It was not to be expected that Toby, who had lived so adventurously, would stay all the time at Eversleigh Court. He wanted to know what was happening in the country, and therefore he must go to Court. There were many people there who would be interested to hear his accounts of his travels and his brother said he must be presented to the King and Queen.

Carleton came to Eversleigh. I wished I had been present when he was confronted by Uncle Toby. I wondered what his immediate reactions were. When I saw them together he had had time to overcome his surprise and, I imagine, chagrin.

Once when we were riding Carleton was beside me and I asked him how he felt about his uncle’s return.

“It is always interesting to discover members of the family.”

“It’s odd that I never heard him mentioned.”

“We thought he was dead. The ship we presumed he had sailed in floundered. Uncle Toby has always had amazing luck. He took another ship right at the last moment so his doting family were under the impression that he was gone forever.”

“So all those years, until you reached your tenth birthday, you were strutting around imagining yourself to be the heir of Eversleigh, when the real heir was making his fortune in Virginia!”

“In absolute innocence! But what did it matter? Edwin was soon there to step in front of Tobias, and now you have provided us with another Edwin to do the same.”

“Uncle Toby comes before you though.”

“Neither of us comes anywhere while we have precious Edwin.”

“Toby is very fond of him.”

“Who would not be fond of that perfect child?”

“And you?”

He looked at me sardonically.

“Fond of Edwin? What a question. You know I dote on him. Mind you, I think at the moment he is inclined to cower behind Mama’s skirts and those of his nurse, while he allows young Master Leigh to be lord of the nursery. That should be changed.”

“How?”

He leaned towards me. “Very soon, dear Cousin, I am going to help you make a man of Edwin.”

“I will have no interference,” I said sharply.

He laughed. “For the good of Eversleigh,” he cried and then he galloped off.

When Uncle Toby went to London with Carleton and Lord Eversleigh, we missed him very much and the children were constantly asking when he was coming back. The two boys were very much absorbed at this time with their ponies, and Jasper used to take them out each day. I insisted that they should be on the leading rein except in the home fields. Even then I used to suffer agonies when I saw Edwin galloping round.

Jasper said: “Master Carleton be right, mistress. You’re too careful of the boy. You’re putting him in a glass case.”

“He is very young yet, Jasper,” I retorted.

Jasper grunted. He was a most surly man and I never could like him. I knew he would like to take us back to the days when it was considered a sin to smile. One thing I was sure of, his daughter Chastity was happier now than she had been before the Restoration.

I couldn’t forget that Jasper had been suspicious of me and had informed against us. I was rather surprised that he remained at Eversleigh, but Lord Eversleigh was a very just man. He said that Jasper had a right to his opinions. He made no secret of them. He was a Puritan at heart and there would always be people like him. He was a good groom and had never failed in his duties in that respect.

To my surprise Carleton agreed with him. His comment was: “Jasper couldn’t inform against us now. To whom could he carry his tales? He has a right to his opinions. After all, that was really what the war was all about. The King would be the first to agree.”

So Jasper stayed and gave us good though surly service. I think he was grateful in a way. Although he deplored our love of what he would call sinful luxury, he accepted us as we did him.

I had reason to be grateful to him at this time.

The boys had new riding jackets made of brown velvet with gold-coloured buttons and velvet caps to match. They were very proud of them. Leigh strutted in his. He was an arrogant little boy, but there was something about his delight in everything which made him appealing.

They were eager to ride out in their new clothes and they took their ponies into the field close to the house where they were accustomed to ride round and round. Jasper was always in attendance and I liked to watch them.

How smart they looked in their new jackets and how excited they were as always to mount their ponies. I watched them trotting round the field and then breaking into a canter.

Jasper was never very far away. He was teaching them to jump. He sat straightbacked on old Brewster, who was grey and had a dour look to match Jasper’s own.

How glad I was of Jasper that morning because for some reason Edwin’s pony decided to bolt. I felt my heart stop and then start to pound away at such a rate that it seemed as though it would choke me.

Time slowed down and minutes seemed to pass, though it could only be seconds while I saw the pony bolting for the hedge and Edwin, who had somehow slipped off his back, managing to cling round his neck. I expected him to fall at any moment.

Oh, God, I thought. He is going to be killed. I am going to lose my son as I lost my husband.

I ran, ineffectually, I knew, for the child would be thrown before I could possibly reach him.

But Jasper was there. He had halted the pony, had leaped to the ground and was disengaging Edwin from the pony’s neck and had him in his arms.

I was panting, feeling lighthearted with relief, wanting to promise Jasper anything he asked, for nothing could repay him for what he did.

“’Tis all right, mistress,” he said.

Edwin was laughing. I thanked God for the sound of that laughter. Then he was concerned, for he had seen my face. What it looked like I could not imagine. I was clearly white and shaken.

Edwin said: “It’s all right, Mama. I haven’t hurt my coat. My cap though …”

It was on the ground where it had dropped off his head. Jasper put him down and he immediately retrieved it.

He looked a little distressed. “It’s a bit dirty, Mama. Never mind. Sally will clean it.”

I felt I wanted to burst into tears … with relief … with thankfulness. I felt a wave of hysteria. My darling was safe. I felt as though I had died a thousand deaths while I watched him and he thought I was worried about his cap!

I wanted to pick him up and hug him, to tell him he must never risk his life again.

Jasper was scolding: “You should never have let him go like that. He’s got to know you’re the master. After all I taught you!”

“I know, Jasper, but I couldn’t hold him.”

“No such word as couldn’t, Master Edwin. Up on his back.”

I started to protest but Jasper pretended not to hear me.

“Now off you go. Let him out. Full gallop now.”

Jasper looked at me.

“Only way, mistress. Do you want him so he’ll never mount a horse again?” He looked at me pityingly, for he could see how shaken I was. “They know no fear, mistress. That’s why they have to learn when they’re young. He didn’t know what happened then. Just as well.”

“Jasper, take care of him.”

“Aye, mistress. I’ll make a horseman of him yet.”

That incident made us friends in some odd way. I noticed Jasper looking at me now and then. Of course he despised my fancy gowns, the trappings of the Devil, he would call them. But he respected my love for my child and he knew that I had made him the guardian of Edwin and he liked that.

One day when I was in the stables there alone with him, he came and stood before me rather awkwardly.

“Mistress,” he said, “I’d like a word. Have wanted it these many days.”

“What is it, Jasper?” I asked.

“’Tis about your husband, mistress. He were shot over here … not far from this spot.”

I nodded.

“I want you to know it were none of my doing.”

“Jasper,” I said, “he came here into danger. He was posing as a stranger. I should never have come with him. It was through me that he was betrayed.”

“That were so, mistress. You showed your true nature and it were not that of a woman who serves God as she should, and I told those who should know and one came to see. But nothing had been done then. ’Twere not because of that that he were shot. Mistress, I want you to know that not I nor any of my friends fired the shot that killed Master Edwin.”

“Do you know who?”

He turned away. “I want only to say it were not my doing.”

“So it was nothing to do with his being … the enemy.”

“It were not done by us, mistress. That’s all I can say. ’Twouldn’t have been for us to kill him. We’d have took him for questioning but not to kill.”

“You know who did it, Jasper?”

“’Tis not for me to say, mistress. But I don’t want you to think I was the one who had anything to do with the killing of that boy’s father.”

“I believe you, Jasper,” I said, and I did.

News was coming in from the neighbouring towns. It appeared that a very virulent form of bubonic plague had broken out in the slums of St. Giles’s and so fierce was it that it was fast spreading through the capital and beyond. People were collapsing in the streets and were left there to die because none dared go near them.

We were very worried because Lord Eversleigh was there with Carleton and Uncle Toby and we had had no news from them.

Each day we heard horrific tales. No one who could get out of the capital stayed. The Court had left and an order of council had been issued that stringent measures must be taken to deal with it.

Lady Eversleigh was frantic with anxiety.

“Why don’t they come back?” she demanded. “They would never be so foolish as to stay there. What can it mean …?”

“Not all of them,” she went on frantically. “It couldn’t happen to all of them. Have we gone through those years of exile just to come back to this?”

Charlotte and I shared her anxiety. I realized how fond I was of my father-in-law and his brother, but somewhat to my surprise it was Carleton who kept coming into my mind. I kept picturing him, writhing on a bed of pain, his face and body disfigured by hideous sores, and fervently I wished that he were here and I could nurse him. That seemed crazy, but I told myself I felt this because I should have enjoyed having him in a position which I was sure he would find humiliating—shorn of his dignity, at my mercy. What a strange thought to have at such a time, but Carleton did arouse emotions in me which I had not suspected I possessed. And with them came a certain elation, because however mysterious their absence might be, something within me told me that Carleton would be all right. Nothing would ever get the better of him—not even the plague.

Then when I was with my mother-in-law and Charlotte I wondered how I could have thought so much of Carleton to the exclusion of my father-in-law and Uncle Toby who had both become dear to me.

Each day we waited for news of them. There was none, but we did hear how the plague was spreading, and that, even as far from London as we were, we must take precautions and be very careful of strangers travelling from afar.

Everyone was talking of the plague. There were such epidemics two or three times in every century, but there had been nothing to compare with this since the Black Death. I thought of what I had seen of London—those evil-smelling gutters in the back streets where rats foraged among the rubbish left on the cobbles, and all the time I was thinking of Carleton lying on his bed, needing care.

And what of Lord Eversleigh and Uncle Toby? They were not so young. They would be less able to fight the terrible disease.

The weather was hotter than usual. Even in the country it was stifling. I imagine what it must be like in plague-ridden London. So far the towns and villages around us were free. Canterbury, Dover and Sandwich, it seemed, had no cases, but the people were watchful. We had fearsome stories of what it was like in London. If a member of a household was afflicted, a red cross must be painted on the door and beneath it the words “Lord Have Mercy on Us,” so that everyone could be warned there was danger by entering that dwelling. Even when someone died, that person would have to be lowered from the windows and dropped into one of the death carts which prowled the city at night led by men, masks over their mouth, bells in their hands which mournfully tolled while they cried out: “Bring out your dead.” Pits were dug on the outskirts of the city and the bodies thrown in one on top of the other. There were too many for proper burial and it was the only way.