“You will stay here until tonight when I hope to get you away. I’ve sent word to Tom. He’ll be waiting for you in the cave. The boat is there. You’ll wait for the tide and pray for a smooth sea.” He looked at me. “Edwin is dead,” he said expressionlessly. “He was shot in the arbour. He died immediately and would have known little of what happened. There was no pain. Now this operation is over. I shall leave our findings with Tom and he can take them back.”
I said: “I want to see Edwin.”
“Impossible,” he said. “He is dead. It would only distress you. I knew it would go wrong when he brought you with him. It’s too late for regrets now. Fortunately, they trusted me.”
He shut us in, and Harriet put her arm about me.
“You have to be strong, Arabella. We’ve got to get back. Think of your family and how much is at stake.”
“Edwin is dead,” I said. “I wasn’t with him … This morning he was well and so alive and now …”
“He died instantly. He wouldn’t have known anything. That must be a consolation.”
“A consolation. What consolation can there be for me? He was my husband.”
I could say no more. I sank down on one of the trunks and thought of Edwin … as I had first seen him; Edwin as Romeo; the occasion when we arrived at the inn and he saw us there. Oh, he was so much in love with life. He knew how to live it. How cruel that he should be taken.
Then I tried to look ahead to the rest of my life without him.
I could not talk to Harriet. I could talk to no one. I only wanted to be alone with my grief.
It was dusk when Carleton came to us. He smuggled us out of the house to where he had horses ready for us, then he rode with us to the coast where Tom was waiting.
The sea was calm but I didn’t care. I wished there were a storm which would overturn our boat. I could not bear the thought of going back without Edwin.
And through my grief was the horrible suspicion. I kept thinking of myself playing with Chastity: I could see her holding the pretty button in the palm of her little hand.
Edwin is dead, I kept saying to myself, and your carelessness killed him.
What a burden I should suffer for the rest of my life. Not only had I lost Edwin, but I had only myself to blame.
Blithely I had entered into his adventure without fully grasping the seriousness of it. Instead of being the helpmeet, I had been the encumbrance which was responsible for his death.
I knew that I was going to suffer acutely for as long as I lived. It was small wonder that I wished for a sea that would envelop the boat. It was ironical. How merrily we had arrived; how tragically we returned.
Last Days at Congrève
I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE been grateful to have made the crossing safely. But I could feel nothing but the numbness of my grief.
Harriet did her best to cheer me, but it was impossible for her to do so. She had been saddened even as I had, but at least she did not have to blame herself.
Tom looked after us well. He procured horses for us and we made our way to Château Congrève. He said he would leave us there and then make his way with the important papers he carried to the King, who was then in Brussels.
It was May, warm and sunny, and the gorse made golden clumps across the green landscape. There was bud and blossom on the hawthorn, and the birds seemed as though they wanted to tell the world how glad they were. How different was my mood, burdened as I was by the pain, the loss and the awful guilt.
Harriet tried to reason with me. “Forget that miserable button,” she said. “They’re so unnatural, Puritans. If one thing didn’t offend them, something else would.”
“We should never have gone. Don’t you see, Harriet?” I insisted.
“Look,” she said, “it didn’t seem wrong at the time. Think how cheered he was when he saw us. He worked better for knowing we were there. It wasn’t your fault. You’ve got to forget it.”
“How can you understand—” I demanded. “He wasn’t your husband.”
“Perhaps I do understand, all the same,” she said soberly.
How kind she was to me. How she tried to cheer me, but I set myself stubbornly against her cheering. I wanted to nurse my grief, to cherish it. I told myself my life was over. I had lost everything I cared for.
“Everything!” she cried angrily. “Your parents, your brothers and sister. My friendship. Do you value them so lightly?”
I was ashamed then.
“You have so much,” she said. “Think of others who have no family … who are quite alone …”
I took her hand then and pressed it. Poor Harriet, it was rarely that she betrayed her needs.
We came to Château Congrève. It looked different from when we left it—gloomy, dreary—not amusing as it had used to look in the days when we played our games there.
Our coming was unheralded and the great excitement it aroused should have been gratifying. Lucas was there and he had told them how I had gone to England. The consternation had been great. Dick, Angie and Fenn squealed with delight when they saw us. Dick flung himself at me and the other two almost knocked me over with the exuberance of their welcome. It was impossible not to be moved.
I took them in my arms and kissed each one fervently.
And there was Lucas smiling tremulously before he too hugged me tightly.
“We’ve been so anxious …” said Lucas.
Dick cried: “We knew you’d be all right because Harriet was with you.”
Then they were kissing her and dancing round us and suddenly I did what I had not done at the height of my grief. I burst into tears.
I heard Harriet talking to Lucas, telling him the news.
Tom, who had left for Brussels, would stop at Villers Tourron on the way to tell the tragic news. I felt deeply for Matilda and for poor Charlotte. What a tragedy it would be for them—almost as great as mine!
Now there was a hush over the château. Jeanne, Marianne and Jacques walked about on tiptoe. Madame Lambard came and wept with me and insisted that I take a brew made from gentian and thyme which she said would help me to overcome my grief.
I would lie in my room without any desire to rise from my bed. I didn’t care what happened, I could only think of Edwin.
The children kept away from me. I suppose I seemed like a stranger to them. Harriet was with me often. She would sit by my bed and try all manner of ways to rouse me. I would hear her voice without listening to what she was saying. She was very patient with me.
I only wanted to talk of Edwin. I made her tell me over and over again of his last minutes. She told it with drama and feeling, as I would expect her to.
“I had been going through that farce of gathering plants. Actually, I spent quite a bit of time in the arbour. … Do you remember that old arbour—relic of more splendid days? I would go over some of my parts and see how much I could remember. I had hoped to find something to read, but there was nothing but sermons and I wanted none of those. I took some satisfaction in just sitting there idling, thinking how that would have upset them if they had known. I was clever, Arabella. I had made them think I had some special knowledge and I believe Ellen was a little afraid of me. She thought I might be some sort of witch, that was why she let me get away with my plant hunting.”
“Yes, yes, but tell me about Edwin.”
“That day I was there in the old arbour … and I heard horses’ hoofs in the distance. I peeped out and there he was coming towards the house. I called to him and he stopped and dismounted. He said, ‘Hello, idling away the hours God gave you, as usual.’ He was laughing at me. … And then … suddenly there was the man with the gun. Edwin pushed me into the arbour, trying to cover me. There was an explosion and then … It was instant, Arabella. He didn’t suffer. He was laughing at me one moment … and dead the next. …”
“I can’t bear it, Harriet. It is so cruel.”
“It’s a cruel world. You didn’t know how cruel till now.”
“And now
,” I said, “the cruelest thing of all has happened to me.”
“You must remember your blessings, Arabella.”
“Blessings … with Edwin gone.”
“I’ve told you so often. You know what I mean. Your family. They love you so much. Rouse yourself. Think of them all. The children are wretched … Lucas is unhappy. We all are.”
I was silent. It was true, I knew. I was imposing my grief on them.
“I’ll try,” I promised.
“You are so young. You will grow away from it.”
“I never shall.”
“You think that now. But wait. A short time ago you did not know him.”
“You can’t judge what we had, by time.”
“Oh, yes you can. You were a child when you met him. You are not fully grown yet.”
“As you are, of course. Don’t talk down to me, Harriet.”
“That’s better. A spark of anger. I do talk down to you because you have so much to learn.”
“Before I become as knowledgeable as you, you mean?”
“Yes. Life doesn’t go on all the time being one happy dream, you know. It wouldn’t always have been so pleasing to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your marriage was so brief. To you it was idyllic. It might not have gone on like that. You might have found Edwin wasn’t quite what you thought. He might have been disappointed in you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that you are a romantic and life is not as simple as you think it.”
“Are you trying to say that Edwin did not love me?”
“Of course, he loved you. And you loved him. But you are so young, Arabella, and you don’t understand these things fully.”
“How can you understand my feelings for Edwin or his for me? Surely I am the best judge.”
She laughed suddenly, throwing her arms round me and hugging me.
“That’s better. You’re hating me … now. That’s good. It’s taken the place of that overwhelming grief. Oh, Arabella, you’ll grow away from it, I promise you, I promise you.”
Then I returned her embrace, and she was right, I did feel better for my anger against her.
My mother came to Château Congrève. She must have set out as soon as she heard the news.
I was so glad to see her that my grief seemed less intense than it had since I had known of Edwin’s death. The children were so overjoyed that it was impossible not to rejoice in their happiness. But I was the one she had come to see.
We were so close to each other. We always had been in the days when we could be together, and I found our enforced separation had made no difference to our feelings for each other.
We were alone together quite a lot, although she contrived to spend time with the others. But I was her chief concern.
She made me talk to her. She shared a room with me so that we could be together through the night, and if I could not sleep she would talk to me. It amazed me how, when I was sleepless, she would always wake up as though she knew at once that I was in need of comfort. She could not explain it. It was some bond between us.
She made me tell her everything. She wanted to hear in detail about the play and how I had been Juliet to Edwin’s Romeo, how we had married so hastily and I had followed him to England.
“If I had not, this would never have happened,” I cried. “But I wanted to be with him. You understand that.”
She understood perfectly.
I told her about Chastity and the button. Who would have believed that such a trivial thing could be so important?
“It is often the trivial things in life that are,” she answered.
Harriet came into the story. It was Harriet who had gone with us to the Eversleighs. It was Harriet who thought of the play, Harriet who had suggested we follow Edwin to England, and Harriet who had been with him when he had died.
I noticed that my mother often brought Harriet into our discussions. Harriet had come in the first place with some travellers, had she not?
Although I might deceive my mother by half-truths in a letter, I could not do so face to face. She had a way of probing, and soon the whole story had come out about the strolling players, but I did manage to hide the fact that the hurt ankle had been a ruse.
“How odd,” said my mother. “So she was with this troupe of players. How did she join them?”
So I had to tell her then how Harriet’s mother and stepfather had been drowned and how she had been saved and taken to a family where she had been governess. My mother wanted to know the name of the family. I said I would ask Harriet if she really wanted to know.
My mother said she would ask her.
I hastily said: “One of the sons of the household made advances to her and that was why she left. They might speak ill of her.”
My mother nodded.
I had a feeling that she did not greatly like Harriet. That disturbed me, and I tried to make her understand how much we had all enjoyed her company and how good she was with the children.
“I can see they have a very high regard for her,” she said.
How she comforted me I could not tell, but she did. She made me see that I had had great happiness and must be grateful for that. It was sad that it had been so brief, but at least I had something to remember.
She told me that she was going to call on Lady Eversleigh on her way back to Cologne to join my father, and she thought that I should come with her to the Château Tourron and be with Matilda for a few days. She was sure it would comfort her. Then when my mother left for Cologne I could return to Congrève.
This I arranged to do.
Poor Matilda. She was, as I had expected her to be, overcome with grief. She embraced me, called me her dear daughter and talked continually of Edwin.
She said: “He was the hope of our house. And he is gone. … Our only son. There is nothing left to us but to mourn.”
My mother said to me later: “I’m afraid this does little to assuage your grief, my darling, but it comforts her to have you here. That I know. So for her sake … bear with it.”
She was right. I found myself comforted by comforting Matilda Eversleigh.
Charlotte was like a sad, grey ghost. Poor Charlotte, who had lost her lover and her brother. She was like one who was wondering what blow could be dealt to her next.
I walked with her in the gardens and she asked me about Edwin’s end. I told her as Harriet had told me.
“So she was the last one to see him alive. It would be so.”
“She happened to be in an old arbour and heard him come towards the house. Someone must have been lying in ambush there.”
She narrowed her eyes and said: “What could she have been doing in the arbour? Did you ask her that?”
I answered quickly: “We were all expected to do tasks. She went out gathering herbs and she used to rest there.”
Charlotte’s lips tightened. Of course she would never forgive Harriet for taking Charles Condey from her.
Then I poured out my feelings to her. I told her about the button and how foolish I had been and how it had aroused suspicions against me.
“You were not to know,” she said. “It was all so innocent. You must not reproach yourself.”
She was gentle and kind to me and I felt I had a friend in Charlotte.
What a house of mourning that was and how poignant I felt when Matilda thanked me for making Edwin’s last weeks so happy.
She said: “We are a military family. He died for his King and that is something of which we must be proud. He died as bravely as his ancestors have died on the battlefields. Let us remember that.”
My mother mentioned Harriet one day when we were sitting together—Matilda, she and I. Charlotte was not present. I guessed my mother knew that the subject of Harriet would be too painful for Charlotte to bear.
“A strange young woman,” said my mother. “Arabella has been telling me how she came. What did you think of her, Matilda?”
&n
bsp; Matilda Eversleigh hesitated. “She was very good with the play,” she said. “We thought her a great asset … in the beginning …”
“And afterwards?” asked my mother.
“Well, there was Charles Condey.”
I said: “It was scarcely Harriet’s fault. He fell deeply in love with her.”
“She is very attractive,” admitted my mother.
“It was rather unfortunate. Poor Charlotte …”
“But a happy escape if he was so fickle,” my mother pointed out.
“Ah, yes, perhaps,” sighed Matilda.
“And that was all?” went on my mother. “Until that happened you were quite happy about her being here?”
“It was the best house party I have had since I left England.”
“And it was all due to her,” I said quickly.
“Oh, yes, yes,” agreed my mother-in-law.
My mother appeared to be satisfied, but I who knew her well realized that she was thinking deeply. I had a feeling that she was not completely happy about Harriet.
I said good-bye to my mother and the Eversleighs, and when I reached Château Congrève there was a great welcome awaiting me. Madame Lambard had baked a pie with “Welcome home, Arabella” worked on it with strips of paste, and the three young children sang a song of welcome which Harriet had taught them and which she whispered to me they had practised every day, so I must be pleased with it.
“No tears,” she whispered. “They’ve worked so hard. You can’t disappoint them.”
Nor could I. I was surprised to find that the gloom which had till now enveloped me had lifted a little.
It was a revelation which came to me suddenly.
I had awakened to a bright morning, and as usual as soon as I opened my eyes and remembered that I was a widow, the terrible desolation swept over me. I lay for a while thinking of waking with Edwin beside me, and how I would watch him until he suddenly burst out laughing because he had only pretended to be asleep.
Then I would shut my eyes and wallow in my grief and assure myself that life was over for me. I would force myself to get up and remember that I had to be bright because of the children.
Philippa Carr - [Daughters of England 05] Page 15