I said soberly, “I shall only have one, Madame Lambard, for I shall never marry again.”
Then having raised a sad subject, she tried to cheer me by telling me that young Monsieur Edwin (whom she called Edween) was the most healthy and most happy baby it had ever been her joy to deliver.
It was a happy house, she said, that sheltered two young babies like Messieurs Edween and Leigh—though she had to admit that the last named gentleman’s appearance was a little indiscreet.
Harriet imitated her perfectly, and I must confess we laughed a good deal during those months. Harriet loved her baby, I was sure, but differently from the way in which I loved mine. She was proud of him; I detected a smug satisfaction if he was better tempered or appeared to have grown more than Edwin. She wanted to be proud of him rather than to love him, I thought. I suppose because the circumstances of his birth were so different from those of my own child. I wondered whether Harriet often thought of Charles Condey. Matilda Eversleigh naturally was eager to see her grandson, and because I could not travel to her, she came to Congrève.
Harriet grimaced when she heard she was coming. “She’ll hold up her hands in horror at the sight of Leigh,” she said.
“Harriet, I really think you should marry the father. After all, you must have liked him to begin with.”
“I never did like Charles much,” she admitted.
“And yet you did … that.”
“Careless of me, wasn’t it? Still I do love my little Leigh, and I can’t help feeling pleased he’s here.”
“Harriet, you are incorrigible. But what can we say to Lady Eversleigh?”
“That I was secretly married.”
“To whom?”
“Not Charles Condey. For Heaven’s sake, keep him out of it. Someone who came here for a few days on his way to England. We fell in love, we married and this is the fruit of our union.”
“You have so little regard for the truth.”
“On the contrary, I have the greatest regard for it. But there are occasions when it is necessary to set it aside … for Lady Eversleigh’s sake.”
“And not your own?”
“My dear Arabella, you know me well enough to understand that I am outside convention. I only submit to it out of regard for those who hold it dear. So I will tell my little tale to Lady Eversleigh and you will not contradict me because to do so would make her most unhappy.”
Lady Eversleigh came. She was entranced by her grandson. She held him in her arms and wept over him. He was very intrigued by her tears and crowed with delight. I am sure he thought they were some special game contrived for his pleasure.
It was touching to see her.
“Such tragedy, dear Arabella,” she told me. “First Charlotte. Poor girl, she suffered. And then this terrible thing. Oh, how glad I am that you married before he went. Now we have our compensation, have we not?”
She made it clear that she found young Edwin immensely superior to any other child.
“The news is excellent,” she said. “Very soon, dear Arabella, we shall be in England. Lord Eversleigh tells me that General Monck has been in touch with the King’s most loyal supporters and that negotiations are already going ahead. What a happy day that will be when we may return to our country and build up our homes again. You and I will carry our great sorrow with us. But when we go, you will come to Eversleigh Court. We must try to subdue our sorrow, for we have our little Edwin now. We shall make such plans for his future. He will be my life from now on.”
I had not thought of going to Eversleigh Court, but I could see that it would be expected of me.
I said: “What of Carleton Eversleigh? He must have looked upon himself as the heir when Edwin died.”
“So he was … until our little one came. Carleton will be delighted. He was wonderful to Edwin when he was a boy. He used to alarm me a little. He was so rough with him, but my husband said it was good for the boy. Dear Edwin had rather a gentle nature. Though he was full of fun, he was not like Carleton. Carleton forced him to fence and box and ride. He tried to make him like himself.” She shook her head. “Darling Edwin, he was so good-natured. He did his best. I daresay Carleton will want to take on this little Edwin.”
“I will not have him at risk.”
“Indeed, that shall never be. He is the most precious of children.”
We talked at length of him. How he smiled; how he so rarely cried; how he was so much brighter than all other children. We became close through our love for the child.
To my surprise she accepted our story about Harriet. She was not really interested. She disliked her because of what had happened with Charlotte. I wondered what she would have said had she know that Charlotte had come near to taking her own life.
She showed very little interest in young Leigh at first, but he had such winning ways with him, that she could not but be charmed. She made it clear, though, that she had no desire for friendship with Harriet.
After she had left I had had letters from my parents who were now in Breda.
It was April. The babies were three months old and my parents were certain that departure for England was imminent. There were letters full of what was happening in the King’s entourage. Negotiations were in progress. Envoys were going between Breda and London. Sir John Grenville had taken a letter from Charles to General Monck and the General had openly declared that he had ever been faithful to the King and that it was only now that he was in a position to be of service to him.
My mother wrote that there had been some, like our own dear General Tolworthy, who had shared the King’s exile with him and given up all for his sake, but no matter. This was great news. “The King has been asked to return,” she wrote, “and he has sent back his terms to Monck. It cannot now be long.”
I read my mother’s letter as we sat at the table. Lucas said we ought to start making our preparations, for we should be leaving. The children were excited at the prospect of change, but the servants were flatteringly subdued, and as for Madame Lambard, she demanded to know what she was going to do, having brought two darling children into the world and to have them snatched away from her.
“It is not yet arranged, Madame Lambard,” I soothed her. “So many times there has been talk like this and nothing came of it.”
The babies slept in a room next to mine. If they cried in the night I wanted to know. I would go and comfort them. Sometimes it was Leigh who needed to be picked up. Harriet never heard them, she said.
I scolded her. “You’re an unnatural mother,” I told her.
“Reluctant would perhaps be a more apt description,” she answered.
I was disturbed when she talked like that, for I thought of poor Leigh who was really more aware of me and of Madame Lambard than he was of his mother.
One night Harriet came into my room just as I had retired to bed. That was in mid-April and there had been more news from my parents about the imminent return of the King to England, and this time it was indeed significant. The Parliament had voted that the government of the country should be by the King, the Lords and the Commons. That was good enough.
Preparations would now go on apace.
Harriet was in a pensive mood.
I was already in bed, so she took a chair and studied me.
“What a lot has happened in a short time,” she said, “and now there will be more changes. Just think of it, Arabella. We really shall be going home.”