"Ah!" the Earl laughed. "You are ever your
own self. No God or king for you!"
"I suppose I am to learn to follow others
now."
The Earl seemed to lighten up as he said,
"Yet I think I have seen you following a young lady about the
garden?"
"I think you have seen her following me!"
John gave his father a crooked smile and the
Earl laughed again, more wholeheartedly this time. "True! Miss
Georgiana thinks herself very clever by taking such big detours to
get to where you are."
John's eyes were twinkling. "And I don't mind
it when she gets there."
"Well, her father ought to be glad for her to
make a decent match, with so many girls. Blake is a very good man.
Have you spoken of marriage?"
"It's understood."
"She loves you, but she is young, and you
might be gone a while. Be sure to send her news of all your
exploits, and keep her pining. She won't find anything to compare
with you around here."
The Earl seemed to be fighting his own
emotions, and he finally managed to say, "I want you to know,
Johnny, I have provided for you and your mother. When I am gone,
she will have everything she needs. That house is hers. She will
never want for anything, and neither will you."
"I know, father. But don't be gone."
The Earl had to purse his lips for a second
to hide his feelings again, as it touched him that his bastard
should love him so much more generously than his other sons, who
always seemed to want something from him.
"Will you write?" he finally asked.
"I shall."
The two men stood and the still Earl tried
valiantly to keep the tears from his eyes as he said, "You are my
true born son, John. You are the son born out of love." He still
fought to control himself and added. "Come back, Johnny."
John embraced his father and then made a
quick exit, because he knew that the Earl didn't want to be seen
crying any more than his mother had.
There was no danger of tears from his half
brother Montrose, who met him in the staircase of the great
hall.
"Going, are you?" Hugh asked, looking John up
and down with a sneer.
"Indeed," John replied.
"Well," Hugh said, as he kept going up the
steps. "Be careful with the food. I hear a lot of men don't even
make it to battle, for shitting their guts out."
John kept descending. "As elegant as ever,
Montrose," he said dryly.
A groom brought his horse to the front of the
castle, and Ned came running from the lawn to say goodbye. His
cheeks were permanently flushed, and seemed redder than usual as he
exclaimed, "I say, John, take care, will you? And bring me
something back!"
"What, a Frenchman's skull or an Indian
bride?"
Ned spluttered with laughter. "I'd rather
have the skull."
John was on his horse already. "Who knows, by
the time I return you might like the bride better."
He touched his brother's head and rode off,
taking the path through the woods, as he always did, and as a
girl knew that he did. And sure enough, there was a horse blocking
the road with Miss Georgiana on it, looking as beautiful, in John's
opinion, as any creature had any right to.
He dismounted and walked over to her, picking
her up by the waist and setting her down in front of him.
"John, you are so magnificent in that
uniform, though I hate it more than anything!" she cried.
"You are ever full of contradictions!"
She put her gloved hands on his chest. Her
eyes had filled with tears.
"What's this, George? If you weep you'll be
made quite ugly, and I shan't want to come back."
But her tears had spilled over in spite of
her efforts and John had lied, because he was already holding her
close and kissing her.
"If someone should come by..." she said with
a small sob after they had kissed for a while.
"They can be hanged."
She laughed. "True! There are many trees here
from which to hang them, too!"
Georgiana lifted her face to be kissed some
more: this was all she would have of John for months, perhaps
years.
"John...Will you write?"
"I think I won't have time to fight, as
everyone keeps asking me to write!"
"Good!"
"But I shan't write very long letters to you,
as you are no reader. And I am not sure I will understand anything
you write to me, with that shocking spelling of yours."
John saw Georgiana's eyes go up and to the
right, and he realized that she was trying to spell the
word
shocking
in her head. He began to laugh, and
to kiss her face, "It is very hard to leave, when you are so
adorable..."
"Then don't leave!" She put her cheek against
his neck, not wanting to see the regret on his face. "I can
tell you what my letters shall say: that my older sisters are
hateful, and my younger ones adorable, that papa is the dearest
papa in the world, that I visit your mother often to talk of you
and to sneak into your room and look at your things, that I visit
the Earl to comfort him and that..."
He waited; he would make her say it.
"...and that I long for nothing but you!"
John rocked her a little. "And my letters to
you will always be the same as well. I shall write that I have
survived another day, that army food is terrible, that I had a
fever or a chill but recovered, that India is very hot. I shall
never tell you battle stories because they are the most tedious
stories that a man can tell. I shall write that no one has more
beautiful eyes than you, or creamier skin, or lips that I long to
kiss, and that I want to come back and keep kissing you."
"And be married, please," she asked, like a
little girl.
"And be married, please," he agreed,
laughing.
He had already
defyled
her
by kissing her on the day of the race, and a few times since then,
so Georgiana stood with her arms around his neck and her lips to
his until he had to go. Then, unlike his mother, since she hadn't
yet lived long enough to disguise her strongest emotions, she stood
weeping on the path as he rode away, and this time he didn't look
back, because he didn't want to see his girl crying.
A letter was dispatched to India two years
later. It read:
June 17th, 1760
My Dearest Love,
I hardly know what to write, as there has
been so much Heartbreak for everyone, and there will be more.
How can I write these things to you, when
you face Death every day? You write so modestly, my love, yet
everyone here knows how brave you have been. I know you are
promoted liutenant-colonel, and leading a battalion, and I never
doubted you would be highly esteemed.
You must still be brave now, reading this,
brave for both of us. I feel all my Courage has deserted me, if
ever I had any.
My darling, I know you know by now from my
letters and others that influenzza took your Father this
Spring and that your Mother nursed him, and was struck with it
herself two months later. There was nothing on earth that could be
done for either of them, or it would have been done.
Your Mama did not want me with her at the
end, though I stayd in any case. She was so frightened that I
should get sick, but I didn't. John, she dyed smiling when she
thought of you, and she sayd this, that she and your Father had
true love after all, as they went to Another World within little
time of each other. And her only regrett was that she couldn't see
you.
Your brothers were spaired, though Ned was a
little sick, and became so thin. Our house was spaired too - it was
spaired the dizease, but not scandal.
My love, I wrote to you that my sister
Virginia, who was meant to marry Mr. St James, married a penny less
schoolteacher eight months after you left. She eloped with him, and
brought Shame on all of us, and Scorn.
It cut my heart in so many pieces to see my
Father in such a state, for so much depended on this marraige for
the whole family. You know my Papa, and he is never a distemperate
or desperate man, and yet I saw him with his face in his hands, and
wondering what he should do.
Then this Spring dizease took so many people
around us, and he despaired that he should also suddenly go, and
leave his girls in poverty, as my cousin would take the house and
the Annuity from the lands, and leave us with nothing.
John, my Dearest Heart, you cannot imagine
the great pain I felt at seeing my Father like this, and my sisters
crying.
And this is the horrible thing which I must
tell you, that your brother Montrose, who is now the Earl, came to
the house and locked himself up with my father; and when he came
out, my father calld me and told me what had been sayd.
That your brother wishes to marry me, and
that by doing so all my sisters will be saved, because of his great
fortune and connections.
Papa sayd that I could not marry him, as I
was betrothed to another man, and Montrose, or rather Halford as he
must be known now, sayd that he knew Papa meant you, and that I was
not betrothed, that he knew there had never been a formal promise
on either side between us.
He sayd that it was foolish for me to wait
for a man who might not come back from War, and who had no property
or livelyhood, and could not help his daughters. That my sisters
and I should live in penury, as Servants or Beggars.
He sayd many such things, which made my
father weep when he was gone, and his distress was so great I
thought I should die of pity.
Papa offered that Halford should pick Bess,
but he disdained her, and sayd that he was lowering himself to
choose one of us at all, but that it should be me or No One. Bess
heard this, as she was listening through the Keyhole, and now hates
me beyond what she hated me before.
My sweet love, I cannot marry Halford as I
do not love him, or even like him. I think I hate him. I cannot
marry any man but you.
John, I must hear from you by the very next
post. It will take so long for this letter to reach you, and you
must write back the very same day. What shall I do?
I shall find excuses to delay my answer, I
shall pretend to be ill and dying. My darling, I think I shall die,
I think I would, if I would not cause such terrible grief to my
father, and leave my sisters so helpless.
I shall delay this response in the hope that
Bess finds a man like Mr. St James, or even Cecily who is now
seventeen and very pretty may find a man who will save us.
John, I beg you to write to me, and tell me
what I shall do. If only your Mama or Papa were alive, they would
help me too, they would not let this happen.
I must hear from you, John! Tell me that
everything will be well, and that we shall overcome this, and you
and I can be together.
Forgive the sploches and the bad
handwriting, I cannot stop crying, though I should be offering you
confort as you suffer in War, instead of demanding your help.
I love you so, John.
G.
Georgiana's heartfelt letter in her bad
handwriting, her shocking spelling, and full of her tears, never
made it to John, for the ship that carried it abroad sank during a
bad tempest off the coast of Africa, taking her desperate plea to
the bottom of the sea with it.
One hardly needed to be in society to know
that the Countess of Halford was one of the most beautiful and
elegant women in London. She was beautiful by nature, in the glory
of her twenty years, and she was elegant by discernment. She always
remained fashionable and poised, as was expected of her.
A contract had been signed between her and
her husband, Hugh Stowe, upon their marriage. It did not specify
what her duties should be, but it did not have to. A Countess of
Halford should always be exquisite.
It was a part she played, as she had played
many parts in the nine months since her marriage. She walked in the
park enveloped in her furs, and sat at the theatre in her diamonds,
and entertained at home in splendid gowns. The winter of 1761
was no different than the other seasons of her marriage except in
this: that by February, the war in India was over.
"Jack is coming home!"
She had expected to hear this, sooner or
later, but when Ned entered during luncheon to announce it, she
couldn't help the clatter her fork and knife made against the fine
china dish.
"Is anything the matter, Georgiana?" her
husband asked coldly, turning toward her, though she could see that
his face was pale.
"Other than the news Ned has just brought, I
don't see what the matter could be," she replied with as much
coldness. It seemed to be the way that noble people spoke to each
other, most of the time.
Hugh sought to stare her down, but did not
manage. "I don't see that there is any interest in that John
Crawford should return."
"Oh, but steady on, Hugh!" Ned protested. "He
is our --"
It was Hugh who now set his cutlery down
almost with violence, "I forbid you from calling him that! How much
of a fool are you?"
"Steady on!" Ned repeated. Unfortunately,
though he was an affectionate boy, he did not have very strong
opinions, and ran from any confrontation with Hugh.
"Your brother asks if you are a fool," said
Georgiana to Ned, "because his solicitors disinherited the man who
can no longer be called your brother, and threw his mother out of
her house when she was ill and about to die..."
"I did not know that she was dying, or you
will agree that I would hardly have gone to the trouble of
procuring an eviction notice," Hugh said between gritted teeth, as
it was something he had said many times before.
"And now," Georgiana continued, playing with
her wine glass. "The man who is
not
your brother
is returning, and the man who is your brother thinks that John
Crawford might actually appeal to the law."