The Emperor (34 page)

Héloïse laughed. 'Oh, but that is the very best kind of
talk, my James.’

Never had he shared such intimacy with a woman — or with any human being. He knew every part of her, every
expression of her face, every gesture she made. He knew the
smell of her, so that if he had been shut in a pitch-dark
room with a hundred women, he could have found her by
scent alone. In the blind darkness of night his fingertips
knew every plain and hollow of her pliant body; he knew
her mind, the grace of it which touched him, and the shape of her thoughts.

What he knew, he loved. He loved her laughter, the turn
of her head, her quick light movements, the way she
wrinkled her nose when in deep thought; he loved her
common sense, and the passion with which she would argue
over the flavouring of a sauce. And every night in her little boat-bed with the white muslin drapes, he would hold her
 
precious, small body close to him, and wonder at so much love.

‘
We must never quarrel, James,' she said to him one
night on the edge of sleep. 'The bed is much too small.’

He learnt the difference between making love, and what
he had done before with other women: this was progression,
development, as different as a symphony from a four-bar tune; a shared journey of discovery. When her flux came, and they had to sleep apart for a week, he realized how it would be, how this small monthly disappointment would
become a regular and expected thing. It seemed a warm and
kindly thing to share. They missed each other, and came together at the end of week with new tenderness.

*

It was not to be expected that they would be left entirely alone. James had read his mother's letter, and it had made
him unhappy. He did not answer it, for no answer was
possible. The next approach came two weeks later, when Edward arrived alone on horseback one morning. Durban
saw him from the window, and went to fetch James from the
garden, where he and
Héloïse
had been discussing the desirability of digging a pond.

Héloïse looked frightened when she understood who was
at the gate, and James, though paling a little, sought to reassure her. He pressed her hand and said firmly. 'Let me
see him alone, my love. It is better that way. Don't worry, he
can't hurt us.’

He met his brother in the parlour. Edward looked
unexpectedly taller to him. His usually cheerful face was set
in grim lines, but otherwise he was the same old Ned, and the familiarity roused all James's old affection. The soft
brown hair was caught back in a queue with a black ribbon, as always — he did not crop like James, not because he des
pised the fashion, as some men did, thinking it effeminate or
even 'foreign', but simply because he never thought about
his appearance. His brown coat and breeches were cut for
comfort rather than elegance, and his boots had the soft,
dull shine of very old, well-kept leather; his waistcoat was
yellow and green striped, a piece of cheerful nonsense which
James was willing to wager had been a present from
Chetwyn, and his stock was plain white and simply tied.

He looked like a respectable but unlettered country
squire, a man who knew everything there was to know about
cattle and pigs and crop rotation, tithes and rents and
repairing leases, and nothing about fashionable life; he
looked also, to James's newly opened eye, like a man who knew nothing about passion and grief. Edward was thirty-
five, five years James's senior, but his face, despite the tired
ness around his eyes, was indelibly youthful. He is
Chetwyn's boy still, James thought; while he is that, he will
never be anyone's man.

‘It's good to see you,' James said.

‘
Is it? I doubt you'll be so welcoming when you hear what
I have to say.'

‘
It seems strange to see you looking so grim, not at all
like my dear old Ned, my kind brother. Have you been long on the road? Can I get you some refreshment? We live very
simply here — ale or buttermilk is about all I can offer you.'

‘
Oh stop it, Jamie, do,' Edward said irritably.

‘Stop what?' James said, with raised eyebrows.

‘This play-acting. What the devil do you think you're
doing? You must know perfectly well what I have come for,
and you go babbling on about buttermilk as though this
were a social visit. It isn't a matter for laughter, you know.'

‘Ah, but that's where you're wrong,' James said gently.
'My life has become, for the first time, very much a laughing
matter. I'm happy, Ned, do you understand that? Do you know what it is to be happy, all day long?'

‘How can you be happy? Have you no shame? Don't you
know you're breaking Mother's heart? You've plunged us
all into the middle of the most terrible scandal. Everything's at sixes and sevens, the house in uproar, and you stand there
and talk about being happy!’

James bit his lip. ‘I'm sorry —'

‘Sorry!' Ned interrupted explosively.

‘Sorry to have made anyone unhappy. I didn't want to
cause an uproar, and if there were anything I could do, short
of leaving here, to make things better, I would do it. But you
may as well know straight away that I am not coming back,
whatever you say. I love Héloïse, and I'm happy here, more
happy than I knew a man could be. Try to understand that, and forgive me.’

Ned listened with growing indignation, tapping his boot
with his riding crop. 'I understand one thing, that you are as
selfish as the day is long, and haven't the least care in the
world for anyone but yourself. Aye, and you've always been like that, from a child upwards. What you wanted, you took,
and devil take the rest of us. That's your attitude, isn't it?
What about your wife? What about your daughter? Don't
you know Fanny looks for you every day? She keeps asking
why you don't come to see her any more.'

‘Oh,' said James softly, turning his face away. 'That was below the belt.’

There was a short silence, and then Edward spoke more gently. 'Come back, Jamie. Things are bad, but it isn't too
late. We've managed to keep it fairly quiet so far. People are
wondering, but they don't know anything for sure. Mother
will forgive you if you come with me now, and I don't think
your wife will say anything. She misses you too, you know.'
James looked up, disbelief in his eyes. 'Oh yes, she doesn't
say much, but she misses you. She's really quite fond of
you.'

‘
Quite fond,' James said in wonder, and then laughed.
The cloud-shadow had passed over. 'Quite fond! My dear
brother, it just shews you know nothing of love, if you think I could be summoned by a woman who was "quite fond" of
me! What do you know of the rich inner landscape, of the bliss of a shared life and two minds thinking as one?'

‘Stuff! Don't try to gammon me with that romantic pishposh! This is dereliction of duty, plain and simple. You are evading your responsibilities, in the most cowardly way.'

‘Cowardly?' James said, hurt.

‘Yes,' said Ned, his lip curling with contempt, 'I said
cowardly. You're hiding from duty behind a woman's
skirts.’

There was a silence, and then James turned away. 'I think
you had better go. You can have nothing more to say to me now.'

‘You will not come with me?'‘No.'

‘And what am Ito tell Mother?’

James frowned. 'Tell her I'm sorry, if you please. I can't
come back. It will be better if you all forget me, as though I
had never existed.’

Edward drew a breath, as though there might still be something to say. He looked at his brother with regret, and remembered their ties of blood, their shared childhood, and
the kindness there had been between them in other days;
and then he shrugged, clamped his shapeless hat back onto his head, and went out to where Stephen was holding his horse at the gate.

*

’He won't come back,' said Edward.

‘Even now?' Jemima asked.

‘
Even now,' he said looking down with anxious pity at his
mother. It was strange and disturbing to see her so still,
sitting in the house all day instead of being out on horse
back. 'But don't despair, Mama,' he begged, going down on his knees before her, and pressing her hands. 'Give it time.
He is still living in the clouds, full of romantic nonsense. He
will come down to earth at last, and then he'll come home and beg your forgiveness.’

Jemima looked up. 'But then he'll be unhappy again,' she
said. 'Part of me wishes he might stay in his cloud. The cure
will be almost as bad as the illness.’

*

September came, the best of Septembers, warm, sunny,
windless, golden. Edward and Chetwyn spent long hours
out of doors shooting rabbits and pigeons, getting in
practice for the pheasant season to come; while Lucy grew
short of breath and irritable, and longed for her confinement
to be over, so that she could get back to London for the
Little Season.

Stretched out on a sofa by the window, with her mother and Mary Ann nearby, sewing or reading, she would count and calculate: ‘If it is born in the first week of October, I could be in London for most of November. But if it doesn't come until the end of the month, I shan't get to Town until after Christmas.'

‘
What is so very attractive about London, child?' Jemima
asked, puzzled. 'You always liked walking and riding and being in the country.'

‘I can walk and ride in London,' Lucy said, 'and there is so much more to do, and more people. I have a large acquaintance in London, Mother. You have no idea.'

‘
Yes, my dear, I have some idea,' Jemima said with a
faint smile. 'I lived in London once.’

Mary Ann looked up and said, 'I'm afraid I have not:
I've never been to London at all.’

Lucy looked at her with one of her sudden bursts of pity.
She didn't much like Mrs James, but felt that she had had a very poor deal. 'Well, you must come up and stay with Chetwyn and me. There's enough room, now Mary's away.
I'll take you around and chew you everything, and introduce
you -' She stopped abruptly, as all three women realized
simultaneously that it would be impossible to introduce
Mary Ann anywhere without some inquiry being made as to
the whereabouts of her husband. Damn James, Lucy
thought, and was about to express the thought aloud, when Jemima intervened with more tact.

‘I'm so looking forward to next year, when
Pelican's
commission will be ending. We may hope to have William
and Harry home again in the spring. I can't wait to see them.
I miss my sons when they are from home.’

Mary Ann, stitching away at a vest for Lucy's baby, compressed her lips tightly at the words. But when it came to it, Jemima thought with an inward sigh, there were few
topics of conversation that were safe in Mary Ann's
presence.

*

The first part of Lucy's wish, to have her confinement over and done with, looked like being fulfilled. One day
in
the third week of September she walked over to Shawes to see Charles and Roberta and to demand their commiseration
over the fact that they would be back in London before her.
It was a very hot day, and she went through the fields, where
the walking was rough and the lion-grass long and hampering. When she arrived she was feeling fagged and out of
sorts, and Roberta made her sit down and sent for a glass of
cold lemonade. At the first sip Lucy opened her eyes wide
and gasped. Roberta thought the drink had been too cold
for her in her heated condition, and was taking it from her and apologizing, when Lucy cried out and doubled up, and they realized simultaneously that her pains had started.

The pains were immediately severe, and Roberta would not hear of her trying to go back to Morland Place.

‘
Second babies often come very quickly, and it would not
do for you to be having it in the carriage,' she said sensibly.
‘Let me get you up to bed, and I'll send for the doctor
straight away. There's no reason why you shouldn't be comfortable here, is there?’

Lucy was growing more preoccupied by the minute, and
had no further argument to offer. Roberta got her to bed,
and sent, on her request, for her mother and Docwra, and
on Charles's insistence, for the best surgeon in York.

It was a long and hard labour. It seemed that Lucy did
not give birth easily, and the child, like her first, was large. The surgeon emitted such an air of gloom and foreboding
that eventually Docwra lost her temper with him,, and
begged Jemima to send him away. Jemima, despite her own
anxiety, exerted herself to be tactful and kept the doctor on hand, just in case, while she and Docwra remained at the bedside.