A Desirable Husband

by Mary Nichols

  Epilogue

  Thursday 1 May 1851

  London, indeed the whole country, was in a fever of excitement. After all the months of wrangling, the arguments about unrest, about the site and the elms, about the price of tickets, about travel and accommodation and public conveniences, about the thousands of exhibits and where they should be housed, about who should and should not be admitted on the first day, the Crystal Palace was ready and waiting for the opening ceremony.

  The day dawned bright but blustery and by the time it was fully light, the streets along the royal route were crammed with spectators waiting to see the Queen and her consort travel in state to open the Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations. The people had been arriving from all over the country and their numbers were swelled by thousands of foreigners. Extra trains had been put on, hotels and guest houses were full to overflowing. Some had hired cabs the better to see over the milling crowds, some had taken over omnibuses and sat on the top decks and even delivery vans had been put to use as platforms. Those whose homes and offices overlooked the route had invited friends and relatives to see it from their windows. Six thousand extra police had been drafted in and five cavalry regiments were on standby in case of trouble, but they were not needed.

  Felix and Esme were among the privileged who were to be allowed inside for the opening ceremony and they left their London home in Bruton Street at nine-thirty in order to be in their places well before the Royal party arrived. It was a slow progress; the crowds seemed determined to cheer every carriage that rolled by them whether they recognised the occupants or not. Delightedly, she laughed and waved back at them.

  ‘To think the Queen has this reception very time she ventures out,’ she said, reaching for Felix’s hand. ‘It makes me feel quite regal.’

  ‘And you look regal, my darling,’ he said, turning to survey the wide-skirted green silk gown she wore and the dainty diamond tiara that sat on her golden curls.

  ‘Oh, look, Felix,’ she exclaimed as the carriage pulled up at the entrance gates to Hyde Park directly in front of the Crystal Palace, from where they would make their way on foot. The park was a milling mass of humanity, but over their heads she spied something huge and colourful. ‘There’s a balloon being inflated. Do you think it’s our balloonist?’

  ‘I don’t know, but we cannot stand here, we are blocking the way.’

  She took his arm to enter the great glass building. The sun had gone in and a light rain was falling, but even so the light playing on such a huge expanse of glass made it sparkle and shimmer, now bright, now shadowy as a cloud moved across, a truly magical sight. ‘Such a lot has happened since we went up in a balloon, hasn’t it?’ She said. ‘What with my come-out and all that trouble over revolutionaries and you-know-who.’ She still could not say Edward’s name without a shudder. He could have been charged with abduction and attempted rape and probably treason, for which he could have been deprived of his title and his lands. But she could not bear the prospect of giving evidence in court, nor did she want Lady Gorridge to suffer and so the trustees of the estate decided to send him off to Australia for life which would probably have been his punishment had be been formally tried and found guilty. The estate would remain in their hands until, in the fullness of time, the next in line, a grandson of the late Viscount’s younger brother, could inherit. ‘But it turned out all right in the end, didn’t it?’

  He squeezed her arm into his side. ‘More than all right, my darling. Perfection.’

  All their difficulties had been overcome, the objectors silenced just as the difficulties and objectors over the Crystal Palace had been overcome and silenced. The first iron columns had arrived in September and the great glass building had begun to rise on its appointed spot. Only one small dispute had marred its construction, when at the end of November, one of the glaziers fitting the huge sheets of glass called a meeting to incite his fellow workers to strike for more pay. Felix and Esme were on their wedding trip to Venice at the time and did not learn of it until they returned, but he could not have done anything about it; the man was not one of his employees, but someone who had obtained employment with the builders, specifically to cause trouble. Fortunately, the police had been on hand to prevent trouble between the handful of strikers and the main body of men who wanted to work as usual and St Clair was arrested. The work went on and the completed building had been handed over to the Commission in February.

  Exhibits had begun arriving long before it was finished, but warehouses and storerooms had been found for them and now they were all in the appointed places in the building waiting for the Queen to declare the Exhibition open.

  Once inside, Felix and Esme found Myles and Lucy talking to Rowan and Rosemary, whose fears over insurrection had not come to pass and who had finally been won over by the magnificent building. Together they found seats where they could see the ceremony to advantage. Only then did they look about them. Felix and Myles had been many times during its construction and it was not such a wonder to them, but it was the first time the ladies had been inside and they marvelled at it.

  It was almost like a great cathedral with a wide nave and a transept one hundred and eight feet high that enclosed the three majestic elms, which had been the subject of so much debate. The ironwork was painted in pale blue and yellow. In the centre of the building where the aisles crossed was a twenty-seven-foot pink-glass fountain. The displays were on two levels, the ground floor and a gallery that ran all round it. There were statues everywhere and potted palms and myriads of flowers. Soon after they had taken their seats the Duke of Wellington, whose eighty-second birthday it was, arrived in full military regalia, and was cheered to the echo.

  By noon the rain had stopped and those inside heard the sound of guns which told them the Royal party had arrived. An organ played the National Anthem, as they made their way to the centre of the building. Prayers were said and a choir sang the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. After speeches, which only those close enough could hear, the Great Exhibition was declared open and at that exact moment, a balloon rose high in the sky above it.

  Everyone inside set about viewing as many of the one hundred thousand exhibits as they could. Esme insisted on going straight to the Larkhills Glassworks stand to look at the Crystal Girl, taking pride of place among exquisite examples of the glassmaker’s art. She stood hugging Felix’s arm and gazed at it in wonder that he had loved her so much, even when they were quarrelling, to produce something so beautiful. Only three copies had been produced: one stood in the centre of a special glass shelf in the dining room at Larkhills, where it was always noted and commented upon by their dinner guests; one had pride of place in the drawing room at Luffenham Park; and the third had been placed in the foyer of the Larkhills Glassworks in Birmingham.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart, there is lots more to see,’ Felix said. ‘And you must know every line of that by now.’

  ‘It still makes me want to cry.’

  ‘With happiness, I hope.’

  ‘Of course.’ She allowed him to draw her away. ‘Do you think you could do one of our son when he comes?’

  ‘I intend to try, but we might have a daughter.’

  ‘Will you mind? A daughter, I mean.’

  ‘Lord, no! She might grow up to be as lovely, as good and as brave as her intrepid mother.’

  ‘Oh, let us go and see as much as we can before you have me in floods of tears.’

  It was impossible to see more than a fraction of the exhibits in one day. There were printing machines, textile machines, machines for spinning cotton, machines for making envelopes, pumps, turbines, microscopes, cameras, telegraph machines, locomotives, including the one from the Moorcroft engineering works in Peterborough. There was a Medieval Court, an eastern section where the Koh-I-Noor diamond was displayed; ornate eastern furniture, beautiful silks. There was a model of Liverpool docks, and ordinary household products, agricultural machinery, threshers and reapers and steam engines. There were strange c
uriosities like furniture made from coal, false teeth hinged to make it possible to yawn without dislodging them, stuffed animals, a semi-circular clock and strange musical instruments. All five continents were represented.

  It was tiredness, not boredom, that sent them home, but in the weeks to come, using their season tickets, they came back again and again. In July the price of tickets, which had in the beginning been a pound and then reduced to five shillings, was down to a shilling and it was then the workers, who had been saving up for over a year, came in their droves. Esme derived as much pleasure from watching their wonderment as she did from the exhibits. By the time the Exhibition closed in October, over six million visits had been made and it was universally acclaimed a huge success.

  Charles Robert Pendlebury was born at Larkhills in the first week of December and the whole family, Rowan and Rosemary with John and little Rowena now a year old, Myles and Lucy with Henry and Victoria, the Earl and Countess of Luffenham with thirteen-year-old Lord John Vernley, and the dowager Lady Pendlebury, who was thrilled with her grandson, all gathered at Larkhills for the christening and stayed for Christmas.

  They ate and drank and played games and drank toasts to each other, but the one that gave Esme the most satisfaction was the one Felix proposed to the family and its future, a future in the hands of the younger generation who would grow up to see many more inventions and discoveries. ‘But may they never lose sight of their humanity,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘To us.’ They drank, echoing his words. He turned to Esme, who was standing beside him, and murmured, ‘And to my Crystal Girl, who has brought me all the happiness a man could wish for.’ He smiled and, noticing the tears sitting on her lashes, added. ‘And don’t you dare cry.’ It made her laugh and then everyone was laughing.

  ISBN: 978-14268-2669-6

  A DESIRABLE HUSBAND

  Copyright © 2007 by Mary Nichols

  First North American Publication 2009

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