The Flood-Tide (44 page)

‘Thank God that traitor Benskin isn't here,' he said. ‘He was probably shamed to show his face. Now, Sam, you and I had better see to the last part of the plan, while the other servants get the missus and children onto the boat.’

It was all done by an hour after sundown, and Charles sent the exhausted Eugenie and the servants and children to settle themselves in the boat.

‘Have her ready to shove off at once, the moment Sam and I come back,' he told Jacob. Eugenie stretched out a hand to him.

‘Please, Charles, be careful,' she said. He looked-at her for a moment with compassion.

‘You agree to this? I need your sanction. It is, after all, your home.'

‘Yes,' she said steadily, holding his gaze. 'I agree. Better this way - better than letting—' Her voice failed her, and she swallowed and went on. 'Papa would have done the same. Do it, Charles, and let us be gone.’

He nodded gratefully, and he and Sam disappeared into the darkness. The preparations had all been made, and it would not take long. Eugenie settled the children and the women, while Jacob loosed the rope and sat ready to shove off as soon as the other two returned. Then they could only sit in silence, waiting. Sam would have further to run, Eugenie thought, for he was going round the fields. They had worked out the direction of the wind, and the corn and tobacco were dry and ripe from weeks of sunshine. Once it had taken, it would run with the wind all right. Charles, as was fitting, was dealing with the house - before her mental eye came the image of the drawing room, with all the furnishings and rugs heaped together in the centre, as they had left it. The other rooms were the same. She thought of the portraits over the chimneypiece, and wished they could have taken them, but paintings would be no use to them in their new life.

The grief she had been trying to ignore rose up for a moment irrepressibly, and she gave a half-stifled groan, and rocked herself, thinking of the lovely house, her home, the walks she knew so well, the hill with the tall trees, the family plot where her mother and all her forebears lay buried. 'Oh Papa,' she murmured. 'Forgive us. Oh Holy Mother, take care of us.’

The minutes passed slowly in the green silence of the dark river, where there was never quite nothing to be heard. The soft slap of water on the hull, the stealthy rustling of something moving through the rushes, the plop of a frog jumping into the water, the strange yarking cry of a night bird. Then Bendy stood up against her knees and gave a warning growl, and the night air stirred at the approach of something, and suddenly out of the darkness Sam and Charles appeared, running, panting, and jumped into the boat.

‘Push off,' Charles said tersely to Jacob.

‘Is it done?' Eugenie said, but she did not need to ask. She could smell it on them.

‘It's done. Sam, take the tiller. We must put a distance between us and—' He did not finish the sentence; Eugenie drew in a sharp breath, and from behind her she heard Cloud whisper 'God a' mercy!' In the darkness where the house stood a golden flower had bloomed, like a lamp, but growing, burgeoning in the velvety night. For a few moments they were all transfixed, as if by some holy revelation. Then at a sharp word from Charles they pushed the little boat out onto the water and let the current take them down towards the Bay. Eugenie found her face was wet with tears, and yet she had no sensation of crying. It was like a new life, back there, the flower of flame that was blossoming, yet a malevolent life, that would eat up their past and cast them upon the world as naked as the newborn.

In the darkness, she felt her hand sought, and gave it into Charles's. His grasp was warm, and she returned its pressure.

‘It's all right,' she said.

‘Yes,' he whispered, and she had no idea which of them was comforting the other. The current slowed as it reached the Bay, but when they came round the break of the land, they picked up the breeze, and Sam and Jacob ran up the lugsail, and the boat bent to it and carried them down towards the sea.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘Well, my love, and what does Mary say of Naples?' Allen asked Jemima as they sat at breakfast one morning in September 1783. He had finished his own letters, and was denied his newspaper by Edward having picked it up a moment before and being now so deep in it that Allen didn't like to disturb him.

‘What does Mary ever say of anywhere?' James drawled, leaning back in his chair and pulling a roll of bread to pieces. 'That the heat is insufferable, and the people abominable, or vice versa - that's what she said of Rome, wasn't it? Or perhaps she will say that they have made the most
charming
acquaintance and have been at the most
delicious
ball.' He gave such a languishing simper, and fluttered his eyelashes so girlishly, that Jemima had trouble not to laugh, which she didn't want to do because she was rather cross with James at the moment. 'With Mary, how well she likes a place depends on how many young men are in love with her.'

‘Please sit up, and stop lolling. You will break the back of the chair,' Jemima said.

James straightened by an infinitesimal degree, and said, not at all disconcerted, 'So tell us, Mama, how has Naples answered?' He was so handsome that her heart was melted in spite of herself. He was not going to be tall, but his figure was graceful, and he held himself well, as small men often do. His dark hair had a slightly auburn burnish to it, which made his blue eyes look bluer. He was sensuous and lithe and lazy as a cat. He expected everyone to love him, and to dance attendance on him, and such was his beauty and charm that they usually did. At sixteen he had already, she feared, laid down the lines along which his life was to go, and she was angry with him at the moment because he would not decide on any career, but seemed to expect to go on living a life of sheer pleasure at Morland Place for ever. But when he smiled at her, she found her lips answering with a smile that was almost involuntary.

‘She says the heat is terrible, but they have been invited to stay in a villa further up the coast, by someone who is a friend of Charles's cousins in Naples, and that they went to a ball last night where they met an Italian count who knows Charles's cousin Nicholaevna who is a Russian princess. And this count is to be a guest at the villa also.'

‘Counts and princes - then Naples has her seal of approval, I take it,' James said, slipping a scrap of beef fat from his plate into the waiting mouth of Edward's hound, who swallowed it and then laid his massive head adoringly across James's thigh.

‘No word of an elopement?' Allen asked innocently. ‘There must be plenty of Scarlatti cousins who would take the problem off our hands.’

Jemima turned over the page and read on. 'There is a list of everyone she danced with at the ball,' she said, sighing as she worked through the names, 'but nothing to suggest she liked one more than another.'

‘Mary is nothing if not generous - she likes to let everyone have a little of her,' James said.

‘And that concludes the letter,' Jemima went on, reaching the foot of the page. 'James, please don't feed the dogs from the table - it gives them bad manners.'

‘Sorry, Mama, I shouldn't have brought him in,' Edward said, trying, as usual, to intercept the rebuke. But James only lolled more and smiled more.

‘Darling Mama, everything you say to me these days begins with the word "don't". It doesn't really suit you -gives you a cross little frown between your eyes. Don't you think, Father, that she ought to smile when she looks at me? Tell her now pretty she looks when she smiles.'

‘Hush, you impudent boy,' Jemima said.

Allen grinned and said, 'I should think you would want to avoid drawing attention to yourself, Jamie, when at any moment your mother is going to ask you what you are intending to do today.’

James looked faintly put out, and Edward laid down the newspaper and stood up, stretching, and said, 'This is my moment for taking my leave. Shall I come to your rescue, brother, and say you are coming with me?'

‘Why yes, of course,' James said hastily, standing up and shoving the freshly excited hound away. 'Don't you remember, Ned, that we agreed I should come with you today to - to - to do whatever it is you have to do.'

‘We're going up to Popple Height to look at the tegs, don't you recollect?' Edward said grinning. 'You'll have to save your berating for this evening, Mama. Come, brother, look sharp.’

The two young men headed for the door, with the dog barking and bouncing between them, while Allen retrieved his newspaper and attempted to peruse it. He had no peace for it, for in the doorway James and Edward passed Alison, bringing the children down to see their parents before their day's work began. Louisa, suddenly growing tall at nine years old, but still solemn and shy, curtseyed to Jemima but headed straight for Allen, who put by his newspaper again with good grace to embrace her and coax her to talk to him. Harry and Jack vied with each other for Jemima's attention. At six and five years respectively, they had reached a noisy and boisterous age, and they competed in everything, in a cheerful and brotherly fashion. There was nothing between them for size or achievement, despite Harry's year's start over Jack. Lucy, had she been any other child, might have found herself swamped by them, but she shoved her way onto Jemima's lap with a determination to be cuddled that overcame any obstacles. She had already learnt how to queen it over the two boys, and despite their occasionally assumed air of male superiority, they rarely did anything without consulting their imperious young companion, who hugged and bullied them impartially, led them into mischief, and wept real tears when they were beaten for it.

The pleasant interlude lasted until Father Ramsay came into to collect his three charges, and Alison swept Louisa away to her sewing and music practice, but even then Allen had no leisure for the newspaper, because Mrs Mappin came in to ask Jemima about stores, and Oxhey followed her with a question for Allen about the brewing of October ale, and he and Jemima smiled at each other across the table with resignation. When these interruptions were over, and they were alone again for a while, Allen said, ‘We really must get a steward, my love. These questions would have been referred to Clement in my youth—'

‘Or to Pask in my day,' Jemima said. 'But do you really think—?'

‘I do,' Allen anticipated her firmly. 'It's a matter of drawing all the threads together, you see, and of referring only those matters that need referring. So many of the things you are troubled with are not worthy of your attention. The servants often only need reassuring. A steward at the head of all the servants, outdoor and indoor, would make everything run more efficiently.'

‘It sounds so - as though we were a great household,' Jemima demurred. He smiled.

‘Call it by whatever name you like, the office is the same,' he said. 'The man who holds that office at Morland Place has always been called steward. And we are a great household.'

‘Very well - have you anyone in mind?'

‘I must look about for exactly the right man. It has been more years than anyone knows since we had to look, for it's been in the same family generation after generation.'

‘Perhaps you might find some Clement cousin to take the post,' Jemima teased. 'But where would you put him when you found him? He'll hardly like to sleep in the attic with the other servants.'

‘We'll have to do some altering, of course. It was time for it, anyway. And while we are talking about it, my love, I have another proposal to put to you, which will help matters. I'm talking of bells.'

‘Bells,' Jemima looked blank.

‘Bells,' he said firmly. 'It's very wasteful to have servants standing around at doors and in passages waiting to take messages, when they could be doing other things. And then when there isn't one handy, it is far from elegant to have to shout for someone.'

‘Oh, elegant!' Jemima said, but he shook his head.

‘If you don't mind not being elegant, think of the nuisance. Bells would solve all that.'

‘Well, of course, I saw them in use when we stayed at Chelmsford House last year, but I never really understood how it worked,' Jemima said.

‘It's very simple. There is a bell-rope in each room, and when you pull it, it pulls on a wire which runs through the house and in turn rings a bell. All the bells are fixed up in one place - a sort of servants' hall - and when they hear the bell, they see which room it was rung from, and someone goes and answers it. That means they can be getting on with other work, instead of standing attendance at the doors.'

‘And when they hear the bell, they have to come all the way up to, say, the long gallery, to find out what was wanted, and then go away and do it,' Jemima said sarcastically. 'It sounds very efficient.'

‘They get to know, of course, that certain summonses mean certain things - when you want the candles lit, for instance, or when you want wine brought. That comes with habit.’

Jemima looked restless. 'It sounds dreadful - to think I would have to wait while some slow-footed man traversed the house twice just to bring me something! I'd sooner go and fetch it myself.'

‘Well, no doubt you will,' Allen smiled. 'There will be nothing to stop you. But one day when you get old and stiff, you'll find the bells save you a great deal of trouble.' ‘You are determined upon it, then?'

‘No, of course not - not without your consent,' he said, raising his eyebrows at the idea. She relented at once and reached across the table for his hand.