Page 60 of Weave me a Rope
There followed several minutes of fussing as four women coached Spen in the proper way to hold a newborn baby, which did nothing to make him feel more confident. He was already nervous enough. His last experience with a child so small had been sitting in the nursery when he was seven with John clutched in his arms while a nursemaid hovered on each side.
When he edged his way cautiously down the stairs, she was cradled in both arms, her head supported by one rigid elbow and her bottom cupped by a hand. She was so tiny. Had John been that little? Was there something wrong with her? None of the ladies in the birthing chamber seemed to be concerned.
A footman stepped forward to open the door to the drawing room. Before doing so, he took advantage of the moment to peer at the baby. Spen stopped to lift the shawl away from her face and the man grinned like a loon. “Lady Mary,” Spen said.
“Lady Mary,” repeated the footman, with reverence. “I won a shilling, my lord.”
“Betting on whether the baby was a boy or a girl?” Spen asked.
The footman seemed to realize he’d put his foot in his mouth. “Begging your pardon, my lord. No offense intended. Just a bit of a laugh, like.”
“No offense taken,” Spen assured him.
“Better get back to work, Albert, or I’ll dock that shilling off your wages,” growled Marsh, and the footman scurried off. Marsh took his place, smiling down at the baby, all the grimness gone from his face.
“Lady Mary, eh?” he asked. “Congratulations, my lord, on behalf of all the servants. And my lady? Is she well?”
“Splendid,” Spen said. “Tired, but splendid. Tell the servants the news, Marsh. And perhaps a glass of wine with their dinner?”
“Very good, my lord. Better take her little ladyship in to meet her uncles. They are climbing the walls, my lord.” Marsh opened the door.
*
The messiest partof the cleanup was over by the time Spen brought Mary back upstairs. The midwife encouraged Spen to sit beside Cordelia on the bed with his arm around her shoulders and showed her how to hold the baby for feeding. “Some babies have to be taught how to suckle well,” she observed, as Mary opened her mouth wide, closed it over Cordelia’s nipple, and began to suck vigorously. “Not Lady Mary. I will be in the next room if you need me, Lady Spenhurst. Just let her suck until she goes to sleep and stops.”
Lady Eliza nodded. “We will give the three of you some privacy, Cordelia, dear. Come, Miss Faversham, let us go and see what my brother and young John make of our precious girl.”
Gracie said nothing, but followed the midwife into what had been intended as the room of the mistress of the house and was now a nursery. Spen and Cordelia preferred to share a room and a bed.
“Are you happy?” Cordelia asked her husband.
“Blissfully so,” he said. He watched little Mary with soft eyes and a gentle smile. “And you?”
She repeated his words back to him. “Blissfully so.”
Spen bent to gently kiss the baby’s downy head.
She shook it slightly, as if to remove an annoyance, but didn’t stop sucking. “I cannot believe how tiny she is, but I can tell you she is going to be empress of this house. Marsh and Albert both met her when I went to the drawing room. Almost every other servant in the place was waiting when I came out. They are all besotted. And so are her two uncles.”
“It was worth it, wasn’t it,” Cordelia said. “The agony of the separation, the masquerade, the anxiety.”
“Even the beatings,” Spen agreed. “Which is not to say they should have happened. If the marquess had been a reasonable man, we would still have married, my love. Sooner or later.”
“Later, probably. He was never going to agree to a quick marriage. We would not be here, today, feeding Lady Mary.” The baby had fulfilled the midwife’s prediction and fallen asleep, her mouth still open, a little milk dribbling from the corner of her lips.
“Do you know, Mary Elizabeth?” Cordelia told her daughter, “You have a very clever father. He is a first-class estate manager and smart about all sorts of animals and crops, and other things, too. You would not be here today, except your Papa knew how to weave me a rope.”
Epilogue
London, April, 1807
“When will UncleJohn come?” whined Lady Mary.
“Soon, darling,” Cordelia told her.
Mary had been banished to the couch next to her mother, after administering a physical reproof to her sister, Lady Gina, for sitting too close. In her defense, the almost-four-year-old had claimed, “Her smell was getting mixed up with my smell.”
Her punishment was being banned from the carpet until John arrived, which Cordelia devoutly hoped would be soon, for it had already been more than twenty minutes—an eternity to an active little girl, even one with a new picture book to look at.
