by Mira Stables
“Your father was engaged in the attack on the breach, close by the Santa Maria bastion,” he began quietly. “You will know that we were driven back again and again. Every kind of obstacle had been set in our path, and it seemed impossible to make any progress. The men showed incredible courage, attacking time after time in spite of terrible losses. I saw your father once when we had been forced to draw off for a breathing space. He was busy with his men, encouraging them as was his way with sly jests about the enemy. They loved him, you know. And to him they were his children, sometimes wayward but always forgiven. He might tongue-lash them with all the worst names in the language, but they knew how he fought for their rights and comforts.”
He hesitated for a moment. Now he must be careful. It could only hurt the child to know how futile her father’s death had been, for all the desperate fighting at the breach had been in vain, and the town had eventually fallen to General Picton’s 3rd Division. He went on gently, “It was during the last attack that Colonel Easton was killed. Perhaps I should say wounded, though I believe he died almost immediately. He was shot through the breast and was already sinking when Dr. Burke was called to him. I do not think he suffered greatly.”
The girl’s voice, husky with emotion, said quietly, “So he never knew that the town was won?”
Lie or not, and he couldn’t be sure, he spoke it confidently. “I think he must have known. We were over that damned ditch before he was struck, and we all knew that the town must fall.”
Her soft lips quivered, and she turned to look out of the window. He could see her pleating and unpleating a crumpled handkerchief. And there was no comfort he could offer. Unless perhaps it would comfort her to know that while the great mass of the slain had been buried in common graves, the Colonel’s men had insisted that he be buried with decency and dignity. They had dug his grave themselves and had rendered their last salutes with touching sincerity. He tried to tell of this as calmly as possible, since he himself found it oddly moving. It was too much. With a pathetic little sob she fled, murmuring, in a voice almost choked by tears, “I’m sorry—I cannot—but thank you! Oh thank you!”
Chapter Five
He was heartily sick of his own society before relief came. His bedroom was comfortable enough but it offered little in the way of entertainment. A bedroom, at the Lamb, was meant for slumber. Having studied in detail a sampler worked by Emma Thurlow aged nine in 1792, which declared austerely that the only true happiness lay in virtue, he had exhausted the intellectual resources of the room, and since it lay at the back of the inn there was little to be seen from the window. So it was with positive gratitude that he heard the already familiar knock on his door. Miss Easton had quite an individual method of signalling her approach. First came a run of four little taps as each fingertop in turn hit the oak, and then a chord as all four knuckles struck it together.
“Jasie says will you take some refreshment? Giles is not yet back, and it is growing late. If you are hungry there are hot mutton pies, or there is cold beef and cheese and fruit. Jasie is very distressed about not feeding you properly, but to tell the truth they don’t often have people putting up here, and without Emma to see to the cooking Jasie is rather at a loss. I told him I was sure you’d be easy to please. If all the tales he tells are true, you must have had far worse food in Spain.”
“Acorns and army mule?” asked Charles quizzically. “I can see you have been listening to the usual apocryphal army tales. But it’s true enough that good English food tastes like nectar and ambrosia. It’s not fitting, though, that you should wait on me, child. Send the little kitchen lass up with it.”
“Please let me bring it for you. It is so dull with nothing to do. I like to be busy.”
Charles felt sorry for her. In spite of her cheerful manner the traces of tears were still to be seen. He guessed that their earlier interview had been followed by a prolonged bout of weeping. Nor would he be loathe to have a companion to share his temporary prison.
“Then perhaps you will honour me by staying to share the feast?” he suggested.
Her face brightened. “Oh! That would be delightful.” And then on a more doubtful note, “if Emma says I may. You see,” she confided, “I have only just left school, and Emma says I seem to have no notion how I should go on, now that I am a young lady. Would it be improper, do you think?”
“Of course not,” roundly declared Charles, whose notions of propriety were no better schooled than hers. “We shall call it a Picknick—and there can be nothing improper about sharing a Picknick with an old comrade of your father’s.”
Really the child’s face was absurdly transparent he thought, watching doubt, amusement, wistful longing for the offered treat reflected in her eyes.
“I shall tell her so!” she said firmly, and departed hopefully on her errand.
Apparently Emma’s verdict was favourable, for very shortly he heard Jasie’s uneven tread as he mounted the stairs with a tray. Behind him came Nell, carefully carrying a tankard of ale in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other. These she set down on the dressing table, and announced cheerfully, “Emma says it is perfectly proper, but that I ought not to have asked you. That, it seems, was forward and unbecoming. It is all very difficult. I fear I shall never learn.”
Jasie, having set the tray conveniently to hand, took his departure, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll send Giles up to you, Sir, as soon as he do come back, and don’t let Miss Nell tease you with her cantrips.”
Nell glared indignantly at his departing back, but since her small white teeth were at the moment sunk in a particularly luscious peach, found it impossible to express herself with her usual fluency. Having disposed of the peach and wiped her fingers on her napkin, she asked bitterly, “Why is it that people who have known you since you were small can never see that you are now grown up?”
Charles knew better than to answer that one. “He is very fond of you, and proud of you too,” he suggested soothingly.
“Oh—as to that, I love him dearly. And Emma. They are darlings. And to speak truth I don’t know how I should go on without them. But I do wish sometimes that they would remember that I am seventeen and not seven.”
“Have you no relatives who could take you in charge?” asked Charles curiously. “Surely your father cannot have intended you to remain here alone with only servants, however kind and devoted, to care for you?”
“I was to have gone out to Spain to join him,” she said sadly. “But when my father was killed, my plans were all at an end. When I left school I came home, but Emma said it wasn’t proper for me to live alone, and she and Jasie said I should come here for a while, just until after the baby was born and then they would see what could be contrived.”
Charles was more puzzled than ever. “This is not your home then?”
She looked quite startled at such an idea. “Oh no! Mama and I lived at Brockert House. It’s about half a mile away. Papa chose it so that Mama could be near Emma and Jasie. He knew they would look after us. The doctors had said that it would be fatal for Mama to undertake the journey to Spain, let alone the hardships of a life spent following the drum. So then Papa bought Brockert House—and I was sent to school at Tunbridge Wells. These peaches are from Brockert House,” she added, helping herself to another. “Parfitt sends over a basket of fruit every week.”
“Parfitt is your steward?”
She nodded. “And Mrs. Parfitt is the housekeeper. But they are old. Mrs. Parfitt was my mother’s nurse. So Emma and Jasie thought I would be safer here.”
“Safer?” He uttered the word on a note of surprise. What danger could threaten the girl in peaceful England?
Nell’s colour rose. Somehow, since he had talked of her father, she had begun to feel that he was a friend, and she had been chattering on for ever about her private affairs, enjoying the unusual treat of having an understanding listener. She smiled at him in deprecating fashion. “Oh, Jasie has this notion, from what my papa told him—bu
t I daresay it’s all a hum—that my wicked uncle might try to dispose of me.”
“Your wicked uncle?” Surprise had turned to incredulity, and the girl’s face burned with yet deeper colour at the note of amused disbelief.
“Yes. I know it sounds quite fantastical, and more like a page out of a novel than real life. But he really did try to murder my papa. That bit is quite true. But I mustn’t be boring on for ever about myself. Even at school we were taught that it was excessively ill-bred to do so. Pray forgive me,” and she favoured him with a polite and purely artificial little smile.
Charles felt a brute. The note of hurt dignity in the young voice was rather touching. Though still only half convinced he made haste to offer amends.
“It is for you to forgive me, if you will be so generous. I should not have doubted you. But if you could understand how utterly safe and peaceful England seems after such scenes as I have witnessed in Spain, perhaps you could bring yourself to pardon my amazement.”
She looked at him steadily. “England isn’t always so very safe either,” she said quietly. “Only a few weeks ago a young man was found murdered at Wintringham. If one has enemies, no place is safe.”
“You are very right, and my disbelief was unpardonable. I hope you mean to show that I am forgiven by going on with your story. Who is your wicked uncle, and why should he wish to dispose of you?”
“He is Sir Nicholas Easton now of course. He succeeded to the baronetcy when my father died. He holds some government post I think. At any rate he lives in London, though the estate is in Yorkshire.”
She hesitated here for a little while, as though uncertain whether or not to go on with her story. Charles felt he could scarcely press for her confidences on such brief acquaintance, but heartily hoped that they would be accorded him. So it proved.
Presently she took up the story once more. “I have never seen my father’s home. He had never been happy there, and when he joined the army immediately upon leaving Winchester he never went back again. His own mother died when he was born, and his father married again almost at once. It was a great scandal Emma says. It seems that he—my grandfather—had been coerced into marriage with an heiress when he was all the time deep in love with someone else, and no sooner had his first wife died than he married his first love. My Uncle Nicholas is only a year younger than my father.”
“They are, in fact, half brothers?”
“Yes. And my uncle was always my grandfather’s favourite, and much petted and indulged. It was always Papa who was blamed and punished when the two of them got into mischief.”
“And his attempt to murder your father?” prompted Charles.
“That was when he was thirteen and my father fourteen, home from school for the holidays. Uncle Nicholas offered to show him a guillemot’s nest on the cliff. Papa said it couldn’t be, because guillemots didn’t breed on the coast there, but my uncle vowed that it was. So the two of them set out early in the morning and climbed down the cliff to the ledge where the nest was supposed to be. My papa was in front because the ledge was too narrow for them to change places and Uncle Nicholas said he wanted him to see the nest properly. They came to the place where the ledge narrowed to nothing. Papa could see no sign of a nest, nor any bird droppings on the rock, so he said, ‘Where is it then?’ And Uncle Nicholas said, ‘There is no nest, you fool,’ and he pushed Papa over the cliff.”
“Good God in heaven!” exclaimed Charles, so carried away by the impact of this simple tale that he forgot to guard his tongue.
“That’s attempted murder isn’t it?”
Charles nodded. “It certainly is. But your father survived. And what happened to your uncle when the story came out?”
“It didn’t come out. Papa fell on to a ledge lower down the cliff. He lay there insensible for hours. When he came to himself he found that his leg was broken and he was not able to help himself. He didn’t even know if the place was above high tide or not. The searchers sent out by his father did not find him till next morning. During the hours of that night he determined to say nothing about his brother’s part in his fall. He knew that he would never be believed. But he never forgot. And when he went out to Spain he had Jasie promise that if—” she stopped for a moment, then went on determinedly, “Jasie promised that neither my mother nor I should ever be left to the tender mercies of my Uncle Nicholas. My papa saved Jasie’s life you see—after Corunna—so it was a debt that Jasie was glad to pay.”
“Yes. I see,” said Charles slowly. “But why should your uncle wish to be rid of you? Had you been a boy it would have been understandable. But now—he has the title and the estate—what harm can you do him?”
“The money,” she explained simply. “My grandmother’s fortune was tied up in a trust for her children. My grandfather’s had only a life interest. At his death it went to my father, and now to me. And until I marry, my uncle is my heir.”
“Is there no one on your mother’s side of the family who could give you a home? You ought to be thinking about making your début and parties of pleasure and pretty clothes,” he said, with vague memories of his sister’s excitement over these matters.
She shrugged. “I haven’t thought much about such things. My whole heart was set on joining Papa in Spain. But there is no one—at least no one of the kind you mean, who could arrange for my presentation. There is an elderly aunt of Mama’s who lives in Dublin. Jasie is of the opinion that I might make my home with her. He thinks it would be safer. But Emma says Dublin would be no better than exile, and very little safer than Sussex. She says that there are ladies of rank and consideration who could be persuaded to take me in charge for a suitable recompense, and that it is just a matter of choosing the right one and deciding how best she should be approached.”
She spoke quite calmly and impersonally, apparently unaware of the picture of desolation that she was painting. Charles was moved to deep compassion.
“There will be no difficulty about that,” he said cheerfully. “I would have suggested that you should go to my sister, save that she, too, is in an interesting way, which makes such a scheme ineligible just now. Perhaps my aunt—but no, you might not be happy with her. She is a very high stickler, with an inflated notion of what is due to her consequence. But I can think of several ladies, wives or mothers of your father’s friends, who would, I am sure, gladly offer you a home for his sake. And that would be much more comfortable for you. You need not think of going to strangers.”
“You are very kind to concern yourself with my affairs,” she said shyly, “especially after the way I treated you last night,” she added, a naughty twinkle dispelling the gravity of her expression. “I wasn’t very polite to you this morning either. Truth to tell, I thought you were shamming it, and making out to be much worse than you were.”
“Where in the world did you pick up such a shocking vocabulary, Miss Easton?” demanded Charles, anxious to divert her attention from this all too accurate estimate of his state of health. “You will certainly set society by the ears if you use such phrases.”
“I am aware—” and she smiled at him quite enchantingly—“but I know I need not mind my tongue with you, sir, since you certainly swore in front of me just now, which is much worse.”
Charles had to laugh and admit that she was quite right, and the dangerous topic was successfully skirted as Miss Easton began to enunciate mischievously the collection of army slang and cant terms with which she had been accustomed to shock her teachers and delight her schoolmates. She had not nearly exhausted an extensive and most reprehensible repertoire when Giles put in a belated appearance, rather shocked to find his master rocking with laughter and much too obviously in the best of health and spirits.
“’Tis easy to see you’re much improved, Sir,” he remarked dryly, and bent to pick up the patchwork quilt which Charles had early discarded and forgotten all about. “Just so’s we don’t have you in high fever by nightfall getting so excited, and you with a head wound scarce
healed,” he added in significant tones, scowling at his master from behind Nell’s back.
“Do stop fussing, Giles. You sound like an anxious nursemaid,” retorted his ungrateful charge. “Laughing never hurt anyone. Tell me—did your errand prosper?”
“Yes and no, you might say, Sir. I had speech with the landlord, but he has no brandy he says. Seemingly you can only lay hold of that if you have an arrangement with the free traders. Which in course he hasn’t. Or so he says. Very polite and full of regrets he was, to have to be so disobliging. He can offer you a nice smooth port he says, and the Madeira’s fair enough. He has rum too, if you’ve a fancy for a drop of punch. But never a drop of brandy.”
“Is that Bart Rudd?” asked Nell. “I expect he was lying. He’s a horrible man. I don’t know about his dealings with the free traders, but I’m sure he bullies that poor woman who keeps house for him. He won’t even let her go to Church or make friends with any of the village women.”
“That’ll be the niece,” agreed Giles thoughtfully. “She served me with a pint of ale and a bit of bread and cheese. She did seem a miserable down-trodden piece. But never mind for that. Just as I was for making back to report, there’s a chaise pulls up and a fine town gentleman gets out of it. Real slap up to the echo he was. Been there before too, ’cos he calls the stable lad by his name, which is Jim. And since he brought a cloak bag with him, which young Jim carries into the house, it seems as how he’s for stopping. Name of Sir Nicholas Easton, and he was enquiring the way to Brockert House.”
Chapter Six
Nell came slowly to her feet. The merriment which had lit her face died away, and her pretty colour faded. For a moment no one spoke. Then Charles said cheerfully, “Excellent. Now we shall see where we stand.”
The girl gazed at him blankly, her quick wits still dazed by the suddenness of the shock.
