Fourpenny Flyer (27 page)

It was a moment, no more, but she was suddenly and dizzyingly aware of him, breathing in the scent of his flesh, glimpsing rather more than mere regard in those close, smiling grey eyes.

And then she was off again, running to the door on tiptoe, skipping down the corridor to tell John, calling to Mr Jones as she ran that he was to ‘hasten to the sorting room and fetch Mr William'.

They could hear her voice quite clearly even above the noise of the wind. ‘Johnnie, my dear! We've won! We've won!'

‘What an amazing lady she is, Mr Brougham,' Cosmo said admiringly.

‘She is without equal, Mr Teshmaker,' Frederick Brougham agreed.

The gale blew all that night, bringing rain with it, howling down the chimneys and flailing the tall trees and spitting out roof tiles like broken teeth. Harriet Sowerby lay awake all night listening to it. Not that she would have slept very much had the night been peaceful. She had too much to think about.

If only she knew what Mrs Easter's lawyers had arranged! Would they send her back to her parents or let her stay here with Mrs Hopkins? And would her dear Mr Easter really propose to her? Oh if only he would! By the time the first green edge of dawn lightened her eastern window and the tumult finally died down, she was so full of nervous energy she couldn't stay in bed a minute longer.

She got up and washed herself carefully, shivering under the impact of water cold from the ewer, and dressed in silence, while the dawn chorus began to pipe and carol most joyfully in the garden below her. Then she crept down the dark stairs and, taking her black cloak from its hook behind the kitchen door, lifted the latch and stepped out into the pale light of early morning.

The rain had stopped but the garden was awash with moisture, the long grass swishing wet underfoot and the branches of the yew dropping raindrops upon her as thick as a shower. She picked her way past the holm oak and through the wet gate into the open churchyard where the high stone flanks of St Nicholas's church rose above her, damp and dark against the grey sky. The village was still sleeping in its hollow, black-thatched by rain and spouting water from every shabby gutter, but the birds were now in
full song, thrushes and blackbirds calling clear, a robin shrill and sweet, hedge sparrows a-twitter, magpies clattering like wooden rattles.

She walked round the side of the church and arrived at the south porch, where she paused for a second with her hand resting on the rough flints, looking down at the village. Then she took her uncertainties into the church.

The peace and silence of the place surrounded her like a benediction, calming her and giving her strength. She walked quietly past the font, touching its odd carved faces with gentle reverence, and up the aisle past the box pews towards the communion table, its cloth as green as glass in the dawn light, and there she stopped before the altar rails. The bottom half of the east window was still in darkness, but the figure of her gentle Christ was glowingly visible, His hands upraised. And in the peaceful light of that early morning it seemed to Harriet that He was looking down with total understanding, straight into her eyes.

She dropped to her knees before Him and began to pray, speaking aloud in the urgency of her dilemma.

‘Oh dear God, please don't make me go back to my parents, for I couldn't bear it. If I have to go back to them I will die. I don't love them, Lord, and they don't love me. I love my dear Mr and Mrs Hopkins and little Jimmy, who was so patient when we had to clean his head, and dear little Beau and his pretty ways, and Miss Pettie who is always so kind, and dear Mr Easter.'

The face above her looked down with unflinching compassion.

‘I do believe I love Mr Easter more than anyone, Lord,' she said. ‘He is the kindest man I ever met, to rescue me and bring me here, when I am nothing to him. I think of him every day, and pray for him. And I dream of him too, Lord. I dream of him every night. Oh if I could marry Mr Easter and be part of his dear good family for ever and ever! I cannot tell him, because that would not be proper, but I do love him, Lord. Oh indeed I do. I love him with all my heart.'

There was a slight sound behind her, a suspiration of
breath, or the last sigh of the wind, and she turned, startled, clutching her cloak about her, and Mr Easter was standing in the aisle.

‘Oh my own dear, darling Harriet!' he said. ‘I love you so very much.' And then she was in his arms and he was kissing her tenderly, tenderly, in the gentle light.

‘Oh Mr Easter,' Harriet whispered, when the kiss was done. She couldn't believe this was truly happening, even though her lips were still tingling from his kiss. ‘How do you come to be here so early in the morning?'

‘I travelled on the overnight coach to bring you the news as soon as I could. I saw the church door open.'

But she was too stunned to realize what he was saying. ‘I am dreaming,' she said, resting her head against his shoulder.

‘No, no. You are here, my little love. And you will marry me, will you not? You said you would.'

‘I should not have spoken so,' she said, looking up at him and blushing at the memory. ‘How forward I must seem to you, Mr Easter. I would not have spoken so, indeed I would not, had I known you were there to hear me. Oh dear, oh dear!' And that lower lip was bitten by those two dear little crooked teeth.

‘You must call me John now,' he said, holding her lightly about the waist, admiring her blush and thinking how very dark her blue eyes were in the half light. ‘And you must say you will marry me. You will, will you not?'

‘Yes, John. If I am allowed to.'

‘Why my dear love, what is to stop you now?'

‘My mother and father, sir.'

‘Your parents have given their consent to it,' he said, speaking calmly even though he wanted to crow in triumph.

She was so surprised that her mouth fell open. He could see her tongue, tremulously pink, behind those charming crooked teeth. ‘They forbade me to see you or write to you,' she said incredulously. ‘However did you manage to persuade them?'

‘It was all Mr Brougham's doing,' he said, and told her the full story. ‘A fine man, Mr Brougham. We are lucky to have him as an ally.'

‘Have I to go home?' Oh the anxiety crumpling that pale forehead.

‘No,' he told her triumphantly. ‘That is settled too. You are to stay here until we marry, and I am to ask James to marry us. What do 'ee think of that?'

‘If we – when we marry would you wish to live in Bury?'

‘No,' he reassured, understanding her anxiety. ‘We shall live in London, where I work. You need never go to Bury or see your parents ever again, if that is what you wish. Does that content you?'

‘Oh yes, dear John.'

‘We shall be so happy,' he promised.

‘I think I am dreaming,' she said.

And was kissed again, to prove otherwise, and for a great deal longer this time.

‘So we shall have two weddings, Sophie,' Nan said to her old friend the next Monday afternoon, when she'd told her the tale. ‘What sport!' The two of them were taking tea in the drawing room at Bedford Square, and Sophie had greatly enjoyed the story of the Sowerbys' discomfiture.

‘I do enjoy a good wedding,' Sophie said, accepting her dish of tea and sipping it happily. ‘When is the first to be?'

‘'Twill be Johnnie's in April in Rattlesden with our dear Mr Hopkins to officiate. They have fixed the date already and I shall send out invitations within the week. Billy and Matilda are like to marry in June in St George's in Bloomsbury, according to Mr Honeywood. The family are coming to London in a week or two, ready for the season and mean to plan it all then. You are invited to both, of course, and will get two invitations accordingly.'

‘I should be aggrieved if 'twere otherwise,' Sophie said. ‘Shall you invite any of the Easters?' reaching out her plump hand to pick up a morsel of tea cake.

‘The cousins at Ippark,' Nan said, ‘since they always write to me and have been true friends over all these years.'

‘Is that wise?' Sophie demurred. ‘Remembering what happened last time.'

John had been furious to see two members of the Easter
family included in his sister's wedding party, and there had been a rather nasty row about it.

‘He was young then,' Nan said, ‘and thought every Easter the devil incarnate, simply because his poor father's parents were so unkind to me. Now he has better sense. 'Tis all forgiven and forgotten long since.'

‘Let us pray so,' Sophie said, smoothing the crumbs from her ample lap, ‘for your sake, my dear. Howsomever, 'tis my experience that a wedding too often serves to bring out the very worst in any family.'

John's certainly brought an extraordinary answer from the ladies in Ippark.

‘My dearest Nan,' Thomasina wrote.

‘We are delighted to accept your most kind invitation to John's wedding, and in April too when the weather will be more clement, which is always to the good. It seems but yesterday that we attended your dear daughter's wedding which we enjoyed so much and remember so well. Such a pretty bride and now a mother with two young boys.

‘It is quite possible, although by no means certain, it would be wrong of us to pretend otherwise, not having quite all the information we would wish, howsomever we cannot complain of that since Osmond may not know all he would wish to know himself, nor the lady either for that matter, that we may have to face a change in our circumstances. Howsomever we shall be certain to attend the wedding, you may depend upon it and remain,

‘Your most devoted cousins,

‘Thomasina and Evelina.'

‘What are they talking about?' Nan said, handing the letter across the breakfast table to Johnnie.

He read it carefully, squinting with effort. ‘If you ask me,' he said, after some thought, ‘the precious Sir Osmond plans to marry again and they are fearful of the consequences.'

‘Aye, 'tis possible,' she said, re-reading the letter.
‘There's a lady in the case sure enough, but why should that change their circumstances?'

‘Perhaps he don't mean to support 'em, or the new wife wants 'em thrown out of the house.'

‘He couldn't be so cruel,' Nan said. ‘How could they live without his support, poor souls?'

‘You have a touching faith in your relations, Mama,' John said, calmly returning to his haddock. ‘When did they ever show any concern for their kith and kin? They were quick enough to show you the door when you were young and widowed and penniless, don't forget. There is mischief afoot, you may depend upon it.'

‘I shall write back, directly,' his mother said, ‘and ask them what 'tis. We don't want any unpleasantness at your wedding.'

But although she didn't know it, unpleasantness was gathering like a carbuncle in the pretty bosom of her other future daughter-in-law.

When Matilda heard that John's wedding had been arranged, she was very pleased, delighted to think that Billy's younger brother was getting married before she was. It would allow her to follow with a much grander and more spectacular ceremony should she so wish. And of course she would wish. That was only natural, and would be most agreeable. And goodness knows she needed some agreeable moments in her life just at the moment, for ever since the rapturous night at their party her mother had kept her so tightly chaperoned that she and Billy had rarely had the chance even to kiss. This was just the third time they'd been left in a room alone together and she knew that they would only have privacy for a matter of minutes until the carriage arrived to take the entire family to the opera. She was miserable with frustration and he was wasting their opportunity by preening in the looking glass.

‘Miss Harriet Sowerby,' she said idly. ‘Do we know her, Billy?'

‘Don't we just!' Billy said, admiring his reflection in
the mirror above the fireplace. ‘She was the gel we rescued. Don't you remember? Me and Johnnie and Eb and Claude.'

‘But she is a servant!' Matilda said, outraged, frustration erupting into anger. ‘He ain't a-marryin' a servant, Billy. Never tell me that, because I won't believe it.'

‘She ain't a servant, Tilda,' Billy said mildly, still more occupied with his appearance than her annoyance. ‘Her father is a clerk or somesuch. She's a deuced pretty girl. You will like her.'

‘I shall not!' Matilda said, with furious determination. ‘Oh Billy, how could you even suggest such a thing?'

Alerted at last by the anger in her voice, Billy turned from the mirror to cuddle her into a better frame of mind. And was punched in the chest for his pains. ‘Oh come now, Tilda,' he complained. ‘Where's the fuss? This ain't like you, upon me word.'

‘People like us don't go marrying servants,' she said. ‘Whatever is your brother thinking of? 'Tis a scandal, so 'tis.'

‘He loves her,' Billy tried to explain.

And was hooted at. ‘And so I've to be related to a servant,' she said. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining with passion. She wanted him so much and she couldn't even kiss him because her horrid brother would be back in the room at any minute. ‘How could you demean me so?'

‘I don't demean you.'

‘My sister-in-law a servant! The shame of it! You must talk him out of it,' she ordered.

‘It can't be done,' Billy said, amazed by her vehemence. ‘Nor should it. 'Tis his choice, not ours. Come now, Tilda, there is no harm in it.'

Her fury flared like a burnt coal. ‘You do not love me,' she cried, ‘else you could not say such things.'

‘I do love you,' he said, surprised by the sudden turn this trivial conversation had taken. ‘You know right well I do. Ain't I proved it?' And he made another attempt to put his arms around her.

She shook herself out of his grasp. ‘If you do not persuade him, Mr William Easter, then I declare I will … I will …'