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.’

I closed the book dramatically and said, ‘And now, it is time to dress.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Eleanor.

‘Oh, yes! You cannot be late for your first supper party.’

‘But poor Julia! What is to become of her?’

‘What indeed?’

‘Do you think she will be forced to marry the duke?’

‘It seems to be the lot of heroines to be forced into unhappy marriages,’ I said.

I stood up and walked towards the door, whilst Eleanor danced along beside me.

‘I wonder if I will be sacrificed to the ambition of my father when I am older?’ said Eleanor with interest.

‘I think it most likely,’ I said with a smile.

‘Then I must hope I fall in love with a good and wealthy man like Hippolitus before that happens.’

‘It is possible, of course, that you will meet someone like Hippolitus,’ I said, as we went upstairs. ‘I do not quite despair of it. But I fear it is more likely that you will marry a man who appears to be good and wealthy, but turns out to be poor and villainous.’

She nodded.

‘I dare say, once we are married, he will reveal that he is in fact a pauper, rob me of my small marriage portion and then lock me in a dungeon. And yet I must marry.’

‘Why?’

‘I cannot live here all my life,’ she said.

‘That is true enough. But I will have a living when I go into the church. You can come and live with me.’

‘That idea suits you now,’ she said, ‘but when you have met your heroine, the two of you will not want a third.’

‘My wife will love you as I do.’

‘No, she will only pretend,’ said Eleanor. ‘But she will secretly resent me. When you are away she will slowly poison me, or lock me in the attic—’

‘Or both.’

‘Very likely. And when you return to the parsonage she will say that I have been called away to nurse an old schoolfriend.’

‘I will accept her story. But then I will start to hear strange noises. I will ask her about the groaning coming from the attic....’

‘... and she will say it is the second housemaid, who has a toothache.’

‘And I will believe her. I will only discover that it is you, my dear sister, when it is too late. Thinking at last that there is something very strange about so prolonged a toothache, I will unlock the attic door....’

‘... where nothing but my skeleton will remain to greet you.’

‘Alas, what a cruel fate awaits you, dear Eleanor. But an even crueller fate will await you this evening if you are late, so hurry up and get ready.’

She disappeared into her room, and I disappeared into mine, both of us emerging in good time to welcome our guests.

Frederick earned Mama’s gratitude by pretending not to recognize Eleanor in her grown-up dress, and saying, ‘I beg your pardon, Mama, I did not know that our guests had started to arrive. And who is this beauty?’

Eleanor wriggled in delight, and said, ‘It’s me!’

At which Frederick pretended astonishment and told her she would outshine every other lady at the table.

Papa looked her up and down with a critical eye but then said, ‘You will do very well,’ which pleased her greatly.

Our guests began to arrive and they all greeted her with a friendly air. Pen Maple told her how pretty she looked and Charles Plainter said she was an adornment to the gathering.

To Eleanor, the meal was the most interesting imaginable; to the rest of us I fear it was dull. Penelope was in good spirits and sought to entertain Frederick, who made an effort to exert himself to begin with but then relapsed into silence, at which Penelope exchanged a glance with her mama and reconciled herself to entertaining an elderly dowager; Papa spoke at great length of his many improvements, which interested our guests for about five minutes and then steadily drove them into a stupor; Mama seemed unwell and although she was a perfect hostess she lacked her usual vitality; Charles drummed his fingers on the table until his mother caught his eye, whilst I endeavoured to entertain our guests, with small success.

I was grateful to leave the company after supper, and as I left the room, Charles said to me in an aside, ‘I envy you, Henry, I wish I could escape. Supper parties are the most tedious affairs.’

I am of Charles’s and Stewart’s opinion: give me my dogs and my horses and I am happy, but make me endure another such supper party and I will be tempted to leave for Calabria.



Sunday 25 April

Mama was tired and spent the day in bed; Eleanor was dull, a reaction to the excitement of last night; Frederick went out as soon as we returned from church without saying where he was going; Papa amused himself by showing his many improvements to his friend, who dealt with this imposition by talking of his own improvements whilst taking no notice of anything my father said. In this way they were both happy. I made the most of my last few days of freedom and went out with my dogs.