‘Clement told me today that my father used to visit the nursery,’ Jemmy said gently. ‘I had no idea before—’
‘You knew nothing of your father, just as you know nothing of your son,’ Mary cried angrily. ‘Jemmy was good enough for Jemmy. Nothing in the world was so fascinating as the life and concerns of James Edward Morland. Your father came up to the nursery every day, sometimes twice. He and I used to walk and talk in the garden, and in the evenings I would play to him, or he would read to me while I sewed. All this you knew nothing of, because you were too interested in yourself. And today, today when he lay dying, you did not even send word to me!’ Tears sprang from her eyes in a painful burst. ‘I had to wait until one of the servants told me in passing, and when I got there it was too late. He died alone, because you did not call for me.’
‘He was not alone. I was there,’ Jemmy expostulated.
‘That was as good as alone. What use were you to him – you never cared for him at all!’ She was weeping with sorrow and rage, and the tears clotted in her throat and made her gasp. Jemmy went to her and took hold of her arms and she struggled against him.
‘I did love him, Mary, you’re wrong,’ He said. ‘He was my father, after all. I never had a mother, and he was everything to me. He was never an easy man to know. You have only seen him in his mellower years. When he died, I felt – I felt—’ He swallowed. ‘I was glad when I saw you were still up. I thought you could comfort me.’
Mary beat ineffectually at his chest, gasping against her sobs for the words. ‘I – comfort you! You think only of yourself! Who is to comfort me?’ He still held her, and she stopped struggling, exhausted, and he gathered her into his arms. She did not resist, but her body was brittle to him. ‘You are a selfish, selfish, callous, hateful creature,’ she wept. ‘I wish I could divorce you. Maybe I will. Maybe I will ask my brother.’
‘You know that is not possible,’ Jemmy said.
‘Not possible – no!’ she flared up again, and with a sudden access of strength thrust herself away from him. ‘Because you need my protection, you and your family, Jacobite traitors that you are! But we shall see what my brother says when I tell him. I’ll not sleep with a traitor again, that’s for sure!’
And she ran towards the door. Jemmy, stinging from her words, caught her in two strides and whirled her away from the door, and as his grasp slipped she staggered across the room and fell against the bed. For a moment they were both silent, aghast, and then Mary began struggling up.
‘How dare you!’ she hissed. ‘How dare you handle me thus. Do you forget who I am?’
But now Jemmy, too, was angry. ‘I remember well enough. You are my wife – and as you seem to have forgotten it, I will have to teach you.’
‘Don’t you dare to touch me,’ she cried, but he seized her and flung her on her back across the bed. He had not intended anything in particular, but when he saw by the expression of her face what she expected him to do, he decided that was the only way to revenge himself on her for the things she had said that still smarted in his mind like new wounds.
‘I’ll touch you all I like,’ Jemmy growled, climbing up after her. ‘You forget your duties as a wife. You forget that I keep you here. I have been kind and patient with you – more than any other man would be – let you have your own way – but now I shall teach you who is dependent on whom.’
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ Mary cried again, struggling madly. ‘I am—’
‘I know who you are-no one ever has a chance to forget that! Ever since you came here you have treated us all like beggars, sneering at us as if it was beneath you to eat at the same table. But I tell you, you cold, proud bitch, that my forefathers bore a coat of arms when yours were cattle-graziers. You may despise me, but I can tell you I am just as sorry to be wed to you as ever you can be.’
He began to drag up her bedgown, and she struggled like a lunatic, trying to kick and even bite him, in such a rage that she had no fear. But she was a small and undersized woman, and Jemmy was tall for a man, and had no difficulty in pinning her down.
‘I’ll kill you for this!’ she gasped. ‘I’ poison you!’
‘You can try,’ Jemmy snarled. ‘One look from you would sour the milk.’
In the silence, Mary began to weep quietly. Jemmy heard the sound, and it wrenched at his heart. He lay as if dazed, appalled at what he had done, at what had been said on both sides.
‘Mary – Mary – I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. It was – like a kind of madness.’ The steady weeping went on. He eased himself from her, and she gasped with pain and wept the louder. ‘Did I hurt you? Oh God, I never meant – I don’t know what came over me.’
‘I’ll kill you for this,’ she said again, but the voice was heartbroken, not angry. He stroked her hair off her face, and she tried to jerk her head away from him. ‘Don’t touch me, you brute.’
‘I’ve never done anything like that before,’ he said gently, puzzled. ‘I’m not like that – anyone would tell you so. I don’t know what came over me. You made me angry—’ At such a time, too, when his father was lying dead in the chapel below them, only a few yards away. Alary turned away from him, hunched over on her side, and wept into the pillow, and Jemmy lay still and did not speak or try to touch her until he heard the weeping slow and ease. Then he pulled out his handkerchief and reached over and thrust it into her fingers. He got up, careful not to touch her, and undressed himself on the far side of the bed, put on his bedgown and got into bed. He leaned across and gently pulled the covers from under her, straightened her bedgown and covered her up. She was quiet now, still hunched away from him, making no sound.
‘Do you want a little wine?’ he said as tenderly as he could. She made a small, negative sound. He brushed the hair from her face and settled the covers around her shoulders, and she let him do it, quiescent like a child exhausted from a storm of weeping.
‘Sleep, then,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Mary. I will be good to you, I promise. I’ll never hurt you again.’
He blew out the candle and settled down, but though he was tired, he could not sleep. He thought that Mary had fallen asleep, but after a while she said quietly into the darkness, ‘From tomorrow, I want my own bedchamber. I do not want to sleep with you ever again.’
Jemmy sighed. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said, believing she would change her mind in the morning. A night’s sleep, he hoped, would diminish the outrage in both their minds. After all, it could not really be termed a rape, could it, when they were man and wife?
All Jemmy’s brothers came home for Matt’s funeral. Tom was still with Captain Wentworth, had transferred with him from the old Agrippa into the Laconia, and as she was lying at Portsmouth, still being refitted, Tom was able to get leave without much trouble to travel up to Yorkshire. Charles and Allen were overjoyed to see their old playmate again, and Jemmy was interested to see the change and improvement in him. He had filled out, though he was no taller, and had a dignified, manly bearing that suited him, and an air of authority which mingled pleasantly with the humour in his bright blue eyes. His face was very much tanned, and at first he had difficulty in pitching his voice low enough for the drawing room, but otherwise he was not obviously the sailor. He had done well in the Agrippa’ as was proved by Captain Wentworth’s thinking so highly of him as to take him with him on his new commission; and Tom evidently thought well of Captain Wentworth, by the number of times that name came up in his conversation. He had twice seen action, and though it was but against guarda-costas of inferior force, the boys were wild to hear about it. As soon as the formal greeting had been exchanged, Charles and Allen towed Tom off to the old schoolroom to hear his adventures.
George was by this time home from Christ Church permanently. He had done his time at University, but had not taken his degree, which marked him out for a gentleman. While at University he had learned a great deal about wine and cards and clothes, and the pedigrees and future inc
omes of all his contemporaries at Christ Church, and he had summed up his University career with the sentiment ‘that Oxford had been well enough, but he was glad to be back home, because the hunting was so much better in Yorkshire’.
Robert, of course, had only to come from his living, which was but five miles away. Indeed, he had never been averse to exchanging his own house for Morland Place at any invitation, and it seemed to Jemmy that the only thing that had ever tempted him to dine at his own table was the dislike of his father, which Matt had never troubled to hide. He came in complaining mood.
‘How can one live even tolerably like a gentleman on such a pitiful income? What an irony to call it a living! Well, a poor parson who keeps a pig and tills his garden for beans and cabbages might possibly just scratch through, provided he were as hardy as a farm labourer. The house is as small as a coffin, and needs so much doing to it to make it habitable that I cannot tell where to begin. The tithe is pitiful, and my income so small that by the time I have paid the servants’ wages and keep, and the keep of my horse, there is nothing left over for my own food and drink. Indeed, my servants live better than I do, since I am obliged to buy them new clothes every year. I cannot remember when last I had a new coat.’
He was so determinedly cross that Jemmy did not like to point out that the wages of Robert’s manservant, Pardric, had always been paid from Morland Place, or that his horse had been a gift from Matt, or that Robert had had all his oats and hay from Morland Place for nothing by the simple expedient of ordering the head lad at Twelvetrees, in Davey’s absence, to send it over. When Edmund arrived, Robert needed all his determination to be heard, for Edmund was even more complaining than he had been, and waxed almost lyrical about the iniquities of the army system.
‘It’s all very well for the colonel, indeed,’ Edmund concluded. ‘There’s no end to the ways he can make money, what with the bounties for recruiting, and dealing with army contractors, and the men’s clothing, and rationing. Our colonel has even worked out a way to make money out of the men that fall sick – he doses them himself, and charges them for his own patent medicines.’ His voice was filled with admiration for the colonel for having thought of it, but then it sank back into discontent at the contemplation of his own plight. ‘But for a poor ensign, all he can hope for is what he can scrape off the men’s billeting allowances, and there, by my cursed luck, I have to be stationed at one of the only three barracks in the country, so there’s no billeting allowance to be scraped! And the Tower is the devil of a place to live, not even the most primitive comforts, and so far from the Court, where one might at least shew one’s face and gain a little credit, that it might as well be in China. If it weren’t for what I have managed to make at dice and cards, I should not be here now, for the food is nothing short of poison, so one has to have it sent in from cookshops as often as possible, just to keep body and soul together,’ he said pathetically.
Jemmy regarded the handsome beginnings of a paunch filling out Edmund’s breeches and forbore to comment. ‘I wonder you can bear it, brother,’ he said.
‘Well, I have worked out one scheme,’ Edmund admitted. ‘I let the men who are due a flogging buy themselves off for a lighter punishment. That has worked quite well. But then, they do not always do anything one can flog them for; and their pay is so pitiful that sometimes they cannot afford to buy themselves off, once the senior officers have been over them. You can’t shear the same sheep twice. And whatever I do manage to get, all goes on my own expenses day to day. At that rate, with commissions the price they are, I shall never save enough. I shall die the oldest ensign in the army,’ he concluded gloomily.
With Robert and Edmund complaining endlessly, George alternately eating and sleeping, and Tom always away somewhere with Charles and Allen, Jemmy found himself more than ever alone. Mary had not changed her mind, and they now had separate rooms. She treated him with perfect politeness whenever they met, which was not often, and the only thing he seemed to have to be grateful for was that she evidently had not told Lady Dudley about his brutality towards her, for if she had, Jemmy was sure Lady Dudley would have had plenty to say to him about it. Davey, who had often been a friend to Jemmy, had been gloomy and morose since Matt’s death, for he and Matt had grown up together, and Matt had been Davey’s only friend in the world. Jemmy had kept on his father’s servant Pask to be his own valet in place of Jack, but Pask was still too young, too shy, and too upset over his master’s death to be a companion to Jemmy.
His only comfort had come from Shawes. The Countess had sent a very kind letter as soon as she had heard about Matt’s death, a letter extolling Matt’s many virtues and ignoring his shortcomings, and speaking of her lifelong acquaintance with him and affection for him. Matt was, of course, the only child of the Countess’s daughter Arabella, and the Countess had been present at his birth, and for some time after the disappearance of his mother and the exile of his father she had been Matt’s sole guardian and protectress. The letter spoke of how much Matt would be missed, and hinted at how isolated Jemmy must feel. Such informed sympathy was exactly what Jemmy needed, and though he had not often been able to get away from Morland Place since his father’s death, he had paid one or two informal visits to Shawes, where the warm understanding of Annunciata, the calm kindness of Alessandra, and the imperious adoration of Marie-Louise, had warmed him a little, and suggested that life might still be worth living.
Pobgee, the lawyer, was a small man, so unfashionably slender that one might have thought he was unsuccessful in his profession, had not his clothes spoken of a degree of elegance that only a rich and successful man could have sustained. He eschewed any appearance of business, or even busyness, wearing an enormous full-bottomed wig, rather than the tie-wig or even pigtail-wig that was more usual amongst professional men, and travelling in a coach rather than on horseback, as if to emphasize his leisure. He always assumed that his reputation would go before him, and as it rested largely on charging higher fees than anyone else, it generally did. He was, however, a keen racing man, and Jemmy had known him for many years, for he had a small but select stable of horses, many of which came from Twelvetrees, and he gambled enormously but often successfully. He also had a fine nose for claret, and it was after an excellent meal which he praised lavishly that they gathered the family together in the drawing room at Morland Place to disclose the secrets of Matt’s will.
‘The will is essentially a very simple document,’ he said after a preamble on his friendship with, and admiration for, the late James Matthias Morland of Morland Place in the County of Yorkshire and Emblehope Manor in the County of Northumberland. ‘There are a number of small bequests to servants and pensioners, a pension payable for life to Davey Shepherd, in acknowledgement of a lifetime of friendship and service. There is an amount of money set aside for a memorial in the chapel and commemorative gifts to various churches, and a bequest to St Edmund’s School and Hospital.’
Pobgee’s eye gathered up the attention of his audience with an actor’s skill. Robert was sitting very upright on a hard chair by the door, looking bored; Mary and Lady Dudley were in the fireside chairs like two heraldic supporters, rigid and unbending; Edmund was lounging against the chimney-wall looking peevish; Charles, Tom and Allen were seated in a row on the windowseat looking expectant; George was in a comfortable chair looking somnolent; Jemmy and Father Andrews were seated on the sofa, Jemmy looking tired and the priest anxious.
‘Apart from those small matters,’ Pobgee continued, ‘James Matthias Morland leaves all his property, whatsoever and wheresoever situated, entirely and without condition to his son, James Edward.’
There was a moment’s silence, and then Robert cried out in disbelief, ‘What, all of it?’
‘All of it,’ Pobgee said gently, ‘unconditionally.’ He seemed to be enjoying the situation. Jemmy heard the words without shock. Somehow it did not surprise him, though he foresaw endless trouble for himself because of it. Edmund had jumped to his feet.
‘Surely he has made some provision for us?’ he said, and waved his hand vaguely as if to indicate his brothers. ‘He must have mentioned some part of the estate to be divided amongst his other sons? Or some money set aside for our advancement. Damn it, sir, commissions cost dear these days!’
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Pobgee said, ever more gently, ‘but you and your brothers are not mentioned at all, neither by name or by implication. The only one of his children mentioned is James Edward.’ He nodded politely towards Jemmy, who bowed automatically in response. Now Robert was on his feet too.
‘It’s outrageous! It cannot be so! Am I to understand, sir, that you allowed my father to draw up this unspeakable travesty of justice, that you actually aided him in the perpetration of this – this—’ He was lost for words.
Pobgee replied mildly, ‘The document is perfectly legal, sir, I do assure you, and the property was his to dispose of as he wished. It would have been most improper for me to have expressed any views upon it – indeed, to have any views upon it – other than those concerning its legal viability.’
‘He must have been insane,’ Edmund now said, having thought his way through everything else. ‘When was this will drawn up?’
‘Some four years ago,’ Pobgee said. Edmund looked towards Robert.
‘He was already ill then, was he not, brother? The nature of his illness was no secret to the doctor who attended him. He will testify that it was a painful illness. No doubt my father was deranged by the pain he suffered, and it was because of such derangement that he drew up such an insane disposition.’
‘The will, sir, reflects his wishes as they have been fixed for many years,’ Pobgee said, standing his ground like an expert fencer parrying the thrusts of a pair of overeager schoolboys. ‘This document is the last in a series of wills I have drawn up over the years for your late father, and I assure you it does not differ materially from any of its predecessors.’
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 11