I stormed up the steps and found I could scarcely see the door knocker for the tears of anger in my eyes. James reached over my shoulder and tapped at the door for me.
‘I wanted to ask you something,’ he said as we waited for Meg to come to the door.
I shot him one angry look which should have warned him that nothing he could say would draw a civil response from me ever again.
‘Will you marry me, Julia?’ he asked.
I could not believe my ears. ‘What did you say?’ I demanded.
‘I asked you to marry me,’ he repeated. I could hear from inside the house someone coming down the stairs to open the front door. I was still boiling with anger towards Lady Querry, towards Mrs Williams and her beastly shop and shopgirls and the whole unjust unequal cruelty of the Quality world. But more than anything else I was in a blind rage with James Fortescue, who had promised he would speak to Mrs Williams and then left me all alone to look a fool in front of the most fashionable modiste and the biggest gossip in Bath.
Meg opened the door, dipped a curtsy and held it for me.
I turned to face James and put out my hand to him. I was still trembling with anger and my hand shook. He took it and carried it to his lips. I could feel the warmth of his kiss through the glove. I could tell by his eyes that he was smiling.
‘Don’t be cross,’ he said, oblivious of Meg, blind to the people on the street who were watching us with curiosity. ‘Don’t be cross. I love you much too much to want to make you cross for long. I wanted to see how you would handle old Williams. And I wanted you to know that you could do it. Because you will have to handle Dr Phillips, and perhaps your uncle and your cousin. But I will promise to help you with them. And on that occasion I will not leave you all on your own. Will you marry me, Julia?’
I felt the anger flow away from me as if I had no temper at all, and I forgot that Meg was watching, and the people on the street. I put my other hand up to his face and cupped it around his cheek.
‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘Yes, I will.’
16
‘Your mama is in her bedroom,’ Meg said. ‘She asked after you and thought you had gone to the doctor’s on your own.’
‘I’ll go on up,’ I said, moving towards the stairs.
‘She’ll have heard the carriage,’ Meg said in warning. I turned back to look at her. She was smiling, certain she had caught me in some clandestine courtship.
‘Thank you, Meg,’ I said pointedly. ‘That will be all.’
I waited until she had curtsied and gone to the kitchen stairs before I went to knock on Mama’s door.
She was obviously unwell. I don’t think I ever saw her ill more than twice in all my childhood. Although she was so slight-looking, she was strong, and she seemed incapable of taking fevers or colds, having nursed Richard and me through every sort of childhood ailment.
But now she was lying in bed, very pale, with her forehead and hands very hot and dry. She was moving restlessly on her pillow, seeking a cool spot to lay her head.
‘Lie still, Mama,’ I said, going to the bell-pull. ‘I’ll order a cold drink for you, and some warm water to sponge your forehead with. And I’ll have them fetch a doctor to see you.’
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said in relief. ‘What a long time you have been with Dr Phillips today!’
I should have told her then that I had played truant that morning, but she seemed so wan and ill that I let the omission slip into a lie. I raised her up and turned the pillows and took one of the blankets off the bed, and then I went to the door to ask Meg for the things I needed and to send the footman out to the best doctor in Bath.
He came at once and felt Mama’s forehead and looked at her eyes and asked her how she felt. Then he smiled and said very soothingly that it was nothing more than a putrid sore throat, and that she would feel very ill indeed for a week or so, and then perfectly well. He gave her some laudanum and left a small bottle for the pain and to help her sleep, and he recommended lemon tea with a dash of brandy in it.
As soon as he had gone, I scribbled a note to James to ask him to come back and see me, if it was convenient, and one to Mrs Densham to make our excuses from her card party and dinner that afternoon.
James walked back with the footman and learned from him that my mama was ill. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said comfortably. ‘I’ll go to Jimmy Dart and the rest of them and get them moved into the inn. I’ll give them some money to be going along with, and I’ll have the landlady of the inn fetch a doctor for Rosie. You stay here and look after your mama, and I’ll drop in on my way home to tell you how I have done.’
Oh, thank you, James,’ I said, and put out my hand to him. ‘I knew you would. You are kind to interest yourself in them.’
He smiled. ‘I am interested in them,’ he conceded. ‘But I think I am more interested in you, Julia Lacey. Is your mama too ill for you to speak to her about us? I should like to speak to her as soon as possible.’
‘To ask for permission to propose?’ I asked, teasing. ‘You seem to have left it a little late for that!’
He drew me to him with an arm around my waist and turned my face up to him with his cupped hand under my chin. ‘Oh, my darling, you are very, very silly,’ he said softly. ‘I asked permission of your mama a week ago! I told my parents that I should propose to you whenever your mama had heard from Wideacre and given her consent. She told me last night as I took her to her chair that as far as she and your Uncle John were concerned, you might take or leave me as you wished.’
‘Oh!’ I said blankly. ‘She never said anything to me.’
‘Well, they all have this maggot in their heads, don’t they?’ said James easily. ‘They all want to know whether you can be an ordinary young lady or not. And they all think that unless you live elsewhere, you will be plagued with dreams and seeings and hobgoblins. I think they thought you would turn me down.’
‘I should hate to leave Wideacre altogether,’ I said, suddenly afraid that James might want me to live in his home town of Bristol.
‘I don’t see why you should leave it at all,’ James said. He sat down on a sofa by the fire and drew me down to sit beside him. ‘I have a substantial inheritance, which comes to me on my marriage. Why don’t we buy your cousin out of his share of the hall and live there? I could fancy being a country squire if Acre is as you describe it now!’
‘We couldn’t!’ I said, remembering Richard’s passion for the hall, and remembering with some discomfort the old childhood promise that we would marry and live there together.
‘If your cousin cares little for the stock and for farming, then I don’t see why we should not offer him a good price for his half,’ James said reasonably. ‘Or you could sell your share of the hall to him. We could build our own house, and farm your share of the land from there.’
I looked at him suspiciously. ‘You have been planning this!’ I accused. He drew me a little closer to him until it was most easy and comfortable to rest against him, and look up and smile into his warm brown eyes.
‘Of course I have!’ he said. ‘You didn’t think that I was going to take my lovely squire Julia and shut her up in a Bristol town house, did you? Of course I want you to have Wideacre. And I shall buy it for you.’
‘And the dreams and the seeings and the hobgoblins?’ I asked softly.
‘If you are mad, my darling, then I am moving into Bedlam at once,’ he said firmly and drew my face towards his and punctuated his sentence with small gentle kisses on my cheeks, my eyelids and my nose. ‘For you [kiss] are the sweetest [kiss] and the wisest [kiss] and the bravest [kiss] and the cleverest [kiss] and the angriest [kiss, kiss] young woman I have ever had the pleasure of kissing while her mama is too ill to chaperon us!’
I leaped to my feet at that, gasped, blushed and then laughed. Oh, that is dreadful!’ I said. ‘And I am dreadful to be sitting here with you. And you, James Fortescue, are no gentleman at all!’
‘I know,’ he said mournfully. ‘Trade,
my dear. Only the first generation out of the counting-house and still smelling of shop!’
‘You do indeed,’ I said firmly. ‘Now go and run my errands for me, and don’t come and see me again without one of your sisters to sit with us.’
‘I should think they would bless me for that,’ James said as I pushed him out of the room to find Meg industriously polishing the table in the hall.
‘I shall shout through the keyhole that I have the children from Acre safe,’ James said. ‘Or sing it up to your window. Anything rather than be alone with you again. Will you come to dinner tonight?’
‘No,’ I said while Meg dawdled over handing James his cape, hat and gloves. ‘I have written to your aunt. I shall stay at home with Mama.’
‘I’ll go back home to Clifton then,’ James said. ‘I want to have a word with my papa. He’ll want to know his son has joined the minor gentry.’
‘Minor!’ I said in mock outrage.
‘A very little estate,’ James said dampeningly, ‘and scarcely a dowry at all, I understand.’
I gleamed at him. ‘Not bad for a tradesman’s son,’ I said.
‘Not bad at all,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Thank you, Meg,’ he said as he took his hat from her, and then he stepped forward and kissed me on the lips and was out of the door and down the steps before I could say a word.
‘Congratulations, Miss,’ Meg said, reverently shutting the door behind him. ‘Cook will be so surprised.’
And she was away down to the kitchen quarters before I could ask her not to tell them in the kitchen, because I had not even told my own mama yet, nor my uncle. Nor had I written to my cousin.
I should have written to Uncle John and Richard that very day, but Mama awoke from her sleep so hot and so feverish that I sat with her all the afternoon and barely had time to dash off a note to Ralph Megson telling him that I would send the Acre pauper children home to Wideacre as soon as I had confirmation from him.
I waited for his reply; and I nursed my mama. I did not leave her bedroom for more than a few minutes for my meals, or for a little rest in the afternoon when Marianne or Mrs Densham came to sit with my mama. James called every day with flowers for Mama or wonderful out-of-season fruit. She did not seem to be getting worse, so I did not write to Uncle John to bid him come to us; but as the doctor had predicted, she was very ill indeed.
I learned to love James very well during those days. Every day he came with a posy for me as well as for Mama; and his family did his bidding and offered every help they could to make Mama’s illness and my nursing easier. He was a very comfortable person. He was easy to be with, he had no moods, no storms of introspection. James was as blessedly open and as contented as a well-loved child. He cared for me well. He teased me and laughed at me; but when I was tired, he would ask Marianne to play the pianoforte for us so that we could sit side by side on the sofa in silence. In those gentle afternoons he would draw my head down to rest on his shoulder, and on one occasion I slept.
‘You snored,’ he said provokingly as he was leaving.
‘I never did!’ I protested. ‘I never snore!’
His eyes crinkled in his familiar loving smile. ‘Well, I’ll soon know, won’t I?’ he asked in a voice as soft and as warm as a caress. ‘When you and I sleep together in the same bed, every night of our lives.’
My cheeks warmed with a blush at that, but I held his gaze. ‘I should like that,’ I said honestly.
James sighed very softly and bent and kissed me gently and was gone.
Every time he came he brought me a little gift, a bunch of flowers or a single unseasonal daisy from his garden at Bristol. One day he brought me a hoop and a stick.
‘I thought we should take some exercise,’ he said innocently. And despite my protestations, he took me out to the park and we bowled the hoop down the paths, weak with laughter, while the old Bath tabbies looked at us askance.
Every time he left he kissed me. He kissed, with meticulous care, the fingertips of both hands, then the two thumbs, and then finally, as light as the brush of a feather, he kissed me on the mouth.
Every time except once, when Marianne had forgotten her reticule and he came back inside to fetch it. I had gone to the drawing-room window to wave goodbye, and when the door opened, I spun around in surprise. He crossed the room in a few swift strides and caught me into his arms without saying a word. He held me so hard that I could scarcely breathe and he covered my face with kisses and then buried his face into the warmth of my neck and sniffed at my skin hungrily.
‘My God, Julia,’ he said breathlessly. He pulled back a little. ‘I am sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Did I startle you?’
I smiled at him as an equal. I knew he was apologizing for this sudden eruption of passion into our temperate life. He was anxious in case I was a true Bath miss, full of fluster and girlish fears.
I beamed at him. ‘Startle me again,’ I recommended.
We collapsed with giggles at that.
‘Strumpet,’ James said with deep satisfaction, and he cupped his hand under my chin and turned my face up to him. I gazed into his brown eyes without a flicker of unease. If he had wanted, he could have taken me, then and there, on the deep carpet in the afternoon sunshine.
‘Julia Lacey,’ he said slowly. ‘I want you to know that it is only the chaperon system which stands between you and total dishonour.’
‘You love me dishonourably?’ I asked, a little smile lurking at the back of my voice.
‘Deeply dishonourably,’ he assured me, and he bent his brown head down and his mouth sought mine.
We stood, locked in each other’s arms, for long minutes. I was pressing closer and closer to him so that I could feel him down the length of my body; as he tasted my mouth, he groaned very softly.
There was a tap on the door behind us. We moved apart as slowly as if we were swimming underwater. I looked at James. His eyes were dark with desire, his hair rumpled. I put my hand to my head and tried to pin a straying ringlet. Neither of us was able to say, ‘Come in.’
The door opened with commendable caution, and Marianne put her head around it.
‘My reticule,’ she said conversationally to the carpet midway between James and me, ‘was in the hall, where it has been all along. I have now collected it. I am now ready to leave. However, if it is your wish that I should chaperon the two of you from beyond your front door, I should be very glad to have a rug and a cushion on the step, and perhaps a candle at nightfall.’
James laughed and took his sister’s hand. ‘Forgive us,’ he said. ‘We treat you shamefully. Let me take you home now.’ He turned to me with a smile. ‘Until tomorrow, Julia Lacey,’ he said. Then he walked out of the drawing-room and was gone.
I sank down into the window-seat and leaned my head against the shutter and did not know whether to laugh or to weep in my delight at being so well loved. So well loved at last.
Mama remained ill, and she was especially restless in the early hours of the morning. James wanted me to hire a night nurse and undertook to find me one, but four interviews convinced him that there was no one in Bath he would trust.
‘Besides, the doctor is confident that her illness is reaching a crisis and then she will be better,’ I said to him. ‘I am sure it is the fault of the horrid damp city. If she were on Wideacre, she would be well again.’
He nodded. The dry weather had broken and the days I had spent indoors had been damp, foggy and cold.
‘It has been miserable,’ he said. ‘Thank God we got little Rosie Dench out of that cellar before this bad weather started. I don’t think she would have survived.’
James went every day to visit the Acre four. He said they were settling into their new quarters fairly well. Nat was gradually getting a little paler as the years of soot wore off under his enthusiastic scrubbing. Jimmy Dart was fattening up daily, and Rosie was coughing still, but looking better, and could get up and sit in the parlour downstairs most days. Only Julie seemed unable to set
tle.
‘They do understand why I have not been to see them, don’t they?’ I asked.
James nodded. ‘I made sure they did,’ he said reassuringly. ‘And they know we are just waiting for the reply from Acre to say that all is ready for them to leave.’
That reply came the next day, in Ralph’s untutored script.
Send them home, he wrote. Everyone here wants them back. And everyone here blesses you for finding them.
Come back with them. Come back in time for the sowing. You should be here then.
I showed the letter to James.
‘Not a man for lengthy speeches, is he?’ James said, smiling.
‘And he’s not vague,’ I said, pointing to the paragraph which started, ‘Come back with them.’ ‘That sounds very like an order to me,’ I said.
James nodded. ‘The best servants are our masters,’ he said lightly. ‘My papa has a chief clerk who runs the business all on his own. If he ever knew how valuable he was, he could indent for twice the salary. Your Mr Megson sounds like that.’
I laughed. ‘Mr Megson knows exactly how much he is worth,’ I said ruefully. ‘The only reason he does not charge a king’s ransom is because he wants to work on Wideacre, and work for the good of the village. It was he who developed the profitsharing scheme and persuaded the village. My Uncle John says that he would go further if he could.’
‘How?’ James asked.
Oh, I don’t know,’ I said idly. We were taking tea together in the parlour, and Marianne was nobly sitting at the window and alternately looking at the passers-by and at a newspaper. Under the cover of the tea-table James took my hand.
‘I think he would like the village to have common rights to all the land,’ I said. ‘He would have them own the land outright and farm it in common, in the old way.’
James looked extraordinarily interested. ‘He’s not the only one in the country to be thinking of such ideas,’ he said. ‘Could such a scheme work?’
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