the marquis's memory 14

 

 

Chapter 14

 

“I’m not wearing stays to row, and that’s that,” said Pip. “What’s more, I’m not wearing muslin. If I get wet through, as can happen, I want to be modest, thank you, and not have everything go invisible. I’m going to tie up my breasts, like I did for comfort when I thought I was a boy with a curse on him, and wear drawers, just in case I get tipped up, and a calico morning gown.”

Effie sighed.

“I wish you were not doing it.”

“I have to,” said Pip. “I don’t have to win, only to show willing. And my hands are good and hard still, because there’s labouring on your small-holding to keep me fit and keep my hands hard.”

“I’m supposed to be encouraging you to be more ladylike.”

“If I want to marry someone, and he’s the sort of fool who wants me to have soft hands and a soft brain, I don’t want to marry him,” said Pip. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a life of idle luxury, I’m capable, and I consider it one of the points I want a husband to know about.”

“Not having ever known a life of idle luxury, myself, my dear, I have to say that although I long for it occasionally, I’d probably find it a dead bore.”

“Well, there you are,” said Pip. “But you’ll marry Mr. Endicott, I’m sure, and work hard helping him help… the marquis.” She bit back the name ‘Geoffrey;’ she had not confessed to Effie how much she had enjoyed him checking that she was a girl. Or that he had already as good as offered for her. She suspected that though Effie preferred Simon Endicott for herself, she had hopes for her niece where Geoffrey was concerned, and might be displeased that Geoffrey did not see his ward as a younger sibling, and half boy.

Most of the fishing community knew how to row, women as well as men. Indeed, the women had been known to pull the wool over the eyes of the revenue men, who had once, Pip knew, followed a boat load of people acting clandestinely, and followed the boat with muffled oars to a quiet cove, where the women rowing lit a fire, and stripped off their clothes to dance around it. They had chosen the oldest and ugliest of the fishermen’s wives and widows for the purpose and swore, when taxed with it, that it had to do with women’s matters and fertility and was not for the eyes of men. This had meant that the men of the revenue cutter refused point-blank to pursue another rowing boat full of people in skirts with scarves over their heads, who were actually the smuggling crew in their womenfolk’s clothing.

 

Pip’s main rival would be Noah-Nelson’s sister, Bessie Pierce, a wiry woman of forty with wrists strong enough, it was said, to wring a man’s neck. Bessie had led the naked dancers, and ruled Lije Pierce with a rod of iron, forbidding him to smoke in the house, and likely to drag him out of the Running Buck if she felt he had dallied there too long. She obeyed her own rule about smoking in the house, and might be seen sitting on the well-scrubbed limestone lintel of her cottage, smoking an old-fashioned clay pipe.  It was her apricots which had done well in the show, and she raised hens to sell the eggs as well, setting a clutch from time to time, when her hens, as well regulated, usually, as her husband, had dallied with Black Scots Charlie, the rooster, whose duties included a morning wakeup call.

She cackled a laugh at Pip when the female rowers gathered.

“What, miss, think you have a chance?” she said.

“I think, Mrs. Pierce, that I’m going to do my best and represent my guardian, Marquis Calver, to the best of my abilities,” said Pip. “I plan to give you a good run for your money – or row, I should say.”

Bessie Pierce laughed.

“That’s the spirit, moi mauther!” she said. “You ain’t no shrinkin’ vi’let.”

 

 

 

oOoOo

 

Back in the backwater hamlet of Wembley, Ann Calver had thrown anything possible to throw, had been prevented from slapping a few faces, had torn the bodice of her gown, and was told that she would have to mend it if she planned to wear it again, since her number of gowns were now limited to those packed, and had sobbed herself into a fever, through which she was nursed with rough kindness by those used to such displays, and to whom her tantrums meant nothing. Once approximately calm, Ann discovered that her expensive French dresser had proved faithless and had not remained, and the only female in her entourage that she knew was the grim-faced old maid who had been her nurse-maid and maid since childhood, and who sincerely pitied her mistress for having ignored her advice over the years, and letting her position as marchioness go to her head. Nancy scolded her nursling gently, pointing out that her husband had been indulgent, if stern with her tantrums, as many a man would have beaten her. Ann hated more than anything else the look of pity on Nancy’s face as Nancy pointed out that she had brought this upon herself for treating her son so shabbily.

“I have given him everything! Doted on him! And look how he repays me! He is wayward and naughty!  He must learn to mind me!” she screeched.

“Miss Ann, he’s a man of almost eight-and-twenty; his own man. You can’t go ordering him around,” said Nancy. “You are not acting reasonably, so it’s scarcely surprising that he treats you accordingly,” she added. “You come down off of high doh, and write to him that you are sorry you have been behaving unreasonably. Then like as not, he’ll be ready to let you back home.”

“But he’s the one who should apologise!  And that girl, Marianne; and she need not think she can creep round me asking for her position back, for she won’t get it, and no more will Bet!” she named the maid assigned to help Nancy and Marianne, who had been only too happy to be relieved of such duty and go back, even with a drop in pay, to being the between floors maid. Only Nancy and Ann’s favourite footman had elected to stay with her.  “Send James to me, and you can get out,” said Ann.

Nancy sighed, and did as she was bid.

James, whose parents had, in a moment of intense originality, matched his surname by christening him ‘James’ as well, bore a superficial resemblance to both the old marquis, and to Geoffrey, who was a chip off the old block.  The superficial resemblance was, in James’s case, entirely coincidental, having no familial connection to the Calvers. James, however, knowing that many a byblow ended up in service to their families had been at pains, since someone first made a jocular comment about his looks, to resemble Geoffrey and his father as much as possible. There was an assumption that a byblow would have more trust of the family, and that way, he collected more vails.

It also made him attractive to Lady Calver, and James was never one to turn down anything on offer. He put up with her controlling nature and occasionally being called ‘Jeffy,’ and, though he had wondered if it was worth his while to go with her to a mad-house, as her servant, he reflected that likely enough he would still be paid as her footman, without having as much work to do, or being under Mr. Winston’s beady eye, since Mr. Winston was a peevy cove – in James’s idiom – who saw through James’s efforts to maintain a hairstyle and mannerisms as much like that of the marquis as possible.

“James!” cried Lady Calver. “We have to do something about me being incarcerated here!”

“Yes, my lady,” said James, dutifully, who had been anticipating this request and had worked on several ways of facilitating it, and as many excuses over why he could not. When her ladyship was frustrated, she took solace in the bedroom, and James was not unhappy to be paid his two guineas a month to warm the bed of the still attractive dowager marchioness. “Perhaps it would be best to show them how wrong they are, to shame the marquis,” he suggested.

“Depend upon it, there’s some female who has her hooks into him,” said Lady Calver. “Why else would he go running off to God alone knows where? Somewhere east of Ipswich, I think that Runner said, and there’s nothing east of Ipswich except marsh, seagulls, and mud.  Some gypsy wench has put a spell on him, for there’s no other reason he would waste his time in some God-forsaken mire.”

In this, Lady Calver wronged Geoffrey, who might be somewhat smitten by Pip, but who had also taken a liking to the people of the Haddingtons, and was enchanted that he could use his wealth to make their insurmountable problems melt away, even if he wrestled with the problems in his own life. That none of them toadied to him, and looked upon his title more as a curiosity than something to be treated as something special had added to his liking for the villagers. This might be because none of them, bar perhaps Effie and the Goodings, had much idea what level of title a marquis might be, and so ignored it, especially as he had been quite happy being plain ‘Mr. Jefferson’ whilst he pretended to have lost his memory, and did not bother to resume any kind of haughty manner for having ‘regained’ it. He was given the respect due to a gentleman, and it did not prevent such worthies as Gaffer Keeble from arguing with him over a pint.

James, however, would have been astonished to have heard of such feelings from Geoffrey, feeling that if one had position, it was a waste of time not to exploit it as much as possible.

“What do you want me to do, my lady?” asked James.

“I want you to find the slut, and kill her,” said Lady Calver.

James blinked.

Killing was a big step.

“And supposing it increases his despite towards you, my lady?” he asked.

Lady Calver regarded him.

“You were born to become my dear Jeffy,” she cooed. “He’s a changling, his father made him all his.  He is replaceable.”

James managed not to gasp.

At this point, he almost fled, to report what she had said to Mr. Winston. Yes, he looked like the Marquis, but enough to be thought to be a byblow of the family, not…

James paused long enough to consider how it might be done, and his conscience succumbed to temptation.

The dangers were Mr. Simon Endicott, and Mr. Winston.  Mr. Winston could be pensioned off, and Mr. Endicott was said to be with the marquis.  A driving accident, in which Mr. Endicott died… and the marquis became so much lobster bait, and James, in his clothes, having paid some bruiser to mark up his face well, supposedly hurt in the accident, the wounds so his identity could not be questioned, due to bruises. He would have to take up occasional snuff-taking; he could already open the marquis’s snuffbox with one hand in the way Geoffrey did, having practised, since his affectations received more sympathy in the servants’ hall if used to undertake impressions, especially those where other guests were lampooned for James playing two parts.

And then… well, Lady Calver would acknowledger her ‘son,’ and who was to say that he was not Geoffrey Calver, Marquis Calver? James did not, at this point in his fantasy, so much as fall into temptation, as dived from the heights.

“Mama, I am sure we will manage very well,” he said. “Let me sit on your lap, and you shall tell me what to do.”

 

oOoOo

 

The rowing boats were as identical as the organisers could manage, and Pip dropped lightly into hers, as they were lined up along the staithe. There were only five contenders, the other three being between Bessie and Pip in age, one the only child of a fisherman, who served as her father’s crewman, and two fishing wives. Locals held the painter of the five rowing boats until Geoffrey fired his pistol to start the race. Pip sorted out her rhythm and rowed grimly. She had no expectation of doing well, and was rowing for pride, partly to demonstrate that she was not effete. She did not let herself worry about the others pulling away from her, but manoeuvred to row in the wake of Bessie Pierce’s boat.  Here, the wake aided her rowing, and reduced the effort she had to make to keep up.  And that was all she dared ask for; maybe on the return from rounding the buoy, she might try to make a race of it, but mostly, she intended to finish.

She set her rhythm, cursing slightly that she had lost some of the hardness to her hands, but trying to ignore that. If she had blisters later, she would live with it.  She let Bessie set the pace; Bessie had been rowing longer than many a Royal Navy coxswain. It was hard, and Pip felt a stitch coming in her side. She whimpered, and concentrated on breathing slower and shallowly until it receded.  And then the wake she was in rocked her, as Bessie was rounding the buoy!  Halfway there.  Pip pulled hard on her lefthand oar to make as tight a turn about the buoy as she could, and found that she had edged up to Bessie’s stern. Now she must just ignore everything and row her hardest. Surprisingly, she and Bessie had left the other women behind, and now she must prevent them from overtaking.   Pip pulled and came ahead of Bessie, who did what she had done, and used Pip’s wake to pull her forwards.

Pip’s head was ringing, her ribs ached, her arms ached, her back ached. But she was in the lead! She could hear the crowd along the shore, now, and then as she tried to put her last effort into it, Bessie slid out of her wake and was overtaking, coming level. Pip looked up to see the older woman grinning, and grinned back; there was a moment of shared comradeship. And then Bessie was half a boat ahead, winning the race, and Pip felt her prow caught before she hit the staithe, and she half fell forward in exhaustion.

“Here, Marquis! Pick up them ow little ow mauther, her’s fair done in,” said Bessie. “Cuh, she give me a good race!”

Geoffrey lifted Pip out of the boat.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Done to a cow’s thumb but alive,” said Pip. “That was a good race.”

Geoffrey passed her of to Effie, who was exclaiming over Pip’s red face and sweat-draggled hair.

“Oh, Philippa!  I was loathe to let you do it, and I was right!” she cried.

“Nonsense! Great sport,” said Pip.  “Did you see? I came second to Bessie Pierce!”

“Was it worth it to be so exhausted?” asked Effie.

“Oh, yes,” said Pip.  “Didn’t let Geoffrey down.” She downed a tankard of cider someone thrust into her hand, and managed to take an interest in the next race, which was men’s rowing, and would take place in two heats.

Seeing Effie distracted by Alethea cheering, Pip slipped away, across the meadow behind the foreshore, and into her sty, where she curled up on her bed and slept deeply for twenty minutes or so, before she was awakened by the sound of a throat clearing. She sat up, scared.

“It’s me,” said Geoffrey. “Miss Effie is having kittens, and I said that I fancied you had slipped away to rest.  You’d better join her.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Pip. “Calypso hasn’t raced yet, has she?”

“No, and I didn’t think you’d want to miss it,” said Geoffrey.”

“No, indeed!” said Pip, springing up, and brushing down her gown.

Geoffrey laughed, and dropped a kiss on her cheek, and she followed him out, cautiously avoiding being seen, which was no very hard feat, as most people were watching the racing.