Apple Blossom Bride

by Marina Oliver

  'That might sway him,' she agreed. 'I'll tell him, and when you bring the casks over you can suggest it.'

  *

  Eve did not see Amelia again for several days, and when she did she heard the Earl had gone back home. She was sorry she wouldn't see him again. There were very few personable men in the district, either inhabitants or visitors.

  'Then he has to go to London the following week for whatever work he is doing at the War Office,' Amelia went on. 'But I'll see him again soon, because we are going to London for a few weeks before Christmas. Caroline says it's to introduce me to the ton before it becomes impossibly busy in March.'

  Eve sighed. Lucky Amelia, to be meeting the Earl. And probably their engagement would be announced while she was in London. 'I'm still waiting to hear whether Rachel will invite me to stay with her during the Season, as she hinted, and whether Papa will permit me to go. I do so long to get away from here, even if for just a month.'

  'She promised, didn't she?'

  'She said if she could, if her husband permitted it, so it's not certain yet. I think she hopes to make a match for me, but I'm not going to marry a man twice my age as she did. Or anyone who already has children and just wants a mother for them.'

  'Don't you want to get married?'

  'Yes, but not just to escape from the Rectory. I suppose even Nicholas might be bearable if he had his preferment and then I might be able to make him behave more reasonably. He's as he is because he thinks it pleases Papa for him to be always chastising and correcting me and the boys.'

  'He won't change!' Amelia said. 'Please, Eve, don't marry him! Even someone like Viscount Benson would be preferable.'

  'Perhaps, but I'll only ever get to meet anyone if I can go to London. Papa won't even permit me to go to the Assemblies in Hereford. He says it's too far for travelling back at night, but I know it's really because he disapproves of dancing.'

  'He doesn't forbid the villagers to hold a dance after the harvest, does he?'

  'No, he purses his lips and says he supposes they must have some harmless entertainment. Harmless! He doesn't believe that, but he only accepts it because he knows they would do it anyway, and then his precious authority would be damaged.'

  'Doesn't he permit you to go?'

  'Yes, for an hour, to take part in some simple round dance.' She giggled. 'He'd be furious if he knew you had taught me the dances they do in London! Amelia, can you waltz?'

  'Yes, Bernard employed a dancing teacher, he says I need to know it in case anyone asks me when we are in London.'

  Eve groaned. 'Oh, how fortunate you are!'

  'Come over to the Court one day and I'll teach you. When?'

  'Will you? You are the best friend ever! Then I'll ride over one day next week. It will take me several days to persuade Papa. He's annoyed with me because Farmer Blunt brought us a flagon of last year's cider, and he thinks I asked for it, though I swear I didn't. And James is aggravating him, too.'

  'What has he done, more than usual, I mean?'

  'You know he has been saying for years that he is old enough to be a drummer boy, and now he wants to run away and join the army, before the war is over, instead of going to Oxford. You can imagine how well that pleases Papa! He says war is wicked, and I truly think he would prefer to see that monster Napoleon in London than for us to have an army. When the news came of the capture of San Sebastian he was furious for days.'

  'Yet that and Pamplona won us Spain. Bernard was thrilled, and aching to go back, but his wounds and those seizures he's been having still prevent him.'

  'And Papa says it is wrong for Wellington to invade France. Why not, when Napoleon has invaded and conquered so many countries, and would invade England if he could!'

  *

  Eve managed to persuade the Rector it was her duty to ride over to see Amelia before she went to London, to give their best wishes. Perhaps he agreed, she told Amelia, because he was still so furious with James, and she had been particularly complaisant and helpful since the cider making.

  'I wish you could come with me,' Amelia said. 'I want to go, but I'm nervous. Will people like me? Will I know what to do?'

  'You've been to London before.'

  'But then I was in the schoolroom, not a debutante looking for a husband, which I know is the main objective of the Season.'

  Wasn't she already half-promised to the Earl, Eve wondered. Surely, if he proposed, she would never prefer another man? Eve knew that she would not, but a man like that would never consider marrying her. She sighed.

  'You will have a wonderful time, and I wish I could come too!' she said.

  'I'll lend you my latest novel instead. It's a delicious tale, by a new authoress. It's about two sisters, one who is very sensible, like you, Eve, and the other who is very emotional, like me.'

  As Eve rode home she was not sure she liked Amelia's last comment. Her father did not think she was at all sensible. But she had the pleasure of a new novel to read, something of a rarity in her life. She must find time to at least begin it as soon as possible.

  On the following day it rained heavily, and the Rector complained because he had to ride to Hereford for some diocesan meeting. He set the two boys tasks which had them groaning, and which he said would keep them out of mischief until he returned. Eve also had her instructions, but her tasks took less time and she was soon able to escape to the hay loft where she grew warm, snuggled into a nest of hay and with the heat rising from the horses in the stable below. It was some time later when she heard her father's horse being brought into his stall directly below her, and the boys being told to groom him.

  'Oh, Papa!' James protested. 'He's filthy, there's mud up to his withers.'

  'You know, James, that it is a sign of grace to perform tasks for other people,' the Rector said, and Eve heard his footsteps retreating.

  'How is it that the tasks we have to perform are always for him, never for any other people?' James demanded.

  Eve ceased to listen. This tale of the two sisters was absorbing, and she did not at all agree with Amelia that she was like the sensible Elinor. She was at times, she admitted, and more so than Amelia, but she felt she had equally as much in common with the younger Marianne.

  Then the word 'army' coming from below caught her attention. It was James, as usual, complaining that Papa would not permit him to join.

  'If I don't join soon, the war will be over,' he said.

  'But there are other wars,' Stephen pointed out.

  'Not in Europe. Who wants to go and fight those rebels in America?'

  'India?'

  'The soldiers there are just policemen, making sure the natives behave.'

  'But people there can make huge fortunes,' Stephen said. 'Wouldn't you like that?'

  'My Uncle George, Mama's brother, is a Nabob, Rachel says, and he's worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. But I've never seen him. He quarrelled with Papa before I was born. And I don't want a fortune. Papa would only say I couldn't keep it, must give it to the deserving poor. What about the undeserving poor? Don't they need it just as much?'

  Eve stifled a giggle. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but it was fascinating to hear her brother's opinions, which he rarely expressed in front of their father.

  'Africa?' Stephen was persevering.

  'Too hot, and lots of insects and diseases. It has to be with Wellington, or I might as well go to Oxford. At least that will get me away from here and grooming Papa's wretched horses.'

  *

  James went off on his own when the horse was dry and clean. Unusually, he didn't want Stephen's company. His friend was too complacent, he thought in a sudden spurt of anger. He was content to do what his older brother commanded, even submitting to the Rector's bullying. And he wasn't interested in the army, didn't really understand James's frustration at not being able to join in before the monster who had dominated Europe for so long was finally defeated.

  He wandered towards the village, where the inn, the Crown, sat on one
side of the green, with a few houses of the better off inhabitants facing it. A cluster of almshouses faced the church. This was a charity that had been set up a century ago by the then squire, who had made a vast amount of money in some scheme James didn't understand, but which he'd heard was connected to some bubble, which made even less sense. The squire, however, had left enough money to build and finance the almshouses and provide a small income for each of the residents. And, to the Rector's often expressed disgust, had set up a system of trustees to oversee his charity. The Rector, James suspected, would have liked to demolish the almshouses, for he disapproved of such free charity, saying the old men's families ought to provide for them, and keep them at their own homes. Also, he did not like to see the old men sitting outside in the sun, when they could, he maintained, have been doing something useful even if they were too old to work in the fields. When James had once, rashly, pointed out that some of the old men had no families, he was told not to be impertinent. One of the old men who lived there, James suddenly recalled, had once been a soldier. He would go and call on Danny.

  Danny was sitting outside enjoying a pot of ale, resting his stump of a wooden leg on a crate that had once held vegetables one of the farmers took to market. The landlord of the Crown often brought pints of ale across to him and the other old men. He welcomed James, and the boy sat down on the grass beside him.

  'What's up?' Danny asked.

  He had an uncanny skill in seeing into James's thoughts without a word being spoken.

  'The usual,' James said. 'Papa won't hear about my joining the army, and it's not fair! It's my life, not his, and even if I am killed he's got another son. It's not as if he's got a vast estate, or even an important title, to pass on!'

  Danny chuckled. 'The army's not glamorous, son. Not in the ranks.'

  'I know it isn't, and that doesn't matter. Tell me about when you were in America.'

  'We were fightin' the Frenchies then, too,' Danny said, settling down, as James had known he would, into a reminiscent mood. 'In Canada, that were. We captured Montreal, sent the Frenchies back 'ome with their tails between their legs. We dain't do so good agin Spain, though. We got Florida from them, but they Frenchies lost Louisiana to 'em. I never went to Florida. Hot there, they say, like in the islands. We got some of them from France, too.'

  'Were you at the Boston Tea Party?'

  'Aye, I were still there more'n ten years later. I only ever come back to England years after that, when I bust me leg. That was to find me whole family gone, and nowhere to lay me 'ead till Squire – the old one, you never knew him – give me one o' these places, God bless 'im.'

  'What was it like, the fighting?'

  'It were 'orrible. There was your pals, lyin' wounded or dead at your feet, and you couldn't stop to 'elp. You 'ad ter keep on, or be shot down yourself. Tek my advice, lad, go to the university like yer dad wants, and after, you can do what yer likes.'

  James soon left Danny. Even he, an old soldier who had, he'd sometimes admitted, enjoyed the fighting and the companionship, didn't appreciate his need to join the army. There was nothing for it, he'd have to run away.

  *

  When Justin returned to Barnwell, his house in Buckinghamshire, he found plenty to occupy himself. One of his tenant farmers had been accused by a village girl of rape, and though the man vigorously protested his innocence, and maintained he had an alibi, he had been arrested. Justin saw the girl and questioned her, with her mother standing beside her. The rape, she said, had taken place after the supper traditionally held at the end of hay making.

  'But that's months ago!' Justin said. 'Why did you not come forward before?'

  'She was ashamed,' her mother said. 'She didn't want it known, but now, when she's breedin', she wants him to pay fer his kid.'

  Justin left them and went to consult his farm manager.

  'Do you believe Elsie Potter, Fawley?' he asked bluntly.

  'Potter was a hard man, but Elsie's had a bad reputation since her dad died last year, a troublemaker who's set several of the village lads at one another's throats, and she's been caught at last,' Fawley said slowly. 'It's my guess she chose the man best able to pay for her brat. All she wants is for the poor devil to pay her for its upkeep. I'm not saying he's innocent, he may have been with her, but so have a dozen more.'

  'What of this alibi he says he has?'

  'His wife and son? Of course they'd support him.'

  'How much does she want?'

  'She says a pound a week until the brat's sixteen.'

  'A pound! That's outrageous! I imagine she earns only six or seven shillings a week.'

  'Offer her five, that is if you're suggesting you pay her.'

  'Well, it's the fault of one of my tenants or workers, I suppose. I'll offer it to her so long as she and her mother move to Sherwood Hall, my estate in Yorkshire, and there's no more trouble there. Wasn't her mother an undercook here before she wed? The Hall could do with another cook, the girl can help in the kitchens, and I don't want trouble-makers here. I'll send someone to take them there.'

  With this and other problems to keep him occupied, Justin still found time to think about the cider making he'd witnessed. He went to the village inn and asked the innkeeper, a fat local man, to explain how ale was brewed.

  'Why should you want ter know that, me lord?'

  Justin laughed. 'I don't know, but I was recently in Herefordshire and saw cider being made. I wondered how it compared with brewing ale.'

  'Not at all, from what I know. But come down tomorrow morning, and I'll show you.'

  Justin found the experience far less satisfying then the cider making. It seemed to him to consist of mixing a variety of ingredients, boiling them, adding more, and producing a drink he did not especially like. Soon, he thought as he rode back home, he would be able to buy French wines again, instead of the Spanish and Portuguese they had been limited to during the past few years.

  *

  Eve had to abandon her novel when James, having finished grooming Papa's horse and gone back to the house, reappeared shouting her name. He knew she sometimes retreated to the hay loft, though he was scornful of her love of reading novels.

  'It's make-believe,' he protested.

  'Well, isn't that sometimes better than real life?' she asked.

  'It might be if it was a story about wars.'

  She shrugged, and crept swiftly up to her room where she hid the first volume of the novel in a drawer under her nightgowns. She brushed her hair, made sure there were no wisps of hay sticking to her gown, and went decorously down to the drawing room. She listened with apparent interest to her father's account of the meeting he had been to, the appalling state of the roads whenever there was a shower of rain, and the unsatisfactory progress of her brother's studies.

  She was thankful when, after the household prayers, she could plead tiredness and go to bed. She stuffed her old gown to block the crack under the door, then retrieved her novel. She knew she ought to read just a few pages a day, to spread out the pleasure, but consoled herself that she could read it all once or twice more before Amelia returned for Christmas.

  It was midnight before she put the book down and blew out the candle. She'd finished the first volume, but she really ought not to start the second volume tonight, or she would be exhausted the following day.

  As it was, she only just made it for family prayers, and her father glared at her as she slid into the drawing room. He expected her to be the first down, always.

  She kept out of his way for the rest of the morning, helping Cook with the preparations for Christmas, a feast her mother always kept up, and which Eve was determined her father would not forbid.

  She did not hear the visitor until her father sent for her. To her surprise she found Sir Bernard in the drawing room. She had thought they were due to set out for London that day or the next.

  The Reverend Ripon glared at her. 'Have you no better gown than that?' he demanded.

  'No Papa. None
of my gowns are any better.' Because you will not permit me to have anything remotely fashionable, she said to herself. 'I've been helping in the kitchen.'

  'That's no excuse. But never mind that. Sir Bernard has come to invite you to accompany Amelia to London for a few weeks.'

  Eve wondered if she was dreaming. Had she heard aright? 'Me? Go to London?'

  'She is nervous, and having a friend with her will be of immense help,' Sir Bernard said, and Eve could detect a twinkle in his eyes. 'But we set out tomorrow, and we can't delay. Can you be packed and ready to accompany me in an hour? I came in the trap, so we can carry a trunk for you.'

  Eve gulped. 'Yes, I can be ready, of course I will, and oh, thank you so much, Sir Bernard!'

  'It's a treat more than you deserve,' her father said. 'But I have agreed, and so you must not keep Sir Bernard waiting.'

  'Oh, no! Of course not! I'll go and pack at once.'

  The trunks they occasionally used when one of the family went away were in a small box room on the top floor. Eve, not waiting for help, dragged the largest trunk down the narrow stairs and began to throw her clothes into it. She had fewer than most girls, but she was a handy needlewoman, and she could fashion new clothes if, and the thought gave her pause, she had any money to purchase new materials.

  At the last minute she thrust Amelia's novel into the trunk, and announced she was ready. The trunk was loaded into the trap, and to Eve's astonishment her father thrust a roll of bills into her hand as she stepped up beside Sir Bernard.

  'Spend it wisely, child. I don't want you to be ashamed in front of Sir Bernard and his friends.'

  'Oh, thank you, Papa!'

  Impulsively Eve leant down and kissed her father. He normally discouraged such intimacies, but this time he kissed her on her brow, bade her, in a somewhat stifled voice, to behave herself, and stepped back to permit John and James to kiss their sister.