26

Tabby: the most basic of weaves, of which there are many varieties: plain, basketweave and balanced plain, also known as chequerboard.

By early August both baby Charlotte and her mother had recovered sufficiently to contemplate a journey to Suffolk.

‘Henri is so busy at the moment he cannot take the time to accompany me,’ Anna said. ‘He will be free to go in September.’

‘That is but a few weeks away,’ I said. ‘He works so hard, a visit to the country would probably do him good, too.’ Then she passed me a piece of paper, a letter from her father’s devoted neighbour Mary Marshall.

Dearest Anna,

Your father has told me news of his new granddaughter, and I send my congratulations to you all. He and Janey are delighted and cannot wait to meet her.

Theodore is much recovered from his bad turn but the doctor has diagnosed a weak heart (for which there is no cure, alas) and has warned that he must not exert himself. He is certainly not allowed to travel. Of course he has told everyone not to fuss, and continues his usual routines as though nothing is awry. Yesterday, Janey told me he is planning a trip to London to meet the new baby.

I do not wish to alarm you, dearest Anna, but I do hope that you can find a way to discourage this. Perhaps, if you are well enough, you could visit here instead?

‘What do you think? Should I wait until Henri is free, or go at once?’

We both understood the message between the lines of Mrs Marshall’s letter: Theodore might not have much time left. ‘I think you should go as soon as possible,’ I said. ‘And if Henri is unable to get away and if he agrees, then I shall accompany you. You cannot make that journey on your own, dearest.’

Her relief was evident. I had told her what she needed to hear.

‘Thank you, Charlotte. I am sure Henri will agree. We will see to the arrangements as soon as possible, and write to my father. Would next weekend be too soon? We could leave on Friday and return by Wednesday so you only miss a few days’ work. Clothilde has offered to look after Jean, but I know that Father and Janey will want to see him as well. Can you bear to share a carriage with a toddler and a crying baby?’

How could I refuse? With much of society fleeing London for the summer season in Bath and elsewhere, trade was always slow in August. It was our usual habit for Mrs T. and the seamstresses to take two weeks’ holiday at the height of each summer.

‘Let us plan to spend a whole week, Anna. Travelling will be tiring so soon after your illness, but the sea air will do all of us good. Let Theodore have his fill of his grandchildren.’

‘He’d be glad to see the back of us, after that,’ she said, smiling at last.

The journey with two young children in a fully packed coach was as gruelling as we had feared.

It began well enough, with the other passengers cooing over little Charlotte and patting Jean on the head, complimenting Anna on her beautiful children. It was clear they assumed I was the nanny, and there was no reason to disabuse them. The baby, now known to everyone as Charlie, slept for much of the way. When she woke Anna managed to feed her, concealed beneath a shawl so that no one even noticed.

But little Jean is rarely still, except when asleep. For him, having to sit for several hours at a time is torture and before long our fellow passengers were clearly changing their minds about the ‘dear little lad’. We tried every trick to entertain him: plying him with food, producing his favourite toys and making up stories, but what he most wanted to do was run from one side of the carriage to the other, pushing his way between the cramped knees of the passengers, who soon made it clear that this was not acceptable behaviour.

Happily, after a couple of hours of this he would fall asleep on my lap, so heavy that my legs went to pins and needles and my arms cramped with the effort of securing him against the sway of the carriage.

Thus the two-day journey proceeded, punctuated by a stop at the coaching inn in Chelmsford where we all slept soundly, exhausted by the enforced inactivity. At last we arrived in Halesworth to be met by the carter, who transported us along the high ridge that affords such a spectacular view of the wide river estuary. Even Jean was silenced for a short while by the sight. Although it was nearly sunset the fields were still busy with men scything swathes of grain made golden by weeks of sunshine, collecting and tying the stalks and setting the stooks in perfect rows reaching as far as the eye could see.

As we watched the western sky change from blue to pink and orange and finally to deep purple, the stresses of the journey – and indeed all the concerns of daily life – seemed to lift from my shoulders.

On our arrival at the vicarage it was immediately apparent why Mrs Marshall had written with such urgency, and I was grateful that she had spurred us into visiting immediately.

Theodore was a sadly diminished man. Illness had visibly reduced him, by half a foot in height and many pounds in weight. Worse still, the self-assured demeanour I’d always attributed to his quiet certainty of faith seemed to have been undermined: his gait was hesitant, his face lined with anxiety, his voice strangely light and querulous.

David Garrick’s recitation about the seven ages of man slipped into my mind. Mr Shakespeare’s observations of what he called the ‘sixth age’ seemed to capture Theodore so perfectly: his shrunk shank and his big manly voice turning again toward childish treble . . .

Yet later, as he held little Charlotte in his arms with Jean at his knee, a proud smile filled the hollows of his sunken face and, as he spoke of his delight in seeing us all, his voice recovered some of the warm resonance that had so charmed me long ago.

Anna’s sister Janey seemed unaffected by concerns over her father’s health: as ever, she bounded like a puppy to greet us, embracing both of us with the joyful lack of inhibition of the child she still is, in her mind, even though she is now twenty years of age. Her smile and cheerful good-heartedness are hard to resist, but as she reached for Jean he wriggled away squealing, running to hide in his mother’s skirts.

‘Doesn’t he like me?’ she wailed.

‘He’ll get used to you soon enough, dearest.’ Indeed, within the hour Jean had become entranced by his Suffolk auntie, insisting that she show him around the house and now much neglected garden before engaging her in a serious construction project with the wooden bricks she had managed to unearth.

The following day being a Sunday, the household was up at dawn.

Theodore insisted on taking Holy Communion before breakfast, but agreed to let his curate take the mid-morning service so that he could sit with the family in their pew. ‘Humour me, let me play the old patriarch,’ he joked, gathering his grandson beside him, his daughter and her baby the other side.

What he would not delegate, he insisted, was the sermon. ‘They complain terribly about old Marcus,’ he said. ‘He goes on far too long, and is dull as ditch-water.’

It was clearly a struggle to climb the stairs up to the pulpit, but as he began to speak the energy seemed to flow back into him. Quoting from Corinthians, he said that love for our fellow man, and most particularly for our family, comes without condition: it is kind, does not envy, boast or dishonour others. After elaborating on the theme, he concluded that those of us who have family – and in that he included close friends and community – are the most fortunate people in the world.

‘God tells us we must love one another as he loves us,’ he said, glancing fondly at Anna and myself, Janey, Jean and little Charlotte in the pew below. ‘Reflect His love to your own and you will be doubly rewarded. Cherish your loved ones and value them above all else, because they are those who will bring you the greatest happiness for the rest of your days.’

Bidding farewell to Janey and Theodore was heart-breaking. As Anna suspected, he’d dismissed the notion of coming to live with her in London, although he promised to visit ‘very soon’. But his increasing frailty was obvious and though neither of us acknowledged it, we both knew this might be the last time we would see him.

After several blissful days in the fresh air and freedom of the countryside I did not relish the prospect of returning to a crowded, malodorous city. Being in the lap of a loving family and the two demanding but ever-delightful children, among a community where everyone regarded their vicar with such obvious affection and high esteem, seemed to highlight everything that was missing from my life.

The journey went without incident and, to my relief, the shop was just as I had left it. It is never wise to ignore the ever-present dangers of a city where many people have barely enough to live on: premises will be watched for several nights and will be fair game for thieves if reckoned to be unoccupied. Despite having secured all the shutters and locked away from view anything of great value I entered with some trepidation, but happily nothing seemed to have been disturbed.

I took up the bundle of letters and flyers pushed under the door and went downstairs to the kitchen, setting the fire and unwrapping the remaining bread, cheese and apples Theodore’s cook had pressed upon us for the journey. Waiting for the milk to boil, I glanced casually through the mail. Among a dozen others was an envelope addressed in Louisa’s hand, which I ripped open at once with a glad heart, hoping for – indeed expecting – an invitation, or a promise to visit. After being with Anna’s family for a week, I longed to see my own once more.

That this letter might contain the worst news in the world could not have been further from my mind.