Love Charade Part 32

"I know it." She smiled softly. "Women's witchcraft, husband."

On the night of June 21, 1791, Dr. Stuart was aroused from his bed by a sleepy manservant. His presence was required immediately in Grosvenor Square and the Linton chaise waited at the door. He dressed hastily but still careful of the folds of his cravat, the set of his coat. One did not a.s.sist at the accouchement of a countess in slovenly fashion, however inconvenient the hour; and babies were notoriously inconsiderate when it came to night and day. Hat correctly in place, bag of instruments in hand, the court physician entered the chaise with a calm disregard for the coachman's impatience. First babies were never in a hurry to enter the world.

Bedford stood in the open doorway, the lights of the hall throwing his figure into sharp relief as the carriage drew up. He was dressed as usual in dark cloth, not a fold or hair out of place, but there was both anxiety and excitement on his face. It was three o'clock in the morning and the entire household appeared to be up and about. Housemaids in dressing gowns popped up from behind pillars and in the corridors; Peter Haversham in shirt and britches paced the hall; knots of footmen tried to look as if they had some work to attend to at this unG.o.dly hour and Bedford, in his wisdom, made no attempt to send them about their business. A child would soon be born and while Lady Danny labored an anxious household kept watch and waited.

Stuart followed Bedford upstairs. No cries of agony reached him as he walked along the corridor to My Lady's bedchamber where the butler discreetly withdrew, leaving him to make his own entrance. As he did so a voice said distinctly, "Mon Dieu! C'est abominable. Give me your hand, Justin."

"You have it already, my love." The calm unmistakable voice of the Earl of Linton reached the doctor who stood blinking bemusedly at this unusually orderly scene.

"You do not mind that I hurt you . .. Jesu!" A gasp of pained protest drowned whatever else Danielle had been about to say as she used her husband's hand, disdaining the knotted bedsheet hanging ready from the bedpost to transfer some of the convulsive pain of this process of birthing.

"My lord, here is more lavender water." Molly handed Linton a fresh cloth and he nodded, ignoring the scrunching of his knuckles as he bathed the sweat-drenched brow on the pillow.

The physician looked around for a moment. The room was brightly lit, kettles of boiling water steamed beside the fire. His patient was attended by the Countess of March, brisk in an enormous white ap.r.o.n, the maidservant, and most extraordinarily by her husband. Husbands, in Stuart's extensive experience, never appeared in the birthing room.

"Ah, Doctor." Lady Lavinia turned to him. "The child appears to be in the birth ca.n.a.l, but there has been no progress for the last fifteen minutes."

Stuart scrubbed his hands vigorously in the bowl Molly held for him and nodded his comprehension.

Women giving birth for the first time rarely knew what to do.

"I think that the next time I shall scream," Danielle said prosaically. "But you must not worry if I do."

The physician exchanged an astonished look with Lady Lavinia but the scream never came, only a stream of French that only Justin understood, fortunately for the delicate sensibilities of their companions.

Stuart made his own examination and his own decision. This woman was not one of his usual patients, out of her head with pain and embarra.s.sment at her predicament. "My lady, you must push the child into the world now. It needs your help."

"Only tell me how," she gasped.

"Your body will tell you if you listen." It was the only answer he was able to give, never having gone through this himself. But having witnessed countless births he knew that some women were able to give spontaneous birth whilst others with no explainable physical difference were not. The more practice they had, of course, the better they became. This child was headfirst and its mother well in control and it would be a pity to have recourse to the shining instruments in his bag. They left marks on the child and tore the mother.

Danielle paused and let the pain have its way and then realized that this was not pain. What had happened before deserved no other name, but what she was experiencing now was a powerful physical demand, one that if she obeyed it produced no agony, only satisfaction. Her body, freed from the constraints of her mind, reacted automatically. As it contracted, she pushed, feeling the child make the long progress into life. There was a moment when Justin gasped-the moment when a sleek head appeared between her thighs and Stuart took over with smooth efficiency.

Nicholas, Viscount Beresford, catapulted into the world with a loud yell of protest, sound of wind and limb, to be held by his father while the cord was cut and tied and his great-grandmother wept freely and his mother demanded that her son be given to her this instant. Justin laid the blood-streaked sc.r.a.p against her breast without attempting to control his own tears of joy, before taking the physician downstairs and informing the hovering household that his son and heir was healthy, Her Ladyship well, and anyone who wished to toast the baby's head should do so in the best champagne.

The lights blazed in Grosvenor Square that night and the champagne flowed. Danielle examined her son, counted his fingers and toes, and gave him her breast. The child sucked greedily. When Linton eventually came back to the bedroom, intending to kiss his wife good night and disappear next door, she clung to him and said she was cold and needed him beside her. He put little Nicholas into the crib beside the bed and, ignoring all convention, climbed in to hold Danielle throughout the remainder of the night.

Chapter 19.

On the night that the infant Viscount Beresford burst vociferously into the world, the seeds of tragedy were being watered in a small French town some ten miles from Verdun. The town bore the same name as the woman laboring in the peace of Grosvenor Square in a country where civil strife had been done with over a hundred years ago.

In the town of Varennes the tocsin pealed on the night of June 21, rousing the citizens and neighboring peasantry. They flocked in their thousands to bar the entrances to the town, to gape at and to secure the hapless family of Bourbons held in a room over an epicene belonging to one Monsieur Sauce, the procureur of the commune who, in the absence of the mayor, had exercised his authority to halt the travelers in their four-horsed berline and to demand their pa.s.sports.

The royal flight from the Tuileries had been planned with meticulous care over many months and only a chapter of accidents for which no one person was to blame resulted in its sorry conclusion.

During the winter and spring of Danielle's tempestuous pregnancy, the Comte de St. Estephe became one of Marie Antoinette's closest confidants. After the return from their summer holiday in St. Cloud the previous October, the royal family had been made increasingly aware of the true nature of their imprisonment in the gloom of the Tuileries. The king reluctantly agreed to the secularization of the clergy but continued to practice his religion in the orthodox manner, refusing to acknowledge the bishops and parish cures who had taken the oath of allegiance to the const.i.tution. In Louis's opinion they were mere minions of the state who had abjured papal authority and as such had no authority to hear the king's confession or to offer communion. The tide of public feeling ran high against a king who was not strong enough to refuse to accede to a measure he loathed and too stubborn to pretend that it had his personal approval.

Marie Antoinette, no longer the child who played shepherdess in the Pet.i.t Trianon while the people starved, finally accepted that the monarchy could never regain its popularity; they were prisoners of the people's whim and their only course was to break the chains. She busied herself with plans for flight-a flight that would take them under the protective umbrella of her family; a flight that would follow the path of so many aristocratic emigres to Coblenz and the Austrian court. From there they would march on France, quell the revolution, and restore the Bourbons to an undisputed throne.

St. Estephe listened to the elaborate plans, ran messages for his queen, heard her secrets while he planted the spies amongst the maidservants and flunkeys, and reported back faithfully to the revolutionary committee. And aU the while he contemplated the abduction and eventual submission of the Countess of Lin ton. He learned much from the Chevalier D'Evron on his visits to Paris-information that made sense of that lady's extraordinary behavior during her stay at the Tuileries. An unsuspecting D'Evron, thankful only to find a self-styled friend of the Lin tons who abhorred the possibility of blood and terror in his native land, spoke freely. St. Estephe hugged his excitement; she would not be easy to break if all the chevalier said was true, but his pleasure would be all the greater.

On the day that Danielle fought for the life and sanity of Brigitte Roberts, the chevalier, in the company of St. Estephe, witnessed Dagger Day. A mob, incited by a rumor that the royal family were intending to flee Paris by an underground corridor from the Tuileries to the prison at Vincennes, marched on the donjon at Vincennes. n.o.bles flocked to the Tuileries, armed to defend their king, and rumor was seen as confirmed. As far as the mob was concerned, their king had made an abortive attempt at flight and nothing could change that impression. He was no longer to be trusted as a supporter of the new regime and could be cla.s.sified with the traitorous aristos who made up the emigre court at Coblenz-rich, dissipated, and riddled with plots to summon foreign powers to their side and put down the insurrection in their country.

From that moment the king's fate was sealed. Two months later, St. Estephe stood in the inner court of the Tuileries palace watching as Louis XVI's attempt to take his family early for the traditional summer holiday at St. Cloud was aborted by a riotous crowd, yelling protest as they surrounded the coach, ignoring the harangues of the king's generals and advisers, ignoring the king himself as, for two hours, he attempted to persuade them that flight had been far from his mind. What had been on his mind was that in the seclusion of St. Cloud he would be able to celebrate Easter under the auspices of a non-juror priest and the public would be none the wiser. Instead, the people of Paris had seen only treachery. Eventually the royal family was forced to return to their rooms in the Tuileries.

St. Estephe slipped from the courtyard. There was no longer any doubt but that the king and queen of France were prisoners; the last shreds of pretense had been torn away by the events of this day. Knowing Marie Antoinette as he now did, the comte was in no doubt that she would work to perfect her plans for escape, sure in the knowledge that there was no alternative.

The plan would fail, St. Estephe decided, and he would do his part in ensuring that it did. And when it failed his own path would be clear. There would be no further need for duplicity- courting the queen, listening in patient attention to the complaints, the elaborate plans, reporting in secret to the committee. The reign of the Bourbons would be over and the sovereignty of the people absolute. At that point he would cast in his lot with the power-makers, consolidate his position, and find an official reason to visit London. He would offer his services to the chevalier and the Countess of Linton and by so doing achieve a double purpose-the trust of the young countess and valuable information for his government.

Nearly two months later the flight took place. St. Estephe, to his fury, was left at the starting gate. He had thought he was in the queen's total confidence but realized that he had merely been used as a useful subject on the far outskirts of the coterie.

The fact that he had not known the details or the timing of the escape plan would not increase his status with the committee.

The plan was elaborate, circ.u.mventing the care of the Paris commune, alerted through St. Estephe via one of the queen's maids that an attempt at escape was imminent. The mayor of Paris and the commandant of the palace guard were spending the night of June 20 in the Tuileries. Guards were posted throughout, but in the southeast corner of the palace there was one door left unwatched. It led directly by an unlighted pa.s.sage to the royal apartments. The children, Madame Royale, and the dauphin, who was disguised as a girl, made their escape first. The king, dressed in gray coat and wig, impersonating a valet, followed some forty-five minutes later from the Pet.i.t Carousel at the north end of the Tuileries. At midnight, the queen appeared, dressed as a governess, and the journey began.

Twenty-four hours later it ended in ignominy at Varennes. The royal family were turned back and returned to Paris under escort, the third time in two years that Louis had been brought back as a prisoner to his capital.

The course of the revolution was finally set. Danielle, playing with her month-old baby on a rug beneath a spreading beach tree at Danesbury, heard D'Evron's account of the declaration of martial law-the ma.s.sacre of the Champs de Mars when defenseless civilians were fired upon for no apparent reason by cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and the subsequent denunciations, arrests, and imprisonments in the name of public safety Paris was now a panic-stricken city of hard faced, rebellious people who had lost all faith in their king and all trust in a National a.s.sembly that could decree martial law and murder the people. The word "Republic" was on everyone's lips. The stage was set for the rule of the mob and the Reign of Terror.

"It is beginning then," Danielle said, absently tickling little Nicholas with a long stalk of gra.s.s. "The mob is a fearsome many-headed hydra when aroused. We shall have much work to do soon, chevalier." She frowned, biting her lower lip. "Our own kind will begin to flee in droves. There will be no safety for them when the people declare a republic."

"They have not done so yet, Danny," Linton reminded her.

There was something about that frown that made him distinctly uneasy.

"No, but they will," she said with quiet conviction. "It is only a matter of time. If it could be established without blood, a republic would be for the best, I think. The people have suffered too long under the ancien regime, but it will not happen peacefully and much as I despise many of my own kind, I cannot sit by and watch their slaughter."

Linton sighed. "You are not, I hope, proposing to visit Paris yourself and halt the progress of this horror with your little finger? Not that I don't think you could do it," he added with a grin. "The mere sight of you would turn Robespierre into a purring kitten."

The chevalier chuckled, but Danielle said somberly, "I do not consider it a laughing matter. You forget, perhaps, what I have seen."

The warm summer afternoon seemed to take on a chill and even the peaceful droning of the honey bees seemed to pause. The baby's face crumpled and he let out a loud wail. "Ah, tu as laim, mon pet.i.t." Danielle lifted him up and rose to her feet. "I must feed him at once." She hurried across the lawn toward the mellow, timbered Elizabethan house, soothing the child's wails with promises of imminent satisfaction.

Justin watched her, smiling slightly. His son never had the opportunity to exercise his lungs since the smallest expression of need was instantly answered. As a result, the little viscount was plump and sunny tempered in his solipsistic world. But since he was rarely out of his mother's arms, Justin strongly suspected that they were in for trouble when they returned to London and Danielle found it impossible to be all and everything to the child for twenty-four hours a day.

"I do not think motherhood has changed her very much," the chevalier observed with the ease of friendship. "I would not put it past her to confront Robespierre and Danton."

"Neither would I, my friend. But if you can contrive to keep her sufficiently busy in London, we may perhaps avert my having to resist such a plan. We have been living in considerable harmony since the debacle at Newgate and I have no desire to disturb it."

The Lintons returned to London in October. The infant Nicholas, his nurse, nursery maid, and all the possessions considered necessary for his comfort were ensconced in a second chaise, while Molly occupied the first in solitary state, Danielle having chosen to ride in the company of her husband and Peter Haversham.

For a full day after their arrival, Linton House was turned upside down by a tempestuous countess who declared the traditional nursery apartments quite inadequate in their present condition for her son. They were too dark, shabby, and cramped; she did not care for the color scheme or the furnishings and something must be done immediately. When Linton observed mildly that they had been considered well enough for him, he had been roundly informed that there was no reason to visit his deprivations on the next generation.

The nursery party was housed temporarily in the west wing while an army of painters and decorators tore down the old curtains, covered the nursery walls with crisp white paint, the woodwork with glossy scarlet, and the floors with a deep blue carpet. Bright curtains fluttered at the windows and cheerful chintzes covered chairs and cushions before Danielle eventually p.r.o.nounced herself satisfied and the household heaved a sigh of relief.

Not for long, however. Five days later, Justin walked into the hall after a leisurely ride in Hyde Park to be met by a hysterical nurse and a raging Danielle in driving dress, holding a bawling Nicholas.

"Out, woman, this instant!" Danielle pointed dramatically to the door.

"What the devil's going on?" His Lordship demanded, "This . . . this . . . Oh, c'est insupportable. The only words that I can think of, I cannot use!" Danny stormed. "Hush now, mon pet.i.t chou, hush." The crimson-faced baby yelled louder and Justin took his son firmly out of his mother's arms.

"You are not going to calm Nicky unless you calm yourself," he said with good reason, patting the child's back. "Let us continue this unseemly scene in a little privacy." He strode to the library and the little viscount hiccupped and ceased his wailing as the steady hand on his back continued its comforting work and the strong familiar arms provided a safe haven from the chaos that had abruptly disrupted his orderly world.

Danielle followed, her skirts swirling under her impetuous stride. "I am sorry, but it is beyond bearing, Justin." Her voice was calmer now but the brown eyes blazed. "That.. . that. . . woman out there!" She gestured vigorously to the hall as she closed the door. "Nicky has been crying for hours while she has been sitting in the servants' hall gossiping! And she actually said that it was good for him not to have what he wanted sometimes if he was not to become spoiled! How dare she? I went out for two hours, just for a drive with Philip, and my child is tortured in my absence."

"That's a rather dramatic way of putting it," Justin murmured, sitting down in an armchair and giving Nicholas his seal to play with. It disappeared instantly into the small mouth and Justin wiped the residue of tears from the b.u.t.ton nose and brown eyes. The child was the spitting image of his mother.

"It is not at all dramatic," Danielle maintained, but hereyes softened as she looked at them. "The woman must go. She's not fit to care for a child."

"Not for your child maybe," Justin said carefully. "By all means give her her papers, but she must have a month's wages in lieu of notice and a note of character. It would be unjust to do otherwise since her practices would be considered perfectly acceptable in any other household. Your standards are exacting, my love. I have no quarrel with them, but you should realize that they are somewhat unusual."

"But it is barbaric to leave a child to cry in that fashion. He is but four months old, how else can he express his needs?" she demanded, arched eyebrows meeting in a ferocious frown.

"An English nurse, my love, expects to reign supreme in her nursery. As far as she is concerned the child is in her sole charge. I remember my own." Justin laughed. "I held her in much more awe than I did my parents; she had a very hard hand and didn't scruple to use it."

"Well, I will not tolerate such a thing," Danielle declared. "If Nicky must be cared for by others than myself, then they will do so according to my wishes. He is not to be made unhappy."

Justin thought of the years his son would spend at Eton, years which, if he did not conform, would be sheer misery. But Danielle was right-the child was as yet four months old and ent.i.tled to instant gratification of his needs. Time enough later to prepare him for the real world and to prepare Danielle for some facts pertaining to the upbringing of the heir to the Earl of Linton. He could not afford for his son to grow up at his mother's ap.r.o.n strings. At that moment Nicholas cooed at his father and smiled. Justin forgot all else but his overpowering love for this helpless trusting sc.r.a.p. He buried his face in the soft fragrant roundness of the baby's cheek and Danielle, with a satisfied smile, left them and went to dispatch Nurse Barker in an orderly fashion.

Half an hour later she popped her head around the library door. "Justin, I am going to visit the Bouchers in Steeplegate. An aunt lives with them but they are desperately short of room. Tante Therese is well accustomed to babies and I am sure will be happy to take care of Nicky."

"I will come with you, in that case." Linton stood up carefully, the now sleeping child in his arms. "This may not be one of your usual excursions, but I still prefer that you not make it alone."

"Comme tu veux." She shrugged easily. "I will put Nicky in his crib and Molly will look after him until we return."

Tante Therese was more than happy with the arrangement and the Linton household, perforce, became accustomed to the presence of an elderly voluble Frenchwoman who spoke little English but knew well how to make her requests and how to have them granted. Nicholas thrived, Danielle was content, and Justin even more so, now that his wife was no longer agitated at leaving the child and became once again the exclusive sharer of his bed.

The news from France grew ever more alarming as the king, having accepted the const.i.tution then proceeded to use his veto in a manner that enraged the people. Hatred of the royalists seethed in the faubourgs and fanned the flames of fear of a royalist uprising. As Danielle had predicted, many of her own cla.s.s began to leave their native land in spite of the const.i.tution's decree that all emigres would have their property sequestered and were to be considered traitors to the const.i.tution and liable to the death penalty.

These were the people who knew now that they had done all they could for the royalist cause from within their country. To remain was to invite martyrdom. The trickle became a stream as they gathered support for the counter-revolutionary army that their idealistic eyes saw marching back into France with a blazing sword.

Linton House rapidly became a forum for discussions and plans, and new arrivals on English soil were directed there. Justin resigned himself to a house under occupation. At least while Danielle was playing mistress of ceremonies in her salon, she couldn't be roaming the backslums of London. Jules and his friends were almost always to be found partic.i.p.ating in the debates, arranging contact with the other refugee centers in the Rhineland, offering financial support and their own swords with an enthusiasm that Justin regarded with benign amus.e.m.e.nt. It was only natural that these energetic young men should find espousing such a cause an exciting alternative to the social round of pleasure that had hitherto been their lot.

It was Danielle's att.i.tude that surprised him, although he realized with hindsight that it should not have done.

"It is quite ridiculous, Pitt," she stated, striding in exasperation around the prime minister's bookroom one cold March afternoon. "It is all very well to have ideals, but not when they obscure the real issues. I listen to them rant and rave and plan a glorious revenge but they will not accept that it is too late for that!"

Pitt exchanged looks with Linton before saying, "Could you explain further, Danny?"

"Ah, surely you must know what I am saying?" was her impatient response. "C'est une betise and I had not thought you stupid, sir."

"Danielle! That is most unmannerly," her husband rebuked sharply, shocked by her rudeness out of his usual calm acceptance of his wife's directness.

Danielle flushed with mortification. "I beg pardon, sir. It is just that I am angry and frustrated. I did not mean to be impolite."

William Pitt couldn't help his chuckle. The fiery young woman had been replaced by a contrite little girl trying to make amends after a scolding. "Pray don't mention it," he begged politely. "I do not mean to appear stupid, but I would like to hear you expand your thoughts."

"Well, it is perfectly simple . . . Oh, Justin, do not look at me in that manner. It makes my thoughts all tangled."

"You flatter me, ma'am," Linton murmured sardonically, but his lips twitched. "Continue in a more moderate tone, if you please."

Danielle sighed. "This emigration is exacerbating the outrage of the people. They are already saying that Paris is infiltrated with armed spies of the counterrevolution. They suspect secret agents of hiding in the cellars of the Tuileries, of disguising themselves as National Guardsmen and hatching plots to a.s.sa.s.sinate the patriot leaders. What the hotheads here do not understand is that the people will take their revenge on those members of their families that they have left behind. The depositions and arrests are happening every day; estates are being pillaged just as in the worst days of the 'grandepeur' and these idiots talk rhetoric and do nothing practical."

"What should they be doing, Danny?" It was Linton who spoke, his earlier annoyance quite vanished.

"They should be trying to bring out of France those who are in danger," she told him succinctly. "There is still time and money and contacts enough to succeed. Those who wish to fight should join the Austrian army, the rest should be organizing a rescue mission. Instead they just talk and will not listen to D'Evron or to myself." She glared in disgust at a spot on the carpet as if it were in some way responsible. "Only Jules and the others seem to understand, but they can do nothing without inside help. How are we to know who to bring out, who to get messages to; we are not omniscient."

"Danielle." Justin gave voice to the horrible suspicion carefully. "You are not by any chance thinking of accomplishing this work yourself?"

"Well, someone is going to have to if these imbeciles cannot be persuaded to see sense."

"Oh dear," William Pitt muttered, filled with compa.s.sion for his friend.

"Well, let us hope that that is a bridge we will not have to cross," Linton said in a placid tone that earned him Pitt's instant admiration. "Come, my love, the prime minister expects a division bell within the hour and you and I will leave politics behind for the evening and spend some hours of dissipation at Almack's."

"Dissipation!" Danielle's laughter rang out. "On orgeat and lemonade, milord? And only the most decorous dances watched over by every cat in-town."