Free The Reckoning by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Page A

the honour, ma'am, of taking my arm. This sand is very tiring for a lady to walk over. We can talk about my dear Fanny,' he added in a low voice. 'Apart from Lady Henrietta's kind letter, I know nothing about her last weeks. I have no-one in the world with whom I can talk about her.’
    It was well done. Miss Rosedale, nursing only a subsiding spark of suspicion, could not refuse him, and in taking his arm implied a consent to walking a little behind the others and conducting a tete-a-tete. Jesmond Farraline, with perfectly grave courtesy, offered an arm each to Sophie and Rosamund, and as they walked along ahead, opened an unex ceptionable conversation about the weather and the remark able facilities Scarborough had to offer.

    *
    John Skelwith and Mathilde were invited to take 'family dinner' at Morland Place on Sunday. It was not the first time they had eaten there since their marriage, but the occasion was bound to be marked with an unusual tension. It was the first time Skelwith had entered Morland Place as the openly acknowledged fruit of James Morland's loins.
    ‘ Openly', of course, was a relative term. Even though, after Héloïse's talk with James and Edward, they had agreed there was no purpose in further concealing from each other the knowledge that they all knew what they knew, they had also agreed that it would be foolish and unseemly to broadcast it to the neighbourhood at large. Mathilde was enough of a daughter of the house to make John's acceptance as a son unremarkable, and as for those who guessed – let them keep their guess to themselves.
    Even that degree of openness, however, needed courage. When Skelwith walked in through the great door with Mathilde on his arm, to be received by the family standing formally in line in the hall, there were difficult feelings to be faced by all of them. Héloïse noted, as she always did, John's likeness to James, and felt again the complicated mixture of affection, jealousy and regret which she always felt on seeing him, ever since the truth about his parenthood had first been revealed to her. She loved him because she loved anything that was part of James; but he ought to have been her son, and the knowledge that another woman had borne a child to her man filled her each time with a futile, jealous rage.
    She stepped forward, embraced Mathilde, and then took John's hands. Looking into his face, she saw that it was far more difficult for him, who was part of it, than it could ever be for her, an outsider. She was ashamed of her selfishness. ‘Dear John,' she said, 'I am glad! Now I may love you openly as I have always done secretly. If I can ever be anything of a mother to you, I shall be happy.’
    His eyes filled abruptly with tears. He had loved his mother, difficult as she had been. Héloïse put her arms round him and hugged him, hard, to allow him to conceal them. ‘Thank you,' he said, muffled, into her hair. 'I'm glad too.’
    It was enough for now. Edward watched the exchange and the embrace and struggled against the hard feelings inside him. It was not John Skelwith's fault, none of it; but still he remembered the pain Skelwith's birth had caused Edward's parents – his mother's grief, his father's shock. And old Skel with – his misery and humiliation at being cuckolded by a careless boy of nineteen. It would have been better, far, if this young man had never existed.
    And John Skelwith had married Mathilde, which was hard to bear, and had now got her with child, which was harder. Again, it was no blame on him – Edward had given her up quite freely, and acknowledged that Skelwith would make her a better husband than he ever could. But feelings had little to do with reason and logic: he had loved her, and was jealous. And Edward liked John, too, for a plain, decent, pleasant sort of chap, which was hardest of all. It would be nice simply to be able to hate him.
    But no, it wouldn't, for here was his lovely, his darling Mathilde, coming to him to be