‘You look beautiful, Jemima. You will be noticed at Court. I am very proud of you.’
‘Are you, Mother?’ Jemima asked shyly, and their eyes met in reflection. It was the tenderest exchange they had ever had.
Jemima did not enjoy being presented, nor did she enjoy the ball. The King was a stout, pop-eyed man, surly and impatient, and Jemima felt he hated having people presented to him as much as she was hating being presented. He listened indifferently to her name, and seemed about to elbow her away when something seemed to strike him.
‘Morland?’ he asked abruptly, turning towards Lord Newcastle. ‘Maurice Morland?’
‘The same family, sire,’ Newcastle agreed. The King grunted, and nodded his head once.
‘Good music, Morland’s,’ he said, and then he really did turn away, and Newcastle had to jump backwards to avoid being pushed aside. The ball was only interesting from the point of view of looking at the dresses and being told the names of the famous people, for Jemima did not dance – only the highest in the land actually danced at a ball. They merely sat, or paraded about the outer edges of the room, ate a little supper, sat again, and then went home.
Afterwards, however, there were more interesting things to do. She was able to see something of London, and Lady Mary took her to St Paul’s on Sundays, and drove with her around the Park when the weather was fine. They went to the theatre, the opera, and to a concert, and to feed the ravens at the Tower of London. There was also a zoo in the Tower grounds, but Lady Mary would not visit it, nor take Jemima to the circus at the Ranelagh Rotunda. They were not suitable, Lady Mary said.
They were also invited to dinner and private parties of varying degress of formality, which Jemima enjoyed only because they freed her from the presence of William. William invited her and her mother to dine at his mess at college, and Lady Mary refused the invitation, to Jemima’s relief. Not suitable, she said. ‘You would meet no one of importance there.’ Meeting people of importance was, Jemima understood, the purpose of being in London. To spend a season in London was expensive, but the goods had to be displayed if a sale was to be expected. ‘Nothing less than an Earl,’ Lady Mary stipulated, ‘with your fortune and connections.’
Finally they were invited to Court again, for a masquerade, and Jemima felt that Lady Mary would have pronounced that, too, unsuitable, had it not been a royal invitation. The Master of Revels, an ugly man called Heidegger, had introduced them from abroad, and it was well known that the dressing-up, apart from being a means of relaxing rigid Court etiquette, was also an excuse for horseplay. Lady Mary took advice about the costumes, and was told that to be noticed they had to be either witty or magnificent, and that the basic costumes could be hired more economically than made, and personal trimmings added. She decided, since there was no wit in her nature, that Jemima should be magnificent, and struck upon Queen Elizabeth I as a suitable subject. Jemima could have wished for something a little less rigid: her mother, as a shepherdess, had much greater ease of movement.
But she enjoyed the masquerade much more than the ball. For one thing, anyone could dance at a masquerade, and there was no regard for etiquette in who danced with whom. Jemima, being new and pretty, was a popular choice, and though her mother was on hand to decide whom she accepted, she danced every dance, and had some very amusing conversations. At one point she was actually dancing next to the King, who was dressed as a sultan and partnering a very languid Mary Queen of Scots.
There was a great deal of horseplay going on, as she could see quite clearly from the vantage of the dancing floor, and she hoped her mother was not witnessing some of the kissing and pinching that she could see. It was after supper that Jemima danced with the Earl of Burlington, and thoroughly enjoyed their conversation, and was led back to her mother to find her talking to a man dressed as a pirate. Jemima made her curtsey, and was introduced to ‘Your cousin Rupert, Earl of Chelmsford, who wishes to dance with you’.
Jemima, completely dazed, was led out, and stared at him, trying to make out the features under the false beard and moustache. He was extremely handsome, from what she could see, and though his hand was unpleasantly moist, he talked to her amusingly enough, telling her the names of the people nearest her and then repeating the latest and most scandalous gossip about them.
‘That’s Elizabeth Chudleigh, she’s utterly, utterly wicked! And that man there, he’s actually here in disguise, or at least more in disguise than the rest of us. He’s a bankrupt, and banned from Court. That’s Montague, and that’s Pomfret – they share a mistress, you know—’ So it went on. Jemima was fascinated but more fascinated than anything with the question of how he had managed to persuade her mother to let her dance with him, when he was chiefly famous at Morland Place for having ‘killed’ her brothers. At length she decided she had nothing to lose by asking. Chelmsford seemed not to find the question offensive.
‘It is not hard to explain,’ he said. ‘She has a daughter to get rid of, and I am an Earl. But do not be alarmed, madam, I assure you I have no intention of marrying you or any woman.’
‘Then why did you want to dance with me?’ she asked. He shrugged.
‘Because everyone is talking about you, and it is dull not to do what is fashionable. Besides, you will be very rich one day, and one always has need of money. There, the dance is ending, and I must take you back very quickly to your excellent mother, because there is a simply delicious nun that I have to dance with.’
During the next dance Jemima saw him with the nun, and was grateful that he had not behaved so intimately with her. There was one more surprise waiting for her, however. When they were in their coach queuing up to get out of the palace gates, another carriage passed them on her side, and looking in as it did she saw Chelmsford with the same nun. They were locked in a close embrace, and the pirate had his hand under the skirt of the nun’s habit. They had gone by in a moment, but Jemima was very sure of what she had seen, because their own carriage was stopped right by a torch high up on the wall, which illuminated the scene; and however often she tried to make it different in her memory, she was absolutely sure that the nun was not a woman.
In the summer of 1749, the doctor recommended sea-bathing for Jemmy’s leg, and since Jemima had also been mildly unwell, it was decided that she should go with her father to Scarborough. Jemmy’s health had been declining all that year, and his leg was often so painful that he could not bear it to be touched. He walked little now, and that very slowly, with a stick, and on his worst days he did not rise from his bed. It had aged him, and his face, Jemima saw in the strong light of the sea-side, was lined and gaunt, and the same unhealthy colour she had noticed long ago in the wool-comber. She was afraid for him, and was glad that they were to be allowed to go to Scarborough alone, and have a little time together.
The journey, though it was done slowly and in a coach, and though the roads were in reasonably good condition, since the weather had been fine, taxed Jemmy severely, and when they arrived at their lodgings at Scarborough, he went straight to bed, and Jemima, on her own authority, sent for a local physician. It was a Doctor Ross who came, a Scotsman, and Jemima was glad, for she had heard that the medical knowledge and training in Scotland was far in advance of the English.
He examined Jemmy, passing his large hands over him so gently that Jemmy hardly winced, and he sucked his teeth and shook his head, and said. ‘Who was it that set this leg? He was a butcher, sir, a butcher, not a surgeon at all.’
‘He was a priest, actually,’ Jemmy said, and told the history of his injury. Jemima listened not to the story but to the sound of his voice, hearing with anxiety how he drew a gasping breath after every two or three words. His eyes, she saw, were shiny with fever, his expression almost glazed with pain.
The doctor listened attentively, nodding his head now and then, and meanwhile feeling Jemmy’s pulse and laying his large hand over Jemmy’s heart. When the story was told he thought for a while, and then said, ‘I will be frank with you,
sir, because I see you are an intelligent man, and a man used to making decisions. There are loose splinters of bone which should have been removed a long time ago. They have now caused an infection, which is making you feverish. I would guess you have had a low fever for some time, but your recent exertions have raised it to an acute level. I must recommend that you allow me to probe the site of the injury without delay. If you do not allow me to do this, you will certainly lose the use of the limb, and the infection, if it does not kill you in the next week or so, will spread to the rest of you body, and you will certainly be dead in a few months.’
Jemmy’s hand crept across the counterpane and found Jemima’s. ‘And if – I do – allow you to operate?’
‘Then you have a good chance of surviving,’ the doctor said calmly. His lack of emotion was steadying to them both. ‘Your condition is poor, it must be said, and if I had had the opportunity to work upon you earlier, I would have said that you had no reason to hesitate. As it is – it is the choice between certain death, and a chance of life. It must be for you to decide.’
He looked from one to the other.
‘When—’ Jemmy wanted to ask when he would want to operate, but his mouth dried up. The doctor seemed to understand, however.
‘Tomorrow morning, early. It must be done as soon as possible. I will leave you now, sir, to think about it. I will return this evening for your answer.’
When he had gone, Jemima returned from seeing him off to sit with her father again, and hold his hand. ‘It is my own fault,’ he said at last. ‘But I never could trust that fool of a doctor at home. Still, I could have found another doctor to do what was necessary. I always thought it would get better of its own accord.’ Jemima said nothing, for the only thing she could think of was to ask if he would accept the operation, and she did not want to seem to press him. After a while he said, ‘I looked forward to spending a summer with you, here by the sea, away from all the worries of home, and the accusing eyes. Away from your uncles and cousins.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ Jemima said, her voice husky. ‘I have longed for it too.’ The competition for her hand was growing stronger between the cousins, and her uncles and her mother made life hideous at Morland Place. Jemmy sighed.
‘Well, there is no other possible decision. If I do not have it done, I will never be able to ride again, and I could not bear that. So I will have to say – yes.’
His voice wavered, and he looked up and met Jemima’s eyes.
‘Papa—’ she said.
‘I am afraid, chick, I have to admit it. I’m very afraid.’
She gave an inarticulate cry, and put her arms round him, and he pressed his head to her breast like a child, and they clung together wordlessly.
After the doctor had gone in the evening, Jemmy asked her to open the window.
‘I should like to smell the sea air. Ah, that’s better, that’s good. Come and sit with me, chick.’ She sat with him and held his hand, and for a long time they were silent, both looking out of the window at the pale dusk sky where the first star shone white and unwinking like a rose. From fur away they could hear the strange cry of a seagull, and it made Jemima want to weep, except that her fear and sadness were too deep for weeping. She knew what was to come tomorrow – the doctor had explained it all most carefully – and the idea terrified and nauseated her. But she had told her father she would be there with him through it all, holding his hand, and though he had at first tried to prevent her, when he finally accepted that she was determined, he was weakly grateful.
‘It is good to have a little peace, before the storm,’ Jemmy said at last. ‘Or rather between the storms – a respite, eh, chick?’
‘I wish we never had to go back,’ she said, low and feelingly. He nodded.
‘It cannot have been pleasant for you. But you know, I cannot keep your mother at bay much longer. You are seventeen, my darling, and you ought to be wed, and your mother and I are in agreement about that, if about nothing else. I know I promised you I should not make you marry against your will, but I wish you would consider taking one of your cousins.’
‘Oh, papa!’
‘You must marry someone, Jemima, and we cannot wait for you to find someone you like until you are an old lady. Perhaps you will never see someone you like – few people, I suppose, marry for love. I keep making excuses to your mother, but they sound less and less reasonable. She wants you to marry a lord, but you don’t seem to like that idea any more than the other.
She shook her head, but said nothing. He turned his eyes from the window to look at her. In the late and rosy light, he saw how beautiful she had become; not pretty in the conventional way, the way her cousin Augusta was, but beautiful as a thoroughbred horse is beautiful, by her fine lines, the firm and sculpted features, the integrity and loveliness of her expression. There was decision and intelligence in her face, her eyes were full of feeling, her lips formed for passion; her glossy dark hair framed a face as innocent and pure as that one white glowing star. She looked very much the way he remembered Aliena, except that Aliena’s serenity was one grown out of knowledge and suffering, while Jemima’s was the unblemished bloom of maidenhood.
‘Allen was right about you,’ he said at last. ‘I wish he could see you as you are now.’
‘So do I, Papa,’ she said.
The doctor came early in the morning, with his two assistants, in case Jemmy should need holding down; but he endured it all with immense and terrifying courage, hardly crying out, though he was conscious most of the time. Jemima held his hand, keeping her back to the operation for fear that the sight of it would make her faint, or sick, but her own imagination and her father’s expression were enough to supplement the horrible sounds she could not block out. After it was all over, her father finally, blessedly, lost consciousness while the wound was being bound, and Jemima was able to release her hand and flee from the room. She went to her own room, and thought she would be sick, but though her ears rang and she sat on her bed with the blackness coming and going, she did not vomit. When the dizziness had passed, she felt the pain in her hand, and looked down at it, to see how red it was, and swollen. For a moment she was puzzled, and then realized that it was bruised from the strength of her father’s grip.
She went back to the room after bathing her face and smoothing her hair, and met the doctor coming out, rolling down his shirt sleeves and putting on his coat.
‘He has withstood the operation very well, but the shock to his body is great, and he is very weak. He will need careful nursing if he is to survive. Also, I must tell you, mistress, that the condition of his leg was much more grave even than I had anticipated. I am afraid there may be a recurrence of the infection.’
‘And if there is?’ Jemima asked hesitantly. Doctor Ross shook his head.
‘We must pray that there is not,’ he said.
For the first few days they both struggled, fighting for his life with his courage, her skill, and all the strength of their wills; but on the evening of the third day she came in to his room with broth, and found him weeping. She put the dish down and went to take him in her arms again, and he leaned against her and sobbed heartbrokenly, like a child. She held him in silence, rocking him gently, and after a long time the storm passed, and his weeping slowed and ceased. Still she held him, until he finally lifted his head and reached for a handkerchief. She looked out of the window, not to embarrass him, until he had blown his nose and wiped his face, and when she finally looked at him, they read in each other’s eyes the knowledge that he was dying.
It was a strangely peaceful time that followed, as if the acceptance and understanding had removed both fear and sorrow. There was time for them to be together, and to talk, and to share a love which had been growing over the years since the Princess died; there was time for Jemmy to prepare himself, and for Jemima to prepare herself to lose him. For a week he grew gradually weaker, and the fever came and went, though he always remained rational. Now they did not talk much, only sat i
n silence, feeling each other’s presence, glad simply to be together. Then one night he asked to see a priest.
‘I wish it could be Father Renard,’ he said. She had to lean close to hear him, because his voice was so weak now.
‘Do you wish me to send for Father Andrews?’
‘No. There is not time – and any priest will do as well. It was only Father Fox I loved.’
So as not to leave him, Jemima sent the landlady’s girl on the errand, and she came back at last to report that she could find no Anglo-Catholic priest.
‘Will you have the Protestant minister, mum, or the Roman gentleman?’ she asked. Jemima went in to her father, but he was asleep, and she was loath to wake him. She must make the decision herself. It was the use of the word minister that decided her; if the Protestant minister was very extreme in his views, he might not come to give the last rites, especially at night time, for there were some who regarded the sacraments as Popish and idolatrous. She asked for the ‘Roman gentleman’.
He was a young man that came, with a soft Irish accent and a mild and anxious eye, but he listened kindly to Jemima’s explanations, and said that there was no real difference, and God would manage to cope with the details. He gave Jemmy absolution, and anointed him, and then, since Jemmy did not seem to want him to go, he sat on, still holding his hand. It was thus, just after midnight, that Jemmy died, when the candles had burned low, holding the hands of Jemima and the priest, with a faint, contented smile and a small sigh.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
At Easter it was the custom of the Morlands to go to the Easter Sunday services at the Minster; all of York society gathered there, and after the service walked about the Minster gardens, displaying the first of the spring and summer clothes and exchanging the gossip. After the confines of winter, and the necessarily restricted social intercourse, Easter Sunday was a celebration and a heralding of the gay summer to come.
Dynasty 8: The Maiden: The Maiden (The Morland Dynasty) Page 35