Nan was still feeling extremely sore when she woke up next morning.
Matthew was tip-toeing noisily around the room, opening the shutters and drawing back the curtains on his master’s side of the bed. He was very careful not to look at Nan, as she was glad to notice. William Henry didn’t open his eyes, but the two men spoke to one another in a disjointed murmuring way.
‘Is the hot chocolate ready?’
‘On the table, Mr Easter sir.’
‘Two cups?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What day is it, Matthew?’
‘Friday sir, as ever is.’
‘Ah! Um – I shall get up in ten minutes, Matthew. Pray tell Mrs Mather – warm water.’ Then he drifted off to sleep again.
I do believe he’s forgotten all about me, Nan thought, sitting up beside him in the great bed as Matthew crashed from the room. I’ll wager he don’t even remember we was married. And she suddenly felt unaccountably irritable. ‘Good morning!’ she said loudly. To remind him.
The eye nearest to her opened at once and looked at her sleepily.
‘My little wife,’ William Henry said. ‘I have ordered hot chocolate for you. I trust ’twill please you.’
But it didn’t. She said it was too hot and frowned all the time she was drinking it.
Oh dear! he thought. Oh dear me! He seemed to have angered her, when that was the very last thing he intended. After the extraordinary pleasures of the previous night they should both have been so happy. He couldn’t understand it. He drank his chocolate slowly, trying to think of something to say to her. What sort of conversations did a man have with his wife first thing in the morning?
‘We will breakfast at nine, my dear,’ he said eventually, as he went off to his dressing-room to wash and prepare for the day, ‘if that is agreeable. I have some small business to attend to, with Mr Mulvaney in the boat yard. I have given him my word, so I must keep it.’
‘Of course,’ she said, setting down her empty cup.
‘My pretty Nan,’ he said, standing in the doorway of his dressing-room to admire her, because even though she was cross, she looked perfectly charming sitting up like that in the middle of his great bed. ‘What a fortunate man I am. Yes indeed. A most fortunate man. I declare I feel quite well this morning.’ It was quite surprising how well he felt, and he’d slept like a dormouse, which was most unusual. ‘I must dress now, my dear. You have everything you need, I trust?’.
‘No,’ she said. ‘What am I to wear?’
‘Well now, as to that,’ he said, smiling his wry smile, ‘I do believe if you were to open the wardrobe you might well find something there that might suit.’
She scrambled from the bed and ran to the wardrobe, her ill humour instantly dispersed. And the great oak cupboard was full of pretty clothes, woollen gowns for the day and silk ones for the evening, embroidered aprons and lace caps and fichus, drawers full of underwear and fine silk stockings. There was even a tailor-made redingote made of scarlet wool with an elegant double cape, better than anything she’d ever seen on any lady, and just the thing for church a’ Sundays.
It was undreamed-of abundance, and the sight of it spun her off into such pleasure she clapped her hands together like a child.
‘Is it all for me?’ she said.
‘Indeed yes,’ he beamed, ‘for I cannot imagine that any of these garments would fit me!’
She ran light-footed across the room to fling her arms about his neck and kiss him. ‘Oh, they’re beautiful! Beautiful! How can I thank ’ee?’
‘You will need to turn the hem, or so the seamstress told us,’ he said, smiling at her pleasure. ‘They are left for your attention. And then we will go to the cobbler’s and he shall take your size and we will have new boots and shoes all made to match. How will that be?’
‘You are the dearest man,’ she said, and meant it.
Later that morning when the first hem had been turned and she was sitting at breakfast in her new day-gown with her new husband, she felt she ought to apologize for being so ill humoured when she woke. ‘I didn’t mean to be so cross-grained, Mr Easter,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what come over me, and that’s a fact.’
‘I daresay ’tis because you are new to this life,’ he said, leaning towards her to pat her shoulder. ‘New situations take a deal of getting used to, even for settled old gentlemen like me. How shall you pass your time while I am at business?’
‘I shall see to dinner and go to market and then Lizzie and I will turn the hems on all my other new clothes,’ she said happily.
‘Perhaps you would like to visit your family for a day or two when your wardrobe is in order,’ he suggested. ‘See old friends, eh? How would that be?’
‘I don’t know where they are,’ she said without much interest. ‘They could be anywhere.’
‘Do you not write to them, my dear?’
‘There is no point,’ she said, spearing a kidney happily. ‘Not a one on ’em can read.’
‘My poor child,’ he said full of sympathy for her. ‘How sad to have lost touch with all your kith and kin.’
But that was no sadness to her. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘We all end up out in the world on our own, don’t we?’
You might have done, he thought wryly, but as to me … and he winced as he thought of his own fierce parents and felt guilty because he hadn’t written to them either and he ought to have done. Especially now with Christmas and his annual visit so near. But he couldn’t go to Ippark this Christmas, indeed he could not. He would write to them in a day or two and tell them he was too ill to travel. ‘After Christmas, when the weather is improved, we will go to Chelsea,’ he promised. ‘It is livelier in London. Yarmouth is a trifle dull in winter-time I fear.’ It always seemed empty and ordinary when the Dutch Fair was over, and it probably seemed even worse to her, being so young and never having known anything else of the world.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I should like that. I could wear my new clothes then, could I not? You are very good to me, Mr Easter.’
Her new boots were ready in time for church on Sunday. The cobbler’s boy brought them round at breakfast time and she was so excited she had to try them on there and then at the breakfast table, so that Mr Easter could admire them. Then it seemed an age before it was time to don all her new finery and set out for church.
She stood in their fine bedroom with Mr Easter behind her and admired her new reflection in her best day-gown and her fine red coat and her red beaver hat and her black kid boots and her yellow kid gloves. Oh, she was a lady now and no mistake about it. A lady, with servants of her own to wait upon her and a doting husband to spoil her. What could be better? No more fetching and carrying, no more scouring greasy dishes or emptying foul smelling chamber pots or fighting off drunken sailors. Just a twice-weekly uncomfortable exercise, and that was soon over. A lady. Mistress Easter, lady of the house. I must remember to behave with dignity, she reminded herself, as Mr Easter gave her his arm to walk her downstairs.
She paid very little attention to the service that day. Church services were always boring, and the vicar of St Nicholas’ went on and on and on. But she knew that all the women in the congregation were straining their necks to get a look at her, and that filled her with mischievous delight. Go on then, she thought, look all you like. Get your eye full. It don’t worry me. But all the same she was nervous about the way they might treat her when she and Mr Easter began their after-service promenade.
They walked twice around the market square, and were greeted politely by people she couldn’t remember ever having seen before. But as they returned to Priory Plain for the second time and were passing beside the low almshouses of the fishermen’s hospital, where the old men slept like cats in the courtyard, they were met by Mr and Mrs Howkins.
Now we shall see, Nan thought to herself, looking her former mistress boldly in the eye.
The Howkins were more than equal to the challenge. Mrs Howkins had the situation assessed in one quick glance at her former servant’s clothes. So the rumours were right after all. The little minx! ‘My dear Mistress Easter!’ she said nodding her tall bonnet. ‘I trust I see you well.’
‘Never better, Mrs Howkins,’ she said, grinning despite her vow to be dignified, ‘never better. How do you find yourself?’
‘I have a new maid,’ Mrs Howkins said, pursing up her mouth with disapproval. ‘She does well enough, I daresay, but she can hardly be said to be up to the standard of her predecessor.’
‘That I can believe, ma’am,’ Mr Easter said, with his slow smile.
‘Price of tea up again,’ Mr Howkins boomed, bored by these interminable pleasantries. ‘Scandalous! Don’t know what the government thinks it’s doin’, dammit.’
‘With the possible exception of this year’s herring, trade is poor all round,’ Mr Easter agreed diplomatically.
‘’Tis all the fault of those damn Frenchies, if you ask me. They want puttin’ down, so they do. Puttin’ down once and for all, every man jack of ’em.’
‘’Twould make a parlous gap in the market,’ Mr Easter observed drily.
There were two old tabbies on the other side of the square craning their necks to get a better view. There you are, Nan thought, turning her body slightly so as to oblige them, and smiling straight at them as charmingly as she could. And they smiled back, nodding and bridling. She was having quite a little triumph. Oh, it was fun being Mr Easter’s wife.
But it didn’t last long. Three weeks later the letter arrived.
It was late afternoon and already quite dark. The candles had been lit and the fires stoked and she and Mr Easter were sitting in the drawing-room on the first floor, waiting for dinner, he smoking his pipe, she busy with her sewing, comfortable and at ease like an old married couple.
When Matthew arrived clutching a salver with the letter balanced precariously upon it, Nan thought he’d come to tell them dinner was served. But William Henry recognized the seal on the little roll of parchment, and paled visibly. There was no safety after all, not even in his own house.
It was from Ippark, as he feared, and in his mother’s trenchant hand. Disquieting rumours had been heard. He was therefore to oblige them with a visit and an explanation, at his earliest possible convenience. They would expect him on Friday. ‘You may bring one servant, as usual,’ she wrote. ‘No one else.’
He put the letter in his pocket, hands trembling. ‘I am afraid, my dear, I must leave you for a few days,’ he said. ‘I have some pressing business to attend to.’ But he didn’t tell her what it was.
The journey to London was cold and uncomfortable, for the roads had been reduced to a quagmire by six days of torrential rain and then frozen into sharp ridges by two days of sudden frost. The Norwich coach was stuck in the mud three times, tipped into a ditch twice, and arrived late at Ipswich and later still at the Swan with Two Necks. He stayed at Chelsea overnight, but the house was cold and the pump frozen and even though his housekeeper did her best to warm him and feed him, a combination of raw conscience and damp blankets allowed him little rest.
The road south from London to Petersfield was in no better condition, and by now snow was threatening. They drove between fields white with hoar frost under a sky the colour of slate, and when they had to walk uphill to assist the horses, the mud underfoot was so thick and squashy they were soon caked to the knees with the stuff. There were only two other passengers inside the coach and they were red-nosed and snuffly, shedding gobbets of mud at every jolt, and shivering as flurries of sleet rattled against the windows. I am being punished, he thought miserably as the poor springing stabbed his spine. I shall catch the ague for certain. I do not see how it may be prevented. But ’tis no more nor less than I deserve. I daresay we shall be attacked by highwaymen too. ’Tis just the weather for it.
But the highwaymen desisted and presently they arrived in Petersfield, where the family gig was waiting for him. And there was old Dibkins standing beside the horse’s head, with his fists under his armpits for warmth and so many ancient mufflers mounded round his neck and shoulders he looked like Humpty Dumpty. The sight of his old servant cheered him a little, but he wished they’d sent the curricle.
Dibkins rushed to welcome them. ‘Very glad to see you, Mr William,’ he said, offering an arm to assist his master into the carriage. ‘Rotten old weather we’re havin’, eh? Be snow afore nightfall I shouldn’t wonder. You’ll be glad to get home. Now jest let’s get you all wrapped up in this old rug. Shan’t be a jiffy.’
‘Where d’you want the luggage?’ Matthew asked, drooping up beside him with the valise.
‘Why, bless the lad!’ Dibkins said. ‘Don’t ’ee know nothin’? In the boot. Where else? What a time he do take, Mr William! I never seen a boy so long-winded. Give it here, do, lad, or we shall be all night.’
There was such a cheerful energy about old Dibkins, settling the master, scolding the boy, urging the horse to move. But it didn’t cheer William Henry. Foreboding crushed his chest with every creak of the gig, and by the time the little cart began to slither down the long icy drive towards Ippark House, he was biting his lips with anxiety.
There was something so uncompromising about the place, and it looked worse against that darkening sky, set four square in its cow-patted meadow, with dairies and stables subserviently beside it and a grey winter sky behind it, its redbrick frontage so perfectly balanced, nine windows looking north and south, seven east and west, stone faced, secure and certain of itself, staring across the rolling downs at the distant glimmer of the sea, dominating the landscape. A fine, elegant house. Like his fine, elegant mother. His heart sank at the sight of it.
‘Here we are then, Mr William, sir,’ Dibkins said, as the gig scraped to a halt outside the east door. ‘Home and dry, eh?’
Oh, if only he were!
There was a good fire warming the hall and he was welcomed by his old nurse, who was exactly the same as she’d always been, so perhaps he was worrying unnecessarily.
‘Everybody’s here,’ she said happily, taking his hat and helping him out of his damp coat. ‘Mr Joseph and Miss Cecilia and all the dear children. We’ve put you in your old room, Mr William dear. Now you just trot upstairs and get out of those nasty, muddy clothes. We don’t want you catching cold, now do we? They’re all in the red drawing-room, when you’re ready.’
He was obedient by force of habit, although it riled him that she was still treating him as a child, especially now that he was a married man. But that was his own fault, he thought, as he walked slowly upstairs. He’d allowed her to go on thinking of him as a child, that was the truth of it, and for far too long what was more, but how was he to stop her now, without upsetting her? Perhaps if his mother were to accept Nan and he was known as a married man … But that was most unlikely. Oh, dear me! Most unlikely.
The red drawing-room was full of children, just as it always was at Christmas time. There seemed to be more of them every year, shrieking and shouting and darting from place to place without warning. Four little boys in sailor suits playing leap-frog to the common danger, two infants in petticoats beating one another about the ears with drum sticks, a superior young lady with ringlets reading, (was that Thomasina?) and a superior young man in a velvet suit watching her, (that would be Osmond) and a bundled baby, whose red hair protruded from under a well padded pudding-cap, sitting in the middle of the carpet exercising his lungs. It made his head spin. But while it was spinning he realized, with a mixture of apprehension and pleasure, that this marriage of his might well result in children of his own. He wasn’t at all sure in his present vertiginous state whether he would welcome children or not, but he comforted himself that at least they would be a great deal better behaved than this howling mob. Nan would see to that.
His parents were sitting on either side of the fire, ignoring the chaos around them as they always did, she bolt upright in the fierce stays of her youth, with her old-fashioned gown burdened with elaborate bows and her old-fashioned white wig immaculate above her raddled face, he slumped into his wing chair like a sagging pillow in a suit. As the years passed they were steadily growing into caricatures of their original selves, she whiter and more dry from the daily application of ever increasing quantities of powder, he redder and more choleric from the daily consumption of ever increasing quantities of claret. But even now when they were both over seventy, he found them so daunting that his mouth dried as soon as he saw them. He kissed them dutifully and hoped they were well.
‘Ain’t nothing the matter with me, son,’ his mother said tartly. ‘Which is a deal more than may be said about some other people.’
‘Ah!’ he said, feeling the blush descend from under his wig, but powerless to defend himself with the servants all about the room and listening.
‘What?’ his father bellowed. ‘What’s that you say?’
‘Pas devant,’ Lady Easter said firmly, leaning towards him and rapping him across the knuckles with her fan. ‘Don’t your sister look fine, eh?’
He agreed that she looked pretty, for she was wearing a splendid gown in the very latest style, but as she was reclining on the chaise-longue in her usual state of languid disability it probably wouldn’t have been politic to describe her as fine.
‘I do as well as I may,’ she said when he enquired after her health. ‘I declare my constitution grows weaker by the day. How I should manage without my dear Mr Callbeck to sustain me, I really do not know. That man is an angel, William, a positive angel.’
The angel was sitting on the other side of the room bouncing the red-headed infant on a far from angelic knee. He looked what he was, the tough, uncompromising captain of one of His Majesty’s men of war, with a rough red face and rough red hands and a voice as loud and incessant as a fog horn. ‘Good journey?’ he said, without looking up from his infant.
‘Well – um – a trifle muddy, I should say.’
‘Spot of mud here an’ there never hurt anybody, did it my brave boys?’
‘No, no, indeed,’ William Henry hastened to agree, because it was just a little too easy for this bluff man to imply that he was a milk-sop. ‘A fine child, sir,’ he said, hopefully changing the subject.
‘Our Simon?’ his father said proudly. ‘He’s a little corker, ain’tcher, my beauty?’ And he tossed the baby into the air.
Brother Joseph was looking out of the window at the frozen downs, with his wife sitting meekly beside him, half hidden by the swathe of the curtains. He had grown even more portly since last year.
‘How’s the tea trade, little brother, what?’ he said, booming in exactly the same way as his father.
William Henry’s head was beginning to pound, but he did his best to discuss the tea trade, and was quick to agree with his brother that the only proper place in which to invest extra capital was land. And one of the little boys leap-frogged into his legs and was applauded by his sea-faring father, and one of the babies was sick on the carpet, missing her uncle William’s clean stockings by the merest splash, and causing her prostrated mother to emit shrieks of anguish. But at last nursemaids were rung for and the children were sorted out and despatched to their various nurseries to be fed, with the exception of Thomasina and Osmond, who being thirteen were allowed to dine in politer company.
By now, what with the children’s noise and his own suffocating anxiety, William Henry was feeling sick.
It was an indigestible meal, five full courses, all well cooked, most lukewarm, and each more decorative than the last. The centrepiece was a lake made of green jelly on which a procession of sugar swans curved their wire-thin necks, and the last course was a dish of pippins with caraway comfits. In any other house he could have enjoyed it quite a lot. Now he was too sick with apprehension to do more than pick at it. For all the time his brother Joseph was discussing tenants with his father and his sister Cecilia was protesting that she was too delicate to eat another mouthful, truly, and her angelic husband was using his divine powers to coax her into consuming another six, he was secretly preparing himself for the awful moment when the meal would finally come to an end and his mother would say …
‘William Henry, you will be so good as to accompany your father and I into the blue drawing-room. Perkins, set the tables for cards. The children may play two hands before they retire. Well, come, come, do. Why do you tarry?’
Oh, he would have tarried a lifetime, if only he’d dared. But by now he was in such a state that only abject obedience was possible.
‘Very well!’ his mother said, when the three of them were settled around the fire and the servants had all gone away. ‘Rumour has it that you’ve gone and married a serving gel. What is the truth of it, pray?’
If only she were not so blunt, William Henry sighed. A more tentative approach might have given him the chance to explain in an acceptable way.
‘I am married, yes, Mother.’
‘A servant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Speak up, boy, do. I cannot hear you. Is she a servant?’
‘Yes, Mother, she is. But an exceptional girl, I do assure you. Uncommon talented …’
‘Lord, boy, have you taken leave of your senses?’ his mother said, glaring at him. ‘You had no call to marry the detestable creature. Girls like that know what’s expected of ’em and it ain’t matrimony. Take my word for it. You could have kept her for a month or two, surely. There was no call to marry. What were you thinkin’ of?’
‘Half-witted,’ his father opined. ‘Ain’t I always said so?’
‘Frequently,’ his wife said tartly, ‘but to little purpose it would appear. Ah well, boy, we must give consideration as to the best method of removal. That is all that need be said about the matter. She ain’t a Papist by any chance? ’Twould be uncommon good fortune if she were.’
‘I have married her, Mother,’ William Henry said stiffly. ‘I wish to remain married to her.’
‘Out of the question,’ his father said, growing red in the face. ‘’S’blood, Cessie, what’s the matter with the boy? Where’s your sense of family, boy?’
‘Can’t imagine how I ever came to breed such a nincompoop,’ Lady Cecilia said. ‘Must have been that wet-nurse. Never did like the look of her. Cross-eyed, ye see. Said so at the time, you remember. Knew she weren’t to be trusted, dammit. Something in the milk, I daresay, addled his brain.’
‘Joseph’s a good lad,’ his father said, staring at the fire. ‘Hunts well, ye know. Good seat.’
‘We will get that lawyer fellow to see what may be done,’ his mother said. ‘A divorce or a separation of some kind. But I warn you, William, this is the very last time we shall redeem you from your ridiculous folly. We do not intend to make a habit of it.’
It was monstrously unfair. She was talking as though he were an utter fool, as though this marriage were prohibited. He gathered his courage as though it were a great shield he was pulling towards him for protection, for he knew that the moment had come when he would have to use it.
‘Cecilia’s a good gel, too,’ his father went on. ‘Married well. Obedient sort of gel, I always think. Pretty. No, no, Cessie, this one’s the wrongun. You always get one wrongun in the pack. Law of nature, dammit. Most of ’em die young, of course.’
‘Luckily, my love,’ his mother said, ‘he has a family to ensure that this folly will go no further. We will set the lawyers onto it in the morning. And in the meantime, William Henry, you will stay here out of harm’s way and try to disport yourself in a proper manner.’
She speaks as though I were still a child, William thought. She doesn’t care what I think or feel about it. The injustice of it was making his stomach churn, his sense of inferiority was making him sweat, and fear of the wrath he was about to provoke was inhibiting his very breath. But he spoke up, nevertheless.
‘You do not understand me, Mother,’ he said, deliberately calm. ‘I do not have the slightest intention of divorcing my wife. We were married before the priest and according to law, and that is how I wish the matter to stand. You may see as many lawyers as you please, that is your affair, but I warn you, none of them may meddle in my marriage.’
There was a long, terrifying pause.
‘Enlighten me, my dear,’ his mother said eventually, in tones so acid it was a wonder they didn’t burn holes in her tongue. ‘Am I to understand that you refuse my offer of help?’
‘I do.’
‘That you intend to remain married to this – um – creature?’
‘She is my own dear wife.’
His mother considered this in ominous silence. Then she gave judgement. ‘If that is truly the case, and truly what you wish, you must understand that it would be impossible for you to remain a member of this family.’
‘That is understood.’ He had feared it, had known he might provoke it, but it was still terrible to hear it said.
‘Your allowance would cease, as from this moment. You appreciate that? You would have no property rights, no rents, and no income, as far as I can see. The herring business would revert to your father. You would move from your present residence in South Quay. You would not be welcome here, ever again. Now, think carefully before you make reply. Is that what you wish?’
It was the moment of renunciation and they both knew it. ‘Yes,’ he said, and the word dropped like a stone into the elegant silence in the room.
‘Very well, then,’ his mother said, but she showed no emotion apart from a tightening of the lips. ‘If that is your choice, so be it.’ And she pulled the bell.
They waited in total silence until the butler came to answer her. Then her instructions were delivered with perfect sangfroid.
‘Mr William has to return to London,’ she said. ‘Kindly inform Dibkins that the gig is to be ready by the east door in twenty minutes.’
‘Goin’ back, is he?’ his father said. ‘Ah well! Can’t say I’m surprised. Joseph’s a good chap, you know.’