The Love Child

“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?