The Flood-Tide (51 page)

Allen, with his mind on his own problems, sighed and realized that there was no choosing the right time - it would have to be now.

‘You are thinking about what Lord Chelmsford said,' he suggested. jemima looked up at him quickly. She had entirely forgotten that episode, but now he had brought it up, it would do to explain her thoughtfulness.

‘It is none of my business,' she said, avoiding a direct lie. Allen sat up and turned to face her.

‘I have never kept anything from you, in all our lives together, but this was not my secret to tell.'

‘Wasn't it?' Jemima mused. He looked at her carefully. ‘What is it you are thinking?'

‘I have tried not to think,' she said, 'but I suppose it would be natural to imagine - Charles said it concerned a Morland bastard, who lives in Paris—'

‘And you thought it was mine?’

She reddened a little. 'Not exactly - but—'

‘Very well. A natural assumption. And it answers a question I have been asking myself - whether to tell you more than you already know.'

‘You said the secret was not yours to tell. I would not ask you to break a confidence.'

‘No, I know that. But I don't want you to think worse than the truth. You remember Marie-Louise ran away to join the Young Chevalier in the '45 rebellion?'

‘Of course. I went to say goodbye to her on the day before she left,' Jemima said. 'I gave her a locket to give to you.’

Allen nodded. 'And she died in Glasgow that winter.' ‘Of a fever,' Jemima said, beginning to see where this led.

‘Of the childbed fever,' Allen said steadily. Jemima made a small, soundless 'o' of understanding. The next question was trembling on her lips, but Allen continued without waiting for it.

‘Her dying request was that the baby, a boy, should be taken to her mother, and those of us in the family who knew about it decided that was the best course anyway. Aliena was in a convent near Paris. I bought a house for her and the child with the compensation money the French Government paid me, and she gave up her vows and went to live there to bring up the child. Her brother Maurice, who was then the Earl of Chelmsford, paid her a pension, which has been continued by each Earl of Chelmsford since. On my trips to Paris I have sometimes transacted business on the Earl's behalf with Aliena and the boy. So now you know it all.’

The question was still there. 'Not quite all,' she said. ‘Who was the father of the child?' He did not answer, wondering whether he could tell her, and she went on, ‘Was it you?'

‘No,' he said.

‘I know that you loved her. You travelled with her for months. Tell me truly.'

‘Truly, it was not me.'

‘Then who?' There was a long, long silence. 'Who?' ‘Your father.'

‘
My father?'
He saw that the shock was all he had feared it would be; how much worse, if she learned about the child.

‘I don't think he ever knew. I don't think anyone has known, except me and Aliena. But you see now why he has had to be kept away from the family, in exile, in secret.’

He saw her pull herself together. 'I am my father's heir, and in that sense, head of the family. It is right that I should know.' She gave a wavering smile. 'And to tell the truth, I am so glad it is not your bastard that I don't mind anything else very much.’

He took her in his arms, and drew her down under the covers, and settled her on his shoulder. 'I'm glad you know,' he said. 'I never liked having secrets from you.' In a few minutes he was asleep, but she lay awake for a long time, staring into the darkness and thinking.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

 James Morland was reaching crisis point. He felt like a juggler who had added one more and one more egg to his act, and had come to the point where he could not stop juggling without breaking them all. His brother Edward knew some of it, but not even he knew it all, and he dared not approach him for more help. On the day after the ball at Shawes he took refuge in the Maccabbees Club, and there found Horatio Morland slumped by the fire that burned brightly, winter and summer, for it was a dark and chilly house. Horatio looked very much the worse for wear, and called James over in an expiring voice.

‘Come and join me - boy, bring another pint of wine. Damnation, it's the last time I try to out drink that brother of yours!'

‘William?'

‘Aye, that damned, pigtailed sponge of a man! Deuced if I could keep pace with him. Where it all goes, I don't know, for he wasn't even foxed when I crawled to bed. And you,' Horatio added, squinting up at James with sudden petulance, 'why do you look so damned jolly this morning?'

‘I - jolly? I'm the most unhappy man in York,' James protested.

‘You're young, that's what it is,' Horatio answered himself. 'When I was your age, I could rise from m'bed looking like that. For God's sake, sit down. You make me feel tired, looming over me like that. Boy, where's that wine?’

James looked about him nervously, but it was early yet, and there were few people in the club. At any moment, however, the more impatient of his creditors might enter, and there would be the Devil to pay. However, as Horatio was buying, and it was safe enough at present, he sat down, and took the glass that was proferred.

‘Well, here's your health. And - and - what else shall we drink to?' Horatio said.

‘To fortune,' James said gloomily. 'I wish to God I had one.'

‘To larger allowances,' Horatio added fervently. 'My father is so deuced mean about it. If it weren't for the cards running my way last week—'

‘They didn't run mine.'

‘Confusion to unco-operative cards, and slow horses, and damned impatient creditors,' Horatio proposed, and they drank it deep, and refilled their glasses.

‘And confusion to unmarried women and their ambitious mamas,' James suggested next.

‘By God, I'll drink to that,' Horatio said. 'That ball last night - I felt like a sparrow in an alley full of cats. And the biggest jaws of all were Lady Fussell's. If she don't get me for one of her girls, she'll die in the attempt.' He drank the toast, and then eyed James with sympathy. 'Which one of 'em is it you want to avoid?'

‘Miss Anstey,' James groaned. 'Celia. I suppose she's a nice enough girl really, but since her younger sister got betrothed, she's been after me like a bloodhound. She smiles, and talks, and laughs, and flirts, and holds on to my arm and - I can't get away from her.'

‘You were being polite enough last night,' Horatio said without sympathy. 'It didn't look to
me
as if you minded her attentions. If you encourage 'em, you spoil it for the rest of us.'

‘The trouble is, she knows an awful lot - too much - and if I don't keep her sweet, she'll ferret out the rest, and then it's all up with me.' He drained his glass absently, and Horatio filled it again. 'She saw me the day before yesterday in - a certain street, where I was visiting someone—'

‘Someone you didn't want her to know about?'

‘Of course. So I had to pretend I was coming to see her, or she'd have found out one way or another where I was going. It's damnable.'

‘Ah well, they can't come in here, to the good old Maccabbees, so let's forget 'em for a while. Drink up. Let's talk of something else. How's that horse of yours, that ginger devil? I wouldn't mind wagering that's the fastest horse in Yorkshire over the country.’

They talked and drank, and settled deeper into the chairs by the fire, and bit by bit they were joined by other like-minded young men, and the day passed in a haze of wine and fellowship. James had begun to feel safe, lulled into a false sense of security, out of which he was abruptly shaken by the arrival of a large and heavy young man, Dick Turner, a gentleman farmer and, as it happened, a man to whom James owed a debt of long standing.

‘By God, Morland, if you've got the wherewithal to drink so deep, you've been lying to me. I'll have that twenty pound you've owed me since Easter, and I'll have it right now.’

Now, Turner,' someone said, 'you can't call a gentleman a liar. 'Tisn't done.'

‘Gentleman? Does a gentleman tell a gentleman he can't pay his debts, and then go squandering his all on claret?'

‘
I've
been buying the wine,' Horatio said, but then, a demon of mischief waking in him, added, 'but a debt is an affair of honour, you're right in that. Morland, why don't you pay him?'

‘He hasn't got twenty pound, that's why,' said another young man, swaying bibulously. 'He owes me more than that, since Michaelmas last. But dammit, I don't go about demanding it in that ferocious manner. Have a drink, Turner, and show your generous, manly heart.’

There was a surge of shouting as some advocated paying the debt and others claimed it was not gentlemanly to demand it, and the argument went on, growing more heated as the level in the bottles sank. Turner stood swaying belligerently on his massive legs, not entirely sure what he had last said, and James kept very quiet, drinking whenever his glass was filled and agreeing with everyone in turn. He had got to the point where he could not decide anything any more. From debt the conversation drifted naturally to horses, and then Horatio precipitated another argument by repeating his opinion that James's chestnut was the fastest horse in Yorkshire over the country.

At that point, young Lord Ashley, who was not as drunk as the rest of them, had his brilliant idea.

‘Why don't we put it to the test? Turner here has a horse he boasts of. Why don't he and Morland race 'em together, point to point, and decide it? I tell you what, Morland, it could solve all your problems, too, for we'll take bets on it, and give you a purse if you win.'

‘He won't win,' Turner said, 'so where's the point of it? His chestnut may be fast, but it hasn't the bone of my brown gelding, and bone counts across country. And a horse is only as good as his rider, and I'd undertake to beat that boy over any country you care to name.'

‘Fair enough,' Lord Ashley shouted over the renewed babble of voices. 'You all heard what Turner said. If Morland beats him over country to be named by me, he'll cancel the debt, and pay him twenty guineas into the bargain.'

‘And if I lose,' James mumured to Ashley under the cover of the shouting, 'I'll have to shoot myself.'

‘You won't lose,' Ashley said. 'Turner's horse is a lumbering cart-nag, and you are twice the rider he is, and half as drunk. You'll win handsomely, and that'll be the answer to your problem. You can pay me back, too, from your winnings,' he added with a grin. 'Right,' he turned round and shouted to the gathering, 'let's see it done now. I say it shall be run from St Edward's Church on the south road to St Michael's at Acomb. That's about a mile and a half. Are we all agreed?’

There was a cheer raised by those who were not already using their voices to argue fiercely about odds and putting their money on their favourite.

*

 It was around dinner time when James was brought home, carried by four rapidly sobering men, with another leading his limping horse behind him. He was carried up to a bedroom, and the apothecary sent for, and while Jemima hung over him and bathed his head, Allen drew out the story bit by bit from the young men. When he had dismissed them, he joined his wife by the miscreant's bedside.

‘How is he?’

Alison, who was plying the cloth and the hartshorn, clucked and shook her head, and Jemima said in a low voice, 'He hasn't come to his senses yet. He has a wound on his head, but no other injuries as far as I can see.'

‘He reeks of wine, sir, and that's a fact. Fell out of his saddle drunk, I wouldn't wonder,' Alison said. 'How a person's to know if he's knocked senseless or drunk senseless I'm sure I don't know.'

‘What happened?' Jemima asked Allen. He turned her aside a little and spoke quietly, to keep it from Alison. ‘Apparently they were all drinking in a club, and they made a wager about James's horse. There was a race between him and another young man, and James took a tumble over a hedge and they took him up senseless like that.' He glanced across at his son. 'I dare say the amount of wine he'd had affected his balance. The worst thing is that he's deep in debt all over town. One of those youngsters let it slip that he agreed to the race because it would clear some of his debts.'

‘How can he owe money? What can he be spending it on?’

Allen grimaced. 'Drink. Cards. Clothes. I hope nothing worse. But you know how men gamble. Anything will do. Obviously he overspent his allowance and started borrowing to make it up. We'll have to have it out with him when he comes to himself, find out exactly what he owes and to whom, and pay it all off. We can't have this sort of thing. Reflects on us all.'

‘When he comes to himself,' Jemima said, looking fearfully at his pale face. 'You mean
if
he does.’

Allen patted her hand. 'Hush, my dear. God keeps a special eye on rogues like James. He'll be all right.' The apothecary, when he came, confirmed Allen's judgement, though less firmly. James had been lucky not to break any bones, but probably the drink had loosened him in his fall. The head wound was not deep, and the skull was intact, and provided he came to within the day, and was kept very quiet in bed for a week, he should be sound enough.

James woke up around dusk, groaned, was sick, complained of a splitting headache, and fell asleep again at once. The next morning he woke naturally, still had a headache, but had no memory of the fall, and only the vaguest memory of the race or the wager or the drinking that led up to it.