James looked at me, half serious. ‘I tell you what, Julia Lacey,’ he said. I paid a great deal of attention. Whenever James called me Julia Lacey, I listened well. It was generally something very loving, or something very shocking, or – best of all – both. ‘I tell you what,’ he said again. ‘,’ have those sorts of funds, and if you tell me that you and I and then our children would have a good life in Acre if the village owned its own land, then I would be prepared to offer that sort of capital. We could build our own house and have our own share in the village, and yet not be the sort of squires and the sort of masters who bring about the poverty which we saw in Fish Quay Lane.’
I hesitated. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is your inheritance, not mine. Before you decide how it is spent or where you wish to live, you must see Wideacre and the village. I cannot imagine being happy living all my life anywhere else. But you and I must agree such things together. It would be as unjust to you if we were all our days at Wideacre as it would be unjust to me if you took me to Bristol and I could never see my home again.’
James held his free hand out across the tea-urn in a parody of a street trader. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘And remember what I have offered. My papa calls me a radical and a Jacobin, but I have no use for such labels. What I do care about is trying to follow the French lead in an especial English way. To make a new society here, as they are trying to do there. I want to do so with you, for I think I loved you the most when I saw you in the best fashion shop in Bath telling the proprietor she was worse than a madame in a bagnio. I have been a rebel all my life and I want to find a way to make that rebellion a comfortable way to live – something for the future rather than just a reaction against the way things are.’
‘Yes!’ I said, and my heart leaped to think of trying to build a life in Acre where there were no masters and squires but just James and me and our children, and Clary Dench and Matthew Merry and their children, and all the other village children living as neighbours.
‘If you two are holding hands above the tea-urn as well as below it, then I cannot help but feel that my presence here is somewhat superfluous,’ Marianne observed drily.
We released each other and laughed like a pair of guilty children.
‘Never that,’ James said, and crossed to the window to kiss her cheek. ‘At your least you are always ornamental. Tell us what Dr Phillips said today,’ he commanded, sitting beside her and taking the newspaper from her. ‘Julia has to see him for the first time in days tomorrow and she is going to tell him that she will discontinue her visits. They need her back at home and since she has survived perfectly well without seeing him, I am trying to convince her that she is as sane as anyone in the world, and a good deal saner than anyone I have ever known before.’
Marianne shot me a shy smile. ‘Except for your liking for my brother, I would agree,’ she said. Then her face grew graver. ‘Dr Phillips is working very hard to help me cat properly,’ she said. ‘Even if I find it sometimes very wearying, I cannot deny that he is very painstaking. I cannot help but wish that sometimes everyone would just leave the whole thing alone. If I was on a desert island, I am sure that I would be hungry and eat. It is just that everywhere I go, people press food on me, and when I refuse, they look at me and argue with me. Since I have been to Dr Phillips, and Mama has told people about it, everything has got worse.’
‘When we are married, and living in earthly paradise in the heart of Sussex, you shall come and stay with us and you shall eat nothing!’ James promised. ‘Nothing at all for days at a time until you feel you could fancy a little something. And no one will look at you, and no one will question you.’
Marianne sighed. ‘I look forward to being your first guest. But you are a little forward, James. The engagement has not even been announced, and I don’t think Julia has even told her mama.’
‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘She has been so ill and so tired, I did not want to trouble her. She would at once start planning parties and wedding gowns. I want her to be entirely well before she starts such a campaign.’
‘In the meantime, you must chaperon us,’ James said. ‘Do you have time tomorrow to go with Julia to Dr Phillips? We are to dispatch the Acre paupers in the afternoon, and Julia thought of seeing Dr Phillips first thing.’
Marianne agreed to escort me, and then go with me down to the inn to see that the four lost Acre children were ready to go home.
‘Would you like me to visit the doctor with you?’ James whispered softly to me as we said goodbye in the drawing-room while Marianne slowly tied on her bonnet before the mirror in the hall.
I hesitated. I was tempted to say yes and call on the help I knew he would give me. But I had been tempered in the fire of the most fashionable modiste in Bath, and I thought I could defend myself against Dr Phillips.
‘No,’ I said. ‘There will be much to arrange tomorrow. I shall meet you at the Fish Quay Inn; and I shall be a free woman then, for I shall have told Dr Phillips I shall visit him no longer. I should tell him on my own, face to face. It is only fair, for he has spent a deal of time with me, doing the best that he could. I am a little apprehensive, but it will be no worse than Mrs Williams’s shop. Nothing could be worse than that.’
‘And I was so much help there!’ James exclaimed. He took both my hands and took one to his lips and turned the other around to cup his face. ‘Keep me in your mind until tomorrow,’ he said. ‘For I cannot sleep at nights for thinking about you.’
Then he kissed me on my lips and strode out to the hall, swept up Marianne and was gone with a little smile for me.
‘I shall see you tomorrow at the doctor’s,’ Marianne called. ‘Don’t be late!’
I nodded and I was not late, for it was nine o’clock when I slammed the front door and started to run up the hill; I was still there ahead of Marianne. The solemn footman showed us into Dr Phillips’s bleak parlour like two twin flies for a plump spider at exactly five minutes after nine o’clock.
Marianne went to the seat by the window where my mama usually sat, and Dr Phillips waved me towards the comfortable seat before the fire. But I remained standing with one hand on the back of the armchair where I had poured out my dreams and nearly lost them altogether.
‘I have come to thank you and to bid you farewell,’ I said. ‘My mama has been unwell and as soon as she is well enough to travel, I shall want to take her home. They need me at home on the estate.’
Dr Phillips went behind his heavy wooden desk and leaned back in his chair, watching me over his folded hands. ‘I think that would be unwise,’ he said gently. ‘Unweasonable. Have you consulted your mama? No? Have you witten to your uncle? No?’ He smiled gently at me. ‘These things are genewally better done by pawents or guardians,’ he said. ‘When you first came to me, you were suffewing from a number of delusions. I am pleased to say that we have made inwoads. I think you have had no dweams since you came to me? And no experience of the singing in your head? And no hallucinations?’ He nodded to himself. ‘I think we have been making gweat pwogwess. I shall expect you to come again when your mama is well enough to bwing you, unless I hear to the contwawy fwom her or fwom your uncle.’
‘No,’ I said steadily. This was worse than the millinery shop, for I had no tide of anger to sweep me into certainty. ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is a decision I may take for myself. I will not be coming back to see you again. I shall tell you why,’ I said. My hands were trembling and I thrust them into my muff so he should not see. ‘You have indeed stopped my dreams, and I think in time you could have stopped the seeings altogether. But if you succeeded in that, I would no longer be Julia Lacey. I should be someone else. I do not know if I want that. I suspect that you have given no thought to that at all. You saw what you thought was a silly girl having delusions. But I believe that I am a special private person with special private experiences – with a gift, if you like – and I should resist being robbed of that as strongly as I should resist being robbed of my money.’
‘Has something
happened?’ he asked acutely.
‘Yes,’ I said honestly. ‘Out of all the linkboys in Bath I recognized one as an Acre child, one who was taken from Acre ten years ago, one I had never seen before. I heard a voice in my head saying, “Take him home.” And I am going to take him home.’
Dr Phillips never moved, but his eyes were suddenly sharper. ‘Are you saying this is a pwoven experience of what is called second sight?’ he asked.
I shrugged with a little laugh. ‘I don’t know!’ I said. ‘I don’t care what it is called. It is as natural to me as seeing the colour of the sky, or hearing music when it is played. I will not have my sight and my hearing taken from me because other people do not have a name for it.’
He nodded, and rose to his feet. ‘Vewy well,’ he said. ‘But let me give you one word of warning. What you think of as second sight can be a guide in certain times and places. But you cannot be a seer and also a young Bath lady. Most of the time you would do well to be guided by convention and manners.’
I nodded. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
Marianne stepped forward beside me. ‘I too am saying goodbye,’ she said softly. I saw her face was white and strained but her teeth were gritted. ‘I thank you for the work you have done for me,’ she said, ‘but I want time to consider my own position without forever having to explain myself.’
Dr Phillips sat plump down on his chair again and looked at both of us. ‘My entire system depends upon the patient talking the twouble out of their minds,’ he said. ‘And I have a pwoven success wate.’
‘I have no trouble in my mind,’ Marianne said steadily. ‘My trouble is in my home where my mama is unhappy and my papa ill-treats her. The only time we ever see Papa is at mealtimes, and I am so distressed that I cannot eat. My papa pays your fees, Dr Phillips, and you have never wanted to hear this simple explanation from me. I understand that you will not hear it, but there is no reason in the world why I should go on pretending that all this is my fault, and that I can somehow be cured from the consequence of my parents’ bad marriage. I cannot eat at home because I am miserable there. I am miserable because my papa is unfaithful to my mama, and because they choose the family dinner table as a place for their disagreements. I will not sit in your armchair and talk and weep and blame myself any longer.’
‘Yes,’ I said softly. I felt more like shouting, ‘Hurrah!’ and throwing my bonnet in the air.
Dr Phillips got to his feet again and looked at us unpleasantly. ‘If this is the new wadical woman, then I cannot say I am impwessed,’ he said. ‘You may tell your mamas that I will submit my final bill and that I, not you, terminated our discussions. I find you both unsympathetic’
I bit back a retort, and curtsied in silence instead. Then Marianne and I got ourselves to the door and out into the damp street and around the corner into Gay Street before we whooped and laughed and congratulated ourselves, tumbled into a pair of sedan chairs and set off for the Fish Quay Inn.
They were in a delightful flurry of packing. All their new possessions, which James had provided, could have gone in one small bandbox; but the joy of private ownership was upon them and each had a separate box. Nat was now flesh-coloured all over his face, except for odd-looking sooty traces around his eyes, and he was very smart in a new suit. Rosie Dench was pale and thin still, but the sores around her mouth were healing and she did not cough at all. Jimmy Dart bustled around them both, as spry as a Bath sparrow in a brown homespun suit. I could not have recognized them for the sorry little crew in that dirty room. But I could not see Julie.
‘She won’t come,’ Jimmy said, his face losing all its light at once. ‘She won’t come with us. She’s in her room. She won’t even come down for her dinner before the journey. She says she’s staying in Bath. She only just told us.’
I looked around for James. ‘It’s as well,’ he said softly. ‘She could hardly ply her trade in Acre. And she could not do without drink.’
‘Trade?’ I said blankly. ‘I did not realize she worked. What trade?’
James made a little grimace. ‘Leave it, Julia,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain later. She does not wish to leave Bath, that’s all.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s an Acre child. It is my duty to know what is happening.’ Ignoring him, I turned into the inn and ran up the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Rosie.
She was lying on the bed, fully dressed, with her face to the wall. The lattice window was shut, but you could still hear the noise outside of coaches coming and going and passengers calling orders about their bags.
‘Julie?’ I asked hesitantly.
She turned around to see me and her eyes were as red as her rouged cheeks. She had been crying. Oh, it’s you,’ she said. ‘Go to Acre with the others,’ I said intently. ‘You can go down now and take the coach with them this afternoon. Go home, Julie.’
She sat up and leaned back against the wall; her eyes were hard as Wideacre flints. ‘I can’t,’ she said blankly.
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Is there some trouble here?’
‘No.’ She said it like a sigh.
‘What is it, then?’ I demanded. ‘Why won’t you go home?’
There was a tap on the door behind me and James came quietly into the room.
‘Ask him!’ she said, wearied. ‘Ask him! Don’t ask me! You are the little miss perfect Julia Lacey! You are the one who will marry the man with the fortune. Don’t ask me to explain it to you. Ask your finance. Ask him what men of his type do, and what they pay. Ask him where he goes and how much it costs him.’
I turned to James. ‘What is all this about?’ I asked. I had not an idea what Julie was saying.
James’s face was grave. ‘Can you not put this behind you, leave it and forget it, and start again in Acre?’ he asked her.
Julie’s face was bright with bitterness. ‘It’s my trade,’ she said harshly. ‘Will the little princess here let me practise my trade in Acre? Will there be customers for me there?’
‘What is your trade, Julie?’ I demanded. I was all at sea with her sharpness and her especial malice towards me. There was also some private knowledge between James and her which disturbed me.
‘Little fool,’ she said. And then she nodded at James. ‘You tell her.’
I turned to James; his eyes were sombre. ‘She’s a prostitute,’ he said baldly. ? whore.’
‘That’s what I am,’ Julie said to me. ‘I am a street-trader, I sell my body to men. I did it when we were working at the mill so that the little children could have bread. I did it first when I was eleven. It hurt, and I hated to do it. I have done it since, and I have learned to endure it. Sometimes I like it. It is the only way I know of getting money to buy bread and gin. If I had not sold my body – oh! again and again! – all the way down the weary road from Manchester to here, then the children would have starved and I would have lost them all, as well as little Sally. Now you can take them home, and keep them safe. But I cannot come home. Acre is no longer a home for me. I need gin to drink and men to pay to take their pleasure on me. I am lost, Julia Lacey. And though I carry your name, I might as well be a slave in the sugar islands for the gulf there is between us.’
My head was thudding.
‘I did not know,’ I said to Julie, but I knew it was no excuse. ‘I did not know such things happened to a girl as young as you.’
She gave a harsh laugh. “They happen!’ she exclaimed. Oh, yes, they happen. It is whores like me who make it possible for you to keep your precious virginity until it is sold in marriage. How old is this man of yours? Is he a virgin? Silly fool, Julia Lacey! He has lain with whores. He will have been with whores like me. And it is because he has been with them that he can dance with you and walk with you and kiss your hand and wait for a wedding night that may be years away. Isn’t that so?’
I looked blankly at James. ‘You have been with women?’ I asked, my voice very thin. I sounded like the silly child they thought me.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is true
, and I do not deny it. I am twenty-four and I have lain with women. All whores. I never hurt them, I always give them more money than they ask of me. I am a man with desires. What would you have me do?’
I hesitated.
The whore who had been bought and sold like meat at Smith-field looked from one to another of us with hard eyes. And I saw that the man that I loved was one of the gentry – as I am – who take their pleasures or satisfy their needs, but never, never pay in full.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
A coach horn outside the window blew loudly to warn the passengers that the stage was going. It reminded me of the immediate issue of the journey home this afternoon.
‘Go to Acre,’ I said to Julie.
She lay down and turned her face to the wall again. ‘Nay,’ she said, and her voice had something of the Sussex drawl of our home. ‘I’m lost. Let them go, and you give them a job and somewhere to live. But it is too late for me. The Laceys ruined me, and the mill ruined me, and the cheap gin and no work ruined me. I am lost. I won’t see you again.’
I stepped forward hesitantly and put my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off as if I were a beggar.
‘If I could be melted with a touch, I should be drowned in tears by now,’ she said harshly. ‘Get out of my room, Julia Lacey, and take your man with you. Or leave him here. I only charge a shilling during the day.’
I opened my reticule and took out all the money I had – three guineas – and laid them on the pillow beside her tumbled copper hair. Then without looking at James I walked past him and down to the inn parlour.
It was not easy to smile and say farewell to the children and promise them that the hired coach would come for them at two o’clock prompt that afternoon, and that I would see them in a few weeks at Acre. I think I deceived them with my smiles. But not Marianne.
The Favoured Child twt-2 Page 38
