Annunciata's cold stare, now directed at him, made Davey want to giggle in despairing amusement. She said, ‘You may assure yourself, and Master James, that I have every intention of enjoying the completed Shawes for a great number of years. Shall we go back?’
She turned her horse, and headed towards the house; but as her profile passed him, Davey felt sure he saw the corner of the Countess's mouth twitching too.
It lacked an hour until dinner when he and Jemmy rode back into the yard at Morland Place, and Davey decided it was good time to shew the boy how to look after his own worse He demonstrated the art of untacking, petting, and rubbing down, and as he watched the child fumbling with the unaccustomed tasks, he talked to him a little about horses, for horse-lore, he felt, could not be learned too early, and if a man was to be at ease about horses, he had to play amongst their legs as a child, as Matt had done, and eat his bread and cheese perched upon a manger.
When the horses were done, and pulling contentedly at their hayracks, Davey lifted Jemmy up on to a manger, and produced a couple of sweet, wrinkled store-apples and let the boy relax, and chatter to him as he would. It was while they were thus engaged that the doorway was darkened, and Davey looked up to see the mistress with one of the nursery maids behind her.
‘A groom said you were in here,' she said without preamble. 'May I ask what you think you are achieving by teaching my son to behave like a stable boy?’
Davey jumped down from the manger, and lifted Jemmy down, and said quietly and politely, 'There is still plenty of time, madam, before dinner. I assure you the boy would have appeared before you in exactly the manner you like.'
‘He is not doing so now,' she said. 'Nurse, take Master Jemmy away, and wash him, and dress him like a gentleman's son.’
The nurse scurried forward, with the ducked head of one who expects to be cuffed on passing: the mistress had a reputation for lashing out when crossed. The nurse grabbed the child's arm with the suggestion of a pinch, and hustled him out into the hot sunshine, and in the silence that followed Davey heard the beginning of a howl, quickly cut short. Then there was only the sound of the steady pull and crunch of the horses eating, the rustle of their feet in the straw. The mistress continued to stare at Davey, and since she was in a position of superiority, with the sun at her back, he was unable to stare back; but he felt an unusual tension about her. She was almost as tall as he, with an upright figure; she looked good on horseback, which was how he thought of her, when he thought of her at all. She was handsome, he admitted, but there was something cold about her, something predatory that tempered the respect he felt he ought to have for Matt's wife. She had completely recovered from her last delivery, and with her high colour and shiny hair he thought she looked like a well-fed horse. But now there was this strange tension. She was dressed for riding, and she switched her crop against her leg in the irritated manner of a cat switching its tail. In cat and mistress, it was not a gesture to be ignored.
Davey kept his face and manner humble, and said pacifyingly, 'I beg your pardon, mistress, but it was by the master's orders. The master thought it would benefit the boy -'
‘Benefit?' she interrupted angrily.
He went on, allowing his voice to crawl. 'Benefit the boy just for a little to run about in the fresh air as the master did himself when young.' She came a step forward into the shadow of the stable. 'You must admit it did the master no harm.’
The crop flicked faster, but she spoke as if she had been pacified.
‘If it was the master's orders, I suppose you did right,' she said.
‘Thank you, mistress.' Davey turned away deliberately and went to pick up the saddle from the corner. When he turned, he saw she had moved closer again.
‘Come here, you - what's your name? Davey,' she said imperiously. He took one step only, in token of obedience, and looked straight at her. She was still staring at him. Now she was out of the sun, he could see her face, and it made him shiver inwardly. She was smiling, but there was nothing of allure in it. It was like a cat's smile, watching a mouse come, step by step, out from its hole into a supposed empty room.
‘You have known the master a long time, have you not?' ‘All my life.' The movement of the crop called his eye, but he knew he must not look away from her face.
‘You must feel grateful to the master for taking you in.' Her voice was edged with sarcasm. He did not answer. ‘Grateful to me, too. You know that the disposition of the household servants is the mistress's prerogative. Without my consent, you could not have come here.' He did not answer; his gaze wavered, and as suddenly as a snake strikes, she flicked her crop across his face, not hard, but painfully. Water sprang to his eyes, and she smiled a little, watching him.
‘Dumb insolence,' she said. 'I could have you whipped, you know. You think I couldn't? While the master is away, I am absolute here.’
While the master is here, too, his mind added, and she must have seen it in his eyes, for she hit him again, but more lightly, on the other cheek. The tears burst from his eyes, and he felt them on his cheeks. She laughed now, and put out her hand, and lifted a drop from his face on one finger and carried it to her mouth. It was a gesture of such sensuality that despite himself he felt his body twitch in response. She saw that, also in his eyes, and her voice became a purr.
‘Did I hurt you? Oh, poor Davey. Cruel, cruel mistress! But I can be kind, too. I can make it up to you, poor Davey.' She stroked his cheek, crimson from her blow, with the tips of her fingers, and they stung him like aquavit on an open wound. 'Would I have you whipped? I wonder. I think perhaps when I saw you stripped, I would relent. It would be shame to spoil such pretty skin with cruel stripes, wouldn't it? When there are much nicer things to be done.’
She was close to him now, and he could smell her sweet breath, and the scent of her skin and clothes. Her face was close to his, and he could see the soft wrinkling of her eyelids under their paint, and the down of fine, colourless hair on her cheek. His body was on fire, and the pain in his groin served to keep his mind on his duty. She looked into his eyes, and her expression changed minutely.
‘You don't like me, do you?' she said, and it was nearer to a true thing than anything else she had said.
His breathing was difficult, but he said quickly, 'It isn't my business to like or dislike you. You are the mistress. You are Matt's wife.'
‘Forget that, just for a moment,' she breathed. Her eyelids lowered slowly, her face tilted upwards, her lips parted softly and hovered over his. Davey's hands rose without his volition and closed over her arms, and he pulled her towards him; then stopped, holding her immobile with a fraction of an inch between her body and his. The closed eyes opened a slit, and then flew open with alarm.
‘Let me go. You're hurting me. Let me go I say!' She wriggled, then tried to wrench herself free, and tears of pain rose in her eyes in their turn. 'You're hurting my arms!' Her voice broke in a whimper. 'I'll have you whipped to death!' she cried, and it was the impotent cry of a child. He eased his grip, set her back from him on to her feet, and released her.
‘Better go, madam,' he said evenly. 'There will not be time to change before dinner. You don't want to come into the drawing room in your riding habit, do you?’
She blinked back the tears of pain and rage, and glaring at him hissed, 'You'll be sorry for that, I promise you!' ‘No, mistress, I won't, and I hope you won't either,' he said gently. She bit her lip and, turning abruptly, was gone in a rustle of skirt on straw.
Davey was left alone with the steady sound of the horses. He reached out absently and ran a hand over the neck and shoulder of the nearest horse, and it flickered its ears contentedly. 'Oh, Matt,' he said aloud, 'you married a wrong 'un.' The horse sneezed, rubbed its muzzle thoroughly against its knee, and reached for another mouthful of hay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Christmas 1708 was the first Christmas for some years that India had not been large with child, and she determined to enjoy the season to the full.
‘Dearest, however hard it seems, I do not want to have another child yet,' she said to Matt. ‘Do you think me very wicked? But I don't want to be worn out with it, so that I have no strength. After all, if I am strong and healthy, I will have stronger and better children when I do get with child again.’
She did not need to present arguments to Matt. He had long grown accustomed to her governing of their sexual activities, and was not by any means the sort of husband to insist on a pregnancy a year. The servants thought him foolishly indulgent to his wife, and would have been horrified if they knew even the half of it; but how could Matt, who was tender to all creatures, be less than tender to the one he loved best? The missus, on the other hand, was tough enough for both, and liked to quote as an example of her sound good sense the remarks made upon the breeching of Edmund, which happened just before Christmas.
The little boy, just five years old, had paraded before his parents in his new manly clothes, and Matt, smiling through his tears of pride and pleasure, had said, 'Now you are in breeches, you will be able to have a pony of your own, and learn to ride properly.’
The missus, however, had remarked only, 'Now you are in breeches, you will be able to be beaten by Father Cole. You will be a man, after all.’
The master was, of course, said the servants, a very proper feeling gentleman, much given to tears, but might well have foolishly indulged his children had not their tutor had charge of the whippings and birchings. Edmund, on hearing his mother's remark, glanced at his father, and then catching his older brothers' eyes, made a sort of grimace. Beatings did not trouble Jemmy at all, and the castigation seemed only to toughen his already bold spirit, but poor Rob was much downcast by it all, being a quiet, gentle child. It was not possible any more even to avoid beatings by the exercise of virtue, for India, on one of her sudden and brief visits to the schoolroom, had decreed that all the children should be beaten first thing on Monday morning, to give them a foretaste, by way of warning, of what idleness or wickedness would bring them during the week. Matt had intervened only in so far as to tell Father Cole privately that as there was an unwritten rule at St Edward's School that no boy should be beaten twice in the same lesson, his own children in his own house should have at least so much mercy.
Except for Annunciata, who remained in London as usual at that season, the family was all together at Morland Place for the first time in many years. John and Frances came from Emblehope, bringing with them their two month-old baby Jack, and the news that Frances was pregnant again. Their first two babies had died, one within weeks of birth, the other when he was a year old. They seemed very happy, and marriage had evidently agreed with John, filling out his frame to more manly proportions, while the good air of Northumberland had cured his asthma. His father-in-law Francomb was also with them, grown a little rounder, but as jolly as always, making sly sidelong remarks which seemed to cause the mistress some confusion, and evidently doting on his grandson.
‘He'll have a grand place to inherit if he lives to be a man,' Francomb said, holding the baby high against his shoulder and ignoring the attempts of the nursemaid to reclaim her rightful property. 'My son John has some right good ideas about improving the land. I warrant you we'll be growing oats and rye in places where there's been nothing but bog-grass and heather until now.' He grinned amiably at John, who smiled and bore up under the thump on the shoulders that accompanied the compliment. It was evident that the unlikely pair got on well together. They and Matt occupied every spare moment with talking farming, when they weren't talking horses.
Lord and Lady Ballincrea presented a very different picture, being coldly polite to each other, and still childless. Clover had not so much as had a miscarriage in six years of marriage. She listened with evident interest to the talk of marling and crop-rotation, but she spoke very little; Arthur had no interest in the land, and would sooner chatter about clothes to India, and husband and wife rarely spoke directly to each other. They both looked very elegant and well-to-do, but Clover had grown thin and grave, quite unlike the round, rosy, happy creature she had been as a child; while Arthur had put on weight, and looked flabby and disconsolate under his finery.
For the first time in years the family from Aberlady had joined them. Mavis still wore black, for it was the custom in Scotland for widows to stay in mourning until they married again, but it suited her fairness very well, and she looked handsome and prosperous. Her daughter Mary was eight now, a tall girl, handsome in her mother's image, and precociously intelligent. Matt found pleasure in talking to her, and wished more than once that Father St Maur had been there to hear her converse. She spoke with equal facility in English, French or Latin, and far out-stripped Jemmy in her knowledge of mathematics and astronomy.
‘What a pity she's not a boy,' Matt said once to Mavis. ‘She could have been a great man. Instead of which she will have to marry someone, probably with a poorer mind than her own, and all that education will be lost in childbirth.'
‘She is a considerable heiress. She will make a good match,' Mavis said, and then, as if to comfort Matt, she added, 'If she marries nobly, she will have perhaps enough freedom to continue to use her mind. In Scotland there are learned women, even married ones.’
Matt enjoyed being with Mavis again, but most of his enjoyment came from the awareness that her power over him had gone. India had laid the ghost, and he could talk to Mavis without any touch of regret for his lost love.
Sabina and Allan Macallan had changed very little from Matt's memories of them, except that Sabina was thin and pale from her last miscarriage. Since her marriage she had had two miscarriages, and had borne a child that died in its first week of life, but her firstborn son, Hamil, still thrived. He was three years old, and had inherited the Morland colouring from his mother. He looked, indeed, very like her, with the same resolute, bold blue stare and small eager face. Matt remembered she had always talked a great deal, and that had not changed with marriage; but he noticed that even while she chattered, her eyes missed nothing, and there was that about her which suggested to Matt that the flow of talk was a screen behind which she hid a considerable wit.
The season passed happily and in the traditional manner. Matt had made Davey Lord of Misrule, which annoyed India very much, though when pressed by Matt she would not admit any objection except that 'he was not a member of the family - indeed, he was almost a servant'. Matt said firmly that Davey was not a servant but his friend, at which India snorted with derision.
‘Friend! A common shepherd's son!' she cried. But one thing on which Matt stood firm against her was his friendship with Davey, and she knew better than to press the matter further. In fact, Davey had settled in very well at Morland Place, and the servants had adapted so far to his equivocal status that when Matt was absent they frequently applied to Davey for decisions and orders -which infuriated India. But Davey was always gravely, punctiliously polite to her, and she had nothing that she could legitimately complain of. If she felt that his humble mien before her was derisive, she could not very well say so.
Davey made an excellent Lord of Misrule, organizing games which entertained and involved everyone and made use of the diverse talents and tastes of the heterogenous party. His centrepiece was a play acted by the children for the adults, in which the principal parts of the King and Queen of Bohemia were taken by Jemmy and Mary Morland, though the entry of small Hamil as a shepherdess, leading Oyster, looking very ashamed of himself wrapped in a white woollen shawl to represent a sheep, produced the greatest sensation.
But throughout the celebrations, India was, and demanded to be, the centre of attention, and Davey, looking on with a cynical smile, saw how she must have everyone paying her homage, how if she were in conversation with John Rathkeale and Arthur came by, she would have to call him over to give his opinion upon some trivial point. It was evident that Arthur, at least, did not object to being beckoned; perhaps, Davey thought, he found India a refreshing change from his sad and quiet wife. The
only person who resisted the ploy was John Francomb who, like Davey, watched India from afar with ill-concealed amusement, and if approached by her or called to attend, would slip away, politely but firmly, on some other business.
One result of India's exercises with Arthur was revealed to Davey by Matt. Davey was rubbing down Star after a hunt - it was a job properly belonging to the grooms, but Davey always found it soothing, and knew Matt appreciated the extra care taken of his beloved horse. Matt, who had gone into the house, came back out and sought out Davey in Star's stall.
Davey acknowledged his presence with a nod, and carried on methodically rubbing the damp black coat, and Matt, after lounging in silence against the doorpost for some time, said, 'I grew up with Clover, you know. She was like a sister to me.'
‘I know,' Davey said, and Matt looked grateful.
‘Yes, of course you do. You were almost one of us. Arthur - Lord Ballincrea - never was. though we were all in the nursery together. The servants treated him differently - he was always little Lord Ballincrea - and then he set himself apart too. He used to bully me. I could never like him.' A pause, and then, diffidently, 'I am afraid that perhaps I let that early dislike prejudice me.' Another pause. 'I cannot like him, even now.’
It was a difficult confession, and Davey said nothing, only nodded calmly, as if they were discussing the prospects for the harvest. Matt went on, as if it were not of great importance.
‘He has always got on very well with the mistress, though, so he can't be a bad man, can he? He and the mistress have had many long talks this Christmas.'
‘I see they have plenty to say to each other,' Davey said. Matt moved restlessly, and then came nearer, seeking confidence.
‘They have no children - Arthur and Clover.' Davey nodded, bending to brush between Star's forelegs, so that his face was hidden. Matt would talk better to the back of his head, he knew. 'India has heard of a new man in London, who has a means to make barren women bear. An operation of cutting with a special instrument and - I don't know what else. She has persuaded Arthur to call in the man to work on Clover.’
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