‘Now you are laughing at me,’ she said, but she was beaming with happiness.

I left her to her daydreams and, making the most of the fine weather by calling my dogs, I went down to the river to do some fishing. The sport was good and I caught three fine specimens which were served up at dinner.



Wednesday 21 April

Eleanor and Mama spent the day sewing, aided by Mama’s maid. Frederick was still lying low, and I rode over to the Maples. Stewart was at home and Charles Plainter was there. All three of us rode down to Copse End.

‘My sister is looking forward to the supper party,’ said Stewart. ‘Mama wants her to marry Frederick.’

‘She is too late. Frederick is going into the army.’

‘Yes, I had heard something about it. Been behaving too wild, has he? I thought as much. But nothing so trifling as that will stop Mama,’ he said. ‘She and Pen are determined to have him.’

‘No amount of determination will make Frederick do something he does not want to do,’ I said. ‘Frederick goes his own way. He ...’ I was going to say that he had had his heart broken, and then decided against it. ‘... does as he pleases.’

‘Will you be there?’ asked Stewart.

Charles said that he would be there with his family, whilst I said that I would be there for supper, but not afterwards.

‘I have escaped, too,’ Stewart said. ‘I have to attend the parties at our own house but Mama says that I am still too young to go to our neighbours for evening parties, for which I thank God. I wish I could stay sixteen for ever. Supper parties are bad enough, but dancing is worse. Give me my horses and dogs, my old clothes, let me do as I please and I am happy, but stuff me up in all that rig and make me play the courtier and I am miserable.’

I was not entirely of his way of thinking.

‘I like company, if it is good, but too often it is tedious. Everyone says the same things over and over. However, my sister Eleanor will be having supper with us, it is her first grown-up party, and her delight will carry me through.’



Thursday 22 April

Papa has spent the day harrying the servants, making sure that everything will be ready for Saturday. One of his old friends, the Marquis of Longtown, is coming and my father wants to make sure everything is perfect. Mama and Eleanor have again been sewing, and Frederick at last seems to be coming out of himself. He suggested that we should go riding this afternoon, and although I had already been out this morning I obliged him. He talked to me a great deal, about his fears for the future, his disappointment in love and his feeling of purposelessness.

‘What use is an heir before he inherits?’ he asked. ‘There is nothing for him to do.’

‘Except go into the army,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you will like it.’

‘It will at least get me away from here. The general will never hand over the reins whilst he has breath. If I had enough money I would buy a place of my own.’

‘Then marry an heiress,’ I said lightly. ‘Stewart says his sister has set her cap at you.’

‘What, Pen Maple?’ he asked incredulously, reining in his horse, and then he began to laugh.

I had not heard him laugh since his disappointment and I was very pleased to hear it. His horse danced beneath him, snorting, as if to join in the amusement.

‘Yes, both she and her mama are determined to have you,’ I said, stopping beside him.

‘Penelope Maple is the last woman on earth I would marry,’ he retorted.

‘You have still not forgiven her for beating you at sledging down the back hill when you were eleven then?’ I asked.

‘Did she? I had forgotten that.’

‘Surely not. You must remember the terrible trouble she was in when her mother discovered she had taken a tray from the kitchen and used it as a toboggan.’

He roared with laughter.

‘So she did,’ he said.

‘Does that make you look more kindly on her?’ I asked.

‘Of course. I will marry her tomorrow,’ he said.

‘You could do worse,’ I remarked.

The laughter left his eyes and his mood became dark.

‘I could do better,’ he said.

He set off again, trotting at a sombre pace. His gaiety had gone and although I tried to bring it back again I did not succeed.



Saturday 24 April

The abbey was full of activity today as the house was prepared to receive our guests. Mama took to her room this afternoon to rest and Eleanor, full of energy, darted from room to room, unable to settle in her excitement at the idea of attending her first grown-up party.

‘You will wear a hole in the carpet,’ I told her. ‘Do sit down.’

‘Henry! How can you sit still?’ she asked me.

‘Easily. Come and sit down, bring A Sicilian Romance and we will see what is happening to Julia now that she is in love with Hippolitus. Will she win him, or will her evil father and even more evil stepmother ruin her happiness for ever?’

‘I hope that Julia and Hippolitus get married and live happily ever after,’ she said.

‘It will be a very short story if they do. Ah, here is Julia, thinking of her One True Love:

‘She was roused from her state of visionary happiness, by a summons from the marquis to attend him in the library. She found him pacing the room in deep thought, and she had shut the door before he perceived her. The authoritative severity in his countenance alarmed her, and prepared her for a subject of importance.

‘ “I sent for you, my child,” said he, “to declare the honour which awaits you. The Duke de Luovo has solicited your hand. An alliance so splendid was beyond my expectation. You will receive the distinction with the gratitude it claims, and prepare for the celebration of the nuptials.”

‘This speech fell like the dart of death upon the heart of Julia. She sat motionless – stupefied and deprived of the power of utterance.

‘The marquis observed her consternation; and mistaking its cause, “I acknowledge,” said he, “that there is something somewhat abrupt in this affair; but the joy occasioned by a distinction so unmerited on your part, ought to overcome the little feminine weakness you might otherwise indulge. Retire and compose yourself.”

‘These words roused Julia from her state of horrid stupefaction.

‘ “O! sir,” said she, throwing herself at his feet, “forbear to enforce authority upon a point where to obey you would be worse than death. Hear me, my lord,” said Julia, tears swelling in her eyes, “and pity the sufferings of a child, who never till this moment has dared to dispute your commands.”

‘ “Nor shall she now,” said the marquis. “What, when wealth, honour, and distinction, are laid at my feet, shall they be refused, because a foolish girl – a very baby, who knows not good from evil, cries, and says she cannot love! Accept the duke, or quit this castle for ever, and wander where you will.”

‘Saying this, he burst away, and Julia, who had hung weeping upon his knees, fell prostrate upon the floor. The violence of the fall completed the effect of her distress, and she fainted.’

‘Of what use was that?’ asked my sister unsympathetically.

‘Do you not think you might faint, if you were in her predicament?’ I asked.

‘I never faint,’ she declared. ‘I think Julia ought to run away with Hippolitus.’

‘It seems that Hippolitus is of your mind,’ I said, continuing, ‘for Hippolitus suggests that very thing. And Ferdinand, that most noble of brothers, agrees that it is the only way to happiness.’

Eleanor seized the book from me in her eagerness and read,

‘They now arranged their plan of escape; in the execution of which, no time was to be lost, since the nuptials with the duke were to be solemnized on the day after the morrow. It was settled, that if the keys could be procured, Ferdinand and Hippolitus should meet Julia in the closet; that they should convey her to the seashore, from whence a boat, which was to be kept in waiting, could carry them to the opposite coast of Calabria, where the marriage might be solemnized without danger of interruption.’

I read over her shoulder as she fell silent in her perusal of the lovers’ miraculous escape to the shore, but we did not read at the same speed and so I reclaimed the book, continuing to read aloud:

‘ “Now, my love,” said Hippolitus, “you are safe, and I am happy.”

‘Immediately a loud voice from without exclaimed, “Take, villain, the reward of your perfidy!”

‘At the same instant Hippolitus received a sword in his body, and uttering a deep sigh, fell to the ground. Julia shrieked and fainted—’

‘Again,’ said Eleanor, not impressed with Julia’s fortitude.

‘Ferdinand, drawing his sword, advanced towards the assassin, upon whose countenance the light of his lamp then shone, and discovered to him his father! The sword fell from his grasp, and he started back in an agony of horror. He was instantly surrounded, and seized by the servants of the marquis, while the marquis himself denounced vengeance upon his head, and ordered him to be thrown into the dungeon of the castle.

‘Julia, on recovering her senses, found herself in a small room, of which she had no remembrance, with her maid weeping over her. Yet her misery was heightened by the intelligence which she now received. She learned that Hippolitus had been borne away lifeless by his people, that Ferdinand was confined in a dungeon by order of the marquis, and that herself was a prisoner in a remote room, from which, on the day after the morrow, she was to be removed to the chapel of the castle, and there sacrificed to the ambition of her father, and the absurd love of the Duke de Luovo.’