‘I’d almost forgotten what I looked like out of mourning,’ Caroline said, admiring her reflection in the cheval mirror. Her grief for her father’s death and the custom which required her to wear ugly clothes had always been two quite separate things in her mind, one an intense daily misery and the other merely a social necessity she was glad to be done with. ‘We’ve been in black for ages.’
‘Six months,’ Euphemia corrected mildly.
‘Well, it felt like ages,’ Caroline said. ‘And now it’s summer and we can wear some of our pretty things again. I feel like a new person.’ And it was true, for even her misery had lifted. The dress she had chosen for her first day out of purdah was a lovely thing, a creamy muslin with a triple-tiered skirt delicately printed with tiny lilac leaves. It had been a favourite when she first had it made three whole years ago, and she liked it more than ever now that she was in half-mourning after all that depressing black. ‘Ain’t you glad it’s June, Pheemy? I shall wear my white silk for dinner tonight.’
Euphemia had chosen a lilac and white striped cotton for her afternoon at the ragged school and she’d been dressed and ready a good half an hour before her cousin. Now she sat beside their bedroom window enjoying the green of the gardens. ‘I suppose you and Henry will be married soon,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’m in no hurry,’ Caroline said lightly, smoothing the frills on her skirt.
‘But he is, I daresay.’
‘He don’t say so. No, no, Pheemy. It’ll be time enough to think of marriage when I’ve got all these deals settled. Mr Chaplin is the major shareholder of the London and North Western, you know, and that’s bound to be a help to us. Even so, it’s a very big company. It could be difficult. Do I look business-like, do you think?’
‘He loves you so dearly, Carrie.’
‘Yes,’ Caroline admitted. ‘I know he does. He’s a dear loving creature even if he does have a short temper, and the firm couldn’t run without him. I daresay we shall marry by and by and be very happy together. But not just now. I’ve a deal too much to do.’
‘You sound just like Nan,’ Euphemia said, intending a gentle rebuke.
But Caroline took the words as a compliment. ‘Do I?’ she said, grinning at the thought. ‘Well, if that ain’t the nicest thing you could say to me then I don’t know what is. Especially now with this North Eastern deal to manage. If I can be like Nan in Mr Wellborough’s office this afternoon, then I shall do well enough.’
‘Poor Henry,’ Euphemia said. ‘I don’t believe you want to marry him at all.’
Caroline left the mirror and walked across to the window to join her cousin. ‘To tell you the truth,’ she admitted seriously, ‘I don’t really know what I do want. Sometimes I think I love him dearly, and I’d marry him tomorrow, if he asked me, and sometimes I’m so busy I barely give him a thought. When he first said he loved me, I was so happy it made me tremble, but now I feel so little emotion, even when we are sitting side by side at dinner or the theatre. I sometimes wonder whether I ain’t gone cold towards him.’ All that wonderful, tremulous excitement was missing. He could take her hand and raise it to his lips when they said goodbye and she felt nothing. It was so disappointing she preferred not to think about it. ‘Oh dear!’
Euphemia caught those hands and squeezed them comfortably. ‘Grief turns the world topsy-turvy,’ she said. ‘That’s what it is. Things will come to rights now that we are out of mourning. When we go to the Vauxhall Gardens, perhaps.’
* * *
Will and Henry decided against their proposed trip to the Gardens. They wanted to go to Richmond instead, to meet the Four In Hand Club at the Star and Garter, because they both drove a four in hand and this was the first meet of the season.
‘Well, why not?’ Caroline said, when the change of plan was mooted. ‘Vauxhall will wait and it will be a treat to be driving in the country.’ Her meeting with Mr Wellborough had been extremely successful and she was in an expansive mood.
So they went to Richmond, with Tom Thistlethwaite riding as footman and chaperone to the ladies.
The Star and Garter always served the best lunches they could contrive for the Four In Hand Club, for they were valued customers with plenty of money to spend, and the better they were fed the more often they came. On that Saturday the cooks had excelled themselves. There were oyster patties, and eel pie with brown bread and butter, there was lobster salad, and pickled herring, there were veal pies and honey-roast hams, little roast capons and a side of beef big enough to feed an army, and port and claret and hock and moselle on every table. It was, as Will said when he proposed the toast, a reward for the hard work they’d all been doing during the winter.
Caroline tried every dish, to Will’s delight and Henry’s astonishment. And even Euphemia had a good appetite for once, although she said it upset her to think how well they were eating when the children of the ragged school had so little. And after the meal they went strolling out into the gardens to admire the view.
The Star and Garter was a solid Georgian building, three storeys high and two colonnaded entrances, a central semicircular bay and its own artesian well, no less. It stood at the top of Richmond Hill opposite the park gates and its gardens sloped down to the river in a series of well-kept terraces. The view from the top terrace was spectacular. After the speed and excitement of their ride and the cheerful company of their meal Caroline and Euphemia were quite stunned by it.
Below them the River Thames curved between lush meadows, here skirting a green island with a froth of foam, there providing a gentle watering place for a herd of brown-backed cattle. Its waters mirrored the blue of the sky above it and the luscious greens of the trees beside it, and were dappled with olive-coloured waves that fanned out from the triangular wakes of the skiffs and barks that drifted lazily upon it, their sails cloud-white and their hulls bright with rich colour, chestnut, scarlet, royal blue, grass-green, gold and purple. Between them, scores of swans trailed their lesser wakes like black-edged darts, and the air was shrill with black and white housemartins swooping over the water.
Beyond the river they could see the entire valley of the Thames, spreading for mile upon mile, from the heaths and downs of Surrey to the beechy hills of Buckinghamshire and the haze-blue heights of Berkshire, countless meadows, where sheep and cows wandered at will, thick woods and copses, the variegated green of their foliage shadowed with purple and indigo blue, and here and there among the trees the turrets and towers of new villas and ancient palaces, the dark shapes of Hampton Court, the Queen’s white house at Kew, the long chestnut avenues of Bushey Park. Neither of the two girls had ever seen so far, so clearly.
‘Why, it’s wondrous,’ Caroline said, ‘and so beautiful. Don’t you think so, Pheemy?’
‘It is so peaceful,’ Euphemia said. ‘What a marvellous thing it would be to live in a house on this hill, and see this view every day of your life. It would be a daily blessing.’
‘Better than travelling the world?’ Will asked, teasing her.
‘Oh much, much better, although I don’t suppose you would agree with me.’
‘When I was young,’ Henry confessed, ‘I used to look at the view from my room at Ippark and think how wonderful our estate was. I used to wish the land could be mine, you know, so that I could live there for ever and never move away from it. Land you see. Has a hold on you.’
Caroline glanced sideways at him and was moved to see that his face wore the same haughty expression she’d seen on the day they first met. And she understood, without words or conscious thought, that she was looking at sadness and vulnerability, not hauteur, and suddenly she yearned to comfort him.
‘But this view is even better,’ he said, making an effort to recover his humour, ‘damn me if it ain’t.’
‘I don’t see why the older brother always has to inherit,’ Caroline said, springing to his defence. ‘Why couldn’t the estate have been shared between you?’
‘Never is,’ Henry said, with studied cheerfulness. ‘The eldest always inherits. That’s how it is. Always was, always will be. Younger sons have to fend for themselves.’
‘Well, it’s not fair. Papa divided his capital in two equal halves.’
‘That’s capital. Land is different.’ And again that vulnerable hauteur.
Affection for him welled up into Caroline’s throat like tears. How terrible to be treated so, denied an inheritance and left to fend for himself. How unfair. He should never have been treated so badly. She would make amends to him, here and now. ‘When we marry,’ she said, ‘this is where we will rent a house. Right here on this hill. And you shall have this view to lift your spirits every single day. That’ll be a jolly sight better than Ippark, now won’t it?’
The haughty expression was gone, washed away by a current of other emotions, amazement, disbelief, hope, love. He caught her hands in his, crushing them, his eyes suddenly moist and his mouth as red as wine. The patience of that long, long mourning was breached beyond repair. ‘When?’ he said. ‘Oh my dearest girl, when will it be?’
He loves me so much, Caroline thought, dazzled by his emotion. There was only one possible answer to such a question and she gave it at once. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘As soon as we can. We will find the house this afternoon.’
‘Oh Carrie,’ Will said, laughing at her, ‘you can’t just walk off and find a house, just like that.’
‘Yes, I can,’ she said.
And being Caroline Easter, she did.
It only took her one visit to one estate agency to discover that there were three suitable houses available on Richmond Hill and that she could inspect them all that afternoon. Will protested that this was not the way he’d intended to spend his time, but they all went along with her just the same because she was so determined. And the second house she saw was ideal.
It was a corner house, and from the front it appeared to be rather plain, three storeyed and double fronted with the rather dull balance of all Georgian buildings, but the interior was a revelation. Because of the slope of the land the rear of the house had four storeys, not three, and in order to make the most of the view all the most important rooms were at the back and designed around sweeping bow windows. There were twelve bedrooms and a nursery suite, a vast kitchen and very adequate accommodation for housekeeper and butler, servants’ quarters in the attics and the basement. And in addition to all that, three superlative rooms in which to entertain, a dining room with two dumb waiters in cupboards on either side of the fireplace, a withdrawing room and library lit by that splendid bow window, and a ballroom with no less than three bow windows all giving out to a paved terrace where steps led down to the garden.
‘With new decorations and suitable furnishings it will be perfect,’ Caroline decided. ‘Don’t you think so, Henry?’
Henry really didn’t know what he thought. The speed of her decision had left him far behind. He had a vague feeling that he would rather have found their house himself and told her about it afterwards like any other husband would have done; and he wasn’t at all sure that a home as expensive as this one was really within his pocket, even on the salary Nan was paying him; and for a few wistful seconds he found himself wishing for a reappearance of the vulnerable Caroline he’d loved so much and so easily when her father died, so that he could look after her again and make decisions on her behalf. But there was no time for such thoughts. So he said yes, it was a magnificent house, but shouldn’t he have spoken to Nan first?
‘Whatever for?’ she asked, laughing at him.
‘Why,’ he said, speaking as softly as he could because he was mindful of the ears of the estate agent, who was trying to make himself unobtrusive over by the bay window, ‘to ask for your hand.’
She laughed more than ever. ‘Why, we’re long past that,’ she said. ‘Ain’t we, Will? You’ve been my accepted suitor for months and months, Henry Osmond. All we have to do now is to decide where we mean to marry and to agree upon the date. Now, shall we take this house?’
So the house was taken and then the four of them set off for a drive about the town, down Richmond Hill to the green, which was a wide grassy square surrounded by elm trees, and bordered by a terrace of fine red brick houses called Maids of Honour Row. Sheep grazed quietly in the sunshine and blackbirds sang among the leaves as the four in hand trotted past, heading towards the parish church and the centre of the town, where there were several shops that Caroline said looked ‘most promising’.
‘Would you wait here for us,’ she said to Will, ‘while Henry and I take a little look?’
So Tom put the chocks down and looked after the horses while Will and Euphemia took a stroll towards the river and their two companions went striding off along the High Street.
‘She’s so quick,’ Euphemia said, adjusting her. parasol against the glare of the sun. ‘I can’t keep up with her.’
‘She always was,’ Will said. ‘Even as a little thing she was always making snap decisions. She ran away from home once in the middle of a blizzard. It was nothing short of a miracle she wasn’t killed. Still, there it is. We shan’t change her now, even if we wanted to, and I’m not at all sure we’d want to, would we? She’s darling as she is. We must just hope rashness don’t lead her astray, that’s all.’
‘She has made the right decision today, surely?’
‘To marry?’ he said wryly. ‘Well, you know my views upon that subject.’
The excitement of the day made Euphemia bold. ‘I do,’ she said, ‘but I think you are wrong.’
‘It’s a matter of opinion,’ he said easily, ‘and of no consequence either way.’
Then there was a long silence as neither of them could think what to say, he because he had no intention of pursuing the subject, she because she was afraid she might have spoken out of turn. They had reached an elegant bridge across the Thames and there was no sign of Caroline and Henry.
‘Mr Dickens is to leave the Daily News at the end of the month,’ Will said at last, as they stood upon the river bank together.
‘Oh dear,’ Euphemia commiserated. ‘Why is that? Is it failing?’
‘Failing? I should just think not. It’s doing very well. We started with a circulation of four thousand at fivepence a copy and now we are selling to more than twenty thousand people and we’ve halved the price. Oh no, it’s in a very healthy condition, our paper.’
‘Then why is Mr Dickens leaving?’
‘I don’t think he ever intended to stay for long,’ Will said sadly. ‘He meant to get us started and then leave us to our own devices. He told us his business was writing novels, and that’s true enough in all conscience.’
‘You will miss him.’
‘Yes, we will,’ Will admitted, smiling at her. ‘He’ll be in and out, I daresay. He ain’t a man to cut his friends.’ But the sigh he gave belied his optimism.
‘I wonder what Nan will say when she hears about the house,’ Euphemia said, feeling it might help him to change the subject.
‘She will applaud,’ Will said. ‘Being they’re two of a kind, our Nan and Caroline.’
And of course he was right. Wedding plans were made at dinner that very evening, brisk and business-like. Rattlesden church for the service because that was what Caroline wanted, Euphemia for bridesmaid, Will to give the bride away, Henry’s brother to be best man, and all on the first Thursday in July, because all the current deals should be completed by then, and Will would be in England, and it was the day of the week when the Easter family could be most easily spared from their work. By ten o’clock the guest list had been drawn up, ready for the invitations to be sent in the morning.
‘July,’ Euphemia said happily, when it was all arranged. ‘It’s a perfect month to get married. Think of all the lovely weather you’ll have.’
As it turned out, it was the hottest July for fifty years and on most days the temperature was over ninety in the shade. The prestigious people who crushed into the church of St Nicholas at Rattlesden that Thursday afternoon were soon hot and sticky in their fashionable clothes and the ceremony was wafted by the rhythmical whirr and flutter of their fans.
Not that the bride and groom paid much attention to any of it, she because she was still locked away from all emotion, he because he was too dizzy with desire to concentrate on anything except her delicious proximity. He was so overpoweringly aware of her it was painful to stand still beside her, breathing in the salty scent of those lace covered arms, watching a tremulous pulse throbbing under the milky skin of her throat, and her mouth so soft and as red as raspberries, and her breasts full and tempting in her beautiful white gown.
But with careful prompting from her Uncle James they managed to make their vows with only a few mistakes, and to sign the register with nervous hands but more or less legibly, and Miss Caroline Easter was declared to have changed her title if not her name. And then the entire company exploded out into the sunshine and the hot air was a-bubble of rose petals and a photographer was waiting with one of those new camera contraptions all set up on its tripod, like some squat long-legged bird, and bride, groom, best man, bridesmaid and brother were lined up in the porch to have their picture taken. It was a very long-winded business which required them all to stand perfectly still while the photographer counted to sixty, so when it was over and their guests gave them a cheer, they were all quite giggly with relief. Except Caroline.
While the rest of the group went chattering towards the carriages that would take them back to Bury and the reception at the Athenaeum, she went quietly off by herself to find her father’s grave. And her new husband stood back and let her go, because he knew what it was she wanted to do.
It was blisteringly hot in the churchyard. Even the headstones were warm to the touch and the grass was burnt brown. Caroline laid her bouquet on her parents’ grave, and knelt down on the rough ground in all her finery to say a prayer to the mother she’d never known and to ask forgiveness of her father for the last time.
‘I am married now,’ she said, when the prayer was done. ‘I will be a credit to you both, I promise. I’ve done well by you already, haven’t I? Oh, you must think I have. And I will do even better now.’
A frond of maidenhair fern curled about her mother’s name, ‘Harriet Easter 1799-1826, who departed this life aged 27 years’, and two moss roses drooped in the heat against the newer inscription ‘also her husband, John Henry Easter 1792-1845’. But she couldn’t feel their presence at all. She couldn’t feel anything. No sorrow, no happiness, no relief. Mama was just a painted face in the portrait that now hung in Nan’s drawing room, Papa a remembered figure stooped over his books at that great desk of his. It was a great disappointment, because she’d arranged to have her wedding in this place so that she could lay the ghosts of her unkindness to him for good and all. And now she couldn’t do it.
At the top of Aunt Annie’s may tree a blackbird fluted, its high clear joyous song echoing into the shining sky. ‘Married. Married. For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health … God’s Holy ordinance … give thee my troth. Treeee. Treeee. Two-eeee.’ I ought to be happy about that at least, she thought. But she couldn’t feel anything.
Henry was standing behind her, his hands warm on her shoulders. ‘We must go now,’ he said gently, ‘or we shall be too late for the reception. All the others have left.’
She rose to her feet, sighing slightly, her face pale and withdrawn.
‘I love you so much,’ he said, wishing he knew how to comfort her. He wanted to hold her in his arms and smother her with kisses. But he could hardly do that in the middle of a graveyard. ‘So much.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know you do.’ But even her voice sounded distant.
He led her to their waiting carriage where the two greys drooped and the coachman sweated and the long white ribbons hung unnaturally still in the heat, and they drove to Bury through the sunbaked fields, side by side and unnaturally quiet.
The reception was nothing more than a blur of faces to the pair of them. They greeted their guests and were kissed and congratulated and supposed they were saying the right things, and they sat at the head of the table and pretended to eat in the buzz and clatter all around them, and cut the cake with due ceremony and a very wobbly knife. But it was an unnatural meal. And Caroline felt that she was the most unnatural of women.
When she’d made up her mind to marry Henry and live in Richmond and give him both the prospect and the love he needed, it had never entered her mind to doubt that she could do it. But now her whole being was full of doubt, as she sat beside him with a shiny new ring on her finger and felt nothing. No excitement, no affection, not even for Nan. Nothing. I am unnatural, she thought miserably, forcing herself to smile at her guests. What will become of me?
What became of her was a change of clothing into her blue going-away gown, and another ride in the carriage, this time across Angel Square and down Northgate Street to the new station that had just been built outside the town, where she and Henry climbed into their railway carriage under a last and blinding shower of rose petals and to a chirrup of goodbyes.
And then with a strong whiff of soot and sulphur and a high-pitched screech of wheels they were off and on their way to London. Married and on their own at last. And rather to her surprise Henry stood up, let down both the carriage windows and pulled down the blinds.
‘Won’t people think it rather odd that the blinds are down?’ she wondered.
‘Let them,’ he said with splendid arrogance.
‘But what if someone should want to get in?’
‘They can’t. I’ve booked the carriage.’
‘How could you do that?’
‘I paid for all the seats, that’s how,’ he said, looking very pleased with himself. Actually it had been Joseph’s idea, but there was no need to tell her that. Joseph had given him lots of advice in that lethargic way of his and he meant to follow most of it, if she gave him the chance. ‘Nobody can disturb us, my dearest darling girl. We have the place to ourselves.’
And suddenly that peculiar, familiar, wedding excitement began to tremble in Caroline’s belly. What was he going to do? He looked so intense and so handsome with his skin glowing in the half light he’d created, and those dark eyes shining, and his moustache bushier than she’d ever seen it. What was he going to do? Oh she did hope he would.
He sat beside her and put an arm about her waist and drew her towards him so that they were both still moving together as their first kiss began. And it was delicious. She wanted it to go on for ever, for that gently moving mouth of his was trawling pleasure all through her in the most wondrous way. When he stopped and seemed about to raise his head, she put her hands into the warm hair at the nape of his neck and held him, moving her own lips from side to side to continue the pleasure, and encourage him to go on. Which he did, for he needed very little encouragement. When they finally drew apart they were both flushed and breathless.
‘Oh!’ she said, ‘I do love you after all.’ He was like the Prince in the fairy tale waking Snow White from her trance with a kiss. Oh, just like the Prince in the fairy tale.
Desire was so strong in him he didn’t notice what she was saying. He wanted to kiss her and kiss her and go on and on until they got to Richmond and their own home and their own bed and the final pleasure he’d waited for and needed and deferred for so long, the pleasure that would surely reward them both if he followed brother Joseph’s advice. ‘Um,’ he said kissing her again.
By the time they reached the terminus at Shoreditch Road, they were so dishevelled that it took them several giggling minutes to make themselves presentable enough to go out into the forecourt and hire the cab that would take them across the Thames to Nine Elms to catch the train to Richmond.
It was late afternoon and the sky above their sooty city was such a dazzling white it hurt their eyes to look at it, and the streets were hot and dusty and pungent with horse manure. But neither of them cared. They sat in their trundling cab together, thigh to warm thigh and hand in tingling hand, waiting with delicious anticipation for the privacy of their next enclosed journey, and the chance to kiss again.
And so the bride came blushing into Richmond, where the groom carried her most lovingly and lingeringly over their new threshold, and they greeted all the new servants they’d hired who were standing in line in the hall ready to meet them, and Henry asked Farren, the butler, if everything was arranged as he’d requested, and was assured that it was, and then they walked arm in arm up their old oak staircase and into their newly decorated bedroom with its beautiful view over the darkening river.
There was warm water waiting in the ewers and scented soap in the dishes and fresh towels on the rails.
‘We have plenty of time to wash and change,’ Henry said, with his arm still about her waist. ‘They are not to serve supper until ten o’clock.’
‘Then you may kiss me again,’ she said.
And again and again. All the time, pausing only to shed shoes and stockings, to untie a cravat and remove a waistcoat, to unhook a bodice, step out of skirt and petticoats and remove those fearful stays which were pinching most cruelly.
‘Oh!’ she said, flinging them across the nearest chair when the last hook and eye had been released, ‘you don’t know what a lovely thing it is to breathe again.’
‘Come to bed,’ he said, catching at her hands as she pirouetted to celebrate her freedom, ‘and you shall breathe as much as you like.’
‘Shall you kiss me again?’ she said, allowing him to lead her.
‘Oh yes, you lovely, greedy creature. But there are better ways to love you than by mere kisses.’
‘Better than kisses?’ she said breathlessly. It brought her heart into her throat even to consider the possibility. His shirt had fallen off one shoulder revealing a chest shadowed with soft dark hair, and below the white cloth of his dishevelled garment his legs were very long and very muscular.
‘Much, much better,’ he promised, tumbling backwards onto the bed with his arms held firmly about her lovely yielding waist, so that she fell with him and they rolled over and over among the covers, flesh against flesh, and giggling. ‘Let me show you.’
So he did.
And it was.