“You think …”
“Mistress, I don’t know what I think. ’Cept that ’tis as well to be safe.”
I was silent for a while. Then I said: “He’s breathing better now.”
“I noticed he were better when I brought the garlic in.”
“Oh, Sally, tell me what’s in your mind. Is there anything in this house that could harm him?”
“I’m not saying it is so, mistress, and then again I’m not saying ’tis not. ’Tis only that I would be on the side of safety.”
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “Could it really be so?”
“The garlic keeps evil away. They don’t like it. There’s something in it that upsets ’em. I don’t like what’s in this house, mistress.”
“Sally, tell me everything. If there is something threatening my son, I must know.”
“There’s some I wouldn’t trust, mistress.”
No, I thought. Nor I.
“This little one,” she went on, “to be a lord … to own all this, for that is how it is. He lost his father who would have had it first, and then by the time our little one came into it, he would have been a man. That would have been natural and easy. But when a little child has all this … It has been so with kings, I believe. I’m not clever and know nothing of these matters, but ’tis human nature, that’s all, and I reckon I know a bit about that.”
“Has something happened?”
“There was one I found in here … looking at him as he lay in his bed.”
“I saw someone too.”
“I reckon it was the same one.”
“What did she come for?”
“She said she was anxious about you. She knew how worried you were and she was sure the child had only a cold. She went out soon when I came in, and I thought what benefit it could be to her if …”
“You suspect … witchcraft?”
“It’s always been in the world and I reckon should be watched for. But we’ll guard him. We’ll save him from whatever be threatening him. We’ll do it, mistress, together. Witchcraft can’t stand against good pure love. That I do know.”
At any other time I should have laughed her to scorn. But it is different when a loved one is concerned. By daylight I could be bold and laugh at stories of ghosts and evil influences, but by night I could fear them. Thus it was. My child in possible danger and I could not turn skeptically away from that.
Sally believed in witchcraft. Moreover, she was suggesting there might be a witch in our house.
Harriet. Standing at the bed, the glitter in her eyes seeing a title within her reach but my son standing in her way.
I remembered what I had read in the diaries of my great-grandmother Linnet Casvellyn who had let a strange woman into her house—a witch from the sea.
It could happen. I would not leave Edwin again until he was well. I would not allow Harriet to step across the threshold of this room.
All through that night Sally and I sat in her room and at Edwin’s slightest whimper we were at his bedside. Halfway through the night his breathing was easier. And in the morning his fever had gone.
I could smell the garlic in the grate. I looked at Sally’s simple, loving face and I embraced her.
“He is going to get well,” I said. “Oh, Sally, Sally, what can I say to you?”
“We pulled him through, mistress. Together we pulled him through. No harm shall come to our little lord while we are close.”
Edwin was well on the way to recovery by the time Carleton returned, angry still because of what he called my defection.
“I told you so,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that boy except too much pampering. I’m going to get to work on him as soon as he’s completely fit.”
I was so happy in my son’s recovery that I wanted to celebrate it and Carleton’s return together. Harriet said she would sing and dance for the company and perhaps we could get everyone to join in the dance. The boys would enjoy that.
Carleton was amused, but I noticed that his attitude had changed since his return. He had not forgiven me for staying behind, and our relationship was more as it had been before our marriage. He seemed critical of me and tried to make me so with him—which did not need a great deal of effort on his behalf. I missed a certain tenderness in his lovemaking. He was as fiercely passionate and demanding as ever and talked even more frequently of his desire for another child—a boy this time—and I accused him of a lack of interest in Priscilla.
“For the child’s sake,” he retorted. “If she had two parents treating her as if she is the only creature of any importance in the world, she’d grow up to be insufferable.”
“A little too like her father perhaps,” was my retort.
So we sparred during the day and made love at night. It was exciting but vaguely disturbing. I knew that he really was angry. He is the most arrogant, self-centred man in the world, I thought. And I was a little angry with myself for caring for him in the way I did. But I could not help my nature, I supposed, and any more than he could his.
At supper one night soon after his return, he talked about his stay in London.
“It’s like a breath of life to get up there,” he said. “One gets stultified in the country. I must go more often.” He was looking at me, implying: And you should come with me, and if your children are more important than your husband, take the consequences! He went on to talk of the new plans for rebuilding the city in which the King was greatly interested. Carleton had met Christopher Wren, who had brought out a plan for rebuilding the city which would make people see the great fire of London almost as a blessing.
Of course, it would be very costly and great sums of money would be needed, he explained. “It seems unlikely that these will be raised, but the building must start at once so it will doubtless be done piecemeal.” Carleton was eulogistic about Christopher Wren.
“A genius,” he said. “And a happy man. He knows he won’t be able to build what he wants, but he’ll settle for second best. He has plans for a cathedral and about fifty parish churches. We shan’t recognize the old city but what a grand place it will be when he has finished it. Moreover it’ll be healthier. Those wooden buildings huddled together, those filthy gutters … With our new London we shan’t have epidemics every few years, I promise you.”
He was quite clearly exhilarated by his visit to London and that seemed to make him all the more angry with me for refusing to share it with him.
As we sat round the table he discussed the prevailing scandals. Everyone was now talking about the Duke of Buckingham’s affair with Lady Shrewsbury and his duel with her husband.
“Buckingham may well be accused of murder,” said Carleton.
“Serve him right,” said Matilda. “People should not fight duels. It’s a stupid way of settling a quarrel.”
“They say it was a great love affair between Buckingham and Shrewsbury’s wife,” said Charlotte.
“She has been his mistress,” Carleton put in. “That has been common knowledge for a long time and Shrewsbury, like a self-respecting husband, challenged Buckingham to a duel.”
Harriet smiled at Uncle Toby. “Would you do that, my darling, if I took a lover?”
Uncle Toby almost choked with laughter. “I would indeed, my love.”
“Just like my Lord Shrewsbury,” cried Harriet, raising her eyes to the ceiling.
“I hope,” went on Carleton looking steadily at her, “that you would not behave like Lady Shrewsbury. That lady dressed herself as a page and held Buckingham’s horse while the duel took place, and as soon as it was over and Shrewsbury mortally wounded, the lovers went to an inn and Buckingham made love to her dressed as he was in his bloodstained clothes.”
“An act of defiance against morality,” I said.