The Love Child (34 page)

Everyone now knows the outcome of the trial, how the verdict was not guilty, and how those in court cheered until they were hoarse, how the people waited in the streets to welcome the seven bishops, how the whole of London was en fete.

Foolish James, he should have known; but so much did he believe in his right to the throne that he could not conceive that it could be taken away from him. The Queen had just given him a son, and the

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country must surely be delighted with a male heir, but a baby could not save him now.

I was getting anxious about Leigh at this point because there was so much talk about William of Orange and his wife Mary, and there were hints that they were to be invited to England to take the throne. It was three years since James had been crowned, and in that short time his actions had brought him to this state. There could not be a more unpopular man in the country than its King.

“The trouble with him is,” said my father, “that he is not content to be a Catholic-which the country might have accepted. He wants to be a Catholic reigning over a Catholic country. I know that certain ministers have been in touch with William.”

“As long as they don’t start fighting,” said my mother, “I don’t care what King we have.”

“Then you should care,” retorted my father. “James will try to turn us all Catholic … gentle persuasion at first and then … not so gentle. I know the methods.

Englishmen will not endure it. James has had every opportunity to reign in peace, but he is obsessed not only by practising his religion but imposing it on the whole country.”

There came the day in the summer of 1688 when a party of men led by Lords Danby, Shrewsbury and Devonshire, and including the Bishop of London, sent an invitation to William inviting him to prepare to come to England. William arrived at Torbay, whither he had been driven by storms at sea, and his ship bore a flag on which were the words: “The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England”; and beneath this was the motto of the House of Orange: “I will maintain.”

In the September of the year 1689 I gave birth to a daughter. I called her Damaris for no other reason than that I liked the name.

Edwin’s wife, Jane, had a child-a boy whom she called Carleton after my father. He took quite a fancy to the boy and was far more interested in him than in my Damaris.

Sally Nullens was in a fine state about the births because she did not like the thought of new nurses being brought in, although she was now with Carlotta at Eyot Abbas.

She reckoned that young Carleton and Damaris were really her babies.

“And what’s to be?” she moaned. “I can’t split myself in two, can I?”

Harriet brought Carlotta over to stay when the babies were born so Sally took over the nursery-temporarily, as my mother said.

Emily Philpots was busy giving lessons to Carlotta and embroidering for the babies.

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Harriet was greatly amused. She waylaid me in the garden one day and laughingly said: “I think this is the time to bring our little scheme into motion.”

“How?” I asked.

She put her hands on her hips and gave a good imitation of Sally. ” ‘I can’t split myself in two, can I?’ Sad, but true,” she went on. “Well, then since such division is impossible, and Sally can’t be in two places at once, all the children must be in one place.”

I laughed with her, my spirits soaring. “You mean Carlotta will come here?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“It’s an excellent idea.”

“Of course she will have to come visiting her supposed mamma quite frequently. Do you know, I should miss her if she didn’t.”

“Oh, Harriet, isn’t she the most adorable child you ever saw?”

“She is one of the most scheming, selfish little brats I ever saw. She is full of wiles, already aware of her attractions, which I admit are considerable. She has the art of attracting the opposite sex already at her fingertips. You see how she is throwing her web around Robert Frinton, who is becoming quite besotted … naming bis cupboard after her! All this is going to her head.”

“But she is unusual. You must admit that, Harriet.”

“She will have to be guarded carefully; otherwise we shall have trouble there. She will mature early. You know, she is amazingly like me. Sometimes I think fate is having a little joke. She might be my daughter more easily than yours.”

“I suppose it is living so near you.”

“She lives nearer to Sally but I see no resemblance between themthank God. But is this not a heavensent opportunity?”

“You mean she shall come over to our nurseries and be looked after by Sally who, with Emily, will move back to us?”

“A very sensible arrangement. Then, my dear Priscilla, you can glory in your offspring to your heart’s content.”

“Oh, Harriet, you are so good.”

“For heaven’s sake, child, you must be blind. I am only good when it is no trouble to be. I’m a little tired of the role of mother. I never thought I played it very well. Though I was very good as the expectant mother. But expectancy is always so interesting. It is the reality which can pall. I’ll speak to your mother about it.

Then I’ll tell Sally. She will be filled with bliss. Greedy old thing! She wouldn’t give up one of her babies to some poor deserving nurse. Emily Philpots is such another.”

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She kept her word and did speak to my mother.

My mother gravely came to me at once to tell me what had been arranged.

I said: “It is really an excellent idea. Sally will be delighted and so will Emily.

“It saves having two nurseries where one will do. And I am sure Sally would have been unbearably critical about everything that happened in the nursery. You’re delighted, I can see. You can have your Carlotta under your eyes every day.”

I laughed. “She is an adorable child,” I said.

“Handsome, yes, but quite spoiled. She needs more discipline. I shall speak to Sally.

You know, Sally is as bad as everyone else where that child is concerned.”

“Sally loves her.”

“Sally loves all babies. But I must say I think Harriet is rather an unnatural mother.

She always was. When I think of her leaving Leigh as she did… when he was only a few months old…”

“Harriet is a good friend, though.”

My mother shrugged her shoulders. Although she agreed that it was a good, practical idea for the children all to be under one roof, she did not approve of Harriet’s action.

That was why that year was a happy one for me. What I had so desired had come about in a natural way. I had my new baby and my own Carlotta and I was with them every day. Leigh was away a good deal and I was anxious for him, but I had the comfort of my children and I was happier than I had been since Jocelyn’s death.

Then there was consternation in our household. My mother knew that if it came to war she would not be able to prevent my father’s sharing in it. One day he was missing and she found he had gone, leaving a note for her.

I found her seated in the window, the letter in her hand and a look of blank despair on her face.

“He’s gone,” she said. “I knew it was in his mind. I knew I kept him against his will.”

I took the letter from her and read:

My dearest,

I could not tell you. I knew you would unnerve me. You would have made me stay. I cannot. I must go. So much is at stake. Our future depends on it… the future of our grandchildren. Understand, dear Bella, I must go. You will be in my thoughts every minute. God bless you.

Carleton

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She murmured: “It is like an evil pattern. Oh, God, if he should be taken again… as he was before…”

“Perhaps this will be over soon. They say the King hasn’t a chance.”

“He defeated Monmouth.”

“It was before he had shown that he was not a good King.”

Then a terrible thought struck me. Leigh would be involved in this. He was in the King’s army. My father would be on a different side from my husband. I knew that Leigh had no great respect for the King, but he was in the King’s service and a soldier’s first duty was loyalty.

I could not bear to think of what might be the outcome.

As for my mother, I was afraid she was going to be ill again as she had been in Dorchester.

The coming of William of Orange had set James attempting to rally men to his cause.

There would be war, and the people remembered that other war of not so very long ago. The last thing they wanted was civil war-Englishmen fighting Englishmen. There was little glory to be gamed and a great deal of sorrow. “No war!” declared the people.

I rejoiced when I heard that the Duke of Marlborough had deserted the King and gone over to William. That meant that Leigh and my father would not be on opposing sides.

Everybody was deserting the King. I could feel sorry for him, although I knew he had brought this on himself by his obstinacy and foolishness. His daughter was the wife of the man he would call the usurper; his second daughter, Anne, with her husband, the Prince of Denmark, had turned against her father and was supporting her sister and brother-in-law.

That must have been a bitter blow for James. He would know then that the day was lost.

As disaster and defeat descended upon him, our spirits rose. It looked as though the war was over. James had fled to Ireland, where the Irish rallied to him because of religious sympathies. But William was a brilliant general, and James had little chance against him.

Both Leigh and Edwin fought in the Battle of the Boyne, which was decisive.

The war was over. The revolution was successful. Few kings had been turned from their thrones with such ease.

We had now moved into a new era. James was deposed and in exile. William and Mary reigned in England.

220A Visit to London

Now our lives had set to a pattern. Leigh continued in the army and we waited eagerly for those times when we could be together. The children were growing up. Damaris was six years old; Carlotta, thirteen. I was twenty-eight years old.

“There is plenty of time to have more children,” said my mother.

She was contented. My father was at home and she was glad that he was getting old.

“Too old for adventures,” she said with a chuckle.

But my father was the sort who would always be ready for adventure, as Leigh was.

My mother and I were closer than we had ever been. We shared each other’s anxieties.

She told me what a comfort I had always been to her. “Though when you were born,”

she said, “I was disappointed because you weren’t a boy. But only for your father’s sake, of course. He always wanted boys.”

“I know,” I said, with a trace of bitterness, “he made that clear.”

“Some men are like that,” replied my mother. “They think the world is made for men … and so it is in many ways. But some of them can’t do without us.”

I felt very tender towards her. Beside her, I felt worldly beyond imagining. She had lost her first husband when he was very young and had lamented for him over many years, deceived into thinking

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that he was the perfect gentle knight when, all the time he had been professing devotion to her, he had been Harriet’s lover. Yet my mother had overcome that to walk into a lifelong romance with my father. In a way life had protected her as it never had me. I had loved and borne a child out of wedlock; I had been caught up in intrigue and had spent such a night with a man who seemed to me like a monster of iniquity; and now I was living the quiet country life like a matron who has never strayed from the conventional paths. There was so much which I could not explain to my mother.

But now we both feared for the men we loved and that brought us together. There were times when I almost told her what had happened to me, but I restrained myself in time.

So, there were those occasions when Leigh came home and we planned for the future, but although I longed for him while he was away, when we were together we never quite reached that blissful contentment which I knew should have been ours. Always the memory of Beaumont Granville would be there to torment me, to jeer at me, to remind me of my humiliating submission. If I could have disguised this from Leigh I should have been happier, but he was aware that something was between us and deeply hurt by it; and I began to fear that in tune it could corrode our relationship and ruin our marriage.

Damaris was a quiet, reflective child. She was clever at her lessons and Emily’s favourite. I was glad of that. Emily’s devotion to Carlotta had waned a little, which was largely due to the behaviour of Carlotta.

Carlotta was wild, impetuous, given to flashes of temper when she would say whatever came into her mind. Damaris was gentle and never hurt anyone. I remember the day during a very hot summer when she came running to me in great distress, telling me that the poor world was broken. She had seen cracks hi the parched soil and it had distressed her because she thought that anything which was broken must be painful.

She loved animals and more than once had brought me a wounded bird to heal. One was a gull she had found on the beach. “It had a broken wing,” she cried, “and the others were pecking at it.”

Damaris was a pretty child, but before the blazing good looks of Carlotta, any child must seem insignificant.

There was no doubt that Carlotta was going to be a great beauty. She had never gone through any plain stages as so many beauties-tobe do. That outstanding colouring was always there. The soft, dark, curling hair and the vivid blue eyes. Her hair was not as dark as Har-222

riet’s and her eyes were of a lighter blue. I had only seen one person with those violet eyes and near black hair and that was Harriet herself. But Carlotta had the same sort of beauty, and many people remarked that Carlotta took after her mother, which never failed to amuse Harriet.

Carlotta at thirteen was well formed, in advance of most girls of her age. She had been born with the art of attracting people, and I had to confess this gave me some cause for alarm. She was a little like my grandmother, Bersaba Tolworthy. They had something apart from beauty which drew men to them. Harriet had it even now when she was a little plump, and my grandmother had retained it all her life.