Chapter 11: 26 Weeks Continued


She didn't actually let him even draw breath to start the explanation. "This is because the girls don't inherit titles, isn't it?" She accused him, finger out poking him in the chest. "I suppose the aristocratic traditions don't extend to those poor females! Every girl born is probably just a bit of a disappointment."

"No!" He cried, actually a bit offended by her attitude. "It's just…well…"

"Well what?"

"There aren't any traditional names because, well, um, there haven't been that many girls." He paused and watched her carefully as she absorbed this information. Her forehead creased in confusion, something Richard thought was cute but he knew Camille had been making an effort to avoid doing because she thought she was getting wrinkles. Unfortunately, being married to him seemed to have actually increased the amount of time she spent confused, usually the frowning occurred when he was trying to explain some intricate social rule.

"What do you mean?" She asked eventually.

"Well, you see, the last girl who was born in my direct line was, oh, 1835…" She just stared at him. "I mean, I think there were a couple of Poole women born after that. I am pretty sure one of my Great Uncle's had a girl, Martina that was her name!" He said brightly, glad he had remembered her existence. There may be a couple of other female cousins as well if he got out the old family tree. There was some other fact about Martina as well he was forgetting, oh yes… "Though people did always say she looked rather like the Marquess of Bath, and Great Aunt Florence did used to spend an awful lot of time visiting Longleat…"

Richard wished he hadn't admitted that, because now Camille was scowling, "Are you telling me the last female you can remember was probably the illegitimate daughter of some Marquess, and the one before that was born two hundred years ago!"

"Well not quite two…" He didn't finish, because Camille was giving him a look that indicated not was not the time to be pedantic.

She suddenly looked defeated, "I didn't even think that was statistically possible. Obviously all I want is for them to be healthy first of all, but if I'm truthful, I sort of do want one of them to be a girl."

"Well the chances are very small, you're right," he said, coming to sit down next to her and placing an arm around her shoulders. "So I wouldn't assume we aren't ever going to have a girl. And you know what, if we do, not having any traditional female names is to our advantage. We can start our own traditions." She leaned into him. "You know, I think you would have liked Lady Elsbeth. She was the last female fathered by one of the Dukes of Grafton."

"She didn't look oddly like some Marquess then?"

"No, no, if my memory serves I believe that the 4th Duke of Grafton and his wife the lady Duchess were rather devoted to each other. They had eleven children you know."

Camille stiffened somewhat in his arms, "That isn't something we are aiming for, is it?"

"God, no," Richard reassured her. "We'll stop when you say stop."

"So go on then," Camille, said, shuffling around, a grimace of her face indicating she was struggling to get comfortable. Richard leapt up (as fast as he could leap at his age) and went and fetched her some pillows from the bedroom. "Thank you," she said sincerely. "I was going to ask what about this Elsbeth woman I'd like."

"Ah, Well, Elsbeth was a rather…strong minded individual. The only girl out of those eleven children. She was amongst the first woman to go to what would later be Girton College at Cambridge University, studied natural sciences and mathematics. Of course back then, women could sit the exams, but they didn't actually get given the degree – just a nice handshake and a well done. But she went anyway, she was determined. In fact she was rather responsible for our family switching to Cambridge, we'd always gone to Oxford before."

"Hmmm," Camille said, sounding more sleepy than interested.

"Her father didn't exactly approve, but he was proud of her for finishing. She did better in the exams than some of her brothers. Of course once she had finished, she was expected to come home and do what women of her position were expected to do – form a good marriage."

"Let me guess – she refused? Decided to go off on adventures as a strong, single woman?" Camille guessed.

"Oh no, she got married, had 6 children."

"Right," said Camille. "Well that story ended abruptly."

"Hey, I didn't say she married desirably," Richard teased. "The 4th Duke of Grafton had spent considerable time arranging for her to spend time amongst the Duke of Kent's sons. He was hoping she would find a suitor amongst them. The Duke was a great fan of fishing and was rather hoping that he might get the rights to certain rivers with the marriage."

"He was going to make her marry somebody so he could go fishing?" Camille asked, aghast.

"Well, to be fair to him, I am sure the fact it was a very good family who would be sure to have the means to provide for her was taken into account as well!" Richard said in defence of his ancestor.

"I'm assuming Elsbeth did not marry one of the sons?"

"Oh no, she met a young man on her course. One whom she fell utterly in love with, so the stories go, and they eloped. It was not the best match, his people had money but were tradespeople, not usually considered suitable for the daughter of a Duke."

"How very scandalous! Did your family disown her?" Camille definitely sounded interested now.

"Well, that was what was expected to be sure. But the Duchess convinced her husband not too. And he had always had a soft spot for Elsbeth."

"Well, glad to hear it, I mean tradespeople can't be that bad and they had the money to send him to Cambridge!" Camille pointed out sensibly. "So they must have had the means to look after her as well."

"Well, actually, the tradespeople bit wasn't the worst bit. It was that his mother was French," Richard said seriously.

Camille pulled away from him and gave him a look, "You are kidding!"

"I'm not," he said with a grin. "She married somebody who was half French. And she didn't just settle down, either, she spent a considerable amount of time running about London providing aid to women of…loose morals as they would have said then. Tried to help those who wanted out, and I think they ended up paying for the education of three children whose mother's died in childbirth."

"Well you're right," said Camille. "I do like her. She sounds a little too good to be true actually, like a heroine out of a novel."

"Well she probably had her bad points, but history has not seen fit to preserve them. But I wouldn't mind if we had a daughter who turned out like her."

"We should use that name," Camille said after a thoughtful pause. "If we have a girl, or two girls, one of them should have Elsbeth in their name. In memory of her."

"Dad will love that, he's big on family history. I like the idea too, but are you sure it isn't too old fashioned sounding?" Camille shook her head. Richard pulled a blank piece of A4 paper towards them and wrote the name down. "Then I guess we have a place to start."