Again and again I read through what she had written. I didn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. She had gone as dramatically as she had come. But she had left something behind to remind us of her. Her own child! How could she leave him!
Of course she could. Harriet was capable of everything.
I went into the room which we had made the nursery.
Madame Lambard was rocking Leigh up and down because, as she started to say, he had the wind.
I stared at the baby and Madame Lambard said: “Is anything wrong, Madame Arabella?”
I answered simply. “She has gone. She has left the baby and has gone.”
During the third week of May my parents came to the château to take us back, and what wild rejoicing there was at our reunion. This, alas, did not extend to the kitchens and Marianne, Jeanne and Jacques were very subdued; as for Madame Lambard, she was desolate, though perhaps this was mainly due to the babies.
My mother was most disturbed when she heard that Harriet had gone, leaving her son behind.
“The unnatural creature!” she cried. “How could she do such a thing? And who is the father?”
I told her it was Charles Condey who had fallen passionately in love with Harriet during our visit to Villers Tourron.
“We know him well. He is such a sober young man. I find it hard to believe that he would not stand by a girl who was to have his child.”
“He wanted to marry her but she wouldn’t have him.”
“He was, of course, meant for Charlotte.”
“You do not know Harriet, Mother. She is so attractive. People find her irresistible … or most of them do.”
“That is understandable … but to leave a child!”
“She knew I would always look after him.”
“And what shall you do? Take him to Eversleigh?”
“Of course. He will grow up with Edwin.”
My mother shook her head anxiously. Then she embraced me and said: “You are a good girl, Arabella. I can’t tell you how often your father and I have thanked God for you. You know what you mean to your father?”
I nodded. “How wonderful it will be to be together again. I wish I were coming home with you to Far Flamstead.”
“I know, my dearest. But you must comfort Matilda. Poor lady, she has lost her only son. She loves you dearly. She told me that as soon as she saw you she knew you were the wife she wanted for Edwin. And now when this terrible tragedy has come to her, it is you who are the greatest help to her because you have given her little Edwin. You’ve given her something to live for. A grandson is what she prayed for and, through you, she has him. So do not regret that you are not coming to Far Flamstead. We shall not be very far away. We will meet often and you will be happy because you have brought such joy to your new family.”
Lord Eversleigh, Edwin’s father, was a delightful man; he was considerably older than my own father, as Matilda was also. I remembered Edwin’s telling me how they had been married for some time before they had any children and that was why Carleton had had his hopes.
Lord Eversleigh was deeply moved when he was presented to my son, and although at such a time I must miss my husband even more bitterly than at others, I was happy to have brought such joy to them by giving them a grandson.
We were all to cross the Channel together, and my parents would stay for a night at Eversleigh Court which was near the coast. Our emotions were at such a pitch that I felt part of the time that I was in a dream. After all, this was the fulfillment of our hopes of years. We had talked so much of going home that, now the time had come, we were uncertain of our happiness. In the first place we had to say good-bye to so much that we had known for so long; and the sad eyes of the servants at Congrève and the red ones of Madame Lambard could not do anything else but depress us.
How should I have felt had I been going back with Edwin? So different, I was sure.
The crossing was a smooth one, which was a blessing, and we made for an inn not much more than a hundred yards from the sea which had been well known to the Eversleighs in the old days.
Then it had been called the Jolly Waggoner but the Jolly had been painted out and it was now simply the Waggoner—a particular piece of Puritan folly which made us all laugh.
The landlord, Tom Ferret, was, like most people, I was to discover, eager to cast aside the gloomy piety he had been obliged to practice for a more convivial manner.
“Well, Tom,” said Lord Eversleigh. “Times are changing.”
Tom put his finger to his nose and said slyly: “And about time too, and good it is to see you back, milord.”
“And how is your father?” asked Lord Eversleigh.
Tom pointed upwards, and I wasn’t sure whether he meant his father was in the room above or in Heaven. I realized it was the latter, for he went on: “Sorry I am, milord, that he can’t see this day. Now we’ll look forward to the good times, we will.”
“A return to prosperity,” said Lord Eversleigh. “Puritanism is no good for business, eh, Tom?”
“It has been a struggle to keep going, milord, but praise God His Majesty is coming back. Do you know when the happy day will be, milord?”
“Soon, Tom. Soon. We want him back for his thirtieth birthday. And that will be the twenty-ninth of this month.”
“God bless him. You’ll drink his health, I hope, in my best malmsey wine.” He winked. “Tucked away in the cellar these many years. No sense in giving good wine to them that thinks it’s a sin to enjoy it.”
“We will, we will, and will you have a message sent to the Court, Tom, to tell my nephew that we’re home?”
“Master Carleton, he has been working for the King all this time it seems … and him playing the Puritan up there … one of the sternest of ’em, I heard, and all the big’uns coming to stay at Eversleigh to see him and talk about how they could make us even more miserable than we were.”
“No Eversleigh would ever be disloyal to his King, Tom.”
“No, milord, but Master Carleton fooled us all right.”
“As was necessary.”
“Yes, milord. Now for the message … I’ll get a man off at once. Then for the malmsey.”
Milk was brought for the babies, and we sat at the inn table sampling hot bread with cheese and malmsey wine, which tasted good to me.
An hour or so later Carleton Eversleigh was at the inn. Lord Eversleigh took his hand and shook it. Matilda embraced him. There were tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Carleton,” she cried. “It is so long …”
He nodded. “But we knew it would come and here it is. So let us be joyful.” I felt he was anxious to curtail the emotion, for I guessed he would hate any show of it.
He was looking at me, and I noticed the slow smile which I could not understand. “Ah,” he said, “it is not so long since we met.”
I nodded and introduced him to my parents.
He exchanged greetings with them and then he saw the children. Of course he would not know. How could he? He was looking askance at my mother’s two women holding them.
“My son,” I said. “My son Edwin.”
He was frankly amazed.
He looked down at the baby. “So … he left you a child, then.”
“Yes.”
“Twins?”
“No. This is Edwin. This is Leigh.”
“And whose child is Leigh, I wonder?”
“You remember Harriet Main.”
“Harriet Main.” He gave a sudden, short laugh. He looked round him, obviously for Harriet.
“She is not with us,” I said. “She went to London with Sir James Gilley. They are to be married. Then, I doubt not, she will come to claim the child.”
I was romancing in the way Harriet herself might have done. It was foolish, but his sly smile angered me.
“Well, you can reckon that she will be long before she claims the child if she is waiting for Gilley to marry her. He is very much married to a lady I know well. A most respectable lady with two sons and four daughters, and as she is in a remarkably good state of health, it seems unlikely that James Gilley will be free for some time yet.”