Lament for a lost lover

“Most effective, I grant you.”

“You are not pleased, Harriet?”

“Not pleased? What makes you think that? It is an excellent match. As good as any girl could make. If the King does go back to d and the Eversleighs regain their estates and more also, you’ll have a very rich husband. When did he ask you?”

’When we were in the tomb.”

“Not a very appropriate moment, surely.”

-It seemed just right,” I replied ecstatically.

“You are bemused,” she said.

“I am allowed to be happy on such a night, am I not?”

“Don’t hope for too much.”

“What’s the matter with you, Harriet?”

“I’m thinking of your happiness.”

“Then rejoice, for I have never been so happy in my life.” She kissed me lightly on the forehead. Then she stood back. “The cap was too tight for you,” she said. “It’s left a mark.”

“That’ll soon pass.”

I felt rather sorry for Harriet. She had so wanted to be Juliet tonight, and it was a pity, because I knew that for all the flattering compliments I had received, she would have done it so much better than I.

All next day I went about in a state of euphoria. I received congratulations, scarcely listening to them. I was carried off by Lady Eversleigh who kept impressing on me how delighted she was, and she told me that she was sending off a message to her husband and my parents that very day, so that they could share the good news. Would I like to write to Mother and Father and let them see how happy I was? I wrote to them both.

Dearest Mother and Father,

The most wonderful thing has happened. Edwin Eversleigh has asked me to marry him. I am so happy. Edwin is wonderful, so handsome, so kind and so merry. Everything is a joke with him. He’s hardly ever serious. We have had such tune playing Romeo and Juliet together-he, Romeo, I Juliet. He actually proposed during the death scene.

Do write to me soon and tell me that you are as happy about this as I am. I have no time for more, as the messenger is about to leave.

Your loving daughter Arabella Tolworthy.

The messenger left with the letters and Matilda Eversleigh kept me with her to talk to me and to tell me how well we should get on together. She was sure that the estates would soon be restored. The family mansion, Eversleigh Court, had not been destroyed by those dreadful Roundheads.

She would not let me go, though I was longing to be with Edwin, and at length when I did get away from her, I heard that Edwin had gone riding with several others it seemed. I went to my room. Harriet’s riding clothes were missing so she must have been one of the party.

It was late when they came back. Harriet seemed in very good spirits. Several of the guests were still staying on, and that night in the great hall the talk was all of the previous night’s entertainment and the betrothal announcement at the end of it.

The musicians played and we sang. Harriet enchanted everyone with her singing. Then we danced. Edwin and I led off the dancing together, and people watching us, I heard afterwards, said that they could have believed they were back at home and the trouble was over, the spoilers of our country vanquished and good King Charles upon the throne. “Did you enjoy your ride today?” I asked.

He hesitated only briefly. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “You were not with us,” he said. He said the most delightful things.

“So you missed me.”

“That, my dear Arabella, is what I would call an unnecessary question.”

“I should just like to know the answer.”

“I should miss you whenever you were not with me. I know you were with my mother and how much she wanted to talk to you so I was self-sacrificing. I shall have you for the rest of our lives.

“I didn’t know you were going riding or ...”

“You would have wanted to come. I knew, so I left you with my “I didn’t hear you all leave. I knew afterwards that Harriet had one “

“Oh, yes, Harriet,” he said.

“Poor Harriet. It was a blow to her not to play Juliet. She would have been perfect.”

“Different, yes,” he said. “But now we are together, let’s think of what’s to come.”

“I have thought of nothing else.”

“When we get back to England ... that will be the time! Then we can live naturally ... just as though that ridiculous war never happened. That’s what I am waiting for.”

“First, though, we have to get there. You have to go away soon.”

“That will not be for long. And then I shall come back and ever after we shall be together.”

One of the reasons I most enjoyed being with Edwin-apart from the fact that I was deeply in love with him-was that he carried one along on his ever-present optimism so that one believed in it as wholeheartedly as he did.

How happy I was during the days that followed.

Then something disturbing happened.

Charles Condey left. He pleaded urgent business, but I knew the real reason. The night before he left, Harriet told me that he had asked her to marry him. She watched me closely as she told me this. Harriet!” I cried. “Did you say yes?”

And even as I spoke I was thinking, Poor Charlotte.

She shook her head slowly.