“Yet they say he can be wily enough in his dealings with France.”

“Ah,” said my father, “he leads the French King where he will, and what is amusing, he also leads him to believe that the leading strings are in French hands. Quite a feat, really. Charles is shrewd, Charles is clever, but above all he is lazy and can never really give quite the same concentration to anything as he gives to the seduction of women. If only he would make up his mind and legitimatize Monmouth. It seems the sensible thing to do.”

“And now what?” asked my mother. “Monmouth is involved in this …”

“Jemmy would never agree to kill his father. That I know.”

“How will he prove it?”

Monmouth did convince his father that although he had known of the plot he would never have agreed to the killing of his father. Whether the King believed him or not no one was certain. Whether Monmouth would be prepared to commit parricide for the sake of the throne no one was certain either. What was certain was that Charles could not bring himself to execute his own son—traitor though he might be.

The King could not of course ignore what had happened, and as a result Monmouth was banished from Court. When we heard that he had gone to Holland my mother was intensely relieved. My father laughed at her. She was like an old hen, he said, clucking round her family.

But they were close, those two, and I liked to see them thus.

Two people who lived near us were involved in the plot. They had visited us now and then in the past, being near neighbours. It was a shock, therefore, to hear that they had been arrested.

There was John Enderby, who had lived in a rather fine house called Enderby Hall with his wife and son, and even closer to us there was Gervaise Hilton of Grassland Manor.

There was a great deal of talk about it. The properties would be confiscated and doubtless sold to other families. I wanted to call on them but my mother forbade it.

“It might be said that your father sent you. We have to keep outside all this.”

I obeyed her, but I wondered about the families.

They disappeared, and the houses stood there looking more and more desolate as the months passed.

Time had indeed passed. Carlotta was now over a year old—a very definite personality and growing prettier every day. Those startlingly blue eyes—not quite as dark as Harriet’s—attracted everyone’s attention, and I was amazed that people could say how like her mother she was growing. Harriet was very amused by this.

“Trust Carlotta to play her part,” she commented. “That child will be an actress, mark my words.”

I think Harriet’s interest in the baby had waned a little. One could not expect her to become completely absorbed in a child—particularly someone else’s. Moreover, Sally Nullens mounted guard over the nursery like some fabulous dragon breathing fire on anyone who dared approach her baby. I did not mind this, for I knew that Carlotta would be tended with the utmost care. Any little ailment would be detected at once and dealt with. Sally had become a different woman from that disgruntled, ageing female who had crouched over her singing kettle and rocked herself angrily before her fire. Life had meaning for her now. It was the same with Emily Philpots. Carlotta was not just an ordinary child. She was a saviour. They doted on her, but I knew that Sally would not allow any spoiling which, good nurse that she was, she knew was bad for the child. She had her rules, which must be obeyed, and at the same time nothing was spared in the devotion she bore the child.

Carlotta could not be in better hands and I should have been satisfied, but how I longed to have her for myself!

That Christmas, Harriet and Gregory came to us at Eversleigh, so I had the baby under the same roof, which was wonderful. Harriet did warn me that I must not behave as though there was nothing in life but Carlotta.

“It might set minds working,” she said. “After all, it was rather unconventional to go to Venice to have my child. Try to be a little restrained, dear.”

I knew what she meant when I heard my mother’s comment: “Priscilla will make a good mother. Just look at her with Carlotta. You would think she was the mother—not Harriet.”

Yes, I could see that Harriet was right. I was on dangerous ground.

That was an exceptionally cold Christmas and during January my father said that we were all to go to London. There were invitations from Court and they could not be ignored.

He was looking at Christabel and me rather speculatively and I fancied he was thinking that I was no longer a child. I was sixteen years and would be seventeen in July. I could see how his thoughts were working, and although he was as indifferent to me as ever, he did remember his duty as a father and that would be to get me suitably married.

The idea was repulsive to me. It horrified me. How could I marry without telling my husband that I had a child?

I began to feel very apprehensive.

It was the coldest winter within living memory. There had been a hard frost since the beginning of December and when we arrived in London it was a different city. The Thames was frozen so hard that salesmen had been able to set up booths on it, making it look like a fair. It had changed the face of the city and newcomers marvelled. The inhabitants were now used to it and they just went out walking and shopping on the river.

There was a great deal of merrymaking. It seemed to be an occasion to celebrate. There had never been anything like it and doubtless there never would be again. The ice was as hard as stone; this was proved because they had started running coaches from Westminster to the Temple; and when they roasted an ox on the ice, the fire made little impression.

Some of the Puritans—and there were still many around-declared that the weather would grow colder still and we should all be frozen to death—except the righteous. God had sent the plague and the great fire and this was another warning.

The watermen were dour. This was taking away their trade. Many of them set up stalls and turned into salesmen.

“What is good for one is bad for another,” was the philosophical comment.

My mother, with Christabel and myself, would go and shop on the Thames. The cold was intense but the stall holders were very merry, and we had to be very careful how we walked across the ice. But it was so hard that it was like walking on stone and so much traffic had made it less slippery than it would otherwise have been.

Everyone was watching for the thaw; but so thick was the ice and so long had it been there that it seemed unlikely that it would thaw quickly even when the weather changed.

It was on the ice that we made the acquaintance of Thomas Willerby. He was a middle-aged man with a somewhat portly figure and a round rosy face. He was standing by one of the stalls drinking a hot cordial. There were many sellers of hot drinks on the ice, for they were a very welcome refreshment in such weather.

It so happened that as we passed the stall, Christabel slipped and slid right into Thomas Willerby. The cordial was almost thrown into his face; it missed that, however, and went streaming down his elaborate coat.

Christabel was overcome with horror. “My dear sir,” she cried, “I am so sorry. Oh, dear! It was my fault. Your coat is ruined.”

He had a pleasant face, this Thomas Willerby. “There, there, my pretty,” he said, “don’t you fret. ’Twas no fault of yours. ’Tis this unnatural ground we’re treading on.”

My mother said: “But your coat …”

“’Tis nothing, lady. ’Tis nothing at all.”

“If it is not washed off immediately it will leave a stain.”

“Then, my dear lady, there will be a stain. I would not have this lady”—he smiled on Christabel—“worried about a coat. It was no fault of hers. As I say, it is this unnatural ice.”

“You’re very kind,” said Christabel quietly.

“Now I told you not to fret.”

“You must come to our house,” said my mother. “I insist. There I will have the coat sponged and we will do what we can with it.”

“My dear lady, you are too good.”

But it was clear that he was very eager to accept the invitation. We took him to our London house, which was close to the Palace of Whitehall, and there my mother made him take off his coat and sent a servant to bring out one of my father’s. This he put on while his own was taken away, and mulled wine was served with cakes which we called wine cakes—spicy and hot from the oven.

“Bless my soul,” said Thomas Willerby, “I’ll say it was a lucky day when I was bumped on the ice.”

My father joined us and was told the story of the encounter. He clearly took a fancy to Thomas Willerby. He had heard of him. Wasn’t he a London merchant who had come up from the country ten years before and done very well for himself?

Thomas Willerby was a man who clearly liked company. He also liked to talk about himself. He was that very Thomas Willerby, he assured my father. He had suffered a bereavement a year ago. He had lost his dear wife. They had had no children, a great sorrow to them both. Well, now he was thinking of retiring from business. He had made his fortune and would like to settle in the country … not too far from the town … within reach of London. Perhaps he would like to do a little farming. He was not sure. What he needed was the right house.

They talked awhile of the country’s affairs and the Rye House Plot, of course. They agreed that it would be a sad day for England when the King died, there being no heirs but the King’s brother and the questionable one of his illegitimate son.

Thomas Willerby did not wish to see the country go Papist and in this he was in complete accord with my father.

By the time the coat was brought in, sponged and looking fresh and as clean as it had been before the wine was spilled on it, we had become very friendly and my father had suggested that Thomas Willerby might like to look at two properties not very far from our own Eversleigh Court.

These were Enderby Hall and Grassland Manor, which had been confiscated when their owners were caught in the Plot. My father believed that these could be had by the right buyer.

The outcome was that Thomas Willerby decided that he must come and look at them.

That turned out to be quite an eventful morning.

There was no sign of the thaw until February. Then the booths disappeared from the river and gradually the ice began to crack.

By that time Thomas Willerby had bought Grassland Manor, which was only about half a mile from us. My father seemed very pleased to have him as a neighbour and showed great friendship towards him.

He visited us frequently and paid a great deal of attention to us all, but I fancied particularly to Christabel. He was clearly delighted to have made a contact which brought him into our family.

My father was, of course, a man who was rather sought after. He was rich and influential in Court circles, being such a close friend of the King and the Duke of Monmouth—not that the latter was a favourable thing to be at this time since the Duke was in exile. But it was known that the King showed special favour to my father because he amused him.

Thomas Willerby was a man who had not moved in the highest echelons of society. He was rich, though he had not inherited a penny. He was a countryman who had come to London to seek his fortune, which through hard work and honest dealing he had found in good measure. Having a deep respect for those born in a higher grade of society than himself, he was delighted to be received as a friend at Eversleigh.

He and Christabel were often together. There was that trait in Christabel’s character which made her constantly imagine that she was not quite acceptable—though had she not assumed this, no one would have doubted it. But this attitude did not naturally extend to Thomas Willerby; and one day she came to me in a state of obvious pleasure.

“I must speak to you, Priscilla,” she said. “Something wonderful has happened.”

I begged her to tell me without delay.

“Your father sent for me. He has told me that Thomas Willerby has asked for my hand in marriage and that he thinks it would be a suitable match. I am going to marry Thomas Willerby, Priscilla.”

“Do you … love him?”

“Yes,” she said fervently, “I do.”

I embraced her. “Then I am so happy for you.”

“I don’t really deserve this happiness,” she said.

“Oh, nonsense, Christabel, of course you do.”