“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.