Chapter 23
Swanley Court School
October 11th
My dear Gerard,
I know I planned not to be long, but I am tempted to stay the
three weeks for residence qualification
so I can marry Julia to keep her safe.
We have had some drama in the arrival of two of her brothers, one of
whom is dying of phthisis, poor little boy, and the other who had sweep’s
canker, and the hospital thought it was going to kill him in short order,
however it turned out that the tumour was not attached where it appeared to be,
and Dr. Mac, which everyone calls him, managed to excise it. I am sure that you, as I did, have a
shrinking feeling in the organs involved when I mention this, but Dr. Mac did
his best to leave enough for him to have
a chance to sire children – and of course to grow up without the gross
deformations one associates with castrati. Ben is ten, and very knowing for his age, but
generally seems to be a normal little boy. He likes dogs, for I described your
spaniels and he is keen to take them for
walks for you when you are in university. I have written to the Dean and told
him that on top of your illness, which you made worse by getting up too soon
[which you did] there is something of a family crisis. I told him you were studying at home; do not
make me a liar about that!
You can write to your Cousin Cecil, and let him know about
Julia if you like, to pass on to her friend, Emma.
I am going to go and see Sir Henry Harkness in the next few
days and let him know what I think, but not until he has signed over the Bells
into my care. He does not seem to care; at least, letters from Mr. and Mrs.
Belvoir and from Dr. Mac seem to slide
of his back like mud off a duck.
Your affectionate brother ,
Rupert
111 Strand
London
11th October 1812
Dear Julia,
It seems odd to write in so familiar a way, but Mr. Embury has
assured me this is correct. It is a little overwhelming to go from having no
siblings to having many. I look forward to meeting you, and the others too, I
suppose.
I wanted to thank you, especially for sending me to
school. I begged them to keep me at
school or indenture me as a clerk, but they were adamant that being nicely
spoken I would do well in service. I hate it!
Mr. Embury says you are a blue-stocking so you will understand and enter into my feelings.
I look forward to meeting you before going on to this school at
Chisterley. And I am glad it is before I
lost my rag to kill the butler. When Mr.
Embury’s lad came to get me, he said
“Wot d’you fink yore doin’ skivin’ off, Groves?” (so much for nicely spoken)
and added “You get back to work an’ stop lollygaggin’ with that young scoundrel
or I’ll see you turned orf!” so I said, “Don’t bother, my man, I’m leaving.
They found my father.”
Oh it was lovely to be so cheeky to him. I’m not rude as a
general rule but he went out of his way to needle me.
I will be arriving by mail
tomorrow, Monday the 12th,
Mr. Embury is outfitting me early, to be
ready for school.
Your ob’ t servant,
Frank Groves Fletcher
“Goodness!” said Julia. “I am glad Mr. Embury sent a courier; I
am sure he will have written to Mrs. Belvoir and Mrs. Macfarlane.” She did not
feel able to use their given names. “Tomorrow morning! Hopefully Ben will feel like meeting him, by
then,” she added.
“He has been doing well,” said Rupert. Ben had awoken in the morning, and had been
able to eat, something Graeme always considered a good thing.
HMS
Faverit
Falmuf
Fursday
Deer
Sister,
Fank
you for havin me made a midshipman. I
wants to lern more. The bosun learned me to reed some and write sum. I aint
much cop at it yet but the layer-feller said I wood be lerned more afor I goes
back to see. I likes the see. Fings is always dun the same way an that’s
cumfortin. I aint gwine ter tell ma or she’d want all me pay.
Yors,
Jacky
“Well that one is virtually illiterate but he seems to be
trying,” said Julia, passing it to Rupert.
“I should write back to this one.”
“Yes, and I think ‘HMS Favourite, Falmouth’ is more likely to
find him than his spelling of it,” said Rupert.
“Dear me, yes, and he may be in the town now, not in the care
of the ship,” said Julia. “I will write
to the Naval commissions office to Mr. Midshipman Jacob Allen, alias Jack Fletcher late of HMS ‘Favourite’ and hope they can find
it. I will reply right away.”
Swanley Court School
Richmond-on-Thames
Dear Jacky,
I am glad you enjoy life at sea. I am sorry I cannot come and meet you, but
there are other brothers and sisters to
sort out, and you sound like a good strong boy who can cope. One of your
brothers has been a climbing-boy and he is sick. His name is Ben. When you are
on leave you will live with me; I am getting married soon so you will not be
surrounded by a pack of girls. Your older brother, Frank, wants to be in
school. I hope we can get to know each
other in letters. The Navy is very good about finding people.
I have asked if at all possible if you can serve with Mr.
Midshipman Driscoll, whose sister is at school with me. I don’t suppose it will
ever happen, but I did ask.
Your sister,
Julia.
“I thought I’d show Ben the letters,” said Julia.
“All very well if he has learned to read,” said Rupert. “They
indenture sweeps’ boys young though.”
Julia flushed.
“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” she said. “Well, I can teach him to
read while he recovers from the operation.”
“A good idea,” said Rupert.
Julia came into the room with the sick boy. He had been isolated from William for a few days, and when she had
looked in on William, the younger child was asleep.
“Hello, Ben, how do you feel?”
He gave an urchin grin.
“Sore,” he said. “But ... I’m glad it’s gone. And right glad to
be alive. Cor it hurt cruel! But better today.”
“I am glad,” said Julia.
“Say, Miss ... uh, Julia,” Ben looked uncomfortable, “Am I ...
I mean ... well, what I want to know is ... am I going to be no real man?”
“Dr. Mac left enough so you won’t outgrow your strength with
outsize hands like a castrato,” said Julia.
“He says you might manage to have children, you might not.”
“Well, I don’t care for that, but it’s main hard being picked
on for bein’ different,” said Ben.
“Indeed,” said Julia. “But that is something that should not
worry you. Now, I’ve had letters from
two of your older brothers; do you read?”
Ben shuffled his shoulders.
“No not really,” he said. “They learned me my letters afore Mr.
Sykes bought me, but I don’t read.”
“Not to worry; I will read them to you, and then I will start
to teach you to read,” said Julia. “If you are to be a gentleman you must learn
to read; and you shall, when you are fitter, have the fun of going to school
with Frank, if you wish, where the boys
learn to shoot and fish as well as grammar, mathematics and Latin, for it is a
school for orphaned gentlemen who have no desire to be in the navy or the
army. Unless you prefer the navy or the
army?”
“Gawdstrewf, I gets to choose?” said Ben, struck almost dumb.
“I dunno. I ain’t never had no choices
afore.”
“Why, there is no hurry to choose,” said Julia. “You must get well first, and if you are left
chesty from the soot, you may not be up to the rigours of the services, or even
to school, though they are very gentle there, they do not believe in beating
boys.”
“I’d fink I was in ‘eaven,” said Ben. “Read them letters, please?”
Julia read out the letters.
“Frankie sound a bit lah-di-dah,” said Ben.
“He has been taught to speak properly,” said Julia. “As have I.
Did you think that his butler has not learned as well, and puts him down
because he is jealous?”
“Cor! I ‘adn’t fort it,
but I fink you’re right,” said Ben.
Julia had just started on a basic reading lesson, on the
grounds that it kept Ben’s mind occupied and off his pain, and could always be
repeated, when the door opened.
Three flaxen and two dark heads appeared round the door.
“Come to meet Ben, have you, my Bells?” said Julia. “And why
are the O’Toole twins here as well?”
“Sure, and didn’t we want to meet the sweep as well, so we
did,” said one of the owners of dark hair.
“Well, isn’t it too bad that I’m all for sending you about your
own business, Kathleen, so it is,” said Julia, in as close to their own idiom
as she could manage.
The O’Toole twins exchanged looks.
“Wirra! She can tell us apart!” said the other.
“We’ll be foindin’ somethin’ else t’be doing,” said Kathleen,
and they bobbed out again.
“Please, Jolly, how do you tell them apart?” asked Isabella,
coming forward with Arabella and Rosabella in her wake.
“Kathleen is usually the one who speaks up first,” said Julia.
“Ben, these are Isabella, Arabella and Rosabella, they have two more sisters,
and they are in my care.”
Ben opened his mouth, thought better of what he had been going
to say, and said,
“Cuh!”
“Are you learning to read?
We can help,” said Isabella. “I can read and so can Arabella and we are
helping Rosabella. May we climb up?”
“Yeah, o’course,” said Ben, bemused.
“Ben has sore legs so be very careful,” said Julia. “Where
should you be? Where is Miss Kinnaide?”
“Oh yes, we will be careful,” said Isabella. “ Miss Kinnaide
sent us to play while she cleared up the ant’s nest the twins brought in. Ben, Jolly has found you the same book
Rosabella is using; you sit next to Ben, Rosabella, and read together.”
Ben gave Julia a helpless look.
“Ben is not as far on as Rosabella,” said Julia. “He has only
just started because his wicked master would not let him go to school at all.”
“Not even Sunday school,” avowed Ben. “’E said church was a
waste o’ good time, filled with canting an’ moanin’ when a man could be
workin’.”
“Oh, how dreadful!” gasped Isabella.
“Yes, it is, but don’t start telling Ben what he wants,” said
Julia, firmly. “I’ve had to speak to you about being overbearing towards your
sisters, don’t start being so imperious with my brother.”
Isabella went scarlet.
“No, Jolly, I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know you mean well,” said Julia, brushing a finger down
Isabella’s face. “But he’s only just learned that he should have been raised as
a gentleman, and he has had an operation
to take off a nasty growth, and is not very well.”
Isabella put her arms around Ben and kissed him.
“I’ll try not to be overbearing with you,” she said.
“Fanks for ‘elping,” said Ben.
“Oh dear, poor Ben, you can’t say ‘th’ and ‘h’,” said Arabella.
“Don’t worry, Rosabella can’t say ‘r’ but it comes with practice, but you
mustn’t worry or it gets worse. Jolly told off Papa for making a lot of
Rosabella having trouble.”
“I had no idea you overheard that,” said Julia, flushing.
“I twies vewwy hard,” said Rosabella. “But sometimes it’s
hard.”
“Yeah, I guess,” said Ben.
“Fanks for not makin’ it big, er, Julia. Why do they call you Jolly?”
“Because I didn’t think ‘Miss Spencer’ was very friendly, and
to shorten that as many do with a governess to ‘Spency’ made me think of
Incey-Wincey Spider,” said Julia. “And to call me ‘Julia’ was not something
their father would think suitable.”
“Is the red man who isn’t the doctor their father?” asked Ben.
“No, their father ... is somewhere else,” said Julia.
“Our Papa doesn’t want us, like your Papa didn’t want you so we
are the same,” said Arabella.
Julia wished, sometimes, that Arabella was not quite so clever.
“Our Papa died,” said Julia.
“But if you didn’t meet Ben before, he didn’t want him,” said
Arabella, with the devastating logic of the young child.
Julia sighed.
“Well ... that is true,” she admitted. “No, Ben, there’s no need to expand on that.”
Ben shut his mouth again.
“Why don’t your Papa want you?” he asked.
“Because he wants a son,” said Isabella. “And our Mama and our
brother died. And you need a Mama for babies to grow. And Papa’s new Mama
doesn’t like us. I don’t know why, she
hasn’t met us.”
“She’s a silly lady,” said Arabella.
“So what happens?” said Ben. “Julia, will you have to go and be
governess to his son?”
“No! I’m staying with
the Bells,” said Julia, fiercely. “And I
hope we will all live together.” She giggled. “I expect I will need a governess
and tutor to help out,” she said.
“You ought to marry Prince Rupert, and he can be our Papa,”
said Arabella. “He doesn’t play rough like our other Papa.”
“Prince Rupert?” asked Ben.
“The red-haired gentleman is named Rupert Thorington,” said
Julia, her cheeks stained with colour, “And he reminded Arabella of Prince
Rupert, the nephew of Charles I, about whom she had learned in history.”
“I ‘eard – heard - of
Charles I; vey cut ‘is ‘ead – head – orf,” said Ben.
“Well done,” said Julia.
“Prince Rupert was very dashing, a bit like a knight of the round
table.”
“I ‘eard o’ the rahnd table too,” said Ben. “Sir Gallyhad an’ the like.”
“Well done!” said Julia.
“When you learn to read you will be able to read stories of them for
yourself.”
“Cuh! Vat’s werf working for,” said Ben. “I squatted in a
chimbly once to ‘ear a story bein’ told to a swell kinchin about Sir Gallyhad.
An’ Ol’ Sykesy could send fire an’ cuss words up the other chimbly to ‘is
‘eart’s content, me bein’ in the ovver chimbly listenin’.”
“You will never go back to that wicked man,” said Julia.
The lesson proceeded smoothly and it did Rosabella no harm to
revise a lesson and to feel superior for once.
