‘You become a pest, Will Easter,’ she scolded him while they were dancing the quadrille. ‘I can’t spend all my time partnering my own brother, I would have you know.’
‘So it would appear,’ he teased, noticing the direction in which her eyes were continually straying, and the answering glances that were being sent her way,, ‘Very well, miss. I will release you from the next waltz, out of the kindness of my heart, but you’d better not let Aunt Matilda see you if you dance with Mr Easter again, or she will have you married off before you can say knife.’
‘Humph!’ Caroline snorted. ‘That just goes to show what a lot of nonsense conventions are. Mr Easter is a poet and above such things.’ And she went straight off to find the gentleman, her pretty pink skirt swinging with determination.
‘I do believe Aunt Matilda will have another match before long,’ Will said to Euphemia as he led her onto the floor for the following dance.
‘Caroline and Henry Osmond?’ Euphemia said. ‘Do you think so?’
‘They spend a deal of time in one another’s company.’
As we do, Euphemia thought, lifting her arms as they took the first two steps together. Oh, if only we could make a match! ‘What would her father say?’
‘He should be pleased,’ Will said, as she turned beneath his forearm, her white skirt belling. ‘He comes of a good family, when all’s said and done.’
‘Bessie doesn’t approve,’ Euphemia ventured as she completed the turn. ‘We thought there might be – well – bad blood perhaps – between the two branches of the family.’ And then the dance took her away from him to set and turn single with her opposing partner.
‘I haven’t heard of any,’ he said when she returned to him.
‘But you were not on visiting terms.’
‘No,’ he admitted, as she rested her hand on his arm to be led.
‘And you were told nothing about them?’
‘No,’ he said again. And thinking he ought to find some explanation for this peculiar state of affairs, ‘Perhaps we lost contact because we are in trade and they are county. There was a time when landed gentry and trade used not to mix.’
‘They are mixing now,’ Euphemia said, glancing over her shoulder to where Henry and Caroline were sitting with the Fortescues. They were so close to one another they were head to head, and his arm, flung along the back of the two-seater, looked as though it was holding her about the shoulders. Poor old Bessie, hovering in the background, was chewing her lips with anxiety.
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at them all fondly. ‘I think we must either hope that Papa will consent or that Aunt Matilda will not notice.’
But his father was still on his travels and that evening Aunt Matilda heard that she was to have a wedding in her own immediate family that would keep her more than occupied for the rest of the season.
Edward Easter’s engagement to Miss Mirabelle Artenshaw was announced in The Times on the first day of June, immediately before the grand ball which was to be held in Holland House and was to be a most prestigious occasion, and on the very day John returned from Edinburgh. The timing was perfect, according to Matilda.
‘They are to marry at the end of July,’ she said to Nan and John. ‘In St George’s, of course. It will be a splendid affair. Of course our dear Mirabelle is not so young as she might be, that I’ll grant you, nor so well-favoured, but she has a shrewd head on her shoulders for all that, and of course Edward is madly in love with her.’
‘Of course,’ Nan said, so smoothly that her sarcasm was lost to everybody except John, who gave her his lop-sided smile of recognition when Matilda was looking the other way.
‘I shall wait with great interest to see how this turns out,’ she said to John when Billy and Matilda had gone home.
‘I can’t imagine that even twelve thousand pounds will keep our Edward content for long,’ John said. ‘He has expensive tastes,’
‘And will doubtless acquire more, when he has his hands on his wife’s fortune, poor woman.’
‘Well, well,’ John said. ‘At least our Will don’t hunt fortunes.’
‘Our Will,’ his grandmother said sagely, ‘has the best of wives right under his nose, if only he could see her.’
But John was more interested to know how Caroline had been behaving.
‘I kept the dance cards for you like you said, Mr John dear,’ Bessie said, laying them out before him on his mother’s desk. ‘An’ I kept a good eye on her all the time.’
‘I’m sure you did, Bessie,’ John said, reading the names on the little cards. John Fortescue, that daft boy Montmorency, Will, Jerry Hollands, Henry Easter … ‘Henry Easter? Who is that?’
‘He’s one of those dratted Easters from Ippark,’ Bessie confessed miserably. ‘I did try to warn her, Mr John dear. I knew you wouldn’t like it. But you know what she’s like.’
‘Twice here,’ John said, still examining the cards. ‘Twice there. Once at the Montmorency’s. I don’t think there’s any harm in it. He doesn’t seem to signify.’ But he would speak to her just the same, nip it in the bud, just to be on the safe side. He would call in tomorrow morning, after the stamping.
Caroline was rather surprised to see her father at the breakfast table and even more surprised when he asked her to remain behind when all the others had left the room. She tried to catch Nan’s eye to find out what was up, but Nan was deep in conversation with Will, and Bessie had Euphemia out of the room almost before she’d put down her coffee cup. It was rather alarming.
She sat where she was at table, while her father stood up and walked across to the window and stood beside the long curtains looking down at the square. Yes, something was very certainly up. He was drumming against the window sill with the tips of his fingers.
‘I understand that you have been visiting a young man called Henry Easter,’ he said, and he was pleased to notice that his speech was commendably calm, given the passion that was shaking him.
‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, turning in her chair to face him. ‘I have. He fell from his horse in the Park and sprained his ankle. Pheemy and I went visiting the sick.’
‘So Bessie tells me.’
‘And he’s a cousin of ours. Ain’t that the most amazing thing?’
‘I would not call it amazing, Caroline,’ he said, straightening the curtains. ‘I would call it unfortunate.’
She chose to misunderstand him. ‘He soon recovered, Papa. He was dancing again within the week.’
‘Aye. So I’ve heard. And with you I believe.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ she said, smiling brightly at him. ‘He dances very well.’
It was necessary to speak out plainly. He could see that she would not understand a hint. ‘I must tell you, Caroline, that I do not approve of this young man. He belongs to a branch of this family with whom your grandmother and I have had no contact for more than forty years. A branch which I might say once behaved extremely badly towards this family.’
Ah, she thought, then that’s the meaning of the mystery. They had a quarrel. ‘Nan invited him to our ball,’ she said, facing him boldly.
‘I daresay she did,’ he conceded. ‘She has a more forgiving nature than I have. If it had been up to me no invitation would ever have been offered.’
‘But it was, Papa. And he accepted it. I think he’s a very nice young man and I’m sure you will too, once you meet him.’
‘I have absolutely no intention of meeting him,’ John said, recoiling from her and the idea. ‘Nor have I any intention of fostering any possibility of any kind of alliance between our two houses. From now on, Caroline, you are to avoid this young man. We shall not invite him to any more functions of ours, of course, so there is no necessity for you to spend any further time with him.’
‘We are bound to meet one another, Papa,’ Caroline said, trying to be reasonable, ‘since we both move in the same society. He will think it very rude if I ignore him.’
‘There is no need for you to ignore him,’ John sai
d with exasperated patience. ‘On the rare occasions when you might meet socially you must do your best simply to greet him politely and seek out some other company immediately.’
‘But I don’t want to seek out other company,’ Caroline protested. ‘I like him, Papa. He’s a very nice young man.’
‘I do not ask your opinion of him,’ John said sternly. ‘Nor whether or not you would wish to seek out other company. I have given you my instructions in this matter, and I expect you to obey them.’ And he rang the bell.
Caroline left the table without another word, inwardly seething at the injustice of it.
‘If he thinks I’m going to cut poor Henry Easter just because of some stupid old family quarrel,’ she said to Euphemia when she’d told her cousin everything that had been said, ‘then he may think again. It’s positively barbaric. Besides being ill-mannered.’
‘But you’ll obey your father, surely?’ Euphemia asked.
‘More or less,’ Caroline said, grinning at her. ‘I won’t talk to him when there’s anyone there to see, and I won’t dance with him more than twice, because Bessie’s got eyes like a hawk, but I ain’t cutting him dead and that’s flat. If we happen to meet one another, in the Park say, or at some ball or other, then I shall talk to him. I don’t care what Pa says.’
But although she rode up and down the ride that morning, several times and keeping the sharpest look-out, there was no sign of Henry Easter. So she couldn’t put her threat into action after all. Which was very annoying.
Chapter 10
Henry Osmond Easter was driving down to Ippark to see his brother Joseph. The visit had been rather delayed because ever since that extraordinary young woman had met him in the park he’d led a busy social life attending one function after another, and sometimes two or three in an evening until he reached the one that she was attending too. For if he was honest with himself, and apart from his carefully acquired poetic sensibilities, he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he was very taken with her. He’d never met another young lady quite like her. She didn’t seem to mind what she said or what she did, so he never really knew quite what to expect of her. And that trailed gunpowder into every meeting. To say nothing of the mystery that had kept all knowledge of this branch of the family from him and his sister, and Joseph too presumably. As soon as he got to Ippark he would ask Joseph what he knew about it.
The Easter country seat was set in the Sussex fields six miles south of Petersfield. It was a fine square red-brick house, built in the time of Queen Anne, with a suite of spacious high-ceilinged state rooms that were impressive but the very devil to keep warm in winter. There were two curved wings on either side of the main building, which housed the stables and the kennels, the game room and the dairies, and before the south front the stone steps of the drawing room gave out onto a prospect worthy of Mr Capability Brown, with a wide lawned terrace and a rose garden where guests could promenade in summer and beyond that, rolling green fields, thick woods and copses, and the long lush acres of the estate, dotted with grazing cattle and distant sheep like balls of cotton wool. Henry loved it, even in cold weather, and would have given anything to have been the owner of it. But sadly being the second son that wasn’t possible.
When their father died Joseph had explained the situation in words that still stuck in his brother’s mind like burrs to sheep. ‘I’m the owner now,’ he’d said, with the splendidly careless arrogance of a newly ennobled twenty-five-year-old. ‘You’ve got an allowance. Quite handsome, I’d say. And Jane has a dowry so she can get herself a good husband when the time comes. We’re all taken care of.’
‘What am I to do?’ Henry asked, caught in the bewilderment of sudden loss.
‘Whatever you like,’ his brother said. ‘That’s the beauty of it.’
‘Am I to continue at Harrow?’
‘Of course you are. Why ever not?’
‘And go to Cambridge?’
‘If you want to. I did, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t.’
‘But where shall I live in the hols?’
‘Here if you like,’ Joseph said. ‘Or in Grosvenor Street. Or both places. It’s up to you now. You may come and go as you please. I’m off to see to the dogs.’
But Henry didn’t want to come and go. He wanted to belong. To be the master of his own house. To be an important person like his father and his brother. And at a mere fourteen years of age he knew he had no importance whatsoever. No rank, no status, no importance, and as far as he could see no chance of any. It was horribly demoralizing, worse than his grief.
He was demoralized for the next three years until he went up to Trinity. But almost as soon as he got there, he found the solution to his problems. He would become a poet, that most admired member of the literary fraternity. He would make his name, acquire fame and fortune and the admiration of women, be his own man. From then on he worked towards that happy goal.
He grew a beard and moustache. In fact he grew several beards and moustaches until he found the one that suited his new image of himself. He dressed with bohemian stylishness, in bold coloured coats and extravagant boots and the most elaborate cravats. He bought a gold-topped cane and learned to drive a four-in-hand. And he sat up into the small hours drinking claret and discussing Poetry and Life and Art with his poetic friends. The fact that he never actually got around to writing any verse didn’t worry him unduly. There was time enough for that later. That was the easy part.
When he left Cambridge and went to London to apply himself to his chosen career, he was annoyed to discover that his poems didn’t emerge onto paper in quite the same brilliant style in which he imagined them in his head. But he felt certain he would achieve the brilliance he wanted sooner or later and in the meantime he had acquired the cachet of poet, which was enough to be going on with. It had made him the centre of attention at his brother’s wedding.
And it had certainly impressed Caroline Easter, which was very gratifying because she wasn’t the sort of young woman who was easily impressed. There had been times during the last few dizzy weeks when he’d wondered whether she might not be the sort of woman who could be a poet’s muse and inspiration. Until then his image of such a lady had been rather hazy. He’d felt she would be beautiful, of course, in an ethereal sort of way, vague and drifting and detached from mundane affairs, but passionately attached to her particular poet. Now he was beginning to imagine quite another style of inspiration, forthright and bold and exciting. To say nothing of romantic, for it was highly romantic to be the centre of a mystery. I’ll ask old Joseph, he promised himself as his carriage rumbled him along the dusty road to Petersfield.
Unfortunately old Joseph was surrounded by guests when his brother arrived and it wasn’t until after dinner the following day that they found themselves with the time and privacy to talk to one another and even then it wasn’t for very long. Henry had gone into the red drawing room to get away from a garrulous dowager who wanted to discuss Shelley, and to his delight, his brother and sister-in-law were there before him, sitting on either side of the fire with the dogs at their feet and brandy glasses in their hands.
‘Join us,’ Emmeline said, indicating the decanter. ‘Who are you hiding from, my dear?’
‘Mrs Mullins,’ he said, helping himself to brandy.
She grimaced, her little round face full of mischief between her long swaying curls. ‘She’ll not think to look here. She likes company. And the louder the better, I fear.’
‘Is Jane to join us?’
‘No,’ Joseph said. ‘Prefers her husband’s company these days.’ And he grinned his agreement of such good sense. ‘Can’t think what the world’s coming to.’
But Henry sighed and the sigh wasn’t lost on his sister-in-law.
‘You miss her, my dear,’ she said sympathetically.
‘I do rather.’
‘You should get yourself a wife,’ Joseph said. ‘That’s my advice.’
‘I can’t do that until I’m an establis
hed poet.’
‘And when will that be?’
He gave an honest answer. ‘I couldn’t say.’ And he sighed again.
‘Marry first and be a poet later,’ Joseph said. ‘That’s my advice.’
Emmeline gave him a little warning grimace and turned her full attention to her sighing brother-in-law. ‘How have you been faring in London?’ she asked him.
It was the perfect opportunity to tell them his news. ‘I have met up with an entire branch of this family that I never knew existed,’ he said, ‘which I find mighty mysterious.’
‘Ah!’ his brother said easily. ‘They would be the newsagents I daresay.’
‘The same.’
‘Did you visit?’ Joseph asked.
‘A few times. Why don’t we know them, Joseph?’
‘Couldn’t say, old thing,’ Joseph said without much concern. ‘Never have as far as I can remember. Some sort of feud, I believe. Ages ago of course. Before our time. I think it was our great-grandfather started it. Quarrelled with a woman called Anne or Nan or somesuch. Was there a woman called Anne or Nan d’you know?’
‘There still is. Nan Easter. She’s the manager of the firm.’
‘Good Lord!’ Joseph said. ‘Fancy that, Emmeline. She must be a hundred. What is she like? Did you get to see her?’
‘She’s like Sheffield steel,’ the poet said, ‘sharp and grey, with a cutting edge.’
‘Oh I say,’ his brother applauded. ‘That’s very good. And what about the others? What are they like?’
So Henry told them all about Will and Euphemia and Caroline, describing the latter at such length and with such warmth that Emmeline understood the state of his affections at once. ‘We must invite them here, Joseph,’ she said. ‘It would be interesting to meet a whole family of new relations all at once.’ She was rewarded by the eagerness on Henry’s face.
‘Can’t say I fancy Sheffield Steel,’ Joseph said, gulping the last of his brandy. ‘But the younger members of the family sound as if they would be good company. Ask ‘em, Henry.’
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