The Spider's Touch (11 page)

“No.” Isabella could barely hide a shudder, so it was fortunate that none of the Princess’s ladies were near enough to see her. “I shouldn’t like to be in waiting—having to stand all the time would be horrible.”

“But,
ma chère,
you must think of the power you could wield! The Princess does not know our country yet, and it is certain that her ladies have already helped their families with their influence, not to mention the places they have already got. Why Lady Cowper has just secured her sister’s husband a post worth three hundred pounds a year! You should really try to get a place in the Palace, my dear, though I know how difficult it can be. My Molly was refused a place, and she would have entertained his Majesty much better than Lady Cowper does, for all her virtuous airs.
Or
that spoiled little creature, Mary Montagu, who boasts of her intelligence to all who will hear her. But Molly
would
involve herself with the Marquis of Wharton and his rakish friends—which was a very grave error, and so she has learned.

“One can never be too careful in the choice of one’s friends,
madame
. But with your husband well established in his Majesty’s affections, I am certain he could get you a place with the Princess, even if she took a violent disliking to you. The Prince has foisted his favourite mistress upon her, and she could not refuse
you
, if the King willed it.”

Mrs. Mayfield had pushed near them to hear. She had listened to her ladyship’s advice with avid attention, particularly to the part concerning the influence Isabella could use to her family’s advantage. But Mrs. Mayfield would never allow the slightest disparagement of her daughter, even unintentional, to go unchallenged, and so she huffed, “As if her Highness would not adore my little girl, like everyone does! Why, what can your ladyship be saying? My Isabella is loved wherever she goes.”

“
Mais naturellement!”
Lady Oglethorpe was taken aback by this unexpected assault. “I did not mean to suggest otherwise,
madame.
You misunderstand me. I meant only to suggest that it is expedient to use the influence one has, while one still has it,
n’est-ce pas?
One cannot know how long a king will reign, or how long one can hold onto his affections. Your daughter and son-in-law would do well to take advantage of the chance they have been given.”

Mrs. Mayfield inclined her head in a manner that would have been regal, had there not been too much offence behind it. “I am sure my daughter will appreciate your ladyship’s advice, should she ever need it. But she is so well placed at the moment with our dear Lord Hawkhurst for a husband that I doubt she will ever be in need of anyone’s help.”

Lady Oglethorpe’s look expressed scorn and incredulity. “I do not believe the former Lord Hawkhurst ever doubted his security,
madame,
and, yet, he was banned the Court. A powerful name is no shield against treachery
.
But—” she peered past them— “I see someone I must speak to now.
Madame la comtesse
—” she offered her cheek for Isabella to kiss and included Harrowby in her smile— “I hope you will come to see me, for I should love it above all things.”

In the next moment she had left, and it was only then that Hester noticed that many people had watched this exchange. Indeed, she had the impression that the Whigs in the room had found the sight of Lady Oglethorpe’s being kissed by the Countess of Hawkhurst more than a little disturbing. She could not be certain of the reason, but she wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that Lady Oglethorpe was the lady she had seen in the shadows, conversing with the Duke of Ormonde.

Chapter Five

Let Earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,

Planets and Suns run lawless through the sky;

Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurled,

Being on Being wrecked, and world on world;

Heaven’s whole foundations to their centre nod,

And Nature tremble to the throne of God.

All this dread Order break—for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!—Oh, Madness! Pride! Impiety!

What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread,

Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head?

I. viii.-ix.

Throughout the month of May, Gideon had kept himself occupied with improvements to his estate. Whenever these failed to fill his emptiness, he tried to combat it in other ways, throwing his energy into the chase and taking comfort from the horses, dogs, and birds of prey that hunted with him.

At this time of year, the French nobility were to be found at Versailles, but he had no wish to join them. He had paid the obligatory visit to Louis XIV immediately upon his arrival in France and had left for St. Mars as soon he could without giving offence. It was not that he had found Louis’s court unsympathetic. On the contrary, the aristocracy of France had embraced him and petted him for his losses. But he knew how fickle they could be, and he would not stay until their favour turned to jealousy. Nor did he want to partake in the petty joustings for power either at Versailles or at the Stuart court at St. Germain.

It was near the end of that month that the people he had been avoiding came to St. Mars.

* * * *

He had spent the morning in the mews and out in the fields, training a young hawk to hand. The brown of its feathers, glinting gold in the sun, reminded him painfully of home. These were the colours chosen by the first earl of Hawkhurst to honour his house, a manor built from the ruins of an abbey, which stood on a high piece of Wealden ground where the Saxons had observed hawks in flight. Since that first earl had been rewarded by James I, every Lord Hawkhurst had hunted with hawks.

Keeping birds of prey was no longer a fashionable pursuit. Gentlemen would rather cavort in London than spend the time in the country that it took to train a bird. Patience was required, but Gideon, who had never been known for his patience, had been robbed of his other distractions.

Returning to the chateau in the early afternoon, he once again applied himself to the ceremony of dressing for dinner alone. He was shrugging himself into a blue
justaucorps
, when a lackey came to inform him that two visitors had arrived.

“C
’est le Marquis et la Marquise de Mézières,”
the boy announced, breathless from his run.

Gideon paused, with his fingers still gripping the collar of his coat. Then, with a queer beat of his heart, he resumed, straightening his sleeves and giving a tug to the lace at his wrists. Noting the sudden pallor of his cheeks in the looking glass, he took a deep, steadying breath and said, “You may tell them that I shall be with them directly. I trust you have made them comfortable.”

“
Oui, monsieur le vicomte
.” New to his duties, the young lackey appeared worried. He had been hired from the village when Gideon had first appeared, and was clearly unaccustomed to tending to the needs of such illustrious company.

In spite of the knot in his stomach, Gideon managed an encouraging smile. “I am certain you did. Now, tell the
maître d’hôtel
to lay two more places at table.”

He returned to his dressing table to don a full-length peruke, which he would have left off if eating alone, and pondered the meaning of this visit. The names of his visitors had surprised him. Yet in a sense they were inevitable, too, for ever since reaching St. Mars, Gideon realized, he had been dreading this very meeting. Unconsciously, he must have been expecting it, but for weeks he had only been willing to face the present, not to recall the recent hurtful past or to consider how his father’s death might dictate his future. Now, there was no way to avoid them. Nor could he be surprised, given the position his father had held in the Pretender’s schemes.

The Marquise de Mézières, née Eleanor Oglethorpe, came from one of the most prominent Jacobite families in all of England. Her parents were so well known for supporting the Stuarts that many believed that James himself was their child. As the myth went, he had been smuggled into St. James’s Palace in a warming pan to provide James II and his Catholic Queen with a Catholic heir when the king’s own baby died of convulsive fits. One reason for the story, undoubtedly, had been the birth of an Oglethorpe baby—a son, also named James—only a year before the royal prince’s birth. This Oglethorpe, therefore, was nearly the same age as the Pretender—the same age as Gideon, in fact, who had known him briefly at Corpus Christi College where many Jacobites sent their sons.

So, no. No Oglethorpe had posed as a Stuart to aspire to the English crown, no matter how hard James’s enemies tried to keep the myth alive. But neither was there anyone more devoted to the Stuarts than Lady Oglethorpe, so it had not been too far to imagine that she would have given her own child to the last Stuart king.

In Gideon’s opinion, she had done the equivalent by seeing to it that her daughters had been raised to devote themselves entirely to the Stuart cause. Two of the girls had been raised as Catholics at James’s court. Another—Fanny—had been sent to live with Eleanor just two years ago to be instructed in the rites of Catholicism by a priest close to James, who was heavily engaged in Jacobite intrigue. Meanwhile, their mother, known as “Old Fury,” remained in England, going to Court and conniving for the advancement of her brood, even as she schemed to overturn the throne.

And now her second daughter had come to see him. The moment had come when he would have to decide what his role in James’s cause would be. He only wished that his head and his heart were as undivided as his father’s.

* * * *

He found the marquis and his elegant wife awaiting him in the salon. Tall, slender and, clearly, more French than English, Eleanor stood with her husband to greet him. In spite of his caution, Gideon could not suppress a spark of admiration for Eleanor’s beauty, which at thirty was still striking. She had been blessed with the same noble features as her brother—etched lips, an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and large, wide eyes.

Her husband could not have been more opposite. Short and thickset, with very rounded shoulders—nearly those of a hunchback—he had a yellowish face with soft prominent features, which gave him a mien like a frog’s. He seemed entirely unconscious of his ugliness, however, and bowed with the air of a man who believed himself very attractive indeed.

It was his wife who, after an apology for coming unannounced, a polite inquiry after his health, and brief condolences on the death of his father, first broached the subject of their visit. She did it while sitting on the edge of a chair, her skirt spread in a wide, smooth circle about her ankles in the manner of a queen on a throne.

“His Majesty requested us to be his messenger in conveying his sympathy and sorrow on the loss of his faithful subject, Lord Hawkhurst.”

In Jacobite circles, the title
Majesty
was given to James Stuart, even if in England to call him thus was a treasonable offence. In England he was politely referred to as the Chevalier St. George, an honour which had been conferred upon him by the King of France.

“You may tell his Majesty that I am grateful for his attentions, as I know my father would have been.”

“Your father served him most generously. His Majesty knows that, and—”

“Does he also know that my father died in his cause?” Gideon had tried to keep the resentment out of his voice, but both his tone and his question had disconcerted his visitors. Eleanor was quick to conceal her surprise. She had, after all, been raised from birth to conceal.

“The facts about your father’s death are not
generally
known. Nevertheless, his Majesty and his most faithful servants are aware of circumstances which the present government of England has chosen to ignore.”

“Are you saying the government knew I was falsely accused and did nothing to prevent the injustice?”

“We have reason to believe they suspected it, but have no wish to pursue a matter which has resulted in such an advantageous result for them.”

“I presume you refer to the awarding of my father’s title to my cousin Harrowby—because he is a Whig?”

Eleanor inclined her head. On anyone else the gesture would have been a simple assent, but she filled it with insinuation.

She struck Gideon as a woman without humour, but with a purpose both dangerous and indefatigable. He had the feeling that he faced a formidable will. Whether he could trust her, he was not at all sure.

“His Majesty regrets the losses you have suffered. And he pledges to restore your properties to you when he regains his throne.”

“Please inform him of my gratitude,” Gideon said, returning nod for gracious nod.

His visitors had clearly expected a more demonstrative response. Eleanor was too poised to reveal her disappointment, but the marquis glanced at his wife, as if seeking her lead.

She responded by asking Gideon if he was aware of his countrymen’s feelings with respect to their new monarch. He told her that a servant was forwarding the news-sheets to him, but he had not been in a frame of mind to give them his attention.

“Then you may not be aware of the current situation. Eugène-Marie—” she turned to her husband with an outstretched hand— “Let
monsieur le vicomte
read the latest news from London.”

The marquis reached into a deep coat pocket
and brought out several folded news-sheets, which he and his wife held out for Gideon to see.

The sections they showed him related news of riots throughout the months of April and May, in Oxford and in London. The most recent one in London had taken place over a period of two days in Cheapside, before the Royal Exchange, and at Smithfield, mimicking the one that had occurred a week before, on the anniversary of Queen Anne’s coronation. The disturbances seemed both greater and more frequent than in previous months—with one important difference.

“So it is Ormonde they love now.” In previous riots a non-juring priest by the name of Sacheverell, stripped of his pulpit for delivering a sermon against the Hanoverian succession, had won the people’s sympathy.