And so the journey passed without sickness and presently Mr Easter realized somewhat to his surprise that they were trundling in to Norwich.
‘You had best waken Matthew, my dear,’ he said. They were rocking across a wooden bridge over the river and she could see the clustered houses of a great city on the farther bank. Now they were out in the world and no mistake. She gave Matthew a quick jab in the ribs to wake him. At which he closed his mouth and opened his eyes and declared he hadn’t been asleep, not he, not for a minute.
Soon they were grinding over cobbles in a dark street narrowed by traffic and teeming with people, farm carts and fine carriages, porters bent double by impossible burdens, even a huge-bellied coach wedged against a haywain whose driver was straining and sweating to dislodge his awkward load. It was a city, she thought, and full of happenings, blaring noise, strong smells, incessant activity. She was thrilled by it.
‘What a place, Mr Easter, sir!’
‘It has some consequence,’ he agreed. ‘Yes indeed. A fine castle, don’t you think?’
The horses were blowing as they toiled uphill beside a grassy knoll. It was topped by a square castle like some gigantic fossilized honeycomb, and while she was still gawping up at it, the horses recovered their breath and went bowling along a wide avenue full of stylish carriages. And there, looming ahead of them at the junction of four haphazard roads, was the tall frontage of the Bell Hotel.
The new mail coach was already drawn up outside with its four greys snortingly impatient and most of its historic passengers aboard.
‘Dear me!’ Mr Easter said, lifting his fob watch out of his waistcoat pocket and studying it earnestly. ‘I trust we are not late, Matthew.’
‘Never you fear, Mr Easter, sir,’ Matthew said. ‘If that ol’ coach en’t goin’, which it en’t, you en’t late. Stands to reason.’
But his master was already scrambling out of the carriage, hands a-flutter with anxiety. ‘Dear me! Dear me! What if I have kept them waiting? What must they be thinking?’
There was a gentleman hurrying towards them through the crowds, arms outstretched. ‘Mr Easter, my dear friend. I trust I see you well.’
‘Passable, Mr Johnson,’ William Henry said, sprinting forward to seize his friend by the hand. ‘And how are you?’
‘Recovered, as you see. I suffer less when the weather is dry.’
No wonder they’re friends, Nan thought, watching them as they walked off arm in arm towards the coach, talking about their health. They’re as alike as two peas in a pod.
And so they were. Two dapper gentlemen, short in stature, courteous in manner, both of them stooped and old-fashioned; two mild, unobtrusive gentlemen, the sort who would be lost in a crowd because there was nothing remarkable about either of them.
And at that thought, she remembered the hamper and Cook’s solemn instructions. ‘Take hold a’ that,’ she said to Matthew, thrusting the little basket into his blunt hands. ‘Follow me!’ It would be a poor thing if she lost sight of them before she’d completed her errand. She elbowed her way energetically through the crowds with Matthew lumbering behind her.
When she arrived at the Bell, Mr Easter and his friend had climbed into their seats behind the coachman and were busily fussing two travelling rugs around their legs.
‘Your hamper, Mr Easter, sir,’ she said, nodding at Matthew to show him that he was to lift it up to his master.
‘How very kind!’ Mr Easter said, receiving the hamper onto his padded lap and explaining to his friend, ‘A few dainties to sustain us on the journey.’ But then his smile faded and a look of intense anxiety creased his forehead and lined his cheeks. ‘I have forgotten the letters,’ he said. ‘Oh dear! I have made no arrangements about my letters.’
‘What letters are these, my friend?’ Mr Johnson asked. ‘May I be of service?’
‘No, no, thank ’ee kindly,’ Mr Easter said vaguely. ‘Mrs Mather, my housekeeper you know, always sends me news of my affairs in Yarmouth whenever I travel.’
‘And will doubtless continue to do so.’
‘No, no,’ Mr Easter said again. ‘She is away from home, nursing a sick daughter.’
‘Then your servant will oblige,’ Mr Johnson said, looking at Matthew.
Matthew’s bland face registered instant panic. ‘No earthly use you lookin’ at me, sir,’ he said, forehead puckered. ‘Can’t read nor write. Never could.’
‘The maid then,’ Mr Johnson said.
‘Nan, my dear,’ Mr Easter said, looking imploringly at her. ‘Would you be so kind?’
The coach was ready to depart. Chocks were being scraped away from the wheels and there was a bustle of leave-taking all around her. ‘Yes, sir,’ she promised, as the coachman gathered the reins together and began talking his four greys into concerted action. ‘What should I write about?’
But the great vehicle was beginning to roll, its wheels crunching against the cobbles, and the watching crowd set up a cheer. She could see his lips moving but she couldn’t hear a word he was saying. How was she supposed to know what to write about? Why hadn’t he thought of this before and given her proper instructions? He was still mouthing words at her but it was all quite useless. Nevertheless she nodded brightly as though she understood, because there was no point in making a fuss now that she’d said ‘Yes’, and it would have been unkind to send him on his way still looking so worried.
And he smiled and waved and was quite cheerful again as the coach turned him out of her sight. What a funny man he was!
Chapter Three
Mr Easter’s clerk had never approved of a housekeeper as a second source of information for his absent employer, as he was quick to complain to Nan when she came knocking at the office door next morning.
‘I send him the most precise accounts,’ he said haughtily, ‘every Friday evening and every Wednesday morning, without fail. I see no reason why he should not be content with that. No reason at all. I am positive no clerk alive could do more, no matter how many years he may have been in the business. And, I might add, I have been twenty-six years in the business. Twenty-six years. Oh, there’s no justice in it!’
‘What sort of things am I s’posed to write about?’ Nan asked, disregarding his intensity.
‘’Tis my opinion,’ he said darkly, ‘that some people are not above using spies. I say no more than that you understand. Not a word more than that.’
But he gave her ink and paper and promised to send her letters to the Mail along with his own.
‘’Twill be all gossip he’ll get from me,’ she said, because he was ruffling like a turkey-cock. ‘I en’t got the head for business.’
But she was wrong. As she was to discover during the next few days.
Her first letter was short and rambling. ‘Mrs Mather is not returned. Matthew he caught his thumb in a drawer which is all swole up. Mr Maypole gave a dinner on Monday night, sea bream, a stuffed capon, and two rabbits so the kitchen maid say when I see her at market. Your obedient servant Nan.’
He sent his answer by return of post, thanking her most courteously for her letter, but following his thanks by two pages of closely written advice. She was to go down to the quay as soon as she could after the tide had brought in the latest cargoes and note what was arrived, what price was asked for it, what price was paid for it and by whom. ‘Merchants have to keep a weather eye for such matters, I do assure you, my child. I am much obliged to you for all your kind endeavours, William Henry Easter.’
She went down to the quay the very next morning, as soon as Mrs Howkins was dressed and the shopping was done, and she was very much surprised by what she saw. ‘A quantity of Dutch tiles, blue and white, very pretty come from Flushing,’ she wrote in her next letter. ‘The Dutchman he say sixpence each for them and then Mr Maybury he say they en’t worth more than thruppence, and they argue and argue more than twenty minutes by the church clock and strikes a bargain at fourpence ha’penny. Then the Dutchman he bring out another chest of the same an
d another merchant, what I do not know the name of, he come up and the Dutchman he say sixpence and the merchant he say thruppence and they strike a bargain at thruppence ha’penny. And there weren’t a pennorth of difference, for the tiles was all the same. I seen un. Which do seem funny to me.’
‘You have witnessed your first business transaction,’ he wrote back, ‘and described it fully and fairly, for which service you have my warmest thanks. It is striking the bargain which is the most important part of any transaction, little Nan. That is the true art of the merchantman. One which I must confess, my dear Nan, I do not possess as yet. I am invariably the loser in any transaction which I undertake. That must be admitted, although it saddens me to do so. I make a poor bargain even when my endeavours are most serious and well-considered.’
She read the letter three times before she understood it, and then she was surprised to realize that she was feeling sorry for him. He en’t artful like that Mr Maybury, she thought. That’s why he’s the loser. He’s too kind and gentle to hold out for a good price. And she made up her mind that her next letter would be packed with information so as to help him.
But when she took it round to South Quay the following morning Mrs Mather had come back from nursing her daughter. And Mrs Mather was annoyed. ‘There en’t no call for the two of us to be writing to master,’ she said tetchily. ‘I can carry on now.’
‘Weren’t no call for the two of us to be writing neither,’ the clerk said sourly. But she ignored him.
‘Mr Easter must be judge of that,’ Nan said, determined not to be put down by a housekeeper, no matter how fierce, and she took a pen and added a postscript across the back of the wrapper. ‘Mrs Mather is returned. Do you wish me to continue writing? Nan.’
Oh, he did. Most certainly he did. For he found her artless letters perfectly charming and a great deal more informative than his clerk’s or his housekeeper’s. ‘Pray do continue,’ he wrote back. ‘I am thirsty for news and need as much as you can gather.’ Then he wrote a courteous note to his clerk, commenting at length upon all the facts and figures listed in his latest epistle and another to Mrs Mather assuring her that her correspondence was always needed and valued. But it was Nan’s letter he opened first when the mail was delivered four days later.
Their intermittent dialogue continued all through July and well into August, and he spent more and more time remembering her and thinking about her, surprising himself by the strength of his feelings towards her.
I must take her a little present to reward her for all her efforts, he thought. A copy of Mr Cowper’s comic poem, ‘John Gilpin’, perhaps. He could take it with him when he went back to Norwich. It would give him an excuse to spend some time in her bewitching company, the dear child. If only he could find some excuse to make the journey.
The trouble was that his affairs in London were in very bad shape and needed his constant attention if they were not to get any worse. His brokers had made so many bad bargains lately he was beginning to wonder whether he ought to sell off the tea business altogether. And to add to his difficulties, the weather in the City grew steadily more humid and uncomfortable. Men and horses were much plagued by flies and fleas and the summer sickness. And he suffered more than most, of course, despite the constant and expensive attendance of his two physicians.
‘A few days on the East coast in the bracing air,’ he suggested on their third visit, but tentatively because it was not his business to prescribe treatment.
They were dubious at first, considering this solemnly and then expressing the view that it might possibly prove efficacious, but might on the other hand aggravate all his symptoms, which would be cured in any case by the rigorous course of kaolin they were currently administering.
‘It might be possible,’ he suggested mildly, ‘that I would thrive as well upon your excellent medicines in Yarmouth as I would do here in Chelsea. With the added benefit of the sea air, of course. It is just a thought of mine, you appreciate.’
They deliberated upon this thought too and eventually decided to allow him to think it. Providing he bought a large quantity of their kaolin mixture to take with him on his journey.
It was exceedingly pleasant to be back in South Quay again, looking down at the tangled yellow curls of those familiar lime trees and all the polished masts and black hulls behind them, and the blue river running so easily under a blue sky. As soon as he had washed and taken a dish of tea and felt himself entirely at home again, he sent Matthew round to Plum Row with Mr Cowper’s book.
He was back in less than ten minutes with the book still in his hands. Mrs Howkins had gone to visit her sister and she’d taken Nan Smithen with her.
‘Are they like to be away long?’ his master asked, covering his disappointment with a calm countenance.
‘Ten more days, so that ol’ clerk do say.’
It was too long. Much too long. For he’d given his word to be in St Paul’s churchyard at four of the clock in six days’ time. And a gentleman’s word was his bond.
‘You will – um – deliver the book, Matthew, as soon as they return. I will leave it here beside my bed, where you will see it when you sweep the room. You will be sure not to forget, will you not?’
‘Certain sure!’ Matthew promised. ‘Leave un to me, Mr Easter sir.’
She wrote him such a pretty letter thanking him for his gift. ‘That do make me laugh.’ And she gave him a lively account of Mrs Howkins’ visit and the daily catty exchanges that had passed between the two unloving sisters. And that made him laugh. But it wasn’t the same as seeing her, and his disappointment was as sharp as his indigestion.
September came and then October and the herring fleets put out to sea. Now she wrote to him daily to keep him informed of the catch. He was impressed by how shrewd she was becoming. ‘I seen your captain,’ she wrote, ‘and he say the catch is middlin, but John Butterworth, he say that old sea fairly leaping with herring. Tis my opinion the Captain speaks cool on account of a small catch do keep prices up, but if it were up to me, I know who I should believe. Captain speak cautious I reckon, John Butterworth he speak from the heart. Your obedient servant, Nan.’
‘I hope you are correct in your estimation of this year’s herring,’ he wrote back to her, ‘for I have sold my interest in the business of tea importation, and I fear that sugar may soon follow, so your leaping fish might turn out to be my only means of livelihood.’
She paid no attention to his pessimism. Her next letter was full of excitement, for the Dutch Fair was approaching. ‘Perhaps you will be back here in time to see it,’ she wrote.
‘I would not miss the fair for all the tea in China,’ he answered, adding wryly, ‘even if it were offered to me to make a profit on.’
The Dutch Fair was the biggest event of the Yarmouth year. In the olden days it had lasted from Michaelmas to Martinmas, with plays and parties and junketings of one kind and another on virtually every single day. Even now, shrunk to a mere fortnight of its former glory, it was an exhilarating festival and crowds came flocking to it from all over the country.
This year it began in a week of strong easterly winds, which brought a thick sea mist to shroud the town in the early morning and cleared it by afternoon to allow the sun to shine through like summer. The fishing boats sailing across from Zeebrugge and Flushing and Rotterdam made excellent time with such a driving force behind them. Within twenty-four hours of the appointed start, the long sandy beach beyond the Dene was crowded with shipping. And by the time William Henry came strolling across the field to join the festivities in the late afternoon of their second day, there were at least twenty Dutch fishing boats already drawn up on the sands, their hulls twice as tall as the tallest man, and their red sails dropped carelessly across the decks.
The burghers of Yarmouth were all abroad that afternoon and in holiday mood, some in greatcoats and fine beaver hats, with their ladies beside them dressed in all their finery, others in their sombre working clothes because they’d come to dr
ive bargains. He was greeted cheerfully by his friends who were glad to see their honest neighbour again, and guardedly by his competitors, so it didn’t take him long to discover that the catch was every bit as good as Nan had predicted. And as he stood quietly listening to his clerk’s account of the good prices the Easter fleet was commanding, he was wondering whether the little maid was anywhere about, and whether he would be able to see her in such a crowd.
There were fishermen everywhere, balancing baskets the size of carriage wheels on their heads with their wives plodding beside them in their long pin-tucked aprons and straw hats as broad as sunshades, sky-blue and tar-black and yellow as wheat. Everything you could imagine was being offered for sale, clogs, herrings, bloaters, wooden toys, fruits and sweetmeats, cane chairs and corn-dollies, and there were tables set up beside every ship between the muddle of dogs and horses and scampering children and the untidy mounds of barrels. The horses were working particularly hard that afternoon, kicking up plumes of sand as they trudged from sea to shore and back again with full panniers slung on either flank.
One was standing hock deep in the sea, patiently waiting to haul a boat ashore, while the local fishermen in their red caps and worn blue jackets unloaded the latest catch in their great cradle-shaped baskets, spilling silver fish like water drops with every swinging movement.
There were three young servant girls paddling in the sea beside them, catching the spilt fish into their aprons, giggling and teasing. They had looped up their skirts to keep them dry, and their bare legs gleamed white against the green water. They made a pretty picture, he thought, watching them idly as they skipped across the tumbling waves, scooping silver fish from the water, their loosened hair fluttering about their shoulders and the sea frothing at their feet. The younger fishermen were admiring them too, cat-calling after them and being ridiculously careless with the catch. Quite understandable, he thought, for they were attractive young women.
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