Dawnlands, page 24
Every other woman he had ever known had risen late and rested before dressing for dinner. “Your life hasn’t been easy,” he said. “I will never forgive myself that it was not easier.”
“Not so, I’ve been lucky,” she said.
“I’m glad that our parting didn’t ruin your life,” he said, thinking that it had.
“It didn’t ruin my life. It took a turn, that was all.”
“Then we can part as friends?”
She nodded. “We are friends.”
“It may be that I don’t see you again before I die,” he warned her.
“I understand,” she said steadily, as if death were not a terror.
“Can we part as lovers? I will think of you on my deathbed as the only woman I ever loved, the great love of my life.”
She sighed, as if she were sorry to refuse him even this. “Not really, James. For it’s not true.”
“I loved you then, and I love you now! With all my heart!”
“It wasn’t all your heart,” she said very quietly. “In that moment, when you should have stepped forward and claimed me as your lover, and the child that I carried as your own, you did not love me then, James. In those long moments, you loved someone more than me.”
“No one!” he exclaimed, startled. “No one but you! Ever!”
“Yourself,” she pointed out. “Your honor? Your self-regard? I went to trial by water rather than shame you. But you let them drown me, rather than own me.”
He was appalled that she had thought this of him, for all these years. “I was so wrong! I was so mistaken, Beloved. I was so young, and such a fool! But you said you forgave me? I thought I was forgiven?”
“I do forgive you; I gladly forgive you. Who am I to judge?” she asked him. “It’s not my forgiveness you need.”
“Then whose?” he cried out. “Who did I injure more than you?”
“Yourself.”
“Forgive myself?” He had always thought of her as an ignorant woman. Now he was as baffled as if she were a philosopher.
“I loved a young man who was ready to give up the world for me; but then—when it mattered—he wasn’t there,” she told him. “The young man, that day at the tide mill, wasn’t the man I loved. Perhaps he was never real at all, and I dreamed him, and put it on you.” She showed him a rueful half smile. “I’m sorry for that. It’s not fair to forge a dream of someone, and then press it—like a seal into hot wax—into another’s face.”
He shook his head; he was completely bewildered.
“Maybe that dream was one we both had?” she went on. “Perhaps you dreamed of a young man like that, dreamed of being him, dreamed that you were him? Perhaps the tragedy—the real tragedy—is that you weren’t able to be him when your trial came. When a man like him would’ve faced down shame, he wasn’t there. It was only you. And you couldn’t rise to it.”
She looked inquiringly into his face, to see if he understood her, to see if he heard the truth of what she was saying. “Perhaps you need to forgive yourself, James, for not being him. And forgive me, for asking too much of you. And when you’ve forgiven, then you can let him—the dream-him, and the dream-me, and the dream life that we didn’t have—slide away into sleep.”
“The sleep of death,” he said bitterly.
“Perhaps we shall dream of each other in the sleep of death,” she agreed pleasantly. “Perhaps in death, we shall meet and be our dream selves, our best selves.”
He was choked with remorse. He bent and took her thin hand and put it to his lips. “I hope so,” was all he could say, not knowing what he was saying, and he turned and went from the room. She stayed where he had left her, listening to the wheels of his carriage crunch on the gravel, and the sound of the horses’ hooves, until he was gone.
WINDSOR CASTLE, AUTUMN 1685
Johnnie was hesitantly walking up the long approach to Windsor Castle. On Ned’s insistence, they had taken the stagecoach to Windsor from London, and got down at the inn. Now he wished they had hired a coach. There was a queue of coaches down the long drive, waiting at the door for admission, servants shouting names, coachmen holding horses as they pawed the ground, double guards on duty, and footmen opening the doors of carriages and ushering guests drowned in silks and furs and sparkling with diamonds through the great double doors of the castle.
Ned cast one aggrieved look at Johnnie. “Is it always like this?” he asked. “The country mad for wealth and show?”
“No, no, there must be some kind of ball. What a night for us to choose! We’ll never get in.”
“Better now, than at any other time,” Ned reassured him. “Look, isn’t that gentry folk getting in over there? Maybe they’ve come to watch, and we can join with them?”
Johnnie glanced over to the side entrance where gentlemen and ladies dressed in their best but far short of the extravagant excess of the courtiers were being allowed to enter on foot. Clearly, there were merchants and Windsor gentlemen and their families and even visitors from London come to the palace to watch the dining and dancing.
“Some sort of ball?” Ned asked the man who came up behind them.
“I’d say so!” He laughed. “The queen’s birthday and they say the king can’t do enough for her: she’s banned him from her bed for straying, and he’s got to win her favor if he wants a son to come after him.”
“No, that’s not it,” said a woman, turning round. “He spends all his time with that ugly Lady Sedley.”
“I heard that the queen was sick to death,” another gossip observed. “And she can’t bear a child anyway.”
“Then how come she’s dancing at her own ball?” someone asked.
“Anyway, the queen’s birthday,” Ned said, grasping the one piece of reliable information from this flood of hearsay and gossip. “Lucky that we’re dressed for it.”
Johnnie had bought his great-uncle a good coat with a fine waistcoat to go underneath, breeches, stockings, shoes, and fine linen; he himself wore his best velvet jacket with his embroidered silk waistcoat and his lace cravat.
“This is nothing,” Johnnie said. “Barely respectable.”
“Good enough to get us in,” his uncle reminded him as they stepped towards the footman at the door.
“Who can vouch for you?” the man demanded.
“We’re guests of Sir James Avery,” Ned said confidently. “Where’ll we find him?”
“He’s at dinner,” the man replied. “You can watch from the back of the hall.”
He waved them in the general direction of St. George’s Hall and the swell of noise guided them as they followed other smartly dressed men and their wives who had come to see the king and queen take their dinner. They were shown into a vaulted hall filled with tables for courtiers. At the far end was a high dais and on it a grand table loaded with silver and gold ewers and salt cellars and decanters.
The trumpets blared and the court turned to the entrance and sank into bows and curtseys as the king and queen walked in, their favorites behind them. The queen was draped in the finest of silks, a long train billowing behind her, jewels at her neck, twisted around her dark ringlets, in her ears, on her fingers, and around her waist. Her hand barely touched the king’s as he led her through the great hall. She turned her head away from him and ignored his court and his advisors, acknowledging only those on her own side, her ladies and the gentlemen of her household, and her particular favorites. She did not throw one look at him, not even when he whispered something in her ear and helped her up the shallow stairs to the dais. He handed her into her seat and she never once met his eyes. A manservant drew out her chair and presented her with a silver ewer of hot water and a towel. She dipped her fingers, she wiped them on the finest linen, she sat in her great carved chair. Still she did not look at her husband.
The king, red-faced in a glorious silk jacket of peach embroidered satin, awkward and pretending to be easy, addressed a remark across the high table to some men in the hall, smiled at their jests, and drank heartily. The queen beside him was like a woman made of ice.
The king’s confessor rose to his feet. There was a small rumble of dissent from people watching at the back of the hall, deeply suspicious of a Roman Catholic reading a Latin grace at the King of England’s dinner.
“They’ll push it too far,” Ned said with quiet satisfaction in Johnnie’s ear. “They always do: the Stuarts. They never understand what’s staring them in the face. They always think they know better. They always think they can dance over hard ground.”
“For Christ’s own sake!” Johnnie hissed back. “Can you stop your mouth for once? We’ve come to court as supplicants, we want a royal pardon. Don’t you dare say another word!”
Ned was silent. Johnnie glanced sideways at him to see if his uncle was offended.
Ned winked at him. “Cavalier,” he said, quite unrepentant. “Poodle.”
* * *
The two men watched the courtiers in silence as the dinner concluded.
“Look!” Johnnie said. “It’s the Nobildonna.”
Ned saw a woman of extraordinary beauty, her gown tailored so tightly that it gripped her slim waist but slid off her shoulders, showing her neck and the top of her breasts, loaded with diamonds. She had diamonds in her black hair and in her ears that caught the light and sparkled when she turned her head. When she rose and mounted the dais to lean over the queen’s bare shoulder and whisper in her ear, all eyes followed her.
“Lord, I’ve never seen such a thing before,” Ned said like a man observing an exotic animal. “Is that really her?”
Johnnie was awestruck. “Yes, that’s her. She always was—”
“Better speak to her husband before she spots you,” Ned said, completely indifferent to the woman’s compelling presence. “She doesn’t look like a woman for honorable business.”
“Again!” Johnnie made a muffled complaint. “Keep your opinions to yourself!”
“Oh aye,” Ned said, nearly laughing. “I’m mum.”
“Please leave me to do the talking,” Johnnie said nervously as they went down the stairs from the gallery and looked through the open double doors to the great hall. He hesitated at one of the footmen beside the open double doors. “Can you direct me to Sir James Avery?” he asked.
“That one,” the man said, nodding him inwards.
Sir James, in a dark silk jacket with a gloriously embroidered waistcoat, silk breeches, and diamond buckles on his shining shoes, was in conversation with two men, but he turned as Ned and Johnnie approached. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said courteously. He glanced over the two of them. “Do I know you? May I serve you?” His dark gaze narrowed and returned to Ned. “Have we met?”
“Sir, I have the honor—” Johnnie began as agreed, when his uncle interrupted him.
“Ned Ferryman,” he said bluntly. “We’ve met. You’ll remember.”
A deep flush rose in James Avery’s face. “This way,” he said shortly and drew them both into an antechamber. “Is it Alinor?” he demanded as the red velvet curtain fell closed behind them. “I just left her! Does she want me back?”
Johnnie looked from one man to another, marveling at the stubborn calm of his uncle and the trembling hands of the greater man. “We haven’t come about her, sir.”
“Ah, you lent her your carriage and felt she was obliged?” Ned asked cuttingly.
Johnnie made a little exclamation of protest. “No offense…”
Sir James nodded, paler than ever. “I asked her if I might call. But what do you want from me, Mr. Ferryman?”
“We want a pardon,” Ned told him bluntly.
“Perhaps I should explain…” Johnnie began, but neither man even looked at him.
“The rebellion?” James guessed. “You were mixed up in that? Will you never learn?”
Ned smiled at him, quite unrepentant. “Happen I won’t. We can’t all turn our collar to the winning side.”
“Excuse him!” Johnnie blurted. “Forgive us!”
Neither man heard him.
“Anyway, you’re far off. The pardon’s not for me.”
“If it’s for a man witnessed in arms at Westonzoyland, I can’t help you,” James told him. “The king is… the king is…”
“Vindictive,” Ned finished the sentence as Johnnie made a little gasp of disagreement and grabbed his uncle’s arm to silence him.
Sir James scowled. “He’s not granting pardons for exaggerated guilt,” he said shortly.
“But he is granting pardons? And some of the lords and ladies here have been given prisoners, and they’re selling them back to the prisoner’s families and friends who can raise money?”
Sir James nodded. “Very few.”
“The prisoner that we’re asking a pardon for is owned by Her Majesty.”
Sir James turned to a writing table in the corner of the room and made a note of what Ned was saying. “Was he seen in arms?”
“No. He never took up arms.”
“Is he awaiting transportation or execution?”
“Transport. He’s at Bristol port.”
“And what’s his trade? And what is your interest in him?”
“He’s a Christian Indian servant. What we’d call a Praying Indian. Innocent of rebellion in New England too. He was my servant. I brought him into England when I came home—”
“And took him straight into a bloody rebellion,” James finished his sentence.
Ned shook his head. “No, sir. Not us, sir. We landed in the west country and he was arrested in error.”
“An error?”
“You may not be aware,” Ned explained with biting contempt, “but they arrested everyone, and hanged most of them without trial—”
“He is completely innocent,” Johnnie interrupted. “I can vouch for him, Sir James.”
“And his name?”
“Ned Ferryman.”
Sir James put down his pen and looked at his old adversary. “He has your name? What is he? Your son?”
“He was my servant, he knew no other English name. He couldn’t say his own name, could he? Of course, he gave mine when they asked him.”
“Did you send him in your place?” Sir James asked scathingly.
“No, sir,” Ned said flatly. “I wasn’t in the rebellion and neither was he.”
“And you injured your head… how?”
“I fell off a horse,” Ned said. “Will you represent us or not?”
“We would be most grateful, sir,” Johnnie added. “I am Mrs. Reekie’s grandson, Johnnie Stoney, at your service. You won’t remember me; but we met at the wharf… and at your wedd… I was there when… At any rate, your wife, Lady Avery, was kind enough to help me start at the East India Company. I am sorry to have to come to you again but—”
“Of course, I remember you,” James said shortly. He stared into Johnnie’s face as if trying to trace a likeness. “You’re a grown man,” he said almost to himself. “And I’ve never known you, and now it is too late for this too.”
“Yes, sir,” Johnnie said uncertainly. “I was most grateful for my place in the Company. You spoke for me.”
“I’m glad I could be of service to you,” James said slowly. “I would have done more if I had been asked. But she…” He turned to Ned: “Your sister knows I’d do anything for her. Did she tell you to come to me? Does she want this servant freed?”
“I ask you in her name,” Ned said, knowing the potency of the appeal.
“You’ll tell her that I did it for her?”
“I’ll tell her we owe you a life.”
“Will you tell her that I am trying to be the man she thought I was? Even though it’s so late, I am trying.”
Ned looked at the other man as if he pitied him. “I’ll tell her that.”
“I will discover the price of a pardon and send a note to the wharf.”
“We’re very grateful, sir,” Johnnie said politely. “We appreciate your patronage. We acknowledge—”
“Don’t take too long about it,” Ned interrupted. “They’re throwing them on board like cargo. We’ve got to get the pardon and get it to Bristol, before the Rebecca sails.”
Sir James nodded. “I’ll write as soon as I have spoken with the queen.” He hesitated. “Don’t be hopeful,” he said. “They are only selling pardons for gentlemen, and they are expensive.”
Johnnie bowed low and led the way out of the room.
Sir James watched them go, the ink drying on the nib of his pen.
FOULMIRE PRIORY, SUSSEX, AUTUMN 1685
Alinor had been waiting all day, going from door to window in the Priory, not leaving the cold stalks of the autumn garden for fear of her guests arriving to find her away from home. The maid Lizzie, taking away an uneaten meal, pressed her to at least take a bowl of soup. “You’ll tire yourself out, ma’am.”
Alinor took it in her hand absentmindedly, and ate a few spoonfuls looking out of the window.
“I can watch for them while you eat,” Lizzie offered. “Coming by hired coach, are they? And Mrs. Shore bringing her granddaughters?”
Alinor nodded.
“They’ll not find husbands in Sealsea,” the girl warned. “Nobody here but fishermen and farmers. And most of them half-wits.”
Alinor knew it was pointless to say that the girls were looking for something more from English life than husbands. “Was that a carriage?”
“Yes! Yes! It’s them, turning in the gate.”
Alinor rushed to the door, limping without her stick. Lizzie followed behind her. Alinor threw the door open as the carriage drew up. The hired coachman pulled up the horses, the footmen jumped down from behind to let down the steps, and the two girls—Gabrielle followed by her sister, Mia—came tumbling out of the carriage, Alys behind them. Alinor had a confused sense of an old memory breaking into the present: she felt again her joy in her own children, her daughter and her son, Rob, the delicious smell of young hair and young skin, the tousled gleam of young curls and the brightness of a young smile. She felt as if she held the future of the family, the future of England, when her arms were around both girls and they were bobbing like apples on a springing bough to kiss her cheek and lay their heads on her shoulders.
