Bar Sinister

by Sheila Simonson

  "But not Lord Richard."

  She thought he looked at her queerly but he said nothing. He rose and shrugged into his seedy coat with his usual economy of movement.

  "Beg pardon, Mrs. Foster, I'm sure. Will you be wanting supper in here?"

  Emily was scandalised. "In the dining room, Mrs. Harry. Good heavens!"

  Mrs. Harry eyed Captain Falk uncertainly.

  "She thinks I'll feel more at home here belowstairs," Captain Falk explained in a voice of sweet reason.

  "The dining room," Emily snapped. "And have Phillida show Miss Mayne in directly she comes."

  Mrs. Harry sniffed. "Very good, ma'am."

  "Unnecessary," said a familiar gruff voice from the stair. "I'm here." Aunt Fan in militant black descended with firm tread. "What's the meaning of this, Emma?"

  Captain Falk awaited her scrutiny without visible signs of alarm.

  Emily tidied away the scraps of lint and the basin.

  "Merely a little rough surgery, Aunt. Captain Falk has injured his arm."

  Aunt Fan fixed her victim with her direct blue gaze.

  "You're late, sir."

  Captain Falk inclined his head.

  Emily intervened. "I misdirected him. The children are in bed."

  "Small blessings," Aunt uttered. "Dassett is foxed, Emma."

  "I am sorry, Aunt Fan. He waited all afternoon at the Rose and Crown for Captain Falk, and temptation overcame him."

  Aunt snorted. "Ramshackle business. You oughtn't to have gone to Winchester. Well, that's water over the weir. How d'ye do, sir. I'm Frances Mayne." She extended her hand.

  Captain Falk shook it. "Richard Falk."

  "Falk, eh? Odd sort of name. Not English."

  "I made it up," said Emily's impossible employer.

  "Indeed. No family."

  As Aunt Fan's remark was a statement it required no answer, and he gave none.

  "Baseborn?" she barked, suddenly.

  "Yes."

  "Thought so."

  Emily gaped. She had not entertained any such thought. Aunt Fan might've hinted. However, neither her aunt nor Captain Falk seemed disturbed by the harrowing revelation, and Aunt forged on. "Children legitimate, I trust."

  "They have been ratified by the Inquisición and my colonel, ma'am. In advance."

  "Ha. What you wanted, young man, was a Protestant clergyman."

  "English clergymen are in short supply in Spain and Portugal."

  "I daresay. No chaplains?"

  "I have never seen a Church of England chaplain in the field," Captain Falk said thoughtfully. "No doubt such creatures exist. They're reputed to enjoy the rank of major. Certainly they draw upon regimental funds."

  Aunt clucked her tongue. "Dereliction of duty. The Church is in a shocking state, in my opinion. Fuel for the Methodists' fire."

  "Fuel for someone's fire," Captain Falk agreed, a gleam of devilment in his eyes.

  Aunt Fan regarded him with suspicion. She was a devout churchwoman.

  Emily judged it time to intervene again. "If you'll go up to the dining room, Aunt, Mrs. Harry can bring the supper. Captain Falk?"

  He stood aside to let her pass.

  Presently Mrs. Harry regaled them with hot soup, cold meat, fresh bread, a bowl of crisp new apples, and a good ripe Stilton.

  Rather to Emily's surprise, Captain Falk ate little and slowly. At least his bad manners did not extend to the table. Aunt Fan kept urging more sherry on him. Emily wondered why her redoubtable aunt had taken a fancy to the man. Probably because they were both blunt-spoken to a fault.

  A bastard. Emily could not quite like that. The by-blow of some City merchant or wayward gentleman, no doubt. At least he didn't claim high connexions. In one respect the news were welcome. There would be no grandparents or aunts and uncles to descend upon Wellfield House and rob Emily of the children.

  She was already their partisan, she realised ruefully, young Amy's in particular. Poor child, she was in need of a defender, what with a dead mother and ramshackle father. As for the little boy, Emily began to look forward with malicious pleasure to the sensation his appearance was going to make among her neighbours and kin. Papa, for instance. Sir Henry did not like foreigners.

  Captain Falk and Aunt Fan--primarily Aunt Fan--were engaged in a discussion of Viscount Wellington's strategy. Emily listened to the interchange with some surprise. She had always supposed that her aunt's enthusiasm for the military adventures of the Nation sprang from a desire to set Sir Henry's back up.

  Captain Falk was not informative. He toyed with a barely tasted glass of Sir Henry's best sherry and made appropriate noises when the older lady paused for breath. Emily wondered when her aunt would notice that she was conducting a monologue.

  "Very cautious game his lordship is playing," Aunt pronounced. "When will he take the bit in his teeth again, eh? Show us his mettle."

  "I've no idea, ma'am. I'm not on the Staff."

  "Hrrmph. Like a bit of dash myself. Sir John Moore, now, had style."

  "And look where it brought him," Captain Falk muttered.

  "What's that? Not partial to Moore?"

  "I served under him in Egypt and here at Shornecliff. He was a very fine trainer of light infantry."

  Sir John Moore was Aunt's particular Hero. She had actually worn mourning for him. Now she bristled. "He did what he could in Spain, sir."

  "I daresay. What I chiefly recall of his dash through Spain is that it was dashed uncomfortable."

  That was blighting. Unnecessarily, Emily thought. However, Aunt Fan had been asking for a set-down, so Emily did not spring to her defence.

  Aunt glared. "What regiment are you with, sir?"

  "The Fifty-second."

  "Brought off at Vigo?"

  "No."

  "Well, the rear guard behaved very well," Aunt conceded magnanimously.

  "Yes, we did."

  For reasons unknown to Emily this lack of becoming modesty caused her aunt's belligerance to moderate, and she spoke with surprising mildness of Lord Paget and the evacuation of Corunna. Emily began to find the replaying of bygone battles tedious.

  "We'll have to speak of your arrangements for the children, sir," she said in the first lull.

  Captain Falk cocked an eyebrow.

  "In case you should meet with an accident." For Emily that was blunt.

  Captain Falk's lip curled in response to her euphemism. "I've made a will. It's at my solicitor's." Emily opened her mouth to voice a protest but he forestalled her indignation by reaching into his breast pocket and drawing out a neat sheaf of papers. "Everything writ down, ma'am. Read it at your leisure."

  "Is there a guardian?"

  "My solicitor and Captain Conway."

  "Captain Conway," Emily mused. "Where shall I find him?"

  "In Portugal. He's with the Rifles."

  "Wonderful! What if both of you meet with a mischance?"

  "Emma!" Aunt Fan snapped.

  "I beg your pardon, Aunt, but I must be practical."

  "You certainly do think ahead," Captain Falk murmured. "I'll come up with something, I daresay, in case my demise and Tom's are simultaneous."

  Emily refused to be baited. "I'd appreciate it, sir. Direct your man of business to write me the particulars."

  He gave an ironical half bow.

  "And the, er, pecuniary arrangements?" Mention of money always embarrassed Emily. She felt her neck go hot.

  "Dear me, no delicacy at all." Clearly Falk had taken in her discomfiture. His voice was bland. "You'll continue to be paid. I shouldn't wish you to be put to any inconvenience, Mrs. Foster."

  "It's not my convenience you should be consulting, sir, but your children's comfort and well-being."

  He regarded her without expression over the wineglass which he turned slowly with long, brown fingers. Candlelight winked on the rim. "I have lately come into a windfall." He set the glass on the table. "A small legacy from an, er, godmother. I've put the sum in trust for my children. There
should be no legal complications. I presume there would also be a pension. Tom would see to that."

  "Very well." Emily would have been happier with more detail. Perhaps her dissatisfaction showed.

  Captain Falk said with a flash of temper, "I'm a poor man, ma'am, and like to remain so, for I have no private means and no connexions. If you don't wish to take on the care of my children under the terms you agreed to, I'll release you. I wish you will tell me now, for I've little time to make other arrangements."

  Emily kept her voice cool. "I can't be expected to buy a pig in a poke."

  "Two, surely."

  Emily raised her brows.

  "Piglets."

  Emily was forced to smile. "I do intend to take on your children, and I concede that I can't object to your terms.

  "Now, if you wish to retire, sir, Aunt Fan and I shall excuse you. You've had a long day." She rang for Phillida.

  He rose to go but could not resist one parting shot. "I trust you won't require too much leisure to read my letter of instruction, Mrs. Foster. I mean to leave on the morning coach."

  Emily stared.

  "There is one from Mellings Parva at eleven, or so the innkeeper said."

  Emily took a long breath. "You act with despatch, Captain Falk. Phillida, is the captain's room ready?"

  "Oh, yes, ma'am," said that damsel, blushing and bobbing a curtsey. "Hot water's laid on and fire poked up."

  "Then perhaps you'll show him up."

  Captain Falk executed a bow. "Miss Mayne, Mrs. Foster."

  Emily nodded a gracious dismissal. Rather like Queen Charlotte.

  "Good night, sir," Aunt Fan said, gruff. "Moore did his best, you know."

  He was startled into a rare, unironic smile. "And that was very good, all things considered."

  4

  The parcel from Lisbon arrived in good time for Boxing Day. As Emily had expected nothing of the sort it threw her off stride. It contained neither message nor letter, only the three neat packages--a largish one for Amy, a much smaller one for Tommy, and one that was labelled, crisply, "Matthew." Emily stared for a long time at the wrappings before setting the gifts aside with the children's other Christmas boxes.

  Amy was not speaking. Once or twice in the first week Emily caught her whispering a question to Peggy McGrath, but these lapses into speech grew less frequent as the days passed, and finally ceased altogether. Emily felt helpless. She supposed anyone else would be grateful that the child was docile, but she couldn't help remembering the little chatterer of the coach, and the confident, self-contained miss who had drunk soup so skillfully in the inn. Matt was scornful of his new sister, too inclined to dismiss her as "stupid," a word Emily began to wish he had never heard. He found the baby endlessly fascinating. Amy he ignored.

  Emily's father had inspected her charges. Predictably, he found Tommy's looks uncongenial. Sir Henry cross-examined Mrs. McGrath until the woman hid when she heard him coming, and he kept grumbling objections that Aunt Fan's report to him had clearly fueled, although Emily thought Aunt Fan could not have said anything very dreadful. Aunt had liked Captain Falk.

  As the word bastard did not surface in Sir Henry's mutterings, Emily deduced her aunt was being unnaturally discreet and charged her with deception.

  "What Henry don't know won't hurt him."

  "Aunt!"

  Aunt Fan gave her stare for stare. "Are you regretting your undertaking, Emma?"

  "No," Emily muttered, and in a stronger voice added, "No, though I wish I spoke Spanish. Poor Amy."

  Aunt hewed to the point. "If you mean to keep the brats you'll have to deal firmly with your father."

  "Firmness is one thing, deception another."

  "Is it important?"

  Emily gaped. "Can you ask?"

  "Is it?"

  "Not to my feelings for the children," Emily said slowly.

  "I should have said it gave you pause."

  Emily bridled. "Oughtn't it? God knows what the man's breeding is."

  Aunt took a reflective sip of tea--they were in the withdrawing room. "I think you may take it he ain't the child of a dockwhore and a costermonger."

  "Aunt Fan!"

  "Army commissions don't grow on bushes like blackberries."

  "I know that," Emily muttered.

  "He married the brats' mother."

  "So he said," Emily rejoined, darkly.

  Aunt Fan set her cup down and examined a digestive biscuit. "Not in your style to be mistrustful, Emma. Easy enough to check whether Captain Falk was wed. Write his colonel. As for the rest, his speech was educated, he was open as day about his name and status, and his manners were unexceptionable."

  That stung Emily. "He was extremely rude."

  Aunt Fan rejected the biscuit. "He didn't spit on the floor, wear spotted neckcloths, or eat with his fingers. What more do you ask? You were rude, my dear, prying into his pockets like a bailiff. I could have sunk."

  Emily eyed her aunt resentfully. "I had to know."

  "You did not have to rake over Captain Falk's finances in my presence."

  "He was leaving next morning," Emily said, sullen.

  Aunt Fan was not moved. "And had everything spelled out for you in that letter, clear as day. There was no need to ask."

  "Well, I didn't know that."

  "Never mind," Aunt Fan said briskly. "What's done is done. As for your father, if you feel compelled to tell him your employer is someone's by-blow, be prepared to stand by your guns. Henry," she added dispassionately, "is a trifle conventional."

  At that Emily could not forebear laughing.

  Aunt Fan did not join in her mirth. "And you take after him, my dear."

  That gave Emily pause. She brooded over her possible resemblance to her father for several days. She loved him dearly, but one does not wish to encompass a parent's faults as well as his virtues. Sir Henry was a trifle stuffy, a trifle complaisant, a trifle high in the instep. It was mortifying to consider one's own stuffiness.

  After all, Emily conceded finally, in the middle of the night, that Captain Falk is a bastard is not his fault. It's probable that he has even suffered some inconvenience from the fact. Do not wax Gothick, Emily. It's not your business to be visiting the sins of the parents on their children.

  The children, in fact, occupied Emily sufficiently so that she soon tucked their father in the back of her memory and, apart from the parcel from Lisbon, thought of him rarely. Tommy was delightful. Emily had forgot how interesting an infant could be, every day changing, every day learning. He was a sweet-tempered child, his ills straightforward. A tooth peeking through was the worst Emily knew of him, and he regarded her from the first with the same trust he gave his nurse. Amy, alas, was another story.

  At first Emily had thought it would be easy, for she had established a rapport with Amy even before Captain Falk left. He had taken a swift, unemotional farewell of his children--a pat for Tommy, a hug and a brief, calm exchange in Spanish with Amy--and marched out of the door apparently without any second thoughts. Emily had directed her groom to drive him to the inn in the old gig. That was that.

  When Amy spent the first few days of her father's absence clinging to Peggy McGrath's skirts, Emily had thought the little girl's behaviour unremarkable. Though she made further friendly overtures to the child, Emily did not force the issue.

  As the days turned into weeks, however, it became clear that something was seriously amiss. Amy did not talk. Not only did she make no attempt to speak to Emily and Matt, Phillida and Mrs. Harry, she also stopped speaking to Peggy, who could understand her Spanish. At first Emily was inclined to blame the Irishwoman.

  "Are you sure you didn't say something to frighten her?"

  Peggy looked shocked. "No, then. His honour wouldn't like it, for all he's a great one for telling her tall tales himself. Eee, will ye look at Tommy?" She leapt up.

  Tommy had crept to the nursery scuttle and was tasting a nice lump of coal with the air of a connoisseur. That was the en
d of that conversation. After all, Tommy was Peggy's work. Though she was perfectly good-natured with Amy, the Irishwoman's mind was on the baby and on her own homesickness for her husband.

  Emily tried various tacks with Amy. She brought out her old dolls. She read little stories and rewarded Amy with sweetmeats for listening. She brought a kitten into the house. More to the point, Emily studied the tattered Spanish grammar one of her brothers had found for her in a Winchester bookshop.

  With the help of her own French, her papa's Latin, and diligent guesswork, she contrived to construct certain basic messages. She wasn't sure of her pronunciation, however, and the grammar's vocabulary was better suited to ordering hogsheads of wine than to asking a three-year-old if she wanted to play in the stables with the kittens. Los gatos--gatinos? That sounded heavy-footed. Amy stared at Emily and said nothing.

  Amy said nothing all the way through Advent. She said nothing when Emily bathed her, brushed her brown curls, cut her meat for her, took her for a carriage ride.

  "Is the brat mute?" Sir Henry thundered when Amy shrank from the advances he made to her over high tea at Mayne Hall. He turned back in disgust to Matt, who was talkative enough for two children, and began the ritual of losing to his grandson at draughts.

  Emily held Amy close and glared at her father's broad back. "Pobrecita," she whispered. "Dolce niña."

  Amy shivered but said nothing. It had been a mistake to bring her to Mayne Hall. Sir Henry's idea of coping with foreigners was to add o to selected nouns and repeat everything three times, more slowly and loudly each time. For an instant Emily saw him as Amy must have, all bristling brows and wind-reddened features, shouting incomprehensible gibberish.

  As soon as she could pry Matt from the draughtsboard and his tea cakes, Emily fled home to Wellfield House, and thereafter Amy stayed with Peggy when Emily and her son made their weekly visits to Sir Henry.

  Emily began to dread the coming ordeal of Christmas. She had three brothers, two of them older than she, and married, with large families of children. Her younger brother, James, was still unwed at seven and twenty, and something of a rake. Like other rakes before him he was prudish in the extreme where the repute of his kinswomen was concerned. When he heard of Captain Falk's overnight sojourn at Wellfield House, James flew into the boughs. He was ready to call Falk out and heartily disappointed to find the man had already fled the country. Although Emily was equal to depressing the pretentions of her brothers and withered James with a few well-chosen phrases, his rodomontade promised ill with regard to the family's probable feelings about Captain Falk's children.