‘Oh!’ she roared, bristling towards his departing back. ‘Let me get at un! I’ll give un such a piece of my mind, so I will!’
But fortunately they were all rescued by the announcement of the arrival of the Prince Regent, and the astonishing sight of her new ruler put Sir Osmond’s rudeness out of her mind. It really was a most theatrical appearance. He was decked out in the full dress uniform of a Field Marshall, embellished with heavy gold embroidery along every seam and set with jewels at every vantage point. He was fatter than ever and the wide cloak he wore for his entrance, which was made of heavy blue velvet lined with white silk, seemed designed to accentuate his girth. The shoulders were padded so as to extend for a full eighteen inches on either side of his collar and above the padding, they were hung with accoutrements, a triple silk bow, an embroidered coat of arms and a long, red velvet epaulette. Thus attired he rolled into the assembly, acknowledging bows and curtseys with a faint movement of one fat gloved hand.
‘I never seen such a fat old mawther in all my life,’ Nan whispered to Calverley. ‘He’s a deal worse than the last time we saw un.’
‘Hush!’ he whispered back. ‘’Tis a hanging matter to be heard a-saying such things, and I wouldn’t have ’ee hung, my charmer, not for the world.’
‘Now to the banquet,’ she said, licking her lips.
The banquet was as expensive and sumptuous as the Regent, and equally vulgar. It was held in the gothic conservatory, an edifice of such overpowering extravagance that it quite took Nan’s breath away, for it was really more like a cathedral than a greenhouse. Arched columns, heavily and exotically decorated, supported a ceiling where fan vaults erupted from fan vaults and chandeliers depended from chandeliers. The entrance to the garden was a high altar, the lanterns hanging from every archway were painted icons and beyond them the windows were all stained glass. The supper tables filled its entire length, all two hundred feet of it, and the tureens and dishes and plates were all of silver.
There were mulligatawny soup and turtle soup, salmon and trout and turbot surrounded by little silver smelts. There were barons of beef and saddles of mutton and vegetables of every kind piled upon silver dishes. There was iced champagne for everyone, and port and sherry, and even claret for the ladies. Peaches and grapes and pineapples were piled on silver platters before every sixth place, and the pièce de résistance was a fishpond full of live gold and silver fish set in the table before the Regent’s elaborate chair. It fed a stream that flowed between banks heaped with flowers right along the full length of the tables and back, taking the fish wherever they cared to swim.
‘They say this entertainment cost £150,000,’ Nan’s immediate neighbour informed her with some awe, watching as two gold fins pursued one another through the clear water.
Nan didn’t doubt it. It was excessive, like the company. The way they all ate! Scoffing the meal as though they were never likely to get another. No wonder they’re all such fat old mawthers, she thought.
By the time they got home she was so swollen with food she could barely breathe. ‘I en’t the shape for over-eating,’ she complained, removing her tight gown. ‘My heart alive, just look at that belly. That’s gross, so ’tis.’
But he was admiring it and growing obviously amorous.
‘Now don’t ’ee start,’ she warned. ‘I got enough to do digesting all that food without you starting, and I’ve to travel back to Bury in the morning.’
‘Could you not stay a day or two?’ he asked. He was horribly short of cash again, and he’d been hoping he could get her into the right mood to ask her for a loan.
She had put on a loose day-gown and flopped onto the bed with her feet on the pillows. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can’t. I want to see how Annie’s faring.’ She’d spent the entire summer with her daughter, sewing the baby’s layette and preparing its nursery, and uncommon pleasant it had been. ‘I shall be back in September.’
‘You care little for me, I see,’ he teased, leaning over her to kiss her forehead. ‘I declare I would fare better with you these days if I were six months old and in a cradle.’
‘You give me indigestion with all that squit,’ she said mildly. ‘I’m too full of food to argify.’
The next day the papers were full of rapturous accounts of the Regent’s glorious levee, and the Chronicle had some very complimentary things to say about ‘Mrs Easter of A. Easter – Newsagents’ and ‘her handsome escort Mr Calverley Leigh’, who were ‘an example to the company for their stylish appearance and their learned conversation.’ Nan read them on her way to Bury, wondering what she could have said to the editor of that paper to make him so obsequious.
Later that week she wrote to Thomasina and Evelina to tell them all about the levee, as she’d promised, and to rebuke them, gently, for not telling her about Sir Osmond’s marriage. ‘She looks a kindly creature,’ she wrote. ‘Do pray give her my warmest regards.’
‘It was most remiss of us not to tell you of the wedding,’ Evelina wrote back. ‘Howsomever, we assumed you would read of it in the papers. ’Twas announced in The Times, you see my dear. Molly is a dear girl, which is plain to be seen, is it not, and uncommon fond of Osmond. At present she is not at all well, which is a great distress to us all, but we hope to see her improved when the child is born.’
But when the last week of September arrived and the child was born, Molly took a fever, and within three days she was dead. This time Nan did see the news, which was duly announced in The Times and arrived in Cheyne Walk on the same morning by private letter from Ippark.
‘We are desolated,’ Thomasina wrote, ‘having grown so fond of her. ‘’Tis a strong baby, for which I suppose we must be thankful, a boy and to be called Joseph after his grandfather, which will not surprise you I think. We must pray for the safe delivery of your daughter’s child. Such a pretty bride. We often speak of her.’
The news struck Nan with a sudden and irrational terror. ‘I must go to Bury and see Annie,’ she told her family, passing the letter to Billy. ‘What if she were to need care, and me not there to give it?’
Calverley was travelling for Mr Chaplin, so there was nobody there to try to dissuade her. Both the boys thought it entirely sensible and sat down at once to write letters to their sister, while their mother was throwing clothes into her travelling bag. And Thiss was delighted. ‘Won’t the missus be pleased?’ he said, as they set off through the fallen leaves that rustled along Cheyne Walk.
It might have been a rhetorical question, but it turned out to be a considerable understatement.
They arrived in Bury St Edmunds as the dusk was falling, and Bessie came out of her parlour at once at the sound of Nan’s key in the front door. When she saw her mistress standing in the hall with her dear Thiss carrying the luggage over the doorstep behind her, her face underwent an extraordinary series of changes. First her neck turned red, then she put her hand into her mouth like a baby, and then she burst into tears.
Thiss flung the luggage on the floor and took her in his arms. ‘Come on, Goosie!’ he soothed. ‘Don’t take on. That ain’t the way. I shall think you ain’t pleased ter see me, you go on like that.’
‘Pleased ter see yer!’ she said, eyes brimming with tears. ‘Pleased ter see yer! Why, Thiss, I’m that pleased ter see yer, I can’t put words to it. ’Tis just it bein’ unexpected-like. That’s what done it, me dear. Bein’ unexpected-like.’ Then she realized that Nan was staring at her, and she turned to apologize. ‘Oh, Mrs Easter, mum, what must you think? I’m so sorry, mum, an’ you standin’ here in the cold an’ all, an’ after such a long journey too. What must you think?’
‘I will take tea in the drawing-room,’ Nan said, brusquely, because she’d found all that unexpected emotion rather upsetting. ‘And then I’m off to Rattlesden to see Annie.’
But Bessie explained that the drawing-room was cold.
‘There’s no fire there,’ she apologized. ‘We keeps it shut up wintertime, yer see, as a general rule. Not expec
ting you or nothink. I’ll get one lit directly, but it’ll take an hour or two to warm through. My parlour’s nice an’ cosy, mum. You’re more than welcome there.’
So Thiss went off to attend to the horses, and the housemaid was rung for and told to light fires, and the parlour it was. Soon the two of them were sitting before the stove and the tea was brewed and young Tom was blowing the fire with the bellows and Bessie was telling her mistress the latest news about Annie.
‘She’ll be that glad you’re to be here fer the birth after all,’ she said. ‘They took my Pollyanna on fer nursemaid. Went up three weeks ago.’
‘I’m glad on it,’ Nan said. ‘She will be a great help.’
‘Very well pleased with ’er they are, mum,’ Bessie said, glowing with pride and hot tea. ‘A good gel, though I says it as shouldn’t.’
‘And Annie is truly well?’
‘Blooming, mum,’ Bessie said. ‘She was a bit cast-down when you left. Well that’s onny natchrul.’ Then she burst into tears again. ‘Oh, don’t mind me, mum,’ she begged. ‘’Tis just it bein’ unexpected-like. Thiss coming home.’
‘Do you miss him so much, Bessie?’ Nan asked. The strength of Bessie’s feelings was surprising after all these years.
‘Oh yes,’ Bessie said. ‘When he first goes away, I miss ’im all the time. Ain’t a minute ’a the day I don’t find mesself a-thinkin’ of ’im. Well you know how it is, mum. ’Tis a mortal long time October ter May. But there,’ drying her eyes for the second time that afternoon. ‘Mussen’ grumble. It gets better. You gets used to it. You can get used to anythink in time, can’t yer mum?’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you missed him?’ Nan insisted. And underneath the words was the uncomfortable thought that she ought to have known this without being told.
‘That wasn’t fer me ter go a-tellin’ you things like that,’ Bessie said. ‘You got a business ter run.’
And then Thiss came into the room and asked if there was any beer, so beer had to be found for him, and Bessie went bustling off to find it.
‘Your Bessie misses you in the wintertime,’ Nan said.
‘She does that.’
‘And you miss her?’
‘Sommink chronic.’ But he didn’t complain or say any more about it, and Nan found that even more distressing than Bessie’s tears.
‘Blamed fools the pair of you,’ she said. ‘You should ha’ said, so you should. Fancy missing one another so much and saying nothing of it! Well I shall put an end to all, so I shall. I shall hire another coachman and you shall stay here and run my East Anglian affairs for me.’ It was the obvious solution and came to her so easily. ‘You could ha’ done it years ago, if we’d only thought. You en’t to be parted in the winter never ever again.’ She was as cross about it as if somebody else had parted them.
Thiss turned his head to look at her, and the beam on his ugly face spread from ear to ear. ‘My eye!’ he said rapturously. ‘Just you wait till I tells the ol’ gel. She’ll be like a dog with two tails.’ And he went hurtling out of the kitchen to find her.
How they do love each other, Nan thought, touched and shamed by their devotion. And she remembered Mr Easter and the way he’d spoken of love and marriage all those years ago. ‘I shall love you till the day I die.’ And he had, faithfully and truly, the dear good creature that he was. And the words of the marriage service echoed in her mind, ‘and forsaking all other, cleave thee only unto her, so long as you both shall live.’ Calverley might claim that fidelity was old-fashioned nowadays, and for all she knew he could be right, but it was still something to value for all that, and her instincts knew it. My Annie will never give her dear James a moment’s doubt, and James will always be true to my Annie. It was how a marriage should be. And she smiled at little Tom, who was sitting in the chimney corner, building a little house with his wooden bricks.
And then Bessie and Thiss came running back into the kitchen to thank her, and Bessie cried all over again, and little Tom climbed into his mother’s lap and cried too, although he didn’t know why. And at that Nan decided it was high time they all turned their attention to more practical matters, so she despatched Bessie to the kitchen to see about some mutton chops for dinner and Thiss to the stables to get the ponycart ready to take her to Rattlesden.
It was quite dark by the time the two of them set out again and even with a lantern swinging at either side of the trap, they had a hard time of it among the ridges and ditches of the narrow lanes that led from Bury to Woolpit and Drinkstone and the hidden valley of Rattlesden village. But the welcome Annie gave them made up for all their bruises and finally convinced her mother that she really was fit and well.
‘Oh, how good you are Mama!’ she said to Nan. ‘To come all this way, and in the dark too. Shall you stay the night?’
‘No, no,’ Nan said, laughing and kissing her. ‘Bessie is preparing dinner. But I shall be back here in the morning so I shall, for I mean to stay in Bury till this babe is born.’ The memory of poor little Lady Easter was still too raw.
Fortunately Mrs Annie Hopkins was made of sterner stuff than poor little Lady Easter. Ten days later, she weathered the birth of her son with remarkable ease, and a fine, pretty baby he was. His father christened him James, of course, but within two weeks everybody was calling him Jimmy. Nan stayed in the vicarage until Annie was up and about again, and by then the newest member of her family had completely bewitched her.
She returned to Chelsea full of happy energy.
‘Oh, what a deal we have to look forward to!’ she said to Calverley, ‘There’s a new year a-coming and work to be done.’
‘How if we were to marry in the new year, my charmer?’ he tried.
But she was already on her way out of the house.
Chapter Thirty-eight
So many extraordinary and dreadful things happened in 1812 that looking back on it afterwards, people called it the star-crossed year. None of them worried Nan Easter, for the worse they were, the better they sold newspapers. And besides, she had a grandson to entertain her now.
The year began with the news that the Regent was ill in bed, delirious so it was said and ‘raging with the irritation of his nerves.’ He had been showing his daughter how to dance the Highland fling and had fallen and twisted his ankle, which was hardly a surprise considering how fat he was. It seemed rather extravagant behaviour for such a small injury, and the general opinion in London was that he bid fair to follow his father into madness. In fact his brother, the Duke of Cumberland said quite openly that he thought his brother’s illness was ‘higher than the foot, and that a blister on the head might be more efficacious than a poultice on the ankle.’
However the royal invalid recovered in time for the first Ball of the year and the news that Napoleon was building up a great army to invade Russia.
This was looked upon as extravagant behaviour too, for the French army in Spain was doing badly. ‘You’d ha’ thought he’d’ve had enough on ‘is plate a-fighting old Wellington,’ Thiss said, when Nan went down to Bury on a flying visit. He was very proud of the Duke of Wellington, whose reported victories looked relentless, Ciudad Rodrigo in January, Badajos in April, taking the British army steadily across Spain towards Madrid and pushing the French farther and farther back towards the Pyrenees and their own frontier, ‘which they ought never to’ve crossed in the first place.’
Good, bad or extraordinary, the news went on selling papers and making profits for the Easter empire. ‘I don’t care what ’tis,’ Nan was fond of saying, ‘providing we en’t being invaded.’ But even she was amazed by the item that was printed in The Times on May 12th. Mr Spencer Perceval, the Prime Minister, had been murdered in the lobby of the House of Commons. The man who shot him was a bankrupt called Bellingham who said he had gone to the house to kill ‘that villain Leveson Gore’, but as Leveson Gore wasn’t available and the Prime Minister was, he’d shot the Prime Minister instead.
‘What a wicked, wicked world we live in,’
Sophie Fuseli said, when she and Nan had read the full account over tea that afternoon. ‘There are times, my dear, when I simply cannot credit the wickedness of mankind.’
‘’Tis is a bad old year,’ Nan agreed, but she didn’t really believe it. Not with little Jimmy growing into such a fine, fat baby.
To Calverley Leigh, however, it was an uncommon bad year. He spent part of his winnings on a silver spoon for the christening of Annie’s baby. But from that easy moment on, he ran further and further into debt, and the more he owed the more heavily he gambled, and the more heavily he gambled the more he owed. Soon he had frittered his fortune away and even a sizeable increase in his wages from Mr Chaplin did little more than stave off disaster for a month or two.
In the summer he persuaded Nan to pay off three of his most pressing creditors and to square his accounts at White’s and Goosegogs before she went rushing off to Bury, but there never seemed to be any chance to talk to her about marriage and he was very seriously in debt. For most of the year he felt as though he were riding an unbroken colt, so unpredictable were the demands upon his purse and his emotions. The Meg Purser affair was over, as he’d promised, but there were others, and they all seemed to expect trinkets for their favours these days. Howsomever, at least Nan knew nothing about them, for he was now exceptionally discreet, and took care to restrict his courtships to towns that were a safe distance from home. But he owed money to so many creditors that he’d lost count of the number, his tailor, his wine-merchant, both his clubs, a ferocious money-lender, the list was endless. But he no longer let such matters concern him. Nan grew richer by the day and sooner or later her money would have to be at his disposal. The war would surely soon be over, everybody said so, and Napoleon defeated and then she would accept his proposal. All he needed was to keep his affairs secret and his creditors at bay until after their marriage, that was all.
He would have been annoyed had he known how closely all his activities were being followed by Nan’s two sons, but as they were being advised by Mr Cosmo Teshmaker and grew more cautious as the year progressed, he remained in undisturbed ignorance.
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