The gale blew all that night, bringing rain with it, howling down the chimneys and flailing the tall trees and spitting out roof tiles like broken teeth. Harriet Sowerby lay awake all night listening to it. Not that she would have slept very much had the night been peaceful. She had too much to think about.
If only she knew what Mrs Easter’s lawyers had arranged! Would they send her back to her parents or let her stay here with Mrs Hopkins? And would her dear Mr Easter really propose to her? Oh if only he would! By the time the first green edge of dawn lightened her eastern window and the tumult finally died down, she was so full of nervous energy she couldn’t stay in bed a minute longer.
She got up and washed herself carefully, shivering under the impact of water cold from the ewer, and dressed in silence, while the dawn chorus began to pipe and carol most joyfully in the garden below her. Then she crept down the dark stairs and, taking her black cloak from its hook behind the kitchen door, lifted the latch and stepped out into the pale light of early morning.
The rain had stopped but the garden was awash with moisture, the long grass swishing wet underfoot and the branches of the yew dropping raindrops upon her as thick as a shower. She picked her way past the holm oak and through the wet gate into the open churchyard where the high stone flanks of St Nicholas’s church rose above her, damp and dark against the grey sky. The village was still sleeping in its hollow, black-thatched by rain and spouting water from every shabby gutter, but the birds were now in full song, thrushes and blackbirds calling clear, a robin shrill and sweet, hedge sparrows a-twitter, magpies clattering like wooden rattles.
She walked round the side of the church and arrived at the south porch, where she paused for a second with her hand resting on the rough flints, looking down at the village. Then she took her uncertainties into the church.
The peace and silence of the place surrounded her like a benediction, calming her and giving her strength. She walked quietly past the font, touching its odd carved faces with gentle reverence, and up the aisle past the box pews towards the communion table, its cloth as green as glass in the dawn light, and there she stopped before the altar rails. The bottom half of the east window was still in darkness, but the figure of her gentle Christ was glowingly visible, His hands upraised. And in the peaceful light of that early morning it seemed to Harriet that He was looking down with total understanding, straight into her eyes.
She dropped to her knees before Him and began to pray, speaking aloud in the urgency of her dilemma.
‘Oh dear God, please don’t make me go back to my parents, for I couldn’t bear it. If I have to go back to them I will die. I don’t love them, Lord, and they don’t love me. I love my dear Mr and Mrs Hopkins and little Jimmy, who was so patient when we had to clean his head, and dear little Beau and his pretty ways, and Miss Pettie who is always so kind, and dear Mr Easter.’
The face above her looked down with unflinching compassion.
‘I do believe I love Mr Easter more than anyone, Lord,’ she said. ‘He is the kindest man I ever met, to rescue me and bring me here, when I am nothing to him. I think of him every day, and pray for him. And I dream of him too, Lord. I dream of him every night. Oh if I could marry Mr Easter and be part of his dear good family for ever and ever! I cannot tell him, because that would not be proper, but I do love him, Lord. Oh indeed I do. I love him with all my heart.’
There was a slight sound behind her, a suspiration of breath, or the last sigh of the wind, and she turned, startled, clutching her cloak about her, and Mr Easter was standing in the aisle.
‘Oh my own dear, darling Harriet!’ he said. ‘I love you so very much.’ And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her tenderly, tenderly, in the gentle light.
‘Oh Mr Easter,’ Harriet whispered, when the kiss was done. She couldn’t believe this was truly happening, even though her lips were still tingling from his kiss. ‘How do you come to be here so early in the morning?’
‘I travelled on the overnight coach to bring you the news as soon as I could. I saw the church door open.’
But she was too stunned to realize what he was saying. ‘I am dreaming,’ she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
‘No, no. You are here, my little love. And you will marry me, will you not? You said you would.’
‘I should not have spoken so,’ she said, looking up at him and blushing at the memory. ‘How forward I must seem to you, Mr Easter. I would not have spoken so, indeed I would not, had I known you were there to hear me. Oh dear, oh dear!’ And that lower lip was bitten by those two dear little crooked teeth.
‘You must call me John now,’ he said, holding her lightly about the waist, admiring her blush and thinking how very dark her blue eyes were in the half light. ‘And you must say you will marry me. You will, will you not?’
‘Yes, John. If I am allowed to.’
‘Why my dear love, what is to stop you now?’
‘My mother and father, sir.’
‘Your parents have given their consent to it,’ he said, speaking calmly even though he wanted to crow in triumph.
She was so surprised that her mouth fell open. He could see her tongue, tremulously pink, behind those charming crooked teeth. ‘They forbade me to see you or write to you,’ she said incredulously. ‘However did you manage to persuade them?’
‘It was all Mr Brougham’s doing,’ he said, and told her the full story. ‘A fine man, Mr Brougham. We are lucky to have him as an ally.’
‘Have I to go home?’ Oh the anxiety crumpling that pale forehead.
‘No,’ he told her triumphantly. ‘That is settled too. You are to stay here until we marry, and I am to ask James to marry us. What do ’ee think of that?’
‘If we – when we marry would you wish to live in Bury?’
‘No,’ he reassured, understanding her anxiety. ‘We shall live in London, where I work. You need never go to Bury or see your parents ever again, if that is what you wish. Does that content you?’
‘Oh yes, dear John.’
‘We shall be so happy,’ he promised.
‘I think I am dreaming,’ she said.
And was kissed again, to prove otherwise, and for a great deal longer this time.
‘So we shall have two weddings, Sophie,’ Nan said to her old friend the next Monday afternoon, when she’d told her the tale. ‘What sport!’ The two of them were taking tea in the drawing room at Bedford Square, and Sophie had greatly enjoyed the story of the Sowerbys’ discomfiture.
‘I do enjoy a good wedding,’ Sophie said, accepting her dish of tea and sipping it happily. ‘When is the first to be?’
‘’Twill be Johnnie’s in April in Rattlesden with our dear Mr Hopkins to officiate. They have fixed the date already and I shall send out invitations within the week. Billy and Matilda are like to marry in June in St George’s in Bloomsbury, according to Mr Honeywood. The family are coming to London in a week or two, ready for the season and mean to plan it all then. You are invited to both, of course, and will get two invitations accordingly.’
‘I should be aggrieved if ’twere otherwise,’ Sophie said. ‘Shall you invite any of the Easters?’ reaching out her plump hand to pick up a morsel of tea cake.
‘The cousins at Ippark,’ Nan said, ‘since they always write to me and have been true friends over all these years.’
‘Is that wise?’ Sophie demurred. ‘Remembering what happened last time.’
John had been furious to see two members of the Easter family included in his sister’s wedding party, and there had been a rather nasty row about it.
‘He was young then,’ Nan said, ‘and thought every Easter the devil incarnate, simply because his poor father’s parents were so unkind to me. Now he has better sense. ’Tis all forgiven and forgotten long since.’
‘Let us pray so,’ Sophie said, smoothing the crumbs from her ample lap, ‘for your sake, my dear. Howsomever, ’tis my experience that a wedding too often serves to bring out the very worst in any family.’
John’s certainly brought an extraordinary answer from the ladies in Ippark.
‘My dearest Nan,’ Thomasina wrote.
‘We are delighted to accept your most kind invitation to John’s wedding, and in April too when the weather will be more clement, which is always to the good. It seems but yesterday that we attended your dear daughter’s wedding which we enjoyed so much and remember so well. Such a pretty bride and now a mother with two young boys.
‘It is quite possible, although by no means certain, it would be wrong of us to pretend otherwise, not having quite all the information we would wish, howsomever we cannot complain of that since Osmond may not know all he would wish to know himself, nor the lady either for that matter, that we may have to face a change in our circumstances. Howsomever we shall be certain to attend the wedding, you may depend upon it and remain,
‘Your most devoted cousins,
‘Thomasina and Evelina.’
‘What are they talking about?’ Nan said, handing the letter across the breakfast table to Johnnie.
He read it carefully, squinting with effort. ‘If you ask me,’ he said, after some thought, ‘the precious Sir Osmond plans to marry again and they are fearful of the consequences.’
‘Aye, ’tis possible,’ she said, re-reading the letter. ‘There’s a lady in the case sure enough, but why should that change their circumstances?’
‘Perhaps he don’t mean to support ’em, or the new wife wants ’em thrown out of the house.’
‘He couldn’t be so cruel,’ Nan said. ‘How could they live without his support, poor souls?’
‘You have a touching faith in your relations, Mama,’ John said, calmly returning to his haddock. ‘When did they ever show any concern for their kith and kin? They were quick enough to show you the door when you were young and widowed and penniless, don’t forget. There is mischief afoot, you may depend upon it.’
‘I shall write back, directly,’ his mother said, ‘and ask them what ’tis. We don’t want any unpleasantness at your wedding.’
But although she didn’t know it, unpleasantness was gathering like a carbuncle in the pretty bosom of her other future daughter-in-law.
When Matilda heard that John’s wedding had been arranged, she was very pleased, delighted to think that Billy’s younger brother was getting married before she was. It would allow her to follow with a much grander and more spectacular ceremony should she so wish. And of course she would wish. That was only natural, and would be most agreeable. And goodness knows she needed some agreeable moments in her life just at the moment, for ever since the rapturous night at their party her mother had kept her so tightly chaperoned that she and Billy had rarely had the chance even to kiss. This was just the third time they’d been left in a room alone together and she knew that they would only have privacy for a matter of minutes until the carriage arrived to take the entire family to the opera. She was miserable with frustration and he was wasting their opportunity by preening in the looking glass.
‘Miss Harriet Sowerby,’ she said idly. ‘Do we know her, Billy?’
‘Don’t we just!’ Billy said, admiring his reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. ‘She was the gel we rescued. Don’t you remember? Me and Johnnie and Eb and Claude.’
‘But she is a servant!’ Matilda said, outraged, frustration erupting into anger. ‘He ain’t a-marryin’ a servant, Billy. Never tell me that, because I won’t believe it.’
‘She ain’t a servant, Tilda,’ Billy said mildly, still more occupied with his appearance than her annoyance. ‘Her father is a clerk or somesuch. She’s a deuced pretty girl. You will like her.’
‘I shall not!’ Matilda said, with furious determination. ‘Oh Billy, how could you even suggest such a thing?’
Alerted at last by the anger in her voice, Billy turned from the mirror to cuddle her into a better frame of mind. And was punched in the chest for his pains. ‘Oh come now, Tilda,’ he complained. ‘Where’s the fuss? This ain’t like you, upon me word.’
‘People like us don’t go marrying servants,’ she said. ‘Whatever is your brother thinking of? ’Tis a scandal, so ’tis.’
‘He loves her,’ Billy tried to explain.
And was hooted at. ‘And so I’ve to be related to a servant,’ she said. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining with passion. She wanted him so much and she couldn’t even kiss him because her horrid brother would be back in the room at any minute. ‘How could you demean me so?’
‘I don’t demean you.’
‘My sister-in-law a servant! The shame of it! You must talk him out of it,’ she ordered.
‘It can’t be done,’ Billy said, amazed by her vehemence. ‘Nor should it. ’Tis his choice, not ours. Come now, Tilda, there is no harm in it.’
Her fury flared like a burnt coal. ‘You do not love me,’ she cried, ‘else you could not say such things.’
‘I do love you,’ he said, surprised by the sudden turn this trivial conversation had taken. ‘You know right well I do. Ain’t I proved it?’ And he made another attempt to put his arms around her.
She shook herself out of his grasp. ‘If you do not persuade him, Mr William Easter, then I declare I will … I will …’
He was touched by her furious inability to find a suitable threat. ‘Oh what will you do, you beautiful creature?’ he said, teasing her with laughter. It was a great mistake.
‘I will not marry you,’ she said stamping her foot.
‘Tilda!’ he implored. ‘I beg you!’
But Claude was opening the door and he and Mrs Honeywood were bustling into the room and their argument was abruptly curtailed.
Matilda turned her body away from him, walking across to her mother, and for the rest of the evening she kept herself aloof, sitting as far away from him as she could, talking to other people and never to him and, finally, when the carriage came to collect them all at the end of the performance, saying goodbye as though he were the slightest acquaintance.
‘You will recall what I vowed, I daresay,’ she said coolly, ‘and what is to be done if we are to resume our friendship.’
‘Tilda!’ he begged. ‘You don’t mean it.’
‘Oh indeed I do,’ she said, and swept into the carriage, straight-spined with determination.
He was awake all night worrying about it. And when a letter was delivered early the next morning just after he arrived home from the stamping and sorting, his heart gave the most uncomfortable lurch at the sight of her furious handwriting. How had they come to such a pass, so suddenly and just at the very moment when he thought their futures settled and assured?
‘I hope you have reconsidered your decision to talk to your brother,’ she wrote. ‘I do not wish to hurt you, dearest Billy. I have lain wakeful all night considering how I hurt you. I love you to distraction. Howsomever I do have a position to keep up. Please talk to your brother. Is that truly so much for your loving Tilda to ask?’
Put like that it seemed reasonable, if impossible. He wrote back to her at once.
‘I will do as you ask my love, this evening as ever is.
‘Your own devoted Billy.
‘PS I love you to distraction and beyond. I would do anything for you. You are my heart and soul.’
But doing this particular thing was going to be extraordinarily difficult.
He worried about it all through the day, making several uncharacteristic mistakes at the sorting, and growing steadily more and more irritable. By mid-afternoon, his underlings were glad to see the back of him.
He made it his business to travel home in the same carriage as his brother, but John was so withdrawn and thoughtful he wasn’t even able to start a conversation with him, leave alone an argument, and he was still in this quiet mood when Nan came home, in a great rush as always, picking up the letters that had been left on the hall table for her attention, and ripping them open as she ran upstairs. One was from Annie, two were bills and the fourth was from Thomasina Callbeck.
‘You were right, Johnnie,’ she said as she strode into the parlour, still reading. ‘Sir Osmond is engaged, and they don’t like the lady. “Her name is Jane Bellingham, daughter to a manufacturer and prodigious rich.”’
‘Then she should suit,’ Billy said.
‘Oh come now, Billy,’ his brother laughed. ‘Daughter to a manufacturer? That’s a deal too common for our precious Easters.’
‘Then what would they think of your intended?’ Billy asked, seizing his opportunity.
‘Fortunately, they do not need to think of her at all, it being none of their affair.’
‘You are wrong as to that, Johnnie,’ Nan said, ‘since Thomasina and Evelina are invited to your wedding.’
‘The Easter cousins?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Mama!’ he said, enraged. ‘How could you when you know my feelings on the matter?’ Nothing had changed. He might be her manager of sales but she still gave no thought to his feelings at all. She didn’t even bother to consult him.
‘I thought you’d ha’ grown to more sense,’ she said, riled by his anger.
‘But they are Easters!’ Deuce take it, after all this time you’d have thought she’d have understood that.
‘So are you.’
‘I won’t have it,’ he said furiously. ‘You should have more pride.’
‘They are invited.’
‘Then you must write back and tell ’em they ain’t welcome.’
‘I will do no such thing,’ she said. ‘Have a care, boy! Remember who I am! ’Ten’t for you to tell me who I’m to invite.’
‘I am not a child, Mama! I mean what I say.’
‘And so do I, Johnnie. So do I.’
‘I will not have an Easter at my wedding.’
‘They are Callbecks, you ridiculous boy,’ glancing at Billy in the hope that he could say something witty to diffuse their temper.
‘They are cousins to the Easters,’ John insisted.
‘And your Miss Sowerby is the daughter of a clerk,’ Billy pointed out, taking the chance his mother had offered but not in the way she’d intended. ‘Had you thought of that?’
‘No,’ John said turning to him coldly. ‘Why should I? Her parentage is of no consequence.’
‘It may not be of any consequence to you Johnnoh,’ Billy said, ‘but ’tis a deuced nuisance to me and Matilda, I can tell ’ee.’
Now what? Nan thought. Is there no end to temper this evening? What is the matter with Billy?
‘It is none of your affair,’ John said crossly, transferring his anger to his brother. ‘And if that stupid Matilda of yours –’
‘She ain’t stupid! She’s a fine girl. With a position to keep up.’ Bristling.
‘Oh ho! I see what ’tis. She looks down on my Harriet, is that it?’
‘She could hardly help it,’ Billy defended, ‘seeing your Harriet is only one step above a servant.’
‘And your Tilda one step above a fool. Devil take it, Billy, you shan’t speak of my –’
‘I’ll speak as I please. The truth hurts don’t it, Johnnie? One step above a ser –’
‘Be quiet! Be quiet or I’ll not be answerable for –’
They were like two fighting cocks, Nan thought, jumping at each other, shrieking defiance, hackles rising, hair bristling, red-faced and staring-eyed, her two dear boys, who’d always been so close.
‘Boys! Boys!’ she cried. ‘Have done!’
But they were too far into their anger to hear her.
‘Your precious Matilda is a nasty little snob, let me tell ’ee.’
‘Your precious Miss Sowerby is a skivvy.’
There’ll be fisticuffs, Nan thought, watching them with alarm and admiration. ‘If you continue,’ she shouted. ‘You shall dine elsewhere, so you shall. Stop it at once! D’ye hear?’
But they went on screaming abuse at one another. ‘Deuce take it,’ she said, as much to herself as to them, ‘I can’t abide much more of this. Are we to scream our way through dinner, you poor fools? Is this the sort of behaviour I’m to expect from my sons?’
‘Snob!’
‘Skivvy!’
Nan picked up her letters and left them to fight it out. Short of lifting them up and carrying them out of the room, which was obviously and totally beyond her powers, there was nothing else she could do. There was no sense in either of them, and if they were going to break the furniture or crack one another’s skulls she would rather not be there to see it. Blamed fools! She would go and dine with Mr Brougham, that’s what she’d do. Dear, calm, cultivated, civilized Mr Brougham.