by Karleen Koen
The satisfaction, however, carried within it a small, poisoned barb he floundered upon. For in his heart of hearts, he would have loved to look upon a child of Roger's; the irony was that the mother did not matter; she was a vessel, a receptacle, nothing more; she did not matter…if she had been anyone other than Barbara. To see the imprint of Roger upon a small face. What satisfaction, what joy, what completeness there would have been in that sight. But such was life. His carriage awaited, as did his ship. His beloved France, his estate, wooded and cool in the summer. His gardens. His books. His treasures. Another world from here. Another life.
* * *
Jacombe, the banker, cleared his throat and glanced at Roger. "The amount," he said, "as best I can find, comes to £250,227."
There was a short silence as, appalled, Roger stared at him. The amount was so much more than he had figured, even in his wildest additions and subtractions, with Montrose late into the night.
An unexpected addition of £200 pounds in gold, Jacombe was saying. Delivered two days ago to your account. Other than that, as you know, no cash of any kind. Loans outstanding totaling some £70,000. Jacombe's voice was dry, the amount shocking even him, banker that he was. £70,000, thought Roger. Money to this friend or that, gambling debts, horse racing, personal loans, a scrawl across a sheet of paper promising payment, word of a gentleman. Gentlemen who now said they could not repay a penny. They were all bankrupt. How weak I feel, he thought, wiping the sudden sweat on his forehead.
Overdue payments to contractors, piling up since before August. The carpenters, the bricklayers, the painters, the laborers, the craftsmen, the makers of furniture and draperies, a bill for French damask, the color of sea foam, with embroideries, coming to some £15,000. Barbara's bedchamber, thought Roger. Barbara's bed. He had envisioned Barbara naked, white, red–gold against that soft green.
Jacombe's voice droned on. Stocks, thousands in the Mississippi Company, now valueless, in South Sea and London Assurance and Royal Exchange and other companies he had speculated in over this summer, their value gone or dropping. Payments due on the land he had bought surrounding Richmond over the summer, which would increase in value in the long term, but had to be paid for in the short term. Bills for wax candles and Venetian marble. Had he actually spent £20,000 on Venetian marble?
Payments past due on the loans he had arranged to pay for the budding of Devane House and Devane Square. And mortgages when his initial funding had run short. Most of the square stood empty, and it was still unfinished. Few had the cash to lease his town homes, and he had not the cash to pay the laborers to finish. A cycle, pulling downward. If you walked through the streets of London, you met people trying to sell coaches, gold watches, diamond earrings; servants roamed the streets, looking for work; Long Lane and Monmouth and Regent Fair, the streets of the used clothing markets, offered richly embroidered waistcoats and petticoats, the clothing of the wealthy, the titled, along with their rags and secondhand gowns. Everyone was selling. No one was buying.
Who had told him just the other day that credit was frozen solid? Whoever it was had not been able to send £25 from London to Dublin by a bill of exchange. The pamphlets, the street ballads, the lampoons knew who to blame—South Sea villains, South Sea thieves, the directors, his face, his name, featured among them as prominently as John Blunt's. Though his part in it was much smaller. Blunt had pushed through the schemes. He had only helped with bribes, the lists of subscribers. Devane House had been his avocation, his hobby, his world, not the rise and fall of stock, though he, like anyone, profited from the rises. But not enough. Not nearly enough. Now the directors of the Bank of England said they would not engraft stock. They had survived the run on their cash coffers, by the skin of their teeth, and they did not care what happened to anyone else now, as long as they survived.
London was a changed place these days, a ruthless place. Men who smiled upon you yesterday demanded payment on old loans today. Women who once lowered their eyes seductively now asked you straightforwardly to buy their diamonds and pearls. The banks in Amsterdam had recalled cash advanced to London, denying credit, selling stock held as collateral. The Prince of Wales refused to see him. When he appeared at court now, it was as if a space surrounded him, a space into which few people ventured. Members of Parliament were in town, angry, perplexed, bearing petitions from their townships asking for punishment to the creators of the present misfortune. Yet who was to blame? Parliament for wanting to rival France? Blunt for manipulating credit? The ministers for ignoring it? The other directors for allowing it? Himself, for concentrating on Devane House, on Barbara? He pulled at his cravat. He could feel the familiar breathlessness. It would be followed by pain, by the burning in his abdomen and chest. He needed to calm himself, to rest. There were solutions. There were always solutions. If a man did not panic.
What was Jacombe saying? Something about drawing up a list of assets, a list of disposables, though as a banker and businessman, he knew this was the worst of all possible times to sell anything. Roger dismissed him and stood a moment at his desk, a finely made French desk of intricate, inlaid woods and mother–of–pearl and marble. He took deep, gasping breaths of air. He could hear himself, and the sounds he made frightened him. He could not get enough air. He managed to open a window that overlooked his gardens, his pavilion of the arts. A fog was rolling in. The air he sucked into his lungs was wet, moist, on his cheeks, in his throat. He drank it thirstily. November was supposed to be the season of fogs; it was a week away yet. This was an early fog, blurring his vision of his pavilion, distorting his sight. He shook his head. He felt as if a fog were rolling in over his mind. He saw Philippe. And Richard. Standing in the fog. Philippe was wise to leave as he had. He had not even said good–bye, but one could not blame him. He had not done well by Philippe. The burning grew stronger. He must not think of that. He must rest. Calm himself. Not allow panic to overwhelm him. He was tired. He had been working too hard, going from meeting to meeting, argument to argument, the trip to Tamworth, the disgrace, the worry over his account books. His mind raced in spite of his effort to calm it.
Two hundred fifty thousand pounds. An incredible sum. He could never pay it off. His belongings would have to be sold. If he could hold creditors off—and he could. He was related by marriage to the Tamworths, the King of England was his friend, as were Robert Walpole, Lord Townshend. The list of those who owed him, in some form or another, was endless. He would begin calling in his markers. If he could hold his creditors off, he could wait, wait until the market calmed, and then sell discreetly. He rubbed his chest. The pain was spreading. He might even have to sell Devane House. Options. What were his options? The governorship of a colony, surely, the king would grant that. Barbados. Jamaica. He smiled, but the smile turned to a grimace. He grunted with pain. God, it hurt. He must lie down. Barbara would come with him. Her youth was his talisman. He dreamed of her at night, her long, white slenderness, the thick red–gold hair loose on her shoulders, her bare breasts, the red–gold between her legs. Soon he would kiss that red–gold; he would possess her again, totally, and they would start anew.
The pain doubled, tripled. It was blinding, staggering. He fell to his knees in front of the window, clawing at it. A rock, the mightiest rock in the world, was on him, on his chest, crushing him, crushing him. Down, down, down. He fought it. Richard. He struggled to push it off. Philippe. He struggled to breathe. Barbara. He had no power, no strength. No, he thought, as the fog rolled in over his mind. Not now. Not yet, I am not ready. I am still young. Barbara. Young enough to…and then the fog, gray, cold, crushing, slipped over into soft darkness, soft like a woman, soft. And his last conscious thought was how glad he was of the softness, because the other, the pain, life, was unbearable.
Chapter Twenty–Six
No, Mama," Jeremy said.
Shaking with fever and chills, his voice rose high and strained in the room as he recognized the doctor, with his black bag of pain. Jeremy looked at Jan
e with begging, fever–bright eyes.
"No, Mama. Please!"
The baby within her kicked in sympathy with Jeremy, with her own feelings. Whenever the doctor came, he brought more pain: in the black river leeches that made Jeremy scream with fright; in the stinging, burning plasters; in the bad–tasting medicines; in the hot liquids poured down throats and ears. She did not blame Jeremy; she could barely stand the sight of the doctor herself, but Jeremy was not better. The others, after weeks of nursing, lay wan, weak, but well in their cribs and beds. But not Jeremy.
His cough had deepened. He complained of new, sharp pains in his chest. "It hurts me to breathe," he said. His fever did not go away. And yesterday there was blood among the yellow mucus he had coughed up. The sight of that blood made Jane's heart stand still. As she stared at him, with his too–thin body and his too–bright eyes, and the tiny rattle in his breath, she thought, dear merciful Lord Jesus, we are beyond pepper possets and barley water and fever cordials. Dear merciful Lord Jesus, make him well.
"Mama! Mama!"
Jeremy tried to climb out of the bed, but Gussy caught him and held him, and his thin arms and legs flailed wildly against Gussy. The doctor had opened his bag and was taking out a jar filled with small, black river leeches, which were applied to the body to suck out the bad humors of the blood.
"No! No! No!" screamed Jeremy. "Mama, Papa, do not make me!"
Jane put her hand to her mouth. The little bit of supper she had eaten rose in her throat.
"Mama! No! Oh, no–o–o."
Jeremy was screaming and flailing and thrashing on the bed, his face transformed into something primitive and feral. Large drops of sweat gleamed on Gussy's forehead, rolling down his face, as he tried to hold a child whose voice was shrill with terror as he struggled to get away.
Thin wails joined Jeremy's; his screams had frightened the others. The baby inside Jane kicked again, harder. The bile rose in her throat. Jeremy's eyes rolled back white in his head, and he began to foam at the mouth. The doctor laid the leeches across Jeremy's chest, carefully, one after another. The boy screamed for his mother, over and over. She managed to open the door and step into the dark hallway. Now she heard how loudly the others were crying, their terror mirroring Jeremy's. Her throat closed and she leaned against a wall, feeling something rise inside her.
"Jane," she heard Gussy call, her name drowned out by the sound of Jeremy, a terrible, breathless sobbing that tore out her heart— "Mama, Mama, Mama." Nothing but her name over and over and over.
She ran. Down the stairs, standing a moment in the hall, breathing heavily, her eyes wild, darting into the kitchen. Cat and Betty sat before the fire, roasting nuts, oblivious of the screams from the floor above as they whispered and laughed.
"See," Cat was saying, with her pretty smile pointing to the grate on which hazelnuts were roasting, "Jonathan's is burning brightest. Jonathan is my true love." Beside her, Betty nodded. Damn them, thought Jane. It was All Hallow's Eve, and they were practicing the country customs which would foretell their sweethearts. You put hazelnuts in the fire, naming each one after a boy, and the one that burned brightest was your true love. Long ago, she and Barbara had done the same thing.
"Damn you!" she said.
They turned to stare at her, their mouths dropping open.
"Damn you both for the lazy, worthless sluts you are!" She heard herself screaming, but she could not stop. "I will beat you both! I will turn you out in the night! I will! Go take care of those children. Go–o–o!"
The veins stood out in her throat as she screamed the last word, holding it in a long, high sound that was becoming hysterical. She heard herself but she could not stop. She put her hands over her ears and ran out of the kitchen, into the dark, the cold. All the while the baby within kicking its fluttering kicks, over and over. I am killing it, she thought, as she ran blindly in the dark. Killing it. And then: it must be easier to birth a baby gone five months than nine months. That would be a blessing. And then: God forgive me, I did not mean it. And then: Jeremy, Jeremy, please do not scream. Please do not die. I love you so. And then she stumbled, falling over a tree root, and plunged to the ground, catching herself at the last moment with her arms. But the weight of her body made her arms tremble with pain, and she sank down, down to the earth, the cold, dark earth, and she curled up into a ball, feeling the fluttering kicks of the child inside her, but thinking, I have killed it. I have killed it for sure. And she lay there, numb.
How tired I am, she thought after a while. For four weeks, she had run up and down stairs, holding one child or another, staying up with their fevers and frets, stirring broths and cordials and possets over the hot fire, the child within her growing, growing, while she became thinner and thinner, too tired at night to eat. There was never time to rest; everyone was ill, crying, tossing with fever. And then had come news about Harry. She could not comprehend it. Not Harry. She did not believe it still. She found herself looking up at odd moments during her day, expecting to see him ride up, a grin on his face. What a jest I have pulled, Janie, he would say, the old, mischievous light in his violet eyes. I made them think I killed myself.
She wanted to grieve over him, wanted to sit quietly and hold the soft leather gloves he had given her in her hands and rub them against her cheeks and smell the cinnabar and think of the apple trees and how they had once sat under them and pledged their undying love. But Harry had died. Perhaps she should have gone to the funeral, perhaps then she could have accepted it. But there was no time, no time for Harry. South Sea, Gussy had said to her before he left, trying to explain, knowing by her stunned silence that the hurt went deeper than she showed. He talked of rivalries between great companies, Bank of England, East India Company, South Sea, about stocks rising and falling, and everyone believing in magic. Even he, he told her. He had lost their savings, he said, confessing in the shock of the news about Harry. All our savings, he had said, which I will save again. She stared at him. Above them, a child was crying. Always, a child was crying. Harry could not be dead. Not Harry. Yet Gussy said he was….
And there was Jeremy. While the others healed, he kept the fever. He held his little chest and cried when he had to cough. She bathed him with lemon water, fed him all the remedies she know for coughs and fever, the combinations of maiden hair, coltsfoot, saffron, sugar, pennyroyal, rose leaves, nutmeg, ribwort, ale, but nothing worked, He tossed and turned and shook with chills, even though she lay in the bed with him, sweating under the number of covers over them both, holding him in her arms, humming little tunes, telling him little rhymes, telling him stories of her adventures with Barbara and Harry when they had all been children. Tell me again, he would beg, between bouts of shaking. Tell me again. And she would, until her voice was hoarse.
But he did not get any better. And, then yesterday, in that moment of heart–stopping stillness, she saw the blood he coughed up, mixed with the mucus and phlegm. Blood. Frightful thoughts raced through her head: consumption, years of dying, the children separated, sent away so the others should not catch it, consumption. Not Jeremy. Not her dear Jeremy who had grown under her heart and helped her heal over Harry. Her firstborn. Her little son. Her helper. Her brave, dear boy, with his wayward hair and thin legs and sweet, high voice. She would not let it be so. It must not be so. She had not endured those hours of bone–wrenching labor, the clumsiness of that first midwife, the pain, the total depth and breadth and width of that pain, for Jeremy to die now. What was the use of enduring childbirth if the child you bore did not live? It was the sight of it, its helplessness, the way it nestled blindly in your arms, that made the pain bearable. The child was the reward. God could not take her reward from her. She would never survive it. Never.
She shivered with cold. She was a fool to be out here lying in the dark. Country folk believed the spirits of the dead were out on All Hallow's Eve. Harry, she thought, are you out here wandering, wandering…? Take a candle, go to the looking glass, eat an apple before it and com
b your hair—the face of your loved one will be seen looking over your shoulder. Long ago, when she was a girl, she and Barbara did all the country charms, Barbara laughing at them but doing them, she more serious. Harry. She never saw his face in that mirror, but she had once loved him nonetheless. He slit his throat, Gussy had said. Harry. Wild. Boyish. A dream. He will never have any money, her mother told her, trying to comfort her long ago as she cried and cried and cried. There is bad blood there. Bad blood. Fly, Ladybird, fly north, south, east, or west. Fly where the man is found that I love best. How the blood must have gushed from his throat when he cut it. Harry. The blood. In Jeremy's throat, too, coming up with the phlegm and mucus. Jeremy.
Someone was lifting her up from the ground. Someone was murmuring her name, wrapping a woolen cloak around her, kneeling beside her and chafing her cold, cold hands. Gussy. Her dear Gussy. Fly where the man is found that I love best.