Watch the Wall, My Darling Page 2

  “You’re wet, miss?” It was a question.

  “Yes. I had to have a look at the place. It’s huge—I had no idea.”

  “But not much of it lived in, you’ll find. Ah, there you are at last, Jem.” A boy had emerged from somewhere at the back of the big dark wall. “Here’s Miss Christina, come from America. Show the men round to the stable yard, will you? They’re to stay the night, of course.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, tonight, looby.” He followed him out the front door, giving him some further instructions that Christina could not hear, then returned to her, full of apologies for keeping her standing.

  “I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels, miss, and that’s God’s truth, but, lord, what a happy day this is—and what a sad one. But—Mr. Christopher’s daughter!”

  “Parkes! Parkes! What is it?” The agitated whisper drew Christina’s eye upward to where a candle flickered at the stairhead. The woman who held it was leaning over the banisters, peering anxiously downward. “Who is it, Parkes? What’s the matter? What’s happened? Is it Ross?”

  “Nothing’s the matter, ma’am.” His tone was oddly repressive. “As for Mr. Ross, he’s away tonight, as you know. But here’s Miss Christina, home from America.”

  “Christina? Christopher’s girl? What in the world’s she doing here?” She picked up the skirts of her blue negligée and came down the stairs toward them, the candle lighting up blond hair around a faded pretty face marred by the drooping corners of the mouth. “Christina Tretteign?” She put her candle down and advanced on Christina, her manner as unwelcoming as her words. “What brings you here?” And then, on a still sharper note. “Did Papa send for you?”

  “Who? Oh—my grandfather? No. And Mr. Parkes tells me he has not had my letter. I am sorry to come on you so unexpectedly and so late, Aunt …” She paused expectantly.

  “Tretteign. Verity Tretteign. I’m Ross’s mother.” A curious mixture of pride and complaint in her tone. “I wish he was here. He would know what to do. Parkes—”

  “No, ma’am.” Once again that oddly repressive note. “May I suggest that Miss Christina sleep in Mr. Richard’s room for tonight? It’s always kept ready for him. It’s but to put a warming pan between the sheets. And you’ll be needing some supper, Miss Christina.”

  “Parkes, I’m famished!”

  “And cold, too, I’ll be bound.” His voice warmed at her use of his name. “Come you in by the library fire, miss, and I’ll wake the girls and have them warm your room and get you something to eat”

  “But, Parkes,” objected Mrs. Tretteign, “suppose Papa should not approve? You know what names he calls Christopher—”

  “My father is dead,” said Christina.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sure, but just the same, if Papa did not invite you—and, besides, how do we know you really are you? If you see what I mean. Parkes, do you really think …?”

  “I think you had best go back to bed, ma’am, and let me look after Miss Christina. Then if Mr. Tretteign should be angry, it’s no fault of yours.”

  She clapped her hands in a gesture that must once have been attractively girlish. “Parkes! How clever you are. That is just what I will do. Good night, Miss Tretteign, if you really are …” She let it hang. “Parkes will look after you admirably, I know.”

  “Don’t mind her, miss.” Parkes led the way into a big dark room where the embers of a wood fire glowed on a huge hearth. “She’s not a Tretteign, of course, only by marriage.” His tone dismissed her. “Sit down, Miss Christina, and warm yourself.” He picked up a huge pair of bellows and began to blow life into the fire.

  But she moved forward and took the bellows from him. “I’ll do that, Parkes. Do you find me something to eat I’m ravenous. I could eat a horse.”

  “It’s not fitting, miss.” He surrendered the bellows reluctantly to her wilful tug. “A young lady like you blowing the fire—”

  “An American young lady, Parkes. I have begun to see that it makes a great difference.” She picked up a couple of small logs from the pile beside the fire and placed them exactly where they would do most good. “But perhaps I should not be asking you to find me food. Is that it?”

  “Miss! I’d die for you! Mr. Christopher’s girl …”

  She laughed and went to work once more with the bellows. “I do hope that won’t be necessary, Parkes, but in that case—”

  “Absolutely, Miss Christina.” He was lighting a range of candles as he spoke. “Some cold mutton, perhaps? It’s marsh grown—you’ll never have tasted anything like it. And a glass of our own mead—there’s a welcome home for you—if so be it ain’t too strong for you.”

  “I doubt that, Parkes. Not tonight, at any rate.” She had turned toward him, fire and candlelight alike on her face.

  “Miss! You’re hurt! You’re bleeding!”

  “Nonsense!” But her hand went up to her face and felt dried blood on her chin. “Good gracious!” She must have bitten the smuggler harder than she realized. And then, thinking fast, “Oh, that. It’s nothing. I bit my tongue when the carriage hit a rut. There are plenty of them on your marsh.”

  “You should not have come at night, Miss Christina.”

  “Do you know,” she said, “I rather think you are right, Parkes.”

  Chapter Two

  Christina awoke next morning to a familiar, delightful sound. It was the sea, of course, not deeply growling, as it had last night, or sullenly threatening, as on the voyage from America, but contentedly murmuring to itself. The wind had dropped in the night and autumn sunshine illuminated the pattern in faded red curtains and shone around them to pick out here a gleaming piece of mahogany and there the rich brown backs of a shelf of books. Pulling herself farther upright among soft pillows, she looked about her and thought that her cousin Richard might be congratulated on his room. Nothing, it was true, was new, or particularly elegant, but everything spoke of care and comfort and enough money well spent.

  But what a strange household … Her thoughts were interrupted by a light tapping on the door, and a girl about her own age looked in. “May I light the fire, Miss Christina? Mr. Parkes said not to last night, you being so tired, but there’s a proper autumn nip in the air this morning. You’ll need it while you breakfast.”

  “In bed?” The idea appalled her.

  The girl had crossed the room to draw the heavy curtains and flood the room with sunshine. “Mrs. Tretteign always does, miss.”

  “Well, I’m not going to.” Christina sat farther up in bed, preparatory to getting out.

  “But, miss!” Genuine horror in the girl’s voice now. “You ain’t got no maid, and Mrs. Emeret—she’s the housekeeper, you know—she ain’t decided yet who’s to do for you. Till your own comes on, of course.” She was back at the fire now, busy with flint and tinder.

  Christina laughed. “If Mrs. Emeret waits till my maid arrives, she’ll wait forever. I’ve never had one.”

  “Never?” Shocked. “Oh, miss, please don’t let on! Mrs. Emeret is bad enough this morning, and Mrs. Tretteign, and her Rose, about your coming all on your own like—and in the night too. Please don’t let them know you never had a maid. There’d be no end to it. Please, miss, do stay in bed till Mrs. Emeret sends someone.”

  “What’s your name?” Christina settled back among the pillows.

  “Betty, miss.” She had the fire going now and moved nearer to the bed, showing a broad friendly face under the mob cap. “I’m the second housemaid. I do all the fires.”

  “Do you? Well, today, you’re going to be my maid. Can you find me some hot water, do you think?”

  “Your maid! Oh, miss—I don’t know what they’ll say.” And then, chin up. “I don’t care, neither. Hot water? Right away, miss. And I’ll tell Parkes, shall I, that you’ll be down for breakfast?”

  “Do.” Christina jumped out of bed as the girl closed the door behind her, and crossed the room to look out the window. As she had hoped, it lo
oked across a paved terrace to a range of brown shingle, and then the sea, gray-blue and quiet in morning light. On each side the shore swept around in a great curving bay, ending on the right in a far-off cliff, hazy with distance, and nearer on the left, in a long low promontory. Almost directly ahead, far out to sea, a ship was making slow way on the light morning breeze.

  Christina turned as the girl re-entered the room with a big steaming can. “What ship’s that? Do you know?”

  Betty put down the can and joined her at the window. “Oh, that. She’s a French privateer, miss. Been hovering offshore this week or more.”

  “French! And so near.”

  “Oh yes, they’re fast, you see, miss, and can show anything but a frigate a clean pair of heels.” She turned to look to the left, toward the long low spit of land. “Yes, you see, the wind’s from the east. The Dungeness squadron’s sailed for Boulogne roads—and while they’re there, keeping an eye on Boney’s army, his privateers come over here and snap up what they can. Took a cutter almost within sight of Hastings last week—just think, miss, those poor sailors, prisoners of war for goodness knows how long—or, very likely, forced to serve in a French man-of-war. Boney’s mad for sailors, Jem says. He’d have been here long ago if he could only beat our fleet, but Lord Nelson’s too many for him, thank goodness.” She shivered dramatically. “Ain’t you scared, miss, coming here to the invasion coast?”

  “Not nearly so scared as I was crossing the Atlantic, I can tell you. But what time’s breakfast?”

  Thus reminded of her new duties, Betty poured water from her can into the heavy basin. “Well, Mr. Ross being away, and his mother always having it in her room, and the old master too, it’s only you. Mr. Parkes said to tell you, miss, he’d see yours was ready sharp at nine. Best not meet old Mr. Tretteign till after his, he said, excusing the liberty, miss, but he’s a proper tartar till he’s had his cold meat and ginger tea. I don’t reckon Parkes means even to tell him about you till after.”

  “Goodness! Is it as bad as that? Then we had best lose no time. Look in the big box, would you, Betty, and find me a fresh gown.”

  Coming down the wide stairway twenty minutes or so later, she found Parkes anxiously hovering in the flagged hallway. As he came forward to greet her, a huge grandfather clock wound itself up with much groaning and creaking and struck nine times. “Good morning, miss. I do hope I didn’t have you called too early.”

  He was old, she saw, white-haired and shaky in his immaculate black. “No, indeed, Parkes. I hope I don’t inconvenience you by coming down. I hate breakfast in bed.” And then, turning to look at the big clock. “Is that the one where father hid?”

  “That’s it, miss. He told you about that, did he? This way, if you will.” He turned and led the way into a shabbily comfortable breakfast parlor.

  “Yes, he talked sometimes of his childhood. But I had no idea Tretteign Grange was such a place. It seemed huge when we drove in last night.”

  “So it is, but little of it lived in, you’ll find—or livable. It was an abbey, you know, even more prosperous than Battle in its day—and more ruthlessly sacked in the Reformation. The Tretteigns built this house out of the debris of the abbey—well, you will see for yourself.” He had seated her, while he talked, at a big oval mahogany table with only one place laid. “I hope you eat a proper English breakfast like your father, Miss Christina.” And then, surprised, “Why, Mr. Ross, I didn’t expect you so soon.”

  “Entertaining on the sly, eh Parkes?” The drawling voice made Christina swing around to face the speaker. A tall man, he was leaning nonchalantly against the doorpost, surveying her through a quizzing glass. He was dressed in the scarlet coat she had learned to recognize as a Volunteer’s uniform and his broad shoulders and great height combined with this martial outfit to present an odd contrast to his dandy’s voice and manner. His thick dark hair was cut short and curled irrepressibly around a face tanned almost as dark as an Indian’s. His gaze, at once languid and piercing, had now taken her in from her own softly waving brown hair to her kid slippers and, on the way, had contrived to make her dark stuff dress seem even more unmodish than she had thought it. Now he turned back to Parkes. “Some relation of yours, perhaps, Parkes?”

  “Mr. Ross! Sir!” The old man was very much on his dignity. ‘This is your cousin, Miss Christina, come from America.”

  “Good gracious!” There was something absurd about the mild exclamation from this formidable figure. “A thousand apologies, Cousin, but how was I to know?”

  “How indeed?” Infuriated by the cool scrutiny, she checked an impulse to rise and greet him, and, instead, made a little business of pouring herself another cup of tea. And as she did so, an odd thought struck her. She was perfectly certain, all at once, that his entry had been prepared—that he had known all about her before he entered the room. Then why the deliberately insulting pretense of ignorance? To make her angry, of course, as it had. But why? Well, he should at least find her difficult to rouse. She looked up at him, her glance as coolly appraising as his own. “May I pour you a cup of tea, Cousin Ross?”

  “I thank you, no. Parkes, coffee, and breakfast, at once. And none of that catlap you seem to have served to my cousin. If you are my cousin, … did you say Christina?”

  “I said nothing, sir.” Parkes had left the room. “But yes, I am Christina Tretton.” Keep it short, let him do the talking, perhaps she might gain a clue to his inexplicable hostility.

  “You can prove it, eh?” He pulled up a chair and sat down astride it, facing her. “Admit, coz, if coz you are, that it would be a devilish neat idea to turn up here at this stage of the game and claim kin with the old man. But I warn you, there’s nothing second childish about him. You’d best be able to prove your claim.”

  “Believe me, Cousin, I can.” Once again she refused to be drawn.

  “Splendid.” Mockery in the drawling voice now. “It would make a play worthy of Colman himself, would it not? The American Claimant—or do you prefer The Return of the Prodigal? But, forgive me, you have probably never heard of our English dramatists.”

  “If you want to call that second-rate playwright a dramatist.”

  His laugh was oddly attractive. “Touché, coz. So there are actually books in those United States are there? I’d never have thought it. But what, I wonder, moved you to leave. Thought you’d be in at the death, did you? Well, I can’t say I blame you. It’s not every day one has a chance at an abbey, though I doubt there’ll be much else. So your father decided it was time to kiss and be friends, did he, and sent you with the olive branch? Not a bad idea either, I’ll say that for Uncle Christopher.” His glance, sweeping her once more from head to toe, suggested that this was intended as a compliment.

  “My father is dead.” Angry at last, she rose from the table and stood tall above him for a moment, an Amazon in gray worsted. “As for your other insinuations—I will not waste your time, or mine, in trying to convince you how unwillingly I decided to come here.”

  “Left you without a feather to fly with, did he? Well, I’m sorry about Uncle Chris. I don’t remember him, of course, but by all accounts he was the best of the family. Come, Cousin, forgive me if I spoke out of turn, and kiss and be friends. You’ll need friends here, I warn you.”

  “Oh?” She had made herself sit down again and drink tea as if that was all she cared about. But—what was it about that last speech of his? He had forgotten his quizzing glass now, and, with it, seemed to have lost much of the drawl and the foppish manner with which he had entered the room. While he had spoken, with obvious sincerity, about her father, a mask had slipped, revealing … what? It was fantastic. She must be imagining things. And yet … her glance fell on the hand that had held the quizzing glass. “You have hurt your hand, Cousin.”

  “It’s nothing.” He looked down at it carelessly. “A trifle. One of the dogs bit me.”

  “A bitch, perhaps?” It was impossible. It seemed to be true. Brown eyes met brown eyes squ
arely, met and held.

  “Perhaps.” His tone admitted nothing, denied nothing. “And here, in good time, is Parkes with my breakfast. Surely you will stay and pour my coffee for me, Cousin Christina?”

  “I believe you are very well able to take care of yourself, Cousin.” And with that she got herself fairly out of the door and ran, oddly breathless, upstairs to her own room.

  However impossible, it seemed to be true: her cousin Ross had been the leader of last night’s gang of smugglers. And, apparently, he took it quite for granted that she would keep his secret. Well, of course, she had promised, last night. And, of course—odd to have so little doubt about this—she would. But—infuriating to have him so sure of it, so sure, in fact, of himself. Did he think his charm so great, with his airs and his quizzing glass? Not to mention the Volunteer’s uniform. A smuggler in uniform! Fantastic. But then her father had often talked with surprising sympathy about the smugglers down here on the marsh. “Bad laws make bad customs,” he used to say, drawing a parallel between British smuggling and the Boston Tea Party. No time now to be thinking of Father. Or, rather, remember that it was at his insistence that she was here. “Wrongs on both sides,” he had spoken with difficulty, weak from his wounds. “Go home, Chris, make it up—for me, for all of us. Promise?”

  Of course she had promised—promised other things too while his life ebbed slowly away with the blood she could not stanch. So here she was, and, judging by Ross’s reaction, everyone was going to think she had come to curry favor with her grandfather in hopes of inheriting the Abbey. For a moment, irrationally angry, she had been on the point of betraying herself and breaking her promise to her father, down there in the dining room. Well, her smuggler cousin would not find her so easy to draw another time. Of course—she prowled over to the window—it had all been contrived so that in her anger she would fail to recognize him. She laughed a little angrily to herself. I beat you there, Cousin Ross. It would take more than an assumed drawl, a dangling eyeglass, to make her forget the hands that had held her so hard last night. Hot color flooded her face at the thought, making her angrier than ever. But, she promised herself, it would be the last time. In future, she would be ready for this self-confident cousin of hers who took her connivance so easily for granted. Oh yes, she would keep his secret, but keep her temper too. And if he thought she wanted the Abbey—now, at last, she smiled to herself—in six months he would learn his mistake.