Daniel was a toddler of two and a half when the marriage of Harriet and Fletcher took place on a warm and sunny June day in the old church of St Mary’s in Elloughton. They had waited eighteen months, as was right and proper, befitting a young widow after bereavement, and until the purchase of the Elloughton Dale farmland had gone through and the house Fletcher was building for his and Harriet’s life together was nearing completion. During this time Harriet had stayed in Mary’s cottage and now Tom was planning to move in after she and Fletcher were married.
The new farmhouse windows overlooked meadows and woodland, and in the near distance the villages of Elloughton and Brough and the familiar waters of the Humber, gleaming like silver in the sun or on darker days rich chestnut brown, could be clearly seen. The land at Marsh Farm was being prepared for warping; ditches had been dug and sluices built, and soon the estuary waters would be allowed in. But the old house that had harboured such resentment and loathing was, without maintenance, slowly disintegrating. The roof had fallen in, the walls were beginning to crumble and no one seemed to care. Nathaniel Tuke had not yet been found.
Tom Bolton was Fletcher’s best man. Rosie Gilbank, loving her role as a grandmother, sat in a front pew with Daniel on her knee, but Ellen Tuke sent a message to say she wouldn’t be attending the ceremony, giving the excuse that she couldn’t leave her old friend Mrs Marshall whose health was failing. Only a few people had been invited, as they wanted a quiet, simple ceremony, but the Harts’ carriage had made a detour and stopped at the church gate as Mary had asked if they might, for the Harts, with the twins and Mary and a nursemaid, were travelling that day on a long visit to see Christopher Hart’s daughter Amy and her new baby.
Harriet was wearing a new blue flowered muslin gown and matching bonnet that Fletcher insisted they bought for such a special occasion, and she thought as she prepared for her wedding that Noah would have thought the expenditure wasteful and unnecessary. She thought of Noah with wistful understanding now, and didn’t blame him for his behaviour after the ill-usage he had suffered. And as for her marriage to him, she had no regrets, for it had brought her to Fletcher and given her Daniel. It had also brought her a good friend in Rosie, who had declared her life was richer because of her grandson, whom she loved dearly.
When they left the church after their vows, Harriet, with Fletcher and Rosie, watched as Daniel placed a rose from her bouquet on his father Noah’s grave. The headstone, which Rosie had paid for, simply said Noah Morley-Orsini, known as Noah Tuke.
‘That will confuse everyone for years to come,’ Fletcher remarked wryly, and Rosie smiled and agreed.
As they walked back to the church door the Harts were waiting with Mary and the children to give their best wishes. Christopher raised his top hat, Mary beamed and waved, and Melissa looked keenly at Fletcher, who, Harriet considered, was looking particularly handsome in his black trousers, grey frock coat and waistcoat and white cravat, his hair cut short and curling about his collar. But Harriet thought she saw concern in Melissa’s scrutiny. As their eyes met, Harriet gave a slight bob of her knee and a smile of warmth, understanding and reassurance. We are what we are, she seemed to convey, and what has gone before is in the past. She glanced fondly at the children, the Hart twins, Christopher Charles and Beatrice, and Daniel who had rushed over to join them, and thought: this is a sort of ending, but also a beginning; a life of love and caring is in the future now.