The Tarrant Rose

by Veronica Heley

  “I am putting you to a good deal of trouble,” he said.

  “That’s what women are for.” Her tone compounded weariness and amusement. He wondered what her experience of life had been. A brutal husband, perhaps? She had none of the conscious look of women on the marriage market.

  They turned the corner of the lane and the large house, whose chimneys he had seen earlier, came into view. It was a hotpotch of buildings; of stone, of brick, and of wattle and daub. The Earl’s attention was engaged by the crest over the gatehouse under which they must shortly pass. An animal’s head, carved in stone, looked out over the lane. The animal had horns which curved round its head, and there was a sort of ruff behind the head—or was it a stylized rose?

  “What is that over the gateway?”

  “Our family crest. The Tarrant Ram.”

  A babble of voices surrounded them, from servants all talking at once. The girl in the blue gown silenced them; one was sent to bring in the stranger’s horse, another to fetch the basket she had dropped in the lane, and a third to warn “Aunt Nan” that a stranger from the Manor had been thrown from his horse on their land, and was hurt. Yet another ran off to find “Master Jasper.” A burly man in a dirty smock offered to take “the gennelman” from the lady, whose name appeared to be “Miss Sophia,” but she would have none of him. She guided Philip under another ram’s head carved on the lintel of the porch … and then he was in a dark hall, the flicker of a fire on the hearth drawing his eyes and then receding into the distance. …

  “… only fainted,” a voice was saying. “We’ll set the bone before we revive him.”

  Strong hands wrenched at his arm. Despite himself, he groaned. Opening his eyes, he saw himself reflected in eyes of dark blue. Miss Sophia ordered him to keep still, as her aunt would not be long. Claw-like hands held his upper arm and elbow. The pain was … ah! That was better. The capable hands of Miss Sophia passed linen round and round his body, binding his arm in. He was pressed back into the depths of a carved oak chair. The pain subsided. Someone held a pewter tankard to his mouth. The potion in the tankard tasted of herbs and was bitter. He refused it, requesting that a doctor be sent for.

  “There’s no doctor within miles,” said a woman’s voice above his head. “Sophia and I are all the doctors you need, young man. Now drink up before I get cross with you.”

  Never before had he been treated so unceremoniously! His nose was nipped by thin fingers and the horrible drink tipped down his throat. His shoulder ached, and yet those intrusive hands would not let him alone, pulling at his free arm, twisting and pulling his legs. … where had his boots gone? And his coat and waistcoat? A cool cloth was laid at the back of his head. It felt wonderful. But where had his wig gone? And his shirt? And did it matter? Did anything matter?

  His head was tipped forward … water ran down his neck … he wriggled and was told to sit still. Cool hands slid round his forehead, holding a pad in place at the back of his head with a neat bandage … he was getting confoundedly sleepy.

  He roused himself with a jerk.

  “Prince. My horse. Also, I must send to the Manor to tell them what has happened.”

  “Your horse is being looked after. He’s already in the stable, and has come to no harm, they say. We will send a message over to the Earl to say that you are safe and will return tomorrow when you have slept off the effects of your fall.”

  “That won’t do.” He tried to stand, but his limbs felt too heavy to move. “I must write.” The firelight flickered before his eyes. Over the mantel was yet another of those ram’s heads … damned ram’s … he pointed to it. “Is that a rose behind its head? Is that the sign of the Ram and Rose?”

  “He’s feverish,” said someone behind him. “Best get him to bed.”

  The girl in blue set his free arm across her shoulders and heaved him to his feet. “That’s right,” she said, humoring him. “That’s the Tarrant crest, the Ram and Rose. This way … it’s not far, you see … and when you’ve slept you’ll feel better. You’ve nothing else broken, and only a slight touch of concussion.”

  “The Ram and Rose,” he muttered. He must do something about it. These people must be Jacobites. They were his enemies. Who knew what harm they might do him, now he was drugged and helpless? Yet he suffered her to guide him out of the hall, up a shallow flight of steps, across a landing and into a wainscotted bedroom. Maids bustled about, laying a fire, and heating the bed with a copper warming pan. On the wall opposite the bed hung a portrait of a lady in farthingale and ruff, stiff and unsmiling; her eyes were dark blue and her hair thick and black tinder a cap of gauze.

  “Another of you,” he said. “Another Tarrant?”

  “The original Rose of Tarrant Hall. There now, you’ll feel better once you’ve slept.” She swung him around, his body firm against hers from hip to shoulder, and laid him on the bed as if he’d been a child. She began to remove his breeches. He could not allow that. He had been brought up to believe that the naked body was something to be revealed only within the privacy of the bed-curtains, and even then, his wife had not been too anxious to …

  He pushed her hands away and began to remove his breeches. He had assumed she would have the decency to turn her back while he undressed, but she stood watching him, her arms akimbo. She was shameless, utterly without modesty. As soon as he had slept, he would give her a lecture on conduct befitting gentlewomen.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. “I know you must be the Earl’s tutor, but I don’t know your name.”

  “I am Rame.”

  “Yes, and I’m the Duchess of Marlborough. Come, now. What do you take me for? Sir John Bladen has told us what the Earl is like; he is uncommonly tall, elegant and black-browed. It is plain that you are not he.”

  “I’m not?” He was very sleepy. It was an effort to follow what she said. The Ram and the Rose … he had found them, and the traitor must be here, too. This girl—was she the traitor? He thought not. Her father, brother, husband … but not her. When he’d slept, he could make enquiries. They would not suspect anything of a man who had arrived in their midst by accident. It was important that he should not alarm them. If he insisted on his being Rame, there would be a great fuss, he would be removed to the Manor just as he wanted to sleep, doctors would be called in, and they’d probably want to disturb the bandages which were holding his broken bone in place. He didn’t want any fuss, and he didn’t want any more doctors fussing around him when they’d made such a mess of setting his arm after he’d been wounded in Flanders. He wanted peace and quiet, and sleep.

  He began to smile. He thought he was in for an amusing adventure.

  “That’s right,” said the girl, tucking the coverlet over him. “You’re beginning to feel better already, aren’t you? My aunt’s potions never fail. Now, tell me your name, and I’ll leave you to sleep.”

  He opened his mouth to say that his name was Denbigh, and paused. Sir John Bladen had seen and talked with Mr. Denbigh and would remember him. Suppose Sir John were to call again on this family of traitors tomorrow—he was obviously on visiting terms with them, or the girl wouldn’t have known what the Earl was supposed to look like. He fought sleep to reason the matter out. If Sir John called, he would learn of the accident to the stranger, would recognize him and unmask him. The name of Denbigh would not do. He must be someone else in the Earl’s entourage, until he had discovered the traitor’s name. Some family name. …

  “Rich,” he said. “My name is Philip Rich. I am a kinsman of the Earl’s, acting as his secretary. Came down with his baggage ahead of him. When you send to the Manor, will you tell Mr. Denbigh that I am at the sign of the Ram and Rose, that I’m quite all right, and don’t want any fuss made. Tell him that I’m sure he will be able to manage the Earl.”

  The girl nodded, and drew the curtains round the bed. The curtains were of cream linen, embroidered with fantastic birds and flowers in blue wool. Restful. …

  Someone made up the fire, and the no
ise woke him. His shoulder ached, but the pain was endurable. He remembered what had happened, and opened his eyes. One of the bed-curtains had been drawn back, and a white-haired woman leaned over him. She had large, dark blue eyes, fringed with black lashes, exactly like those of the girl who had made him fall off his horse, but there the resemblance ended. This lady was tiny, a dainty little piece of femininity from coquettish cap to the tips of mittened hands. Moreover, when she moved he saw that she dragged one leg, and that her right shoulder was higher than her left. The Earl guessed that she would be about forty years of age. At first he thought her ugly, and then she smiled, and he revised his opinion. She was charming.

  “You must be Aunt Nan.”

  She had the high, carefree laugh of a child. “Miss Tarrant to you; but yes, I am Sophia’s Aunt Nan. At the moment, I am also your nurse. You are feeling better?”

  He raised himself on one elbow, and at once his shoulder protested. She pressed him back onto the pillows, and he was glad that she did so. He was not ready to sit up yet, it seemed.

  “You have been a very good boy,” the lady said. “You have slept the clock round and your fever has gone. Sophia will be pleased.”

  Had he been lying in bed for a whole day? What would Denbigh have done? Had his message gone to the Manor? What was it he had discovered just before he went to sleep … something about treason? He put a hand to his head and discovered he was wearing a nightcap, and yes … someone else’s nightgown. How had that come about? Ah … he vaguely remembered being woken to take another of those nauseous draughts, and being pulled this way and that.

  “Now, there’s no need to frown,” said Miss Tarrant. “My nephew Jasper took your message over to the Manor as soon as he got back from his cockfight, or whatever mischief it was he was up to in the village. He had hoped to see the Earl, but dear me, no! His High-and-Mightiness was still abed … at past two in the afternoon, if you please. Jasper spoke with your friend Mr. Denbigh, who was most upset about your accident, and insisted on riding back with Jasper to see you. I think he had some idea of whisking you back to the Manor, but we persuaded him to let you be. He talked wildly of doctors and bleeding and clysters and such-like, but Sophia and I soon dealt with that. We Tarrants haven’t physicked the countryside for years without learning a trick or two. I told him that doctors cost money, and we’ve none to spare, and neither have you, to judge by the look of you. And if the Earl was so worried about you, he could have made the journey to see you himself. He didn’t have any answer to that.”

  Philip began to laugh, silently at first, and then with the convulsions of near hysteria. He laughed until his cheeks were wet. He laughed until his nurse held a tankard to his lips.

  “Now, not another sound out of you, my lad. Drink this; yes, it is the same mixture as before, only made with honey because Sophia said you might make less fuss if it was sweeter.”

  He tried to say that he didn’t need it, but her fingers lighted on the tip of his nose, and pinched it. “Come along, or you know what will happen.”

  Philip knew. He swallowed the draught, and almost at once his paroxysms ceased, and he felt languor creeping over his body.

  “That’s better,” said his nurse. “We don’t need doctors, Sophia and I. Broken bones, over-wrought nerves … it’s all one to us.”

  “Over-wrought—?” Philip chuckled. “If you say so, ma’am. I was only laughing at myself.”

  “A sign of Grace.” She nodded at him, smiling.

  A sign of Grace. Wasn’t that what Catholics believed? “Êtes-vous catholique?” he asked.

  “Gracious, no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Her laughter was the last thing he heard for a long time.

  “Damn!” said someone, not loudly but with force.

  Philip opened his eyes and looked around him. Had he slept the clock round again, or was it still the same night? One of the bedcurtains had been left open, and he could see Sophia Tarrant, seated at a table before the fire. Yet another stone ram gazed benevolently down on the room from over the fireplace, illuminated both by the fire and by a branch of candles on the table at which Sophia was working. Philip’s eye wandered over the room. He was lying in a heavily carved four-poster bed. The coverlet on the bed matched the curtains. The ceiling was low, and had at one time been painted in bright colors. The room was warm, and he felt very much at home. He had no idea what day it was, or even whether it was morning or evening. It was probably evening, since candles had been brought into the room. How many times had he half-woken, and been attended to, and sunk back into sleep again? Miss Nan had been present twice, at least, and hadn’t Denbigh been there, too?

  He wriggled his shoulders. His collarbone protested, but not much. He was still strapped up, but comfortable.

  Sophia had not noticed that he was awake. Underlip caught between her teeth, she was scratching out a blot she had made on the paper before her. Her every movement betrayed the vigor of perfect health, but her hair was not as tidy as it ought to have been under its lace cap, and her plain blue gown made no concession either to fashion or the fact that it was evening. It was, simply, a covering for her body, without panniers or even a knot of ribbon for decoration. Her complexion was good because winter had whitened her skin, but Philip guessed that in the summer she would be as brown as a berry and, moreover, that she would not care. Such lack of feminine grace, or any desire to please, ought to have made him view her with disgust. Her stride had been mannish. He remembered only too well the strength of the arm which had supported him, and the immodesty of her body pressing close. …

  He must have made a sound, for she looked up, saw that he was awake, and sprang to her feet.

  “Properly awake at last? All alike, you London folk, racketing around till your health is gone, and then needing to recuperate in the country.”

  Before Philip could counter this unfair attack, she had her fingers on his pulse. For all her vitality, she knew how to control her movements to the slower pace of an invalid. She examined him thoroughly, but gently, her manner as impersonal as that of a doctor. Philip willed her to show some sign that she was aware of him as a man. The women he knew in London hung on his every word, flattering him, flirting. … the girl’s color heightened under his scrutiny, but she retained her preoccupied manner.

  Finally she said, “You will do very well, but in future you should confine yourself to riding horses which you can control. That is a valuable animal you were riding. You might easily have lamed him, and then what would the Earl have said?”

  “Madam, I would have you know that I can ride anything that …”

  “Before you injured your arm, maybe.” She pointed to the scar on his forearm. “That is quite recent, isn’t it?”

  “A musket ball broke my arm at Dettingen. It did not set straight, and the doctors had to break it, and set it again.” He was not averse to letting her know that he had been a soldier. Maybe that would make her look on him with respect.

  “When will you men learn not to go dashing off to wars when you should be minding your own business at home? I daresay you left a perfectly good position to follow the fife and drum.”

  “It is true that some of my friends thought it foolish …”

  “… and look what came of it! Men are all alike. My father and my elder brother were both soldiers, and now Jasper wants to go, too.” The trim line of her figure slackened, and she leaned against the bedpost. There were dark lines under her eyes. Perhaps she had been sharp with him because she was tired.

  This hint of weakness in her restored his self-confidence. He begged her to consider herself for a change, since he would do very well now. If he could but have some food sent him, she might safely leave him in the hands of servants.

  “I can’t go to bed till I’ve finished the accounts,” she said. She pushed her hand through her hair, disarranging it even more. “Perhaps you are right, though. I confess I do feel tired tonight. I was up at five. There is so much to do, and Jasp
er will not help.” She gathered her papers together and studied them. Evidently she did not like what she saw. She picked up her writing desk and made for the door. “You wanted some food? It would be safe for you to eat now. I will send you some, and perhaps my brother will sit with you for awhile, if I ask him nicely. I am afraid that the Earl has not called to enquire after you—he took a chill on the journey, and is confined to his chamber, they say—but that nice Mr. Denbigh came yesterday, and again today. He will bring you some clothes tomorrow. Your coat was torn; Aunt is trying to mend it, but she says it has been darned before, and is hardly worth repairing again.”

  “Tell her not to wear herself out trying to mend it. I have other coats.”

  “You do?” She looked relieved, but unconvinced. “Everything costs so much, nowadays. …” She yawned, nodded at him, and vanished.

  A maid brought Philip a bowl of gruel. He grimaced, but supped it up and asked for more. He felt surprisingly fit.

  A thin, dark lad, poised somewhere between boy and manhood, entered the room. The maid curtseyed and left.

  “Sir Jasper Tarrant,” said the newcomer, proffering his hand. His eyes were even darker than his sister’s, and restless. His mouth was mobile, and he had a nervously energetic manner. He wore his own hair, tied back with a ribbon, and a velvet coat which, though it would have been made by a country tailor, laid claim to being fashionable. He was a good deal younger than his sister and lacked her air of knowing precisely what she was doing. Philip thought: This is not the traitor—I must speak with the father and elder brother.

  Jasper seated himself astride a chair, and smiled at his guest. “I didn’t mind at all when Sophia asked me to sit with you, because I wanted a word with you. Oh, I suppose I ought to ask how you’re going on first, but …”