His Prized Possession

The bitter cold of winter seeps into my skin as I struggle through the snow, the child in my belly weighing me down so that I slip and stumble. I cannot turn back: my father’s house is a prison and he my gaoler. And if the babe-to-be-born is female, as I suspect…

              Far off in the distance lies the safety of the village. I know not if the stagecoach has already arrived to take Jem to the London docks and the transportation ship that awaits him there. If so, I will not see him again.

              A sharp pain grips my lower back, not unlike the deep ache I associate with my flowering. I have left it too late. The child is coming, and I am still some distance away from Fairhurst.

Jem! my heart calls. I am coming!

But an overwhelming weariness slows my steps and I know I can walk no further.

Sinking to the ground, I pull my cloak tighter around myself. My child will not survive this hostile weather, and nor will I. Exhausted, I lean back against a tree, feeling the solidity of its trunk behind me, and my mind blurs with memories of another winter’s day long ago: a time when I truly knew no sorrow.

The night air was cold and clear as Papa and I trotted back from the village church in the newly painted carriage.

              ‘Will Mama be well again soon?’ I looked up from the fur blanket covering our knees, knowing that my handsome papa would move Heaven and Earth to make Mama happy.

‘Soon,’ he nodded. ‘The doctor is with her now. Her time came sooner than she expected.’

I did not understand his words. I had seen Mama growing fatter but I thought her soft plumpness caused by the sweetmeats she had recently begun to crave.

Then, as we pulled up outside the Hall, my father’s face changed. Jenkins stood on the step watching out for us, her face pale.

‘You must come now, Sir. The Mistress… She…’

They disappeared inside and it was left to the footman to lift me down.

Something was wrong. Even a child of six such as I could discern it. From far away upstairs, a faint reedy cry echoed. A cat?

              A servant rushed downstairs. ‘More hot water!’ she gasped.

              I watched, feeling frightened, as bucket after bucket of steaming liquid made its way up to Mama’s chamber. When I tried to follow, hands stopped me. ‘Not now, Miss. It’s not something for children to see.’

Eventually, one of the kitchen maids took pity on me and took me to sit by the fire in the servants’ parlour. I watched the orange flames dance and wanted my mother. Some time later, I fell asleep.

I was not allowed to attend the funeral, but I watched as the two coffins were carried out to the hearse; the tiny one containing the brother I had never seen. Stillborn, Cook had said. I did not like to ask her what she meant.

              When Papa returned from the church, his face was sombre: the light had gone out of him on the night my mother died. I did not see him smile again.

              And from that point onward, my life changed. Before, I had known freedom to run and play on the estate with the servants’ children. Lucy and Alice were red-haired sisters a little younger than I, and Jem, the golden-eyed gardener’s boy, was two years older. I liked Lucy and Alice, but I worshipped Jem. Oft-time, I would find him in the meadow, his back against a tree, his dark curls obscuring his face as he whittled a piece of wood. The first gift he gave me was a slender pipe that made a noise like an owl hooting; the next, a little fox. There were cubs in the hole by the river bank, he said, and when they grew big enough to come out and play, he would take me to see them.

              But I was not allowed outside again on my own. It seemed my father could not bear to let me out of his sight now my mother was gone. He guarded me jealously: a dragon protecting its gold. Even when my governess taught me in the schoolroom, Papa was there too, sitting at the table with a volume of his own. After our midday meal, we would ride together: he on his chestnut mare and I on my tiny grey pony which never approached anything faster than a trot. We dined early for Papa never made social calls these days, and then read to each other by the light of the flickering fire in his snug.

              After a while, I forgot that I had ever known anything else.

I must have reached my thirteenth year when my father decided to hire a tutor to teach me music and Italian. Signor Agnelli was a breath of fresh air compared to my stuffy, serious papa. His eyes danced as he sat across the table from me, listening while I repeated io amo, tu ami, lui ama; and he played piano duets with me allegro, allegro, allegro.

              My music lessons were curtailed when Papa objected to Signor Agnelli’s touch on my wrists to guide my hands. Words were exchanged in heated broken English on one side and cold, controlled anger on the other, and my Italian tutor disappeared, never to be seen again. Two more followed in swift succession; it seemed my papa deemed me too precious to be touched by anyone but himself.

Seasons came and went. I cast off my girlhood as I flowered for the first time. At first, I was frightened: would have thought myself bleeding to death had not my maid, Bessie, kindly explained what was happening to me. She brought me clean, soft rags and showed me how to use them. I was becoming a woman, but my father still treated me like the six year old child who had lost a mother and needed his protection.

              Eventually, he allowed me to walk in the garden for exercise. He had decided some time ago that he did not want me riding – with or without him. I know not whether he believed the tales that said a maiden’s virtue could be damaged by such activity, or whether he just wanted to ensure my safety; whatever the reason, his decision made me feel even more of a prisoner. I was supposed to walk only when chaperoned by my maid, but some days, I slipped out of the kitchen door, desperate to feel the cool air of the early morning whilst Bessie and the others toiled at their duties.

              And that was how I found myself face to face with Jem after ten years apart, when on such an unsupervised walk I saw one of the gardeners turn, and recognised someone I had thought I would not see again. He was taller now – no longer a boy but a man. His hair still romped in riotous curls atop his head, and his eyes were the warm gold of the sun on a summer’s day.

              I let my eyes rove over him, refamiliarising myself with the childhood friend I had thought lost forever, and felt his own gaze slide slowly over me. I was glad that I had worn the periwinkle gown – Bessie said it enhanced the colour of my eyes. For some reason I could not explain, I wanted Jem to like what he saw.

              ‘You’re all grown up,’ he said at last, offering me a slow, lazy smile.

              ‘So are you.’ I was no longer the young mistress speaking to a servant but merely a girl who was delighted to meet with an old friend.

Time stilled. I was aware of the chattering of chaffinches in the trees overhead, of the smell of damp earth from the frequent April showers, and the steady thump of my heart as Jem and I looked at each other as if we both stood there with not a stitch between us.

Later, I would name that feeling as desire. For now, we were content to drink each other in, our eyes saying what our lips could not.

After that first meeting, I began to notice Jem’s presence in ways I had not done before. I knew he was responsible for the posies of fresh flowers that I would find in certain spots as I walked in the grounds: the bunches of violets that lay on the wrought-iron bench near the rose garden; the nosegay of wild flowers – buttercups, daisies and cornflowers – which did not grow in any of the carefully tended beds; the pretty pansies that peeped at me shyly from a basket of woven reeds. He was courting me as a village lad woos the girl he has set his heart on, and I let my own heart be caught by his tokens of affection.

              It was seldom that I saw him, save at a distance, busy planting and pruning and always in the company of at least one other. Perhaps my father had decreed that there should be no opportunity for interaction. I thought once more of the tutors he had dismissed and it was as if a net tightened around me. He thought to keep me safe, but he had made me a prisoner. And so, instinctively, I knew I could not tell my father of my newfound delight. I was his prized possession: he would allow me to feel affection for none but him.

Six long weeks I waited until, one fine warm morning in June, I found myself once more face-to-face with the man I had not stopped thinking of since our first reunion under the trees. He was on his knees, weeding the pathway that led to the rose garden, as I approached, basket on my arm, to gather fresh blooms for my dressing table.

              He looked up, but he did not rise to his feet; nor did he drop the trowel he was using to tempt the stubborn shoots from their chosen abode. I wanted to thank him for the flowers but I found myself tongue-tied, overwhelmed by the sudden surge of need I felt for him. I wanted his long, calloused fingers, dirty as they were, to stroke my hair, my face, my shoulders; I wanted to feel his mouth on mine and taste the honeyed sweetness his lips promised.

              ‘The roses smell the sweetest by the summerhouse, Miss.’

              His eyes met mine and I felt the pull of something strange and magical – as natural as the flowers his clever fingers coaxed from the earth and just as heady.

              ‘Thank you, Jem.’ I made my voice neutral, mindful of the fact that we were in the open where any interaction might be seen and noted. I nodded to him as if he were just a servant, then entered the rose garden with my basket as if I were not the least bit affected by our brief encounter.

I could not say which flowers I picked that morning. I had set out with a vague idea of choosing only perfect specimens in creamy white, but the thought of Jem meeting me in the summerhouse – I knew not when but I would wait for him as long as necessary – made me impatient to complete my task so that I plucked feverishly, not caring if petals fell or stems bent.

              Later, I stood in my bedchamber, admiring the beauty of the roses in their porcelain bowl. A single drop of blood glistened on my finger where I had caught it on a thorn. I sucked it clean, imagining that they were Jem’s lips and not mine that caressed the slightly swollen skin. Two spots of colour bloomed in my cheeks. The girl in the mirror before me was someone I did not recognise: someone who would choose Jem over her own father.

As if in a dream, I walked slowly to the summerhouse. Bees buzzed lazily; my heart fluttered with excitement.

I did not have to wait long. Jem came to me as swiftly and as sweetly as a bird in springtime. And like a bird in springtime, I was powerless to resist nature’s prompting. I showed him the faint bruise from the thorn and he kissed my fingers one by one, his lips as light as the brush of an insect. And then his arms were about my waist and his mouth on mine, and he kissed me as if I were something rare and precious and yet familiar and necessary at the same time.

Afterwards, when we lay quite still, holding each other close, I felt the contentment of a woman who knows herself to be cherished. And then we slept.

All through that long, hot summer, our passion soared with the heat. We would come together in the early afternoon, then doze like sultry cats in the sun’s warmth. Once or twice, I thought I heard footsteps outside, but no one ever disturbed us and I let myself believe that our secret was safe.

              I did not think my father missed me, absorbed as he was in weightier matters for he had recently become a Justice of the Peace and several times a week would be called to Fairhurst to pass judgement on horse thieves and other ne’er-do-wells.

September came, and with it harvest time. The orchard boughs groaned with apples and plums; the golden corn stood tall and proud in the fields. For the first time in years, my father visited the outlying farms, taking an interest in the men who tilled our soil.

              The air cooled, but I felt as if I were wilting from the heat. I slept later in the mornings for the smell of food made me nauseous, yet still I did not divine the reason why.

Once more, Bessie enlightened me. ‘You haven’t asked for your rags these past few months, Miss.’

I agreed I had not, wondering if the change in weather were to blame for my amenorrhea.

‘It’s not that, Miss,’ she said bluntly. ‘You’ve caught.’ As I continued to look puzzled, she went on, ‘You’re with child.’

With child. Jem’s baby was growing inside me. I was ignorant of much, but I knew I had not arrived at this situation on my own.

‘He’ll have to be told, Miss.’

My thoughts flew to Jem. He would not be angry that there was a baby. We had often talked of the future and of living together as man and wife in one of the estate cottages. And perhaps he would be less controlling than my own papa.

‘You must take him a message,’ I said. He would be helping with the harvest: the whole estate pulled together like that. ‘He might be working in the top field with his brothers.’

The gaze she turned on me now was full of pity. ‘Not him. You need to tell your father.’

I could not tell my father. Childbed had killed my mother; I would not reopen wounds which were barely healed. I resolved to wait, hoping that in time my gently swelling body would express what my words could not.

              But Bessie betrayed me. She did not tell my father as such; she merely let him know that I was pale and drawn, and mostly confined to my room. He sent at once for Doctor Fellowes: the cheerful Scotsman who had last visited when Papa had pleurisy some years ago.

              And then… I could no longer hide my condition for the doctor called my father to my bedside after he had examined me, and I wept from illness and from fear as both of them tried to bully me into revealing my paramour’s name.

              ‘And is there really nothing you can do to prevent this?’ Papa asked on more than one occasion.

‘I took an oath, Sir Richard,’ the doctor said sternly. ‘I will not administer any drug that might cause a woman to abort her child.’

They took Jem a few days later. Perhaps we had not been as careful as we thought for several of the gardeners claimed to have seen us entering or leaving the summerhouse – not at the same time, but the evidence was damning enough. He was incarcerated at the rectory – the only house in the village that boasted lockable rooms. In vain did I plead with my father that it was not rape for I had been a willing accomplice: he was deaf to everything I said and refused even to look at me.

              Jem was charged with grand larceny – theft of property worth more than twelve pence. (I thought bitterly that I was not such a precious possession after all now that I had been defiled.) My father tried the case himself, and the justice he dispensed was transportation. I heard all this from Bessie who listened to kitchen gossip.

We did not celebrate Christmas that year. The house was devoid of holly and ivy, and I spent the day like any other confined to my room. My father had locked me in every day since Dr Fellowes’ fateful visit.

              He locked me in, but I had not the heart to think of escape. Where could I go? Jem and Bessie were the only people who cared for me, and one was under lock and key himself whilst the other assisted my gaoler in making sure that I too was a prisoner.

Midnight. My door opened softly, and Bessie stood there bearing a cloak and stout shoes.

              ‘Go to him, Miss. It isn’t right what your father’s done.’

              Too bewildered to argue, I took the gifts she proffered and crept after her down the back stairs and out through the kitchen door.

The snow is still falling. Pain racks my body again. My child and I will not survive. The memory of Jem’s lips on mine is the last thing I know.