The Penniless Bride
Two further brandies and an hour and a half later, Rob was
tolerably certain that Jemima would be asleep. He crept up the stairs and
opened the door of the chamber, letting out a sigh that was three parts
relief and one part disappointment as he saw the sleeping figure in the bed.
In fact it looked as though there were already two people in the bed, for
Jemima had put the monstrously fat bolster down the middle, leaving a space
of approximately six inches for him to lie upon.
She had also
left one candle burning. By its light, Rob could see that
his wife was almost entirely buried under the
counterpane, leaving no part of her body visible. A good
thing too. He averted his gaze from Jemima’s face
and the sight of her lustrous hair spread across the
pillow, a deep blue-black in the golden light. He quickly
divested himself of his clothes, blew out the candle and
slid into the tiny space allowed to him.
After a minute he realised that he
was holding his breath for no apparent reason. Beside
him, or rather on the other side of the mountainous
bolster, Jemima breathed with easy regularity. Rob
felt vaguely affronted that she should have found it so
easy to go to sleep. The bolster, whilst separating their
bodies, did not divide the pillows and as Rob rolled over
in a vain attempt to become more comfortable, he noticed
that a strand of Jemima’s hair was resting on his
pillow and tickling his nose. He touched it gently.
It felt soft and smelled of the same jasmine scent that
he had noticed earlier. He resisted the urge to push the
bolster aside, pull Jemima into his arms and run his
hands through the whole shimmering coal black mass of her
hair. He could see her face in the faint moonlight,
pale and serene as a church effigy. Her lashes were dark
against the alabaster smoothness of her cheek and her
lips curved upwards in a slight smile. She looked
eminently kissable. Rob’s body started to ache with
frustrated passion.
He lay on his side and stared at her
face in the moonlight. She looked very young, with her
tip-tilted nose and flyaway dark brows. She was
very young, it was simply that her experience was so very
different from that of most young ladies of her age…
Yet despite that difference in upbringing he would be the
veriest cad to wake her now and make love to her. He
should treat her with more respect because of her
background, not less. And besides, he could not
make love to her and inherit the forty thousand pounds.
Rob rolled over onto his back, eyes
wide open, sleep receding even as he lay there. What was
it that he had said to Jemima the previous day? That he
only needed to know that he could not have something to
want it very badly? Human nature, perhaps, and just at
the moment he was damning his nature to hell. What he
wanted was lying right beside him and he definitely could
not have her.
He started to count sheep in a vain
effort to go to sleep, but when he reached four thousand
nine hundred and seventy three he gave up. Would it be so
terrible to break the terms of the will? He could always
lie to Churchward – tell him that the marriage was
unconsummated. Except Jemima might become pregnant and
that would be rather difficult to explain away…
Angry with himself for even contemplating such a deceit,
Rob rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his
pillow. It smelled of Jemima. Soft, sweet, cool, tempting…
At the end of his tether, Rob flung
himself over and tugged violently at the bolster.
It did not budge. Rob pulled it
again. There was a ripping sound. Jemima’s
regular breathing paused and she sighed and turned away
from him. Rob paused too. He wondered if she was really
asleep.
“Jemima,” He whispered.
There was no reply.
“Jemima!” He said, rather
more loudly.
Jemima made a tiny, inarticulate
noise of deep sleep.
“Jemima!” Rob shouted.
Someone banged on the wall of the
adjoining chamber and some of the plaster crumbled off
the wall in response. Jemima did not stir.
Rob flung himself back down on the
mattress and within a minute he had fallen asleep.
He awoke as the dawn was streaking
the sky and the pale summer light spilled into the
bedchamber. He knew almost immediately that he was alone
in the bed. He struggled on to one elbow and looked about
him. Sure enough, Jemima’s side of the bed was empty.
The bolster lay in virginal innocence down the middle of
the bed, but the other side was bare.
Rob sat up.
Jemima was lying curled up like a
small cat on her cloak by the fireplace. She looked
tiny and fine boned, the light glimmering on the fine
lawn of her nightdress. Rob smiled. So she had
ended sleeping up on the floor after all. Old habits died
hard. He eased himself out of bed and scooped her up in
his arms. Her head rested gently against his shoulder,
her hair spilling softly against his bare chest. She felt
very light in his arms. She also felt cold. Rob carried
her over to the bed and laid her down. He was about
to ease her back under the covers when he froze.
In the pale morning light Jemima’s
bare feet were clearly visible, small and delicate as the
rest of her. Rob took one foot in his hand and ran his
fingers over her skin. It was not soft to the touch.
There were old scars, weals and the dark smudges of burns.
Rob traced the line of one puckered welt along the side
of her instep.
For a long moment he stared at it,
head bent. He had seen burns before, just as he had seen
the evidence of beatings. And now he had seen both on
Jemima’s body.
Rob took a deep breath. He had known
Jemima was a chimney sweep’s daughter. He had even
known that she had climbed chimneys when she was child,
but that had seemed a very long time ago, almost as
though it had happened to a different person. Now it was
brought home to him just how naïve he had been. A tiny,
small boned child of whatever sex was ideal for sending
up a chimneystack and a man like Alfred Jewell, poor as
he had been at the beginning, would not scruple to use
his own children to further his business. Jemima had been
sent up chimneys and had burned her feet on smouldering
soot and breathed in the thick, choking gas. She had
struggled to survive in the claustrophobic smokestacks
and had climbed for her life. His Jemima.
Rob was overtaken by a wave of fury
so immense that he wanted to smash something, anything,
to smithereens. Preferably Alfred Jewell, but failing
that anything would do. His anger was so intense that he
felt physically sick and after it had gone he was left
with nothing but pity and a vague surprise that he could
feel so strongly for a girl he had known so short a time.
A girl. A woman. Jemima. She was his responsibility now
and he would guard that with his life.
He wrenched the bolster from the centre of the bed,
ignoring the tearing noise as it came away, climbed in
beside his wife and drew her into his arms. She
burrowed against him with the sleepy guilelessness of a
child. Rob held her as delicately as if she
was made of china and lay still as the dawn light
strengthened in the room and Jemima slept on oblivious.
