‘Three or four hundred years, for certain, Jane. They were there when the Marsh really was a marsh, with the tide waters sweeping in when the Channel ran high. They helped dig the ditches and the innings that drained it, and made it one of the most fertile lands in England. They are part of the Marsh, almost as old as it is. They’re a proud name there ‒ even now, when the power’s gone from it, it’s a name that’s remembered. They’ve held titles and positions ‒ Lords Proprietors of the Romney Marsh, and Barons of the Cinque Ports with the right to carry the canopy of the Sovereign as he goes to Coronation.
‘Oh, yes, it’s an old and a proud name, Jane. But the Blakes are finished. Leave them in peace.’
Then she rose from the toilet table, and went downstairs to the drawing-room, her mouth folded in a bitter and angry line. The brisk rustle of her petticoat seemed crisp and determined. Soon the sound of her laughter floated up, the artificially gay laughter of a woman who was seething inside.
Jane stayed for a long time staring at nothing through the window.
‘There has to be some way to convince her,’ she whispered to herself. ‘She has to go to Blake’s Reach. She has to go!’
III
At The Theatre Royal The Beggar’s Opera was playing. Jerome Taylor had shyly stammered an invitation to Jane, and managed to ignore William’s pleading eyes. Now he moved, tongue-tied with pride and happiness, beside Jane through the foyer of the theatre. The first act was over, and the audience spilled out of the pit in a bewildering press, laughing, talking, humming airs from the opera which they had known all their lives. The people from the boxes came down to push their own way into the throng. The air was suffocating with the mingled smells of perfume and hair pomade.
Jane eyed the scene with delight, and Jerome with great contentment. He was quite certain that there was no other woman there to hold a candle to Jane. She wore a white gown, and Anne had loaned her a fur trimmed wrap. He wondered how she managed to look like a woman of fashion well used to attending the theatre, and still retain some of the freshness that had so attracted him when she had first come from Hampstead. Seeing her now as she slowly swished her fan in an imitation of Anne’s movements, it was an effort to recall her bruised eye and frightened manner on that first day. She had, he decided, used her five weeks in her mother’s household to startling effect. It was only at this thought, and of the future, that his brow clouded a little.
Jane had been happily silent beside him, watching the crowd and storing up every detail against the time for recollection. Now she suddenly stared and snapped her fan shut.
‘Look, there’s Lord O’Neill! Oh! … he’s seen us!’ Jerome turned and saw, and inwardly cursed. Lord O’Neill was shouldering his way through the crowd, obviously making towards them. He reached them, smiling good-humouredly at the crush, bowed to Jane and kissed her hand.
‘My dear Miss Jane ‒ how beautiful you look!’
She thanked him with a smile, conscious that beside her Jerome had greeted O’Neill in a tone that was barely civil. She broke in quickly. ‘Is my mother here? ‒ I believed she was not feeling well this evening. She said she would stay at home.’
O’Neill shrugged. ‘That’s what I was told ‒ and she didn’t appear to want my company, so I took myself off …’ He turned his smile on Jerome now. ‘She told me, Mr. Taylor, that you had accompanied Miss Jane to the theatre, and I was wondering if I could prevail upon you to allow a lonely man to take you both to supper. It really would be a great kindness on your part …’
Jerome stiffened, and his face grew red. ‘Why ‒ I hardly think …’
O’Neill turned appealingly to Jane. ‘You won’t desert me, Miss Jane? Think how lost I am without your mother’s company. Perhaps you can persuade Mr. Taylor …’
‘I … well …’ She wanted desperately to go with him, to taste just once the sort of company that her mother knew night after night. She wondered where they would dine, and whom she might see there, what prominent figures from the political and social scene would be pointed out to her. Perhaps she might even be introduced to one or two of them … her thoughts ran on wildly. She was wearing a gown that was fit for any occasion, any company; just once she wanted to find out what it was like to dine with a titled man who was a part of the fashionable world of London, wanted to be treated as if she also belonged there. Only the thought of Jerome made her hesitate. If she wished she could pretend not to notice his discomfort; she knew he would submit to any decision she made. But she had seen the look of disappointment that had come over his face.
‘Well, Miss Jane ‒ what do you say? Will you come?’
She didn’t have time to reply. O’Neill turned as he felt a hand fall on his shoulder. His face brightened with pleasure as he recognized the two men standing behind him.
‘Gerald! When did you come back to Town? ‒ I didn’t know you were here!’
The other man, dark like O’Neill, and almost as tall, took his outstretched hand. ‘Got back from the bogs to-day, Ted. And thanking Providence I have! ‒ Ireland is no place to spend the winter. But my good lady wife will present me with an heir in two months, and is determined he shall be born on the estate. So I’ve left her to contemplate the bogs, and I’ve come to enjoy myself a little …’ He was no longer interested in O’Neill, but was staring directly at Jane.
O’Neill turned. ‘Forgive me, Miss Jane. May I present my cousin ‒ Gerald Hickey …’ His flourish indicated the second man. ‘And my good friend, Sir Phillip Guest. Miss Jane Howard.’ Then he added hurriedly, ‘Oh … and this is Jerome Taylor.’
Jane found her hand being kissed by both men, while appraising eyes were run expertly over her.
The one O’Neill had called Phillip Guest spoke now. ‘Charmed! … and charming!’ Then his brow wrinkled a little. ‘Howard! … isn’t that …’
‘Anne’s daughter,’ O’Neill said. ‘Miss Jane has come from the country to visit her mother. Anne was indisposed to-night, and I was fortunate enough to find Miss Jane here with Mr. Taylor. I was just trying to persuade them both to keep me company at supper.’
‘That’s splendid!’ Hickey spoke now; he was smiling broadly at Jane, and still holding her hand. She had to give a little tug to free it. ‘You’ll allow us to join you, Ted?’ He nodded to Jane. ‘Your mother and I are friends of long standing … Sir Phillip has also known her for many years.’ Then he clapped O’Neill again on the shoulder. ‘Where has Anne kept her all this time? London has far too few red-headed women, and none so lovely, Miss Jane. Anne Howard’s daughter … well …’
Guest broke in then. ‘Look here ‒ do we have to stay to the end of this thing? Tony Cox is gathering some friends together at Drake’s … why don’t we all go there now? It would be an amusing evening … and Miss Jane would …’ Jane no longer hesitated. She laid her hand firmly on Jerome’s arm. She smiled at them all demurely as she spoke. ‘I’ll have to beg you to excuse me, gentlemen. I’m feeling a trifle unwell myself, and I was about to ask Mr. Taylor to take me home immediately.’
As she curtseyed she caught the wondering and puzzled exchange of glances between the three, the shrugs and the raised eyebrows. She knew that they were not at all deceived by her pretence. She hadn’t intended them to be.
No words passed between herself and Jerome until they were settled finally in the hackney carriage, but she felt the reassuring pressure of his hand under her elbow. At last, in the darkness of the coach, she spoke to him.
‘I’m sorry, Jerome. I’m sorry to spoil your evening. I had to leave ‒ you know that!’ And then: ‘I was getting beyond my depth.’
‘I understand, Miss Jane.’ There was more warmth than disappointment in his tone.
When they reached Albemarle Street she was still a little dazed by the shock of realizing how firmly she was labelled as Anne’s daughter. Had she wished it, this evening could have been the beginning of a new episode, a whole career. It was there, ready and waiting for her; but if she were to repeat A
nne’s life, it would have to be because she chose to do it, not because it was expected of her. In those few moments she had felt her newly found identity threatened. In the minds of O’Neill and his friends she was not a person in her own right, but another Anne, and it was assumed that she would think and behave exactly as Anne did. She was discovering at last that she was not permitted to go into Anne’s world on her own terms; the terms were already made for her.
Anne had heard them return, and she came out of the drawing room, and stood at the top of the stairs.
‘Jane!’ Her voice was shrill and unnaturally loud. ‘You’re back early!’ And then as Jerome closed the door she added, questioningly, ‘Isn’t Lord O’Neill with you?’
Jane shook her head. ‘I wasn’t feeling well. I asked Jerome to bring me back.’
‘Did you meet Ted? Was he there?’
‘Yes, we met him. He was going to supper with his cousin, Gerald Hickey, and Sir Phillip Guest.’
‘Did he ask you to go?’
Jane hesitated, but Anne’s eyes were on her firmly. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t you?’
Jane had had enough of it. ‘I thought I had already explained that. I’m not feeling well.’ With great deliberation she turned her back on Anne, and began to pull off her gloves. But the gesture was wasted; Anne had already started up the stairs to her bedroom.
Later, when Jane was alone in her own room, she lay for a long time, fully dressed, on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was cracked, and would soon need repair; she traced the line of cracks, her mind was busy with the new problem she had suddenly found to-night in this house.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she whispered, twisting her face towards the pillow. ‘I can’t stay here!’
IV
Jane knew that she had to go, and that it must be soon. But there was no time to speak to Anne, or to try to disentangle the currents of jealousy and resentment that had been so crudely revealed in that conversation on the stairs. What neither of them knew was that, by the next day, time had almost finished for Anne.
It had been strangely humid for April, and when the rain started in the early evening Jane and William watched it falling past the window with a feeling of relief. They thought only momentarily of Anne, who had said casually that she might take a boat down to Chelsea with O’Neill and some others. Jane and William were both in bed when she returned, and so they didn’t know that her gown was still wet from the drenching she had had, or that even so soon there was the dampness of fever on her skin.
It was Patrick who called Jane from the schoolroom in the middle of the morning, at the time he usually gave Anne her chocolate. His sharp face was made sharper by panic.
‘It’s the mistress, Miss Jane ‒ she’s ill!’
For four days they watched the struggle ‒ it was only a slight struggle on Anne’s part. Death waited on her almost from the beginning. She lay propped up against high pillows making a small effort to breathe; the flesh seemed to drop off her frame with terrifying swiftness. With frightened eyes Jane saw the bluish lips, heard the soft bubbling liquid in her lungs. When she coughed, the mucus was blood-streaked.
The doctor would give a despairing shrug of his shoulders. ‘Not strong enough to fight ‒ she was worn out before it began.’
In the end, it seemed as if she drowned in that engulfing liquid; her eyes looked out helplessly from a face sunken into age, and she paid no heed to Patrick’s imploring voice and gestures. When she died, William was almost the first to know it. After Patrick’s instinctive movement towards Anne, he gave one sharp shriek of terror, and flung himself into Jane’s arms. O’Neill stood transfixed at the bottom of the bed, not moving or saying anything for a long time; his face had the look of confusion and disbelief. Patrick was weeping.
Jane bent and put her arms about William, and took him away from the sight of Anne. At the same moment she consciously recognised that she was taking up what remained of Anne’s life.
In comforting William she found distraction from a bewilderment almost as great as O’Neill’s; when at last she was alone to face her own reaction to her mother’s death, her grieving took the form of a protest, a desperate crying out because the time had been too short. Not too short for Anne herself, who had wanted no old age of faded looks and ailing body; it was she, Jane, who had been cheated. There hadn’t been enough time to know Anne as more than a radiant but vague personality; there hadn’t been enough time to learn from her all the things she wanted desperately to know, there hadn’t been time to plan with her any kind of future for herself and William, or to make any move to consolidate it. So when she wept for Anne they were tears to ease the lonely ache in her heart, but they were also the selfish tears of youth, angry and unforgiving.
***
It was Jane who made the choice of the place where Anne should be buried. Of all the churches Jerome Taylor had shown her, she remembered only one clearly.
‘The one in Covent Garden,’ she said.
When it was over she knew that they all waited on her expectantly ‒ O’Neill, Jerome, Patrick and William. They waited for her to speak as Anne had done, to make all the necessary plans and decisions. O’Neill knew that he had no place any longer in the household, but he waited still ‒ waited for the woman he had seen buried in Covent Garden where the endless rumble of the wheels, and the nasal Cockney voices could reach her. He, like the others, hovered about Jane, because it seemed that in her Anne still lived.
She was completely Anne’s daughter when she did make up her mind, prepared to face argument with stubbornness, and go ahead with her plans. She had lived with Anne for less than six weeks, but she knew all that Anne had been, and she knew what was expected of her. Even if she shed tears at night into her pillow, they weren’t permitted to show next day in her face.
‘We can’t stay in London ‒ William and I,’ she said.
‘Where will you go?’
‘We will go to Blake’s Reach.’
V
All of them had arguments against it ‒ but none of them could suggest any other plan. Already the bill collectors were at the door, more persistent than ever now that Anne was dead.
‘We can’t stay in London, that’s plain,’ Jane said firmly. ‘Wherever we go in this town they’ll be dunning me for money, and there’s nothing to pay them with. If I go to my grandfather perhaps … well, there’s a chance he’ll take us in. If he doesn’t …’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘We won’t be any worse off than we are now.’
Patrick spoke up desperately. ‘Then I’ll go with you, ma’am.’
They looked at him startled.
Jane shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t pay your wages.’
His face flushed painfully. ‘Do you think I’ll take wages from you? … Miss Anne’s child? She clothed me and fed me, and that was all I required.’
‘I couldn’t, Patrick … it isn’t fair.’
He set his lips stubbornly. ‘I’ll be a grand help t’ y’ ma’am. It’ll give y’ some standin’ t’ arrive with a servant by y’. Y’ll have me when y’ need me.’
He seemed to take it as settled, especially when O’Neill presented Jane with the beautiful pair of greys that drew Anne’s carriage. The carriage was the one Viscount Hindsley had given her, and O’Neill had put his own pair of Irish thoroughbreds between the shafts. He made light of the gift.
‘I always considered that they belonged to Anne,’ he said. ‘Besides, Patrick’s right. The better impression you make, the bigger your chances. If you go cap in hand you’ll get nothing, and no welcome.’ Then he shrugged. ‘Apart from that, those horses are worth money. You may need them.’ Jane thought his graceful and light-hearted manner of giving was impressive when one remembered he was almost penniless himself.
Patrick, then, was to go as coachman. A period of desperate and secret activity fell over the house. From the outside nothing must appear unusual, for while Jane remained, the bill-collectors were confident of the
ir money. So Patrick told them stories of Jane being prostrate with grief, and unable to attend to business. At the same time the cook was given her wages and dismissed, so that her tongue would not wag about the preparations for leaving. In his market basket, Patrick took Anne’s silver and sold it. The jewels Viscount Hindsley had given her were sold long ago ‒ she had been wearing paste copies so that their absence wouldn’t disturb her creditors. Jane shook her head regretfully over the few inexpensive trinkets that were left. The best of them Patrick took away to sell ‒ she kept the rest, because by now she had entered completely into the idea that she must make the best impression possible. She packed boxes and hampers with Anne’s gowns, her fingers busy half the night with alterations to them, and with the necessary repairs to William’s clothes. She packed some of the finest linen, and the little soft lace-edged pillows without which Anne had never travelled. The silver spoons and forks went into Patrick’s basket. O’Neill told her that some of the figurines in the drawing-room and the china were valuable; they also went. A fever of stripping and selling fell on them ‒ Jane regretted that the crystal chandelier in the drawing-room was too bulky to go into the market basket. O’Neill took a small painting to a dealer in Bond Street, and came back with fifty guineas. They ransacked cupboards to find more to sell.
Jerome didn’t hold himself aloof from this. The hours he was supposed to give William lessons he spent helping Jane, his eyes anguished and already lonely. As, one by one, Anne’s lovely things disappeared from walls and cupboards and tables his face grew sadder and more dismayed. Unlike O’Neill, he had no grief for Anne to bury in the bustle and hurry, so the dismantling of the house hurt him, because it made Jane’s departure certain. But he was clever with William, keeping him so busy that there was hardly time for him to wander disconsolately into Anne’s empty room. Sometimes at night he would sit with Jane as she waited, her hand in William’s, for the child to fall asleep. They would talk very softly in the dimness.
‘It can’t be more than three or four months before the ship is fitted up, Miss Jane. We’ll be in the South Seas for two years ‒ I don’t suppose … well, I don’t suppose I’ll ever see you again.’
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