by Anne Brear
“There,” cried his father, “that is the Branford’s town house.” It had no land in front but was set back with a paved area and stone steps and a pillared entrance and heavy polished oak door.
“Very grand,” Bel said, “but it looks as if they are from home. The shutters are all closed. Oh come, let us get on. I long to sit down.”
Nathaniel mumbled something about it being odd if a loyal nobleman was away on such a day as this but he followed Bel. Daniel lingered a moment looking up at the house. Horden Hall was larger and with acres of land about it but of course, he remembered, the Branfords have an estate in Hertfordshire. We are pretty small beer after all.
He soon caught up his father and mother. There were more big houses, some set so far back they were partly screened by the blossom in their gardens. His mother was now looking up at more modest ones whose front doors were visible from the road. They were elegant dwellings of three storeys with attics. In gaps between Daniel could glimpse the river which here looked bluer than the grimy current next to London Bridge.
“Celia, Clifford’s wife, wrote that their house has CC with an H below carved above the door frame,” his mother was saying, “Dan, your young eyes will pick it out if the house is set far back from the road. There is a walnut tree in front too, she wrote.”
They must be getting close. Daniel’s heart was pounding now. He brushed vainly at his soiled breeches. His buff cloak with the merest wisp of lace at the neck was too short to cover the stain and the cloak too was marked where he had tumbled against the slime-covered wall of the jetty. The tide had been low and the boatman – curse him! – had not thought a lad like him needed the steadying arm he had given to his parents.
“Is not that a walnut tree?” his father said suddenly. “What grand gates and gravelled carriage-way!”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. Yes, carved into the stone lintel were the initials CC with the H below and above it, incised much earlier, the date the house was built –1620. They had arrived. Clifford and Celia and all the other unknown relations must be lurking behind that handsome façade, while his little family approached, shabby and footsore, from the street like beggars.
“You will be able to change your clothes,” his mother said, boldly pushing open the gate. “Our travelling chests we sent ahead from the boat must have arrived long since.”
“But to greet them like this!”
His father drew him forward as he hung back. “Daniel, it is the inner man that counts.” It was a favourite theme of his father’s but here, Daniel was sure, it would carry no weight with ladies familiar with the French court.
But now the door was being opened by a footman and behind him in an oak-panelled hall a thin grey man and a round pudding of a woman were hastening to greet them.
“Cousins Clifford and Celia,” his mother whispered to him. “Not royalists, so keep silent about the King.”
“We were listening for a carriage, dear Arabella. What! You have been caught in all the crush? We dare not venture out ourselves but we saw from the windows when the procession passed to Westminster. And these are your menfolk. Greetings, Cousin Nathaniel, and you, young man. My, what a height you are! Come come, your family are all agog to meet you,” and she led the way up the wide staircase.
He was not to have time to make himself presentable and behind that door where Cousin Celia’s hand was reaching to the handle were Madeline, Diana and Eunice, one of whom, if he was not very careful, he might be obliged to marry.
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