Deborah Hale - My Lord Protector

Mr. Kelway squinted in Julianna’s direction. Recognizing her, he called out, “Upon my word, fellows, if it isn’t our little tyrant, Miss Ramsay! My dear, I just returned from Florence and was shocked to hear the sad news of your father. He will be sadly missed.”

His companions nodded with vaguely sympathetic murmurings. Caught off guard by these expressions of condolence, Julianna could think of little by way of response.

“How kind of you to say so,” was her subdued reply. Then she brightened. “Gentlemen, may I introduce my husband, Sir Edmund Fitzhugh. Sir Edmund, Messrs. Smith, Nares and Kelway, fine musicians all. They very nearly wore out the strings of my father’s harpsichord, but in a glorious cause.”

The gentlemen bowed and shook hands all around. Sir Edmund opened with the expected conversational gambit. “You brought trained ears to this evening’s entertainment, gentlemen. What were your impressions?”

Nares’s lip curled. “Oh, it might have been worse. I expected wonders after the laudatory notices from Dublin.”

The other two musicians reacted with sagacious nods. “I must admit—” Smith pointed heavenward “—he had a good librettist.”

This caused some laughter but Nares resumed his carping tone. “I still say this piece won’t add anything to Handel’s popularity. The king may like his music but everyone else disdains it, to spite German Georgie.”

Sir Edmund did not let that go unanswered. “Society has come to a sorry pass indeed, when the appreciation of music becomes a province of politics.”

“Our friend Mr. Arne quite liked it,” ventured Kelway “Though that may simply be clannishness on his part, for his sister’s performance was very well received. I believe it has salvaged her reputation. Did you hear what the Dean of Dublin Cathedral pronounced upon hearing Mrs. Cibber sing her aria?”

To their questioning looks, he intoned ecclesiastically, “‘Woman, for this, are thy sins forgiven thee!’”

The three musicians laughed heartily.

Their merriment soon evaporated in the face of Sir Edmund’s curt rebuke. “Need I remind you gentleman there is a lady present?”

The three men reddened like schoolboys caught at mischief. Kelway muttered his apologies as they moved off. Behind the cover of her fan, Julianna cast them an apologetic smile. Privately, she found it sweetly amusing that Sir Edmund should spring to the defense of her feminine sensibilities.

The Cibber scandal was cold, albeit salacious gossip. Joseph Kelway had undoubtedly assumed she knew every unsavory detail since gossip claimed Jerome had played a particularly odious role in the whole shameful business. Still, if Sir Edmund chose to think of her as some paragon of innocence, Julianna was in no hurry to disabuse him. Having long admired Cervantes’ tragicomic senor de La Manche, she was flattered to play Dulcinea to his Quixote.

Sir Edmund spoke little on the drive home. Julianna wondered if he was still privately bristling over the implied censure of their marriage. Trying to draw him out, she asked how he had come to be involved with the Foundling Hospital, under construction in Bloomsbury. He quickly warmed to the topic.

“Thomas Coram instigated it all, and he press-ganged me early in the venture. As an old fellow seaman, he played upon the soft heart our kind are wont to harbor for needy children. I have little sympathy for the gin-swilling layabouts and cutpurses that make up half the parish paupers’ rolls. Still, no person of conscience can fail to pity the innocent infants who perish on the streets of this prosperous city every day, for want of care. Perhaps if there was some refuge for their mothers in the first place...” His voice trailed off and Julianna wondered if, once again, he was seeking to shield her from life’s darker side.

“Suffice it to say, there are two kinds of men in this world,” Sir Edmund continued in a tone of asperity. “Those who believe it is the prerogative of the strong to prey upon the weak, and those who know it is the duty of the strong to protect the weak. Unfortunately, the former far outnumber the latter.”

Nodding her agreement, Julianna smothered a yawn. Not because Sir Edmund’s conversation bored her—quite the contrary. But this would be her second evening in a row keeping late hours. Despite heavy eyelids, she vastly preferred the past two merry evenings to her former, cheerless early nights.

Leaning back on the comfortably upholstered seat of the carriage, she dismissed the reception from her mind. Instead, she concentrated on the beautiful music that had so touched her. Closing her eyes, she quietly hummed one especially sweet melody:

He shall gather the lambs with his arm, And carry them in his bosom.

Poised on the brink of sleep, she pictured the gentle, protective shepherd with her husband’s face.

Julianna was making music again the next morning. As soon as she had risen and dressed, she continued a Christmas tradition once shared with her grandmother. Plucking her harp by the light of the fire, she sang a plygain—a Welsh “dawn carol.” “The love of our dear Shepherd will always be a wonderment,” it began. Love in any incarnation, thought Julianna, would always be a wonderment,

Plygain sung, she felt truly in the Christmas spirit. She tiptoed down the hallway, treading with special care past Sir Edmund’s door. The kitchen was in rather a litter from the past two days of foraging for their meals. She would attend to that soon enough. First she started the great cook fire and set some water to heat for washing, and for tea. While the kettle boiled, Julianna cleared away the food scraps and stacked the dishes. Investigating the larder, she discovered a flitch of lean bacon and enough other foodstuffs to make a decent hot breakfast. Thankfully, Winnie had taught her the art of cookery.

Julianna remembered the old woman’s admonition. “You cannot always count on having help around, my girl. A body’s come to a sad pass when they can’t get themselves a bite.”

She hoped Winnie would soon receive her letter and rest easy about her fate. Perhaps when Crispin returned home, they could bring Winnie back to London. She would be getting past much useful work by then, but having her with them would complete Julianna’s happiness. How it would please Winnie to rock another generation of Gryffud infants in their cradles. Thinking ahead to that pretty domestic scene, Julianna let her hands work away, washing up and preparing the meal.

“Am I the slugabed this morning?”

At that casual query from the doorway, Julianna gasped and nearly dropped the platter she was washing.

“S-sir Edmund,” she sputtered, “you must have a tread like a cat! I never hear you coming.”

“A useful skill, perfected long ago. I do it without thinking now, and I’m afraid it often gets me into trouble.” He inhaled appreciatively. “What smells so delicious?”

Julianna gave a proprietary glance around the tidy kitchen, to the savory steam rising from the cook pots. “I thought a hot meal might make a pleasant change for Christmas morning. I fried up a mess of bacon and griddle cakes. I will just set the eggs to boil and make the tea. Could you assemble the dishes and cutlery on a tray? We can take breakfast in my sitting room. It should be warm in there by now.”

Sir Edmund pulled a mock salute. “Very well, zir, I have my orders.” His voice was a perfect take on the Somerset accent of their head coachman, all growling “r‘s” and buzzing “z’s”.

Julianna could not help laughing. “Was your gift for mimicry also a skill perfected long ago?”

“You might say so.” Sir Edmund flashed a rueful grin. “It is certainly another that gets me into trouble. If someone speaks to me in an unusual accent, I have a terrible habit of unconsciously incorporating bits of it into my own voice, until I sound just like them. People tend to think they are the butt of my fun, and take it rather ill.”