The Emperor (23 page)

‘
Is it true that Lucy rides cross-saddle at Wolvercote?'
Harry asked her as they turned on to the track.

‘
I'm afraid so,' Jemima smiled. 'Ever since Héloïse told
her that Queen Marie Antoinette, poor creature, used to
ride cross-saddle on her own estates, dressed in breeches
and a man's coat. That girl is for ever doing something
shocking. I suppose we should be glad that she confines it to
Wolvercote, and does not ride cross-saddle in Hyde Park –
though that may yet come.'

‘
Perhaps it's more comfortable,' Harry suggested.
Jemima considered. 'I cannot think it would be. Women
are not made the same as men.'

‘
I know,' said Harry with a private grin which made
Jemima look sideways at him.

‘Do you? Now what do you mean by that?'

‘Mother, I'm twenty years old,' Harry said, giving her an
affectionate look. ‘I'm not a child any longer. And the
women on the
Pelican
are not nuns, you know. I've seen
things below deck you simply couldn't imagine.'

‘
I hope not,' Jemima said with a raised eyebrow. 'But
have you met any respectable women?'

‘
You mean is there a prospect of my getting married?
Dear Mama, always singing the same tune! No, I don't think
I shall be getting married for a good, long time yet. Besides,
how would you have me support a wife? Though I am
twenty, I'm only a midshipman, you know.'

‘
Are you happy in the navy?' Jemima asked. 'Would you
prefer to try some other career?’

He opened his eyes wide. 'Good God, no, ma'am! I
could not think of anything but the sea, now. Don't be
thinking I am unhappy. I only wish I could get on faster,
that's all. It is tedious to be waiting for nothing but length of
service, to become a lieutenant. Once I have my commission
 
I shall be as happy as a porpoise.'

‘And then will you marry?’

He gave her a sly look, 'With the left hand, perhaps, like
the Cap'n. That will do to be going on with, I dare say.'

‘
What can you mean?' Jemima asked, and Harry, evi
dently with great amusement, told her about the mysterious
Mrs Smith, who shared the Captain's quarters aboard the
Pelican,
while Jemima listened in growing astonishment.

‘
What beats all,' Harry concluded, 'is that she ain't at all
like a light o'love to look at – at least, not to
my idea
of the
thing. She's as plain as a horse – pleasant, mind, but no
beauty – and dresses herself as sober as a Methody. She
bustles about like a country housewife, doing Bloody Bill's washing and mending, and looking down her nose if anyone should happen to cuss in her hearing, and sitting at the foot of the table when he dines as prim as a pineapple. But she's
sea-legs like an old tar, never gets sick, however hard it
blows, and turns to in an emergency with the best of 'em.
And yet, you know, Mama, the Cap'n worships her, as if she was a goddess, and I've never known him so much as glance
at any of the portside beauties. Caps the globe for me, that
does!’

After a brief silence, Jemima said, 'But Harry, if he loves
her so much, why doesn't he marry her?'

‘
Oh! He couldn't do that, you know,' Harry said, looking
a little nonplussed. He looked sideways at his mother, as
though he didn't much want to answer the question, and
finally said, 'Not Mrs Smith. She isn't quite – quite right.'

‘What on earth can you mean?'

‘
Well, you see, Mother,' Harry said reluctantly, 'she's a
mulatto.’

Jemima had nothing to say. What sons she had, she
thought, for falling in love with the wrong person! She had
not expected much of William, but she had hoped that when
he was older and more settled, when he had won enough
prize money to set up his house, he might take a wife. Now it seemed any grandchildren he provided her with would be
not only illegitimate, but black, too.

Harry watched her face for a moment, and then tried to
comfort her. 'Never mind, Mother, at least Jamie's married,
and they may get a boy next time. I think the Cap'n's right
not to get married while this war lasts. It would be unfair on a wife, to be leaving her behind all the time. Look how Mary
frets for her Captain Haworth. No, depend upon it, a sailor
shouldn't marry, not until he's an Admiral, anyway. When I
get my flag, Mama, I'll choose a nice, handsome, good-
humoured girl, and settle down with her as snug as a ham
mock. If only I had my certificates! I wish you could have put me onto someone's books, like Jack.' His eyes clouded
for a moment as he thought of Jack.

‘You must miss him very much,' Jemima said.

‘
If only he hadn't got himself made without me!' Harry
burst out. 'If he had waited for me, everything would have
been all right. He was always getting into scrapes, you
remember, Mama, but I was always there to get him out of
them. Then he needs must go off on his own, and this is
what happens!’

Jemima wondered privately what effect Harry thought he
could have had on a flying cannon-ball, but she said
nothing. Harry's understanding had never been as sharp as
Jack's, but they had been very close, depending on each
other for different things. Then Harry took an unexpected
leap into her thoughts by saying, 'Jack was always the clever
one, I know. It was only in mathematics I came near to him.
But he was such a fidgety creature, Mama, always seeing
difficulties, getting upset over things that weren't worth
fretting about, and that's when he needed me, to talk sense
into him. He called me his rock. He used to say that
between us we made up one very good sort of a man.’

They came in sight of Twelvetrees, and Harry made one
of the miraculous recoveries of youth. His face brightened, and he said in a perfectly normal voice, 'What, haven't you
begun the rebuilding
yet?
I made sure I would see a vast
improvement in the old place, but here it is, as tumbledown
as ever! I wonder if you will ever get round to it, at this
rate.'

‘I wonder myself,' Jemima said with a private smile.

*

At the end of May, the Chelmsfords came down to Shawes for the summer, bringing Héloïse with them.

‘
I rather thought Lucy and Chetwyn might have come
too,' Jemima complained mildly when she paid her first
morning visit. Harry had gone back to sea, and a slight fall
had resulted in her being banned from the saddle for a
week, so she was feeling bored.

‘
Chetwyn had to see to matters at Wolvercote,' Charles
explained, 'and Lucy is staying in London, ostensibly to
keep the house open for Mary and Haworth until he joins
his ship. Have you heard that he's been given command of a
new eighty-gun two-decker, the
Africa?'

‘
Yes, Mary wrote to me about that. When will she be
completed?'

‘
Very soon, I believe. Haworth's delighted with her, of
course. It's a great compliment to have been given one of
the few new ships.'

‘
But Charles, what did you mean by
ostensibly?'
Jemima
reverted.

‘
And I thought you had not noticed,' Charles smiled. 'I
think the real reason is that Lucy is trying to fit in as much
pleasure as she can, before she has to retire on account of
her condition. She and Chetwyn will certainly come in
August for the races, but after that I think she cannot expect to go out into society much more before her confinement, so
she is making the most of things now.'

‘
But what does she find to do in London? She was always
such a country girl.'

‘
My dear ma'am, she leads the
ton!'
Charles exclaimed,
wide-eyed, and Jemima laughed.

‘That I cannot believe! Not my harum-scarum Lucy.'

‘
Oh, she is every bit the countess now! She wears new
fashions before they
are
new fashions, goes to all the best
parties, rides and drives in the Park, and is everywhere
followed by a jostling crowd of gallants, who tread on each
other in their anxiety to be the one to pick up her handker
chief or hand her her gloves.’

Jemima shook her head. ‘Mary I could believe it of, but
not Lucy.'

‘
Oh it is quite true, I assure you. Mary is a mature matron
now, and in any case has eyes for no-one but her husband.

You have heard she means to go to sea with him when he
gets his ship?' Jemima nodded. 'That, of course, gives Lucy
another excuse to stay in London. She spends long hours
telling Mary in minute detail all about the inside of a two-
decker, and helps her draw up lists of what to take with her
as cabin-baggage. She says no-one else can advise Mrs
Haworth so well — and she is probably right.’

Jemima was happier even than she had expected to see
Héloïse again. It seemed that she had taken a daughter's
place in her affections, and that she had been missing her
without realizing it. Charles and Roberta had a great many things to do about the house that first day, so Jemima took
the opportunity to suggest that Héloïse take a walk with her.

‘
We could go down through the formal gardens to the
lake,' she suggested. 'One circuit of the lake makes a
pleasant round for a morning walk.’

It was a beautiful, early-June day, with a freshness in the
air and a glittering clarity to the sunshine which made it
seem as though everything had been freshly scrubbed and
polished. The sky was a flawless blue, and the chestnut buds
were opening juicily. All around everything seemed to be
growing so vigorously one could almost hear it; implicit everywhere was the sound of beasts tearing avidly at the
lush, rich grass.

‘
The grass looks so good at this, time of year,' Jemima
said, 'I feel I could eat it myself.’

Héloïse smiled. 'Yes, and the rose buds: they look so fat
and delicious. What do you suppose they would taste like?
The pale yellow ones of caramel, perhaps?'

‘
And those pink ones strawberry cream. And the leaves,
of course, would be angelica.’

They walked along the terrace, and Jemima stopped and
turned to look at the house. Héloïse looked too, and said, 'It
is very beautiful — quite different from the great French
houses. It is very — spare. Nothing is in excess, and nothing
is wasted.'

‘
Yes,' said Jemima. 'They say Vanbrugh thought Shawes
the best thing he had ever done, for all that it's so small —
compared with Blenheim and Castle Howard, I mean. I
think it is the most beautiful house I know. I can hardly believe sometimes that it was once mine.’

They turned from the house, and leaned against the
terrace wall to look down over the pleasure-gardens. 'When
Henry Wise laid these out,' Jemima said, 'the Countess
Annunciata requested a mixture of mature trees and
saplings — mature trees for her own enjoyment, and saplings
for the generations to come. Now, eighty, ninety years later,
it's impossible to tell which are which. What would our lives
be, if we could not plan for the future, create beautiful
things for our children and grandchildren to enjoy?’

Héloïse had no answer. It was not a question for her, who
had no children, and no expectation of ever having any; for
a moment, all the losses of her life ranged themselves
around her for her contemplation. She gazed out over the
sunlit gardens in silence, and the penetrating, aromatic smell
of box came up to her from the formal garden with its
geometrical flower beds divided by gravelled walks. That
smell was to her the essence of France in summer, and it was
like a gentle hand laid over her aching heart.

‘
Did you know the Countess?' she asked as they walked
on. 'She was a very great lady, I think?'