Season of Light (13 page)

‘May I present my new companion, Madame de Rusigneux,’ said Asa.

Morton halted, stared and managed a formal bow while Madame extinguished herself so that she was a blue shadow beside her bag. A footman was ordered to escort her to the housekeeper’s parlour. ‘You and I, Thomasina,’ said Morton, ‘will take our tea in the library.’

Books at Morton Hall had been bought by the yard. Some of the leather-bound volumes were unreadable, others incomprehensible, being in languages nobody understood. Asa was instructed to sit in front of the desk while Morton lowered his voice, as if surrounded by spies. ‘I should have made it crystal clear – I won’t countenance a French woman in this house. I was opposed to her employment in the first place but my dear wife convinced me that I would never have to meet her.’

‘Then Madame de Rusigneux and I shall have to go home. I didn’t want her either, Mr Morton, but here she is.’

‘She’s French.’

‘Not all French are violent revolutionaries, sir.’

‘You are quite wrong. We were all deceived. In Paris I thought they were capable of greatness.’ Their eyes met briefly as they recalled the potency of that Parisian summer; the flutter of gowns at Versailles and the pamphleteers in the Palais Royal. ‘But look at what they did to their king. I shall never trust the French again.’

‘My companion is an aristocrat, surely the very reverse of our enemy since she came to England seeking refuge. Georgina believes she is a marquise.’

Morton nodded and took an unhappy sip of tea. ‘That, I suppose, is something.’

‘How is Philippa?’

Irritation was replaced by anxiety. ‘Very ill. I’ve never seen her like this, already more than a day in labour and no sign of the child. I hope when she sees you she’ll be calmer.’ He looked so much like a frightened boy that Asa could not help loving him. ‘If the French woman must be here she shall have no contact with the children. We are at war. The maids are whispering that we may be invaded at any moment. I don’t want her talking to my boys about France or anything at all. They wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.’

As soon as John Morton had decreed that Madame should be given a room on the third floor and would eat her meals apart, Asa hurried upstairs to see her sister. Hitherto, Philippa had delivered her infants as efficiently as she managed everything else; this time it was different. The local midwife, fetched in haste at the start of labour, had detected an abnormality in the baby’s position, and the London physician was shaking his head and applying poultices. Philippa had the strength only to squeeze Asa’s hand and give her a flicker of a grateful smile.

As she kissed her sister’s forehead, Asa felt a flash of rage at John Morton for putting her through such an ordeal again. Three sons were surely enough to secure the Morton empire. Death in childbirth was a family weakness, after all. How terrified Philippa must be, each time, to remember the day of Asa’s birth.

Asa supervised the children’s bedtime and dined with Morton, who lived by the tenet that if one kept up the appearance of normality, normality would prevail. Later she climbed to the upper reaches of the house, looking for Madame de Rusigneux, but the narrow passageway, which still smelt faintly of new timber and was lined on both sides by closed doors, defeated her. There was no response when Asa called Madame’s name.

Downstairs, in her own bedchamber, she strode from window to hearth, hung about outside Philippa’s door and met her brother-in-law, also in his robe, pacing the hall. While his fears doubtless centred on the fate of his beloved wife, Asa was ashamed that her own were compounded by the knowledge that if Philippa died, care of the motherless boys would devolve to her. Bitterly she reflected that a couple of days ago the only threat to her liberty had been the arrival of an unknown French woman; furious with herself, she tried to suppress any thought but passionate prayer for her sister’s survival. Life simply could not go on without Philippa, a woman who dealt with difficulties by attending to the small things, who used to bustle about Ardleigh, aged fifteen, with little Asa perched on her hip because there was no money for a nursemaid. Philippa, queen of detail, of little domestic comforts that transformed life from possible to pleasurable, and who had embraced marriage like a general who’d spent years kicking his heels at home and suddenly been sent on a triumphant campaign.

By five the next morning there had still been no birth. The maids and children woke and the household rolled on into the day. The housekeeper begged for an interview with Asa to discuss the menus and whether the seamstress should come as arranged to fit the oldest boy for a new coat. As it was raining the children couldn’t go out and their squabbling penetrated the newly constructed walls of the house. Morton removed his wig and ran his hand through his few remaining hairs. The baby remained unborn. Philippa, glimpsed from the bedroom door, was unconscious, her breathing laboured and her face ashen. In desperation Asa ordered that the nursemaid should take the boys out, rain or no rain, visit every part of the gardens, and then give them hot baths; anything to remove them from underfoot. Afterwards she paced about wondering how she could call herself a modern woman when she was helpless in the face of such a simple matter as childbirth, and how, in this age of reason and revolution, they should all be incapable of saving her sister.

This time when she arrived at the narrow staircase leading to the attic she was more persistent and knocked on one door after another until she came to what must surely have been the smallest room in the house with its high round window and lack of fireplace. Perched on the edge of a narrow bed, wrapped in a shawl and a blanket, Madame de Rusigneux was absorbed in writing a letter.

‘Madame.’ So extreme was Madame’s reaction – she started violently and dropped her pen – that Asa was shocked into tears. ‘I thought you would want to know about my sister. The baby will not come. The doctor suggests the use of forceps but the midwife says there is an obstruction which means that such a delivery is out of the question.’ Noticing belatedly that Madame’s fingertips were blue she added: ‘You should come down. I’ll find you somewhere with a fire. Forgive me, I had no idea they’d given you this room.’

Madame put aside her letter, straightened her shoulders, as if having made a momentous decision, stood up and smoothed her skirts. ‘Perhaps I could help. It is the custom sometimes in France for ladies to be present during each other’s births.’

What on earth did Madame think she could do for Philippa when an experienced doctor and midwife had all but given up? ‘I don’t think Mr Morton will let you near his wife,’ Asa said at last. ‘He’s suspicious because of the Revolution.’ She smiled ruefully to show Madame that she did not share Morton’s views.

Madame made no comment but the situation was so desperate it would surely be wrong to refuse any offer of help. ‘I’ll try to persuade him,’ said Asa. The next moment they were in Morton’s library and he was shouting, as predicted, that over his dead body would Madame lay hands on his wife. The French woman was unflinching, so that perhaps he felt, as Asa now did, that her foreignness might be their salvation and even providential. Besides, they all knew there was nothing to lose.

Morton took the stairs to Philippa’s bedchamber three at a time and introduced Madame as a woman who ‘might know something’. The room was broiling hot – a fire raged in the hearth, and the windows and curtains were shut. A maid cowered by the fireplace while the midwife bathed Philippa’s neck and chest. After a few moments of hissed protest the doctor stamped downstairs shouting that he could not be responsible for the consequences, he had been ousted at the very moment when he was definitely going to intervene, and in heaven’s name who was this foreigner, this witch, who had beguiled them all?

Madame threw open curtains and shutters so that a gust of wintry air fell on Philippa’s face and her eyelids fluttered. The maid was ordered to reboil the water. The midwife, who had proved herself clean and capable during Philippa’s other deliveries, was shaken by the hand. Madame de Rusigneux then turned to Asa, who was clutching the corner of Philippa’s sheet as if it were a lifeline. ‘Mademoiselle Ardleigh, perhaps you might accompany Monsieur Morton downstairs. This room is quite small and we are many.’

Asa got no farther than the top step, where she perched while Morton went down to pacify the doctor.

After two hours they were called back. Philippa had been delivered of a pallid creature, to be called Kate, who squirmed in the crook of her mother’s arm, mouth agape like that of a fledgling. Asa knelt beside her sister so that they were cheek to cheek, as in the old days at Ardleigh. ‘A daughter at last,’ murmured Philippa. ‘Your new companion is a remarkable woman. I cannot believe that it was Georgina who discovered her.’

A fortnight later the Warrens arrived to view their new niece. Warren, dressed in eye-wateringly tight breeches and high boots, took one cautious look at the baby and backed away, muttering that he’d best keep Morton company in the library. The three sisters were therefore left alone: Philippa reclined in bed, infant at her breast (Madame de Rusigneux, whose word on these matters was now law, advocated maternal breastfeeding for at least six months), Asa sat by the window and Georgina, decked out in unseasonable sky-blue muslin and with her hair gummed, padded and powdered to form a helmet of curls and ringlets, flitted between dressing table and mirror.

Little Kate was declared adorable but shouldn’t she be eating gruel or some such, she was so pale and puny? Philippa looked as if she had been put through the wringer, Georgina added. ‘And how is our French companion? I don’t see much evidence that she has transformed you, Asa. Where is she?’

‘Painting in the blue parlour, I expect.’

‘We’re not paying her five pounds a year to indulge her love of painting.’

‘She saved my life,’ murmured Philippa, stroking her daughter’s head.

‘She’s not paid to be a midwife either.’ Georgina, who professed herself relieved that she’d never had to endure childbirth, hadn’t the stomach to hear more than the briefest account of how Philippa, even at the point of death, had been hauled from the bed by the French woman and the midwife, and marched up and down from hearth to window, though her legs buckled and she had to be supported. Doctors were an abomination, Madame de Rusigneux and the midwife had agreed during the course of these perambulations, what with their dirty hands and their sketchy knowledge of female anatomy. And then Philippa had been made to kneel on all fours, like a cow …

‘Enough,’ said Georgina, opening a little fan of their mother’s depicting a pair of lovers cavorting under a tree, which she wore attached to her wrist so she wouldn’t lose it. ‘I just thank the Lord that all ended well. I can’t understand why you require more babies, Phil. You have no idea what you put me through each time. I was there, remember, when our mother was in childbed with Asa.’

After a moment’s silence Philippa said, ‘We cannot arrange everything to save your nerves, Georgina. In any case all was well, thanks to Madame.’

‘My point is that Madame de Rus … Rusa … Rusigny is paid to educate Asa, not to footle about with her paintbrushes. She tells me you won’t even sit still long enough for her to finish your portrait, Asa, so that’s no good. And she’s achieved nothing, I presume, in terms of improving your manners, not to mention your appearance. Look at you.’ Her round eyes raked Asa’s face as if she expected her sister’s features to have become more regular since Madame de Rusigneux’s advent.

‘I’ve been occupied with the children,’ Asa replied.

‘Madame should be helping you. It would do those boys good to pick up a little French.’

The truth was that Madame was still kept apart from the children. Since her intervention in Kate’s birth she had been allotted, at Morton’s command, a guest room on the first floor and the use of Philippa’s parlour. She also joined the family for meals, during which Morton took pains to involve her in conversation though he still could not bring himself to mention the enemy, France. But far from gaining the trust of the household, she was regarded by some with even more suspicion than at first. The doctor’s cry, that she must be a witch, had done immeasurable damage, so that the maids were caught whispering in corners and the nursemaid pulled the children away. As Asa’s duties allowed no time for deportment lessons, Madame spent hours alone in the parlour, where she might be glimpsed through the half-open door, head bent over her work. Whenever she could, Asa would look in to ensure the fire was burning well or to admire her companion’s progress. Each day Madame painted a different vignette of the children – always an approximation, as she said, because of course they would not model for her. The resulting pictures were whimsical; cherubic little boys playing ball by the fountain, clustered in order of height on the stairs or slumbering, their heads pillowed on their hands.

Georgina sighed. ‘I suppose I shall have to organise everything, as usual. The fact is,’ dramatic pause, ‘I have invited a surprise visitor to Morton Hall. We can expect him at Easter.’

Poor Kate was jolted from Philippa’s breast. ‘Easter is barely a month away. I shall scarcely be out of bed. Whoever can you mean?’

Georgina perched on a stool, leaned her elbows on the dressing table and gazed fondly at herself in the mirror. ‘I met with Mr Shackleford again. Isn’t that a coincidence? I said that you and Mr Morton would be bound to want him to call since we are all gathered together. What an opportunity for him to become acquainted with the Ardleigh side of his family all at once, I said. It’s far better for him to meet Asa again here – you have nothing to be ashamed of at Morton.’

‘There’s no question of Mr Shackleford visiting at present. The household cannot stand any more disruption. If he does come, it must be when I am back on my feet. You have no right to treat this house as your own, Georgina.’

‘Well, it’s done now,’ her sister replied, playing with her curls and turning her face from side to side to admire the effect, ‘so we must all work hard to make the right impression. We have to catch Mr Shackleford before he’s had a chance to look about for a richer bride.’