In the Commodore's Hands Read online

  In early September Jay gathered in his harvest and invited the whole family over to celebrate it and naturally Lisette and the Comte were included in the invitation.

  It was evidently an annual custom for the squire to host a feast to thank the labourers for their hard work and it was held in a barn on the farm. When they arrived, Jay was busy overseeing the preparations and, having greeted them politely and made sure they had refreshments, he left Edward and his mother to show Lisette and her father round the house.

  It was a solidly built square building with large airy rooms furnished in the French style, which pleased the Comte. He eagerly pointed out pieces that were similar to those he had had at home and which he did not doubt had been looted now the château was uninhabited. Downstairs there were three reception rooms, a dining room and a library. They peeped in the kitchens, which were a hive of activity as the cook-housekeeper and her extra staff worked to provide the feast, but quickly withdrew for fear of getting in the way. On the next floor, there were six bedrooms and above them the servants’ bedrooms, though they did not venture up there, but returned to the drawing room to take tea, supervised by Lady Drymore in the absence of a hostess. ‘Jay could do with a wife,’ Amy said. ‘But he says he will never marry again. It is hardly to be wondered at, but I wish he would get over it.’

  Lisette assumed she was speaking of the loss of Jay’s wife, but decided not to comment.

  By the time they had finished their tea, Jay returned. ‘All is ready,’ he said. ‘Shall we go over?’

  Everyone, including the children, trooped out behind him, across a lane to a barn in the yard of the Home Farm, which was already filling with people, young, old and every age between. The unthreshed wheat, with its unique scent of summer, was piled up almost to the ceiling at one end, but the rest of the floor had been cleared. A long table had been set up down the length of this space and groaned under the weight of the food it held. No one would go away hungry.

  Jay showed them to their places, then left them again to make sure everyone was seated at the table. He made a short speech praising the workers, to which the lord of the harvest replied, calling for three cheers for the Commodore. The sound of the hurrahs rose to the rafters. Jay was undoubtedly a popular employer and landlord.

  When every last scrap of food had been consumed and the table cleared away, space was made in the middle of the floor for dancing, the music for which was provided by a fiddler and a flautist.

  ‘I wonder what the grain is like in Villarive this year,’ Lisette mused aloud as she sat beside her father on a bale of straw, watching the merriment.

  ‘I hope it is better than last year,’ he said. ‘More to the point, is there anyone to harvest it? And what about the apples? It will soon be time to pick those.’

  ‘Are you very homesick, Papa?’ He had regained a little of his strength, but he was often to be found deep in thought, tears filling his eyes. It hurt her to see it.

  ‘Of course I am. I wish we could go back.’

  ‘So do I, but I don’t think that is possible, Papa, not at the moment. Later, perhaps when the troubles are at an end and France is peaceful again.’

  ‘Why have we not heard from Michel? You did write to him, did you not?’

  ‘Yes, Papa, I did, more than once. I suggested he should join us.’

  ‘He will not do that while the King needs him and Louis will not release him, even if he wanted to come.’

  ‘I will write again. Perhaps he has not received my earlier letters. Now, we must not be miserable when Monsieur Drymore has been so good as to invite us to a celebration. They are all very good to us, do you not agree?’

  ‘Yes. I have to admit that, as far as Englishmen go, Lord Drymore is a good man and his wife so charming, she could almost be French.’

  Lisette laughed at this grudging praise. ‘And the Commodore?’

  ‘He is a brave man and I will always be in his debt.’ He sighed. ‘If only we could have brought Michel out with us.’

  ‘You know that wasn’t possible at the time, Papa.’

  ‘I know.’ It was said with a heavy sigh.

  ‘Papa,’ she said slowly. ‘Tell me about Earl Wentworth.’

  He had been watching the company with a faraway look in his eye, but turned sharply towards her at this. ‘What do you want to know about him for?’

  ‘Curiosity,’ she said. ‘What manner of man was he?’

  ‘Rude, dictatorial, the sort of man to lose his temper violently when he could not have his own way. He had a husband lined up for your mother and would have had her marry him whether she willed it or no. She was in terror of him.’

  ‘And the rest of the family?’

  ‘Two sons, George, the present earl, and Gerald—both as bad as he was.’ He paused. ‘You are not contemplating making their acquaintance, are you?’

  ‘No, but I believe Jay—’ She stopped suddenly when she realised she had spoken his given name aloud and quickly corrected herself. ‘The Commodore has been ill used by them or someone in the family. He cannot bear the name mentioned.’

  ‘Neither can I, so we will not mention it.’

  ‘Very well.’

  They fell silent, watching the men and women and even the little children dancing. Lisette found her foot tapping to the music.

  Jay had been busy making sure everyone was enjoying themselves and curbing the more riotous of the labourers who were taking advantage of the free ale to become drunk. ‘This a family affair,’ he told them. ‘Your wives and children are present, do not embarrass them.’ Only now did he find time to look about him. He saw Lisette and her father, sitting together, apparently in silence, and went over to them.

  ‘I am sorry I have neglected you.’

  ‘Indeed, you have not,’ Lisette said quickly. ‘We are enjoying the music, are we not, Papa?’

  ‘To be sure. We have a celebration something like this in Villarive when the apples have been picked.’

  ‘We have made you sad with our jollity,’ Jay said. ‘I am sorry. I had hoped to cheer you.’

  ‘You have,’ Lisette assured him. ‘But Papa often thinks of home and what is happening there. There is so little news and what there is, is bad. Some of the émigrés I teach tell frightening stories of horror and cruelty, especially towards the nobility.’

  ‘Perhaps they exaggerate. People do, you know, if they have a ready audience. And tales grow with the telling.’

  ‘No doubt you are right.’

  ‘Would you like to dance with me? The steps are easy to learn.’ He held out his hand to her.

  She took it and he led her into a country dance which was energetic to say the least. They laughed a great deal as she tripped over her own feet and stepped on his toes. ‘I am clumsy,’ she said. ‘Papa always said I ought to have been another boy.’

  ‘I am glad you are not,’ he said and when she looked up into his eyes, added hastily, ‘I should look a fool dancing with another man.’

  He was paying compliments to a lady, something he had learned when courting Marianne; it was, he told himself, simple courtesy, nothing more. She had no doubt been teased all her life about her figure and likeness to her brother and it had obviously had a profound effect on her. Had she deliberately played up to that masculine image of herself as a kind of defence? Had no one ever told her anything different? Certainly her father had not. He suspected that having lost one son to his King, he was using Lisette as a substitute. She was tall and exceptionally slim, but that did not mean she was unfeminine and incapable of feminine wiles. He was, he told himself sternly, immune to feminine wiles.

  The dance came to an end and he escorted her back to her seat. She was flushed and a little breathless and her pale hair had become unpinned in places; wisps of it hung about her face. He felt a sudden urge to pull out all the pins and see it cascade about her shoulders. No one would doubt her femininity then. He shook himself, bowed over her, made his excuses and went to break up a quarrel between two
village children. He was becoming soft and softness led to hurt and hurt led to anger. He must not let that happen. He must not.

  Soon after that, the party broke up and Lisette and the Comte returned with Lord and Lady Drymore to Blackfen Manor. Apart from a brief bow on his part and a curtsy on hers, Lisette had no more conversation with Jay, whose rather sudden departure from her side after the dance had puzzled her. He was once more the cool, aloof man she thought had been banished. Whatever troubled him it was not so easy to banish. She wondered why it mattered to her and realised with a jolt that his happiness was important to her. And gratitude had nothing to do with it. It was a monumental discovery and one she dare not voice, dare not think about.

  It was, she decided, time to think of leaving Highbeck and finding somewhere else to live. They could not impose on the generosity of Lord and Lady Drymore much longer. The only reason she had done nothing about it before now was that she was waiting to hear from her brother, but there had been nothing, not a word. She considered going back to France to find out for herself what was happening, but was unable to think of a practical way of doing it. She was also aware that if anything happened to her, her father would have no one.

  Lady Drymore was vehemently opposed to them leaving. ‘Your father is not fit to be moved,’ she said. ‘Please stay. There are people here who can look after him and we have all come to love you. There is no need for you to go. Jay did not bring you to England to cast you out.’

  ‘I know.’ It was her growing feelings for Jay which were causing most of her unease. He remained the same as he always had been, chivalrous but distant. If she had not broken through his armour by now, she never would.

  ‘Then we will not speak of it again.’

  Slowly the days slipped by, one after another. Lisette gave her lessons, translated letters and legal documents and listened to the gossip of fellow émigrés. It was the more recent of these who brought news from her homeland, which was worrying if for no other reason than Michel might be involved. An armed Parisian mob had stormed the Tuileries, massacred the Swiss Guard and demanded the abolition of the monarchy. The royal family had fled through the gardens to the protection of the Legislative Assembly. What that body had done was to arrest the whole family and send them to the Temple, an old fortress on the right bank of the Seine, now being used as a prison. The émigré armies, who would have freed him if they could, were suffering from a lack of money and many had been disbanded. Their leaders had either been arrested and executed or driven abroad, including the man who had come to see her. ‘The Legislative Assembly was dissolved and a new National Convention elected,’ he told her. ‘It sat for the first time in September and the following day abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic. France no longer has a King; it is ruled by a rabble.’ He was in tears as he spoke.

  ‘What has happened to his court?’

  The man shrugged. ‘One must assume that, unless they have fled, they are still in the Tuileries.’

  The dreadful news was reinforced by an article in The Times which told of thousands of people being massacred in three days of violence. ‘The streets of Paris, strewed with the carcasses of the mangled victims, are become so familiar to the sight, that they are passed by and trod on without any particular notice,’ she read. ‘The mob think no more of killing a fellow creature, who is not even an object of suspicion, than wanton boys would of killing a cat or a dog. We have it from a Gentleman who has been but too often an eye witness to the fact. In the massacre last week, every person who had the appearance of a gentleman, whether stranger or not, was run through the body with a pike. He was, of course, an aristocrat and that was a sufficient crime. A ring, a watch chain, a handsome pair of buckles, a new coat, or a good pair of boots—in a word, everything which marked the appearance of a gentleman, and which the mob fancied, was sure to cost the owner his life.’

  She dare not tell her father. It would undoubtedly halt his recovery, but the longer they went without news of Michel, the more sorrowful he became, lost in a kind of reverie which hurt her to see. Sometimes he was so confused he thought himself back at Villarive and began issuing orders to the servants, which puzzled them. Sometimes he even addressed her as Michel. He was too fragile to be told. She wrote to Michel again, not knowing if her letter would ever reach him.

  Autumn began to take hold, the trees in the copse beside the house were losing their leaves and a keen wind ruffled the waters of the mere when a newly arrived émigré sought Lisette out at Blackfen Manor, bringing with him the first positive tidings of her brother: a letter from him, smuggled out of the Tuileries. Overjoyed to have news at last, she thanked the messenger, but did not immediately break the seal, waiting instead until he had left. On the way to take it to her father, she changed her mind and went into the library where she sat in the window seat to read it.

  ‘My dearest sister,’ Michel had written. ‘I cannot come to you. I am virtually a prisoner, guarded night and day. I am stopped whenever I try to leave the palace and my letters are intercepted. I fear I will be the next to go to the Temple. There is nothing you can do for me. Give my fondest regards to our father and pray for my soul.’

  It was plain that Michel did not expect to survive and this was a farewell letter. Coming as it did on top of the dreadful stories she had heard and read of what was happening in France, it left her desolate. she sat with the letter in her hands, remembering the happy brother who had shared her childhood, and she thought her heart would break.

  Chapter Six

  Jay had brought the children for their lesson, but Lisette was not in the morning room where they usually gathered. He had left the children with their cousins to go in search of her. ‘She had a visitor earlier,’ his mother told him when he found her taking tea with his sisters in the morning room. ‘It was a Frenchman, an émigré, I imagined, who had come to ask about lessons. I saw him leave a few minutes ago. Where she went after that I do not know. To her bedchamber, perhaps.’

  Lisette was not in her room. Hortense was there, busy sponging a gown that Lisette had worn when playing with the children which had become soiled. She had not seen her mistress since breakfast. On the way past the open door of the book room he heard the sound of weeping.

  ‘Lisette, whatever is the matter?’ he asked, hurrying to sit beside her. ‘Please tell me.’

  As she continued to sob, he put his arm about her shoulders and gave her his handkerchief and waited until she calmed herself. It did not occur to him that it was unseemly to hold an unmarried lady in that way. He did what instinct demanded. ‘My mother said there was a Frenchman here. Did he bring bad news?’

  She did not answer, but handed him the letter.

  ‘Oh, dear, this is not good,’ he said, after he had scanned it. ‘But cheer up. It does not say he has been arrested, only that he is fearful he might be.’

  She lifted her head to look at him with eyes blotched by tears. She had endured so much and to have this extra burden was, to his mind, unfair. He was filled with a pity bordering on tenderness, something he had not felt for a woman for a very long time. ‘Have you told your father?’

  ‘No, I dare not. It might kill him. I must go back to France…’

  ‘You will do no such thing.’

  ‘But I must save Michel.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I do not know. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘And if you die in the attempt, your father will have no one. Be sensible, Lisette.’

  Her annoyance at being told to be sensible overcame her pleasure at being addressed as Lisette. She pulled herself away from him, realising as she did so, how stupid she had been to throw herself into his arms like that. That most definitely was not sensible. ‘I am being sensible. Sons are more important than daughters and if Papa gains his son at the expense of his daughter, so be it.’

  ‘Rubbish. I am prepared to wager if you were to tell your father what you propose, he would forbid it.’

  ‘Then I shall
not tell him.’

  ‘I cannot allow this, Lisette.’

  ‘Who are you to allow or not to allow, Jay Drymore? You are not my keeper.’

  ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘But I do have an interest in your welfare.’

  ‘Because you saved me and Papa from a French prison and, like some medieval knight, you think that makes you responsible for my life for ever more. I have said I am grateful. Must I go on saying it to the end of my days?’

  He smiled; her attempt to be angry with him failed in view of her blotched cheeks and tear-filled eyes. ‘No, I have told you before I want no thanks. I fetched you out with my grandfather. It was as easy to bring out three as one.’

  ‘And that is not true. Your grandfather was a free man, he did not have to be rescued from prison.’

  ‘But he did want to come home.’

  ‘Not the same.’

  He smiled and lifted her chin with his finger so that he could look into her face and then he surprised himself by adding, ‘I will go back and bring your brother to you.’

  He watched her tears miraculously dry up and a smile come to her face. ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘I do not know. I’ll think of something.’

  It was a moment or two before she realised that he had repeated her own words and managed a weak smile. ‘You can’t do that, Jay. You are a wanted man in France.’

  ‘James Smith is wanted, not Jay Drymore.’

  ‘What difference does that make if you are recognised?’

  ‘I might be recognised in Honfleur, but not Paris. Michel is in Paris, is he not?’

  ‘You would go openly as yourself?’

  ‘Why not? Englishmen may not be popular, but England is neutral.’

  ‘Why would you do that for me?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said vaguely, wondering himself. ‘Because you need help and I am here and able to give it, I suppose. Any man worth his salt would do the same.’ He told himself that he would come to the aid of anyone in similar circumstances and the fact that he had held her in his arms and liked the way it felt had nothing to do with it. ‘I will consult my father about the best way to go about it.’