‘I cannot bear to see her so,’ Will said when he and Nan were back in the parlour again.
‘Henry must be told of it,’ Nan said, thinking aloud. No matter what their quarrel, he ought to know. ‘I’ve a mind to send Tom down to Richmond tonight.’
‘He won’t be there,’ Will said, suddenly remembering the plans he’d made for the evening. ‘He’s dining with Matty and Jimmy. I was supposed to be joining them later. I’d clean forgot.’
‘Is it any wonder?’ Nan said grimly. ‘Never mind, I will tell him first thing tomorrow.’
‘No,’ Will said. It would be heartless to keep him in the dark so long. ‘He ought to know now, Nan. After all he is her husband. I’ll cut across to Clerkenwell to see him. In any case, they’ll all be wondering where I am. I should have sent a message long before this.’
‘Make it a round trip while you’re about it,’ Nan said, remembering things too. ‘Your Uncle Billy was took ill this afternoon as well as Carrie, and I en’t sent to enquire after him yet.’
‘We’ve had too much else to think about,’ Will said. ‘I’ll call in on my way back from Clerkenwell Green.’
The wind had dropped at last and the sky was streaked with sunset colours as the carriage took Will to Clerkenwell. If it hadn’t been for his anxiety he could have enjoyed the journey, for the city was at its best in autumn, and Clerkenwell Green could have been in a village in the heart of the country with its sheep resting under the yellowing chestnut tree and people gossiping beside the columns of the Sessions House.
But there were no lights in Matty’s dining room and the house seemed ominously quiet.
‘Oh, Mr Will sir,’ the parlour maid said when she opened the door. ‘They ain’t here, sir. All gone off ter Torrington Square so they ‘ave, more’n an hour since, on account a’ Miss Matty’s Pa being so ill. Mortal bad, so Mr Edward said when he come.’
‘Thank you Ellen,’ Will said, taking refuge in politeness because alarm was gripping his heart for the second time that day. ‘Did Mr Henry pay a call?’
‘He come not ten minutes after they was gone. Didn’t stay though, not after I told him about Miss Matty’s Pa.’
‘Do you know where he went?’ Will asked. One of the sheep was bleating, and he wished it wouldn’t, for the sound was too ordinary and peaceful for such a dreadful day.
‘Couldn’t say sir, I’m sure. Have I ter give ‘em a message?’
‘No, thank you Ellen, I’m off to Torrington Square myself directly, so I daresay I shall see them before you do.’
But what would he find when he got there?
In Bedford Square Nan was still sitting wearily in her parlour when Caleb came downstairs to say goodbye.
‘We’re much beholden to ‘ee, Mr Rawson,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a true friend to us today and no mistake.’
‘I could have done no other, Mrs Easter,’ Caleb said, and there was a breathless quality about his voice that made her look up at him sharply. Why, the man was trembling with excitement, bristling with it. ‘Not now. Not after tonight. Not now I’ve seen her shorn t’ way she is.’
‘She will recover,’ Nan said, misunderstanding his emotion and feeling she ought to comfort him.
‘Oh aye. I know that,’ he said. ‘She’s a fighter. It’s not that.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘Why, she’s my daughter, Mrs Easter. I’ve thought it all along, but now I’m sure. Wi’ her head shaved, she’s t’ spit and image of the face I saw in a mirror once back in t’ convict days. She’s my daughter.’ Then he caught his breath and stopped, looking suddenly shamefaced, as he realized that what he’d just said was an insult to this lady and her family, a slur on her dead daughter-in-law; the worst possible thing to say and at the worst possible time.
But she surprised him. ‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘She is.’ She’d always known this moment would arrive sooner or later, ever since he first walked into the house.
‘You know it?’ he said when he could find his voice.
‘Oh yes. I have always known it. Sit down, Mr Rawson, pray do. I don’t want another collapse on my hands today.’
He sat obediently and gratefully, wondering how she knew and how many others knew too.
‘Harriet kept a diary,’ she said, looking straight at him, shrewd and level-headed and truthful in the gilded light of the sunset. ‘When she was a-dying she gave it to me to burn, to protect her husband from what it contained, you see, poor child. I read it before I put it in the fire, and I’ve kept the secret of it to this day.’
He was lost in shame at his own actions and admiration for hers. She was a very great lady, this Nan Easter.
‘What are we to do?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said, giving him that straight look of hers again. ‘She’s been bred an Easter no matter what her parentage may or may not have been, and mighty proud to be one, I can tell ‘ee. And she’s married an Easter, and bred an Easter of her own, and is like to breed another if she survives the fever. There en’t a thing you can do for her now, Mr Rawson, beyond what you’ve done for her today.’
‘I would not have told her any of this, ma’am,’ he said humbly. ‘That would have been a slur on her mother’s good name. I make no claim upon her. It was just t’ shock of t’ resemblance made me speak, and now I’m sorry for it. You have my word.’
‘She is very like you, Mr Rawson,’ Nan said. ‘She has your courage, I think, and your generosity. Let us pray she has your strength too, to pull her through this illness. And now, you must forgive me if I ask you to leave. I’m an old lady and I’m tired to the bone. We will speak of this again on some other occasion.’
‘Yes,’ he said, rising to go as she rang the bell. ‘It has been a terrible day. I’m only sorry to have made it worse by speaking out of turn. A terrible day.’
‘It has,’ she said, ‘but it’s nearly over now, thank heavens.’
‘Once Mr Will is home,’ she said to her maid when the weaver was gone, ‘we will have a little light supper and get to bed. Cold meats and such. Will you tell Cook? And you’d better light the lamps in here. It’s grown quite dark.’
But dark or not the day wasn’t finished yet.
Nan was dozing in her chair when she heard the carriage return, and Will’s voice in the hall talking to someone. Another young man? Surely he hadn’t brought somebody home, she thought irritably. Not at a time like this. It wasn’t like Will to be so thoughtless.
But then they both came striding into her parlour and she saw that the visitor was Henry and she thought she understood.
‘Henry, my dear,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether you’ll be able to see her, you know. We en’t allowed in, except when she’s asleep.’ And what if she were to wake and see him? What a shock that would be.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know that. Will has explained, but I had to come.’
She realized that they were both looking strained and uncomfortable. ‘What is it?’ she said.
‘It’s Uncle Billy, I’m afraid,’ Will said and his handsome face was pinched with distress.
She knew, instinctively, before he told her. ‘He is ill?’ she said.
‘Very ill, Nan. Very very ill.’
‘Is he like to die, Will? Tell me the truth, my dear.’
‘I am so sorry to have to tell you this,’ Will said, kneeling before her and taking her hands in his, ‘but I cannot soften it. There is no way to soften it.’
‘He is dead,’ she said flatly.
‘Yes. When he was taken ill in the court, it was an apoplexy. He died in the carriage on the way home. Matilda and Edward were with him.’
‘Poor Matilda,’ she said. Then her face creased and she began to cry, terrible pent-up tears that she’d carried all through the day. ‘Oh, how are we to bear it? It is too much.’
Henry was beside her in one movement, sitting with his arms about her and her poor white head on his shoulder. ‘There my dear, brave, darling Nan,’ he said.
‘There my dear!’ And she leant on his shoulder and cried like a child, with the tears running off her nose onto his shirt, and Will still kneeling at her feet, stroking her hand.
‘You are such good boys,’ she said when the worst of the crying was over. ‘I don’t know what I should do without you. You ought to be going up to see how Caroline is, Henry my dear, and I’m keeping you. And making such a mess of your shirt. Oh dear.’
‘The shirt will wash,’ Henry told her, ‘and I shall see Carrie eventually. Shan’t I? When she’s better.’
‘Go now, my dear,’ Nan said, kissing him, for his anxiety was too touching not to be answered. ‘Will will stay here with me.’
So he went, and because Caroline was sound asleep, Euphemia allowed him into the room ‘for half a minute’ and he stood close enough to his darling to have touched her if only he’d been allowed to. Even in the lamplight he could see how hot and ill she was, and that poor cropped head made him yearn with pity for her. We are more apart than ever, he thought, for now we may not even look at one another. How cruel life is.
‘She will recover, won’t she Pheemy?’ he whispered, when the two of them had retreated to the door.
‘Yes,’ Euphemia whispered back. ‘She will. I promise.’
And as she sounded so sure, and seemed strong enough to accept even more bad news, he told her about Uncle Billy.
‘Carrie mustn’t know of it,’ she said. ‘That’s the important thing. I shan’t wear mourning. Nan will understand.’
‘Yes. Poor Nan.’
‘What a fearful day this has been.’
‘Yes,’ Henry said. But it had brought him within a hand’s breath of his darling again, even if they weren’t allowed to speak, and she would recover, Pheemy said so. Even in the midst of distress, there was hope in that.
They all had a long way to go before Caroline was well. And the biggest obstacle to her recovery, as Euphemia began to suspect after a week of his ministrations, was Nan’s trusted doctor.
He came to the house every morning either to bleed his patient or to purge her, and sometimes he did both and departed very well pleased with himself. His visits left poor Caroline so weak and distressed that Euphemia became more and more alarmed each day. On the morning of Billy’s funeral, when Caroline had been bled and purged she was so ill she couldn’t speak. At that point Euphemia decided that something would have to be done to stop the torture.
She would speak to Will as soon as he got back from the service.
Chapter 34
Billy’s funeral was a very big affair. He was buried in London in the church where he’d worshipped every Sunday of his working life, and so beside every single member of the family, except Caroline and Euphemia, colleagues came from all over the City to pay their last respects.
Even old Bessie Thistlethwaite travelled down from Bury to say goodbye to her dear boy and to weep with everyone else in that crowded church.
‘Such a dear, good boy he always was,’ she said to Matilda afterwards. ‘I couldn’t ha’ loved him more if he’d been my own. No disrespect to you, Tom dear.’
‘None taken,’ Tom told her, giving her a hug.
Both women were being supported by their sons that day, and both were glad of it, for Bessie was tottery after her long journey and Matilda was so stunned with grief that, as she told her guests over and over again, she could never have endured it if it hadn’t been for Edward and Mirabelle.
The two of them had taken charge of the funeral and stayed with Matilda through every weeping minute since Billy died, supporting her most affectionately and practically, Mirabelle because she was genuinely fond of her outspoken mother-in-law, and Edward because he was riven with guilt at the thought that his father’s death was ultimately his fault.
‘Whatever else we may think of Edward,’ Will said to Henry as they left the church, ‘he’s certainly redeemed himself today.’
But Henry was more concerned about Caroline. ‘Would it be in order for me to come back to Bedford Square with you?’ he wondered. ‘Just to see how she is.’
It cheered Will to be able to give his permission. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Quite in order and perfectly understandable. After all, you’ve called every other day.’ And never seen her once, thanks to Dr Owen.
But this call was different.
As soon as they were in the hall, Euphemia came skimming down the stairs to meet them, her face so strained with anxiety that they both said the same thing with one voice.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘We must get her away from Dr Owen,’ Euphemia said without greeting or preamble. ‘He’s doing her no good. I’ve felt it ever since he began to treat her and now I’m sure of it. She grows weaker with every treatment instead of improving. And today …’
‘Is she worse?’ Henry asked, catching her anxiety.
‘Yes, oh yes,’ Euphemia said. ‘When he bled her this morning it made her shake with weakness, and I know that can’t be right. It can’t, can it? And now she’s in such a state she don’t open her eyes or speak a word. Oh, what are we to do?’
But Henry was already taking action, leaping up the stairs two at a time, his long legs incisive as scissors.
Caroline was propped against the pillows in her darkened room, her shorn head damp and her eyes closed, but she opened them wearily when she heard his approach and managed to whisper his name. ‘Henry?’
He was beside the bed in one stride, and gathering her poor limp body into his arms. ‘My dearest girl!’ he said. ‘My dearest, dearest girl, what have they been doing to you?’
‘I – feel – so ill,’ she struggled. Was this Henry holding her? Or was she dreaming? But she was breathing in the familiar scent of his skin, leaning her head against the remembered warmth of his chest. Henry. Come to see her at last. Her own dear Henry. She had a vague puzzled memory that he had hurt her once, that she had run away from him, but now there was only relief to see him, relief to know that he would protect her. ‘Don’t – let him – bleed me again,’ she said.
He was all instinct, all affection, knowing exactly what action to take, and ready to take it. ‘You shall come home,’ he promised. ‘You shall never be bled again. My own dear darling, I can’t bear to see you so.’
She was weeping with weakness and relief, her sobs muffled against his jacket, aware that Pheemy was standing beside them with Will worrying behind her.
‘I’m going – home,’ she said between sobs, as Henry kissed her hair and stroked her spine with the most delicate affection. ‘Going home.’
This wasn’t quite what Euphemia had intended, if she’d intended anything, and in her present state of worried confusion she wasn’t even sure of that. ‘What will Nan say?’ she worried. ‘She’s not supposed to have any excitement.’
‘Tom can ride on ahead and tell Mrs Benotti,’ Henry said, organizing the removal as if Euphemia hadn’t spoken, ‘can’t he, Will? We’ll travel in my carriage and pad the seat with pillows and blankets, and put hot bricks at her feet. I promise she won’t take cold, Pheemy. Totty can follow on with Harry and the luggage.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ Will said, soft-footing out of the room at once.
‘You will come with us, won’t you Pheemy?’ Henry said, still cradling his darling. ‘You’ll go on nursing her?’
Was there any doubt? ‘Of course, of course,’ Euphemia said. ‘But Nan might not think it wise. Are you sure you are doing the right thing?’
Now that Caroline was in his arms Henry was sure of everything. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am. And Nan will agree. You’ll see.’
She had agreed already, for Will had met her in the hall and told her what was happening and what Henry planned to do.
‘My heart alive!’ she said. ‘He do move fast, our Henry. He’s a proper Easter. Was she truly happy to see him?’
‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘She wept, but she was happy. You could see that.’
‘In that case, we will do as he suggests.
Personally, I think she should be kept quiet and calm and mend by degrees because I couldn’t bear to lose her. Not after my Billy. But as he’s here and they’re together again and she’s withstood the shock of that, then I suppose the sooner she travels the better. They’re husband and wife, when all’s said and done, and they ought to be together. It en’t for me to say what’s to be done. Pheemy shall go with ‘em of course, so she’ll be in good hands, and I’ll send Bessie too, just in case. You and I can follow along with young Harry.’
Tom Thistlethwaite was sent to ride on ahead of them all, and the carriages were told to return and the servants were given their orders. Half an hour later, Henry carried his darling gently downstairs and tucked her tenderly among the blankets in his closed carriage.
‘You will send for a doctor first thing,’ Nan instructed as he was climbing in after Euphemia and Bessie.
‘We have a most sensible practitioner just around the corner,’ he said seriously. ‘She’ll be well looked after.’
‘And treated gently?’
He understood her. ‘No one will ever lay a hand on her ever again,’ he promised. ‘You have my word.’
‘I’m uncommon pleased to hear it,’ Nan approved. ‘Drive carefully.’
The coachman drove very slowly and very carefully, but the journey exhausted Caroline despite his efforts, and when they reached Richmond Hill and Henry carried her into the house, she groaned when he lifted her, because her back and her arms were so sore.
‘Hold her gently, do,’ Bessie scolded, struggling out of the carriage with a blanket ready to cover her darling against the autumn air.
‘Not – his – fault,’ Caroline panted, limp with weakness but defending him at once and trying not to wince. Oh, if only she could lie down again, anywhere, even on the floor. She felt so ill.
Her old bed was feather soft and as snug as Mrs Benotti’s two warming pans could make it, and the house was peaceful and familiar and comforting, even though the bedroom was dark with the curtains drawn against the fever. ‘So – good – to be – home,’ she said. ‘Where’s – my Harry?’
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