Fourpenny Flyer (15 page)

Put like that, what could he do but agree with her? ‘You are a woman of independent spirit, I see,' he told her, ‘which is wholly admirable. Although I must admit it puts me into something of a quandary.'

‘How so, sir?' He had a pleasant-looking face when he was teasing.

‘I had hoped to ask you if you would accompany me to the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden on Tuesday evening to see a performance of
Richard II.
The management have installed the new gas lighting which is reputed to be very fine. But now I live in such terror of a negative reply, I declare my spirit quite fails me.'

How clever he is, she thought, admiring his tact. I may accept or refuse him with equal grace. And she smiled ready to give him her answer.

And at that moment the door at the far end of the room was flung open to reveal Sir Joshua's cousin Arabella. ‘Why there you are!' she said, flouncing into the room. ‘Fie upon you Nan, you gave me your word of honour, so you did, that you would partner me at faro, and now you skulk away in here and leave me to the mercy of Mr Farquhar, who is playing quite vilely. How could you be so cruel?'

‘Six o' the clock I promised 'ee,' Nan said, ‘and it wants a quarter hour before that time, but you shall be rescued notwithstanding, for I en't so hard hearted as to leave any woman at the mercy of Mr Farquhar.' And she stood up ready to leave the room.

Mr Brougham stood too. ‘You have promised to give me your opinion of
Richard II
, don't forget, Mrs Easter,' he said, bowing slightly as she walked away from him.

‘I do not forget,' she said. ‘I believe I am to visit the Theatre Royal on Tuesday.'

‘Then may I wish you a pleasant evening?'

‘You may,' she said, grinning at him as she followed Arabella from the room. ‘You may indeed, Mr Brougham.'

John Easter was rather alarmed to receive a letter from his mother, particularly as it arrived on the very day she intended to return. Had she heard about the flyers. Was that it? He broke the seal with some trepidation.

‘Easter's was first with the news in St Albans all this week,' she had written. ‘We are much commended hereabouts for our speed and efficiency which, I have been happy to boast, was all your doing. If this war continues, which I can see no reason to doubt, I do believe you will make good your promise to me. I shall be more than interested to read the sales reports for
this
month. Yr ever loving mother, Nan.'

He put the letter to one side without comment and returned to his calculations, quiet and contained as always, but inside his head he was purring with gratification. Who would ever have thought that his mother would write to praise him? ‘Wonders never cease,' he said to the inkpot.

But the letter he had hoped for and looked for ever since Tuesday, the letter from Miss Sowerby, had still not arrived. And although he tried to be sanguine about it, it was a disappointment and a puzzle, and it swamped his gratification with anxiety because Miss Sowerby had seemed to be the sort of person who would answer any letter by return of post. Something must have prevented her. What if she had taken a chill on that long, cold journey? What if she were ill? Perhaps he shouldn't have left her so precipitately. Oh, if only she would write and tell him how she was! Or if only he weren't quite so busy here in London and could drive to Bury for a day or two and see her. ‘If wishes were horses …' he told the inkpot. But of course they weren't and he had work to do.

*

Harriet herself was as much concerned over her lack of reply as he was. Late at night, when all her work was done, she would take his letter from its secret hiding place under the floorboards in her bedroom and read and re-read it, and it was a marvellous comfort to her and a great worry. She knew that according to the rules of etiquette she ought to have answered it directly, but how could such a thing be done when her mother had forbidden her to have anything to do with him? She knew that it was imperative to obey one's parents. The preacher insisted upon it, every single Sunday. And yet obedience in this respect meant unkindness in another. And it upset her very much to think that she was being impolite to Mr Easter, especially when he'd done nothing to deserve it and he'd been so very kind to her.

A week passed and her mother was still disparaging and her father was in a most sarcastic humour and the dilemma was still unsolved. But at least it was Thursday, and she could take time away from her disapproving household and spend the afternoon with Miss Pettie, which was blessedly peaceful even though there was a great deal of mending to get through.

They worked together until it was so dark that Harriet could barely see to thread the needles. But when the candles were lit, Miss Pettie said all work was to stop until next Thursday.

‘You are to dine with me, my dear,' she said, her faded eyes quite moist with excitement at the thought. ‘I have ordered a goose. Your mother is quite agreeable.'

It was an unlooked for pleasure and therefore doubly enjoyable. The goose was actually rather tough but they dined together very happily, chewing what they could and garnishing every dish with memories of their recent adventures. And when the cloth had finally been removed, Miss Pettie told her guest that she had received a letter that morning and asked her if she would be so kind as to keep her company while she wrote a reply.

‘'Tis from Mr Easter,' she said, patting the letter, ‘so you can see it must be answered directly. 'Twould be a grievous fault to dally when he was so uncommon courteous.'

‘Oh it would,' Harriet agreed with feeling, ‘an uncommon grievous fault.' And she sighed so sadly that Miss Pettie looked up at her at once.

‘Why what is it, my child? What's amiss?'

‘Oh Miss Pettie,' Harriet confessed, ‘Mr Easter wrote to me, when I was staying with Mrs Hopkins at Rattlesden, and I have not answered his letter yet. To tell 'ee true, I do not know how I may answer him at all.'

She looked so miserable that Miss Pettie leant across at once to pat her on the arm. ‘But you can write, child, can you not? They taught you a fair hand at Mrs Crabtree's Academy.'

‘Oh yes, Miss Pettie, I can write well enough. That is not the difficulty. Not the difficulty at all. Oh dear, oh dear, I fear I may offend my mother if I speak further.'

By now Miss Pettie's curiosity was fully aroused. ‘You may speak to me quite freely, my dear,' she said, ‘for I am an old woman and used to confidences of every sort. Nothing you say would go further than these four walls, you have my word on't.'

So Harriet described her dilemma, haltingly at first and rather shamefacedly.

‘What am I to do, Miss Pettie?' she finished. ‘I'm to have nothing to do with him. If I obey my mother, as I surely must unless I am to break the fifth Commandment, I must be discourteous to Mr Easter, which grieves me very greatly. What am I to do?'

Miss Pettie gave the matter the most careful thought, patting her young friend's hand in a comforting absent-minded way. And after thirty lip-chewing seconds she came up with a quite excellent solution.

‘I will write my letter to Mr Easter directly,' she said, ‘which is only right and proper, and when 'tis done, you shall add a postscript to it. A postscript is a trivial matter, is't not? Oh indeed yes. I am sure there are none who could think otherwise. It could hardly be considered an act of disobedience, could it?'

It is the way round, Harriet thought with delight. Hadn't she known there would be a way round?

And so it was written, neatly and politely on the end of
Miss Pettie's rambling epistle. And after the carriage had been ordered and Harriet had been sent safely home, the old lady wrote a second postscript all round the edge of the letter, suggesting that should Mr Easter care to write again to Miss Sowerby it might be more practical for him to send his missive to Angel Hill where Miss Pettie would consider it an honour to deliver it, on account of the great affection she felt towards them both.

Then she went to bed, well pleased with her diplomacy.

And so Mr Easter received his first message from Miss Sowerby at last, and if he were surprised at Miss Pettie's postscript, he was too much of a gentleman to say so. It occurred to him briefly that she was probably matchmaking again, but the knowledge was harmless. The important thing was that Miss Sowerby was well and had written to him, however briefly. And if she wished him to write to her at Miss Pettie's house, than that was what he would do. Gladly. For although intrigues were foreign to his nature, the need for privacy was something he understood entirely.

That Tuesday evening, when Billy was dining with the Honeywoods and his mother was at the theatre with Mr Brougham, he wrote a very long letter indeed, telling Miss Sowerby all about Napoleon's progress through France, and about the splendid increase in the number of newspapers that were now selling in London every day, and about how much he was enjoying the third and fourth books of Mr Wordsworth's poem. And because he felt sure that she too would appreciate the philosophy of the Laureate, he copied out three of his favourite lines for her.

We live by admiration, hope and love;
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.

‘Isn't that splendid!' he wrote. ‘These are sentiments I have often felt myself without being truly aware of it, if you can understand such a thing. To see them expressed with such clarity and in such true words is an
ineffable pleasure, which I trust you will share, since I am,

‘Your true friend,
John Henry Easter.'

All through the spring and early summer of that year the Allied armies prepared to do battle with Napoleon, and the London papers were hot with the latest news. Dispatches arrived in the city nearly every day with the latest information from Paris and Brussels and Vienna, except, of course, when the weather in the Channel was too bad for the packet ships to sail. And rumours were as thick as flies in high summer. Prices on the commodity markets rose and fell precipitously, for England was the paymaster to the great armies that were currently being mustered over in Belgium, and there were plenty of adventurers in London who were prepared to speculate upon the outcome. And the London gossips had a splendidly garrulous time.

On the night Nan went to the Theatre Royal with Mr Brougham, there were scores of them about, buzzing in the boxes and strolling in the pit, carrying off titbits with the assiduity of carrion crows.

‘How we do love bad news,' Nan observed, looking down at the seething mass below her, where fans were already fluttering like frantic moths. The men were loud with excitement, baying their opinions and barking with laughter and the women were warm with their exertions, their bare necks flushed and their eyes gleaming.

But he had little interest in gossip or gossips. ‘What do you think of the new gas lighting?' he asked.

‘'Twill take a bit of getting used to,' she said, looking at the new glass globes that were shedding yellow light from the front of every box, ‘but 'tis a fine clear light, in all conscience.'

‘And cost a fine clear fortune,' he said.

‘How is it lit, think 'ee?'

‘With a taper, I believe. And if you think this a clear light, wait until you see the stage.'

The scarlet curtains were looping upwards, gathering into scalloped folds as they rose, and behind them the stage was suddenly and dazzlingly revealed. Painted trees to right and left, a medieval castle with a portcullis and a drawbridge, storm clouds in an impossibly blue sky and all of it ablaze with light, throbbing with light, so bright and unexpected it quite hurt the eyes. The audience burst into spontaneous applause at the sight of it. And somebody in the next box squealed with surprise.

Nan knew who it was at once. No other woman in London squealed quite like that.

‘Sophie!' she called, turning her head as the applause continued. ‘Sophie Fuseli!'

‘Nan, my dear!' Sophie said. ‘Have you ever seen the like?' She looked very plump and very pretty, the heart-shape of her face echoed by the heart-shape of her headdress, her dark hair falling in heavy curls on either side of those fine blue eyes.

But there was no time to answer, for all about the theatre footmen were turning down the new lights by pulling upon slender chains attached to the globes, and Richard II and John of Gaunt were striking attitudes on stage and the audience was beginning to settle. ‘I will see you in the interval,' Nan mouthed.

Which she did and a great pleasure it was to introduce ‘my oldest friend' to ‘my newest acquaintance', especially as her newest acquaintance instantly invited Sophie and her companion to join him in his box for supper. Sophie's companion, whom she introduced rather carelessly as Mr Macintosh, was a young man with a large appetite and nothing to say for himself, but as Sophie didn't seem to mind that he was being left out of the conversation, and she and Nan and Mr Brougham had such a lot to say to one another, they made a cheerful party, talking of the war and Napoleon and of the various artists of their acquaintance, including Sophie's husband, Mr Fuseli,
whose great paintings were, so she said, ‘little considered these days, I fear, although Mr Constable, who was once his pupil, you know, does uncommon well'.

‘Which must, I am sure, be partly attributed to the excellence of your husband's tuition,' Mr Brougham said courteously.

But Sophie wasn't really very interested in her husband or his tuition.

‘I used to call on Mrs Easter every week,' she said, changing the subject, ‘or she on me, and now I declare I ain't seen her at home for above two months. Where have you been, you dratted creature?'

‘Hard at work,' Nan said ruefully. ‘There's been a deal to do.'

‘You must save her from herself, Mr Brougham,' Sophie said, ‘or she will work twenty-four hours a day and fade away to nothing. Are you to eat
all
those oysters, Mr Macintosh, or do you mean to leave some for Mrs Easter?'