‘That is because I come to Rattlesden to see you, my love. If I were in London on Sundays I should work then.’
‘Ah, there you are!’ Nan said, brisking into the room. ‘Are you settled in, my dear? Good! Dinner will be served in three minutes.’
It will be a very different sort of life here in this city, Harriet thought, as she followed her dear John to the dining room. I do hope he doesn’t really mean he’ll be working all hours the way he says.
But at least he took time away from his office to drive her to see her future home the next afternoon. And she was delighted with it, for Fitzroy Square was considerably smaller and neater than the great wooded park that faced Nan Easter’s palace, and the house was considerably more homely. It stood in the centre of a long, straight, quiet terrace, and was stuccoed a pleasant creamy-white like all the others, three neat storeys high with its roof discreetly hidden behind a parapet, and its front door unobstrusive below a quiet semicircular fanlight that exactly matched the curves of the two venetian windows alongside it. A house that would simply contain them, she thought, without wanting to impress anybody. He had made a good choice, her dear John.
Even so it was bigger than anything she’d ever been used to. She inspected the basement kitchen and the housekeeper’s parlour and the butler’s pantry, and walked up the beautiful oak staircase, and admired the drawing room with its decorated ceiling and the dining room with its marble fireplace, and trembled in the master bedroom that overlooked the square and was awed because the dressing room attached to it was bigger than her parents’ parlour.
‘What do ’ee think?’ John asked.
‘I think it is beautiful,’ she said. ‘How well this room would look with red curtains and a red counterpane.’ At present the walls were white and white walls reminded her of the cold little cell she’d slept in at Bury.
‘When Christmas is over,’ he promised, ‘we will hire a housekeeper and have the decorators in. You shall have your red room as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘Our red room,’ she corrected rapturously.
‘Our red room,’ he agreed, and kissed her to prove it.
In the meantime there were Christmas celebrations to enjoy. And they started as soon as she and John got back to Bedford Square. That evening they all went to the play with a gentleman called Mr Brougham who seemed to know John and Billy uncommon well and said he was charmed to make her acquaintance. And the next morning they were up early to go to church and when they got back the household was busy with arrivals, as the family and their friends gathered for Christmas dinner.
Miss Pettie was the first to arrive, flushed and dishevelled with Jane fussily attentive. She had no sooner been settled when Billy came home in the Honeywood carriage with Matilda, who was sporting a magnificent red coat, heavily trimmed in thick dark fur with a large fur bonnet on her head and an equally large fur muff laid across her lap like an otter. Her arrival caused a stir, as she’d fully intended it should because if she was going to share a Christmas party with that low-born Harriet Sowerby she meant to be the cynosure of all eyes there.
And then just before the meal was due to be served, and it was already quite dark, the two Miss Callbecks drove quietly up to the door and James arrived in a flyer and was greeted with much excitement by his family. By the time they were all finally seated there was so much rapid talk about the table that it made Harriet’s head spin to hear it.
Nan and John described the new house in Fitzroy Square while Billy carved the goose and the vegetables were being passed and served, and then Matilda made it her business to entertain them all with a witty tale about how slow and infuriating the builders were being over her house in Torrington Square and, not to be outdone, Miss Pettie, now flushed with port wine, embarked upon a lurid story about a riot in Gedding where a threshing machine and a mole plough had been ‘smashed to fragments, my dears, to positive fragments’, and four rioters had had their heads broken ‘like eggs’. And Annie said it was all quite true and perfectly dreadful but what else could they do, poor things?
‘Smashing machines won’t make work for ’em, surely?’ Matilda said, tossing her curls at Billy.
‘According to their logic it will, Miss Honeywood,’ James explained. ‘Without a machine, you see, threshing requires a deal of labour. And work is precisely what these men lack.’
‘They are so poor, Matilda, that they starve,’ Annie said, defending her husband’s parishioners stoutly. ‘I cannot see what is to become of them. Last year’s harvest was so bad that the farmers in Rattlesden were laying off labourers even before it was over. We give out loaves and soup of a Friday evening and for some it is the only dependable meal they have all week long.’
‘Do they imagine that the farmer won’t repair his machine, foolish creatures that they are?’ Matilda said. ‘They cannot un-invent ’em, though I daresay they’d like to. The servant class are all the same. They want everything done for ’em.’ She was parroting her father’s views as she ususally did, and without much thought, flirting her grey eyes at Billy.
‘How if I were to tell ’ee that I was a servant once?’ Nan Easter said.
It would have been hard to tell which of her two future daughters-in-law was the more surprised.
‘I’d not believe it,’ Matilda said, her eyes like saucers. A servant? Not the great Nan Easter, surely.
Her discomfiture was so obvious that Nan laughed out loud at her. ‘’Tis true,’ she said. ‘I started work as a scullery maid when I was nine years old. There en’t a thing goes on below stairs what I don’t know about from personal experience.’
What an extraordinary woman she is, Harriet thought, lost in admiration at such a revelation, to have come so far and from so very little.
‘Why then you must have been an uncommon servant, that’s all I can say,’ Matilda said, recovering a little, and trying a hesitant and placatory smile. ‘A most uncommon servant.’
‘Aye,’ Billy said, grinning at his mother, ‘so she was. And an uncommon mother. And an uncommon boss.’
‘I think so too, Nanna,’ little Jimmy said, gazing at his grandmother earnestly with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
‘What do ’ee think too, lambkin?’ Nan said.
‘That you are an uncommon Nanna.’
‘Quite right,’ Nan approved. ‘Have some more goose.’
After the meal they all retired to the drawing room together since this seemed to be the established custom, and a wooden box full of bright parcels was carried into the room by the two grooms, who were then released to their own Christmas dinner below stairs. And the ceremony of the presents began, with Jimmy and Beau acting as postmen, with a little encouragement from their mother.
Harriet had never been given a Christmas present in her life, so this was a revelation. There were gifts for everybody. ‘She must have spent a fortune,’ she whispered to John, who was sitting beside her on one of the four sofas.
‘She always does,’ he whispered back. ‘She loves it. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if she didn’t give us all a present.’
And Harriet’s was a gold cross set with seed pearls. ‘Which would look well with a wedding dress, my dear, don’t ’ee think?’
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Harriet said, feeling spoilt and honoured. What an amazing family this was! And how freely they spent their money.
‘Now then, Beau,’ Nan said to her toddling grandson, ‘this is for Matilda. Carry it carefully.’
And it was another cross, this time set with square-cut amethysts which were considerably more expensive than seed pearls and very fashionable. It was a fitting gift for the modish Miss Honeywood, and as it made a perfect foil for the lilac gown she was wearing, she insisted that Billy fasten it about her neck immediately, which he did with lingering attention.
Uncommon clever, John thought, for his mother had given each girl exactly the right sort of jewel to fit her nature.
‘You are so generous Mrs Easter,’ Ma
tilda said, kissing Nan. ‘’Tis the prettiest cross I ever saw. I shall wear it on my honeymoon, which is like to prove a deal longer than a month. Oh yes, indeed, a great deal longer. Papa has promised to send us upon a tour of the Continent.’
It was said with splendidly casual aplomb and of course it had an immediate and dramatic effect, just as she’d intended it to.
‘But my dear!’ Miss Pettie said, clutching both sets of curls with amazement. ‘How thrilling!’
And Thomasina asked, ‘How long will you be away?’
And Evelina, ‘Where will you go?’
And Billy tried to reassure his mother that he wouldn’t go anywhere unless he could be spared.
‘Go and enjoy it,’ Nan said, grinning at him. ‘You’ll not get another such chance.’
So Matilda was able to tell them all about it, which she did in happy detail. ‘We shall be away until November,’ she said, ‘for we mean to visit France, and there is a deal to see in France, Paris and Versailles of course, and the antiquities of the south, and then we shall travel through Switzerland to see the mountains, which are supposed to be sublime, and then on into Italy to see Rome and Turin, and then on to Venice, I believe, by way of Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Verona –’ checking them off on her fingers – ‘and Vicenza, to see the works of Palladio, which Papa says we must not miss, and Florence, if we have time. Oh ’twill be a wondrous tour.’
John was rather annoyed by her display. She is trying to put our noses out of joint with all this, he thought, glancing at Harriet, and Billy should stop her. But Billy was looking like a cat that had stolen the cream and everybody else except his mother was cooing and exclaiming with wonder. And Harriet looked stunned. Her lips were parted and her eyes quite round, like they’d been when Mama told them all she’d started off as a servant. While all attention was focused on Matilda, he reached for her hand and held it to comfort her. But news of such a splendid honeymoon had made him feel that he ought to have planned something similar and the feeling intensified when Evelina turned towards him and asked where he and Harriet were going on their wedding trip.
‘Ah well, Cousin Evelina,’ he said stiffly. ‘As to that, ’tis a secret, so it is.’ And he was annoyed to feel himself blushing.
‘’Twill be romantic, I’m sure, wherever it is,’ Miss Pettie said, trying to be helpful. And failing, for he blushed more than ever.
‘And what have we here?’ Nan said, plunging her arm into the box to retrieve another present, and rescue them. ‘Why I do believe ’tis a present for you, Beau. Open it carefully, lambkin. Let Mama untie the string.’
After the presents had all been distributed, and Pollyanna had taken the boys off to bed, the card tables were set up and the company discreetly divided, James and Annie and John and Harriet at one table, Nan and Miss Pettie at a second, and the two aunts with Billy and Matilda at the third. And so the rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough, with plentiful supplies of port wine and brandy.
By the time the clock struck midnight they were all in a very cheerful mood and made their way up Nan’s splendid staircase stumbling together, Miss Pettie and the two Miss Callbecks giggling and Billy and Matilda amorously arm in arm. Then there was considerable noise and activity as servants were rung for and warming pans were removed from beds and fires were dampened and clothes folded away.
Harriet was rather embarrassed to be the recipient of so much attention and sent her particular maid away as soon as she’d been helped out of her gown, but that turned out to be a foolish decision, for the unaccustomed wine had made her extremely thirsty and she’d forgotten to ask for any drinking water. She knew that Miss Pettie was in the room at the end of the landing, so she picked up her carafe and crept out of her firelit room into the darkness to tiptoe down and ask her whether she would be kind enough to let her have a glassful.
And there was a lighted candle approaching her, held by a man’s hand, a strong hand, covered in fine fair hairs. She could see them quite plainly from where she stood. she shrank back into her doorway at once, but she went on watching, fascinated and fearful, wanting to see who it was and where he was going. And as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she recognized that it was Billy and that he was walking boldly into Matilda’s bedroom. And Matilda’s plump white arms came snaking out of the door and wound themselves around his neck and drew him into the room. And Matilda’s voice was murmuring endearments and the door was being locked behind them. Locked!
Harriet was so shocked she forgot all about her need for water. They are lovers, she thought. Here in this house, and before they are married. How dreadful! She crept back into her room and climbed into bed as more uncomfortable questions niggled into her mind. Did Mrs Easter know what was going on? And if she didn’t should she be told? What would her dear John think about it? Ought she to mention it to him? Perhaps not, for it would be a difficult thing to talk about, even to him. Oh dear, oh dear. What a dreadful thing to have seen!
She slept fitfully, plagued by thirst and waking from time to time to ponder the questions all over again, but when morning came and a servant brought her a cup of hot chocolate ‘to revive her’ she was still no nearer any solutions. And Billy and Matilda were both as bold as brass at breakfast. There wasn’t the slightest sign of shame in either of them. These Easters truly were extraordinary people.
She worried about it all through the morning, while Nan and her sons were out at their work and finally, she plucked up courage to tell Annie what she had seen. They were taking the two boys for an afternoon promenade around the gardens and were well away from any possibility of being overheard. To her amazement Annie wasn’t even surprised.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I rather imagined that was how things were. The signs are all there.’
This was intriguing. What signs? Harriet wondered, and wished she were brave enough to ask. Were there marks upon you afterwards when you behaved like that? She was quite glad John had arranged for that secret honeymoon, even if it wasn’t a tour of the Continent. ‘Does Mrs Easter know?’ she said.
‘I daresay she does,’ Annie said. ‘There is little occurs in this house that she does not know about.’
‘Then she will stop it, will she not?’ It was a relief to know that it wouldn’t be necessary to tell her.
‘I don’t think so, Harriet.’
‘But it is sinful, surely?’
‘In our eyes,’ Annie said, ‘yes, it is. Howsomever Mama has a different view of such things.’
Now, and a little late in the conversation, Harriet remembered that Mrs Easter had had a lover, and the memory of them driving about Bury in their fine carriage suddenly filled her mind, complete in every detail, so that she blushed and dropped her head, feeling confused. But what Annie said next was even more disturbing.
‘I must say, ’tis easy to understand why she should, my dear, for of all the sins this is the least harmful, surely.’
The idea of a sin being praised was so extraordinary it made Harriet’s mouth fall open. ‘But a sin …’ she said.
‘’Twas the sin our dear Lord forgave most readily,’ Annie said, ‘and I cannot help thinking that must have been because He knew how often it is due to simple human weakness, and how often it springs from love, the self-same love that is blessed in marriage. “Let him who is without sin amongst you cast the first stone,” He said, and that shows, does it not, that He expected the same love and the same sin to be present in all His hearers that day.’
‘But that was the story of the woman taken in adultery,’ Harriet faltered. ‘Surely you do not condone adultery, Annie.’
‘No,’ Annie said seriously, ‘but I endeavour to understand it. Mama had a lover for many years, you know, and try as I might I could never see any wrong in it. He was a charming man and uncommon kind to me and the boys. And now she has Mr Brougham, and a better man you couldn’t find anywhere, you must admit. Come now, my dear, Billy and Tilda will be married in a few months and no real harm done. That you’ll all
ow, I’m sure.’
But Harriet wasn’t sure. ‘She was so grand in her red coat,’ she said, ‘with her talk of a Continental tour and how stupid the poor are, and yet she behaves like the woman taken in adultery. What am I supposed to think?’
‘Think kindly, my dear,’ Annie advised. ‘’Tis always the best way. And if you can’t think kindly, why, then don’t think of it at all.’
It was sound advice and in the weeks that followed Harriet took it and acted upon it, although to start with she was being sensible as much by default as by anything else. The truth was she was too busy planning the decoration of her new home to have time to think about Matilda, buying new furniture, and matching curtains and carpets, and stocking her new kitchen with everything it could possibly need, from the first jar of salt to the last wooden spoon. She and John walked to Fitzroy Square every day, and every day brought a new pleasure, their bedroom a-glow, with red curtains at the window and a huge fire in the grate, their dining room completely furnished, very cool and elegant with its blue and white striped wallpaper and eight fine chairs set against the walls and the table polished until they could see their faces in it.
‘We shall be so happy here,’ she said, as they stood beside the drawing room window looking down at the quiet square below them.
‘Soon,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Oh very soon now.’
Chapter Nineteen
On John Easter’s wedding day ominous notices appeared all over Bury St Edmunds. Nan saw one when she first looked out of her window that morning. It was pinned to the carved corner post of the chemist’s shop on the corner of Abbeygate Street. When breakfast was over she and Frederick walked across the square to see what it was.
‘April 29th Notice,’ it said,
‘Whereas disorderly assemblages of persons have taken place, and outrages have been committed in some parts of the division of Bury St Edmunds, the magistrates present at the above session do hereby signify their determination to take prompt and effectual measures and to bring to justice all persons who are found offending against the peace.
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