The Cornish Heiress Read online

  The Cornish Heiress

  Roberta Gellis

  Author’s Note

  In the eighteenth and the very beginning of the nineteenth centuries, smuggling was a way of life in Cornwall. Everyone was involved to some extent: to stave off starvation or obtain an occasional luxury, the common folk were happy to aid the smugglers or to “watch the wall” while the “gentlemen” went by. The gentry bought the goods and also “looked the other way”. However, for the gentry a marked gulf existed between drinking untaxed liquor or smoking untaxed tobacco and actually making money out of smuggling. To be exposed as engaging in the unsavory trade for profit could bring severe social penalties, even if one escaped the legal consequences; one would become déclassé and be ostracized.

  As in The English Heiress, every attempt has been made to maintain historical accuracy. Although the central characters of the book are fictional, as are the adventures in which they are engaged, the general events are real. England did fear an invasion and Bonaparte was indeed in Boulogne in November 1803, going about the workshops and camps and encouraging the men to greater efforts. However, it should be noted that it was not possible for the author to discover certain facts, like the real name of the Chef du port maritime of Boulogne in 1803 or whether he had a daughter. Since the result of Philip’s spying was entirely negative—the invasion fleet, despite Bonaparte’s efforts, was not ready until 1805 and in fact never was launched—the intrusion of a fictional spy does no violence to historical events.

  In the same way, although Jacques d’Ursine, Francois Charon, and the other French agents are fictional, no distortion of reality results. The basic contention that some émigrés became spies for Bonaparte is true, as is the implication that some found their way into high places owing to their aristocratic connections before exile. Typical types are used: those who are totally unprincipled and those who are true patriots. It must be remembered, however, that only one side of the coin is shown in this book; in reality, as many émigrés were devoted to their adopted country and served England faithfully, and also there were plenty of Englishmen who betrayed their nation for money.

  The final adventure is dealt with similarly. Georges Cadoudal and the plots to overthrow and later to assassinate Bonaparte are real. There is evidence that Méhée de la Touche and Joseph Fouché were involved as described. Logic demands some communication between the supporters of the plot in England and the activists in France. Again, no violence is done to history if fictional characters take part in a way that “must have” happened.

  It is my hope that this pastiche of reality and fantasy will bring life to history and be both enjoyable and informative. Any comments or corrections from readers will be gratefully received.

  Roberta Gellis

  Lafayette, 1981, 2009

  Chapter One

  “Have you given Philip money to pay his debts again, Leonie?” Roger St. Eyre asked his wife. Leonie raised her golden eyes to her husband’s bright blue ones. “Sacrébleu,” she sighed, “please do not be angry with him, Roger. It does not mean anything to me—you know that. It was not that he feared to go to you. It is only—I cannot bear to see him so unhappy. He did not ask me. He does not even know—”

  “I know that,” Roger said, kissing her fondly and sitting down beside her. “How do you think I found out? Philip came to thank me, and to tell me—very stiff and proper—that it was not necessary. He had his own plan for settling, he said. I just told him that I hadn’t known he was in debt again.”

  “Stiff and proper?” Leonie repeated anxiously. “Is he still angry because you would not buy him a commission, Roger?”

  “No. He may be a fool, but not that much of a one. He did as I suggested and looked into the matter more carefully. Besides, I didn’t say I wouldn’t buy him a commission. I said I didn’t think the life would suit him and pointed out that he was just as likely to be sent to the Indies or ordered to guard one of the damn palaces as to be involved in the war with France. He went out to prove me wrong—and found out I was right.”

  “Do you think he will wish to enter the navy now?” Leonie asked fearfully.

  “No.” Roger smiled. “The navy is not a service a person can enter as an adult. Besides, Philip knows that life is even more rigid and restricted than the army.” Roger paused and his mouth hardened. “God in heaven, I will never forgive myself. I should have strangled Solange a week after she gave birth to him. Dead thirteen years, her curse still lingers.”

  Leonie did not answer that. She never uttered any criticism of her husband’s first wife, although she often felt she would have killed Solange with her bare hands had she not been dead already. Roger was right. The scars Solange had inflicted on her husband and her son, though healed, still deformed them. Solange had ignored Philip as an infant, and later had tried to use him to manipulate Roger. The only reason Philip was not totally ruined was that Roger had given him the warmth and tenderness, the unvarying affection that made him a whole person.

  To save his own sanity, Roger had yielded to Solange in her insistence on surrounding Philip completely with French servants. It did not seem important to him that the child spoke French far better than English. He was bilingual himself and assumed Philip would drop the French for English when he started school. He was more concerned with his son’s character, and he talked to him a great deal about the need to reason out what was right rather than blindly do what a feared—or even a loved—authority ordered.

  Roger was thinking of Solange when he was so insistent that Philip reason rather than obey. However, the habit of independent thinking, encouraged by Roger himself always listening to his son and explaining why a thing must be done, was carried beyond his mother’s influence. Innocently, Roger had taught Philip to resist the urge to “be like everyone else”, because that was the excuse Solange used most often to explain her gambling and extravagance. He never meant, of course, that Philip should resist when what “everyone else” was doing, was good and sensible, and, in general, Philip did understand that. However, the habit of sticking by his guns unless there was a good reason not to had wider repercussions than Roger ever dreamed.

  These began quite early. When Philip went to school and the boys called him ‘‘Frenchy”, he blacked their eyes to prove he was a good Englishman rather than change his patterns of speech. In fact, the pressure of his peers and his teachers made him cling passionately to his accent and to speaking French by preference. The problem eventually grew so acute that the headmaster referred it to Philip’s father.

  After, soothing the headmaster, who was greatly incensed by the flouting of his authority and not at all in sympathy with Roger’s notion that he should have given Philip a reason for speaking English rather than simply ordering him to do so and beating him when he refused, Roger interviewed his son.

  “It does no harm,” Philip said stubbornly. “It is my way of speaking.”

  Roger could not help chuckling. “It certainly did no good to Lord Erne’s eye or to Lord Kevern’s nose, not to speak of the Honorable Elliot’s loose teeth.”

  Philip had cast a flickering glance at his father. What he saw made him grin cheerfully. “Perce and Harry did not mind, and they were not Elliot’s front teeth, sir. They were the side ones that had to come out anyway. Really, sir, I do not see why the headmaster made such a fuss. The other fellows only wanted to be sure I was not a sissy. We are all friends now.”

  “Well, there are less destructive ways of proving your manhood,” Roger felt obliged to say, but the reprimand was rather spoiled by the twinkle in his eyes andthe golden guinea he pressed into his son’s hand. Then he grew more serious. “But I do not like rudeness, Philip, and it is very rude to chatter in
a language others around you don’t understand or have difficulty understanding. Certainly I don’t insist that you speak English exactly as the others do, but I hope you will be sufficiently a gentleman in the future to match your manner and speech to your company.”

  The arrested look on the boy’s face—cruel rudeness was one of the devices his mother had used both on him and, in front of his face, on his father—showed Roger he had made his point, and he said no more. A good reason was usually enough to set Philip on the right path. He was a remarkably intelligent child. To a degree Roger was right. There was no more trouble about language. Although Philip never lost his accent and French continued to be the language he spoke by preference, he soon switched back and forth between English and French without thought, responding automatically to the tongue in which he was addressed.

  However, Roger had long ago stopped worrying about Philip’s speech. He was an extremely, a compulsively, just person. “It is not fair to blame Solange completely,” he said. “I had more influence on Philip. My lectures on reason sank in a little too far, I suppose.”

  Leonie could not restrain a little giggle at that understatement. She suppressed it as quickly as she could, but her eyes danced. “Eh bien, but once Philippe got to Oxford he was much better,” she comforted as gravely as she could. “He saw the reasons for the rules and was quite—ah, ma foi—most of the time he stayed out of trouble.” Then the laughter died out of her face and her big golden eyes looked haunted. “But his hatred for the French—that is my fault. I—”

  Roger put his arms around his wife and kissed her. “You have done him only good, my love. You always knew just how to deal with him.”

  “But I never corrected him,” she murmured. “I let him get into all kinds of mischief. I even joined him. You were often angry—”

  “Never angry, Leonie,” Roger smiled at her. “Sometimes exasperated, but never angry. Anyway,” he added briskly, “you were right. You could stop him from doing anything really dangerous or bad just with that ‘Mais, Philippe, non!’ where all my lectures—and reasons—would have been useless.”

  “Yes, in little things, but in this… Oh, Roger, you can make me talk of something different, but it is my hatred of the French that Philippe has absorbed. I tried not to—but…”

  “Don’t be silly, Leonie. You don’t hate the French, you’re half French yourself. I don’t think he hates them either. He’s just young. He wants to be a hero.”

  “Bien sûr, but it is more than that. When the war was declared in 1793, Philippe did not care. Your stepmother told me. He was worried about you, but once you were back he showed no interest in the war. I know that because all he talked of was his school—the games and sports. It was only after he started to ask me what had happened to my family that he began to talk of the ‘iniquities’ of the French.”

  Roger shrugged. “Then it is my fault. I told him more than you ever did. All you said was that it was dull and uncomfortable to be in prison.”

  “But he is very sensitive, that Philippe, and very clever. He read inside me… He saw…

  She shuddered and Roger held her closer. Neither of them talked of the real horrors of Leonie’s imprisonment, of how she had been brutally raped by several men, of her mother and brother dying in the filthy cellar where they had been confined, of her father being shot and killed during their escape. Roger feared that she was right, that despite her light, smiling refusal to discuss those dreadful months, Philip had drawn his own conclusions. Philip adored Leonie. He would very likely wish to revenge her hurts. However, that was something Roger would never admit. He would not, if he could prevent it, permit Leonie to blame herself for what could not be helped.

  “Nonsense,” he said briskly. “He never said a word about joining the army all the time he was at Oxford. He talked himself into ‘hatred’ in those damned debating societies. I wish they had improved his English instead of fixing the horrors of ‘republicanism’ in his mind. And then the ‘peace’ nearly drove him insane.”

  Diverted momentarily, Leonie giggled again. “You were no better, raving on and on about Cornwallis accepting terms that were only fitting for a ‘defeated nation’ and taking worse losses at the conference table than he had in the American colonies. Humiliating, you said.”

  “I still think so.” Roger’s blue eyes flashed vividly. “And then Bonaparte violated every provision, and screamed bloody murder when we would not evacuate Malta.” He shrugged again. “It was that, I suppose, that really set Philip off. I should have held my tongue. It was when war was declared again that he first said he wanted a commission. Perhaps I should just have purchased it and let—“

  “No!’ Leonie exclaimed. “He would have ended up in Court-Martial. Besides, Philippe admitted he was wrong. I know he was furious at first, but he was very glad to make up the quarrel when you sent for him.”

  “Yes,” Roger sighed, “but things aren’t really much better. He’s never sober, and I’m afraid he’s developing a taste for gaming that will end in disaster. And then I had to be so stupid as to suggest buying him a seat in Parliament.”

  Leonie squeezed her husband’s hand sympathetically, but there was little she could say. That suggestion had been very unwise. It only produced another violent quarrel in which Philip, quite justly, accused his father of violating his principles out of affection. It was true, but Leonie knew Roger hated to see his son turning to the usual opiates of a young man with money—wine, women, and gambling.

  “I’m at my wits’ end,” Roger admitted. “There’s nothing to do but let him run his course.”

  Roger had traveled the same road himself after his first marriage turned sour, so he had not criticized his son’s excesses. He had not even remonstrated with Philip when he outran his very generous allowance, but had paid the debts presented without a word of blame. The second time Roger had said only, “Draw it a little milder, Philip. You look like hell.”

  Because self-disgust and guilt do not breed patience in the young, this gentle reproof had sent Philip back to his own chambers in a black rage, which expanded into another round of wild parties and all-night gambling sessions. It was fortunate that Philip was either a lucky or a skillful gambler. Men had been known to gamble away their entire fortunes in a night. The Duchess of Devonshire was reputed to have lost fifty thousand pounds in one session at the tables. Philip’s excesses were not of that magnitude. Nonetheless, he was soon in debt again.

  He had said nothing to his father this time, resolved to find his own solution to the problem he had created. At another time Roger would have noticed that his son was more than usually disturbed. This time he did not. For one thing, he had become accustomed to seeing Philip miserable and sullen; for another, he was extraordinarily busy. When it became apparent that the war would be resumed, Roger had been asked to act as a consultant on French affairs to Lord Hawkesbury, the Foreign Minister.

  It was thus Leonie who had noticed that her stepson was more than ordinarily depressed. Thinking she could avoid another confrontation between father and son, Leonie had deposited a large sum in Philip’s account, telling his banker (who was hers also) to deny he knew where the money came from. Fortunately for the banker, Philip had never thought to ask. When he found his account unnaturally swollen, he had assumed his father had tried to spare him the embarrassment of asking for money yet again. Philip had found this generosity even more acutely painful, and Roger’s prompt and surprised denial—which made it plain that his stepmother had been the culprit—caused him even greater anguish.

  “I will not touch it,” he had raged. “Leonie has no right—”

  At which point Roger’s long patience had snapped and he had gotten to his feet so quickly that the chair he had been sitting on crashed to the floor. “If you say one word or do one thing to hurt Leonie,” he roared, “I will give you the hiding you have well deserved for these past six months. Now get the devil out of here! Take yourself and your petty vapors
down to Dymchurch and stay there until you can say ‘Thank you’ to your stepmother with becoming gratitude. And don’t show either of us that sullen face again. Get out!”

  Roger’s lips tightened as he thought of the scene, and Leonie relaxed her grip on his hand and sighed. “He was angry about the money. No, he was quite right to be angry. I see now it was a stupid thing to do. I did not think—only that a young man would be careless and take it gladly and say nothing. I should have realized he is too much like you—too honest. I will tell him I am sorry when he comes today. You know he stops in almost every day.”

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” Roger said sharply. “Nasty, ungrateful whelp that he is. And don’t think he’s angry with you—because he won’t come today. I sent him off to Dymchurch with a flea in his ear.”

  Leonie said nothing for a moment, looking down at her hand held tight in her husband’s clasp. In ways she knew Philip better than Roger did. She understood his fury. It was the natural outlet for a child’s frustration, but Philip was no child. Leonie understood that he would be sickened by his own behavior as soon as he recognized it. In retribution he would meekly pay his debts and stay at his father’s estate until he was released—but that was no solution to the problem. In fact, it would only make it worse.

  “We must do something,” she said in a constricted voice. “If he felt he were part of a real effort in the war, he would be willing to take orders. Why cannot one join the navy as a man? Philippe knows well how to sail. All summer he is in that boat of his, and he used to go with Pierre. Do they not need men who know how to sail?” Her beautiful eyes dimmed. “I would be afraid for him, bien sûr, but—but I am growing afraid more and more of what will happen if he does not find—find—whatever it is for which he seeks.”

  “I, too,” Roger agreed, “but the navy is not the answer.”

  “Pierre!” Leonie exclaimed suddenly. In her desperate attempt to find a solution, she suggested Roger should ask Pierre Restoir to tell Philip he needed help aboard the Bonne Lucie. Pierre was a Breton smuggler, an old friend of Roger’s, who had been responsible for getting Roger and Leonie out of France in the days when the guillotine was claiming its daily victims. He had saved their lives; perhaps, Leonie was thinking he could save Philip’s.