Jennie About to Be by Elisabeth Ogilvie Page B

for criminal abuse ?”
    Nigel looked as alarmed as if he’d embraced a wildcat, taking it for a tame kitten. He’d never seen her in a rage before.
    â€œYou know Dickon,” she hurried on. “He takes your eye because he’s bright and cocky; no one has beaten the spirit out of him. Dickon lives like a prince compared to most of them. When a child weeps with terror for fear she’ll have to leave off being a general slavey because it’s the first time she can remember of being safe —”
    She whipped away from his arm so she could face him. “Nigel, would you rape a child?”
    He recoiled at the impact ofthe word coming from her. “Good God!” he protested. “I wouldn’t rape anyone!”
    â€œWell, that’s what this child had to fear. From her father.”
    â€œGood God,” Nigel said again. He took out his handkerchief and patted his forehead. “So that’s what it is. And you had to hear it.”
    â€œI could endure to listen to it; she was the one who had to live through it. Somebody had to hear it. I don’t know if the woman who placed her with the Highams knew about it, or the minister who buried her. She was so ashamed she only told me one day because she was so desperate. One of the maids had spoken sharply to her, and she was terrified of being sent away. When she was sick, Aunt Higham told me how she’d come there. A good woman who used to be the parlormaid before she married asked for a place in the scullery for a motherless child, because the father was a drunkard and never in work. I didn’t tell my aunt what I knew about the father.”
    â€œPoor little devil,” Nigel growled. “I’d like to horsewhip the brute.”
    â€œOne thing I’m grateful for,” Jennie said. “Tamsin didn’t know she was dying, but she did know that the maids were being kind, and Cook made special broth and puddings for her. She had her heaven then. I hope her father lives forever in hell.” She put the fragrant little nosegay at the foot of the stone. “His hell has to be of his own making, of course. I hope he makes a good job of it.”
    â€œI say, are you an atheist?” he asked interestedly.
    â€œNo, but I wish I were. I’d like to think that evil flourishes by chance and not because of divine indifference. But God doesn’t dispense rewards and punishments. On the seventh day He said, ‘Well, there’s your earth, make the best of it,’ and He rested. And kept on resting.”
    â€œWas that before or after He extracted Adam’s rib?”
    â€œOh, Nigel.” She laughed weakly and leaned against him. “Keep your arm around me, please. People will think we’re married already and you’re being the uxorious husband.”
    â€œA what ? It sounds improper.”
    â€œIt means a foolishly fond husband.”
    â€œI’m a foolishly fond fiancé.” He ducked his head and kissed her under the rim of her bonnet. If the gravedigger, excavating another small pit, noticed, he paid no more attention than he did to the birds that sang through the dirty smoke.

Eight

    T HEY EXCHANGED their gifts to each other the night before the wedding. She had a gold watchguard for Nigel, and he gave her a small diamond pendant on a delicate silver chain and tiny diamond eardrops like spangles of dew in the sunlight. Then he and the baronet (who had given them the chessmen) went off to a bachelor dinner held by Nigel's friends in the Blues, and his mother and Lady Clarke came to dinner at Brunswick Square. Jennie took Lady Geoffrey for a stroll in the garden while her aunt and Lady Clarke played backgammon; Uncle Higham and his whist cronies were playing their evening rubber in the Ibirary.
    â€œYou must give Nigel an heir as soon as you decently can,” Lady Geoffrey said. “So as to insure the possession of Linnmore. Otherwise one of those dissolute