Lament for a lost lover

I always enjoyed being with my family, although the children no longer gave way to wild expressions of joy to see me. Even Fenn no longer leaped round me and gave those great war whoops of pleasure. He was twelve years old now and beyond such childish matters. As for Dick, he was all but sixteen, fast growing in dignity, and Angie at thirteen was quite a young lady. Father embraced me warmly and I saw the anxious look in his eyes which was reflected in my mother’s. They both wanted to see me married and they would have approved of Geoffrey, I was sure. I toyed with the idea of confiding in her that I had had two proposals of marriage but decided against that. She would want to know how I felt about my two suitors and I couldn’t bear any probing at that time, even from her.

It was a merry party. Carleton was already in London, staying at the Eversleigh house in fashionable Clement’s Lane where we would join him. My parents would go to my father’s house, the gardens of which ran down to the river and which had been in his family’s possession since the days of Henry VIII.

In London we should be joined by Lucas and his new wife. I never saw my mother in such good spirits as she was when she could gather her family together. But I was never completely happy when my son was not with me, though Charlotte kept assuring me that in the care of Sally Nullens the boys were as safe as if we were there, and I had to accept this.

In due course we went to the service and there I had the pleasure of being presented to the King and Queen. I was fully aware of his charm, as indeed who could help being, and I liked his gentle Queen with the great, brooding, dark eyes. Poor woman, I was sorry for her if all the tales I heard of his infidelities were true, and I was inclined to believe that they were.

When we came out from the service Carleton was beside me and he pointed out Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine-a woman I instinctively disliked. Carleton laughed at me. “She is reckoned to be irresistible.”

“If I were a man I should find it the easiest thing in the world to resist her.”

“Ah, but then you are not a man and you are noted for your powers of resistance.

Look how you resist me.”

I left him and joined my father.

We all returned to Clement’s Lane, and later that day my family left for their own residence. That night at supper Uncle Toby suggested that we all go to the play on the following day. It was declared a good idea and I was excited at the possibility of seeing Harriet again, although I had heard no mention of her name. I think Carleton knew this, for he was watching me closely-So to the King’s House we went, and I was thrilled to be once ‘more in the playhouse and sit in the box and watch the life that went on below me. The gallants, the orange girls, the ladies in their masks and patches, and the exquisite gowns. There was much more order than there had been on the previous occasion, and when I commented on this, Carleton told me that playgoers had at last realized that they had come to the playhouse to see and hear a play and were becoming more and more interested in what was going on the stage than the trouble they could stir up among the audience.

So it seemed, for there was a hushed silence when the play began and no need this time for one of the players to step forward and ask for silence. The play was called The English Monsieur and it had been written by the Hon. James Howard, one of the Earl of Berkshire’s sons. His brothers also wrote for the stage, Carleton had told me as we rode to the theatre, and so did his brother-in-law John Dryden.

Uncle Toby said he had seen Dryden’s The Rival Ladies and found it very good. “And the fellow worked with Robert Howard on The Indian Queen. That was a fine play about Montezuma and most splendidly was it put on the stage. But give me a comedy. I look forward to tonight. There is one little actress who gives me great pleasure to watch.”

“I am sure Arabella will enjoy her acting too,” said Carleton smiling, and I wondered what innuendo there was behind that remark. For it was a fact that I always suspected that there was some hidden intent behind everything he did or said. “There will be a crowd at the playhouse tonight,” said Lord Eversleigh. “After having been closed for so long, people cannot wait to get back to them.”

“It was very necessary for them to be closed during the time of the plague,” I pointed out.

“Indeed, yes, but what a loss. So much to make up for.” The play began. I waited for Harriet to appear, but it was not Harriet who took the part of Lady Wealthy, the chief character in the play but a small woman, very pretty with great vitality and a gamine charm. She took the part of a rich widow who was courted by fortune-hunters and played with the idea of marrying, as they said, “well” and in the end cast aside such nonsense and married her true love.