Tapestry

by Fiona McIntosh

  Julius was first out of the door, flinging it open angrily. ‘What in hell’s —’ He didn’t finish, but Jane could see his shoulders sag.

  Everyone spilled out into the snow-topped landscape. The coach driver had pulled off his cap and was scratching his cheek. The second driver, who had been riding postilion, was badly injured and being attended by two other travellers who had been riding on top of the carriage.

  Jane realised her boots were sinking a foot deep into the crunchy snow. The coach seemed to be trapped in a ditch, the men were muttering about having heard something break beneath the carriage and it was clear that the horses needed to be unharnessed immediately to fully assess the damage.

  Jane gazed at the injured driver. ‘He looks to be a boy. How old is he?’ she asked.

  The senior coachman shrugged. ‘He’s in training, and fifteen next summer. Aye, he’s small for his age, but that be a good thing. Lightness is his luck.’ He sighed. ‘John Bellow broke a limb for sure when the horse reared and threw him. And the traces are broken, so we cannot attach the horse to the coach. Besides, the horse is too spooked for now.’

  ‘What is to be done?’ Leadbetter asked over the top of John Bellow’s mewling and grimacing.

  ‘Well, it’s obvious the youngster needs help,’ Sackville answered, taking charge. ‘Coachman, you oversee unharnessing and tying up the horses. Bailey, Leadbetter and you two,’ he said, pointing to the two able men who had been riding atop with the luggage. Their lips looked blue from the cold, despite their scarves. ‘You four start digging us out.’

  ‘What?’ Bailey roared. ‘Us, sir?’

  ‘It’s that or freeze to death,’ Sackville said humourlessly. He turned to Jane and Cecilia. ‘Can either of you ladies set a bone?’ he asked hopefully as the injured man moaned in obvious agony.

  They both shook their heads. ‘I can make a splint, though,’ Cecilia offered. ‘I’ve seen it done.’

  He nodded as she rushed off, then he bit his lip. ‘This cold will kill the boy even if the fracture does not … he’s already too pale from pain. Mr Bailey, ask your good wife to break out that brandy flask I know she has in her cloth bag and ease this man’s agony.’ He returned his attention to Jane.

  ‘How far away is Grantham?’ Jane asked as she watched Bailey obediently trudge off to fetch the brandy. He glowered back at her as though this accident were her fault.

  She watched Julius Sackville take a slow breath and stare out across the landscape, as though calculating the distance. Jane couldn’t see how. The land was virtually flat for as far as her eyes could see, and rendered nearly featureless by the snow that tucked itself like a sparkling white blanket into every nook and corner.

  ‘Coachman, would you say Grantham is six miles south?’

  The man nodded. ‘Aye, sir — mayhap closer to seven and straight ahead.’

  The others gathered. They appeared comfortable with having Sackville take charge. Cecilia had now applied several splints.

  ‘I am going to carry this injured man,’ Sackville told them. ‘I agree our horses are too spooked and will be more trouble than they’re worth. I know the rough lie of the road. He’s a slight fellow, so I will take him on my back. But in case something happens to me, I need one other person who can either stay with this wretchedly hurt fellow or go on ahead for help.’

  The others looked at each other. No one seemed keen to volunteer and leave the relative safety of the group.

  ‘I shall go,’ Jane said.

  ‘No!’ Cecilia gasped. ‘It is too risky!’

  ‘Just as risky to remain here and do nothing. If Lord Sackville doesn’t make it through, then no one’s coming for us. His plan is sound. At least one of us will make it through to get help and it means the boy receives aid quicker. Stay, Cecilia, please.’ Jane glanced at forlorn little Miss Leadbetter as Winifred’s instincts screamed at her to ensure the child’s comfort. ‘Please, keep the child safe, and Mrs Bailey’s nerves in check. We can count on your good sense and calmness. It is only a few hours. I will meet you at the inn.’

  Cecilia began to shake her head.

  ‘This man will die of exposure if we stand around debating much longer,’ Julius pressed. ‘We leave now. Miss Evans, will you help oversee the divvying up of the food that was packed by the innkeeper’s wife for this journey?’

  She nodded unhappily, unable to refuse him. She looked anxiously at Jane. ‘Can you do this, my dear?’ she asked.

  ‘Better than being redundant and still,’ Jane replied.

  ‘Are we asking too much of you, Miss Granger?’ Sackville enquired. She could see how much he wanted to say ‘Jane’.

  ‘You are asking nothing of me, sir. I have offered to go.’

  She saw a flash of ferocity in his eyes, and interpreted it as admiration of her decision. ‘Bravely said, Miss Granger.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  They trudged away, Julius appearing Herculean with the ailing driver tied on to his back. Cecilia had secured the broken leg as best she could and the young man was dosed on liquor, so for the moment he was sleepy.

  Cecilia had pressed a small silver flask into Jane’s cloak pocket. ‘A secret supply of brandy I brought for our journey,’ she’d whispered at Jane’s surprised look. ‘You’re going to need it.’ Then she spoke at normal volume. ‘I’ve packed a little food, whatever I could scrounge, that you can eat as you walk.’

  Jane looked back over her shoulder and lifted a hand. Everyone left behind followed suit. Sackville had barely said goodbye to any of them.

  ‘Is he heavy?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head. ‘He’s like a child for now, but even a child gets heavy after a while.’

  ‘We’ll make it.’

  ‘This is brave of you, Jane.’

  She shrugged. ‘I thought it was what you wanted of me.’

  He sent her a troubled look. ‘I would not wish you in any peril. I hope you made your decision freely.’

  ‘Of course I did. No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he said dryly, and Jane wasn’t sure whether to smile or feel lightly threatened. Even so, pinpricks of excitement began to tingle through her, as they seemed to do whenever she was around Sackville.

  ‘Tell me about your husband,’ he said, as though sensing they needed to be in safe territory.

  ‘Well, if it helps pass the time …’

  ‘It does,’ he said, looking at her again, and she saw the levity was gone and the intensity was back in his gaze.

  Bellow groaned.

  ‘Your voice will soothe our patient too,’ Julius urged.

  So Jane began, digging into Winifred’s memories and talking about William Maxwell.

  ‘… asked me to bring money for a lawyer, and so here I am, making the journey.’

  ‘A journey that no woman should,’ Julius growled. ‘It is lunacy to ask it of you. This weather is desperate!’

  ‘So is my husband. I risk only illness; he risks having his head severed from his trunk.’

  He looked away from her angrily and they trudged on in silence. There were, by Jane’s calculation, at least ten minutes of awkward quiet, while they moved through a frozen wasteland with only Bellow’s soft groans and the shriek of a hawk on the wing to distract from the endless desolation of sparkling white.

  Jane soon came to hate the sound of deep snow crunching beneath her footfall, and the brightness that was almost painful on the eyes. Fresh snow was something about which countless wordsmiths had written lyrically, but in reality there was nothing romantic or even vaguely charming about stomping across a frozen plain when it hurt to breathe and each step felt laboured.

  Snow, in her life, had always been something magical: a playground for building snowmen and throwing snowballs, a harbinger of celebration, because she associated it with Christmas festivities. But that was in another world where people travelled in heated cars on level roads, where weather was reported on the hour
and no one ventured out on dangerous days. When someone broke their leg, a helicopter could airlift them to safety in minutes. This was not that world. This was a world where a broken leg might mean death.

  Jane knew that she must not stop moving in spite of feeling her calves ache from lifting wearied legs that sank deep into the snow with each step. She slipped suddenly, but quickly regained her balance.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he broke into the silence.

  ‘Yes. My boot snagged on something.’

  ‘I’m sorry about speaking to you the way I did earlier. Truly, you and Miss Evans are the bravest women I know to be making this journey at any time, let alone in the depths of this godforsaken winter. If you were my wife, I would be immensely proud.’

  She swallowed. ‘Thank you. I have to save him … I have to.’

  ‘Will they even let you see him?’

  ‘That I don’t know. But never underestimate a woman’s wiles.’

  He looked at her and she found a grin. Her breath was coming hard, and for the first time since they’d set out two hours ago, she could see his breathing was laboured too. They’d paused without realising it, staring at one another, and both now aware that the steam was billowing out of their mouths in audible gasps. The boy was stirring and crying out from the pain.

  ‘From what I could see a few paces back along the road, around this bend and up a small path is an abandoned woodcutter’s hut. We could take a short time to warm ourselves and rest, perhaps drink some of that warming brandy I saw Miss Evans slip into your pocket,’ he said archly.

  She feigned indignation, then grinned helplessly. ‘Yes, please. A few moments’ rest would be a blessing.’

  He nodded. ‘Follow me.’

  The distance was longer than he’d judged, and by Jane’s reckoning it took close to another half-hour to reach the hut. By the time they stumbled through its small doorway, each of them was dragging in exhausted breaths.

  Julius kicked the door closed, but the cold wind still whistled through broken slats of timber. It didn’t matter to Jane. It was no exaggeration, to her mind, that in here, out of the killing wind-chill, it felt almost tropical. They lay John Bellow carefully on the hard earth and checked his splints, re-securing them despite his screamed protestations, which seemed to be sapping his remaining strength.

  Jane stroked his head and could feel fever beneath her fingers. She put her gloves back on and dipped her hand into the pocket of her cloak for the brandy. She took two nips then held out the flask to Julius.

  ‘Here, drink what you need. It’s full. But I say we give the rest to John. He’s better off being in a drunken sleep.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Julius said, grimacing as he straightened his arms from being in the same frozen position for hours. ‘Ah, gads, but that’s awkward.’

  She laughed.

  ‘You make fun at my expense?’ he remarked, taking the flask.

  ‘No, I love your language. I could think of so many different ways to say that something hurts. In fact, one word alone would convey the pain.’

  He blinked and thought about this and then his eyes widened. ‘I’d like to think a lady of your standing would not hear that word uttered, ever.’

  ‘Do not be pompous,’ she replied. ‘Drink.’

  He did as asked, taking three short swigs.

  ‘One more,’ she commanded.

  He shook his head. ‘I need to think clearly. Give it to him. Knock him out.’

  Jane dribbled the fiery liquid into the boy’s mouth; even in his pain he began to suck at it hungrily. Jane spoke soothing words to him until finally his head dropped back. He said something garbled, then drifted into sleep.

  ‘Good,’ Julius said.

  ‘How long can we rest?’

  He reached for his fob watch, flicked open the lid and sighed. ‘Whatever I say will unsettle you. But I will keep an eye on the time. Do you wish to sleep?’

  She could feel herself shivering. Now that they’d stopped that relentless walking, her body had an opportunity to protest in all manner of ways at the punishment it was receiving. ‘I dare not.’

  Julius moved to where she crouched over their charge and held out a hand. ‘You are shaking.’

  ‘Just cold,’ she admitted as she placed her hand in his.

  ‘If you would not think it improper, may I help to warm you?’

  In her nervousness, she giggled.

  ‘You laugh at me again,’ he said, bemused, as he helped her straighten up.

  ‘Forgive me.’ She was thinking about all the pick-up lines she’d heard in her life. This was the best of them.

  He opened his voluminous cloak and wrapped his arms around her shoulders to bring her into the immediate embrace of his body. Without any conscious action, Jane suddenly realised she had snaked Winifred’s arms around the broad torso of Julius Sackville. They stood silent and unmoving … infinitely warmer, but with such heightened awareness that the hut suddenly felt suffocatingly small. Yet Jane had to admit there was nowhere else in either world she’d rather be right now.

  ‘You smell so good,’ he admitted with a soft sigh. ‘What is that scent?’

  ‘It translates, I suppose, as Ashes of Violet,’ she said. ‘I was given two tiny vials of it in France by Queen Mary Beatrice, who had it made up for me when I was first orphaned. My mother loved violets, you see, and the Queen, who loved my mother too, said it would remind me of her.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘Nineteen when Mama died. I hadn’t met William,’ she said in answer.

  ‘I wish I’d known you then.’

  ‘I wonder what Mrs Bailey would make of this,’ she finally said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, which had thickened in their tiny hut. Her cheek was pressed against his chest, and it made it easier to talk without having to look into that knowing gaze.

  ‘I doubt she’d read innocence into it,’ he replied dryly.

  ‘Julius …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you believe in fate?’

  ‘I do.’ He shifted so that he could look at her. She watched him struggle for what to say next before he moved her away from the sleeping Bellow, leading her to the furthest end of the hut, away from the light of the tiny window and into the shadows where some old logs were stacked. Jane felt the timber of the wall pressing against her back as they both accustomed their eyes to the new darkness. With Julius’s arms leaning either side of her shoulders, she felt shrouded within his cloak … within yet another world: not hers of 1978, not his of 1715; a whole new world beyond time that belonged just to them. ‘I believe we were destined to meet.’

  Her breath felt trapped. This was it. She had permitted this situation — chosen it, in fact, by volunteering to accompany him on the lonely walk. Now he was opening up his heart to her and she could either embrace his affection or turn it away. If she chose the latter, Jane sensed that he would not bare his soul again. She could feel Winifred’s fear of what was about to occur and her powerlessness to prevent it; she was also fully conscious of her responsibility for William Maxwell’s life and for her Will’s life, linked to the survival of the Earl. All of these people were depending on her, including Cecilia, who was probably chewing down her nails right now with worry for her.

  And here she was, about to risk it all and succumb to her own weakness.

  ‘I never felt so out of control in the presence of a man, before I met you,’ she confessed.

  And that was all Julius Sackville needed to hear, it seemed, for once the words were cast out and floating between them he reached to tip up her chin.

  ‘I have to taste your lips again, Jane. It has been turning me into a man of madness to sit as close to you as I have been forced to sit in that coach, listening to the idle prattle of others, when all I can think about is you.’

  Why did his earnest declaration sound a chime of love in her mind when Will’s declarations never could? She doubted herself with Will constantly, and yet here, in a dim
woodsman’s hut with a stranger, she felt an outpouring of need from herself and, yes, unalloyed desire too … but most of all it was a yearning to love him.

  ‘You’ve been like a fire burning in the corner of the carriage,’ she admitted. ‘I want your warmth. I need it.’

  He surprised her by his slow and gentle movements, bringing his hands to cup her face. It no longer felt like Winifred’s. These were her eyes softening to him, her mouth reaching toward him, her hands pulling him eagerly and knowingly to her lips, which finally found his. Though tender at first, once they’d tasted each other again any hesitancy fled, and their tongues began to search just as earnestly as his hands sought to undo her laces. He was kissing her neck, ears, eyelids, every exposed patch of skin … and it was clear he wanted more.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ he murmured. ‘I did not believe my ice-crusted heart could ever feel like this again.’

  For mercy’s sake, Jane! The reprimand came through as a distant cry, but she could ignore Winifred in this moment, because Jane owned this body now and it was Jane’s passion burning through it, while her host was lost.

  They slid down the wall, Julius furiously unlacing the stays that held her garments so tightly to her — and she was glad he knew what to do, because she would have trembled or taken too long. Suddenly everything that had stood as a barrier between them seemed to fall away, and Jane couldn’t think a straight thought. She was his. He was hers. They were desperate to become one, and it was with a deep and satisfying groan that they rode the passion that had simmered in the carriage between them. Their only witness was in the grips of a drunken sleep. No one will know, Jane said to herself as she buried her hands in his hair and felt the hard ground underneath her hips as they came together in a new and desperately urgent rhythm. No one will know.

  He shuddered above her and Jane opened her eyes to witness the highest moment of his passion. Julius wore a smile of release that wasn’t only physical; she knew their frantic lovemaking had changed him somehow. This was an emotional release … a farewell, perhaps, to the shadow of his wife, who followed him around like a ghost. A re-emergence into the world and its pleasures. She forgot her own needs, and pulled him close as he lowered his lips to hers once more.