The Emperor (49 page)

William evidently adored her. He seemed curiously shy
with her, addressing her quite formally, as if he were a
young man addressing an adult friend of his parents. Yet his
pride in her was evident and he exhibited her to James as a
possession of great value which would make him the envy of
the world. James could quite see that he would address her
always as Mrs Smith; he wondered, in fact, that William had
ever been able to attain to the intimacy of making her preg
nant.

On her side, she treated William kindly and affection
ately, rather like a warm-hearted aunt with a favourite
nephew. James had little doubt that she had initially seen in
William's infatuation a providential way of escaping an
unpleasant situation, and wondered how bad it must have
been to make her want to exchange it for the confines of a
two-decker and the horrors of ship-board food. She was a
soldier of fortune, he thought, and he respected her as such,
and wished her well.

As he rode home alone afterwards, having left William to
enjoy a few minutes of connubial bliss, James could not help
reflecting that Morland Place had reason to be grateful to
the unknown Mr Smith, if that was his name. William was so
besotted with his lady, that had she been free, he would
have seen no reason not to marry her; and then Jemima
might have felt obliged to make their children her heirs.

*

It was on the day of Timmy's funeral, the day before
William was to leave for London, that Harry accidentally
revealed Mrs Smith's presence and condition to his mother.
He thought the whole thing a good joke, and was surprised
that Jemima was upset.

‘
Lord, Mama, men have mistresses all the time, and the
mistresses have brats. That's in the way of things. You
mustn't take it to heart. The Cap'n's desperate fond of the
old lady, and she won't want for anything. And you mustn't think there'll be a scandal, for she's as sensible as a muffler
on a winter morning, and knows how to keep her colours
hidden.’

Jemima did not attempt to explain her feelings to him. If
Edward and James, who had lived with her for most of their
lives, could not share them, she could expect little from
Harry, whose understanding was not quick in any case. She
did, however, seek out William, and asked him what provision
he had made for the expected child.

‘
Don't worry, Mama,' William said awkwardly, much
embarrassed. 'Mrs Smith will be quite all right. I'll find some
snug lodgings for her, where the landlady's used to sailors'
ways, and will keep an eye on her, and I'll make arrange
ments for her to draw half my pay month by month. I
wouldn't let her want for anything.'

‘But why don't you marry her? Surely the child makes a difference?' Jemima asked him, as James had done, and William avoided her eyes and told her.

Jemima thought of Mary Skelwith and her child, of
Héloïse and Mary Ann, of her own father and mother and Marie-Louise, of all the complications that came of doing wrong. Sins must in time be forgiven and forgotten, but an
illegitimate child could not simply be cancelled out: it was
an error which could not be corrected. She felt a great
weariness come over her, and William looked at her stricken
face and said miserably, 'I'm sorry, Mother. I wish it could
be all above-board — no-one could wish it more! But it don't signify. No-one's hurt by it.'

‘
Do you believe that?' she asked. 'No, don't answer — I see that you do.' She left him and went to the chapel, her
tread as heavy as her heart. Father Thomas was there,
saying the prayers for the dead, and Jemima did not disturb
him, but went into the Lady-chapel and knelt stiffly at the
rail. The world has gone mad, she thought; was it the war? Did men turn from devouring each other to devouring themselves? Things had seemed so simple in her childhood.
She thought of Allen going off to fight in the '45, because
King James was his king, and that was that. She remem
bered how he had stayed in exile long after he could have come home, because she was married to another, and there was nothing to come home for. But had William or James considered themselves under that kind of constraint? Did Edward or Harry condemn them for it? Her sons seemed to have no more moral sense than wolves. Her sons — Allen's sons.

She looked up and saw that Father Thomas had come
over to her, and was looking at her enquiringly. She met his eyes, wondering what to say. He's an old man, she thought
suddenly; we're both old. Perhaps that's what happens to
old people — the world moves on and they find they can't understand it any more.

‘They say the Lady weeps when danger is coming to the
house,' she said at last, 'but there are no tears today. Is that
a sign? Is the absence of a sign, a sign?’

He came and knelt beside her. She thought he did not know what she was talking about.

‘Everything is in James's hands,' she said. 'Is that mad
ness? Is he the worst of them, or the best? I loved him best —
I thought he was like his father. That seems strange now.'

‘Sometimes the greatest sinners can become the greatest saints,' Father Thomas said.

‘Better, you think, to do wrong, knowing it's wrong, than to be virtuous out of ignorance? James knows God's name, and perhaps that's better than nothing.'

‘He's a thoughtful man,' Father Thomas said, and it was
painfully obvious to Jemima that he was trying to comfort
her. 'He'll come about, given time.’

She looked up at the Lady's golden face, wavering in
the candle-light, and images seemed to be streaming
through her mind at an extraordinary speed, as though she
were being shewn the portrait of everyone she had ever
known, one after the other. Faces, faces, eyes and mouths, smiling, speaking: her father, mother, brothers; her uncles, forever bickering, and her acquisitive cousins; Annunciata,
Marie-Louise, Allen, Henri, the brother she had never seen
— Charles and Flora, Héloïse, their children and her chil
dren. All the complex warp and weft of family and history,
of relationship, love, and duty; the shining thread spinning, spinning, a tapestry whose pattern only God would ever see completed.

It seemed very dark in the chapel; the candle flames were hooded in darkness.

‘My lady?' Father Thomas said, near and far away. There
were tears on her cheeks, she discovered. It was not the
Lady who was crying, after all.

‘I'm tired,' she said. 'I think I'll go to my room.’

*

Jemima had not kept a lady's maid for many years, since she
stopped going out into society. Two of the housemaids took
care of her clothes, and took turns to draw her curtains in
the morning, though she rarely needed waking, for she was
usually astir as early as the servants. It was one of these who
came running down the backstairs the next day, eyes wide
with panic, crying out for Mrs Mappin. The housekeeper
was not down at that hour, and she hurtled into the kitchen to find it occupied only by Monsieur Barnard and his
minions, and the lower-housemaids whose job it was to
carry hot water up to the senior servants.

‘
Oh law, oh law!' she cried, 'whatever shall I do? Where's Mrs Mappin? It's the mistress — she won't wake up, and she
looks ever so funny! Oh what shall I do?’

Monsieur Barnard took command of the situation,
pushed the hysterical maid down into a chair, sent two
under-housemaids flying upstairs for Mrs Mappin and Mr
Oxhey, one kitchen boy to fetch Father Thomas and
another to run out to the stables to send a groom for Doctor
Swindells; and then took off his apron and climbed the
backstairs and for the first time in his life made his way to
the Red Room where he knew the mistress slept.

She was lying on her back, her mouth partly open, her
face very pale and curiously dead-looking. She was breath
ing heavily, and Barnard thanked God for that, and took up
her hand and felt for her pulse, and found it rapid and faint.
He replaced her hand on the bedspread, and looked down
at her with love.

‘
My dear mistress,' he said aloud, in English, ‘do not go,
please do not go.' And he stood quietly, keeping her
company until the help he had summoned should come and
take over from him.

*

It was a stroke, said Doctor Swindells, addressing Jemima's
four sons, daughter-in-law, chaplain, butler, and house
keeper in the drawing-room. It was too early yet to say how
serious it was — that must wait until she regained conscious
ness.

‘
When will that be?' Edward asked. His face had a
pinched look, as though his bones were trying to escape
through his skin.

‘
I cannot tell you. There is a possibility that she will not
wake at all. Even if she does, she may not recover; or
another stroke may carry her off. I'm afraid I cannot give
you any very cheerful news. Everything depends on the
damage that has been caused.'

‘What can be done?' William asked.

‘Nothing, I'm afraid. Watch and hope — and pray,' he
added for the sake of Father Thomas. 'There is nothing
medicine can do in this situation.’

When he had gone upstairs again, taking Father Thomas
with him, and the servants had gone, William said, 'The
matter is quite clear. There is nothing anyone can do, and
therefore no reason for me to delay my departure.'

‘
You mean to go, with Mother perhaps on her
deathbed?' James exclaimed in outrage.

‘
My being here can't help her. I must take up my com
mission — we are at war, you know. If there were anything I
could do, of course I would stay, but she's unconscious, and
even the doctor don't know if she'll ever wake again. What use can I be here?' He looked from one to another, reading
disapproval in James's and Harry's faces. Edward hardly
seemed to know he had spoken, and Mary Ann was as
impassive as ever. 'You had better stay, Harry,' he said.

‘
I should in any case,' Harry retorted, the first time in his
life he had spoken other than respectfully to the brother
who was also his senior officer and personal hero. ‘Do you
think I would run off until I knew Mother was out of
danger?'

‘
If you don't join the
Venus
before we sail you will have
to look for a berth elsewhere,' William warned him.

‘
To hell with that!' Harry cried angrily, and William
shrugged and went away to pack.

James watched him go, and then said quietly, 'Poor
Mother. She thought she had dogs on the leash, but let them
loose, and they're wolves after all.’

Edward stared at him blankly, not understanding much
through his shock, and then said, 'I had better get on with
my work. The estate still has to be run, even though — ' He
did not finish the sentence.

‘
Can I help you, Ned?' Harry asked. ‘I'd like to have
something to do, to keep me busy.’

They went out together. James looked at his wife,
meeting her eyes and finding them warm and kind. 'If
Mother were to die — ' he began, and then his voice failed
him. Mary Ann came to him and put her arms round him,
and with a little sigh he relaxed into them, leaning against
her, resting his cheek on her hair. 'Oh Mary, I love her so,’

he said, and felt his wife's hand gentle as it stroked his hair comfortingly.

*

Jemima woke at last from a confusing and horrible dream, a
black tumult of faces and voices, light and dark; bitter-
tasting, throbbing with distorted sounds, strangely twisted and threatening; and finally, blessedly, thinning out into a grey silence through which she drifted weightlessly, like a mote drifting in the ocean, gradually upwards towards the surface. She did not know where she was, or what had
happened; she only knew that the grey silence was good
after the dreams, and she was reluctant to leave it for the brighter, golden air above.

She woke, and found herself in her own bed, in the Red
Room. The bed curtains were drawn back, as were the
window curtains, and bright sunshine was pouring in. It was
full daylight. What was she doing in bed? Had she been ill? Had she had a fall? She tried to sit up, and found that she
had no body. A terrible panic washed over her for a
moment: where sensation ought to be, there was nothing, no
arms, legs, hands; nothing.