Lament for a Lost Lover Page 11

  Edwin and I rode together, talked together and made plans for the future. Soon, he said, we were going home, and home was Eversleigh Court. There we should begin our married life, and it must be soon, for they would not be sending him to England if they were not almost certain that the people were ready to rise against Puritan rule and recall the King.

  There in Eversleigh Court all would be well with England … and with us.

  The days flew by and yet there was so much to do in each of them. I was exhausted by bedtime and usually fell fast asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. I was glad, because I did not wish to talk to Harriet. Since my encounter with Charlotte I had felt aloof from her. I thought she had deliberately set out to attract Charles, with what tragic consequences I knew, because I had helped to avert them.

  I woke up one night and was aware that Harriet’s bed was empty.

  I called her name softly but there was no reply.

  I lay there wondering where she was. I could not sleep because I was so uneasy.

  It was just before dawn when she crept in.

  “Harriet,” I said, “where have you been?”

  She sat down on her bed and kicked off her shoes. She was wearing her nightgown and a wrap over it.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I went down into the gardens and walked a bit.”

  “At this time of the night!”

  “It’s not night. It’s morning. I feel sleepy now.”

  “It’ll soon be time to get up,” I pointed out.

  “Then I should get some sleep before it is.” She yawned.

  “Do you often … do that?”

  “Oh, often,” she said.

  She threw off her wrap and pulled the bedclothes up about her.

  I waited awhile. Then I said: “Harriet …”

  There was no answer.

  She was either asleep or pretending to be.

  The smaller salon had been converted into a chapel and Matilda Eversleigh had indeed found a priest who would marry us.

  It was a simple ceremony, but I could not have been more enthralled if it had taken place in Westminster Abbey.

  As Edwin took my hand I felt overcome with emotion because he was my husband and I his wife.

  I was so happy I wanted to sing a paean of praise to the fate which had brought him here at this time.

  Matilda Eversleigh—now my mother-in-law—had determined that the wedding should be celebrated in as grand a manner as was possible in the circumstances, and she had invited everyone within travelling distance. The guests were mostly the people who had been present during the house party, and during the feast which followed the ceremony, there were inevitably references to Romeo and Juliet.

  I was like one intoxicated. I was unable to savour my happiness because I could not really believe it was happening.

  The future seemed perfect. I was married to the man with whom I was passionately in love; my family approved absolutely and their only regret was that they could not be present; my new family had received me warmly. Matilda purred with pleasure every time she looked at me. I had had a warm letter of affection from her husband; and with even Charlotte (who, I must confess, had retired into her shell and had become as aloof as she had been when we first met), I had managed to form a special relationship.

  In such a mood I retired with Edwin to my bridal chamber.

  As I prepared for bed I thought of what I had read in my mother’s journal of the differences between her and her sister, Angelet. My mother warm and passionate, her sister frigid, fearful of this side of marriage. I knew that I should resemble my mother in this respect. And I was right.

  How I loved Edwin. How kind and tender he was! And how happy I was to love and be loved. I had never imagined such happiness as I experienced during that week of marriage.

  It was true that over us hung the threat of separation. The fact that he would soon have to leave was the very reason for a hasty marriage, but Edwin’s nature being what it was, he did not look beyond the day or even the hour, and he carried me along with him.

  I did not see so much of Harriet during those days. Naturally I no longer shared her room, and when I did look in to the one we had occupied, she was rarely there. Of course we met at meals but then there were others there. I felt there was a subtle change in her. I had never seen her anxious before, and I could not imagine her so, for she had always seemed to have a blind faith in her future, but there was a shade of something in her expression when caught unaware that made me a little uneasy.

  I determined to talk to her, and as we left the table one day, I whispered to her that I must do this. She nodded and we went up to the room we had shared.

  “Harriet,” I said, “are you worried?”

  She hesitated. “No,” she said at length. “I confess, though, that I am wondering what I should do next. Here are you facing a lifetime of married bliss …” Her lips curled in a way that sent shivers of alarm through me because it implied that she did not believe in that blissful lifetime. “And I … where do I come in?”

  “You could have married Charles Condey.”

  “How can you, secure in your love match, suggest that I should take something less?”

  “I’m sorry, Harriet.”

  She lifted her shoulders. “It’s no fault of yours. You happened to get born into the right family, a matter for which you can neither be blamed nor praised. Let’s be serious. I have been wondering what I shall do now. Life has changed, hasn’t it? We are no longer at dear, old Château Congrève where I should use my talents in the schoolroom.”

  “I shall be going back to Congrève with Lucas when Edwin goes away. There are so many things to arrange there.”

  “And when Edwin returns?”

  “Naturally I shall be with my husband. I shall have to look after the little ones too. We haven’t discussed it in detail. Edwin will have to join the King and his father and wait there for whatever is going to happen. I shall go to Congrève to look after the little ones and you will come with me, Harriet.”

  “It’s very simple really, is it not?” she said.

  “Of course. You will stay with us …” My voice trailed off. The time would come when Edwin would take me to my new home. The family home. Matilda Eversleigh would be there and perhaps Charlotte. I knew that neither of them would want Harriet in their home.

  Harriet was watching me, reading my thoughts.

  “For a while,” I said briskly, “nothing will have changed much. As soon as Edwin goes I shall return to Congrève, and you and Lucas will come with me. Then we shall see.”

  She nodded. I saw her smile secretly as she turned away.

  The Dangerous Mission

  THEY WERE DAYS OF ecstasy and fear. As the time grew near for Edwin’s departure I was beset by anxieties.

  Wasn’t he going into danger?

  “Danger!” cried Edwin. “What danger could there be? I’m going to England … our home.”

  “A Royalist in Puritan England!”

  “I tell you I’ll ape the Puritan to perfection. I have to get my hair cut. Shall you love me just the same with a Roundhead crop?”

  “Just the same,” I assured him.

  “My dear, faithful Arabella. There’s nothing to be afraid of. We shall just drop into Eversleigh. … It’s a Roundhead stronghold now. My cousin is there. It’s a joke, I believe. All the gilded treasures packed away very carefully and kept out of sight. He’s changed his name to Humility. Humility Eversleigh. The name itself is a joke. He knows it. That’s why he’s chosen it. Humility is the last thing you can accuse my Cousin Carleton of. I wonder how he’s making out. He’ll have to be as good an actor as I am to deceive them. He must be, because he seems to be managing it—and without the benefit of my grounding as Romeo.”

  “You are a natural Romeo, Edwin.”

  “Oh, come, my darling, are you detracting from my triumph?”

  How I clung to him! I loved him so much. I loved the nonchalance with w
hich he undertook this mission. Nothing could ruffle my husband. I fancied he would emerge from any situation his lovable, handsome, laughing self.

  We used to walk in the gardens while he told me of the project. “You won’t recognize me as a Puritan,” he declared. “Oh, Arabella, you won’t fall out of love with me, will you? Promise me?”

  I promised that nothing could ever make me do that.

  “Cropped head, black hat unadorned by a single feather, plain dark jacket and breeches. I might be allowed a white collar and cuffs … very, very plain. I shall have to compose my features and try to be solemn.”

  “That will be your most difficult task.”

  “I fear so.” He forced his face into a lugubrious expression that was so comical it set me rocking with laughter in which he joined.

  “Tell me about Cousin Carleton.”

  “Cousin Carleton is one of those characters called larger than life. He is large in all ways. He stands several inches over six feet and he has an oversize personality to go with it. He only has to speak for everyone to stand to attention. I believe he would have put the fear of God into Oliver Cromwell himself. As for Oliver’s poor little son … I don’t think he will stand a chance against Carleton. That’s one of the reasons I think we shall soon be returning to England.”

  “Tell me about him seriously.”

  “We were brought up together. He is ten years older than I, and for ten years he believed he was heir to the title and lands. In our family these things only go to the female if there is no male heir, however remote. Unfair to your sex, my love, but Eversleigh law. My father’s younger brother, James, married and had a son, Carleton. It was a long time before my parents were fruitful. Then they produced a girl who died two days after her birth. In due course Charlotte appeared. By this time it seemed certain that Carleton would be the heir. He expected it. He came to Eversleigh and at ten years of age acted like the master of all. Then I appeared. What consternation in the opposing camp! What rejoicing in ours! Uncle James bowed to the inevitable and shortly afterwards was thrown from his horse and died, defeated. His wife, Aunt Mary, survived him for two or three years, then she died quietly in her bed of a cold which turned to a congestion of the lungs. Carleton accepted his fate, continued to lord it over us all and stayed on at Eversleigh. He took an interest in me. Made me ride bareback, run, swim, fence, in the hope of bringing me to his standards, and naturally even he had to fail in that impossible task. So you see he really brought me up.”

  “He did not resent you?”

  “Not me! I think he would have liked to own everything in due course. But he has a share in the estates and he seemed to look upon me as something of a weakling who would always need his guidance.”

  “A weakling … you!”

  “Well, my dearest, Carleton finds everyone a weakling when compared with himself.”

  “I think he sounds rather objectionable.”

  “Some people find him so. He’s a bit of a cynic. Perhaps life has made him so. He’s witty and worldly. … I wonder how he’s managing now. He’s Royalist from the crown of his head to his toes, and how he’s playing the Puritan I can’t imagine.”

  “Why did he stay in England?”

  “He refused to leave. ‘This is my home and here I stay,’ he said. It was his belief that someone should be there. If not, how should we know when the country was ripe for the King’s return? So he stayed. I think the role appeals to him. Ever since the King escaped he has been acting as King’s spy at Eversleigh … and not only there. He goes about the country sounding people. He could raise an army if the need arose, but of course we all hope for a peaceful return. We don’t want another civil war. I don’t think the people would have it anyway. The last was disastrous enough. Oh, Carleton has done good work. I doubt not the King will wish to reward him. Carleton is just the kind who will appeal to His Majesty.”

  “As you will, too.”

  “I haven’t Carleton’s quick wit, his worldliness. He is just the kind of man the King likes to have around him.”

  “I believe the King is known to have a fondness for the society of women.”

  “Discreetly put, dearest.”

  “And your cousin?”

  “It is yet another interest Carleton would share with the King.”

  “He has no wife, then?”

  “Yes, he married. There are no children, which has been a trial to him.”

  “And what does she think of this … interest in the opposite sex?”

  “She understands it perfectly because she shares it.”

  “It doesn’t sound a very desirable marriage.”

  “It works. He goes his way. She goes hers.”

  “Oh, Edwin, how unhappy I should be if we became like that.”

  “There is one thing I can promise you, Arabella. We never shall.”

  I took his face in my hands and kissed it.

  “It would be too much to expect that everyone could be as happy as we are,” I said solemnly.

  He agreed.

  How the days flew past! I wanted to catch them and hold them to prevent their escape, for the passing of each one brought our separation nearer.

  Sometimes Edwin disappeared for hours. Once or twice he returned in the early morning.

  “There are so many preparations to be made, sweetheart,” he said. “You know I hate to be away from you.”

  Then we made love passionately, and I implored him to get his work done speedily and come back to me.

  Inevitably there came the day when he must go.

  His hair had been cropped and he was dressed in his sombre clothes. Some might scarcely have recognized him, but he could never lose that merry expression which was so essentially his, that implication that life was something of a joke and not to be taken seriously.

  I said good-bye to him and watched him ride off with Tom, his man, who was to share the adventure with him. Then I went to our bedroom to be by myself for a while.

  As I shut the door I was aware that I was not alone in the room. Harriet rose from a chair.

  “So he has gone,” she said.

  I felt my lips trembling.

  “Poor deserted bride!” she mocked. “But there is no reason why you should remain so.”

  “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “I think you have disappointed him, Arabella.”

  I stared at her in astonishment.

  “Just think what an ardent bride would do. Don’t look so amazed. She would go with him, wouldn’t she?”

  “Go with him?”

  “Why not? For better or worse and all that. In England or France … in peace or war … in safety or danger …”

  “Stop it, Harriet.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “You have led too sheltered a life. But I can see that you enjoy marriage. You all but purr. You really have been helping yourself to the cream. I knew how it would be. Well, what are you going to do now? Sit like the lady in the tower, chastity belt securely fastened to await her lord’s return?”

  “Please don’t joke about this, Harriet. I am not in the frame of mind to accept it.”

  “Joke! I’m serious. You know what a good wife would do.”

  “What?”

  “Follow her husband.”

  “You mean …”

  “Exactly what I say. Why should you not? I think it may be what he expects.”

  “Follow him … I should never catch up with him.”

  “Oh, yes, we shall. He is reaching the coast in three days’ time. There he will have to wait for the tide. If we left after dark tonight … when they are all in bed …”

  “We!”

  “You don’t imagine I should let you go alone, do you?”

  “It’s madness.”

  She shook her head. “Madness not to. How do you know what will happen to him? A newly married man needs a wife to comfort him. Having tasted the honeydew of connubial bliss, he will need it and look for it. If you are not there �
��”

  “Stop it, Harriet.”

  “Think about it,” she said. “There is till tonight. I shall come with you, for I would not allow you to go alone.”

  She rose and went to the door. There she paused to look back at me. Her smile was sly, secretive. She looked as though she could probe my innermost thoughts and was doing so.

  When she was gone, I was bewildered, but in my mind I was preparing myself. Was it a wild scheme? Perhaps, but the more I thought of it, the more I knew that now it had been suggested to me, I was going to do it.

  In a day or so’s time we should be together.

  How excited Harriet was. I could see this was the sort of exploit which appealed to her. How right she had been when she had said she must adventure!

  We spent the rest of that day together, making plans. The two of us would leave as soon as the household had retired. We would ride through the night and by morning we should reach the inn where Edwin had stayed.

  She knew which one it would be. She had heard him mention it, she said. L’Ananas in the village of Marlon.

  “The sooner we join up with them the better. It is not exactly comme il faut for two women to be riding about the countryside together.”

  She had thought at first of dressing up as a man. That appealed to the actress in her, but even she could not quite succeed in such a role. “As for you,” she said, “everything about you suggests you are of the feminine gender.”

  I was in a fever of excitement. I wrote two notes, one to my mother-in-law and one to Lucas. I was sure, I said, that I should soon be back … with Edwin. As for Lucas, he must return to Congrève—which he was going to do in any case—and look after the little ones.

  “Oh, Harriet,” I cried as we rode along, “how glad I am that we did this! I wonder what Edwin will say?”

  “He’ll laugh at you,” she answered. “He’ll say, ‘Could you not do without me for a few weeks?’”

  I laughed aloud with happiness. “Oh, Harriet, it is good of you to come with me.”

  “Didn’t I tell you, you have only just begun to live.”