The Flood-Tide

Book 9: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1772: Although George III reigns over a peaceful England, his colonies in the Americas are claiming independence and a tide of revolutionary fervour is gripping France. Allen Morland and his beloved wife Jemimas work unstintingly to bring Morland Palce back to its former glory. Their seven children often bring them heartache, but they are sustained by their love of each other.

The Mordland adventurer, Charles, emingrates to Maryland in persuit of the heiress Eugenie, but finds himself in the midst of the American claim for indepdence. Meanwhile, Henry, the family's bastard offshoot, pursues pleasure relentlessly but pennilessly until he finds a niche for himself in the fashionable Parisian salons, whilst outside revolution creeps closer.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

The kitchen at Morland Place was dim and full of shadows, even on a bright September day, for it was built when a northern
gentleman’s house had also to be his stronghold, and its windows were few and small and high up. In the great arch of the
chimney the fire glowed fiercely under the household’s biggest pots, making the heat almost intolerable, and the crouching
scullery maid worked the bellows with a kind of despairing energy, as the sweat dripped off the end of her nose and onto the
stone flags.


It was the very peak of the plum harvest. Jemima Morland, mistress of the house, found herself remembering the time the moat
had risen and flooded the kitchen, as the plums advanced on all sides in a yellow, crimson and purple tide. The children brought
them in heaped in baskets like rubies for an Egyptian queen. They lay piled on tables and dressers and on the floor; odd escaped
ones winked tauntingly from corners; and every available hand cut and stoned them, jammed, preserved, pickled and dried them,
set them to ferment into wine or linger into brandy.


The air was full of the smell of their ripeness, mingled with hot sugar, and delinquent wasps, frantic with greed, gorged
themselves on the fruit until, drunk with plum juice, they fell soddenly to the floor on their backs. The household’s youngest
boy, aged three, was under orders to scoop them up into a jar and take them outside – Jemima could not like to see them killed
when they were drunk, and therefore possessed of as much happiness as a wasp can hope for. The youngest boy evidently thought
this a piece of womanish folly by his air of lofty amusement as he passed her each time with a full jar. She did not like
to inquire what he did with them outside.


The sweat was beading her upper lip, and she raised a bare forearm to dab it, for her hands were red with plum juice. Her
hair was escaping in maddening wisps, and under her calico skirt her feet were gratefully bare on the cool flags. She thought
how horrified her mother would have been to see her now! Lady Mary had been half-sister to the great Duke of Newcastle, and
had never let anyone forget it. As far as Jemima knew, she had never once set foot in her kitchen. As for going barefoot,
rolling up her sleeves, and helping, Lady Mary would probably sooner have been hanged at Tyburn.


‘Mother! It’s not fair!’ A familiar, strident voice upraised in fierce complaint preceded Jemima’s ten-year-old daughter Charlotte
into the kitchen. Charlotte was big for her age, with long, strong bones, a glow of health in her freckled face, and curly
hair that defied discipline. She had all the restless energy of a colt, and a head that seethed with plans, usually for forbidden
activities. She was quick-tempered, clever, untidy, and passionately devoted to her twin, who held the other side of the loaded
basket she was bringing in.


Poor little William presented a very different aspect. Jemima often thought that Charlotte must have absorbed all the strength
when they were together in the womb, for William was small, pale, thin, and meek-tempered. Jemima was agreeably surprised
to have kept him to the age of ten for he was frail, troubled with coughs and headaches, and likely to take any illness that
was around. The smallest knock bruised his delicate skin; if cut, he bled frighteningly; his digestion was uncertain. And
yet he adored Charlotte, and followed her like her shadow, climbing trees to fall out of them, swimming in rivers to catch
cold of them, eating wild sloes and crab apples because she recommended them, having herself a digestion that could have thrived
on horseshoe nails. He got himself cut and gashed and bitten and stung in her wake, and wept far more when she was punished
for leading him into danger than he ever did for his own pains.


‘My dear Charlotte,’ Jemima said with amused exasperation, ‘you look as though you had been doing battle,’ Charlotte’s dusty
face was drawn into a frown, her head was like a gorse bush, her mouth, hands, clothes and even her hair were stained with
plum juice.


‘It isn’t fair. William and I are doing everything, and the others aren’t helping at all. James has hardly carried three pounds, and now he’s swimming in the moat and won’t
do any more, and you never let me swim in the moat.’


‘He’s only six, dearest, and he’s probably tired. He has worked hard for a little one,’ Jemima said, avoiding the more delicate
question of swimming. It did seem hard to her that a girl should not be allowed to do some of the more pleasant things that
boys did, but it was the way of the world. ‘And surely Edward is helping.’ Edward, her oldest son, aged eleven, was immensely
conscientious.


‘Well, he was,’ Charlotte said, reluctant to concede any point. ‘But now that silly Anstey boy has come, and he says he is his guest and
he has to take care of him.’ John Anstey was the son of a neighbouring merchant, and Edward’s best friend, and they were to
go to school together next year, something to which Edward looked forward with great excitement, since he had always been
educated at home before by Father Ramsay. ‘And all John Anstey wants to do is moon over Mary. Imagine, over Mary!’ Charlotte’s
voice took on a tone of horror. Mary, a year younger than Charlotte, was in every way different from her, and had an almost
squeamish horror of dirtying her clothes or hands. ‘Mary isn’t any use at anything. She can’t ride properly, or climb a tree,
and all she’s done all day is sit on a seat in the orchard primping and primming, and then the Anstey boy comes and takes
her basket from her and says she shouldn’t be getting herself hot and dirty. It’s awful.’


Jemima couldn’t help laughing at Charlotte’s outrage, but as her frown grew ferocious, she added hastily, ‘Mary’s ways are
very different from yours, my love.’


‘But you let her off tasks that you make me do, Mama, and never rate her as you do me. It isn’t fair!’


The eternal cry of childhood, Jemima thought, though in her own childhood it could never be uttered aloud. There were many
in the household who thought she allowed Charlotte to speak too freely to her, but she had been so oppressed and miserable
herself at Charlotte’s age that she could not be so strict with her.


‘You and Mary are made of different clay, my love,’ she said mildly. ‘It will not serve to try to make the same vessel of
you both. We shall all stop in a little while for some dinner, in any case. Would you like to help carry it out to the orchard?’


Charlotte allowed herself to be pacified. ‘May I ring the bell, too, Mama!’

‘Yes, if you like. William, you’re looking pale. Do you have the headache?’ She stretched her hand out for him, and he came
to her side and leaned briefly against her.


‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Not very much.’

Jemima ruffled his pale hair and laid the back of her hand against his hot forehead. ‘No more picking for you after dinner.
Poor little William. I wish you had some of Charlotte’s strength.’


Because her hand was in the way, and perhaps also because her mind was on other things, she missed the expression of anguish
that crossed her son’s face.


It was not an elegant feast, such as her mother might have consented to preside over; and certainly Lady Mary would never
have so far forgot her dignity as to sit on the grass in the orchard, even had her silken clothes and rigid hoops and stays
allowed it. Jemima had been one of the first ladies in the neighbourhood to adopt the new calico and cotton fabrics for common
wear, and in the summer especially they were a boon, not only being cooler and allowing more freedom of movement, but being
infinitely easier to wash than woollen. In the country, except on formal occasions, Jemima wore no hoops and only the mildest of stiffening, and she was able to settle herself in the place of honour on the
grass before the spread cloth, under the old medlar tree.


Father Ramsay came through the trees to join her, looking cheerful and relaxed after his morning’s picking.

‘It is a good thing to change one’s labour from time to time,’ he said, rolling down his sleeves. He had bits of broken twig
in his hair, and smuts on his face, and his breeches were tied at the knee with string. Jemima smiled at him affectionately.
‘It makes one appreciate the advantages of one’s normal pursuits. I have enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine, but my hands!’
He turned them over and back and shook his head sadly.


‘Come and sit down, Father. Here, you shall have this bucket for a seat,’ Jemima offered. ‘I must make you comfortable, or
you will leave me for an easier position. When I think of all the tasks I force you to undertake, I tremble. How should I
ever manage without you?’


Father Ramsay upended the bucket, examined it, and lowered himself, grimacing, onto it. ‘My dear Jemima, if I had thought
the post of chaplain here meant only saying Mass and tutoring the boys, I should not have taken it. What is in the jug?’


‘Buttermilk. Will you have some?’

Father Ramsay smiled his sphingine smile. ‘You know my opinion of buttermilk,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait for the ale.’

Charlotte and William brought it a few moments later, in two large jugs, and from the other direction Edward and his friend
John Anstey joined them, escorting Mary, who managed to make it seem that the picnic spread under the trees had been arranged
entirely for her benefit. At nine years old there was already nothing left of the child in Mary, and looking at the perfect
little woman, Jemima could not remember that she ever had been a child. She was very pretty, with perfectly regular features,
even teeth, black curling hair and blue eyes with dark lashes; she wore her clothes with an air, was neat and particular,
and had a great conceit of herself. Jemima regarded her with something like wonder, that she could have borne a creature so unlike herself.
It was Nature taking her revenge, she thought sometimes: Mary was a daughter such as Lady Mary would have liked Jemima to
be.


‘Ah, there you are, boys. Sit down. Come, Mary, it’s only a dead leaf. Don’t make such a fuss, child. Father Ramsay, will
you cut the pie?’ Her family gathered round and helped themselves from the laden cloth. Though not elegant, the food was ample
and good: one of Abram’s pork-and-liver pies, if not quite the size of a cartwheel, at least the size of a cartwheel hat;
and venison pasties, and the morning’s bake of bread with slices of brawn and cheese and cold beef; and sticky brown bricks
of gingerbread, and, since plums would have been almost an insult, baked apples, the first of the year’s harvest. ‘Now, do
you all have what you like? But where is Flora?’


‘Here I am, Cousin Jemima – and my little Jamesie,’ Flora said, coming from the direction of the kitchen garden. James was
looking pale and thoughtful, besides grubby about the mouth.


‘Oh dear, what has he been doing now?’ Jemima said, gathering her youngest son to her side. He had lost all his infant chubbiness
and was growing wiry, though he was small for his age. He would be like his father, she thought, small and compact; like him
in character, too, from what she remembered of Allen in his young days: reserved and curiously self-sufficient. James could
happily spend a whole morning alone playing with two twigs and a beetle, utterly absorbed in some inner world of his own.


‘He was eating radishes,’ Flora said.

‘Oh dear. How many?’ Jemima asked.

‘There were an awful lot missing from the row. I think they’re mostly up now though,’ Flora said delicately.

‘Oh dear. Well, come and sit down, Flora, and have some dinner,’ Jemima said apologetically. James settled unconcernedly under
her flank and reached for a venison pasty, and Flora, declining the offer of the bucket from Father Ramsay, took her other side. She was the daughter of Jemima’s youngest uncle, Charles, the botanist who in the intervals
of his ‘herborizing’ expeditions abroad had married the daughter of a Glasgow shipowner. There had been four children: young
Charles, who was following in his father’s footsteps and already making a name for himself, Louisa, who had died young, Angus,
and Flora. Aunt Mary had died when Angus and Flora were very young, and since Uncle Charles was so much abroad, Jemima had
offered the two youngest children a home at Morland Place. Angus, who was seventeen, was at university in Edinburgh. Flora
was sixteen, and ravishingly pretty, and now that Uncle Charles was also dead, having succumbed to the bite of some lethal
insect in the South American jungle, she regarded Morland Place as her permanent home. She had been a great help and comfort
to Jemima, and in the past few years had provided her with a much-needed female companion. The life of the mistress of Morland
Place was often a lonely one.


‘Baked apples! How lovely,’ Flora said as she surveyed the feast. ‘I’m glad it’s not plums. I don’t feel as if I should ever
be able to look at one again.’


Jemima laughed. ‘And to think only a fortnight ago we were so delighted with the first pies and junkets.’

‘It is rather all or nothing with plums,’ Father Ramsay said. ‘Flora, will you take ale or buttermilk?’

‘It’s a pity the cider isn’t ready yet,’ Jemima said, ‘but it will be another week at least.’

‘We must be sure to put a cask aside for Cousin Thomas to take back with him,’ Flora said eagerly. Jemima smiled inwardly.
In the past few weeks Flora had managed to bring his name into a surprising number of conversations. ‘It is quite dreadful
to think of him drinking green water, thick with living things. The privations our sailors endure are enough to break one’s
heart.’


‘I dare say Thomas manages to get something else to drink from time to time,’ Father Ramsay said drily. ‘And as to privations
– remember last time he was home on leave, he was but a lieutenant. I imagine the hardships of even a junior captain are far less. But doubtless he will know
how to value your concern for him, Flora.’


Flora blushed painfully, and Jemima came to her rescue.

‘We are all very proud of him, to be made “post” at such a young age. He is evidently well thought of at the Admiralty.’

‘He evidently has friends in high places,’ Father Ramsay amended. ‘For almost the most junior captain on the List to be given
command of a new-built ship, not even out of dry dock yet, argues something more effective than virtue. He is rising more
swiftly even than his father.’


Thomas’s father, Jemima’s Uncle Thomas, had had a spectacular career in the navy, rising to be the youngest Rear Admiral in
the fleet, before yellow fever carried him off on the West India station. Since Thomas’s mother was also dead, he, like Flora,
now regarded Morland Place as his home. Seeing Flora about to defend her cousin, Jemima interposed again.


‘It is wonderful that he is to have such a long leave with us this time. Though I daresay sailors and sailors’ families are
always at odds about the desirability of time spent on shore. If the winds serve he should be here by next week. I dare say
he will write from Portsmouth to tell us when he arrives. He will have things to do there before he comes north.’


‘Sailors can always find things to do in Portsmouth,’ Father Ramsay said. ‘Perhaps he may never come north at all.’

‘Of course he will,’ Jemima said hastily. ‘The old Hydra is to be broken up, and his new ship is not finished yet, so he will have plenty of time to spend with us. Father, have one
of the pasties. They are excellent.’


Jemima’s dinner was interrupted by one of the grooms from Twelvetrees, where the stud horses were kept.

‘Mester ‘Umby says ‘at one of th’ visitin’ mares is lookin’ proper dowly, mistress, an’ could you come?’ he chanted breathlessly,
rosy with embarrassment at having to speak before the entire assembled family. Jemima sighed inwardly, but Humby, the head man, could be relied upon not to send for
her on a trifle.


‘Which mare is it?’ she asked.

‘Her that come in from Wetherby this mornin’,’ the boy said, and grew more confident. ‘Mester ‘Umby were right put-about,
and sent her straight to the isolation box. She’s proper poorly lookin’. Mester ‘Umby says—’


‘Yes, very well, I’ll come,’ Jemima said. There were six visiting mares at Twelvetrees, sent to be covered by the Morland
stallion, Artembares, besides valuable stock of their own, and an infectious disease could wreak havoc there. ‘Go up to the
house, boy, and tell them to saddle my horse, and then go straight back and tell Master Humby I’m on my way.’ The boy scuttled
off, and Jemima got to her feet. ‘I must go up and change. One failing of calico is that one cannot ride in it. Flora, will
you take my place here?’


‘Oh Mother, Mother,’ Charlotte cried in an agony, having been alerted by the word ‘mare’ to a conversation about horses, her
ruling passion. ‘Please can William and I come? You said he must not work any more this afternoon, and a ride will be the
very thing for him, to cure his headache.’


‘And have you the headache too, Charlotte?’ Father Ramsay asked, amused. Jemima looked at him, wondering why he should even
consider trying to separate the twins.


‘I think the harvest is well enough advanced to be able to spare the little ones, don’t you, Father?’ she said. ‘We shall
finish all today in any case.’


‘Without a doubt,’ he said obligingly. ‘They have worked well this morning.’

‘Run up to the house, then, and change. And be quick – I will not wait for you.’

The stables at Morland Place were almost empty now, sad contrast to their heyday when Jemima was young. Her own mare, a handsome Morland chestnut named Poppy, three rough ponies on which the children had been taught to ride, and two stout
cobs for common use, were all that were kept in. When Allen comes home, she often said to herself, things will be different.
She tried not to think about it too much, for she missed her husband so much that if she dwelt on his absence she would unfit
herself for all her numerous tasks.


Charlotte was strangely silent as she and William, on Mouse and Dove, followed Poppy out of the yard. She sat well on the
pony, making it walk out in a way that no one else could manage. She must have a proper horse soon, Jemima thought, and remembered
her own excitement when her father had given her her first horse, the beautiful black gelding Jewel, long since gone to the
Elysian fields.


‘Mother,’ Charlotte said at last, in a voice unusually subdued. ‘Mother, why do you want to be rid of me?’

‘Rid of you? Whatever can you mean by that?’ Jemima checked Poppy, who was eager to gallop, to let the ponies come alongside
her.


‘Well, when Alison was brushing my hair just now she said to Rachel that you’d have a hard job to get rid of me when the time
came.’ Her voice was small, and she looked up at her mother with something like fright. ‘Are you going to send me away? Me
and not William?’ Jemima’s heart melted.


‘Oh, my dear, it’s only servants’ talk. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘But she meant something?’ Charlotte persisted with perfect truth.


‘She meant that I should have a hard job to find you a husband, because you are not like Mary,’ Jemima said, deciding honesty
was the best response.


‘But I don’t want a husband. And I don’t want to be like Mary. You don’t want me to be like Mary, do you?’

‘I want you to lead a happy and useful life, my love. You must be married one day, and I’m afraid husbands like their wives to be like Mary – at least, to have some of her qualities.’


‘But why must I be married? I don’t want a husband. I’ve got William. Do I have to get married, even if I don’t want to?’

‘I would not force you to marry someone you disliked. To be married to a man you disliked would not make you useful or respectable,’
Jemima said feelingly, remembering her own first marriage to her Cousin Rupert, Earl of Chelmsford, who before he had drunk
himself to death had all but ruined them, and brought the Morland estate to the brink of bankruptcy. ‘But you must marry someone.
Boys can have a career, but there is nothing else for girls to do.’


‘It’s not fair,’ Charlotte cried.

‘It’s the way the world is,’ Jemima said. ‘Even for me – I was my father’s heir when my brothers died, and he taught me business,
but still my mother arranged a match for me.’


‘The wicked Earl,’ Charlotte said. It was something of a cautionary tale in the schoolroom.

‘I was fortunate that he died when he did, and I was able to marry your Papa,’ Jemima finished. It deflected Charlotte for
a moment.


‘Is Papa ever going to come back?’ she asked. It was only a childish emphasis, but it made Jemima shiver: her unspoken dread was that she
would never see him again. ‘He has been gone so long.’


‘Almost three years, but it seems longer. James does not even remember him,’ Jemima said sadly. ‘Father Ramsay says it cannot
last much longer.’


‘But Papa does not even write like Cousin Thomas.’

‘Father Ramsay says one must not expect letters from someone on a diplomatic mission. His business is for the King, and secret,
and it may not be possible for Papa to write to us without giving a secret away.’


‘I wish the King had never sent him,’ Charlotte said crossly. Jemima nodded. She wished, even as she had wished at the time, that her brother-in-law, the new Earl of Chelmsford, had never presented Allen at Court, where his talents
could come to the King’s notice. Chelmsford did it to be kind, just as he had sold Morland Place to Allen at less than its
true value, as a kindness to Jemima, who had been left destitute on Rupert’s death. But so often the Morlands had been involved
in a king’s business, and it had rarely brought them anything but grief. Her father had met his death as a result of the ‘45
rebellion, and Allen had spent fifteen years in exile in France because of it. It was that exile which had given him the special
experience which made him so useful to King George, and taken him from her for three long years.


‘I wish it too,’ she said. ‘It is a fine thing to serve the King, and no doubt the King will reward him. But I had sooner
he stayed at home with us.’


‘You miss him, don’t you, Mother?’ William said, watching her face.

‘He is the best man in the world,’ she managed to reply.

‘Perhaps Charlotte could marry someone like Lan,’ William said. ‘If she learns to keep her hair tidy.’

‘But I don’t want to marry anyone,’ Charlotte scowled, and the conversation had turned full circle.

When they left Twelvetrees, Poppy was still pulling and fretting, for she had not been out much in the past few days, and
since Charlotte was in the same condition, Jemima took pity on them and said, ‘We shall ride a long way back, and have a canter
across Hob Moor, and go down to the Hare and Heather and see if there are any letters.’ It was a convenient excuse, and Charlotte,
who opened her mouth to say that the footman had been down for letters only that morning, had wit enough to close it again.
They skirted Morland Place through the fields, galloped as fast as the ponies could go across the moor, where the common herdsman
was tending the village cattle, jumped the Holgate Beck in fine style, and pulled up just in time to avoid running down a little girl who was herding geese back from High Moor. They were just above the South
Road, opposite the new racecourse, which Jemima’s father had helped to build. Below them was St Edward’s School, and across
the road from it St Edward’s Church and the Hare and Heather Inn.


‘There’s the London coach!’ Charlotte cried excitedly. ‘Stopped outside the inn.’

‘It must be putting someone down,’ Jemima said. ‘Sometimes it is easier to set down here than to go right into the city, if
a person is travelling on by another coach.’


‘There’s Jack taking down the boxes,’ William said. ‘And Abel holding the horses.’ The children knew most of the inn servants,
who often came up to the house to bring messages or parcels or casks of ale. ‘Shall we go down, Mother?’


‘No, we’ll wait until the coach moves on. There will be enough bustle, without our adding to it.’

The children watched, enough interested in the sight not to mind being kept at a distance, until the coach drew away again
and lurched up the road towards the city. Then they saw that the alighted traveller, instead of going inside the inn, was
standing outside, giving directions about his boxes to Jack and Abel.


‘Why, Mama,’ William cried, ‘it’s—’

‘Yes,’ said Jemima, who had recognized the traveller at the same instant. ‘It’s Cousin Thomas.’

‘But why did you not let us know you were coming?’ Jemima asked. She had dismounted to embrace her cousin, and Poppy, poking
her mistress in the back with a hard, impatient muzzle, made her voice jerky.


‘Oh, the mail is so slow, and I knew I could be here by the stagecoach sooner than a letter, so I did not bother,’ Thomas
said. In his brown face his eyes were a brilliant blue, and his teeth startlingly white as an irrepressible grin revealed
his delight to be home. ‘Did I do wrong?’


‘My dear Thomas, of course not! We are so glad to see you. Only this morning—’


‘We were all talking about you in the orchard,’ Charlotte broke in, trying to edge Mouse nearer to the exciting newcomer.
‘Flora was saying—’


‘But what were you doing on the London coach?’ Jemima asked hastily. ‘I thought you were to come in to Portsmouth.’

‘I was, until I came up with the Channel Fleet off Flushing. When I made my number the Admiral diverted me with dispatches
to London Pool, and the Admiralty have decided to give the poor old Hydra one last run up the coast before she’s laid up for good. So I have an extra week or so of leave, since the Ariadne is not ready yet.’


‘Well, I am entirely delighted, though I’m afraid we have been plum harvesting today, so it will be poor feasting for you
tonight. Abram will be most put out, not to have a special dinner ready for you. You know he never feels we keep enough state
even on common occasions.’


‘Poor Abram! Well, I should not like to upset him. Suppose Charlotte and William ride on ahead and warn him, while you and
I walk back together?’ He gave her a significant look, and so Jemima agreed and the twins, delighted to be the ones to bring
the great news, turned their ponies and dashed away homewards. Thomas took Poppy’s reins from Jemima politely, and looked
directly into her inquiring eyes. ‘I have news for you, which I thought you would like to have first alone.’


Jemima tried to ask a question, but her mouth had dried, and she could only move her lips soundlessly. Thomas smiled and took
her hands.


‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He is home, he is back, safe and sound. He is in London this very moment, and another week should bring him
to you. He bid me bring you all the proper messages, and would have written but he has not an instant’s leisure from making
his reports to the King. But his greetings he bade me bring you, and his love he will bring himself in a week more.’


Jemima had no words, no words at all; she only gripped Thomas’s hands so hard that there were tears in his eyes, to match
those in hers.


‘His lordship is wait