The Flood-Tide (30 page)

‘How can I? Thomas is sure to want to name him, and I can't ask him, because he's in the West Indies,' Flora said sulkily. The
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had been sent on convoy with eighteen merchantmen to Port Royal in September to join Admiral Parker a month before Flora's baby had been born. Jemima was glad that Thomas would be near William again, but Flora had found nothing to be glad of, or sorry for, in the news that he had gone. Now, however, she was using his absence and distance as an excuse for a number of things, amongst them not naming the baby.

‘You named Louisa when he was away,' Jemima pointed out. Flora shrugged.

‘It's different with a girl. He's bound to want to name a boy himself.'

‘Well, call him Thomas then,' Jemima said, and that at least caused a reaction.

‘No!' Flora snapped, and then controlling herself she looked towards Jenny. 'What do you call him in the nursery!’

Jenny writhed with embarrassment at being addressed, and it took a nod from Jemima to get her to answer.

‘Well, ma'am, Alison says all unnamed babies are called John.’

Flora nodded. 'That will do. Let him be John, then.' Her eyes gleamed a moment. 'It will be like naming him for his father, after all. He'll grow up a Jack, if it's in his blood.' She looked down at the baby with a small smile of secret malice, and then said loudly, 'Here, nurse, take him away from me. He grows heavy.’

Jemima dismissed Jenny with a nod, and she took baby Jack away, and Jemima also stood up, collecting Louisa's insistent hand on the way. 'Well, I must go. There are things for me to do. Flora, it is high time you were out of bed, you know. It is not good to stay too long abed after childbirth. I think you should come down tonight. Yes,' she
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orestalled Flora's sulky reply, 'I know you don't want to, but for once I shall insist. We're having the Hallowe'en feast tonight, and lots of games for the children, and some couples will come in for dancing, and I want you to be there. And Edward leaves tomorrow, and he'd be so disappointed if you didn't come. You know how fond he is of you.'

‘Oh, very well,' Flora said wearily, but inwardly she felt a stirring of relief. Sulking was a self-perpetuating mood, for it became difficult to stop doing it without losing face, and she was growing bored with her self-imposed isolation. It was good to have an excuse to leave her bed and join in again. ‘If you insist.’

Jemima stooped - not an easy thing to do in her condition - and kissed Flora's cheek. 'That's a good girl. And wear something pretty. Allen likes to have pretty women to look at, and he's only had me for weeks on end.’

Outside, Jemima found a servant to deliver Louisa back to the nursery, and went downstairs to find Allen. He was in the steward's room, poring over numerous sheets of paper that covered his table, and he looked up as Jemima came in and eased herself into a chair by the fireside.

‘Well? Did you manage to rouse her?' he asked. Jemima leaned back to ease the crick in her back, and closed her eyes for a moment.

‘Not really. She won't be interested in either of them. But I got her to give him a name at least.'

‘Oh? What name?'

‘Jack,' she said with a grimace, opening her eyes again. Allen's lips quirked in amused acknowledgement. 'And she has promised to come down tonight, for the feast.'

‘Well, that's an improvement,' he said. 'And how are you feeling? You are not in pain, I hope?’

No, just very uncomfortable. How is it, when one begins these things, that one never remembers what the end is like?’

Allen got up from his table and came over to her, kissed her, and put a hand behind her neck to rub it for her. ’Because when one begins, one has other things on one's mind,' he reminded her.

‘Hmm,' she acknowledged. 'I think I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. I fear, my dearest, that this will have to be our last; unless you want to go out and get yourself another wife or two, of course, like a Turkish sultan.’

He straightened up, smiling broadly. 'Now really, Jemima, do you see me as a sultan?’

She was forced to laugh at the idea. 'Not really. What is it you are working on there?'

‘Ah, yes, I'm glad you came in, because it is something I want to talk to you about.' He went back to his table, and she heaved herself out of the chair and went with him. 'Sit down in my chair, and I'll shew you,' he said. She took her place behind the table, and he spread the papers in front of her, and leaned over her shoulder while he explained.

‘Enclosure?' she said. All the old prejudices she had heard voiced over the years echoed in the word. 'Is it really necessary?'

‘It is essential,' Allen said firmly. 'It is impossible to bring about any real improvement while we keep on with the open-field system, and improvement there must be. Do you realize, we could increase our yield anything up to twenty times, and our rents too? The price corn is fetching, with the war on, and the growing demand for meat and milk and other foods in the towns make it essential to improve. There are so many things I want to try - crop cleaning, for instance. With the open-field system, it is merely wasted effort, but cleaning the crop can double or treble it.’

Jemima felt the claims were a little exaggerated, but she had to make allowances for enthusiasm. 'Very well - but won't it be difficult to bring about? Isn't an Act of Parliament necessary?'

‘Yes, but that is not a problem. It is a formal matter, unless there are objections from interested parties, and with my contacts I should be able to get it put through without delay. The Government are all for enclosure, you know, so they would not put anything in the way of an Act.'

‘But you said unless there are objections. How do other people feel about it? Won't they object?'

‘All that's needed is the consent of two-thirds of the interested parties, but in fact I anticipate almost all of them will be in favour, once I've pointed out the benefits. I've been talking about it for years now, you know, at every-tenants' meeting, and they've grown tolerably used to it. The benefits go to the tenants as well as to us. The only people who are likely to object are the cottagers with rights of commons, and grazing on the fallows.'

‘And what happens to them?'

‘We make them a payment in compensation for their loss of rights. In theory, they could go to law to object, but in practice of course they couldn't afford to. But if they did go to law, the law would simply allow them a payment in compensation, which is what we'll do anyway.'

‘I see.' Jemima frowned, deep in thought. It was her duty, she felt, at this stage to voice any objections there might be on the part of her people, and she was trying to remember what she had read about enclosure from time to time. 'I seem to remember hearing it said that after enclosure there was less work to be done on the land, so that the labouring people lost their livelihood. I should not like that to happen to any of the people we employ.’

Allen stroked her head affectionately. 'That is an objection where land that was under the plough is enclosed for pasturage. That has happened in some places. But the sort of enclosure we are planning gives rise to more work, not less. At the moment, our labourers have nothing to do for long periods in between ploughing and sowing, and harvest and shearing. But once the land is enclosed there will be work all the year round, in tending the hedges and fences, digging and maintaining ditches for drainage, cleaning crops and so on. And with more stock being kept there will be more work tending them, too.'

‘Then with all this extra work needed, which we will have to pay for, won't the profits be eaten up?'

‘My darling, I don't think you have grasped the enormous increase that enclosure will bring. There are some initial expenses, such as the fencing of land not previously fenced; and then the rigs and baulks will have to be ploughed up, and the land levelled; and new drainage ditches will have to be dug, to take the place of the baulks. And the compensation payments, of course. But after that, it is all profit. No more wasteful fallow years - we grow clover or turnips in the fallow year, which gives us winter feed for our stock. More stock overwintering means more manure for fertilizing the land. Keeping the stock fenced at breeding time means we can begin to improve the animals by breeding only from the best and healthiest. Crops can be cleaned, without fear of another man's weeds spreading onto your own piece of land. And I've a mind to try drilling the seed, rather than sowing broadcast.'

‘Now that is going too far,' Jemima smiled. 'What, you would scatter your seed one by one from a pepper-pot, like a courtier at a banquet? And waste all the land in between?'

‘It is not like that at all, and you know it,' he retorted. ‘Sowing in lines means you can get between to clean them.'

‘Well, I'm not so sure cleaning crops is a good idea either.'

‘If you had seen, as I have, the difference between wheat growing strongly in clean rows, and the feeble crops struggling for existence with weeds half-choking them, which is the norm, you would not hesitate.'

‘I don't know,' Jemima said doubtfully. 'It has never been done that way. The old way has been good enough for our forefathers—’

Allen kissed the top of her head. 'That is exactly what the tenants have been saying every time I mention enclosure, but they're coming round to it, and so will you. It's the difference between making do, and doing one's best. Don't you want to be rich?’

She tilted her face up to him and laughed. 'No,' she said. He looked shocked.

‘Heresy! Well, then, don't you want some improvements in the house? Don't you want more servants? Don't you want to build a new stable block at Twelvetrees?'

‘Ah, now you are bribing me with things I can't resist,' she said, standing up. He helped her, and she turned to face him, suddenly serious. 'I know you wish to do the best for us and for the land, and that is good, and I will support you in it. But I don't want any of my people to suffer. Promise me that they won't.'

‘Of course not,' he said firmly. 'As I said, enclosure is for everyone's benefit, not just ours. No one will suffer.' ‘Good. Then what is the first stage?'

‘A meeting of the tenants. I should like to have it here, because as you are the landowner I want you to be present. As I said, I have been talking about it to them for years, so none of the ideas will be new. The meeting will place the plan before them, and get their consent to draw up the proposal for the Act of Parliament.’

Jemima nodded. 'I see. And when?'

‘As soon as possible. Let me see, not tomorrow or the day after - they are both holy days. The day after that, the day after All Souls, will that suit you?'

‘Perfectly,' Jemima said. 'And now I think I had better go and see Abram about the feast tonight.'

‘Surely he will have everything organized by now?' Allen said.

‘Of course he will, but he loves me to ask him, so that he can tell me so,' she replied.

She crossed the staircase hall and the great hall, and was passing down the dark passage between the pantry and the buttery when a pain doubled her up, taking her breath away. For a moment she bent over, supporting herself with a hand on the wall, thinking only that it was too early, that she had not been prepared for it. The pain eased a little, and she straightened and tried to call out for help, but it gripped again, and her breath was expelled soundlessly.

The wall of the passage was cold and rough under her hand, and the darkness was swelling and receding in a way that made her feel dizzy. And then she heard Allen's voice.

‘Jemima! Are you all right? What is it? Is it the baby?’

His hands were on her shoulders, he was turning her, taking her weight, and she gripped him by the arms, feeling, as the pain ebbed, the wetness on her inner thighs as the waters broke.

‘Coming - very soon,' she gasped. 'Get me to bed.’

He got her arm over his shoulder, his other arm round her waist, and half-carried her back along the passage. When they reached the great hall, there was, thank God, a footman crossing it, whom Allen could send with a sharp order to fetch the women and get the bed prepared. 'How are you feeling?' he asked her anxiously.

‘Better. Pain's easing for the moment,' she said. Then, something that had been puzzling her. 'Why were you there? Did you follow me?’

He was frowning with concentration as he helped her to the foot of the staircase.

‘You cried out to me, so of course I ran to see what it was,' he said.

The stairs were ahead of her like a cliff to be scaled, and it was going to take all her concentration to get to the bedchamber without dropping the baby on the staircase, so she had no effort to waste in speech. But it was something she stored to talk about to him later, for she knew she had not made a sound as she stood there in the pantry passage.

*

Two hours later, Allen stood by her bed, holding her hand and gazing down at her with great love and not a little relief.

‘How do you feel now?'

‘Wonderful,' she said. 'That was the quickest delivery I ever heard of.'

‘She was in a hurry to get here,' he smiled. ‘If she goes on in that way, she will end up as Secretary of State or First Lord of the Admiralty one day.'

‘You talk such nonsense,' Jemima said contentedly. 'I think she looks like you, don't you think so?'