Through A Glass Darkly

by Karleen Koen

  "I am short of cash just now, Diana."

  "Send a note to your banker, and he will pay me. I need the money."

  "You distrust the market? Why, Diana?"

  She shrugged. "What goes up must come down. And I have no one but myself to depend on."

  "You have Robert Walpole."

  She was silent. Never had she mentioned the duel, the estrangement between him and Harry. If once she had, he could have refused her.

  "I will write the note; but you owe me a large favor, Diana, because it will stretch me to the breaking point to pay for your shares. So I warn you, I will collect on the favor."

  She squeezed his hand. "Trust me. Whatever you need will be yours. I cannot afford a loss just now. Somehow I am overdrawn, and I have already borrowed from Barbara, and Mother will not advance a farthing on my allowance. I may just have to make up my mind to marry again."

  "I am amazed. And Robert?"

  "What difference would marriage make?"

  "Yes. I see your point."

  "Oh, here comes the prince. I must go. I have never understood why you allow him about—ah, Philippe, I was just saying what a shame it was you took such a long walk. I had wanted to visit with you a little, but now I have talked Roger's ear off and managed to forget another appointment in the bargain. So I will leave you two gentlemen. No, Roger, do not get up. About that note—"

  "Montrose will send it to your lodging."

  "Excellent."

  They touched cheeks. Philippe bowed over her hand. He and Roger watched her walk back toward the house. The claret had put the voluptuous sway back into her walk. It was a sight to see, and both of them watched appreciatively.

  Philippe sat down. "What did she want?"

  "What does she always want?

  "I thought so. Where is she rushing off to?"

  "I would imagine she is going to see the Prince of Wales. Diana always plays all sides against one another, as I learned only too well before I married. But the Frog will be difficult to handle. He will croak with fear and offend the lovely maiden."

  Philippe stared at him. The happy mood was gone, but Diana's visit would explain that. What was not explained was the sudden restlessness, the yearning that appeared on his face and at the edges of his voice.

  Roger looked up at the sky, quoting softly:

  "Come live with me, and be my love,

  And we will some new pleasures prove

  Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,

  With silken lines, and silver hooks."

  He stood up abruptly and rubbed his chest. "John Donne, a major poet lost to the church, whom I admired in my youth. I am going to walk by the river awhile. No, by myself, please. Order more tea. Later we will go to Spring Gardens and listen to the birds—not that they can match these." He rubbed his chest again.

  "What is wrong?"

  "I have a pain. It must be love."

  The words were flippant, hard, no stranger than the manner in which he said them, walking away even as he spoke, as if he could not bear to be where he was another moment. Philippe watched him stroll into the coming twilight, that time when everything was so beautifully, so softly lighted, and over his own face came the terrible gray shadows of sorrow.

  * * *

  A small boy, four years old, played in the ditch that ran along the edge of the main lane from Richmond to the tiny neighboring village of Petersham. Jane Cromwell, overseeing laundering—it was washday—wiped her face and noticed that her son was not in the yard with his brother and two sisters. Amelia and Thomas were tied to a large oak tree and the baby, Winifred, sat in the glorified chicken coop Gussy had made to hold her outdoors. But Jeremy was four, and he did not have to be tied to a tree or sit in a coop. He was old enough to be trusted. Still, her heart gave a funny leap when she did not see him. He was her firstborn, and as a fetus, his little presence growing inside her had taken her mind from her past and toward her future with Gussy. Jeremy was special.

  "Keep stirring," Jane told Betty, her maid, who was stirring clothes in a large iron pot of boiling water with a great oak stick. Betty came from Ladybeth Hall. She had a harelip, but not a bad one; her palate was not split, only her upper lip, but it was difficult to understand her. She was a good, obedient girl for all her deformity, but the other servants at Ladybeth claimed she was unlucky and would not work with her. Finally, the Ashfords sent her to Jane, reasoning that Gussy could cast out any bad luck with his prayers. Jane walked by Cat, her other maid, who sat on the porch churning butter. She could hear Cat mumbling, "Come butter, come. Come butter, come. Peter stands at the gate waiting for a buttered cake. Come butter, come." It was an old country charm to make the butter take. Jane sighed. Cat might have sweet red lips, none of them split grotesquely up toward her nose, but she was lazy and willful. Charming butter, when she had only been at it an hour. Cat was Gussy's Mary Magdalene, only all of Cat's devils had yet to be cast out. She could depend on Betty to watch the children, to see they put nothing they should not in their mouths or wandered away, but not Cat, who watched only men.

  She went to the white picket fence surrounding her yard and garden and saw Jeremy playing in the ditch along the lane. She smiled at the sight of his wayward hair, the seriousness of his expression. He was far away from her in his thoughts. She called his name, and finally he looked up.

  "You be careful," she told him. "And next time, tell me before you leave the yard."

  "Yes, Mama."

  Petersham was not large; there were only fifteen or so houses and the chapel, St. Peter's, next door, but when the court was at Richmond, many carriages made their way through on their way to Kingston, some six miles away, which was the corporate town of the county of Surrey. She always wor ried that Jeremy would be run over by a passing carriage. He did not hear as well as he should. Since birth, he had suffered from earaches, and she had spent so many nights walking with him in her arms while he screamed with pain that now she dreaded the least sign of a cold.

  "Jeremy, I am going to need you in a moment. Do not stray."

  "No, Mama."

  She smiled again at the high, clear sound of his child's voice. It reflected his heart. He was a good boy. Today, for instance he was helping her hang out the wash to dry. Before the day ended, there would not be a bush or tree or fence post that did not have wash drying on it. She hated washday, the laborious, tiring work of stirring the clothes over and over, the carrying of kettle after kettle of water from the pump to the kitchen fireplace to the iron pot, the stoking of the fire—though Jeremy fetched wood without complaint—the rinsing of the clothes in cold water, the wringing of them to take out excess water, the way there was never enough bush or fence post for the next load and she would have to hang clothes over the yews at St. Peter's next door. She was tired and her back hurt, and she needed rest, but that was not merely washday. She was with child again.

  Thomas was crying. Amelia had taken away his cloth ball (a gift from Barbara, who spoiled the children with her constant presents). Jane went to pick him up, untying him, cradling his fat body in her arms, wiping his dirty mouth with her apron. He had been eating dirt and grass. He was teething, and everything went to his mouth. At night he woke up crying, but Gussy, knowing her condition, usually put him back to sleep. Even so, she did not rest well. And not even her mother's favorite recipe for teething, black cherry water into which spirits of hartshorn had been mixed, was making Thomas any easier to live with.

  "I know, sweetie," she told him. "I know."

  She did know. She wished someone would pick her up and cradle her. Another child on the way…another birth, but she would not think of that now. There were months ahead yet in which to worry, to cry, to dread the moment until it came as she was swept up in its throbbing pain and the memories of it paled beside the reality. "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…." The pain grew and grew; your body was no longer your own; it heaved and pushed without you, pressur
e always mounting until you thought you would be split in two; your body's heaving becoming the focus of all the world until you whirled downward into nothing but pain and blood and screams….Afterward, she would lie there, feeling nearly dead and think, Never again, please, dear merciful Lord, never again. But childbirth was a woman's lot, her legacy from Eve's sin, and it was God's own commandment to be fruitful and multiply. And Gussy was so good. He prayed throughout her childbirths. He sobbed in her arms when it was over and said, "If I could take the pain from you, Janie, if I could just take the pain," and she thought, If you just could.

  "Cat," she called sharply. "I see you!"

  Cat, who had been looking at a passing farmer, his wagon loaded with corn, gave Jane a look of dislike and pumped her arm up and down a fraction faster than she had before. Jane closed her eyes and counted to ten. Gussy had brought Cat to them. Her parents had thrown her out of their cottage and Jane now knew why! Gussy was certain their Christian influence would give Cat the necessary example to mend her ways, for Cat liked to walk out with young men and lie in the bushes with them, and Jane did not know why Cat never conceived when she herself seemed to become pregnant every time Gussy hung his breeches on the bedside peg. Perhaps, as Betty said, Cat was practicing witchcraft or saying a spell.

  She sighed. A mood was coming over her. She would have to ask Gussy to pray with her tonight. It was a despair she had begun to feel since Thomas was born. Hers was not to question God's will, and she loved her children with all her heart, and yet her life stretched ahead of her, and childbirth seemed its yearly mark, and she was so afraid. She had talked to her mother, who had squeezed her hand and cried a little and said that she must accept life as it was. She could do that, but she was so afraid of the pain.

  They would read the Lord's Prayer tonight. The words soothed her, as did David's Psalms. Gussy would pamper her, knowing her fear, which would increase as the months and the child within her did. They would walk together; it was beautiful here, so near the Thames, and Richmond only a short distance away, a walk along the edge of Richmond Park, a royal park created long ago by Henry VIII. Before she became too large, he would take her on excursions: to Kew to look at Princess Caroline's developing botanical garden, to Chelsea to see the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries' Physic Garden, and to Fulham, where Gussy worked for three days every two weeks in the library of the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They would go to Kingston, where Lent and winter assizes were held; these were sessions to administer civil and criminal justice, and Gussy had been appointed one of the chaplains to the prisoners who would go before the magistrates.

  Gussy worked so hard. He was curate of St. Peter's here, and even though St. Peter's was a chapel of ease, which meant it had been built for the use of those parishioners who lived too far from parish churches, Gussy still had to conduct services and perform the duties of churching, visiting women after childbirth and the sick, and what with his clerking at the archbishop's library in Fulham and his work on his book, he had little time for himself, let alone her and the children, but he made time. And he thanked the Lord each night for His bounty. There were starving curates all over the country, eking out a living, while he had three positions— due to the generosity of the young Duke of Tamworth, which paid for everything they needed and allowed them a little left over to save. And parishioners were always giving them baskets of eggs and fresh milk and fat pullets because they said Gussy was a good man, a man who was a shining example of God's word at work. And he was. Oh, he was.

  He had bought her a gold–and–glass clock to put on their table in the parlor. And when she had first realized she was going to have Winifred, he had bought her a gown of black silk with a red–and–white petticoat and cherry–colored stays and daring stockings of black silk. How she loved that gown. She saved it for only the most special of occasions. She had been wearing it the day she first saw Harry again, and though she tried very hard not to succumb to the sin of vanity, she was so glad that she had had it on. So glad.

  At that thought, she frowned at herself, and Cat, who happened to look up and see her, put some more energy into her butter churning. Jane sat down on the bench around the oak tree to hold Thomas, who had fallen asleep. She really ought to help Betty, but she was tired. She would rest just a moment. She untied Amelia, who began to bring her blades of grass to admire, which she did, over and over, even though her thoughts drifted from Amelia. She and Gussy had gone to Ham House, the great house of the Earl of Dysart which he opened to visitors, and she was happy because she was not pregnant. Usually, within two or three months of childbirth, she was increasing again, but she was going into a sixth month of freedom. It was heady stuff. They had walked to Ham House to stroll in its gardens, which were lovely—the front lawns sloped down to the Thames and everyone went there. Jane had even seen the Prince and Princess of Wales. And there was Harry, so unexpected, standing with Barbara and a tall, bold–looking man who was staring down at Barbara as if he did not know whether to strangle her or kiss her. Barbara had cried out her name and come running over, and she was so very glad she had her black–and–cherry gown because Barbara looked so lovely and fashionable. And Harry had walked to her. She knew he was surprised and touched, as she was. He kissed her on the cheek and shook Gussy's hand and told him she was his old sweetheart. And then the young Duke of Tamworth strolled up, and they walked through the gardens together, but all she could think of was the way her heart was beating and how Harry's eyes were more beautiful than she remembered.

  "Move, Thomas," Amelia demanded petulantly, pushing at her brother's sleeping form. "Now." Amelia was tired also, and she wanted to be in her mother's lap. Harry said Amelia showed disturbing signs of becoming like his Aunt Abigail. Jane blushed. Harry came to visit her. Not often. Just every once in a while. She would look out her window, and there he would be, leaning on her fence, grinning, his horse tied to a picket. Gussy knew. She told him every time. And it was very innocent. A friendship. He sat with her in the garden, talking, while the children played around them, of Italy and France and mountains and cities and rivers and palaces that she would never see. And she talked of her chickens, of the barley meal and milk she fed them to make them fat, of how she wanted to try growing marigolds and garlic among her lettuces next season to keep away bugs, of Thomas's teething and Jeremy's earaches. And he did not laugh at her. His handsome face became softer as he listened to her and smiled, and she forgot that he was said to be a notorious womanizer and in debt and remembered only that he was the boy she had once loved. They captured something of their childhood closeness again, without the pain, and with the love strangely changed. And then one of the children would cry, or Gussy might appear to talk of politics with Harry, of how wise it was of the Prince of Wales finally to reconcile with his father, of the way the South Sea Company was becoming too powerful, of how Robert Walpole and Stanhope ought to stop quarreling and work together for the good of the nation. And she would listen, smiling, happy to see her Gussy and Harry together, until her children claimed her, and she had to put them to bed, or clean them or feed them or do one of the hundred–and–one endless tasks one did with small children. You are good for him, Jane, Gussy would say afterward. He needs to settle down, and you are a good example of the kind of wife every man needs. Dear Gussy.

  A good example. There was one thing she had not told Gussy. In a box under the loose floorboard in the parlor lay a pair of soft dark green leather gloves smelling of cinnabar. From Harry. He had not given her anything else, nor would she accept anything else, but she could not resist those gloves, presented out of the blue, without a word, in the middle of summer. Sometimes, when she was certain there was no one around to see, she took them out, and she touched them and put them on and rubbed the soft leather against her face and smelled the cinnabar and thought of all the places she would never go, where things happened that she would never do. And she did not tell Gussy. And she did not know why, because she did not love Harry, at least
in any way Gussy need fear. These four children tied her to Gussy in a way Harry could never share, and Gussy's life was her life now, and she loved him, perhaps not in the wild, romantic way she loved Harry, but in a practical, comfortable way of knowing his back was warm at night and that he liked his afternoon tea lukewarm and that an evening of working on his book made him happy. Perhaps the gloves were simply a symbol of her vanity, a reminder that once there had been a wild, handsome boy who had held her close under the apple trees and whispered that he loved her. And she did not know if she could explain that to Gussy.

  "Mama! Mama! Mama!" cried Jeremy.

  The screeching of his voice made her jump, waking Thomas, who began to cry. Betty dropped her oaken stick and ran to the fence. Cat stopped churning. He has fallen and broken his arm, Jane thought, stumbling over her long skirts and Amelia, who was determined to come with her. At least Winifred was sitting placidly in her coop, but Winifred was never anything but placid. It probably came from being fourth in line. She managed to reach the fence without dropping Thomas or stepping on Amelia. Betty pointed and smiled. Jeremy was climbing up into the coachman's seat of an elaborate black carriage with a green and gold crest on the side. Barbara! Amelia began to clap her small, fat hands together.