‘Oh, I will. I will,’ Henry said. ‘On the very first opportunity. Depend on it.’
‘And if you don’t find an opportunity, make one, eh?’ his brother said.
But in the event it was Joseph who made the first opportunity and he made it for his brother. Although because it was an act of charity, he made it secretly. The day after Henry returned to town he rode up to London himself to seek out an old friend of his from his Oxford days, an old friend who was now the editor of the Weekly Herald.
After pleasantries and an ample lunch he came straight to the point. ‘It’s about my young brother,’ he said. ‘Fancies himself as a poet. I’d take it uncommon kindly if you would throw the odd job in his direction, just now and then.’
So an odd job was thrown. On the morning of the next ball of the season, after two days spent miserably indoors because of torrential rain, Henry received a letter commissioning him to compose a series of three odes on British heroes: Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. He was cock-a-hoop about it, for it meant that he was being recognized at last. And he couldn’t wait to tell Caroline.
He spent the entire day in a fever of excitement, looking forward to the ball, which was easy and pleasant, and trying to compose, which was far more difficult than he had expected. Inspiration did not descend from the clouds. In fact by the end of the afternoon he was beginning to suspect that he’d been given an impossible subject because he really didn’t know very much about this long-dead hero except that he’d fought the French and been killed at the battle of Trafalgar. And rhyming was impossible too. The only one he could think of for hero was Nero, which wasn’t appropriate, while as to finding a rhyme for Nelson … Nevertheless he took his notebook to the ball. Perhaps Miss Easter would inspire him.
It took him some time to discover where she was, for the ball was being held at the Montacute’s and their ballroom was enormous and gave out into a series of terraces that led to the garden. But eventually he saw her standing on one of those terraces, leaning her arm against an urn full of roses and honeysuckle, talking to Euphemia, with her grandmother and Mr Brougham and her brother beside her.
He walked over to her at once, his notebook still in his hand.
‘I do declare you’re composing a poem,’ she said, addressing him without preamble, in that forthright way of hers, and gazing at him so directly she quite took his breath away. She really is a very pretty girl, he thought. Her eyes are so fine, so dark and passionate, and her hair quite beautiful, clustering thickly about her forehead and swinging beside her cheeks in ringlets so glossy I can hardly bear not to touch them. While as to her mouth, why that really is most delicious, so wide and generous and outspoken …
‘Yes,’ he said as casually as he could. ‘A commission, you know. From the Weekly Herald.’
‘How thrilling,’ she said. ‘What is it about? Do tell. Are we allowed to see it?’
‘Not just yet,’ he said, closing his notepad quickly before she could see the mess he was in. ‘Takes a bit of doing, does an ode.’
‘What is it about?’
‘Admiral Lord Nelson.’
‘A great hero,’ Nan Easter said. ‘But the man was small.’
‘Did you see him?’ Euphemia asked, eyes wide. ‘Did you actually see Lord Nelson with your own eyes?’ What a marvellous thing to meet a hero face to face!
‘Several times,’ Nan said.
‘What was he like, ma’am?’ Henry asked. ‘If I may make so bold as to ask.’ Now this was more like. This could turn out to be the inspiration he needed.
‘He was quiet,’ Nan remembered. ‘An unassuming sort of feller, riding about town with his lady-love. He wore a patch over his blind eye, I remember. A gentle looking man. You’d never have thought he was a hero. Not to look at him.’ What a long time ago it all was, that terrible battle of Trafalgar. Before these children were born, when John and Billy and Annie were little more than children themselves. And yet she remembered it all so clearly as if it were yesterday. ‘We’ve took an unconscionable time to honour him.’
‘He was our greatest hero, wasn’t he?’ Euphemia said. Mrs Flowerdew had told them all a great deal about him. In fact he and the Duke of Wellington were the only two men she’d ever approved of.
‘Without Lord Nelson,’ Mr Brougham told them, ‘Napoleon would have invaded this country in 1805. We had troops stationed all along the south coast waiting for him but, even so, if he’d landed we would have been hard put to it to defend ourselves. I dread to think what would have become of us.’
And one of those troops, Nan thought, was my Calverley Leigh. I wonder where the old rogue is now. Now he was a handsome crittur and no mistake, the love of her youth and such fun.
The fiddles were striking up the quadrille.
‘You could dance with me if you wished,’ Caroline said to Henry. Papa hadn’t arrived yet, so this was just the chance, even if she did have to be – well, rather forward to take it. It was just as well Bessie was out of earshot.
‘Honoured,’ he said, bowing to her. And he led her happily away.
As their feet followed the complicated patterns he told her that his family would like her to visit them at Ippark and she told him, most diplomatically, that her father was rather busy and that it might not be possible to arrange a visit just at present. And they spoke of the quarrel that had kept their two branches of the family apart for so long and agreed that it was positively ridiculous, indeed it was. And when the dance was done and they walked out onto the terrace again, they returned to the subject of the ode.
‘How much have you written?’ she asked.
‘Not a great deal,’ he confessed. ‘It’s uncommon difficult to find the rhymes.’
‘Poor Nelson,’ she said. ‘I always think he must be jolly cold on his column.’
Cold on his column, Henry thought. How extraordinary she is to think of a statue being cold. But it was the perfect first line.
‘“Cold on his column Nelson stands“,’ he declaimed, pulling his notebook from his pocket and writing as he spoke. ‘“His iron sword in iron hands.” What do you think?’
‘Wonderful,’ she applauded, admiring his dark eyes. Oh, he looked every inch a poet. ‘Except …’
‘Except?’
‘Well, he only had one, you know.’
‘One what?’
‘One hand.’
‘Poetic licence,’ he said, suddenly feeling quite cross. It was the first good couplet he’d been able to conjure up and he wasn’t going to reject it for mere verisimilitude. Now she’d spoilt herself, pretty though she was. There was no need to go pointing out every single little error.
‘He only had one eye too,’ she observed.
‘Yes. I know that.’ Everybody knew that.
She looked out at the ballroom, checking to see whether her father had arrived. ‘Nan says he could see a deal better with one eye than most of us can see with two.’
The second couplet materialized. He wrote again. ‘With one eye he could see. A great deal better than you and me.’ It wasn’t perfect but it was a start.
‘You are a muse,’ he said, feeling quite warm towards her again. ‘A poet’s muse. Before I danced with you I could hardly write a word. Now. Well, you see how it is.’
Caroline was thrilled. ‘A muse!’ she said, enraptured. Why, it was like something out of a romance.
‘All the great poets have been inspired by women,’ he told her, sliding his pencil behind his ear. ‘Dante, Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Byron …’
‘Henry Osmond Easter.’
‘If you were the woman,’ he said, feeling full of power and daring. ‘Oh, how splendid creation is! You see how I write now that you are with me.’
‘It is an honour,’ she said, wondering breathlessly just where this extraordinary conversation was leading them.
But neither of them were to find out, for at that moment Will suddenly strode through the crowd to join them, talking as he
came and signalling to his sister with a stern glance sideways that she was to be discreet. ‘My dance, I believe, Carrie.’
‘Such a splendid evening,’ Euphemia said, panting up behind them to take Caroline by the arm and move her two steps sideways and out of danger. ‘Your father has arrived,’ she whispered.
But John Easter was already upon them. ‘You will please to follow me, Caroline,’ he said. ‘Your grandmother wishes to speak with you.’
He was walking her away before anyone had a chance to say anything else.
So many emotions eddied within the little space they enclosed with their bodies, John’s fury, Euphemia’s anxiety, Henry’s confusion, Will’s embarrassment, all so strong and so sudden that Caroline had no time to respond to any of them. It was hard enough to cope with the force of her own emotion which was something new and powerful and very disturbing and yet reminded her of the feelings she had at a wedding. She wanted to go on talking to Henry, to go on feeling this new excitement, whatever it was, to go on. But the force of her father’s anger pulled her away, drew her feet after him, so that she followed almost without volition. She sensed that Will was saying something to poor Henry, because she could hear his voice, soothingly polite, but everything was happening much too quickly. Euphemia was holding her arm, her head so close that they were cheek to cheek, smiling sympathy and warning and affection all mixed up together. I can’t just walk away like this, she thought, and she turned her head to glance back at her poet and was thrilled and upset to see how bleak he looked, standing tall and white-faced on the terrace with his notebook still in his hand.
‘I will ride tomorrow,’ she mouthed at him. And then they were inside the ball room and the crush was between them and she couldn’t see anything except backs and shoulders and head-dresses that were much too tall, wretched things. ‘Why do people have to wear such ridiculous head-dresses?’ she said crossly to Euphemia. ‘Sticking up in the air, getting in everybody’s way!’
‘Come and dance,’ Will urged. ‘It’s no good getting cross.’
But although she soon danced herself into a good humour again she was still annoyed by her father’s peremptory interruption and hurt to think how much it must have upset poor Henry. And she made up her mind that she would apologize to him on her father’s behalf the minute she saw him again.
The next morning it was drizzling with rain.
‘You don’t want to go riding in this,’ Bessie said with obvious satisfaction.
‘Yes, I do,’ Caroline said. ‘It will soon clear. You’ll see.’
And it did. After the first half hour or so. But by then Caroline didn’t care what the weather was doing, for Henry was already in the Park when she arrived.
‘I am so sorry for the way my father behaved yesterday,’ she said, trotting up to him. ‘It was most ill-mannered to cut you. He makes me ashamed.’
‘It’s of no consequence,’ he said gallantly. ‘No consequence at all.’
‘It’s all on account of that stupid quarrel,’ she said. ‘I do think it’s ridiculous.’
‘So it is,’ he agreed, riding as close beside her as his palamino would allow. ‘But we are above such folly, are we not?’
‘No,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘I’m afraid we’re not. The truth is, he forbade me to spend any time with you at all. I may greet you when we meet, out of common politeness, he allowed that, but we ain’t supposed to talk. He don’t approve of you.’ And then, aware of the stiffening of his expression and afraid that she’d upset him, ‘Oh, not because of anything he’s heard about you, just because of who you are. An Ippark Easter, you see.’
He should have been annoyed, but he wasn’t. He was thrilled to be the subject of such a ban. It was romantic, the sort of thing a struggling poet ought to expect. ‘The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,’ he said, sitting straight and proud on his palamino.
‘I think it’s downright hateful,’ she said. It had upset her to have to tell him. ‘I don’t share his opinion at all, do I Pheemy?’
‘No,’ Euphemia said, ‘neither of us do.’
‘I think he’s quite wrong,’ Caroline said emphatically. Now that the truth was out she wanted Henry Easter to know exactly what her feelings were. Even though she wasn’t entirely sure herself. Oh, it was hideous to cut him. Indeed it was. Especially when he was so noble and handsome.
‘He has been alone for a very long time,’ Euphemia explained. ‘Living alone, I mean, with no wife, you see. I think that may be why he is harsh sometimes.’
‘He had no right to cut you,’ Caroline said passionately. ‘Nor to forbid me to talk to you. That ain’t natural.’
‘No,’ he said with equal passion, gazing straight into her eyes. ‘Nor possible.’
That odd excitement wriggled in her belly and for a second or two she found she was breathless and didn’t know what to say. Then her horse shied and had to be coaxed and the three of them walked on without speaking for a yard or so.
‘You don’t mean to obey your father,’ he said, breathless with daring and exertion.
‘Not in every particular,’ she said, feeling very bold even to be saying such a thing.
‘I think you are quite right,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it is necessary to take a stand. All poets take stands. Think of Lord Byron.’
They all thought of Lord Byron for several further yards.
‘Where shall you be tonight?’ he asked.
‘At the Drury Lane Theatre,’ Euphemia said, ‘with Nan and Mr Brougham.’
‘What good fortune,’ he said, beaming at them. ‘I shall be there too. Who knows, we might meet in the interval.’
‘You see what a noble spirit he has,’ Caroline said, as she and Euphemia were driven home after their ride. ‘It’s downright ridiculous of Pa to forbid us to meet. He’s a splendid young man, don’t you think so, Pheemy? So forgiving and kind.’
‘And artful,’ Euphemia said.
‘Oh yes, indeed. Wondrously artful. What shall I wear tonight?’ And then as another thought struck her, ‘I wonder if I could persuade Aunt Matilda to invite him to Edward’s wedding?’
But Aunt Matilda was horribly resistant, even to the very broadest hint her niece could devise, and Henry Osmond wasn’t invited.
Caroline was jolly annoyed. It was too bad. It really was. Especially when everybody else was there. And especially when she couldn’t comment on the lack of invitation without appearing to show too familiar an interest in the young man. Which wasn’t the case at all, of course. Her interest in him was purely literary. Wasn’t it? But really? Out of common politeness, you’d have thought Aunt Matilda could have made an effort, no matter what Papa might say.
It was a boring wedding too, on a freezing cold day and with everything veiled and hidden as if nature had dropped a shroud across the whole affair. There was a heavy mist that morning rolling against the doors and windows in great clouds of objectionable dampness and all the trees were dripping.
The wedding guests arrived at the church under umbrellas, and the women all covered their bonnets with scarves so that it was hard to tell who they all were, and the bride wore a veil so thick you couldn’t see her face at all. She and Edward gave their responses in silly little voices as though it were all a great secret. Not that anyone could hear them anyway with so many people coughing. Uncle Billy was making a noise like a cracked trumpet, which didn’t please Aunt Matilda. And when the ceremony was over and the new Mr and Mrs Edward Easter walked in procession to the porch, what with guttering candles and seeping mist, the light in the church was so poor it was impossible to do more than catch a glimpse of their frozen faces.
And then as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was raining when they came out of the church and the waiters at the reception were so slow that all the food was congealed and cold long before it reached the table. Caroline was jolly glad when the whole business was over and the bride and groom had been tucked into his new carriage under her new travelling rug and brisked away towards
their honeymoon with the rain spraying from their wheels.
‘Thank heavens that’s finished,’ she said to Euphemia as they trotted back to Bedford Square. ‘Now we can get on with the rest of the season. If it ever stops raining.’
Her father was glad to have the wedding over and done with too. ‘The sooner it is autumn and Caroline is safely away in the country the better,’ he said.
‘Poor old John,’ Billy commiserated. ‘Children are the very devil. Don’t I know it.’
‘Yours,’ Matilda told him sternly, ‘have always been exceedingly easy, all things considered.’
Nan and Billy grimaced at one another, remembering Edward’s debts, and John squinted at his own furious thoughts.
‘I must confess,’ Matilda went on, ignoring them all, ‘that it’s a relief to have both my darlings happily settled and with all their little childish problems over and done with. How happy my dear Edward must be now, away on his honeymoon, without a care in the world.’
Chapter 11
Married life wasn’t quite what Mr Edward Easter had expected it to be. It had been pleasant to court a rich woman and to know that his friends envied him a wealthy match, and it was flattering to see her sitting beside him at the reception in her elegant gown, entertaining the guests with her tales of writers and poets, but he hadn’t really imagined she would be silent once they were alone together.
Mirabelle’s aunt had put her country estate at their disposal for the month of their honeymoon. It was out in the wilds of the Wiltshire countryside and the journey there was long and damp and uncomfortable. During the first half hour he had tried to make conversation, passing witty comments upon the wedding guests and holding forth about his ambition to live like a gentleman now that they were married and to run a town house and a country seat and keep a carriage and pair and a dog-cart. But she said nothing in reply except, ‘Yes, dear’ and ‘No, my love’, and after a while his monologue became embarrassing, so they finished their journey in silence.
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