‘Easter is my name. I came by it honest when I married Mr William Henry Easter which I have the papers to prove. I run an honest trade, much respected in this city which you should be proud to have your precious name associated with.
‘Your kin by marriage, which you cannot deny, A. Easter.’
Then she made an excellent supper, rage having sharpened her appetite.
And that night she slept the sleep of the just. Or the justifiably angry.
Chapter Nineteen
Perhaps it was just as well that Nan Easter’s fiery temper usually cooled overnight. When she woke the next morning her body was still warm with sleep and the residue of anger, but her head was clear and her business sense was reasserting itself. She had slept late because it was Thursday and that was the day when Thiss supervised the early delivery without her, so the morning had already begun. A pale September sun beamed two bright squares of colour onto the dinginess of her coverlet and the sky over the Chelsea fields was greeny-blue like a duck’s egg. ’Tis a beautiful world, she thought, and she felt glad to be alive in it, even though Mary Wollstonecraft could no longer share it with her, and Sir Osmond, who could, was wasting her time by being objectionable. She got up and put on her bed-gown and slippers and went downstairs to the dining-room to read her letter again.
Now in the clarity of the morning, she could see that it might cause more problems that it would solve. And as she had no wish to be involved in litigation unless she was quite sure she could win, she decided to take Sir Osmond’s letter to Portugal Street and seek advice from Mr Duncan.
‘A wise move, if I may make so bold as to say so, madam,’ he said. ‘Devilish tricky, some of these old county families. If you will allow me to suggest a possible line of action?’
She would.
‘It is my considered opinion that we should show these documents to our Mr Teshmaker. A young man, madam, but one with a sharp intellect. Yes, indeed. An uncommon sharp intellect.’
So the sharp intellect was sent for and presently came gliding into the room like a winter shadow. He looked extremely young to Nan, little more than a boy in all conscience, and slight into the bargain, for he was very thin and very pale and not a great deal taller than she was. But there was something about the way he walked that intrigued her despite his insignificant appearance. He moved like a dancer, with a deliberate, sinuous grace that was at once attractive and unnatural. But it wasn’t until their business had been concluded and he had retired to his cell again behind the wooden partition, that separated the inner office from the outer, that she realized what was giving him such a curious gait. The young man was lame. He wore an ordinary boot on his right foot but his left was battened within a leather tower with iron struts on either side of it and a six inch platform below it, which looked so horribly uncomfortable she had to avert her eyes.
He smiled back at her, patiently accepting his infirmity and her knowledge of it. For lame or no, he was clever and useful, and he knew it. And he also knew that she was one of the firm’s most prestigious clients.
When Mr Duncan showed him the two letters, he read them gravely, saying with a smile that he could quite appreciate Mrs Easter’s anger, which was entirely justified, but that perhaps a more moderate reply would be, shall we say, rather more judicial.
‘Write one, then,’ Nan told him. ‘I en’t sayin’ I shall use it, mind.’
‘That is perfectly understood,’ he smoothed.
‘Write it. Then we’ll see.’
The letter was a model of barbed propriety.
‘I have been instructed by my client, Mrs Nan Easter, of Cheyne Row, Chelsea, to reply to yr letter of the 15th inst. Whilst we appreciate yr concern apropos the correct and proper usage of yr family name, we would respectfully advise that there is no litigation whatsomever which would preclude the use of any name by such person or persons as have a legal entitlement to it, and that marriage invariably constitutes a legal entitlement. Furthermore, we would stress that the firm of A. Easter, Newsagents is a well known and respected firm in the City, which is rapidly becoming a byword for high standards and dependability, and as such, far from bringing disrepute upon the family name, would appear to us to complement the existing renown of that name. Yr Obedt servt, Cosmo Teshmaker, Duncan and Dukesbury, Portugal Street.’
‘I doubt we shall have any further difficulties after that,’ Mr Duncan said with great satisfaction when Nan had read the letter and agreed that it should be sent.
‘I hope not,’ Nan said. ‘I’ve a deal too much to do to want to waste time on such as Sir Osmond Easter.’
That winter the news of the war was bad. And it grew worse in the New Year. As the first tentative buds of spring hesitated on the bare branches of the wintry elms and catkins shook like yellow lambs’ tails in the late March winds, letters arrived from Ireland to say that Napoleon had tried to land troops there and had been defeated. There was considerable alarm.
‘He means to invade us, one way or t’other,’ Mr Walter said.
‘He’ll have a job while we got our Nelson to defend us,’ Nan told him. ‘A Norfolk man, our Nelson.’ She was very proud of that. ‘He’ll see ’em off, you may depend on it.’
And sure enough news came through a few weeks later that Napoleon had taken his army off to Egypt, and that the invasion of England seemed to have been postponed.
London was quite light-headed and papers sold as soon as they were printed, thus proving that good news has quite as much pulling power as bad, given the right circumstances. And when October arrived and news came through that Nelson had followed the French and defeated them yet again, at a battle named after the Egyptian River Nile, the celebrations were riotous and rowdy. Nelson was raised to the peerage and given a pension of two thousand pounds a year by his adoring nation, and, rather gratuitously, the title of Duke of Bronte too, from a grateful King of Naples, and the Times was completely sold out for four days in a row.
But despite excellent sales Nan had a problem she couldn’t solve. She had rented a new reading-room close to the law courts where coffee could be drunk and papers read for a quarterly subscription. Now she was beginning negotiations for a second and a third. Reading rooms were rapidly becoming as popular and well-frequented as the gentlemen’s clubs they rather resembled, and she could see that they would soon be a most dependable source of income. But her third reading-room was proving extremely difficult to rent. Two others had fallen through at the last moment and without explanation and now the third was being delayed in the same infuriating way.
‘Send ’em a letter,’ she suggested to the useful Mr Teshmaker. ‘See if you can’t persuade ’em to put a spurt on.’
‘Certainly, Mrs Easter,’ he said. But then he waited, his little mousy face thoughtful and watchful, as though there were other things he wanted to say to her but didn’t dare.
‘Out with it,’ she ordered. ‘You’ve something on your mind, that I know.’
‘It has occured to me,’ he confessed, ‘only occurred you understand –I have no proof as yet – but it has occurred to me to wonder whether these matters might not be – um –influenced in some way.’
‘Influenced?’ she said. ‘By whom?’ But she knew who he meant, even as she spoke, for the suspicion had occurred to her too, in her more spiteful moments.
‘Well, as to that, ma’am,’ he said smoothly, ‘I could not, in all conscience, acquaint you with a mere supposition. Nor would you wish me to, I am sure. But I could make a few discreet inquiries, should you wish it. There could be no harm in that.’
‘Do,’ she said. ‘I will pay you well for it. Privately, of course, for it en’t part of your duty toward Mr Duncan.’
He shadowed away from her, face still thoughtful, eyes devious. And for the next few days he crept about the city, sleek and silent as the brown mouse he resembled, in and out of the dark taverns where city apprentices gathered to drink and gossip, listening and commiserating, quiet in his corner, picking up crumbs and
scrapings, saying nothing. And at the end of the week he sent a letter to Nan Easter to tell her he had some information for her, which he felt sure she would wish to receive ‘at her earliest convenience.’
She sent him a note by return. ‘Come to Cheyne Row at six of the clock this evening.’
‘Well, now,’ she said, when he’d been settled by the fire in the drawing-room with a cup of coffee at his elbow like an honoured guest, ‘what have you discovered?’
Now that they were face to face, he was almost afraid to tell her. He cleared his throat and bit his pale underlip, and studied the dancing flames, gathering his thoughts and his courage. ‘I must tell you,’ he confessed at last, ‘it is as we feared. In all three cases, the rent agreement has been forestalled, and always, I am afraid to say, by the same firm, Messrs Taggart, Rosewort and Hagggerty, a reputable firm ma’am, who take commisions from time to time from …’
‘Sir Osmond Easter, deuce take the man. I thought we’d dealt with him.’
‘Sir Osmond Easter,’ he agreed. ‘Or Mr Thomas Callbeck, who is, as you doubtless know, his brother-in-law.’
‘Devil take the pair of ’em,’ Nan said, pink with fury at such underhand behavior. ‘You must write to ’em forthwith, Mr Teshmaker. Tell ’em they en’t to play such tricks, for they impede honest trade.’
‘What they do, they may do,’ Mr Teshmaker said apologetically. ‘’Tis nothing of which we may make complaint. It may be devious. In fact I would go so far as to declare that I myself believe it could be so described, but ’tis not against the law. We could write. We could complain. But it would do us no good.’
‘Do you mean to tell me they may prevent me from renting as I wish, and I may do nothing about it?’ she said, her anger growing visibly.
‘That is the gist of it,’ he said, paler than ever because she was so fierce.
‘We’ll see about that!’ she said. ‘I en’t one to be put down by a gang of foxes, that I en’t. They’re to be stopped. You must see to it.’
‘No orders are ever given in these matters,’ he explained. ‘No letters are written. Hints are dropped, that is all. There is consequently no evidence, and without evidence, there is no possibility of legal action.’
‘That en’t fair!’
‘The law, Mrs Easter,’ he explained again, ‘is not meant to be fair.’
‘Bah!’ she said, quite forgetting her duties as a hostess. ‘Don’t talk to me, Mr Teshmaker. We must find a way round it.’
But there was no way round it, as Mr Duncan explained, and his colleague Mr Dukesbury confirmed the next day. ‘If I may advise you Mrs Easter,’ he said, ‘I would suggest that you authorize all future transactions to be completed by this firm. It may not provide all the cover you require, for this City is a hot-bed for gossip, as I am sure you are aware, but it would be better than open negotiations in your own name.’
It infuriated her to be asked to stoop to subterfuge, but she agreed to it, because she really had no choice. If the business was to expand the reading-rooms had to be rented.
But she was still hot with anger when she got back to Cheyne Row that afternoon. ‘Dratted Easters,’ she told her children as Mrs Jorris served dinner. ‘Now I got to go all hole-in-the-corner like some sneak thief, and all on account of that Sir Osmond, rot him. ’Ten’t right.’
Billy and Annie murmured politely and didn’t listen, but Johnnie was most attentive. Since his success as an arithmatician he had begun to hope that his mother might just have a little love for him now and then. He wasn’t sure, of course, for sometimes she spurned him as brusquely as ever, telling him to keep out of her way for she ‘couldn’t abide it’, whatever ‘it’ was, but sometimes she smiled at him and seemed to be approving, so he watched her carefully.
Now he caught her rage and responded to it quickly. ‘It ain’t right, Mama,’ he said hotly. ‘I will put all right for ’ee, when I’m older, so I shall.’
She rewarded him with a smile. ‘Aye, I believe you will, Johnnie. I believe you will. This is an excellent sauce, Mrs Jorris.’
What an odd child he is, she thought, looking at his serious face glowering at her across the table. Hardly like a six-year-old at all. But he means well, poor creature, and at least he don’t scream nowadays. And she turned her mind to more important things.
If Sir Osmond and his gang of unprincipled ruffians were going to stop her from renting any more reading-rooms, she would have to find some other outlet for her papers, for the thirst for news sheets was growing by the day. The problem kept her wakeful all that night, but by daybreak she had thought of a solution. While Sir Osmond was impeding the renting of reading-rooms, she would supply papers to the gentlemen’s clubs themselves. And she would start with the Reform Club in Pall Mall. Where else?
When the club secretary of the Reform Club appeared before her, looking puzzled, she came to the point immediately. ‘I believe you have a reading-room in this club for the use of your gentlemen.’
He agreed that this was so, wondering why she should wish to speak of it.
‘How if I were to tell you I could supply all the newspapers your gentlemen could ever require and all by seven of the clock, every morning, prompt?’
He was impressed. ‘Could you do that, madam?’
‘I am Nan Easter,’ she said. ‘I could.’
‘It seems an excellent proposition,’ he said. ‘When could this arrangement begin?’
‘Tomorrow,’ she said.
And tomorrow it was.
It was almost too easy. Within a month she had acquired the concession to supply newspapers to every single club in the West End, bar one, and that, understandably, was the one which had the rather dubious honour of including Sir Osmond Easter among its members.
It was an excellent source of revenue and in an odd sort of way a marvellous private revenge. The triumph of it lasted all through the summer.
In May she celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday with a lavish party for all her friends. And in July when the weather was positively balmy, she bought extravagant presents for Johnnie’s seventh birthday and Annie’s tenth and took all three children to Vauxhall to see the fireworks. And in August they all spent the day in St James’ Park watching the King review his volunteers.
It was an uncommon hot day and the volunteers fell into faints like nine-pins, which Billy thought was part of the entertainment. By four o’clock Sophie Fuseli declared she was so fatigued she wouldn’t have enough strength left for the ball at the Rotunda that evening.
But Nan laughed her to scorn. ‘You speak for yourself, Sophie Fuseli,’ she said. ‘I got strength enough to dance till dawn. Ready for anything, so I am.’ The King’s review ball was hardly an occasion to be missed and she’d bought a new gown for the occasion, and new gloves and a fine new feathered head-dress. ‘You may stay at home if you like, but I’m a-going.’
‘Heigh-ho!’ Sophie said, feigning resignation. ‘Then I’d best go with you, I suppose.’
The Ranelagh Gardens were extremely grand that evening, festooned with fairy-lights and with coloured water in all the fountains, and the Rotunda had been redecorated for the occasion. Now it was a dazzle of egg-shell blue and gold and lit by so many cascades of candles that the air was quite hot above their heads. The orchestra had been augmented too and was busily scraping away on its raised platform in the centre of the hall, providing gavottes and gallops and minuets to order, while the assembled company disported itself, pink in the face with exertion and candle-heat.
There was such a crush in the circular ballroom, it was almost impossible to find space in which to dance. Nan agreed to take a turn with several of the gentlemen from Sophie’s party, but they trod on her feet and squashed her feathers and left sweaty handprints on her nice new gloves, so that she was quite relieved when the first interval was announced and it was time to walk to the tents for supper.
And as the hall began to clear, she saw the officers.
There were three of them loungi
ng beside the bandstand, their blue jackets buttoned to the waist, displaying their handsome legs in long white doeskin trousers and black dancing pumps. They were all very tall and very slim, but the middle one was the tallest of the three, well over six foot and broad shouldered, with dark hair cut à la grecque and the most handsome face she had ever seen. But it was his legs she noticed first because they were so exquisitely long and they looked so elegant. Skilful tailoring had actually made them appear even longer than they were, for his trousers had been cut very high in the waist and were fitted so tight to his thighs that they looked like a second skin. He stood with the studied elegance of a heron, supporting his weight on one white leg while the other bent before it, toe to the ground.
‘Who are they?’ Nan asked, because it wouldn’t have sounded correct to ask ‘who is he?’
‘Cavalry officers from the Duke of Clarence’s, I believe,’ Sophie said. ‘They have a fine bearing.’
‘Such long legs!’ Nan said, mesmerized by them.
‘An introduction I should arrange, ja?’ Mr Fuseli teased, yellow cat-eyes flickering at her.
But she refused to be drawn. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you should. One of them might be just the man to get me the concession to the barracks.’
He went off to find the master of ceremonies, roaring with saturnine laughter, and the party waited for him, watching as he and the Master approached the three young men and the preliminary talking began.
It surprised Nan to realize that she was feeling quite nervous at the prospect of being introduced to this young man, and that she wanted to know him and found him intensely attractive. And her senses began to prickle in the most exciting way. She turned her body deliberately aside to calm herself a little, and because it wouldn’t have done to appear to be watching them. That was an old maid’s trick.
So she missed their approach. They were standing beside her and around her, when the Master of Ceremonies stepped pompously forward to make his introductions. ‘Mrs Fuseli, Mrs Easter, pray allow me to present Mr Fortescue, Mr Hanley-Brown, and Mr Leigh, Duke of Clarence’s, up for the review, I believe you told me, gentlemen.’
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