Between the east end of the tomb and the chapel-altar steps was a slab with a ring in to give access to the Hadfield vault beneath. Delia always said the thought of the vault gave her the horrors, but Julia found the chapel peaceful. The ancestors beneath her feet, lying together in companionable eternity, held no terrors for her. It was quiet, cool, strangely comforting in the chapel as she gathered up the drooping roses from the vase standing on the slab and added the new flowers, then sat and let her tumbling thoughts still and calm.
That morning she and Nancy had folded and packed away all the tiny garments, the shawls, the rattle, the furnishings for the nursery. Now they were in silver paper and lavender, the cot stripped of its hangings, everything put away in the attic.
She had set the door wide open on to the room and left it for Will to find, or not. She did not feel able to talk about it. What if she was already with child again? All that pain to risk. Not the physical pangs, but the mental pain of nine months of anxiety and then...
But she was well and healthy now, she reassured herself, not the nervous girl who had spent those first months jumping at her own shadow, convinced that she would step out of her front door and find the constables waiting for her, her new neighbours pointing, crying, Imposter! Murder! Surely that would make a difference? And part of her ached for a child.
She was not sure how long she had sat there before she heard the creak of the outer door being pushed open and footsteps coming down the aisle. The vicar, she supposed. Mr Pendleton was gentle and kindly; she did not mind his company.
The realisation that it was not the elderly scholar came over her with a sort of chill certainty. Julia did not turn, but she was not surprised when Will said, ‘He is here, then?’
She should not have risked it, coming to the chapel while there was the slightest chance Will would find out. He would be furious that this was something else she had kept from him. He would insist that the interloper was removed...
‘I know it is wrong.’ She found she was on her feet, standing on the slab as though she could somehow stop this. Will stood with his hat in his hands, his face serious. ‘I know he isn’t yours and he has no right here. But he wasn’t baptised, so they would have buried him outside the churchyard wall in that horrid patch under the yew trees and Mr Pendleton understood when I was distressed, so we put him here...’
‘Does he have a name, even though he was never baptised?’ Will said gently.
It was the last question she expected. ‘Alexander, after my father,’ she stammered.
‘Alexander is very welcome here,’ Will said and came to her side. ‘Do you know who he is lying there with?’
‘No.’ He was not going to insist the tiny coffin was taken and buried in that dark, dank patch with the suicides and the other tiny tragedies?
‘My brother and two sisters,’ Will said and she saw his fingers were curled tight over the edge of Sir Ralph’s tomb. ‘The loss of two children after I was born shattered my parents’ marriage.’ His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘Not that it was well founded in the first place. Afterwards things went from bad to worse. They hardly communicated other than by shouting and the third child, a daughter, was not my father’s—or so he always maintained. You may imagine the atmosphere.’
‘Oh, the poor things!’ Julia cried.
‘The babies?’
‘Well, of course. But for your mother to lose so many and for your father... He lost two children himself and then they were obviously not able to reach out and comfort each other or things would not have gone so wrong between them.’
‘You are an expert on marriage now?’ Will asked harshly. Was he recalling that she had taken a lover before she had come to him? Might he fear she would do what his own mother had done if she was unhappy?
‘No.’ Then she saw the pain in his eyes. How hard it must have been to grow up in a household full of grief and anger. ‘No, but I can understand a little of what your mother felt. If she had no one to talk to, the loss of the children would have been so much worse.’ She hoped she had kept her voice steady and not revealed how much this cost her to speak of.
Will half-turned away and stood staring down at his long-ago ancestor, then he looked back at her as though he had been translating her words in his head and had just deciphered the meaning. ‘And you had no one, had you? Even if Delia behaved decently, you would have known that in her heart she was relieved that Henry had not been displaced.’
‘That is true.’ She fought to find a smile. ‘I managed.’ Somehow. ‘There was not much choice.’
‘You should not have had to,’ Will said roughly and the anger in his voice undid her in a way that gentleness would never have done. ‘Damn it, I didn’t mean to make you cry. Julia—’ He pulled her into his arms and for the first time since he had returned there was nothing in his touch but the need to give comfort. He cupped her head with one big hand and held her against his shoulder. ‘Perhaps it is not a bad thing if you weep now. Were you even able to cry properly after it happened?’
She shook her head, afraid to speak and lose control.
‘Then do it now. Mourn for the first child of this marriage.’ Julia gave a sob and then simply let the tears flow while Will stroked her hair and held her tightly and murmured comfort.
How long they stood there she had no idea. Eventually the tears ran their course and Julia lifted her head and looked up into Will’s face. ‘Thank you.’ She became aware that her lashes were sticking together and she wanted to sniff and her nose was probably red. The breast of his coat was dark with moisture. ‘Have you got a handkerchief?’
‘Of course.’ Will eased her down on to the pew, produced a large linen square from his pocket and moved away to study the memorials on the walls.
Julia put herself to rights as best she could and found she could express the anxiety that she had thought she could never speak of to him. ‘Will, what if it happens again? What if I am not able to give you an heir?’
He came back and sat beside her, his hands clasped between his knees. He seemed to be engrossed in the design of a hassock. After a moment he said, ‘I hope that is not the case, because I would hate to see you suffer such a thing. But if it did, then Henry, or his son, inherits. It is not the end of the world and besides, do not anticipate troubles. Now come back into the sunshine or you will get chilled. It is like an ice house in here and it is a lovely day outside.’
Julia took the hand he held out to her and went out, arm in arm with him as fragile hope began to unfurl inside her. Will understood how she had grieved and her need to weep and be comforted. He had been kind about letting her place Alexander in the vault and she had seen, with piercing clarity, just how wounded he must have been as a child by his parents’ unhappy marriage.
Perhaps one day he might even come to trust her, even though she knew she would never be able to burden him with her secret. Perhaps, Julia thought optimistically as the sunshine and the relief of the tears did their work, this was the real beginning of their marriage.
‘Will, how much did you understand of what was happening? When your brothers and sisters died?’
‘Understand? Nothing. They told me nothing other than that I was now the only son because my brother was dead so I must grow up to be the perfect Baron Dereham because there was no other option. They didn’t tell me at all about the little girl my father said was not his. I only found out about that when I overheard two maids talking about it afterwards. I would have liked to have had a brother,’ he added after a moment, his voice utterly expressionless. ‘And little sisters. I asked my tutor what it meant when the maids said one of them was a bastard. So he told me and then I was beaten for eavesdropping.’
‘That is outrageous!’ Julia forgot her own melancholy in a burst of anger for the unhappy, confused small boy. ‘They should have told you the truth, all of it, but kindly so a child could understand.’