The Flood-Tide

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  With the April wind blowing from a gentler and more springlike quarter, the weather had turned mild, and in a matter of days everything seemed to have burst simultaneously into bud and blossom. A restlessness came over Flora, driving her from room to room in search of company or occupation, but she was out of luck. Allen was away in London again, on some undisclosed business; Jemima was over at Twelvetrees, where five mares had come simultaneously on heat, and two entire colts had fought each other in more than mere play. Father Ramsay, of course, was teaching the children, except for Mary, who had been whisked away by Alison. Mary had grown rapidly and Alison wanted to go over her frocks with her, to see what she needed new. Father Ramsay allowed her to go without regret. Mary was an undistinguished scholar, and had a particularly penetrating sigh which was driving the priest to distraction.

  Flora picked up a book and laid it down again, played a few notes on the harpsichord, looked with disfavour at her embroidery frame, and was kneeling on the windowseat in the drawing room, dangling her arms out of the window in a most ungraceful manner, when Rachel, the younger nursery maid, found her.

  ‘Oh, there you are, miss,' Rachel said, advancing on her with a large white bundle in her arms. Flora wriggled round on the seat and held out her arms.

  ‘How is she today, Rachel?' Little Louisa, six months old now, was growing heavy, Flora noticed, as she jiggled her in her arms and stared into her face. It was odd how much her features altered, she thought. When she was newborn, she was the image of Thomas; in a few weeks she had begun to favour Flora much more; now, at six months, Flora thought she looked most like her brother Charles.

  ‘Oh, she's a little nuisance today, miss, and won't settle for anything. I think maybe she's starting a tooth. I was for taking her out in the fresh air for a while, and I thought you might like to see her first.'

  ‘I'll take her out,' Flora said, glad for something to do, and when Rachel looked doubtful, she added, 'only you must come with me, to make sure I don't harm her.'

  ‘You won't harm her, I'm sure, miss,' Rachel said out of politeness. 'But come with us by all means, if you like.' She took the baby back from Flora firmly, having been brought up to the opinion that parents should not take too much notice of their children, for everyone's sake. It was quite proper for a mother or father to hold the bairn for a minute or two each day and say how handsome it was growing, but that was all. 'Best let me carry her, miss, in case you rumple your dress.’

  Flora, reduced to her proper status again, yielded the baby up and walked meekly in the wake of the nursery maid. Outside, the air smelled so fresh and sweet it roused her restlessness to a new pitch of agony.

  ‘Oh, how I long for something to do!' she cried aloud, unable to restrain herself. 'Don't you ever get bored, Rachel? So bored you could scream?'

  ‘I don't have time to get bored, miss,' Rachel said severely, and then, realizing she had spoken out of turn, seeing as Miss Flora was a married lady now, and no more in the province of the nursery, she added kindly, 'You'll be missing Captain Thomas, miss, that's only natural. It is a shame when a man's work takes him away from his home and family. The poor master, for instance, up and down to London, and into York and Leeds and I don't know whereall-else. A man should work in his own house and his own field, that's what my father always said. He had a cousin that went to work in a finishing shed near Leeds, a factory when all's said and done, and he always said it was unnatural. But I suppose a man can't be in the navy without being away from home. I suppose it's all right for a young man that's not married - though I cannot remember being so surprised as when the mistress agreed to let little William go. It'll be a wonder if that child lives to his next birthday - and here's Miss Charlotte pining for him so badly, she'll make herself sick with grief.'

  ‘Yes, she does seem rather quiet since William went,' Flora said, 'but I suppose that's because she has no one else to talk to. Like me.' A neat twist brought the thread back to its beginning. 'With the mistress out all day, I've no one to talk to and nothing to do. I wish now I'd accepted Lord and Lady Chelmsford's invitation to go to London. At least I'd have had some company there. But it seemed wrong, somehow, with Thomas only just gone away.’

  Rachel paused under a blossoming apple tree - they had walked into the orchard - and gauging Flora's mood, said, ‘Well, miss, it doesn't seem to me that it matters whether Captain Thomas went yesterday or two months ago. Gone is gone, and there's no reason for you to stay here and be fretful if you'd sooner be elsewhere.'

  ‘It's not as if I'm any use to anyone here,' Flora agreed readily. 'Not even to little Louisa, since you won't let me near her.' She pulled the shawl back from the baby's small face and looked down at her. Louisa's dark blue eyes stared past her with a kind of imperial disregard, and her lips pursed as if in disapproval. A white petal, bruised brown at the edges, drifted down and landed on the baby's cheek, and Flora brushed it away with a finger. Will she be pretty?' she asked Rachel.

  ‘Pretty enough,' Rachel granted. Her praise was always meted out as if there were only so much to go round. 'I'll be taking her in in a minute - I know the master thinks fresh air is a cure-all, but it's only April when all's said. Why don't you walk on for a bit, miss? I think your brother's in his garden somewhere.'

  ‘I see you want to be rid of me. You doubt my influence on the child. Well, perhaps you are right. Take her away, Rachel. I shall go and find Charles, and try to corrupt him instead.'

  ‘Nay, miss, you shouldn't talk so light,' Rachel shook her head, and hurried the baby away as a mild puff of wind ruffled her wrappings. Flora went on to the American Garden, which was taking shape very nicely now, and found Charles sitting under a tree, smoking a pipe of tobacco.

  ‘Well, I see I am too late,' Flora called out as she came upon him. 'I meant to come and corrupt you from hard work into idleness, but here you are courting rheumatism by sitting on the wet grass, and doing nothing after all.'

  ‘I have a sack under me,' Charles said, not offering to rise, and Flora saw in a moment that he was not dreaming happily.

  ‘What is it, Charles? You seem too melancholy for such a fine day.' He did not reply, and she said impatiently, 'If I cannot sit down, I do think you might at least stand up.'

  ‘Oh, I'm sorry,' he said, pulling himself to his feet. Even the lassitude of his movements proclaimed him unhappy. ‘One of my orchids has died, and those roots I was storing through the winter have rotted. I shall lose the half of them. It's enough to make one give up altogether.’

  Flora eyed him without sympathy. 'That isn't why you are gloomy. You've lost plants before - hundreds of them. You're thinking about those Americans again, aren't you?' He did not answer. 'Really, Charles, what's the use of thinking about them all the time if it makes you so miserable?'

  ‘Can't you understand that I'm worried about them?' Charles said. 'They may be in danger, and they are all alone—'

  ‘Don't be silly,' Flora interrupted. 'Rich people are never alone. And besides, why should you worry about them? They are nothing to you - hardly even cousins.'

  ‘Philippe was very kind to me,' Charles began weakly, and Flora scoffed.

  ‘Oh, Philippe was kind to you, was he? Come, Charles, you must think me a simpleton. It is the daughter you are thinking about, not the father.' His silence was confession enough. 'Well, it's you who are the simpleton, and I'm sorry a brother of mine should be such a fool. You only met her once, Charles, you don't know her well enough to be carrying on in this way.'

  ‘Oh Flora, how can you talk like that? How long do you have to know someone to fall in love with them?'

  ‘You think yourself in love with her? Well then, there's no more to be said. You had better make an offer for her hand, and then you'll carry her off and leave that kind father all alone.'

  ‘Of course I wouldn't,' he said unguardedly. 'She's her father's heir, so she couldn't come to England. I would have to—'

  ‘You would have to go and live over there?' Flora shook her
head. 'Give up everything, leave your own land, and go and live in a strange country amongst foreigners for the rest of your life, all for a girl you've seen only once?'

  ‘You go too fast, Flora. He would probably never agree, anyway.'

  ‘Oh Charles!' She stared at him ruefully, and many things went through her mind, none of which she could say. For her own selfish reasons, she wanted to shake him out of this notion, for she had lost too many of those near to her to relish the prospect of losing him too. But deeper and darker than that was the growing doubt about her own marriage to Thomas. She did not want, though she could not admit it even to herself, to think of Charles marrying as she did, on a whim, someone he did not in the least know, only to discover afterwards that it did not answer. Charles could have refused permission when she had asked to marry Thomas. If only the positions could now be reversed, and she could refuse him permission to marry the Creole! She left him to his brooding, and walked about the moat for a while before going in, and when she reached the barbican she saw Jemima approaching it from another direction, riding Poppy, with little James up on the saddle in front of her. Not so little James now: he was nearly eight, and his hard, wiry body was almost as big as William's at twelve.

  ‘Look what I found paddling in the brook,' Jemima called to Flora as she rode up. 'This naughty truant, barelegged as an eel! I cannot find out if he has lost his shoes and stockings, or if he never had 'em on.'

  ‘Eels don't have legs,' Flora objected.

  ‘Some eels do - Cousin Charles said so,' James offered unwisely.

  ‘You hush, you wicked thing,' Jemima said, pinching him. 'What your father will say I can't think.'

  ‘Papa isn't here,' James said with some complacency. ‘He'll be back tonight,' Jemima said sternly, tossing him down to Flora and dismounting.

  ‘Why is it wicked?' James changed position quickly. ‘Papa says fresh air is good for you.' He leaned back familiarly against Flora, his accustomed prop.

  ‘It's wicked because you were disobedient. I sent you to your lessons this morning. You hadn't permission to leave them.'

  ‘You didn't exactly say I had to go to lessons this morning. And you didn't exactly say I wasn't to leave them,' James said wheedlingly. Jemima led Poppy across the drawbridge, and James and Flora followed hand in hand. Jemima swung round and levelled a finger at him.

  ‘Not another word, you sea-lawyer! I'm taking you straight to Father Ramsay. Flora, will you give Poppy to Josh to rub down?'

  ‘Of course. What time is Allen coming back?'

  ‘He'll be back for supper, perhaps earlier. Come, truant, to your doom.’

  *

  Jemima could not be angry with James, for she had played truant when she could in her childhood, but she had at least to pretend to be strict with him, for he was too inclined to go his own way, thinking that a charming smile, or even, in an emergency, an apology, was enough to get him out of trouble. 'They'll hang you for a highwayman,' she warned him sometimes, and dreaded the day when he would be old enough to notice the opposite sex. He would be exactly the sort of charming rogue that women could not resist.

  She found the schoolroom deserted, and had to seek out Father Ramsay in his room.

  ‘I've found one of your strayed sheep, father, but where's the rest of the flock?'

  ‘Mary was fetched away by the nurse,' he told her, 'and as her wardrobe is evidently going to be of more use to her in her future than her brain, I let her go.'

  ‘And Charlotte?'

  ‘A headache. She went to find Rachel.'

  ‘Really a headache?' Jemima asked suspiciously. 'She was never a sickly child, but she complained of the headache twice last week.'

  ‘I think she was speaking the truth. She was very pale, looked quite sick with it,' Father Ramsay said.

  His kind words worried her more than anything, and she dropped James's hand and left him to his fate while she went to find Rachel. William had suffered from headaches, but never Charlotte, until just recently, since William had gone to sea. Was she pining for her twin, or pretending sickness to gain sympathy? Or was it some mysterious transference of strength between her and William? She smiled at herself at the last idea, and wondered what Father Ramsay would say at such pagan thoughts. Rachel was out with the baby, but she found Alison unpicking the seams of an old dress of Flora's, to be made over for Mary.

  ‘She was really bad,' she told Jemima. 'Poor mite. I made her lie down for a while, and then it went away, and I sent her out to walk in the herb garden, where the scents will do her good. I sent Mary with her.'

  ‘But she's never sick - until this last week or so,' Jemima said. Alison nodded.

  ‘I thought maybe she was grieving over William - that's what Rachel thinks - but now I'm not sure. I think perhaps all the studying is too much for her. It's well enough for the boys, mistress—’

  But Jemima wasn't going to be trapped into that old argument. 'It's traditional in this family to educate the girls,' she said firmly, and Alison had nothing more to say. She revered tradition, as only a shepherd's daughter could.

  *

  It was still cold enough in the evenings for a fire, and Flora, Charles, Jemima and Father Ramsay were sitting round it in the drawing room when Allen arrived home. Jemima leapt up at the first sound of hooves in the yard and rushed out to greet him, and the other three waited, smiling, through all the sounds of dogs and boots and voices in the hall, until the drawing room door opened again and Allen came in with Jemima attached to his side like a third limb.

  ‘Well, Charles, it is all fixed, all settled,' he cried cheerfully by way of greeting. Charles looked startled, but Flora had an inkling of what he was going to say, and felt a sinking.

  ‘What is?' Charles asked. 'You are looking very pleased with yourself, sir, I must say.'

  ‘And so I should,' Allen said, sitting down in his own chair by the fire and rubbing his hands briskly. 'I have done a good piece of work, pleased myself, advanced you, and served science, all in one.'

  ‘Congratulations,' Father Ramsay said drily. 'And how many times will we have to ask before you tell us what you have done?’

  Allen grinned. 'I have found a way for Charles to go to America, that's all. Potatoes! Potatoes, my dear cousin! You know - or at least you should know by now - that I have a very deep interest in potatoes. I think they will be as important as turnips - more important, in fact, for there's no denying that turnips are not fit for anything but animal feed, whereas potatoes, I am sure, can be made into a very seemly dish indeed, fit for anyone's table.'

  ‘Really, Allen!' Jemima protested, and he took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘Yes, really, dearest. It will only need time for enough people to be eating them for a host of new ways of dressing them to be discovered. And I am persuaded that they are as good for the land as turnips are. I have been reading a pamphlet upon the subject, and it recommends—'

  ‘Yes, I'm sure, but what of Charles and America?' Father Ramsay said hastily, nipping the effusion in the bud.

  ‘I think I begin to guess,' Charles said.

  Allen, still holding his wife's hand against his cheek, said, 'My brother Chelmsford and I have been dining with various people - members of the Royal Society, and men with large estates and advanced ideas - and we have got together a group of six, all interested in potatoes. And we, with the Society's help, of course, have put up a sum of money to send a man to America to investigate potatoes -what different sorts there are, what conditions they grow best in, what diseases they are prone to, how they may be improved, and so on - with the object, of course, of breeding a better potato, suited to our climate and soil. Now, of course, we need only find the right man to send.’

  There was a burst of exclamation, congratulation, and thanks, in which Flora's lack of enthusiasm went unnoticed. Charles shook Allen's hand heartily before restoring it to Jemima's. The conversation revolved around the planning of Charles's trip and the validity of Allen's ideas about potatoes, and t
he time passed rapidly until supper. And then Alison came in to tell Jemima, quietly and aside, that Charlotte had been sick.

  ‘Which doesn't seem natural to me, madam,' she went on, 'because as to the other end, there's been nothing for two days, and I was going to give her a dose tomorrow if she didn't mend her ways. And now being sick - it doesn't seem natural. I think perhaps we ought to get the 'pothecary to her tomorrow.'

  ‘I'll come and have a look at her,' Jemima said. She couldn't quite shake off the idea that Charlotte was somehow doing these things deliberately, to punish them for taking William away from her.

  *

  The next morning, while Jemima was dressing, Alison came in to say that Charlotte would not get up.

  ‘She just lies there, mistress, huddled up, with her face in the pillow. I thought she was being naughty, but now I'm not so sure.'

  ‘I'll come,' Jemima said. 'Has she a headache, or a pain?'

  ‘I asked, but she wouldn't answer me,' Alison said. Jemima finished dressing in a hurry and went along to the night nursery, which Charlotte shared with Mary. It was as Alison said - Charlotte was hunched up in her bed, with her face in the pillow, which she seemed to be trying to pull round her head.

  ‘Come now, Charlotte, you must get up,' Jemima said, trying to sound normally cheerful. There was no reply, no movement even. 'What is the matter, chick? Have you a pain?' Still no reply. Jemima tried sternness. 'Charlotte, enough of this silliness. Get up this minute, or I shall be angry.' Charlotte only burrowed deeper into the pillow. Jemima bent over her and pulled her ungently by the shoulders, turning her face upwards for a moment; but Charlotte gave a strange little moan, and with astonishing strength freed herself, pressing her face back into the pillow with a violent movement, as if the light hurt her. Jemima and Alison exchanged doubtful glances, and Jemima cautiously felt Charlotte's brow.

  ‘She does seem a little hot,' Jemima said hesitantly. Alison spoke quietly, so that Charlotte would not hear.

  ‘I don't think she's pretending, mistress. Did you see? She was sort of squinting. Maybe the headache has come back.’