Bar Sinister

by Sheila Simonson

  He drew her to him, patting her hair. "What a prickly lot your brother is."

  "He kept calling me Lady Sarah, as if we had not been in leading strings together."

  "Well, you are Lady Sarah. Tell me, Sal, have I done the right thing?"

  "Oh, Robin, I am thinking of poor Maman. I hate to cut up her peace. Richard is not in the least grateful to her."

  "It is not to be wondered at. She sent him off to the Indian army." Wilson smoothed her hair. "If I contrive to draw the duke's fangs, Falk will have reason to be grateful."

  "Is it such a terrible place?"

  "India? The climate is appalling, our troops are perpetually devastated by disease, and if my calculations are correct, your brother arrived in time for the Mahratta War. The dowager cannot have predicted that, but I daresay it may have coloured your brother's feelings a trifle."

  Sarah gave a sad, assenting sniff.

  "In any case it is nothing to do with you."

  "I feel so guilty."

  "You meant everything for the best. Where is your brother's novel? I am now agog to read it."

  "I sent it back to Mrs. Foster." Sarah straightened and gave him a tentative smile. "It is quite shocking and very funny. I have writ to Hatchard's for copies of all his books."

  "Lord, you'll bankrupt me." Wilson smiled back. "Shall you come up and help me pack for the journey? I mean to pick your brains, Sal. Your Maman and I go on very comfortably in the general way, but I confess to some trepidation in this case."

  "Take her a box of marrons glacés. The kind with silvery paper. And be sure to compliment her on her hair. She is wearing it in a new style."

  Wilson watched his wife's air of concentration with affectionate amusement. Having made up her mind to cooperate, she would do so in a large way. There was nothing mean about Sarah.

  19

  Emily did not expect Major Falk to return. He had taken his gear, such as it was, with him to Knowlton, so she was understandably startled when Phillida showed him in to her small library. Emily had been doing accounts.

  "My word, I thought you must be halfway to London by this time." She forced herself to sound detached.

  "And here I am on your doorstep again." He looked glum.

  "Well, what happened?"

  "We talked."

  "That is certainly an achievement," Emily snapped, maddened, but he was tone-deaf to sarcasm for once.

  "Sarah had writ the dowager duchess."

  "Is that bad?"

  "Discretion is not the dowager's middle name."

  Emily shivered. "What is to be done?"

  Major Falk did not meet her eye. "Wilson seems to think he can reach her in time to prevent her from spreading the good news. I am less sanguine, but it's worth a try."

  "Wilson?" Emily frowned. "Ah, Lady Sarah's husband. I haven't met him. Is he inclined to be helpful? You must have exercised a great deal of tact and diplomacy."

  A brief smile lit his eyes, faded. "Not in my line of country. Wilson is a clever man, or perhaps not being a blood relation is an aid to clear thinking. He is also very protective of his wife. I think he means to ease Sarah's mind, which is fortunate because I wouldn't relish bearding the dowager in her den. Nor do I have the time. She lives in Yorkshire."

  Emily thought about that, and thought in general. "What do you wish me to do?"

  He was silent for a long time. Finally he asked, diffident, "Would you prefer that I remove the children? I'll take them to Belgium with me. Peggy can come."

  "No!"

  "It's an obvious precaution."

  Emily began to panick. "And have them follow in the baggage train of the army? I won't allow it."

  "They were born in the baggage train of the army."

  Emily did not mince words. "And their mother died in it."

  Falk stiffened. "I could find someone in Brussels to keep them."

  "And what if Bonaparte sacks Brussels?"

  "Have you no faith in the British army?"

  "I have no faith in any army." Emily stuck out her jaw. "You will leave them here. The groom will watch them. I shall watch them. I'd slay anyone who touched either of them. In any case, nobody has molested them so far."

  "And what if I am killed when Boney sacks Brussels? Tom cannot come to help you," he said quietly. "Bevis will be with the staff. Can you protect the children for the rest of their lives? That was not in the terms of our agreement."

  "If necessary I will. You forget, sir, that I am not a helpless, solitary creature. I have a father and brothers to call on." She took a hasty turn of the small room. "'The terms of our agreement.' I wonder you can speak in that cold-blooded, legalistic way. Amy and Tommy are not a parcel of land or a team of horses you have given me the lease of. I love them. Matt thinks they are his sister and brother. My father treats Amy like a favoured granddaughter. They are family, sir. Family is not merely a matter of blood. If it comes to that I have more right to them than you. They scarcely know you."

  Major Falk did not reply.

  Emily stared at him, appalled at what she had said. If she had hated him she could not have said anything more wounding. What was wrong with her? "I beg your pardon, sir. I spoke in haste."

  He met her stare and gave a short unamused laugh. "You do fight fire with fire. Perhaps Wilson may cajole the dowager into swearing to my illegitimacy. If he succeeds there will be no more danger to them and you may lower your guard."

  Emily was silent. She hoped her confused feelings were not writ large on her face.

  Falk went on in a dry, businesslike voice, "Wilson will call on you when he returns from Yorkshire to tell you how he fared. Even if he reports success I wish you will keep the groom. I'll write you from Belgium if I think it's safe to dismiss him."

  Emily swallowed. "May I explain the situation to my father?"

  "Need you?"

  She sighed. "No."

  "Then I wish you will not." He looked at the carpet. "I am past being embarrassed by Lady Sarah's family, but it seems to me safer to keep the story close. In any case, I still haven't decided what the children should be told of their connexions." He said the word with palpable distaste.

  "You ought to make up your mind."

  He looked up, rueful. "I thought I had. I didn't bargain on Sarah's excursion into aunthood."

  It was indeed all Lady Sarah's doing. Emily reflected with nostalgia on the long period when she had been happy in the illusion that the children had no kin to trouble her. It had been a comfortable fiction. With all her heart she wished Lady Sarah had not punctured it. "Why did she come in the first place?"

  "Sarah? I have no idea. I neglected to ask."

  Emily sighed again. "There's no use crying over spilt milk. I have a question for you, which I have hesitated to put."

  "What is it?"

  "What do you mean to do when there is a real peace?"

  "That seems problematic. Boney is set for another ten years."

  Emily forged on, stubborn, "You might be posted to a garrison in England. Would you take Amy and Tommy to Manchester?"

  "I shouldn't dare," he said drily.

  Emily flushed to the roots of her hair. "In spite of what I said in the heat of the moment, I am always aware that they are your children, sir."

  "It's a mistake to plan too far ahead. Don't give yourself the megrims, ma'am. With any luck I'll be killed directly and neither of us will have to think about Manchester."

  "You're a horrible man."

  "So I've been told."

  Emily bit her lip. "And I am a curst shrew. I ought to have learnt to mind my tongue by now."

  Falk raised his brows. "We all have our limitations."

  That reduced Emily to silence once more. Fuming silence.

  "Are the children in the paddock? I ought to review the troops."

  "Again?"

  "Not if you dislike it," he said politely.

  "Oh, it is of all things what I wish." Emily stalked to the open door. "Matt will probably t
ry to leap a ditch for your edification and break his neck."

  "Nonsense. I have a sobering influence on your son. He calls me sir and obeys me implicitly."

  "Perhaps you should take Matt to Belgium," she rejoined, and, at that, he smiled.

  What a strange, contrary man he was. She supposed other satirists might also be incapable of sustaining the high tragic note, but Major Falk, with enough Gothick meat in his dish to create a perfect stew of emotion, seemed to prefer to back off from it into irony. It was, on the whole, an endearing peculiarity, but she hoped he had no more surprises in store for her, and she wished with all her heart that he did not have to go so soon.

  Lady Sarah and Wilson called within the week, Sir Robert travel weary. Emily eyed him with curiosity. Introductory and polite murmurs about the weather, Bonaparte, and everyone's health eventually dried up.

  Emily took the plunge. "You are to report to me, I believe, Sir Robert. I feel like a brigadier."

  Sir Robert returned her smile but looked as if he would prefer to be elsewhere. "I found my brother-in-law an exacting commander."

  "He can be wearing." That was true but perhaps disloyal... Emily wondered at herself. She kept saying things that contradicted her real feelings. Or perhaps her feeling for Richard Falk was as much a fiction as the story of his godmother's legacy. She was not in love with him, she reminded herself. She was in love with his letters.

  Wilson sighed. "The dowager balks at the humiliation of swearing that Richard Falk is not her husband's son."

  "You are unfair, Robert."

  He shot his wife a quick glance. "That is the effect of the dowager's resistance. We spent two days and a long evening sidestepping the issue. I learnt a great deal of her marriage to the duke which I ought not to know. She is frail, and I could not bring myself to press the matter as I ought to have done."

  Wilson fiddled with his handsome watch fob. After a moment he caught himself at the nervous practice and looked up at Emily with a rueful smile. "She charmed me, Mrs. Foster, as she always does, and I came away convinced that she had made enormous concessions. When I turned what she had actually said over in my mind I found that I had got her firm promise to tell no one of the children."

  "And that's all?"

  "Yes." Wilson was not pleased with himself.

  "And she has told no one of the children?"

  "Fortunately she has not. She has told no one except for her maid, who is seventy, French, and so high in the instep she doesn't speak to the butler, who couldn't understand her anyway."

  Emily said slowly, "Then it seems the immediate crisis is over."

  "Richard should be satisfied," Lady Sarah interjected.

  "No doubt I'll have his opinion in the next few days." Emily had received no word from Major Falk since his abrupt and unceremonious departure, and she was beginning to worry.

  Wilson made an effort to sound soothing, but he was clearly dissatisfied with the fruits of his efforts. "I writ from Town on my way home. It will take rather more than a spoken promise to satisfy him, I fear, but I think you may be easy, Mrs. Foster."

  Emily remained uneasy, but she did not say so. There was no point in compounding the misery. She rang for Phillida. "Shall you take a glass of sherry? My father assures me it is tolerable."

  From the alacrity with which Phillida responded to the summons it seemed likely she had been eavesdropping again. Emily shooed her away and poured. "Lady Sarah?"

  "I thought you relied on tea in these situations, Mrs. Foster."

  "Your brother has driven me to drink."

  Lady Sarah smiled absently. "Has the furor disturbed the children?"

  "No. They were curious about the groom at first, but he helps with their pony, so they accept him. My other servants have been baffled. Amy, of course, was delighted to see her father, if only briefly. He brought her a doll. In his saddlebags."

  Lady Sarah sighed. "If only I had not rushed to see them without consulting Richard first."

  "The man was incommunicado," Sir Robert snapped. "You couldn't consult him. Indeed, if the dowager had consented to make a statement, you might have congratulated yourself, my dear."

  "She will never agree. It's the witnesses who trouble her, Mrs. Foster." Lady Sarah set her glass down and leaned forward. "Maman fears they'd talk. She fancies the old scandal is dead and does not wish to revive gossip."

  Emily could think of nothing to say to that. It seemed a trivial consideration.

  "Can you understand?"

  "Oh, I can understand." In spite of herself, Emily's anger broke through. "Major Falk may feel otherwise. After all he has had to live with the scandal all his life. I daresay he thinks the burden unfairly distributed."

  Lady Sarah's eyes lowered. "We have all lived with it. But Maman is an elderly lady, Richard a young man. He has made his own life in spite of it."

  "And now he is trying to save his life," Emily said, quietly. "Do you understand that?"

  Lady Sarah and Sir Robert frowned at her with almost identical expressions. It was odd how two faces so dissimilar in bone structure could look so alike. Emily wondered briefly if she had come to resemble Edward Foster in the course of her own marriage.

  Sir Robert shifted his heavy thighs on the gilt chair. "Ah, the present duke may have writ a few threatening remarks in the heat of the moment. I would not put it past him to block Major Falk's promotion or have him sent to a post of danger, but direct action is not in Newsham's style."

  "You don't appear thick-witted, sir. I meant that Major Falk's children are his new life. When I first learned of his parentage from Lady Sarah I was inclined to think the course he adopted dishonest, but now--leaving aside our flurry of melodrama--I think he made the right judgement." She turned on Lady Sarah. "You must admit that the children are better off with no connexions at all than with kin who despise them and wish them ill."

  Lady Sarah paled. "No one could despise them."

  Emily raised her brows. "Consider them a nuisance and an embarrassment, if you prefer. That is the same thing."

  Lady Sarah bit her lip. Her husband was watching her.

  He looked as tired and anxious as his round features would allow. Another bystander, Emily thought, with a surge of fellow feeling.

  Wilson said, "If they do not know they are despised, they cannot be made to feel despicable. Do you imply, Mrs. Foster, that further visits from Sarah to the children would be unwise?"

  "Their father did not forbid her to visit them."

  "Nevertheless--"

  "I shall be glad to receive Lady Sarah at any time."

  "Oh, stop talking around me as if I were a post," Sarah muttered. "I shan't meddle farther, Mrs. Foster. I promise."

  Emily was content with that and presently showed her guests out. They did not ask to see the nursery.

  Part IV

  Sir Robert Wilson, Emily

  Summer, 1815

  20

  Lady Sarah laid the dog-eared newspaper down and took a sip of her breakfast coffee. "If it is a great victory why does the duke write so dismal?"

  "Wellington is not a man given to enthusiasm." Sir Robert had been repressing uneasiness for the entire twenty-four hours since news had come of the victory at Water-loo, all through the bell ringing, the feu de joie of the local militia, the obligatory ale with his tenants and port with his neighbours.

  So had Sarah. "Richard," she said, tentative.

  "There was no word of your brother in the despatch. I'm inclined to be optimistic. However, outside his staff and certain noblemen, the duke mentioned no one by name under the rank of brigadier. My optimism may be founded on sand."

  "Shall I write Mrs. Foster?"

  "We know no more than she. Wait, Sal."

  So they waited.

  Richard Falk's name did not appear on the first incomplete casualty lists. That raised their hopes, but then, except for the Guards, few names appeared for that entire wing of the army.

  It struck Wilson as odd that he sh
ould be feeling hope at all. Sarah's feeling for her brother, compounded of guilt and nostalgia, he was beginning to comprehend. His own was decidedly odd.

  There were the novels, of course, or rather the novel. Wilson had so far only read one, but he was susceptible to literary merit. At first he was incredulous. The man he had met so briefly could not have writ so lighthearted and withal so charming and bizarre a romp through the pomposities of Spanish society.

  There are two kinds of satirist. One writes from loathing and indignation. The other writes from a strong sense of absurdity and usually gives the impression of being secretly grateful to the objects of his criticism for providing him with cause for laughter. Falk, like Henry Fielding, was of the second sort. Although Wilson admired them less than the stricter satirists, he had often found himself wishing he could give such authors a glass of his best run brandy. Indeed he had once had the pleasure of doing just that for Mr. Sheridan. Wilson felt the same sense of instinctive fellowship for the author of Don Alfonso, although his brother-in-law in the flesh inspired no such warmth.

  Now, poring over the latest close-printed casualty list, Wilson realised his anxiety was for the writer, not the man. As he came to that perception he saw in the column of print, Falk, R.

  He blinked. Falk, R. lt. col., 28th Foot, missing, presumed killed. He felt a moment of dismay so strong he dropped the paper. Should he tell Sarah? No, he would have to be sure. He rose and rang for his valet, who came as usual on noiseless feet.

  "Pack a portmanteau for me, Kennet. I am going up to London for two days. Formal rig won't be necessary."

  His voice trailed off, and he stared vaguely at the Stubbs painting of an early Derby winner that hung above the mantel. "Full rig, Kennet. I shall go to White's. Perhaps someone will know something."

  "Very good, sir."

  "Why are you hanging about?"

  "Shall I accompany you, sir?"

  "No. Dash it, yes, I daresay you ought to come. Can't go about in crumpled linen."

  Kennet looked scandalised that such a plan had crossed his master's mind even for a moment.