Proud Mary

by Lucinda Brant

  “The tears this time are from happiness, Kate,” Antonia replied. “And your idea of more tea and coffee it is a good one. I fear my little one she is moving about and perhaps that is because me I am in need of refreshment. M’sieur Bryce,” she added, staring significantly at his hand on Mary’s neck and then up at him, “Please to fetch Mary a cup of tea.” She smiled at Mary, who was dabbing her eyes dry, put out her hand to her, and was pleased when Mary took it and held on. “And while you drink your tea, ma chérie, I will tell you about Teddy, yes?”

  And having their undivided attention, Antonia told them the story of how Teddy came to be living in the pirate ship tree house at the bottom of her garden at Crecy Hall.

  “LADY FITZSTUART she gave Teddy into the care of her grandmother at her Cheltenham townhouse, and promised to call on them both in a day or two for afternoon tea,” Antonia told them. “But when she returned to the Countess’s lodgings two days later, the place it had been shut up, and Rory informed that the Countess and her granddaughter they had quit Cheltenham for Hampshire.

  “The Countess she told Teddy she had planned a special surprise for her, one that would see her finally take her place among her noble relatives. They were going to stay in a palace that was far larger than any owned by the King. It was full of wondrous rooms of marble, gilt, and mirrors. There were chandeliers that burned as brightly as the sun, and a theater where the children performed plays for their parents, and there was a ballroom so large that even if you shouted your words they could not be heard at the far end of the room. And surrounding this palace were hundreds of acres of parkland, full of deer and dotted with lakes stocked with fish, fountains that shot water into the air, and peacocks that strutted their plumage on the terraced lawns.

  “Charlotte was adamant that Teddy she was just as eager to visit this palace and asked her many questions. Not once did the child fret or ask to be taken home. So Charlotte was confident that what she was doing was in the best interests of her grandchild. She said her only wish was to introduce Teddy to her cousins, and her cousins to Teddy. She could not have foreseen the impending catastrophic consequences of her actions, or she would never, in her words, in a thousand full moons have taken Teddy to Treat.”

  “Against the wishes of her mother and her guardian,” Mary retorted. “I am very sure my mother did not add that to the end of her sentence!”

  “No. She did not. She knew Teddy’s guardian would never give his consent to Teddy visiting Treat,” Antonia replied, gaze on Christopher who still stood by Mary’s chair. “Which is why she took Teddy without your permission.”

  “Cousin Duchess, there is good reason why Mr. Bryce thought it best for Teddy to remain at Abbeywood—”

  “I do not doubt the reason it is a very good one,” Antonia interrupted imperiously, green eyes still on the Squire. “But you will please first allow me to finish telling you how Teddy she ended up in my tree house. M’sieur Bryce may then have all the time in the world to explain to me a few disturbing facts about this episode, not least why a child should be kept from knowing her closest cousins.”

  “I am at your disposal to answer any and all questions about Teddy’s guardianship, Mme la Duchesse,” Christopher replied with extreme politeness.

  “To continue with the story—and this part, Mary, is most distressing, so please put aside your teacup…”

  Mary held out her cup on its saucer expecting a maid to collect it, but it was Christopher who took it from her. As he did so, he came to stand between her chair and the window seat, thus effectively blocking Antonia’s view of her. And with his back to the Duchess, he paused in taking the cup from Mary’s hand, which made her look up at him. And there, in a single moment, he held her gaze and smiled reassuringly, a finger caressing her wrist. She smiled back, briefly covered his hand with hers to let him know she understood and appreciated the gesture signaling his devotion, then lowered her lashes and sat back, spine straight and hands returned to her lap.

  If Antonia was annoyed that the Squire had rudely turned his back on her, she did not show it. And she waited for him to return to stand by Mary’s chair before going on with her recounting of events at Treat when Teddy arrived with her grandmother.

  “Charlotte she sent on a postilion to forewarn M’sieur le Duc’s household of her arrival. And so when the carriage it was met, she and Teddy were taken straight to the Duchess, who was with her children in the ballroom. Rain meant they could not run about the gardens, so, as was their usual practice on rainy days, playtime was spent in the ballroom with their billy carts and toys.

  “As you can imagine with four lively children and a baby and their various nurses and tutors, there was a great racket. It all stopped for the new arrivals. And as Charlotte will tell it, everyone was getting on splendidly and Teddy welcomed with open arms by Deborah and her children; and a great fuss was made of her. Charlotte and my daughter-in-law sat down to tea. As Deborah tells it, Charlotte was congratulating herself on the success of her scheme to have her granddaughter known to her Roxton relatives, and that she should have put her plan into action years ago, when M’sieur le Duc arrived. As was his custom at that time of day, my son he spends the hour before dinner with his children. It was with the arrival of my son that this orchestrated meeting of the cousins took a horrible turn.”

  Antonia paused and stared at Christopher, because at this revelation he took a deep breath and wiped a hand over his mouth as if he were well aware of what was to come.

  “M’sieur, let me tell you that while it is Teddy’s welfare that most concerns us, she is not the only one affected,” Antonia said sternly, addressing Christopher directly. “My grandchildren are distressed and frightened. My daughter-in-law she is perplexed and shaken. And my son, well,” she said with a shrug of angry annoyance, “I do not doubt that you of all people can imagine he is greatly troubled; he wonders what he has done to deserve such a damning reception from a child he has never met in his life.”

  “Cousin Duchess, you cannot blame Chris—Mr. Bryce in the least for Roxton’s—”

  “Please. Mary. No. You will allow me to finish, and then you may speak.”

  “Antonia, I hope you know what you’re about,” Kate warned softly. “For it sounds to me perilously close to an accusation that Christopher is somehow to blame, not only for that sweet child’s predicament, but for the wrong done your son. And if that is the case, I object in the strongest terms possible to your tone and to such an allegation!”

  “Kate, Mme la Duchesse has every right to her anger,” Christopher said mildly. “And while I shall not say more at this point so she may tell us the rest, there is a grain of truth in that of which I stand accused.”

  “No! I won’t believe—”

  Kate and Mary blurted this out in unison, and such was their surprise followed by embarrassment on Mary’s part, and Kate’s secret joy that the Lady Mary was prepared to openly defend her son, that they instantly fell silent and looked down at their hands, allowing Antonia to remain deaf to their exclamation and continue.

  “It is from here in the story that Charlotte she was unable to communicate to me in any reasonable manner what occurred. She was too distressed—is still too distressed—to speak about it and has taken to her bed at Treat and has yet to get out of it. If I were to think the worst of her, I could say that her anguish is not entirely on Teddy’s behalf—”

  “Her distress is self-centered, as always,” Mary stated as fact. “Teddy has embarrassed her, and so what most concerns her now is her own position, and what Roxton and others will think of her. She is certainly not thinking about the welfare of her granddaughter.”

  “Just so, Mary,” Antonia replied with a slight raise of her brows, for she was unused to Mary being so forthright or so open in her disloyalty to her mother. As Mary said nothing further, she continued, addressing herself exclusively to her. “Deborah tells me that when my son he was introduced to Teddy, your mother she prodded Teddy in the back and told her
to make her curtsy, but the child was unable to move or speak, no matter how many times Charlotte insisted she show M’sieur le Duc the proper respect. Teddy could not move. Teddy was overcome—how did Deborah put it?—and had some sort of fit—

  “Oh, my God, no,” Mary interrupted with whispered anguish, a fist to her mouth.

  “Yes, fit. Her body started to tremble uncontrollably and there was a look in her eyes that Deborah described as sheer terror. Yes. They are the words she used,” Antonia continued calmly. “Everyone wondered what was the matter, not least of all my son, who, as you know, is a loving papa. He tried to calm her, to ask her what was the matter. But the more he tried to speak with her, to reason with her, and moved toward her, Teddy backed away from him, and the more agitated she became. She avoided looking at him, and kept her eyes to the floor, and the one time my son he put his hand on her arm and asked her to look up, she let out a scream. Deb could not make sense of what she was saying, but she kept saying over and over that she would not be locked up.”

  “My poor darling dear,” Mary muttered, tears streaming down her face.

  “Of course, once Teddy started screaming, the grandchildren all began to cry, and so too the baby. There was great pandemonium in the ballroom. So much so that while my son and daughter and the nurses were doing their best to calm the little ones, Teddy ran off, several of the footmen sent after her.”

  “That would have made her even more afraid, to have liveried servants pursuing her,” Mary interrupted. “She was terrified enough as it was. That was unthinking—”

  “I am sure you can appreciate my son and his wife they were not thinking clearly with four terrified little children and a baby on their hands. Besides, you, more than anyone else here, can appreciate that once a child—anyone—wishes to be lost in such a place as Treat, it is almost impossible to find them. So Teddy easily avoided capture.”

  “I remember when they were boys—Julian and Evelyn—they would run off and play hide-and-go-seek and expect me to find them. And I never did. There were too many rooms and so too many hiding places for me to search. I would give up after an hour.”

  “An hour? I would not have bothered at all and waited for them to find me!” Antonia retorted, recalling a memory from the early days of her first marriage when she had played hide-and-go-seek with Monseigneur. She had simply gone to the library and curled up with a book. He found her there not half an hour later, and for finding her so quickly she had rewarded him there and then, and soon they were making love on the map table…

  “One passage is the same as another,” Mary continued. “It would be easy to become lost and have no idea as to where you are, or to know which door or window is unlocked that can lead you outside to fresh air and freedom. To a child, to Teddy, being in such a house would feel as if she were trapped in a garden maze. But Teddy found an unlocked door and freedom, didn’t she, Cousin Duchess,” Mary asked anxiously. “Because she is now safe in the pirate ship tree house?”

  Antonia shook her thoughts free of nostalgia and smiled reassuringly.

  “Yes, ma chérie. She did. Teddy is a resourceful and resilient child. I doubt many children—if any—would have the wherewithal and courage to find their way in a strange place. She went to the lake, and one of the boatmen he obliged her and rowed her across to the pavilion. And once at Crecy she found the tree house. Of course, my son he had all his servants inside and out made aware that Teddy was missing, and M’sieur le Duc d’Kinross did likewise at Crecy. The servants were all ordered not to approach her or frighten her, and if she asked for their help to give it, and then report it. That is how we discovered she had crossed over to Crecy, and how we eventually found her in the tree house. We still do not understand how she even knew about the pavilion, least of all that there is a tree house at the bottom of my garden.”

  “I told her,” Mary admitted. “It was one of our many bedtime stories. She would ask me to tell her stories about my favorite people and places. And one tale she had me repeat often was about my godmother, who I told her was a Fairy Queen who lived in a wondrous old house by a lake, built for her by the Fairy King. This Fairy King also built his queen a pretty pavilion so she would have somewhere to hold tea parties and watch the swans glide by, but most of all so she could read all the books that she loves. I told Teddy the Fairy Queen’s house was a very happy place where children were always welcome, so welcome, in fact, that at the bottom of her garden the Fairy Queen had built a pirate ship tree house. And here children would sail the clouds pretending to be pirates on the high seas. It was Teddy’s wish to one day visit such a tree house.”

  “What a wonderful bedtime story, my lady,” Kate exclaimed on a sigh and sniffed. When this was met with silence she added, “Not a dry eye in the room…? Is that so, my boy?”

  “Just so, Kate,” Christopher replied quietly.

  Antonia blinked tears off her lashes and smiled at Mary.

  “I am glad you told her about Crecy, ma chérie, because it seems that she does indeed feel safe there. And she will talk to me, her mother’s fairy godmother.”

  “But how do you converse with the child when she is up a tree, and you are too pregnant to climb a ladder?” Kate asked bluntly

  Antonia dimpled. “That was very clever of me. I have allowed Teddy to live in my tree house upon one condition: That she comes down each night to sleep indoors.”

  “And does she?” Mary was surprised.

  “Of course. I gave her my word she may return to the tree house whenever she wishes. I do not break my word. Each night at sundown she comes inside to have her dinner and to sleep in a warm bed. And every morning at sun up she returns to the tree house. I gave her the added incentive of watching over Scipio and Cordelia’s babies. So, you see, I am a genius, yes?”

  “Scipio? Cordelia?” Christopher asked with a raised eyebrow. “Babies?”

  “Oh! Yes! You are a genius, Cousin Duchess! What a splendid ruse,” Mary announced, feeling much less apprehensive than she had since learning her mother had absconded with Teddy to Treat. “Teddy loves animals, dogs particularly.” She turned on the chair to face Christopher, a hand to the front of his waistcoat and smiled up at him. “Scipio and Cordelia are Mme la Duchesse’s whippets. Teddy would not be able to resist keeping an eye on their pups. You know how much she wants a dog of her own.”

  “Ha! Do I? It is a daily plea,” Christopher replied, covering Mary’s hand and smiling down into her upturned face. “But she also knows her Mama’s aversion for four-legged fiends—”

  “I have never called Lorenzo a fiend, and you know it!” Mary retorted lovingly.

  “Only because you are so petrified of poor Lorenzo you can’t get the words out,” Christopher responded with a grin.

  “Poor Lorenzo? Oh! That is so unfair. Besides, you can have no idea what I’m thinking!?”

  “So you think?”

  “What I think is that you both continue this conversation later, and elsewhere,” Antonia interrupted tersely, hoping to bring the couple to a sense of their surroundings. And so as to not embarrass them further continued smoothly, “And I am very sorry to tell you this, Mary, but I have promised Teddy she may choose one of the six puppies as her own. And so you will have to overcome your fear of dogs, for she will have the puppy, whatever your objections to the contrary.”

  “Yes, Mme la Duchesse,” Mary replied obediently, much subdued, for she realized she had grossly overstepped the mark with Christopher in her cousin’s presence, and now would need to account for her behavior. “And if a puppy will help Teddy overcome her fear, then it is only fair I overcome mine.”

  “Bon. The puppy will help take her mind off her fear, ma petite, but she cannot overcome it unless we know what caused her to have this unnecessary and unreasonable dread of M’sieur le Duc my son in the first instance, yes? Which still remains a mystery to me, and to us all. And yet, I feel that perhaps you, Mary, or you, M’sieur Bryce, are the only ones who can provide the answer.” />
  Mary went to respond, but when Christopher gently squeezed her shoulder, she remained silent and let him speak.

  “I am best placed to answer that, Mme la Duchesse,” he said firmly, gaze steady on Antonia. “While the Lady Mary told her daughter fairy stories that were of happy places and people, Sir Gerald offered his daughter a much darker tale, a fable about an ogre masquerading in the guise of a handsome duke. He told her this tale often and from a young age. And he warned her that her mother was under the spell of this ogre, as were the rest of her family, and so they did not see him as he truly was—a monster—part bear, part wolf, with a hog’s tusks and a black heart. Sir Gerald warned Teddy that if she was ever to visit his home—a home that was under his magic spell so it appeared like a shining palace, but which was in fact a dark castle full of unspeakable horrors—she would be locked up in one of the towers, and there she would rot until she was an old maid, and never would she see her mother or her home again.”

  “Oh, that poor dear child,” Kate said on a shattering breath. “No small wonder she is terrified!”

  “You knew about this absurd fable, Mary?” asked Antonia.

  “Yes, Cousin Duchess,” Mary admitted. “But only very recently. I had no notion Sir Gerald was filling Teddy’s head with such cruel nonsense.”

  “And you, M’sieur Bryce, when did you discover Sir Gerald was telling his daughter such damaging drivel?”

  “When Teddy was taken ill in Buckinghamshire and her mother went to Treat for Lord Fitzstuart’s wedding. She was apprehensive of her mother not returning, and when I asked her why, she confided the tale of the ogre.”