by May Burnett
He was silent for a while, brows creased. “But the logical consequence of your attitude, Charlotte, would be that honourable people could not to go into parliament at all. Where would that leave us?”
She shrugged a little uncomfortably. “Let other honourable men be elected and do their best, and suffer what changes they must. I am not speaking or thinking of anyone else, but my own husband, our family. I daresay I am being selfish, but since you asked my opinion, I would much prefer that you found some other trustworthy candidate. There are better ways to make your mark on the world.”
“I will take your advice under consideration.” His voice sounded slightly stiff.
Charlotte placed her soft hand on her husband’s cheek, and dropped a small kiss on his mouth. “Don’t frown, beloved. In the end, it is your decision. If you do accept the seat, I will support you in any way I can. My worry is more on your behalf, than my own, and possibly I am simply apprehensive because of this new pregnancy. I have not been sleeping very well these last few nights.”
James kissed her back, putting all thoughts of politics aside for the moment. Charlotte’s welfare was infinitely more important than a hundred seats in parliament, especially now, when she was carrying their next and eagerly expected child. How could he ensure that she slept better? He had a number of ideas….
+++
The day’s dramatic events were not over, though the placid sunshine of early afternoon, in which adults and children romped in the orchard, provided a pleasant lull. A game of blind man’s bluff was rudely interrupted by the arrival of an exhausted courier, bearing an urgent message for Alphonse.
Upon seeing the messenger’s grave countenance, his heart turned over in his breast. It could only be news that little Monique had succumbed at last – and he would feel guilt to the end of his days, that he had not been there. With numb fingers Alphonse unfolded the single sheet, under the concerned eyes of James, Charlotte, Minerva and Celia; Sir Mortimer having elected to stay in the library and read the papers. Even the children fell silent, sensing that something serious had happened.
The short message was not what he had anticipated, however. With growing incredulity Alphonse re-read his mother’s few terse lines. Monique had not died – she had disappeared, together with her wet-nurse, Mme Fourrier.
He didn’t know what to think. With trembling hand, he gave the letter to James, who quickly scanned it and raised a troubled face to him. “Well, at least it is not the worst that could have happened. You will find her again.”
“What happened?” Charlotte asked.
“The dowager Marquise writes that four days ago, Mme Fourrier, the wet-nurse, left the Château without permission, taking the child and a small bag. She never came back, and a witness saw her leave northwards in a hired coach, towards Paris most likely.” James sounded grim. The very idea of his own children being abducted was too horrible to contemplate, and from Alphonse’s own words, his little girl was far more frail and vulnerable.
“Could she be taking the child here, as we discussed some days ago?” Charlotte asked, determined to look for a bright side. “You mentioned that you had written to your mother about it.”
Alphonse bleakly shook his head. “If she were sending the child here upon my suggestion, my mother would not have sent this frantic message. She sounds convinced that Mme Fourrier had some sinister motive for her actions, although we always believed her devoted to the child.”
“He’s about to faint!” Celia interposed, grasping the messenger’s arm before he could keel over. “Poor man, he looks totally exhausted.” Everyone looked at the young Frenchman swaying with fatigue, unshaven, deep shadows under his eyes. His horse, which he had ridden straight to the orchard, was in no better condition, hanging its head and ignoring the succulent grass underfoot. Sweat was dripping from its wet flanks.
“Let me give you some food and drink,” Charlotte said to the young man in careful French, and led him off towards the kitchen with Celia’s help. Minerva signalled to a servant to take care of the horse.
Alphonse wanted to keep the messenger back, to interrogate him, but saw that he would have to wait. “Of course I must leave immediately,” he told James. “While the man is recovering, I’d better order my things packed and carriage brought around. Or maybe riding would be faster –”
“I will go to France with you and help you find your child,” James immediately offered. “You helped me when I needed it.”
“Thanks, James, I appreciate your counsel and assistance.” Alphonse felt a little lighter in view of his friend’s unstinting support.
“What about the ball in ten days? Should we cancel or postpone it?” Minerva asked. “It sounds like your mission could take some time.”
“Charlotte can decide about that, as she thinks fit,” her brother impatiently replied. “I must go pack.”
+++
Before James and Alphonse left, they talked to the courier, who would follow them after a good night’s sleep. He had little more to add to the letter penned by the elderly Marquise, and his answers came slowly, slurred with fatigue.
There had been a house party of guests at the Château, but the child was sheltered in her nursery, and everything had looked entirely normal, as far as he, working in the stables, had been aware. “I did hear that the Marquise and Mme Fourrier had had words some days earlier,” he added hesitantly, “but nobody knew about what.”
“They were always arguing about Monique’s diet and treatments,” Alphonse said impatiently.
“If there was bad blood between them, the wet-nurse might have taken the child for revenge,” James suggested. “Or for ransom, since your daughter is a very rich little girl.”
Alphonse could not imagine the woman he had chosen himself, after thorough vetting, behaving in such fashion. He had selected her among several applicants because she was older, far more educated, and more sensible, or so he had thought at the time. But anything might be possible, if his child could simply disappear from her proper place in the castle’s nursery.
An hour later he and James were travelling towards the coast at breakneck speed, riding for the first leg of the trip on the fastest horses in the Hall’s well-stocked stables.
Between frantic worry for his daughter, and useless searching of his memory for the slightest clue to the mystery, his mind strayed back several times, to one of the ladies who had bade James and him Godspeed, and vowed to expect them back with the child safe and sound.
But this was hardly the time to indulge in romantic fancies. He spurred the roan and set his sights straight ahead, at the task of recovering his child.
Chapter 12
The next morning, Charlotte spent an hour with her children and still before breakfast, visited Rook in his sickroom. She noted with satisfaction that he was well attended by his own valet, and his colour had improved. His temper might not be of the best, judging by the line of his lips and the hard look in his eyes, but he was courteous enough towards his hostess.
At his request, she described his arrival at the Hall, in the care of Sir Mortimer and Miss Conway, early the previous morning.
“So they may have saved my life?” Rook asked incredulously.
“Possibly, but who knows. You must have an iron constitution, since you did not take a fever after hours in a wet ditch. My own guess is that you would have woken up there eventually, and survived. You were lucky, in any case.”
“Lucky and exceedingly foolish before that,” he said bitterly. The long night had made him think deeply, or at least as deeply as he could with his aching head. The conclusions he had formed only added to his agony.
Too polite to agree, Charlotte said merely, “Should we send a message to your family?”
“No, they are not expecting to see me until next month, and would only be unnecessarily worried. I will write to them myself as soon as my head clears. Your physician said that a week would see me right, but I believe that three or four days should be enough. I
have always recovered fast from any trifling ailments.”
“Lucky in that as well,” Charlotte commented. “We’ll see how you go on. I am certainly not planning to tie you to the bed once you feel better. By the way, James sends his best wishes for your recovery. He and Alphonse had to depart yesterday on an important errand, too urgent to take leave of you.”
“But Lady Minerva and Miss Conway are still in residence?”
“Yes, and Sir Mortimer, Miss Conway’s great-uncle. He is an old friend of the family.”
“Please convey my gratitude to the Conways for now. I will do so myself as soon as possible.”
Satisfied that Rook was in no danger of a relapse, Charlotte went off to join her three guests. She did full justice to the ample array of foods on the sideboard, and drank two cups of tea, leaving the major burden of conversation to the others.
The mystery of Alphonse’s daughter was naturally the main subject of speculation.
“Over a week ago, Verena said something about a baby coming from across the Channel,” Minerva recalled. “I did not think anything about it at the time, but she must have been referring to the plan to bring the Alphonse’s child here.”
“She said something similar to me and my uncle,” Celia remembered. “How on earth would she know anything about it?”
“Verena is the little brown-haired girl?” Sir Mortimer said.
“Yes, she is my brother Amberley’s child, and my goddaughter,” Minerva confirmed.
“Let’s ask her,” Charlotte decided, “after breakfast. But I’m not too surprised she would know something. Little pitchers have big ears, and Verena is very sharp for her four years.”
“Has that courier left already?” Celia asked. “He looked utterly tired yesterday.”
“I understand he fell asleep even as he was eating dinner, and slept until eight this morning,” Charlotte said. As the mistress of the house she kept track of all its permanent and temporary inhabitants. “After a hearty breakfast he has departed, about an hour ago, back to France.”
There was a momentary silence. “They will find the child,” Sir Mortimer said bracingly. “In any case, nothing we can do to help, here.”
After the meal all three ladies went to the nursery, while Sir Mortimer repaired once again to the library to peruse the newly arrived papers.
“Verena, where did you hear that a little child was coming across the Channel?” Charlotte asked the little girl.
“Uncle James was talking about it to Nanny. They thought I was sleeping, and so I was, but their voices woke me up.”
“Which nanny?” There were three in residence, their own, the older one who had arrived with Lady Verena, and a younger woman who assisted the other two.
“Nanny Burston, the twins’ nanny.”
“And what did they say?”
“Uncle James told her about this child coming to stay with us, and she said they would soon feed her up, if she did arrive, to become big and strong like Roger, Violet and me.”
Dismissing the child, they sought out the head nanny and asked for her own account.
“Oh, Ma’am, the master wanted to know if there was space enough in the nursery for another little child, and a wet nurse who only spoke French. Of course I assured him that they would be made most welcome, and that I looked forward to having another younger child under my charge. None of my children has ever turned out delicate or frail, we’d soon set an end to that!”
“When was this?” Minerva asked.
“The evening of very first full day his Lordship, the Marquis, was here; about ten days ago. I understood that he had already written to his mother to send the child, if possible.”
The three ladies looked at each other. “It seems too much of a coincidence that the wet-nurse and child disappeared so soon afterwards,” Charlotte summed up the general feeling. “There would just have been time for his letter to arrive. But then why would the Marquise claim that the child had disappeared without her permission?”
“Could it be,” Celia suggested, “that he wrote to the wet-nurse too, and she interpreted it as a command to bring the child to him?”
“Without informing the Marquise what she was doing? Surely not.” Charlotte could not imagine any of her own retainers doing such an outrageous thing.
“There may have been reasons we cannot know,” Celia insisted. “Can we find out if he sent one letter, or two? Of course the second letter may have been enclosed in the first, for economy.”
Jenkins, the butler, at first disclaimed any knowledge of the matter. “I never look at the correspondence guest and family send onwards, Ma’am.” It took five minutes of coaxing by Charlotte to elicit the information that there had indeed been two letters that day, one to the Marquise, and the other to another Frenchwoman, a commoner. Jenkins seemed to suspect that this other letter had gone to Alphonse’s mistress, but could not bring himself to state this in so many words. Charlotte did not undeceive him. For all she knew, the butler’s suspicions were justified.
“If the wet-nurse was bringing the child to Alphonse, would she find him here in Sussex?” Minerva wondered as they discussed their theory over lunch. “Unless he gave clear directions in his letter, she might assume he was writing from his London residence. And if she is travelling alone with the child, and speaks no English, anything might happen.”
“Quite apart from the language problems she would face, I cannot imagine that a wet-nurse could have enough money for a trip to England,” Sir Mortimer poured cold water over their discussion. “And even if it should be so, surely the Marquis himself will reason it out? You have not found out anything he does not know also, better than we.”
“He might be blinded by worry,” Celia said thoughtfully. “Sometimes the people most affected by a catastrophe are the last ones to look at it clearly.”
“That, and he defers too much to that mother of his,” Minerva added, having frequently thought about this subject in the past. “To both his parents, when his father was alive.” She caught a sympathetic glance from Charlotte, and blushed slightly. “What I mean to say,” Minerva continued, “is that he would not be inclined to doubt anything his mother told him, the way a more objective person might.”
“If we are right,” Charlotte said, “Alphonse and James may be wasting their time and efforts. Will they realize it and turn back in time for our ball? It does not seem likely, I fear.”
“So you are going ahead with it?” Celia asked with interest. “If you need any help, I am at your disposal, naturally.”
“It is a difficult decision,” Charlotte admitted. “We promised our guests a Marquis, and he is not here any longer. As matters stand, even the host will not be here. On the other hand, I am most reluctant to revoke or postpone invitations that have already gone out.”
“We have Rook instead,” Minerva remembered. “By the time of the ball he’ll be well enough to attend, and as the heir to an English duke, he should be just as interesting to our guests as a French Marquis. He’s a Marquis too, after all, even though his is only a courtesy title.”
“But he may not be willing to stay for the event, and we can hardly force him,” Charlotte gently pointed out. “In his position, would you want to attend a ball at the home of a lady who has rejected you?”
“If I were already there in the house, I would do it, to show there are no hard feelings,” Minerva said optimistically. “We can persuade him.”
+++
Rook was indeed persuaded, though not by Minerva. Celia and her uncle sat with him for a time later in the day. After Rook had somewhat stiffly expressed his sense of obligation for their salvage of his insensible body, he offered his own services to them, should they ever be needed.
“How kind of you,” Sir Mortimer said warmly. “As a matter of fact, there is a something in your power, which would oblige not only us, but also Mrs. Ellsworthy, I believe.”
“Please go on, Sir.” Rook wondered uneasily what the old man had in mind.
“You may have heard that a ball is planned for this house on Saturday of the coming week. Since Mr. Ellsworthy and the Marquis were called away so unexpectedly, there might be a dearth of distinguished gentlemen. It would be most obliging of you to stay until that date, and attend Mrs. Ellsworthy’s ball.”
“Lady Minerva might prefer that I do not,” Rook tried to get out of the trap, but Celia shook her red-haired head.
“On the contrary, she would also be pleased at your presence. It would demonstrate that there is no lingering resentment on either side.”
There was nothing for it – he was well and truly caught. “In that case, nothing would give me greater pleasure, Miss Conway. And may I ask for the supper dance?”
She agreed to his request without any maidenly hesitation. Sir Mortimer beamed.
“That errand must have been very important, for Ellsworthy to leave so precipitately that he would miss his own ball,” Rook probed, but in vain. All he learned was that the two men had left for France in a desperate hurry. From his valet he already knew that a French messenger had brought a letter for Alphonse. Perhaps by the time of the ball he would know more about this small mystery. The boredom of spending days in bed was excruciating for a man of his active habits and temperament, but each time he had thrown back the coverlet and tried to rise, his head still pounded warningly. For the same reason, he could not read without giving up within minutes, cursing his persistent headache.
“Could I impose on your good nature to sit with me tomorrow for an hour and read to me, Miss Conway?” he asked. Anything was better than solitude, with nothing to do. “My head hurts when I try to do it just yet, but your soft voice has a soothing quality.”
“Of course,” she replied, although uneasily. “I have brought a volume on political economy from home that should be just the thing.”
