Fourpenny Flyer (49 page)

‘I would rather spend the summer in Rattlesden with Annie,' Harriet ventured, adding hastily, ‘But only if you were agreeable to it, of course.' If they were to live in Bury all summer she would have to visit her parents at least once a week, and once a week would be far too difficult and far too often.

‘I have to visit Norwich this Thursday,' he told her. ‘I will call in at Rattlesden on my way back and see what may be done.' Were there houses in the village large enough to contain his household and, even more important, impressive enough to equal Matilda's obvious style? For himself he would be happy in a cottage, but he could not bear to think that his choice might leave poor Harriet open to criticism.

But he was in luck. There was a sizeable house standing empty no more than a hundred yards away from the rectory. It had belonged to a cousin of the manor.

‘We buried her last Thursday,' Annie told him cheerfully. ‘Eighty-two she was. Imagine that! 'Tis a good age. And now they need a new tenant. Would it suit, think 'ee?'

‘Only one way to find out, Sis,' he said. ‘When could I see it?'

It was a long, low rambling building, facing the sunshine, in a garden framed by burgeoning white lilac and fragrant with tawny wallflowers, its pink-washed walls warm and welcoming. He liked it at once. And when he discovered that it had its own pump inside the kitchen and an indoor privy, and that there were five bedrooms and a well-panelled dining room and a little pale blue parlour that seemed designed to suit his quiet Harriet, he rented it on the spot.

Afterwards as the ‘Phenomena' rattled off along the road to London, he was surprised at himself. To have made such a quick decision was really rather extraordinary. More like Billy or his mother. But it felt so right. And it was a beautiful house.

Which exactly what Harriet said, when she came down to Rattlesden four weeks later to take possession of her
new country home and attend the christening of Edward Percival Easter.

‘Oh John!' she said, throwing her arms about his neck. ‘'Tis a lovely house. And so near to Annie. Why the children will be able to run from garden to garden all summer long. It couldn't be better. How clever you are to have found it!'

‘That was Annie's doing,' he said, basking in her approval. It had been a long time since she'd kissed him so lovingly. And unasked, what was more. It was a most rewarding moment.

And so they settled down to enjoy the summer. Billy and Matilda gave a grand party in their grand house for all their local friends and relations, at which Billy's friend Jeremiah Ottenshaw at long last plucked up the courage to propose to Matilda's cousin Maria and was accepted, to nobody's surprise except his own; John spent as much time in Rattlesden as he could, given the vast amount of work there was for him to do in London; and Annie and Matilda and Harriet played in the sunshine with their children, and dined with one another every other day and were ridiculously happy together; and Nan and Frederick Brougham decided to spend their entire summer in Bury for, as Nan said, in her trenchant way, ‘If we en't earned ourselves a rest, my dear, I should like to know who has!'

And then, just as they were all enjoying their holiday, Queen Caroline, the long-estranged wife of their newly-proclaimed king, decided to return to England and claim her right to the throne.

The papers were full of stories about her. Her progress was followed hour by hour and her clothes described in lavish detail; ‘A rich twilled sarcenet pelisse of a puce colour lined with ermine, and a white willow hat similar in shape to the fashionable leghorn hats' for her arrival in Dover; ‘a black twilled sarcenet gown, a fur tippet and ruff, and a black satin hat and feathers' for her progress to Canterbury. Her horses were taken from the shafts of her barouche and ‘the people themselves' drew the great lumbering vehicle wherever she went. There were festivals and fireworks, a hundred men carrying flambeaux at the
entrance to Canterbury, flags and banners and cheering crowds all along the road to London, and a royal fair at Blackheath. It was a triumph.

To Nan's considerable annoyance, Frederick Brougham was recalled to London by his cousin for a conference.

‘There is like to be a trial of some kind,' he said, ‘for the King will never accept her as consort. He made that abundantly clear to us even before we went to Italy to discover her opinion in the matter. If she persists in courting the favour of the crowd, as she does at present, there will be nothing for it but legal action. 'Tis my opinion he will seek a divorce.'

‘And you will act for him?'

‘Why no, indeed. Henry and I are already spoken for upon the other side.'

‘To defend the Queen?' She was very surprised.

‘Why not, pray?' he teased.

‘When you know she's took lovers?'

‘You and I are hardly in any position to cast blame upon her on that account, poor lady. The King has amassed some formidable evidence against her and will find more if he can, so she will need a strong defence. He offered her fifty thousand pounds a year for life, you know, if only she would renounce her title and stay abroad. Her refusal put him into a parlous rage and now we are all to feel the edge of it.'

Meantime there was a ball at the Athenaeum to enjoy before his departure. And an uncommon lively ball it turned out, for the town was a-buzz with gossip and there wasn't a woman in the place who didn't have an opinion to express. Matilda thought it was romantic and was unequivocally on the side of the woman she called ‘our poor, wronged Queen', even though the impending court case was keeping her Billy in the Strand for far too long each week waiting for news to break; Miss Pettie clutched her curls and declared that she didn't know what the world was coming to and it certainly wasn't like that in the days of Good King George; and Cousin Evelina said she wasn't at all sure whether a woman of such flagrant immorality truly had the right to sit upon the throne of England,
adding, in an admirable attempt to be fair, ‘if what is said about her is to be believed, which of course we cannot know as yet.'

‘They will all know soon enough, I fear,' Frederick said as he waltzed with Nan.

And he was proved right. Four days after his return to London news broke that the Queen was to be tried by the House of Peers. ‘Their Lordships are to bring in a bill of Pains and Penalties,'
The Times
said, ‘which will deprive the Queen of all rights and titles and dissolve her marriage to the King at one and the same time. The trial is to be delayed until August 17th because the King needs more time to find his necessary witnesses.'

John had travelled straight to the Strand on the day the Queen set out from Calais, and now that there was to be a trial he decided to stay where he was. Important news like this would be sure to sell in vast quantities and it had broken at just the right time for A. Easters and Sons. It pained him to be apart from his family, but this was business and had to be attended to. The North Wales route was open and ready for rapid delivery. Now it would be tested.

By now, Harriet was well used to his sudden departures and, although they still upset her, she had learned how to cope with them. She and Will and Rosie stood at the gate and waved goodbye to him until his carriage disappeared round the curve in the road, then they went back indoors to eat their breakfast. It was necessary to find something immediate to do so as to fill the emptiness his sudden absence left behind him, and feeding young Will was one of the best things she knew. But this morning there was something else to distract her. As she sat down at the dining room table, she was told that the new curate, Mr John Jones, had come to call.

‘Show him in,' She told the maid.

Mr Jones was terribly embarrassed to be disturbing her at breakfast for, being new to the parish, he was anxious to do the right thing. But Mrs Easter smiled at him calmly as though she saw no wrong in it.

‘You could take a dish of tea, perhaps,' she said to him.
‘Pray do sit down. Tell cook we are ready, and bring another cup,' she said to the maid, and then turned back to Mr Jones. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?'

‘I believe,' he said, sitting himself gingerly on one of her delicate chairs, ‘that you were actually present on the field of Peterloo.'

‘Yes,' she said calmly, not knowing whether to be pleased or distressed.

‘I came to Mr Hopkins from Norwich, Mrs Easter,' he said earnestly, ‘as I daresay you know. While I was there I was secretary of one of the local corresponding societies.' Pollyanna had told him it was safe to tell her that. Pollyanna was so helpful to him. ‘We do not call ourselves a corresponding society now, Mrs Easter, for it seems that such an organization is outside the law, but the members still meet – as a choir, if you take my meaning. It would be much appreciated if you would join us one evening and tell us what you saw on that fateful day.'

‘Would I need to join the choir, Mr Jones?' she asked, perfectly straight-faced. ‘I should tell 'ee I have but a poor ear for music.'

He gave her a smile of sudden and unexpected sweetness. ‘Pollyanna told me you would agree,' he said.

Have I agreed? she wondered. But she supposed she had. What harm could come of such a meeting now, when the world and his wife were fully occupied following the affairs of the poor Queen? It wasn't as if she would be helping insurrectionaries.

But just to be on the safe side, she decided to write to Mr Rawson for some advice. She couldn't ask John, because she wasn't at all sure whether the subject would be acceptable to him and in any case John probably wouldn't know the answer, whereas Mr Rawson would and would tell her the truth, whatever it was.

‘It is hard to know what is for the best, these days,' she wrote. ‘I would not wish to disappoint Mr Jones, who is a most well-meaning man and uncommon fond of Mr Hopkins, as who could not be? On the other hand I
would not wish to do anything againt the law, but as the government keeps changing the law it is sometimes difficult to know how to act. I hope you do not mind me writing to ask your advice, but it occurred to me that you were just the very person to know what it would be best for me to do?'

He didn't mind her writing at all. Quite the reverse, in fact, for he took it as a sign that she was ripe for conquest. One of the unexpected and private results of his fame as an orator was the fact that whenever he spoke at a public meeting there would always be women who would seek him out afterwards, ready and eager to share his bed. At first their compliance had surprised him, but now he was used to it, and expected it, and took his pick of the prettiest, feeling that the pleasure they gave him was a right and fitting reward for all the work he did for the cause. But he had never enjoyed a society lady and until he met Harriet had never imagined he would. Now she had given him hope of it.

‘Attend the choir meeting,' he wrote back. ‘There's nought illegal in it, and good may come of it. Any road, government will have its work cut out for it in the months ahead, for now the people have found a cause and we shall see what will come of it. None may prevent them from demonstrating patriotic affection for their Queen, that's plain, so they'll appear upon streets in their thousands, I guarantee. If it weren't for the fact that I have a deal of work these days and am like to get more, I should beg a lift to London and join crowds myself. Let me know how tha makes out at the meeting.'

That would provoke another letter, and if he continued their correspondence, sooner or later she would be his. He knew it.

‘Should you decide to do such a thing,' she wrote in her next letter, ‘and John and I are in London at the time, pray do come and visit us in Fitzroy Square.' It was only right and proper to invite him after his kindness in
helping the Abbotts. And in any case she would be in Rattlesden all summer so there was no real likelihood of such a visit actually being made.

But although she didn't know it as she wrote, she was to be in London sooner than she imagined.

On 2nd August, a matter of days before Frederick Brougham had to return to the capital again to begin work on his cousin's brief, and a week after Harriet had addressed the choir, the new Regent's Canal was due to be opened with full ceremonial.

‘Let the Queen and the Lords do what they will,' Nan said, when she read of it. ‘I shall return to London with 'ee, Frederick, and keep 'ee company, so I shall. And as I see there's to be some merriment on account of this canal, I shall hire a barge and join in the procession and throw a great party afterwards. I'm a-weary of trials and suchlike. We've all been dull and work-a-day quite long enough.'

Sophie Fuseli, who said she'd been languishing in London without her dear old friend, thought it an excellent idea. ‘Let us join forces, my dear,' she said. ‘I would so love a party and Heinrich will be sure to agree if 'tis at your suggestion.'

And so the two of them made preparations. They hired the biggest barge they could find and furnished it with gilt chairs and trestle tables, several hundred yards of bunting and a string band. They ordered enough food and drink to provision an army and an army of waiters resplendent in Nan's green and gold livery to serve it. Sophie invited all her gossipy friends, and Heinrich all his ardent students from the Royal Academy, where he had just embarked upon another series of lectures. Frederick Brougham was prevailed upon to leave the Inns of Court, ‘just for the day,' and Cosmo Teshmaker was teased away from Easter House, and Nan hired a coach to bring all her relations down from Bury.

They arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day, baby Edward fast asleep on his mother's bosom, all three toddlers sticky and fractious and glad to be released from their long ride, Beau and Jimmy pale and patient beside
their father, Miss Pettie and the two Callbeck cousins giggly, having been plied with champagne ‘by your naughty Billy, and all the way here, my dear', as they explained to Nan amidst drunken blushes. Bessie and Thiss had packed a picnic basket for the children and had spent their journey nursing one or another of them so that they were both as crumbed and crumpled as a pair of tablecloths. But they were delighted to be travelling with Tom and Pollyanna and their dear Miss Pettie. It was a very good-humoured company that came tumbling down from the bulging sides of the coach that afternoon, and the dinner that followed their arrival was a very jolly-affair.