Lady of Lincoln (17 page)

‘At the same time as this was happening, my parents were encouraging me to become engaged to a local man. He was nearly twice my age and not exactly a figure of romance, so I rebelled. When the theatrical company left the area, I went with them in company with the leading actor, and we … we became lovers.’ Emily uttered a little gasp.

‘I have shocked you,’ Nathalie went on. ‘There is worse to come, I fear. Once we had reached London, he soon tired of me, for there were plenty of actresses with far more worldly
experience than I.’

‘Never say that he abandoned you!’ exclaimed Emily.

‘Oh no, he did not do that,’ Nathalie answered in a cynical tone. ‘He introduced me to a gentleman who was an
habitué
of the Green Room – a man about town, noted for his good taste and fine looks. Having nowhere else to go and with my
reputation
ruined, I had very little choice. So I exchanged an actor for a gentleman. Unfortunately, the gentleman did not treat me as well as the actor had done, and I soon began to fear for my safety. Then, when I had been with this man for a few weeks, I realized that I was expecting his child.’

‘Dear heaven,’ Emily breathed.

‘I could not think what to do. I knew that my parents would never receive me at home. I had no friends in London for my new lover, being very possessive and also protective of his own reputation among the ladies, did not allow me to meet people; for which I am now very thankful. The only time I was
permitted
to go out was on a Sunday morning, to attend church. Even then my lover insisted that I should go to a small, unfashionable place of worship so that I would not be noticed; I did not
anticipate
being noticed by the vicar.’

‘Mr Fanshawe?’ Emily asked.

Nathalie nodded. ‘Yes, it was Ernest,’ she agreed. ‘I did little more than slip in and slip out each week, but he noticed me which helps to explain what happened next. My lover – you will notice I do not use names; I think it best not to do so – got into a quarrel with another man. Not over me, I am thankful to say. Anyway, there was a duel, my lover killed his man, but was himself seriously wounded. He was borne off to be nursed in hiding by friends, and the lodging which we had shared was reclaimed by his landlord, to whom he was heavily in debt.’

‘What on earth did you do?’ Emily asked. She had often wished that her life could be more exciting. She could at least be thankful that it was not as exciting as this.

‘Every duellist has a second,’ Nathalie replied. ‘Once my
lover’s second had delivered him up to his friends, he came in search of me.’

‘Oh no!’ Emily exclaimed.

Nathalie shook her head. ‘No, you misjudge him, for he was a true gentleman, who treated me with respect and did not seek to use me as well,’ she said. ‘Instead, he asked if there was anywhere he might take me. I was on the point of saying that there was nowhere, when I remembered the vicar of St Saviour’s. He had seemed so kind, and I knew that he would find me a place if he could. So I asked my lover’s second if he would take me to the church, which he did.’

Now, Nathalie paused for a long time, looking down at her clasped hands. Then when she looked up at Emily, her eyes were filled with tears again. ‘Ernest was there and I told him everything; my childhood in Devon; the loss of my reputation at the hands of the actor; my liaison with the gentleman; my pregnancy; everything. Emily, he listened, and in his face there was no condemnation, no disgust. Then he told me that he had loved me from the first; that he had always suspected that I was troubled because of my manner; that he still loved me, despite all that I had disclosed; that he wanted to marry me.

‘Emily, what would you have done?’ she asked, her voice breaking. ‘I was desperate. Ernest offered me a way out. The appointment to Lincoln had already been offered and refused. He told me that he would accept it after all, and that we could marry at once, then go on a holiday. After that, we would proceed straight to Lincoln where no one would know us. Because I had nowhere else to go, I accepted him, and as soon as the licence had been procured, we were married.’

‘How deeply you must honour him,’ Emily murmured.

‘I do,’ Nathalie agreed. ‘And although I did not love him when I married him, I do love him now as much as any wife could love her husband. But you do see, do you not, that I had to tell someone my story? If all should not go well, and I pray that it will, I feel that there should be someone else in the world
who knows that my baby is not Ernest’s child. And should he have to bring up this child alone – which heaven forbid – he ought to have the comfort that someone else is privy to our secret.’

‘Does he know that you are telling me?’ Emily asked.

‘He knows,’ Nathalie replied.

Nathalie went into labour that night, and Emily knew at once that Mr Fanshawe would have to be sent for. She had already found out from Mrs Sealey the name of a man who would ride to Louth if necessary, and she was glad now of her foresight. The maid was despatched to fetch the doctor, and then to take Emily’s note for delivery to Nathalie’s husband.

That done, Emily remained in attendance on her friend, mopping her brow when necessary, holding her hand when the labour pains came, and speaking reassuringly to her.

‘Will he come?’ Nathalie asked. ‘Have you sent for him?’

‘The doctor is on his way,’ Emily told her.

Nathalie shook her head. ‘Not the doctor; Ernest.’ She gasped again, as a fresh pain assailed her.

‘The man has gone,’ Emily promised her. ‘Your husband will be here as soon as he can, I promise you.’

The doctor, who arrived very quickly, spoke calmly and confidently to his patient, but after he had examined her, he took Emily on one side and said, ‘Has the husband been sent for?’

‘Yes, a man left over an hour ago,’ she replied.

He looked at her solemnly. ‘It’s just as well,’ he said quietly. ‘I have anxieties about this one; grave anxieties. The baby is the wrong way round, and the mother is the kind who lives on her nerves, with no real strength. To be plain with you, ma’am, I do not think that both of them will live.’

Emily just managed to stop herself from gasping at this news. ‘But she seemed so well,’ she replied, in the same low tone. ‘In fact, I remarked on how well she looked when I arrived,
although I was concerned about her colouring.’

‘Well, I may be wrong,’ the doctor temporized. ‘But I felt that I must prepare you for the worst. I am glad that the father has been sent for.’

‘What are you saying?’ asked a faint voice from the bed.

Emily turned back to the bed. ‘I am telling the doctor what a splendid mama you will be,’ she answered cheerfully.

‘I certainly mean to be,’ Nathalie replied. ‘Emily, you must get out the baby clothes that I have made.’ Then she gasped as another spasm of pain gripped her, and the doctor came to her side.

‘That’s right, ma’am,’ he said. ‘The babe is making its
presence
felt. But we’ve a long night ahead of us, I fear.’

By the time Mr Fanshawe arrived, looking exhausted and anxious not long after dawn, it had become clear that the doctor’s predictions had been all too accurate. The baby was now very near delivery, but Nathalie was not going to survive.

The young clergyman was desperate to remain at his wife’s side, but the doctor would not permit it. The midwife was now in attendance, and so Emily sat downstairs with Mr Fanshawe in order to wait for some kind of resolution.

‘If only I had been here,’ he said over and over again. ‘What kind of husband was I to leave her in this way?’

‘Mr Fanshawe, you could not have done anything,’ Emily told him earnestly. ‘From the moment that she went into labour, it was all in the doctor’s hands.’

‘Yes, and what kind of doctor is he, plying his trade out here in the countryside?’ he retorted, his voice rising. ‘She should have been in the town, with the best physician that money could buy in attendance upon her.’

‘I have seen him at work, and I believe that he is a very good doctor,’ Emily said calmly. ‘Mr Fanshawe, I wish you would sit down and have something to eat and drink. Mrs Sealey had made these sandwiches—’

‘Damn the sandwiches!’ he cried, thrusting at the plate with
his hand so that they fell to the floor and the plate smashed. ‘Damn Mrs Sealey, and damn you for not sending for me sooner. Do you realize that my wife is dying up there?’ He stared at her as the enormity of his words sank into his brain. Then in a broken voice he said, ‘My God, my God,’ and sat down heavily, his face in his hands.

At once, Emily poured him a glass of claret and, stepping carefully over the sandwiches and pieces of smashed crockery, she touched him on the shoulder and handed the wine to him, half afraid that he might thrust this aside as well. He looked at her through moistened eyes, then took the glass and drank from it.

‘Thank you,’ he said in a subdued tone. ‘I’m sorry, I … I …’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Emily answered.

‘It does. I know you sent for me as soon as you knew
yourself
that the baby was to be born.’ He paused again. ‘Did she tell you about…?’

Emily nodded. She did not ask to what he was referring.

‘It will be a strange irony, will it not, if the baby lives and …’ Again he seemed on the point of being overcome.

They sat for what seemed like a very long time until, from upstairs, there came the sound of a baby crying. Fanshawe sprang to his feet, his eyes wild. ‘Nathalie,’ he breathed. He flung open the door, but before he could leave the room, Emily caught hold of his arm.

‘Mr Fanshawe, you must be composed,’ she urged him. ‘You must show her that you can manage.’

He swallowed hard. ‘I’m not sure that I can,’ he replied, looking at her.

‘But you must make her think that you can – for her sake.’

He stared at her, and some of the wildness went out of his face. He ran a hand through his blond, dishevelled hair, and walked to the foot of the stairs, but as he reached them, Mrs Sealey appeared at the top, a bundle in her arms.

‘You have a daughter, sir,’ she said.

‘My wife?’

Mrs Sealey bit her lip. ‘She is alive, but you must be quick.’

He ran up the stairs two at a time, not even glancing at the tiny bundle that the woman held, before entering his wife’s room and closing the door. Mrs Sealey glanced after him for a moment, then came down the stairs to where Emily was
standing
. ‘Just look at the little mite,’ she said, pulling back the covers to reveal the sleeping infant. ‘Poor motherless child. You take her, miss. I’ve already alerted a local woman who’s had a baby a little while back to come and wet nurse this one. I’ll have her sent for, shall I?’

‘Oh yes, do,’ Emily answered. ‘We cannot risk her going hungry.’

‘Will you hold her then, miss, while I do that? Do you know how to hold a baby?’

‘Yes, I know,’ Emily replied, taking the child in her arms. It would not be the first time that she had held a child who was never to know its mother, but she had never felt anxiety about a baby before as she did about this one; for although hardly anyone else knew it, this baby was fatherless too.

T
he next few days went by in a haze as far as Emily was concerned. There seemed to be so much to do, and
everyone
was looking to her. Mr Fanshawe had remained at his wife’s bedside until she had passed away peacefully, breathing his name, but after that, had seemed to withdraw from any
decisions
that needed to be made. The only thing he had been adamant about had been that Nathalie should be laid to rest here, in Mablethorpe.

‘She loved the place, and never really settled in Lincoln,’ he said.

The funeral he left for Emily to organize in consultation with the local clergyman, simply saying when asked about any matter, ‘Whatever you think best.’

Hannah Grant, the wet nurse, arrived soon after Mrs Sealey had sent for her, and she proved to be a gentle, cheerful woman, and very well able to feed the new baby. After a little negotiation, Emily managed to persuade her to come back to Lincoln with them, leaving her own baby, who was just weaned, in the care of the child’s grandmother. Mrs Grant agreed to stay in Lincoln until a local wet nurse could be found. Emily could think of one or two women who had recently had babies who, if asked, might easily be glad to help in that way.

Then there was Mrs Sealey who needed comforting. After the initial shock of Nathalie’s death, the landlady had taken to
blaming herself. ‘It was I who upset her so with that awful tale I told her, miss,’ the woman said to Emily, with tears in her eyes. ‘Do you think that that brought her on into labour too soon? Oh, if I thought that by my careless words I had killed that poor young woman, I would never be able to forgive myself.’

Emily reassured Mrs Sealey that this was not the case. ‘The doctor said that the baby was the wrong way round, and no words of yours could have caused that to happen,’ Emily insisted.

Nevertheless, Mrs Sealey could not lay the matter to rest, and brought it up over and over again, until Emily thought that she would scream. So, what with one thing and another, including writing to her father, the bishop, the dean, and Mr Fanshawe’s housekeeper, each letter needing care and tact, she had no time at all to think about her own feelings in the matter. She did wonder whether Nathalie’s family in Devon ought to be informed, but she did not know their address, and Mr Fanshawe was in no condition to be consulted on the matter.

They all travelled back together in a hired chaise. The wet nurse and Emily took turns holding the baby. Mr Fanshawe still refused even to look at her. Mercifully, perhaps, for everyone’s peace of mind, she was a remarkably good baby, taking to Mrs Grant’s breast without difficulty, settling down to sleep between feeds, and lying placidly in someone’s arms when she was awake. Emily hardly dared imagine how the haggard young clergyman might have reacted had the baby been fretful on the journey. She had not dared ask him by what name he wanted to call the child, but secretly, she called her Nathalie.

The weather was cool and overcast but fine when they set off from Mablethorpe, and it remained so throughout the journey. Last time she had travelled this road, she reflected, she had been reading a novel. The experiences she had undergone over the past days had surely been the stuff of novels, but not of any novel that she wanted to read.

On their arrival in Lincoln, the chaise drew into Minster
Yard, Emily helped Mrs Grant inside with the baby,
commiserated
with the tearful housekeeper, delivered Mr Fanshawe into the hands of his valet, then left the house, promising to return very soon. After all, she had two women to speak to, in order to discover whether one of them could take over as wet nurse. Hannah Grant, quite understandably, wanted to get back to her family as soon as possible.

The door of the Fanshaws’ house closed behind her, she walked down the path, took a few steps into the yard, then stopped and turned. It was here, she thought to herself. This was where I was standing when Nathalie came running out of the house. I was standing here with Dr Boyle. This was where our friendship really began; I never had a chance to say
goodbye
.

She had not yet cried, because she had had to be strong for all the others who were around her and who seemed to be falling apart. Suddenly, all the tears that she had had to hold back seemed to rush into her eyes at once. She looked around blindly. Where could she go?

There was only one place. Hurrying to the west door, she fumbled for the handle and made her way into the heart of the building that had always been her sanctuary.

Sir Gareth had called to see Emily during the afternoon following their outing to Gainsborough. The whole morning had been wet and miserable, but after midday, the clouds had cleared and the sunshine had made everything look sparkling and new. He had hoped to persuade her to take a walk with him, but when he had arrived at the Whittakers’ house, he had been greeted with the news that Emily had gone into the country to visit friends. No, unfortunately the maid could not tell him when Miss Whittaker would be back. No, she did not have her
direction
. Yes, she would certainly inform Miss Whittaker when she returned that he had called.

Two days later, he called again, but as he arrived at the house,
Dr Boyle came out. ‘I’m afraid that Miss Whittaker has not returned,’ the doctor said. Something about his tone seemed to indicate that he knew where Emily was, and for a moment, the baronet was sorely tempted to use his justly famous left fist and lay the doctor out on the front step.

Instead, he smiled blandly and said, ‘Yes I was aware that she was away. In fact, I have come to call upon her grandfather.’

‘Her grandfather?’ exclaimed the doctor incredulously.

‘Yes. She informed me that she had reason to hope for an improvement in his condition; perhaps she did not tell you that?’

‘Of course she told me,’ the doctor snapped. Then, realizing how rude he had been, he straightened his shoulders and said in a calmer tone, ‘I am his physician, so naturally she would tell me. I fear, though, that he will not provide you with any conversation, sir.’

‘Nevertheless, I would like to pay him the courtesy of a visit,’ Sir Gareth replied.

‘If you should see any improvement, I trust that you will apprise me of the fact,’ the doctor said.

The baronet did not answer, but merely smiled, bowed slightly, and allowed himself to be shown up the stairs by Mary who, quite unknown to Sir Gareth, was thinking most
improperly
how she would not mind showing him upstairs on another account!

She let him into the elderly clergyman’s room, then said softly, ‘Would you like a glass of wine, sir?’

Sir Gareth accepted, then sat down at the old man’s bedside and thought to himself, now what? Well, of course, he ought to introduce himself. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘My name is Sir Gareth Blades. I’m brother-in-law to one of the new clergy here.’ There was a long silence. He got up from his place and wandered over to the window to look out at the cathedral. ‘That’s a fine cathedral you have there,’ he remarked. Oh God, I’m going to start saying that the grass is green and the sky is
blue, and there’s a dog walking past next. Who the deuce wants to hear about that?

Mary came in with a glass of claret on a tray, and Sir Gareth took it with a smile. He took a sip. It was good; very good. ‘But then, Patrick had a good palate,’ he remarked out loud. ‘Still undeveloped, but with great potential. Did he inherit it from you, I wonder?’ In a moment of sudden impulse, he went to the bedside, dipped his little finger in the wine, and brushed it on to the old man’s lips. At first, there seemed to be no reaction at all. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, his lips parted the tiniest fraction, the tip of his tongue emerged, and he moistened his lips. ‘Like that, do you?’ murmured the baronet, before doing the same again. He went through the same procedure perhaps three or four times before saying, ‘That’s enough now. Don’t want to get you drunk, do we?’

He wandered over to the window again, and took a sip of wine. ‘What does she do when she comes to see you?’ he said out loud. ‘Does she read to you? Does she tell you about her day, about what she has been doing?’ He paused. ‘Has she told you about me? No, I don’t suppose she has. I expect she spends all her time enlarging on the virtues of Dr Pustule, damn his eyes. She could do better than that, you know.’

He took a sip of wine and sighed reminiscently. ‘If only you could have seen her on the day when we went to Gainsborough. It wasn’t just the gown – although it was good to see her dressed for once as a lovely woman should be dressed; it was that she actually imparted sunshine to the gown; she made
it
look better! What I wouldn’t give to have the dressing of her; throw out those dingy gowns – someone should have thrown them out years ago – and see her in gold, and burnt orange, and a certain shade of green. But what’s the good of thinking about that? She doesn’t even want me for a brother, for goodness sake!’

Briefly, he thought back to that moment in Gainsborough when she had said those words to him. At the time he had been hurt by them. Since then, he had turned them over in his mind,
looking at them from all angles. Eventually, to his rueful surprise, he had come to the conclusion that if she did not want him for a brother, then neither did he want her for a sister.

Noticing her unusual quality, he had originally planned simply to indulge her with a flirtation that would at one and the same time raise her self esteem, and cause Dr Boyle to look to his laurels. The game of flirtation he had soon abandoned. A man of the world, he was all too well aware that Canon Whittaker’s spinster daughter was developing a
tendre
for him, and the last thing that he wanted to do was to raise false hopes. But the more he thought about the matter, the more he came to realize that she deserved better than Dr Boyle. She deserved a man who would not just esteem her, but love and cherish her. She deserved a man who looked upon her not just as a
help-meet
-cum-drudge, but as someone with whom to share projects, interests and concerns. She deserved a man who would not carp at the cost of a gown, but encourage her to dress in fabrics that brought out the beauty of her creamy skin. In short, she deserved a man like himself.

Looking down, he saw that he had almost finished his wine, so crossing to the bed, he gave the clergyman one last drop, which the old man licked at delicately as before. ‘I’ll come and see you again,’ he said, putting down his glass. ‘Good day to you, sir.’ Then, as politely as if the man was conscious, he bowed with all his customary elegance and withdrew. As he left, Dr Whittaker’s lips turned upwards into a faint smile.

Sir Gareth visited Emily’s grandfather on two more occasions before her return. Both times, he gave the old man a little wine as before and then chatted easily about what the boys had been doing. Towards the end of his second visit, however, he said ‘Where is she? Do you know where she is? Would you even tell me if you did know? I keep tormenting myself with the idea that amongst the company she’s visiting is some fellow who’s going to carry her off. I wonder how Dr Excrescence would like that?’ He paused briefly, then went on in a sombre tone, ‘I
wonder how
I
would like it?’

It was as he was returning to the Trimmers’ house after this visit that he saw what he thought was a familiar figure hurrying towards the west door of the cathedral. On impulse, he turned and went inside himself, removing his hat and then looking about him to see if he could see her. Where might she be? Suddenly having an idea, he retraced the steps that they had taken when she had shown him around.

He heard her before he saw her. The sound that he heard was enough to tear at his own heart strings. Rounding the corner, he saw Emily, sprawled across the seat on which they had sat on that previous occasion. Her face was resting on her arms, and she was sobbing bitterly.

Sir Gareth had heard women cry on other occasions;
sometimes
at an affecting play, sometimes because of a disagreement; sometimes because he would not buy a coveted string of pearls. He had also heard Emily crying before, when they had visited Gainsborough and she had wept briefly at the memory of her brother. But this crying was different. Like her laughter, it came out as a sound that was seldom made, and it came from deep within her soul.

He did not even think about what he should do: there was never any question of it. Lifting the upper part of her body gently off the stone seat, he sat down next to her and pulled her into his arms, so that she could cry on his shoulder.

He let her have her cry out, but then when her sobs began to subside, he got out a handkerchief, and handed it to her,
keeping
one arm around her. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’ he asked her gently. ‘I’ve no wish to force your confidence, but it might help to talk. Besides, there may be something I can do.’ It must have been a very serious occurrence in the household of her friends to reduce her to this state, he decided.

She shook her head. ‘There is nothing you can do,’ she told him. ‘My friend …’ She paused and gulped. ‘My friend is dead, you see.’

‘Oh my dear,’ he exclaimed involuntarily, gathering her close to him again. ‘Was it very sudden?’

‘It was in childbirth,’ she answered. She explained to him how she had gone to stay with her friend because her husband was away, and about how they had had to send for him in the middle of the night. ‘At least he was there in time to see her, but you see, I know it sounds selfish but’ – she gulped – ‘but I did not have the chance to … to say goodbye.’ She shed a few more tears. ‘Of course I know that it is far more important that her husband should have been there. Mr Fanshawe is a
clergyman
here. Did you know?’

He went suddenly still. ‘No. No, I didn’t know,’ he replied.

‘He has not been here for very long; just a little longer than Mr Trimmer. I do not have many friends and Nathalie and I had become quite close in a short space of time.’

‘I understand,’ he answered. Then, in a changed tone, he went on, ‘My dear girl, you must try not to berate yourself over this. You were with your friend when she needed you. It is very sad that you could not say goodbye, but it is far better that her husband should have been there, surely.’