The Emperor (48 page)

‘
And what do you mean to do about yours?' James asked
cynically.

‘
I just have to hope that Mother comes to her senses.
Fortunately all the mail comes to me for franking, so I can stop any inflammatory letter going to Hobsbawn; and once
she has calmed down a little I'll quietly get rid of that maid,
and we may all ride out the storm in safety.'

‘My wife will be pleased,' James said politely.

‘
It isn't funny,' Edward said crossly. ‘I don't know what
you find to smile about.'

‘
I suppose,' James said mildly, ‘it is the fact that you are
all so completely certain that you know what is right,
whereas all I'm certain about is that I don't know anything.'

‘
That,' said Edward, spearing the last of the ham, ‘is just
shirking.’

*

Jemima was still keeping vigil at the bedside of the dying
boy when the news came that
Pelican
had paid off at the
end of her commission. William's letter preceded him only
by a matter of hours, so that he and Harry arrived at
Morland Place in a flurry of noise and greetings and ditty-
bags before preparations had been made for their reception.

Jemima came downstairs at the sound of the voices,
which, not having yet been adjusted for dry land, penetrated
easily as far as the nursery, and found her two huge, sun-
browned, salt-bleached sons filling the great hall. Edward
was out, but James and Fanny were greeting them, while
Puppy revolved around the group like a top, beating their
legs with his excited tail.

‘
Mother – there you are!' William roared as she came in
from the staircase hall. ‘Dog's got a tail like an anchor cable
– hold him off, Jamie, there's a good fellow!’

Jemima went forward to embrace William, and found it
was like putting her arms round an outcrop of rock. He
smelled of tar and salt, and his long pale pigtail, which was
hanging forward over his shoulder, prickled her face. She
stepped back to look up at him, and found the bronzed, firm
face above her rather frightening. It was set in hard lines of
authority, and the pale blue eyes seemed remote as if still fixed on distant horizons. His hair, which had been flaxen
when he was a child, had been bleached colourless by years
of sea-going, and the fronds around his hairline that were too short to catch back framed his face without doing any
thing to soften it. He had been gone from her too long. She
could not find anything in him of the son she bore and
remembered; he was not her William, he was Captain
‘Bloody Bill' Morland, and a stranger.

‘
William, my dear,' she said feebly, 'how lovely to see
you.'

‘
You're looking younger than ever, Mama. Don't know
how you do it.’

She turned to Harry, and he gave her a shy smile. He had
grown again, she thought. He was hard and muscular about
the shoulders, but still with that softness about the jawline
and the well-developed stomach which shewed he liked his
food. His soft hair was cropped rather untidily, and he
smelled like a human being, not a ship's timber. Jemima
embraced him with more genuine warmth than she had been
able to feel for his big brother.

‘
How long do you stay?' she asked. 'I'm afraid you have
come upon us at a troubled time, but you are no less
welcome for that.'

‘
I can't stay above a week, Mama,' William said. 'I've got
my new commission — the
Venus,
74. She's on her way back
from New England on convoy duty to Liverpool, and I'm to
take her over at London Pool. She should be in Liverpool
next week some time, so I'll have to get back to London and
chivvy the victualling yard, but I can leave this young lubber
with you a few days longer.' And he gave Harry a resound
ing thump on the back.

After a few more words, Jemima quickly explained her
duties upstairs, and left the boys in James's care, promising
to see them at dinner. When she had gone, and Harry had followed the footman upstairs, William took James's arm
conspiratorially. 'Want a word with you,' he said. ‘So this is little Fanny, is it? Why, she's practically grown up, by God,
and as pretty as a kitten! Send her away, will you, Jamie?’

Jamie smiled to himself, kissed Fanny and sent her with
her nurse to play with Puppy in the garden, and then braced
himself for whatever confidence William was anxious to
impart. 'Well, brother, what is it?'

‘
It's a bit delicate,' William frowned. 'It concerns Mrs
Smith.'

‘Oh yes, your mistress. What of her?’

William opened his eyes. 'You mean to say you know
about her?'

‘
Oh yes, we all do. Mary's husband mentioned her to
Mary, and Harry talked about her when he was here with
the chickenpox.'

‘Mother too?'

‘
Mother too,' James said. William looked uncomfortable.
'Damn. Didn't want Mother to know about it. Was she
very upset?'

‘
Not the least bit,' James said lightly. 'Good God,
William, after my exploits, I don't think Mother has it in her
to be surprised by the ordinary sort of iniquity. How is Mrs
Smith, anyway? I should love to meet her. To tell the truth, I
think we're all fascinated by the idea of a woman who could
win your heart. She must be something very special.’

William reddened under his tan. 'Well, she is — she's the
most wonderful creature in the world. I wouldn't part with
her for command of a three-decker and a knighthood into
the bargain! Thing is, brought her with me — anchored her at
the Hare and Heather, and I've got to get back to arrange a
berth for her for the week. Wouldn't do to bring her here,
things the way they are. Fact is, Jamie, she's — well, she's
with child.'

‘
Congratulations,' James said, biting his lip to prevent
himself from bursting into laughter at William's expression of intense and sentimental pride, so at odds with his granite
face. 'But my dear brother, if you love the lady so much,
and she's going to bear your child, why don't you marry her,
and make an honest woman of her?'

‘
Fact of the matter is,' William said unhappily, 'that she's
got a husband already. Regular brute of a man — rich as
Croesus, big estate on Martinique — sugar planter, you
know. Drank like a fish, kept mistresses in the house. Well,
Mrs Smith couldn't stand that. I took her away.'

‘
Do you always call her Mrs Smith?' James asked, enjoy
ing himself. William's eyebrows made innocent arcs over his
pale eyes.

‘Yes — what of it?'

‘Oh, nothing. Go on, do.'

‘
Nothing more to tell, really. She and I fell in love, and I
took her away, and now she's in litter. Well, that's partly
why I can only stay a week. I've got to have time before I
sail to find lodgings for her, where there's a decent landlady
to keep an eye on her. She don't like it above half, you
know.'

‘No?'

‘
No, she wants to come to sea with me, and have the
baby on board. Says there's nothing to it. Plenty of women give birth on ships — had one in the
Pelican
back in '96 —
gunner's wife — fine boy, their third, all live in the gunroom,
snug as a hammock. But I said to her, that's different.
Gunner's wife's a good soul, but she ain't a lady. See what I
mean?'

‘
Of course,' James said gravely. 'There's every difference.
Tell me, William, as a matter of interest, is she really black,
your Mrs Smith?'

‘
Black? Wherever did you get that idea?' William asked
in astonishment.

‘I think Harry said she was a blackamoor,' James said.

‘
That bloody boy! Of course she ain't black! She's a
Creole. To say truth, she does have a bit of foreign blood —
great-grandmother was an Indian. I suppose that makes her
an octoroon, but she's as white as you or me to look at. I'll
take you to meet her, once I've got her settled, if you like.'

‘
I can't tell you how much I'd like that!' James said, and
William looked gratified, and gave his brother a friendly slap which silenced him for several minutes and left him
aching for half an hour.

*

 
Timmy died the following day. His illness had followed the expected course from the time he arrived at Morland Place:
at first he had grown stronger, the effect of care and food
and the absence of fear and strain; but as the infection from
his wounded hand had taken hold, he had grown feverish,
gradually weakening as it crept up his arm towards his heart.
Jemima and Mary Ann had shared the nursing of him, with
Betsey a dumb, frightened and wretched little messenger,
but in the last days there had been little to do but sit beside him, comforting him, and watching his fingers slip little by
little from the rim of the world.

Often delirious, his fever-bright eyes searching the
shadows restlessly, his good hand twitching at the bed
clothes, he had mumbled and raved about his life at the mill,
called for Betsey, cried out for someone to help him, and
the watching women had had much ado to calm him. The sight of men frightened him, and he sometimes screamed
when Doctor Swindells or Father Thomas came near.
Jemima had found in Mary Ann a loyal and quick-thinking
helper, and, knowing how inwardly torn she must be over
her father's part in all this, Jemima respected her more than
she could have thought possible.

Timmy finally slipped into a coma and died quietly just
before dawn, with Jemima and Father Thomas by his bed.
Jemima said a brief prayer, and then left her priest to watch
over the body while she went to her room and penned a searing letter to Mr Hobsbawn. She sealed it, wrote the
direction, and, hearing that the servants were abroad, rang
for a footman to take it down to put with the rest of the
post; and then composed herself to go and wake Betsey and
break the news to her.

*

Mrs Smith received James and William in a private parlour
at the King's Arms with all the dignity and propriety of a
respectably married woman meeting a brother-in-law for the
first time. She shook James's hand, said she was glad to
make his acquaintance, hoped that they would be friends,
and invited him to sit down while she rang for refreshments.

James did his best not to stare rudely. She was not above
middle height for a woman, and of a matronly build which,
with her advanced pregnancy, made her look almost
circular. She moved unexpectedly lightly when she crossed
the room to the bell-pull, rolling a little on the balls of her
feet like a sailor. James told himself that was only to be
expected after so long at sea.

He judged her to be in her middle forties, perhaps ten
years older than William, and he would have been surprised
if she had ever been thought handsome. She was very dark,
almost swarthy, with a sallow skin and black eyes, and thick
black hair going grey in streaks at the sides. She was as plain
as pudding, her expression kindly, her features undistin
guished, except for a very fine set of teeth in her rather wide
mouth.

She was dressed in a neat gown of light wool, grey
trimmed with white, her only decoration being a very fine
gold locket on a chain about her neck, and the heavy, long-
fringed Cashmere shawl over her elbows. She looked, James
thought, like the wife of a prosperous shop-keeper who had
come up in the world.

She had a pleasant voice with a lilting accent, and spoke
sensibly without exhibiting either too much reserve or too
much familiarity towards her keeper's brother, a balance
which James acknowledged inwardly must be hard to
achieve. But then, he reflected, if William was as sociable on
board his ship as most captains, she must have had plenty of
practice at coping with her anomalous situation.