The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3)

by Julia Brannan

  Lady Winter, who had been about to sit down, now stood again, wavering between taking advantage of the window of opportunity to go, and curiosity as to where the Peters’ had been for three months.

  “Do not let us keep you if you have an urgent appointment, my lord,” said Beth. “I am sure we will meet again very soon.”

  “Indeed,” said Lady Winter, brightening. “Now that you are back, you will of course be attending Clarissa’s birthday celebrations next week. They promise to be most exciting. Dinner at their house followed by a visit to the opera, at which Mr Handel will be playing! Edward has reserved two boxes especially.”

  “Capital,” sniffed Lord Winter without enthusiasm. “Now if you will excuse us.” He sketched a bow at the company, tucked his wife’s arm firmly under his own and left, as hastily as decorum would permit.

  “My dear Anne,” began Sir Anthony again as soon as the door had closed, moving to kneel by her side. “There are no words sufficient to express our distress on hearing the news of your tragic loss. We are distraught.”

  “You are very kind, Sir Anthony,” said Anne in a monotone.

  “It is not kindness which moves me, my dear, but concern for yourself. I am so terribly sorry.” He sounded really genuine. “I cannot imagine how I would cope if anything were to happen to my dear wife. I would be beside myself.” He took her limp hand in his and stroked it comfortingly.

  For the first time since he had entered the room, Anne looked at him.

  “Oh Sir Anthony,” she breathed, her eyes filling with tears. “You cannot believe how horrible it has been.” She looked down at the hand stroking hers, and a huge tear splashed onto the black silk of her dress.

  “Oh God!” she wailed, throwing herself out of the chair and into his arms so unexpectedly that he almost toppled over backwards. “It was awful!” she wept into his shoulder. “Everybody has been so kind, but they keep reminding me that I am as rich as Croesus, as though that should be a consolation. I cannot bear it, I cannot!”

  His arms came round her as she dissolved into a paroxysm of sobbing, and while her husband patted the bereaved woman’s back and murmured words of comfort, Beth took the opportunity to turn the lamp up a little more. She looked around the room, appalled. The windows were tightly shuttered and every piece of furniture was draped in black crepe. No cheering fire burned in the grate in spite of the season, and the room was very cold. The air smelt old and stale. What was Charlotte thinking of? What were any of Anne’s so-called friends thinking of, to allow her to bury herself like this?

  Instinctively Beth moved towards the window, intending to open the shutters a little. Sir Anthony shook his head urgently; his stark white face was one of the few things clearly visible in the unrelieved black, and Beth abandoned her progress across the room.

  After a time Anne’s sobs gave way to mumbled apologies, which Sir Anthony brushed off, continuing to cradle her in his arms. I must have looked like that, thought Beth, when I came home from France and threw myself at Duncan. Poor Anne. She could not be reconciled with her husband. Beth sat down and waited for her to recover.

  “I am so sorry,” Anne was still saying, when the baronet finally considered her recovered enough to release her. She sat back into her chair, wiping her eyes with the tiny and useless scrap of lace which passed for a handkerchief in polite society.

  “Anne,” said the baronet, handing her his own more substantial handkerchief, “would you think me terribly impertinent if I were to ask for a fire to be lit? Only it is so dreadfully cold in here.”

  Anne started, and seemed to remember herself a little, which was what he had intended. Unused to considering her own needs, she had nevertheless been conditioned through years of sacrifice to caring for others, and now leapt into action.

  “Oh, how remiss of me!” she cried, ringing the bell. “Of course. I have not thought of such things, since…and some refreshment, too. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, a little refreshment would be excellent,” said Beth, who was not at all hungry but hoped that Anne would be persuaded to eat something, even if only out of politeness. She had always been thin, but seemed to have lost even more weight recently. She must hardly have eaten anything for the last three weeks.

  The fire was lit, the refreshments brought, and Anne was persuaded with some difficulty to eat a small pastry.

  “I do not want to sound unkind,” she said, feeling a little better now she had made her guests comfortable, “but I often feel that, with the exception of Charlotte, and yourselves of course, nobody really has any understanding of what I am going through. I almost suspect that some people think I married Stanley only for his money. They seem surprised that I am not dancing with joy at the prospect of widowhood.”

  “I’m sure nobody would be so unkind as to think such a thing,” said Beth, who was certain that was exactly what the majority of people were thinking. Lord Redburn had been over thirty years older than Anne. It would not occur to mercenary society that she might possibly have loved him. Beth wondered how long it would be before someone speculated aloud as to whether Anne had, in fact, poisoned her husband to get her hands on his wealth.

  “It was quite clear to me, and I am sure to everyone else too, that you loved him dearly,” Sir Anthony said.

  “I did!” cried Anne. “I do! Oh what will I do without him! I do not know how I can continue living without him by my side. All the light has gone from my life!”

  Beth silently cursed Charlotte, whose sentiments these no doubt were.

  “Yet you must continue living, Anne,” said Beth firmly. “And he has left you a most precious gift, which should be a comfort to you in this terrible time.”

  Anne looked at Beth, surprised.

  “I am not interested in his money,” she said. “I would give it all away just for the joy of one more day with him.”

  “I am not talking of money, Anne,” said Beth. “I speak of the child you are carrying. His son or daughter.”

  “Oh yes,” said Anne without enthusiasm. “Poor child! What it will be to be born into this world already fatherless!”

  Sir Anthony almost laughed, clearly reading Beth’s thoughts in her expression as she contemplated the joys of throttling her cousin. He lowered his head quickly as if pondering the truth of Anne’s, or rather Charlotte’s, dramatic utterance.

  “It will not be born into the world at all,” Beth replied, keeping the exasperation from her voice with some difficulty, “if its mother doesn’t start to take care of herself.”

  * * *

  “Do I detect another plot brewing in your devious little mind, my dear Beth?” asked Sir Anthony on the way home, much later. They had finally left Anne ensconced in her salon in front of a roaring fire, feeling if nothing else a little warmer, and had paid a flying visit to Lord Edward’s, whose complaints at their lack of consideration in calling at an irregular hour as well as not informing those dear to them of their whereabouts for three months were cut short by the appearance of dinner, to which Sir Anthony and his wife declined a begrudged invitation, stating that their own meal would be upon the table at home presently.

  “No. Yes,” said Beth. “Well, she can’t be left like that, can she? She’ll die of starvation or cold, or drown in sentimentality, if I leave her to Charlotte. It’s bad enough having to put up with one widow rambling on incessantly about poor dear Frederick. I have no intention of allowing Anne to go the same way. It would be unbearable.”

  “And in any case, you like Anne,” said her husband.

  “Yes,” she agreed, realising it fully for the first time. “Yes, I do. She’s kind and caring, and obviously had a horrible selfish family. I think there’s more to her than meets the eye. She had enough strength of personality to nurse her parents, and was forceful enough to stop Lord Redburn drinking, and she obviously loved him. What she needs now is some time to realise that she is capable of living alone, that she doesn’t need to lean on anyone else. She’s financially independent now
. With encouragement, she’ll learn to be emotionally independent too.”

  “You must remember though, that as well as being dependent on others, she needs to feel depended on,” mused Sir Anthony. “She has a lot of love to give, too. The danger in you winkling her out of her mausoleum will be that she’ll be vulnerable to anyone who shows her any affection, for quite some time.”

  “True. But she’ll be in mourning for six months at least. That should be long enough for her to find her feet, with our help,” said Beth, “by which time she will have had her baby, which will be completely dependent upon her. What better focus for love than a helpless reminder of poor dear Stanley?” She smiled, and her husband shook his head in despair.

  “What do you intend to do?” he said.

  “I intend to prise her away from Charlotte’s influence, with Caroline’s help,” said Beth. “I’ll get her to come to Clarissa’s birthday party. It will be the ideal way for her to start facing the world again, in a large company where she doesn’t have to contribute too much to the evening.”

  “What?” said Sir Anthony. “But that’s only a week away. It isna possible. It’s too soon.”

  “Would you care to make a wager on it?” she asked sweetly.

  “No, I wouldna,” he replied hastily, remembering the last wager he’d lost with his wife.

  “Well,” she said. “You concentrate on speaking only English for two days, then. You’re not doing very well at the moment. And leave the plotting to me, for once.”

  * * *

  “I hope you don’t mind us calling on you unannounced Anne,” said Beth as she entered the gloomy salon accompanied by Caroline and Freddie. “Only we were just passing, and thought we would pay our respects.”

  They had been ‘just passing’ for nearly three-quarters of an hour, Freddie thankfully remaining deeply asleep, the three of them ensconced in the carriage round the corner until Iain, acting as Beth’s footman and lookout, came to tell them that Charlotte had left and the coast was clear.

  There had been a slight improvement in the room since Beth’s last visit. The lamp was already turned up, and there was a fire in the grate. That the shutters had not been opened was obvious from the air, or rather lack of air in the room. Caroline wrinkled her nose, but otherwise showed no reaction to the depressing atmosphere, having been forewarned as to what to expect by Beth.

  Anne stood up to greet them. Another improvement.

  “It’s very kind of you to call,” she said. “You’ve just missed Charlotte. She left only a few minutes ago.”

  “Oh what a shame,” said Beth with such apparent sincerity that Caroline stared at her, shocked by her friend’s effortless mendacity. “Still, it was you we came to see. We thought you would perhaps like to see how Freddie has grown. I was quite amazed by how much he changed in the time we were away. Caroline tells me you haven’t seen him for some time, either.”

  “You are right, it was unforgivable of me,” said Anne, taking Beth’s words as a rebuke, although they hadn’t been intended as such. She peered through the dimness at the comatose bundle of white lace in Caroline’s arms. “He’s beautiful. He looks like you,” she said.

  “Not at all,” replied Caroline briskly. “He’s turning into the image of his father, poor child. If we open the shutters a little, you will be able to see for yourself.” Without waiting for Anne’s reply, she dropped the dead weight of the child into Beth’s arms and moving across the room, drew the curtains and threw open the shutters. Light streamed into the room. Beth, standing close to her hostess, repressed a gasp of shock at Anne’s appearance.

  She was almost skeletal, her arms mere sticks, her face pallid and sickly with grief and lack of sustenance, her eyes lifeless and deeply shadowed. She blinked in the sudden brightness, screwing up her face against the sun; and then, as her eyes became accustomed to the light, she turned her attention back to the baby.

  “You are right,” she said, looking at the sleeping features with rapture. “He does look like Mr Harlow, doesn’t he?”

  “Edwin, please. And I am Caroline. We are friends, after all,” said Caroline, taking Freddie from Beth and pinching him gently and surreptitiously in the process to wake him up. The infant roused, blinked sleepily up at his mother, and yawned.

  “Oh!” said Anne. “He’s awake!”

  “Would you like to hold him?” asked Caroline.

  Anne smiled, held out her arms automatically, and then lowered them again.

  “I…er…I…,” she faltered.

  “Are you not accustomed to children, Anne?” said Caroline kindly. “Don’t be ashamed if you’re not. Beth was positively prostrate with terror the first time Freddie was dropped in her lap.”

  “That’s true,” admitted Beth, sitting down without being asked to. “I didn’t have any experience of babies, being the youngest child of my family. I was frightened of breaking him. Of course he was a lot smaller then,” she said.

  “I don’t have any younger brothers or sisters either,” said Anne, also taking a seat, her eyes remaining fixed on Freddie, who was stretching in Caroline’s arms and preparing for action. “But I love children. When I was young I used to make clothes in my spare time for the village children. Some of them had hardly anything to wear, poor mites, and used to run around in rags, even in the winter. I loved visiting them.” A little animation came back into her face as she thought back. “There was one little girl I remember particularly. Alice. She was so beautiful, clouds of yellow hair and the sweetest little face! She was lame, some problem with her birthing, I think. But I used to play with her for hours. I made her a doll, and we used to spend a lot of time chatting together and making little clothes for it…” She stopped, realising that she’d been rambling. “I will call for tea,” she said.

  “Do you still keep in contact with her?” Beth asked.

  “No. Father said it was not appropriate for a young lady of my breeding to be seen playing in the dirt with filthy urchins. He was right, of course,” she said sadly. “It is sometimes hard to do the right thing, though. I missed her terribly.”

  Caroline put Freddie, now fully awake, down on the carpet, and threw his ball for him. It jingled merrily as it rolled across the room, coming to a halt at Anne’s feet. She picked it up and held it out for the child, who crawled towards it. He sat up, took it from her with chubby little hands, and smiled winningly up at her. Caroline and Beth sent up a silent thank you to God for the perfect behaviour of the little boy, and watched with deep satisfaction as Anne melted before their eyes.

  “Oh, he’s adorable!” she said.

  “He has my colour eyes,” said Caroline. “But otherwise, as I am sure you can see now, he is his father to a T.”

  “It must be a great consolation to you at this terrible time to know that you will soon have a child of your own,” said Beth. “A reminder of your husband to treasure and love.”

  Anne’s hand fluttered automatically to her stomach, which was flat, concave, even.

  “Of course,” she said with awe, as though realising for the first time that she was pregnant. “It doesn’t seem possible, somehow. I can’t feel anything happening at all.” She looked at Caroline, her eyes brimming. “Oh, do you think he will look like his father, too?” she asked passionately. “That would be wonderful!”

  Remembering Lord Redburn’s bulbous nose and less than prepossessing features, Caroline was inclined to disagree but was too sensible to say so.

  “He won’t look like anything unless you start to take care of yourself, Anne,” Beth said. “If you continue to lock yourself away in this room with no air or light, and starve yourself as you have been doing, you will miscarry.”

  Her seemingly brutal words, combined with the angelic picture of lacy babyhood crawling round her skirts, had the desired effect. Anne flinched as though she had been hit.

  “I hadn’t thought…” she said.

  “Of course you hadn’t,” said Beth consolingly. “You were stricken wi
th grief. You still are. It’s perfectly understandable. But you cannot afford to indulge yourself any more, Anne. You are carrying your husband’s child. You owe it to Lord…to Stanley, and to your baby, to take the very best care of yourself. You must start eating, or you will starve your baby too.”

  “And you must try, hard as it will be, to be cheerful. A baby’s growth in the womb is adversely affected by the mood of the mother, if she is excessively sad,” added Caroline.

  “Is it?” said Anne, her eyes widening.

  “Most definitely,” said Caroline firmly, who had made this fact up on the spot. “A healthy, happy child needs a healthy, happy mother. I will help you, of course. I know a good deal about babies now.”

  “And Anthony and I will help as well, in any way we can. We are your friends,” said Beth. “And you must turn to us. We will be most upset if you do not.”

  * * *

  “She’s coming,” announced Beth the night before Clarissa’s birthday party.

  “Why am I no’ surprised?” said Alex, who had now fallen back into his dual role and felt no compunction about speaking Scots at home. “I suppose ye’re going to regale us wi’ the details of the campaign.”

  “Of course I am,” said Beth smugly. “Caroline and I, after several visits, with the help of Freddie, who has behaved perfectly at all times in her presence, the little angel, have managed to persuade Anne that she owes it to her husband to ensure she has a healthy child. And that to do that she must cheer up and re-enter life a little.”

  “What my wife is trying to say,” said Alex to his brothers, and Iain and Maggie, who were all draped in various relaxed poses around the drawing room, “is that she and her crony have terrified the poor woman into believing that if she has a moment’s unhappiness between now and April, the bairn will be born with two heads.”

  “No we haven’t!” protested Beth. “What we have done is got her eating again, and looking forward to the future a little. God, the woman was a skeleton! She’d have been dead in a month if I’d left her to Charlotte’s tender ministrations. Sympathy is all well and good; encouraging someone to wallow for the rest of their life in self-pity is another thing altogether.”