Fortune's Soldier Page 5

  Jackdaw did not answer and John Joseph followed the direction of his eyes — nothing except for the copper pans that hung upon the wooden beams. He looked at the boy rather sharply. He thought him a funny little creature, well suited to his name with those bright eyes and dark clever appearance.

  ‘Hey, wake up,’ he said.

  Jackdaw gazed at him dreamily and a shiver went through the elder boy’s frame. Just for a minute he sensed something of the ancient power that was crackling in the atmosphere and then, just as swiftly, it was over. Jackdaw shook his head, went bright red before the gaze of him whom he — Jackdaw — considered quite the best-looking, most intelligent youth in the world and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What were you staring at?’

  Jackdaw mumbled confusedly, ‘Sometimes I see things. Reflections. I can’t explain.’

  John Joseph hesitated, his eyes wave-blue in the smoky light. It was his instinct to find out more, to get things sorted out, but he could see that his kinsman was uncomfortable, shifting from foot to foot.

  ‘Will you tell me of it one day?’

  ‘I’ll try to.’

  In a rustle of hyacinth-scented clothes Helen was suddenly at their side.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she said.

  Her smile was for them both but John Joseph knew that really her question was for her son — that she cared deeply for her strange brilliant boy. He thought briefly about his own mother with her silly mouth and affected laugh and he envied Jackdaw the raven-haired half Spaniard who was Helen. He felt terribly flustered suddenly as she leant forward and touched his arm.

  ‘John Joseph, Jackdaw is not being a nuisance, is he?’

  ‘Oh no, not at all, Ma’am.’

  He knew that he was being over-formal as he drew himself up and gave a slight bow, hoping desperately that she was not laughing at him. But if she was she did not show it, for she touched him lightly under the chin with her fingers and said, ‘You will be a good friend to him, I feel sure. Though four years separate you I think he is probably quite wise for his age.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  He felt an idiot. The wretched false politeness was choking him. Helen slanted her eyes at him and John Joseph felt himself grow pink.

  ‘I feel glad that he has you to talk to. He and Rob are so different that one would hardly take them for brothers.’

  ‘No, Ma’am.’

  John Joseph’s heart had begun to thump in the most unnerving manner and he found himself unable to look at his pretty kinswoman.

  ‘So, it is settled. You and Jackdaw will always be good friends?’

  If her son had been hideous and stupid John Joseph would have said ‘Yes’ just to please her. But his blushing agreement was interrupted by the arrival of Jackdaw’s father who — in John Joseph’s view — was boring and opinionated and not fit to carry her gloves.

  ‘All enjoying yourselves?’ said the General jovially, meanwhile shooting John Joseph a most poisonous glance which set the poor young man reeling with shock.

  ‘Yes, my dear, we are. And what of you?’

  ‘Tolerably well, tolerably well.’

  The General’s eye ran over the feasting labourers with distaste. He hated rabble and disorder and felt that there was no man alive who would not benefit from being in the Army. He fixed John Joseph with a piercing look and said, ‘Do you intend to serve your country, young man?’

  ‘If I did, Sir, I would like to rise high and I do not think that would be possible for a Catholic.’

  John Joseph had recovered his composure and his answer was barbed. The General had forgotten that the Webbe Westons of Sutton Place were still staunchly allied to the Church of Rome.

  ‘Er ... yes ... of course Catholics are not precluded from becoming officers —’

  ‘But would not be encouraged, Sir?’

  ‘Well —’

  The General was more than relieved to hear at that moment Mrs Webbe Weston’s silly voice calling out shrilly for games for the children and dancing for the grown-ups.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ he muttered into his hand, and was just about to bow to his wife and carry her off to the jig when John Joseph did so in his place. To the older man’s fury and dismay, Helen was whisked from under his very nose.

  ‘You had better go and play with the young ones,’ he said to Jackdaw to cover his annoyance. ‘Look, there they go without you. Hurry up, Miss Huss is beckoning.’

  And sure enough the governess, looking as desperate and long-faced as a herded sheep, was leading the way out of the kitchens surrounded by a bevy of eager youngsters.

  ‘Must I go, Father?’

  ‘Yes, of course you must. Just because your cousin — or whatever he is —’ the General gave a glare in the direction of the dancing figures of John Joseph and Helen ‘— considers himself old enough to stay here, don’t let that give you ideas. Off you go like your brother and sister.’

  ‘But it’s dangerous, Sir.’

  ‘What do you mean, dangerous?’ General Wardlaw looked at the end of his patience. ‘What is dangerous about playing with your contemporaries, pray? Sometimes I despair of you, John. Have I sired a nincompoop?’

  ‘No, Sir. But just now I had this mental picture of a coffin lid closing.’

  The General lost his temper.

  ‘Jackdaw, be off! I am tired of you and your fancies. It is quite wrong of your mother to encourage you in them. I shall speak to her most severely about it. I shall also seriously consider sending you to a harder school altogether. Why if it weren’t for your damned short leg I’d have you down for the Army.’

  For all his bluster the General was very far from insensitive and to see his younger son lose colour to the lips was unbearable.

  ‘Jackdaw!’ he called.

  But too late. His boy had hurried from the room holding back the hot tears that threatened to disgrace him in public.

  *

  The Boxing Day party was over and Mr and Mrs Webbe Weston stood at the kitchen door with their four children bidding goodbye to their cheerfully departing guests. The hot punch and ale had had a predictably festive effect, and there was a good deal of laughter and one or two voices raised in song as the workers filed out into a night sharp with stars and loud with the song of an old blind fox.

  In groups of family or friends the estate labourers went off into the darkness to farms and dwellings that had been built in Sir Richard Weston’s day and bore names like Bull Lane Cottage, Ladygrove Farm and Oak House. It was not till they had all gone that John Joseph said, ‘Where is Sam Clopper? I didn’t see him leave.’

  ‘Sam?’ repeated his mother.

  She hadn’t really been looking for the small lame figure that so easily could have been missed amongst the jostling adults. He really was of little concern to her — in fact she secretly found the sad-faced cripple rather revolting — and as long as he was kept clothed and fed, which it was her duty to oversee as he was orphaned and she the Lady of the Manor, she never thought about him.

  ‘Who?’ said Mr Webbe Weston.

  ‘Clopper, Father. The boy who was crippled in the man trap. His great-grandmother once served Cousin Melior Mary’s mother. He said there had been a Clopper at Sutton Place since the old Jacobite days, if you remember.’

  ‘Oh, him.’

  ‘Yes him. Did you see him go?’

  ‘No. Fallen asleep I expect. Weak as a cat. Poor thing.’

  ‘Ought we to look for him?’

  ‘Not now, John Joseph. I really am too tired. Anyway I do believe I saw him leaving with the Blanchards. Now come into the house, do.’

  The quick heavy scent of hyacinths told John Joseph that Helen had come to stand behind the family group and he turned his head to look at her. The dark eyes were brimming with some secret emotion as she said, ‘Jackdaw sends his apologies to you all. He was seized with a headache whilst playing hide-and-seek and has taken to his bed.’

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘No. Ju
st tired.’

  ‘He does this sometimes,’ said General Wardlaw’s voice out of the darkness. ‘He is too sensitive by half.’

  ‘He has the old Romany gift,’ said Helen dreamily. ‘You know of the Gage connection with the FitzHowards, Caroline?’

  ‘I’ve heard something of it,’ answered Mrs Webbe Weston. She sounded rather petulant. ‘Shall we go in?’

  They all turned away into the pan-bright kitchen not thinking any more of Sam Clopper or his whereabouts. But in the gloom of Sutton Park the blind fox gave a sharp sad cry as he headed, sightlessly, for his lonely lair.

  3

  The sounds of the summer river drifted through the open nursery window — the plop of oars, the muted distant laughter, a pleasing baritone voice raised in song. And beneath these — in steady rhythmic chorus — the carolling of sun-warmed birds, the distant low of cattle from the pastures of Marble Hill, the bubble and flow of the lovely Thames itself.

  Horatia sighed and wrote in her exercise book, ‘James Waldegrave, second Earl Waldegrave, was born on March 14, 1715, and was George II’s most intimate friend and adviser. He died of smallpox on April 28, 1763. Had he lived longer Walpole thinks he must have become the head of the Whigs. Walpole had brought about the marriage of the Earl to his natural niece Maria in 1759.’

  Horry put down her scriver and crossed to the window. It was through that marriage — the bastard daughter of Horace Walpole’s brother to the second Earl Waldegrave — that they had inherited dear little Strawberry Hill. The house from whose grounds her brothers and sisters were, presently, playing on the river and in which she, through no fault of her own, had been kept indoors on such a lovely day to write a brief family history.

  It had been Annette who had rigged the bucket of water on the nursery door to soak Ida Anna as she came through it; and it had been Annette who had cast her moonstone eyes to the floor and meekly curtsied when the Earl had unexpectedly walked in and been drenched to the skin. And it had been Horry who had giggled as he had said, ‘God damn and blast! Who is responsible for this?’

  It was the contrast of his customary elegance with his flattened hair and dripping clothes that had seemed so ludicrous to her. Instead of apologizing and saving the day, she had laughed all the more, clutching her sides in a terrible combination of pain and fun.

  ‘Oh, you do look a-wry, Father,’ she had chortled.

  ‘We’ll see who shall be a-wry, Miss,’ he had snarled; very, very cross.

  And now here she was. A prisoner on the hottest day of the year while Annette sported on the water dressed in cool muslin. Horatia sighed again and returned to her table.

  She wrote with a flourish, ‘At the time of the second Earl’s marriage to Maria Walpole he was as old again as she and of no agreeable figure. Yet for character he was the first match in England.’ Her tongue poked out of her mouth in concentration. ‘But Lady Waldegrave, since the death of Lady Coventry, was allowed the handsomest woman in England and her only fault was her extravagance. Sir Joshua Reynolds painted her portrait seven times and after her husband’s death she was courted by the Duke of Portland but secretly married Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. The marriage was for a long time unrecognized by the royal family.’

  Horatia paused. She had a fondness for her notorious great-great-aunt, a wish that she — Horry — might do something to emulate her; lead a wild, adventurous life. But small hope of that as the youngest but one daughter of an impecunious Earl. Finding good matches for girls without fortunes was no easy task — even if they did bear the proud and ancient name of Waldegrave.

  Suddenly deflated, she bent once more over her exercise book and wrote, ‘The second Earl having no male issue, the Earldom passed to his brother James who was master of the horse to Queen Charlotte. He died of apoplexy in his carriage near Reading, and was succeeded by his son George who had married his beautiful cousin Lady Laura Waldegrave.’

  Horatia smiled. This was the grandmother she so closely resembled; the grandmother who had come to Strawberry Hill as a widow with her two surviving children, one of whom — Horatia’s uncle and the fifth Earl — drowned in the river while still at school at Eton, aged only ten.

  It had been this ghastly accident which had put her own father in line for the title, and because of it the Earl, whom she could glimpse now if she stared sideways out of the window, would never go near the water. While the others took the boat out he preferred to sit in the sun with his shirt open and his coat removed. And because of it he had let them all learn to swim — naked and uninhibited — from the earliest age possible.

  Horatia picked up her pen once more. ‘The legendary —’ she liked that word ‘— Lady Laura was the mother of John James, the sixth and present Earl, who is the father (naturally) of John James Waldegrave Esq, George, Viscount Chewton, Lady Annette, Hon. William (deceased), Hon. Frederick (deceased), Lady Horatia (myself) and Lady Ida.

  ‘Signed, Horatia Elizabeth Waldegrave, in the year of our Lord 1831 and the reign of His Most Gracious Majesty William IV.’

  She had finished and now was obliged to stay in her room until summoned. But her next sortie to the window caught the Earl’s eye, for she saw him look up at her. She dodged out of sight but heard him call, ‘Horry! Horry! What are you doing?’

  She went slowly and deliberately down the stairs, through the Little Parlour and out into the sunshine, blinking a little at the brightness.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve finished, Sir.’

  ‘Have you now? What did you write?’

  ‘All about Great-Great-Aunt Maria and the Earl who died of apoplexy in his carriage and my beautiful grandmother. All those things. Shall I fetch my copy book for you?’

  The Earl ran the back of his hand across his brow. ‘No, not now. I’ll look at it tonight.’

  ‘Can I go to the river?’

  ‘In a minute. But first you can talk to me.’ He patted the lawn next to him. ‘You may sit here. Your mother is resting in the shade and will not see you spoil your frock.’

  She settled at his feet and he stroked her hair as if she were a kitten.

  ‘Your head is on fire.’

  ‘Really?’

  He laughed. ‘No, not really. It is just the colour in the sunshine.’ The Earl closed his eyes.

  ‘Am I like the beautiful Lady Laura?’

  He nodded smiling. ‘Yes, you are the image of the beautiful Lady Laura.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come back to see her after you were stationed in Paris?’

  ‘She didn’t approve of your mother. I was torn.’

  Horatia looked at him closely. He was very handsome, his face already going brown in the sun. Yet somehow she didn’t quite believe what he had just said. She felt his looks belied him. There was still that air of recklessness about him which positively vibrated from his sons J.J. and George.

  ‘Did you love Mama very much?’

  He opened his eyes and — as always — she was startled by the vividness of the blue.

  ‘Yes.’

  But there was a grin somewhere that he wouldn’t allow out. Horatia knew full well that he had been captured into marriage by the determined hot head her mother had once been and it gave her a moment’s alarm.

  ‘Do you love me?’

  The Earl’s face grew completely serious.

  ‘I love all my children, Horatia. Even that little pest Ida Anna. Oh, I know that pail of water was meant for her. I may be getting old but I am far from stupid. Yes, I care deeply for you all. I was not cut out for fatherhood but as it has been wished upon me so many, many times I have taken to it like a duck to water.’

  He swung her up on to his knee and kissed her smackingly on the cheek.

  ‘You are a good girl, Horry. And very pretty. How old are you now — I lose count amongst you all?’

  ‘Eight, Sir.’

  ‘Eight, eh? Well, ten years will see you into a great match I dare say.’

  ‘I should like that. I s
hould like to marry an adventurous man. An admiral or a cavalry officer or something of that kind.’

  ‘Then do so, Horatia. Remember that you can do anything you set your mind to if you really want it enough.’

  ‘Did you?’

  The grin burst forth like a sun and the Earl slapped his thigh.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t, you little minx. The last person you want to emulate in this wicked world is your poor old father.’ He roared with laughter. ‘But no fear of that. If you are anything like your mother you’ll end up with the First Lord or a Field Marshal.’

  Horatia put her arms round his neck.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll go to the river after all. It is so rarely that I get the chance to talk privately with you.’

  The sixth Earl Waldegrave winked at her.

  ‘People have been saying that to me for years,’ he said.

  *

  ‘Going home. Tired out. Rum do. There ’tis! Ride on, boy. Ride on.’

  And with those words Mr Webbe Weston turned his chestnut hunter and trotted off through the parkland.

  Summer had come in glory to Sutton Place and as the sweltering heat of the day blazed forth John Joseph, thinking he might enjoy a swim, headed for the River Wey, canalized to run through the meadows of the Home Park by Sir Richard Weston the agriculturalist, before the Civil War. It trickled and flowed through green grass banks and beneath a little wooden bridge which the heir to the manor house now crossed, his horse’s hooves clattering into an echo beneath its ancient and moss-covered planks.

  Everywhere was the hum and buzz of high season. Two brown butterflies circled above the horse’s mane; swallows curved and caressed an arc in the blue above; the swans upon the river curled back their sinuous necks that their beaks might grow warm before they dipped them in the cool clear waters beneath. And from somewhere distant drifted the notes of an unearthly flute — all part of the illusion of that lazy heat-filled afternoon.

  Yet when John Joseph dismounted and sat down to soak in the sun’s life-giving rays the sound persisted. Nonetheless he rolled his coat into a pillow and, placing it beneath his head, closed his eyes. Whether the music was real or imaginary was of little importance to him in that wonderful and languorous heat haze.