‘You’ll what?’ Jemmy laughed, catching her by the upper arms and looking down into her face. It was intended as the sort of playful gesture that a man might make to a much younger woman he regarded as a daughter, but Marie-Louise at once put her arms up and round his neck, and the smile gradually faded from Jemmy’s face.
‘Or I’ll make you sorry,’ Marie-Louise said huskily. Jemmy struggled with his feelings, but not successfully enough to prevent him putting his arms round her.
‘I wish you may not be sorry, Princess,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Please don’t do anything you will regret afterwards. Please—’
‘I regret nothing. I know what I want,’ she said.
‘Sometimes,’ Jemmy said with difficulty, ‘a thing once done is not what you thought it would be. Sometimes it is better to go on wanting a thing than to have it.’
‘Do you want it too, then?’
Jemmy closed his eyes for a moment. ‘God,’ he said. ‘God.’ He opened them again, and she saw the lines of his face harden, and just for a moment, for the last moment before it happened, she was afraid. And then he was kissing her, and it was not like the last time, in the vine-house, for there he had been tempted into madness, he had been like a man intoxicated. This time he knew what he was doing, he knew her, and his awareness made it a thing of brilliance, like adamant, like a knife-blade. She realized that he was being forced beyond his nature, and that there was danger in it, hurt and harm; that to survive it he would have to be hard, even cruel. She realized that the thing she had begun was no longer in her control, that she had wilfully broken down a barrier which had held back forces better under control.
But all her life she had had what she wanted; she lived to do, to act, she could not endure the dicates of caution. She gave up her mouth to his mouth, put her hands to the back of his neck and held his head closer to her own. When they broke apart, panting for breath, she said. ‘Where can we go?’
His face was sharply defined against the light from the windows, and he looked different to her, no sign now of the soft, lazy, laughing Jemmy: he was keen and considering like a hawk. He said, ‘There is a store room, over there, the end one, where we keep wool for the household weaving. It will make a soft enough couch. But are you sure?’
One last chance to return to sanity; but for her it had always been too late. She turned her back on it, and took his hand, and let him lead her. The store room was dark, and smelled of wool and candles and new wood. When he shut the door there was no light at all, and she could only feel him and smell him and hear him, so that it was like a dream, not like real life at all, until the last moment. Then it was real, and she knew it, and she cried out, as if she might hold it off: knowledge, which is the death of childhood; womanhood, which is the beginning of death.
Allen looked for her, as she had bid, at the end of the dances, and found her at last just coming in, alone, from the kitchen passage. Her cheeks were bright as if they had been stung by cold air, her eyes were brilliant as if with some madness.
‘I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Surely you were not outside? You know that it is dangerous to go out at night from a heated room.’
‘It was warm outside,’ she said, and her voice was high and fevered. ‘I had to get out.’
‘Do you wish to sit down, to rest?’ he asked. ‘You were going to tell me—’
‘No, no, I must have movement, I must dance. Come, quickly, the music is starting!’
She seized his hand and almost ran with him to the set. Jemima, who had been waiting for him to claim her for their dance, saw them as they took their places, noted Lady Strathord’s bright cheeks, her gay laughter, saw how Allen looked at her bemused, like a bird fascinated by a snake, and her happy anticipation drained away, leaving her feeling tired and flat. Her father suddenly appeared at her side. He looked hot and flurried, as if he had been running.
‘Not dancing, chick? That will never do,’ he said. ‘We must see about a partner for you.’
‘I don’t want to dance,’ she said sullenly, but he did not seem to notice her tone of voice.
‘Nonsense, of course you do! Why it’s your evening tonight, your birthday ball! You must dance every dance. Now who can we find for you?’
And he looked around as if searching for a partner for her, but Jemima noticed that though he turned his head, his eyes remained on Lady Strathord.
At the end of May 1745, Karelia was again planning a journey to France, to sing for King Louis, before going on to Spain, and Charles received a letter from his father in Dublin, asking him to go with her, both to escort her on the journey, and when in Paris to visit his Aunt Aliena, who has been unwell. Charles immediately asked for an audience with the King, to ask his permission for the journey, but though he did not say so to anyone, he thought the request somewhat odd. In the first place, Karelia travelled as regularly and confidently as a swallow up and down the world, and had never suggested to anyone that she needed or even wanted an escort. In the second place, Aunt Aliena’s illness had been a slight one, not dangerous to her life, and was now over. If he had not been asked to visit her while she was ill, why had he been asked now, when she was well again?
The King, however, saw nothing strange in his request, and granted it readily.
‘I hope you will find your aunt in such a state as to relieve all your alarms,’ he said. Charles bowed.
‘Thank you sire. I understand there is no concern for her life.’
‘I am very glad. You perhaps know that I regard her – almost as a sister,’ the King said a little awkwardly. Charles bowed again, not knowing what else to say.
The King seemed preoccupied, and did not immediately dismiss him. After a moment he said, ‘I wonder whether, while you are in Paris, I might employ you about some business of my own.’ He looked at Charles thoughtfully, with a little worried frown between his brows. ‘My son, the Prince of Wales – perhaps you know that I have not been entirely at ease in my heart about him.’
This was an understatement, as Charles knew very well. Since he had gone to Paris, the Prince had caused nothing but concern. He had been fretful and bored, complaining in his infrequent letters that he was neglected by King Louis and allowed no access to the royal family or acknowledged in any way. He had also been keeping very bad company, concerning which it was widely known the King had rebuked him a number of times, and he had been drinking and gambling heavily, overspending his allowance and running up debts which it was not in his power to pay.
The King’s only reliable communication with the Prince’s household was through the elderly Sir Thomas Sheridan, who was devoted to the Prince, and wrote long detailed letters to the King explaining their domestic circumstances, but not giving any information about what was really going on. The only thing the King did not suspect was involvement of the Prince with women, perhaps because it had never been a temptation to which he personally was subject.
‘You perhaps know that the Prince has now gone to stay at Compiegne, with my brother Berwick’s son, the Duc de Fitzjames? I feel sure that the Due must know what is happening at Versailles, whether there is any progress in the matter of aid for the Prince in our attempt upon England. I wonder if—’ he hesitated; it was obviously against his nature to suggest anything as underhand as spying or gathering information in a clandestine way. Charles helped him out.
‘My uncle, sire, the former Earl of Chelmsford, was a close friend of the Duke of Berwick, as you know. I think it would be only proper, while I am so close to Compiegne as Paris, that I should request permission to make my devoirs to his son.’
‘Yes,’ the King said, eyeing him thoughtfully. ‘I think that is quite right. Thank you. I hope you will also carry some letters for me, to the Prince and Lord Semphill and one or two others. When do you leave?’
‘In the morning, if it please Your Majesty.’
‘Very well, I will have them ready and sent to you this evening.’
Charles spent the rest of the day packing, and wondering
whether he ought to take his leave of the Cutlers. They had been very kind to him; on the other hand, they were growing a little possessive of him, and referring to him in the same breath as their daughter Molly in a way which made him nervous. In the end he decided to take his leave of them by letter, pleading shortness of time as an excuse for not calling in person. The King’s letters came round to his room in the evening, and Charles packed them carefully into the saddlebag which contained his immediate necessities for the journey. That way they would be always with him.
Early in the morning he joined Karelia at her lodgings, and they set off together. He was amazed at the amount of luggage she was taking, having expected an experienced traveller like her to be more thrifty of space and effort. But he supposed that she was now such an important person that she needed a large number of clothes and jewels and household items. She was not disposed to be talkative, though she cast him many a look when she thought he was not watching. It was not until they were halfway to Avignon that she thought it safe to tell him the truth about the journey.
‘Well, little cousin Karellie, and what do you suppose is in all these boxes?’ she asked him cheerfully.
‘Why, clothes, I assume, madam.’
‘Not a bit of it – it is guns.’
‘Guns!’
‘Indeed. And why do you think your father has sent you to Paris?’
‘Not to visit my Aunt Aliena,’ Charles said grimly. She smiled as she shook her head.
‘You learn quickly. That is good. No, you are not going to Chaillot, you are going to Scotland, with the Prince Regent, the Young Chevalier. Your father is giving you the chance to take your place in history. I only wish I could go too, but my work lies in another direction. I have to speak to the King of France and the King of Spain and persuade them to give their aid to the scheme.’
‘Surely it would be better to secure their help first?’ Charles said desperately. ‘Why must it all be done in secrecy? The King does not know about it, I gather? How can it succeed, if King Louis does not approve?’
‘The Scottish people have invited the Prince, and he will go, whether any help comes or not. The time is right, and the King of France has hesitated too long. If the Prince goes, it may spur him to give the aid he promised. And if he does not—’ she shrugged. ‘A swift and bold blow may succeed without great force, if it is assured enough.’ She studied Charles’s gloomy face with some amusement. ‘Why, cousin Karellie, you should be pleased and proud that such a great opportunity is been granted to you. You may be a hero soon! And think what rewards will await you, when the King is restored to his throne.’
Charles held out his hands helplessly. ‘These have never handled a sword or a gun, madam. They are musician’s hands. I am a singer, not a soldier.’
Karelia held her head high. ‘I, little Karellie, though only a woman, I am both!’
The Prince of Wales wrote to his father in June to tell him of the scheme.
‘I have above six months ago been invited by our friends to go to Scotland, and to carry what arms and money I could conveniently get, this being, they are fully persuaded, the only way of restoring you to the crown and them to their liberties … I have tried all possible means and strategies to get access to the King of France or his minister. Now I have been obliged to steal off without letting them so much as suspect it… Let what will happen, the stroke is struck, and I have taken a firm resolution to conquer or die, and stand my ground as long as I shall have a man remaining with me … Your Majesty cannot disapprove a son’s following the example of his father – you yourself did the like in the year’15 … I write this from Navarre, but it won’t be sent until I am on shipboard …’
Charles felt obliged to send a letter of his own to the King, explaining that he had not known about the scheme when he applied to go to Paris, for he did not, above anything, want the King to think ill of him.
‘It may seem a wild and desperate thing, Your Majesty, but His Highness has made great preparations, and with speed and luck if may well succeed. His Highness was convinced that the King of France would try to stop him if he knew, hence his desire for secrecy until this, the last moment. I know Your Majesty would approve the Prince’s courage and resolution, if not his prudence, in this matter, and if I offend in assisting, I beg Your Majesty will attribute it to my love for you and not to any slighting of Your Majesty’s wishes.’
Everything had moved too fast for Charles, who discovered that, as his father had so long been involved in the planning, it was assumed that he had known about it all along, and had come to give his help of his own accord. There were many things to be done and few people to do them, and he was kept as busy writing letters and seeing to details of the organization as anyone else in the Prince’s household, so that he hardly had time to think or to object to being included, willy-nilly, in what he certainly thought of as a ‘wild and desperate thing’.
The expedition assembled secretly at Nantes during the month of June. There were two ships: the Du Teillay, the armed frigate belonging to Antony Walsh, having eighteen guns and a crew of sixty-seven, and a warship, the Elizabeth, of forty-four guns which had originally been English but had been captured some years back by the French, and which had been given permission by the French Minister of Marine to patrol the Scottish coast. She would therefore be able to escort the Du Teillay without appearing to do so. The Prince had assembled 1,500 guns and 1,800 broadswords, along with gunpowder and balls and a quantity of small arms, and the Du Teillay would also carry twenty small field pieces. All that was lacking was the men: it was hoped that Scotland would provide them, and that when it was known the Prince had set sail alone, the King of France would respond by sending troops after him for his assistance. Like his father before him, the Prince had taken the title of Chevalier St Georges for the expedition.
They finally set sail on 15 July, intending to round Cornwall and sail up the west coast to the Isle of Mull. Charles, bemused and seasick, was aboard the Elizabeth, where he was supposed to be providing a liaison with the Du Teillay, but was in no condition to do so. On the 20th, just off Lizard Point, the two ships crossed the path of the English man-o-war Lion, patrolling there. It was no part of the plan to have a sea battle, and the two French ships tried to shake off the Lion, but she gave chase, and in the end the Elizabeth had to turn back to engage her, in order that the Du Teillay could make her escape.
Charles was certain that his last hour had come. Huddled below in his cabin, which, tiny and cramped though it was, he shared with five other officers, and already green with sea-sickness, he lay for what seemed like hours, hearing the thunderous rumble of the guns being run out, the shuddering explosions as they were fired, the tearing crashes as the enemy balls thudded into the fabric of the ship, the terrible screams and cries of men being wounded. He lay with his eyes screwed tight shut, praying that if he were to die it would be quickly, praying for the courage to endure this terror, wondering whether it would be better to die by drowning when the ship sank, full of holes, or by being smashed to pulp by a flying cannonball.
Eventually the terrible sounds of battle creased. The Lion had been beaten off, but not without cost: the Elizabeth was badly damaged, and 156 of her crew were dead or wounded. It was impossible for her to continue in such a condition, and she turned back for France, leaving the Du Teillay to sail on alone up the west coast towards Scotland. On 22 July the Elizabeth made Brest, and Charles was able, thankfully, to crawl ashore. The ship’s arrival and her condition made it impossible to keep it any longer a secret that the Prince of Wales had sailed for Scotland, and before nightfall Colonel O’Bryen, the chief Jacobite agent in Paris, had written to King James, King Louis, and the French foreign minister.
‘The Prince has embarked with no more than five or six gentlemen on a small frigate carrying eighteen guns,’ he wrote. Charles, at last having the leisure to consider just how wild and desperate a thing it really was, could only be glad, however it might disappoint his fathe
r, that he was out of it; and by offering his services to Colonel O’Bryen as a courier, provided himself with both the means and the excuse to go back to Rome.
BOOK THREE
The Mermaid
When thy beauty appears in its graces and airs
All bright as an angel new dropped from the sky,
At distance I gaze and am awed by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my eye!
But when without art your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes through every vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
Then I know you’re a woman again.
Thomas Farnell: Sang
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was the middle of August when the news reached Yorkshire that the Young Chevalier had landed in Scotland, on a bleak western island, barely more than a rock in the wild sea, with his seven companions. It was at first not credited, dismissed as a rumour bred out of hopeful hearts, but by the beginning of September, there was no doubt about it.
‘The clans are hurrying to his standard,’ Allen told Jemmy eagerly. He had been out and about all day, gathering news wherever it was to be found. ‘He raised the standard on 19 August at Glenfinnan – Cameron country. Cameron of Lochiel was one of the men who invited him to Scotland, and he brought his whole clan over. Now there are thousands of them. The Prince issued a declaration, signing himself Prince of Wales and Prince Regent. I haven’t been able to get hold of a copy,’ he added in disappointed tones, ‘but I understand he offered a large reward for the capture of the Elector if he attempted to land in any part of His Majesty’s Dominions.’
‘That young man has a sense of humour,’ Jemmy said, ‘even if it is a grim one.’ The Elector had been on his annual visit to Hanover at the time of the landing. ‘Well George is back in London now, and no one is likely to be claiming the reward, but it won’t have done him any good. The people have never liked that habit of his and his father’s of dashing off to Hanover every summer.’
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 26
