The Regency (35 page)

Lucy was spending Christmas at Belvoir, where the Rut-
lands were entertaining a large party, including the Prince of
Wales, and George Brummell and his immediate set —
Mildmay, Wiske, Alvanley and the rest. She had promised to
come up to Yorkshire immediately after Twelfth Night and to
stay with Hèloise until the baby was born. There was no party at
Shawes, but the Morlands had the usual Christmas festivities,
the fetching of the Yule log, the St Stephen's Day meet, with
the traditional ball in the evening, and a Twelfth Night mas
querade, which James and Mathilde organised between them.

Large numbers of young people were invited, as well as
friends of James's and Edward's generation. Mathilde, along
with the Keatings, arranged a special game of 'The Witch is
Dead' for the young people in the dining-room after the table
had been cleared. Everyone sat around the table, all the
candles but one were doused, and 'horrors' were handed round
in the semi-darkness.

‘
The witch is dead, this is her head!' Tom Keating intoned, and passed a carved turnip to his sister, the first person in the
chain. It went from hand to hand with a succession of muffled
shrieks and giggles. The reaction grew more noisy as the game progressed and the items grew more grisly.

The culmination, 'The witch is dead, these are her eyes!'
heralded a pair of skinned grapes, which passed extremely
rapidly down the line, accompanied by screams of excited
disgust. In her haste to be rid of them, Antonia Somers threw
them at Miss Chubb who, clutching at them instinctively,
knocked one down the neckline of her dress, where it lodged
between her breasts, sending her into violent hysterics. She had to be led away by Marie and the housekeeper to a quiet
room with plenty of candles, and restored with a vinaigrette
and a glass of port. Since she was basically a sensible girl, she soon revived enough to return to the party, which was playing
a very sober game of speculation while it waited for her.

The arrival of the mummers gathered both generations
into the hall to watch the traditional play; after which, since
the fiddlers were lingering with hopeful expressions, the
young people begged to be allowed some dancing. Mathilde
seconded the request to James, and receiving a nod from
Héloïse, he agreed. Joe Micklethwaite almost ruined every
thing by suggesting with a worldly-wise smile that they should have some waltzing, at which the stricter mamas flung up their
hands in horror, and one or two betrayed their ignorance
of fashion by not understanding the nature of the threat. But Valentine Somers and Tom Keating hastily quashed
the suggestion, silenced their friend by main force, and
clamoured loudly for country-dances.

Most of the older people went back to their cards and con
versations, but some stayed to watch the dancing, Edward
among them. Hèloise had been amused earlier in the season
to see him trying to comfort Mathilde for John Skelwith's
defection, though it was plain to Héloïse at least that she
needed no comforting, and had not cared more for Skelwith
than for any other of the young men. Héloïse was glad that it
had come to nothing, and that Skelwith no longer haunted
Morland Place. He had troubled her, and his ghostly look of
James, reminder of the past, of all the years James had not
been hers. She tried not to be jealous, but she sometimes
wished, guiltily, that he had had no children except with her.
She hoped the new baby would be a boy. Marie swore that it
would be, and prayed to Our Lady every night for a male
child, safely delivered at the right time. Sophie, too, prayed
for a boy, a new brother to ease the ache of losing Thomas.

What Fanny hoped was hard to tell. She had settled down
so well with Miss Rosedale that for the last month Sophie
had been allowed to join her lessons as well, relieving Father
Aislaby of the strain. A sort of resilient tension had built up between Fanny and her governess, half reluctant admiration,
half resentment. Miss Rosedale actually liked Fanny, and
Fanny was not used to that, and suspected it as a trick. She
didn't want to like her in return: liking people made you
vulnerable, meant that you had to do things to please them
instead of yourself, made you think about what you did, in
case it upset them. Fanny still, as regularly as she could make
herself, did things to upset Miss Rosedale, just to shew her
independence, but the occasions were growing less frequent and more reluctant all the time. It was far better to go along
with her and enjoy what came, and revel in the luxury of
having someone who treated her not as a child, or a nuisance,
or a threat, or an idol, but as a person.

Fanny had come to mind much less about her father and
Madame since she had Miss Rosedale, and had managed to
ignore the whole question of the approaching baby. She even
viewed Sophie with something approaching tolerance,
especially since Thomas had been removed, and Sophie so
evidently missed him. Sophie's lessons with Miss Rosedale were much less advanced than Fanny's, and even when they learnt
something together, like history or geography, Fanny's grasp
of the facts was much quicker. Only in French did Sophie
excel, and that, Fanny observed to herself, was only because
she had been speaking it since birth.

The Christmas season had passed pleasantly for Fanny. On
Christmas Eve, when the weather cleared after a prolonged
snowstorm, Fanny had been anxious to go out and see that
Tempest was all right. The nursery-maids had thrown up
their hands in horror at the idea, but Miss Rosedale had taken
Fanny's part, and said that it was perfectly proper for Fanny
to feel responsible towards her animal.

‘Miss Fanny can't go out in that wilderness alone, and
that’s the fact of it,' Jenny had said firmly. 'And the mistress
would say the same if you asked her, which you can't, Miss
Fanny, because she's resting and mustn't be disturbed,' she
added triumphantly.

Fanny scowled, but Miss Rosedale intervened. 'There's no
question of Fanny's going out alone,' she said pleasantly, 'I
shall go with her.'

‘You, Miss? Out there?' Jenny looked astonished, and then
shrugged, remembering Héloïse's instructions that the
governess was to have full support in her decisions, however
odd they seemed. 'Just as you say, Miss, I'm sure I don't care. I
just hope you don't both fall in a drift, and have to be dug out
by the men afterwards, with a deal of trouble and pain to
everyone, like the sheep.’

But Miss Rosedale knew more of country matters than
that. Since the snow had stopped it was freezing hard, so she
borrowed two pairs of snow-shoes from the steward, and
accompanied Fanny out into the dazzling, sunlit world of
crystal. Everything was different and unfamiliar in its muffling
shroud, rails and hedges almost buried, trees fantastically
decorated and hung with icy spars. The short walk to the
home paddock was hard work despite the snow-shoes, and
Fanny felt like an intrepid explorer by the time they reached
the three-sided shelter at the far end, where they found
Tempest, along with the other rough horses, comfortably
crunching hay and looking perfectly snug. On the way back,
they met up with the men bringing in the Yule log, and walked
the rest of the way with them, singing the jolly, pagan songs,
whose mediaeval tunes always seemed so pleasantly disjointed,
with the stresses in the wrong place, as though they were in
a foreign language.

On Christmas day itself, quarter-day, the tenants came up
to the house to pay their rents, and by Miss Rosedale's advice,
Fanny was allowed to play a prominent part in the proceed
ings. It was time, Miss Rosedale suggested to James and
Edward, that Fanny began to learn something about the
business of the estate that would one day be hers. She stood
with her father and Uncle Ned behind the table which had
been dragged out into the centre of the great hall, watching
Compton, the steward, record the payments in the estate
ledger. Following her father's example, she shook hands with
each man and wished him a happy Christmas, learning their
names, in some cases, for the first time, and enjoying the
consequence, and the respectful admiration of the people'.
James was delighted that she seemed ready to take a responsible
interest in the estate, though Edward remarked a little
sourly that Fanny simply liked being at the centre of the
stage, whatever the play happened to be.

On St Stephen's day the servants received their gifts, and
Fanny stood behind Madame's chair in the great hall to perform
the ceremony; though this was not quite so satisfying, as
the servants all knew her very well, and there was nothing like
the adulation she received from the tenants, to most of whom
she was a distant goddess. Still, she quite enjoyed it; and then
there was the hunt, and she was allowed to take Honey out
for the first time. Durban however, advised her only to shew
the mare to hounds and ride her as far as the first draw, for
he suspected she would get too excited. Fanny stuck out her
lip rebelliously, but in the event was glad to change onto
Tempest, whom one of the grooms had brought to the covert
on Durban's instructions.

The family's exchange of New Year gifts almost spoilt the
harmonious atmosphere, for James and Héloïse gave Sophie a
very beautiful china baby with real silk clothes, and real hair
on her head, and Fanny came close to believing that it was
better and more expensive than her own china baby, which
she had been given years ago, when Mama was still alive. But
Miss Rosedale managed to put things into better perspective
by observing that it was a very suitable present for such a
little
girl as Sophie, and asking to be shewn Fanny's present
again.

Fanny's present from James was a new bridle for Honey,
and Fanny came as close as she ever had to being grateful to
Madame when she opened
her
present, for in a neat little box
was the pair of coral and gold bridle ornaments which had
always decorated the headpieces of Madame's cream ponies,
and which Fanny knew were an heirloom of great antiquity.

‘
Your grandmama gave them to me, Fanny, and now I give
them to you. It is right that you should have them. They
belong in the Morland family. They are over two hundred
years old, so you will know how to value them, I'm sure. They
will look so pretty on Honey's bridle.’

Fanny was wild to try them out, along with the new bridle,
at once, but the weather had thickened alarmingly, and there
was no possibility of stirring out of doors. Miss Rosedale kept
Fanny amused in the nursery with a mixture of lessons and
games, and just when Fanny's good behaviour began to wear thin, she won her approval by persuading James to allow her
to attend the Twelfth Night masquerade in its entirety.