Chapter 6: Caroline's Story

I conceived my son, John- Jarvis, close to midnight on the 23rd November 1816, in the White Hart Inn at Hampton Wick. I was naked, seated on the wide window sill of one of the bedrooms in the hostelry, with my legs spread wide apart and my knees up to my shoulders, as Elijah Greenaway, thrusting deep and purposefully inside me, loosed a stream of his seed into my more than receptive vagina. It was not the first time during the night he and I had reached an almost simultaneous climax, crying out together in vociferous delight, and I shuddered in delicious ecstasy as my portal was flooded by his scalding sperm.
However, this particular time was different. The warm glow, inside the very core of my being, indicated life had started in my womb.
It was also the exact time when the lust, passion, and overwhelming desire I felt for the young man, who had taken me to rapture all evening, turned to unequivocal love.

I had not come to the White Hart with any thought of entering into a sexual relationship. I already had a husband, and a lover, and was merely keeping a supper appointment in place of my dear friend Amy Fairfax.
Elijah Greenaway, a man whom I had not previously met, was Amy's lover. She had become engaged to Howard Hughes, Viscount Monmouth, and was now under the protection, and scrutiny, of the Hughes family and was therefore unable to keep her assignation to celebrate her lover's birthday. I offered to deputise for her, and explain to her swain the reason for her absence and deliver the sad tidings, for him, that she was to become the Countess of Monmouth within a few months. I envisaged perhaps giving the poor fellow some measure of pleasure, either by hand or mouth, at his disappointment and sadness on hearing the news, as he was expecting his sweetheart Amy to give him a night of unbridled passion before he attended a duel in the morning. He had, in defence of a slur on Amy's reputation, challenged the man who had insulted her. The affair of honour was to be conducted the next morning on Hounslow Heath.
On first impression it was doubtful that I would even condescend giving Elijah Greenaway so much as a kiss on the cheek. He had been so shocked not to see Amy when he opened the door to my knock that he quite forgot his manners. However he soon won me over by his abject apologies, and, I must admit, by his quite appealing character, handsome face and manly physique. Amy had told me he was an adroit and tender lover, although I was not lacking in that department myself, as my own lover, Sebastian Armityge, had equal accomplishments. During the appetizing supper Elijah had arranged I warmed to him, and decided to give him a night of love which would go part way in alleviating his sorrow at the loss of his lover.

I left the hostelry at 2 am on the 24th November, more deeply in love with him than any woman could be, and hoped he entertained similar feelings for me.
As we parted I was convinced we would see each other again, notwithstanding his appointment on the duelling field at dawn. Elijah told me his opponent was an expert with a pistol, and expected his life to be ended at the duel. I knew, don't ask me how, he and I were destined to be together, and assured him he had a guardian angel looking after him. I truly believed this, which makes what happened later a justification of my belief.

My husband and I were staying at Windsor, and I travelled by wherry from the White Hart along the River Thames to return there by 2.30am. My husband, Jarvis Braxton-Clark, joined me in bed a half hour later. He was in a jovial mood as he had won a large sum of money at the card table.
Our marriage was an arranged one, not unusual in the society into which I had been born, and bereft of love, or even lust or passion. I obtained those missing ingredients in my life from my lover Sebastian 'Krish' Armityge. My husband also had his diversions, although he took the Alternative Path when it came to sexual preferences, which bothered me not one jot. I had been involved with theatrical folk for much of my life, and a majority of the men, and some of the women, walked the Alternative Path when it came to sexual dalliances.

John Ashford, my father and current Earl of Hungerford, had no male heir to inherit the title and lands, and he was also heavily in debt due to his brother, the former Earl, bringing the family estate near to bankruptcy. The solution to these problems was to marry me off to someone with money and no title. Any male offspring from the marriage would then be available to inherit the titles held by the Ashfords, allowing the father of the child to be regarded as nobility.
Thus it was I married Jarvis Braxton-Clark. His father, Cornelius, would supply the money to lift my father out of debt, and I would supply the boy child who would inherit the title on my father's death and lift the Braxton-Clarks higher up the social ladder. It was the latter task which caused the problem: Jarvis was strongly averse to copulating with females.
I will give him his due; he manfully stifled his aversion to female flesh and tried to do his duty and produce an heir. He stiffened the sinews and summoned up the blood, as the Bard of Avon put it, but unfortunately the blood Jarvis summoned up did not adequately stiffen the sinew required for procreation, if you take my meaning. His diffidence to fully take part in the activity required to achieve fertilisation, namely the preparation of the female by use of tongue and fingers – and anything else an enterprising lover could think of – coupled with my lack of response to his inadequate fornication technique and his slack sinew, led to no offspring appearing.
Of course I was blamed for the none appearence, and accused of being barren or frigid, or both. Jarvis's predilection for males could not be made public, for those who plied the Windward Passage were breaking the law, and the offence merited the death penalty.

Krish Armityge and I enjoyed a full, some might say depraved, love life. We utilised several techniques gleaned from a Hindoo book, the Kama Sutra, which were extremely lewd, even debauched – and needing a deal of physical dexterity to perform. You might think I could be easily impregnated by Krish, and claim the child as my husband's? Unfortunately Krish had some Hindoo blood in his makeup, which is why he had such insight into the Karma Sutra, and his dusky pigment might be transmitted to any issue I produced.
Both Jarvis and I were typical pale skinned English, and I would be branded a whore and my child a bastard if a Jarvis junior bore anything other than his father's characteristics and complexion. I would also be divorced.
Thus I used ointments and douches, prepared by my doctor lover Krish, to prevent pregnancy during our intercourse, while Jarvis took all manner of herbal remedies to increase my chances of pregnancy when having intercourse with him. I think the word to describe such a situation is 'ironic'.

For all the problems in the bedroom department Jarvis and I got along tolerably well. Although Jarvis bullied those he considered his inferiors, who were most of the people he met, he always treated me with respect. When I learned of his upbringing I felt some empathy, and not a little pity, for him. Jarvis's mother had died shortly after his birth, and he was brought up, if that is an accurate description, by a series of slatterns his father employed ostensibly as house servants, but in reality they served mainly in the carnal sense. Jarvis was sent away to school aged 8, and being the son of a butcher amongst sons of the gentry he was belittled and bullied, and made to feel insignificant and worthless.
He nevertheless grew into a strapping boy at an early age, and with his physique, and the money sent by his father, he became accepted by most of the boys at his school. In fact he became even more arrogant and disdainful of the lower classes than any of the sprigs of nobility he mixed with at school.
On holiday from school his father made him watch, and then take part, in the butchering of animals. Cornelius would smear the young lad with entrails and gore, even though Jarvis would be screaming in fear and terror. However, over time Jarvis came to enjoy seeing blood flow from the flesh of the terrified animals, and became adept at using the knives of the butcher's trade.
His aversion to females may have started from an early age, when he unexpectedly came across his father fornicating with one of the sluts employed as housekeeper, grunting and sweating on the naked, foul mouthed, whore beneath him. As Cornelius grew older the females he employed to satisfy his base urges became younger, lewder and even more depraved. These young harlots would attempt to get the well set up Jarvis to mount them, in place of his raddled, even if tumescent, lecherous father. Jarvis spurned the advances of these harpies, who would then mock him as being a Molly, and by this stage in his life he probably was.