The love child

The Plot

I WAS FIRST AWARE of mystery when my father, who had hitherto for the most part seemed unaware of my existence, suddenly decreed that Mistress Philpots, who had until this time been my governess, no longer possessed the required qualifications for the task, and must be replaced. I was astounded. I had never thought that my education would be of any great concern to him. Had it been my brother Carl, who was some four years younger than I, that would have been another matter. Carl was the centre of the household; he shared my father’s name—Carl being short for Carleton since it would have been misleading to have identical names in one household—and he was being brought up to be exactly like my father which, summed up in my father’s phraseology, was “making a man of him.” Carl must be complete master of his horse; he must lead the hunt; he must excel at archery and gunnery as well as drive a good ball in pall-mall. If his Latin and Greek were a little weak and the Reverend George Helling, whose task it was to instruct him, despaired of ever making a scholar of him, that was not of great importance. Carl must first and foremost be made into a man, which meant being as like our father as one human being could be to another. Thus when he made this announcement, my first reaction was not “What will Mistress Philpots say?” or “What will the new governess be like?” but amazement that his attention should have come to rest on me.

It was typical of my mother that she should demand: “And what is to become of Emily Philpots?”

“My dear Arabella,” said my father, “your concern should be with your daughter’s education, not with the welfare of a stupid old woman.”

“Emily Philpots is by no means stupid, and I will not have my servants turned out because of a whim of yours.”

They were like that together always. Sometimes it seemed that they hated each other, but that was not the case. When he was away she was anxiously waiting for his return, and when he came back the first one he would look for—even before Carl—was she; and if she were not there, he would be restive and uneasy until she was.

“I have not said she should be turned out,” he insisted.

“Put to grass … like an old horse?” said my mother.

“I was always devoted to my horses and my affection does not end with their usefulness,” retorted my father. “Let old Philpots retire and nod over the fire with Sally Nullens. She’s happy enough, isn’t she—as happy as she can be without an infant to drool over?”

“Sally makes herself useful and the children love her.”

“I’ve no doubt Philpots can share the usefulness if not the love. In any case I have decided that Priscilla’s education can be neglected no longer. She needs someone who can teach her more advanced subjects and be a companion to her, a woman of good education, poise and scholarship.”

“And where shall this paragon be found?”

“She is found. Christabel Connalt will be arriving at the end of the week. That will give you plenty of time to break the news to Emily Philpots.”

He spoke with finality, and my mother, who was very wise and shrewd in a rather innocent way, realized that it was no use protesting. I could see that she had already decided that Emily Philpots had taught me all she had to teach and I must move into a higher sphere. Moreover my father had presented her with a fait accompli and she accepted it.

She questioned him about this Christabel Connalt. If she did not approve of her she would not accept her, she insisted. She hoped he had made that clear.

“She will naturally know she has to please the lady of the house,” retorted my father. “She is a pleasant young woman. I heard of her through Letty Westering. She is well educated and comes from a vicarage. Now she needs to earn a livelihood. I thought this would be an opportunity to do her and ourselves a good turn at the same time.”

There was a certain amount of argument and finally my mother agreed that Christabel Connalt should come, and set about the unwelcome task of tactfully telling Mistress Philpots that there was to be a new governess.

Emily Philpots reacted in the way my mother and I expected. She was, as Sally Nullens said, “Struck all of a heap.” So she was not good enough anymore to teach Miss! Miss must have a scholar, must she? They would see what would come of that. She communed with Sally Nullens, who herself had a grievance because Master Carl had been taken out of her hands since, as my father put it, it was not good for a boy to be mollycoddled by a pack of women. Moreover my parents had added to her indignation by not producing more children—neither of them being of an age when it would be impossible to populate a nursery.

Emily declared that she would pack her bags and be gone, and then we would see, she added darkly. But when the first shock had worn off and she began to consider the difficulties of finding a new post at her age, and when my mother pointed out that she would indeed be lost without her for there was no one, she was sure, who could do such fine feather stitching as Emily could, nor put a patch that was almost invisible on a garment, she allowed herself to be coaxed to stay; and with a certain amount of self-righteous sniffing and dark prophecies in Sally Nullens’s room over the glowing fire with the kettle singing on the hob, she prepared herself for the new life and the coming of Christabel.

“Be kind to poor old Emily,” said my mother. “It’s a blow for her.”

I was closer to my mother than I was to my father. I think she was very much aware of his indifference towards me and tried to make up for it. I loved her dearly, but it occurred to me that I had a stronger feeling for my father, which was very perverse of me in the circumstances. I admired him so much. He was the strong, dominating man; almost everyone was in awe of him—even Leigh Main who was something of the same sort himself and had always insisted, ever since I had known him, which was the whole of my life, that he was not afraid of anything on earth or in heaven or hell. That was a favourite saying of his. But even he was wary of my father.

He ruled our household—even my mother, and she was no weak woman. She stood up to him in a way which I knew secretly amused him. They seemed to enjoy sparring together. It did not make a peaceful household exactly, but that they found contentment in each other was obvious.

We were a complicated household, because of Edwin and Leigh. They were twenty-one years old on my fourteenth birthday, and they had been born within a few weeks of each other. Edwin was Lord Eversleigh and the son of my mother’s first marriage. His father—my father’s cousin—had been killed before he was born—murdered on the grounds of our home, which made him seem mysterious and romantic. Yet there was neither of these qualities about Edwin. He was merely my half brother—not quite as tall or as forceful as Leigh, overshadowed by Leigh actually, but perhaps that was just in my eyes.

Leigh was no relation to us really, although he had been brought up in our house since he was a baby. He was the son of my mother’s friend of many years standing, Lady Stevens, who had been Harriet Main, the actress. There was something rather shameful about Leigh’s birth. My mother didn’t speak of it and it was Harriet herself who told me.

“Leigh is my bastard,” she told me once. “I had him when I really shouldn’t, but I’m glad I did. I had to leave him to your mother to care for and of course she did that far better than I ever could.”

I was not sure that she was right. Her son, Benjie, seemed to have a good time and I often thought what an exciting mother Harriet would be. I was very much attracted by her and she often invited me to her house as she was aware of my admiration, which was something she loved no matter whence it came. I could talk to her more easily than I could to any other grown-up person.

Edwin and Leigh were in the army. It was a family tradition. Edwin’s two grandfathers had both been famous soldiers who had served the Royalist cause. His parents had met during the days of the King’s exile. My mother often told me stories of the days before the Restoration and her life in the shabby old chateau of Congreve where she had lived while they were waiting for the King to come into his own.

She said that on my sixteenth birthday I should be given the family journals to read. Then I would understand a great deal. In the meantime it was not too soon for me to start my own journal. I was appalled at first. Then I started and the habit grew.

Well, that was our household—Edwin, Leigh, myself, seven years younger than they were, and Carl who was four years younger than I.

There were numerous servants. Among them our old nurse Sally Nullens, and Jasper, the head gardener, with his wife Ellen, who was the housekeeper. Jasper was an old Puritan who regretted the disbanding of the Commonwealth and whose hero was Oliver Cromwell. His wife, Ellen, I had always thought, would have been quite jolly if she had dared to be. Then there was Chastity, their daughter, who had married one of the gardeners and still worked for us when she was not having children, which she did with annual regularity.

Up to that time life had been easy for people like us in Restoration England. I was too young to feel the immense gratification that had been the mood of the country with the return of the Monarchy. Mistress Philpots told me during one of my lessons that there had been such restriction of freedom that people had gone mad with joy when they were rid of their bonds. The country had thrown off an excess of religion and had become quite irreligious, with the result that there was too much levity everywhere. It was all very well to open the theatres, but Mistress Philpots believed that some of the plays which were performed were downright bawdy. Ladies behaved in the most shameful way and the fashion was set by the Court.

She was a Royalist and did not wish to criticize the King’s way of life, but he did create scandal with his numerous mistresses, and that was not good for the country.

My father was often at Court. He was a friend of the King. They were both interested in architecture, and after the great fire there was a good deal to be done to rebuild the city. It used to be exciting when my father returned from Court with stories of what went on there. The King’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, was a great friend of my father’s, who once said that it was a pity Old Rowley (the King’s nickname, said to have been taken from an amorous goat) did not legitimatize him so that there would be an heir to the throne other than his humourless, morose brother who was a Catholic.

My father was, rather strangely for a man of his kind, a strong adherent of the Protestant Faith. He used to say that the Church of England had put religion in the place where it belonged. “Get the Catholics in and we’ll be having the Inquisition here and people walking in fear, just as they did in the days of Cromwell. The two extremes of the case. We want to steer a middle course.”

He would grow very serious when he talked of the possibility of Charles’s dying and his brother James taking his place. Whenever I heard him on the subject I was amazed at his fierceness.

My mother used to accompany him when he went to Court. When Carl was a baby she hated to leave the house but now she freely went. Sally Nullens said that my father was a man who needed a wife to watch over him, and I gathered that before his marriage there had been many women in his life.

That was our household at the time Christabel Connalt entered it.

It was a misty day at the end of October when she arrived. She was travelling by the new stage which would bring her to Dover, and from there my father was to meet her in the carriage. I thought that he was putting himself out a great deal for my education. A room had been made ready for her and the servants were all agog with curiosity to see her. I supposed their lives were fairly humdrum and her coming was quite an event, particularly as Emily Philpots had made such an issue of it and had uttered such prognostications of evil concerning the new governess that I believed half the servants thought she would turn out to be a witch.

Carl was practising his flageolet in his room and the mournful strains of “Barbary Allen” could be heard throughout the house. I went into the gardens because I felt the need to escape from the dirge as well as the overpowering atmosphere of the house. I strolled out as far as that spot where there had once been an arbour and where I had heard that my mother’s first husband had been murdered. Flowers grew there now, but they were always red. My mother wanted other colours, but no matter what was planted there they always turned out red. I was sure old Jasper arranged it because he believed that people should be punished and not allowed to forget the past just because it would be comfortable to do so. His wife said of him that he was so good that he saw evil in everything. I was not so sure of the goodness and was suspicious of such a display of virtue; but I reckoned that was true about seeing evil in everything. However, although I was sure my mother deceived herself into thinking that what had happened at that spot was forgotten, memory lingered on and the servants said it was haunted and Jasper’s blood-red flowers continued to bloom.

As I was standing there I heard the carriage drive up. I waited, listening. I heard my father’s voice as he shouted to the grooms. Then there was silence. They must have gone into the house.

I was pensive, suddenly overcome by the contemplation of change. It would be inevitable. Christabel Connalt would be very erudite, strict, no doubt, and determined to make a scholar of me. Emily Philpots had never achieved that. Looking back, I realized that she was rather ineffectual and with the cunning of children, Carl and I had known it, for before Carl went off to the rectory for tuition, she had taught him too. We had plagued poor Emily sorely. Carl had once put a spider on her skirt and then shrieked at her. He had then removed it with a show of gallantry for which I reprimanded him afterwards, telling him that the incident showed he had a deceitful nature. Carl had folded his palms together and looked heavenwards, and in a fair imitation of Jasper had declared he had done what he did for old Philpots’ sake.

I had built up a picture of Christabel Connalt in my mind. Brought up in a vicarage, she would be religious of course, and more censorious of the customs and manners which prevailed in the country even, than Emily Philpots. She would be middle-aged, verging on elderly, with greying hair and steely eyes which missed nothing.

I shivered and was sure I should look back nostalgically on the weak rule of Emily Philpots.

She and Sally Nullens had talked continuously of the newcomer. When I went into Sally’s sitting room, which Carl called “Nullens’s Parlour,” I was aware of an atmosphere of growing tension and mystery. The two women would sit over the fire, heads close together, whispering. I knew that Sally Nullens was a firm believer in witchcraft, and whenever anyone died or developed a mysterious illness always looked round for the ill-wisher. Carl used to say that she regretted that the days of the witch finders were over.

“Can’t you imagine old Sal going round examining the pretty maidens … just everywhere, for the marks of their lovers? They’re succubi or is it incubi for girls?”

Carl might have been the despair of the Reverend George Helling where Greek and Latin were concerned but he was very knowledgeable about the facts of life. Even though he was not yet ten years old, he had an eye for the young serving girls and he liked to speculate on who was doing what with whom.

Sally Nullens said: “He’s another like his father. Up to tricks before they’re out of swaddling.”

An exaggeration, of course, but it was true that Carl was progressing fast along the road to manhood—a fact which pleased my father and bore out Sally’s words that Carl was another such as he had been.

My thoughts were running on, propelled by the contemplation of the change Christabel Connalt would bring.

“The master seemed glad to bring her in,” I had heard Emily Philpots say to Sally when they were sitting together in Sally’s room—Sally mending and Emily doing some fine feather stitching on one of my mother’s petticoats.

As the remark was followed by a sniffing which I knew from the past meant an indication that there was something profound behind it, I had been guilty of listening. This was because it concerned my father, and about him I had this obsession to which I have already referred.

“And who is she, I should like to know?” went on Emily.

“Oh, he gave all that up. Mistress wouldn’t stand for it.”

“There’s some as never gives up. And it wouldn’t surprise me …”

“Walls,” said Sally portentously, “they have ears. Doors too. Is anyone there?”

I went in and said I had brought my riding skirt which I had torn the day before and would Sally mend it please?

She cast a significant look at Emily and took the skirt.

“Nice and muddy too,” she commented. “I’ll give it a sponge. It’s one body’s work looking after you, Mistress Priscilla.”

It was sad in a way. It made me want to comfort her. She was always stressing how useful she was and demanding to know how we should get along without her. Now Emily Philpots would be the same. I knew they were both preparing to dislike the newcomer.

I gazed at the roses, valiantly clinging to life although their season was over; and they reminded me of those two aging women.

I looked towards the house and saw it afresh. Eversleigh Court, the family home. It really belonged to Edwin, although my father managed the estate and everything would collapse without him. He was a proud man. I wondered whether he resented Edwin. Edwin had everything—the title and the estate, and it would have been so much more suitable if my father had had it because he was the one who had saved it during the Civil War by posing as a Cromwellian and fooling everyone, just that he might keep the estate in order. Edwin had not been born then. My mother called him the Restoration Baby. His birthday was January of the year 1660, so his arrival into the world was only a few months before the King’s return.

It was a gracious old house and, as such houses always do, gained with the years. So many generations of Eversleighs had added to it; tragedies and comedies had been played out here; and Sally Nullens said that those who could find no rest came back to wander about their homes unseen, but their presence was known to the discerning … like Sally Nullens.

There were many houses like it in the country. It was the big house of the neighbourhood built in the days of Elizabeth with the traditional E type of plan in homage to Gloriana. East wing, west wing, and centre; hall that was as high as the house with vaulted ceiling and broad oak beams. Some of the rooms were elegantly panelled, but the hall was stone walled and hung with armoury to remind coming generations of the part Eversleighs had played in the country’s history. Over the great fireplace was the painting of the family tree which had to be added to now and then and would no doubt in time spread across the great hall. I was there—not in the main branch, of course. Edwin was on that, and when he married his children would be there right in the centre. Leigh used to get angry because he wasn’t on it. He could not understand in those days why he should be left out. I believe it had an effect on him and made him want to score over Edwin in every other way. I began to brood and came up with the idea that often what happened to us in childhood had its effect on the rest of our lives.

But I was only thinking lightly of these things as I stood by the haunted flowerbed, and I knew that I was putting off the moment when I should go and meet this woman who I knew instinctively was going to change my life.

Chastity came out to me, waddling slightly, for she was pregnant again.

“Mistress Priscilla, where be you then? They want you to meet the new governess. Your mother says to go to the drawing room at once.”

“All right, Chastity,” I said. “I’ll come.” I added: “You shouldn’t run, you know. You ought to consider your condition.”

“Oh, ’tis all so natural, mistress.”

I calculated this would be her sixth and she was young yet. I reckoned she had time for at least another ten.

“You’re like a queen bee, Chastity,” I said reproachfully.

“What’s that, mistress?”

I didn’t explain. I thought how provoking fate was to give Chastity one child every year while my parents had only Carl and myself (not counting Edwin who was my mother’s alone). If they had had more, Sally Nullens wouldn’t be sniffing out witches all the time and Emily Philpots would be considered good enough for the young ones. Moreover, I should have been pleased with some little brothers and sisters.

“Have you seen her, Chastity?” I asked.

“Not as you might say, mistress. She was took to the drawing room. My mother sent me to find you. Said Mistress was asking for you.”

I went straight to the drawing room. She was there with my mother and father.

My mother said, “Ah, here is Priscilla. Come and meet Mistress Connalt, Priscilla.”

Christabel Connalt stood up and came towards me. She was tall, slim and very plainly dressed; but she was not without elegance, which I believed came naturally to her. She wore a cloak of a blue woolen material, which was caught at the throat with a buckle which might have been silver. I could see that the bodice beneath was of the same blue material; it was cut low but she wore a linen kerchief about her neck which added a touch of modesty to the bodice, which came to a deep point and was laced down the front with a silver-coloured cord. Her skirt, still of the same material, fell to the floor in folds. Attached to the cloak was a hood which had fallen back from her head, disclosing dark hair unfashionably unfrizzed and hanging in loose curls, which were tied back from her face.

But it was not her clothes which struck me—after all they were more or less what one would expect of a daughter of a parson whose stipend was so inadequate that his daughter must earn a living in this way. Neat not gaudy, I commented inwardly. And then I looked at her face. She was not beautiful, but there was distinction about her. She was by no means as old as I had expected her to be. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties—old to me, of course, but as some would say, in the prime of life. Her face was oval in shape, her skin smooth and with the texture of a flower petal; her eyebrows were dark and well defined; her nose was a trifle large; her eyes were large, too, with short, thick dark lashes; her mouth was mobile, by which I mean it betrayed her feelings, I was to discover, far more than her eyes ever did. They would be quite impassive; the eyelids would not flicker but something happened to the mouth which she could not restrain.

I was too taken aback to speak because she was not in the least what I had expected.

“Your pupil, Mistress Connalt,” said my father. He was watching us with a certain twitching of his lips, which I had come to know meant an inner amusement which he was trying not to betray.

“I hope we shall work well together,” she said.

“I hope so, too.”

Her eyes were fixed on me. They betrayed nothing, but the lips moved a little. They tightened as though she did not exactly like what she saw. I told myself that I was allowing Sally Nullens and Emily Philpots to influence me.

“Mistress Connalt has been telling us something of her teaching programme,” said my mother. “It sounds very interesting. I think, Priscilla, you should show her her room. Then you might let her see the schoolroom. Mistress Connalt says that what she wants is to get down to work as soon as possible.”

“Would you like to see your room?” I asked.

She said she would, and I led her out of the room.

As we mounted the staircase, she said, “It’s a beautiful house. What a mercy it was not destroyed during the war.”

“My father worked hard to preserve it,” I replied.

“Ah!” It was a quick intake of breath. She was walking behind me and I could feel her eyes on me, which made me feel uncomfortable, and I was glad when we had mounted the staircase and could walk side by side.

“I gather your home is a rectory,” I said conversationally.

“Yes, it’s in Westering. Do you know Westering?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“It is in Sussex.”

“I hope you don’t find it bleak here. It is, they say in the southeast. We’re near the coast, too. We get the full force of the prevailing wind which is east.”

“It sounds like a geography lesson,” she said, and her voice had laughter in it.

I was pleased and I felt happier after that. I showed her her room, which was next to the schoolroom and not very large. Emily Philpots had occupied it, but she had been moved to a room on the floor above, next to Sally Nullens. My mother had said that the governess should be next to the schoolroom. It was another grievance for poor old Emily.

“I hope it is comfortable,” I said.

She turned to me and replied: “It’s luxurious compared with the rectory.” Her eyes went to the fire in the grate, which my mother had ordered should be lighted. “It was so cold in the rectory, I used to dread the winter.”

I thought then: I believe I’m going to like her.

I left her to unpack and wash, telling her that in an hour’s time I would come up and show her the schoolroom, where we could look at some of my books and I could explain to her what I had been doing. I would show her the house and gardens if she would care to see them.

She thanked me and she smiled at me rather shyly. “I think I am going to be very glad I came here,” she said.

I went down to my parents. As was to be expected they were talking about the new governess.

“A very self-possessed woman,” said my mother.

“She has a certain poise without doubt,” replied my father.

My mother smiled at me. “Here’s Priscilla. Well, my dear, what do you think of her?”

“It’s too soon to say,” I parried.

“Since when have you become so cautious?” My mother continued to smile at me. “I think she will be very good.”

“She is clearly well brought up,” added my father. “I think, Bella, she should join us for meals.”

“Join us for meals! The governess!”

“Oh, come now, you can see she is different from old Philpots.”

“Undoubtedly different,” agreed my mother. “But to join us at table! What if there are guests?”

“She’ll mingle, I don’t doubt. She seems articulate enough.”

“What when the boys come home?”

“Well … what?”

“Do you think …”

“I certainly think you cannot condemn a young woman of her breeding to lonely trays in her room. Obviously she can’t be with the servants.”

“It is always like that with governesses. How I should hate it!”

“What do you think, Priscilla?” said my father, and so astonishing me by asking my opinion for the first time in my life—I certainly never remembered its happening before—that I stammered and could find no ready reply. “Let her join us,” he went on, “and we’ll see how it works.”

The servants would think it very strange that one who was only slightly higher in the social scale than they were should sit with the family at dinner. I knew that there would be a great deal of gossip in the Nullens-Philpots combine.

I couldn’t help thinking that it was rather mysterious that my father should concern himself first with the state of my education and then the comfort of my governess.

So there was mystery. I should not have been myself if I did not wonder what it was all about. Christabel Connalt would bring change, I knew. I could feel it in the air.

For the next few days she was the centre of attention in the house. Sally Nullens and Emily Philpots discussed her endlessly and the rest of the servants only slightly less so. Naturally I spent more time with her than anyone and I felt I was gradually getting to know her. She was not easy to know; I changed my opinion of her from hour to hour. There were times when I thought her completely self-sufficient and at others I seemed to sense a certain vulnerability. It was that telltale mouth which would turn down at the corners when it expressed all sorts of emotions. There were times when I fancied she harboured some sort of resentment.

There was no doubt of her erudition and ability to teach. The Reverend William Connalt had determined to send her into the world equipped to earn a living. She had taken lessons with the sons of the local squire, and I fancied that she had made an attempt to keep up with them if not surpass them. There was something I quickly learned about Christabel; she wanted to be not only as good as everyone else but better. I presumed that came from being poor.

At first there was a certain amount of restraint between us, but I determined to break that down and I did succeed quite well—largely because she found me somewhat ignorant. It appeared that my father really had been right and that if I had been left any longer to the mercies of Emily Philpots I should have emerged into the world of adults as a somewhat ignorant young lady.

All that was going to be changed.

We studied Latin, Greek, French and arithmetic, at all of which I scarcely shone. At English literature I was not so bad. Visits to Aunt Harriet (as I called her, though she was not my real aunt) had made me interested in plays and I could quote passages of Shakespeare. Aunt Harriet, though long retired from the stage, was still fond of arranging little entertainments and we all had to become players when we were there. I enjoyed it and it had the effect of arousing my interest.

I noticed that during our English literature sessions Christabel was less pleased than during others. It was then that I realized she was happy only when she could show me how much cleverer she was than I. She did not have to stress that. She had come to teach me, hadn’t she? Moreover she was about ten years older than I so she ought to have learned more.

It was very odd. When I made stupid errors, although she would speak gravely, her mouth told me that she felt rather pleased; and when I shone—as I did with literature—although she would say, “That was excellent, Priscilla,” her mouth would form itself into that tight little line, so I knew she wasn’t pleased.

I had always been greatly interested in people. I remembered the things they said which taught me something about them. My mother used to laugh at me, and Emily Philpots said: “If you could only remember the things that mattered, you’d be more credit to me.” The longest rivers, the highest mountains, I simply could not care about them. But I was completely intrigued by the way people thought and what was going on in their minds.

That was why I quickly discovered that there was some resentment in Christabel; and if it had not seemed so absurd, I should have thought it was directed against me.

My father had said that Christabel should take one of the horses from the stables which suited her and ride with me. She was very pleased about this. She was a fair horsewoman and told me that she had been allowed to exercise the Westerings’ horses.

We would often stop at an inn when we went riding together, and drink cider and eat cheese with clapbread, which was made entirely of oats, or eat crusty bread straight from the oven.

Sometimes we rode down to the sea and galloped along the shore. I discovered that if I suggested a race and let her beat me, she was overcome with a sort of secret joy.

I believed this was because she had had a very unhappy childhood and that she was vaguely envious of mine, which had been so comfortable and secure that I had never thought about it until now.

Carl had taken a fancy to her. He used to come in sometimes and share a lesson, which was strange, for when he went to the rectory, he had always reminded me of the schoolboy creeping like the snail unwillingly to school. He asked what her favourite tune was and tried to play it—with distressing results to all within earshot.

She did not seem to want to talk about herself at first, but I set myself to lure her into confidences, and once she started to tell me she seemed as though she wanted to talk. It was rather like opening the floodgates.

Soon she had made me see that loveless household: the rectory which was always cold and damp, with the graveyard close by so that on looking out of her windows she could see tombstones, and when she was a child had been told by the washerwoman that at night the dead came out of their tombs and danced, and if anyone saw them, they themselves would be dead before the year was out.

“I used to lie in bed shivering,” she said, “while I was overcome by the temptation to get out of bed and go to the window to see if they were dancing. I remember the cold boards and the wind that used to rattle the windows. I would stand there at the window terrified, freezing, yet unable to go back to bed.”

“I should have done the same,” I told her.

“You have no idea what my childhood was like. They thought they were so good, and they thought that to be good one had to be miserable. They thought there was some virtue in suffering.”

“We have someone here like that. There is old Jasper, the gardener. He’s a Puritan, you know. He was here during the war when my father was pretending to be a supporter of Cromwell.”

“Tell me,” she cried, and I told her all I knew. She sat listening, entranced, with her mouth curved and rather beautiful then—so different from when she had talked of that cold humourless rectory.

Sometimes I thought she hated her father and mother.

I said once: “I believe you are glad you have left home.”

Her lips tightened. “It was never like a home … as this is. How lucky you are, Priscilla, to have been born here … to your mother.”

I thought that was a strange thing to say, but she did say strange things sometimes.

I liked very much hearing about the rectory and the things they did there. How the rabbit stew was watered down to make it last longer until it tasted of nothing at all; how they had to thank God for it; how their underclothes were patched and darned until there was little of the original left; how they had to kneel for what seemed like hours in the cold drawing room for morning prayers which went on interminably; how she had to stitch garments for the poor who, she was sure, were better off than she was. Then there were the lessons in the drawing room—so cold in winter, so hot in summer. How she used to study all the time because it was the only way in which she could thank God for being so good to her.

How her mouth betrayed her bitterness! Poor, poor Christabel! I recognized at once that what was wrong with that rectory was not so much the poor quality of food or the scarcity of it, nor the knees sore from too much kneeling in prayer, nor the long hours of study—no, it was none of these things. It was the lovelessness of the home. That was what came over to me. Poor Christabel, she wanted so much to be loved.

I could understand well, because in a way I had felt the same about my father. My mother had lavished care on me and I did not forget that. And then there was Aunt Harriet. I was a special favourite of hers and she made no secret of it. I could not say I was not loved. Even my father was not unkind; he was just indifferent, shrugging me aside because I had failed to be the boy men of his kind always cared so much to have. I had developed an obsession about him. I yearned to win his approval, to attract his attention.

Human beings were very much alike, so I could understand Christabel’s feelings.

Her mood changed when she talked of the Westerings. She made me see that Sussex village—after all there were such places all over England and our own community was very similar. There was the church with its draughty, cheerless rectory and graveyard of tottering tombstones imbued with an uncanny atmosphere through the folklore and legends attached to it; the small cottages, the big house dominating the village—the home of Sir Edward Westering and Lady Letty, a lady in her own right, being the daughter of an earl. Lady Letty cropped up rather frequently in Christabel’s conversation. She was what Harriet would have called a character. I could picture her sailing into church at the head of the Westering family—Sir Edward walking a pace or two behind, followed by the Westering boys, who before they went away to be educated had taken lessons at the rectory with Christabel. I could imagine Christabel, in a blue serge dress shiny at the elbows, and her patched underwear, watching with those dark-rimmed eyes which betrayed nothing and that mouth which would be quirking with mixed emotions. I guessed she would be wishing with all her heart that she was a Westering and could walk into church with that important family and take her place in that special pew.

Now and then Lady Letty would glance her way. Christabel would drop a curtsy to denote appreciation of the notice of such an exalted being. Lady Letty would say: “Ah, the rector’s girl. Christabel, is it?” For she would not be expected to remember the name of such an underling; and informed that it was, would give her a sharp look and a nod or even a smile, and pass on.

It was Lady Letty who had said that the rector’s girl should be taught to ride and then she could exercise a horse from the Westering stables. “Good exercise for the horses,” she had added. “In case,” said Christabel, “I might think it was for my benefit.”

The Westerings were the universal benefactors of the village. Blankets and geese for Christmas were distributed from the rectory by Mrs. Connalt with the help of Christabel. Lady Letty intimated that the rectory might also have its blanket and goose, but taken unostentatiously, of course. “We picked out the biggest goose,” said Christabel with her wry smile, “and the largest of the blankets.”

At Easter and Harvest Festival she would go to the Westering estate to select flowers and produce from the kitchen gardens, which the gardeners would then bring over to the church. Lady Letty would often be there and would talk to her and ask her about her education. It was rather embarrassing, and she wondered why Lady Letty now and then asked her to the house, for when she was there, her ladyship’s one thought seemed to be to get rid of her as quickly as possible.

I gathered that Lady Letty was something of an enigma. It appeared strange that she should interest herself in the life of the village because she was more often than not at Court. Sometimes there was entertaining at Westering Manor when the fashionable arrived from London. Once the King himself had come. That had been a very grand occasion.

I certainly enjoyed hearing about her life.

“It seemed as though it would go on and on and never change,” she said. “I saw myself growing older and becoming exactly like Mrs. Connalt … dried up, shrivelled like a walking corpse who is really finished with life and somehow continues to make the motions of living. Joyless, seeing sin in pleasure…”

I thought how strange it was that she should refer to her mother as Mrs. Connalt—as though she rejected the close relationship between them.

I was beginning to understand her. She was attractive in appearance in an unusual way and more than normally clever; she had yearnings for a more interesting life and she felt frustrated. She hated being patronized by the Westerings; she was a lonely person because there was no one to love her, no one to whom she could explain her feelings.

I was glad that she could talk to me, yet I was sometimes aware of that strange resentment towards me which I sensed was often present, though she sought to hide it.

Two weeks after her arrival my parents went to our house near Whitehall to be present at several Court functions.

“It must be most exciting,” said Christabel. “How I should like to go to Court.”

“My mother doesn’t really care for it,” I answered. “She only goes because my father likes her to.”

“I daresay she feels she must be with him.” Her lips tightened a little. “A man like that …”

I was puzzled. I thought she implied some criticism of my father, and I had known for some time that he had an effect on her. She was always uneasy in his presence. I wondered why since he had taken the trouble to bring her to the house, and if she was happier with us than she had been in her rectory home—and it was hard to imagine that she could be less so—then she owed that to him.

Our days slipped into a routine—lessons in the morning, riding or walking after the midday meal and then a return to study about five o’clock. It was dark then and we would sit in the candlelight and she would usually spend the time questioning me on the morning’s study.

I asked her once if she were comfortable in our house and she demanded angrily: “Why should you think I am not? This is the most comfortable house.”

“I am glad,” I said.

“You were one of the lucky ones.” She spoke resentfully, and although I could not see the tightening of her lips I knew it was so.

One afternoon we went riding, and on our return, as soon as we came through the gates and into the stables, I knew something had happened. I was aware of a bustle of activity before I saw the horses. I thought at first my parents were home. Then I realized that it was not they who had returned. I half guessed and excitement possessed me. I could scarcely wait to get out of the saddle and hurry into the house.

I heard their voices and called: “Leigh! Edwin! Where are you?”

Leigh was at the top of the stairs. He looked magnificent in uniform. He was so tall, with rather gaunt features and wonderful blue eyes which contrasted with his black hair, just like his mother’s. These eyes lighted up when they saw me, and I felt a glow of excitement which coming upon Leigh unexpectedly always gave me.

He dashed down the stairs and picked me up in his arms, swinging me round and round. I called: “Stop it. Stop it.” He did stop, and taking my face in his hands gave me a smacking kiss on the forehead.

“You’ve grown,” he said. “Yes, you have, fair coz.”

He always called me “fair coz.” He had heard the term somewhere, and when I protested that we were not cousins and not even related, he retorted: “Well, we ought to be. I’ve seen you grow up from an ugly little brat to the lively little sprite you are today. You were like a little monkey when you were born. I really thought you were one and then you grew into a gazelle, my own fair coz.”

Leigh talked like that, rather extravagantly. Everything was either wonderful or terrible. My father used to get impatient with him, but I rather liked it. The fact was that I liked everything about Leigh. He was the perfect big brother and I used to wish he were my real one. Not that I did not love Edwin. I did. Edwin was meek and never hurt anyone if he could help it. He was courteous to the servants. They were devoted to him naturally, but the women preferred Leigh, I knew.

Leigh was now aware of Christabel, her face slightly flushed from the exercise and her dark curls only very slightly ruffled under her hard riding hat.

I introduced them and he bowed gallantly. I was very much aware that Christabel was assessing him. I did not want to mention then that she was the governess, I would tell him that privately. I felt she resented having to work for us and would like to be mistaken for a guest … if only for a short while.

“We have been riding,” I said. “When did you get here? Is Edwin with you? I thought I heard his voice.”

“We came together. Edwin!” he shouted. “Where are you? Priscilla is asking for you.”

Edwin appeared on the stairs looking very handsome-more so than Leigh really, though less tall, less robust. My mother had always feared for his health.

“Priscilla!” He came towards me. “How good it is to see you. Where is our mother?” He had turned to Christabel.

“Mistress Connalt,” I told him. And then to Christabel: “My brother. Lord Eversleigh.”

Edwin bowed. His manners were always perfect.

I said: “They are at Court.”

Edwin lifted his shoulders to register disappointment.

“Perhaps they’ll be back before you go. Can you stay awhile?”

“A week … perhaps longer.”

“Three … four …” suggested Leigh.

“I’m so glad. I’ll have your rooms made ready.”

“Don’t worry,” put in Leigh, “Sally Nullens has already seen us and is running round in a flutter. She is so pleased to have her little darlings home.”

“You know what nurses are, Mistress Connalt,” said Edwin, “when their charges return to the fold.”

He had realized that Christabel was uneasy and aloof and was trying to put her at ease. I knew that she was glad her status had not been revealed, although it would have to emerge eventually.

“I never had one so I can’t say,” she said.

“So you escaped that bondage,” put in Leigh lightly.

“We were too poor,” Christabel went on almost defiantly.

I felt uncomfortable and that I had to explain. “Christabel has come here to teach me. She lived in a rectory in Sussex.”

“How is Carl getting on at the rectory?” asked Edwin. “And where is he, by the way?”

“Out in the summerhouse, most likely, playing his flageolet.”

“Poor lad! He’ll be frozen to death.”

“At least we are spared the fearsome noises he can make,” said Leigh.

“What were you proposing to do?” asked Edwin.

“We were going to wash and change and then it will be suppertime.”

“We’ll get out of our uniforms,” said Leigh. He grinned from me to Christabel. “I know they make us look devastatingly handsome and you’ll suffer a shock at the transformation, Mistress Connalt. Priscilla is used to us, so I don’t have to prepare her.”

I was glad he was trying to draw Christabel into the family circle. She reminded me of a child dipping her feet into water—wanting to plunge in and not daring to.

I studied them in their felt hats with the glorious plumes falling over the sides, their elaborate coats, their knee breeches, their shining boots, their swords at their sides.

“Quite handsome,” I said, “though not devastatingly so, and we know it is only the uniform that makes them so, don’t we, Christabel?”

She smiled and looked beautiful then. I could see that between them they had managed to charm away her resentment.

“Come on,” I said, “we must wash and change … all of us. The food will get cold and you know how they hate that.”

“Orders!” said Leigh. “Odds fish, you’re worse than our commanding officer. A sign we’re home, eh, Edwin?”

Edwin said gently: “It’s good to be here.”

Christabel looked very pretty that evening. It might have been the candlelight which gave her that added lustre, or it might have been something else. My mother always said that candlelight was more flattering to a woman than any lotions or unguents. She wore a beautiful gown, too. The long pointed bodice was cut rather low, and worn without kerchief or collar showed her attractively sloping shoulders. One curl had been allowed to escape from those tied in the nape of her neck and hung over a shoulder. Her gown was of lavender silk and under it was a grey satin petticoat. I wondered at the time how she had come by such a dress in that cheese-paring rectory and I learned that it had come from Westering Manor. As she said, it was one of the “cast-offs for the needy,” and when I saw it in daylight I would see that it had become too shabby for her ladyship’s use.

I wore my blue silk, and although I had previously thought it rather charming it seemed insignificant beside Christabel’s.

Both Edwin and Leigh changed from their elaborate uniforms, but I thought they looked very fine—both of them—in their knee-length breeches and short jackets which were fashionably beribboned, Edwin’s slightly more so than Leigh’s, for Edwin followed the mode more slavishly than Leigh who I suspected was more than a little impatient with the laces and ribbons which had come into vogue as a kind of turnabout after the puritanical style of dress.

Carl was full of excitement because of the arrivals and we were a very merry party at the table. The servants were delighted as always to have the men home, and I knew how disappointed my mother would be to miss them.

They talked of their adventures. They had been serving in France, from which country they had recently come, but what I remembered from that night and what was really a prelude to the events which were about to begin was the talk of Titus Oates and the Popish Plot. It was like the overture before the curtain rises on the play. Being so much with Harriet had made me think that all the world was truly a stage and the men and women merely players.

“There’s a feeling in England,” said Leigh, “that wasn’t there when we left.”

“Change can come quickly,” added Edwin, “and when you’ve been away and come back you are more aware of it than those who have had it gradually creep up on them.”

“Change?” I cried. “What change?”

“The King is not an old man,” said Edwin. “He is past fifty.”

“Fifty!” cried Carl. “It’s ancient.”

Everybody laughed.

“Only to infants, dear boy,” said Leigh. “No, Old Rowley will live awhile yet. He must. A pity he hasn’t a son.”

“I was under the impression that he had several,” said Christabel.

“Alas, born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

“I’m sorry for the Queen,” said Edwin. “Poor, gentle lady.”

“To accuse her of being involved in a plot to kill the King is the utmost idiocy,” added Leigh.

Carl leaned forward, forgetting his lamb pie—a favourite of his—in his excitement. Carl was old for his ten years. My father had always wanted him to grow up quickly and he had. He understood about the King and his mistresses and the right and wrong sides of blankets—a fact which Sally Nullens deplored. She would have liked to keep him in her nursery until he married.

“Was she?” he demanded. “Did she want to kill the King? Has she got a lover?”

“What a blase old fellow this is!” cried Leigh. “My dear Carl, the Queen is the most virtuous lady in England-present company excepted.” He bowed to us each in turn. “This Titus Oates will hang himself if he doesn’t take care.”

“In the meantime,” said Christabel, “he has succeeded in hanging several others.”

“If only it could be proved that the King had married Lucy Walter that would make Jimmy Monmouth the next to wear the crown.”

“Is he suitable?” asked Christabel.

“I believe he is rather wild,” I added.

“He is fond of feminine society, yes. Who isn’t?” Leigh included us both in his smile. “None could be more devoted to your sex than the King himself. But Charles is wily, clever, shrewd and witty. He once said when he returned to England after that long exile that he was determined never to go wandering again, and I believe he meant that more than he ever meant anything in his life.”

“The people love him,” said Edwin. “He has that unmistakable Stuart charm. A good deal is forgiven to anyone who possesses that.”

Leigh took my hand and kissed it. “Look what you forgive me, fair coz, for my unconquerable charm.”

We were all laughing and it was difficult to treat any subject seriously, and how could any of us have guessed that moment that the politics of the country could be of any importance in our lives?

Christabel sparkled that night. She looked quite beautiful in Lady Letty’s cast-off gown; she was delighted to sit at our table and I was interested to see how between them Leigh and Edwin swept away that inner uncertainty or whatever it was that set the resentment smouldering. She was eager to show that she had a greater grasp of the country’s history than I had and she turned the conversation back to current affairs.

“Perhaps the King will divorce his wife, marry again and get a son,” she suggested.

“He never would,” replied Leigh.

“Too lazy?” asked Christabel.

“Too kind,” parried Edwin. “Have you ever been presented, Mistress Connalt?”

The bitter smile appeared momentarily. “In my position, Lord Eversleigh!”

“If you had,” went on Edwin, “you would see at once what a tolerant man he is. Here we are talking of him thus. That would be dangerous in some reigns. If he could listen to us he would join in the discussion of his character and put us right even to his own disadvantage. Our assessment would be a source of amusement not irritation. He is too clever to see himself other than what he is. Is that not so, Leigh?”

Leigh said: “I am in wholehearted agreement on that. One day it will be realized how clever he is. It is a devious game he plays. We saw a little of that in France. The French King thinks he leads Charles by the nose. I would say that it might be the other way round. No, while Charles is our King, we shall get along. It is the succession which concerns the nation. That is why we deplore that with so many sons who according to convention should not have been born—and who are a perpetual drain on the exchequer—he cannot produce one who would be worth a little expense and give the answer to the burning question, Who next?”

“Let’s hope that he lives on and on,” I said. “Let’s drink to the King.”

“A health unto His Majesty!” cried Leigh, and we all lifted our glasses.

Carl was getting a little sleepy at this stage and trying desperately to stay awake. My mother had protested about his being allowed to drink as much wine as he liked, but my father said he must learn to take his liquor. Carl was learning.

Christabel drank sparingly, as I did, and the soft colour in her cheeks and the shine in her eyes was not due to the grape. She was different from the girl she had been so far. I realized that she was enjoying this with a sort of feverish excitement and I was sorry, for such occasions as this were not unusual in our household. We always had celebrations when my parents returned from Court or I or Carl had been away on a visit. How dreary her life must have been in that gloomy rectory!

She was far more knowledgeable about affairs than I was and she seemed anxious that both men should have no doubt of this.

“It’s really a religious conflict,” she said. “Political conflict almost always is. It is not so much a question of Monmouth’s legitimacy as shall we allow a Catholic to ascend the throne.”

“That’s exactly the case,” said Edwin, smiling at her. “James is a Catholic—no doubt of that.”

“I have heard it whispered,” said Leigh, bending forward and speaking in a whisper, “that His Majesty toys with that Faith …but let it not go beyond these walls.”

I glanced at Carl who was nodding over his platter. Leigh was inclined to be reckless.

Edwin said quickly: “It is only a conjecture. The King would never wish to displease his subjects.”

“What is he going to do?” I asked. “Legitimatize Monmouth or let his Catholic brother come to the throne?”

“I hope …most fervently … that it will be Monmouth,” said Leigh, “for there will be a revolution if we ever have a Catholic King on the throne. The people will not have it. They remember the fires of Smithfield.”

“There has been religious persecution on both sides,” said Christabel.

“But the people will never forget Smithfield, the influence of Spain and the threat of the Inquisition. They’ll remember Bloody Mary as long as there is a king or a queen to reign over us. That is why it is imperative for Old Rowley to go on living for another twenty years.” Leigh lifted his glass. “Once more, a health unto His Majesty.”

After that we talked of the man Titus Oates who had caused a stir throughout the country by discovering, as he said, the Popish Plot.

Edwin told us that he had taken Holy Orders and had had a small living which had been presented to him by the Duke of Norfolk until he was involved in some legal trouble and had had to retire, after which he became a chaplain in the navy.

“He is a man who lives by his wits, I’m sure,” Leigh went on, “and this discovery of the Popish Plot is meant to work to his advantage in some way.”

“The country was ready to listen,” said Christabel, “because the people have always been afraid that Protestantism might be in danger and, of course, with the Duke of York heir to the throne, and its being known where his sympathies lie, it is easy to arouse people’s anger.”

“Exactly,” said Edwin, smiling at her with admiration I thought both for her intelligence and good looks. “The plot is supposed to be that there is a scheme among Catholics to massacre the Protestants as they did in France on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, to murder the King and set his brother James on the throne. Oates has succeeded in arousing the wrath of the people. It’s a dangerous situation.”

“And not a grain of truth in it, I’ll swear,” added Leigh.

“Yes, it’s nonsense,” agreed Edwin.

“Dangerous nonsense,” said Leigh. “But look what it has brought Oates—a pension of nine hundred pounds a year and apartments in Whitehall where he carries out his investigations.”

“How can it be allowed?” I cried.

“It is the wish of the people,” answered Leigh, “so cleverly has he worked up feeling against the Catholics. I heard a disturbing piece of news and I was horrified to discover that it was true. A friend of ours, Sir Jocelyn Frinton, head of a Catholic family, was taken from his house, accused of complicity and executed.”

“Horrifying!” cried Edwin. “It brings it home to you when it is someone you know.”

“Was he involved in a plot?” asked Christabel.

“Ah, Mistress Connalt,” replied Leigh, “was there a plot?”

“Surely your friend must have done something?”

“Oh, yes,” said Leigh bitterly, “what he did was think differently from Titus Oates.”

“It is a puzzle to me,” put in Edwin, “and always has been why people who follow the Christian Faith in one way should become so incensed against those who follow the same faith by a slightly different road.”

We were silent for a while and then Leigh said: “Enough of this gloomy subject. Tell us what you have been doing.”

There was very little to tell, and the next day, said Leigh, we must all go riding down to the sea. We could go to the Old Boar’s Head where they produced the best cider in the world.

Christabel reminded me that we had our lessons in the morning.

“Lessons!” cried Leigh. “I assure you we will endeavour to make the day most instructive for your pupil.”

Everyone laughed. We were all in a very merry mood that night.

The next day we did ride out to the Old Boar’s Head. We drank cider, which was a little heady and made us laugh immoderately over the smallest amusement. We galloped along the shore. Edwin kept very close to Christabel because he sensed at once that she was less sure on horseback than the rest of us, having had less practice and only being able to ride when Lady Letty’s horses were to be exercised.

The next day Leigh suggested we ride in another direction, and once again Christabel’s objections to joining us were overruled. I could see, though, that she was very happy that they should be.

She grew prettier as the days passed, and the reason was that both Edwin and Leigh appeared to have forgotten she was, as she rather bitterly called herself, “only the governess,” and behaved as though she were a guest and intimate friend at that. They both paid her a great deal of attention. They were affectionate to me as they always had been but it was Christabel whom they tried to please. Her eyes sparkled within that fringe of thick lashes; there was colour in her cheeks and her mouth had ceased to quirk and quiver and had become fuller and softer. The change in her was obvious to me.

I was uneasy, asking myself: Is she falling in love? With Edwin? With Leigh? I felt apprehensive. Leigh fell in and out of love with ease, and I wondered whether Christabel knew this. Edwin was different, more serious. But then he was Lord Eversleigh, with an important name, rich estates and a family tradition. I had heard my parents discuss his marriage, and I knew he would be urged to make what would be called a suitable match, which would mean someone of similarly aristocratic birth and a supply of worldly goods. There were two contenders already in sight for the honour of marrying Edwin. One was Jane Merridew, daughter of the Earl of Milchester, and the other, Caroline Egham, daughter of Sir Charles Egham. There had been mild overtures between the families and I knew that this was in the air. Edwin knew both girls and liked them well enough. My mother had thought that Edwin—always so mild—would do what was expected of him. He always had, so why change now?

Christabel was good-looking and clever. Personally she was every bit as presentable as Jane Merridew or Caroline Egham, but she came from an impecunious rectory and I knew she would not be acceptable as the future Lady Eversleigh.

This vague apprehension clouded the happiness of those days, and then suddenly something so stupendous happened that I forgot about it.

It was about five o’clock, and a week since the return of Leigh and Edwin. It would have been dark, but there was a gibbous moon in the sky and it gave a shifting light as the dark clouds, whipped by the strong southwesterly wind, scudded across the sky.

It had been a pleasant day. We had gone riding through the woods where some of the oaks and hornbeams still carried wisps of foliage. Soon they would be quite bare, their branches making intricate patterns against the sky. We rode past brown fields where a faint line of green showed that the wheat had started to push through the earth. Winter was coming on. It would soon be Christmas. Most of the flowers were gone, though here and there was a spray of gorse. Leigh pointed it out with glee and quoted the old saying that the time to kiss a maid was when the gorse was out, and that was the whole year round. We saw just a few flowers—dead nettles, shepherd’s purse and woundwort—pathetically determined to stay till the very last moment. There was something mournful about the occasional song of a bird. A blackbird tried a few notes and then was silent, as though disappointed with what he had done. And as we rode through the woods I heard the woodpecker. It was almost as though he were laughing in a mocking kind of way.

Yes, I thought, there is a warning in the air today. Winter is coming—a hard winter, perhaps, because there are so many berries, which are said to be nature’s preservation for her children.

The woodpecker’s laughter rang out again. Yes, there was a warning in the air that morning.

When we alighted at an inn I saw Edwin help Christabel to dismount, and I thought he held her hand rather longer than was necessary. Edwin looked elated, yet serious; Christabel was radiant.

Oh, yes, I could see trouble ahead.

When we went back through the woods I deliberately lost them. It was a sort of game we played and so far they had always caught up with me. This time they didn’t, so I came home alone. They had not returned when I reached the stables. I didn’t want to go into the house. I wanted to think of what was happening and speculate on the outcome. And that was how I came to be in the garden at that hour of dusk.

I was thinking that my parents would be back sometime soon, for their visits to Court were not of long duration. I know my mother hated to be away from home for too long. Christmas would soon be with us and there would be preparations to be made. We usually had a houseful for the twelve days of Christmas. I wondered who would be our guests this year. If Edwin and Leigh were home, as they no doubt would be since they had returned from abroad, I was sure we would be entertaining the Merridews and the Eghams.

Christmas was a time to look forward to. We would go into the woods and bring in the holly and the ivy. We would decorate the hall; the carol singers and mummers would come; there would be hot punch and great joints of roasting meat; there would be gifts for each other—wonderful surprises and a few disappointments; there would be dancing, games and hide-and-seek all over the house. Christabel would be with us … and Edwin and Leigh.

I wished my mother were home and yet in one way I was glad that she was not. I feared that if she were here, matters would come to a head. Perhaps Christabel would be sent away. Where? Back to that cheerless rectory? She had made me see it so clearly; I had shivered when she had talked of it and actually felt the goose pimples on my arms. I had tasted the tasteless stews; I had felt the soreness of knees which had touched the floor so often in prayer. I had really become deeply involved with Christabel. And now I feared she might be hurt again.

As I walked in the gardens, thinking of all this, my steps took me to the haunted flowerbed. A gloomy place—but only because of its associations. It was really beautiful. A few late roses were blooming still, desperately holding on to life, which the frosts and cold winds of winter would soon be snatching from them. Beyond the rosebushes was a shrubbery, and it occurred to me that it was this which preserved the legend of the flowerbed’s being haunted. It looked eerie in the shifting moonlight, and one could imagine ghosts lurking there, hidden from sight by the short, stubby firs.

I stood there among the red rose trees, looking back at the house, and thought of Edwin’s father being murdered on this spot. I did not know the details, of course, but I should learn them in due course when I was allowed to read the journals. That would be in two years’ time when I was sixteen.

And then as I stood there I was aware of a sound in the shrubbery, a rustle of leaves, a crackle of a branch. It could have been a rabbit strayed some distance from his burrow; yet somehow I knew it was not so. I could feel my heart thumping against my side. There was something in the shrubbery.

My first thoughts were that it was true the place was haunted. There was something here, and because I had thoughtlessly strayed out and come to this spot after dark, I was being made aware of it.

My first impulse was to turn and run back to the house, but my curiosity was greater than my fear and I remained still, staring at the shrubbery, my ears strained to catch every sound.

Silence … The darkness of the trees was hiding … what? The clouds had now almost completely obscured the face of the moon. I had a sudden fear that supernatural powers were at work. There would be utter darkness and mysterious hands would reach out to draw me into the shrubbery.

There it was again—that cautious movement. I felt that someone was watching me.

I called out: “Who is there?”

There was no answer.

“I know you’re there,” I shouted. “Come out. If you don’t I will bring out the dogs.”

I thought of our dogs—Castor and Pollux—two red setters who loved everybody and only barked and pretended to be fierce when they were playing with bones.

Then a voice said: “I must speak to Lord Eversleigh.”

I felt a great relief. It was a man after all, not a ghost.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Please ask Lord Eversleigh to come here. He is in residence, I know.”

“If you want to see him why do you not come to the house?” I asked.

“Are you his sister … Priscilla?”

This was clearly someone who knew the family and there was something pleasant about his voice.

“I am Priscilla Eversleigh,” I answered. “Who are you? Come out and show yourself.”

“This is dangerous,” he said. “Please talk in a low voice, and please, please bring Lord Eversleigh to me.”

I approached the shrubbery. Perhaps he was a robber; perhaps he was a murderer; perhaps he was a ghost; but I was always reckless and never thought of the clever thing to do until I had done that which was foolish.

I heard his voice then urgent and insistent. “Yes, please come into the shelter of the trees. It will be safer.”

I stepped into the path among the trees and he came to meet me. He was wearing a cloak and a black felt hat over the kind of short periwig which most men had started to wear when the King’s brother set the fashion. The moon had escaped from the clouds which had shielded it and shone on the shubery.

“I am Jocelyn Frinton,” he said.

In such moments I suppose one should feel something intense, some premonition. I did feel an excitement which made me tremble, but that was because I remembered I had heard the name before and I realized that the events of which we had talked over dinner had moved nearer and that, remote in the country though I was, I was now being drawn into intrigue.

“I’ve heard of you,” I said.

“They murdered my father. They are after me. Please … Eversleigh is here, I know. He’ll help. I know he will. Go and tell him. Remember … only tell Eversleigh … or perhaps Leigh Main if he is there, too. Tell him. Either one of them. But tell no one else. It’s dangerous … a matter of life and death. If they get me …”

“I understand,” I told him. “You’ll be safe here until the morning. No one comes here. They think it is haunted. My brother should be back by now. I’ll tell him at once.”

He smiled and I noticed how handsome he was. In fact I thought I had never seen anyone so handsome, and I felt a great desire to help him.

I went back to the house to find that the others had returned.

“Where did you get to?” demanded Leigh. “Why, what’s the matter? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”

I said: “Come inside. I want to talk to you. It’s very important. I’ve seen … something.”

Leigh put his arm about me affectionately. “I knew it was a ghost,” he said.

“More dangerous than that,” I whispered.

We went to the schoolroom—Edwin, Leigh, Christabel and I. As soon as the door was shut I blurted out: “Jocelyn Frinton is in the shrubbery.”

“What!” cried Leigh.

“He’s dead,” said Edwin.

“No. It’s the son of that one. He’s being hunted. I went down there when I came in and I heard someone there. I shouted for him to come out and I threatened him with the dogs. Then he spoke to me and told me that he must see you, Edwin … or Leigh … because he wants you to help him. They murdered his father, he said, and they would do the same to him if they caught him.”

“God help us!” cried Leigh. “It is this monster, Titus Oates.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Christabel.

“We’ve got to help him of course,” replied Leigh.

“How?” asked Edwin.

“Give him food for one thing and find him a hiding place for another.”

“You can’t keep him hidden long in the shrubbery,” I pointed out.

“No,” replied Edwin, “but this madness is going to be over sooner or later. Oates is beginning to show up in his true colours. People will turn against him in time, I’m sure of it.”

“It could be a year … two years,” said Christabel.

“Nevertheless,” said Leigh, who had always been the man of action, “the first thing to do is to get him to a place of safety.”

“There is the secret compartment in the library where my father hid our treasures during the war and saved them from the Roundheads,” I said.

Edwin was thoughtful. “If he were discovered that would bring the family into it.”

“My father hates the Papists,” I said.

“There you have it,” replied Edwin. “The country is being divided. That is what happens when there is an affair like this. Before Oates reared his ugly head people did not greatly care how others worshiped. It is because of this anxiety about the succession and rumours about the King’s brother’s religion …”

“I know, I know,” interrupted Leigh impatiently, “but in the meantime we have to do something about Jocelyn Frinton. If he is caught it will be the end of him. Where can we put him?”

“We shall have to be careful,” I cautioned. “We have a fanatic in Jasper. He would soon discover him if he remained in the shrubbery and there is no doubt what his reaction would be. He thinks Catholics are agents of the devil and talks often of the Whore of Babylon. He is a bigoted old man and a dangerous one.”

“Then it can’t be the garden and it can’t be the house,” said Leigh.

“I know a place!” I cried. “It would do for a while anyway. Your father was there, Edwin, when he came to England during the Commonwealth. I remember my mother’s showing it to me. She came with your father. It was just before he was murdered.”

“All right. All right,” said Leigh. “Where is this place?”

“It’s White Cliff Cave on a lonely part of the shore. Few people ever go there. It would be a good hiding place.”

“It’s the best suggestion so far,” said Leigh approvingly. “Now we have to get to work quickly.”

He was silent suddenly, putting his finger to his lips. He was clearly listening. Then he went quietly to the door and opened it suddenly. Carl almost fell into the room.

He grinned at us. “There’s a beef pie in the larder,” he said. “I’ll get a great hunk of that for him. And some ale, too. I’ll take it from the back and they won’t know it’s gone.”

We were all astounded and realized how careless we had been. It might have been one of the servants—perhaps Jasper—instead of Carl.

Leigh gave him an affectionate push.

“Do you know what happens to people who listen at doors?” he asked.

“Yes,” retorted Carl, “they come in and join in the fun.”

It was not difficult to get Jocelyn Frinton to the cave. Leigh and Edwin rode off with him that night after the household was asleep. If it was discovered that they had been out, the servants would shrug their shoulders and would believe that they had been in pursuit of those adventures which were characteristic of men in a lax society. Jasper would shake his head and prophesy hell fire, but no one else would take much notice.

Carl had been useful prowling round the kitchen; he was known to have a voracious appetite and if he were caught making off with food no one would have been very surprised. Christabel and I gathered up some blankets which they had taken with them.

A seriousness had settled on us all, for we knew—even Carl—that this was an adventure which could result in death.

It was midnight when Edwin and Leigh returned, for it was about three miles to White Cliff Cave. Christabel and I were waiting up and had been watching from my bedroom window. We had prevailed on Carl to go to bed, promising him that when Edwin and Leigh came up, we would let him know if he were still awake.

“Of course I’ll be awake,” he said; but I had looked in on him at about eleven o’clock and he was fast asleep.

He was very excited about the adventure and could be useful, but I would rather he had not been concerned in it.

“My father, who is quite tolerant about some matters, is fiercely against Catholics,” I told Christabel. “He dislikes the Duke of York. More than that he feels it would be a disaster if he ever came to the throne. He says the people won’t allow it and there’ll be a revolution. He is all for putting Monmouth up as the heir.”

“What would he have done if he had found Jocelyn Frinton in the grounds?”

“I don’t know. He knew his father and he must have been aware that they were a Catholic family. But a little while ago no one thought very much about that. It is only since Titus Oates came along with his Popish Plot that people started to worry. I know that if there was a conflict my father would be on the side of Monmouth rather than that of the King’s brother. But that’s politics. I know religion comes into it, but my father is not a religious man.”

“No,” said Christabel, “that seems to be clear at any rate.”

“I don’t know whether he would give him up, but I don’t think he would help him or want us to. What Edwin does is his own affair because Edwin is a man and my father is not his father. What my mother would think I don’t know. She would be alarmed because we might be putting ourselves in danger. But there’s Carl, you see. My father dotes on Carl and Carl has insisted on becoming involved.”

“He enjoys it. It’s a wonderful adventure to him and I notice that he likes to be in everything.”

“I should imagine my father must have been just like that when he was young.”

“You could be sure of that.” There was a touch of asperity in her voice, reminding me of the Christabel I had known before the coming of Edwin and Leigh, which had worked such a subtle change in her.

“Listen,” I said, “they’ve come back, I think.”

I was right. We stood tense at the window, and in a short time we saw Leigh and Edwin come into the house. We waylaid them and they came into my bedroom.

“All is well,” whispered Leigh. “A very good spot. Full marks, Priscilla, for thinking of it.”

I glowed with pleasure.

“He has food for tomorrow and he’ll be all right provided no one decides to picnic there.”

“Picnic in November in that bleak spot!”

“Bleak’s the word,” said Edwin. “But the blankets will keep him warm.”

“How long can he stay there?” asked Christabel.

“Not indefinitely, of course,” replied Edwin. “We’ll have to try and think of something before the winter gets really cold.”

“He’d freeze,” I said.

“Priscilla is worried about Carl’s being involved,” Christabel told them.

“Yes, so am I,” said Edwin.

“He’s a good fellow,” added Leigh. “It would be his extra exuberance which might give it away.”

“I’ll speak to him in the morning,” said Edwin. “Where is he now? In bed, I suppose.”

“Fast asleep. He wanted to stay awake to see how it went but I told him he should go to bed as normal. He did and was soon asleep.”

“We ought to try to get Frinton away somewhere before your father returns,” said Edwin to me.

I agreed with that.

Leigh said: “Well, it is late. We mustn’t stop chattering here. Who knows, we might be spied on. I don’t think anyone saw us, but we must all understand that this is no game and it’s no use treating it as such. It’s deadly serious. It could mean death for that young man and serious trouble for us. So … take care. Act as normal. We’ve done all we can for tonight. He’s safe temporarily. Tomorrow we’ll get some more food to him. We’ll ride out as usual … but we must take care.”

They tiptoed quietly out of my room and went to their own. I could not sleep. I doubted whether any of them would. Leigh was right when he said we were involved in a serious matter. I kept thinking of that young man. There was something noble about him, something which had made me want to help him more than anything else.

My thoughts stayed with him in White Cliffs Cave.

We all rode out together the following morning. I had told them in the kitchens that we were going into the woods and wished to take food with us as we did not want to go to the inn. This was reasonable enough but not something we could do every day. I supervised the packing of a basket and was a little shaken when Ellen said: “You’ve got enough food there to feed a regiment.”

“There’ll be three hungry men to provide for,” I reminded her, “for when it comes to eating Carl can do as well as any grown man. One gets an appetite riding you know, Ellen.”

Sally Nullens, who was there because Carl was going with us and she still thought of him as her charge, said: “He’s eating too much of that pastry. More good red meat is what he wants.”

She was going over the provisions with a sharp eye and I felt uneasy. I was afraid of Sally Nullens—and Emily Philpots, too. She was more sullen than ever because Christabel was being treated as a member of the family—something which she had never achieved. “After all I did for those children!” was her continual plaint; and I knew she spied on Christabel, longing to catch her out in some misdemeanour, and was, in any case, critical of everything she did. It might be a joke in normal times but we could not afford such spying now.

However, we got away all right, and I was wondering whether it would be wiser to warn Carl to be careful or to let it alone. He was heart and soul in the adventure, but it was true that he might be overzealous.

I shall never forget that late November day with the mist hanging in the air and the gulls shrieking overhead and the strong smell of seaweed in the air. We dismounted and managed to tether our horses to a rock and went down towards the cave, our footsteps loud on the shingle.

I imagined Jocelyn cowering in the cave, wondering who was coming.

Leigh went to the mouth of the cave. “All’s well,” he cried.

Jocelyn came out then and I saw him more clearly than I had the previous night. He was tall and slender with very fair skin, faintly freckled, and light blue eyes. He had very white teeth and was indeed handsome. His breeches were light brown velvet and of the fashionable Spanish cut, and his leather buskins were of the same colour. His coat, also of velvet, came to his knees. It was rumpled from the night spent lying in the cave, but he was clearly a very fashionable gentleman who had obviously ridden off in a hurry before he had been able to attire himself for a journey.

Leigh said: “Come out into the open. We’re a party of picnickers. We shall hear anyone approach and in any case we can see for a long way. If necessary you can go back into the cave, but it won’t be necessary.”

We settled down and I opened the hamper.

“I don’t know how to thank you all,” said Jocelyn. “Thank God I remembered your place, Eversleigh. I guessed you would help.”

“Of course,” said Edwin. “You were right to come. It was luck that Priscilla happened to be in the garden.”

Jocelyn turned to me, smiling. “I’m afraid I scared you.”

“I thought you were a ghost,” I admitted. “In any case I always wanted to see a ghost. I’m glad I was the one and not our old gardener.”

“You had come all the way from your home?” Leigh asked.

“Not from the country. From London. It was to the Piccadilly house that they came for me. There is something almost obscene about Oates and his men.”

“I know it well,” replied Edwin.

“Where is this going to end?” asked Jocelyn. “I cannot understand why he is not seen as the villain he is.”

“It is terrible to realize how easily people can be roused to violence,” said Edwin sadly. “One observes it often. Individually they would never be capable of such actions as they will take when they become a mob.”

“I am sure that philosophizing can at times be a useful occupation,” Leigh put in, “but this is the time for practical suggestions. Now, Frinton, this place is all right as a temporary haven, but we have to think of something better. You can’t stay here. You could be discovered.”

“I’ll come out and guard you,” cried Carl. “I’ll bring the dogs with me. I’ll teach them to fight anyone who tries to get into the cave.”

“There is one thing I want you to do, Carl,” said Leigh.

“What is it? What is it? You only have to say.”

“It’s quite simple,” replied Leigh. “You just obey orders.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Carl. “You’re a sort of captain, Leigh. We have to do what you say. Does Edwin have to, too? Will you, Edwin? Perhaps you wouldn’t like to, being a lord and all that.”

“We are here to help Jocelyn escape,” said Edwin. “That’s all we have to think about.”

“It’s all I am thinking about,” retorted Carl.

“Carl,” I reminded him, “it will be necessary to say nothing of this to anyone … anyone, remember!”

“Of course I remember. It’s a great secret. Nobody must know.”

I looked at Leigh. “We’ve got to think of something quickly. I wonder if Jocelyn could come to the house as a traveller who has lost his way.”

“We would be expected to put him on the right road immediately,” put in Christabel.

“I wonder if he could come as someone to work in the house.”

“As what?” asked Leigh. “A gardener? Can you garden, Frinton?”

“As my tutor!” cried Carl. “They’re always saying that I don’t learn anything with the Reverend Helling.”

“That’s a reflection on you, dear brother,” I retorted, “not on the Reverend Helling. If we want a scholar in the family we shall have to get a new brother … not a new tutor. I think it’s dangerous for Jocelyn to come to the house. How could he possibly do that? My father and mother must have met you somewhere.”

“Yes,” said Jocelyn, “I have met them.”

Leigh, who had been rather thoughtful, sat there with a smile on his face. Something was brewing in his mind, I could see. I knew him so well that I realized he wanted to think about it before telling the rest of us and however I urged him he would say nothing until he had decided to.

Edwin was saying: “Well, that’s no good.”

“At least,” said Leigh, “you are safe here for the time being.”

We made all sorts of plans as we sat there on the beach but Leigh still said nothing of what I believed was brewing in his mind.

We would get a change of clothes for Jocelyn—something which would be more suitable for travelling if he had to go off in a hurry. One of us would come every day with food until we made up our minds what we were going to do. There must be no more picnics, as they would arouse suspicion. Emily Philpots would already be saying that we must be mad to think of such a thing at this time of the year, and Sally might even get someone to follow us to make sure that Carl kept his leather jerkin on.

No. We should come singly, or perhaps two of us together. We should have to be very wary.

We all looked to Leigh. He was the natural leader. He was more bold and ruthless than Edwin. Edwin was always too much afraid of hurting people’s feelings. It made him act overcautiously.

Leigh had always joked about being the elder of the two. He was, by a few weeks.

I think I admired Leigh more than anyone I knew, and I was gratified whenever he showed a special feeling for me.

We reached the house at about five o’clock. It was already dark and we went in as quietly as we could. Like a company of conspirators.

Ellen looked at the empty basket.

“So you finished off every crumb?” she said.

“It was the finest mutton pie you ever made, Ellen,” said Carl.

“Then it was wasted on you,” she retorted. “It wasn’t mutton, it was pigeon.”

A small thing, but it was an indication of how careful we must be.

Sally Nullens was fussing round Carl.

“And I hope you didn’t hang about on the beach, Master Carl. If that wind gets down in your chest …”

“Oh, we didn’t go on the beach.”

“So you didn’t go on the beach, then?”

“Only just to look at it as we went along the way.”

“And you didn’t sit on the shingle? Then what’s this seaweed stain on your jacket, eh?”

Carl was embarrassed. “Well, perhaps we did sit a little bit.”

He was looking at me appealingly.

I said: “You’re always dreaming, Carl. Of course we were on the beach for a while.”

Then there was old Jasper.

“Someone’s been trampling on those new trees I put in. Well nigh broke them saplings in halves. Godless lot.”

I was thankful that Jocelyn was safely away from the house.

I went up to my room and I didn’t have to wait there long before there was a tap on the door. Leigh came in.

He grinned at me. “I shouldn’t come into a lady’s bedroom, should I? Oh, but this is only my little sister, so all would be forgiven, even by old Philpots, I reckon.”

“Don’t be foolish,” I said. “What do you want?”

He was serious immediately. “I thought I’d talk it over with you first.”

The waves of inexplicable anger which his reference to me as his little sister had aroused were swept away because I was his chosen confidante.

“After all,” he said, “you know her better than any of us really … even better than I do.”

“Who?”

“Harriet. My mother.”

“Harriet! But where does she come into this?”

“I thought she might help us. She’s the only one I can think of who would snap her fingers at the risk. And we are taking a great risk, Priscilla. What we have done could bring trouble on the whole of the family.”

“What else could we have done?” I thought of Jocelyn Frinton, so handsome he had been, and his warm looks had been rather specially for me. I would have risked a great deal for him. But I saw what Leigh meant. We had to think of the family.

“I’ve been turning it over in my mind but I didn’t want to say anything until I had talked it over with you. I thought of going over to Harriet and asking her if she would help. If she will, this is what I plan. Jocelyn calls on her. He will be an actor whom she knew in London … or somewhere. He will be John … Fellows … or something like that. We’ll keep the initials. That is always wise. She does have a lot of odd people calling on her from time to time and no one would take very much notice of a new one. Nor would they think it strange that he turned up like that. She could keep him there for a while. She might make him act a bit in one of those plays she is always arranging. He would be more safely hidden in the open as it were than in some cave where he has to be fed from our end. Besides, it would be desperately uncomfortable for him if the weather turned cold. Now what do you think of this?”

“Oh, Leigh, I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“Do you think she would agree?”

“I’m sure she would. She loves intrigue and she hates intolerance. I am sure Titus Oates is just the sort of person she would dislike most.”

“I’m glad you agree. What I propose is this. I ride over to see my mother. I shall have to be gone a week. It takes two days at least to get there … and two days back. You can be sure that I shall not stay longer than necessary. In the meantime the rest of you must keep Frinton hidden and get food to him somehow. You’ll have to be careful. I shouldn’t like him to be around when your parents return. I think your father might well smell a rat.”

“It’s a wonderful idea. I am sure Harriet will help. When will you leave?”

“Today. There’s no time to lose. I really do want to get him out of the cave. I think I shall leave immediately. You can explain to the others.”

“I don’t think I shall let Carl into the secret,” I said. “He means well but he could betray something unwittingly.”

“Good idea!” He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me. “I knew I could rely on my little sister.”

“Oh, yes, and, Leigh, there is one thing more.”

“What’s that?”

“I am neither particularly little, nor am I your little sister.”

He grinned at me. “I’ll make a note of that,” he said.

Within an hour he was on his way to Eyot Abbas, his mother’s country home in Sussex, and we were all praying that Harriet might be at home and not, as she so much enjoyed doing, be on a visit to London. Harriet was not exactly a countrywoman; she liked the pleasures of Court, fine clothes, masculine admiration and above all the theatre; and as her doting husband, Sir Gregory Stevens, who, before he had inherited his title and estates, had been tutor to Leigh and Edwin (and it was at Eversleigh Court where he and Harriet had first met), always did exactly as she asked, there was a strong possibility that she would not be at home. If that were so, Leigh would have to go to London to see her, which would mean another week’s delay at least.

Several days passed. We arranged that one of us took food to Jocelyn each day and did our best to keep his spirits up. He was embarrassingly grateful—especially to me—and he said that he regarded me as his saviour. I pointed out to him that Leigh was the one who was in charge of everything. We were all longing for him to come back.

There were constant alarms during those days. Carl was caught sneaking out of the kitchen with a large piece of cold bacon. Ellen said the boy had become a thief and anyone would think he was starved. The bacon was taken from him and I could see that henceforth Ellen’s sharp eyes would watch the victuals.

Leigh had been away a week. December had come and it was going to be a hard winter, they said. Sally Nullens could feel it in her bones, and they never lied, she added ominously. We had had no snow yet but the rain fell incessantly. Jasper said that there was more of it to come—cloudfuls of it. It wouldn’t surprise him if we were in for another flood. The world was wicked enough for God to want to drown it.

“He’d tell you,” I said ironically, “and in good time so that you could prepare your ark to save the righteous. There wouldn’t be many. You would be the only one to qualify, Jasper.”

He looked at me under his shaggy eyebrows. He believed I would be one of the first destined for hell fire. The Lord did not like a woman’s saucy tongue, he told me; and Ellen was always disturbed when—as she said—I came back “pat” with an answer for him. But at that time she was worrying about the disappearance of the remains of a tansy pudding to which she had been looking forward.

“They’ll feel the vengeance of the Lord,” said Jasper. “The whole boiling of them! I reckon Master Titus Oates be bringing a few of them to their just deserts.”

In the ordinary way I should have challenged that. But I realized we were getting onto dangerous ground.

I was thinking of that scene in the kitchen as I rode over to White Cliff Cave. The rain, prophesied by Sally Nullens’s bones, had started to fall. Sally was full of old lore. “I saw the cat washing his face and ears extra well,” she had said, “and bless me if he didn’t lie on his brain.

“‘When the cat lies on his brain/That do be a sign of rain!’ And my bones are telling me a story today. Mark my words it’ll be raining cats and dogs before the day’s out.”

Emily Philpots said there was thunder about, too, because she always felt down in the dumps with thunder, and Jasper murmured: “Armageddon, that’s what it’ll be … and not before it’s due.”

“You going off riding again, Mistress Priscilla.” That was Sally, reminding me that she had once been my nurse.

“It’s good exercise, Sally.”

“I reckon you’d do better staying in today.”

I wished they wouldn’t watch me so closely. Was it my fancy or did they watch me more intently than they had? Had Ellen mentioned the denuded larder to Jasper? If he were on the trail we should be betrayed.

So I rode out uneasily with the basket of food attached to my saddle and I wondered how long it would be before Leigh returned. We missed him. We needed his leadership when we were engaged in a dangerous exercise, as this undoubtedly was.

I came out to the lonely stretch of beach. To my relief there was no one in sight. I tied up the horse where he could take shelter under an overhanging rock.

I went into the cave. For a moment I could not see Jocelyn. The lantern we had taken to him was alight. Then I saw him. He was lying down fast asleep. He looked so young and handsome, like a Greek hero. He was even more handsome without his periwig, which now lay on the shingle beside him. His cropped fair hair curled about his head and he looked quite defenceless. I trembled for him. What if someone had strayed into the cave and found him asleep!

I hesitated to awaken him for fear of startling him, so I tiptoed to the mouth of the cave and there I called his name softly. He sat up and smiled at me. Then he sprang to his feet.

“It’s Priscilla. I was dreaming of you. I dreamed you came in and looked at me.”

“I did. I was afraid because your lantern was alight and I thought someone might see it.”

“Is there anyone about?”

“No one.”

“I haven’t seen anyone here since you brought me to the place.”

“There, might be people in the summer. But you will be well away by then. I’ve brought you a partridge and a piece of sucking pig.”

“It sounds delicious.”

“I think you could come out into the open. I’ll keep watch. There’s no one about for miles. It’s stopped raining now but it’ll start again soon, I’m sure. Come, let’s make the most of the fresh air while we can.”

I laid out the food. I had brought some ale, too, which he drank eagerly.

He smiled at me and said: “Do you know, last night I was thinking that I was glad this happened. It brought me to you.”

“You have had to pay rather a high price for the introduction,” I said.

He took my hand then and kissed it. “It has been the most important thing in my life,” he said.

“You’re alone too much,” I replied. “It makes you think these things. I have hopes that Leigh will have some solution when he comes back.”

“We shall meet again when this is over … you and I. I am sure of that.”

“Oh, I expect so. Edwin says that opinion is turning against Titus Oates and when it does that will be the end of all this. We shall go back to normal again. Our families will meet now and then. I daresay my mother will invite you to stay with us.”

“I shall make every effort to bring that about. I have met you in extraordinary circumstances. I should like to do so … in a ballroom, say. Do you often go to Court?”

“Not yet. I daresay I shall some time. They think I’m rather too young at the moment.”

“You don’t seem to be to me.”

“Do I not? How old do I seem?”

“Seventeen. It’s the best of all ages. I know because I was seventeen two years ago.”

I was delighted to be told I looked older than my years. People of my age always are, I supposed. One is always eager to throw off one’s youth when one has it and it is only when it is beyond recall that one wants it back.

“Perhaps,” he went on, “seventeen was the age I wanted you to be.”

“Why should my age be any concern of yours?”

“Because I wanted you to be nearer to me.”

“Listen,” I said, “I can hear something.”

We were silent, straining our ears. Yes, there were voices from some way off being carried to us on the southwesterly wind.

“Let’s get inside the cave,” I said. “Collect everything and take it in. We don’t know who this can be.”

Hastily we gathered up the remains of the picnic. We went into the cave and listened. Jocelyn had become rather tense; so had I. I was imagining Jasper’s face. I could hear him as he betrayed us. “They be up to something. Food gone from the pantry, so my wife tells me. They’re hiding something … they’re hiding someone. It’s someone whose been up to sin, you can be sure of that. There’s something more sinful than usual in the air.”

Jasper could always be sure of sin. It was there all round him and he was the only one he knew who had not been contaminated by it.

The voices were undoubtedly coming nearer; I looked at Jocelyn and felt sick with anxiety.

If Leigh were here …

But Leigh was not here and I could not think what he would tell us to do but remain quietly where we were.

In the distance I heard the crunch of boots on shingle. It was followed by the bark of a dog … more than one dog.

We were seated side by side on the hard rock floor of the cave and suddenly Jocelyn reached for my hand. He kissed it and went on holding it.

I whispered: “It’s someone coming along the beach. They’re coming this way.”

“With dogs,” he said.

“Jocelyn, do you think …”

He nodded. “We have been betrayed. Oh, Priscilla, this will be the end … for me … for us …”

“It might be people out for a stroll.”

Out for a stroll! I thought. On a winter’s day with heavy clouds louring! Out for a stroll on the beach with dogs! The nearest house was a mile away. Leigh had mentioned that when he had said what a good hiding place it was.

I whispered: “Come farther into the cave.” We crept into the recess and took everything there was with us.

The rock overhung and we could crawl in even farther if we were on our hands and knees. We did so and lay down, very close, trying to hide ourselves. Jocelyn put his arms about me and we lay as one in that small space under the overhanging rock.

I could hear our hearts beating. The footsteps were coming nearer. The dogs kept barking.

Jocelyn’s face was very close to mine, his lips against my cheek.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t be in this …”

“Hush,” I warned.

“Bruno! Bruno!” It was a man’s voice. “What have you got, eh?”

The dogs barked. They were close now.

I felt sick with fear for Jocelyn. I believed in that moment that I was never going to be happy again. They would drag him away. They would kill him as they had killed his father.

Nearer, nearer they came. They were very close now.

Jocelyn said: “I must say it. It’s my last chance. I love you.”

I put my hand over his mouth.

There was a shadow in the mouth of the cave. It was one of the dogs. He had entered it and he came immediately to us.

I heard someone call: “Bruno!”

The dog stood over us.

I thought of our dogs at home and I said very quietly: “Good Bruno.”

He barked and then turned and ran out of the cave.

I heard someone laugh. “Bosun. Come here, Bosun. You too, Bruno.”

We lay still, Jocelyn’s arms still about me. We neither of us dared move, and then I realized that no one was following the dog into the cave. I could hear their voices farther away now. They had passed on.

“They’ve gone,” I whispered. “They weren’t looking for us. They were out for a stroll after all.”

I began to laugh. Then I stopped suddenly. “It may be a trick. Oh, no … why should it be? They could have caught us so easily if they had been looking for us.”

I crawled out from under the recess and stood up. Jocelyn was beside me.

“I’m going out to look,” I said.

“I’ll go.”

“No. If they are looking for you they wouldn’t take much notice of me. They’d be looking for a man.”

I went out into the open. I could see two men with the dogs walking along the beach. One of them picked up a pebble and threw it from him. The dogs chased after it to retrieve it.

The scare was over, but something had happened.

Jocelyn took my hand and kissed it.

“Now you understand,” he said.

I had turned away to look at the sea, grey with white frills on the edge of the waves and the wind carrying the spray far up onto the beach.

I said: “I understand how dangerous it is here. Leigh will come back soon.”

“I shall have to go away then.”

“It may be to Aunt Harriet’s.”

“You visit her often?”

“Oh, yes. I am a favourite of hers.”

“I shouldn’t want to go if it meant not seeing you.”

“You must go where you will be safe.”

He kissed me suddenly. “It has been a great adventure,” he said.

“It is not over yet,” I warned.

“Let’s sit down close and talk.”

We sat on the shingle and he said: “I wish you were older.”

“What if I were?”

“We could marry.”

“They would say I am too young.”

“People marry young. When all this is over I shall ask your parents for your hand. May I?”

“Could I stop you?”

“No, I don’t suppose you could. But I should want your consent, shouldn’t I?”

“I know some people who have been married without their consent.”

“You never would be. You would find some way out of an undesirable alliance, I am sure. Oh, Priscilla, I believe you have some feeling for me.”

“Yes, I have.”

“And it doesn’t displease you that I talk like this. You seem content to listen.”

“At the moment I can’t think of much else but your lucky escape.”

“Those people with the dogs …” He shivered.

“I was terribly frightened, Jocelyn, weren’t you?”

He was silent for a while, then he said: “I thought they had come to take me, yes. I thought it was the end. When they took my father and in a short time had murdered him—they called it execution, I call it murder—something happened to me. It was almost as though I felt there was no sense in working against fate. As I lay there with you in my arms, I thought: This is the end. But before I die I shall have known Priscilla and it was all this which brought me to her. You see, it is a sort of acceptance of fate.”

“You are philosophical.”

“Perhaps. If I am to die then die I must, but if fate is kind to me and preserves me from this, then I can think of my future and I want you to share it with me, Priscilla.”

“You scarcely know me.”

“In circumstances like this acquaintance ripens very quickly into friendship and friendship into love. You have risked a great deal for me.”

“So have the others.”

“But I prize what you have done most. Whatever happens I have had those moments with you in the cave when you lay close to me and your heart beat with fear … for me. I shall remember that moment forever and I should not have had it but for the fear which went with it. Most things that are worth having have to be paid for.”

“You are indeed a philosopher.”

“Events make us what we are. I know that I shall love you until I die. Priscilla, when this is over …”

I felt in an exalted mood. Too much had happened in such a short time. That fearful experience and then a proposal of marriage. And I was fourteen years old! I was regarded as a child in my home—Edwin’s little sister. And that was how Leigh thought of me, too. Little sister! That had rankled coming from him.

“Priscilla …” Jocelyn was saying, “will you remember this … forever? Shall we plight our troth here on this desolate beach?”

I smiled at him. He was so handsome and melancholy in a way—a young man to whom brutal life had been revealed and it had made him accept it instead of rebelling against it. I admired him, and when he kissed me I was aware of an excitement which I had never felt before.

It was so comforting to be loved. Moreover, he did not regard me as a child, I thought to myself, and it was as though I were talking to Leigh.

“Jocelyn,” I replied, “I think I love you, too. I know that if they really had been looking for you and had taken you, I should have been more unhappy than I have ever been before.”

“It’s love, my dearest Priscilla,” he said, “and it will grow and grow and wrap itself about us for the rest of our lives.”

So we kissed and plighted our troth, as they say. He gave me the ring he was wearing on his little finger. It was gold with a stone of lapis lazuli. It was big and would only stay on my middle finger and even then was in danger of slipping off.

It was hard to leave him then, but I knew that I must if I were going to get back before dark.

He was reluctant to let me go but I reminded him that we must be more careful than ever now.

“Do not have the lantern lighted when you sleep,” I warned. “It could guide people to you. Oh, do be careful, Jocelyn.”

“I will,” he assured me. “I have the future to think of now.”

Leigh came back that evening.

We were all overcome with joy at the sight of him and the news was good.

He told us about it as we sat over supper in the winter parlour after the servants had all gone away. Even so he spoke in whispers and warned us to do the same, and every now and then went to the door to make sure that no one was near.

“Harriet says she will have him,” he told us. “He is to be John Frisby whose mother acted with her, and whom she knew as a child actor himself when she played in London. He can stay there for as long as he likes. She’ll brief him when he arrives and make sure that if any other actors come visiting her, he will be warned about them. She’s excited. She was excited right from the beginning of the prospect. She said she was getting a little tired of being in the country, but now it would be as good as a play. I’m going off now to see him. I shall have to get a horse for him somewhere. In fact I have one at a horse dealer’s … Shoulden way. I can collect it tonight and take it down to him. I want him on his way.”

“Do we need food?” asked Christabel. “They are getting a little suspicious in the kitchen.”

“No,” said Leigh. “He’ll have money and he can feed himself during the journey. Soon after he’ll be with Harriet. All he wants is the horse and directions how to get there. I think our part of the plot is almost over.”

I told him about the people and the dogs and how terrified we had been—but I did not mention our conversation and its result.

“Yes,” said Edwin. “I guessed it would be tricky there for more than a night or two. It will be a relief when he is with Harriet.”

We were all rather subdued, and as soon as supper was over Leigh went out again. I overheard one of the servants say: “Master Leigh’s no sooner in than out.”

“He’s got his lady to see to. She’s been without while he’s been with his mother.”

“If it’s her I think it is she wouldn’t have been without altogether … only without Master Leigh.”

There followed giggles which annoyed me. But I had to curb my irritation. I wanted to say: It is not a mistress he is visiting tonight. But how foolish that would be. Leigh’s reputation had served us well during this affair, but at the same time I felt irritated that he had it—and more so because I was well aware that he deserved it.

I was watching at my window for his return. It must have been an hour or so after midnight when he came in. I had to know what had happened. I slipped on a cloak over my nightdress, put on slippers and ran down to the hall. He came in quietly. The moon—now waning—gave a little light through the tall, narrow windows.

“Leigh!”

“So it’s you.”

“I had to know.”

“All’s well,” he said. “I got the horse and he’s now on his way. If he’s careful there shouldn’t be any mishaps. He’s assumed his new identity—onetime child actor, John Frisby, on his way to see his old friend, Lady Stevens, who played with him in the past. Once he’s in Harriet’s charge all will be well.”

“Thank God,” I said fervently.

I had put up my hand to hold my cloak about me, and Leigh said: “You have a new ring. I haven’t seen that before. It looks like a signet ring and it’s too big for your hand.”

I hesitated, then I said: “Jocelyn gave it to me after … after the scare.”

“Jocelyn! May I see it?”

I took it off and showed it to him.

“It’s a signet. That’s the Frintons’ crest. You can’t wear that.”

“Why not? I want to.” I snatched it from him. “He gave it to me.”

“Then he must be mad, the careless fool! What if it were discovered with you! Don’t you understand? People would want to know how you came by it. And what would your answer be then, eh? Tell me that?”

“I should say it was given to me.”

“When? How? By whom? That’s what you’d be asked and what would you say? By Jocelyn Frinton when we helped him to escape! Give it to me.”

“Certainly not. It’s mine.”

“I only have to be away for a short while and people start acting senselessly. He had no right to give it to you.”

“He has every right to do what he likes with his own property.”

“Not when it means implicating you who have helped him. Give it to me. I’ll return it to him and let him know what I think of him.”

“I shall keep it,” I retorted. “Don’t be afraid. I do see the point. I won’t wear it.”

“It looks ridiculous on your finger anyway and everyone would notice it.”

“I’ll put it away.”

“In a hiding place, please. How foolish of him! What did he want to give you a gift for! And such a one! He must have been mad. Both of you must have been mad.”

I was silent. Perhaps it could be called a moment of madness. We had both been overwrought. I was sure Jocelyn would not have spoken as he had if those men with their dogs had not come along and brought such fear with them.

I gripped the ring tightly in my hands.

“Well, be careful,” he said. “There’s too much gossip and prying in a houseful of servants.”

“I’ll be careful, Leigh. I really will be. I’m glad you made me see it. I’ll hide it right away. You know I would do anything … anything for his safety.”

“He’s a pleasant young fellow, I agree. I wonder what Harriet will make of him.” He smiled, thinking of his fascinating mother.

“Time you were in bed,” he said. “Heave a sigh of relief. Our dangerous adventure is over.”

But of course it wasn’t. It was only just beginning.