The Flood-Tide (28 page)

The talk, of course, was all about the fair.

‘Mother, can I enter Sorrell in the pony race, or is she too big?' Edward asked.

‘Oh no, Mama, don't let him,' Mary cried at once. 'You can't, Edward, it wouldn't be fair.'

‘Why ever not?' Jemima asked in surprise.

‘Because she wants John Anstey to win, that's why,' James put in quietly, but not so quietly it couldn't be heard. Poor Anstey went scarlet, and Mary glared furiously at James.

‘Hold your tongue! You're such a child, what do you know about anything?'

‘Mary, please,' Jemima protested, pulling her face back from Harry's groping hand, now sticky with food. 'I think Sorrell might be giving you an unfair advantage, Edward. It is only a pony race.' Edward smiled tolerantly.

‘You won't believe what some people are entering, Mother. Down in the village they are almost drawing blood on the question of what defines a pony.'

‘Well, never mind. It wouldn't seem right for Morlands to win all the prizes,' Jemima said peacefully. 'Can't you enter for something else?'

‘Well, there's the sack race, I suppose,' Edward said. ‘I can't see myself being much of a hand at catching the pig-in-a-lane, or the pudding-eating, and I know you wouldn't let me enter the wrestling or the cudgels.'

‘The grinning match should suit you,' Mary said sulkily.

‘I shall enter for everything,' James announced. 'And I shall certainly win the bull riding.'

‘Only because you know the bull personally,' Edward said, grinning, 'I know where it is you've been going every morning, with a palmful of salt.'

‘The cheese-rolling - that's a nice uncontentious competition,' Jemima said hastily.

‘I don't see how you can enter for anything,' Mary said to James. 'You'll be playing in the cricket match.'

‘Not all the time,' Edward pointed out, but James only looked serene, not even bothering to argue with Mary.

‘Well, as the person in charge of the prizes, I can tell you that you wouldn't enjoy them if you did win, which you won't,' said Father Ramsay. The boys at once clamoured to know what the prizes were. 'Let me see,' he said, counting them off, 'there's a pound of tobacco, a round of beef, a truckle of cheese, a black piglet, a new hat—' The boys looked dismayed.

‘I shouldn't mind the piglet,' James said at length. 'I could train it to follow me like a dog. It would be a splendid thing, to go around with a pig at your heels. And when it was grown, it would be big enough to fight all the other dogs, and I could teach it tricks, and it would be famous!'

‘At all costs,' Jemima said to the priest, 'make sure James does not win the piglet.'

‘And after all these games, what then?' Flora asked.

‘Dinner in the house, for us and a few guests, and then a ball at Shawes, and fireworks on the lake to finish up. I wish the long gallery was big enough for us to have the ball here,' Jemima added with a sigh. 'That's the trouble with living in a moated house - there's no room to expand. Allen and I have talked about filling in the moat, but somehow I just couldn't bear the idea of losing the swans. So we must make do. It's only for very big balls, after all, that we feel the lack.'

‘I suppose everyone will be there,' Flora said. 'It does seem hard that everything happens when I am in this condition and unable to join in. There was that ball at the Assembly Rooms last week, too.'

‘At least you can go and watch,' Mary said peevishly. ‘I am not even allowed to go, though Mary Loveday will be going, and I'm much taller than her.'

‘You are too young,' Jemima said, repressing a smile. ‘Mary Loveday is sixteen. It has nothing to do with height.'

‘No one would know I'm too young,' Mary began, but Father Ramsay silenced her with a look, and John Anstey tried to comfort her.

‘I'm sure you will be much missed,' he said. 'I'm sure I shall have no pleasure in the ball, if you are not there.'

‘Well then, why do you not refuse to go?' Mary asked, rather too much to the point.

Edward grinned and said, 'Don't worry, Mary, I'll make sure he doesn't dance with Mary Loveday in your absence.'

‘I'm sure it is a matter of indifference to
me,'
Mary said, tossing her head. 'He may dance with anyone he pleases. Tom Loveday said he will refuse to go to the ball at all if I do not go, and Horatio Morland said he would much sooner sit and talk to me than dance with a princess of England. But men are all so fickle, I do not pay any heed to anything they say.’

John Anstey's attempted defence was drowned in the laughter of Jemima, and Edward's comment of 'Well, if you have learnt
that,
Mary, you have learnt all that is necessary.' But Flora felt a strange sort of sympathy with Mary. The dancing part of a young woman's life was all too short. She remembered when she had been fourteen how she had been wild for balls, and at fifteen, wild for marriage. She had fallen in love with Thomas, as she now realized, not because of anything in his character, but because she wanted to be in love, had rushed through their marriage because she was desperate to be married. How she wished, now, that Charles had not come home that Christmas, that she had had time to be young and attractive before becoming a wife and mother. Here she was, swollen up like a woolsack, with all the pain and inconvenience of childbirth before her, and over there was little Louisa, to whom she felt no attachment at all. For the moment, in her self-pity, she forgot the pleasant two years she had had in London.

It was such a lovely day that even when they had finished eating they sat on in the shade of the scented Edward and John and Mary disappeared on some business of their own; Father Ramsay fell asleep, and James took the opportunity to slip away; the babies dozed on the rug beside Jemima, while she talked to Alison about the rearrangement of the nursery to accommodate the two new occupants. They were still there when Allen returned home from the city and came to find them.

‘What a pleasant picture you all make,' he said, appearing in the gap in the hedge. 'I wish I could have a portrait made of you, just as you are.’

Jemima greeted him. 'You are early - I am glad. I was afraid once you got talking you would be tempted to linger and take dinner with the other trustees.'

‘I have hurried back with some good news for you,' he replied. 'I hope it will please Edward, too, and Flora. John Carr tells me that he has some guests arriving today, to stay for a week or two - Lord Meldon, and Lord Calder. Naturally I begged him to bring them to our midsummer festivities, and especially to the dinner and ball. Carr said that Lord Calder especially asked to be remembered to you, my dear, and Edward, and that both young men will do themselves the honour of calling tomorrow, if you permit. Naturally, I assumed that you would.'

‘How lovely,' Jemima said. 'I shall be very glad to see them - and Flora, you will be happy to meet your old friends, I know.’

But Flora stood up, almost in tears. 'Oh sir, how could you! How can I meet anyone in this condition? I should be shamed - I cannot receive them, I really cannot. To have the people I have known in London staring at me - and as for the ball, I certainly cannot go if they will be there! This is an end of it for me.’

She ran away towards the house as rapidly as her bulk would allow, leaving Jemima and Allen in a distressed silence.

‘Oh dear,' Allen said at last. 'I am afraid I have - but I did not think - my dear, can you understand her distress? I thought she was missing her friends.'

‘I seem to know Flora as little as any of my children,' Jemima said sadly.

In her own room, Flora stood at the window, staring out at nothing, her hands held against the hard bulk of her swollen abdomen, forced most unwillingly to come to grips with her feelings. I care nothing about Thomas, she thought. I wish I had never married him. I shall not be sorry if I never see him again. No, that's not true. I am fond of him, for he is a good and kind man. But I don't miss him, I don't want to be with him.

That was the first stage of self-knowledge; the second was harder still. She had to ask herself why she was so upset at the thought of the young lords seeing her in this condition when they had known when she left London that she was with child. I have missed him, she thought. I have been looking forward to going back to London after I am delivered, so that I can see him again. I do not want him to see me large with another man's child. I do not want him to know, more than he does already, that I am another man's wife.

Perhaps if Thomas had not been a sailor things might have been different. She had spent so little time with him that she had never got to know him, in the way she had Lord Meldon. She might have enjoyed his company as much, cared as much for his opinions, missed him in his absences as much, had they been shorter and less frequent. But as things were, there was no use in denying it to herself any longer. And she did not want Charles to see her like this, in case the sight of her pregnancy turned him against her and made him decide he did not want to see her again.

*

The young men called as promised the next day, and were received kindly by all, but Flora would not come down, and for the length of time they were in the country she remained in retirement, resisting all persuasion to join in any of the entertainments, and venturing out of her room only when she was assured that none but the family was
    
present. Jemima observed it all with her private thoughts kept private, and did not urge Flora to join them, thinking that if she had discovered in herself a preference for the young men's company, she had better not be in their presence more than necessary.

Edward's delight was a pleasure to see in his friend Chetwyn's arrival. He had finished at Eton, and in the autumn was to go to Christ Church, much in advance of his age, for he was so forward in his studies. Jemima had some doubts as to whether it was wise for such a young man to be exposed to the influences of Oxford, and was glad when Chetwyn reassured her.

‘I greatly regret that I shall not be at the university myself,' he said, 'but as you know, my father's place at Wolvercote is less than three miles from the House. I shall be very often there, and I will undertake to guard over your son like a mother hen and keep him from harm, and if you will only charge me to, I shall take upon myself also the delightful task of reporting to you that he is not ruining his health or plotting to elope with the Master's daughter.'

‘You are very kind, sir,' Jemima said. 'I shall part with him with an easier mind, knowing he is well cared for.'

‘And I can help you further in telling you what he will need to take with him, to make him good and popular; and I shall bring him home to you at the end of each term, with a full report on his progress.’

The festivities went off excellently well, and the dinner and ball were both successful occasions, except as far as Mary was concerned, for all three of her beaux not only attended the ball, but danced as often as they could, which provided her with most unwelcome confirmation of the fickleness of men, and made her determined to punish them when laggard time at last released her from the confines of the schoolroom.

On the second day following, Calder and Meldon left York, calling at Morland Place on their way to make their adieux, still without having the pleasure of seeing Flora's face. When they had gone, Edward went up to her room and tapped on the door. At his second knock, a listless voice bid him come in. Flora was sitting by the window, her elbow on the windowsill and her chin in her hand, and she did not move or look up as he came in.

‘They've gone,' Edward said at last. 'Back to London for a few weeks, and then to Oxfordshire. You're safe to come down now, if you want.’

She looked at him resentfully. 'Have you come to torment me?’

Edward looked at her steadily. 'No, to bring you a letter - from Lord Meldon.' Flora started at the name, and then flushed angrily.

‘Do you mock me? Why should Lord Meldon write to me? And if he did, why should he send the letter by you?'

‘It's all right, Cousin,' Edward said kindly. 'Charles has no secrets from Chetwyn, and Chetwyn has none from me. It was the only way to get a letter to you without anyone knowing.'

‘Do you know what's in the letter?' Flora asked in a small voice. Edward continued to look at her with that steady kindness, as if he were twenty-six rather than sixteen.

‘I am on your side,' he said. 'You do not need to pretend with me. And, indeed, I pity you, with all my heart. Your secret is safe with me.’

Flora stared at him consideringly, and then said, 'Give me the letter.’

The letter was brief. 'I hardly know what to understand from your refusal to see me, but even at the risk of rebuff, I must tell you that I have missed your presence all this year more than I could have anticipated. I have had no pleasure in anything but the anticipation of your rejoining our circle in the autumn. There is so much more I should wish to say to you, but I dare not commit it to paper. I beg you not to be so cruel as to remain in Yorkshire a day longer than necessary, but to return as soon as possible to London, and to one who wishes to be, your most humble and faithful servant, C.M.’

Tears rose to her eyes, and for a moment the page grew blurred, and she had to bite her lip to stop it trembling. She looked up at last to meet Edward's eye.