Lament for a Lost Lover (33 page)

I did not miss it until much later, which showed to what a state he had reduced me. I could not stop thinking of him, and I tried hard to think of Edwin and how much I had loved him and how wonderful our life would have been. As if anything could ever be like that again, even with a kind and gentle man like Geoffrey.

I avoided Carleton. This seemed to amuse him. When we were together in the company of others, I would find his eyes on me, mocking. What arrogance, I thought. He really believes I shall find him irresistible.

There was a great deal of anxiety over the Dutch war and we were constantly hearing disturbing news. Everyone was talking about the chain shot which the Dutch had invented and which was doing such harm to our ships, and orders were given that cattle must be driven off Romney Marsh in case the Dutch should come in and steal them. In July we won a victory over them, but there were great losses on both sides.

However it was decided in August that there should be a thanksgiving service and Lord Eversleigh thought we should go to London to take part in it.

Geoffrey came down to Eversleigh to tell us about the service and what was going on in London. The weather had been much cooler and there was great relief that there had been no return of the plague that summer. There was a serenity about Geoffrey as though he had come to some conclusion. I guessed what it was, and I was right, because during that visit he asked me to marry him.

It seemed strange that I should have had two proposals of marriage within a few weeks of each other, but perhaps not so strange. I was sure Carleton had suspected Geoffrey would ask me soon and wanted to get in first. That amused me. At the same time I did not want Geoffrey to ask me … yet. I had been considering marriage with him for some time, and there had been occasions when I had almost convinced myself that it would have been perhaps the best thing. Now I was very uncertain.

He had brought new kites for the boys, and they were very eager to try them so we took them out-of-doors and I watched Geoffrey with the children and noticed how they shouted to him and treated him as though he were an elder brother—young enough to play with them and yet older to have special knowledge and give them help when needed.

I sat in the sunshine on the stone bench near the willow with flowering shrubs on either side. It was a delightful afternoon, warm and sunny. I felt a certain contentment sitting there watching my son and marvelling at his beauty and giving grateful thanks for his good health, listening contentedly to the buzzing of the bees as they hovered about the lavender. There would be good honey this year, I thought.

Geoffrey came and sat down beside me.

I said: “It was good of you to bring them kites.”

“I know how they like them. Look. Edwin’s is flying higher than Leigh’s.”

“Leigh won’t like that.”

“No, he’s a boy who will have to be curbed more than Edwin, I think.”

“Yes, he has a more arrogant nature. Edwin reminds me so much of his father.”

“He was gentle was he … good-natured?”

“He hated trouble. He wanted everybody to be happy. Sometimes I think he would have done anything rather than cause trouble.”

Geoffrey nodded slowly. “Do you still think of him?”

“All the time …” I said.

“It is some years now.”

“Before Edwin was born. In fact I didn’t know I was to have a child when I heard that Edwin was dead.”

“You can’t mourn forever, Arabella.”

“Do you think one ever gets over such a loss?”

“I think one should try to.”

I sighed. “Edwin often asks about his father.”

“I know. He has told me about him. Edwin thinks he was one of the saints.”

I smiled. “He would be pleased if he knew. I want my son to live up to him. I tell him he must never do anything of which his father would be ashamed. He must try to be like him.”

Geoffrey nodded. “But he needs a father here on earth, Arabella. All children do.”

I was silent, and he went on: “I have thought a great deal about this. I have almost spoken to you so many times. Would you marry me, Arabella?”

Again I was silent. I didn’t want to say no, I could never marry anyone, because I wasn’t sure, and he was right when he said one should not mourn forever. Edwin would have been the last person to wish that. For a moment I gave myself up to the pleasure of seeing myself announcing my intention to marry Geoffrey and watching the effect on Carleton. I should enjoy that. But that was not a good enough reason for marrying.

Geoffrey had seen the slow smile on my lips and misconstrued it.

“Oh, Arabella, we’ll be happy. I know we shall.”

I drew away from him. I said: “I’m sorry, Geoffrey, but I’m not sure. I sometimes think I shall never marry. I will confess I have thought of it, and when I have seen how much you love Edwin and he, you, I have felt it would be good for us all. But I am not sure. I still think of my husband and as yet I cannot say.”

“I understand,” he said. “I have spoken too soon. But I want you to think about it. I am a lonely man and I think sometimes you would be happier with someone who was close to you as only a husband can be. I would be a father to the boy. I love him already. I take a great interest in him.”

I said: “He would be expected to live here. You know that he is the heir to all this.”

“I would come here for a great deal of the time and we could go now and then to my own estates. I have my bailiffs there who look after things while I am away much as it is managed here. Edwin would be my concern.”

I followed the flight of the kites and on the surface of Edwin’s I seemed to see the house take shape. Eversleigh Court and all it entailed which would one day be Edwin’s. In my imagination I saw Edwin lifted off the ground, caught up with his kite. I saw his terrified face, heard his screams and I realized that I was remembering a dream I had had long ago.

“Are you all right?” asked Geoffrey.

“Oh, yes … quite all right, thank you. You’ll think me ungrateful but I do appreciate what you are offering me. It is just that I am unsure …”

He put a hand over mine.

“I understand,” he said. “You must realize this, Arabella. I should always understand.”

I believed he would and I wished that I could have said yes.

A horrible suspicion had come to me that I might have done so but for that scene not so long ago with Carleton in this very garden.

Lord Eversleigh thought that we should all go to London for the thanksgiving service. Uncle Toby was delighted. He was always eager to get to London and he spent a great deal of time there. Lord Eversleigh said that the town house was more often occupied since Toby had been home than it ever was before. My mother-in-law told me that she was a little disturbed about Toby. He was inclined to drink too much and to gamble. He greatly enjoyed the conversation in the coffeehouses and he was devoted to the theatre. He had a fondness for the pretty actresses and was very interested in Moll Davis, who was said to be favoured by the King.

“That was always Toby’s trouble,” said Matilda. “Your father tells me that in his youth he gave his parents much anxiety and they were not altogether displeased when he decided to go to seek his fortune in Virginia. I doubt he saw much of playhouses and pretty women actresses there.”

But we were all indulgent with Toby. Whatever his excesses he could always charm us.

So he, at least, was anxious to go up for the thanksgiving service.

There was a letter from Far Flamstead. My mother hoped that we should be going and perhaps would spend a night there on the way, for naturally they would be present. It would make the family very happy for us all to be together again.

So it was arranged that we went.

I always enjoyed being with my family, although the children no longer gave way to wild expressions of joy to see me. Even Fenn no longer leaped round me and gave those great war whoops of pleasure. He was twelve years old now and beyond such childish matters. As for Dick, he was all but sixteen, fast growing in dignity, and Angie at thirteen was quite a young lady.

My father embraced me warmly and I saw the anxious look in his eyes which was reflected in my mother’s. They both wanted to see me married and they would have approved of Geoffrey, I was sure. I toyed with the idea of confiding in her that I had had two proposals of marriage but decided against that. She would want to know how I felt about my two suitors and I couldn’t bear any probing at that time, even from her.

It was a merry party. Carleton was already in London, staying at the Eversleigh house in fashionable Clement’s Lane where we would join him. My parents would go to my father’s house, the gardens of which ran down to the river and which had been in his family’s possession since the days of Henry VIII.

In London we should be joined by Lucas and his new wife. I never saw my mother in such good spirits as she was when she could gather her family together.

But I was never completely happy when my son was not with me, though Charlotte kept assuring me that in the care of Sally Nullens the boys were as safe as if we were there, and I had to accept this.

In due course we went to the service and there I had the pleasure of being presented to the King and Queen. I was fully aware of his charm, as indeed who could help being, and I liked his gentle Queen with the great, brooding, dark eyes. Poor woman, I was sorry for her if all the tales I heard of his infidelities were true, and I was inclined to believe that they were.

When we came out from the service Carleton was beside me and he pointed out Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine—a woman I instinctively disliked.

Carleton laughed at me. “She is reckoned to be irresistible.”

“If I were a man I should find it the easiest thing in the world to resist her.”

“Ah, but then you are not a man and you are noted for your powers of resistance. Look how you resist me.”

I left him and joined my father.

We all returned to Clement’s Lane, and later that day my family left for their own residence. That night at supper Uncle Toby suggested that we all go to the play on the following day.

It was declared a good idea and I was excited at the possibility of seeing Harriet again, although I had heard no mention of her name. I think Carleton knew this, for he was watching me closely.

So to the King’s House we went, and I was thrilled to be once more in the playhouse and sit in the box and watch the life that went on below me. The gallants, the orange girls, the ladies in their masks and patches, and the exquisite gowns. There was much more order than there had been on the previous occasion, and when I commented on this, Carleton told me that playgoers had at last realized that they had come to the playhouse to see and hear a play and were becoming more and more interested in what was going on on the stage than the trouble they could stir up among the audience.

So it seemed, for there was a hushed silence when the play began and no need this time for one of the players to step forward and ask for silence.

The play was called
The English Monsieur
and it had been written by the Hon. James Howard, one of the Earl of Berkshire’s sons. His brothers also wrote for the stage, Carleton had told me as we rode to the theatre, and so did his brother-in-law John Dryden.

Uncle Toby said he had seen Dryden’s
The Rival Ladies
and found it very good. “And the fellow worked with Robert Howard on
The Indian Queen
. That was a fine play about Montezuma and most splendidly was it put on the stage. But give me a comedy. I look forward to tonight. There is one little actress who gives me great pleasure to watch.”

“I am sure Arabella will enjoy her acting too,” said Carleton smiling, and I wondered what innuendo there was behind that remark. For it was a fact that I always suspected that there was some hidden intent behind everything he did or said.

“There will be a crowd at the playhouse tonight,” said Lord Eversleigh. “After having been closed for so long, people cannot wait to get back to them.”

“It was very necessary for them to be closed during the time of the plague,” I pointed out.

“Indeed, yes, but what a loss. So much to make up for.” The play began. I waited for Harriet to appear, but it was not Harriet who took the part of Lady Wealthy, the chief character in the play, but a small woman, very pretty with great vitality and a gamine charm. She took the part of a rich widow who was courted by fortune-hunters and played with the idea of marrying, as they said, “well” and in the end cast aside such nonsense and married her true love.

The plot was slight, the dialogue scarcely sparkling, but the amazing personality of this delightful actress carried it along, and the audience was with her every moment she was on the stage.

I should always remember her dainty looks, her jaunty charm, her constant laugh and the way her eyes almost disappeared when she gave way to it. She was dark and sparkling and the entire audience loved her.

As we rode back to the house Carleton said: “What did you think of Nelly?”

“I thought she was enchanting:”

“So it seems to others—including His Majesty.”

“I thought he was enamoured of an actress called Moll Davis.”

“Alas, poor Moll, she is by way of being superseded by Nelly.”

“I doubt not Nelly’s reign will be as brief,” I said. “He is faithful to the Castlemaine, so perhaps he is capable of fidelity to others.”

“I would not agree with your definition of fidelity.”

“What a glorious day that would be when we could agree about something.”

We went on to discuss the play and it was a most stimulating hour.

The days that followed had a quality of unreality about them, and even now I cannot really believe in them. A very strong east wind had sprung up. I heard it during the night, blowing through the narrow streets, and I sat up in bed listening to it and wondering how strong it would be in the open country round Eversleigh, where it was always so much more fierce than in London, for coming in from the east it had spent a little of its energy before it reached the capital.