Though longing to hear the music, Jenny looked around anxiously for Evelyn, and seeing neither her friend nor Mr. Byrd, she slid from the sofa, and got out the door, before the prima donna started the Griselda aria which had made her famous.
Jenny found Evelyn in the hall, very flushed, standing with her hand to her forehead, leaning against the wall. Mr. Byrd stood there too, scowling at his daughter.
Jenny came up to them timidly, and Byrd said with a start, “Oh, Miss Jenny, I’d quite forgot you. We’re leaving at once, the coach is coming.” He walked to the door to see if it was there, and Jenny whispered, “What happened?”
“He saw Wilfred with me in the garden,” Evelyn whispered back. “I denied it, but he’s pretty sure. He’s sending me away to Essex. To my cousins at Purleigh. Jenny, see that Wilfred knows!”
Jenny squeezed her friend’s hand, and desolately resigned herself to missing the musicale, and to a thunderous drive back to school. But the surprises of the afternoon were not yet over.
Just as Mr. Byrd’s coach was announced, a lady came up the steps and, pushing past the footman, rushed into the hall.
“Lady Betty!” cried Jenny in amazement and delight. She ran towards the woman who had been the only mother she had really known, and curtseying, kissed her hand. Betty gave her a quick hug. “I came here to get you, dear,” she said. She glanced at Mr. Byrd and Evelyn. “What -- leaving already? Surely, I hear Mrs. Robinson singing?”
“My daughter has displeased me, my lady,” said Byrd heavily, for once forgetting all his gallantries. “I am sending her to the country, where she may repent of her behavior.”
“Dear, dear,” said Betty. “I’m sorry to hear this. Well, I’ll disembarrass you of Jenny. I’m taking her back to George Street with me. I’ve already notified the school.”
Jenny gave a gasp of pleasure, while Byrd bowed and Evelyn, looking hard at her friend, formed the words “George Street” with her lips. Jenny signaled agreement. She knew that Sir Wilfred lived on George Street, not six doors from the Lees. She could now manage to tell him directly about Evelyn.
The Byrds went out, and Jenny cried, “Oh, my lady. I’m so happy. May we stay and hear the music?”
“I think not,” said Betty. “I’ve come to fetch you, because of a very important matter. It -- it can’t wait.”
Jenny looked up curiously, seeing that her benefactress was different from her usual quiet self. There was a youthful sparkle about her, a suppressed excitement.
“Has something good happened, my lady?” asked Jenny. Betty’s pale, rather drawn face sobered. “In a way,” she said, “in a way. At least I’m sure you’ll think so.” She sighed suddenly. “Come, child, my coach is waiting.”
The long summer twilight filtered into the coach, and as they started back towards London, Betty turned to look at the girl. “Heaven!” she said. “That frock’s much too small for you. You’re growing up. I hadn’t realized. I’ll have one of mine cut down --” She broke off with an exasperated sound. “I wish I could buy you a new one.”
“I know, my lady,” said Jenny. “And you’re so good to me.” There was an unconscious tremble in the soft voice, and Betty put her hand over Jenny’s. “Tell me, dear, she said, “have you ever wondered about yourself -- where you came from?”
“Often and often,” said the girl after a moment. “And I confess it has -- has hurt me to find I’m baseborn.”
“Baseborn!” repeated Betty sharply. “What do you mean by that?”
“Why, they say so at school -- the mistresses -- I heard them, and some of the girls have taunted me. And then today the Duke of Wharton, he called me a bastard.”
“Philip?” cried Betty in amazement. “Pay no attention to Philip. He’s a stewpot of all the vices, and is quite mad. Anyway he knows nothing about you, nor do they at school. Poor Jenny, I had no idea . . . Tell me, whose child do they say you are?”
“The Colonel’s,” said Jenny miserably. “I don’t think that’s true, because of that time long ago -- in the cellar at my Lord Lichfield’s . . .”
“You remember that?”
Jenny bowed her head. “Like a dream, but I remember.” “And you’ve never spoken of it?” “Never, my lady. I promised not to.”
“Ah, you’re a loyal child,” said Betty, on a long sigh. “Sometimes I think that loyalty is the only true virtue in the world worth having.” She gazed, unseeing, at the moving line of elms outside the coach.
“I’ve wondered, my lady,” said Jenny looking down at her lap. “I’ve wondered if --” she faltered. “Please forgive me, if I do wrong to ask, but perhaps you--” She stopped as Betty turned her head and gazed at the girl’s reddening face.
“No, dear,” said Betty very gently. “I wish you were my child, in a way you should have been -- but forget that. You are not. And, Jenny, though alas you may not talk about it, nor explain to anyone, you must know the truth. You are not baseborn, you are not anyone’s bastard. You were born in wedlock.”
Jenny breathed hard, and Betty saw in the widened eyes the light of incredulous joy, then the shimmer of tears. Her own eyes misted, and she squeezed Jenny’s hand tight. Then Betty spoke with a hint of her old gaiety. “That’s not to say that there isn’t a bit of bastardy further back in both our lines!”
“What, my lady!” For a horrified instant Jenny wondered if Lady Betty was making fun of her, and if the precious assurance she had given was only a jest.
Betty went on. “Though a king’s bastards do not really count as such, especially if they are recognized and ennobled. Your great-grandfather, Jenny, and my grandfather were the same man -- King Charles the Second of England!”
“King Charles?” Jenny repeated blankly. King Charles was somebody out of the history book, the “Merry Monarch who never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one.” Miss Crowe always hurried over his career and that of his brother James to land with relief at the “Glorious Revolution.” And even that was long ago, before William and Mary, and before Queen Anne.
“It’s quite true,” said Betty, “though I can see you doubt it. You have royal Stuart blood.”
“But I can’t,” cried Jenny, her mind spinning. “I mean, aren’t the Stuarts -- Jacobites?’“
At Jenny’s expression Betty laughed outright. “You speak as though a Jacobite was a serpent, or a kind of ghoulish fiend! And so I dare say many people think. I know that you’ve been taught so, yet very soon I think you’ll alter your opinion -- at least you’ll modify it.”
Jenny slumped back on the red plush coach cushions. “I’m very muddled, my lady,” she said, “though I see two things which make me happy, or will if I can believe them. I am not baseborn and you and I have kinship. I’ve ever longed for both those things.”
“Then you may stop longing, my dear, and be happy!” said Betty with a faint smile. “In truth you don’t ask much.” Nor had she ever, Betty thought, looking back over the years in which she had cared for Jenny. The child had never made a demand, she had swallowed many a sorrow and uncertainty in silence. Only one wish had Jenny ever expressed, and that was about the big raw North Country lad, Rob Wilson. Yet it was three years since the lad had gone back North, and Jenny must have forgotten all about him, by now.
“My lady,” said Jenny, her lovely eyes anxious, “I was rude to the Duke of Wharton. I slapped his face, when he touched my neck.”
“Did you!” said Betty. “Well, I’m sure he deserved it.” And she frowned, though not at Jenny. She knew Philip’s depraved tastes and suddenly perceived that Jenny’s budding beauty might bring many dangers.
“He said,” went on Jenny, relieved that Lady Betty wasn’t annoyed, “that I was coarse, and must have peasant blood. Is it true, my lady?”
“No. At least you could never be coarse, on that I’d stake my life. As for ‘peasant’ blood, perhaps in a way, your mother--” Betty stopped. How ridiculous to still feel a drumming in her ears and a clutch in the throat when she thought of
Meg Snowdon. “Your mother,” Betty went on, “is a simple Border lass, her folk are farmers. I -- don’t know much about her.”
“There was darkness in the North,” said Jenny slowly. “I see a little tower by a black hill and I hear the sound of water. There was a woman who loved me, I think, but hardly ever spoke to me. She had long brown hair, and o’ nights would sit in the ingle, and read from a big book of Scriptures. Sometimes I think she wept, ‘greeted’ we called it, sometimes she was angry with a poor old daft man. My lady, was that my mother?”
“I suppose so, dear.”
“And my name -- was it not Snawdon?”
“No. Your name is Radcliffe, one of the proudest names in England, and your father’s line goes back unbroken through earls and baronets and knights to the time of the Saxons.”
“My father’s name was Radcliffe?” said Jenny, struggling with a strong sense of unreality.
“It is Radcliffe, said Betty emphatically. “He is alive and well, and he is in London. You’ll see him soon. That’s why I’ve fetched you today, yes, you may well look startled, and there is more to come!” Betty glanced at the coach roof to be sure the panel which communicated with the footmen was shut, and she lowered her voice.
“He is here incognito, Jenny. You know what that means? He should not have risked coming back, for in England he’s under sentence of death -- oh, rash and impetuous, daredevil as always --” Betty stopped, seeing the gray eyes grow rounder. “Never mind that. He is here under the name of Mr. Jones.”
“What had he done, my lady?” the girl asked in a small voice.
“He was out in the ‘Fifteen. He fought very bravely to restore the Pretender to the throne. He is in fact an entirely dedicated Jacobite. And another thing, he’s a Roman Catholic. I’m sorry to give you so many shocks at once, but it’s necessary now.”
Jenny was very still, looking down at her knees. The joy of finding she had the right to an honored name, and was kin to Lady Betty was almost completely canceled by discovering that the mysterious father was a Catholic Jacobite in hiding. And under still another name!
“Shall I now be Miss Jones?” asked Jenny with the faintest edge to her voice. “My lady, I fear I’m not very eager to meet this -- this gentleman. And I -- I wonder that you --”
She trailed off, checked by politeness, but Betty understood.
“You wonder that I should be party to a deception so against my principles? I’ve wondered myself, and don’t expect you to understand. So, my dear, there’s nothing for you to do except obey, and I promise you,” Betty smiled ruefully at the girl, “I believe I can assure you, that you’ll not find this meeting with your father as distasteful as you seem to fear.”
Two hours later, Betty sat at her husband’s bedside, reading to him from the last issue of the Flying Post. Frank particularly liked the Court news, and the lists of shares on the Exchange. Betty read the items out mechanically while she speculated on the interview between Charles and Jenny which was taking place in Frank’s erstwhile study downstairs.
Betty had made no effort to conceal Charles’s visit. None of the servants had ever seen him before, and she had explained him as a potential tutor for the children, and given this verisimilitude by sending in her own three, ahead of Jenny -- Little Charles-Henry, who was ten and called Harry, then Bess, who was six, and Caroline, named for the Princess, who was four. Charles, playing his part gravely, had immediately set all three some writing tasks appropriate to their various ages. Betty had removed the little ones when she took Jenny to the study, and waited only long enough to see father and daughter staring at each other in embarrassed astonishment.
Jenny’s exceptional prettiness might be no great surprise to Charles, who had seen her as a baby, though it must be startling to be confronted with a nearly grown daughter. Charles, however, must inevitably be another shock to Jenny, who had endured a good many of them in the last hour. Charles did not look like any father the girl could have seen. He was twenty-nine, and extremely handsome. The haggardness and prison pallor, of course, had long since gone. His body was filled out with muscle, his skin tanned and ruddy -- evidences that in exile he had managed to enjoy the outdoor sports he loved. The simple dark clothes (suitable to a Mr. Jones) became him; so did a more subdued manner. If he had lost all boyishness, and much of his swagger, and if there were faint lines of suffering around his mouth, and a hint of bitterness in his full bright gaze, to Betty at least, his appeal was but increased.
Frank on the bed gave an inarticulate grunt and waved his good hand.
Betty started and said, “I’m sorry, my dear, where was I? Oh, yes, we finished the shares, now would you like the Court news?”
Frank grunted again, and from long habit she interpreted it as assent. There had been many months of this, ever since the dreadful day when he had been forced to admit that the South Sea Company’s bubble had burst, that no amount of holding on and desperately inflating it with yet more cash, was of any avail. A hundred thousand pounds in paper profits -- these were gone. His own private fortune was gone, Betty’s legacy was gone -- all vanished into nothingness.
Throughout England there were myriads in a similar plight, though this was chill comfort to the Lees, especially as Walpole and a few astute ones had sold out in time. What madness was it that had overcome the staid, cautious Frank? He who would never permit the paltriest of social gambling in his home had yet succumbed to the lure of a “sound investment” backed as it was by the Bank of England. Shame and despair and perhaps the feeling that his best friend Walpole had in a way betrayed him -- all these had felled poor Frank. In the very act of rushing into the Exchange, he had collapsed on the sidewalk in a twitching, snoring coma.
The miseries of the next weeks Betty had mercifully forgotten. Her brother Lichfield had come to the rescue. He had settled debts, appointed a new land agent for Frank’s remaining Buckinghamshire properties, and helped her govern and apportion the little income that was left. And Lichfield paid Sir Hans Sloane, the great physician, under whose constant care and bleedings Frank gradually improved. Instead of a senseless hulk, he had become half a man. He could hear and think, he could respond a little with painful halting speech, but the limbs on his right side were still much impaired.
Betty glanced at him as she read, and found his eyes fixed on her with a dumb beastlike pleading. “Oh, what is it?” she said. “Frank, don’t look like that! You’re getting better. Soon you’ll be much better and can take the waters at Tunbridge. Sir Hans says so.”
His mouth twitched, there was a brightening of his dull eyes; she saw, that as so often, she was able to give him reassurance.
“Shall we have the children in?” she asked. “They’ll amuse you for a bit. And Jenny’s here today, too.” His lips moved in a question, and she hurried on. “The child had a half holiday, and I brought her home. You’ll see her later.” Betty pulled the bell rope, and when Frank’s valet appeared she told him to send in the children.
Harry came first, holding his new beagle puppy, treading solemnly, and not looking at his father, whose invalidism he never quite got used to. He was a sturdy, serious child, much like Frank.
The little girls, however, are like me, alas, Betty thought. Or as I used to be. They both had red hair and freckles, they were pudgy, and no amount of maternal fondness could call them anything but plain.
“Come over here, Bess,” said Betty to her namesake. “Can you say a new piece for Papa?”
“Yes, Mama,” said the child, curtseying. “I can say ‘Lithe and listen gentlemen that be of free-born blood, I shall tell you of a good yeoman, his name was Robin Hood.’ I know all of it. I said it for Mr. Jones in the study.”
Betty saw that this allusion passed Frank by, though she thought it wise to say “I’ve been interviewing a possible tutor. George-Henry thinks it might be a good idea.” Which was true. The Earl had suggested that a tutor would cut school expenses.
Frank nodded. His gaze reverted to Bess, a
nd he motioned for her to start reciting. Long past were the days when he concerned himself with every household matter. Time slipped by for him in a blur, where only the immediate event had much importance.
Bess earnestly embarked on the seventy stanzas of “Robin Hood,” while Caroline stood listening with her finger in her mouth and Harry played with his puppy. Frank’s lids gradually closed. At the thirty-seventh stanza, the door opened and Jenny came in. She curtsied to Betty and said, “The gentleman is waiting in the study, my lady.” The girl spoke steadily, but she looked dazed and very pale. “I’ll sit by the Colonel,” she said, with a pitying glance at the figure on the bed. She took the chair Betty vacated, and the children crowded around her; little Caroline clambered into her lap.
Betty could not help asking, “What is your opinion of Mr. Jones, my dear? Do you think he qualifies?”
Jenny raised her head and answered Betty’s look. “Aye,” she said, and her mouth curved into its dazzling smile. “Aye, my lady. I think he does.”
Before Betty went downstairs she entered her own bedroom, where she rearranged her hair, fluffing it, pulling little curls forward on her temples. Next she tentatively rubbed the new Bavarian red liquor on her cheeks, and was half shamed, half gratified by the improvement. As she dabbed jessamine water on her neck an inner voice jeered at her for a fool, but she quelled the voice aloud. “Why should. I look older than my years? Why need I be a frump? Bah! ‘Tis every woman’s duty to look her best, and I’ve been remiss of late.”
She put pearls in her ear lobes, selected her best lace handkerchief, and walked down to the study. Charles was standing by the open window looking out into the fragrant, sunny garden. He turned as she entered, and coming towards her kissed her on the lips. “At last, dear Betty,” he said softly, “we can really talk together.” He handed her to a chair, and took another one beside her. “How often in these years, I’ve wished for this.”