Lord Dearborne created quite a sensation riding up to Barfrestly Manor with me in the saddle in front of him. He ignored me when I demanded to be allowed to walk into the cottage, brusquely picking me up and carrying me straight to my bed, as Mrs. Goodbody came hurrying across the yard, mobcap askew, puffing like a March wind.
“My Lord! Elizabeth! My dear lambkin! Where are you hurt, my love?” asked Mrs. Goodbody, white-faced. “Your head? My word, here’s a lump as big as an egg! Was that nasty Plumford boy throwing rocks again? If it was he then depend upon it I shall go straight to his father and give him a piece of my mind!”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Goodbody, it was nothing so bad as that,” I assured her. “Only I was following a smuggler, or perhaps a spy, one can’t be sure for he swears in French—only that alone doesn’t mean he is a spy, er, where was I? Oh yes. I followed him and saw him hide a parcel, probably stolen state secrets, or maybe…” I paused to reflect. “Maybe just smuggled gems of great value. Well anyway, he came back around after I thought he was gone and hit my head.”
Mrs. Goodbody choked and said she never did, not in all her born days, hear the likes of my story, which was a gratifying response. What was to follow was not gratifying in the least. Lord Dearborne, with an air of paternal solicitude that would have done credit to an archbishop, leaned over me and patted me on the hand.
“Yes, Mrs. Goodbody,” he said with the innocence of a suckling babe, “it’s a pity that Elizabeth forgot to take an escort with her as I requested. There are a good many rogues about the countryside in these unsettled times.”
There, now the fat was in the fire.
“Elizabeth Cordell,” exclaimed Mrs. Goodbody, her complexion changing from white to red. “Do you mean to say that the marquis asked you not to go out alone and you never told me of it and then deliberately went and disobeyed him?”
“Talebearer! Snitch!” I yelled wrathfully at Lord Dearborne, who ignored me completely. He told Mrs. Goodbody that he would have a doctor summoned, and left. He was no sooner out the door than I received a snappy lecture from Mrs. Goodbody on the evils of disobedience and ingratitude. Score one for Lord Dearborne. From now on there wasn’t a bat’s chance in the daytime that I would be able to leave the estate grounds without an escort.
And further, the more Mrs. Goodbody lectured me on the gratitude I owed to Lord Dearborne, the less gratitude I felt. The man could probably have housed and shod a thousand orphans without feeling the slightest pinch. Besides, it was in the will, wasn’t it? He had to support us by law. There was no point in arguing with Mrs. Goodbody on this head as His Lordship had already flummoxed her finely. In the time since Lord Dearborne’s arrival she had gone from thinking of him as a desperate libertine to regarding him as a paragon among men. I could have disillusioned her by mentioning what he had been about under the honeysuckle bush, had I not been much, much too embarrassed to reveal that to anyone. I shuddered to think of my own response. “You’d be such an easy mark,” he had said. I felt my cheeks burn with shame and promised myself to be wary of him and his rakish trickery in the future. There was no desire in Miss Elizabeth Cordell to join the ranks of Dearborne’s discarded conquests.
When Dr. Brent arrived, he took a cursory glance at the lump on my head, congratulated Mrs. Goodbody on her excellent good sense in applying cold compresses, advised her to keep me in bed for a day, and predicted I would do very well. (This just shows you what an unsympathetic clodpole of a doctor he was.) The reactions of Christopher and my sisters were more to my taste. They declared me a heroine, and my attacker a villain of the first water.
Christopher, as usual, couldn’t be brought to share my reaction to Lord Dearborne’s unfair restriction on my personal freedom.
“It stands to reason that I’m not in danger, Kit,” I argued. “Why, the fellow would have killed me as I lay there if he had intended to do away with me. He just didn’t want to be interfered with at that moment”
“ ’Lizbeth, I swear you make my flesh creep, prosing on about your own murder like that,” groaned Christopher. “Of course Uncle Nicky has to protect you. Dash it all, it’s his duty as a gentleman. Tell you what it is, Princess, you’re just not used to male authority—didn’t have a brother, lost your father when you were a child, and I’ll wager the admiral never gave you more than a half hour of attention in all his years as your guardian. And as for that vicar you place so much faith in… oh, well, don’t flare up at me, I shan’t say another word.”
That was all that could be had from Christopher on the subject.
The next few days passed slowly, domestic tinkering relieved by visits from the curious. Even the squire came to inquire how I did and to ask the marquis what action to take to capture the villain. Lord Dearborne had told him (as I heard from Mrs. Goodbody, who was present at the time) that there was no need to trouble himself with the matter—the proper authorities had already been contacted. I wondered who the marquis considered the “proper authorities.”
Even spending time at home can get you in trouble. One afternoon I had company that I would rather have missed.
I had thought that the squire’s ball would be merely a memory and that would be that. It didn’t occur to me that anyone would try to further their acquaintance with me. That is why you could have knocked me over with a quill pen when Cecilia Macready paid a call on me, accompanied by a veritable entourage of other people I had no wish to see.
As you have gathered, I was raised to be a country girl, and like any other country girl, I can spin, weave, plate straw, and make black pudding. I don’t know if you have had experience with black pudding. To me it is a disgusting concoction, but Mrs. Goodbody is very partial to it. It is a goat’s belly stuffed with blood and fat. When preparing this dish, I have no doubt that my face assumes, of its own volition, a harassed and disgusted look. Such a look is what I was clad in, along with a greasy striped calico apron which had been cheerily starched before I began my labors. My hair had become an annoyance to me, so I had bunched it up and put it under a linen mobcap, where it lurked in miserable captivity, to sneak out occasionally and exercise itself in ticklish fashion on the back of my neck until I could find time to recapture it and put it back in its prison. My clothes were sticking to me in the heat from the stove, and I was just about to step out and take some air when there came a knock on the door. I set down my ladle, walked to the door, and opened it.
“Pardon me, girl…,” said a vaguely familiar voice. “Oh, Elizabeth, it’s you! Such a charming little cottage you have here!”
Cecilia Macready hadn’t recognized me out of my ball gown, and feeling like Cinderella at midnight, I cast out for my pumpkin coach, or at any rate, some way to salvage some dignity from the situation. With her were Christopher, Jeffrey, the marquis, a boy I recognized from the ball, and Lady Catherine Doran, of all people, looking like a vision from heaven. What was I to do? The boy from the ball spoke, in his peculiar braying tone:
“Well, being a republican myself, and somewhat of a free thinker, I believe it is laudable for a person of Elizabeth’s aristocratic station to live in a hovel like a common peasant.”
“Sneck up, Godfrey, you bellow like a cow. You are a common peasant.” This from Christopher, the friendly face in the crowd. “Elizabeth, you remember Godfrey Woodman from the ball. He thinks he is Oliver Cromwell, don’t you, Godfrey.”
“Oh dear,” said Lady Catherine. “I feel faint.” She was holding a delicate lace handkerchief to her pretty nose as the steam from the pudding wafted past her on its way out.
“Elizabeth,” said Christopher. “Pay no attention to my companions. Seeing anyone exert themselves upsets them; they feel it is bad form. Why don’t you run and put on your riding dress and we shall go riding.”
“I really can’t leave my cooking right now,” I stammered. But then something began to right itself, and I was on my feet again. “I am making black pudding. It is made from goat’s blood and fat. It is really quite wholesome.” I scooped up some with the ladle and waved it around airily. “Godfrey, you’ll surely have a taste, won’t you? This is good republican food.”
Godfrey turned pale, shaking his head in a vigorous negative jerk. This set the marquis and Christopher to unashamed laughter. When the marquis composed himself, he asked:
“Cat, why don’t you try some? You are looking a mite faint. It might be just the thing to perk you up.”
Lady Catherine gave the marquis a look meant to be meaningful.
“What I do need,” she said languidly, “is just a brief recline upon a bed…”
The insinuation was so strong that its intent was obvious even to me. I felt a warm blush creeping unbidden to my face. Christopher, who had been regarding me closely, hastily intervened: “I can see that we’ve come pushing in on you at a most inconvenient moment. Cecilia and company just rode over from Macready to pay their respects, but we’ll be off now.”
And they were off. I went back to my pudding chores, and after what seemed an eternity, I was through. I was sitting in the doorway cooling off, when Christopher rode up again, dismounted, and sat down by me on the step. He was wearing an apologetic air which fitted him stiffly, like a new suit of clothes.
“I’m sorry for bringing that whole crew in on you like that. You weren’t really prepared for company and I feel as though I played bad cricket. Cecilia insisted on coming over to pay her respects to you, and Godfrey, bless his meager brain, seems to have developed a tendresse for you, but I really think the whole scene was engineered by Lady Catherine. She’ll miss no opportunity to get close to the marquis.”
“Christopher, you don’t have to apologize. How were you to know I was making black pudding? How did the rest of the visit go?”
“Godfrey is learning how to chew tobacco, and he was making everyone sick. He spat, by accident, on the hem of Lady Catherine’s gown and that pretty much finished off the afternoon. Imagine a clod like that thinking you would have any time for the likes of him,” muttered Christopher.
“Actually, I would rather talk to Godfrey than make blood pudding.”
“I would rather make blood pudding than talk to Godfrey,” he said.
“That is what you think,” I said. And he was off. Christopher is a good friend, I thought to myself as he rode away.
It was getting very close to the time our play was to be presented, and I ceased worrying for a time about smugglers, bodyguards, and other such exciting things. As the time drew near, I wouldn’t have noticed if the Corsican Bandit and the entire French army marched right through our cottage and out by way of the chimney, hobnails and all. In fact, I wished that would happen because I could have used them as extras in the play. That’s the single-mindedness of an enthusiast for you!
As I surveyed the finished stage on the afternoon before the play, I felt a glow of pride at the results of our labors. We had erected scaffolding that served as the foundation for our sets on the gentle slope of common land next to Mudbury hamlet. The playgoers would bring their own coverlets or stools for seating and the parish ladies had set up a stand that would be stocked with plum cakes and brown ale. Shade for the spectators was generously provided by a holm oak and several pear trees, now in full flower. The huge piece of lumber that the blacksmith had given us had made a most successful transformation into a man-o’-war, circa 1066. My sisters had gotten Jane’s brother, who was good at such things, to carve it and then they’d all painted the frame with loving care, right down to the mermaid figurehead who modestly clutched a spray of nodding daisies over her bosom. Caro was just now adding the finishing stitches to the sails, which were made from the same canvas on which we had painted the backdrops.
The pièce de résistance, however, was behind the stage foundation. It had been Christopher’s inspiration to build a small firework that he would ignite just before the scene in which William was crowned in London, when the Norman army was celebrating. We were enthralled with the idea. Surely the most jaded audience could not help being thrilled by so dramatic a stunt. Christopher assured us that he had made firecrackers like this many times before and that it could be done with perfect safety. The only thing left for me to worry about was whether or not the noble Norman knight, Sir Hugh of Montfort, the wheelwright’s son, could bring himself to the sticking point and plunge his javelin into King Harold. Today, during our final rehearsal, he had broken down at the crucial moment when I, as King Harold, was to die on the battlefield. The ferocious Sir Hugh had flung himself off the stage and cried:
“I can’t do it! I just can’t stab Elizabeth!”
“You have to stab me. It is very important to the plot that you stab me, or else the Saxons would have won the battle and the Norman conquest would never have been! William the Conqueror would be just plain Bill!”
Sir Hugh evidently had no respect for history. He opened his mouth and wailed, “But I can’t stab Elizabeth. She is too sweet!”
It took the efforts of our entire cast, alternately cajoling and threatening, to convince our savage Norman to trod the boards again. Christopher finally won the day by taking the poor boy aside and explaining, “Tomorrow, in the real play, Elizabeth will look like a soldier instead of a girl. She will be dressed in soldier’s clothes and will be wearing a fake beard. She will be much more killable.” Mrs. Coleman had finished our costumes but she wouldn’t let us wear them in rehearsal, as it had been such a task constructing them.
I walked to the back of the scaffolding, to see Christopher standing, hands on hips, regarding his newly finished rocket with great satisfaction. Thomas, the new groom who had been drafted as Kit’s assistant on the project, stood nearby with a slightly disloyal look of doubt on his face.
“I don’t know,” muttered Thomas in pessimistic accents. “You say it’ll work but I don’t know.”
Christopher threw a converting grin his way. “Are you doubting, Thomas? ’Course it will work—just a matter of getting the proper ratio of gunpowder.”
“Well, ratios of gunpowder sound very scientific to me,” I said, coming up to the two inventors. I handed each a mug of ale, informing them that Mrs. Blakslee had sent down a tray for all the able workers. Kit bore me off to keep him company in the shade while he drank his ale, saying as he did:
“No question of it, ’Lizabeth. We’re going to have a hit on our hands tomorrow. Church committee’ll erect a plaque in your honor when they count the vast sums brought into the church coffers by the Norman Conquest.”
“Right,” I said, entering into the spirit of this. “And the plaque will read: ‘God makes the bees and the bees make honey; the congregation does all the work but the church makes all the money.’ Ah, go ahead and laugh, I hope that we don’t both end up in hell for sacrilege.”
“Never! Nothing but a rowboat across the River Styx will do for a little heathen like you.” Christopher’s voice was still unsteady with laughter. “Oh, Lord, what an adorable girl you are. If you could see the look on your face now! You make me want to…” He stopped suddenly and flushed. “Oh, dear, you poor little thing. You can hardly help being so beautiful, can you?”
Deeply embarrassed, I begged him to hush again. We sat quietly on the grass for a while then, Kit taking long pulls of ale and I letting a faint rustle of breeze fan the heat from my cheeks. Presently I turned back to my friend.
“Kit, I know you don’t like me to bring this up but I can’t help worrying that someone somewhere isn’t going to like you appearing in a public theatrical. Lord Dearborne may be so angry he won’t let us be friends anymore. Mrs. Goodbody told me that the aristocracy considers actors to be, well, disreputable or something like that.”
“Don’t tease yourself about it, m’dear. Being in one parish play doesn’t rank one as a professional actor. It’s all for a good cause, right? And, for your information, Uncle Nicky is well aware of the fact that I’m going to be in the play and hasn’t made any objection, so you see he’s not as top-lofty as you thought. Besides, why should he want to interfere with our friendship?”
“I daresay he thinks you should have grander friends. Ones that he likes.”
“He likes you, Elizabeth,” Christopher said with a reminiscent grin. “Just the other day he said you have a certain whimsical charm so I shouldn’t let myself get carried away and dishonor you, because you were a lady. There, that shows he likes you, doesn’t it?”
“No!”
“You don’t have to shout at me, I’m not deaf, y’know. Maybe that’s not the same as saying he likes you, but compared to Uncle Nicky’s usual opinion of women that’s pretty high praise, I can tell you. You should hear the things he says about Lady Cat; not but what they are true.” Christopher took a long pull from his tankard. “ ’Sides he didn’t ask you to dance at the Macreadys’ party. That shows you, doesn’t it?”
I grabbed up a handful of convenient grass and tossed it at Christopher. He put a hand hastily over his brew.
“Since when is it customary to express one’s liking for another by not dancing with them? I may not know much about the beau monde but that is doing it a bit brown.”
“It’s true for all that.” He was brushing the grass out of his soft brown hair. “Young girl, living on his estate, under his protection, as it were; if he started paying attention to you in public it’s bound to start the tabbies talking. Lord, all he has to do is look at a woman to get the gossip mills grinding—for you, it would be fatal, believe me. I daresay that he would have liked to dance with you, too, stands to reason. I mean, a dashed beautiful girl and light as a feather in the bargain. See?”
“No, I don’t see,” I said crossly. “You know what you are, Kit? You are an apologist!”
“No!” said Christopher, revolted.
“Yes,” I returned ruthlessly. “And what’s more, it won’t work. I’ll wager that Lord Dearborne has no more liking for me than—than… for that wild-looking horse he rides.”
“Very fond of his horses, Uncle Nicky is,” said Christopher, feeble yet pursuing.
* * *
The next morning, the twins had me out of bed before the sun was up. They were shivering with excitement and I made every effort to calm them for fear they would forget their lines in their agitated state. I had little success. They were still chattering nervously when we were backstage donning our costumes, shortly before curtain time. I let my own hair hang down, in the old Saxon way, and put on a false beard. The Saxon women wore pastel gunnas with their hair braided with bits of colored glass. The Norman soldiers were clean-shaven (no false beards), and clip-headed, and wore white tunics with wide sleeves and embroidered edging. Kit made a stunning William the Conqueror. He looked as if he could conquer the whole world, let alone Saxon England.
Caro peeped through the curtain and drew back in openmouthed astonishment.
“There’s millions of people out there,” she whispered. It was time for the play to begin.
It is impossible to describe the whole play because it lasted over two hours, but I would like to mention some of my favorite highlights.
Christopher exceeded all his rehearsals when he gave his long speech to his army urging them to join him on his voyage of conquest. Then came the voyage of the Norman invasion fleet across the English Channel. This is where the man-o’-war came in. Handles had been attached to the stage side of the “boat” and the feet showing underneath were not too obvious as the “sailors” carried it against an aquatic-blue background. Adding to the illusion was a cutout in the approximate shape of a seagull which was lowered from above the canvas and wiggled back and forth to suggest the illusion of flight. The boat came to a jarring halt at center stage and a ladder was brought up, which the soldiers mounted and then climbed down, thereby disembarking and landing on English soil. A chorus of satisfying boos rose from the audience at this point. This was a tricky maneuver because the soldiers had to climb over the side of the ship by climbing first on the backs of the sailors, who crouched down behind the ship facade out of sight of the audience.
The night before the Battle of Hastings came off even better than I had expected. First we showed the dour Normans, led by a solemn Christopher, spending the night offering fasts and paternosters in pious groupings around an altar of holy relics. On the other side of the stage, the Saxons were whooping it up, draining flagons supposedly full of hard liquor with cries of “Bottoms to the sky!” At one point, I, as King Harold, cried “Bring me my wench,” and a soldier led to me a simpering Caro, whom I greeted with a hearty buss on the cheek. I am afraid I maligned poor King Harold, but the scene was a crowd-pleaser. At this point, William the Conqueror buried his head in his hands as if in an ecstasy of prayer, because Christopher found it hard to contain his laughter.
The battle scene went off smoothly, or as smoothly as a battle scene possibly could. Hugh of Montfort managed to cast the fatal javelin and I fell to the stage, twitching and writhing in my death throes, and Christopher cried, “Frenchmen, strike; the day is ours!”
After the battle was over, Mrs. Goodbody made a surprise appearance as Edith Swansneck, Harold’s mistress, who was brought to the scene to identify Harold’s remains. A roar of appreciation came from the crowd as she took the stage.
I was dragged from the scene in ignominious defeat, and watched the celebrations of the jubilant Normans from the wings.
I was visited there by the Marquis of Lome. He came up behind me, giving me quite a start. When he spoke, I turned to see a light smile playing over his lips.
“A production worthy of the Globe Theatre in the days of the Immortal Bard,” he said.
I curtseyed in my bloodstained battle dress, and said, “I appreciate the compliment from a sophisticated theatergoer like yourself. Wasn’t Mrs. Goodbody an adorable Edith Swansneck?”
“Quite charming, really. I saw you open one eye and peek when they were discovering your mutilated corpse.”
“I was not peeking. I take great care not to peek. Christopher tried to make me laugh by blowing on my cheek when he leaned over my body, but I wouldn’t do it.”
“Where is Christopher the Conqueror now?” he asked.
“He’s made a firecracker that is going to go off in celebration of William’s coronation. I think he went to light it; he wouldn’t let anyone else take on that responsibility.”
“Where is he?” With lightning speed his hands were on my shoulders. “Quickly.”
I was bewildered by his urgency, but I told him as soon as I could choke out the words.
Lord Dearborne left the stage at a run. I followed him, and saw, about twenty yards away, Christopher lighting the firecracker. The fuse had caught. I was now totally confused. The marquis shouted something incomprehensible to Christopher, reaching him in a great bound, grabbing him and pushing him across the yard. I was still following, moving toward Christopher to see what in the world was going on, when the marquis grabbed me too, and pushed us both onto the ground behind a tree with such force that my breath was knocked away.
There was a very loud explosion then, followed by a rain of leaves, twigs, and clods of dirt.
We stood and looked back toward the site of the explosion. The earth was scorched and smoking ten yards in every direction. Far above us was a dazzling display of shooting fire in the sky. The noise of the blast had temporarily deafened me, but I could still make out the cheering of the audience, who naturally thought the tremendous blast was all part of the play. But if Christopher had stayed where he was, he would have been blown to crumbs. There were tears of fright in my eyes as I turned to Christopher and my voice trembled as I said:
“I thought you said that this was perfectly safe, Christopher. If it hadn’t been for Lord Dearborne, you would have been killed.”
Christopher scrambled to his feet and drew me up beside him. He was looking almost as confused as I.
“I swear that when I checked the thing over yesterday afternoon, it was completely intact. There was enough powder in there to make one-tenth of that blast. Just enough for a loud pop and fizzle.” Kit looked up uncertainly into his guardian’s eyes. I had never seen Lord Dearborne look so grim before.
“Kit,” he said, taking Christopher by the arm, “did you leave that rocket out here overnight?”
“Well, yes, it was on the platform and I didn’t want to move it…” The confusion left his face. “Someone must have tampered with it. Someone trying to kill me.”