Tarleton's Wife

by Blair Bancroft

  “That evening at The Bell and Candle you left us in little doubt about your sympathies, Mr. Harding. If I am mistaken, I apologize but you seem to be the most likely person to ask about this puzzle.”

  Jack’s face settled into an even blander mask of indifference. “I would suppose the frame breakers simply haven’t gotten around to your cottages yet.”

  “And here I was supposing it possible we are being spared due to gallantry,” she murmured, eyes wide and innocent. “Perhaps because Nicholas was…is a hero and the house full of defenseless women?” Even more likely, because of boyhood friendship.

  Damned clever female. “Gallantry!” Jack snorted. “What, pray tell, is so gallant about frame breakers?”

  “Sarcasm is unnecessary, Mr. Harding. Recall that I am sympathetic to your cause.”

  “You can’t be sympathetic to the cause,” Jack retorted. “Broken frames mean no rents from your tenants. No rents and you’ll have to start selling off your pretty paintings. If old Woodworthy would let you,” he added rather nastily.

  “Frame breaking may result in a loss of income to Mr. Woodworthy,” Julia countered drily. “Somehow I doubt the estate will be much affected. In any event I am convinced Nicholas would not ignore the needs of his people.”

  For some moments Jack studied her queenly figure in silence before turning to her companion. “And you, Miss Upton, have you become an advocate of frame breaking?”

  Sophronia Upton adjusted her glasses on her nose, then folded her hands on top of her open book. “I am opposed to starvation, Mr. Harding. That is sufficient cause, I find, for me to embrace at least a flirtation with radicalism.”

  “Good God,” Jack breathed with a chuckle. “But have you considered what Woodworthy may do if he finds out what a nest of vipers he is harboring?”

  “Hopefully, that will not happen before I reach my majority,” Julia said.

  “And if the major is still missing at that time, will Woodworthy not still be your guardian?”

  Anger sparked in the depths of Julia’s blue eyes. “The major and my father, so very many of my friends, fought and died for England. I will not stand by and see injustice done in Nicholas’ name. I will take whatever chances I must take, Mr. Harding. I will not tolerate people suffering hunger in the midst of the best farmland in England.”

  Jack suppressed a quiver of appreciation. The cause didn’t need the help of romantic young girls. “I admire your sentiments, Mrs. Tarleton but I must caution you that you are courting disapproval of your neighbors and the possible wrath of your husband, should he come back and disagree with what you are doing.”

  “It seems to me that I am more apt to court the disapproval of my neighbors if their cottagers are attacked and mine are not,” Julia countered, not bothering to disguise her annoyance. “I am well aware of the importance of appearances. Since I have no control over my cottagers’ low wages, I think it best that our frames not be exempt. I also,” she added with significant emphasis, “was raised on military tactics and I know that he who fights the middle ground will frequently find himself annihilated from both sides.”

  Julia noted with some satisfaction that this last remark had struck home. She was not the only one trying to live on both sides of the conflict. From her reticule she withdrew a bag of coins. “I understand there is a fund to assist the families who lose their wages due to frame breaking. I too should like to make a contribution.”

  Jack hefted the bag of coins, regarding Julia with a frown. “A weighty contribution, Mrs. Tarleton. What makes you so sure I know where to place it, or that I will not use it to run off to the Americas?”

  “I am not. I even suspect you regard me with the amused tolerance one reserves for those of negligible power and influence. You can afford to be kind because I cannot hurt you.”

  A gleam lit Jack’s eyes. “Ah, if only that were true,” he murmured wickedly.

  Julia’s pulse pounded in a surprising response to his flirtation, even as she severely disciplined her words. “I am convinced,” she stated carefully, “that you believe in your cause. And that you will stick with it until transportation or the noose. So you might very well be better off if you take the money and run. Though somehow I doubt you will be wise enough to do so.”

  Jack rose to his feet, tucking the leather pouch inside his jacket. “If you found me patronizing, I abjectly apologize.” He sketched a respectful bow. “It is a privilege to know you, Mrs. Tarleton.”

  Julia was never sure why she didn’t leave well enough alone. Even a few minutes with Jack Harding left her feeling she’d been toying with a powder keg. But as he took his leave, she found herself saying, “You are welcome to call at The Willows at any time, Mr. Harding. With or without an invitation. You will not be shown into the Estate Room and we will not discuss business.” She favored him with the brilliant smile which had so charmed him that night at The Bell and Candle. “Unless, of course, it concerns ways in which we might aid your cause.”

  He searched her face for some sign that she comprehended the danger of her offer. As appealing as it was, he could not let her make an error of such magnitude. “Acknowledging me may well be social suicide,” he pointed out with stern resolve.

  “I am firmly convinced Miss Upton has enough credit for us both,” she assured him lightly. A deliberate evasion and well they both knew it.

  In spite of his misgivings, Jack was tempted into a wicked grin. “If I am not hanged or transported, I shall undoubtedly be shot by Nick Tarleton when he comes home.”

  Julia sobered on the instant. “I am not inviting a romantic attachment,” she stated coolly.

  “As if I could doubt it,” Jack returned. “I was referring to your reputation, not reality.”

  “Then that also is a chance I am willing to take,” Julia asserted.

  “Friends, Mrs. Tarleton?”

  “Friends, Mr. Harding.”

  Chapter Six

  Spring 1809

  Icy wind swirled through the dark shadows of the long gallery. Billowing whorls of mist drifted up to obscure the leering portraits of Summerton ancestors. The looming darkness beyond the tall windows was lit with eerie luminescence. Tendrils of ivy swayed, danced and tapped upon the glass. The swirling mists parted, rolling back like the Red Sea before Moses. Nicholas—the man, not the boy—glared down with blazing eyes that scorched everything in their path. His body dissolved into a skeleton with bony fingers, reaching, reaching…

  She turned and ran but the gallery stretched into infinity. The mists congealed into myriad icy crystals. Drifts of snow rose up on every side. Throat constricted, she ran on, panting, turning blue. The towering panes of glass shattered, a groaning lumbering monster bore down on her. She could not move, could not escape. She welcomed the black nothingness of annihilation as a blessed release from terror.

  Not yet, not yet. The unearthly light crept back, revealing the ultimate horror. She was lying in the monster ox cart, stretched full length gripping… Oh, God! gripping… She tried to scream and couldn’t. Nestled in her arms lay the frozen mother, long black strands of hair trapped among glistening sheets of ice. At the mother’s breast the baby flailed its tiny fists, beating at the stiff resistless mass that had given it birth. One liquid brown eye, terrified, accusing, focused on Julia. The miniature mouth opened, a wail came forth. A high-pitched keening, echoing on and on…

  A scream. A ululation of grief and terror. Her own.

  Julia was freezing. Sweat beaded her brow. The ghostly luminescence brightened into flickering candlelight. Anguished brown eyes faded into the anxious gaze of Sophronia Upton.

  “A nightmare, my dear,” she said. “A nightmare, nothing more.” Miss Upton squeezed Julia’s hand, her tone low and soothing. “Truly, my dear, you are all right. There’s nothing to fear.”

  As Daniel Runyon and Meg O’Callaghan burst through the door, Julia struggled back to the world of reality. To her own bedchamber at The Willows, now lit by three wavering candles
and to the troubled faces of her friends. “I’m sorry,” she choked. “A nightmare, that’s all.” Julia offered an apologetic glance to the three figures ringing her bed, each face wavering between the warm comfort of familiarity and the grotesquely distorted shadows cast by their flickering candles. A twinge of terror clawed at her as the nightmarish images threatened to return. She drew a deep breath, calling on Nicholas’ strength to see her through.

  “I haven’t had a bad dream since childhood,” Julia gritted out as nausea threatened to overwhelm her. “Why this should happen now when we’re safe I’m sure I don’t know. Go back to bed, all of you. I am quite mortified to have disturbed you.”

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Upton briskly. “I shall go down and brew a tisane. For, whatever it was, you’re the color of your sheets and frightened out of your wits. Runyon, you may accompany me.” This last, her only admission that Julia’s nightmare might have unsettled even Sophy Upton’s unflappable disposition.

  Meg wiped the sweat from Julia’s brow and fussed with the bed covers, biting back her avid curiosity. When she had settled Julia to her satisfaction and pulled a chair up to the bed, preparing to wait until Miss Upton returned, she could contain herself no longer. “Was it the major, missus?” she inquired in a whisper, as if attempting to avoid disturbing whatever shade had paid her mistress a visit.

  “I-I’m not sure. Nicholas was part of it, I think…but—oh, dear God!—it was the baby! The one I told you of. Trying to nurse from his dead mother…” Julia covered her face with her hands. “Oh, dear Lord above, it was horrible. Quite, quite horrible.”

  Meg so far forgot her position as to put her arms around her mistress in woman-to-woman comfort. “Ah, miss, I do be thinking it ’as to do with what ’appened this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?”

  “You know…”

  That afternoon…that blustery March afternoon Meg O’Callaghan had gone to Julia’s bedchamber to put away a stack of freshly laundered undergarments. She had found her mistress sitting motionless on the side of the bed, staring into nothingness. She did not even seem to be aware that Meg had entered the room.

  “Missus Julia?” Meg inquired tentatively.

  “Finish what you have to do and leave,” said Julia flatly.

  But Meg, who had not progressed all that far in the uphill battle to become a proper ladies’ maid, stood her ground. When she had completed her task, she tiptoed toward the bed and once again addressed her mistress. “Missus Julia, I can’t go away with you lookin’ so poorly. ’Twouldn’t be right. Do you want I should call Miz Upton for yer?”

  “No.” The tone was sharply certain. “Go away, Meg.”

  “That I’ll not,” the maid retorted stubbornly. “Least not until I knows you’ll be a’ right by y’rself.”

  “Very well,” Julia snapped. “If you must know, it is merely my time of the month. Now go away!”

  “O-oh, missus!” Meg breathed. “I am that sorry.” Since she herself had suspected the obvious when Julia had not had her monthly since returning from Spain, Meg supposed the poor missus had hopes of a babe. It would have been a wonder if a great strapping man like the major had failed to sample his winnings.

  “’Twas the bad times, missus,” Meg consoled. “Many’s the time I’ve seen it ’appen on the march. Though nearly all t’ girls was pleased as punch to know they weren’t increasin’.” she added in all fairness.

  Since this was obviously not the best remark to make under the circumstances, Meg gulped and struggled on. “I c’n understand how y’ feel, missus, truly I can. I’ve lost three myself. Aye, truly. Together five years we wus, Sean and me. And lost three babes. One to fever, one stillborn and t’ last lost on the march to Salamanca. Only three months gone, I wus. Sean and me, seemed like we wusn’t meant to ’av no children.”

  The tragedy of this simple admission was enough to startle Julia into saying the first thing that came into her mind. “How old are you, Meg?”

  “Three and twenty, missus, or thereabouts.”

  “You shame me, Meg. Only four years older than I and you’ve lost three children. What right have I to cry over something which never even existed?” Julia wiped at the tears which had begun to flow at last. “There was very little hope really. I knew I was merely fooling myself with wishful thinking. But it would have been so wonderful…”

  And now, in the unrelenting darkness of the night, her grief had come back to haunt her. Silently, the two young women sat, side by side and waited for Sophronia Upton’s return.

  Outwardly, Julia dismissed her qualms with stoic fortitude but for the next several days she feared the coming of night. Sophy Upton steeped an infusion of valerian root and stood over Julia as she downed the drink each evening, wrinkling her nose in disgust. When ten days passed with no recurrence of her dreadful phantoms, the nightmare images faded and were gratefully shoved into some deep, dark crevice of her mind.

  * * * * *

  “For the best results the pieces must be small,” Sophy instructed, laying out a dried valerian root on the long trestle table which ran down the center of the large ground floor room. She and Julia—each in their oldest gowns and voluminous white aprons—were in the stillroom of The Willows. A relic of ancient times when each household brewed its own medicinal decoctions, the stillroom was situated halfway down a hallway which ran from the kitchen to Mrs. Peters’ private sitting room and office.

  When Sophy moved back into The Willows, her baggage had contained one trunk of personal items and a cartload of herbal supplies. One short wall of the stillroom was given over to the cook’s array of glass bottles of finely flaked dill, thyme, sage, fennel, rosemary, parsley and other herbal flavorings. Among these treasures was a group of larger jars which never failed to attract Julia’s eyes. They contained Miss Upton’s most frivolous specialty, flowers frosted with sugar. There were shimmering rose petals, begonias, cornflowers, daisies, forget-me-nots, hollyhocks, honeysuckle, jasmine, lilac, mallow and violet. An endless enticing array waiting to grace cook’s delectable desserts.

  Sophy’s uncut dried herbs were stacked in large glass jars along two sides of the room on wooden shelves reaching from waist level to the ceiling. Below the shelves was an L-shaped wooden workbench, which held tools such as mortar and pestle, measuring spoons, knives, ceramic crocks, cooking pots, utensils, gauze for straining and empty glass bottles of all shapes and sizes. Along the fourth wall, sharing a chimney with the fireplace, was a modern wood-fired stove which Laetitia Summerton had bought for the use of her faithful companion and which had been sorely missed in the cottage to which Sophy had retired.

  Julia never entered the stillroom without feeling the subtle magic of the place. The lingering odors of two hundred years of drying and brewing. Herbs which tempted the palate. Herbs to attract—to brighten the eyes, soften the skin, scent the hair. Or scent a room. Herbs to save life. And take it away. Even the names had a mystery all their own—comfrey, chamomile, hyssop, lemon balm, mint, feverfew, tansy, yarrow, juniper berries, rose petals, rose hips, lavender, lime flowers, verbena and violet. And in the corner, for maximum safety and least light, were the tiny vials of herbal oils, created with the aid of the summer sun and carefully protected as the valuable commodity they were.

  “That’s right, my dear, you are doing very well,” Sophy approved as she watched Julia chop the valerian root. “Hopefully you won’t need it again but ’tis best to be prepared. While you are doing that, I shall brew up some dandelion tea for Peters. ’Tis a damp spring and his rheumatics have come on again.”

  As if conjured by the mention of his name, Peters stepped into the room bearing a silver salver on which rested a visiting card. Julia waved him away. “We are not at home, Peters. Can you imagine us receiving like this? Even Mr. Harding would be shocked.”

  When the elderly butler remained hovering in the doorway, eyes big with news, Julia sighed and held out her hand. “Very well, Peters, give me the card.”


  A gasp escaped her as she read the name, her eyes flying in question to butler’s face. “‘’Tis all three of them, ma’am. Mr. Ramsey Tarleton, his wife and young Oliver, the major’s brother. Come down from York.”

  Sophy Upton moaned. “They will expect to stay. Oh, drat! Why did they not write?”

  “They do not have luggage, ma’am,” Peters offered.

  Stunned, Julia could only murmur, “Where…

  “In the drawing room,” Peters replied. “I told them you and Miss Upton were engaged and would need time before receiving them. I’ve already set cook to preparing a tray.”

  “You are a godsend, Peters,” said Julia with considerable feeling, throwing off her apron and making a dash for the back stairs, Sophy following at a more sedate pace behind her.

  A scant half hour, later Julia, with Miss Upton at her side, had the awkward experience of finding her mother-in-law pouring tea in Julia’s drawing room. Although she had written to the Tarleton family in York shortly after her arrival at The Willows, she had received no reply and certainly entertained no expectation of a visit. If, in the last few minutes while she dressed, she had allowed herself to believe the Tarletons had come to hear news of their son or for the purpose of mutual consolation, that notion was immediately dispelled by the sight of three hostile faces.

  Pamela Tarleton had put off her bonnet, revealing that her once shining blonde curls had faded to a shadow of their former glory. The hand pouring tea wavered as Julia entered the room. Her lackluster blue eyes fixed on her daughter-in-law with the frozen immobility of a frightened rabbit. Mr. Ramsey Tarleton, however, bounded to his feet, ready to charge into battle. His hands clawed stiffly at his sides as if they longed to throttle her. Mr. Oliver Tarleton rose with insolent grace, his resemblance to his older brother stopping with the superficial. He was tall, his hair sandy blond, his eyes gray. But his not unhandsome face lacked the strength of character which so became his brother. His shirt points proclaimed him a dandy but his pantaloons stretched over a belly beginning to show the effects of too much indulgence. His waistcoat was striped in virulent shades of yellow and green, the shoulders of his jacket padded to offset the bulge of his waist. With patronizing leisure he lifted a quizzing glass and examined Julia from head to foot, leaving no doubt he found her deficient in all aspects of femininity. Unlike her similar experience with Miss Upton, Julia did not find it amusing.