Again that evening, Julianna considered wearing her new green silk gown. In the end, she decided it might be too bright and fashionable for an evening of sacred music. Instead, she settled on a frock of genteel gray. Its color gave her complexion a sallow cast, while the cut made her look no more than twelve years old. Julianna comforted herself with the thought that she was going to watch and listen, and not to display herself. She was beginning to regret her impulsive purchase of the stunning emerald gown she could never find an occasion to wear.
Any worries over her costume vanished with the opening bars of the oratorio. Though it was ostensibly a rehearsal, the musicians were doubtless aware of their highly critical audience and determined to perform well. London music lovers had turned out at the Opera House in force, curious for a taste of the work Dublin had received so well.
Julianna had never heard so many instruments and voices massed. In her estimation, the resulting music beggared description. The soloists’ fine voices soared above the lush orchestration in melodies so evocative and hauntingly familiar she longed to sing with them. During the great “Hallelujah,” the very air throbbed with exultant music. Lost in the moment, she reached for Sir Edmund’s hand, clasping it tightly. As the piece ended, she stirred from her trance and pulled her fingers away, her cheeks burning.
Under cover of the polite applause, Sir Edmund leaned toward her and whispered, “You mirror my feelings precisely. I understand Handel composed this work in three weeks. Having heard it, I can only credit Divine inspiration.”
A reception for the hospital patrons followed the concert. Julianna noted with chagrin that the other ladies had all dressed in high style. Beside them she looked thoroughly dowdy and callow. Embarrassment changed to resentment when she intercepted several surreptitious glances and covert nods in her direction. Her youth, not her dress, was drawing this silent censure.
Parity in age between a husband and wife was hardly a general circumstance, she mused indignantly. It could take years for a man to earn or inherit the means to support a family. By that time he must marry a younger woman, capable of breeding. Ten or fifteen years between husband and wife would not raise an eyebrow. However, when the gap widened to a score, folks looked askance at a so-called “Smithfield match,” with all the mercenary implications of the Smithfield cattle market.
She could tell Sir Edmund was aware of the critical scrutiny bent upon them. He strode about, stiff as buckram and painfully civil in his introductions. With an immense feeling of relief, Julianna spied a group of familiar figures, friends of her late father. Hauling Sir Edmund in her wake, she approached the gentlemen with an effusive greeting.
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