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.