‘She blooms,’ Henry said. ‘She is absolutely beautiful.’
‘Then I’d best go up and see her.’
‘All this fuss,’ Bessie said quite crossly, ‘and you ain’t looked to see your grandmother’s in mourning, never the one of you.’
She’d been in mourning when she went away, so they’d thought nothing of it. Now they realized they might have been too quick with their news and Will and Henry were rather shamefaced.
Nan told them quickly. ‘Frederick died in his sleep, my dears. That’s what Bessie means. But you mustn’t feel sad, for he wouldn’t have wanted that at all. He valued your laughter, you know. He always said you were so full of life. And now bless me, if there en’t a new life arrived to welcome me home. And what could be nicer, Bessie? A new life and Pheemy and Will getting married. It’s just the sort of news I needed.’
And despite Bessie’s scowl, it was. To see her Carrie looking so well, with that pretty baby in the cradle beside her, lifted her spirits as nothing else could have done.
‘What plans we must make now,’ she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘When do they mean to marry?’
‘In May,’ Caroline said. ‘They’ve found a house here in Richmond, just up the hill, so we’re to be neighbours. Ain’t that a fine thing? It’s all being decorated, and Will says it looks quite dreadful just at present but it will be very grand when it’s finished.’
‘May,’ Nan approved. ‘An excellent month.’
‘But we’ve got the christening first,’ Caroline said, stroking the baby’s head.
‘So we have. And what could be nicer?’
John Joseph Easter was christened in Richmond parish church, on a bright brisk afternoon at the beginning of February. He was warmly wrapped in a fur-lined cloak and wore a cap of white swan’s down on his tender head, and he slept peacefully through the entire ceremony, only grunting a little when the water was sprinkled on his denuded scalp. Afterwards when the procession of carriages returned to Richmond Hill to a lavish meal purportedly held in his honour, he slept all through that too.
It was a happy party, the first happy occasion in the Easter family since those terrible days in October, and so Easters gathered from every part of the kingdom to attend it, from Bury and Rattlesden, Ippark and Cumberland, Bedford Square and Clerkenwell Green. Mr Rawson was invited too, because Nan said she thought it would be a good way of showing that they appreciated the help he’d given them when Caroline was so ill.
He certainly seemed very content at their party, sitting with Nan and Annie, although Henry protested that he never took his eyes from Caroline, ‘not once in the whole afternoon’.
‘That is because she is so pretty,’ Euphemia said, watching her as she stood among her guests with her new baby in her arms.
And it was true. She did look well, with her cheeks flushed and rounded, and her hair grown long enough to dress in ringlets again.
‘Pretty enough to eat,’ her brother said.
Nevertheless Henry was not amused to see her being given so much attention by a man who, for all his help, was only a weaver when all was said and done. And he was jolly pleased when Mr Rawson came to say goodbye and told them both that this would be the last occasion he would see them.
‘Is it, Mr Rawson?’ Caroline said. ‘I am sorry to hear you say so.’
‘I’m off to America,’ the weaver said. ‘To seek my fortunes. I always meant to travel there, and here’s t’ chance come, neat and handy, thanks to your grandmother.’
So they wished him well, and on a sudden impulse Caroline kissed him goodbye. ‘I shall always be grateful to you, Mr Rawson,’ she said.
‘Aye, lass,’ he said huskily. ‘And I to thee.’
Then he turned on his heel and was gone so quickly they were quite surprised.
‘What a peculiar thing, to rush off like that,’ Henry said.
But there wasn’t time for speculation, for there were other happy guests to attend to and a wedding to talk about.
‘I shall see you in May,’ Caroline said, over and over again as she said goodbye to the rest of her departing guests. ‘It will be such an occasion. I can’t wait.’
And a great day it was, sparkling with champagne and sunshine. This time the guests who returned to the reception at Henry’s fine house on the hill were able to stroll through the gardens after the meal, walking lazily about in the sunlight so that the lawns bubbled with swirling gowns and lace-edged parasols, and Euphemia, watching from her vantage point on the top terrace, told her dear Will that it looked as though the whole garden was growing gigantic daisies.
‘Are you happy, my dearest one?’ Will asked unnecessarily.
He was rewarded by having his arm squeezed. To be married to her darling at last, and settled in a fine house here in Richmond, and a mere two hundred yards away from Caroline and Henry, what more could she possibly want?
‘Oh Will, look!’ she said. ‘Caroline is paddling.’
And so she was, standing at the water’s edge with her crinoline lifted above her ankles, as happy as a child in the water, and quite herself again, with Henry admiring her from the bankside, and little Harry hopping beside her, and all her nephews and nieces splashing round about her.
‘Oh Will, my dear,’ Euphemia said, ‘this is the best day of my life.’
A better one was to follow a little under a year later when she and Caroline discovered to their great joy that they were both expecting babies in December.
‘What good fortune,’ Caroline said, ‘to be carrying together. Think how we can help each other.’
‘And our children will be company for each other,’ Euphemia said, ‘just as we are.’ Even the pervasive nausea of early pregnancy was bearable now.
‘We will visit one another every day,’ Caroline said.
That made Euphemia laugh. ‘We already do,’ she said, for now that they lived so close to one another they were rarely apart, particularly when Will was away from home working on a story.
‘Well then, we’ll visit twice every day,’ her cousin said, happily undeterred by such unnecessary logic.
Two weeks later the papers were full of news that made rather a nonsense of their plans, although it delighted Nan and Henry.
Ever since the previous summer, Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, had been trying to organize a ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’, which he wanted to hold in London ‘to lift the spirits of the people and demonstrate all the good which progress brings’. He’d run into all kinds of difficulties because the site he’d chosen for his exhibition hall was the great open expanse of Hyde Park, which was unfortunately already covered with a large number of ‘beautiful and long-established trees’, none of which, so his opponents said, could possibly be cut down to make way for the sort of temporary structure he proposed.
Now, after nearly twelve months’ wrangling, a solution had been found, by a gardener of all people, a certain Mr Paxton who built greenhouses and conservatories for the Duke of Devonshire. He proposed to house the exhibition in an enormous glasshouse, which could be erected round the trees and filled with plants and fountains. The newspapers were already calling it ‘The Crystal Palace’.
‘A glorious idea,’ Nan said when she presided over the meeting of her regional managers that June. ‘And splendid for trade. Just think of all the books that will be written about this! To say nothing of leaflets and programmes and I don’t know what all. I shall write to Prince Albert to put the Easter newsagents at his disposal for whatever publicity he requires.’
‘I think we could do better than that,’ Edward said. ‘I think we should take a stall at the exhibition, next door to the printing machines, for example, and put our new warehouse machinery on display. I would be happy to organize it, if you are all agreeable.’
‘An excellent idea, my dear,’ Nan said. ‘Your offer is accepted.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, glad to be so warmly praised. It was the perfect o
pportunity to make amends, just as Mirabelle had said when she pointed it out to him. Whatever stupidities he might have committed once, he was careful to avoid all folly now.
From then on every member of the family was hard at work. Newspaper sales trebled and bookstalls doubled in size as the foundations were dug for the ‘wonder of the age’ and the amazing cast iron pillars were hoisted into position. And at Henry’s invitation Caroline was hard at work too.
As more and more books about the exhibition began to be published, it soon became apparent that Easter’s would need somebody to supervise their ordering and delivery. And who better than Caroline?
‘I can think of plenty of people,’ Caroline said. ‘I shan’t be any good at all, not after that trial.’ And yet the offer was very tempting.
‘The trial is over and forgotten,’ Henry said. ‘Why, it is two years now. I guarantee there won’t be a single publisher who will even remember it.’ And if they do, he thought, they’ll be too busy with the exhibition to say anything.
‘But I am pregnant, Henry,’ she said, ‘and I have Harry and John to look after.’
‘Just until October,’ he pleaded. ‘To help me out, eh?’
‘Well,’ she said, laughing, ‘I never thought to hear you say such things.’
‘Then you will do it?’
‘If you insist. After all, I did promise to obey you.’
In the event Caroline worked until the beginning of November, and after that she took the order books home with her and worked on from her pretty sitting room overlooking the river. Neither she nor Easter’s had ever had so much to do.
She was still checking orders on the December afternoon when her third labour began, and although she sent Totty down to Euphemia’s house at once to call Taffy Biggs, who’d been installed there for the last two months ready to assist them both, she went on working until her bed was made up and the pains were squeezing hard, one after the other.
The baby was a girl, with very pale skin, an angelic face, and the slightest down of silvery fair hair. They called her Harriet Jane and Henry said the name suited her to a T.
‘A perfect choice,’ Nan said, when she came to visit the following afternoon, ‘for she’s just like your mother. Imagine that.’
Caroline couldn’t imagine anything nicer. ‘I wonder what Pheemy will have?’ she said, cuddling all three of her children about her. ‘Have you been to see how she is? Taffy went down to see her this morning and she’s not back yet so I’m beginning to wonder.’
She didn’t have to wonder long, for Euphemia’s baby was born that evening, exactly twenty-four hours after his cousin, a lusty red-headed boy, called William Henry.
‘I’ve got so many great-grandchildren I can’t count ‘em,’ Nan said, when the two babies were christened.
‘And these two have arrived just in time for the Great Exhibition, ‘Annie said. ‘What a year it’s going to be!’
It was also the year of Nan’s eightieth birthday, and that was something the family couldn’t allow to pass without celebration. At Christmas time Caroline and Euphemia and Henry and Will met together to plan the occasion.
‘Let’s keep it an absolute secret,’ Caroline said, her face full of mischief. ‘We’ll invite everybody down here and not tell her a word about it, and then we’ll tease her down for a birthday tea, as if it isn’t going to be anything special, and we’ll surprise her with a party.’
‘Are we to invite Edward and Mirabelle?’ Will wondered.
There was no doubt about it now. ‘Of course,’ Caroline said.
So the plans were made and the cake ordered and the invitations sent. And Nan was so busy preparing for the Great Exhibition she didn’t notice what they were about.
The Crystal Palace opened as planned on the 1 May 1851, on a day of fluttering showers and bright royal sunshine and to an audience of more than half a million people. Naturally enough Nan made sure that her entire family had prestigious seats for the opening ceremony, so they travelled to the Park in a procession.
Harry was so excited by the crush and noise in the streets that day that if his father hadn’t held onto him he would have tumbled out of the carriage. And when they reached the park, the sight they saw there lifted them all into a state of amazement and excitement that was every bit as strong as the child’s.
The great glass palace stretched out before them as far as the eye could see, every pane flashing diamond fires into the summer air. The flags of the nations flicked and fluttered on tall posts set all along the dazzling length of it, and the great semicircular curve of its central transept rose miraculously against the warm sky. It was quite stunningly beautiful set among the trees, like something out of an Arabian fairy tale, and it was drawing crowds towards it in bright human streams.
The park was packed with people. There were bare-foot urchins perched in the trees like untidy flocks of sparrows, some of them standing on the branches for an even better view. Below them the visitors were arriving in their thousands, all in their Sunday best and all in a state of rapturous excitement; city clerks all long legs and battered hats; pretty girls bonneted and beribboned; boys on hobby horses and boys with hoops; little girls important in wide skirts and frilled pantaloons; babes in arms with round lollipop faces, all eyes and mouths. Mingling among them were hordes of street traders offering every provision that anyone could possibly desire; gingerbread and fatty cakes, brandy balls, pigs’ trotters, and bottles of ginger beer by the truck load. Coster-women carried round wicker sieves piled with oranges, while their menfolk offered trays full of newly cut ham sandwiches. And there were cheapjacks by the score selling ‘silver’ medals of the Crystal Palace.
‘Are we to have a fatty cake, Papa?’ Harry wanted to know, as he was lifted down from his father’s carriage.
‘Presently,’ Henry said. ‘If you’re a good boy. First we are going inside the palace.’
‘Really truly?’
‘Really truly. Hold on to Mama’s hand.’
Nan was already at the door, tickets in hand, with all Matty’s children hopping about her. It took the commissionaire several minutes to count them all, but at last he was satisfied and they were allowed into the building.
The dazzle of sunlight inside that vast greenhouse was so extraordinary it took their breath away. The air shone with leaping rainbows and every corner was rich with colour. The great elms were still growing under the glass, just as Mr Paxton had promised they would be, fresh and beautiful and very much alive in their new spring greenery, their topmost branches spanned by the great shining curve of the transept. Huge tapestries embroidered in scarlet and pink and gold hung from the tops of the galleries all around them, and below them the floors were covered with rose pink carpet and every stall was draped with scarlet curtains. There were white statues gleaming at every corner and right in the middle of the building was a magical fountain made entirely of crystal where the tumbling water was as white as snow and burbled and sang as it fell.
Nan had made certain of good seats right at the front of the upper gallery and immediately above the crystal fountain where they would have a perfect view of the arrival of the Queen and Prince Albert, and could watch the court assemble while they waited. And a dazzling court it was, arriving in a multicoloured procession, gentlemen-at-arms in golden helmets and cuirasses; beef-eaters in red suits and black velvet caps; aldermen in scarlet gowns and councilmen in blue ones; archbishops in white lawn sleeves and purple gowns; Egyptians in red fezes; turks in turbans; heralds in splendid blue tabards emblazoned with gold lions. In modest black amongst all that colour, the old Duke of Wellington stood out with his silver hair and his crooked back. It took the best part of an hour for all these peacock people to assemble, but at last they were all in place and everyone was still and the Easter party could see the flash of bright liveries passing the windows of the northern entrance.
The glass palace echoed and re-echoed to the braying of trumpets and the Queen and Prince Albert and their t
wo eldest children were walking straight towards them along their own immaculate stretch of scarlet carpet. Prince Albert was in a Field Marshal’s uniform, the little Prince of Wales was in a land dress, the Princess Royal in white lace with a wreath of roses in her hair and the Queen, looking unexpectedly tiny amongst so many people, wore a gorgeous pink satin gown with a diamond tiara in her fair hair. The trumpets were drowned by cheers as every single person in the palace rose to their feet ready to sing the national anthem, and Henry Willis’s grand organ cleared its throat ready to play the opening notes.
‘There now, what do ‘ee think of that?’ Nan asked her great-grandchildren.
‘Magnificent,’ Everard Hopkins said, speaking for them all because he was the eldest and the others were rather overwhelmed.
And magnificent it was.
After the opening ceremony they walked round the exhibition to see all the marvels that had been gathered there, steam turbines and railway engines to thrill the boys; elephants and tigers to delight the girls; halls full of exotic cloth; a gallery of stained glass windows; and rows and rows of curiosities; a bookcase as long as a train; and a looking glass thirty feet tall; and a bed like a cross between a theatre and a Gothic cathedral. In fact, there were so many extraordinary things on display that they didn’t manage to see more than a quarter of them, but Nan promised that they would all come back again another day.
‘And again and again?’ Harry wanted to know.
‘And again and again and again.’
They went back three times before the month was out, and the third occasion was on Nan’s eightieth birthday.
‘An excellent idea,’ Caroline said, when Euphemia suggested it at one of Nan’s dinner parties. ‘We could all come back to Richmond afterwards and have a birthday tea.’
So it was arranged. Nan and Will and Euphemia would take all seven children for an afternoon at the exhibition and then they would all come home by train for Nan’s birthday tea.
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