Lament for a lost lover

“It’s not night. It’s morning. I feel sleepy now.”

“It’ll soon be time to get up,” I pointed out.

“Then I should get some sleep before it is.” She yawned.

“Do you of ten ... do that?”

“Oh, often,” she said.

She threw off her wrap and pulled the bedclothes up about her.

I waited awhile. Then I said: “Harriet ...”

There was no answer.

She was either asleep or pretending to be.

The smaller salon had been converted into a chapel and Matilda Eversleigh had indeed found a priest who would marry us.

It was a simple ceremony, but I could not have been more enalled if it had taken place in Westminster Abbey.

Edwin took my hand I felt overcome with emotion because he was my husband and I his wife.

I was so happy I wanted to sing a paean of praise to the fate which had brought him here at this time.

Matilda Eversleigh-now my mother-in-law-had determined that the wedding should be celebrated in as grand a manner as was possible in the circumstances, and she had invited everyone within travelling distance. The guests were mostly the people who had been present during the house party, and during the feast which followed the ceremony, there were inevitably references to Romeo and Juliet. I was like one intoxicated. I was unable to savour my happiness because I could not really believe it was happening.

The future seemed perfect. I was married to the man with whom I was passionately in love; my family approved absolutely and their only regret was that they could not be present; my new family had received me warmly. Matilda purred with pleasure every time she looked at me. I had had a warm letter of affection from her husband; and with even Charlotte (who, I must confess, had retired into her shell and had become as aloof as she had been when we first met), I had managed to form a special relationship.

In such a mood I retired with Edwin to my bridal chamber. As I prepared for bed I thought of what I had read in my mother’s journal of the differences between her and her sister, Angelet. My mother warm and passionate, her sister frigid, fearful of this side of marriage. I knew that I should resemble my mother in this respect. And I was right.

How I loved Edwin. How kind and tender he was! And how nappy I was to love and be loved. I had never imagined such happiness as I experienced during that week of marriage. t was true that over us hung the threat of separation. The fact at he would soon have to leave was the very reason for a hasty marriage, but Edwin’s nature being what it was, he did not look beyond the day or even the hour, and he carried me along with him. I did not see so much of Harriet during those days. Naturally I no longer shared her room, and when I did look in to the one we had occupied, she was rarely there. Of course we met at meals but then there were others there. I felt there was a subtle change in her. I had never seen her anxious before, and I could not imagine her so, for she had always seemed to have a blind faith in her future, but there was a shade of something in her expression when caught unaware that made me a little uneasy. I determined to talk to her, and as we left the table one day, I whispered to her that I must do this. She nodded and we went up to the room we had shared. “Harriet,” I said, “are you worried?”

She hesitated. “No,” she said at length. “I confess, though, that I am wondering what I should do next. Here are you facing a lifetime of married bliss ...” Her lips curled in a way that sent shivers of alarm through me because it implied that she did not believe in that blissful lifetime. “And I ... where do I come in?”

“You could have married Charles Condey.”

“How can you, secure in your love match, suggest that I should take something less?”

“I’m sorry, Harriet.”

She lifted her shoulders. “It’s no fault of yours. You happened to get born into the right family, a matter for which you can neither be blamed nor praised. Let’s be serious. I have been wondering what I shall do now. Life has changed, hasn’t it? We are no longer at dear, old Chateau Congreve where I should use my talents in the schoolroom.”

“I shall be going back to Congreve with Lucas when Edwin goes away. There are so many things to arrange there.”

“And when Edwin returns?”

“Naturally I shall be with my husband. I shall have to look after the little ones too. We haven’t discussed it in detail. Edwin will be join the King and his father and wait there for whatever is to happen. I shall go to Congreve to look after the little ones and you will come with me, Harriet.”

“It’s very simple really, is it not?” she said.

“Of course. You will stay with us ...” My voice trailed oft. The time would come when Edwin would take me to my new home. The family home. Matilda Eversleigh would be there and perhaps Charlotte. I knew that neither of them would want Harriet in their home.

Harriet was watching me, reading my thoughts.