They waited for Allen and Jemima to join them, and when the greetings had been exchanged, Allen explained their presence, and mediated for Jemima’s forgiveness. His words were addressed to Jemmy, but his eyes were continually straying, despite him, to Marie-Louise, and when the recital was finished, it was she who spoke.
‘You must come back to the house for some refreshment’ both of you, and I shall help you convince Jemmy that he must not be hard on the child. I remember so well from my own childhood how I hated to be shut indoors sewing on a fine day. Come now — and, yes, you shall stay to supper! Grandmother will like it, and I shall send a servant to Morland Place to say where you all are.’
Jemmy glanced from Allen, who could not take his eyes from the Princess, to Jemima, whose thin face was alight with hopeful excitement at the idea of taking supper at Shawes, when she had never eaten away from her home in her whole life, and he could not deny the pleasure to either of them.
‘Very well,’ he agreed, and they turned towards the house. Allen hurried to take the place at the Princess’s free side, and took Sovereign’s reins from her, though he was no trouble, following her as meekly as a well-trained dog; and Jemmy offered his spare arm to Jemima, who took it as though she had been offered all the treasure of El Dorado.
‘May I lead Auster, Papa?’ she asked, and Jemmy gave her the reins. Old Auster was twenty-three, and Jemmy had a new young colt, Pilot, for hard riding, but Auster so loved to go out that he almost broke his heart if Jemmy came to the stable and left him behind, so he used the old horse if it was to be an easy day.
‘I wanted to speak to you, Papa, about something very important’ Jemima said breathlessly. Jemmy looked down at her. She was very plain beside the Princess’s remarkable beauty: her face was too thin, her features too strongly marked, her expression too earnest, and her colourless skin and dark hair were not fashionable. But she was his little pet, named by him and for him, and he smiled at her eagerness.
‘Of course, my pigeon, of course. We can talk later. For now, remember to be on your best behaviour. We are to see the Countess, and she is very particular. It was very kind of Marie-Louise to ask you.’
He smiled at the Princess as he spoke, and she received the smile with lowered eyelashes and then turned back to Allen. She did not care for the child, and emphatically did not care to have the men’s attention divided in any way. However, she knew Jemmy was fond of the brat, and that he would approve her kindness in including her, and she had felt that Allen would not stay without the child, having brought her here, so this was the best way. She would work it to her advantage somehow.
The inside of Shawes was like a palace to Jemima, after the small rooms and low ceilings of Morland Place. The size of the rooms, the size of the windows, the glittering chandeliers, the mirrors, the gilded furniture, the cleverly created vistas through doors and along corridors: she gazed at it all almost open-mouthed.
Marie-Louise, with a hint of distaste, interrupted her reverie by saying, ‘The child’s dress is torn; and she has no cap. Smith, take Miss Jemima upstairs and make her presentable. I am sure there is something of mine put away somewhere that she can wear. Then bring her down to the drawing room.’
Jemima went upstairs with the maid, who was very stiff and formal and did not speak to her, as the Morland Place servants would have. She was taken to what was evidently the old nursery, where the maid brought her a basin and water and towel for her to wash, and then began rummaging in a large trunk pushed aside in a corner. Jemima delved into her pocket.
‘I have my cap here,’ she said hesitantly. The maid glanced at it, and sniffed.
‘It’s main crumpled,’ she said disapprovingly, before turning back to the trunk. ‘All Madam’s things she had as a child are in here. I expect there’ll be something to fit you, though you’re right small and thin. How old are you?’
‘Eight,’ Jemima said guiltily. The maid looked ever more disdainful.
‘Madam was twice your size when she was eight,’ she said. They spoke no more. When Jemima had washed, the maid helped her into a dress of apple green linen which, with the aid of a tightly tied sash, fitted her nearly enough, and then brushed her hair and led her downstairs again. Jemima went meekly, wondering what would happen to her dress. Would they keep it in exchange for the green one, she wondered? Or send it back? She hoped the former, for then she might never have to confess to tearing it.
In the drawing room there were yet more terrors to be faced, for the three adults were gathered around a tray of tea, on the other side of which, very upright in a tall-backed chair, sat the Countess. Jemima had heard a great deal about her, and had seen her once or twice at a distance, but now she was to see her close-to, and speak to her, and be spoken to by her. In a daze she heard herself introduced, allowed herself to be led forward, and then she was standing in front of the Countess, her face on a level with the old woman’s. It was incomprehensibly old. Jemima had never known an old person before: Jacob, the cook, was the oldest man she had ever known, and he was fifty; the Countess was almost twice as old.
But though the face was thin and wrinkled, it was not repulsive, as she had momentarily feared: indeed, in some extraordinary way it was almost beautiful. Around her throat the Countess wore a collar of diamonds which glittered in the reflected light from the windows; but they were not more bright than the astonishing dark eyes that now looked at Jemima with a curiosity and interest equalling her own.
After a long time the Countess said, ‘You are Jemima.’
It was not a question, but it seemed safer to treat it as one, and Jemima said, ‘Yes, your ladyship,’ and for good measure curtseyed again.
It seemed to be a good thing to have done, for the Countess suddenly smiled as if they had shared some secret joke, and said, ‘Sit down beside me, child, and we will talk. You will have a dish of tea? But no, it is poor stuff, weak and indeterminate, fit for your aunts, no doubt, but not for women of spirit. We shall have wine, you and I. Charley, bring the Italian cups for Miss Jemima and me. Now Jemmy, you need not stare so. You have Marie-Louise to entertain you. Leave Jemima and me to talk in peace.’
Jemima sat down beside the Countess, feeling already much less overawed, especially after the jibe at her aunts and the suggestion that she and the Countess were somehow of the same make. The maid Charley brought two tall silver cups filled with wine, and the Countess lifted hers to Jemima as if to drink a toast.
‘Yes, I see whose you are. You have his blood in you. A tes beaux yeux, enfant.’ She drank, and then said, ‘It is no use our speaking French to be private, for Marie-Louise speaks it better than English. We must hope love will make them all deaf.’ For a moment they sat in silence watching the other three who, having handed about the tea, were now settling down to their own chatter, Marie-Louise bending like a sapling in the breeze in her desire to captivate them both simultaneously. Jemima drank of her wine, injudiciously, for it made her choke, being far stronger than she was used to, and she felt herself blushing at her ineptitude; but the Countess did not seem to notice.
After a moment she turned her dark, curious gaze back to Jemima and said, ‘Now, tell me about yourself. What brought you here today?’
Slowly at first, but with gathering confidence, Jemima talked. She had never had such a flatteringly attentive audience, nor one who seemed to understand what she wanted to say when the words were hard to find. In a short while she had told everything; then the Countess talked, and that was so fascinating that Jemima was sorry when the supper was brought in to interrupt them.
‘We shall eat in the French style,’ the Countess decreed. ‘Jemima shall hand me my plate. Do not trouble about us. Go to the beaufet, child, and make a selection of food and bring the plate to me. Serve yourself in the same way. Charley, fill my cup. There,’ when all was done, ‘now we may be comfortable again. Are you comfortable?’
‘Yes, your ladyship,’ Jemima said, and then, feeling it was inadequate, added, ‘It is very kin
d of you and her ladyship to invite me.’
The Countess smiled again. ‘Marie-Louise did not do it to please you, so you need not be grateful. She is as selfish as the day is long, but such beauty as hers is justification in itself. They think you plain, do they not?’ she added, studying Jemima’s face. Jemima blushed and nodded. ‘No matter. You have not yet grown into your beauty, but you will. You wonder how I know that? Because I know what you will look like. Do you see the bureau yonder, the black one with the gold dragon on the front? Go to it, and open the topmost drawer on the left. Inside you will find a lacquer box. Bring it to me.’
Jemima put down her plate and did as she was bid. The other three adults were so deep in their talk and laughter they did not even notice that she had moved. The Countess took the box onto her quilted satin lap and opened it, unfolded the black velvet cloth inside and drew out of it an oval miniature in a frame of twisted gold wires. She looked at it for a moment and then gave it to Jemima.
The face of the man in the picture looked somehow familiar. It was a brown face, with a long nose and a long, mobile mouth, beginning to smile, and dark blue eyes, deepset, and dark hair curling like feathers. She looked up.
‘your great grandfather’ the Countess said. ‘You are very like him. You will be liker. And look, here, a piece of his hair.’ She drew a long curl from the box and laid it across Jemima’s palm. The cut end was tagged with gold to keep it together. It was very dark brown, almost black, and soft. The Countess reached out and picked up a lock of Jemima’s hair and drew it down against the cut curl. They were almost the same colour.
‘You see?’ Jemima nodded. Abruptly, the Countess seemed to change the subject. ‘I am very old, you know, and I will not live much longer. When I am dead, all this will go to Marie-Louise. My mother left her estate to me, an old, damp, dark house it was. I pulled it down, and Vanbrugh built me this, his little gem, so beautiful. Each generation has its improvements. What will Marie-Louise do with it? She has a great deal of vanity and nonsense about her, as you see, but she has also a great deal of courage and sense. And she was educated – few men are better educated than she. I hope she will have a daughter to leave it to. Everything is so much surer through the daughter.’ She looked sharply at Jemima, and Jemima was sure the Countess knew that she was thinking the words were an old woman’s ramblings. She frowned and said aloud, ‘I am tired, and you must all leave me. It is late enough. Jemmy, you must take this child home.’
When one is as old as the Countess, Jemima saw, one’s wishes are instantly obeyed. Jemmy and Allen and Marie-Louise stopped talking at once and stood up, evidently preparing to leave. Jemima got up too, and at the Countess’s gesture helped Charley to help her to her feet. For all the bulk of her clothes and weight of her jewels, the Countess was light. Jemima was reminded of a fallen autumn leaf, golden, dry and brittle.
‘Jemmy, you must educate Jemima. Well enough, all this sewing and sitting, but she has a brain, Jemmy, a brain, and you must feed it.’
‘Mary won’t approve of that,’ Jemmy said smiling. ‘She wants Jemima to be a lady.’
Jemima could see that her father was not taking the Countess’s words seriously, and the Countess evidently saw it too, for she stamped her foot and said, ‘Never mind what Mary wants. Ignorance is a prison. Let her learn Latin and Greek and mathematics. Would you have Marie-Louise any different? Then have Jemima taught as she was. And if Mary complains, refer her to our Princess. You would hardly say she is not a lady.’
Jemmy smiled wickedly at Marie-Louise, as if he was not entirely in agreement with the last words. But Marie-Louise looked gravely at him, and said, ‘Come, Jemmy, the poor child came all this way and risked a beating to beg you for education. If it was a comfit or a new dress, you would not deny her, would you? Then grant her this – to shew you approve of me.’
Jemmy took her hand and bent over it, and laid his lips against it lingeringly, saying, ‘Approve of you? My dear Princess, how could you ever doubt it? You are perfection. And you know that I can deny you nothing you ask of me. To please you, I will even risk Mary’s wrath.’
‘Then you will educate her?’ the Princess said, smiling again, her hand still in his. ‘Thank you, sir. You will not regret it.’
The carriage was got out for Allen and Jemima, but Jemmy decided to ride Auster home, and so they had it to themselves. For a while they sat in silence as the carriage jolted over the track, and then Allen said, ‘You have what you came for; and you will not be beaten for running away. Why do you still look so sad?’
‘Because it was—’ Jemima frowned, seeing in her mind’s eye how it had been, that the extraction of the promise had been a piece of flirting between Marie-Louise and her father, and nothing to do with Jemima herself; that her father, ruffling her hair as they departed, did not take her seriously at all, did not even see her as a person, and probably had no intention of keeping the promise. She felt sore inside, as she once did after a bout of vomiting, when she had colic, but she did not have the words to express all this to Allen. She turned her head, still frowning, to look at him, thinking, surely he must have seen it for himself. ‘It was just a joke. Only a Joke.’
‘Yes,’ Allen said, and she saw that he did understand. ‘They make light of me, too.’
A week later, on 29 June 1740, Annunciata died. She was ninety-five years old, and her long and crowded life had spanned the reigns of eight monarchs, and she had many times faced violent death; but when the time came, she died quietly, in her sleep, in her own bed, in the exquisite house that Sir John Vanbrugh had envisaged as the perfect setting for her. The maid who dressed Jemima that morning told her the news in a hushed voice, and the same hush prevailed throughout the house. It seemed a monumental happening; no one wept, but no one would have been surprised at an eclipse, or an earthquake, or a sudden access of portents. Normal activities were suspended by common consent; the sun was veiled and hazy in a strange, colourless sky; the birds did not sing; and though the household dogs did not howl, they crept for hiding under tables with their ears down.
Though she had met her only once, Jemima felt bereaved, that she had lost a friend. All that day she relived the talk she had had with the Countess, remembering her words exactly, and the expressions of her face, and the way she had moved her hands. She knew, thought Jemima, and after a while, another thought came to her: that it was because the Countess new her time was close that she had tried to do something for Jemima. I am to carry on for her, she thought, and that did not make sense. She had Marie-Louise, did she not? Marie-Louise was her heir. She remembered the Countess saying ‘I wonder what Marie-Louise will do with it?’ She does not trust her, Jemima thought.
All that long day the strangeness and silence persisted, and the household went to bed early, bemused, avoiding each other’s company. But the next day the sun rose hot and brilliant in a clear blue sky, and everything was back to normal. Jemmy ordered a month’s deep mourning for the family and livery-servants, followed by two weeks’ half mourning, and saddled Auster to go to visit Marie-Louise and ask if she wished him to help her plan the funeral. He felt that an era had ended, but inevitably the regret was mingled with a faint feeling of relief. He did not, as Jemima knew he would not, remember his promise to have her educated. As far as she could tell, he had never mentioned the matter to her mother at all.
The Countess’s will was proved without contention. She had left Chelmsford House in London, with all its furnishings, to Maurice, and Shawes, its estate, the property in York, and her personal effects to Marie-Louise, who now openly styled herself Countess of Strathord. There were the usual small personal bequests to servants and friends, those she had not outlived. The gold locket containing a lock of her father, Prince Rupert’s, hair she left to Lady Clementina Morland for a wedding gift for her marriage to John, Viscount Ballincrea, which was planned to take place in September: she must have known, Jemmy reflected, that she would not live to see it. To Alessandra, who had been her faithful c
ompanion since Aliena retired from the world, she left a pension, and the miniature of herself that Samuel Cooper had painted for Prince Rupert three-quarters of a century ago.
It was some weeks later that Marie-Louise rode over to Morland Place to fulfil the last bequest, and she did so with obvious puzzlement, handing the lacquer box to Jemima with an air of inquiry and also of reluctance, as if she had been wondering for some time whether to treat the matter as an abberation.
‘My grandmother was most specific that you should have this box and its contents intact,’ she said unwillingly. ‘It is my duty to fulfil her wishes.’
Jemima looked up at her in the way that her mother objected to as being ‘disagreeable’, for it was a considering, too-seeing look. Marie-Louise was still in deep mourning, black crepe, white muslin scarf and cap with black ribbons, black chamois gloves, but the cut of all was fashionable and elegant, and the shining copper hair was revealed at the front by setting the cap farther back than was consistent with deep grief. She looked all the more handsome for the severe setting of black-and-white. Morland Place was now in half mourning, and Jemima knew that in her dress of dark grey tabby she looked sallow and dowdy, and far more like a mourner than the Princess. She saw in Marie-Louise’s expression that she had thought long and hard before deciding to honour her grandmother’s wishes; that she had examined the contents of the box and did not wish to part with them. Jemima wondered whether it had been some chance circumstance, such as the presence of a witness, that had finally made up her mind for her.
‘Thank you, milady,’ Jemima said, and glanced to her father for permission.
‘Yes, chuck, open it by all means,’ Jemmy said, his eyes going straight back to the Princess.
In the lacquer box lay two miniatures – the one she had already seen, of Martin Morland, and another painted on ivory and framed with gold, of the Princess Henrietta, sister to King Charles II, painted by Samuel Cooper. Underneath was the lock of hair tipped with gold, and underneath again, wrapped in more black velvet, the diamond collar. Jemima drew it out, and the stones flung rainbows of light across the room. She looked up at the Princess. This was the cause of her unwillingness.
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 16