Jack Chiltern's Wife (1999)

by Nichols, Mary

  ‘To England?’ she demanded. ‘How will you get there? You will be lucky if you do not catch a fever from this wound.’

  ‘No, no fever …’ He yelped as the ball came out and Jean fetched the poker from the fire to cauterize the wound.

  ‘Be quiet, would you have the whole armée revolutionaire down on us? Drink some more brandy.’

  ‘You’re a hard woman Thérèse Clavier,’ he murmured, half-drunk, half-fainting. ‘But an angel.’

  ‘You can stay here tonight, tomorrow you go, understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ He rolled his head towards Jean. ‘Get me a cart.’

  He was far from fit to travel the next day, but it was not because of Thérèse’s insistence that he went, but his own determination to reach the coast. They dressed him up as an old woman, an old woman with a fever, so that no one would come near him, then they loaded him on to the back of an empty farm cart and covered him with sacks which had once held potatoes. The stench made him feel sicker than ever.

  The owner drove him through the barrière at Saint-Denis and took him to the farmhouse on the Calais road, where, having been paid generously in gold coin, he left his passenger to the tender mercy of Lucie and her mother.

  The jolting had made his wound bleed again and he was only semi-conscious. It took all their strength to haul him from the downstair room where the farmer had dumped him like a sack of potatoes, up to his own bedroom, by which time he was past caring.

  Lucie, who loved him, would not let him die. She would take any risk for him and set off for Paris to buy salve and ointment and laudanum for his pain, hiding her purchases in her petticoats in case she was stopped. She did not go through the barriers, but out over a broken wall and through a cemetery. As soon as she was clear she began to run.

  He was worse by the time she arrived. Her mother had been sitting at his side all day, bathing his brow with cool water, giving him sips of water to drink, and praying loudly to every saint she could think of who might help. ‘He has been calling Kitty’s name in his delirium,’ she told her daughter, when she returned. ‘And he thrashed about and made his wound bleed. What shall we do if he dies? How shall we get word to his family?’

  ‘He is not going to die, Maman. I will not let him. Come let us wash him down and dress that wound again with this new ointment and see if we can get him to swallow a little laudunum.’

  It was three days before he came to his senses; by then he knew it was useless to go to the coast. Edward Lampeter had his orders not to wait above two days and he would obey those orders. Now everyone would know the attempt to rescue Antoinette had failed and they would assume he had died. He might do so even now, if news of his whereabouts reached the Revolutionary government.

  He must escape, if only for the sake of Lucie and her mother, who would forfeit their lives for giving him succour; it would take only a malicious neighbour to denounce them. All the ports were blocked. Save one. Toulon was in the hands of Admiral Hood. Five hundred miles away. Five hundred miles across enemy terrain, and this time without the woman whose company had delighted him before. Did he have the strength for it?

  Chapter Ten

  It was September and the leaves were beginning to turn colour in the woods on the estate before the news reached Chiltern Hall that the attempt to rescue Antoinette had failed.

  Kitty had gone downstairs to breakfast as she was in the habit of doing, though Lady Beauworth rarely rose before midday. She found his lordship alone, eating toast and reading his mail. Bidding him good morning, she seated herself at the table to be served her own breakfast.

  ‘This is a letter from Captain Lampeter,’ he told her. ‘He docked at Portsmouth two days ago.’

  Her heart began to beat so fast she could hardly breathe. The sloop had been in two days, long enough for Jack to have reached home if he had been on board. Where was he? Had he had taken one risk too many? ‘Jack?’ she queried. ‘Oh, tell me he is all right. Tell me has has only gone to London to report and will be here soon.’

  ‘I only wish that were so.’

  ‘What does Edward say?’ She could only pick at her food; her stomach was too queasy in the mornings to eat heartily.

  ‘Only that the sloop waited a full twenty-four hours longer than the allotted time, but there was no signal from the shore. They had to leave without any of our people.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything, does it?’ she said, clutching at straws. ‘There could be any number of reasons why he missed the rendezvous. It is early days yet.’

  ‘Of course,’ his lordship agreed, sounding positively cheerful. ‘If the Revolutionaries had captured him, they would not have kept silent about it, the French papers would have been full of it. An English peer, trying to free the Queen! My goodness, the whole world would have heard of it by now.’

  ‘What shall we tell her ladyship?’

  ‘Nothing. Not yet. I shall invite Captain Lampeter to visit us. He will perhaps be able to tell us more.’

  But when Edward came there was little else he could tell them. He had landed Jack secretly on the coast of Brittany where the remnants of a counter-revolution had not yet been entirely eradicated. ‘There were sympathisers there waiting for him,’ he said.

  ‘And that was the last you saw of him?’ Kitty asked. They were talking in the library where his lordship had received his visitor. It was afternoon and her ladyship had taken the carriage to call on friends. Kitty had declined to go with her, preferring to stroll round the grounds. Seeing Edward arriving, she had hurried back to the house to join the two men, knowing her father-in-law would not exclude her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you do not know if he even reached Paris?’ his lordship asked.

  ‘No, but we know the attempt to free Antoinette was made and one must suppose he had a hand in it. It was his mission, after all.’ He paused, knowing something more was expected of him, but unable to give them the reassurance they needed. ‘It is a pity it failed. If it had succeeded, it would have been a great coup and every exiled Frenchman would have rallied to her. The other great powers might have renewed their efforts to rid France of the scourge. As it is …’ He shrugged.

  ‘Do you think Jack stayed behind to try again?’ Kitty asked him.

  ‘It is possible, but very unlikely. The Queen will be more closely guarded than ever and the latest intelligence is that she is to be tried for treason. Our sources say it was talked of at a secret session of the Committee of Public Safety, but as the man most wanting the Queen’s execution, besides being a procureur of the Paris Commune, is also the editor of Père Duchesne, a popular newspaper, it did not remain a secret very long.

  ‘He is reported to have said he promised his readers Antoinette’s head and, if there was any further delay in giving it to them, he would go and cut it off himself. The Public Prosecutor has been called in to make a case against her.’

  ‘Have they one?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘I don’t know. The report is non-committal, but no doubt they will fabricate one.’

  ‘Jack is missing, not dead,’ Kitty said stubbornly. ‘He has simply gone to ground. He knows where he can be safe.’

  With Lucie, perhaps?

  The thought of Lucie and Jack together in that shabby but comfortable farmhouse filled her with jealousy. Lucie loved Jack, she had made no secret of it. How long before Jack, in hiding and cut off from home, came to reciprocate that feeling? He was not made of stone, he had told her so, had demonstrated it in no uncertain way.

  Lucie had known Jack longer than she had; Lucie had made no demands on him, she had simply given him her love. And if Jack chose to ignore his clandestine marriage … What had he said? ‘How do you know that, in these heathen times, a wife cannot be discarded as easily as a grubby cravat?’ Oh, she did not want to think of that. She would not.

  They had unfinished business, she and Jack, and he must come home. He must. She had put their quarrel firmly behind her, pretending it was nothing but a tiff, her i
nnocent reaction to the act of love which she had not understood, and she wanted to tell him that. She wanted to tell him that the result of that one night’s union, unnerving as it had been, was to be a child. And the waiting was tearing her to shreds.

  Her theory that Jack had stayed behind to make a second attempt to free the Queen was blown away a month later when they learned she had been tried and executed.

  ‘A week ago on October the sixteenth,’ his lordship said, tapping the newspaper which had been delivered that morning. ‘She was accused of conspiring with her brother, King Leopold of Austria, against France and sending him money; organising a counter-revolution; forcing Louis to veto the deportation of priests; having a hand in appointing her husband’s ministers favourable to herself and trying to start a civil war.’

  ‘C’est incroyable,’ Justine said. They were seated at nuncheon and this time the Countess was included in the discussion. ‘‘Ow can anyone believe that nonsense? Why, she is nothing but an empty-headed pleasure seeker. I ‘ave met her and anyone less likely to meddle in politics I cannot imagine.’

  ‘They tried at the preliminary examination to trap her into a confession, but she came out of it very well,’ her husband went on, referring to the report. ‘At the trial itself the prosecution maintained that she had influenced the King into doing whatever she wished, that she made use of his weak character to carry out her evil deeds. They called dozens of witnesses, including her son. His evidence was vile.’

  ‘Poor little Louis loved his mother,’ the Countess said. ‘‘E must ‘ave been coerced into giving evidence.’

  ‘Was she not allowed to say anything in her own defence?’ Kitty asked, remembering her own so-called trial.

  ‘She was allowed to speak at the end, but it did no good. The jury took only an hour to find her guilty and she was sent to the guillotine the very next day. The report says it took nearly an hour for the tumbril to reach the Place de la Guillotine because of the press of the crowd. She had to be helped out of the cart and up the ladder to the scaffold. Four minutes later she was dead and her head held up for all to see. According to this, the crowd cheered themselves hoarse.’

  Kitty shuddered. ‘Whatever is the world coming to? Where is their Christianity?’

  ‘Denounced, along with everything else.’ He sounded weary and dispirited. ‘Sunday has been abolished, the churches closed or turned into what they call Temples of Reason.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘It is bizarre. All the months now have thirty days divided into ten-day periods. Décades, they call them. And they have new names. October is called brumaire now.’

  ‘I cannot imagine anything more likely to cause chaos,’ his wife said. ‘Surely the people will rise up against that? They are most of them Catholic, they will want to say Mass and go to confession.’

  ‘They will do it secretly,’ Kitty said. ‘The priest who conducted the marriage ceremony for us at Haute Saint-Gilbert did it in secret because he was one of those who would not take the new oath, but he said it was no less legal.’

  ‘When Jack gets back we’ll make doubly sure,’ his lordship said. ‘We will have another ceremony.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, shocked. ‘Do you think it wasn’t legal?’

  He smiled and reached out to pat her hand. ‘Of course it was, my dear. You and Jack believed it was and that is good enough for me. Think no more of it.’

  But now the doubt had been planted in her head, Kitty could not shake it off. Had Jack known the marriage wasn’t legal? Was that why he was able to say they could have it annulled and why he was so angry with her on their wedding night? Now, added to the worries over Jack’s absence was added the anguish of a marriage that was no marriage at all and of bringing an illegitimate child into the world. How could she be sanguine about that? She had not told anyone of her condition, but it would soon become obvious, and then what? Would they accept the child?

  ‘Now perhaps Jack will come ‘ome,’ the Countess said, then smiled when she saw the startled look her husband and daughter-in-law gave each other. ‘Do not look so surprised. Did you think I did not know ‘e ‘ad gone back to France?’

  Kitty smiled. ‘We hoped to save you distress.’

  ‘What about your own distress, Kitty? You must be as worried and afraid as I am.’

  ‘No, Mama, I am not afraid,’ she lied. ‘Jack will come back soon. I have no doubt he has gone south to Toulon, as we did before.’

  ‘Then perhaps ‘e has gone to Haute Saint-Gilbert and will bring us news of Anne-Marie.’

  Kitty agreed, not daring to say what was in her mind. With the whole of France undoubtedly searching for the conspirators, Toulon, in British hands, was an obvious place to look for them. And if Jack’s identity was known, they would also be watching Haute Saint-Gilbert and Malincourt.

  For his lordship’s sake and for the Countess’s, she had to sound confident, but inside she was crying.

  As the autumn days shortened towards winter and still there was no news of Jack, hope began to die inch by inch.

  France was slipping into anarchy. According to some reports reaching England, the Law of the Suspect was being used to feed the guillotine, often several at a time, and those who had been at the forefront of the Revolution were themselves being put to death. No aristocrat was safe and even men of letters and science were obliged to watch their tongues and be continually looking over their shoulders. What hope had a foreign agent of staying undiscovered?

  The Earl wrote frequently to the War Department, but they had nothing to tell him, except that the situation in France was so confused that there was little information coming through. ‘We are forced to the conclusion that Viscount Chiltern has been apprehended and may have met his death,’ they wrote. ‘Until lines of communication are reopened, we cannot confirm this but must counsel you against false hope.’

  Kitty, in her fourth month of pregnancy, was in despair. Had Jack died? Had he given his life for a foreign queen, not knowing she loved him, that he was to be a father? Knowing about the baby helped the Earl and Countess to bear their loss and Kitty herself was a little comforted by the small being growing inside her. She must live for her child, watch him grow healthy and happy and pray that the dreadful deeds being perpetrated against humanity in France would never be repeated.

  She corresponded with James and Nanette frequently, and that November they arrived for a short visit. Nanette, too, was expecting a baby, though she was not as far advanced in pregnancy as Kitty, and the two young women were able to talk and even laugh a little over it so that the dreary atmosphere was lightened a little.

  James and the Earl talked a great deal about the war with France, expressing the hope that, when it was won, the monarchy could be restored in France and that it would be safe for Nanette to visit her parents, or for them to come on a visit to England. She worried about them constantly.

  They were two weeks into their stay when everyone’s rest was disturbed at eight one morning by a loud knocking at the front door. Apart from the servants, Kitty was the only one already astir.

  She had slept badly and had decided to dress and go down to the kitchen rather than summon a maid to bring her a dish of hot chocolate. She paused on the stairs as Fletcher, slow and ponderous, went to open the door.

  The man who stood on the step was tall and gangly, dressed in a plain dark suit of clothes over which he wore a cloak and a black tricorne hat, both of which glistened with damp. It had rained during the night and now a thin mist covered the ground and hung in the air.

  ‘Captain Trent!’ Kitty cried, dashing down the rest of the stairs. ‘How good it is to see you! Have you news of Jack?’

  ‘My lady.’ The one-time roadmender bowed to her, while his cloak dripped on the tiled floor. ‘No, I am afraid not, but I have brought someone to see you.’

  He turned back to a hired coach which stood on the drive and opened its door to assist a lady to alight. She was of middle years dressed in a rich taffeta gown with a woollen riding cloak,
both of which were creased and travel-stained. The long feathers in her high-crowned hat drooped in the damp air. It was a moment or two before Kitty recognised the Marchioness de Saint-Gilbert.

  ‘My lady!’

  Anne-Marie smiled feebly. ‘Bonjour, Kitty.’

  Although it was only a few months since Kitty had last seen her, she had aged. She seemed smaller, shrunken almost; her eyes were dull and there were deep lines about her mouth.

  Kitty ran forward to help her into the house. ‘Come in. Come into the morning parlour. I believe there is already a fire in there. Take off your cloak. Fletcher will have it dried for you. You too, Captain Trent.’ Then, to Fletcher, ‘Please tell the Earl and Countess and Mrs Harston we have visitors.’

  She led the Marchioness and the Captain into the parlour and invited them to sit down by the fire. ‘I’ll have some refreshment brought in. You must be cold and hungry. Lord and Lady Beauworth will be here soon.’ She rang a bell and ordered coffee and food to be prepared, then sat down, biting her lip in an effort not to bombard them with questions.

  ‘Nanette is here,’ she said in French. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Anne-Marie’s eyes lit briefly with pleasure. ‘I came here first because I did not have her direction. I assumed my sister would have it.’

  At that moment the Countess came into the room, clad in a dressing robe over her nightgown, and with a cry of joy ran to her sister and embraced her. ‘Oh, my dear, dear Anne-Marie, I am so pleased to see you. But how did you get here? Where is Louis?’

  ‘Louis is dead.’ She spoke flatly as if repeating something someone had told her.

  ‘Oh, no! I am so sorry. How did it happen? No, do not tell me now. Here is Annie with some refreshment. Eat and drink first. When John and Nanette come, you must tell us together.’