I will put my mind to it, he promised himself, as he drove home with a copy of The Man of Pleasure wrapped in plain brown paper and tucked inside his inner pocket.
In the event Mirabelle saved him the necessity. That evening, when her excellent dinner had been enjoyed and cleared, she told him that she intended to hold her very first literary salon in six days’ time.
‘It is all arranged,’ she said, with that infuriating calm of hers. She was looking so pleased with herself it quite upset him. ‘I have had the great good fortune to secure the presence of Mr Charles Dickens, my dear, and if that isn’t guaranteed to ensure success I’m sure I don’t know what would be. He and his friends have promised to perform a short play, and Mr Dickens has very kindly consented to give a reading from one of his novels.’
‘I congratulate you,’ he said. ‘Whom do you mean to invite to this occasion? Have you drawn up a list?’
‘I thought we might do that this evening,’ she said, smiling at him.
So the list was drawn up and the name of Mr Snipe, (publisher) included, immediately below the names of Caroline, Euphemia, Will and Mrs Nan Easter.
‘I do so hope your grandmother will attend,’ Mirabelle said, ‘for of all the ladies of my acquaintance she is the one I most admire.’
‘Do you?’ Edward said with some surprise. He had always found Nan Easter a very difficult old lady.
‘Indeed I do. I should be honoured by her company on this occasion.’
‘She is a very busy woman,’ Edward warned. ‘I doubt if she’ll have time.’
But Nan wrote back at once to say that she would be delighted to attend, and when the evening began the Easters were present in force. Only Mr John Easter was absent and that was because he had to be in York attending to negotiations with Mr Hudson the railway king who was about to open two more new railway lines in Yorkshire. It wasn’t a job he could hand over to anyone else, for Mr Hudson was an overfed, ambitious bully, and accustomed to getting his own way in every particular, so the transfer of Easter freight to the two lines would have to be handled with strength and patience.
The literary salon was a dazzling event. Euphemia was quite overawed by it, for there were lots of people there she’d never seen before and she was always shy in strange company. Beneath the two glittering chandeliers, Mirabelle’s vast red and gold salon was packed to capacity, and yet new arrivals were announced every second. The ladies were magnificent, glistening with jewels, fluttering their feathered fans, their arms and bosoms soft as powder, and their huge bell skirts taking up so much room, even when they were settled on one of Mirabelle’s sofas, that it was almost impossible to move through the throng for the crush of silk and satin. And the gentlemen looked highly romantic too, for with one or two rather dull exceptions they were either in full evening dress or military uniform and most of them were loud with excited gallantry.
‘My hat!’ Will said, steering his two companions into the crush.
‘Where’s Mr Dickens?’ Caroline wanted to know, peering about her as she hung onto his arm.
A stage was erected in one corner, ready for the players, but there was no sign of the guest of honour.
‘He’ll be the last to arrive,’ Nan told them, ‘seeing he en’t the first.’ With which cryptic remark she pushed her way through the mass of chattering bodies towards her son Billy, who was beleaguered beside the mantelpiece talking to Edward.
And of course she was right. Just when the crush in the room was so intense that Caroline said she would faint if anyone else arrived, and many of the ladies were draped over the sofas as if they were swooning already, there was a flutter of interest close to the door and somebody sounded a gong.
‘Mr Charles Dickens!’ the butler announced. And there he was, a young man in his early thirties, striding into the room, blue eyes flashing, dark hair on end, talking and gesticulating, all excitement and vitality and high-charged energy, like walking electricity. Every head turned towards him at once as though they were magnetized and the swooning ladies sat up and began to sparkle. ‘Mr Charles Dickens!’
From then on the pace of the evening was entirely changed. The actors were upon the stage in a leap, so that the audience barely had time to settle into their gilded chairs before the performance was under way. And a rapid, dazzling performance it was, a farce called A Good Night’s Rest, which, naturally enough, was as restless as its producer and was played on the trot, to squealing applause.
Then there was the reading, a marvellously dramatic rendering of the death of Nancy from Oliver Twist, and then wonder of wonders, the famous author was striding amongst his audience, talking and talking, kissing Nan on both cheeks, giving Caroline and Euphemia a glance of such open admiration that it made Euphemia blush, talking and talking, his entire face mobile, as one expression after another shunted across it, his eyebrows arching and dipping, his mouth constantly on the move, smiling, twisting, grimacing, stretching wide in booming laughter, those blue eyes flashing fire. The two girls were bewitched by him.
I wish Henry were here, Caroline thought. It would be such an opportunity for him. Mr Dickens is just the man to inspire him. I wonder if I could persuade Mirabelle to invite him next time. And she burrowed off through the crowd to find her new cousin and see.
Mirabelle was in the centre of an earnest group of gentlemen, one of whom was a dull brown creature with a hideous name, but she detached herself from them when she saw Caroline. ‘It goes well, I think,’ she said. ‘The refreshments are circulating, are they not?’
Until that moment Caroline hadn’t noticed the refreshments but now she helped herself to a glass of champagne from a passing tray. ‘I do hope you’ll hold another salon soon, Mirabelle,’ she said.
‘I have every intention,’ Mirabelle assured her, smiling as two of her other guests eased themselves past her.
‘For poets perhaps?’
‘Ah!’ Mirabelle said. ‘You enjoy poetry?’
‘Oh yes,’ Caroline said.
‘Then I shall hold a salon expressly for poets and poetry and your invitation will be at the head of my list. You have my word for it.’
‘When will it be, Mirabelle? Oh, let it be soon. I know a poet I should like you to include.’
‘Not this season, I’m afraid,’ Mirabelle said. ‘There is so little of it left. But at the very start of the next one. How would that suit?’
‘That would be thrilling!’ Caroline said. And she went off at once to find Euphemia and tell her the good news.
But the expression on her cousin’s face almost put the entire plan out of her head. She was sitting quietly beside the stage, with an untouched plate of food on her lap and a full glass of champagne in her hand, gazing into the crowd. And her lovely madonna face was lit with such blazing affection that Caroline was quite startled by it. Why, it’s as if she was in love, she thought. Surely she ain’t fallen in love with Mr Dickens? And she turned her head at once to see who her cousin was looking at. And it wasn’t Mr Dickens. It was her brother Will.
‘Pheemy!’ she said, sitting on the stage beside her. ‘Why Pheemy, my dear. You are in love with Will.’
Euphemia was embarrassed to be discovered so. ‘Oh hush!’ she said, ducking her head to hide her blushes. ‘Not so loud, Carrie, please, or he’ll hear you.’
‘Well, I hope he does,’ Caroline said trenchantly. ‘He ought to know.’
‘Oh hush! Hush!’
‘Ain’t you told him?’
‘No,’ Euphemia said, quite shocked at the idea, ‘of course not. It wouldn’t be seemly.’
‘Well, I know I would. Has he said anything to you?’
‘No, no, of course not.’
How romantic this is, Caroline thought. My dear Pheemy and my dear old Will loving one another and too shy to speak. And she resolved to do something about it at the very first opportunity. It would be wonderful to play cupid, indeed it would.
‘You mustn’t say anything, Carrie,’ Euphemia begged. ‘You will
promise me, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Caroline said, kissing her. ‘Your secret is safe with me. Let’s go and join him.’
‘Not now,’ Euphemia said. ‘I think he’s going to talk to Mr Dickens. Look.’
And sure enough the guest of honour was striding towards him, hand outstretched in greeting. ‘Well, fancy that!’ Caroline said. ‘Do they know one another already? Will never said they’d met, did he, Pheemy? What an old sly-boots he is!’
‘Will Easter,’ Mr Dickens was saying. ‘Mr Walters tells me you are a journalist. Says you wrote a fine piece on the riot in the Bull Ring. Is that true?’
‘I wrote the piece, yes,’ Will confessed, yearning a little at the memory of his vanished career but full of pride that Mr Dickens should know of it.
‘Then you’re just the man for me, sir.’
That was such a surprise that Will couldn’t find an answer. Not that it mattered, for Mr Dickens’ mind worked at such speed that obvious answers were taken as said. ‘I’ve plans afoot,’ he said. ‘It’s my opinion that we need a new radical newspaper in times like these. What do you think?’
Will recovered himself sufficiently to agree that they did. He’d heard rumours that Mr Dickens had plans to start such a paper, and thought it an admirable venture.
‘How would you like to work for me?’ Mr Dickens asked. ‘Should there be such a paper for me to edit and you to work upon.’
‘There’s nothing I should like better,’ Will said with perfect truth. What an opportunity! But could he accept it? Would it be possible to extricate himself from the firm at last?
‘Come and see me,’ Dickens instructed, as he moved on to the next group waiting his attention. ‘Devonshire Terrace.’
‘Thank you,’ Will said, feeling how inadequate the words were. His brain was spinning with amazement. To be offered a job with Mr Charles Dickens! Imagine that! Why, it was too good to be true. And much too good to be refused. A second chance, just when he least expected it. And such a chance. He’d be a fool not to take it. He would wait until his father got back from York and then he’d ask him about it. No, not ask. That was too timid. He would tell him. Papa would understand.
Chapter 12
The season was coming to an end. It was August and a glorious late summer evening, warm and dusty and luscious with the scent of honeysuckle under a sky the colour of lavender. The famous Vauxhall Gardens were being opened to the public for the last time that year and Caroline was going to put a secret plan into operation and see her handsome poet again at the same time while her father was away in York. What could be better?
John Easter had given Bessie most particular instructions before he went away. Whenever the family appeared in public, she was to accompany the young ladies and be sure never to let Miss Caroline out of her sight. She wasn’t to allow her to speak to that Mr Easter, and she was to make her behave with decorum and to stay with Will and Euphemia all the time. Though how that was to be done when she ran about everywhere the way she did Bessie couldn’t think.
She’d confided in Nan of course, that morning, because she talked everything over with her old mistress, but it hadn’t helped her much.
‘She en’t like to come to much harm in Vauxhall Gardens,’ Nan said. ‘Not with the sort of crowds we’ll see there and the entertainments they’ve laid on. It’ll be quite like old times, Bessie. Do you remember the Ranelagh Gardens and the old Rotunda? My heart alive, they were grand old days.’ And when Bessie sucked her remaining teeth and made a wry grimace, ‘Don’t ‘ee fret, my dear. ‘Twill be a great occasion, you’ll see, and no harm done.’
It was certainly a very noisy one. And the crowds that streamed across Waterloo Bridge were in high good humour. They were like a travelling carnival, filling the road with wheels and horseflesh and every kind of traffic; cabs and hackney carriages; donkey carts and gigs; young women bright-faced and beribboned in two-horse chaises; young men on horseback trotting from carriage to carriage to greet their friends; and so many revellers on foot it was a wonder some of them weren’t crushed in the crowd; shopkeepers and their wives cheerfully rotund; clerks as skinny as pipe cleaners; servants of every size and kind; in and out of livery. Why, there’d hardly be room for them all in the gardens.
But the new owners of the Vauxhall Gardens wanted crowds and had made provision for them. There were six entrance gates, and a band to play welcoming music and attendants in green to sell programmes and smile welcoming smiles, and behind them a blaze of welcoming light. There were two crescent-shaped buildings full of supper rooms golden with candlelights; a fountain sparkling with white light and the fish-flash of silver water; a dazzling variety of entertainments surrounded by flaming torches; and on every ancient tree in every glade and bower and avenue, string upon string of coloured lanterns, thousands and thousands of them, glowing and bobbing and beckoning in a vast whispering sea of enticing darkness. Half the people of London could have lost themselves inside the place with no difficulty at all. Which on that lavender coloured evening they very rapidly did.
The first of the Easters to go tumbling off into the dazzle was Caroline. Of course. She disappeared into the crowd, with Euphemia tripping behind her, long before poor Bessie could struggle out of the second carriage.
‘Now look!’ the old lady grumbled. ‘You can’t even see her.’
‘She’ll be back,’ Nan said, looking out for Billy and Matilda who had arranged to meet her inside the grounds. ‘The ball begins at seven and she won’t miss that, I can tell ‘ee. And we’ve tickets for the refreshment rooms afterwards. She’ll be back. Don’t ‘ee fret.’
‘How can I keep an eye on her when she runs off?’ Bessie demanded.
‘Will’ll find her,’ Nan offered. ‘Won’t you, Will?’
But Will couldn’t see where she’d gone either.
‘It’s too bad,’ Bessie grumbled. ‘I’m getting too long in the tooth for all this jauncing about.’ But she followed Nan into the grounds to where Mr Billy was waiting with Matilda and Matty and Jimmy. What else could she do when she hadn’t got the faintest idea where her naughty Caroline could be?
In fact, her naughty Caroline was a mere hundred yards away, running at full tilt towards the fountains, skirts swinging and bonnet flying by its strings, because she had just seen her dear, dear Henry. He was waiting impatiently beside the pool, just as he’d promised, looking oh so handsome in his mustard coloured jacket, and as she ran towards him, hands outstretched, a rainbow shimmered into being in the waterdrops above his head, a bright theatrical night-time rainbow, like a miracle.
‘My dearest, dearest girl,’ he said, his long face lifting with joy to see her again, catching her hands, raising them to his lips, kissing them. Every time he saw her, smiling at him with those fine grey eyes, the pleasure of it was more extreme. ‘My dearest girl.’ Then he saw Euphemia and tried to control himself.
But Caroline was dancing about him, skipping on her toes, light in her excitement as a leaf in the wind. ‘Ain’t this thrilling!’ she said. ‘Papa’s away.’
Euphemia tried to be sensible. ‘Are you to attend the opening ball?’ she asked.
‘Of course. Of course. I can’t wait to dance.’
But there were twenty minutes to wait, according to the programme.
‘What shall we do in the meantime?’ Caroline said, still skipping.
‘There are instrumentalists playing in the bandstand,’ Euphemia told her, reading from her programme, ‘or we could see the Ballet of Spring and the Graces. Or there’s an eruption of Etna in the Turkish Saloon.’
‘Volcanos are just my style,’ Henry said, seizing them both by the hand. ‘Especially today. Lead on!’
So they went to the Turkish Saloon, where attendants of both sexes were dressed in turbans and sequined jackets and huge baggy trousers, and the crush was so extreme that Henry had to stand close behind Caroline with his hands about her waist to steady her, and she had to remove her bonnet and lean her head an
d shoulders against his chest, so that he could see the stage. Which was all a great deal more thrilling than the presentation.
Etna was plainly made of cardboard and rose in isolated splendour on the tiny platform while a flautist and drummer played ‘Turkish’ music in the pit below. It was three feet high and glowed in a splendidly sinister way from the pink lanterns not quite hidden in its interior. Presently, to cheers from the audience, two lines of wooden peasants, six inches tall, were slid onto the stage from the wings and performed a dance more or less in time to the wailing music. Or to be more accurate, swayed about rhythmically, for they were attached by their feet to two wooden poles, and had to dance in unison whether they would or no. In fact when Etna gave its first echoing growl, through a megaphone every bit as visible as the lanterns, one line fell over backwards and had to stay where they were for several seconds because their companions were trampling straight across them.
The audience were delighted by such chaos. ‘Bravo!’ they called. And when the dancers made trembling movements towards the wings. ‘Encore! Encore!’
The megaphone roared again, ‘A-raaa! A-raaa!’, and was applauded for its efforts.
‘It is remarkably leonine for a mountain,’ Henry said.
‘I think it has burnt itself on those lanterns,’ Caroline laughed.
As if to prove her right, the pink lanterns were suddenly dropped into the bowels of the earth, leaving the stage in momentary darkness and giving Henry a chance to tighten his embrace. Then, just as the audience was getting restive, a paper rocket shot up from the crater towards the ceiling where it exploded with a stink of sulphur and a great deal of dark smoke and then showered the audience with thirty seconds’ worth of dazzling white sparks.
Sixpenny Stalls Page 18
