“This Young Jethro sounds a very uncomfortable sort of person to have about.”
“Them that’s over good is often uncomfortable, mistress.”
I agreed.
By an odd chance a few days later when I was riding with the boys, we tethered the horses and went down to the beach near that cave where I had sheltered with Harriet and Edwin when we had come back to England. I had a morbid fancy for returning to such places and conjuring up visions of the past.
There on the shingle the boys took off their boots and dabbled their feet in the sea while I sat watching them.
The waves were a little rough on that day and every time one came in they would shriek with laughter, run forward daringly and then run back. Then they amused themselves by sending pebbles skimming over the water.
The noise of the sea, the odour of seaweed, the happy shrieks of the boys were a background to my thoughts. I remembered the boat’s coming in. I pictured Edwin and Harriet exchanging looks. I tried to remember what they had said, and how they had said it. It was there for me to see and I had been blind.
I was aware suddenly of a crunching of boots on the shingle and looking up I saw a man coming along. He carried a basket in which he had some pieces of driftwood and perhaps other things he had picked up during his beachcombing.
He was muttering to himself. “Sinful. Should be beaten.” I knew instinctively that I was face to face with Young Jethro whose father had murdered my husband. I could not let him pass. “Sinful?” I cried. “Who is sinful?” He pulled up and looked at me with fierce, fanatical eyes shaded by brownish yellow brows so untidy that they sprouted in all directions and threatened to cover his eyes themselves. His great pupils stood out, for the whites of his eyes showed all round them so he had a look of fierce surprise and horror. His mouth was tight and drawn in, turning down at each side.
“Them bits of sin,” he said pointing to the boys. “I can assure you that they do not know the meaning of sin.”
“You go against God’s Word, woman. We be all born in sin.”
“Even you?”
“God help me, yes.”
“Well since you share in the sin, why are you so eager to point it out in others?”
“Laughing, shrieking … two days off the Sabbath!” I felt angry with him. His father had killed Edwin. But for his father Edwin would not have died. I might never have discovered his infidelities. But could he have gone on through his life pretending …
“Nonsense,” I said, “people are meant to be happy.” He moved away from me as though he feared to be contaminated by such wickedness. “You’re a sinful woman,” he said. “God will not be mocked.” Edwin had seen the man. He thought I needed protecting and came running up.
“Mama, Mama, did you want me?”
I was so proud of him. He looked up boldly into that repulsive face and said: “Don’t you dare hurt my mama.”
I had risen to my feet and placed my hand protectively on my son’s head.
Recognition dawned on Young Jethro’s face. “I knew your father,” he said.
“My father was the best man in the world,” said Edwin.
“Ananias,” cried Young Jethro. “Ananias.”
“What does he mean, Mama?” asked Edwin.
I did not speak. I was very shaken by this man who knew so much about my husband.
“The wages of sin …” muttered Young Jethro, his eyes on Edwin.
Leigh came running up. He was breathless. “I’ve thrown a pebble over and over the water. It’s gone all the way to France.”
“It couldn’t have,” said Edwin.
“It did. It did. I saw it go.”
Young Jethro had gone off muttering, “And the wages of sin is death.”
“Who’s that old man?” asked Leigh.
But Edwin was thinking of the pebble which had gone skimming across the water to France and was determined to throw one himself.
“Show me,” he said. “I’ll send one farther than you.”
They raced back to the water while I watched the retreating figure of Young Jethro.
I think I knew it was going to happen, and when I was sure, I felt a sense of relief because fate had made up my mind for me.
I knew I must act quickly and I did.
When I was alone with Carleton, I said: “I am pregnant.”
His eyes lighted up. His face seemed to shine with the enormity of his satisfaction.
“My dearest Arabella. I knew it.” He had lifted me in his arms. He held me tightly. He kissed me again and again. We were in the garden and I said: “We could be seen.”
“Does it matter? A man is allowed to embrace his future wife. Oh, my dear girl, this is the happiest moment of my life.”
“It is what you wanted. You will be Edwin’s stepfather and Eversleigh will be yours in all but name.”
“As if I was thinking of Eversleigh.”
“You know you always are thinking of it.”
“I am thinking of everything. My wife and already carrying our child. That is wonderful. I am an impatient man, you will find, my darling. This suits my mood. I am to acquire a wife and a child in the shortest possible space of time.”
“I see no alternative but marriage,” I said, trying to sound doleful.
“There is no alternative. I shall go straight in and tell my uncle. I know he’ll be delighted. It was what he wanted. Or shall we marry secretly? Then we might have another ceremony and festivities later. That would account for the early arrival of our child.”
“I did not think you were one to set such store by the proprieties.”
“I like to observe them when they fit in with my needs. Oh, Arabella, I am a happy man this day. That which I have so long desired has come to pass. Yes, let us marry in secret. I will arrange for a priest to do this. Then we will tell my uncle, and I know they will probably want another ceremony and celebrations here.”
“There seems no point in such subterfuge.”
“Yes. Because the sort of wedding they will wish us to have might take a little time to arrange. There is our child to consider. We want him to make a respectable entrance into the world.”
“Please do not think I am duty bound to provide you with a boy.”
“Believe me, it is Arabella I want. I shall be grateful for whatever she deigns to give me. Leave this to me, Arabella. Arabella, how I adore you.”
“At least,” I said, “I should be grateful that you are ready to make an honest woman of me.”
“Never change.” He smiled at me gently. “I could not bear you to change. There was always something of the polygamist in me, so I need my two Arabellas. Arabella of the sharp tongue by day and Arabella adorable, loving me as I love her in the dark of the night.”
“There is only one of me, you know. Do you think I can really supply all your needs?”
“You already have the answer to that. Proof positive.”
He went off that day and did not come back until the morning of the following one. I was to meet him at the stables that afternoon. We rode off some five miles together and there in a small church we were married. Two of his Court friends were witnesses.
I said: “It is exactly like what I hear of a mock marriage. I believe that is a practice some of your profligate friends indulge in now and then.”
“Alas, they do. But this is no mockery. This is true and binding. We shall go straight back to Eversleigh and I will tell my uncle that we are married, but I shall not tell him when the ceremony took place. I’ll promise you he will insist on our being married in the Eversleigh church with many spectators and a feast to follow. Then you will not be able to say it is like a mock marriage.”