Lament for a Lost Lover

Strolling Players at Congrève

ALTHOUGH I DID NOT REALIZE IT AT the time, the day Harriet Main came into our household was one of the most significant of my life. That Harriet was a woman to be reckoned with, that she had an outstanding and very forceful personality, was obvious from the first, and that she should take on the post of governess—though briefly—was altogether incongruous, for governesses are usually subdued in manner, eager to please and so much aware of the precarious nature of their employment that they suffer acute apprehension, which they cannot help betraying to those who are in a position to take advantage of it.

Of course the times were extraordinary and since the Great Rebellion had brought about such change in England, everything, as people about us constantly said, was topsy-turvy. Here we were, exiles from our native land, living on the hospitality of any foreign friends who would help us; and although it was a comfort to remember that the King of England shared our exile, that did not help us materially.

Being seventeen in this year 1658 and having fled with my parents when I was ten years old, I should be accustomed to the life by this time—and I suppose I was; but vivid memories lingered with me and I liked to talk to my brothers and sister of the old days, which made me appear wise and knowledgeable in their eyes.

There was so much talk of that past and so much speculation as to when it would return that it was constantly in our minds, and as no one ever expressed a doubt that it would, even the little ones were ready to hear the same stories of past splendours in the Old Country over and over again, for in recording them one was not only talking of the past but of the future.

Bersaba Tolworthy, my mother, was a woman of strong character. She was in her late thirties but looked like a much younger woman. She was not exactly beautiful but she had a vitality which attracted people. My father adored her. She represented something to him and so did I, for of all the children I was his favourite.

My mother kept a journal. She told me that her mother, whom I remembered, for we had stayed with her in Cornwall before we fled from England, had presented her and her sister Angelet with journals on their seventeenth birthdays and told them that it was a tradition in the family that the women should keep account of what happened to them and that these were preserved together in a locked box. She hoped I would carry on the custom, and the idea appealed to me. Particularly as there were journals going right back to my great-great-great-grandmother Damask Farland who had lived at the time of Henry VIII.

“These journals cover not only the lives of your ancestors but tell you something about the events which were of importance to our country,” said my mother. “They will make you understand why your ancestors acted in the way they did.”

Because there was something rather odd about my birth and she thought I should understand the position better if I knew exactly how it happened, she gave me her journals to read when I was sixteen.

She said: “You are like me, Arabella. You have grown up quickly. You know that you have not the same father as Lucas, but share him with the little ones. That could be puzzling and I would not have you think that you did not belong to your father. Read the journals and you will understand how it came about.”

So I read of my maternal ancestors, of gentle Dulce, Linnet and Tamsyn, of wild Catharine and my mother Bersaba, and as I progressed I realized why my mother had given me these diaries. It was because she thought there was something of Catharine and herself in me. Had I been like the others and her own sister, my Aunt Angelet who was now dead and whose life was so entwined with that of my mother, she might have hesitated.

So I learned of the stormy love of my mother and father, which they secretly consummated while he was married to Angelet, and of how because I was about to be born, my mother had married Luke Longridge and from that marriage came my half brother, Lucas, who was less than two years my junior. Luke Longridge had been killed at Marston Moor, and Angelet had died when her baby was born, but it was years after when my father and mother found each other. By that time the Royalist cause for which my soldier father had been fighting was lost, Charles I beheaded and Charles II had made a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to gain the throne. He had escaped from England, and my father and mother with Lucas and me joined the exiles in France.

Since then they had had three children, Richard named after my father, so always called Dick to distinguish them; Angelique, named with my mother’s twin sister in mind although she had been Angelet, and Fenn—Fennimore—after my mother’s father and brother.

That was our family living the strange lives of exiles in a strange land, every day waiting to hear from England that the people were tired of Puritan rule and wanted the King back; when he went, we as staunch Royalists would go with him.

My mother used to say: “A plague on these wars. I could be for the side which would let the other live in peace.” I knew from her diary that she had been married to a Roundhead as well as a Cavalier, and that Lucas must remind her sometimes of his father. But the love of her life was my father—and she was his—and I knew she would be on his side whichever that was. When they were together in our company—and that was not often, for he was a great general and must follow the King to be ready if ever it was decided to make a bid for the throne—their feeling for each other was obvious.

I said to Lucas: “When I marry I want my husband to be like our father is with our mother.”

Lucas did not answer. He did not know that we had not the same father. He couldn’t remember his own, and he was called Lucas Tolworthy, though he had been born Longridge as I suppose I had. He hated the thought of my marrying, and when he was a little boy he used to say he was going to marry me. I had bullied him, for I was of a dominating nature. Lucas used to say that the little ones were more afraid of me than of our parents.

I liked everything to be orderly and that meant done the way I wanted it, and because we were left a good deal alone—for when my father went away my mother accompanied him whenever possible—it did mean that I fancied myself as the head of the family. Being the eldest I slipped naturally into the role, for although I was less than two years older than Lucas, there was a big gap between Lucas and me and the little ones.

I could remember so well the time when we had left for France … and before it too, for I was after all ten years old. I have vague pictures of Far Flamstead and the terror I sensed in the house when we were waiting for the soldiers to come. I can remember hiding from them and catching the fear of the grown-ups, which I only half believed was real; then I remember a new baby and my Aunt Angelet going to Heaven (as I was told) and how we went traveling interminably it seemed to Trystan Priory, which is clear in my memory even though it was seven years since I left it. My cozy grandmother, my kindly grandfather, my Uncle Fenn … it is there forever in my memory. I can remember second cousin Bastian riding over from Castle Paling and always trying to be alone with my mother. Then suddenly it all changed. My father came. I had never seen him before. He was tall and grand and could have been frightening, but he did not frighten me. My mother has said: “When you’re frightened just stand and look right in the face of what frightens you and you will very likely find there is nothing to fear after all.”

So I looked this man straight in the face and what my mother said was true, for I discovered that he had a very special love for me and that my existence made him very happy.

I did not want to leave Trystan and my grandparents and they were very sad to see us go, I knew, although they tried to hide it. Then we were at sea on a little boat and that was not very pleasant.

But at last we arrived in France and there were people to meet us. I remember being wrapped in a cloak and riding with someone on a horse through the darkness to Château Congrève … and there I had been ever since.

Château Congrève! It sounds rather grand, but in fact is scarcely worthy of the name of Château. It is more like a large rambling farmhouse than a castle. It does have pepper-pot-shaped towers at the four corners of the building and there is a flat roof and ramparts. The rooms are lofty, the walls thick stone, and it is very cold in winter. There are pasturelands surrounding it, worked by the Lambard family who live in a hutlike dwelling nearby and supply us with our meat, bread, butter, milk and vegetables.

Château Congrève was lent to us by a friend of my father with two women servants and one man to look after us. It was refuge for our family until, as we said, England returned to sanity. We had to be grateful for it, my mother told Lucas and me, for beggars cannot be choosers, and in view of the fact that we were exiles from our country and had only been able to bring with us very few of our worldly possessions, beggars were exactly what we were.

It was not a bad place to grow up in. Lucas and I became very interested in the pigs in their styes, and the goats tethered in the field and the chickens who claimed the courtyards as their territory. The Lambards—father, mother, three stalwart sons and a daughter—were kind to us. They loved the little ones and made much of them.

Our mother stayed at the château when her children were born and those had been good times, but I knew that she was constantly uneasy because she was wondering what was happening to our father. He was in the King’s entourage, and where that might be none could be sure, for Charles wandered about the continent seeking hospitality where he could find it, always hoping that he would receive the necessary help which would enable him to regain his throne. As one of his greatest generals, our father could not be far away; and as soon as she could safely leave a new baby, our mother left us to be with him.

She had explained it to me who must in turn explain it to the others. “Here in Château Congrève you are safe and well. But your father must be near the King, and who knows where the King will be from one day to another? Arabella, your father needs me, but because you are here I can feel happy to leave the children in your care.”

Of course that delighted me. She knew my nature well because it was like her own must have been when she had been my age. I liked to feel that they were dependent on me. I would take care of everything, I promised her, until that happy day when the King regained his throne and we all went back to England.

So we lived our quiet lives in Château Congrève, where we had an English governess who had come to France before the Great Rebellion to teach a French family. She was very glad to come to us, and although we could not pay her well at the time, on that great day, which none of us ever believed would fail to come, she was to have her reward. Miss Black was middle-aged, tall, thin and learned, the daughter of a clergyman who told us often how glad she was to have left England before its shame, and she used to vow that she would never go back until the Monarchy was restored. She suited us well. She taught us reading, writing, arithmetic, Latin and Greek. French we spoke easily. She also taught us deportment, good manners and English country dancing.

My mother was delighted with her and said that we could count ourselves fortunate to be blessed with Miss Black. Lucas and I used to call her the “Blessing” behind her back. We wouldn’t have dared do so to her face, for we were extremely in awe of her.

There were long, dreamy summer days. Whenever I hear the cackle of a hen or sniff the pungent odour of goats and pigs, I am transported right back to those days at Congrève which I now realize were some of the most peaceful I was ever to know. I used to think sometimes that they would go on forever and ever and we should all grow old waiting for the King to regain his throne.

The sun seemed always to shine and the days never seemed long enough and I was always supreme. I led the games, which were usually playacting because that was what I preferred. I was Cleopatra, Boadicea and Queen Elizabeth, nor was I averse to changing my sex if the leading character did not belong to my own. Poor Lucas protested now and then, but as I was always the one who decided what games we should play, I demanded the major role. I can remember Dick and Angie wailing: “Oh, I am tired of being a slave.” Poor little things—they were so much younger than Lucas and I were that we considered it was a privilege for them to be allowed to enter our games at all.

The great adventure was evading the earnest Miss Black, who had a trick of turning any adventure into a lesson, which did not please any of us. Our existence was one long attempt to avoid her. Yet we were fond of her in a way; she was part of our lives; she constantly told us that everything that was unpleasant was for our own good, and I could imitate her precise manner in such a way that sent the others nearly hysterical with laughter.

It was really due to Miss Black that I began to fancy myself as an actress. That must have been particularly hard for my family to endure, for I would learn passages from Shakespeare by heart and inflict my histrionics on my long-suffering brothers and sister.

We forgot during the long summer days that we were exiles. We were pirates, courtiers, soldiers, participating in glorious adventures, and I, delighting in my superior years, ordered their lives.

“You should sometimes stand aside and let Lucas take the lead,” Miss Black used to say, but I never took her advice.

So the years passed; now and then my parents would be with us. They were times of rejoicing. But then they would go away, very often out of France, for the King was in Cologne most of the time and where he was they must be.

Sometimes during their brief stays at Congrève I used to listen to their talk over the dinner table when Lucas and I were allowed to join them. There would always be some scheme for taking the King back to his rightful place. The people were tiring of Puritan rule. They were remembering the old days of the Monarchy. “Soon now …” they used to say. But still it failed to happen, and life at Château Congrève pursued its pleasant way. We would all be melancholy after our parents had left, then some new game would absorb us and we would forget them and forget about going home. The days of exile were sweet enough, and we were soon back to the old game of outwitting that lovable bogey, Miss Black.

One morning Miss Black did not appear. She was found dead in her bed. She had died during the night of a stroke. And instantly, it was said, so she suffered no pain. She had died as discreetly as she had lived, and she was buried in the cemetery close to the château, and every Sunday we would take flowers to her grave. We could not inform her relatives even if she had any, for all we knew was that they were in England and naturally we could do nothing about that.

We talked about her a great deal; we missed her sadly. Not to have to escape from her, not to poke gentle fun at her made a great gap in our lives. Once I caught Lucas crying because she wasn’t there anymore, and after accusing him of being a crybaby I found myself weeping with him.

When my parents came to the château and heard of the death of Miss Black, they were horrified.

“The little ones must not miss their lessons,” said my mother. “We cannot have them growing up ignorant. My dearest Arabella, it is up to you to make sure that this does not happen. You must teach them as Miss Black would have done until we can find another governess, which I fear will not be easy.”

I enjoyed my new role, and I was soon flattering myself that the children’s education had not suffered as much as my parents feared. I was playing a part and I believed I did it very well.

It was a dark winter’s afternoon when the strolling players arrived. The wind had started to howl in from the north, and when it did that it buffeted the walls of the château and seemed to creep in through every aperture and discover those which we had not known were there before. In the centre of the hall we had an open fire. The château was very primitive and couldn’t have changed much since the days when the Normans settled in these parts and built their stone-walled fortresses, of which this was one. I used to imagine the tall blond Vikings clanking into the hall and sitting round this fire telling stories of their wild adventures.

It was afternoon, but so dark because of the snow clouds, when we were startled by a clatter in the courtyard and the sound of horses.

As the châtelaine of the castle, very much aware of her position, I summoned Jacques, our only manservant, to discover what was happening.

He looked a little uneasy, and memories far back in my childhood were stirred. I was reminded of the terror at Far Flamstead when we feared the Roundhead soldiers might pay us a call, and if they did we knew they would take our food, our horses, and if our homes were grand they would destroy them because they did not believe that anyone should have fine clothes or luxurious surroundings. The believed that people could only be good if they were uncomfortable.

But then we were not in England, and in any case the war was over and I supposed people now lived peacefully in their homes even in England, and probably enjoyed their comforts in secret if they could manage to.

Jacques came back into the hall. He looked excited.

“It’s a party of strolling players,” he told me. “They’re asking for a night’s shelter and they’ll do a play for us in return for their supper.”

I understood Jacques’ excitement and I shared it.

“But of course,” I cried. “Tell them they are welcome. Bring them in.”

Lucas had come down, and I whispered to him what was happening. “They will play for us!” he whispered. “We shall see a real play!”

There were eight of them—three women and five men. They were heavily wrapped up against the weather, and their leader was a middle-aged man, bearded, thick-set and of medium height.

He took off his hat when he saw me and bowed low. He had laughing eyes which almost disappeared when he smiled.

“A merry good day to you,” he said. “Is the master of the house at home … or perhaps the mistress?”

“I am the mistress of this house,” I replied.

He looked surprised at my youth and accent.

“Then whom have I the honour of addressing?”

“Arabella Tolworthy,” I answered. “I am English. My parents are with our King, and I with my brother”—I indicated Lucas—“and other members of the family are staying here until we return to England.”

His surprise was over. It was not such an unusual situation.

“My request is that we may have a night’s shelter,” he explained. “We should have travelled to the nearest town but the weather is too bad. I doubt we should reach it before the snow comes. I and my troupe would pay you well with rich entertainment for a little food and a place to lie down … anywhere … just shelter from the weather.”

“You are welcome,” I said. “You must be our guests and we would not ask for payment, but I confess the thought of seeing you play gives us a great deal of pleasure.”

He laughed. He had loud, booming laughter.

“Beautiful lady,” he cried, “we are going to play before you as we never played before.”

The children had heard the arrivals and came running down. Lucas told them that the visitors were players and were going to play for us. Dick leaped high in the air as he always did when excited, and Angie joined him while young Fenn kept asking questions, trying to find out what it was all about.

“Bring everyone in,” I cried, taking command of the situation, glowing with pleasure at having been called a beautiful lady and pleased as ever to show my authority as the châtelaine of the castle.

They came. They seemed to fill the hall. Their eyes gleamed at the sight of the fire and I bade them to come and warm themselves.

There was a middle-aged woman, who could have been the wife of the leader, and another whom I judged to be in her late twenties … and Harriet Main. Three of the men were bordering on middle age and there were two younger ones. One of these appeared to be very handsome, but they were so wrapped up that I saw little of their faces, and when I had brought them to the fire, I said I would go and see what food we could give them.

I went to the kitchen and saw our two maids, Marianne and Jeanne, who had been bequeathed to us with Jacques to look after our needs and were all we had.

When I told them what had happened they were gleeful. “Players!” cried Marianne, who was older than Jeanne, “Oh, we are in for some fun. How long is it since we had players call here? They usually go only to the big houses and castles.”

“The weather has brought them to us,” I said. “What can we give them?”

Jeanne and Marianne would put their heads together. I could rest assured, they said, that the eight players would be adequately fed and might they come to see the play?

I readily gave my permission. We would ask the Lambards in to see it too. Our audience would be very small even so.

I went back to the group in the hall. That was the first time I really saw Harriet. She had thrown off her cloak and was stretching her hands out to the fire. Even crouching over the fire as she was I could see that she was tall. Her thick, dark, curling hair released from the hood had sprung out to give a beautiful frame to her pale face. I noticed her eyes immediately. They were dark blue, rather long; mysterious, concealing eyes, I thought them; and their thick, dark eyelashes were immediately noticeable, as were her heavy black brows contrasting with her pale skin. Her lips were richly red, and it was only later that I discovered that she used a lip salve to make them so. Her forehead was higher than is usual and her chin pointed. So many people look alike that you see them once and don’t remember them. No one could ever have looked at Harriet Main and forgotten her.

I found I was staring at her; she noticed this and it amused her; I expected she was accustomed to it.

She astonished me by saying: “I’m English.” She held out her hand to me. I took it and for a few moments we looked at each other. I felt she was summing me up.

“I have not been long with the troupe,” she said, speaking in English. “We are on our way to Paris where we shall play to big audiences … but we call at houses on our way and play for our lodging.”

“You are welcome,” I said. “We have never had a troupe call before. We are all looking forward to seeing you play for us and will do our best to make you comfortable. This is not a grand place as you see. We are exiles and here only until the King returns.”

She nodded.

Then she turned to the players and said in rapid French that I was sympathetic and they must all give of their best this night as that was being given to us.

I had decided that as soon as the potage was hot they should eat, so I summoned them to the table and the great steaming dish was brought in. The contents soon disappeared, and while they ate I was able to take stock of our guests, who were all colourful and all spoke in resonant voices, giving great importance to the most trivial comment.

The leader of the troupe and his wife made much of the children, who were overcome with excitement.

Then the snow started to fall, and Monsieur Lamotte, the leader, declared that it was fortunate indeed that they had come upon Castle Plenty in good time. I was apologetic about Castle Plenty, and, as I pointed out to them, we were so unaccustomed to guests that I feared we could not entertain them as we would wish.

How exciting their conversation seemed. They talked of their plays and their parts and the places in which they had played, and it seemed to us all listening that an actor’s life must be the most rewarding in the world. Jeanne and Marianne, with Jacques, came and stood in the hall listening to the conversation which seemed to grow more and more sparkling as time progressed. I sent Jacques to tell the Lambards that they must come over to see the play. He came back and told me how excited they were at the prospect.

Harriet was less talkative than the others. I saw her looking around the hall as though judging it—comparing it I suspected with other places in which she had lived. Then I would find her eyes on me, watching me intently.

She was seated next to the very handsome young man—whom they called Jabot. I thought he was a little conceited because he always seemed to demand attention. When Angie went to him and, placing her hands on his knees, looked up in adoration at his face and said: “You are pretty,” everyone laughed, and Jabot was so delighted that he picked her up and kissed her. Poor little Angie, overcome with shyness, immediately wriggled free and ran out of the hall, but she came back to stand some distance away where she could not take her eyes from Jabot.

“Another admirer for you, my boy,” said Madame Lamotte, and everybody laughed.

Fleurette, the other female player, her lips tightening I noticed, said: “We must tell the little one that Jabot is constant to none.”

Harriet shrugged her shoulders and replied: “That is a commonplace,” then she started to sing in a deep rich voice:

“Sigh no more ladies,

Men were deceivers ever …”

And everyone laughed.

They sat a long time at the table and I went into consultation with Jeanne and Marianne. We must give them supper after the play, which was to take place at six o’clock, and we must make sure it was a good supper. What could we do?

They were determined to provide the best possible supper in the circumstances. Jacques was already busy bringing their trappings into the hall. The children stared on in wonder at the carpetbags in which tawdry garments could be seen—but they did not seem tawdry to us then. The players had brought an enchantment with them.

They would sleep in the hall, they said. They had rugs and blankets, and they would be off next morning as soon as it was light. They must not be late for their engagement in Paris.

I protested. They must not sleep on the floor. The château was not grand by any means, it was little more than a farmhouse, but at least we could put a few rooms at their disposal.

“The warmth of your welcome is like a hot cordial on a cold day,” declaimed Monsieur Lamotte.

That was a night to remember. The candles were burning in their sconces and what an entranced audience we were. The tall Lambard sons, usually so vocal, were silent in wonder, and the rest of us shared in their awe. The children sat cross legged on the floor. By good luck there was a dais at the end of the hall and this they had turned into a stage.

The play was The Merchant of Venice. Harriet was Portia, and of all the players she was the one from whom I could not take my eyes. She was clad in a gown of blue velvet with something glittering round the waist. Daylight would show the velvet to be rubbed and spotted, the girdle some cheap tinsel stuff, but candlelight hid the imperfections and showed us only that beauty in which we were only too ready to believe.

This was magic. We had never seen real players before. We had dressed up now and then and played our charades, but this seemed to us perfection. Jabot was a handsome Bassanio; Monsieur Lamotte was a wily Shylock with a hump on his back and a pair of scales in his hand. The younger children cried out in horror when he appeared in the court scene, and Angie wept bitterly because she thought he really was going to take his pound of flesh. “Don’t let him, don’t let him,” she sobbed, and I had to console her and tell her to wait and see how Portia was going to make it all come right.

How she declaimed, how she tossed her head. And how incredibly beautiful she was! I shall never forget Harriet as she was that night, and they could never played before a more appreciative audience than we were. We were all so innocent and inexperienced. Jacques watched, his mouth agape, Lucas was in ecstasies and the little ones were amazed that there could be such wonders in the world.

When the last scene had been played and Bassanio united with Portia, the children embraced each other and laughed with joy and I think we all felt a little bemused.

Monsieur Lamotte made a little speech and said he thought we had enjoyed his little play and as for himself he had never played before a more appreciative audience—which I imagine was true.

The maids scurried to the kitchens, and props were cleared away and very soon we were sitting down to a meal such as, I was sure, had rarely been served before in Château Congrève.

There was magic abroad that night. Dick whispered to me that our good fairies had sent the snow so that those wonderful people could come to Congrève. The Lambards stayed to supper and Madame Lambard brought in a great pie full of chicken and pork topped with a gold-brown crust. She had heated it in the oven, she said, and had she known how we were to be honoured, the crust should have been made to represent a stage, for, she confided, she was a dab hand with a bit of pie crust.

Monsieur Lambard brought in a cask of wine. This was an occasion we should never forget.

The children were too excited to be sent to bed and I said that as a special treat they might stay up … even Fenn. Though it was true that before long he was fast asleep on Madame Lamotte’s lap.

They talked … all of them at the same time, for it was clear that they preferred talking to listening, so there were several conversations going on, which annoyed me as I could not bear not to hear all that was being said. Monsieur Lamotte, as the head of the group, had taken the place on my right hand and he engaged me in conversation, and he told me of the plays which he had acted in and the towns throughout the country where he had played.

“My ambition is to play before King Louis himself. He is a lover of the theatre, which is what we would expect of one of such talents, eh? What they want is comedy, I believe. We need good comedies. There is enough tragedy in the world, little lady. People want to laugh. Do you agree?”

I was ready to agree with anything he said. I was as bemused as the rest.

Harriet was seated halfway down the table next to Jabot. They were whispering together and she seemed angry. … I noticed that Fleurette was watching them. There was some drama going on there. I was very interested in what Monsieur Lamotte was saying but I was intrigued by Harriet. I should have liked to know what she and Jabot were quarrelling about.

I was glad when the conversation became general and they all started talking of their plays and acting little bits for us. Harriet sang—most of them songs we knew from Shakespeare. She sang in French and then in English, and the one I remembered particularly was:

“What is love? ’tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

What’s to come is still unsure:

In delay there lies no plenty;

Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty,

Youth’s a stuff will not endure.”

She had a lute, and as she sang she played it so sweetly, and I thought I had never seen anyone as lovely as Harriet was with her black hair falling over her shoulders and her eyes a luminous blue in that pale strange face.

“There should be more singing on stage,” said Madame Lamotte, caressing Fenn’s soft blond hair. “The audience likes it.”

“You have a beautiful voice,” I said, looking straight at Harriet.

She lifted her shoulders. “It passes,” she replied.

“What wonderful lives you all must have!” I cried. They laughed and I could not quite understand the glances which passed between them. I knew later they were a little cynical.

Monsieur Lamotte said: “Aye, it is a grand life … I’d take no other. Hard at times. And for the English players now … life is a tragedy. What a barbarian this man Cromwell is! There is no longer a theatre in England I understand. God help your poor country, little lady.”

“When the King comes back there will be theatres again,” I said.

“People will not want the old Globe and the Cockpit,” said Harriet. “They will want new playhouses. I wonder if I shall ever see them.”

Then the talk became general. More wine was drunk and the candles guttered, and although I did not want the evening to end, my eyelids were pressing down over my eyes as though they refused to stay open any longer. The children were all asleep and Lucas was finding it hard to keep awake.

I told Jeanne that the children should be taken to their beds and they were carried off, Mrs. Lamotte insisting on carrying Fenn.

This broke up the party, and it was Madame Lamotte, back in the hall after kissing Fenn and all the children fondly, a fact of which they were too sleepy to be aware, who announced that they should get some sleep as they had a heavy day’s travel ahead of them.

The servants and I took them to the rooms we had assigned to them—the three women were in one and the men in another. I apologized for the scantiness of the accommodation at which Monsieur Lamotte declared “It is princely, dear lady. Princely.”

Then I went to my room, undressed and tried to sleep, which was quite impossible after all the excitement.

I felt depressed because tomorrow they would be gone. The château would settle down to its normal routine which I now knew was intolerably dull. I should never again be able to delight in its simple pleasure as I had before. I wanted to be an actress like Harriet Main. She had stood out among them all.

How magnificently she had played and how I should have loved to see her act the part in English. What we had seen had been a French translation much abridged … and losing a great deal in the translation as must be expected. Monsieur Lamotte had said that it was one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays and that was why it had been translated into French. Perhaps they should have done a French play, but they had played Shakespeare as a compliment to us.

How gracious I thought them! How charming! Of course they were acting all the time, but how pleasant that was!

I went into a reverie then. I imagined that King Charles was restored to his throne, that he opened theatres all over the country and that our parents came to take us back to England. We were at Court and there was a play for the King’s entertainment in which I was chosen for the principal role.

It followed on naturally from that wonderful evening.

Then I heard voices. I sat up in bed. They were in the corridor … low hissing voices.

I put a wrap about me and, going to the door, opened it slightly.

Two women were standing in the corridor. One of them was Harriet Main, the other Fleurette.

“I’m sick and tired of your jealousy,” Harriet was saying.

“Jealousy! I wouldn’t be in your shoes. Today’s favourite is tomorrow’s outcast.”

“You should know,” retorted Harriet, “having lingered long in the second part.”

Fleurette brought up her hand and slapped Harriet’s face sharply. I heard the contact distinctly.

“Don’t dare lay hands on me,” said Harriet, returning the slap.

“You English slut,” was the answer, and to my horror she lifted her hand again. I saw Harriet catch her wrist and shake her. Then Fleurette suddenly wrenched herself free and Harriet stepped backwards. Behind her were three stairs. It was a good thing it was not the main staircase. She toppled and fell.

“That’ll teach you,” hissed Fleurette. “That’s what you needed. A fall … before Jabot drops you. It’ll prepare you for what’s to come.”

I was half out of the door, ready to go and see if Harriet was hurt, then I realized that I should only cause embarrassment if they knew I had been eavesdropping, so I hung back. I saw Harriet get to her feet and come tottering back up the three stairs.

“Go on,” jeered Fleurette. “You’re not hurt. You could have a wall fall on you and you’d come bobbing up. I know your kind.”

“Then,” said Harriet, “you should be careful not to anger me.”

Fleurette laughed and went into the room I had prepared for them. A few seconds later Harriet followed.

It was clear that they disliked each other and I fancied the handsome Jabot was the reason. Life might be exciting in the playacting world but it was clearly far from serene.

I was awake early next morning. It had been long before I slept and then only fitfully, and the first thing I thought when I awakened was we must feed the players well before they went out into the cold.

I went to the window. It was no longer snowing and there was only a faint white layer on the ground. I had hoped that they might be snowbound and have to stay with us because the weather was too bad for them to travel. I pictured our having plays every night.

I went to the kitchens. Jacques was already there with Jeanne and Marianne. They were bustling about preparing ale and bread with cold bacon, as determined as I that the actors should be fed well before their departure.

The château had taken on a new vitality since they had arrived. Now their voices could be heard—such loud resonant voices; they could not say a good morning without making it sound full of drama, and we were all a little depressed because their stay was coming to its end.

Jeanne set the table in the hall while Marianne hastily stirred up the fire, which had not completely died down during the night.

Monsieur Lamotte descended and came at once to me. He kissed my hand and bowed. “Dear lady, rarely have I spent such a comfortable night.”

“I trust you were warm enough.”

“The warmth of your welcome wrapped itself around me.” he replied, which might have been another way of saying that the bedclothing had not been very adequate, which I could well believe.

Madame Lamotte came down with the three children to whom she was telling the story of one of the plays in the company’s repertoire.

She greeted me effusively and declared that all her life she and the entire troupe would remember with pleasure their visit to Château Congrève.

Their eyes widened with delight when they saw the food, and Monsieur Lamotte declared that they would partake of it at once.

“We are ready, loins girded, like the children of Israel. Alas, there is a sadness in our hearts. I know that you would extend your hospitality to us for another night … and I will tell you this, dear lady, part of me hoped to see a blizzard blowing that we might be forced to fall once more upon your kindness. Inclination, dear lady. But there is duty. If we do not reach Paris on time, what of those who are waiting to see our play? They are expecting us. We are booked, lady, and every true actor would rather disappoint himself than his public.”

I found myself replying in similar vein. I deeply regretted their departure. I should have been happy to entertain them longer, but of course I understood the need for them to move on. They had their work and we were grateful indeed to have been given such a dazzling example of it, which we would never forget. …

As they were about to sit at the table Madame Lamotte said: “Where is Harriet?”

I had, of course, noticed her absence, for she was the first one I looked for. Any moment I had been expecting her to descend to the hall.

Madame Lamotte was looking at Fleurette, who shrugged her shoulders.

“I woke her up, just as I was coming down,” said Madame Lamotte. “She should be here by now.”

I said I would go and tell her that they were ready to eat.

I went to the room which I had assigned to the women and saw Harriet, who was lying on the bed. She looked just as beautiful in the morning as she had in candlelight. Her hair was escaping from a blue ribbon with which she had tied it back and she was in a low-cut bodice and petticoat.

She smiled at me in a way which I felt had some meaning but I was not sure what.

“They are waiting for you,” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders. And held up her foot. “I cannot put it to the ground,” she said. “I could not walk on it. What am I going to do?”

I went to the bed and gingerly touched the ankle which was faintly swollen. She grimaced as I did so.

“It’s sprained,” I said.

She nodded.

“But on the other hand you might have broken a bone.”

“How do I know?”

“In time you will. Can you stand on it?”

“Yes, but it’s agony.”

“Madame Lambard has lots of remedies. I could ask her to look at it. But I do know one thing and that is that you should rest it.”

“But … we have to move on. What is the weather like?”

“Cold but clear. There’s no more snow … just a thin layer of yesterday’s on the ground. Nothing to stop travelling.”

“They will have to move on. There’s the engagement in Paris.” Her lips curved into a smile. “Mistress Tolworthy … would you … could you possibly be so good as to let me stay here until I can walk properly? Let me explain. I sing and dance on stage … as well as act. You see, if I hurt my foot through not taking care now, my career could be ruined.”

I felt a sudden wild excitement. The adventure was not over. She was going to stay … the member of the troupe who excited me most.

I said quickly: “I should never turn anyone away who needed our help.”

She reached out her hand and I went and took it. I held it for a moment, looking into her strange but beautiful face.

“God bless you,” she said. “Please let me stay awhile.”

“You are welcome,” I replied smiling, and my pleasure must have been apparent.

“Now,” I said briskly. “I will call Madame Lambard. She may well know what has happened to your foot.”

“I slipped on the stairs last night,” she said.

Yes, I thought, when you were quarrelling with Fleurette.

“It is most likely to be only a sprain. I will tell Madame Lambard.”

I went down to the hall where they were eating quantities of bread and bacon and drinking ale.

I said: “Mistress Main has hurt her ankle. She is unable to walk. I have invited her to stay here until she is able to do so. You need have no fears that we shall not look after her.”

There was a deep silence at the table for a few seconds. Fleurette could not hide a secret smile and Jabot kept his eyes on his tankard of ale.

Madame Lamotte rose and said: “I will go and see her.”

I went into the kitchen and said to Jeanne and Marianne: “Mistress Harriet Main is going to stay on for a few days until she is fit to rejoin her companions. She has sprained her ankle.”

Their faces lit up with pleasure. The kitchen seemed a different place; the fire seemed to glow more brightly.

The adventure was not over then.

The air was sharp and frost glittered on the trees as we waved them off and stood watching their departure. Slowly, because of the packhorses they made their way to the road, Monsieur Lamotte leading his troop like a biblical patriarch.

I felt as though I were watching a scene on a stage. This was the end of the first act and I was thankful that it was not the end of the play. Upstairs lay the leading actress, and while she was on stage the drama must continue.

As soon as they had gone I went upstairs. She lay on her bed, the rugs pulled up to her chin, her hair spread around her. She was smiling, almost purring; I thought she had a grace which could only be described as feline.

“So they’ve gone,” she said.

I nodded.

She laughed. “Good luck to them. They’ll need it.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I have had the good fortune to hurt my ankle here.”

“Good fortune. I don’t understand.”

“Well, it is more comfortable here than on the road. I wonder what shelter they’ll find tonight. Not as cozy as this, I’ll swear. I’ve never played before an audience which gave me such rapt attention before.”

“Oh, but we know so little here of plays and suchlike.”

“That would explain it,” she said, and laughed again. “As soon as I saw you,” she went, “I hoped we should be friends.”

“I am so pleased. I hope we shall.”

“It is so kind of you to let me stay here. I was terrified that I should do my foot some harm. My feet are an important part of my livelihood, you understand.”

“But of course. And you will soon recover. I am going to get Madame Lambard to look at your ankle.”

“There is no hurry.”

“I think there is. She will know if anything is broken and what should be done.”

“Wait awhile and talk.”

But I was firm. I was going immediately to call Madame Lambard.

Madame Lambard greatly enjoyed doctoring us. She always assumed an air of wisdom, lips pursed, head on one side, trying to talk of things we should not understand. There was a room in the Lambard dwelling which was entirely devoted to the distilling of her herbs … a room full of strange odours with a fire and a cauldron perpetually simmering on it and dried herbs hanging from the beams.

When she heard that one of the players had hurt an ankle, had stayed behind and was in need of her help, she was overcome with delight. Of course she would come. She would lose no time. The players had been wonderful. Alas that they could not stay and give them another performance. Even her sons had been excited. They had talked of nothing else since.

She came bustling up to the room in which Harriet lay, exuding a desire to be of service. She prodded the ankle and made Harriet stand on it, at which Harriet cried out in pain.

“Rest it,” declared Madame Lambard sagely. “That will heal it. I can find no bones broken. I shall put a poultice on it. My own special one. I’ll swear that by tomorrow you will feel the benefit. There is no great swelling. It will be healed, I promise you, very, very soon.”

Harriet said she did not know how to thank us all.

“Poor lady,” said Madame Lambard. “It must be irksome for you. All your friends gone on … and you left here.”

Harriet sighed, but I thought I detected a secret smile about her lips that seemed to indicate that she was not as sorry to stay here as might be expected.

“Alkanet,” said Madame Lambard mysteriously. “It’s in the poultice. It’s sometimes known as bugloss. There’s viper’s bugloss and field bugloss and the healing properties are without doubt. I’ve known it work wonders.”

“I know it well,” replied Harriet. “We call it dyer’s bugloss. The sap gives a red dye. It’s good for colouring the cheeks.”

“You … use that?” I asked.

“On stage,” she replied, her eyes downcast and her mouth, which she did not seem to be able to control, showing some amusement. “We have to look larger than life on stage, otherwise those in the back row would not see us. So we make ourselves as colourful as possible.”

“I like hearing about the players,” said Madame Lambard. “What a wonderful life you must have.”

Again that wry quirk of the lips. I thought for the first time: She is not what she seems.

How we petted her! Marianne and Jeanne made special dishes for her; Jacques enquired for her. Madame Lambard came in three times during the first day to change the poultice; the children peeped in to talk to her and it was difficult to get them away. Lucas clearly adored her, and as for myself I was fascinated too.

She was aware of this. She lay back on her pillows and clearly reveled in her position.

What seemed strange to me was that she did not seem to be very disturbed that the company should have left her behind. I supposed that she was so worldly that she was quite capable of making the journey alone when the time came to join them. I was very innocent.

The next day she told us she still could not put her foot to the ground without suffering great pain, although while she rested it, it did not hurt. So we continued to dance attendance on her and treat her like an honoured guest and it did not occur to me that she was deceiving us, but on the third day I made a discovery.

The children had gone riding with Lucas. I had decided at the last minute not to go with them. Jacques was cutting up wood for the Lambards, Marianne and Jeanne were in the kitchen concocting some special dish for Harriet, and I decided that I would go up to see her.

I knocked at the door and there was no answer, so I quietly pushed it open and looked in. The bed was empty though rumpled. Harriet’s clothes were there, but where was she?

I could not understand it. A horrible desolation came over me. She had left us. How dull it would all seem now! But how could she have gone without her clothes? No. She was somewhere in the castle. But where? And how could she have left her room when she could only hobble in the utmost pain?

She had tried to walk. She had fallen. She was lying somewhere in pain. I must find her, for she must be here. She could not have left the house without her clothes.

As I stood there, my hand on the door, I heard light, running footsteps and they were coming towards this room.

My heart started to pound as I went into a dark corner of the room and stood very still there, waiting.

Harriet came running in. There was no sign of a hobble. She tripped round the room, pirouetted on her toes, and then looked at herself in the mirror which stood on the table.

She must either have sensed my presence or caught a movement in the mirror, for she spun round as I emerged from the shadows.

I said: “Your ankle is greatly improved.”

She opened her eyes very wide. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

“Well” she said, sitting down on the bed and smiling benignly at me, “it was never very bad. Though I did twist it. I slipped on the stairs. Then when it was a little swollen the idea came to me.”

I should have been warned that anyone who could show such little concern at being found out in a deception like this must have been in a similar situation before.

She smiled at me appealingly. “I so much wanted to stay,” she said.

“You wanted to stay here … when …”

“It’s comfortable,” she said. “More so than some dirty old inn, some poor lodging, not enough food because we can’t pay for it … Oh, much better than that.”

“But your Paris engagement …?”

“Our hopes of a Paris engagement. Do you think they would want us … a poor company of strolling players … in Paris!”

“But Monsieur Lamotte said …”

“Monsieur Lamotte has his dreams. Don’t we all? And it is nice to think they are realities. It’s a trick people have … particularly actors.”

“Are you telling me that you pretended to hurt your ankle so that you could stay here?”

“I did hurt my ankle and when I woke up warm in my bed … your bed shall we say … I thought: I wish I could stay here … for a little while. I wish I could talk to the interesting Arabella and become her friend, and be loved from afar by the adorable Lucas and bask in the admiration of the delectable babies …”

“You are talking like Monsieur Lamotte.”

“That’s because I am … or was … one of his players.”

“Are you going to join them now that you have discovered that you can walk quite painlessly?”

“It depends on you.”

“On me!”

“Certainly. If you decide to turn me out I shall join them. I shall tell them that the rest I have had and the ministrations of the good Madame Lambard have cured me. But I shall only do that if you turn me away.”

“Are you suggesting that you should stay here?”

“I have been thinking of it. Young Master Dick has been telling me of a very estimable lady who has, alas, gone to her Maker—Miss Black whose name is spoken with awe. She was the governess and it is a great misfortune that they are now without that one so necessary to their future.”

“I have been teaching them. Lucas has helped me.”

“That is admirable, but you have your duties about the château. Lucas is too young and has scarcely finished his own schooling. You need a governess. If you decided to engage me I should do my utmost to give satisfaction.”

“A governess? But you are an actress.”

“I could teach them literature. I am well versed in that. … I know the plays of England and France by heart … or some of them. I could teach them to sing … to dance … to carry themselves as they should. I could really supply a finish to their education.”

“Do you really mean that you want to stay here in this quiet, dull, old château!”

“Where there is good fire to warm myself, good food to fill myself and a certain companionship which I feel could become important to me.” She was looking at me earnestly, almost pleadingly. “Well, Arabella, I see you are the one who makes decisions here. What is your answer?”

I said: “You know I would never turn anyone away who needed shelter.”

Her smile was dazzling. I felt I wanted to keep looking at her as well as listening to her. Of course I wanted her to stay. Of course I was delighted that she had suggested it, even though I was a little shocked that she had pretended so convincingly, but then she was an actress.

When I told the children that Mistress Main was to be their new governess, Dick set the young ones leaping high into the air—their special way of conveying approval. Lucas thought it would be good for the children and that our parents would be pleased. I was not so sure of the latter and made up my mind that I should not tell them that Harriet had been a player before she had decided to become a governess—not until they had seen her for themselves that was, and had, as I was sure they would, succumbed to her charm. Jeanne, Marianne and Jacques were pleased to have a new excitement brought into their lives. Madame Lambard could not but approve of one who had so rapidly shown the efficacy of her cures.

And so Harriet Main settled in our household.

It changed at once as I had known it would. Even her clothes were different. She had dresses of brocade and velvet which looked wonderful in candlelight. The children thought her beautiful, which in a strange, exotic way she certainly was. They could not take their eyes from her. Lucas was ready to be her slave, but I was the one she wanted most to impress.

Sometimes she wore her magnificent hair in curls tied back with ribbons, at others she dressed it high and set glittering ornaments in it. The children thought she must be a princess to possess such jewels and I hadn’t the heart to tell them that they were the cheapest paste. On her they looked real; she had the power to transform anything she put on.

We were all becoming quite knowledgeable about plays, and lessons often took the form of dramatic acting. She would assign our parts, taking the best for herself—but how could I blame her for that?—and rehearse us, promising us that when we were ready we would perform for the servants and the Lambards.

We were all caught up in the excitement, particularly myself.

She said to me once: “You would have done quite well on the stage, Arabella.”

She had completely won our hearts, and I was afraid that one day she would grow tired of us and decide to rejoin the company of players, but she showed little sign of doing that and seemed perfectly content with our way of life. She made a habit of coming to my room after the others were in bed and we would talk—or mostly she talked and I listened.

She would always sit near the mirror and now and then glance at her reflection. I had the impression that she was outside the scene, looking in on the play. Sometimes it seemed to amuse her.

One night she said: “You don’t know me, Arabella. You are as young as innocence and I am as old as sin.”

I was always a little impatient with these theatrical utterances, largely because I felt they impeded the truth and I was anxious to discover the truth about Harriet.

“What nonsense,” I said. “I am seventeen years old. Is that so young?”

“It is not necessarily years which determine our age.”

“But it is exactly that.”

She shook her head. “You are gloriously young at seventeen … whereas I at twenty …” she hesitated and looked at me mischievously … “two,” she added. “Twenty-two … yes, not a day more, but since I am in a confessing mood tonight, I will whisper to you that I have been twenty-two for more than a year and sometimes I am merely twenty-one.”

“You mean you pretend to be younger than you are!”

“Or older. Whichever seems expedient. I am an adventuress, Arabella. Adventurers are made by fate. If I had had what I wanted from life I shouldn’t have had to go out and adventure for it, should I? Then I should have been a high-born lady living quite contentedly. Instead of which I am an adventuress.”

“High-born ladies have become exiles, don’t forget, so perhaps they have to adventure a little in these times.”

“It’s true. The Roundheads have made schemers of us all. However, I always wanted to be an actress. My father was an actor.”

“That explains your talents,” I cried.

“A strolling player,” she mused. “They used to come through the villages and stay where business was good. It must have been very good in Middle Chartley, for they stayed long enough there for him to seduce my mother, and this seduction resulted in the birth of one destined to become the finest jewel in the world of the theatre. Your own Harriet Main.”

The tone of her voice changed. She was a wonderful actress. She could make me see the strolling player, the simple country maiden, who was enchanted by his performance on the stage and equally so it seemed by that other performance under hedges and in the fields of Middle Chartley.

“It was August,” said Harriet, “for I am a May baby. Little did that simple country maiden realize what would happen when she dallied in the cornfields with her lover. He was very good looking—she told me afterwards, for I never saw him, nor did she after they left, for she did not know then that besides planting the seeds of love in her heart he had planted something else in another part of her anatomy.”

Her conversation grew racy and there were times when I was unsure of what she meant, but I gradually learned; she certainly was educating us all—myself no less than the others.

“In those days,” she went on, “there were no women players. Their parts were played by boys, which was trying for strolling players if they wanted women. No wonder they looked to the village maidens to supply their needs. Sometimes they played in big houses … castles, mansions. That was what they looked for, but they did very well on the village greens, because there was little that appealed to country folk so much as fairs and strolling players. So he played his romantic roles, Benedict, Romeo, Bassanio … He was one of the leading players and took these roles on account of his good looks. It was a busy life for him—always on the move, learning new parts, searching for girls and persuading them to supply his needs. Oh, yes, he was very handsome. My mother said he was, and I don’t think she ever really regretted what happened.

“The players moved on and he promised to come back for her. She waited but he never came. She used to make up all sorts of reasons why he hadn’t come back. She thought he had been killed in a brawl, for he was a great fighter and, she said, would pick a quarrel as easily as wink his eyes if anyone upset him. But she had her own burden to bear. A child whose father had disappeared. It was a great crime in the eyes of those who had never had the inclination or opportunity to be other than virtuous. Of course some girls would have gone to the river—there was one conveniently close to Middle Chartley—but my mother was not the sort for it. She had always had a great zest for life and she believed there was something good round the corner. She refused to see the dark side, and even when it was presented to her, black as soot, she’d swear she could see the light round the corner. ‘Only a matter of waiting,’ she used to say. ‘It’ll sort itself out.’ But of course my existence soon become apparent, and there were scenes of recrimination in the cottage on the village green. All the maidens who had succeeded in not getting caught, as they called it, were deeply shocked by my mother who had; they had to show their horror to prove their own innocence, you understand. She lived through that time, she told me after, because she was always hoping that he would come back. I was born and my mother worked hard in the fields and I was a constant reproof to her; all the local men thought that being no longer a virgin she was there to provide sport for them. She learned how to fight, for she was determined, as she said, to wait for my father.

“I was five years old when we went to the Hall. Squire Travers Main had taken a fancy to her when he was riding by with the hounds. In fact so taken with her was he that he decided that my mother was more interesting prey than the fox. I was with her at the time and he stopped, so she told me, to compliment her on the pretty child … myself. He was a kindly man with a wife who had had a hunting accident a year or so before and was an invalid. He was no lecher. He had the occasional mistress, which was understandable with a wife in such a condition. However, the outcome was that my mother was invited to the Hall to be a housekeeper or serve in some way … in the beginning undefined, and she went on condition that I went with her.

“Our fortunes changed from that day. My mother was companion and lady’s maid to her ladyship, who was also rather taken with her, and from this it was a short step into the Squire’s bed. There were no children, and both the Squire and Lady Travers Main took an interest in me.

“I was taught to read and write, at which, my dear Arabella, I made great progress. By this time I had decided I would be a lady. I had had a taste of cottage life. I had been informed by village hobbledehoys that I was a bastard, and I found the taste bitter. It was different at the Hall. The Squire and his lady never called me bastard; indeed their attitude towards me suggested that far from being not on an equal footing with the village children, I was superior to them; and they were determined to make me more so.

“My mother’s position grew more and more secure. Lady Travers Main relied on her. So did the Squire. He did not entertain very much, nor was he entertained; I think at that time everyone was becoming anxious, wondering what would happen in this conflict between the King and Parliament. It didn’t occur to any of them I was sure that there would be victory for the Roundheads. They all believed the army would soon deal with them.

“The Squire was too old for the army. We were far from any big town and it seemed to take months for news to reach us. We went on in the old way. They were so fond of me that they had a governess to teach me, and my mother was like the châtelaine giving orders. Her ladyship didn’t seem to mind. She realized that the Squire must have his woman, and she preferred it to be my mother rather than anyone else. It was a comfortable, cozy atmosphere I grew up in.”

“You were lucky.”

“Now I’m not one to believe all that much in luck. You make your own luck. That’s how I see it. My mother kept herself to herself … until the Squire came. Then she was faithful to him … although she was pestered. She had something. Some women do.” She smiled when she said that, implying to me that she was also the owner of this desirable something. “But she never strayed and the Squire was grateful.”

“You took your name from him.”

“Well, it seemed wise. When I was about fifteen the Squire had a riding accident. My mother nursed him but within a year he was dead. Her ladyship was failing too. My mother was growing a little worried because she could see that life was going to change and the easy days might well be over. For a year or two it went on. The servants resented my mother a little because the Squire was no longer there to give her position in the house some standing, you might say. Who was she? they began to ask each other. Why was she better than they were? They remembered that she had produced me out of wedlock and I heard that word bastard again.

“When her ladyship died, a cousin came to the Hall. He saw how my mother ran the place, and as I told you she had that something which appealed to men. I think he was ready to step not only into the Squire’s shoes but into his bed. My mother didn’t like him. He was not like the Squire. We had to think quickly. But nothing offered itself then. It was when the cousin cast his eyes on me that my mother said we were leaving.

“So we took with us a fair amount of baggage which we had collected over the years, for the Squire had given us both rather extravagant presents from time to time—as had her ladyship, so we were not penniless. The war was over. Oliver Cromwell was our Lord Protector and all the theatres were closed and there was no more merrymaking to be enjoyed. It was a dreary prospect. We had no idea where we should go. My mother thought we might get a little house somewhere and perhaps live frugally on what we had managed to save.

“A few days after we had left we went to an inn and there was a company of strolling players—no, it was not what you are thinking. My father was not among them, but when my mother mentioned him they knew of him. He had done well in the old days, they said. He had played before the Court and the Queen had complimented him. She was particularly fond of playacting. But now the King had lost his head and the Queen was in France and so was her son the new King. There would be no life for actors until the new King was restored to his throne, they said. And they secretly drank to the downfall of the Protector, which was a daring thing to do. But they had plans. They were going to find their way to France because there the theatre flourished. The French loved the theatre. There actors could live like lords. There was no hope for England while the Puritans ruled.

“They stayed a few days, and strangely enough my mother became enamoured of one of the leaders of the troupe, and he of her. As for myself …” She smiled secretively. Then she said: “But what am I saying? I am talking too much.”

“I find it very interesting.”

Her eyes were veiled. “My tongue runs away with me. You understand little of these ways of life.”

“But I should learn, should I not? You have become our governess. It is your place to teach us. And, Harriet, there is so much I have to learn.”

“That is true,” she said, and she fell silent for a while; and shortly afterwards she bade me a rather abrupt good night.

For some days she seemed rather reticent and I guessed she was wondering if she had told me too much.

What excitement there was when we did our little play on the dais in the hall. Our audience were Jeanne, Marianne, Jacques and the Lambard family. It was a short drama in which Harriet played the lead, of course; Lucas was her lover and I was the villainess who sought to poison Harriet. The children had parts, and even young Fenn came in and brought a letter, saying, “This is for you,” which for some reason unknown to the rest of us sent him into transports of mirth which he found it impossible to control. When I drank the poison draught which I had prepared for Harriet and fell sinking to the ground, Madame Lambard grew so excited that she cried out: “Though you don’t deserve it, Mademoiselle Arabella, what you want is a drop of my agrimony cordial.”

“She’s too far gone for that,” said Jeanne. “And it wouldn’t be right to save her, her being what she is.” Then Fenn burst into tears because he thought I was dead. So the drama threatened to become a farce, and it was fortunate that my sinking to the floor in my death agony was the end.

Afterwards there was the supper just as we had had on the night when the players were with us. Monsieur Lambard brought in some of his wine and Madame Lambard had baked a great pie with a stage worked on it with strips of paste and we were all very merry except Fenn who kept hold of my skirt all the time to reassure himself that I was not dead.

When I think of that night and how simple we all were and how amused Harriet must have been, I look upon it as the end of an era, and I sometimes wished that I could have stayed as I was on that night forever, believing that everyone in the world was good.

Harriet was happy too. She was the centre of our lives at that time. There wasn’t one among us who did not realize that the exciting turn our lives had taken was due to her.

The day after the play a rider called at Congrève with letters from my mother. There was one for each of us—even Fenn.

I took mine to my room that I might be alone while I read it.

My dearest daughter,

It is so long since I have seen you. I think of you all constantly. There is change in the air. I have a feeling that before long we are all going to be together. News has come from England that in September Oliver Cromwell died, so he has now been gone for some months. This is going to mean change. Your father thinks that his son can never command the same respect, and that as the people are growing weary of Puritan rule, they may ask the King to return now. If this could come about our lives would be completely changed.

This is the best news we have had since the King’s father was martyred.

Another piece of news for you, my dear. Lord Eversleigh, who is here with us, tells us that his family have taken a house quite near Château Congrève. Your father and I thought it would be pleasant for you to meet them. They will be getting into touch with you and may well ask you to stay with them for a while. Congrève is hardly the place for you to entertain, I know, but if that should be necessary, everyone understands the difficulties in which the times have placed us. If you have an opportunity of visiting them you and Lucas should take it. I know the Lambards, with Marianne, Jeanne and Jacques, would look after the little ones. It would be an opportunity for you to meet people. Your father and I are often worried about your spending day after day in that place. If only things were normal we should be arranging for you to meet young people of your own age and kind. Alas, it is impossible now, but who knows perhaps before long, it will be different. In the meantime it would be interesting for you to meet the Eversleighs. I have been unable to come to see you because so much is going on here. Imagine the excitement after Cromwell’s death!

But I hope to see you before long, dear Arabella. In the meantime keep your spirits up. At least you are in safety where you are and you are old enough to remember what it was like in those days at Far Flamstead and even later at Trystan.

Much love to you and always remember that you are ever in my thoughts.

Your devoted mother,

Bersaba Tolworthy.

I could see her as I read the letter. I had admired her fervently from my earliest years. She had always seemed so strong, and my hazy thoughts of those far-off days were dominated by her, the leading spirit who seemed omnipotent and omniscient guiding us all.

Dearest mother! I wondered what she would think of Harriet.

She would have understood immediately that she was deceiving us, I was sure. My mother had always been very wise in the ways of the world.

I wrote a letter for the rider to take back when he left the next day.

I hesitated as to what I should say about Harriet and this was an indication of what Harriet’s presence in the house had done for me. For I was now thinking of prevaricating, telling half-truths, whereas before I should not have dreamed of withholding anything from my mother.

Yet what if I had told the bald truth! Strolling players came and one of them pretended to hurt her ankle so badly that she could not travel. She stayed behind and is now living here. She teaches us to act and sing and dance.

I believe my mother would have left everything to come and see what it was all about. A strolling player! An actress who had schemed to stay. She would never approve of that.

How could I explain the charm of Harriet, the fascination, the irresistible allure? Yet I must say something. Not to tell her would be quite deceitful; yet to tell her everything that happened would alarm her.

I pondered. It was the first time it had not been completely easy and natural to take up my pen and write to my mother just as I would talk to her if she were here.

At last I wrote:

My dear mother,

I was happy to receive your letter and I shall hope to meet the Eversleighs. I daresay they will call on us first. We are quite able to entertain them here. Marianne and Jeanne are very good and they like people to come here. I expect it is a little dull for them.

Some people called here during the snowy weather because they could not continue with their journey. Of course we gave them shelter and with them was a young woman. She is very talented. She sprained her ankle on our stairs and when the others had to leave, for they had business in Paris, she asked if she could stay behind as she was unable to walk. She is very lively and handsome and comes from England like the rest of us. She saw how we were placed since Miss Black’s death and how Lucas and I were trying to teach the children and she offered to stay and help teach them in exchange for bed and board.

I accepted her offer and it has proved very satisfactory. She is very knowledgeable about literature, English and French, and she is teaching them these and how to speak well and sing and dance. The children all adore her. You would laugh to see Fenn. He is very gallant to her and she was very touched when he brought her the first crocus. Angie and Dick rush to sit next to her and you would have been amused had you seen the little play we did a few nights ago. The Lambards and the servants were our audience, and even Fenn had a part. Everyone enjoyed it and the children are still talking of it.

Of course Harriet Main arranged it all and we should never have thought of it—or been able to do it—without her.

I think you will be pleased to hear that she is with us because I know you have been worried since Miss Black died.

It would be wonderful to see you and my father. Oh, if only we could all be together in our own home. It is good to know that you are well and perhaps soon it will come to pass.

Your loving daughter,

Arabella Tolworthy

I read through my letter. I had told no lies. I was sure she would think it was good that we had a kind of governess even if she were not another Miss Black. I couldn’t help smiling at the comparison. There could not have been two people less like each other.

I half hoped my mother would return. I should be interested to hear what she thought of Harriet. And at the same time I was afraid that she would … which showed, of course, that I had my suspicions about the fascinating creature.

The next day the messenger went off with our letters. I stood at the watch window in one of the towers so that I could see him for as long as possible.

It was a small room, rarely used, with a long narrow slit of a window; the only furniture was an old table and chair. There was a seat cut into the side of the aperture where one could sit while looking out.

As I turned to leave, the door opened and Harriet came in.

“I saw you come up,” she said. “I wondered where you were going.”

“I was just watching the rider.”

“Going away with all those letters you have written to your family.”

“We look out for arrivals now and then and hope that they will be our parents. But the messenger with letters is the next best thing.”

She nodded.

“He brings and takes,” she mused. “And you give them all the news?”

“Some of it.”

“You have told them I am here?”

“But of course.”

“They’ll want me to go.”

“Why should they?”

“A player. An actress. They won’t like that.”

“I didn’t tell them that you were an actress.”

“What, then?”

“Oh, I said you came with a party of people and because of the snow you had to stay here. You hurt your ankle and stayed on and then said you would help teach the children for a while. That’s how it happened, wasn’t it?”

“So you didn’t tell them everything.”

I did not meet her eye. “I told them no lies,” I defended myself. “And I said how fond the children are of you and that they are attending to what you teach them and how we did our little play.”

She laughed suddenly and threw her arms about me.

“Dear Arabella!” she cried.

I extricated myself with some embarrassment. I felt I was growing a little like her. I was no longer the innocent girl I had been, always so natural with my parents.

“Let’s go down,” I said. “What a gloomy old place this is. Imagine a man sitting up here all day watching to see who was coming, and giving the alarm if it was an enemy.”

“They must have had a lot of enemies to make watching a full-time occupation.”

“Oh, he watched for friends as well. And he composed songs while he watched. Watchers were always minstrels so I heard.”

“How interesting!” She slipped her arm through mine as we went to the top of the spiral staircase. “Nice of you to give a good account of me,” she went on. “You would have aroused their fears had you told them I was an actress who contrived to remain here. Good. Now we shall not have to put a watcher at the tower to look for anxious parents. Sometimes it is helpful to tell a little of the truth when the whole could be disturbing.”

We went downstairs.

I was a little uneasy. Yet I knew that I should be very unhappy if my parents had wanted to send her away.

That night she came to my room for another of our talks. I think the letter I had written to my mother made her more sure of me than she had been.

She took her seat near the mirror; her hair hung loose about her shoulders. I thought her very lovely. I could see myself reflected in the mirror. My thick, straight brown hair was also loose, for I had been about to brush it when she knocked at my door. I was very like my mother and I knew she was an attractive woman. I had inherited her vitality, her finely marked brows and deeply set, rather heavy-lidded eyes, but I felt my brown hair and eyes were insipid beside Harriet’s vivid colouring, but then, I consoled myself, most people would seem colourless in comparison.

She smiled at me, seeming to read my thoughts. That was disconcerting in Harriet. I often felt she knew what was in my mind.

“Your hair suits you loose like that,” she said.

“I was just about to give it a brushing.”

“When I disturbed you.”

“You know I enjoy talking to you.”

“I came to say thank you for your letter to your mother.”

“I can’t think why you should do that.”

“You know very well why I do. I don’t want to leave here … yet, Arabella.”

“You mean you may sometime … soon?”

She shook her head. “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t want to stay here forever.”

“We have always believed that someday we should all go back to England. There was a time when we daily expected the summons to come. Then we stopped looking for it, but I suppose it has always been there in our minds.”

“You wouldn’t want to stay here for the rest of your life.”

“What a notion. Of course, I shouldn’t.”

“If you were in England they would now be looking for a husband for you.”

I thought of my mother’s letter. Wasn’t that just what she had implied?

“I suppose so.”

“Lucky little Arabella to be so well cared for.”

“You forget I’m caring for myself.”

“And you’ll be very good at it … when you’ve learned a little more about life. It’s been so different for me.”

“You told me quite a lot about what had happened to you. Then you stopped. What did you do when you fell in with those strolling players and your mother liked one of them?”

“She liked him so much—I suppose he reminded her of my father—that she married him. I shall never forget the day of her wedding. I have never seen her so happy. Of course she was well content with the Squire and it was a dignified life she had there. Lady of the Manor almost. But she had been brought up very strictly and she had never felt really respectable. Now she did. She had had a strolling player lover who had given her a child; now she had a strolling player husband and that seemed to make it right in her eyes. She always referred to him as Your Father. And I really believe the two merged together in her mind.”

“Did she join the company?”

“It wasn’t much of a company. By this time theatres were pronounced sinful in England and strolling players, if discovered, would have been thrown into prison. So they planned to go to France. It wouldn’t be easy. They were going to do puppet and miming shows … because of the language, you see. But they reckoned they could learn that in time. It wasn’t a very bright prospect, but what else could they do when there wasn’t a hope of playing in England at all? We set out and a few miles off the French coast a terrible storm blew up. Our ship was wrecked; my mother and her new husband were drowned.”

“How terrible!”

“At least she had had that supreme happiness. I wonder whether it would have lasted. She had endowed him with all the virtues she had moulded onto my father. It was strange, really. My father disappeared and her husband died before she had time to realize they did not possess them.”

“How do you know her husband didn’t?”

“I knew by the way he looked at me that he wouldn’t be the faithful, loyal creature she had built him up to be.”

“So he wanted you …”

“Of course he wanted me.”

“Then why did he marry her?”

“He wanted her as a wife. He wanted to be looked after, cared for by a mature woman. He was eager to take her, and don’t forget I went with her.”

“What a disgusting creature!”

“Some men are.”

“What happened to you then?”

“I was rescued and taken ashore. I was fortunate that the men who rescued me were employed by the local landowner, the Sieur d’Amberville, a gentleman who was, as you have guessed by his title, a power in the district. He lived in a fine old château surrounded by vast estates. First I was taken to the cottage in which my rescuers lived and news went round that I had been saved from the sea. Madame d’Amberville came to see me, and realizing that I was somewhat distressed to find myself in such a humble dwelling, to which, I made it clear, I was unaccustomed, she said I should be taken to the château, and so I was given a delightful bedroom there and Madame’s servants waited on me. When she questioned me, she had the impression that I was the daughter of Squire Travers Main.”

“Which you gave her no doubt.”

“No doubt. And she realized then why I found a workman’s cottage distasteful. I stayed on until I recovered, and then I told her I must go, and when she asked where, I said that I did not know, but I could not encroach any longer on this hospitality of the d’Ambervilles. She was loathe to let me go and an idea came to me. There were several young d’Ambervilles … six of them from the ages of five to sixteen, and that was not counting the eldest daughter of eighteen and her brother Gervais, the eldest son, who was twenty years of age. So I suggested to her that I should become …”

“The governess?” I said.

“How did you guess?”

“Sometimes history has a habit of repeating itself.”

“That is often because what happens once makes us resourceful in similar circumstances. It’s what is called experience.”

“I always knew you were very experienced.”

“Indeed I am. I became the governess. I taught the children as I now teach your sister and brothers. I was a great success and I enjoyed my stay with the d’Ambervilles.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because the eldest son, Gervais, fell in love with me. He was very handsome … very romantic.”

“Did you fall in love with him?”

“I was in love with the title he would have and the lands and the riches. I am being very frank tonight, Arabella. I think I am shocking you a little. Mind you, I liked other things about him besides the worldly possessions which would one day be his. He was gallant, adoring, everything that a lover should be. Hot-blooded and passionate. He had never met anyone like me. He wanted to marry me.”

“Why didn’t you marry him?”

“We were discovered.” She smiled as though amused by the memory. “In flagrante delicto … almost. By his mother. She was horrified. ‘Gervais!’ she said. ‘I can’t believe my eyes.’ Then she went out, banging the door loudly. Poor Gervais. He was horrified. It was very embarrassing for a well-brought-up boy.”

“And what about you?”

“I knew it had to come to a head, and I thought it was better to have the family’s consent to the marriage before it took place. The French are more conventional than we are at home. They might well have cut him off with a few sous. After all there were two other sons and Jean Christophe was rising twelve—one of my most appreciative pupils—so Gervais was not indispensable. Now they knew how far it had gone. From what Maman had seen during her brief glimpse into our love nest it was possible that I might already be enceinte and a little d’Amberville on the way.”

“You really mean …”

“My dear, sweet, innocent Arabella, isn’t that what life is all about? If it were not so, how should we replenish the earth?”

“So you really were in love with Gervais … so much that you forgot …”

“I forgot nothing. It would have been an excellent match. Gervais appealed to me; he was madly in love with me; and his family had shown me kindness.”

“It did not seem the way to repay it.”

“What, by making their son happy? He had never known anything like it. He told me so many times.”

I tried to understand her. It was difficult. I did know that, if she had been here, my mother would have decided that she must go at once.

“Should you not have waited until after the marriage?”

“Then, my dear Arabella, it would never have happened at all. Think what poor Gervais would have missed.”

“I think you are rather flippant about what should be treated seriously.”

“Innocent Arabella, flippancy is often used to disguise seriousness. Of course I was serious. I was summoned to the salon. There I was confronted by the elders of the family. There was a long speech about my betraying their trust in me and how they could no longer allow me to stay under their roof.”

“What about Gervais?”

“Dear Gervais. He was such an innocent really. He said we would go away together. We would snap our fingers at the family. We would marry and live happily ever after. I told him that he was wonderful and I would love him until I died, but being of a practical nature I was asking myself what we would live on. I knew what hard times could be; Gervais had no notion. I could live by my wits perhaps, but poor Gervais was not endowed very lavishly with those useful assets; and I was appalled by the thought of poverty. When they said he should be cut off, I knew they meant it. After all, when you have several sons, you can dispense with one who displeases you—even if he is the eldest. Besides it serves as a good lesson to the others. Madame d’Amberville had been horrified by what she had witnessed. She implied that she would never be able to look at me again without remembering it.

“While all this was happening a party of strolling players came to the village. The d’Ambervilles, being of a rather religious turn of mind, had not encouraged players. However, they could not prevent their playing in the village. I went to see them and there I met Jabot. You remember Jabot?”

“Of course I do. I have a confession to make. I heard you and Fleurette quarrelling about him on the stairs.”

“So you were eavesdropping.” She laughed aloud. “Now, my not so virtuous Arabella, how can you criticize me? So you overheard us, did you?”

“Yes, and I saw you trip down the stairs.”

“Good! That added authenticity to my hurt ankle.”

“So you went from Gervais to Jabot?”

“What a difference. Jabot was a man of the world. He was quite an actor. A pity he did not have a better chance to show his talents. Perhaps he will one day. He is ambitious, but women will be his downfall. He can’t resist them and he likes them in variety.”

“He liked you and Fleurette.”

“Among a thousand others. But he had talents … Jules Jabot … in many directions. He noticed me at once. I talked to him. I pleaded that I was the maiden in distress. The son of the house had forced his attentions on me and because of this I was asked to leave. Jules Jabot has a romantic streak. He said afterwards I played my part well. I told him, of course, that I came of an acting family and he took me along to Monsieur Lamotte. As a result, when they left I went with them and stayed with them for several months and then one day we came to Château Congrève and you know the rest.”

“Why did you want to leave them for us?”

“It was a hard life. I would rather be a successful actress than anything, but not a strolling player. There is little comfort in it. Only those with a love of the profession could do it. Jabot lived on the adulation of the audience. You should have seen him after one of his heroic performances. He strutted like a cockerel. Women will be his downfall. There was always trouble for Jabot about women. He had that something which is irresistible.”

“What! Another of them!”

“You mean that I have it?”

“And your mother …”

“You may smile, dear Arabella, but one day you may know what I mean. Let me tell you this. You are completely ignorant of the world in which I have lived. It may be that you will always remain so. So many people do.”

“Not now we have met,” I said soberly.

She looked at me steadily. “I see,” she said, “that I have brought some change in your life.”

“What happened with you and Jabot? Was he your lover?” She did not answer but looked at me rather mockingly. “So soon after Gervais?”

“It was piquant, because he was so different. I loved Gervais. He was so tender, reverent. Jabot was quite different, certain of success and arrogant. And one an aristocrat and the other a poor strolling player. You see what I mean?”

“There would be a word to describe your conduct, Harriet.”

“Come, tell me what it is.”

“Wanton.”

She laughed aloud this time. “And are you deeply shocked? Would you send me away for fear I contaminate you and your little sister and perhaps your brother?”

“You will leave Lucas alone,” I said fiercely.

“He is young enough to be safe. You do not understand me. I am a normal woman, Arabella. I love and I give and I take. That is all. You have seen Jabot. Surely you understand?”

“He was Fleurette’s lover too.”

“That was before I came. She never forgave me, but if I had not been there, there would have been someone else.”

“What I don’t understand is that you seem to take it all so lightly.”

“That, dear Arabella, is the way to life. Enjoy it while you can, and when that which you enjoyed passes from you, look for something else to take its place.”

“It must have been very dull for you at the château after these adventures. We had no lovers to offer you.”

“You had a certain comfort. I was tired of the road. I knew they were going to fail in Paris. I had had enough of them all … even Jabot. I think he was cooling off and I like to be the one who cools off first. You interested me greatly. Do you know, as soon as I saw you I knew we should be friends. I enjoyed my little charade … and the way you took it was just what I would have expected of you. Now you have made me respectable for your mother and that has strengthened the bonds between us. You know that, Arabella.”

“I wish …” I began.

“That I were the sort of young woman you would meet in your normal social round if you were in England? No, you don’t. You know I am different. That’s why you like me. I could never conform to a pattern. And do you know, Arabella, I have a feeling that you couldn’t either.”

“I don’t know. I feel I don’t know very much about myself.”

“Never mind. You’re learning.” She yawned. “And do you know, I fancy there may be some surprises in store for you. Now I will go to my room. Good night, Arabella.”

After she had left me I sat thinking of her for a long time.

A few days later a messenger rode over with a letter which was addressed to me.

I sent him to Marianne and Jeanne to be given food and drink and a room to rest in while I read my letter. It was addressed to Mistress Arabella Tolworthy, and came from Villers Tourron.

Dear Mistress Tolworthy,

I have had the great pleasure of meeting your parents in Cologne and have heard much about you and your family. We have recently arrived at Villers Tourron and, as like yourselves, are in exile awaiting the summons to return, I think it would give us all great pleasure if we met. We have a large house here and although not like home, we can entertain our friends. Your parents have given their permission for you and your brother to visit us and I and my family are hoping that you will do so. My son and daughter are with me at the moment. Edwin, my son, will shortly be joining the King, for as you know there is much activity in that quarter just now and hopes are high. If you would care to accept this invitation, do please give a message to our man. It is a two days’ journey by road and there is a comfortable inn on the way where you could spend the night. There is no reason why we should delay and I suggest that you should come in two weeks’ time. Do please say yes. Having met your parents and heard so much about you, we are all eager to meet you and your brother.

Matilda Eversleigh.

I was delighted. It would be interesting. I went to find Lucas to tell him about it.

He was in the schoolroom with Harriet. I was glad the children were not there. They would hate our going away, but naturally we could not expect the Eversleighs to invite them.

“Lucas,” I cried, “here’s an invitation from the Eversleighs.”

“The people our mother mentioned. Let me see.”

He read the letter, Harriet looking over his shoulder as he did so.

“You want to go?” she asked.

“I think we must. Our parents want us to.”

“It should be interesting,” said Lucas. “After all, we stay here all the time. It used to be so dull, though we never noticed it much. Only when …”

Harriet gave him a dazzling smile.

“We shouldn’t be away long, I suppose,” finished Lucas.

“Two weeks perhaps,” I said.

“What of the children?” asked Harriet.

“In her letter our mother said they would be all right with the servants. And so they should be.”

“They’ll hate your going,” said Harriet.

“For a few days and then they’ll be used to it. And think of the excitement for them when we come back.”

“I shall miss you,” said Harriet wistfully.

I said I would go to my room and write the acceptance of the invitation; and I left Lucas and Harriet together.

The messenger went off with my letter, and as soon as he had gone I began going through my wardrobe. What one wore was not important at Congrève but visiting would be different.

The door opened and Harriet came in.

She looked at the brown dress which lay on my bed. “You can’t take that,” she said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

She picked it up firmly and hung it up in the cupboard.

“You have very little to go visiting in, Arabella,” she said. “I think we should attempt some refurbishing.”

“I daresay they live much the same as we do. They’re in exile too.”

“They contemplate entertaining so they will surely make some show. Really we shall have to look into our wardrobes. I could lend you something if I wasn’t …”

She hesitated and I looked at her sharply.

“Coming with you,” she added slyly.

“Coming with us. But …”

“It will be more fun,” she said. “Just think how we will talk of it afterwards. You’ll need me there, Arabella.”

“But the invitation was for me and my brother.”

“How could it be otherwise when they didn’t know I was here?”

I looked at her steadily. Her eyes were dancing with mockery.

“How can you come, Harriet, when you have not been invited?”

“It’s simple. If I had been your sister, they would not have hesitated to ask me.”

“But you are not my sister.”

“But I am your friend.”

“You couldn’t just arrive with us. How could I explain your being there?”

“You will explain beforehand. It is so easy. ‘Dear Lady Eversleigh, I have a friend who has been staying with me for some time, and I could not really leave her at the château while we are away. I answered your invitation in a rush of pleasure because I was so delighted to have it. But now I see that I cannot really leave this friend. It would be most impolite and I know you will understand. She is charming, of excellent family, in fact one of ourselves. Now if it would make no difference to you, it might be that you will extend your invitation to her. … If so how delighted we shall all be to come. Do forgive the blunder I have made. It was such a joy to get your invitation that I suppose I answered it without thinking of my responsibilities. …’ There, what about that.”

“I can’t do it, Harriet. It would be quite wrong.”

“I think it would be quite right. But of course if you would rather I did not come …”

“I know it would not be half as much fun without you. But I don’t see …”

Harriet spent the rest of the afternoon making me see. And the next day Jacques rode over with a note such as she had suggested.

He came back in a few days with a reply.

My dear Mistress Tolworthy,

But of course we shall welcome your friend. She must come and be a member of our party. My son and daughter are very much looking forward to meeting you.

Matilda Eversleigh.

When I showed Harriet the reply she laughed with pleasure. “What did I tell you?” she demanded. And I must say I was delighted that she was coming with us.

Proposal in a Tomb

JACQUES ACCOMPANIED US. AFTER our arrival he would go back to Congrève, but it had seemed wise to have him with us on the road. We stayed a night at the inn which the Eversleighs had recommended and the following day arrived at Château Tourron.

It was much more grand than Congrève. There were no goats or chickens in sight, and it had an air of graciousness though a little decayed.

Jacques led us into the stables where grooms hurried up to take our horses, evidently having been warned that we were coming.

A servant appeared and took us into the hall where Lady Eversleigh was waiting to greet us.

She was a tall woman, somewhere in her late forties, I guessed, with masses of light fluffy hair and rather babyish blue eyes and fluttering hands. She was clearly pleased to see us and turned first to Harriet.

“I am so delighted you have come,” she said. “I so much enjoyed meeting your mother …”

Harriet smiled and, lifting her hand slightly, indicated me.

“I am Arabella Tolworthy,” I said.

“But, of course. So like your mother. How could I not have seen? My dear, welcome, and this is your friend … and your brother. We are so pleased to have you. Was the inn comfortable? We have stayed there and found it good … as inns go. Now you must be tired and wish to wash or have some refreshment. We will show you to your rooms first. Have you brought much baggage with you? So difficult travelling. I will have it brought up.”

Lucas said we had two saddle horses and they were in the stables.

“One of the men will see to that. Now come with me. I have put you two ladies together. I hope you will not mind. We have not a great deal of room. My son and daughter are so pleased that you have come. They will tell you so themselves. There are some little ones left behind, I believe. Oh, dear, what a pity they are so young!”

In spite of her somewhat inconsequential manner, I thought she was assessing us rather shrewdly and me in particular.

The room I was to share with Harriet was large and contained two beds. There was a carpet on the floorboards, and although it was furnished in a slightly more grand manner, it reminded me very much of the Château Congrève. Lucas was settled close by.

“I hope this will be adequate,” said Lady Eversleigh. “How I should love to be back at Eversleigh Court. How different! How spacious! How adequately we used to entertain our guests there.” She sighed. “But it will come and you must be feeling the same about your homes …”

“We yearn for the day when we can return,” said Harriet, and although I looked at her sharply, she went on: “But the news is more hopeful. Perhaps it will not be long before we are making our plans to go home.”

“It must be soon. There is great excitement among the King’s entourage. My husband is there, you know, for it was there that he met your parents. That dreadful Cromwell … dead! And this son. He is not like his father … a fellow of no account, I have heard. That is all to the good, don’t you see?”

We replied that we saw absolutely, and she said she would leave us to refresh ourselves and then if we would come down to the salon she would have the utmost pleasure in introducing us to her son and daughter.

When the door shut, Harriet looked at me and laughed.

“At least,” said Harriet, “our hostess is not at a loss for a word.”

“She is very friendly.”

“And seems delighted that we have come. I wonder what the son and daughter are like? I suppose we have been invited to provide them with companions of their own age. Well, it is a little more grand than our own dear château. There is a shabbiness though. I suppose it could hardly be expected that the French nobility should hand over their best properties to the exiles.”

“You are somewhat critical, considering that but for your coming to Congrève, you might have been living very frugally with your band of players.”

“I don’t forget it, but that does not prevent my making a reasonable assessment. What shall we wear for our first meeting with the young?”

I looked down at my riding habit. It was not as immaculate as it had been when we set out, naturally, but it had not occurred to me until that moment. “Really,” I said, “I have no idea.”

“Then you must put your mind to it. First impressions are important. For you your blue muslin with the lace collar, I think. It is fresh, young and innocent looking, as you are, my dear Arabella.”

“And for you,” I retorted, “brocade or velvet? Silk or satin?”

She grimaced. “It is more necessary for me to make a good impression. I don’t carry your credentials, remember.”

“As my friend, I think you do.”

“Even so, I need an extra fillip. They know that you are the worthy daughter of a worthy general high in the King’s favour. All my glory is reflected. I must try to make a little of my own.”

“Very well,” I replied. “Wear your most elaborate dress, but it will be your manners on which you will be judged.”

She laughed, mocking me, and when we dressed she selected one of her simplest gowns. She looked charming in it, I thought, for the blue wool with a peaked bodice set off her slender waist; and with her hair piled high and drawn off her face to show that high forehead, she looked regal.

Lucas was already in the salon when we came down and Lady Eversleigh took Harriet and me by the hand and led us forward.

“Just an intimate gathering tonight,” she said. “I thought it better that we get to know each other before the others arrive. Yes, we are having more friends visiting us. That is why I must put you two in the same room, for which I do apologize.”

“It is because of my unexpected coming,” said Harriet quickly, “so it is for me to apologize.”

“Please … please we are delighted to have you. I always say the more the merrier. It is merely that not being in our own home we are cramped for space. Now here is my daughter Charlotte and Sir Charles Condey … a very dear friend. And where is Edwin?”

“He will be here shortly, Mama,” said Charlotte. Charlotte, I assessed to be in her late twenties. She had a mild face, with light brown hair hanging in rather reluctant curls, which looked as though the slight breeze would unwind them and let her hair return to its natural state which was completely straight. Her mouth was smallish and rather pinched, and there was a fawnlike look about her as though she were poised for flight and would leap off if she should be startled. Her gown suited her; it was of silk and lace and of a deep blue which accentuated the colour of her eyes which were rather large but too prominent for beauty.

She took my hand and smiled at me. Timid, I thought and eager to be friends. I warmed to her.

Sir Charles Condey was bowing. He was, I guessed, about the same age as Charlotte. Of medium height, inclined to be rotund, which made him look shorter than he actually was. Big brown eyes which reminded me of those of a horse, large features generally, pleasant, but rather lacking in vitality, I assessed, but easy to like as long as one did not have to spend too much time with him.

I reprimanded myself for making hasty judgements. My mother had warned me of it. I remember her saying: “People who sum up others on a first meeting are invariably mistaken. You can only really know people after years of living together and then it is amazing what one has to discover.”

“I trust you had an easy journey,” said Sir Charles.

“We did,” I told him. “It was just as Lady Eversleigh said it would be.”

He was looking at Harriet. She was smiling. The special smile I had noticed she bestowed even on Lucas. Sir Charles blinked a little as though he were slightly dazzled.

“It was so good of Lady Eversleigh to let me come,” she said. “I am staying with Arabella and her family.”

“We are glad you did,” said Lady Eversleigh. “We shall be a large party, and it is always so much easier to entertain with a crowd.”

“Oh, I do agree,” said Harriet. “There are so many more things one can do with numbers.”

“As soon as Edwin comes we will go in to dinner,” went on Lady Eversleigh. “I can’t think what is keeping him. He knows we have guests.”

“Edwin is never punctual,” said Charlotte. “You know that, Mama.”

“Many times I have reasoned with him. I have told him that unpunctuality is bad manners just as much as slamming a door in someone’s face. The implication is that there is something more interesting to claim the attention and therefore everything else can wait. That is what my husband Lord Eversleigh impressed on me. As a soldier he is naturally the most punctual man alive. I had to mend my ways when I married him. Really one would not believe that Edwin … Ah, here he is. Edwin, my dear boy, come and meet our guests.”

All her annoyance had faded at the sight of her son, and I could understand it. I thought Edwin Eversleigh was the most attractive man I had ever seen. He was tall and very slim. He faintly resembled his sister Charlotte, but the likeness had the effect of making her look more insignificant than ever. His hair was the same colour as hers, but it was more abundant and had a faint kink in it which made it manageable. He wore it to his shoulders after the fashion which had prevailed at the time when King Charles had lost his head. His loose-fitting coat of brown velvet was braided and tagged about the waist. His sleeves were slashed to show a very white cambric shirt below. His breeches matched his coat in colour. It was not his clothes, though, which I noticed but the man himself. I imagined he was several years younger than Charlotte; that he was his mother’s darling was obvious. The way in which she said: “My son, Edwin,” was very revealing.

I find it difficult to describe Edwin as he was at that time because to give an account of the size of his nose and mouth and the colour of his hair and eyes conveys little. It was something within him—a vitality, a charm, a quality which was immediately obvious. When he came into a room something happened. The atmosphere changed. Attention was focused on him. I knew what Harriet meant when she said that some people had this quality. She had it, of course. I saw that clearly now.

_Edwin was looking at me, bowing, smiling. I noticed the way he half closed his eyes when he smiled, how his mouth turned up at one corner more than the other.

“Welcome, Mistress Tolworthy,” he said. “We are delighted that you should come.”

“And that she has brought her friend, Mistress Harriet Main,” added his mother.

He bowed. “I shall be eternally grateful that you allowed me to come,” said Harriet.

“You are a little rash, I can see,” he said, and I noticed that one eyebrow lifted higher than the other just as his mouth did when he smiled. “If I were you I should reserve a little of that gratitude for a while. Wait until you get to know us.”

Everyone laughed.

“Oh, Edwin,” said Lady Eversleigh, “what a tease you are! He always has been. He says the most outrageous things.”

“You should banish me from polite society, Mama,” said Edwin.

“Oh, my dear, how dull it would be if we did. Let us go into dinner and all get to know each other.”

The hall was rather like the one at Congrève. There was a dais and on this the table had been set because it was such a small party. Only we did not sit in the traditional way facing the main hall, but round the table as would have been done in a small room.

Lady Eversleigh sat at one end of the table with Lucas on her right and Harriet on her left. Edwin was at the other end with me on his right and Charlotte on his left. Sir Charles Condey was between me and Harriet.

“It would be so much more convenient if we had a small dining room,” said Lady Eversleigh. “But we have become accustomed to makeshift in the last years.”

“Never mind,” said Edwin, “we are soon going to be at home.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

He touched my hand which was lying on the table—only briefly but I felt a thrill of pleasure in the contact. “Certain of it,” he said smiling at me.

“Why are you so certain?”

“The signs and portents. Cromwell has kept his iron grip on the nation because he is a man of iron. Richard, his son, fortunately for England, has none of his father’s qualities. He has inherited the Protectorate because he is his father’s son. Oliver took it with his own strength. There’s a world of difference.”

“I wonder what is happening at our home,” said Lady Eversleigh. “We had such good servants … so loyal. They didn’t want these Puritan ideas. I wonder if they have been able to keep the place going.” She turned to Lucas. “Isn’t it wonderful to contemplate going home?”

Lucas said that it was, but that he could remember nothing of his home, although he recalled a little of his grandparents’ place in Cornwall.

“We escaped there,” I added. “My mother made the long journey across the country with Lucas and me. Our home, Far Flamstead, not far from London, had been attacked by the enemy but not completely destroyed.”

“A sad story and too often repeated,” said Charles Condey.

Harriet said: “I can remember so well my escape from England. We had warning that the enemy were approaching. My father had already been killed at Naseby and we knew the cause was lost. My mother and I and a few faithful servants hid in the woods while they ravaged our home. I shall never forget the sight of our home in flames.”

“My dear!” said Lady Eversleigh.

Everyone was looking at Harriet now but she would not meet my eye.

How beautifully she modulated her voice! She was acting a part and she was a superb actress.

“All those treasures which one has preserved through one’s childhood … the dolls … I had puppet dolls which I made perform for me. They were real to me. I fancied I could hear their screams as the flames consumed them. I was very young, of course …”

Silence at the table. How beautiful she was. And never more so than when she was acting a part.

“I remember waking cold, with the dawn just showing in the sky and the smell of acrid smoke in the air. It was quiet. The Roundheads had destroyed our home, changed our lives and gone on.”

“By God,” said Edwin, “when we get back they shall pay for what they did.”

Charlotte put in quietly: “There was violence and cruelty on both sides. When peace comes it will be best to forget this dreadful time.”

Charles Condey agreed with her. “If only we can go back to the old gracious life, we’ll forget this.”

“There has been nearly ten years of it,” said Edwin.

“It will be a new start,” Charlotte said. Charles Condey looked at her and smiled and I realized they were lovers.

Harriet was determined to maintain the centre of attention.

“We went back to the house … our beautiful gracious home which I had known all my life. But there was little left of it. I can remember searching frantically for my puppets. They were gone. All I found was a piece of charred ribbon … cherry coloured, which I had put on the dress of one of them. I treasure it to this day.”

Oh, Harriet, I thought angrily, how can you! And before me too, who knows that you are lying.

I did meet her gaze then. It challenged me. All right then, betray me. Tell them that I am the bastard of a strolling player and a village girl, that my mother was the mistress of the Squire, and the Roundheads never came near the place where we lived on his bounty. Tell them.

She knew I would not. But I would speak to her when we were alone.

Edwin leaned towards her. “What happened then?”

“Obviously we could not stay in the woods. We walked to the nearest village. We had a few jewels which we had taken with us to the fields. We sold these and lived on the proceeds for a while. In one village we fell in with some strolling players. They were having a bad time and performed in secret, for the Puritans were getting a big hold on the country at that time and, as you know, they were against playacting. The theatres were soon closed but there were still a few players on the road. So we joined them, my mother and I, and do you know for a short time I discovered that I had a talent for acting?”

“That does not surprise me,” I said, and she smiled at me again, daring me to expose her.

“I made some puppets. I did my little performance with them and then they let me act with them. I took small parts at first and then bigger ones. But things were getting worse. Although the villagers were pleased to see us, we never knew when one of them would be an informer. It became too dangerous so we came to France. My mother was drowned on the way, for we were wrecked. I was saved and went to the home of some friends of mine. I stayed with them for a while.”

“How very interesting,” said Lady Eversleigh. “Who were they?”

Harriet hesitated only for a fraction of a second. She dared not say the d’Ambervilles—if indeed her story concerning them was true. How could one be sure with such an actress?

“The de la Boudons,” she said. “You may know them.”

Lady Eversleigh shook her head. How could she know a family which existed only in Harriet’s imagination.

“Later,” continued Harriet, “I went to Arabella and I have been with her some time.”

“We must all band together in these times,” said Lady Eversleigh. “And how glad I am that you came!”

“It was so kind of you to let me. Arabella and I are such fast friends and I know that she did not like the idea of leaving me behind … and nor did I.”

“You are very welcome,” said Lady Eversleigh. “I am sure you will help to enliven the company.”

“Harriet always does. Ever since the strolling players came.” This was Lucas. I had forgotten that he would be wondering about her story. So it seemed had she.

She parried that thrust with the utmost ease. “Oh, yes, what a time that was. I was with the de la Boudons when these strolling players came to them. They played for us and I told them about my being with the players and they let me take part. Apparently they were quite pleased with me, and as one of their leading players had deserted them, they asked me if I would help them.” She paused then went on: “I will be honest …”

How can you, Harriet? I thought. She must have seen the shocked look in my eyes, for she smiled secretively. She was more lovely when she was involved in mischief, and I knew they must all be thinking how enchanting she was.

“The de la Boudons had been very kind to me … but life with them was so dull. I asked if they would allow me to go with the players … just for an adventure. They understood that the players had brought back memories to me. They were most sympathetic. They were sure that I was a great actress, and when they heard that the company were going to Paris, they were eager for me to join them. So I did, and by great good fortune we came to Congrève. There I hurt my ankle and was forced to stay behind when the players left. I realized, of course, that I was not meant to be a strolling player, and when Arabella and dear Lucas implored me to stay, I agreed.”

“We are all very glad that you did,” said Edwin. “Otherwise we should have missed the pleasure of knowing you.”

“We might well have met when we all return to England.”

“Then the pleasure would have been too long delayed.”

Harriet became animated. “You remember our play, Arabella … Lucas? How like the hall at Congrève this one is. It has the dais … it makes a good platform. What fun we had. We must tell them.”

“The play we did,” said Lucas. “Wasn’t it wonderful? It was all due to Harriet, of course. We all took part and the Lambards—the nearby farmers—and the servants were our audience.”

“You enjoyed it, did you not, Lucas?” said Harriet. “You were very good in your part.”

“I was sorry for Arabella,” said Lucas. “She had to die at the end.”

“The reward for my ill-spent life,” I said.

“Really?” Edwin was smiling at me. “I can’t believe that you life spent in any ways but worthily.”

“In the part I was the murderess. I prepared the poison draught for Harriet and took it myself.”

“It was a French melodrama,” Harriet explained.

Lady Eversleigh had grown rather pink. “Wouldn’t it be fun if we could do a little play? We have several guests coming and there are people around we could invite to see it. Do you think you could play the same thing again?”

“Are they English, your visitors?” asked Harriet.

“Yes … all of them … all exiles like ourselves.”

“Our melodrama was decidedly French … all about love and passion.”

“A most interesting subject,” said Edwin.

“Very French,” insisted Harriet.

Charles said: “Are you suggesting that these are subjects which don’t interest the English?”

“No, indeed. Many are interested in them but in secret.”

“How amusing,” said Edwin.

“Come,” Harriet parried, “you know this to be a fact.”

“In Puritan England, I daresay?”

“What I am suggesting,” said Harriet, “is that we should do a play which is entirely English. Shakespeare, for instance.”

“Wouldn’t that be rather beyond us?” asked Charlotte.

“I know some abridged versions which make it quite easy to stage.”

Charlotte said: “You must have done it in French.”

“Er … yes, but I could do the translation. What do you say that we form our band of players. … All of us will have a part.”

“You must not count me in,” said Lady Eversleigh. “I have the guests’ comfort to think of. We haven’t the servants here we had at home.”

“Then the rest of us,” said Harriet. “That makes a company of six. We can manage. We might get someone else to join us for a walk-on part.”

There was no doubt that they were all excited. Conversation was all about the entertainment we should give.

We sat long over the table, and as we left it Lady Eversleigh whispered to me: “How glad I am that you brought your friend.”

I was silent when we were in our room that night and it was Harriet who opened the subject as we lay in our beds. “Stop being so smug and self-righteous,” she said.

“I have said nothing,” I replied.

“No, but you look like a holy martyr. Don’t be so silly.”

“Listen, Harriet,” I said, “I brought you here. If I went to Lady Eversleigh and told her that you came to us with the strolling players, that you pretended to hurt your ankle so that you could stay and be our governess, what do you think she would say?”

“What a deceitful creature that Arabella Tolworthy is. She has foisted this adventuress on our house and deceived us all.”

I couldn’t help laughing. It was so like Harriet to turn the tables.

She looked relieved.

“What harm is done?” she asked. “We are going to have a successful house party because of our play. You know how people love that sort of thing. Do you remember the Lambards … even the Lambard men? … They had never had such an evening’s entertainment in their lives.”

“But they were simple country folk.”

“I tell you everyone loves a play. What did Lady Eversleigh whisper to you as we left the table? Don’t bother to tell me. I heard. ‘How glad I am that you brought your friend.’” For the moment she was Lady Eversleigh and I laughed again. Of course no harm was done. Of course everyone was going to have a better time because Harriet was with us.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“So now you see reason. I think our play should be Romeo and Juliet.”

“You are ambitious. Isn’t that going to be the most difficult one to do?”

“I like a challenge.”

“Should you like to be challenged as to the authenticity of the story of your life?”

“Don’t carp. We’re going to do Romeo and Juliet.”

“With a cast of six!”

“Not the play in its entirety, of course, and there are others coming. Scenes from it cleverly linked to make a whole. It’s possible to do that, you know. It is what is done all the time. I see Edwin as Romeo.”

I was silent. I had been trying not to think too much of Edwin, but he kept intruding into my thoughts.

I had never seen or even imagined anyone so attractive. He was so good-looking, so poised; one felt he would be in command of any situation. When he had looked at me and given me that rather crooked smile, I had felt a glow of pleasure. When he had touched my hand, I felt a tremor of excitement. I wanted to be near him, to listen to what he had to say. I knew I was too excited to sleep and this was mainly due to Edwin.

“Do you?” Harriet persisted.

“Do I what?”

“You’re not asleep are you? See Edwin as Romeo, I said.”

“Oh, yes … I suppose so.”

“Who else? That Charles Condey? He hasn’t half the charm. Or Lucas. He’s far too young.”

“Romeo wasn’t very old, was he?”

“He was an experienced lover. Yes, it will have to be Edwin.”

I did not answer and she went on: “What did you think of him?”

“Think of whom?”

“Oh, wake up, Arabella. Edwin, of course.”

“Oh, I thought he was very … pleasant.”

“Pleasant!” She laughed softly. “Yes, I suppose you could say that. I believe he is most attractive in every way. He’s the heir to a great title and if they should regain their estates … and they should and more also if the King is restored to the throne … he will be very rich indeed.”

“You have discovered a great deal.”

“It slipped out here and there and I pieced it together.”

“Ingenious!”

“Not in the least. Just plain reasoning. Charles Condey is not without means either.”

“You have done your work well.”

“I just use my ears and eyes. Mademoiselle Charlotte is enamoured of Condey. I think there may well be an announcement. Remember we were told it was a family gathering tonight. Well, that is significant, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps.”

“Poor Charlotte, she is hardly the world’s most attractive woman, is she?”

“How could she be when you have seized that title?”

“How discerning of you.”

“Not particularly. I thought it was the message you were conveying at the table and after.”

“You are a little sour tonight, Arabella. Why?”

“Perhaps,” I replied, “I am tired. I should like to sleep, you know. It has been a long day.”

She was silent.

Sour? I thought. Was she right? Was I thinking that I wanted Edwin to like me, to be interested in me; and I wondered if it would be possible for him to notice me very much when there was such a dazzling creature as Harriet about.

The next day everyone talked of nothing but the play. Harriet called a meeting in the morning and we all discussed how we should set about the project.

Oddly enough she had the script with her. “I always take a few with me when I visit, because if people show themselves to be interested, I am ready,” she explained. So she had planned this. I saw it clearly now. She had led the conversation that way during dinner; she had come prepared. Sometimes she astonished even me.

But she had certainly fired their enthusiasm. Lady Eversleigh was delighted, for I could see that Harriet had taken the burden of entertaining her guests completely from her shoulders.

Other guests would be arriving over the next few days, and when they did we would put the proposition to them, and if any of them would like to join in, they could do so.

Romeo and Juliet would be difficult, Harriet admitted, but if they could do it, it would be like a touch of home to the exiles, and she was sure it would be more welcome than some light French farce. We should have to work, of course. We should have to learn our lines, but as the play would be very much abridged, that would not be such a great task except for the principals.

She smiled at Edwin. “You must be Romeo,” she said, and there was admiration in her gaze.

“‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art though Romeo?’” he said. “That’s all I know of the words.”

“Then,” I said, “You will have a great task before you.”

“We shall have a prompter,” soothed Harriet.

“I’ll be prompter,” volunteered Charlotte.

Harriet looked at her coolly. “Perhaps that would be a good idea. Though we do need so many players, there are not many female roles.”

“Bess Tredager will revel in it,” said Edwin. “She’ll like a big part. And then there is John Messenger and James and Ellen Farley. They will relish it.”

“Then,” said Harriet, turning to Charlotte, “it seems likely that we shall need you just out of sight with the script. It’s not a bad idea, as there are so few women’s parts in the play. Some of the women may have to take men’s roles. That should be amusing. There are only the Ladies Capulet and Montague … and the Nurse, of course.”

She was looking at me, a trifle maliciously, I thought. It was almost as though she wanted to shut me out.

She had turned to Edwin. “We shall have to work hard together,” she said.

“I am sure it will be more like pleasure than work,” he replied.

“Are you good at learning?”

“No good at all,” he replied cheerfully. “I think you should make me the scene shifter.”

“Ah, scenery! We have to devise something. But you are certainly Romeo. The part fits you.”

“Then I shall have to rely on Charlotte. And I’m sure you’ll give me a tip too when I need it.”

“You can be sure I shall do all I can to guide you,” replied Harriet.

Lady Eversleigh looked in to say that there were several trunks of clothes in the attics and we might like to go through them to see if we could find something that would be useful. We were all excited at the prospect and immediately trooped up to the attics.

What a hilarious morning that was! There were clothes in trunks which must have been there for years. Shrieks of laughter echoed in the old rafters as we tried on the oddest of garments. Harriet, however, found much there that could be adjusted. There was in particular a little black cap which fitted closely to the head. It was covered in stones which looked like coral and turquoise and had a peak which came halfway down the forehead. I was the first to see it; I seized it and put it on my head.

“It’s lovely!” cried Charlotte.

Edwin was smiling at me. “You must wear that,” he said. “It suits you.”

Harriet had come to me. “Why, it’s Juliet’s cap,” she said. “It’s just the thing.” She took it from my head and put it on her own. I suppose if it had looked effective on me, it would look doubly so on her. She certainly looked very handsome, for the jewels set off her magnificent colouring.

Charlotte said surprisingly: “It really suits Arabella’s colouring better.”

Harriet took it off and looked at it. “What a find,” she cried. “It is Juliet’s cap.”

We were all late for the midday meal but Lady Eversleigh was delighted. She was a born hostess and she must be thinking that her guests would so appreciate this house party that they would talk about it even when they returned to England.

That afternoon we went for a ride and I found myself side by side with Edwin.

He told me that very soon he would be expected to go to England. They were waiting for the command to leave. It seemed that the time had come to assess the effect of Oliver’s death. This was why he was with his family. At the appointed time he would leave for England to, as he put it, “spy out the land.”

“Wouldn’t it be rather dangerous?” I asked.

“If our mission were discovered … perhaps.”

“What I remember of it,” I said, “there was so much wanton destruction. I can recall how peaceful it seemed when we came to France, because even when we were with my grandparents in Cornwall, there was an uneasiness and we were watching all the time.”

“Danger can be exciting,” he said. “There is always that, you know.”

“Do you find exile dull?”

“The last few days have been far from dull. I am so glad my parents met yours and that this should be the result.”

“It is kind of you to say so, and a great adventure for us. We have lived very quietly in Château Congrève.”

“I know how it is. My mother has found it most irksome. In the old days she always had the house full of guests. Her desire to get back is an obsession.”

“As it must be for so many. Are you among them?”

He was silent for a while. Then he said: “I have always been able to accept what is—perhaps because I don’t take life seriously enough. You’ll no doubt find me rather frivolous.”

“Shall I?”

“Oh, yes. In these days it is better not to take things too much to heart. Life changes. Let us enjoy what we can while we can. That’s my motto.”

“It’s probably a good one. It prevents repining.”

“Laugh and be merry, for who knows what the morrow will bring?”

“It must be wonderful to feel like that. You are never greatly concerned about what may happen.”

“My father says I should be more serious now that I am a man, but it is difficult to cast off the habit of a lifetime. I have the gift … if you can regard it as such … of living in the moment, forgetting the past and letting the future take care of itself. At the moment I am completely happy. I can think of nothing more delightful than riding with Mistress Arabella Tolworthy.”

“I see you are gallant and determined to flatter me, but as you have already warned me that I must not take you seriously, I shall not do so. I daresay you would be as happy or happier riding through an English country lane with Mistress Jane or Betty.”

“At this moment I ask nothing more. Perhaps if I were in an English country lane with Mistress Arabella that could be a more desirable project, but it hadn’t occurred to me in my moment of pleasure. If I were at home that would mean that the excitement was over. I have to confess another failing. I enjoy excitement.”

“And danger?”

“Therein lies the real excitement.”

“I think,” I said, “you do not mean all you say.”

“I mean it at the moment. Later on perhaps I should mean something else.”

“You are a fickle person, perhaps?”

“Fickle in some ways, constant in others. Constant in friendship, I assure you, and I hope, Mistress Arabella, that you and I are going to be friends.”

“I hope that too,” I answered.

He leaned towards me suddenly and touched my hand.

I think I was already half in love with him.

The others caught up with us. I noticed that Harriet was riding with Charles Condey and that he was still a little bemused by her. Charlotte was with them. She did not betray that she had noticed Charles’s attitude towards Harriet, but I had already assumed that she was a girl who would not show her feelings.

While I was changing, Harriet came in. I had slipped off my riding habit and put on a loose gown.

“You look pleased with yourself,” was Harriet’s comment.

“I like it here,” I replied. “Don’t you?”

“I like it very much.”

She rose and looked at herself in the mirror. She took off her riding hat and, shaking out her hair, picked up the Juliet cap which was lying on the table and put it on. She studied her face from all angles.

“What a discovery!” she said.

“It’s really rather beautiful.”

She nodded, keeping it on her head, still looking at her reflection and smiling almost secretively.

“You and Edwin seemed to get along very well,” she said.

“Oh, yes. He is easy to talk to.”

“He’s very charming. Rather fond of the ladies I should say.”

“Perhaps that is why we like him. Naturally we would like those who like us.”

“Clever observation,” she said with sarcasm. Then she looked at me though half-closed eyes. “It wouldn’t surprise me …” she began and stopped.

“What wouldn’t surprise you?”

“If the meeting had been arranged with a purpose.”

“A purpose? What do you mean?”

“Don’t assume innocence, Arabella. He is an eligible young man … extremely eligible. You are not without some eligibility. Daughter of a general, who is friend and close associate of the King. You see what I mean? Here we are in exile where it is not so easy to mate suitably. Therefore, when an arrangement can be gracefully made, it is.”

“You do talk nonsense. I shan’t marry for years. Besides …”

“Besides what?”

“We should both have to agree, shouldn’t we?”

“By the look of you I would say that if the proposition were put to you, you would not be altogether unwilling.”

“I scarcely know him …”

“And he? I think he would be malleable. He is easygoing. I can’t see him putting up a fight against what was so eminently suitable. Oh, Arabella, don’t look so cross. Think how lucky you are to have your future so carefully planned.”

“This is your usual romancing. I think the lies you have told since you have been in this house have been … outrageous. Perhaps I should not have been persuaded to bring you.”

“Think of all the fun you would have missed.”

“And take that cap off your head. It looks quite ridiculous.”

“Wait until I wear it on the great night. I wonder what will have happened by then?”

“That even you cannot prophesy,” I replied.

“We shall have to wait and see,” she replied, smiling at me.

I lay awake that night, thinking of what she had said. Could it really be true? I had to admit that it was possible. I was seventeen and because of our exile there was very little hope of my meeting someone whom I could marry. I wondered if my parents had discussed my marriage with the Eversleighs. Our mutual standing was such that neither family would be averse to a union, and I supposed it was a great concern to parents as to how they were going to get their children married.

Had Edwin really been chosen for me? I had to admit that, although I should have preferred him to have chosen me romantically, I could not help being excited by the prospect.

I had never in my life seen a young man so handsome, so gallant, so attractive. But then what young men had I seen? The only one I could compare him with was the actor Jabot and of course he was very different from him. I had not liked Jabot in the least and could not understand why Harriet and Fleurette could have been jealous about him. Edwin had everything to make him appeal to a romantic girl, and I was a romantic girl.

What a glorious adventure! I was in love with Edwin and he was the man my parents have chosen for me.

The next day more guests arrived and they were all extremely excited by the prospect of the play. Parts were assigned. Harriet was Juliet and Edwin, Romeo. I was Lady Capulet, which I said was absurd, as I should portray Harriet’s mother.

“It will be a test of your powers as an actress,” she told me severely.

Charles Condey was Friar Laurence.

“It will suit him,” said Harriet with a laugh.

I don’t think I had ever seen her so excited. She was at the centre of everything.

Everyone was drawn into the project. The servants were eager to help. One of them was an excellent seamstress and she was working almost the whole of the day making costumes. Harriet was in her element. She sparkled; she grew more beautiful than ever, if that were possible. Everyone referred to her. I called her the Queen of Villers Tourron.

She spent a good deal of time with Edwin—rehearsing, she told us.

“He’s quite a good actor,” she said. “I am really making a Romeo of him.”

She spent a little time with Charles Condey too, schooling him in his part. I was a little worried about Charlotte because she seemed to become more withdrawn than ever.

I remonstrated with Harriet when we were alone.

“I don’t think Charlotte is very happy about you and Charles Condey,” I said.

“What about us?” she asked.

“You know he is becoming infatuated by you.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Is that my fault?”

“Yes,” I answered shortly.

She burst out laughing. “My dear Arabella, it is up to Charlotte, is it not?”

“Charlotte is a girl who would never deliberately set out to attract a man.”

“Then it serves her right if she loses him.”

“Oh, come, men are not prizes to be won for … I was going to say for good conduct … but I could hardly call the way you are behaving that, could I?”

“Oh, but they are,” she said. “Some people have prizes presented to them when they really don’t deserve them. Others have to work for them. Charlotte may lose hers simply because she has made no effort to keep it.”

“Are you trying to win Charles Condey?”

“You know I always go for the top prizes. He’s hardly that.”

“Then why not leave him to Charlotte?”

“Perhaps I will.”

I was very uneasy, but after our talk I noticed she was less with Charles than before. She said she had to concentrate on her scenes with Romeo.

She was rather upset one afternoon after the midday meal when I came to our room to get a book and I found her there. When I asked if anything was wrong she grimaced and said: “Lady Eversleigh wants to talk to me. I am to go to her room at three o’clock.”

“Why?” I asked in alarm.

“That is what I should like to know.”

“It’s something about the play, I expect.”

Harriet shook her head. “I am not sure. She looked very grave, and what was more disconcerting she said little. You know she is usually so loquacious. I wondered why she couldn’t say it there and then. But this seems to be a secret.”

“You don’t think she has discovered you are not what you seemed? Can she know about those atrocious lies?”

“Even if she had she wouldn’t want to send me away. The play would collapse without me.”

“Conceit!” I said.

“Truth!” she parried. “No, it can’t be that. I wonder what it is.”

I had rarely seen her so concerned as when she went for her talk with Lady Eversleigh, and when she came back, I was waiting for her in our room. Then she was really angry. Her cheeks were scarlet, her eyes blazing—and she looked magnificent.

“Why, Harriet, what is it?”

She threw herself into a chair and looked at me.

“You are to play Juliet,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The royal command,” she said.

“She sent for you to tell you that.”

Harriet nodded. “She didn’t say so but she thinks I am spending the time with her precious Edwin that he should be spending with you.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Oh, yes, it’s true. She was very friendly, thanking me profusely for coming and working so hard to make her party a success. She appreciated that, she said. But she makes it quite clear that you are to play Juliet so that you can play at love with Edwin-Romeo. That is what is to be. It’s an ultimatum. Underneath all that inconsequential femininity, Matilda Eversleigh is a woman of iron. She knows what she wants and she is going to get it.

“I said to her: ‘But the part is demanding. It needs a real actress. Arabella is not that. She hasn’t the experience … the acting ability to play it.’ She laughed and said: ‘My dear Mistress Main, it is only a game, you know. It will amuse our guests and that is its object. The little mishaps are such fun in games like this. Don’t you agree? And Charlotte tells me that Arabella looked quite beautiful in the cap you found in the attic.’ Then I thought to myself it’s that cat Charlotte who has done this.”

“Don’t speak so loudly,” I warned. “And Charlotte is not in the least like a cat.”

“She is. Sly, secretive, ready to scratch.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have offended her by flirting with Charles Condey.”

“Oh, nonsense! How can I help being more attractive than Charlotte? It is no great achievement in any case. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would be that.”

“Well, go on,” I prompted. “What else did Lady Eversleigh say? I trust you hid your fury.”

“I didn’t show by a twitch of my nose or a twist of my lips how furious I was. Or if I did … she put it down to my love of the art.”

“Your love of yourself more likely. Tell me more.”

“She became a little coy. ‘Our families,’ she said, ‘are hopeful that there might be a match between Arabella and Edwin. For a long time my husband has admired General Tolworthy. He is one of the best soldiers in the King’s army. The King is very grateful to him.’ I nodded and said with sarcasm which was lost on her: ‘When we get back to England the King will want to show his gratitude to people like the General.’ ‘He has promised,’ she answered, ‘so I think that once we are back …’ I finished for her: ‘His daughter would be an excellent match for you son.’ ‘That is what Lord Eversleigh thinks,’ she replied, ‘and so do Arabella’s parents. The times make everything so difficult and it is rarely that a happy arrangement can come about. It is for this reason that I should like to see this matter settled.’”

I was shifting uneasily on my chair, feeling embarrassed and a little angry that my affairs should be discussed in this way.

“Then it came,” went on Harriet. “The play was so romantic. Juliet and Romeo were the great lovers of all time. She thought it would be rather charming for the two who everyone was hoping would want to make a match of it should play the parts together.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“What could I say? I caught something in her eye. I think Charlotte had been carrying tales. I had an idea that if I refused she would have made it impossible for me to stay here. She is a very ungrateful woman. She has already forgotten that I have prevented her house party’s being a tiresome bore. The fact is she doesn’t want me to play love scenes with Edwin and she thinks you and he should. It will be a little practice for you.”

“Well, I think it’s all rather sordid. What are we going to do?”

“You’ll have to play Juliet, and the way you’ll play it I should think would be deterrent rather than a spur to love.”

“There are times,” I said, “when you are insufferable. I do believe you think no one is of the least account but yourself.”

I was thinking of Edwin then; his tender look, his easy smile, his tall, lean body and his rather sleepy brown eyes. I was in love with Edwin. My parents and his wanted us to marry. How could I feel incensed because Harriet had been robbed of her part? I was glad. I would play Juliet. Edwin and I would spend hours rehearsing together. I should be with him all the time. I had been a little bored with Lady Capulet.

I must confess that I admired Harriet. I knew what a blow it was to her. Naturally as the professional actress she had wanted the main part and should have had it. But after her outburst to me, she determined not to show her anger.

She called us all together and explained that some parts would be changed. She herself had too much to do stage-managing so she was not going to play Juliet after all. She thought I could do the part. She herself would take over the Nurse which was a really big role. They would see that this would mean a little change here and there.

I looked at Edwin, wondering if he would mind.

He smiled at me with that lovely tender smile, and taking my hand kissed it as Harriet had taught him to do in the part.

“You will find me lacking,” he warned.

“As you will find me.”

“I can’t believe that.”

He pressed my hand warmly. I was so happy. Then I remembered what he had said about accepting what was offered him and reconciling himself to it. But I was sure he was pleased to play the lover with me.

As for myself, I kept thinking of what Lady Eversleigh had said to Harriet. Our parents wanted us to marry. I wanted us to marry. Everything now depended on Edwin.

They were enchanted days for me. I was with Edwin a great deal. We learned our words. I knew his off by heart and constantly prompted him. It was not difficult for us to play at lovers, and I began to think that he was in love with me as I was with him.

It seemed strange that the theme of the play was the feud between two families and that the lovers loved and sought to marry in spite of this, while with us it was entirely the opposite. Our parents had put us together that we might fall in love.

And we have! We have! I wanted to sing. I loved the way he said:

“It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, …”

He added once: “I know what he means by that. The brightness of the day only comes to him when Juliet is there.”

“Of course a little while ago he was in love with someone else,” I pointed out. “Do you think he would have been true to Juliet if he had married her?”

“I am sure he would,” he answered.

“Otherwise,” I added, “it would all seem so pointless.”

“Life can sometimes be pointless, but let’s assume he would have been faithful unto death. Which he was … anyway.”

“He had scarcely time to be anything else.”

Edwin was so ready to laugh. He imbued our rehearsals with a sense of hilarity and I threw myself into it wholeheartedly.

I had never been happy like that at any time in my life.

Because I enjoyed the closeness of Edwin, the touch of his hands, the ardour in his voice when he embraced me, I knew that I wanted him as my husband. Before Harriet had come, I might have been a little ignorant of the relationship between men and women; but since she had come, I had learned much of these things. I had read my mother’s journal and she had said when she showed it to me that I was like her, which meant that I would not shrink from the physical aspect of love as some women like my Aunt Angelet had.

I knew that I wanted to make love with Edwin and that I should not lie shrinking in my marriage bed.

I loved the scene in the gallery when Juliet and Romeo are together and morning has come and he must leave her.

I savoured the words:

“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day:

It was the nightingale and not the lark, …”

And Romeo answers:

“It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”

We did the scene again and again. It was his favourite too, he told me, although he hated leaving me.

“It’s only a play,” I told him, laughing.

“Sometimes I feel I am not acting at all,” he answered. “I can’t be, because I am sure I should be the world’s worst actor, and I fancy I cut quite a dash as Romeo.” Harriet was very critical of us when we rehearsed together. She was trying to make the Nurse the great part in the play now, and I must say she did it superbly. Although she could not look the part. Sometimes I think she did not intend to. She wanted everyone to say she should have taken Juliet.

But rehearsing was great fun and Harriet was superb. Lucas had now become Paris, the husband chosen for Juliet by her parents, and he played it better than I had expected he possibly could.

He told me that he had never enjoyed anything so much as this visit. “And it is all due to Harriet,” he added. Then he frowned. “She did not tell of her coming as it really happened.” He adored her and did not like to think she had disguised the truth. Then he smiled and added: “Harriet is by nature an actress and I think that she cannot stop herself playing a part.”

I could see that Lucas was growing up.

The day before the play was to be performed there was intense excitement throughout the château. We should have a considerable audience, for Lady Eversleigh had filled the place to its utmost capacity and because of the play she was inviting all those who were near enough to come. If necessary she said they could sleep on the floor of the great hall. It would not be the first time this had been done.

We had been through our dress rehearsal the previous day and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. I had always amused the children by imitating Miss Black, and I remembered how Dick and Angie had rolled about in mirth. I had been dressed up once and played the part of a robber who had come to the château to kidnap us all. I had so frightened the children that they had been nervous for weeks, and I realized I had been foolish, but at the same time I had played my part with conviction. And now I was determined to make a success of Juliet not only because I loved playing to Edwin’s Romeo but I wanted to convince Harriet that, although I might not give such a spectacular performance as she would have done, I was a tolerable actress.

Of course Harriet had her own special magic, and I could see that when she was on the stage even in a part such as that of the Nurse, everyone wanted to look at her all the time. She knew her words to perfection; she gave me a rather supercilious glance now and then, and I had the impression that she was almost hoping I should forget my lines. The scenes between the Nurse and Juliet were longer than they had been, for when she was to play the part she had extended them and they were there almost in their entirety. I could feel her eyes on my Juliet cap which she herself had longed to wear. I had the feeling that all the time she was resisting an impulse to snatch it off.

The great day came. Harriet had said that there would be no more rehearsing. What we must do now was to put the play from our minds. We had had the dress rehearsal, which had gone off fairly well; all we could do now was wait for the night.

I laughed at her and said she took it all too seriously. We were not professional players whose livelihood depended on our performance.

I walked in the gardens and Edwin joined me.

He asked me if I were nervous about the play. “It’s only a game really,” I said. “If we forget our lines everyone will laugh, and it will probably be greater fun than if we play like professionals, which we can’t in any case because we are not.”

“My mother is hoping to make an announcement tonight,” he said.

My heart began to beat faster and I waited expectantly, but he went on:

“She is hoping Charles is going to ask Charlotte to marry him in time for her to come onto the stage when the play is over and tell the company of the betrothal.” He frowned. “I am a little anxious,” he added.

“Why?”

“Charles has changed. I think poor Charlotte knows this. Have you noticed the difference in her?”

“I thought she seemed a little sad. But then I don’t know her very well and she has never seemed lively.”

“Charlotte has always been like that … the opposite of her brother. She is serious-minded and hides her feelings. But I don’t think she is very happy now.”

“Does she want to marry Charles or would it be one of those arranged marriages?”

“She wants it fervently, or did, and he seemed eager. But lately it has changed.”

I thought: Since we came. It is obvious Charles has fallen in love with Harriet. Oh, poor Charlotte. She must be wishing she had never set eyes on us.

“Perhaps I’m wrong,” said Edwin, and then characteristically, “I’m sure I am. There’ll be an announcement tonight, you’ll see. After all it’s what he came here for.”

He took my arm and pressed it. I was very happy then.

“Do you know,” he went on. “I fancy that before long I shall have to go away.”

“To join your father?”

“No … to England.”

“That would be dangerous.”

“I should not go in my own name. We would cross the Channel in secret and land in some lonely spot and we should be wearing somber clothes so that we looked exactly like everyone else. I am to spy out the land to meet those whom we know to be Royalists, to see what the mood of the people is … to pave the way for the King’s return.”

“When?”

“I am waiting now to hear. Messengers could come any day with a command for me to leave at once.”

“Not before the performance tonight!”

He laughed. “Oh, no fear of that. What a tragedy! Do you think the play would be impossible without me?”

“Where should I find another Romeo?”

He turned to me and smiled very tenderly, I thought. “You would find one,” he said, “much more worthy than I.”

“After all this rehearsing!”

He looked away almost uneasily. “It won’t be like that, I’m sure. We shall no doubt be given several weeks’ warning. We would have to make ready. It is a matter which will have to be very carefully planned … and rehearsed, far more carefully than Romeo and Juliet.”

“I suppose so.”

He took my hand. “Why, you are really concerned.”

“I don’t like the idea of your being in danger.”

He bent towards me and kissed my cheek. “Dear Arabella,” he said. “How good and sweet you are. I wish …” I waited and he went on: “There is no real danger if we are careful. We shall be in our own country, and after my recent experience as an actor, I shall know how to play a Puritan completely satisfied with the rule of the country, and we shall be going to those whom we know will be our friends. So, there is no need for anxiety.”

“Do you really think the people want the King to come back?”

“It is what we have to find out. If they do then he will go, but unless the people are behind him, he hasn’t a chance.”

“You know him well, do you?”

“As well as most know Charles. The perfect companion, merry, witty, never serious. One can never be sure if he means what he says.”

“You mean … unreliable.”

“Perhaps, but I never knew a man with greater charm.”

“Maybe his charm is due to his royalty.”

“Not entirely. But that could be part of it. Everyone is prepared to love a king, and if he gives them reason to, well then the love is so much greater. Oh, I am sure we shall be back soon, Arabella. What a day that will be when we set foot on our native soil!”

“I wonder what we shall find.”

He touched my cheek lightly and said: “For that we must wait and see.”

We talked then of England as we remembered it, and because I was with Edwin it was the gay things I remembered. When I was with him I could share his outlook on life. Everything was pleasant; if it was not, one shut one’s eyes to it and refused to acknowledge its existence. It seemed a good way of living.

The play was to be performed at six o’clock and after that there was to be a feast in the dining hall. The audience’s seats would be hastily removed and the old trestle tables set up and the food all ready in the kitchen would be brought in. With great ingenuity and with the help of some of the grooms, Harriet had arranged that a portion of the hall at the side of the dais should be curtained off, and there the actors would await the appropriate moment to step nimbly onto the dais and play their parts. Charlotte was to be in the hidden section with a sheaf of papers to prompt those who forgot their lines. I was very conscious of Charlotte. She was trying to be bright and not quite managing it, and she looked mournful in repose. I knew it was because of Charles Condey and I felt guilty because I also knew that his feeling for Charlotte had grown lukewarm since Harriet had bewitched him. I was angry with Harriet. She should be ashamed, for it was clear that she had no deep feelings for Charles Condey.

As the day progressed the tension within the château increased and in the early afternoon the actors retired to their rooms to prepare themselves.

At six o’clock we were all assembled. Seats had been set up in the hall and everyone for miles around who could possibly come was present. The servants were there in force, so it was a fairly large audience. We could not complain of them, for there was a hushed silence as the play began and I doubted many of them had ever seen anything like it. Harriet’s supervision had meant that to uncritical eyes we were by no means bad, and to see the ancient hall transformed into a theatre was something magical.

My first scene was with Harriet and of course it was her scene. It was only when Edwin and I came face to face that I really felt I was giving my best. I couldn’t help thrilling with pleasure when he, seeing me from afar, said I hung upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel on an Ethiop’s ear, and I was to remember for a long time after, the thrill of hearing him say of Juliet, “I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”

And so it seemed to me we played for each other. We were the lovers. We met and loved—at least I did—as those two did. Surely, I told myself, he could not have played as he did if he had not cared for me.

I think I did rather well in the mausoleum scene. To see Edwin lying there, poisoned, I understood exactly how Juliet must have felt, and I believe I was really tragic when I snatched his dagger and pretended to plunge it into my heart and fell across him.

It was typical of Edwin that he should propose in such circumstances. “Cheer up,” he whispered. “Will you marry me?” I was carried completely back into reality, for I had really been thinking of how heartbroken I would be if he were dead. Edwin was suppressing his laughter and I had difficulty in doing the same.

The final speeches were made. The Duke had commiserated on the follies of enmity and the families had become friends. The play was over.

Everyone applauded wildly. Edwin and I sprang to life and came to stand with the others to take our bow. Harriet, hovering in the centre, took a hand of each of us and we stood there together.

She spoke to the audience and said she hoped they had enjoyed our effort. They must forgive us our faults, but we had done our best, at which Lady Eversleigh replied that she and her guests, she knew, would remember it forever.

Then Edwin stepped forward.

“I have an announcement to make,” he said. “It is a new ending to the play. Romeo and Juliet did not die after all. They lived on to marry and be happy ever after.” He turned, and taking my hand, brought me to stand beside him. “I have great pleasure in telling you that this night Arabella has promised to become my wife.”

There was brief silence and then the applause rang out. Lady Eversleigh came onto the dais; she held out her arms and embraced us both. Then she kissed us solemnly.

“It is the perfect ending,” she said.

The feast was prolonged. There was singing and dancing. The guests were very merry. It was nearly midnight when those who could reach their homes left and the others settled down to the accommodation they could find at Villers Tourron.

I had remained in my Juliet costume, and in the room I shared with Harriet I was reluctant to take it off. I felt the magic would somehow end if I did.

Harriet was watching me.

“You will remember this evening for quite a long time, I should imagine,” she said.

“I suppose one does remember the day one is betrothed.”

“Very dramatic, wasn’t it?” she said. “Trust your future husband for that.”

“It seemed the right moment.”

“Most effective, I grant you.”

“You are not pleased, Harriet?”

“Not pleased? What makes you think that? It is an excellent match. As good as any girl could make. If the King does go back to England and the Eversleighs regain their estates and more also, you will have a very rich husband. When did he ask you?”

“When we were in the tomb.”

“Not a very appropriate moment, surely.”

“It seemed just right,” I replied ecstatically.

“You are bemused,” she said.

“I am allowed to be happy on such a night, am I not?”

“Don’t hope for too much.”

“What’s the matter with you, Harriet?”

“I’m thinking of your happiness.”

“Then rejoice, for I have never been so happy in my life.”

She kissed me lightly on the forehead. Then she stood back. “The cap was too tight for you,” she said. “It’s left a mark.”

“That’ll soon pass.”

I felt rather sorry for Harriet. She had so wanted to be Juliet tonight, and it was a pity, because I knew that for all the flattering compliments I had received, she would have done it so much better than I.

All next day I went about in a state of euphoria. I received congratulations, scarcely listening to them. I was carried off by Lady Eversleigh who kept impressing on me how delighted she was, and she told me that she was sending off a message to her husband and my parents that very day, so that they could share the good news. Would I like to write to Mother and Father and let them see how happy I was?

I wrote to them both.

Dearest Mother and Father,

The most wonderful thing has happened. Edwin Eversleigh has asked me to marry him. I am so happy. Edwin is wonderful, so handsome, so kind and so merry. Everything is a joke with him. He’s hardly ever serious. We have had such fun playing Romeo and Juliet together—he, Romeo, I Juliet. He actually proposed during the death scene. Do write to me soon and tell me that you are as happy about this as I am. I have no time for more, as the messenger is about to leave.

Your loving daughter,

Arabella Tolworthy.

The messenger left with the letters and Matilda Eversleigh kept me with her to talk to me and to tell me how well we should get on together. She was sure that the estates would soon be restored. The family mansion, Eversleigh Court, had not been destroyed by those dreadful Roundheads.

She would not let me go, though I was longing to be with Edwin, and at length when I did get away from her, I heard that Edwin had gone riding with several others it seemed. I went to my room. Harriet’s riding clothes were missing so she must have been one of the party.

It was late when they came back. Harriet seemed in very good spirits.

Several of the guests were still staying on, and that night in the great hall the talk was all of the previous night’s entertainment and the betrothal announcement at the end of it.

The musicians played and we sang. Harriet enchanted everyone with her singing. Then we danced. Edwin and I led off the dancing together, and people watching us, I heard afterwards, said that they could have believed they were back at home and the trouble was over, the spoilers of our country vanquished and good King Charles upon the throne.

“Did you enjoy your ride today?” I asked.

He hesitated only briefly. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “You were not with us,” he said. He said the most delightful things.

“So you missed me.”

“That, my dear Arabella, is what I would call an unnecessary question.”

“I should just like to know the answer.”

“I should miss you whenever you were not with me. I know you were with my mother and how much she wanted to talk to you, so I was self-sacrificing. I shall have you for the rest of our lives.”

“I didn’t know you were going riding or …”

“You would have wanted to come. I knew, so I left you with my mother.”

“I didn’t hear you all leave. I knew afterwards that Harriet had gone.”

“Oh, yes, Harriet,” he said.

“Poor Harriet. It was a blow to her not to play Juliet. She would have been perfect.”

“Different, yes,” he said. “But now we are together, let’s think of what’s to come.”

“I have thought of nothing else.”

“When we get back to England … that will be the time! Then we can live naturally … just as though that ridiculous war never happened. That’s what I am waiting for.”

“First, though, we have to get there. You have to go away soon.”

“That will not be for long. And then I shall come back and ever after we shall be together.”

One of the reasons I most enjoyed being with Edwin—apart from the fact that I was deeply in love with him—was that he carried one along on his ever-present optimism so that one believed in it as wholeheartedly as he did.

How happy I was during the days that followed.

Then something disturbing happened.

Charles Condey left. He pleaded urgent business, but I knew the real reason. The night before he left, Harriet told me that he had asked her to marry him.

She watched me closely as she told me this.

“Harriet!” I cried. “Did you say yes?” And even as I spoke I was thinking, Poor Charlotte.

She shook her head slowly.

“Of course,” I said. “I knew you didn’t love him.”

How wise I felt myself to be in my own exalted experience. I was so happy that I wanted everyone to share my happiness, particularly Harriet. I would have felt it to be wonderful if she could have become betrothed at the same time.

“It would not have been suitable,” she said.

“But, Harriet …”

She turned on me suddenly. “Good enough for me, you are thinking. A strolling player’s bastard. Is that it?”

“Harriet, how can you say that!”

“You are to marry the scion of an ancient house. Money and title in due course. Lady Eversleigh! That is well. You are the daughter of a great general. But anything is good enough for me.”

“But, Harriet, Charles is of good family. He is young and charming.”

“A third son … without means.”

“Well, the Eversleighs apparently thought him good enough for Charlotte.”

She was venomous suddenly. “They were hard put to it to find anyone to take Charlotte. There would have been a big dowry along with her. Once they were back in England … Charles Condey would have done very well for himself.”

“It shows how noble he was in giving it up. I mean it shows he was really in love.”

“Dear Arabella, we are not discussing his feelings, but mine. When I marry it must be someone equal to your gallant bridegroom.”

“Harriet, there are times when I don’t understand you.”

“Which is just as well,” she muttered.

Then she was subdued and would say no more, but she had made me uneasy and I could not recapture that first bright flush of happiness.

I noticed too that, though Charlotte tried to be bright, there was a sadness beneath her efforts. My own happiness was clouded. I wanted to show friendliness towards her but it was not easy. Charlotte had encased herself behind a defensive wall.

Two days after Charles had left, when the guests were gradually departing, I went up to the turret to the lookout tower. I was expecting letters from my parents, and from there I could see right out to the horizon.

Perhaps it was too early yet to receive replies, but I wanted to look just in case.

There was a door which led onto a stone parapet and below this was a sheer drop to the ground. I don’t know what it was that sent me there at that time. I liked to think it was some instinct, but I thanked God that I went.

Charlotte was there, her hands on the stone parapet. And the horrible realization struck me that she was poised to jump.

“Charlotte!” I called, my voice shrill with terror.

She started and hesitated. I froze with horror, for I thought she was going to throw herself over before I could reach her. “No, Charlotte. No!” I cried.

Then to my relief she turned and looked at me.

I have never seen such misery as I saw in her face, and I felt a deep pity that was tinged with remorse because I knew that I was in a way responsible for her unhappiness. It was I who had brought Harriet to Villers Tourron. But for Harriet she would be a happy girl now, betrothed to the man she loved.

I ran to her and caught her arm.

“Oh, Charlotte!” I cried, and she must have seen the depth of my feelings, for they called forth some response in her.

Acting purely on impulse, I put my arms round her and for a few seconds she clung to me. Then she drew quickly away and the habitual coldness had crept over her face.

“I don’t know what you think,” she began.

I shook my head. “Oh, Charlotte!” I cried. “I understand. I do understand.”

Her lip trembled slightly. I felt she was going to tell me that she had been admiring the view and ask me why I was behaving so ridiculously. Then her lips tightened and there was contempt in her look … contempt for herself. Charlotte was of a nature that would despise hypocrisy. She could not pretend.

“Yes,” she said, “I was going to jump over.”

“Thank God I came.”

“You sound as though you really care.”

“Of course I care,” I said. “I’m going to be your sister, Charlotte.”

“You know why?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Charles has gone. He did not love me after all.”

“He did perhaps, but he was … bemused.”

“Why did she have to come here?”

“I brought her. If I had known …”

“Perhaps it’s as well. If he is so easily … bemused … he might not have been a good husband, do you think?”

“I think he will come back.”

“And you think I would take him then?”

“It depends how much you love him. If you loved him enough to do that …” I looked towards the parapet … “perhaps you would love him enough to take him back.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“Come away from there. Let us go somewhere where we can talk.”

“What is there to say?”

“It is often helpful to talk to someone. Oh, Charlotte, it will not seem so cruel later on. I am sure of it.”

She shook her head and I slipped my arm tentatively through hers. I was waiting to be repulsed, but she accepted the gesture and I fancied was somewhat comforted by it.

She stood still, misery in her eyes.

“He was the first who ever looked at me,” she said. “I thought he loved me. But … as soon as she came …”

“There is something about her,” I assured her. “I daresay most men would be attracted … temporarily.”

“What do you know of her?”

“Please come away from here. Let us go where we can talk.”

“Come to my room,” she said.

I felt a wave of exultation. I knew I had come just in time and had averted a tragedy. I felt flushed with triumph and sure that I could talk to her, reason with her, turn her away from this dreadful thing she had been about to do.

She took me to her bedroom. It was smaller than the one I shared with Harriet. It had the remains of some grandeur, though like the rest of the château it showed signs of shabbiness.

She sat down and looked at me helplessly. “You must think me mad,” she said.

“Of course not.” How should I have acted if I had found that Edwin loved someone else?

“But it is so weak, isn’t it? To find life so intolerable that one is ready to give it up.”

“One should consider those left behind,” I pointed out. “Think of the effect it would have on your mother, on Edwin … and Charles … He would never forgive himself.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s a selfish gesture … when there are those who would suffer. It’s a sort of revenge, I suppose. One is so hurt one looks about to hurt others … or at least one doesn’t greatly care if they are hurt.”

“I am sure when all these things are considered, you would not take that sort of action. It was something you contemplated on the spur of the moment.”

“If it hadn’t been for you I should be lying down there on the stones … dead.”

I shuddered.

“I suppose I should say thank you for saving me from that. I should feel grateful, but I am not sure that I do.”

“I don’t want you to feel grateful. I only want you not to do it again. If the impulse came to you and if you stopped awhile to consider …”

“What it would do to others …”

“Yes,” I said, “just that.”

“I don’t want to live, Arabella,” she said. “You don’t understand. You are lively, attractive, people like you. I am different. I have always been aware of being unattractive.”

“But that’s nonsense. It is because you retire into yourself and don’t try to make friends that you have this feeling.”

“Edwin is so good looking, isn’t he? I noticed it in the nursery. It was always Edwin people noticed. My parents showed their preference. So did our nurses. Look at my hair … straight as a poker. One of our nurses used to try to make it curl. But half an hour after it emerged from the curl papers, it was as though I had never endured the discomfort of them. How I hated those curl papers. They were significant in a way. They meant that all the efforts in the world couldn’t make me into a beauty.”

“Beauty doesn’t depend on curl papers. It comes from something within.”

“Now you’re talking like the priests.”

“Oh, Charlotte, I think you’ve built up this aura round yourself. You’ve made up your mind you’re not attractive and you tell everybody so. I should be careful. They might believe it.”

“It’s one thing I have been successful in then, for they do.”

“You are wrong.”

“I am right … proved to be by … this.” Her voice broke suddenly. “I thought he really cared for me. He seemed so sincere …”

“He did. I know he did.”

“So it seemed. She only had to beckon.”

“She is exceptional. It is unfortunate that we came here. Sometimes I wish …”

“She is evil.” Charlotte was looking at me steadily, and her eyes glowed with prophecy. “She calls herself your friend, but is she? I sensed the evil in her … the moment I saw her. I didn’t know she would take Charles … but I knew she would bring disaster. Why did you bring her here?”

“Oh, Charlotte,” I cried, “how sorry I am. How I wish I hadn’t.”

She softened suddenly and looked at me with real affection. “You must not blame yourself. How could you have known? It is I who must thank you for saving me from that folly.”

“We are to be sisters,” I said. “I’m glad of that. At least this has brought us together. Let us be friends. That is possible, I know.”

“I don’t make friends easily. When I was at parties before we came here, I was always the one in the corner, the one who was only wanted when there was no one else. That seems to be my role in life.”

“It is you who make it so.”

She laughed bitterly. “You are stuffed with homilies, Arabella. I think you have a lot to learn about people. But I am glad you were there tonight.”

“Promise me this,” I said. “If you ever think of such a thing again, you will first talk to me.”

“I promise you,” she said.

Then I rose and went to her. I kissed her cheek. She did not respond but she coloured faintly, and my heart was filled with pity for her.

She said: “It isn’t going to be easy, is it? Everyone will know that he has gone. Poor Mama, he was her hope. A third son, not much prospects, but what can we hope for for poor Charlotte?”

“There,” I said. “Self-pity! It’s not going to be like that in the future, Charlotte.”

She looked at me disbelievingly.

“Don’t forget,” I said. “You promised me.”

When I returned to my room I felt shaken. I was glad Harriet was not there. My happiness with Edwin made me understand Charlotte’s grief. She must have loved Charles as I did Edwin. It was unbearable … Thank God I had been on the spot.

Poor Charlotte! My new sister! I made up my mind I was going to care for her.

I saw very little of Charlotte for the next few days. I had a notion that she was avoiding me. I could understand that. Naturally she would feel embarrassed by what had happened and I would remind her of it. Though when I did see her a warm glance passed between us, and I glowed with pleasure thinking of the good I would bring to Charlotte when I was married to Edwin. I would give parties for her and find a husband who would be so much better than Charles Condey.

Then the letters arrived from Cologne … earlier than we had expected. My parents had written:

Our dearest daughter,

Your news fills us with joy. We have been so anxious about you. Everything is so difficult in view of the times we live in. And now this has come about. Lord Eversleigh shares our joy. He is a charming man and there is no one we would rather have as our son-in-law than Edwin.

Lady Eversleigh will tell you the news and this may mean a change of your plans. Rest assured, dear Arabella, that if Edwin and you agree to the suggestion, you have our blessing. She will explain everything to you. Our love, our congratulations on this wonderful thing that has happened. We are assured of your happiness.

Your loving parents,

Richard and Bersaba Tolworthy.

I was a little bewildered by the letter but was not long left in doubt. I had scarcely finished reading it when one of the servants came in to tell me that Edwin was asking that I join him in the salon.

I went down at once. He was standing by the window, and when I came in he hurried towards me and took my hands in his. Then he drew me to him and held me fast.

“Arabella,” he said, his face against my hair, “I shall be going away very soon.”

“Oh, Edwin,” I cried, all the joy in being with him deserting me. “When …”

“There are two weeks left to us,” he said. “So … we are going to be married immediately.”

“Edwin!”

I withdrew myself and looked at him.

He smiled brightly, but I fancied there had been a faint cloud on his brow which he hastened to dispel.

“It is what they wish,” he said, … “my parents … and yours. …”

“And you, Edwin …” I heard myself say in a rather small, frightened voice.

“I? I want it more than anything on earth.”

“Then so do I.”

He picked me up, and as my feet were swept off the ground he hugged me.

“Come,” he said, “let us go and tell my mother.”

Matilda Eversleigh’s feelings were mixed. She was overjoyed that the marriage was to take place so soon and at the same time apprehensive about Edwin’s journey overseas.

“There must be no delay,” she said. She knew of a cleric who would marry us and he should be sent for at once. The smaller of the two salons should be transformed into some semblance of a chapel and the ceremony would be a simple one.

I could not believe this was happening. Such a short time before I was in Château Congrève and had never heard of Edwin Eversleigh. Now I was to be married to him. I thought of the children who had been left behind and wondered what they would think when they heard the news.

We should just have a week or so together before Edwin left. I felt life was moving along too fast for me to savour it fully.

But I was happy … as I would never have believed I could be. I was deeply, romantically in love, and it seemed fate was determined that nothing should stand in the way of our union and was in fact rushing us madly towards it.

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 which 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.”

I felt it was true.

I was so happy as we rode through the night.

By great good luck we found the inn L’Ananas with the pineapple painted on its sign and there caught up with Edwin.

He, with his servant, was preparing to leave when we rode into the stables.

I did not think he was altogether surprised, though he pretended to be, and I was exultant because I had come to him and grateful to Harriet. I myself should never have thought of undertaking such an adventure.

We dismounted and stood before him. He caught us both up in his arms and hugged us.

“What …?” he began. “Well …” Then as Harriet had predicted he started to laugh.

“I had to come, Edwin,” I said. “I had to be with you.”

He nodded and looked from me to Harriet.

“It seemed the best thing to do,” she said.

He hesitated just for a second or so and then he said: “It calls for celebration. There’s nothing but mine host’s vin ordinaire … and very ordinaire, I warn you. Come let us go inside and we’ll drink to our reunion.”

He walked between us, an arm through each of ours.

“You must tell me all about it. What did my mother say?”

“She will know when she finds her note this morning,” I said.

“Oh, notes, eh? Drama indeed! Bless you. I have never been more glad of anything in my life than the sight of you.”

“Oh, it’s all right, then, Edwin?” I cried. “You’re not angry? We haven’t been foolish?”

“Foolish, I dare say, but adorable.”

What an enchanting hour we spent in that inn. The wine was brought and we sat, Harriet and I, one on either side of Edwin.

“Do you know,” he said, “it’s a strange thing but I was hoping you would come. That’s why I hesitated about leaving here. I should have been on my way at dawn.”

“It was Harriet who thought of it.”

He put his hand over hers and held it for a moment. “Wonderful Harriet,” he said.

“I must admit,” I babbled, “when I first heard of it I thought it rather outrageous. I didn’t really take it seriously. I wondered if you would be annoyed.”

“Have you ever seen me annoyed?”

“No, but perhaps so far there has been nothing to be annoyed about.”

“You are enchanting,” he said. “I could never be anything but pleased to see you. We shall have to do something about clothes, however. You both look too splendid to be welcome in Puritan England. Are you good sailors?”

We declared we were excellent sailors, not that I could be sure of that—there was only one thing I could be sure of and that was that, when I was with Edwin, I was happier than I had ever dreamed possible.

“What Cousin Carleton will say when I arrive with two beautiful ladies, I do not know. He is expecting me and my one servant. Well, the more the merrier.”

I was serious suddenly. “I hope we shan’t make it dangerous for you, Edwin?”

“Indeed not. You will make it easier. A Puritan gentleman escorting two ladies … How natural. Whereas a man on his own with one who is obviously a servant … that could arouse suspicions.”

“I can see,” said Harriet, “that your husband is determined to make us feel welcome.”

“Welcome,” cried Edwin, “as the flowers in May.”

I was so happy I wanted to burst into song. What particularly delighted me was his attitude towards Harriet. He was so charming with her and I could see that she felt as welcome as I.

We rode out in the pride of the morning, for we assured him we needed no rest although we had ridden through the night, and we sang as we went along—Edwin in the middle, Harriet and I riding on either side of him—on to the coast and England.

Stepping onto one’s native shore from which one has been an exile for so many years must necessarily be an emotional occasion.

Wrapped in my sombre cloak, acquired before we set sail, I felt a strange exhilaration. This was home. Something we had talked of for years, certain that one day we would be there. And here I was.

I could not help my thoughts going back to that long-ago night when we had been accompanied to the coast by my grandparents; I remembered the smell of the sea and the way in which the boat had tossed, and our mother had held Lucas and me close to her while the waves rocked the boat and the wind caught at our hair. I remember our grandparents standing on the shore, watching and watching, and the strange, mingled feelings of sadness and exhilaration which I had felt then.

Now there was only exhilaration. Tom, Edwin’s servant, jumped out of the boat and waded ashore. Then Edwin stepped out. He took first me in his arms and carried me to dry land, and then Harriet.

It was dark. He whispered to me: “Don’t be afraid. I know every inch of this shore. Eversleigh is six miles from here. I used to ride down here to play on the beach. Come.”

He took my hand in his left and Harriet’s in his right and we walked over the shingle.

“Can you see anyone around, Tom?” he asked of his man.

“No, sir. Maybe if you stayed here with the ladies I’ll scout around.”

“I know where,” Edwin said. “White Cliffs cave. We’ll wait there. Don’t tarry too long, Tom.”

“No, sir. I’ll be back at the cave in twenty minutes or so if I can’t find what we need.”

I listened to Tom’s footsteps crunching on the shingle. Then Edwin said: “You ladies follow me.”

Within a few minutes we were in the cave. “White Cliffs cave,” he went on. “Why they called it that I don’t know. It’s all white cliffs here. I used to hide in here when I was a boy. I’d make a fire and spend hours here. It was my special hideaway.”

“How lucky that we landed near it,” said Harriet.

“It was due to my expert navigation.”

“What is your cousin going to say when he finds us here?” I asked.

“That we shall discover,” replied Edwin blithely.

“I am looking forward to playing the Puritan,” said Harriet. “It’ll be a testing role, because I have a particular dislike of Puritans.”

“As we all have,” replied Edwin.

“Edwin,” I said, “what will be expected of Harriet and me at Eversleigh?”

“As we are not expected nothing will be expected of us,” retorted Harriet, and she and Edwin laughed as though sharing a joke.

But I insisted: “This is an important mission and we have joined it … rather recklessly. Your cousin will be surprised to see us, I know, and as we are here, we could perhaps do something to help the enterprise.”

“He will quickly make use of you if he feels a need to,” said Edwin. “We have to wait to see what he has discovered. I shall make him agree that it is less conspicuous travelling with two ladies than alone with a manservant, and I am sure he will grant me that.”

“Then we have been of some use,” said Harriet. “It is good to be useful.”

We lay against the hard rock and I felt I had never been so excited in my life. My quiet existence had suddenly become a thrilling adventure. How long ago it seemed since I had received a letter from my mother telling me that the Eversleighs would be inviting me. How could I have guessed what a sesame that would be to glorious living?

Edwin talked of his boyhood when he had camped in this cave. “My secret hiding place,” he called it. “When the tide is high the water comes in. One could be trapped here. It’s happened once in about fifty years. Don’t be alarmed; It’s low tide and at this time of the year we’re safe enough. Besides, Tom will soon be back. You can be sure Cousin Carleton has not let us down. We are to have horses waiting to take us to Eversleigh.”

“How many horses?”

“Two only, my darling.”

“But we are four.”

“Never fear, you will ride pillion. One with me, one with Tom.”

“So it has worked out very satisfactorily,” said Harriet.

I heard him chuckle in the darkness of the cave. “Couldn’t be more so.”

There was a crunching on the shingle and Tom was at the mouth of the cave.

“The horses are waiting, sir,” he said.

We emerged and climbed up the slight incline to a path.

“We’re to be travellers in difficulties,” said Edwin lightly. “Come.” He looked from me to Harriet, and hesitated a moment. “I’ll carry my wife,” he said. “Tom, you take Mistress Main.”

We mounted and were soon riding through the early morning.

The dawn was just breaking in the sky when we reached Eversleigh Court. A high wall surrounded it, and above this, one could glimpse the gables. The gates were open and we rode in. The austerity of the place hit me like a cold wind. Château Congrève and Villers Tourron had been shabby—second-rate dwellings of the rich offered by them to their needy friends who had become exiles—but this was different. Very clean, in good order, but on it was the stamp of that kind of Puritanism which sees sin in colour, beauty and charm.

I could imagine what this place had once been. I could picture lavish flower beds full of colour; the yews cut into quaint shapes, fountains and sequestered paths. The remains of these things were there, but everything proclaimed that this garden was not meant to be beautiful, only useful. There were herbs, fruit trees and vegetables. Everything for use and nothing ornamental.

“God!” whispered Edwin. “What a change. Eversleigh under the Puritans!”

My exultation was turning to apprehension. It was dangerous for Edwin to have come back to his own home, though it must be ten years ago that he had left it. He was now twenty-two, so he would have been twelve when he left. Would anyone recognize him? A boy of twelve could bear a resemblance to the young man of twenty-two whom he had become, but perhaps only those who knew who he was would look for it.

“Tom,” he said, “go to the house and ask for shelter. You know your part. We’ll stay here with the horses.”

It was not long before Tom returned with a groom, who looked at us curiously. “If you will go into the house, my master will see you,” he said.

“Ah,” said Edwin, “I did not think we should be turned away. Tom, help with the horses.”

Tom did so and we went across the path and into the hall. A serving girl was standing there waiting for us. I saw her eyes take in our appearance and come back to Harriet, who looked as beautiful as ever in her Puritan robes. It amazed me how she managed to convey a demureness which I knew was quite alien to her. She was a superb actress.

“Please to wait,” the girl said. “Master will be down.”

I studied the hall with its lofty vaulted roof and its panelled walls on which was displayed armour of all description. I supposed that was puritanical enough, as it was through force of arms that the Puritans had beaten the Royalists and driven them into exile. I could detect lightened patches where I presumed tapestry had hung. There was a long refectory table on which stood a few pewter utensils, and there were benches on either side of the table. I wondered whether they had been put there to create a lack of comfort while eating.

There was scarcely anything else in the hall, and although it was summer and promised to be a hot day, there was a chill in the air.

I shall never forget my first glimpse of Carleton Eversleigh.

He came down the stairs at one end of the hall. A fine, carved, wooden staircase of a kind which I remembered from before I had left England and which was typical of the Tudor era when this part of the house had clearly been built or reconstructed.

He was, as I remembered Edwin’s telling me, tall and he was certainly impressive, perhaps more so in the plain black garments of a Puritan than he would have been in the silk and lace fripperies of the Royalist regime. His dark hair was short and fitted his head like a cap after the only acceptable fashion, and the touch of severity which I had noticed in people’s dress since I had set foot in England was accentuated in his costume.

But he was an impressive man—his complexion pale, his eyes dark and luminous, his brows heavy, his features strong and large. What Edwin had said about his being larger than life was certainly true.

His footsteps rang out on the stone flags as he advanced towards us. I did not detect any expression of recognition for Edwin or surprise at seeing Harriet and me.

“God preserve you, friend,” he said.

Edwin replied: “God preserve you, friend.” He went on: “I am travelling to London with my wife and her sister. We stayed the night at an inn and during that time our purses were stolen by villains who left the inn before sunrise. We travelled with one servant and I propose now to send him off to my house in Chester to bring money for me. Until then, we are in a sorry plight. Passing your house, sir, we called in the hope of finding a little shelter and perhaps a bite to eat.”

“You will be fed and sheltered here, friend, until your servant rescues you.”

“When, sir, you will be recompensed for all that you have given us.”

“As the Good Book says, we must not turn away the stranger within our gates,” replied Carleton Eversleigh, and I could not help feeling how incongruously this mode of speech seemed coming from him. He had the face of an Elizabethan buccaneer rather than a godly Puritan.

He went to a bell rope and pulled it. Two maids came hurrying in from behind the screens. One was the girl we had already seen.

“We have visitors seeking shelter, Jane,” said Carleton. “Pray have rooms made ready. A man and wife … did you say, friend? And sister-in-law and manservant. Two rooms then—one for the husband and wife, and another for his sister-in-law. The servant can be accommodated with our own.”

“Yes, master,” said the girl, bobbing a curtsy.

“Doubtless you are hungry,” went on Carleton.

We were. We had not felt like eating much while we were on the boat and had had nothing since we arrived in England.

“Sit down at the table,” he went on. “We abhor fleshly indulgence here and eat simply.”

He was right about that. Rye bread was brought and cold bacon with mugs of cider.

We were about to eat when we received a stern look from our host. We had not thanked God for what we were about to receive.

The simple food, however, tasted like ambrosia and nectar to us, though I was too excited to want to eat a great deal.

Carleton sat at the table as we ate and plied us with questions about our house in Chester. Between them, he and Harriet did very well. Harriet described it in detail. She spoke of flower beds bordered with rosemary, lavender and marjoram and how she enjoyed cultivating her flowers.

She became fascinated by the idea and went on to describe the exquisite blooms she grew, and I was sure she had never pruned a tree or pulled up a weed in her lifetime.

Carleton looked at her sternly and asked in a cold voice whether she could devote her time to a more useful purpose than growing flowers which were no good for anything but to be looked at.

Harriet demurely lowered her eyes and murmured, “God made flowers beautiful,” she reminded him, “but I see, my friend, that you have immediately probed my weakness. So much do I love flowers that they have become a vanity.”

“Vanity should be suppressed,” said Carleton, folding his hands together and raising his eyes to the vaulted roof, and I wondered whether he was immune from that sin—and even on such a short acquaintance I could well believe that he was not. “A sin,” he went on, “a snare. Continually must we fight to avoid the pitfalls which gape at our feet.”

“Amen,” said Harriet, and I thought of how we should laugh about this when we were alone.

I must confess a certain curiosity to see the woman who had married this man. I knew she existed because Edwin had mentioned her, so I said I was wondering if we should be honoured by meeting the lady of the house.

“Mistress Eversleigh is away from home at this time,” he told me.

“Then we shall not have the pleasure of thanking her for her hospitality.”

“We are not put on earth to take pleasure, mistress,” said Carleton, “so it is mercy that you are prevented from indulging in it.” I fancied I saw a twist of his lips as though he might be enjoying the scene. “And your name is …?” he went on turning to Edwin.

“Edward Leeson,” replied Edwin glibly. “My wife Bella and my sister-in-law, Harriet Groper.”

Carleton bowed his head.

“When you have eaten you shall be taken to the rooms I have allotted to you. I doubt not the journey to Chester and back will take a few days. You are the guests of Eversleigh until the time your man returns.”

“God will reward you in heaven for your goodness to these poor travellers,” said Edwin piously.

“I seek no reward,” retorted Carleton. “I only seek to do my duty to God.”

I wondered whether they were carrying this a little too far, but my experience of the next few days taught me that this was a normal conversation in a Puritan home.

It would be small wonder if there was unrest throughout the country and people were looking to the new King to come back and set up a new set of customs and behaviour.

We were given rooms side by side, and what cold, dreary rooms they were! The only furniture the bed, a court cupboard and a chair. There was a chill about the place which suggested that no fires were ever lighted in these rooms even in the heart of winter. I was glad it was the height of summer.

Our bed was a large one with four posts. I was sure that once there had been elaborate hangings, but these were there no more and it looked starkly naked in some way. There was no rug on the floor … only the cold wooden boards. Harriet’s room next to ours was similar, only slightly smaller.

“When you have washed you can come to my library,” said Carleton. “I will explain the way to reach it.”

Edwin was unable to suppress a smile. He knew every inch of this place. Wasn’t it where he had spent so much of his childhood? Now he had to pretend he had never seen it before, and I was wondering how he was going to suppress that emotion which, returning from exile to a well-loved home, he must inevitably feel. It must be difficult for Carleton to act his part. He did it supremely well though.

When we were alone in our room Edwin took me in his arms and danced round the room with me. Then he drew me to the bed and sat down on it beside me.

“What do you think of my Puritan home and Puritan cousin?”

“They are both a little unreal,” I said.

“They are. Where are all the tapestries, the bed hangings, the paintings, the best of the furniture? That’s what I want to know. I can hardly believe it’s the same place.”

“Your cousin will doubtless explain.”

“And him … what of him? I confess, I was hard put to it not to burst out laughing. He plays his part uncommonly well, don’t you think?”

“Are you sure he has not turned Puritan?”

“Absolutely sure. Are you glad you came?”

“Edwin, I was so unhappy when you went and now …”

“You are here, in a Puritan land. You will sleep with me in a Puritan bed and we will make Puritan love …”

“How will that be?”

“You will see, my dearest.”

There was a knock on our door. It was Harriet.

“Come in,” cried Edwin.

She came looking about her, laughing.

“What an experience. Now, Arabella, would you rather be back in France?”

“I should be most wretched. It is wonderful to be here. It’s home after all … and Edwin is here …”

“And I?”

“And you, Harriet.”

“Yes, please don’t leave me out. I should hate that.”

“We would not dream of it,” Edwin assured her.

“I should be hurt if you regretted coming, Arabella. I should think I ought to have come … alone.”

She looked at Edwin and they burst out laughing.

“All this will be changed before long,” said Edwin, waving a hand. “I’ll wager in a year, perhaps less, all this drabness will be replaced by life, colour, gaiety … everything that our good King Charles will bring back to the land.”

“Fine clothes,” murmured Harriet. “Dashing gallants and … the theatre …”

“Come,” said Edwin, “we are to go to the library where my cousin is awaiting us.”

“Does he expect us to go with you?” I asked.

“I think the invitation was extended to us all. He will probably want to prime you on how you must behave. He will soon send you away if you are not wanted. He was always one to make his wishes clear. I could have died of laughing when I saw him. ‘God preserve you, friend.’ He is in complete control of the patter. I believe he is enjoying it.”

“Should you take us to the library?” I said. “Shouldn’t we wait to be conducted there? Won’t it look odd if you know your way about the house?”

“He gave me instructions … for the sake of any servants who might be listening. Come, let us go.”

He led us along a corridor to a staircase, not the one we had ascended. Our footsteps rang out on the wood because of the lack of rugs. I could see that the bare walls and bare floors were a shock to Edwin. I should have loved to see the house as it had been in the days before the King lost his throne.

We came to a door and Edwin opened it cautiously.

“Come in, friend,” said Carleton.

We entered. He was standing with his back to a fireplace. He looked larger than ever, yet different.

Edwin took a quick look round.

“All religious works, friend,” said Carleton. “You will find no sinful volumes here … nothing but godliness.”

“What a comfort to rest in such a house,” replied Edwin fervently.

“I want to tell you of the customs of the house so that you can conform to them during your stay here. I know it will be but brief, but it would distress members of the household if you did not fall in with our ways. We start the day with prayers … early morning prayers in the hall at six of the clock. Then we breakfast frugally, and there are prayers after. We all have our morning tasks and some will be found for you while you stay here, for idleness is an invitation to the Devil. There is service in the old chapel at noon, after which we dine. We do not linger at the table. We then work during the afternoon, sup at six of the clock and then there is another service in the chapel. Only the Bible and approved books on religion are read in the house.”

“A godly house indeed,” murmured Edwin.

“Pray shut the door, friend,” replied Carleton.

Edwin did so, and when we were shut in a change came over Carleton’s face.

“Who are the women?” he said in a different voice.

“Arabella is my wife, Harriet is her friend.”

“You are a fool,” snapped Carleton.

He went to the door, opened it and looked out. “One never knows when spies are about. I don’t think we are plagued by them, but I take every precaution.” He locked the door, then he went to the bookshelves and pressed himself against them; slowly the bookshelf moved inward and showed itself to be a door.

Carleton turned and looked at us. “To be used by any one of you in an emergency, but only in an emergency, and before the door is opened you must make certain you are not observed.” He lighted a candelabrum, picked it up and signed to us to follow him into the cavity, which we did.

We were inside what could have been called a room. It was in complete darkness, but as he shone the light around it I saw that it was full of goods. There were rolled tapestries, framed pictures stood up against the wall, chests, chairs, tables and other furniture.

“You didn’t know about this concealed hiding place, did you, Edwin?” he said. “I almost told you once. Well, the fewer people who know of such places the better.”

He looked with suspicion at me and at Harriet.

“What madness possessed you to bring the women?” he went on.

“He didn’t bring us,” I protested. “We came … after him.”

He looked at me with mild distaste.

“You see,” began Edwin, “we have been so recently married.”

Carleton looked at me in a manner which I found most distasteful and burst out laughing.

“No one can hear outside,” he said. “I tested it once with your father. We can come here to talk and be safe. But we must make sure that the library door is locked before we open the bookshelves. So … you are here and there is work to be done.”

“I think that Arabella and Harriet make my story more plausible,” said Edwin.

Carleton shrugged his shoulders. “That might be,” he admitted. “They know, of course, the purpose of your mission?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, they will know how much depends on their caution and discretion.”

“We understand well,” said Harriet. She was looking at him earnestly, and knowing her well now, I realized that she was trying to claim his attention. I knew, too, that he was a man who would have had many experiences with women and would not be the easy victim of any. He might be aware that Harriet was trying to win his admiration, but if he did admire her he was not going to show it.

He was looking at me. I suppose as Edwin’s wife I interested him.

Then he said: “You’re General Tolworthy’s daughter, I believe. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I am kept informed of what is going on. I trust you will behave with the good sense he would expect of you while you are here.”

“What is the position?” asked Edwin.

“Good. That is, hopeful. There is much we shall have to discuss.” He looked at us and I knew he meant: When we are rid of the women. “There is a good support hereabouts. But a certain amount of probing to do. We have to be certain who are our friends.” He was looking from Harriet to me with some amusement. “It may well be that you ladies can be useful. You can pick up a good deal from gossip. The great thing will be not to betray yourselves. Not too many airs and graces, please. Save those for the days when the King is safely back.”

Harriet said: “You may trust me. I am an actress and know how to play a part. I will instruct Arabella.”

“I think Arabella’s best guide will be her regard for her husband,” he retorted. “Know this! All might seem peaceful on the surface, but there is a torrent of unrest just beneath it. What we have been trying to do is find out how deep it goes. The ladies will have tasks to do in the kitchen and in the gardens. Everyone works. There is no idleness here. Listen to the servants. Be very careful in your own conversation. Don’t forget your home is in Chester. I hope they are well versed in their parts, Edwin.”

“They soon will be. I can assure you, Carleton, you need have no qualms on their account.”

“Good. I brought you all here to show you how precariously we live. You must realize that if it were discovered that I had stored away some of our treasures which I had salvaged from their destructive hands, they would know me at once for the King’s man. There would be no mercy. I should be strung up by the neck, I doubt not, and the fact that it would be done most piously with prayers said for my erring soul would give me little comfort. Our Puritan rulers are afraid. Perhaps they can hear the rumble of Royalist thunder in the distance. Fear breeds viciousness. So we must be wary. I have business to talk with Edwin. I shall leave him here to examine some of the treasures I have managed to salvage. Now I shall conduct you ladies to your rooms. There you may wait until one of the servants comes to you. She will take you to the kitchens where you will be expected to make yourselves useful. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly, “I said.

He looked at Harriet. “Of course,” she added softly.

We stepped into the library. The panel slid to, he unlocked the door and conducted us to our rooms.

“Remember,” whispered Carleton and put his finger to his lips.

When he had gone, Harriet threw herself onto the double bed in the room which had been allotted to Edwin and me and, looking at me, started to laugh.

“What did you think of the worthy cousin?” she asked.

“Edwin had mentioned him to me so I was prepared.”

“What a man,” said Harriet softly.

“He certainly is somewhat forceful.”

“I liked the double act,” murmured Harriet smiling. “My God, what a Puritan he was. You could imagine him delighted in inflicting punishment on those who offended against the laws of God, which would be his own, of course. In his eyes I am sure he is God. And then, hey, presto … the doors slide and we see another. It was fantastic the way in which he changed. Did you notice it? The way he looked at us was different. You didn’t notice that, of course. He was assessing us as … women. Whereas when he was a Puritan he was trying to probe how sinful we were.”

“You seem obsessed by him.”

“Aren’t you?”

“What do you mean, Harriet?”

“Nothing. This is fun. Poor Arabella, but for me you would be sitting sadly at your spinning wheel waiting for the return of your husband.”

“I don’t spin.”

“Just a figure of speech. I don’t like that talk about working in the kitchens. I didn’t come here to be a kitchen maid.”

“What did you come here to be?”

“I only came because I knew you were pining to be with your husband.”

“Sometimes, Harriet,” I said, “I think you do not tell the truth.”

“Dear Arabella, you are learning at last.”

What a strange world we had dropped into. I found the situation enthralling. I was with my husband, adoring and adored; Harriet was close by; and we were all engaged in this thrilling adventure. For thrilling it was. Although in this household it was hard to believe that we were courting danger, this was, in fact, the case.

I disliked the cousin, as I knew I should. I found him overbearing, arrogant and excessively conceited, which was his true nature. As the Puritan he positively nauseated me. Moreover, he seemed to regard me with an inner, supercilious amusement. He referred to me when speaking to Edwin as “your good wife,” and there was a hint of mockery in his voice and expression. To Harriet he maintained a cool, rather aloof attitude which I knew angered her. He was unusual certainly, for he did not offer her that ready admiration to which she was accustomed.

“I am not surprised,” she said rather waspishly, “that his wife goes off in search of other gallants. Who wouldn’t, married to him?”

She pretended to despise him, but for once she did not deceive me.

Tom had gone off, ostensibly to the fictitious Chester residence, but in fact to a place not far off from where he would be summoned when the business was completed.

Harriet and I did our tasks in the kitchens. We were not expected to wash floors or do the really dirty work, for Harriet had made it clear that we were the mistresses of our Chester household, and although like all good Puritans we did not believe in idleness, we were in the habit of doing more genteel work.

The head of the kitchen was Ellen, the wife of Jasper who worked on the Eversleigh land. They had a daughter, now six years old, who bore the name of Chastity. Like all good little Puritans, Chastity was set to do her stint in the kitchen under her mother’s eye. There were Jane and Mary, two maids. More would have been considered an extravagance. I had to admire the way in which Carleton had adjusted to the times, while I realized that his ability to do so was an indication of his devious nature. How different from Edwin who was always so open and honest!

Edwin had his tasks. They were out-of-doors, and often he would ride out with Carleton about the estate. I knew, of course, that this was part of the sounding-out process and that Edwin would be explaining to those trusted Royalist adherents, who like Carleton and the rest of us were awaiting the day of the return of the Monarchy, how many troops could be mustered and brought into the country should this be necessary. The great hope was that it would not be, and that it would be possible for the King to be invited back to his kingdom.

Being fond of children and having had young brothers and a sister of my own with whom I had spent a great deal of time, I understood them, and Chastity and I were soon friends. I found some slate and drew on this for her with a piece of charcoal, much to her pleasure. But her mother was not sure that Chastity should enjoy anything, and so I said I would draw letters on it so that she could learn to read.

Ellen was puzzled. Was it good for Chastity to learn to read? If she had been meant to learn, wouldn’t God have put her into that society where she would have done so? She would have to consult Jasper.

Jasper, in her eyes, was the omniscient one. Jasper had fought in Cromwell’s army; he had been one of those who had always been against Royalty. He had been a serious man, a true Puritan and had not been afraid to admit it even in the days when it might have brought him into trouble with those who held opposing views and were in a position to enforce them. It was different at these times.

“We are the masters now,” Jasper had proudly told Ellen, and she was fond of repeating it in the kitchen.

It was a difficult problem for Jasper to solve, because Ellen had obviously pointed out that there was not really enough work for Harriet and me to do in the kitchens, and we were not very good at it in any case, and it did prevent my being idle. After consulting with his Maker (“He were on his knees two hours last night instead of his usual one,” Ellen told us), it was decided that Chastity and I might continue.

“Tell me a story,” Chastity used to say, and I would think of something, but this was frowned on as lies, which could bring no good to anyone.

During those days I became a sort of nursemaid-governess to Chastity, which I quite enjoyed. Harriet would wander out, as she would say, to do some tasks out-of-doors.

Sometimes I wondered where Harriet went to, for she would disappear for some hours. Often she would return with a basket of plants or berries of some sort and tell us that she had a wonderful recipe for a cordial which she would make and which would bring great benefit to the household. The only point was the plants had to be left until they were ready for use, which would take some little time. She needed more plants, and she would invent names which had Ellen and her maids agog, for they had never heard of them. It did not occur to them that nobody else had either.

There was something unreal about those days. Every morning when I woke up I would, for a few seconds, wonder where I was, and it would be a few more seconds before I could bring myself to believe that I was really in England, in Edwin’s home, playing a part. Sometimes Edwin was not with me when I awoke. Sometimes he went out at night. It was then I realized the danger of his mission. He would whisper to me: “Be very quiet. No one must know that I slip out at night. There are people it would be too dangerous to see by day.”

Happy days! Strange days! Unreal days! I wished that Cousin Carleton was not there. I often found his eyes on me, as though he were faintly amused and at the same time a little sorry for me. I think he had decided that I was rather stupid which did not endear him to me.

There was an occasion when I was alone with him.

Edwin was out, so was Harriet, and I had gone to the library to see if I could find one of them, for the library was our meeting place. To my consternation I found Carleton there.

I flushed a little and murmured: “I am sorry. I thought I might find Edwin.”

“Come in and close the door.”

“I don’t want to disturb you.”

“If you were, do you think I should ask you?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“I see you have made a true assessment of my character … in that respect.”

“Did you want to speak to me?”

“Yes. You are teaching Chastity her letters, I hear.”

“Do you object to that?”

“Indeed, no. It is an excellent project. I abhor ignorance and applaud the effort to eliminate it. Do you keep your ears open in the kitchen?”

“Yes. But I have discovered little. Ellen is a staunch supporter of her husband and he is an ardent follower of the Cromwells.”

“Jasper is a fanatic. I am always wary of fanatics. A man who follows a cause because it is expedient to do so can be amenable. You only have to show him something which will be more advantageous and he could well become your man instead of the enemy’s. But fanatics? God preserve me from them.”

“Are you not a Royalist fanatic?”

“Bless your innocence, no! I support the King because the King’s party will give me back what I have lost. It’s true I believe that this killjoy rule can never profit a country and it’s damned uncomfortable for the individuals. But you must not endow me with virtues I do not possess.”

“I don’t think I have endowed you with any virtues that I can think of.”

He laughed. “So I guessed. And in that you show wisdom, for I possess so few that they are completely submerged by my sins.”

“At least you are honest about yourself.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Only when it suits me. I tell you, dear cousin … I may call you that behind the protection of locked doors … that I am a wicked man. My wife prefers others and for good reason. We have one taste in common, and although we cannot share our pleasure, we understand the other’s need to pursue it. I am talking too bluntly. Forgive me. I was afraid you might form too good an opinion of me.”

“As I have told you, you need have no anxieties on that point.”

“I am relieved. I come of a lusty family, and since you are now a member of that family, you should have no illusion about it. Women have been the downfall of many of my ancestors. They have an irresistible fascination for us. My great-grandfather kept three mistresses all within a few miles of each other and not one of them knew of the existence of the others. It was quite a feat because there has always been a great deal of gossip about the family. There is … in such a place. We are the leading family, and our exploits used to be watched with interest. Great-grandfather was insatiable. No village girl was safe.”

“How interesting,” I said mildly, determined not to show that I was disturbed, because I felt he was leading to something.

“Now and then,” he went on, “we throw up a paragon. My uncle—Edwin’s father, who is now in Cologne with the King—is of a different calibre. Devoted to duty and faithful to his wife. Something of a phenomenon in the Eversleigh family.”

“I am glad of that.”

“I thought you would be, and I am glad to have an opportunity to talk to you. I daresay you will be leaving soon. It may well be within three or four days. We shall bring back Tom, who will then be thought to have the money from Chester, and then you’ll ride away and we’ll arrange to get you across to France again … your little adventure over. I admire your courage in coming and your devotion to your husband.”

“It was Harriet who thought of it.”

He smiled slowly and nodded. “Oh, yes. I guessed that.”

Then he looked at me, and I could scarcely believe it but there was a hint of gentleness in his eyes. But I immediately told myself I must have imagined that.

I stood up, and this time he did not attempt to detain me.

I went to my room, for neither Edwin nor Harriet were in, and I thought for a long time about that encounter. I was sure it meant something, but I was far from sure what.

Chastity was becoming very fond of me. She followed me round and before I realized it we were playing games together. Poor little Chastity had never known what it meant to laugh and be merry before. I couldn’t help it. I would take her some way from the house and play games with her. Alas, once we came too near the stables and Jasper heard our laughter. He came out, snatched up Chastity and carried her into the house, pausing only to dart a look of black suspicion at me.

When I next saw Ellen she told me that Jasper was very displeased. I replied that surely there was nothing sinful in a little childish high spirits.

“You should have been teaching her the word of God not to be making a mockery of godliness.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” I protested. “It was a simple game of hide-and-seek. She was enjoying herself for once and …”

“Jasper says we were not put on this earth to enjoy ourselves, mistress. Jasper says he don’t know what sort of place you come from, but he reckons Chester must be a wicked place for you to carry on as you do.”

I thought of poor little Chastity, who was no doubt being punished for enjoying a brief period of innocent pleasure, and I forgot caution in my anger.

“Oh, yes,” I cried, “it’s Sodom and Gomorrah all over again.”

She stared at me, her hands lifted above the bowl dripping flour into it.

I flounced out of the room. I wondered what Jasper would make of that.

The next day Chastity came up to my room. I was there alone, mending one of my petticoats which I had caught on a bramble bush the day before.

Chastity crept in furtively. She was a bright-eyed, pretty little creature, and there was the faintest touch of defiance in her eyes, and I imagined she had been told to keep away from me. She had learned that there was something else in life besides prayers that went on for so much of the day, and sewing garments that must not be pretty since beauty was sin, and learning the Scriptures off by heart and being shut in her room to commune with God on her sins.

For a brief while she had laughed and played games that did not have to improve the mind; she had acted just for the joy of being alive. And she had a will of her own.

“Chastity,” I whispered, and I couldn’t help sounding conspiratorial.

“Mistress Bella!” she cried and ran to me, burying her face in my lap and then looking up to smile—I must admit rather mischievously—at me.

“You’re not supposed to be here, you know,” I said.

She nodded laughing.

“I suppose I should tell you to go.”

“You should take me down to my mother and tell her that I have been wicked,” she said soberly. “But you won’t, will you?” She looked at the closed door. “Nobody knows,” she went on. “If anyone comes I’ll hide.” She ran to the cupboard, opened it and stood inside. Then she came out flushed with laughing.

She looked so pretty and so different from the poor little suppressed child I had seen when I arrived that I wanted to snap my fingers at the Puritans and let her be happy.

She came over to me and looked at the petticoat in my hand. It was a little too elaborate for a Puritan woman. It occurred to me then that we had not really been thorough enough. Of course we hadn’t. Harriet and I had not been part of the plan. We had broken into it, disrupting it.

“Tell me a story,” said Chastity. It was forbidden, of course, unless it was a homily on the wages of sin but I told her a story I had heard recently in France about a girl who had been forced by her stepmother to slave in the kitchens and whose fairy godmother had appeared and transformed her by conjuring up a ball dress so that she could go to the ball and meet the Prince who fell in love with her. Chastity was entranced and I couldn’t help feeling gratified to see how much she enjoyed it. I thought: I’ll be gone soon. What harm can it do for her to have a little pleasure?

While I was talking she was examining the petticoat I was mending, and putting her hand into the pocket, she brought out a shining button.

“Oh … pretty!” she cried.

She held it in the palm of her hand, her face transfixed with joy just to contemplate it.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a button. I remember the dress it was on. It was blue velvet and there were ten buttons like this. One of them must have come off. Yes, I remember now when I last wore it. I meant to sew it on and put it in the pocket of my petticoat and clearly forgot it.”

Her fingers closed about it lovingly. She looked at me appealingly. What could I do? How foolish it was I realized later, but at the moment it seemed so trivial.

“Please … please, Mistress Bella, may I have it?”

How could I say no? What was it? Only a button. Poor Chastity, she was starved of pretty things.

I did say: “Your mother and father would perhaps not want you to have something so pretty.”

She hunched her shoulders and looked at my slyly. I didn’t say anymore. I knew that she would be wise enough to keep it out of their sight.

I didn’t see Chastity the next day. Ellen said she was in her room.

“Not sick, I hope,” I said.

Ellen nodded gravely.

“Perhaps I could go and see her?”

“Indeed not,” said Ellen fiercely.

Even then I was not suspicious.

I went out into the gardens to do my stint of weeding, and as I bent over the earth I was aware that a man was watching me.

I looked up sharply, uneasy as one always is when one feels one has been watched while unaware of it.

“Good day to you, friend,” said the man.

I replied with the customary: “And good day to you, friend.”

“I have travelled far and am in need of a bit to eat and a place to rest. Do you think I’ll get it at the house there?”

“I am sure you will. People in need are never turned away.”

“Can you be sure of it, mistress?”

“I can indeed.”

I straightened up and surveyed him—black coat, broad-brimmed hat, cropped hair, the usual aspect of the Puritan. Indeed where did one see any other?

I went on: “I, with my husband and sister, have been given hospitality under that roof, so I can speak with knowledge.”

“Ah,” said the man, “you are not of the house, then?”

“No, but resting there while our servant brings us the means to continue our journey. It is for that reason that I cannot offer you hospitality myself but can assure you that it will not be denied you.”

“Ah, tell me about the house. They are good Christian people?”

“As good Christians as you can find, I doubt not,” I said.

“I am a proud man, I would not be turned away, mistress.”

“Have no fear. If you are a good Puritan you will be given what you need.”

“Oh, but we are all good Puritans now, mistress.” He was looking at me oddly. “Needs must, eh?”

“’Tis so,” I said, not meeting his eyes.

“And you have come from afar?”

“From Chester.”

“A long journey.”

“Yes. Our money was stolen at an inn. We have thrown ourselves upon the kindness of these good people and we await the return of our servant with the means which will enable us to continue our journey.”

“There are evil men about, mistress. One would have thought that with so much piety abroad we should not have to look to our purses.”

“No, indeed.”

“I was once in Chester,” he went on. “Oh, many years … I knew it well.”

I hoped I didn’t show my uneasiness.

“A beautiful city, eh, friend? But cities are not meant to be beautiful. Where there is beauty there is corruption … so they tell us. And you travelled down from Chester, did you? A long journey. I once lived in Liverpool. Now you would have passed through it on your way.”

“Oh, yes,” I said quickly. “Let me take you to the house.”

“Thank you, friend. I watched you at work. If you will allow me to say so, you did not seem as though you were experienced at it.”

“No. I have done it only since I came here. It is fitting, of course, that we should all have our tasks …”

“Fitting, indeed.” He came a little closer to me. “Perhaps the day will come when we have time for other matters, eh?”

My heart was beating fast. I was sure that he was not what he seemed. I believed he wanted to get to the house to talk to Carleton and Edwin. He was one of their friends.

“It may be,” I said.

Slowly he closed one eye. It was meant to be a gesture of complicity. I started to walk towards the house.

Ellen was in the kitchen when we reached it. I said: “Here is a friend who seeks shelter.”

“Come in,” said Ellen. “That was never denied in this house.”

I went to the room I shared with Edwin, feeling a little uneasy. I wanted to find my husband to tell him what had happened, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I couldn’t find Harriet either. I supposed she was out gathering plants again. She had said she had to go far afield for them, and she was going to explain to Ellen how to use them when they were ready and to tell her what ills they would cure.

“I hope you won’t poison them all,” I had said, and she retorted that they were all so virtuous that they should welcome a quick trip to Heaven.

Whilst I was pondering what to do, Carleton came into the room. He did not knock, he just walked in. I started up angrily but he silenced me immediately.

“Make your way to the library as soon as you can. Wait there until I come. Where are Edwin … and Harriet?”

I told him I did not know. He nodded and said: “Get down soon.”

I knew that something was terribly wrong, and naturally I connected it with the man I had brought to the house.

I went down to the library. Carleton was soon there. He locked the door and opened the secret panel behind the books and we stepped into the storeroom.

“Trouble,” he said. “Trouble and you are to blame.”

“I!”

“You’re a fool,” he snapped. “Don’t you realize the seriousness of our position? Clearly, you don’t. You were the first to arouse suspicion. What a fool Edwin was to bring you.”

“I don’t understand …”

“Of course you won’t understand. That’s obvious. You gave the button to the child. Don’t you know yet that no Puritan, whether she came from Chester or London or anywhere in Cromwell’s land, would wear such a button, would have such a button, and to give it to a child …”

“I thought …”

“You never think. You are empty-headed. How could Edwin have been such a fool as to let you come? There is a man in the house. He has come to investigate. Jasper sent for him because he suspects you all. By the mercy of God he does not suspect me. I have played my part well all these years, and you come here and in a few days we are in acute danger. This man has come here to watch you, Edwin and Harriet. You are under suspicion … and our work not completed. You’ll have to go as soon as we can arrange it.”

“Oh, Carleton, I’m sorry …”

“Sorry. It’s too late to be sorry. A little good sense would have done us more good than sorrow. You must get out as soon as I can arrange it. The moment Edwin and Harriet return, you will have to leave. I don’t know how much has been discovered yet. Apparently you said you had come through Liverpool which is north of Chester. They suspect you never came from Chester at all and they are beginning to see what happened. They suspect you are spies from France. The button betrayed you. In France they would wear such buttons, it seems. Well, there’s no good to be served by telling you what a fool you are and how much better it would have been for us all if you had had the good sense to stay in France. Go to your room. Lock the door. Open to none but me, and if Edwin should return and you see him, make him lock himself in the room while you find me, but I shall be on the watch.”

It was an hour or so later. I was waiting in my room for Harriet or Edwin to return. I was frantic with anxiety. I was afraid they would catch Edwin as he came back to the house.

Then Carleton burst into my room. His eyes were wild and I had never imagined he could be so distraught. Harriet was with him. Her cloak was bloodstained.

“What’s happened?” I cried.

Carleton said: “Get out of your things—change at once. Into your riding habits. Be prepared. I have to get you out of here quickly.”

He went out and I cried: “Harriet, what does it mean? … Where is Edwin?”

She looked at me steadily. Her eyes were burning blue lights in her pale, pale face, and I saw that there was blood on her hair.

“It was terrible,” she said. “Terrible.”

“What? For God’s sake tell me.”

“Edwin,” she began, … “in the arbour. He was trying to save me. You know the arbour … on the edge of the gardens … that tumbled-down old place …”

“What about it? Tell me, Harriet, for Heaven’s sake, tell me.”

“I was near there with my basket of plants and I saw Edwin. I called to him and just then I saw a man with a gun …”

“Oh, no … no …”

She nodded. “He shouted something and Edwin tried to protect me. … He pushed me into the arbour, and stood in front of me. Then he was shot … The blood was terrible …”

“You … you’ve left him …”

I was ready to run from the room but she caught me.

“Don’t go. Carleton said we must stay here. We must wait. He said I must keep you here. There’s nothing you can do. He’s gone to him. They’ll bring him in …”

“Edwin … shot … dying … Of course I must be with him. …”

She clung to me. “No. No. They will kill both of us … as they’ve killed him. You can do no good. You must obey Carleton.”

I stared at her. I could not believe it. But I knew it was true.

They brought him into the house. They had made a rough stretcher. I could not believe that was Edwin—my merry Edwin—lying there. Alive one moment, laughing at life, and then suddenly he was there no more.

Harriet was with me. She had taken off her cape and washed the bloodstains from her hair.

I kept moaning: “I must go to him.”

But she wouldn’t let me. There had been trouble enough. We must not make it worse.

I knew she was right, but it was cruel to keep me from him.

Carleton came in.

He looked at us steadily. “Are you prepared?” he asked.

It was Harriet who answered, “Yes.”

“Ready. We’re going down to the library at once.”

We followed him down and there he locked the door and opened the bookshelves.

“You will stay here until tonight when I hope to get you away. I’ve sent word to Tom. He’ll be waiting for you in the cave. The boat is there. You’ll wait for the tide and pray for a smooth sea.” He looked at me. “Edwin is dead,” he said expressionlessly. “He was shot in the arbour. He died immediately and would have known little of what happened. There was no pain. Now this operation is over. I shall leave our findings with Tom and he can take them back.”

I said: “I want to see Edwin.”

“Impossible,” he said. “He is dead. It would only distress you. I knew it would go wrong when he brought you with him. It’s too late for regrets now. Fortunately, they trusted me.”

He shut us in, and Harriet put her arm about me.

“You have to be strong, Arabella. We’ve got to get back. Think of your family and how much is at stake.”

“Edwin is dead,” I said. “I wasn’t with him … This morning he was well and so alive and now …”

“He died instantly. He wouldn’t have known anything. That must be a consolation.”

“A consolation. What consolation can there be for me? He was my husband.”

I could say no more. I sank down on one of the trunks and thought of Edwin … as I had first seen him; Edwin as Romeo; the occasion when we arrived at the inn and he saw us there. Oh, he was so much in love with life. He knew how to live it. How cruel that he should be taken.

Then I tried to look ahead to the rest of my life without him.

I could not talk to Harriet. I could talk to no one. I only wanted to be alone with my grief.

It was dusk when Carleton came to us. He smuggled us out of the house to where he had horses ready for us, then he rode with us to the coast where Tom was waiting.

The sea was calm but I didn’t care. I wished there were a storm which would overturn our boat. I could not bear the thought of going back without Edwin.

And through my grief was the horrible suspicion. I kept thinking of myself playing with Chastity: I could see her holding the pretty button in the palm of her little hand.

Edwin is dead, I kept saying to myself, and your carelessness killed him.

What a burden I should suffer for the rest of my life. Not only had I lost Edwin, but I had only myself to blame.

Blithely I had entered into his adventure without fully grasping the seriousness of it. Instead of being the helpmeet, I had been the encumbrance which was responsible for his death.

I knew that I was going to suffer acutely for as long as I lived. It was small wonder that I wished for a sea that would envelop the boat. It was ironical. How merrily we had arrived; how tragically we returned.

Last Days at Congrève

I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE been grateful to have made the crossing safely. But I could feel nothing but the numbness of my grief.

Harriet did her best to cheer me, but it was impossible for her to do so. She had been saddened even as I had, but at least she did not have to blame herself.

Tom looked after us well. He procured horses for us and we made our way to Château Congrève. He said he would leave us there and then make his way with the important papers he carried to the King, who was then in Brussels.

It was May, warm and sunny, and the gorse made golden clumps across the green landscape. There was bud and blossom on the hawthorn, and the birds seemed as though they wanted to tell the world how glad they were. How different was my mood, burdened as I was by the pain, the loss and the awful guilt.

Harriet tried to reason with me. “Forget that miserable button,” she said. “They’re so unnatural, Puritans. If one thing didn’t offend them, something else would.”

“We should never have gone. Don’t you see, Harriet?” I insisted.

“Look,” she said, “it didn’t seem wrong at the time. Think how cheered he was when he saw us. He worked better for knowing we were there. It wasn’t your fault. You’ve got to forget it.”

“How can you understand—” I demanded. “He wasn’t your husband.”

“Perhaps I do understand, all the same,” she said soberly.

How kind she was to me. How she tried to cheer me, but I set myself stubbornly against her cheering. I wanted to nurse my grief, to cherish it. I told myself my life was over. I had lost everything I cared for.

“Everything!” she cried angrily. “Your parents, your brothers and sister. My friendship. Do you value them so lightly?”

I was ashamed then.

“You have so much,” she said. “Think of others who have no family … who are quite alone …”

I took her hand then and pressed it. Poor Harriet, it was rarely that she betrayed her needs.

We came to Château Congrève. It looked different from when we left it—gloomy, dreary—not amusing as it had used to look in the days when we played our games there.

Our coming was unheralded and the great excitement it aroused should have been gratifying. Lucas was there and he had told them how I had gone to England. The consternation had been great. Dick, Angie and Fenn squealed with delight when they saw us. Dick flung himself at me and the other two almost knocked me over with the exuberance of their welcome. It was impossible not to be moved.

I took them in my arms and kissed each one fervently.

And there was Lucas smiling tremulously before he too hugged me tightly.

“We’ve been so anxious …” said Lucas.

Dick cried: “We knew you’d be all right because Harriet was with you.”

Then they were kissing her and dancing round us and suddenly I did what I had not done at the height of my grief. I burst into tears.

I heard Harriet talking to Lucas, telling him the news.

Tom, who had left for Brussels, would stop at Villers Tourron on the way to tell the tragic news. I felt deeply for Matilda and for poor Charlotte. What a tragedy it would be for them—almost as great as mine!

Now there was a hush over the château. Jeanne, Marianne and Jacques walked about on tiptoe. Madame Lambard came and wept with me and insisted that I take a brew made from gentian and thyme which she said would help me to overcome my grief.

I would lie in my room without any desire to rise from my bed. I didn’t care what happened, I could only think of Edwin.

The children kept away from me. I suppose I seemed like a stranger to them. Harriet was with me often. She would sit by my bed and try all manner of ways to rouse me. I would hear her voice without listening to what she was saying. She was very patient with me.

I only wanted to talk of Edwin. I made her tell me over and over again of his last minutes. She told it with drama and feeling, as I would expect her to.

“I had been going through that farce of gathering plants. Actually, I spent quite a bit of time in the arbour. … Do you remember that old arbour—relic of more splendid days? I would go over some of my parts and see how much I could remember. I had hoped to find something to read, but there was nothing but sermons and I wanted none of those. I took some satisfaction in just sitting there idling, thinking how that would have upset them if they had known. I was clever, Arabella. I had made them think I had some special knowledge and I believe Ellen was a little afraid of me. She thought I might be some sort of witch, that was why she let me get away with my plant hunting.”

“Yes, yes, but tell me about Edwin.”

“That day I was there in the old arbour … and I heard horses’ hoofs in the distance. I peeped out and there he was coming towards the house. I called to him and he stopped and dismounted. He said, ‘Hello, idling away the hours God gave you, as usual.’ He was laughing at me. … And then … suddenly there was the man with the gun. Edwin pushed me into the arbour, trying to cover me. There was an explosion and then … It was instant, Arabella. He didn’t suffer. He was laughing at me one moment … and dead the next. …”

“I can’t bear it, Harriet. It is so cruel.”

“It’s a cruel world. You didn’t know how cruel till now.”

“And now,” I said, “the cruelest thing of all has happened to me.”

“You must remember your blessings, Arabella.”

“Blessings … with Edwin gone.”

“I’ve told you so often. You know what I mean. Your family. They love you so much. Rouse yourself. Think of them all. The children are wretched … Lucas is unhappy. We all are.”

I was silent. It was true, I knew. I was imposing my grief on them.

“I’ll try,” I promised.

“You are so young. You will grow away from it.”

“I never shall.”

“You think that now. But wait. A short time ago you did not know him.”

“You can’t judge what we had, by time.”

“Oh, yes you can. You were a child when you met him. You are not fully grown yet.”

“As you are, of course. Don’t talk down to me, Harriet.”

“That’s better. A spark of anger. I do talk down to you because you have so much to learn.”

“Before I become as knowledgeable as you, you mean?”

“Yes. Life doesn’t go on all the time being one happy dream, you know. It wouldn’t always have been so pleasing to you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your marriage was so brief. To you it was idyllic. It might not have gone on like that. You might have found Edwin wasn’t quite what you thought. He might have been disappointed in you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you are a romantic and life is not as simple as you think it.”

“Are you trying to say that Edwin did not love me?”

“Of course, he loved you. And you loved him. But you are so young, Arabella, and you don’t understand these things fully.”

“How can you understand my feelings for Edwin or his for me? Surely I am the best judge.”

She laughed suddenly, throwing her arms round me and hugging me.

“That’s better. You’re hating me … now. That’s good. It’s taken the place of that overwhelming grief. Oh, Arabella, you’ll grow away from it, I promise you, I promise you.”

Then I returned her embrace, and she was right, I did feel better for my anger against her.

My mother came to Château Congrève. She must have set out as soon as she heard the news.

I was so glad to see her that my grief seemed less intense than it had since I had known of Edwin’s death. The children were so overjoyed that it was impossible not to rejoice in their happiness. But I was the one she had come to see.

We were so close to each other. We always had been in the days when we could be together, and I found our enforced separation had made no difference to our feelings for each other.

We were alone together quite a lot, although she contrived to spend time with the others. But I was her chief concern.

She made me talk to her. She shared a room with me so that we could be together through the night, and if I could not sleep she would talk to me. It amazed me how, when I was sleepless, she would always wake up as though she knew at once that I was in need of comfort. She could not explain it. It was some bond between us.

She made me tell her everything. She wanted to hear in detail about the play and how I had been Juliet to Edwin’s Romeo, how we had married so hastily and I had followed him to England.

“If I had not, this would never have happened,” I cried. “But I wanted to be with him. You understand that.”

She understood perfectly.

I told her about Chastity and the button. Who would have believed that such a trivial thing could be so important?

“It is often the trivial things in life that are,” she answered.

Harriet came into the story. It was Harriet who had gone with us to the Eversleighs. It was Harriet who thought of the play, Harriet who had suggested we follow Edwin to England, and Harriet who had been with him when he had died.

I noticed that my mother often brought Harriet into our discussions. Harriet had come in the first place with some travellers, had she not?

Although I might deceive my mother by half-truths in a letter, I could not do so face to face. She had a way of probing, and soon the whole story had come out about the strolling players, but I did manage to hide the fact that the hurt ankle had been a ruse.

“How odd,” said my mother. “So she was with this troupe of players. How did she join them?”

So I had to tell her then how Harriet’s mother and stepfather had been drowned and how she had been saved and taken to a family where she had been governess. My mother wanted to know the name of the family. I said I would ask Harriet if she really wanted to know.

My mother said she would ask her.

I hastily said: “One of the sons of the household made advances to her and that was why she left. They might speak ill of her.”

My mother nodded.

I had a feeling that she did not greatly like Harriet. That disturbed me, and I tried to make her understand how much we had all enjoyed her company and how good she was with the children.

“I can see they have a very high regard for her,” she said.

How she comforted me I could not tell, but she did. She made me see that I had had great happiness and must be grateful for that. It was sad that it had been so brief, but at least I had something to remember.

She told me that she was going to call on Lady Eversleigh on her way back to Cologne to join my father, and she thought that I should come with her to the Château Tourron and be with Matilda for a few days. She was sure it would comfort her. Then when my mother left for Cologne I could return to Congrève.

This I arranged to do.

Poor Matilda. She was, as I had expected her to be, overcome with grief. She embraced me, called me her dear daughter and talked continually of Edwin.

She said: “He was the hope of our house. And he is gone. … Our only son. There is nothing left to us but to mourn.”

My mother said to me later: “I’m afraid this does little to assuage your grief, my darling, but it comforts her to have you here. That I know. So for her sake … bear with it.”

She was right. I found myself comforted by comforting Matilda Eversleigh.

Charlotte was like a sad, grey ghost. Poor Charlotte, who had lost her lover and her brother. She was like one who was wondering what blow could be dealt to her next.

I walked with her in the gardens and she asked me about Edwin’s end. I told her as Harriet had told me.

“So she was the last one to see him alive. It would be so.”

“She happened to be in an old arbour and heard him come towards the house. Someone must have been lying in ambush there.”

She narrowed her eyes and said: “What could she have been doing in the arbour? Did you ask her that?”

I answered quickly: “We were all expected to do tasks. She went out gathering herbs and she used to rest there.”

Charlotte’s lips tightened. Of course she would never forgive Harriet for taking Charles Condey from her.

Then I poured out my feelings to her. I told her about the button and how foolish I had been and how it had aroused suspicions against me.

“You were not to know,” she said. “It was all so innocent. You must not reproach yourself.”

She was gentle and kind to me and I felt I had a friend in Charlotte.

What a house of mourning that was and how poignant I felt when Matilda thanked me for making Edwin’s last weeks so happy.

She said: “We are a military family. He died for his King and that is something of which we must be proud. He died as bravely as his ancestors have died on the battlefields. Let us remember that.”

My mother mentioned Harriet one day when we were sitting together—Matilda, she and I. Charlotte was not present. I guessed my mother knew that the subject of Harriet would be too painful for Charlotte to bear.

“A strange young woman,” said my mother. “Arabella has been telling me how she came. What did you think of her, Matilda?”

Matilda Eversleigh hesitated. “She was very good with the play,” she said. “We thought her a great asset … in the beginning …”

“And afterwards?” asked my mother.

“Well, there was Charles Condey.”

I said: “It was scarcely Harriet’s fault. He fell deeply in love with her.”

“She is very attractive,” admitted my mother.

“It was rather unfortunate. Poor Charlotte …”

“But a happy escape if he was so fickle,” my mother pointed out.

“Ah, yes, perhaps,” sighed Matilda.

“And that was all?” went on my mother. “Until that happened you were quite happy about her being here?”

“It was the best house party I have had since I left England.”

“And it was all due to her,” I said quickly.

“Oh, yes, yes,” agreed my mother-in-law.

My mother appeared to be satisfied, but I who knew her well realized that she was thinking deeply. I had a feeling that she was not completely happy about Harriet.

I said good-bye to my mother and the Eversleighs, and when I reached Château Congrève there was a great welcome awaiting me. Madame Lambard had baked a pie with “Welcome home, Arabella” worked on it with strips of paste, and the three young children sang a song of welcome which Harriet had taught them and which she whispered to me they had practised every day, so I must be pleased with it.

“No tears,” she whispered. “They’ve worked so hard. You can’t disappoint them.”

Nor could I. I was surprised to find that the gloom which had till now enveloped me had lifted a little.

It was a revelation which came to me suddenly.

I had awakened to a bright morning, and as usual as soon as I opened my eyes and remembered that I was a widow, the terrible desolation swept over me. I lay for a while thinking of waking with Edwin beside me, and how I would watch him until he suddenly burst out laughing because he had only pretended to be asleep.

Then I would shut my eyes and wallow in my grief and assure myself that life was over for me. I would force myself to get up and remember that I had to be bright because of the children.

And as I lay there that morning it flashed into my mind. It was possible. Could it really be?

If it was, it would make all the difference in the world to me.

Of course I could not yet be sure. But if it were. Oh, God, I thought, I should begin to live again.

I lay there as though wrapped up in a cocoon of hopefulness.

The next weeks would tell me, and if it were true, I should have something to live for.

I could only keep saying to myself: I shall begin to live again.

They noticed the change in me.

“You’re getting over it,” said Harriet, and she looked so happy that I knew she was truly fond of me. The children noticed it. They leaped about making strange contented noises as they used to. Lucas, dear Lucas—who seemed to have grown up so much in the last months—was quietly happy.

Oh, indeed, I owed it to them to shake myself out of my misery. And if this were true … oh, if only this were true … I should not have lost Edwin entirely.

By the end of July I was sure.

I was going to have a child.

Madame Lambard, who had acted as a midwife when she had had the opportunity, confirmed my condition.

She was so delighted that she burst into tears and became emotionally voluble.

The good God had answered her prayers, she told me. She had prayed to Him to give me this. He had made me suffer but He had his reasons. Now He was giving me this blessing.

They were going to take care of me—she and the good Lord together, and with such guardians I could rest assured I should come to no harm. I should have every care … every attention. I would be happy again.

Yes, I thought, I can be happy again. When I hold my child … mine and Edwin’s … in my arms, I shall be happy again.

Of course I told Harriet.

She was amused and went into fits of laughter.

“What is funny about it?” I demanded.

“It just strikes me so,” she answered. “I’m happy for you, Arabella. This is going to make all the difference to you, I know.”

“It is, Harriet, it is.”

I wrote immediately to my parents and then remembered Matilda Eversleigh. After all, this concerned her.

Her response was immediate. She wrote:

My dearest daughter,

This news has filled me with such happiness as I feared never to feel again. Oh, blessed day when you came to us. Edwin will live on for us. Let us pray for a boy. Though a little girl will be a comfort. But a boy will recompense us in so many ways. You see, my dearest child, I can talk to you like this because you are one of the family now. Edwin was the heir to a great name and a title, and it is a tragedy that we had no other son. His inheritance would have gone to my nephew Carleton whom you met in England. He is worthy enough, of course, but if your child is a boy, it will be kept in the direct line and that is important to us. My dearest grandson! Lord Eversleigh will be delighted. I am writing to him without delay. Oh, this is such a blessing. What a joy it is to have good news. You must take the greatest care of yourself. Perhaps you should come to me. I cannot convey what joy your letter has given me. …

Oh, yes, I was able to be happy again. Now I awoke in the mornings with a light heart. It was not the end of my marriage. I had something to live for.

I wrote to Matilda and assured her that Madame Lambard was the best midwife in the neighbourhood, and as she was determined to look after me, I thought I could do no better than place myself in her care. This child would be more precious than most because of the sad circumstances in which it would be born. I was determined to take no risks by travelling. I was going to rely absolutely on Madame Lambard. I was determined that there should be no danger to my child.

Messengers came back and forth to the château. My parents were overjoyed.

My father wrote that the entire situation was altering. There was hope everywhere.

The news from home is getting better and better. Edwin has sent back valuable information. More is coming from his cousin who has and is doing such good work.

My dear daughter, by the time your child is born it may well be that we have plans for the King’s return to England. What a joy that will be to us all!

He sounded more confident than he ever had before, and he was not a man to conceal the truth.

I began to dream of the future.

My baby should make his appearance in January the coming year, sixteen hundred and sixty.

Now the days began to pass quickly. How differently I felt when I awoke each morning. I even welcomed the little discomforts which heralded the existence of the child. I began to count the days and months, so much was I longing for the day when I should hold the child in my arms.

Expectation pervaded the château. The main topic of conversation was “When the baby comes.” I started to make garments under the tuition of Jeanne, who was good with her needle, and although I was scarcely the same, I did derive a great deal of satisfaction from the work.

The children were told that there was going to be a new baby and that they were going to be uncles and aunts, which made them hilarious with glee, particularly Fenn, who being the youngest had never felt so important before. Every day he asked if the baby had come and was he an uncle yet.

Harriet would sit with me while I sewed and sometimes read plays to me, enacting the parts as she did so—a pleasant pastime. The children liked to come in and listen. Even Harriet seemed to have changed. I could not quite say what it was; perhaps she had become more thoughtful; she moved less swiftly and I fancied she had put on a little weight.

She had been concerned because she thought my mother had not liked her and she wanted to know what questions she had asked about her. Had I mentioned the d’Ambervilles? “Not by name,” I told her. “And I just told her you left because one of the sons made advances to you.”

She was uneasy, I knew.

It was July, I remember, hot and sultry, and I felt listless in a contented kind of way because I knew my feelings were due to the child I carried. Letters came from my mother.

Dear Arabella,

What wonderful news this is. I trust you are taking good care of yourself. I feel that you are in good hands with Madame Lambard. She so prides herself on her skills and I believe with reason.

I long to be with you, but as I cannot I am happy to think of Madame Lambard. At the earliest opportunity I shall be with you. As you can imagine a great many things are happening here and it seems likely that by this time next year we may be home. What a joy that will be when we are all together. …

Oh, yes, I thought, there is a lot to live for. I went on reading and was slightly taken aback.

I have been wondering about Harriet. We need someone here to help us make our preparations. I have told your father about her and he thinks it would be a good idea if she joined us here. After all, if we shall soon be back in England, the children will not be so very old and they can resume their education in earnest then. We have heard of an excellent tutor …

The letter dropped from my hand. I knew her well. She did not want Harriet to stay here with us.

I said nothing to Harriet for a day or so. I meant to, but every time I attempted to, I found it difficult. She was clever enough to realize that my mother did not approve of her being here and wanted to get her away.

Of course I should have to write to my mother sooner or later, and one day when she was talking about going back to England, said: “Harriet, I have had a letter from my mother. She would like you to go to her.”

She stared at me. “Go to her!”

The colour had left her face. For the first time I saw Harriet afraid.

“What do you mean?” she said sharply.

“That’s what she says. They need someone there … to er … Well, you know, there are all these preparations. You write well … it might be that in some way …”

“She wants me to leave here, does she?”

“She did not say that.”

“Oh, but she means it. I won’t go, Arabella. I can’t go.”

“I shall write and tell her that we can’t do without you here. Harriet, don’t be angry. I never intended that you should.”

She was silent for a few moments as though making up her mind.

Then she said slowly: “Arabella, there’s something I have to tell you. I’m in the same condition as you are. I am going to have a child.”

“Harriet!”

She looked at me ruefully. “It’s true.”

“How could that have happened?”

She made an effort to treat the matter flippantly. “Oh, in the usual way.”

“But who …? And when …?”

“About the same time as you … perhaps a little earlier.” She started to laugh—a little hysterically, for she was not nearly as calm as she pretended to be.

“Who … who?” I demanded. Then light dawned on me. “Charles Condey.”

She buried her face in her hands.

I said: “Oh, Harriet, how could you! Then you must marry him. You must write to him at once. I wonder where he is?”

She raised her face and looked at me angrily. “I shall never marry Charles Condey.”

“But he is the father of your child.”

“Nothing would induce me to marry him.”

“But what … ? How …?”

“You will let me stay here to have the child? You’ll not turn me away?”

“Harriet, as if I would! But it is going to be difficult.”

“It’s a difficult situation.”

“What will everyone say?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Such things have happened before.”

“Does anyone know?”

“The Lambard suspects.”

“You haven’t told her?”

“I have told no one but you. They will have to know in due course. Madame Lambard will be overjoyed that her discerning eye did not deceive her.”

“Oh … Harriet!”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve always told you I was not what is called a good woman. I was bound to be caught sooner or later.”

“Please don’t talk like that.”

“How else should I talk? You see now why I can’t go to your parents.”

“Yes, I see that, Harriet.”

“They’ll want to get me out of here when they know.”

“Of course they won’t. My mother will understand. She, herself …”

I hesitated and thought of my own birth which had been unorthodox. My mother would have to show sympathy for Harriet since I had been the daughter of her sister’s husband and herself. But I knew she would. She had always been kind and helpful to any of the servants who had fallen into trouble.

I went on: “Don’t be afraid, Harriet. We’ll look after you. But I think Charles Condey should know.”

“Please, please don’t make any effort to find him or tell him.”

“I wouldn’t if you didn’t want it.”

“Oh, Arabella, what a wonderful day it was for me when we came to Château Congrève! I knew there was some special bond between us. You see we are together … like sisters … You have a child … and I am to have one too. In spite of everything, I can’t help feeling excited.”

I took her hand.

“Oh, Harriet,” I said, “we must always help each other.”

After the first shock of the news spread through the household, it ceased to be a nine days’ wonder. It was accepted that Harriet was going to have a baby. I must say she carried the situation off with great aplomb, and somehow it seemed quite a glorious event rather than something to be ashamed about.

She had taken a lover whom she had met at Villers Tourron, the servants said to each other. She had decided she did not want to marry him. It was not the first time it had happened to a girl, though in her case she had had the opportunity to marry and had declined.

There always had to be something special about Harriet.

Now the cozy period set in. We were together most of the time. She laughed at our increasing bulk. “The bulging ladies,” she called us. She made a comedy of it. Whatever happened to Harriet must always seem like a play. But I was beginning to be happy again. For hours at a time I would cease to think of Edwin, and only a few weeks before I should not have believed that possible.

The babies were a great absorption. Madame Lambard discussed at length confinements she had attended. She declared herself satisfied with us both, and the idea of having two babies in the house at once was a double rejoicing, she told me, never mind if one of them was making a rather unconventional entrance into the world.

The summer was slipping away.

I had had to tell my mother that Harriet was pregnant. She wanted to know who was the father of the child, and I told her that it was a young man who had been at the house party at Villers Tourron. He had offered marriage to Harriet, but she had found she did not love him enough for marriage and had bravely decided that she would care for their child without him.

My mother did not criticize her and agreed with me that she must be cared for.

Lucas was a little bewildered, but his devotion to Harriet was complete. I believe he would have married her himself if she would have had him. As for the little ones they were not so surprised. Harriet was so clever, and they were sure that if I was going to have a baby, it was only natural that Harriet should have one too.

Fenn announced that he reckoned he would be a double uncle if Harriet would let him. She hugged him and said that he should be the uncle of all the children she would have. He confided to Angie that he thought Harriet would have ten children, and he wondered if they would all cry at once, but he was confident of his avuncular abilities to keep them smiling, and he did wish they wouldn’t wait so long before coming.

They were happy days—days of serenity. Christmas came and it was January.

Madame Lambard was in a state of preparedness. “It can’t be long now,” she kept murmuring.

It was typical of Harriet that she should be the first. On the fifteenth of January she gave birth to a healthy boy.

I sat by her bed, deeply aware of the child within me. She lay back, her lovely hair damp on her forehead, triumphant in a way and somehow rueful.

Madame Lambard brought the baby and showed him to me.

“If it had been a girl I should have called it Arabella,” she said. “Now I’m going to call him Leigh. You see I want to call him after you in some way, and you are Arabella Eversleigh. Have you any objections?”

“Of course not. It’s a lovely name and a lovely idea. How proud you must be of your little Leigh. If mine is a boy, you know what I shall call him.”

“Edwin,” she said.

And I nodded.

It was two weeks later when my son was born. I kept my word and he was christened Edwin.

Those were strange yet happy days; everywhere the excitement was intense. I had to admit that I could not take as great an interest in what was happening as most people did because I was so completely absorbed in motherhood.

I was exultant when I held my baby in my arms and he smiled at me; if he cried I would be filled with terror. I called Madame Lambard ten times a day for reassurance. She laughed at me. “Ah, madame, you suffer from First Baby Fears,” she told me. “It is always so with a first baby. When the second comes, the third and the fourth … oh, it is a different matter then.”

I said soberly, “I shall only have one, Madame Lambard, for I shall never marry again.”

Then having raised a sad subject, she tried to cheer me by telling me that young Monsieur Edwin (whom she called Edween) was the most healthy and most happy baby it had ever been her joy to deliver.

It was a happy house, she said, that sheltered two young babies like Messieurs Edween and Leigh—though she had to admit that the last named gentleman’s appearance was a little indiscreet.

Harriet imitated her perfectly, and I must confess we laughed a good deal during those months. Harriet loved her baby, I was sure, but differently from the way in which I loved mine. She was proud of him; I detected a smug satisfaction if he was better tempered or appeared to have grown more than Edwin. She wanted to be proud of him rather than to love him, I thought. I suppose because the circumstances of his birth were so different from those of my own child. I wondered whether Harriet often thought of Charles Condey. Matilda Eversleigh naturally was eager to see her grandson, and because I could not travel to her, she came to Congrève.

Harriet grimaced when she heard she was coming. “She’ll hold up her hands in horror at the sight of Leigh,” she said.

“Harriet, I really think you should marry the father. After all, you must have liked him to begin with.”

“I never did like Charles much,” she admitted.

“And yet you did … that.”

“Careless of me, wasn’t it? Still I do love my little Leigh, and I can’t help feeling pleased he’s here.”

“Harriet, you are incorrigible. But what can we say to Lady Eversleigh?”

“That I was secretly married.”

“To whom?”

“Not Charles Condey. For Heaven’s sake, keep him out of it. Someone who came here for a few days on his way to England. We fell in love, we married and this is the fruit of our union.”

“You have so little regard for the truth.”

“On the contrary, I have the greatest regard for it. But there are occasions when it is necessary to set it aside … for Lady Eversleigh’s sake.”

“And not your own?”

“My dear Arabella, you know me well enough to understand that I am outside convention. I only submit to it out of regard for those who hold it dear. So I will tell my little tale to Lady Eversleigh and you will not contradict me because to do so would make her most unhappy.”

Lady Eversleigh came. She was entranced by her grandson. She held him in her arms and wept over him. He was very intrigued by her tears and crowed with delight. I am sure he thought they were some special game contrived for his pleasure.

It was touching to see her.

“Such tragedy, dear Arabella,” she told me. “First Charlotte. Poor girl, she suffered. And then this terrible thing. Oh, how glad I am that you married before he went. Now we have our compensation, have we not?”

She made it clear that she found young Edwin immensely superior to any other child.

“The news is excellent,” she said. “Very soon, dear Arabella, we shall be in England. Lord Eversleigh tells me that General Monck has been in touch with the King’s most loyal supporters and that negotiations are already going ahead. What a happy day that will be when we may return to our country and build up our homes again. You and I will carry our great sorrow with us. But when we go, you will come to Eversleigh Court. We must try to subdue our sorrow, for we have our little Edwin now. We shall make such plans for his future. He will be my life from now on.”

I had not thought of going to Eversleigh Court, but I could see that it would be expected of me.

I said: “What of Carleton Eversleigh? He must have looked upon himself as the heir when Edwin died.”

“So he was … until our little one came. Carleton will be delighted. He was wonderful to Edwin when he was a boy. He used to alarm me a little. He was so rough with him, but my husband said it was good for the boy. Dear Edwin had rather a gentle nature. Though he was full of fun, he was not like Carleton. Carleton forced him to fence and box and ride. He tried to make him like himself.” She shook her head. “Darling Edwin, he was so good-natured. He did his best. I daresay Carleton will want to take on this little Edwin.”

“I will not have him at risk.”

“Indeed, that shall never be. He is the most precious of children.”

We talked at length of him. How he smiled; how he so rarely cried; how he was so much brighter than all other children. We became close through our love for the child.

To my surprise she accepted our story about Harriet. She was not really interested. She disliked her because of what had happened with Charlotte. I wondered what she would have said had she know that Charlotte had come near to taking her own life.

She showed very little interest in young Leigh at first, but he had such winning ways with him, that she could not but be charmed. She made it clear, though, that she had no desire for friendship with Harriet.

After she had left I had had letters from my parents who were now in Breda.

It was April. The babies were three months old and my parents were certain that departure for England was imminent. There were letters full of what was happening in the King’s entourage. Negotiations were in progress. Envoys were going between Breda and London. Sir John Grenville had taken a letter from Charles to General Monck and the General had openly declared that he had ever been faithful to the King and that it was only now that he was in a position to be of service to him.

My mother wrote that there had been some, like our own dear General Tolworthy, who had shared the King’s exile with him and given up all for his sake, but no matter. This was great news. “The King has been asked to return,” she wrote, “and he has sent back his terms to Monck. It cannot now be long.”

I read my mother’s letter as we sat at the table. Lucas said we ought to start making our preparations, for we should be leaving. The children were excited at the prospect of change, but the servants were flatteringly subdued, and as for Madame Lambard, she demanded to know what she was going to do, having brought two darling children into the world and to have them snatched away from her.

“It is not yet arranged, Madame Lambard,” I soothed her. “So many times there has been talk like this and nothing came of it.”

The babies slept in a room next to mine. If they cried in the night I wanted to know. I would go and comfort them. Sometimes it was Leigh who needed to be picked up. Harriet never heard them, she said.

I scolded her. “You’re an unnatural mother,” I told her.

“Reluctant would perhaps be a more apt description,” she answered.

I was disturbed when she talked like that, for I thought of poor Leigh who was really more aware of me and of Madame Lambard than he was of his mother.

One night Harriet came into my room just as I had retired to bed. That was in mid-April and there had been more news from my parents about the imminent return of the King to England, and this time it was indeed significant. The Parliament had voted that the government of the country should be by the King, the Lords and the Commons. That was good enough.

Preparations would now go on apace.

Harriet was in a pensive mood.

I was already in bed, so she took a chair and studied me.

“What a lot has happened in a short time,” she said, “and now there will be more changes. Just think of it, Arabella. We really shall be going home.”

“It’s strange,” I replied. “It’s what we have been waiting for and yet at the same time I feel a little sadness. This old château has been home to me for a long time. I have been happy here. I loved it before I realized that it was shabby and life was rather dull here. It didn’t seem so once.”

“You have a contented soul, dear Arabella. In time I believe you would make a home wherever you went … and then start to enjoy it.”

“I realize how little I knew of life before …”

“Before I came,” suggested Harriet.

“Yes, I suppose that could be a starting point.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have stayed, Arabella.”

“I wonder what would have happened if you had not?”

“To you … or to me? You would have met your Edwin and married him, for that was preordained … by your families. But you would never have followed him to England.”

“Then he might be still alive. I should have had him and the baby.”

“You see, I am a poor exchange.”

“Oh, please, Harriet, don’t talk like that. It’s a mistake to say, if this had happened something else would. How can we know?”

“Yes, how can we know? But ‘If’ is a fascinating game and sometimes one can’t resist playing it. If he had lived, perhaps it would not have been as you imagined. There might have been things you would have learned.”

“What do you mean?”

“About each other. You parted when you both were ideals to each other. It is difficult to remain an idol for very long, you know. Unfortunately, every one of us has, if not a foot of clay … a heel … a toenail … You see what I mean?”

“I can’t bear to think of what I did, Harriet. If I had stayed here …”

“Let’s not speak of it, then. When you go to England it will be to the Eversleigh ancestral home.”

“I don’t know. There will be so much to be done. These homes were all but destroyed.”

“Eversleigh Court wasn’t. We know that by his good services to Cromwell, Carleton Eversleigh managed to keep the place intact, to say nothing of all those treasures stored in the secret compartment behind the books.”

“Yes, they were fortunate in that.”

“The treasures will be brought forth and there you will have a luxurious home. Yes, you will go there with your son, Edwin, the heir to a goodly estate, I don’t doubt. For the Eversleighs will be one of those lucky families who will be high in royal favour. The same will apply to the Tolworthys. Little Edwin is well cushioned from either side. But from what I gather, Far Flamstead, the Tolworthy residence, was rather badly mauled by the Roundheads.”

“I can’t imagine what it will be like after all these years.”

“Prayer meetings in the banqueting hall, I suspect, and hard pallet beds to replace the comfortable fourposters. One thing we know. It has not been kept cozy by a clever Carleton.”

“You didn’t like him, did you?”

“I know his kind. Arrogant, overpowering, wanting to be the master of us all. He didn’t like me, and I have the common human failing of not liking people unless they like me.”

“It is a new experience for you not to impress a man.”

“Rare, I grant you.”

“Doesn’t that make him some sort of challenge?”

“Not for me in the case of such an overbearing, conceited creature as your cousin-in-law.” Her voice changed suddenly. It was the first time I had ever heard her sound forlorn. “If you go to Eversleigh Court … which I am sure they will want … what of me?”

“You would come with me.”

“Do you think I should be welcome? A woman of no consequence with a bastard boy?”

“Don’t talk like that, Harriet. You know that I should always want you with me.”

“Dear Arabella. But you see everyone does not feel so kindly towards me. Lady Eversleigh dislikes me … and makes no effort to hide her feelings.”

“That is because of Charlotte.”

“No matter what the cause, it exists. I should not be welcome there. Your parents? Would they invite me to Far Flamstead … or wherever they go? Be sensible, Arabella. Where shall I go?”

“Oh, Harriet, you have been with us so long. I can’t imagine your not being there.”

“You won’t have to imagine it. It will be a fact.”

I was silent, for what she said was true. I knew that Lady Eversleigh would not want her and my mother was suspicious of her. Lucas adored her and so did the children, but how much weight would they carry?

I was horrified by her plight and I said firmly: “No matter what the Eversleighs say, you shall come with me, Harriet. You have done them no harm. Edwin was quite fond of you. They would be a little shocked by Leigh if they were to discover the truth. Ladies are not expected to have children unless they are married. Some servant girls do, and my mother was always kind when they did.”

“Perhaps I shall be treated with the same leniency as a servant girl,” she said with a laugh.

Then for some reason we were both laughing.

She came to the bed and implanted a light kiss on my brow. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I shall be able to look after myself when the time comes, never fear.”

Then she went out and left me. She was right. I could feel confident that she would look after herself. And in my heart I believed that she would come with me. I could not imagine life without Harriet.

News came filtering in at speed.

The City of London and the Fleet declared for Charles.

This meant that as soon as the King was ready to sail, he might safely do so.

His statue had been set up in the Guildhall and the Commonwealth’s arms had been reduced. That was not all. News immediately followed this that Charles had solemnly been proclaimed King in London and Westminster. There was to be a day of thanksgiving because the Commonwealth was ended and there was once more to be a king on the throne.

Then the greatest news of all. A committee of six lords and twelve commoners had arrived at The Hague with an invitation to the King. He was asked to return to his kingdom. His birthday by good fortune fell on the twenty-ninth of the month, and it seemed fitting that on that day he should make his triumphant entry into London.

So at last it had come. Our return was imminent.

It seemed as though friends emerged from all over France. They were making their way to the coast for the great day, and there were constant visitors at the château. The servants had always liked visitors but now they were saddened. They knew that soon we should be going. Sometimes I thought Madame Lambard might attempt to kidnap the babies and hide them away to prevent our taking them. The melancholy in the castle was an odd contrast to the high spirits of our visitors, but it was rather touching and very complimentary. We were sad too, for now that the promised land was in sight, we could spare a thought for those whom we should have to leave behind.

“We shall be back to see you, Madame Lambard,” I said. “And you must come to see us. I shall bring Edwin over to show you.”

She smiled at me and rather sadly shook her head.

There was always a great deal to do because of the constant stream of people who came—some staying for a day, others at night and a few much longer.

One of the latter was Sir James Gilley, a rather dashing gentleman in his late forties, I imagined—quite a dandy who admitted he had suffered a great deal from exile. He was a friend of the King and he used to say to us, “Charlie will change all that when he gets back,” and, “Charlie would appreciate you ladies.” I remarked to Harriet that he was on very familiar terms with His Majesty.

Harriet loved to listen to his tales of the Court, and although it had for the last years been a poor sort of Court, a travelling one looking for hospitality where it could find it, still the King was at the head of it; and as Sir James told us, “When he is back, Charlie is going to make up for all that.” He had already confided to Sir James that, once back, he had made up his mind never to go wandering again.

May seemed a lovelier month than ever that year. I was sure there were more flowers than usual. The buttercups and dandelions made a sheen of gold in the fields and the slender bluebells a lovely mist in the woods. I used to awake early and get out of bed to make sure that the babies were happy. Then I would take Edwin back to my bed and lie there talking to him while I listened to the gay, abandoned singing of the birds.

Harriet seemed a little aloof. I guessed she was getting more and more anxious. There was such change in the air and she was thinking of her future.

No matter. I was going to take her with me. I was sure I could persuade Matilda Eversleigh that she was my friend and as such I wanted her to live with me.

Lucas was a little apprehensive. He was too old to be able to accept our return as the panacea of all our troubles. He had been too long at Château Congrève to be able to leave it blithely. Also he was wondering about Harriet, for he accepted the fact that I must go with my new family and it seemed likely that Harriet would come with me while he, of course, would go to our parents’ home.

Dick was excited, and I heard him telling the others the wildest stories about an England he had never seen. But he had his own pictures of it, for he had heard much of it over the years.

Harriet seemed to enjoy the company of those who came to the château. She reminded me of the Harriet who had gone to Villers Tourron and had been the centre of attraction. She rode out with our guests, and I often heard their laughter when she amused them with her conversation and stories about herself which I knew were mainly fabrications. But they were always amusing and told with a wit which seemed to charm the listeners. She posed as the young widow, and it was assumed that her husband had lost his life in the same affray that Edwin had, and like me she was the widow of a hero who had given his life in the King’s cause.

Sir James Gilley told me one bright morning that on the next day he would be moving on. He was making his way to the coast and there he would await the King’s party. They would cross the Channel and a great welcome would be awaiting them on the other side, he doubted not.

“And, dear lady, it will not be long before you will follow us, I am sure of that. I trust we shall meet at the King’s Court. Charlie will want to meet those who have been his good friends throughout the years.”

I said that I doubted not my father would be coming to the château soon, for if the King were on his way, so would he be.

“Then we shall meet soon. Tomorrow morning early I shall depart and I shall say farewell to you this evening, for I shall be off, I doubt not, before you are astir.”

“I will rise early.”

“Nay, it would grieve me. You have been such a perfect hostess, I should not wish to cause you further trouble.”

“It would be no trouble.”

“Nay, dear lady,” he said. “Let me slip away. Our next meeting will be in London, I promise myself.”

That day he made preparations, and I saw very little of him, and after we had supped that night he thanked me formally for my hospitality and he vowed that when he saw my father he would tell him what a fine daughter he had.

He said he would retire early to be off at the first sign of dawn.

Harriet came to my room that night.

“He will be gone tomorrow,” I told her. “You have been good friends. You will miss him.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “In these days people come and go. Until we are living in a more stable society, one should not attach too much importance to passing acquaintance.”

“James Gilley says we shall meet again ere long.”

“That may be. I wonder if the King will remember all his friends. There will be so many around him to remind him of their loyalty.”

“Perhaps he will remember those who do not need to remind him.”

“Ah, there’s wisdom there.” She looked intently at me. “Change … everywhere,” she went on. “You feel it all around you. It’s in the air.”

“Naturally. At least that for which we have waited all these years is about to come to pass.”

“Do you think it will live up to expectations, Arabella?”

“It will be good to be home. We shall no longer be exiles living on the charity of our friends.”

“Ah, that will be good. Oh, Arabella, we shall always be friends. I know it.”

“I hope so.”

“Whatever I’ve done you would forgive me, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose so.”

“Always remember that.”

“How solemn you are tonight.”

“It’s a solemn occasion.”

“You are anxious about the future, I believe. You mustn’t be. You’re coming with me. I would not allow it to be otherwise.”

She came over to the bed and kissed me.

“God bless you, Arabella.”

I thought she looked unusually solemn. Then she laughed and said: “I’m tired. Good night.”

And she was gone.

The next day stands out clearly in my memory.

I did not hear the departure. Sir James must have left early and quietly, as he had said he would.

I went in to the babies. They were sleeping peacefully. I picked up Edwin cautiously and sat for a while as I loved to do, rocking him in my arms.

He awoke and started to whimper. Then Leigh heard him and started too. So I took him up and sat for some time, holding one in the crook of each arm.

Madame Lambard came bustling in to attend to them and I went back to my room to dress.

When I was ready, I did not hear Harriet stirring, so I knocked at her door, and as there was no answer I went in.

Her bed was made. Either it had not been slept in or she had been up early and made it herself.

I went to the window and looked out. It was a peaceful scene; the countryside green and fresh, the budding trees, the birds still wild with joy because the morning had come.

I remembered that Sir James Gilley had left and we should have a quiet day free from guests. I should be getting my possessions together because I knew that any day now my parents would arrive and it would be our turn to travel to the coast.

I turned suddenly and saw the letter lying on a table. I went to it. It was addressed to me so I opened it and attempted to read it, but the words swam before my eyes and I had to go back and start again before I could believe what was written.

My dear Arabella,

This is good-bye. I am leaving this morning with James Gilley. He is devoted to me and will look after me. Believe me, when I tell you I hate to leave you, but I could see no other way. Your mother-in-law, with whom you will now live, dislikes me. She would never have tolerated me in your house. I fancy your mother is not overfond of me and would not have wanted me in hers. This seemed the answer. And when James asked me I said yes. He is rich and I like my comforts. I shall know how to handle him. I shall enjoy the Court, I am sure. I really have only one regret and that is leaving you, Arabella. We have been special friends, have we not? And we always shall be. For we shall meet again.

There is one other thing. I am leaving Leigh in your care. I know you will do the right thing by my baby. You will bring him up with your own dear Edwin, and there is no one else with whom I would rather leave him.

This is not good-bye, dear Arabella. It is au revoir. God bless you

Your loving friend,

Harriet.

Again and again I read through what she had written. I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. She had gone as dramatically as she had come. But she had left something behind to remind us of her. Her own child! How could she leave him!

Of course she could. Harriet was capable of everything.

I went into the room which we had made the nursery.

Madame Lambard was rocking Leigh up and down because, as she started to say, he had the wind.

I stared at the baby and Madame Lambard said: “Is anything wrong, Madame Arabella?”

I answered simply. “She has gone. She has left the baby and has gone.”

During the third week of May my parents came to the château to take us back, and what wild rejoicing there was at our reunion. This, alas, did not extend to the kitchens and Marianne, Jeanne and Jacques were very subdued; as for Madame Lambard, she was desolate, though perhaps this was mainly due to the babies.

My mother was most disturbed when she heard that Harriet had gone, leaving her son behind.

“The unnatural creature!” she cried. “How could she do such a thing? And who is the father?”

I told her it was Charles Condey who had fallen passionately in love with Harriet during our visit to Villers Tourron.

“We know him well. He is such a sober young man. I find it hard to believe that he would not stand by a girl who was to have his child.”

“He wanted to marry her but she wouldn’t have him.”

“He was, of course, meant for Charlotte.”

“You do not know Harriet, Mother. She is so attractive. People find her irresistible … or most of them do.”

“That is understandable … but to leave a child!”

“She knew I would always look after him.”

“And what shall you do? Take him to Eversleigh?”

“Of course. He will grow up with Edwin.”

My mother shook her head anxiously. Then she embraced me and said: “You are a good girl, Arabella. I can’t tell you how often your father and I have thanked God for you. You know what you mean to your father?”

I nodded. “How wonderful it will be to be together again. I wish I were coming home with you to Far Flamstead.”

“I know, my dearest. But you must comfort Matilda. Poor lady, she has lost her only son. She loves you dearly. She told me that as soon as she saw you she knew you were the wife she wanted for Edwin. And now when this terrible tragedy has come to her, it is you who are the greatest help to her because you have given her little Edwin. You’ve given her something to live for. A grandson is what she prayed for and, through you, she has him. So do not regret that you are not coming to Far Flamstead. We shall not be very far away. We will meet often and you will be happy because you have brought such joy to your new family.”

Lord Eversleigh, Edwin’s father, was a delightful man; he was considerably older than my own father, as Matilda was also. I remembered Edwin’s telling me how they had been married for some time before they had any children and that was why Carleton had had his hopes.

Lord Eversleigh was deeply moved when he was presented to my son, and although at such a time I must miss my husband even more bitterly than at others, I was happy to have brought such joy to them by giving them a grandson.

We were all to cross the Channel together, and my parents would stay for a night at Eversleigh Court which was near the coast. Our emotions were at such a pitch that I felt part of the time that I was in a dream. After all, this was the fulfillment of our hopes of years. We had talked so much of going home that, now the time had come, we were uncertain of our happiness. In the first place we had to say good-bye to so much that we had known for so long; and the sad eyes of the servants at Congrève and the red ones of Madame Lambard could not do anything else but depress us.

How should I have felt had I been going back with Edwin? So different, I was sure.

The crossing was a smooth one, which was a blessing, and we made for an inn not much more than a hundred yards from the sea which had been well known to the Eversleighs in the old days.

Then it had been called the Jolly Waggoner but the Jolly had been painted out and it was now simply the Waggoner—a particular piece of Puritan folly which made us all laugh.

The landlord, Tom Ferret, was, like most people, I was to discover, eager to cast aside the gloomy piety he had been obliged to practice for a more convivial manner.

“Well, Tom,” said Lord Eversleigh. “Times are changing.”

Tom put his finger to his nose and said slyly: “And about time too, and good it is to see you back, milord.”

“And how is your father?” asked Lord Eversleigh.

Tom pointed upwards, and I wasn’t sure whether he meant his father was in the room above or in Heaven. I realized it was the latter, for he went on: “Sorry I am, milord, that he can’t see this day. Now we’ll look forward to the good times, we will.”

“A return to prosperity,” said Lord Eversleigh. “Puritanism is no good for business, eh, Tom?”

“It has been a struggle to keep going, milord, but praise God His Majesty is coming back. Do you know when the happy day will be, milord?”

“Soon, Tom. Soon. We want him back for his thirtieth birthday. And that will be the twenty-ninth of this month.”

“God bless him. You’ll drink his health, I hope, in my best malmsey wine.” He winked. “Tucked away in the cellar these many years. No sense in giving good wine to them that thinks it’s a sin to enjoy it.”

“We will, we will, and will you have a message sent to the Court, Tom, to tell my nephew that we’re home?”

“Master Carleton, he has been working for the King all this time it seems … and him playing the Puritan up there … one of the sternest of ’em, I heard, and all the big’uns coming to stay at Eversleigh to see him and talk about how they could make us even more miserable than we were.”

“No Eversleigh would ever be disloyal to his King, Tom.”

“No, milord, but Master Carleton fooled us all right.”

“As was necessary.”

“Yes, milord. Now for the message … I’ll get a man off at once. Then for the malmsey.”

Milk was brought for the babies, and we sat at the inn table sampling hot bread with cheese and malmsey wine, which tasted good to me.

An hour or so later Carleton Eversleigh was at the inn. Lord Eversleigh took his hand and shook it. Matilda embraced him. There were tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Carleton,” she cried. “It is so long …”

He nodded. “But we knew it would come and here it is. So let us be joyful.” I felt he was anxious to curtail the emotion, for I guessed he would hate any show of it.

He was looking at me, and I noticed the slow smile which I could not understand. “Ah,” he said, “it is not so long since we met.”

I nodded and introduced him to my parents.

He exchanged greetings with them and then he saw the children. Of course he would not know. How could he? He was looking askance at my mother’s two women holding them.

“My son,” I said. “My son Edwin.”

He was frankly amazed.

He looked down at the baby. “So … he left you a child, then.”

“Yes.”

“Twins?”

“No. This is Edwin. This is Leigh.”

“And whose child is Leigh, I wonder?”

“You remember Harriet Main.”

“Harriet Main.” He gave a sudden, short laugh. He looked round him, obviously for Harriet.

“She is not with us,” I said. “She went to London with Sir James Gilley. They are to be married. Then, I doubt not, she will come to claim the child.”

I was romancing in the way Harriet herself might have done. It was foolish, but his sly smile angered me.

“Well, you can reckon that she will be long before she claims the child if she is waiting for Gilley to marry her. He is very much married to a lady I know well. A most respectable lady with two sons and four daughters, and as she is in a remarkably good state of health, it seems unlikely that James Gilley will be free for some time yet.”

I hated him for exposing Harriet before them all. I could see that the Eversleighs were shocked, and my mother, although she told me afterwards that she had guessed this was how it was, was faintly annoyed.

Carleton had that effect, I discovered later. If there was a peaceful, happy atmosphere, he could be depended on to shatter it.

“So you are left with the baby, eh?” he went on laughing. “Well, the two of them will grow up together. Let me look at the little fellow. He’s bonny.” He held out a finger which Edwin, with what seemed to me superhuman intelligence, grasped. “I think he’s taken a fancy to me.” I wanted to snatch my baby away. I was sure Carleton was thinking that Edwin’s existence robbed him of what he had been considering was his inheritance.

Carleton had brought a carriage and horses to take us to the house which was some three miles from the coast, and as we trundled along the lanes, everyone was exclaiming about the beauty of the countryside.

“Oh, those green, green fields,” cried Matilda. “How I have missed them! Look at the blooms on that horse chestnut. Oh, Arabella, do look over there, my dear—apple trees! Rose-coloured blossom, and look there’s white cherry.”

We had, of course, seen green grass and fruit trees in blossom during our exile, but the fact that this was home endowed it all with a very special beauty.

It was indeed a lovely time of the year. The Restoration could not have come at a better time. We were all noticing the beauties of nature afresh—the bronze tufts of the sycamores and purple lilac and gold laburnum.

England. And we were no longer exiles.

And now we were at Eversleigh Court. Inevitably my mind went back to that day just over a year ago when I had arrived here with Edwin and Harriet. I could hear Carleton’s voice oddly enough rather than Edwin’s. “God preserve you, friend.”

How well Carleton had done it. What an actor he was. He had not betrayed by a flicker of an eyebrow that he resented my baby, and yet he must do so, because merely by being born Edwin had deprived him of great estates and a noble title.

“We are gradually getting the place back to normal,” said Carleton. “I had hoped, Uncle, that I should have done more by now. You will see how much I was able to save. It’s really a remarkable achievement.”

“You were always clever, Carleton,” said Lord Eversleigh.

“By God, I’ve had need of my wits during the last year. I came near more than once to giving the whole show away. It wasn’t the easiest role for me to play … that of the Puritan.”

“I’ll warrant it wasn’t,” Lord Eversleigh laughed. “But well done, nephew. It’s good to be home. One deep regret …”

“I know,” said Carleton. “It was a tragedy.” He looked at me quizzically, and I felt myself disliking him afresh. “But you have the boy.”

“God takes away with one hand and gives with the other,” said Matilda. “I have lost my dear son but I have my new daughter. She has brought me great comfort and I am filled with a gratitude I find hard to express.”

She held out her hand and I took it.

“God bless you, Arabella,” she said.

“Arabella has given you your grandson,” put in Carleton. “I reckon that is a matter for rejoicing. Now come along and see what you think of everything.”

He walked beside me, and I fancied that he watched me closely because he wanted to know what effect it had on me, coming back to the scene of my tragedy.

I had never realized on my previous visit how beautiful Eversleigh Court was. I remembered clearly the high wall which surrounded the house and the gables which could be glimpsed above it. The gates were wide open and we rode in. The feeling of austerity was still there. It was too early to have changed it. The erstwhile flower beds still contained their herbs and vegetables. But a fountain was playing and the yews had been cut into fancy shapes. These stood out in the yards like an act of defiance to the recent regime.

“A shock to you, Aunt Matilda,” said Carleton. “But never mind. You will soon have your flowers again. You must remember that in my role of Puritan I had to get rid of them. They were so beautiful. The herbs and the vegetables were of use and therefore acceptable in the eyes of our lords and masters. Some of them are not without their charm, don’t you think?”

“Oh, Carleton, how did you endure it!” cried Matilda.

“In a way I quite enjoyed it. It amused me to hunt with the hounds while I was really running with the fox.”

“So few could have done it,” murmured his aunt.

We went into the hall. It had changed. The long table was shining and laid with pewter utensils. Velvet curtains had been hung at the minstrels gallery, which I had scarcely noticed before. A tapestry, obviously freshly brought from the secret store, hung on the walls.

“Home,” said Lady Eversleigh. “What can I say?”

Her husband put his arm through hers and pressed it.

We went up the great staircase. Several pictures hung on the wall—portraits of long-dead Eversleighs.

“So you salvaged all this, Carleton!” said Lord Eversleigh.

“And more also,” replied Carleton proudly. “You will see in due course. But now let me conduct you to your rooms. I am sure you are in need of rest. I was not aware that there would be babies. We have no nursery available. It is years since we had one here.”

He grinned at me with what was meant to be an apology.

Charlotte said: “There’s the old nursery.”

“I daresay my Cousin Arabella will want the baby near her just at first.”

“Indeed I do.”

“And the nurseries are at the very top of the house. Nothing is prepared up there.”

I said: “I’ll take the room I occupied before. There was one right next to it …”

I stopped. There would be memories in that room of the nights I had spent there with Edwin, and the next room was that which had been occupied by Harriet.

I wished she were with me. She would laugh at Carleton. She would make me see everything differently. I knew she was an adventuress. Hadn’t she told me often enough? She had taken Charlotte’s lover; she had had a child and abandoned him; she had lied, with such facility that one never knew whether or not she was speaking the truth; but I was fond of her. And I missed her.

Of course it would have been impossible for her to have been here. Charlotte would never have endured that. In going away she had done the right thing, I supposed.

I would look after Leigh. He should be with Edwin in the nursery. But how I wished she were here!

There was the room I had shared with Edwin, but how different it was! There was a beautiful tapestry on the wall and it contained some elegant pieces of furniture. These things would have been hidden at the time I stayed here, but how they transformed the room! I could not look at the four-poster bed without emotion, but even that looked different with its silk curtains.

I went into Harriet’s room where the babies were to be. My young brothers and sister were very silent, overcome with awe, I believed, by everything that was happening to them.

Charlotte seemed to have taken a fancy to them and I was glad, for they liked her and she said she would find a suitable room for them. She remembered so much of her old home, she said. It was all coming back to her.

I wondered how she would feel about the presence of Leigh. How did a woman feel about her lover’s child by another woman? Charlotte, however, gave no sign of disliking him. I was sure she was much too sensible to blame the child. I was beginning to like my sister-in-law, and I hoped very much that we should be friends, but no one could, of course, take Harriet’s place.

My parents would be leaving early the following morning, but as my mother told me more than once, we should all be in England now and we should see a great deal of each other.

Alone in my room, I washed the grime of the journey from my face and changed my travelling clothes for a gown of blue velvet which was somewhat the worse for wear. We had made our own clothes in Congrève and I wondered what they would look like now we were home. In Congrève it had not mattered what we wore, but I remembered vividly how bemused we were by the elaborate gowns which Harriet had worn and which looked so splendid by candlelight.

Nobody would want to dress like a Puritan now. Would it henceforth be as dangerous to do so as it was before to wear laces and ribbons?

My mother came into my room. She looked at me rather tremulously and said: “I keep thinking that you are my little girl, but of course you are grown up now.”

“A widow and a mother,” I reminded.

“Dearest Arabella, you are going to be happy here. I know it.”

“I shall try, Mother.”

“Matilda is a good woman. I know she talks a great deal and seems superficial at times, but she really is not so. She loves you. Small wonder. You have eased her tragedy. She can be happy again in you and the boy. I know that Lord Eversleigh is grateful to you. They have said you are now their daughter and they will do anything for your happiness.”

“I know, Mother.”

“And Charlotte? She does not make friends easily but I think she likes you too.”

“Yes, I think she does, Mother.”

“There is the cousin.”

“Carleton?” I said sharply.

“I don’t quite know what to make of him. He was wonderful during the years. He was our most reliable agent in the country. Much of the success of all that is happening is due to him. He sent us information regularly. And yet …”

“You don’t like him, Mother?”

“I can’t say that. I don’t know him. I fancy few do and that it would take a long time. Of course he has believed himself to be the heir to all this … which he would have been but for Edwin. I wonder how he feels about that? He gives no sign, does he?”

“Would you expect him to?”

“No, but I should expect to be able to judge what he is feeling from his conduct.”

“Oh, Mother, you want to be a seer. I agree with you. I don’t like him. But I shall not allow him to bother me.”

She nodded. “You will be able to take care of yourself, I don’t doubt. Never forget we shall not be far away. Both your father and I are happy to leave you in good hands. You have had some experience of life.” She frowned slightly. “I am a little anxious about Harriet Main’s child.”

“Oh, Mother, he is but a baby … an adorable baby.”

“Has it occurred to you that his presence here might be difficult for Charlotte to bear? He is the child of the man she was hoping to marry … How would she feel to find that child in her home?”

“She seems fond of him, Mother, as she does of Edwin. Charlotte is too sensible to blame an innocent child.”

“Perhaps so,” she said. “Well, my dearest, we shall say au revoir. It is a comfort to know that you are not far off.”

I stood between my parents-in-law watching the departure of my parents and brothers and sister. Charlotte was with us.

I went back in the house feeling that I had passed through one phase and a new one had begun.