The Emperor (72 page)

It was a hot summer in England, and the harvests were
early and abundant, and as day followed perfect day of
sunshine and blue sky, it was hard to believe in the war at
all. Mary Ann sat in the rose-garden under the tangled
arbour of scented white roses like many a mistress of
Morland Place before her, and embroidered baby-shirts and grew larger. James sometimes read her bits of war news out
of the newspaper, but it meant little to her. Her world was
bounded by the muffling walls of fertility, which distant
alarms could not hope to penetrate.

Edward rejoiced in a large crop of spring lambs, and with the grass coming through early, they grew big and strong. In
view of the hot weather he decided to start shearing a fort
night early, and hoped thereby to get the shearers before the
time of their greatest demand; but everyone else had the
same idea, so he got no benefit from it.

Fanny's ceaseless demands for a pony of her own had
finally persuaded James. He decided on a Fell pony for her,
for they were reliable and gentle-tempered, narrow enough for a very little girl, but strong enough to continue to carry
her as she grew older. He found one at last, already
schooled, and brought it back to Morland Place, and though
Mary Ann thought it looked rather common, with its large
head and heavily-feathered legs, it found favour at once
with Fanny on account of its immensly long mane and tail.

She named her new pet, rather inappropriately, Tempest;
and Tempest soon won Mary Ann's approval by his
unshakeable good sense and temper. He did not object to
anything Fanny might do, only turning to look at her with
grave interest when she swung on his tail or ducked between
his legs, and even when Puppy bounced around him and bit
his heels, he simply moved aside and snorted a little.

Edward was growing more and more exasperated with
Puppy, and when the dog crowned his bad behaviour by
developing a taste for chasing sheep, Ned rounded on James in fury and told him that if he didn't take Puppy in hand and
train him properly, he, Edward, would have no compunc
tion in shooting him.

‘
An untrained dog's no use to anyone – you know that '
he said angrily. 'I know he's Fanny's dog, but he's your
responsibility, Jamie, which you've ignored from the begin
ning. Well, I tell you now, he's to be kept on a lead at all
times, until you prove to me that he's safe to be let off. And
if I see him chasing sheep again – or horses, or cattle for that
matter – I'll shoot him anyway, and that will be that.’

So James had two tasks in hand, teaching Fanny to
handle her horse, and trying to impress some sense into
Puppy's flighty brain. Fanny liked her riding lessons –
especially as James was teaching her initially to ride across,
which annoyed her mother considerably – but was bored
with Puppy's training, which was left more and more to
James to conduct alone. But she went almost everywhere
with her father, either riding Tempest on a leading-rein, or
sitting in front of James's saddle, and she grew as brown as a
gypsy, much to Mary Ann's disgust.

James would not take her complaints seriously. 'Oh, she's
only a child. You can worry about her complexion when
she's fourteen. Lucy was as brown as a nut when she was
Fanny's age, and she grew up to marry an earl! You mustn't
fret: it's bad for the new baby.’

His days were spent teaching Fanny, supervising the building works at the new stables, schooling the horses
which were to be sold as hacks or hunters, breaking in the
young carriage horses, and helping Edward at times of
universal effort, like lambing, shearing or harvest. Twice a week he dined at the Maccabbees, to meet old friends, read
the papers, and gather the gossip, and about once a month
he would stay late, drinking brandy, and have to be brought
home by Durban. He always felt dreadful the following day,
and Edward sometimes told him he was a fool and asked
him why he did it. James would only shrug and say that he
was a wire-walker, and that it was necessary for balance.

By mid-June they were coming to the end of shearing,
and most of the Morland flocks were back out in the fields,
looking strangely knobbed and gawky without their uniform
fleeces. In the barn the clip mounted up in tightly-packed
bundles to the rafters, but still the smell and the sound of
sheep were everywhere, and the taste of sheep-yolk
permeated everything, to the despair of Danvers, the cook.

James was helping one day to move the hurdles of the
temporary paddock where the unshorn sheep waited their
turn, making the paddock smaller, so that the reducing
numbers would be easier to handle. Out of the corner of his
eye he was watching Fanny, who had just helped to bring up
the baskets of food and jugs of ale for the shearers' midday
meal, and was now doing her best to save them the trouble
of eating it. He moved a post and held it steady for his
companion to knock in, when a hallooing caught his atten
tion.

It was Birkin, the groom, bareback on one of the
message-cobs, riding up from the direction of the house and
waving his free arm excitedly. James guessed at once what it
must mean – Mary Ann had gone into labour. He moved
incautiously, and received the blow of the mallet intended
for the post on his thumb. The next few minutes were all
confusion, with apologies, explanations, requests and com
mands taking the air together, liberally laced with oaths
from James, who had instinctively put his injured thumb in
his mouth, and was now sincerely wishing he had not. At
the end of that time James had taken over the cob from
Birkin, vaulted astride, scooped Fanny up before him, and
was cantering down towards the house.

‘What's the matter, Papa?' Fanny asked jerkily as the cob
lumbered homewards with a great deal more enthusiasm
than he had made the outward journey.

‘You Mama's time has come,' James said briefly.

‘
You mean the new baby's coming?' Fanny pouted. She
was not at all sure she wanted the new brother or sister she
had been promised. 'Why can't I stay with the shearers? It's
nearly dinner time.'

‘
They're too busy to look after you,' James said. 'The
next thing you know you'd have gone too close and got your
fingers snipped off.’

Fanny's sense of injury was increased when she dis
covered that she was not to have any part in the excitement,
but — crowning indignity — was to be packed off to the
schoolroom with Father Aislaby and the chapel boys.

‘But I don't want to!' she howled. want to stay here. I want to see the baby come.'

‘
Father Aislaby will begin teaching you to read,' James
offered coaxingly. 'Wouldn't you like to learn to read?’

Fanny only howled louder. 'I want to see Mama,' she
cried. 'Polly says Mamas die when they have new babies. I
don't want Mama to die.'

‘She won't die,' James said, distracted.

‘
Polly's did,' Fanny said triumphantly. Father Aislaby
gave James an admonitory look and took Fanny's hand, and
led her firmly towards the stairs.

‘
Come along, my child,' he said. 'Your father will come
and tell you all about it afterwards. There's no use making a
fuss.' Fanny's experience of life so far had taught her that,
on the contrary, it was well worth making a fuss, and she made it, all the way up the stairs, until they turned out of
sight of James, and the priest was able to administer a sharp
slap and shake and some good advice about not being
naughty, which so surprised Fanny that she actually stopped
for a good few minutes.

The silence lasted until they reached the day nursery,
where Fanny, regarding the priest with narrowed eyes,
demanded to have Puppy with her, to be allowed to play
with her baby-house, not to learn to read, and to have
strawberry tarts and junket for dinner. Aislaby was a prag
matist, with no love of Fanny and six energetic young boys
waiting for him in the schoolroom: he made counter
demands of complete silence from Fanny while he was next door, and the treaty was concluded amicably, with the reser
vation only that the strawberry-tart end of the business was
not within his province, and that she must wheedle the
nursery maid for them.

The ringing of the house-bell late in the afternoon took
Father Aislaby from the schoolroom to the great bed
chamber, bringing relief to the chapel-boys, who were knee-
deep in Virgil and sinking fast. At six o'clock, when the
household gathered in the chapel for vespers, they were also
able to give thanks for the safe delivery of the mistress, and
witness the baptism of the new soul, who was given the name Henry, and also Anthony, since it was just past St
Anthony's day..

The new baby's father was so deeply moved by conflict
ing emotions that he escaped after the service into the
solitude of the Italian garden, and walked, deep in thought,
amongst the dusky shadows of the tall hedges; undis
turbed until one of the maids, escaping Durban's vigilance,
came to tell him that Miss Fanny was carrying on fit to
choke.

He was recalled forcibly to his duty. He had promised to
go and tell Fanny all about it, and he had forgotten. The
maid, trotting anxiously at his heels as he headed for the
house, told him that the news had been brought to the
nursery by a servant, and that Miss Fanny had clapped her
hands over her ears and screamed, because she wanted to
hear it from her father.

‘
We didn't know where you were, sir,' she said breath
lessly, 'and Miss Fanny, poor little soul, cried as though her
heart was broke, and said her Mama was dead, and she
wouldn't believe anyone to the contrary, sir, and she called
for you again and again, and we're in that much of a
moither you wouldn't think!’

James would, and hurried to the nursery, leaving the maid well behind. Fanny had passed through wailing to
screaming rag:
_,
in which she flung her toys with wild
abandon at anyone who came near her, finally making
herself sick, and losing the benefit of the hard-won straw
berry tarts. When James arrived, she had got her second
wind and was well into her stride, sobbing with a regular
mechanical whoop. She was a sorry sight, her muslin dress
torn, her curls disordered and ribbonless, her face white and
wet and her eyes swollen, and the nursery staff fussing
round her and vainly coaxing her with all manner of sweet
meats and playthings.

When she saw James she flung herself at his legs. He
picked her up and held her against his shoulder where she
hiccoughed dismally that everyone had forgotten her and that her mother was dead and that he had not come as he
promised.

‘
Now, chick, now, it's not true. Your Mama is perfectly
all right, and you have a new brother, and I didn't forget
you, only I was too busy to come before. Everything's all
right. Do stop crying, Fanny. There's nothing to cry for.
Papa's here.'

‘
They took P-P-Puppy away,' she sobbed, though less
forcefully.

‘Only to feed him,' James soothed.

‘
I thought you'd never come,' she said, pressing her wet
face against his neck. 'And I broke my b-best b-b-baby!' she
remembered. In the height of her throwing fit, she had
wrenched open her treasured baby-house and flung its
contents to the winds, including the cunning little wooden
baby James had made with jointed arms and legs, and for
which Mary Ann had made a beautiful silk gown with real lace
on it and petticoats and a muslin tucker and cap. Fanny had
been fascinated by it, and now it lay sadly mangled, for
when she had flung it against the wall, an arm had broken off, and then Puppy, thinking it a game, had chewed it, to
the serious detriment of the clothing.