By the time they arrived at Mrs. Cartwright’s shop, Bowden’s thick arms filled with fabric, Georgiana quite favoured her uncle, and he lost none of this favour in demonstrating much patience as his niece was taken to the back of the shop to have her figure measured and to insist that enough fabric be left to spare that when her body grew still further, these new dresses could be let out in accommodation. She was understood thoroughly, both by the English proprietress and the Indian women who assisted her, and Georgiana found herself much cooed over in anticipation of her coming child. More hands than she would have thought imaginable touched her belly, offering encouraging words in English and what seemed at least two other languages, and when finally she left the shop, it was with the promise of a gilt muslin gown to be ready in time for dinner at Government House, with a succession of other dresses to follow.
Bowden still carried bolts of cloth as they left the shop, those presently in his arms destined for the hold of the Caroline, save the two for the baby. Moll, thus far in the expedition, had done little other than comment on fabric and stand around Mrs. Cartwright’s with an attempt at an imperious look on her countenance, which generally failed because Moll was not serious enough to look imperious, even when introduced as holding the position of Lady Stanton’s lady’s maid. She did, to her credit, take down a list of the dresses that had been ordered, promising to stop in periodically to check on the progress of each, and beyond this said very little through this point in the outing. It was only when they left Mrs. Cartwright’s and were walking back toward Bombay Green that Moll looked with a great deal of longing at the local church, a handsome white-spired building with a red-tiled roof. Her gaze prompted all in the party to look in that direction, and Mr. Stanton, noticing this, named it St. Thomas Church. Georgiana, reminded of Moll’s intent to marry while in Bombay, asked,
“Mr. Stanton, what is required, for a couple to be married there? My maid and the Caroline’s carpenter became betrothed during the journey, and they had hoped to be married here in Bombay.”
“Aye? Your maid? This pretty little Irish lass here?” he asked, and Georgiana indicated it was so.
“Well, ain’t that delightful! I only need speak to the vicar. You shan’t be needing to read the banns and all that as in England. Those rules don’t apply here. I’ll speak to him and see a date set, perhaps a week from now, if that is convenable to your maid and her man?”
Moll nodded in a strange sort of meek hopefulness and said it was very convenable, which seemed to endear her to Mr. Stanton.
“And if you can spare her for the night, and her man can be spared from the ship, I’ll give ‘em a bedroom at my house, rather than spending their wedding night in a ship’s cabin. I think a newly married couple ought to have it good on their first night together.”
“I may certainly spare Kelly,” said Georgiana, and at this Moll brightened in happy anticipation, “and I presume Taylor may be spared as well, so I am sure they will be very pleased by your generosity.”
“Well, I can’t say it’s complete generosity, for I like to see couples connected to me happily married, since I can’t be such myself,” he said. Noting Georgiana’s quizzical look, he said, “I suppose your husband hasn’t told you yet – maybe he don’t remember, or don’t presume all is the same as it was when he last visited me, but it is. I have, for nigh on twenty years now, been living with the natural daughter of General Alistair. Recognised by him, so she was allowed to take the name. She was his only child, natural or otherwise – left her half his fortune, so she needn’t have put herself under any man’s protection if she didn’t wish to, but we fell in love.”
Georgiana’s jaw fell, and it took a substantial amount of effort for her to bring it back to where it ought to have been. She could not speak, and she did not need to, for Harold Stanton seemed to feel the need to explain himself:
“You’ll meet Miss Alistair tonight; she manages the household and is hostess, same as if she was my wife. If she had been of proper birth, she would have been, and I expect I would have brought her back to London to make her bow at court and all that frippery. But I did what was right by the family and kept her here – kept her in the best style that could be had here, of course – and didn’t marry her. Not that it mattered, for we haven’t had any children, but there wasn’t ever the worry of any little brown ‘uns coming in line to my father’s and William’s title. I know my duty.”
Still shocked by this revelation, Georgiana was returned to the Caroline and only learned what Harold Stanton had meant after she and her husband had been conveyed on the captain’s barge to the island of Parel, transferred to a carriage which took them through what appeared to be a very genteel, almost pastoral area, and then deposited in a vast marble courtyard. As she exited the carriage in the beginnings of twilight, Georgiana heard the cries and squawkings of various animals, felt the exotic nature of the house’s location, and grasped her husband’s arm with particular eagerness. She had no certainty as to whether he should be able to kill a tiger, if needed, in his dress uniform and with only his presentation sword hanging from his hip, but she felt a greater confidence in his ability to do so than that of any other man in the courtyard, and thus as a tightly connected couple were the Stantons admitted from the outer courtyard to the inner. This space, vast and white and cool, sat quiet and innocent with a fountain trickling in its midsection, and Mr. Stanton came very promptly to retrieve them from it, bowing and kissing Lady Stanton’s hand in a gallant manner, then encouraging the couple to follow him to an entrance-hall only slightly more enclosed than the inner courtyard had been.
Waiting there was Miss Alistair. Georgiana had spent her time since Harold Stanton had returned her to the Caroline endeavouring to decide how she felt about this woman’s status, and she had discussed it at length with Matthew. The married Stantons had decided that they should ignore Miss Alistair’s true status as much as was possible and meet her as Harold Stanton wished they should meet her – as the woman who ought to have been his wife. Miss Alistair proved to be an entrancing woman, somewhere vaguely between her fortieth and fiftieth year of age, wearing a dress of whitework muslin in the English mode, but with a shawl of the local colours draped artfully about her arms. Her hair was a brilliant glossy black, lightly glittering with strands of silver, and her complexion made clear what Harold Stanton had said, about little brown ‘uns, for Georgiana understood now that Miss Alistair was the natural daughter of General Alistair and a local woman.
Georgiana had thought it impossible to avoid feeling at least some measure of censure for this woman, to be living in such a position, but upon greeting Miss Alistair, she felt merely sympathy. It was the notion that only a tweak of her own birth might have put Georgiana in such a situation that prompted her sympathy: her father had been a gentleman of impeccable history and her mother the daughter of an earl, but if either side had been otherwise, she might very well have been in Miss Alistair’s position. So she accepted the introduction as she would have if Miss Alistair had been Mrs. Stanton, and allowed her mind to be caught up in the romantic realisation that Mr. Stanton had stayed true to this woman who was not his wife for longer than a great many men stayed true to their actual wives.
Miss Alistair was of more reserved manners than her gregarious companion, but once she came to understand her acceptance by Sir Matthew and Lady Stanton, she seemed to warm to them. Mr. Stanton’s drawing-room was furnished heavily with local furniture, intricately carved, but his dining-room was purely English, and here, it seemed, he observed fully the rules of etiquette. The food was exceedingly mixed, though, and Georgiana suspected that dishes such as roast mutton had been put on the table under the presumption that they would be preferred by the married Stantons’s English palates, for Harold Stanton and Miss Alistair kept largely to an array of curries and other local dishes. Georgiana had tried an occasional curry at dinners in England, and had always liked them well enough. Therefore, she asked to try a few and found herself sta
rtled by how well she liked them, particularly the spiciest of what had been put upon her plate. Attributing it to the baby – she had often found herself craving very particular foods, which could not always be procured on the Caroline – she asked to try still more and watched her dining companions observe her in shock as she worked her way through a succession of dishes, Mr. Stanton guaranteeing at each that this one would surely be too hot for her.
Matthew, who had favoured the mutton and the blandest of the local dishes, said with some amusement, “Shall I acquire a local cook, while we are here?”
“I think it is the baby,” said Georgiana, unsure whether she was blushing or feeling the remnant heat of everything she had eaten.
Mr. Stanton found this exceedingly funny, laughing in that deep, rasping laugh they had heard so often during dinner and saying, “Aye, that’ll be a strong one in ye, Lady Stanton, and you’re not the first woman with child in Bombay to favour a good curry,” then chuckling still further.
Georgiana was unsure of what it would be like to go through to the drawing-room with Miss Alistair, for while they had all got on quite convivially as a foursome, she was now required to have a tête-à-tête with a woman she hardly knew, and one with such a history. Yet they began well enough, Georgiana curious about Bombay and what it was like to live on Parel, and this provided them with ample conversation for some time.
Eventually, Miss Alistair asked hesitantly about Georgiana’s child, very nearly the same question as Mr. Stanton – whether it was her first. There was an unmistakable hint of sadness as she did so, and Georgiana, who had not thought to be nearly so open with this woman, said it was the first she had carried so long.
Miss Alistair gave the faintest of sighs and said, “I would have liked to have had a child, but it was not meant to be.”
Georgiana, in a burst of impetuous sympathy, said, “You shall have a great-nephew or niece, I suppose, in a way,” and then immediately felt she should not have said it.
But Miss Alistair said, “Yes, I suppose I shall,” and a genuinely warm smile dawned on her countenance. “I should like to see the child, but I suppose you will be gone before it is born.”
Georgiana nodded, but wishing to return to safer topics, she asked about Miss Alistair’s efforts with the local orphans. These, it turned out, were extensive, and this held them through the entrance of the men.
Georgiana found herself flagging rapidly after this. She had not rested nearly so much as she usually did, on this day, and with the inviting prospect of a proper bed before her, she waited only long enough to be polite before making her exhaustion known to the group, and then they were all eagerness to assist her in retiring. Both Mr. Stanton and Miss Alistair walked Georgiana and Matthew up to the room they were to occupy, a large, well-appointed room with gauzy curtains billowing in the faint night breeze. Georgiana was more interested in the bed, however, and after she had been changed by a dark, willowy young woman who spoke no English but knew what she was about in assisting a lady in changing, Georgiana pushed the netting that surrounded the bed aside and joined Matthew there, easing herself down onto bed-linens that felt positively sumptuous.
“Oh, I did not know how good a proper bed could feel,” she sighed.
“I did not know how very large a proper bed could feel,” Matthew said, moving closer to her. “You are so far away.”
“Yes, I suppose I have been taking up more and more space in our cots. I am not even sure I could fit in my own with the side up unless I laid on my back, and I think that would squash my insides.”
“Perhaps a canvas cot would be better for you, now, like those we use in the sickroom. Bowden can sew you up a new one.”
“You had better tell him to make it wider than usual,” she said.
He chuckled and reached out to stroke her cheek. “Goodnight, dearest. Sleep well.”
“I am sure I shall,” said Georgiana, and she was correct.
Chapter 28
Dr. Hornby had not been able to find time for Georgiana’s appointment until the morning of the dinner at Government House, but as the dinner came with the promise of another night’s rest in the bedroom at Mr. Stanton’s house, Georgiana did not much mind a morning likely to tire her. Still, Matthew, who went with her, insisted they take pulkhis – rather like a sedan chair in which one reclined – so as to avoid tiring her in the journey to the physician’s townhouse, just outside the fort.
Here Dr. Hornby had a fine suite of rooms on the first floor, designed for receiving genteel patients in much the same setup Georgiana had grown accustomed to in London, which she found comforting. His examination was not so close as that done by an accoucheur, however, and while Georgiana disliked such examinations, she began to have doubt of his thoroughness.
Once the examination was done, he was more thorough in asking her about how she was caring for herself and the baby, saying, “I wish to understand – you have been living with your husband on board a frigate, since the child was conceived?”
“Y – yes,” said Georgiana, feeling there had been judgment in his tone.
“What do you eat?”
Here Georgiana catalogued as many things as she could remember, a litany of foods including a rather substantial amount of fish and shark, countless species of birds and even once a soup made from their nests, and a tremendous number of cocoanuts and mangoes, the latter a new favourite she had discovered in Bombay. The judgment spread to his countenance as he said, “What measures are taken, to prevent your suffering scurvy?”
“Commodore Stanton’s surgeon, Mr. Clerkwell, is always adamant that there is an ample supply of anti – anti-scorbutics, I believe he calls them. The ship always stops for a supply of vegetables when they are needed. And Commodore Stanton set aside a private cask of lemon juice for me when we left Gibraltar, in chance some emergency caused a shortage.”
He made little acknowledgement of what she said, asking, “And what do you drink? Not the water, God-forbid.”
“Tea and lemonade, mostly, and some wine,” said Georgiana, and sensing he was about to lecture her over this, she rushed to add, “but the water the ladies drink is made from the sea-water still. Mr. Clerkwell thinks distilled water more suited to the female constitution, and that of invalids.”
She was not, however, spared the lecture, for he shook his head and said, “I would recommend you stay to beer and wine, it being of greater purity. Small beer would be best, but there is little of it to be found here. Ladies eventually acquire a taste for the pale ale, however.”
“Thank you, I shall take that under advisement.”
“I presume you will be staying here, to have the child,” he said, clearly indicating she should do so, and that he should be her physician. “I cannot say it is the healthiest place to bear a baby, but it is undoubtedly superior to a naval frigate. I wonder your husband did not have the sense to send you home as soon as he could. You would have been much better off in London.”
Here, something inside Georgiana snapped from defensiveness to anger. “My cousin, Lady Fitzwilliam, gave birth in London last year. She was attended by an accoucheur. And yet she died, as did the child. Thank you for your time, Dr. Hornby. I believe we are done.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she stormed out of the room with as much speed as her present size would allow, walking past Matthew so rapidly he was required to throw the purse for Dr. Hornby’s compensation on a nearby table and follow her out.
“Dearest, whatever is the matter?” he asked, catching up with her and putting his hand on her arm. “Is something wrong with the child? With you?”
“Nothing is wrong with either of us, but I will not see that man and suffer his insults and impertinent questions any longer.”
“What did he say to you?”
“I do not want to talk about it,” she said, her anger largely spent and threatening to be replaced with tears if she did speak to Matthew of it.
Matthew, thankfully, did not press her, and in
stead treated her with great solicitude, purchasing several cocoanuts for her before hiring pulkhis to return them to the ship. A glass of cocoanut milk taken within the great cabin did much to restore her equanimity, although it did come with some bitter thoughts that Dr. Hornby would likely not approve of it.
+++
Georgiana had suffered much in her youth, from her height. The Darcy children had inherited their father’s height, and she had always felt herself to be awkward and gangly, for just as she would grow comfortable with her body, she would invariably suffer another spurt of growth – and with it a return to awkwardness. Only in the last few years, as she had stopped growing, had she ceased feeling so graceless, but this had all been upended by her belly, which had seemed to grow far more rapidly over the last few weeks.
Once again she had begun to feel herself awkward and gangly, now with this substantial protrusion in her midsection, and none of this had been helped by those silk dresses, so bold as to call attention to everything. It was, therefore, with great relief that she saw Moll come into her cabin with a parcel of a size that could only be from Mrs. Cartwright’s shop. The parcel was opened, revealing a dress so beautiful it left Georgiana breathless for a moment. She had envisioned it could be so when she had selected the fabric, of course, but to see it formed as a dress, threads of gold shimmering within the white muslin, was something else entirely. It was simply trimmed – it could not be otherwise, for the amount of time in which it had been made – but Georgiana was still all eagerness to try it on.
It fit perfectly, although Moll still inspected it carefully, to see if a spare stitch here or there was needed. Georgiana bade her maid to dress her hair for the evening – she could not bring herself to remove such a dress for the old silk one, when she should have to change in an hour or so anyway – and once her hair was completed, she went into the great cabin to pass the time with a little pianoforte practise before they must leave for the dinner.
A Season Lost Page 48
