strong, and my hazy thoughts of those far-off days were dominated by her, the leading spirit who seemed omnipotent and omniscient guiding us all.

  Dearest mother! I wondered what she would think of Harriet.

  She would have understood immediately that she was deceiving us, I was sure. My mother had always been very wise in the ways of the world.

  I wrote a letter for the rider to take back when he left the next day.

  I hesitated as to what I should say about Harriet and this was an indication of what Harriet’s presence in the house had done for me. For I was now thinking of prevaricating, telling half-truths, whereas before I should not have dreamed of withholding anything from my mother.

  Yet what if I had told the bald truth! Strolling players came and one of them pretended to hurt her ankle so badly that she could not travel. She stayed behind and is now living here. She teaches us to act and sing and dance.

  I believe my mother would have left everything to come and see what it was all about. A strolling player! An actress who had schemed to stay. She would never approve of that.

  How could I explain the charm of Harriet, the fascination, the irresistible allure? Yet I must say something. Not to tell her would be quite deceitful; yet to tell her everything that happened would alarm her.

  I pondered. It was the first time it had not been completely easy and natural to take up my pen and write to my mother just as I would talk to her if she were here.

  At last I wrote:

  My dear mother,

  I was happy to receive your letter and I shall hope to meet the Eversleighs. I daresay they will call on us first. We are quite able to entertain them here. Marianne and Jeanne are very good and they like people to come here. I expect it is a little dull for them.