Which was exactly what I was doing when my hostess returned with a plate filled with chocolate-covered biscuits.
I started guiltily, as though I had been caught out in some embarrassing intimacy.
Mrs Selwick-Alderly placed the biscuits next to the tea tray. ‘I see you’ve found the photos. There is something irresistible about other people’s pictures, isn’t there?’
I joined her on the couch, setting my damp herringbone derriere gingerly on the very edge of a flowered cushion. ‘It’s so much easier to make up stories about people you don’t know,’ I temporised. ‘Especially older pictures. You wonder what their lives were like, what happened to them…’
‘That’s part of the fascination of history, isn’t it?’ she said, applying herself to the teapot. Over the rituals of the tea table, the choice of milk or sugar, the passing of biscuits and cutting of cake, we slipped into an easy discussion of English history, and the awkward moment passed.
At Mrs Selwick-Alderly’s gentle prompting, I found myself rambling on about how I’d become interested in history (too many historical novels at an impressionable age), the politics of the Harvard history department (too complicated to even begin to go into), and why I’d decided to come to England. When the conversation began to verge onto what had gone wrong with Grant (everything), I hastily changed the subject, asking Mrs Selwick-Alderly if she had heard any stories about the nineteenth-century spies as a small child.
‘Oh, dear, yes!’ Mrs Selwick-Alderly smiled nostalgically into her teacup. ‘I spent a large part of my youth playing spy with my cousins. We would take it in turns to be the Purple Gentian and the Pink Carnation. My cousin Charles always insisted on playing Delaroche, the evil French operative. The French accent that boy affected! It put Maurice Chevalier to shame. After all these years, it still makes me laugh just to think of it. He would paint on an extravagant moustache – in those days, all the best villains had moustaches – and put on a cloak made out of one of Mother’s old wraps, and storm up and down the lawn, shaking his fist and swearing vengeance against the Pink Carnation.’
‘Who was your favourite character?’ I asked, charmed by the image.
‘Why, the Pink Carnation, of course.’
We smiled over the rims of our teacups in complete complicity.
‘But you have an added interest in the Pink Carnation,’ Mrs Selwick-Alderly said meaningfully. ‘Your dissertation, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh! Yes! My dissertation!’ I outlined the work I had done so far: the chapters on the Scarlet Pimpernel’s missions, the Purple Gentian’s disguises, the little I had been able to discover about the way they ran their leagues.
‘But I haven’t been able to find anything at all about the Pink Carnation,’ I finished. ‘I’ve read the old newspaper accounts, of course, so I know about the Pink Carnation’s more spectacular missions, but that’s it.’
‘What had you hoped to find?’
I stared sheepishly down into my tea. ‘Oh, every historian’s dream. An overlooked manuscript entitled How I Became the Pink Carnation and Why. Or I’d settle for a hint of his identity in a letter or a War Office report. Just something to give me some idea of where to look next.’
‘I think I may be able to help you.’ A slight smile lurked about Mrs Selwick-Alderly’s lips.
‘Really?’ I perked up – literally. I sat so bolt upright that my teacup nearly toppled off my lap. ‘Are there family stories?’
Mrs Selwick-Alderly’s faded blue eyes twinkled. She leant forward conspiratorially. ‘Better.’
Possibilities were flying through my mind. An old letter, perhaps, or a deathbed message passed along from Selwick to Selwick, with Mrs Selwick-Alderly the current keeper of the trust. But, then, if there were a Selwick Family Secret, why would she tell me? I abandoned imagination for the hope of reality. ‘What is it?’ I asked breathlessly.
Mrs Selwick-Alderly rose from the sofa with effortless grace. Setting her teacup down on the coffee table, she beckoned me to follow. ‘Come see.’
I divested myself of my teacup with a clatter, and eagerly followed her towards the twin windows that looked onto the square. Between the windows hung two small portrait miniatures, and for a disappointed moment, I thought she meant merely to lead me to the pictures – there didn’t seem to be anything else that might warrant attention. A small octagonal table to the right of the windows bore a pink-shaded lamp and a china candy dish, but little else. To the left, a row of bookcases lined the back of the room, but Mrs Selwick-Alderly didn’t so much as glance in that direction.
Instead, she knelt before a large trunk that sat directly beneath the portrait miniatures. I’ve never been into domestic art, or material history, or whatever they’re calling it, but I’d spent enough afternoons loafing around the British galleries of the Victoria and Albert to recognise it as early eighteenth century, or an extraordinarily good reproduction. Different-coloured woods marked out fanciful patterns of flowers and birds across the lid of the trunk, while a large bird of paradise adorned the centre.
Mrs Selwick-Alderly withdrew an elaborate key from her pocket.
‘In this trunk’ – she held the key poised before the lock – ‘lies the true identity of the Pink Carnation.’
Stooping, Mrs Selwick-Alderly fitted the key – almost as ornately constructed as the chest itself, with the end twisted into elaborate curlicues – into the brass-bound lock. The lid sprang open with well-oiled ease. I joined Mrs Selwick-Alderly on the floor, without even realising how I’d got there.
My first glance was a disappointing one. Not a paper in sight, not even the scrap of a forgotten love letter. Instead, my sweeping gaze took in the faded ivory of an old fan, a yellowed scrap of embroidered cloth, the skeletal remains of a bouquet still bound with a tattered ribbon. There were other such trinkets, but I didn’t take much notice as I sank down onto my haunches beside the trunk.
But Mrs Selwick-Alderly wasn’t finished. Deliberately, she eased one blue-veined hand along either side of the velvet lining and tugged. The top tray slid easily out of its supports. Within… I was back on my knees, hands gripping the edge of the trunk.
‘This…it’s amazing!’ I stuttered. ‘Are these all…?’
‘All early nineteenth century,’ Mrs Selwick-Alderly finished for me, regarding the contents of the trunk fondly. ‘They’ve all been sorted by chronological order, so you should find it easy going.’ She reached into the trunk, picked up a folio, and then put it aside with a muttered ‘That won’t do.’ After a moment’s peering into the trunk and making the occasional clucking noise, she seized on a rectangular packet, one of those special acid-free cardboard boxes they use to protect old library books.
‘You’d best start here,’ she advised, ‘with Amy.’
‘Amy?’ I asked, picking at the string binding the box together.
Mrs Selwick-Alderly started to respond, and then checked herself, rising to her feet with the help of the edge of the box.
‘These letters tell the tale far better than I could.’ She cut off my incoherent questions with a kindly, ‘If you need anything, I’ll be in my study. It’s just down the hall to the right.’
‘But, who is he?’ I pleaded, pivoting after her as she walked towards the door. ‘The Pink Carnation?’
‘Read and see…’ Mrs Selwick-Alderly’s voice drifted behind her through the open door.
Urgh. Gnawing on my lower lip, I stared down at the manuscript box in my hands. The grey cardboard was smooth and clean beneath my fingers; unlike the battered, dusty old boxes in the stacks of Widener Library, someone cared for these papers well. The identity of the Pink Carnation. Did she really mean it?
I should have been tearing at the twine that bound the box, but there was something about the waiting stillness of the room, broken only by the occasional crackle of burning bark upon the grate, that barred abrupt movement. I could almost feel the portrait miniatures on the wall straining to peer over my shoulder.
Besides, I counselled myself, mechanically unwinding the string, I shouldn’t let myself get too excited. Mrs Selwick-Alderly might be exaggerating. Or mad. True, she didn’t look mad, but maybe her delusion took the form of thinking she held the key to the identity of the Pink Carnation. I would open the box to find it contained a stack of Beatles lyrics or amateur poetry.
The last loop of string came free. The cardboard flap fell open, revealing a pile of yellowed papers. The date on the first letter, in a scrawling, uneven hand, read 4 MARCH, 1803.
Not amateur poetry.
Dizzy with excitement, I flipped through the thick packet of papers. Some were in better condition than others; in places, ink had run, or lines had been lost in folds. Hints of reddish sealing wax clung to the edges of some, while others had lost corners to the depredations of time and the clutching fingers of eager readers. Some were written in a bold black hand, others in a spiky copperplate, and many in a barely legible scribble. But they all had one thing in common; they were all dated 1803. Phrases rose out of the sea of squiggles as I thumbed through…‘provoking man…brother would never…’
I forced myself to return to the first page. Sinking down onto the carpet before the fire, I adjusted my skirt, refreshed my cold cup of tea, and began to read the first letter. It was written in ungrammatical French, and I translated as I read.
‘4 March, 1803. Dear Sister – With the end of the late hostilities, I find myself at last in a position to urge you to return to your rightful place in the House of Balcourt…’
Chapter One
‘…The city of your birth awaits your return.
Please send word of your travel arrangements by courier at first opportunity. I remain, your devoted brother, Edouard.’
‘The city of your birth awaits your return.’ Amy whispered the words aloud.
At last! Fingers tightening around the paper in her hands, she gazed rapturously at the sky. For an event of such magnitude, she expected bolts of lightning, or thunderclouds at the very least. But the Shropshire sky gazed calmly back at her, utterly unperturbed by the momentous events taking place below. Wasn’t that just like Shropshire?
Sinking to the grass, Amy contemplated the place where she had spent the majority of her life. Behind her, over the rolling fields, the redbrick manor house sat placidly on its rise. Uncle Bertrand was sure to be right there, three windows from the left, sitting in his cracked leather chair, poring over the latest findings of the Royal Agricultural Society, just as he did every day. Aunt Prudence would be sitting in the yellow-and-cream morning room, squinting over her embroidery threads, just as she did every day. All peaceful, and bucolic, and boring.
The prospect before her wasn’t any more exciting, nothing but long swaths of green, enlivened only by woolly balls of sheep.
But now, at last, the long years of boredom were at an end. In her hand she grasped the opportunity to leave Wooliston Manor and its pampered flock behind her forever. She would no longer be plain Amy Balcourt, niece to the most ambitious sheep breeder in Shropshire, but Aimée, Mlle de Balcourt. Amy conveniently ignored the fact that revolutionary France had banished titles when they beheaded their nobility.
She had been six years old when revolution exiled her to rural England. In late May of 1789, she and Mama had sailed across the Channel for what was meant to be merely a two-month visit, time enough for Mama to see her sisters and show her daughter something of English ways. For all the years she had spent in France, Mama was still an Englishwoman at heart.
Uncle Bertrand, sporting a slightly askew periwig, had stridden out to meet them. Behind him stood Aunt Prudence, embroidery hoop clutched in her hand. Clustered in the doorway were three little girls in identical muslin dresses, Amy’s cousins Sophia, Jane and Agnes. ‘See, darling,’ whispered Mama. ‘You shall have other little girls to play with. Won’t that be lovely?’
It wasn’t lovely. Agnes, still in the lisping and stumbling stage, was too young to be a playmate. Sophia spent all of her time bent virtuously over her sampler. Jane, quiet and shy, Amy dismissed as a poor-spirited thing. Even the sheep soon lost their charm. Within a month, Amy was quite ready to return to France. She packed her little trunk, heaved and pushed it down the hall to her mother’s room, and announced that she was prepared to go.
Mama had half-smiled, but her smile twisted into a sob. She plucked her daughter off the trunk and squeezed her very, very tightly.
‘Mais, maman, qu’est-ce que se passe?’ demanded Amy, who still thought in French in those days.
‘We can’t go back, darling. Not now. I don’t know if we’ll ever… Oh, your poor father! Poor us! And Edouard, what must they be doing to him?’
Amy didn’t know who they were, but remembering the way Edouard had yanked at her curls and pinched her arm while supposedly hugging her goodbye, she couldn’t help but think her brother deserved anything he got. She said as much to Mama.
Mama looked down at her miserably. ‘Oh no, darling, not this. Nobody deserves this.’ Very slowly, in between deep breaths, she had explained to Amy that mobs had taken over Paris, that the king and queen were prisoners, and that Papa and Edouard were very much in danger.
Over the next few months, Wooliston Manor became the unlikely centre of an antirevolutionary movement. Everyone pored over the weekly papers, wincing at news of atrocities across the Channel. Mama ruined quill after quill penning desperate letters to connections in France, London, Austria. When the Scarlet Pimpernel appeared on the scene, snatching aristocrats from the sharp embrace of Madame Guillotine, Mama brimmed over with fresh hope. She peppered every news sheet within a hundred miles of London with advertisements begging the Scarlet Pimpernel to save her son and husband.
Amidst all this hubbub, Amy lay awake at night in the nursery, wishing she were old enough to go back to France herself and save Papa. She would go disguised, of course, since everyone knew a proper rescue had to be done in disguise. When no one was about, Amy would creep down to the servants’ quarters to try on their clothes and practice speaking in the rough, peasant French of the countryside. If anyone happened upon her, Amy explained that she was preparing amateur theatricals. With so much to worry about, none of the grown-ups who absently said, ‘How nice, dear,’ and patted her on the head ever bothered to wonder why the promised performance never materialised.
Except Jane. When Jane came upon Amy clad in an assortment of old petticoats from the ragbag and a discarded periwig of Uncle Bertrand’s, Amy huffily informed her that she was rehearsing for a one-woman production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Jane regarded her thoughtfully. Half apologetically, she said, ‘I don’t think you’re telling the truth.’
Unable to think of a crushing response, Amy just glared. Jane clutched her rag doll tighter, but managed to ask, ‘Please, won’t you tell me what you’re really doing?’
‘You won’t tell Mama or any of the others?’ Amy tried to look suitably fierce, but the effect was quite ruined by her periwig sliding askew and dangling from one ear.
Jane hastily nodded.
‘I,’ declared Amy importantly, ‘am going to join the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel and rescue Papa.’
Jane pondered this new information, doll dangling forgotten from one hand.
‘May I help?’ she asked.
Her cousin’s unexpected aid proved a boon to Amy. It was Jane who figured out how to rub soot and gum on teeth to make them look like those of a desiccated old hag – and then how to rub it all off again before Nanny saw. It was Jane who plotted a route to France on the nursery globe and Jane who discovered a way to creep down the back stairs without making them creak.
They never had the chance to execute their plans. Little beknownst to the two small girls preparing themselves to enter his service, the Scarlet Pimpernel foolishly attempted the rescue of the Vicomte de Balcourt without them. From the papers, Amy learnt that the Pimpernel had spirited Papa out of prison disguised as a cask of cheap red wine. The rescue might hav
e gone without a hitch had a thirsty guard at the gates of the city not insisted on tapping the cask. When he encountered Papa instead of Beaujolais, the guard angrily sounded the alert. Papa, the papers claimed, had fought manfully, but he was no match for an entire troop of revolutionary soldiers. A week later, a small card had arrived for Mama. It said simply, ‘I’m sorry,’ and was signed with a scarlet flower.
The news sent Mama into a decline and Amy into a fury. With Jane as her witness, she vowed to avenge Papa and Mama as soon as she was old enough to return to France. She would need excellent French for that, and Amy could already feel her native tongue beginning to slip away under the onslaught of constant English conversation. At first, she tried conversing in French with their governesses, but those worthy ladies tended to have a vocabulary limited to shades of cloth and the newest types of millinery. So Amy took her Molière outside and read aloud to the sheep.
Latin and Greek would do her no good in her mission, but Amy read them anyway, in memory of Papa. Papa had told her nightly bedtime stories of capricious gods and vengeful goddesses; Amy tracked all his stories down among the books in the little-used library at Wooliston Manor. Uncle Bertrand’s own taste ran more towards manuals on animal husbandry, but someone in the family must have read once, because the library possessed quite a creditable collection of classics. Amy read Ovid and Virgil and Aristophanes and Homer. She read dry histories and scandalous love poetry (her governesses, who had little Latin and less Greek, naïvely assumed that anything in a classical tongue must be respectable), but mostly she returned again and again to The Odyssey. Odysseus had fought to go home, and so would Amy.