Talisman Chapter 16

Chapter 16 “Talisman Malherbe, Talisman Malherbe, when I am safely returned from this war, than we shall be wed.” These were the words echoing through her head as she sat down on a seat in the beautiful gardens. And with the words came the memory of someone’s strong hands holding hers as he said farewell. She was in love! In love and couldn’t sit still either! Next moment she was up again, and walking round a rather lovely rose garden. The roses smelt heavenly, but her thoughts were all about Peter, and how dashing he had looked in his smart green uniform before he left for Spain. Spain? I thought the last time we fought the Spanish was the Armada – but no: even as I thought about it, I knew the answer. This was Napoleon’s armies we were fighting. And Peter Mallerby was a captain in the Rifles. Little Miss Fidget went into the house next and headed for the study, to look at a (much-thumbed) map of Spain.
“Alys, my dear.”
It was her uncle who rose to greet her as she went into the study, and she greeted him with real pleasure.
“Come and play chess with me for a while. It will give you something else to think about!” He was amusedly tolerant of her, and I could tell that these restless moods were nothing new to him.
The study was in the same place as it had been in the 1929 house, but it looked completely different. The panelling wasn’t the same – nowhere near as elaborate – and the walls had rather beautiful painted wall paper on them. The room was cool, elegant and uncluttered. I liked it.
Chinese wallpaper, Alys’s mind told me. And Chinese artefacts on the walls, and Chinese furniture, but her father was in India now, trying his fortunes there. I wanted to see the whole house, and with Alys as restless as this, it wasn’t difficult to persuade her to flit from room to room.
She practised the piano for a while – a funny-looking piano, nothing like Aunt Violet’s grand piano, and nothing like a modern one either. The chairs in here came from China as well – made in China, I thought, amused, like so many things in my life were.
Her thoughts were always about Peter. She had last seen him a year before – he had been fresh from the storming of Badajoz, and disinclined to talk about it. It had been a bloody affair, and the sack of the city afterwards had been horrific.
“But Harry Smith gained a treasure invaluable from it all!” And Peter told Alys and her uncle about the 14 year old Spanish bride Harry found for himself.
“His particular friends – Charlie Beckwith, Charlie Eeles – were all saying that Harry would be lost, and would neglect his duty. But no! Juana glories in his duty, and ever asks him if he has performed it well that day.” The hall floor was marble, laid in an elegant pattern, and there were classical statues there (Greek and Roman: brought back by Alys’s father when he had travelled on the continent) and yet more Chinese things on the wall. Because Chinese was the latest trend – the Prince Regent himself loved the Chinese look. The dining room was more formal. Alys’s memory was full of how Peter had looked as he dined with them before going back to Spain. He had told her more stories of Juana Smith, and of how she was as gallant as any soldier in the regiment. Alys envied her. To be able to be there, with the man she loved: how she wished that she could be too. She fiddled around with the table decorations, moving one or two things and then went upstairs. The upstairs landing ran to an Egyptian theme this time – again, very fashionable. I was beginning to realise that Alys’s father must have torn down most of the old house when he did all this extensive re-modelling. I wondered if it had affected Ship at all. At the very least, it must have seriously limited the amount of energy she could collect.
Wherever the guerdon was, it wasn’t in this house. By now I was – I suppose attuned is the right word – to the guerdons. This time was a happy, peaceful time, even if Alys’s worry about Peter was always at the back of her mind. She lived for the letters he wrote to her uncle, full of news about everyone. He normally told her of Juana’s latest exploits, knowing that she was interested – how her horse had eaten the bed of green wheat she had slept on after the battle of Salamanca; how she and Harry had acquired a father confessor, in the person of the Vicar of Vicalbaro, who had joined them when they retreated from Madrid. The next room Alys checked out was her father’s bedroom. It was a long time since he had been at Ship House, but the housekeeper kept his room aired and ready for him. Alys didn’t really need to check up on her work, and she knew this, but it gave her something to do. Alys had been living here with her uncle (and housekeeper, butler, gardeners, maids, groom, stableboys, cook, kitchen maids and governess) for the last ten years. Since her mother and two brothers had died.
Alys was like me, I realised, an only child. Without a mother, and with an absent father – after his wife’s death, Sir William had thrown himself more and more into his business ventures; first on the continent, and then in China and now in India. He had made a fair amount of money in the process, but that had been no consolation to him. Up on the roof was one of Alys’s favourite places. The wide views excited her, and made her long all the more for adventure. Below here she could see the gardeners, busy in the garden, and the washing that one of the maids had just put out to dry. Once again, she was thinking about Peter and how much she loved him. He was a distant cousin, and they had been acquainted all their lives, but it had only been in the last two years that they had fallen in love. When her father came home, Peter would ask him for her hand in marriage. She was eighteen now, and old enough to marry, but still needed her father’s consent until she was twenty-one. The next day I got another huge surprise! Alys put on a completely different outfit from yesterday’s elegant muslin dress (I had to say, I liked her clothes. And both underwear AND plumbing had been invented. Even if there was still a pot under the bed for use at night), went outside and down to the stables, and there was her horse, saddled and ready for her!!! The groom mounted up when she arrived. Riding! I’d never ridden a horse in my life – nor been so close to one! And it looked a bit big to me. But Alys was so confident, and so fond of her horse too. I thought the ground seemed a long way down, but Alys was just so happy to be on horseback again. And I knew that she was a good rider. Her memories lay around in the corners of her mind – long days out hunting, or time spent just hacking round the countryside. She was, I realised, very fit physically, and naturally energetic. She probably would cope with following her Peter round the battlefields of Spain. It had been a while since Alys had heard from Peter. She had been reduced to re-reading all his old letters, and following the news of the war in the papers, plotting the movements of Wellington’s armies on her map of Spain. I now knew rather more about Spanish geography than I ever had done before. The battle of Vittoria had been fought and won back in June, and Peter had told Alys of the little pug dog Juana had acquired there, but now it was August, and she had not heard from him since then. When her uncle appeared at the door, with a letter in his hand, her first thought was that it was from Peter. But it wasn’t a letter from Peter. Her father was on his way home! Alys’s heart leapt for joy. Peter could write to her father and ask his consent to a betrothal! She knew her father could have no objections. Peter’s birth was as good as her own, and although he wasn’t wealthy, being a second son, neither was he poor. Like herself really. It would be another two months at least before her father was home from India – time and enough to get a letter to Peter and for him to write back. She told her uncle all her plans, her happiness shining out of her eyes. Alys went down to the church, to lay some flowers on her mother’s grave. The stone wall round the churchyard had gone, replaced by some elegant iron railings – and the other thing I noticed was how much fuller the graveyard was. Just for a moment, Alys imagined herself on her wedding day, coming down the aisle. Only she would be on Peter’s arm. She shook her head and pulled herself back to reality. Who knew how much longer the war was going to last? Alys wanted to be with Peter: his stories of Juana Smith had inspired her. She would have to prove that she could cope with the same difficulties and hardships. She had a lot to learn yet. Next stop, the doctor’s house. The weeks went past. Alys had used her time well and thoroughly. I was impressed by her – she was so determined and so sure of what she wanted. She had gone to the doctor and persuaded him to teach her what I would call basic first aid. And it hadn’t been pretty either, but she’d overcome her squeamishness and applied herself. Unknown to the servants, she’d started sleeping on the floor, to accustom herself to a rougher life. And she’d gathered together a collection of useful objects – a tin kettle that would boil fast, bandages and laudanum, basilicum powder. Peter had written to her father, and the letter was here, waiting for him. Her happiness was surely within her grasp.
Alys was practising the piano – a rather dull Haydn sonata – when she heard the carriage turning up the drive. Her father was home! She hadn’t seen him for ten years, but she didn’t have to worry about how to greet him. Relationships were more formal then, and there was a correct way to greet him. Their feelings for each other didn’t matter like they did nowadays. I did think that made things a bit simpler. Alys curtsied to her father and said all the proper things. He looked older and browner than he had when she had last seen him, but he seemed as full of vitality as ever. I could see where she got her restless energy from. He’d brought someone with him – an older man, dressed in the fashion of an older time, as the elderly so often did.
“Lord Askham, may I present my daughter, Miss Malherbe, to you?” Lord Askham looked her over, as if she was so much merchandise on offer. I knew this look. I had seen it in Bob’s eyes when he had looked at me outside school. And in Brett’s eyes as well. Alys wasn’t exactly happy with it either.