His horse was at the back of the house, which was why we had not seen it when we arrived, and soon we were all mounted, Carlotta riding with Leigh, and on our way back to Eversleigh.
There was great rejoicing when we arrived. Sally Nullens and Emily Philpots were waiting in the courtyard, and Sally pounced on Carlotta and demanded to know what she had been up to, the bad, wicked girl, giving us all the fright of our lives and going off like that.
Emily said: “And look at your gown. All dirty. And you’ve caught that lovely stitching. I shall never be able to get that right, you see.”
Harriet smiled on the child benignly; my mother was beaming with delight and my father was trying to look stern and failing completely, while Carlotta smiled at us and said: “He’s going to call the cupboard Carlotta’s cupboard. It’s after me … because I went to sleep in it.”
“People that goes off and worries the life out of everyone don’t get cupboards named after them,” pronounced Sally. I burst out laughing. It was rather wild laughter, I suppose, because Leigh put his arm about me and said, “We’re forgetting to make the introductions.” And he told Robert Frinton who everybody was and my mother said how delighted she would be if he stayed and ate with us, and she would love to hear what he thought of Enderby.
Carlotta was put to bed with a scolding from Sally and Emily. I went in to see her when I was ready for dinner. She was in bed by then. I think the walk to Enderby’s had tired her out, which was why she had promptly fallen asleep, after the manner of children.
She was none the worse for the adventure, but it struck me that she was growing up fast and we should have to be watchful of her. She was going to be wayward. I had always known that. I would talk to Sally about her the next day.
I kissed her and she smiled happily as I did so; she was half asleep but aware of me. I loved her so much and I wondered how I should feel when I had Leigh’s child, which I supposed I would in time.
I did not believe I could ever love any child as I loved this one.
Over dinner we learned that Robert Frinton was of the same family as Jocelyn.
“There was trouble in our family,” he told us. “A great tragedy it was. My brother and nephew were the victims of that archvillain, Titus Oates.”
“Ah, yes,” said my father, “I remember that well.”
“They confiscated much of his property. My brother was older than I and had the family estate. We lost it all. I have been compensated now but shall never go back to the old place. I was wondering about this Enderby Hall. It has possibilities.”
“It used to be a delightful place,” said my mother. “Once the garden has been cleared up and the house cleaned out, I think it should be all that it used to be in the past.”
“I think so, too,” said Robert Frinton. “I have a fancy for this part of the world.” He looked at us rather shyly. “It was a strange way that we met this afternoon, but the fact was I was hoping to call on you. I wanted to thank you for all you did for my nephew.”
He was looking at my father who said: “Don’t thank me. I knew nothing of it until it was over.”
I said: “It was Leigh, my husband, and my brother Edwin … and, of course, Lady Stevens who did so much. It could have worked. We could have saved him … but circumstances were against us.”
“I know. He was taken and murdered. Yes, it was murder and I will call it nothing else. That man Oates deserved the worst possible fate and so do all those who were afraid to stand up against him. What misery he caused while his brief reign of glory lasted. But I do want to thank you for what you did. It is something I shall never forget.”
Harriet put in: “He was such a charming young man. We all loved him. What we did for him was so little. If only we could have saved him!”
“My lady, you have earned my eternal gratitude.”
“Well, you must repay us all by taking Enderby Hall and becoming our good neighbour,” declared Harriet.
“I feel very much inclined to do so.”
“We will all drink a toast to that,” said my father. “Let the goblets be filled.”
So we drank, and in due course Jocelyn’s uncle bought Enderby Hall.
The next two years were, I think, some of the most momentous in English history and I never ceased to marvel at how quietly we lived through those events. Leigh was still in the army, serving under the Earl of Marlborough, whom my father had known in the days when, as John Churchill, he had been a rival of the King’s for Barbara Castlemaine’s favours. Leigh had a great admiration for him as a soldier and there could be no question, at this time, of his leaving the army.
It soon became obvious that trouble was inevitable, for the King was at variance with so many of his subjects.
The belief in the Divine Right of Kings which had brought his father to the scaffold was there in James, and my father said he could see disaster creeping nearer and nearer. He simply could not believe that he could be turned off the throne, although one would have thought that what had happened to his father would have been a lesson to him. Poor James! He lacked not only his brother’s wit and charm but his common sense.
There was a great deal of talk about the number of Catholics he was appointing to important posts, and when he issued the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, this was seen as a scheme to establish Papal Supremacy in England.
It was discussed over meals. There would be Thomas Willerby, Gregory and my father all earnestly asking themselves and each other what the outcome would be. Robert Frinton sometimes joined them, and although he came of a Catholic family and would have welcomed freedom for all opinions, he could see that Catholicism would never be accepted in England, for the people had sternly set their faces against it since the reign of Bloody Mary. They still remembered the Smithfield fires when so many Protestants had been burned at the stake. It had happened more than a hundred years before, but the memory remained.
The King should have seen disaster approaching, but blithely he pursued the course, turning his face away from the will of the people; and when the seven bishops, who refused to accept the declaration, were arrested and taken to the Tower, there was a general murmuring throughout the country.
On the day of the trial my mother implored my father not to go to London, and to please her he desisted; but it was against his nature. He was born to fight and to fight recklessly. One would have thought his experiences in the Monmouth Rebellion would have taught him a lesson; but he was the sort of man who would never learn from that kind of experience. When he supported a cause, he did so wholeheartedly.
Everyone now knows the outcome of the trial, how the verdict was not guilty, and how those in court cheered until they were hoarse, how the people waited in the streets to welcome the seven bishops, how the whole of London was en fete.
Foolish James, he should have known; but so much did he believe in his right to the throne that he could not conceive that it could be taken away from him. The Queen had just given him a son, and the country must surely be delighted with a male heir, but a baby could not save him now.
I was getting anxious about Leigh at this point because there was so much talk about William of Orange and his wife Mary, and there were hints that they were to be invited to England to take the throne. It was three years since James had been crowned, and in that short time his actions had brought him to this state. There could not be a more unpopular man in the country than its King.
“The trouble with him is,” said my father, “that he is not content to be a Catholic—which the country might have accepted. He wants to be a Catholic reigning over a Catholic country. I know that certain ministers have been in touch with William.”
“As long as they don’t start fighting,” said my mother, “I don’t care what King we have.”