For a moment Jemima was silent, then she said, 'That might be so. I must find out. By now Susan will have read the letter meant for me and guessed that I, or some other person, received hers through Charles's carelessness. Tomorrow, or later today rather, I'll take her letter to her.'
'Some weeks have now elapsed since she and the Duchess left town. The odds are they're at Newmarket with the old, bed-bound Duke; but they may be elsewhere. In any case, it will mean a journey, so we had best take things for the night. No doubt they will offer to put us up.'
"There is no need for you to do so. If you prove right and Charles has shown real warmth for me in his letter, that could lead to a confrontation between me and Susan. I'd prefer to face that red-headed bitch alone. Where they are I'll ascertain in the morning.' Calmer, but still frowning, Jemima wished the woman she now regarded as no more than a spineless duenna a surly 'Good night', and left the room.
Jemima had received a bitter blow, but she was not the type of young woman to cry herself to sleep, and she was resilient by nature. The odds on becoming Countess of St. Ermins now seemed to be a hundred to one against her; but she did not mean to give up her attempt to get Charles as a husband. When she had seen Susan she would better be able to judge the depth of the girl's feeling for Charles. After all, Maureen might well be right, and the bond between them no more than a tacit acceptance of an agreement made several years before.
That did not appear to be the case as far as Charles was concerned, or he would not have urged Susan to be ready to buy her trousseau in a hurry; but it might well be with Susan. Perhaps she would be glad of an excuse to be free from her engagement. If so, Jemima meant to win her confidence and incite in her a resolution to break it off; or, failing that, by some subtle means sow dissension between them.
9
The Power of the Frog
Roger had barely glimpsed the splash made by Mary's body as it struck the water sixty feet below when his ankles were seized, and he was jerked away from the edge of the cliff. Fearing that, as had happened with Mary, the overhang of the precipice would give way beneath Roger, Leaping Squirrel dragged him back to safety.
When the Indian released his legs, Roger remained flat on his face, unmoving, his mind benumbed by horror. Only a few minutes ago, Mary had been beside him; gay, loving, courageous little Mary. He could still hear her laughter. Now she was gone—gone for ever.
It seemed impossible; he must be in the middle of a nightmare, the victim of an evil dream. Yet he knew that he was not. It had happened—happened within a yard of him. At one moment he had been looking up at the swooping eagle. The next, Mary's scream had pierced his ears. He had flung out a hand to grab her, but too late. Already her head was on a level with his waist, her mouth gaping wide, her eyes starting from her head with terror, as she shot down into the void.
He had been married to Mary for only just over three months but, apart from their earlier affair in Lisbon, ever since he had come upon her again by chance in St. Petersburg, the previous October, they had not only lived together, but had hardly ever been out of each other's sight.
Unlike the majority of couples, separated for the greater part of their waking hours, the man earning his living, the woman running the home, they had spent day after day for all that time either riding and walking side by side, together in the narrow confines of a ship's cabin, or cheek by jowl in canoes and covered wagons. In Russia they had shared burdens while trudging through hundreds of miles of snow, and slept in one sleeping bag. Grossing the Atlantic they had endured sickness and tempest. More recently they had again faced below-zero temperatures and, muffled in furs, fed primitively round camp fires.
They had thus attained a greater degree of intimacy than could have been achieved by years of normal marriage. Their minds had become so closely attuned that they could anticipate each other's thoughts. They had not had a single quarrel; and physical desire, which inevitably declines between lovers with long, constant association, in their case had not had time enough to wane.
It was not to be wondered at that Roger felt as though half of his own being had been suddenly torn from him with Mary's plunge to death over the edge of the cliff.
When, years before, he had arrived in Martinique to learn that his wife, Amanda, had just died in giving birth to Susan, he had been so grief-stricken that he had made himself drunk for a week. Now he felt that, even had he unlimited liquor at hand, no bout of drunkenness, however long, could bring him to accept the loss of Mary.
They had been within an hour of getting safely over the border into Canada. Once there, it would have been only a matter of two or three months at most before they could be back in England. Only now he realised to the full how immensely he had been looking forward at long last to putting behind him the hazardous life he had led and making a home with Mary at Thatched House Lodge.
To return there without her would be an utterly different matter. Bitterly he recalled the year he had spent in England before, out of restlessness and boredom, he had accepted the mission to Sweden which had led to his again becoming involved with Napoleon and taking part in the retreat from Moscow.
In March 1810, he had persuaded his beloved Georgina to marry him as soon as he could get back to England. In June he had actually been about to take ship from Hamburg when arrested and accused of the murder of von Haugwitz, tried and sentenced to death. His sentence had been commuted to ten years' imprisonment. The following October he had escaped and succeeded in reaching London, only to learn that Georgina, believing him dead, had succumbed to the pleading of the old Duke of Kew, and married him.
During the greater part of 1811 he had lived at Thatched House Lodge. Whenever Georgina had been in London, the two life-long lovers had again spent glorious nights together of companionship and passion. But for months at a stretch she had had to live in the country, and they had been able to snatch only occasional meetings. After the intensely active life he had led for so many years, those long periods of lonely inactivity had driven him to distraction.
Since the Duke had been stricken by paralysis, his doctors said that he might continue to live like a vegetable for many years. Meanwhile Georgina would remain tied to him. So, on returning to England without Mary, Roger would again be faced with the dreary, frustrating life he had lived in 1811. At the thought, he groaned aloud.
Ever since dragging him back from the precipice, Leaping Squirrel had been kneeling beside him, endeavouring to comfort him. Roger heard his words only as a murmur and their sense failed to register in his stunned brain. But now the Indian grasped his shoulders, shook him violently and cried in his Canadian-French patois:
'Noble one, we cannot remain here. So far we have been fortunate in keeping lead of Mohawk trackers sent after us from French Mills; but travelling with the poor, beautiful one put brake upon our pace. Our enemies cannot now be far behind. Once across river we shall be safe. But we dare not delay. I beg you rouse yourself.'
With a groan, Roger forced himself to his feet, took a last, despairing look at the ground, now forming the edge of the cliff, which had given way under Mary. Then he automatically fell into step behind Leaping Squirrel.
When they had covered about four hundred yards they came to a gully which led to a narrow, zigzag path descending to the river. Between the water and the cliff lay a bank of pebbles about four feet wide. Turning back, they followed it toward the cluster of large rocks, separated here and there by narrow channels, through which rapids roared, but the rocks were not sufficiently far apart to prevent a bold traveller from stepping from one to another and so crossing the river.
They were just passing the pool beneath the overhang into which Mary had fallen, when Leaping Squirrel gave a loud shout and pointed. The nearest of the rocks, now only a hundred yards ahead, had a flat surface sloping slightly upward. On it, half out of the water, lay a large, furry bundle that, in the distance, might have been taken for a drowned bear.
Runni
ng and slipping on the large, uneven pebbles, the two men raced toward it. Within two minutes, outpacing Roger, the Indian had scrambled on to the rock and turned the bundle over. As he had supposed, it was Mary.
Gasping for breath, Roger joined him and stared down at the motionless figure. He was now a prey to the most agonising suspense. Was she dead, or had she only fainted? Obviously the racing river had cast her up on the rock. She could hardly have been submerged long enough to drown, but had her plunge into the icy water killed her by a heart attack ?
Leaping Squirrel tore open her furs. Roger thrust his hand between them, down to her bosom. A second later he gave a shout of joy, 'Her heart's still beating! She fives! She lives!'
Outside, her furs were soaking, but their thick skins had, in most places, protected her body from the water. Frantically they pulled off all her furs and, while Roger slapped her ribs, Leaping Squirrel massaged her hands and feet.
A few minutes later she opened her eyes, then screwed up her face, gave a cry of pain and jerked her right foot away from the Indian's grasp. He then realised, from the limpness of her foot, that her ankle was broken. Meanwhile, Roger was smothering her face with kisses.
As soon as Mary was sufficiently recovered, the two men stopped massaging her. Roger wrapped her in his fur coat, and Leaping Squirrel put his fur hat, gloves and moccasins on her; then they set about the difficult task of getting her across the river.
Where the big rocks had flat surfaces, she was able with Roger's support, to hop along on her sound leg, but over the rougher stretches they had to carry her; and, as some of the chasms between the rocks were nearly a yard wide, getting her safely from one to another was a nerve-racking business. The roar of the rapids was so loud that, as they passed her wet furs done up in a bundle and their camping equipment, across the rushing spates of water, they had to shout to make themselves heard.
In his bare feet the Indian was sure-footed, but Roger was far from being so. Several times he stumbled, and once his heart was in his mouth, for he tripped on a jagged stone, which caused him to let go of Mary a moment too soon. As she slid from his grasp toward the water, he was momentarily petrified by the fear that he had lost her, after all. But, just in time, Leaping Squirrel shot out a hand, caught her arm and hauled her to safety.
When over half an hour had gone by, Roger began to fear that they would never reach the opposite shore. The foaming cascades of white water sent spray that half blinded them high into the air and soaked them all from head to foot. But, at last, chilled to the marrow, with shivering bodies and chattering teeth, they crossed the final chasm and tumbled exhausted on the pebbles of the Canadian beach.
Leaping Squirrel was the first to recover. Roger had given his fur coat to Mary, so he had suffered the most severely from the icy spray. Taking off his furs the Indian threw them over him, then crossed the pebbles to a strip of earth that lay beyond them further inshore, and began to run for a hundred yards each way up and down it until he had fully restored his circulation.
On the Canadian side of the river, instead of a steep cliff, the ground rose in a gentle slope, closely covered with fir trees, few of which exceeded twenty feet in height. Having warmed himself up, Leaping Squirrel became as active as ever, darting in among the trees and collecting armfuls of small, dead branches, which he piled near his companions. Within ten minutes he had a fire going.
Meanwhile, Roger had recovered sufficiently to get out the bottle of brandy he had brought against emergencies.
All three of them took several pulls at it, and the fiery spirit soon warmed them up enough to sort out their belongings. Leaping Squirrel insisted that Roger should keep his furs until Mary's had been dried at the fire; but he took back from her his moccasins and produced a towel in which to wrap her feet.
Before doing so, Roger examined her injury. The ankle was already badly swollen and obviously broken. She said that, as far as she could judge, the water into which she had hurtled had been about twenty feet in depth, so was deep enough to break her fall, but not enough to prevent her plunging to the bottom where she had struck the rock hard with her right foot. It was the awful stab of pain as her ankle broke that had caused her to faint before coming to the surface.
Roger began to get out their provisions, with the intention of cooking a meal, but the Indian checked him, saying, 'We are not yet safe, noble one. Leaping Squirrel made this fire only to dry clothes. If Mohawk trackers reach cliff opposite while it still daylight, they see smoke, come across rocks and capture us. Hold furs to fire while Leaping Squirrel find safe place to spend night.' Then turning away, he ran off down river.
Half an hour elapsed before he returned, dragging behind him two twelve-foot-long saplings from which he had trimmed the branches with Roger's tomahawk.
'What are those for ?' Mary asked.
He gave one of his rare smiles. 'Leaping Squirrel has found good place not far off. With these we make Indian sleigh to draw beautiful one. In old days we use squaws or big dogs to draw, but since Pale Faces come, we use horses.'
Laying down the two long poles about two feet apart, he began to make a cradle between their thicker ends, using the sleeping bags, small branches of fir and such cord as they had with them. By the time he had finished, their furs were dry enough to be worn again without discomfort. Dusk was now falling, but he took the precaution of kicking the fire to pieces, then threw the still-smouldering branches into the river. Their belongings were piled on the rear of the cradle, where they would form a rest for Mary's back. Having laid her on the cradle, the two men got between the slender ends of the poles, which now formed the shafts of the sleigh, picked them up and drew her along behind them.
For Mary it was bumpy going and every few minutes the jerking caused her to grimace from the pain in her ankle, but on rounding the corner of a bend in the river they saw not far ahead a cluster of great boulders. It was the place Leaping Squirrel had chosen for them to spend the night, as smoke could not be seen during darkness, and from the midst of the boulders a fire would not be visible from the opposite bank.
Leaving Mary there, the two men collected more fallen branches and soon made another fire. The Indian smoked some strips of meat on it, while Roger made a rough splint for Mary's leg from two of the straightest sticks he was able to find. This first hot meal they had eaten for several days, together with the knowledge that they were now on Canadian soil, cheered them mightily and, soon afterwards, having made themselves as comfortable as they could, they all fell sound asleep.
Leaping Squirrel was up early, and when the others awoke they found he had just returned from the forest with a big bundle of young sassafras shoots to make a more comfortable seat for Mary on the improvised sleigh. , As soon as they had made a meagre breakfast of biscuits, they set off along the shore, the two men drawing Mary behind them as they had done the previous evening. When they had been on their way for about an hour, the forest on their left gave way to stony outcrop which soon became a cliff, some thirty feet in height. Having followed it for about two hundred yards, they came upon the entrance to a low cave. The Indian called on Roger to halt and crawled into it. A moment later he gave a cry of delight, and emerged dragging after him a small, birchbark canoe. He had come up-river in it and had hidden it there, but feared that it might have been found and stolen in his absence.
It was just large enough to hold the three of them, with Roger in the stem, his legs apart so that Mary could lie between them and rest against him, while Leaping Squirrel knelt in the prow and steered the little craft by dexterous twists of his paddle.
As they were going with the current, their speed was several times as swift as it had been while dragging Mary on the sleigh and it was infinitely more comfortable for her. During the course of the next three hours they travelled at least thirty miles; but it was dangerous going as, here and there, rocks and shallows had to be avoided, and with the canoe so heavily loaded a single misjudgment in steering by the Indian co
uld have proved disastrous.
Well before midday they left the wide St. Lawrence for a tributary, which made the going very much harder and slower as they went upstream. Leaping Squirrel began to sweat profusely and, from time to time, had to pull into the bank so that he could rest. But after an hour and a half of laborious paddling he had a piece of good fortune.
They came to a cliff from which protruded a small, wooden staging about six feet above the water. On it an Indian, who had climbed down from the cliff top, was fishing for salmon by means of a pole, at the end of which there was what looked like a huge, coarse-string butterfly net. Leaping Squirrel hailed him and they spoke together in their native tongue, then the Indian picked up two fish he had caught, scaled the cliff and disappeared into the forest that fringed it.
Turning back to his companions, Leaping Squirrel said, 'That man is an Onnchataronon; not of Leaping Squirrel's tribe. But, like all tribes north of Great Lakes, we have in Common the Algonquin tongue—while the Five Nations, who live south of lakes, all speak Iroquois tongue. If he is good runner, within two hours he be with Leaping Squirrel's people. For taking message he receive good reward. Help will be sent and, instead of making camp again, before sunset big welcome by great chief Morning Star, Leaping Squirrel's father.'
He then recommenced to paddle, but less strenuously, so that in the next three hours the canoe progressed up stream only a few miles. On rounding a bend in the river they saw coming rapidly toward them a big war canoe. As it approached, they could see that it was manned by twenty warriors; then, when it turned about, that it was made from one huge, hollowed out tree trunk. There were loud, happy shouts of greeting, a rope was thrown to Leaping Squirrel and, towed by the big canoe, the small one was borne upstream at a fine, steady speed.
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