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.