by Deryn Lake
‘Where is she?’ asked one child, John could not tell which.
‘She’s gone away.’
Simultaneously the twins started to cry, tears running down their sweetly innocent cheeks.
‘Where has she gone?’ asked the other one.
John was silent for a moment, trying desperately to think of the right answer, well aware that they were too young to understand the concept and finality of death. Then he had a flash of inspiration.
‘She’s gone to swim with the mermaids,’ he said.
They stopped crying. ‘Has she?’ asked one.
‘Has she really?’ asked the other.
‘Yes, she’s gone on a great swim through all the seas in all the world. She’ll be away a long, long time. So meanwhile I’ve come to look after you.’
‘You’re our papa, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, James and Jasper, I am your papa. Will you be happy with me?’
They looked at him appraisingly.
‘We’ll try,’ they chorused.
John slept in the guest wing that night and had the most vivid dream. He was fast asleep yet he dreamt that there was a gentle knock on his door, which then flew open to reveal Elizabeth. She was wearing her riding habit and had a beautiful feathered hat on her head. She looked just as she had when first they met and she smiled and winked at him.
‘I long to kiss you,’ she said.
In his dream John sat up in bed. ‘That is what you said when we first met.’
‘But now I cannot do so,’ she said, and a chill wind blew through John and he realised that she was transparent and that he could see the wall behind her. ‘My will is with my lawyer in Exeter. The house passes in the entail to my cousin because my sons are born bastards. So from now on they will be with you. You will care for them, won’t you, John?’
‘I swear it.’
‘It was clever of you to tell them that I am with the mermaids, because in a way, now I am. Goodbye, my love.’
The room was full of the scent of lilac in full bloom and she was fading before his eyes. ‘Oh Elizabeth, don’t go,’ John cried out.
‘Goodbye,’ sighed a million sighs, and he woke to a guttering candle and the room full of deepening shadows.
Seventeen
The letter from Sir Gabriel had been kind but immensely direct. In it he had advised his son to remove the twins as soon as could be arranged and take them to London.
They must start their new Life as soon as possible and their little Minds must be turned away from Withycombe House and their Treasured Recollection of Elizabeth. This may Sound Harsh, my beloved Son, but believe me, it will Be for The Best.
So John had remained in Devon for a week. The sea had not yielded up Elizabeth’s body and though he himself had searched the shore line, rowing out in a boat and peering down as best he could, there had never been a sign of anything. She had gone to the deeps, as the young groom had said, and there she would lie, full fathom five, to quote the great poet.
The reading of the will had been brief. There had been minor legacies to staff and servants, but the bulk of Elizabeth’s fortune, a not inconsiderable sum, had been left in trust until her sons reached the age of twenty-one. John had also been given a large portion ‘for the housekeeping and education of James and Jasper Rawlings’.
His next task had been to tell the staff they were to remain until Elizabeth’s cousin arrived to take charge, and to offer the two nurserymaids a job in London, should they both desire. Strangely, they had turned him down. They were country women at heart and could not bear the confines of town life, they said. But local enquiries had produced an applicant for the job: a big, fresh-faced local girl with skin like Devon cream and dancing hazel eyes, an unruly mob cap hiding her mop of curling black hair. She was called Hannah and John Rawlings took to her the moment they met.
The twins were told they were going on a holiday and thus made no protest when Irish Tom drove John’s coach round the carriage sweep and down the drive. John put his head out of the window and tears filled his eyes as the great house in which he had known the delights of passion, of fatherhood, of fun and laughter and quarrels, faded into the distance and into memory.
He had sent a messenger to Jacquetta Fortune to say that he was returning to London with his sons and a new maid and could she use the same rider for reply. Her answer was positive, saying that she was rearranging the rooms and asking him to contact her again when he reached Brentford. This John did, and thus the highly organised woman had prepared a tea for the two tots and had a big smile for Hannah, who had travelled on the box beside Tom, talking in her lovely Devon accent nearly all the way to town.
The twins were sharing a room next to that of their half sister Rose, who was currently away at school. Mrs Fortune had purchased two little beds and had done her best with the accommodation in the amount of time she had been given. So the total effect was pleasing and John left them happily fighting over who was going to get which bed. Jacquetta met him on the landing.
‘They are a delight, John. And totally identical. But when the excitement wears off they will miss their mother badly.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ he answered with a sigh. ‘But we shall have to cope with that when the time comes.’
‘But how?’
The Apothecary shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’
But a visit to his shop proved to be a great event for his boys. One of them, James, shrieked with joy at the sight of the herbs hanging up to dry and the great array of jars holding various compounds. They both watched Robin Hazell, whom they obviously admired, pounding away in a mortar, and begged John to let them try. He found two smaller, little-used mortars, sprinkled a few herbs within, and left them sitting at the workbench, mixing away for dear life.
But it was Fred who caused the sensation of the day. Sweeping under the benches, he spoke to the little boys.
‘Excuse me, young masters, I just want to sweep away the bits wot you dropped.’
Jasper, the bolder of the two, said, ‘We haven’t dropped anything.’
‘Well, wot’s them bits on the floor then?’
The twins sat speechless, lacking the language skills to argue, but James said, ‘Where?’
‘’Ere, I’ll show yer.’
And before John or Gideon or Robin could stop him, Fred had dragged Jasper off his stool and onto the floor where he pointed out the scraps of herbs with a stubby finger. At this level the twin was in his element, crawling round picking up any dropped detritus and licking it to find out what it was. James, seeing this, immediately joined in and as Gideon went to stop them, John touched him on the arm.
‘Let them play, my friend. They’re enjoying themselves. Besides, you have to eat a bushel of dirt before you die,’ at which Gideon smiled and shook his head.
As he took them home that night, James said, ‘Can we go to your shop tomorrow, Papa? I like it there.’
‘What did you like best?’
‘Fred,’ the twins said in chorus.
Jasper asked James, ‘Why did you call him Papa? My papa is a prince.’
At which Hannah spoke up sharply, ‘Jasper, you can stop that this instant. That’s your papa sitting opposite you and the only one you’ll ever have. So get used to it or you’ll get a smack on the bum.’
She glanced at John to see if he was annoyed with her outspokenness, but he merely smiled and directed his gaze out of the window. Jasper pulled a face but everyone ignored him, James being too sleepy to bother.
After that visit the twins talked about Fred incessantly until John was forced to ask the little chap if he would come to sup in the house and spend the evening with his sons. The boy abandoned at Thomas Coram’s Foundling Hospital had been prepared for the visit by Robin Hazell, John’s young apprentice. First he had been dumped into a tin bath and scrubbed vigorously, then dressed in some ill-fitting clothes which Robin had outgrown. Then he had made his way, walking in a new pair of shoes which Gideon had b
ought him.
He arrived on John’s front door step looking such an eager scrap that John’s heart bled for him.
‘I hopes that I hain’t too early, Mr Rawlings,’ he said as he was ushered into the library where John was sitting alone.
‘No, no,’ John answered, feeling quite ancient as he looked down from his newspaper at the little bundle of hopefulness standing before him. ‘You have caused quite a sensation with my sons and they have invited you to play with them. So I will have your best English, please, Fred.’
‘Ho yuss, Sir. Me best.’
John sighed inwardly, expecting his sons soon to be adopting Fred’s way of speaking. But it was a small price to pay for the child’s good-natured company.
‘Go on, my lad. They’re having a cold collation in the nursery and Miss Hannah will be keeping order. So off you go and no getting into mischief, mind.’
‘Oh no, Sir.’
When he had left the room John got up and looked out of the window, thinking how blessed he had been to find Sir Gabriel. Or rather for his adopted father to have found him. He had once begged on the streets of London, when he had been about the same age as his sons, until that fortunate day when Sir Gabriel’s coach had run them down.
For that had been the start of the great love affair between John’s mother Phyllida and the widower Sir Gabriel Kent. And John thanked God for it, for in what wretched alleyway might he have lived otherwise and what terrible street rat might he have turned into.
John found that tears were trickling down his cheeks at the thoughts that were going through his mind, and he wiped them away impatiently and sat down with his newspaper once more. But memories of Sir Gabriel brought the old grandee vividly to mind and he felt that he must soon return to the Hotwell to see how he was faring. Regular letters had advised John that the old man was in his element, paying court to the ladies over cards and attending balls and outings. But the season was drawing rapidly to a close and John did not want to think of his adopted father isolated in a spot that could become rather desolate once the fashionable crowd had moved on. He determined that as soon as the twins had settled in he would be off.
Before he did so, however, John took the opportunity of visiting the theatre and friends, calling on his old comrade Samuel Swann – who had now grown somewhat fat and somewhat self-important – and insisting on taking him out for the evening and away from Sam’s wife and four noisy children. They decided to visit a tavern where they could talk over old times and chose The Old Bell in Fleet Street. There they settled down to reminisce, at which Sam said with a gusty sigh, ‘How I miss the old days, John. Why is it that everything in life moves on? Why can’t we live in one happy period for the whole of our existence?’
John shook his head. ‘I have often thought the same thing myself. But alas it is not mankind’s fate. And if it were, would we not get bored? Isn’t it the newness of events that makes life exciting?’
‘But the new things are not always pleasant.’
‘How well I know that,’ and John went on to explain to Sam, whose round face grew sadder and sadder, about Elizabeth’s slow death from carcinoma.
‘But she died as she wanted, Sam. She leapt over the cliff on her sick old horse and plunged into the sea below.’
‘Good God. How brave. And how terribly, terribly wretched.’
‘Better that than dying in pain, full of opium.’
‘Was her body ever recovered?’
‘No, strangely. The tide usually washes them ashore but not in her case. I told the twins that their mother was swimming with the mermaids.’
‘What a delightful thought.’
‘Perhaps it’s true,’ said John with a wry smile.
They talked over past cases and John found himself discussing the current one with Samuel, who quite literally quivered with excitement.
‘Oh, how I wish I could come to the Hotwell with you. It would be so marvellous to be on the trail of a villain once more.’
John laughed. Samuel had always been so enthusiastic, but was known for putting his foot in it time and again, a fact of which he was blissfully unaware.
‘I suppose you’re too bound up with your family these days.’
Samuel gave a hearty laugh. ‘I’m master in my own house, John. But Jocasta is not too keen on my being away. Says it leaves her with a great deal to do.’
The Apothecary smiled fondly, thinking of his rather large friend being completely under his thin wife’s thumb.
‘Oh, I quite understand, old chap. Can’t upset the marital home.’
Samuel adopted a serious voice. ‘Do you miss Elizabeth’s company?’
‘I miss her terribly. It was a tragic end to a great life. Yet in a way her actual death said all about the life she led. It was a triumph over suffering.’
‘But how has it affected you, John? That’s what I am asking.’
‘I am a survivor, Sam. Whatever life throws at me I have the ability to overcome. Inside my heart I may weep but those looking on will never know how sad I am.’
And with that he drew the subject to a close.
When he returned home he saw that the parlour was still lit and went to see who was up. Jacquetta Fortune was sitting by the light of several candles, reading a book. John stood for a moment, studying her. She had certainly come to full bloom now, quite lovely in her blonde-haired way.
‘Gideon not with you?’ was on his lips before he had time to think what he was saying.
She looked up, surprised. ‘No, I have not seen him this evening. In fact I have not seen him all day.’
John stood beside a chair. ‘May I sit down?’
‘Of course you may. You are master in this house.’
John gave a crooked smile. ‘When I’m here.’
Jacquetta put the book down and said, very directly, ‘Why did you ask about Gideon?’
John replied, equally truthfully, ‘I know that he is in love with you. Is the feeling reciprocated?’
‘Would you be annoyed if it were?’
‘Not in the least. It is entirely a matter for yourselves.’
‘Well then, I’ll be honest with you and tell you that I intend to marry him. You see, I long to have another child and I must act soon before Mother Nature’s clock ticks against me.’
‘Thank you for being so frank. Tell me, do you love him?’
‘Who could not? I know I am older than he is but it really doesn’t matter to me. He has come into my life as my second chance, and I intend to take it.’
‘And what about my business?’
‘We will continue to devote ourselves to it utterly.’
‘And will you go on living here?’
‘Until we can find a house of our own.’
‘So may I ask when is the wedding to take place?’ John said.
‘As soon as Gideon has spoken to you, Mr Rawlings.’
‘To me?’ John exclaimed. ‘But why? I am not his father.’
Mrs Fortune looked a trifle severe. ‘In loco parentis, Sir. As you know, Gideon’s father died when he was just a boy.’
John sat back in his chair, feeling as old as Methuselah. ‘Oh dear,’ he said aloud.
‘Don’t you approve,’ Jacquetta asked anxiously.
‘Of course I do. It’s wonderful news.’
‘Then why the long face?’
The Apothecary sighed. ‘Oh, just because.’ Changing the subject, he asked, ‘How are the twins?’
‘Slightly naughty. So I asked that little sprite Fred round to a cold collation – I hope you don’t mind – and he worked his usual miracle with them.’
‘What am I going to do about him? He can’t go on in his menial position if he is going to be a playmate to my sons.’
‘Why don’t you take him as an apprentice?’
‘But I already have one.’
‘Surely there is no law that says you cannot have two?’
‘But the child can’t read or write.’
‘He
has made much progress in those subjects, Mr Rawlings. He is now almost literate.’
‘I’ll think about it, I really will. But now, Mrs Fortune, I intend to have a nightcap and I trust that you will join me in a toast.’
‘I most certainly will, Mr Rawlings.’
John poured two glasses of brandy and then raised his. ‘To your future happiness, Jacquetta. You most certainly deserve it.’
‘Thank you, John. If I may make so bold, I hope that all will be well with you.’
Eighteen
Hannah, accompanied by a young, strong footman, showed the twins the sights of London in the daytime, and in the evening they played with their father, Mrs Fortune or, preferably, Fred. The Apothecary had been forced to weaken and had offered the boy an apprenticeship on the understanding that he would have mastered the art of reading and writing in the coming six months. Based upon this, John had given the fellow a tiny bedroom in the attic, little bigger than a broom cupboard, next door to that of Robin Hazell. Fred had been more than pleased, saying, ‘It’s me own place at last,’ and had treated his minute sleeping quarters as if they were some grand bedroom in a huge mansion. He kept the room shining like a star and cleaned everything in sight. John, counting up the number of people who slept under his roof, had serious thoughts of buying a bigger house.
So, seeing that the twins were well settled, he decided that the time had come to return to the Hotwell. It was the last week of the season and he knew that Sir Gabriel would be getting anxious about leaving. Irish Tom, who had been lazing about the last few weeks, was called into action and, having cleaned and polished the coach, brought the equipage round to the front door in Nassau Street, lowered the step and watched John climb inside. Then Tom got smartly onto the box, cracked the whip and away they went.
They drove fairly fast – though not at the hell-for-leather speed they had driven to Devon – and arrived at Thatcham in the small hours, spending the night in a coaching inn. They had four hours’ sleep and set off with fresh horses, arriving in Bristol some time before lunch. Tom picked his way along the riverbank to the Hotwell and pulled up in front of Sir Gabriel’s hotel with a cry of triumph.
