Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)

chapter FOUR


28 June 1810, Harrogate, Yorkshire, ENGLAND

Liv perched on the window seat of the Foxmoor Manor library with her grandfather’s journals for 1749 and 1750 on the cushions around her. It was late afternoon and the sky was already darkening to the point where she would require candles to see by shortly. Heavy rainclouds had hung across the heavens all day, making it feel more like mid-winter than summer. But that was the weather in the North for you.

Her married sisters, who all now lived in the South, couldn’t understand why she preferred her life in the country. They had been desperate to escape the confines of their northern village life for the excitement and relative warmth of London. It made no sense to them that she prefer the quiet life, or found more excitement in an exotic flower than a ball attended by the Ton. She sighed heavily, and picked up the 1749 Journal again. Her eyes were tired from straining to see in the dim light, but she had been so caught up by the adventurous sea voyage, with its storms and sickness, that she had forced herself to read on. Only now that the ‘Genevieve’ had docked in St Lawrence, New France, did she feel ready to put the Journal aside for the day.

Over the years, she had read all her grandfather’s Journals. But it had been nearly ten years since she had read these particular editions. They were colourful accounts, sometimes more risqué than a young lady should be exposed to. But her grandfather had considered her sterner stuff than the average miss of her generation. Being exposed to the real world, even second hand, was a useful addition to any young person’s education, he had told her.

So she knew about the whores that had serviced the gentlemen and officers on the voyage. She was aware of the diseases such women carried, and the severe measures taken to cure them. Liv also knew that the mistress of the Commandant of the French Garrison at St Lawrence was aboard the ship, having been sent for in preference to the man’s wife and children. The woman was a courtesan, and had entertained the gentlemen with stories of the French Court until they were splitting their britches with laughter.

She knew what a hangover felt like, especially on top of rough-weather sea-sickness. And she knew how her grandfather’s eye had been drawn to one of the steerage passengers, even though he had a wife and two children at home waiting for him. Men, she had learned from an early age, were decidedly different in their needs and sensibilities to women, and they required more leeway because of it.

Liv’s eyes skipped to the entry on their arrival in port, even though she had already determined to do no more reading that day. Her eyes snagged on the description of a young nobleman on the dock, who seemed at a loss, until Mulgrave took him under his wing. The youth was handsome, and dark skinned enough to be an Indian. But his height, manners and attire denied that first impression. He said his name was Rene Deveraux, and he had made his way north from Boston in search of adventure. He was fascinated by the wildlife of the wilderness, and was hoping to join an expedition into the interior.

Liv frowned as she reread the entry. The description so closely matched the young man she had met a few weeks ago at the British Museum as to be his brother. But the Journal was sixty years old. It would have to have been Rene L’Angley’s grandfather, or other ancestor. Mayhap L’Angley’s interest in Natural History was due to that ancestor, who had made the acquaintance of her grandfather so long ago. How odd a coincidence was that?

Despite her best intentions, she went to the side table where candelabra sat. She lit all four new candles and took the stand back to the reading desk. It was here, after dinner was announced, that her youngest sister, Portia, found her bent over the Journal.

‘You will ruin your eyes, Livy, if you keep reading all the time. Didn’t you promise me that you would stop as soon as the daylight was gone?’ Portia scolded as she came in to rest her hands on her sister’s rounded shoulders.

‘I know I did, and I had every intention of finishing up some hours ago. But then I discovered a most strange anomaly that has me quick flummoxed.’

‘You, flummoxed. Are my ears deceiving me? My brilliant sister is never flummoxed!’ The cheeky grin Portia threw Liv’s way was said to be remarkably like her own. If that was true, then it explained how easily she had gained her way over the years. No one looking at Portia, in that moment, could feel anything but amused affection for her. Her lightness was contagious.

‘Possibly intrigued might be a better word, then. Do you remember me telling you that I met a young, French gentleman called Rene L’Angley when I was in London?’

‘Oh yes, I most certainly remember you mentioning him, once or twice. Or was that thrice?’

Liv ignored the dig and went on. ‘Well that young man showed much interest in a drawing grandfather did of a giant earthworm, on his 1750 expedition. So much interest, that he wanted to come all the way to Yorkshire to read grandfather’s Journal, to establish the precise location of the find, so he could seek it out for himself when he went home.’

‘Yes, Livy, you did tell me all this… more than once.’ Portia leaned against the reading desk, and frowned at her suspiciously.

‘Well, this is the intriguing part. In the Journals grandfather mentions a young man called Rene, who met him at the dock when his ship first arrived in St Lawrence. He was ‘adventuring’, so the youth said, and had come up from Boston, and planned to travel along the St Lawrence to the Great Lakes, and then further west to the prairies. Father invited the youth to join him in the spring, and they made arrangements. Then the young gentleman left the township, and didn’t reappear until the following spring.’

‘Livy, this is all frightfully fascinating, but dinner is getting cold, and cook will be furious,’ Portia interrupted impatiently.

Liv allowed herself to be drawn to her feet. Then, candelabra in hand, she followed her sister from the library, talking all the while.

‘I have not reached the intriguing part yet, Miss Impatience. The young man travelled with them throughout the spring and early summer of the following year. He proved exceptionally useful with the natives, in several dangerous situations. And then, out of the blue, he separated from the party.’

‘And so?’ Portia sighed heavily, as they entered the dining room to find their father already seated with a glass of wine in front of him.

‘He left the party shortly after they discovered a giant earthworm, which so fascinated grandfather that he drew a detailed drawing of it.’ Liv finished with a flourish.

‘The same giant earthworm that the gentleman you met in London was so interested in?’ Portia asked, starting to put the pieces together.

‘Exactly. Now, does that seem beyond the bounds of coincidence?’

‘Ladies, can we leave the discussion of earthworms until after the meal? I am exceedingly hungry this evening. I do not want to find myself too indisposed to consume the magnificent repast Cook has prepared for us because of talk of earthworms.’ Hugo Mulgrave, serious as always, looked pointedly at his daughters, before motioning for them to sit.

The ladies allowed themselves to be seated without another word, took up their damask table napkins, and waited patiently while James, their footman, poured them each a glass of wine.

‘How is it possible?’ Portia said after several minutes of comfortable silence.

‘That is what I am asking myself. If the Frenchman grandfather met is a relative of the one I met several weeks past, then surely he would have told my Frenchman where to find the ea…. item he was so captivated by at the Museum.’ Liv took a serving of vegetables from the porcelain trencher James now held out to her.

‘Certainly. Unless that family member never returned home. Mayhap your gentleman was not so interested in the ear… item mentioned, as in the location where his relative was last seen.’

Liv stared across at her baby sister, who, at just nineteen had recently become engaged to the local curate. Portia had an excellent mind, and Liv had seen to it that she received a superior education. It was at moments like this that she appreciated just how much her hard work had paid off. Portia’s mind was superbly analytical, with superior, logical thought processes that few women her age and gender could match. Even if they cared to.

‘That is it! It has to be! A perfectly sensible answer to this mystery. I wish I had seen it myself.’

‘Your mind has been rather like porridge of late, dear sister. Since you met the gentleman in question, to be exact. It is understandable that you would miss the obvious,’ Portia replied with a smug, little smile.

‘Now daughters, can we change the subject to something that is not connected in any way to the item you were both alluding to?’ Hector looked disgruntled as he poured gravy over the slices of roasted lamb he’d just been served.

‘What item was that father dear?’ Liv asked with mock innocence.

‘Giant earthworms, if I understood you correctly. Oh, now, there goes my appetite.’ He put down his utensils, and took up his glass of wine again, a look of exaggerated disgust written all over his face. But his tall, thin body vibrated with a carefully concealed chuckle.

Liv and Portia laughed.

‘Will he visit as he planned, do you think?’ Portia continued, knowing full well her father was not put off his meal in the least. ‘I am so thrilled at the possibility of meeting the gentleman that has finally won my spinster sister’s heart.’

‘Won? Won? What’s this, Livianna? Who has won you?’ Her father’s brown eyes contained serious interest for the first time.

Liv sighed heartily, and glowered at her young sister. ‘No one has won my heart, Papa. It will always belong to you.’

‘Just so, my dear, just so. But if there is a possible match on the horizon, I would like to be made aware of it, before I’m asked to pay for another wedding.’ Their father wiped his mouth with his napkin and took up his utensils again, cutting off a sizable piece of meat and slipping it elegantly into his mouth.

‘There is no match. I met an exceptionally young man, little older than Portia here, at the exhibit. He wished to read grandfather’s journals, and I invited him to visit, so he could do so. He will probably have thought better of it by now. We are rather distant from London for a passing interest in a … an item, no matter how giant.’ She sniggered in a most unladylike fashion, and covered it with a sip of wine.

‘If he is only interested in said item, maybe so,’ Portia said, unwilling to let the subject go. ‘But if he is as smitten with you, as you so obviously are with him, I imagine we shall soon be receiving word of his imminent arrival.’

Later that night, as Liv climbed into her four poster bed, she wondered whether Portia could be right. Would the mysterious Frenchman, with those surprisingly blue eyes, come to visit them as promised in the coming weeks? Blue eyes…

Blue eyes!

Quickly scrambling out of bed, and hurried to the dresser where she had left the Journals. She selected the 1750 one and quickly skimmed through it until she came to the entry she was looking for. They had been traversing the western plains for a week by that time, and her grandfather had noted, as an aside, that Devereux’s eyes set against his dark skin, were the same colour as the sky above the dark earth they traversed.

That was all he said. The next entry gave the account of the discovery of the lush oasis they had come upon, and the giant earthworm the Frenchman had uncovered, when he started digging deep into the soil.

Could L’Angley’s ancestor have had her Rene’s eyes too? Family resemblance could be compelling, her sisters’ similarity in appearance was tribute to that. But each sibling in her family was different in some distinct fashion from the seven others of her kind. The older girls had hazel eyes, the younger girls – grey, like their mother’s. She and Augusta had brown eyes like their father. And although they were all fair haired, each was a slightly different shade, ranging from dark golden to almost ginger, in Portia’s case.

It would be an anomaly for a dark-skinned man to have blue eyes. It was unlikely such a phenomenon would be a family trait. Portia’s rational solution to the mystery was starting to appear less than perfect now.

Who are you Rene L’Angley, and who was the man who accompanied grandfather on his expedition, sixty years ago?