“And what of Grasslands?”
“I shall sell it.”
I was thinking it strange how there seemed no lasting luck in either Grasslands Manor or Enderby Hall. I wondered if there was such a thing as ill fortune, for these houses seemed to have incurred the wrath of fate. Even the Willerbys had not escaped, though at one time they had been very happy. Then Thomas’s wife had died giving birth to young Christabel. It was all very sad.
“Yes,” he said. “It may be that your parents will give me a hand with the selling. I don’t want to wait here … now I have the new house.”
“We shall all be delighted to show people round it. Have you spoken to my father yet?”
“No, I was waiting until your mother came back. Now she is coming. That is good news. Less happy news at Court.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, the King has broken his collarbone.”
“That is not very serious, is it?”
“I heard he has been ill for some time,” said young Thomas. “He was riding from Kensington to Hampton Court when he was thrown from his horse. The horse caught his foot in a molehill, they say. It didn’t seem much at the time.”
His father put in: “I hear the Jacobites are drinking to the Little Gentleman in Black Velvet, meaning the mole who in making his hill has done the country a service.”
“It seems a pity that they must be so pleased about an accident. What of the horse? Was it badly hurt?”
“Now that I didn’t hear. I suppose they thought it wasn’t important.”
While we were drinking the wine another visitor arrived. It was my uncle Carl from Eversleigh. He was in the army and home on leave.
“Oh, hello, Dammee,” he said. He was very jovial, Uncle Carl, and thought it amusing to make a joke of my name, which he knew irritated my mother. “There’s news. The King is dead.”
“I thought it was just his collarbone,” said Tom Willerby.
“He had several fits apparently, and he has been trying to keep his weakness a secret from the people for some time. He died at eight o’clock this morning.”
“There will be excitement across the water,” said Thomas Willerby.
“Among the Jacobites, yes. They haven’t a chance. Anne was proclaimed Queen this very day. Let’s drink to the new reign, eh?”
So our glasses were filled and we drank to our new sovereign: Queen Anne.
The Eversleighs had always had close connections with the court. My grandfather Carleton Eversleigh had been a great friend of Charles the Second. After he had been involved in the Monmouth Rebellion he had fallen out of favor with James, of course, and although William and Mary had received him, he had never been on the same terms with them as he had with Charles. However, that we should go to London for the coronation was taken for granted and we made ready.
It was now April. Carlotta’s baby was two months old and she was not going to London this time. Harriet was not either. It must have been one of the first times she had missed a royal function, but I suppose even she was beginning to feel her age. She was several years older than my grandmother.
Nevertheless it was quite a big party that set out from Eversleigh. My grandparents, my parents, Uncle Carl and myself.
“Dammee,” said Uncle Carl, “it’ll be good for you to see a bit of life.”
“She is young yet, Carl,” said my mother, “and her name is Damaris.”
“Very well, sister,” retorted Uncle Carl. “She is as yet a babe in arms and I’ll remember not to call little Dammee Dammee.”
My mother clicked her tongue impatiently but she was not annoyed. There was something very lovable about Uncle Carl. He was several years younger than she was and sometimes she talked about the old days and then she told me how their father had doted on Carl while he hardly seemed aware of her.
“There came a time when things changed,” she said once, and there was a note in her voice which made me want her to tell me more; but when I asked she shut her lips tightly together and wouldn’t say a word more on the subject. Secrets, I thought. Family secrets. I should probably know them one day.
Well now we were going to London and there was all the fun of setting out. If Edwin had been home, as a peer of the realm, he would have played a big part in the ceremony. My grandmother regretted that he was away on foreign service. However, we were determined to make a jolly time of it.
“If you can’t rejoice at coronations, when can you?” said my grandfather. “You have a new monarch and you can with a good conscience delude yourself into thinking all will live happily ever after. So let us all enjoy our coronation.”
We were in high spirits as we set out. The family and six servants. We had three saddle horses, for we should need special clothes if we were to go to Court.
I was watching out for birds. I knew where to look for them—willow warbler in the open country, tree pipit always where there were trees and turtle doves in the woods. I loved to hear their joyous singing at this time of the year. They were so happy because the winter was over.
I told my mother that it made me feel happy just to hear them.
She gave me her warm approving smile. Later I heard her say softly to my grandmother, “Damaris will never give me one moment’s cause for anxiety, I am sure.”
And my grandmother replied: “Not of her own free will, Priscilla, but sometimes disaster strikes from unexpected quarters.”
“You are in a strange mood today, mother.”
“Yes,” said my grandmother, “I think it’s because we’re all riding to London. It makes me think of the time when Carlotta eloped.”
“Oh, how thankful I am that is all over.”
“Yes, she is safe with Benjie.”
“And now this child. A baby will sober even Carlotta.”
They lapsed into a comfortable silence and in due course the grey walls of the Tower of London came into sight. We were almost at the end of our journey.
It was always exciting to arrive in London. The streets were teeming with life; there was noise and bustle everywhere; I had never seen so many people as I saw in London—all sorts of people, all different, all, I imagined, leading the sort of lives we of the country could only guess at. There were gentlemen in exaggeratedly elegant garments flashing with what could have been real jewels but might well have been imitation; ladies patched and powdered; vendors of all kinds of objects and apprentices standing at the doors of the shops calling out to passersby to buy their wares. There was the excitement of the river, which was always crowded with craft of all kinds. I could never tire of watching the watermen shouting for customers with the cry of “Next oars” and piloting their passengers from bank to bank and taking them for pleasure trips past the splendours of Westminster to beyond the Tower. I liked the songs they sang; and when they were not singing they were shouting abuse at each other. My mother had never wanted me to use the river. I had heard her say that people forgot their manners and breeding when they stepped into a boat, and even members of the nobility assumed a coarseness which would not have been acceptable to polite company ashore.
Although Carlotta would have called me rather slightingly a country girl, I could not help but be fascinated by the London scene. There was so much to see which we never saw in the country. The coaches which rattled through the streets containing imperious ladies and gentlemen so sumptuously attired fascinated me as did the street shows. One could see Punch and Judy in a booth at Charing Cross; and along Cheapside there were knife swallowers and conjurors and their tricks for the delight of passersby. There were giants and dwarfs performing all sorts of wonders; and the ballad sellers would sing their wares in raucous voices while some pie man would shout to you to come and test his mutton.