The Promise

by May McGoldrick

  Standing with her hand on Jamey’s shoulder, Rebecca felt her heart sink. All the courage she’d built up drained out of her in an instant. There would be no meeting, after all, between father and son this day.

  “Who is the man on that beauty? Mama, look at the way he sits.”

  Involuntarily, Rebecca’s fingers tightened on Jamey’s shoulder as she prayed for the earl to look up to the open window.

  With a final nod at Sir Oliver, Lord Stanmore did finally look up. But Jamey was not the recipient of his parting glance.

  His piercing gaze fixed only on her face for a moment, and then he was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  One could always count on a capital dinner at the duke of Gloucester’s, on cigars of the finest quality, and on port that would make a Madeira monk puff up with pride. The ladies had long retired to the drawing room and the duke was gesturing for his fourth glass when Stanmore turned to Nicholas to voice his displeasure with his friend.

  “Just assure me, my fine-finned gudgeon, that bringing Louisa as your guest tonight was done purely for your own entertainment.”

  Nicholas took the cigar out of his mouth and looked at him as if he’d sprouted an extra head. “My good man, you certainly know me better than to insult me this way. You know I like my women beautiful but unpretentious. I like them innocent, or at least with the ability to put on a good show of it. But the truth is, Stanmore, that since I have yet to meet my ideal woman, I find that I also prefer to wile away my time with the rich ones. And by that I mean far richer ladies than Lady Nisdale and the paltry ten thousand a year her dearly departed husband left to her. Why, she can go through that—without anyone’s help—in six months time.”

  Stanmore waved off the passing butler, but Nicholas accepted another glass.

  “The lady you have referred to came here tonight as my guest because she gave me the distinct impression that you wanted her to be here.”

  Stanmore’s glare was withering.

  “I did not say that I believed her. But seeing the foul mood that has laid claim to your disposition—a disposition that has been steadily worsening since your return from Bristol—I thought it might just prove diverting for you.” Nicholas fit the cigar between his lips and studied the brooding expression of his friend over the smoke. “I have not asked you what went wrong in Bristol, for I know you will tell me only if it pleases you. But I know the value of a willing woman when it comes to improving a man’s mood…even if the woman has been complaining openly of late about being neglected and privately hinting of her fears of having offended somehow.”

  “It never ceases to amaze me how indiscreet Louisa can be.”

  “You are the one, my friend, who chose her as a paramour…and if I remember correctly, a month ago you were not quite as sensitive about the lady’s indiscretions.”

  An image of Louisa’s bright smile and warm greeting when he’d arrived at the duke of Gloucester’s tonight came back to him. He was fairly certain he’d been civil in his greeting, albeit perhaps a little distant. What else was to be expected? He’d been both surprised and displeased to see the damned woman.

  And what of it if his disposition was a bit surly these days? Stanmore wished he knew why he’d been feeling so damnably off lately. No, that wasn’t entirely true, he thought, watching the blue cigar smoke hang over the table.

  It was that woman…that blasted Mrs. Ford. It was the look of her…the wounded way she’d looked at him out the window as he’d prepared to leave Bristol. That was an image that he simply hadn’t been able to shake. He scowled fiercely, downed the port in his glass, and turned his glare on Nicholas.

  “You brought Louisa here tonight,” he growled, “and I expect you to accompany her home.”

  Before his friend could answer, a footman whispered that Lord North desired to have a word with Stanmore. The earl turned and waved to the new Prime Minister, who was gesturing to him from a small group gathered by one of the tall windows. It had been at Lord North’s encouragement that Stanmore had agreed to attend tonight. The minister’s promise of lending an ear on the issue of the slave trade made attendance at the dinner worthwhile…no matter how disinterested Stanmore was in such entertainment these days.

  He had a parting word, though, for Nicholas before he started across the room. “I value your concern, but don’t disregard our relative positions. You have always been the rogue, and I the responsible man. You’ve always caused strife, and I have always endeavored to resolve it. What would become of the world if we were to change places? Do you wish, scoundrel, to become answerable?”

  “Dash it, Stanmore, I see your point. Disregard anything I’ve said.”

  ***

  She had spoken quietly and steadily until she could say no more.

  Jamey simply stared. His lower lip quivered. His young face flushed red from emotions that were, no doubt, churning in his breast. His blue eyes showed his distress and confusion as he struggled to take in her words. In them, she could see his doubt and his desire to deny what she was saying. Finally, he simply turned away and stared out the small window of the carriage, watching the countryside rush by through a veil of tears.

  The sobs crowding in her own chest threatened to rise into her throat and choke her, but she continued. She had no choice but to tell him as much of the truth as she could—at least as much as of it as she’d dared to divulge to Sir Oliver when they’d been in Philadelphia. Rebecca spoke as long as the words carried her, but Jamey’s continuing tears and the utter sense of despair afflicting him soon checked her.

  She knew that these moments in the post chaise and four that Sir Oliver had arranged to take the two of them east might be the last private time they would have together. And in a place as large as Solgrave, she simply could not afford to delay any longer what Jamey would inevitably discover once they arrived there.

  He had to learn the truth from her and no one else.

  The carriage lurched roughly, and Rebecca put a protective hand on Jamey’s knees to stop him from sliding off the seat. He didn’t flinch away at her touch, and she silently sent a prayer of thanks heavenward. Summoning up her courage, she moved to the seat across from him.

  “Jamey!” she said softly to him, taking a hold of his chin. He turned his weepy eyes from the window and looked into her own face. “Jamey, please talk to me.”

  He wiped off his face with his sleeve. “How long?”

  “We should be there shortly.”

  He shook his head and entwined the fingers of her left hand in his own. “How long will you stay at...at this place with me?”

  She had expected his questions to be about the father. Yes, more than anything else, she had hoped he would want to know about the man who had supposedly been searching for years for his lost son. This had been the version of the story that she’d conveyed to him. But his question--the anguish that she could so plainly see in his face--had to do with her.

  She forced herself to look truthful as she reached deep for another lie.

  “I’ll stay as long as you want me to stay. I can find a job in a village near Solgrave. Later, when you are sent to Eton, I can come and live in the town. Or at Windsor, that’s just across the Thames and very near the school. You are not losing anything that you have right now, Jamey. You must see this change for all that you are gaining. For all that Lord Stanmore...that your father is offering you.”

  His face showed how unconvinced he was, and Rebecca felt vaguely ill, knowing that she herself lacked conviction on that score. If only the earl of Stanmore had shown some warmth toward Jamey! If he had shown any sign of welcoming him!

  The driver of the carriage called out, announcing their approach into St. Albans. Out the window, Rebecca could see a busy brickworks and the spires and roofs of the town beyond. Under different circumstances, Rebecca would have taken joy in sharing with Jamey what she had read in her youth about the ancient town. But right now all she could do was fight down the growing knot in her own throat a
nd silently utter a silent prayer. They drove on through the narrow winding streets, passing finally the pointed arches of St. Albans Cathedral.

  A few moments later, the carriage was rolling north from St. Albans over a less reliable road than the coach road from Bristol. Then, two miles farther on, the driver turned into a well-kept drive bordered by tall, handsome trees.

  Rebecca clutched Jamey’s hand. “It shan’t be long now.”

  On through a large deer park the carriage rolled. At times the trees opened into sheep-dotted meadows that gave the travelers beautiful views of the surrounding farms and countryside, and Rebecca realized that they were climbing in almost imperceptible grades onto higher ground. At one vantage point, they could see in the distance a small village huddled along the sides of a meandering river.

  Finally, as the chaise topped a wooded hill, the drive turned and ran along the crest of a grassy knoll.

  “Jamey, look!” Her attempt at cheering the boy was answered with an indifferent shrug.

  To the left of the carriage, the trees opened onto a broad valley. On the far side, nestled among the wooded hills that rose up behind it, a finely built rambling house of red brick sat comfortably amidst orchards and gardens and fields. From the style of its architecture, the house must have been built in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Ancient, but solid and tasteful and unpretentious. Before it, wildflowers of purple and white colored a rolling meadow that ran down to a broad lake. There was a ‘natural’ quality to the house and setting that welcomed a traveler. Rebecca had never seen a place quite so beautiful.

  “You will love your new home.” Her whisper was answered by Jamey’s shrug. As the chaise crunched to a stop on the gravel of the impressive courtyard, the young boy sank deeper into the cushioned bench and closed his eyes to the few servants awaiting in greeting outside.

  “Jamey.” She held his chin and encouraged him to open his eyes before the door of carriage was opened by the groom. Frightened blue eyes opened and pooled immediately with tears. “I am here with you. I love you today the same as I loved you yesterday, and I will continue to love you forever.”

  “But I am not your son.”

  She flattened his hand against her chest. “You are my son in here, and that will never change.”

  He shook his head. “But...”

  “Don’t mourn a loss where there is none, Jamey,” she pleaded. “Don’t torment yourself or me by acting as if I were already gone.”

  There were more tears, and Rebecca forced back her own bursting emotions as the young boy wrapped his arms around her.

  “I’m afraid. These people...I don’t know them.”

  She pulled back just enough to use a handkerchief from her own sleeve to wipe his face clean. She then smiled into his face and clutched his hand tightly in her own. “I’ll give you my strength, and you give me some of yours. Let’s go and meet these good people together.”

  ****

  The sky was edging from black into gray, and Jamey knew that storm clouds would not delay much longer the coming morn. Kneeling on the wide windowsill with his forehead pressed against the cool panes of glass, he watched the shapes begin to form outside. Indistinct at first, and then growing clearer, a pair of monstrous giants changed into a grove of plane trees. A strange, horned head of some huge decapitated beast turned out to be only the stables.

  Beneath his window, a small formal garden gradually became more distinct, and he looked out past its well-kept paths and beds to the meadows and the gray lake. The drive leading out of the estate and back to the St. Albans road wound over the small stone bridge at the top end of the lake and up the far side of the valley. He stretched and frowned. He had been kneeling at the window for the past few hours, hidden behind the thick draperies, and watching.

  They’d only arrived yesterday and he already knew he didn’t want to be here. The room they’d given him was larger than the two rooms he and his mama had occupied in Philadelphia. And the bed was so huge that all four of the Butler children could have slept in it and there still would be room for more.

  He hated this room. He hated his bed. He hated the people that wore all those proper clothes and talked correct and tried to not stare at his hand and kept calling him Master James. He hated the fact that he was separated from his mama and that she no longer wanted him for a son.

  The things she’d told him yesterday. About his real mama dying years ago and how it was time he started spending time with his real father. It couldn’t be true. Someplace deep in his chest, Jamey knew that he had to be her real son. He loved her so much. Just the thought of her going away made him hurt to the point of bursting.

  Even now he could feel the ache in his gut. He choked back the knot in his throat and peered past the curtains toward the closed door. She was sleeping in the room next to his. But what if she’d decided she didn’t love him anymore and left him during the night? There were many doors to this place. And what if the carriageway he’d been watching wasn’t the only way off the estate?

  Once, not long after moving to the window, Jamey had seen someone crossing the property and carrying a lantern and a cudgel. A huge dog had ambled along beside him. A watchman, he’d decided.

  He hadn’t been the best of boys last night. He hadn’t touched his dinner. He’d pretended he couldn’t hear anything anyone said. He’d even been rude to Mrs. Trent, the heavyset housekeeper, flinching when she’d put a friendly hand on his head while she’d been showing him his room. That had really put his mama out. She hadn’t said anything, but he could tell it from her eyes. Her eyes told everything.

  He had a scolding coming, no doubt. But, sitting in the window, he realized that even this was a good thing. It gave him as good a reason as any to go and wake her. And make sure she was still here.

  Jamey pushed the curtains back and dressed quickly.

  There was something strange about the hallway, Jamey thought, as he stepped out of his bed chamber. He’d been too stubborn last night to show any interest. But now he stood staring.

  The people in the paintings on the wall—the men and women in fancy clothes, and some even in armor—were staring back at him. Vaguely, it occurred to him that some of the servants must be awake, for there were two newly lit candles on a couple of the tables along the wall. He glanced in the direction of his mama’s closed door, but then his attention was drawn back to the paintings. Next to a picture of an angry looking man holding a book and wearing a sword, there was picture of another man standing before a beautiful dappled grey hunter. Around him, servants were holding a hunting lance and tending to a huge stag he’d obviously just killed. Jamey had never been hunting himself, but Tommy Butler had told George and him plenty of stories about it.

  These people, though, looked to be much fancier in their dress than any who would go hunting in the woods along the Schulkyll, Jamey thought. Walking down the hall, he continued to look up at uniformed men and elegantly dressed women sitting in the portraits, or depicted on tall horses with scenes of hunts in the background. More than one had this house pictured. One had a castle in it.

  “All this fuss over such a wee lad.”

  “Mind your tongue, Bessie.…the master’s son.…whatever we can do.…worth the fuss, as you call it.…away for as long as the wee one has.…’tis a shame we cannot do more.”

  “Well, I don’t know…If cook burns that porridge this morning, I don’t know but that I’ll...”

  “Hush, you vixen…be waking the household. How’d you like to be put out on your…”

  Pausing by an open door, Jamey listened hard to comprehend the snatches of talk between the two women. The two servants were busy working in a huge chamber. If he turned his good ear to it, he always heard much more than people thought he did. But he’d always kept this secret to himself. It was a special thing to have his mama think she was the only one that could say anything to him and he could hear. It wasn’t a lie, he reminded himself as he slipped by the open door and stopped to look at a pain
ting just beside it. It was a way to get good attention from those he liked…and to ignore the people that he didn’t.

  “This wom....Ford…the lad’s nursemaid?”

  At hearing his mama’s name, Jamey’s gaze dropped from the painting and riveted on the open doorway. He moved to the door.

  “…I heard Mrs. Trent say in the kitchen last night, that’s about what she’s been to the lad for all these years.”

  “If she is one of us, why did they have her placed in this wing?” The younger woman’s voice turned peevish.

  “She ain’t one of us. She’s quality…you can see that from her manners plain enough.”

  “Perhaps so…but you couldn’t tell from her clothes.”

  Peeking around, he saw the maid he assumed to be Bessie shaking out a blanket and folding it again.

  “That don’t mean anything, you fool. They’ve just come from the colonies…from Pennsylvania.”

  “Well, she’s in England now. Why, you should have heard Helen going on this morning in the washroom about this Mrs. Ford being put just down the hall from the master’s rooms. And she had a point, too, if you ask me.”

  “I’d know better than to ask a goose like you…or Helen.”

  “Well, ‘tis just a good thing he is not here yet, or folks would start to talk.”

  “Start? Ha! You and the other idlers are already talking, it seems to me,” the older woman chided, going around and closing the windows. “From all we know, the woman has a husband waiting in the colonies. Mrs. Trent says that she’s only staying a short while. So the way I see it, she may very well be long gone before his lordship comes down from London.”

  “Going? And pray, who’s to be taking care of the wee master? It shan’t be me, I tell you…”

  A slight noise by the doorway drew both women’s gazes, silencing them immediately. Bessie moved quickly to check the hall, but she saw no one. Listening carefully, though, she thought she could hear someone running in the distance, down the servants’ stairs toward the kitchen wing.