Филиппа Карр: Daughters of England

Luke was a hero. He had acted with selfless bravery. Lady Rosslyn had been in her bed, unable to move. Her bedcurtains were aflame. A few more moments and she would have been past helping. But Luke had reached her in time. He had rushed into the room and through the burning curtains with such speed that he had emerged with Lady Rosslyn in his arms with only singed hair and a few burns on his hands.

I thought afterwards how ironical it was that the one person whose presence in the manor house she had so resented had saved her life.

Both she and Luke had suffered minor burns. Luke's hair and eyebrows were singed. He looked unlike himself and his hands were painful. However, there were several of the servants with worse burns. One of the women on the estate was very skillful with lotions and unguents and was able to give immediate attention to those who had been burned, which saved them from being as bad as they might have been.

The fire was quickly put out. It was not the first fire the house had suffered during the centuries and the thick stone walls were almost impervious even to fire. This one had been confined to Lady Rosslyn's quarters and would certainly have been fatal to her had not Luke been able to bring her out.

No one knew how the fire had been started. Candles would have been lighted. There was a blustering wind outside. Perhaps a draught from an open door had sent a curtain fluttering into the candle flame. Who could say?

It was about a week or so after the fire, when I came back from one of my rides over to Christobel, that I saw Margaret Galloway. I had the feeling that she had been waiting for me.

She seemed rather embarrassed, and she said quickly: "Lady Rosslyn is better today. It was a terrible experience for her. Imagine her ... lying there ... helpless, with the fire all around her."

"Poor lady. It must have been horrifying."

"She would like you and your brother to come to see her, if you will. She wants you to know how grateful she is."

I felt a glow of pleasure. I knew she had resented us bitterly and I could understand it. This was quite a change of attitude. Understandable, of course. One cannot go on hating someone who has saved one's life.

I said we should be glad to go and see Lady Rosslyn.

"It was a terrible shock for her," said Margaret Galloway. "It was not until it was burning fiercely that I knew what was happening. It was too late to stop it."

"Everyone seems to have acted promptly and so saved a real disaster."

"But our apartments are unusable. We have other ones now. The maid will show you if you and your brother will come."

I said: "Francine was all right, was she?"

Margaret said: "Oh yes."

"It must have been alarming for her."

"Was it not for us all? Her ladyship is usually at her best in the afternoons."

"When my brother comes in, I will tell him."

And so Luke and I went to Lady Rosslyn's apartment.

She was in her bed, propped up with pillows.

She looked at us appealingly. Luke went to her and took the hand which she held towards us. He kissed it gallantly and she smiled, and her Ups moved.

Margaret, who was standing by the bed, said: "She is saying Thank you.' She is telling you she is grateful to you for saving her life."

"I am so pleased to have been able to do so," said Luke.

"She wants you to know that she is sorry ..."

Luke said: "There is no need to be."

"She thinks that she may have offended you."

"I fear that I may have offended her.''

"She wants to say that it was just that she was wrong to blame you, and your noble action has made her ashamed."

"Please," said Luke. "All that must be forgotten. That is how I feel and I know my sister does too."

"Yes, yes," I said.

Her lips lifted at one side and she nodded. She could hear what was said, Margaret Galloway told us, although she could not reply.

"I trust," said Luke, "that you have recovered from the shock?"

She nodded again. Her face, slightly distorted, yet had a softness which I was sure had not been there before when she had contemplated us.

I was deeply touched and thought what an extraordinary turn of fate it was that Luke, whom she had so bitterly resented—

even more than she did me, a mere girl—should have been the one to save her life.

However, I felt happier at Rosslyn Manor than I had for a long time and I knew it was the same with Luke.

It was February, cold and bleak, when the news came.

The King had had a seizure and a few days after it he had died.

That which we had all feared had come upon us.

We waited for what would happen. For so long we had anticipated this and now it had come it was something of an anticlimax. We had a new King, James, who, it had often been said, would never be accepted since the English could never allow a Catholic to occupy the throne again.

My father left for London and we had to rely on news from travelers arriving or when someone had heard something from someone else. It was mostly hearsay. It seemed that the fears we had had were unfounded, and although there was grieving for a much-loved King, his brother was accepted as the true heir to the throne in the usual manner. Wine was distributed in the streets, that the people might drink the health of King James, and the King had made a speech to the Council assuring them that he would follow his brother's example, especially in his clemency and—what was most significant—support the government in Church and State as by law established.

When they heard of this speech, the people's fears were slightly allayed.

Alas, James could not, it appeared, keep to this promise, and, a few days after his accession, he heard Mass openly in the Queen's Chapel.

We waited in trepidation, but this seemed to pass over and there were no more rumors of his misdemeanors.

My father came back from London and I expected him to mention the fact that my eighteenth birthday was not far away, and to remind me of his wishes concerning Sebastian.

However, he did not. I think he was really concerned about the political situation. The trouble with these internal conflicts was that it involved people taking sides, and who was to know which side was going to be the winning one. The Civil War between the King and Parliament was too recent for anyone to contemplate such a conflict without some misgivings.

I was glad that the matter of Sebastian was not raised again.

I had been thinking quite a lot about him and seemed to find myself more frequently in his company. I reminded myself often that he would be seeing me in much the same way as I saw him— assessing me, thinking of me as a possible wife. Yet he gave no sign of this. He was just as calm and friendly as he had ever been.

There were great discussions when we all met, usually in Christobel's house because she liked to be with us and was growing a little unwieldy now.

I could not help being rather glad of the state of affairs and the anxiety which had made my matrimonial plans seem temporarily of secondary importance.

When the King and Queen were crowned according to the Protestant ritual, it was thought that James intended to accept the authorized religion of the country for the sake of a crown, and that he had abandoned his attempt to introduce Catholicism again.

It was early in June, my eighteenth birthday was approaching, and I was sure that my father was contemplating bringing up the subject of my marriage. However, at this point, news came which made everything else sink into insignificance.

The Duke of Monmouth had come out of exile. He had landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire, not very far from our home. He had brought with him only one hundred and fifty followers and arms for five thousand more. He immediately published a declaration against the King, charging him with attempting to introduce Popery to England and saying that he, Monmouth, had come to claim the throne and set a Protestant King upon it—himself.