The Maiden

Book 8: Morland Dynasty

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

1720: political intrigue besets the kingdom as the Stuarts try to claim the throne occupied by the Hanoverians and the Morlands have to use all their wiles to keep their fortunes intact.

Jeremy Morland, sole heir to his father's will, has no option but to marry to cold-hearted Lady Mary to secure Hanoverian protection and safeguard his inheritance. Then the rebellion of '45 and the bloody massacre at Culloden thrust his daughter Jemima into the spotlight as the saviour of the family.

Independent, single-minded, and a rare beauty, Jemima is a capable caretaker of the Morland heritage. Although Morland Place and its lands suffer from the excesses of her dissolute husband, Jemima's quiet courage earns her an abiding love and loyalty.

Release date: August 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 416

Sample

One fine October day in 1720, the first dry day for a month, James Edward Morland came riding home to Morland Place from Leeds.
He had been staying with Sir John Ibbetson, a master-clothier, a visit which his father had arranged in order that he should
learn something of the business; Sir John was unusually indulgent towards the young, and had two pretty daughters, and Jemmy
had managed to pass his time most agreeably, despite the weather, which confined them indoors.


It was a relief to be away from Morland Place, a relief which he believed his father, Matt, shared. Jemmy’s mother was dead:
she had hanged herself in her bedchamber when Jemmy was a child, leaving behind her the confession of a series of adulteries
which had broken her husband’s heart. Matt had adored her, and had trusted her implicitly. After her death he grew morose
and gloomy, and for a long time he had refused to acknowledge even the existence of the six sons she had left behind her.


Time had brought Matt to accept that Jemmy, the firstborn, was probably his own, and he had acknowledged Jemmy as his heir.
But he remained a solitary and uncommunicative man, and Jemmy felt that the frequent absences from home his father arranged
for him were as much to take him out of his father’s sight as to educate him. Of Jemmy’s brothers, only the two youngest,
Tom and Charles, remained at home, educated by the chaplain tutor and kept strictly out of their father’s way. The other three
had been sent away to be educated, Robert and Edmund at Christ Church, Oxford, and George at Eton.


There had been a time when it had seemed that Matt’s sad life might be redeemed. The 1715 rebellion, though it had been tragic
for the Morlands as a family, had brought Matt the return of his childhood friend Davey, and a second wife, his cousin Sabina, who had loved him since childhood. Sabina
had survived terrible ordeals to escape to Morland Place with her sole remaining child, Allen, having lost everything in the
rising. Matt had devoted himself to her, and they had married, and had been happy for a while. But a difficult pregnancy and
a perilous delivery of a stillborn child had left Sabina bedridden, virtually a cripple, and her suffering, for which Matt
blamed himself, had sent him back into his dark cave of solitude.


Jemmy was very fond of his step-mother, but he had been in no hurry to end his visit to Leeds. However the change in the weather
could not be ignored, and he had set off before dawn, as every good traveller should. No curtain of the Ibbetson house twitched
as he clattered out of the yard on his horse, Auster, with his servant Jack slouched gummy-eyed and yawning on his own horse
behind him. The young ladies were evidently not so in love with him as he had thought, not enough to rise from their beds
early to see him go, at any rate.


As they rode, the sun began to rise in the pale sky, glancing off the pools of standing water on every side, glittering dazzlingly
on the droplets that hung from every leaf and twig. It was fortunate that Jemmy had ridden this way many times before, for
the road had virtually disappeared. In wet weather, the centre of the road became rutted and sunken, and gradually filled
with water; it was impossible to drain it, for the continuous process of scraping layers of mud away on cartwheels and sledge-runners
left it lower than the surrounding land. So travellers would begin to strike out their own line on the higher, drier ground
on one side or the other, until that, too, became a morass. The present wet weather had lasted so long that where the road
had once been there was now only a twenty-foot-wide quagmire, eating deeply into the unfenced fields on either side. Jemmy
made no attempt to use the road, but went straight across country, heading for Wetherby and the Crown Inn, where he meant
to break his fast. Auster was glad to be out after his long confinement in the stable, and laid down his feet with a will, while Jack kept
up a sotto voce stream of complaint at the speed and the rough travelling. Kick his horse as he may, it would never break in to a canter,
but only trotted faster and faster, shaking Jack’s teeth in his head where, in any case, they were none too soundly embedded.


In Jemmy’s opinion, the Crown Inn served the best ale in Yorkshire, as well as good food, which was free if you drank enough
ale. Besides that, the landlord had a pretty daughter of seventeen, and Jemmy was nineteen and unwed. He lingered with pleasure
in the parlour, which he had to himself until a large grey cat stepped delicately in through the open casement, and sat in
the patch of sunlight on the windowsill, its eyes half-closed in bliss at the blessed warmth, its bushy tail curled tightly
around its forefeet as if to stop them escaping.


Rose, the landlord’s daughter, brought his breakfast, but declined to be drawn into conversation, and Jemmy guessed from her
muted voice and lowered eyes that her father had warned her not to linger. Jemmy had been wild in his youth, and at one time
would have regarded that as a challenge, but at nineteen he was more philosophical, and Rose’s reticence only made him shrug.
He drank a quart of ale, and ate the best cut off a round of beef, a wedge of sweet, crumbly Wensleydale cheese, and enough
fresh hot bread to have caused an older stomach considerable unease. Then he finished off his meal with a couple of small,
crisp pearmains, stretched his legs and stared past the dozing cat at the sunlit world with contentment. Indeed, he had little
enough in life to vex him. He was young, healthy, handsome, and the heir to a valuable estate. If his father’s temper made
his social life a little restricted, why, he had horses and hounds and coverts to hunt, and there was always something to
do to take him out of the house.


When finally he went out to the stable to fetch Auster, he found Jack leaning against the doorframe and staring moodily at the sky, which had deepened from its pale beginnings to a perfect bluebell shade.


‘Ready now, Jack? Did you get something to eat?’ he asked cheerfully. Jack shook his head gloomily.

‘Naught but new bread, master, and no doubt that’ll give me the gripes before long. And hossler says the glass is going back,
and it’ll rain again any moment.’


Jemmy glanced again at the cloudless sky, and said, ‘The ostler wouldn’t be a cousin of yours, I suppose?’

‘And the roads,’ Jack went on remorselessly, ignoring the pleasantry. ‘The mire’ll be enough to drawn a man. If we get through
it’ll be a miracle, and if we sink, there’s not a soul knaws where we are to come and fetch us out.’


‘We’ll go over the moor, and stick to the causeway,’ Jemmy said soothingly.

‘Aye, if t’causey’s not broken all to bits, for it’s no man’s care to mend it as I can see.’ He sniffed. ‘You’ll not be the
only one to think of sticking to t’causey.’


Jemmy made no answer, busying himself with tightening Auster’s girth. Jack was right, of course – the stone causeway down
the centre or the side of the road was meant for foot-travellers or single horsemen, but when the mud was bad, everyone stuck
to it, even the heavily-laden packhorses, and the stone surface soon broke and crumbled under heavy traffic. But he would
not give Jack the satisfaction of agreeing with him.


When they got past Bickerton and onto Marston Moor, they found things even worse than expected, for the Sike Beck had overflowed,
making a sheet of water to either side of the causeway, which itself was entirely blocked by a train of packhorses, standing
inexplicably stationary.


‘Now what’s to do?’ cried Jemmy crossly, flicking at the rump of the end horse with his crop. The packhorse did not even flinch,
standing head down, burdened by its huge, bulky packs. Its legs were thick with grey-brown mud, its tail was lank with it;
the long hair on its belly was so festooned with it that it hung down like strange stalactites; even its packs were splashed
with it.


‘Why aren’t they moving?’ Jemmy said, standing in his stirrups to try to see ahead. It was a long train, stretching seemingly
for ever, and though he could see men moving about up ahead, he could see no cause for the holdup.


‘We s’l have to strike our own path, master,’ Jack said with gloomy satisfaction, eyeing the water to either side. ‘Most like
we s’l drawn, and that’ll be the end of that.’


‘If you go in over your head, Jack, I promise I shall erect a stone monument on the place,’ Jemmy said tersely, and Jack was
silenced, wondering whether or not this was a tribute to his loyal service. ‘Come on.’


Auster was extremely unwilling to leave the safety of the causey, and Jemmy had to use spurs and crop before he could make
him take the first leap. They went in girth-deep, and Jemmy shuddered as the water ran cold and clammy down inside his boots.
He drummed on Auster’s sides, and the horse proceeded, eyes bulging, in a series of snorting lunges, sending sheets of brown
water up on either side as they went past the stationary pack beasts. Jemmy soon identified the trouble: the train was in
fact two trains, of perhaps seventy animals in each, which had met head-on on the narrow track, and the packmen and their
boys were apparently arguing over who should give way to whom. It was an amusing scene, for while the men were in hot altercation,
with much shouting and waving of arms, the two lead horses in their belled harnesses had leaned their muzzles together like
old friends and gone to sleep.


‘Holloo!’ Jemmy yelled as soon as he was near enough. ‘What’s to do? You can’t stay here all day, you know.’ The two men looked
round. Jemmy knew them both: one, Ezra Pyke, was a familiar figure around York, a brogger of the old school; the other, a
clothier called Scotney, Jemmy had seen once or twice at market in Leeds. They both knew him, of course, and their faces brightened
as they discovered an authority to appeal to. They both began speaking at once.


‘Nay, master, it’s my road. He won’t give me past, damn his eyes.’


‘I come this road same time every week, everyone knaws that. I’ll not shift for him nor no man.’

They stared at each other.

‘Why, you black-hearted villain!’

‘You damned son of a thief!’

‘Peace, peace, be silent both, I pray you,’ Jemmy cried, lifting his hands. ‘One at a time, gentlemen, please. Now, Ezra,
you first.’


‘Like I said, master, I come this road same time, same day, every week. Yon villain Scotney knaws that well enough. He comes
of a Tuesday. He’s no right taking my road. I’ll not shift.’


He folded his arms righteously, and Scotney spread his hands to Jemmy in appeal. ‘Nay, young master, it’s true Tuesday’s my
day. But wi’ beck overflowing, naught but a train of eels could have got by yesterday—’


‘Then you should ha’ waited til next week,’ Pyke interrupted him. Scotney continued to address Jemmy.

‘I couldn’t hold off a week, master. The boat’s waiting at King’s Staith, and I’ve to get this lot to York by tonight, or
it sails without. And his horses aren’t loaded. He ought to give me road.’


That was a telling point. Jemmy nodded wisely, thoroughly enjoying himself. Pyke was scowling furiously, but both men were
still looking at Jemmy, appealing to his authority as ‘the young master’. He never had such consequence at home.


‘That’s true,’ he said at length, judicially. ‘Master Pyke, you must give road.’

Scotney beamed and rubbed his hands, and Pyke looked from one to the other grimly.

‘All very well, young master. But you nor no man will get my beasts to step off t’causey into that lake o’ water, not when
they’re faced from home.’ The unwillingness of packhorses to leave the causey was aphoristic, as Jemmy very well knew, but
he smiled placatingly at Pyke.


‘There’s no need for that. The flooding does not go on for ever. There is firmer ground back there.’ He nodded over Pyke’s
shoulder.


‘Aye, master, but—’

‘All you have to do is to untie each packhorse, turn it round on the spot, tie them all up again, and lead them back the way
you came until the ground is firm enough to step off and let Master Scotney past. Scotney and his boys will help you with
it, I am sure.’


Scotney nodded eagerly, and made admiring murmurs about Jemmy’s cleverness, but Pyke only looked the sourer. ‘Aye, and then
I s’l have the whole blessed business to do all over again, and Scotney will be long on his road by then, I warrant you, and
leave me to do it all.’


‘By no means,’ Jemmy said patiently. ‘All you’ll have to do is untie your bell-horse, bring him round to the front of the
train again, and off you go.’


Neither of them had thought of that, and Jemmy was hard put to it to hide his laughter. He beckoned to Jack and set off, and
Scotney waved and called out, ‘A judgement of Solomon, young master! God bless you!’ Jemmy waved back, biting his lips determinedly.
Behind him Jack rode in his own private cloud of gloom, and Jemmy thought ruefully how good it would be to have a friendly,
cheerful manservant with whom he could share life’s little amusements.


Shawes was a new house, within an easy walk of Morland Place. It was faced with the stone of the old house on whose site it
stood, so that it looked as though it had always been there. That had been the design of Sir John Vanbrugh, who had built
it for Annunciata, Countess Dowager of Chelmsford. It was a small house, in comparison with Vanbrugh’s other masterpieces,
and was therefore often called ‘Vanbrugh’s little gem’.


Henry Wise, who had been Queen Anne’s gardener, had laid out the grounds, dammed the stream to form a small lake, planted a mixture of saplings and mature trees, and created the formal parterre, which was just now coming into its
beauty. The trimmed hedges were of box, lavender, rosemary and yew, and encompassed geometrically-shaped beds of such small
flowers and herbs as attracted the bees and butterflies. This parterre was the favourite resort of the Countess’s daughter,
Aliena. It reminded her of the Palace of St Germain where she had spent most of her life with King James III and his sister
Louise-Marie.


She was walking with her three-year-old daughter, Marie-Louise, named after that same princess, and they strolled along the
gravel walks in silence, the child having for once run out of things to say. It was hot in the sunshine, and the nurse, walking
at a discreet distance behind them, doubted the wisdom of having left the shelter of the house, but they had been so much
indoors that year that Aliena could not resist the beckon of the Indian summer. The dog Fand ran on ahead of them, burying
his nose ecstatically in every bush he passed, drinking in the delicious multitude of smells. In his short life he had been
bitten and stung so often that his muzzle was scarred and hardened, and Aliena was not surprised when he suddenly jerked his
head back and froze. Then his ears cocked, he broke into a frenzy of barking, and rushed away, and Aliena saw that it was
a visitor that had startled him.


‘Jemmy!’ Marie-Louise cried as the tall figure came round the corner of the house to receive the excited dog full in the chest,
and she snatched her hand from her mother’s grasp and ran towards him.


Jemmy thrust the excited dog down and walked to the edge of the terrace to wait for the little girl, but his eyes were on
Aliena. She was so beautiful, tall for a woman, graceful with a kind of artlessness which he supposed her upbringing amongst
the nuns had given her. Her dress of grey silk was barely hooped, her cap and scarf were of untrimmed white lawn, and she
ought to have looked as plain as a Quaker; yet in the sweet expression of her face and dark blue eyes, and the natural fall of her soft dark curls, there was a beauty that tightened his throat.


Marie-Louise was very different. At three she was so precocious as to drive her nurses to despair, especially as her grandmother
insisted on having her educated like a young gentleman, rather than concentrating on maidenly virtues such as sewing and modesty
and silence. Jemmy had taken care of her riding lessons since she was eighteen months old; Father Renard, Annunciata’s priest,
who had taken Jemmy in hand in his wild youth, had been entrusted with the care of her mind. To the scandal of the servants,
Marie-Louise had had a fencing master as well as a music-master; Aliena had taught her French and Italian and Court etiquette.
It had been left to her grandmother alone to spoil her and pet her, and to fill her mind with tales of her illustrious forefathers
and the glory of the Stuart cause.


Marie-Louise was well-grown for her age, and already beautiful, with tawny hair and white skin and large brown eyes flecked
with gold, that would turn pure gold when she was in a rage. Her dress today was a perfect miniature of her mother’s down
to the small silk apron embroidered with a border of daisies, which Jemmy was willing to bet was not her own work. But where
on Aliena the silvery grey brought to mind images of peace and cool water, on the child it was like a silver lamp to hold
the flame of her face and eyes and hair. Beautiful and precocious she certainly was; she was also passionate, vain and imperious.


‘Where have you been so long?’ she cried now as she rushed up to Jemmy, seizing his legs in a hard embrace. ‘You have been
gone away for ever and ever, and it has never stopped raining, and I have been so bored!’

‘Oh, I have been away on business,’ Jemmy said easily, smiling down into the fiery golden eyes.

‘What business?’ she demanded. Fand, still circling, licked her face in passing with a swipe of his tongue, but she did not
even notice. She was always single-minded about things, and now she gripped the fabric of his breeches so tightly her knuckles whitened, and shook at them to enforce his attention.


‘Grown-up things. Very boring things,’ Jemmy said.

‘I don’t like it when you are away,’ she said deliberately, as if she had only to speak for her preferences to be fulfilled.
Aliena and the nurse had now caught up with her, and it was to Aliena that Jemmy addressed his answer.


‘Well, to say true, neither do I, but that is the common fate of us all. Being grown-up often means doing things you don’t
like to do.’


‘You lie!’ Marie-Louise cried, shaking him again. Aliena stooped and loosed her hands in a way that must have hurt her, though
the child did not permit it to shew.


‘How dare you speak so?’ Aliena said. ‘You will do a penance for that. You shall apologize at once.’

Marie-Louise barely gave her mother a glance, and her ‘Sorry, Mama’, was perfunctory. She was frowning at Jemmy, engaged in
some thought process of her own. ‘But I have to do things I don’t like all the time,’ she said with great emphasis. ‘And if being grown-up is not any different, then what is it for?’

Jemmy was laughing into Aliena’s eyes. ‘I don’t know, chuck. No one ever told me,’ he said. The nurse stepped forward and
reached for Marie-Louise’s arm.


‘Now then, miss, that’s enough chattering. Come with me, and let your Mama speak privately to the gentleman.’

Marie-Louise snatched her arm away and whirled on the spot, glaring at the nurse. ‘Don’t touch me! And don’t call me “miss”. Jemmy, tell her she must not call me “miss”. I want to stay with you. I won’t go away,
just when you’ve come back.’


The nurse rolled her eyes, as if to say, there, you see what I have to endure from this unnatural child. But Jemmy stilled
both women with a glance, and went down on his haunches to look into the child’s face.


‘My love, you must learn to be obedient to your mother, and to those that your mother puts in authority over you. That is your duty, and if you fail in it, God will not love you, and neither shall I.’


Marie-Louise looked defiant, and something in her eye told Jemmy that she valued Jemmy’s love more than God’s.

He kept his face stern and said, ‘Go now, without argument, and I shall come and see you later, I promise you. You shall have
me to yourself.’


‘For a whole hour,’ she conditioned. She could no more have gone without arguing than fly.

‘For the half of an hour, but only if you are a good girl, and do as you are told.’

She glared at the nurse, torn between the promise of having Jemmy to herself in the future, and the reality of sharing him
in the present. ‘But she shall not call me “miss”,’ she reverted. Jemmy looked stern.


‘It is quite sufficient title for such a little girl,’ he said. Her golden eyes filled with tears of hurt.

‘But it’s not,’ she said desperately. ‘It’s not. You don’t call me miss.’


‘Sweetheart, your titles are between us, for love, not for public use. You have had that explained to you so many times.’

But she gazed at him, the tears overflowing onto her cheeks, and he did not know, as he never did, how much was politic, and
how much her pride really was touched. So he put his mouth to her ear, and whispered,


‘Just between us, then. You are the Princess Marie-Louise Fitzjames Stuart, Countess of Strathord. There, will that do?’

She flung her arms round his neck and hugged him hard, and he could feel the hot wet tears on his neck. Then she released
him, nodded, and smiled radiantly, and allowed the nurse to take her hand and lead her away, only turning back for a moment
to say:


‘Remember, you promised!’

‘She is terribly spoiled,’ Aliena sighed when they were out of sight. ‘I’ afraid it is my fault. My mother indulges her, but
I am too strict, and the nurses say they could manage her if I would leave her in the nursery as a mother should. But I should not care to see her once a day, for five minutes,
as they wish me to. It was not so at St Germain.’ She smiled apologetically for bringing up that subject again. ‘She will
never do anything she does not want to, but it seems only you have the knack of persuading her to virtue.’


‘It is only because she is so young,’ Jemmy said comfortingly, drawing her hand through his arm and walking with her along
the gravelled path. ‘I, too, was wild when I was a boy, as Father Renard will tell you. She will grow steadier as she grows
older.’


‘I hope so, if you are to be away for such long periods,’ Aliena said teasingly. ‘You have been back from Leeds these three
weeks and never a visit.’


‘I would have come sooner, as you must know, but there has been so much to do at home, with my father away. You know that
he has gone to London? He went in my absence – this South Sea Company business must have unnerved him mightily.’


‘My dear Jemmy,’ Aliena laughed, ‘you need not sound so surprised. The whole of England is unnerved. Thousands of people have
been ruined, and lost all they had – not just the gentry, but the common people as well. Everyone who could lay his hand to
a sovereign or two invested it in the Company, and now they want to know where the money has gone.’


‘Oh, I know, there is talk of corruption and bribery and all sorts of villainy. But why should my father be troubled? You
know he sold his shares months ago, when your mother sold hers, and made a very handsome profit by it. She made him do it.
She said it could not last.’


Aliena smiled. ‘My mother was not moved by some mysterious foreknowledge of doom, I’m afraid, but by plain superstition. She
feels that gambling, except on horses, is wicked, and she began to be uneasy about getting so much for nothing, and sold out
to avoid attracting God’s attention.’


Jemmy laughed at this accurate portrait of his great-grandmother, the Countess Annunciata, and went on, ‘Very well, whatever
her reasons, she saved my father a deal of loss, and I hope he is grateful. But it does not explain why he has gone up to
London.’


‘Because, my dear Jemmy, the business life of the country has been in chaos, and anyone who has any concern in it is naturally
anxious to be on hand and to see what is to come of it all. My mother is gone too, to stay with my brother Maurice at Chelmsford
House. Maurice has contacts at Court, and at Leicester House where the Princess Caroline dotes on him. He is one person who
can come and go freely between the two royal establishments. He says it’s because he’s a musician, and no one suspects him
of listening to political gossip. If anyone ever says to him, ‘What’s your opinion of this, Morland,’ he gives a great start
and says, ‘Why, I beg your pardon sir, I had not attended. Were we speaking of the new opera?’


Jemmy laughed, and said, ‘Very well, your mother stays at Chelmsford House, which is after all her own property, and Maurice
visits the Royal family. What then?’


‘At Leicester House,’ Aliena explained, ‘Maurice bumps into Lord Newcastle and Sir Robert Walpole and their friends. I think
my mother would not be averse to making their acquaintance.’


‘But they’re Whigs!’ Jemmy cried in horror. Aliena’s teeth shewed very white when she laughed.

‘Oh the monsters!’ she mimicked him. ‘Well, perhaps my mother thinks that a Whig out of office is the next best thing to a
Tory in office. If this South Sea Company scandal destroys Stanhope, as seems likely, Walpole may be the next to rise to power.
I think mother would like to have a friend in power.’


‘Even a Whig?’

‘Truth to say, I think she cannot get used to being out of the game,’ Aliena sighed. ‘She has spent all her life in and around
Court, and she feels uneasy without her finger on the pulse, even if the pulse is now a minister’s rather than a King’s. And though she will never reconcile herself to the Elector, she quite likes Princess Caroline, though she finds
it hard to call her Princess of Wales. When Princess Caroline is Queen, she might find it in her to return to Court.’


Jemmy considered all this, and then rejected it. The Countess Annunciate had been his mentor and confidante, and he knew the
depth of her fidelity to the Stuart cause, and of her rejection of the Hanoverian usurpers. It was she who had encouraged
him at the age of fourteen to run away from home to join the Jacobite rising in Scotland; and only last year she had corresponded
with Jacobites in Spain who were planning an invasion. She had spent many years in exile with King James II, and her son,
the earl, had been condemned to death for his part in the 1715 rising, though he had escaped the Tower with his life.


Would this great lady, with the royal blood of the Stuarts in her own veins, now be content to be wooing squire’s sons and
new-made peers, whether Whigs or Tories, whether in or out of office? Jemmy did not think so.


‘She’s plotting something,’ he said, and Aliena shrugged and changed the subject.

On the last day of December, in the Palazzo Muti in Rome, Queen Clementina, the consort of King James III, gave birth to a
healthy son. He was christened Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Maria Sobieski Stuart. The news reached London
within days, and not long afterwards was known in Yorkshire and in Morland Place.


Neither Matt nor Annunciata had yet returned from London, and Jemmy had been thoroughly enjoying his regency. That Christmas
was one of the best Jemmy remembered, and the happy atmosphere so filled the house that his step-mother Sabina rose from her
bed to join in the fun, and even Jemmy’s brothers, home from their educational establishments for the season, were less disagreeabl