Mr Cavell's Diamond (15 page)

May 1833

Henry

Henry w
histled happily as he returned from a stroll along the Esplanade with Sultan. Life was good these days. Living with Jemima as his wife had left him feeling more contented and fulfilled than he had ever thought possible. As long as nothing came between them he felt as though he could live like this for ever, never wanting anything more.

Opening the front door, he found Jemima on her knees in the hallway scrubbing the tiled floor. She jumped to her feet as soon as he walked in.

‘Jemima, what are you doing cleaning the floor?’ he said, astonished.

‘
Oh, Mr Henry, I did not think you’d be back so soon. I thought I’d have enough time to get this done and the floor dry afore you got back. Sorry to be in your way.’

As if he cared about whether the floor was cleaned or not, dry or not, worked on while he was in the house or not!

‘Jemima, you’re not in my way, love, but tell me, why are
you
doing this? Can’t Maria scrub the floor?’

‘
She is busy in the kitchen, and the floor was dirty, so I thought I’d do it.’

He took hold of her shoulders and pulled her towards him. Burying his face in her hair, he said,
‘Jemima my love, it’s not your place to scrub floors any more. I’ve said before, if the work is too much for Maria we’ll take on another servant. You should not have to do this kind of work.’

She gently pulled herself out of his embrace.
‘Sir, I am still housekeeper here, am I not? I won’t set a servant to do any job I’d not do myself.’

‘
You are the mistress of this house now, my love.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘You could stop doing all work if you wanted. Though I know you like to cook, and the good Lord knows I love your cooking!’

‘
I like to cook, I like to sew and mend, I like to clean and keep house. I am happy, Mr Henry, doing what I do.’ She smiled, and laid her hand against his cheek. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

He kissed her
wrist and laughed. ‘Well my dear, if you like sewing so much, I believe I have a pair of breeches that need letting out. All your fine cooking is causing me to put on weight about my middle. And looking at you, excuse me for saying so, but I wonder if it’s having the same effect on you?’

She blushed, and looked at her feet.

Had he upset her? Henry opened his mouth to apologise and then, looking once more at her expanding waistline, blushed himself.

‘
Jemima, are you… could you be….?’

‘
There is a baby on the way, yes, Mr Henry,’ she said, still looking at her feet.

‘
But that’s wonderful! Oh, we shall be a real family! I hope it is the first of many. You will make such a marvellous mother. I remember how little Frances adored you. And how I shall enjoy being a father again, a proper father this time.’ He felt like clapping his hands and jumping on the spot, like a small boy who’d been given a present. But noting Jemima’s subdued expression he stopped.

‘
What’s wrong, love?’

‘
I am afeared you won’t want me any more. Babies change things between a man and a woman. And I am not bound to you by marriage.’

‘
Jemima, haven’t I told you, I love you and never want to be without you. This baby will strengthen our love, not diminish it, I am sure!’

‘
I believe you, Mr Henry, but what about everyone else?’

‘
Who? Who else matters?’

‘
People. Folk in Worthing. Your friends. With a baby we cannot hide how we live any longer. Everyone will know. My Ma and Pa will be ashamed. I am afeared they won’t want anything more to do with me.’ She looked up at him and he was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Why should she care so much about what other people thought? He did not.

‘
We do not need to hide our situation, Jemima. Let us stand tall and be proud of our love!’

She shook her head and turned away from him.
‘Mr Henry, when the baby begins to show I don’t think I can live here with you any more. I must go away somewhere to have it. Maybe later I can come back and we say the baby is adopted or is yours and Miss Caroline’s…’

‘
No! We will not pass the baby off as that woman’s. She is
nothing
to me now, you know that, and I’ll not have people think I still have relations with her.’

He sighed.
‘But if you want to go away to have the baby then so you shall. I have a house in Chichester which needs a housekeeper. It’s been closed up for some years but is furnished and quite pleasant. You may move there if you like, and I shall stay there with you as often as I can. Maria can manage here, with another maid perhaps. We’ll worry about how best to deal with Worthing’s gossip-mongers after the baby is safely born.’

He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, her head against his chest. He could feel the slight swelling of her womb against his pelvis. At the thought of the child that now grew inside her, his heart swelled once more with love. He would deal with her insecurities when the time came.

He felt her sigh against him. ‘Thank you, Mr Henry.’

‘
Just one more thing,’ he pushed her gently from him and looked deep into her eyes. ‘Now that you are carrying our child I absolutely
forbid
you to scrub any more floors. I’d rather walk through ankle deep dirt than risk this baby. Promise me?’

‘
I promise. No more floors.’ She picked up her bucket and cloth and went along the corridor to the kitchen stairs, smiling over her shoulder at him as she left.

Henry kicked off his boots and went into the drawing room, wincing as the wet floor soaked through his stockings. He picked up the morning paper to read but found he could not concentrate on the words. His mind raced with images of what was to come – Jemima growing big with child, the birth, a vision of himself holding his first born son. He could not help but grin with happiness.

Two years ago he had thought he was to become a father to Caroline’s child. He had been prepared to fight to make his marriage work, for the sake of the child. But the gradual dawning realisation that the baby could not be his had been the final nail in the coffin of his marriage.

Four
years ago he had married Caroline, believing she was pregnant. But she had lost the baby – if indeed there had ever
been
a baby.

How different it all was this time! He closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer that the baby would be born healthy and strong, and that there would be no harm come to Jemima.

That, he knew, he would not be able to bear.

Chapter 13 – November 1833

Henry

It had been over a week since Henry had last been able to go to
Chichester to see Jemima. He’d reluctantly had to go to London on urgent business, and while Dennett had droned on about accounts and mortgages and overdue rents, Henry’s mind had been on Jemima, her sweet, gentle smile, her ripe, swollen belly and the child which would soon be born. He’d signed papers, made decisions, given instructions to the lawyer as fast as possible and had arrived back in Worthing on the Sovereign the previous evening.

Maria had provided an acceptable meal, and confirmed there was no news as yet from Jemima, though she believed Mrs
Brown had gone to stay with her daughter to help out when the baby came. Henry would have hired a fly and gone straight on to Chichester that night, but the coach had been delayed from London due to one of the horses breaking a leg somewhere near Haywards Heath.

So
he’d had to wait till the morning before he could continue his journey. He threw some clean clothes in a small trunk and climbed aboard the morning coach to Chichester. It arrived at one o’clock and he went straight to his house near the Precinct.

The door was opened by a woman Henry recognised as Jemima’s mother,
Emily Brown. He flushed with embarrassment. The Brown family lived only a few streets away from him in Worthing, yet he had never invited Jemima’s parents to his house or called on them, not even since he and Jemima had become close. Not even since she’d become pregnant. But Jemima’s parents would be the grandparents of his child.

He collected himself and put out a hand to shake hers.
‘Henry Cavell, ma’am, at your service.’

She looked in astonishment at his hand
but ignored the hand he offered. Instead she dipped her knees in a brief curtsey. He bowed slightly. Her husband was a carpenter, so Jemima had said. A lowly carpenter would be grandfather to his child. But then, hadn’t he originally married a house-painter’s daughter, whose sisters were in service? What did class matter, after all?

He followed her into the house. She stood for a moment in the hallway, gaping slightly. Henry longed to rush to find Jemima but stood politely waiting for the woman to gather herself and tell him whatever it was she needed to say.

‘Sir, I must tell you…’ she began.

‘
Go on,’ said Henry, trying to read her expression. Good news, or bad news? Oh God, please let it be good news, and Jemima be all right…

‘
She birthed the baby this morning and tis a boy.’ Emily Brown let the words come out in a rush. She blushed and curtseyed again. There was a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

‘
And Jemima?’

‘
She is well, sir, tired but well. Longing to see you, she is. Wanted me to find paper so as she could write a letter to you in London and tell you. I told her I don’t know Chichester, how am I to find paper and ink here? Besides my place is here with her and the babby…’

Henry laughed aloud, the woman’s shyness had disappeared along with his own forebodings. He pushed past her and up the stairs, to Jemima’s room, and burst through the door

Jemima was sitting up in bed, wearing a white nightgown. Her hair was tied loosely over her right shoulder. Her left breast was exposed and in her arms she held the baby, who was sucking at her with gusto. At Henry’s entrance she looked up and broke into a broad smile.

‘
We have a son, Mr Henry.’

‘
Jemima, my love, my darling!’ He bent over her and kissed her, wondering how she could look so serene, so beautiful, just hours after giving birth.

‘
Look at him, Mr Henry,’ she said, gently pulling the baby off her breast.

Henry looked at the tiny pink infant, swaddled in a cream wool shawl. The child frowned and pursed his lips into an expression of intense seriousness, then closed his eyes in sleep and allowed his mouth to fall open slightly. There was a tiny droplet of milk on his lips, which Henry delicately wiped away with his finger, marvelling not only at the perfection of his tiny son, but at the miracle of biology that allowed a mother to produce the only food her child would need for many months.

‘He takes my breath away,’ he said, simply. He lifted his head and looked at her. A tear escaped and ran unchecked down his cheek. He had not cried since he was a child, but these tears were of sheer joy, pride that he was now a father at last, hope for his newborn child and above all, love for the woman who sat before him, her own eyes brimming with happy tears.

They sat in silence for a minute, just looking at each other and at the baby, until Mrs
Brown tapped lightly on the door and asked would Mr Cavell like some tea or maybe some luncheon?

‘
Only if you are making something for Jemima, thank you. I’ll not put you to any trouble on my own account,’ he said.

‘
Ma, can I have some tea?’ said Jemima. ‘And maybe a bit of bread and cheese. But there is some ham Mr Henry might like…’

‘
Bread and cheese is perfect for me, too,’ cut in Henry. Mrs Brown nodded and backed out of the room.

‘
She’s a kind woman, your mother,’ said Henry.

Jemima nodded.
‘She’s been here three days now. The midwife came for a few hours but Ma did everything. She had enough of her own to know, I reckon.’

‘
I’ll pay her for her time and trouble, of course,’ said Henry.

Jemima shook her head.
‘No, Mr Henry, she won’t like that. She’s my Ma, and this is my first child – nothing would have kept her from me at this time.’

‘
All right, you know best,’ said Henry with a smile. ‘I’ll spend my money on you and the child instead. What do you need?’

She chuckled.
‘I made a list. It is over there.’ She nodded her head towards the dressing table which stood in front of the window. Henry fetched it, and scanned it – muslins and shawls, baby nightgowns, a crib, bonnets, mittens.

‘
Where do I get all this from, then?’ he said, feeling out of his depth.

She laughed again.
‘Sir, I have already made most of it, and my Ma has made the rest. Only we need a crib for the child to sleep in. Or a drawer from a dresser will do.’

‘
No son of mine will sleep in a drawer,’ said Henry. ‘Your father is a carpenter, is he not? I shall give him a commission. The finest crib in all of Sussex for his grandchild!’

He took Jemima’s outstretched hand and kissed it tenderly.
‘I’m so proud, my love.’

‘
What shall we call him? I would like to call him Henry, after you,’ she said. ‘We must get him baptised.’

‘
Of course we must. Yes, I should like him to be called Henry. I was named for my father too. Let’s do it soon, here in Chichester. I’ll go to make the arrangements tomorrow. And when you’re strong enough we’ll go back to Worthing.’

The door opened then and Mrs
Brown brought in a tray of food. Jemima laid the sleeping baby down on a pillow and they put the tray on the bed, and fed each other morsels of bread and cheese. Henry could not remember ever feeling so profoundly happy in his life.