Chapter 6 Winter
T hey had barely returned to Atherton Park when the Duchess received news that her brother was unwell and decided to attend him, setting off again for Derbyshire with Celine and two of the footmen.
“You will have to have a small Christmas,” she said before leaving. “I had hoped to hold some dinners for our local acquaintances, but I will not expect you to do so without me. The servants’ ball, however, must go ahead. It is traditional, and the staff will be disappointed if it is not held. Mr Wilson will arrange everything; you need only show your faces for a dance or two.”
Maggie watched the Duchess’ carriage depart, and her spirits rose for the first time in months. She had not realised how much she had been crushed by her constantly disappointed or coldly watchful presence.
The weather turned savagely cold in the two days before Christmas Day, and heavy snow fell. Maggie was awakened not by the ever-attendant Jane but by Edward, who bounded into her room, dressed in a thick cape and boots. “Come, Maggie! A snowball fight before breakfast, what say you?”
She laughed at his wild enthusiasm, the lightness that his mother’s absence had created. “Out of my bedroom this moment, I am not even dressed!”
“Be quick about it,” he said, tugging on the bell-pull for all he was worth, so that a frightened Jane came panting into the room moments later, having run all the way from the basement.
They waded out through the knee-high snow and threw snowballs at one another before retreating to the drawing room for breakfast.
“We will toast our own bread,” said Edward, dismissing the footman.
He knelt before the fire and scorched their toast a few times until he improved, while Maggie poured hot chocolate. Curled up on sofas opposite one another, they ate and drank and talked, not of any of the past few months but instead of Merlin and Lacey, of whether it would snow even more, of what food might be served at the servants’ ball and with whom they should dance.
Edward seemed to mind the cold even less than Maggie. She retreated to the drawing room, where she sat watching him out of the window as he spoke with the gardeners about a new layout he had in mind. It was good to see him having his own ideas for Atherton Park. When he returned to the drawing room he called for his steward.
“Mr Wilson, as there are only two of us, the servants’ ball can be held the evening of Christmas Day, we will not mind having a tray for dinner. And spare no expense, make it the best ball you have ever had.”
On Christmas Day they opened gifts. The Duchess had left a book on politics for Edward and Fordyce’s Sermons for Maggie, which they made no comment on, only set aside.
Maggie had embroidered slippers for the Duchess and Edward had bought her perfume from Floris, but both gifts had gone with her to her brother’s house.
“My gift for you, Maggie,” said Edward, passing her a small wooden box, elegantly carved.
She opened it to find a string of coral beads, a fashionable item for young women to wear with white muslin dresses in the summers.
“Thank you, Edward, it is very pretty.”
He stood to fasten it about her neck, his fingers warm against her skin.
“These are for you.” She had embroidered half a dozen handkerchiefs for him, not only with his initials but with trailing ivy stems and tiny, barely-there frogs, all in white silk, so that they could only be seen up close.
He laughed at the tiny frogs, tracing their shapes with one fingertip. “What fine needlework. Thank you.”
The servants’ ball took Maggie by surprise. The ballroom was radiant with boughs of greenery and red ribbons, tables groaned with food in the adjacent dining room and over two hundred men and women, dressed in their best, were unrecognisable from their daily roles. Maggie wore a green silk dress and she and Edward entered the ballroom to a round of applause, after which Edward made his way to the housekeeper Mrs Russ and bowed, and Maggie curtseyed to Jenkins the butler, the two couples leading the first dance. They danced another four dances until they were exhausted, for these were no stately dances, but hand-clapping whirling country dances, which left Maggie panting and holding her side.
“And now we will leave you, so that you can really enjoy the evening,” announced Edward after proposing a toast to them all.
“Three cheers for His Grace!” called out Joseph and the cheers rang out loudly as they waved goodbye and left the ballroom, making their way back to the main house.
“Wait, Maggie.”
She turned on the stairs to find Edward following her. “Yes?”
“I have something for you.” He held out a little package, wrapped in paper.
“You already gave me a gift.”
“This was the one I really wanted to give you, but I thought Mother might not approve.”
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
She unfolded the paper and found a gold locket. She opened it and gazed in wonder at the miniature of Edward inside. The painter had caught the vivid blue of his eyes and his gentle expression, even on such a tiny scale. “Edward. It is… it is lovely.”
“I wanted to give you something to remember me by.”
Her throat tightened. “I will never forget you, Edward,” she said, her voice low. “I do not need a portrait of you for that. I gave you those handkerchiefs to remind you of Ivy Cottage. Should you ever find yourself there again, know that I would come to you at once, if you found a way to send me word, wherever I may be. But I will treasure this. Thank you.”
He nodded. It seemed as though he might be about to say something more, but then only nodded again and went back down the stairs, disappearing into the drawing room while Maggie stood and watched him, the gold locket clasped in her hand. Once in her room she put it carefully away in the tiny drawer of the necessaire .
The Duchess was delayed at her brother’s for a further two weeks due to the heavy snowfall and they passed their days mostly indoors, singing, reading to one another, occasionally tramping down to the stables through the thick snow to pat the horses and feed them apples.
“If only life could always be like this,” said Edward one day, when Maggie was in the middle of reading aloud to him.
She glanced up from the book. “Like what?”
He gestured at the room, the two of them. “This. We are free to do as we wish, we are happy. I have not had a nightmare for three weeks, have you noticed?’
She had. “Your life can be like this, Edward,” she said, closing the book and leaning forward.
“Not with my mother and Doctor Morrison waiting for me to fail.”
“You are the Duke of Buckingham,” she reminded him. “Your mother could move into the Dower House and leave you to manage things as you saw fit.” She tried not to think of what she had overheard, that the doctor might consider locking Edward in the Dower House.
“She will only do that if I marry.”
“You will find a good wife,” she said, trying to sound as though there were no doubt in the matter. “I am sure of it.”
He gazed out of the window. “I hope I find one with whom I can be as happy as we have been these last few weeks.”
Their quiet happiness was shortlived. By the end of January, the Duchess had returned and deemed that, no matter how bad the roads, it was time to travel to London. The journey was made in the savagely cold weather that had now descended over the country. The carriage was full of woollen blankets and fur wraps, footwarmers filled with hot coals had been placed at their feet, all of them were wearing so many layers of clothing that their outer coats would barely fit over the top. Both Maggie and the Duchess used their giant fur muffs and at every coaching inn they all huddled around the blazing fires drinking cups of hot soup, desperate to feel warmth. Even in the well-appointed private bedchambers they occupied for the night, Maggie had to add her furs and wraps to the covers provided and wear her coat over her nightdress.
“I have never known such cold,” said Celine, her teeth chattering as she helped Maggie dress.
“Are you all warm enough in the servants’ carriage?” asked Maggie, concerned.
“There are enough of us in the carriage to huddle together,” said Celine. “It is the best heat, to be close to another person.”
Maggie, who sat opposite Edward and the Duchess, could not imagine huddling together with the Duchess.
Atherton House was shrouded in a deep fog, but Maggie was grateful for the warmth and comforts provided. The servants were kept hard at work lighting and caring for more fires than usual to keep the rooms warm, and Maggie kept a shawl always wrapped about her.
“The fog does not seem to have abated,” said the Duchess to the housekeeper.
“It is still very bad, Your Grace, but it was worse. At Christmas it was so thick no-one dared venture out for fear of getting lost.”
“Let us hope it improves,” said the Duchess. “The season will be hard pressed to commence if no-one can go out of their houses for the cold and fog.”
Maggie woke very late. Her bedroom fire had already been lit, but she had not heard the maid. The room seemed darker than it should be, and when she pulled back the curtains to look out she stared in surprise, for the world outside had disappeared altogether into a thick fog, so dense that she could not even see into the centre of the square, could barely even see the railings and steps directly below her, by the front door. There was only a thick whiteness and an eerie silence, unlike the usual clip clop of hooves and the rolling of wheels. Maggie pressed her face against the glass but could still see nothing at all.
“No-one can go out today,” reported back Joseph when she came to breakfast. “Coachmen are walking their coaches if they must take them out, with lanterns. It is like night-time out there.”
They spent three days in thick fog, which eventually cleared but the weather remained misty, the cold still bitter. There was nothing to do but spend time at home, reading, sewing, writing. Some of their meals became less elaborate, for it was difficult to get reliable supplies.
When Maggie awoke on the first of February, for a moment she thought she was back at the Hospital, where winters had been cold, and they sometimes had to break the ice in their washbasins before they could wash their faces of a morning. But no, she was under the thick covers in the Willow Room, and a maid had scurried in and was on her knees at the fireplace.
“Sorry to be late, Miss, we had to light more fires than usual, what with the snow.” The maid hurriedly got the fire going and jumped up as Celine entered the room.
“You should have lit Miss Seton’s fire earlier,” she scolded.
“Sorry, Duval,” said the girl, scampering from the room.
“More snow,” exclaimed Celine, opening the curtains. “But the fog has lifted, at least.”
Maggie climbed out of bed, bringing a whole blanket with her, wrapped about her nightdress. She stood with Celine at the window and gazed out over the square, which looked entirely different, carpeted in thick pristine snow over every part of the gardens and houses.
“Up to your knees,” said Celine. “It’ll take most of the morning for the streets to be clear. They say the Thames has frozen over. There might even be a frost fair if it holds. There hasn’t been a big one for twenty-five years.”
“What’s a frost fair?”
“Skating and all sorts, on the Thames.”
“That can’t be safe!”
“It is if it freezes solid. I’ve heard they even had fires on it, last time.”
“Fires on the ice?”
Celine nodded, moving to gather Maggie’s clothing for the day. Maggie was grateful to see not only a blue woollen dress but a thick shawl to go with it.
“If you go out later for a walk, wear furs and take your muff.”
Bundled up in layers of clothes, Maggie and Edward stepped out into a world transformed. Everywhere was white and the air so cold it was hard to breathe. But wrapped in her warm woollen dress and thick furs, her boots and a vast muff, Maggie felt oddly warm.
“Except my nose and lips,” she said to Edward. “They feel like they’re going to entirely freeze, and I shall have a face made of ice.”
He stopped at once and turned to her, removed his gloves and placed his warm hands on her cheeks. “Better?”
She felt a sudden rush of warmth to her neck and cheeks that had nothing to do with how warm his hands were. It was so intimate, Edward standing so close to her, his skin touching hers, somehow different from the night-times when she would lay her hand against his skin, to calm him from his bad dreams. “Y-yes,” she managed.
He took his hands away again, the rush of cold air replacing his warmth immediately. “Tell me when you need me again,” he said. “Take my arm. We don’t want to slip and fall on this icy street.”
She took his arm, enjoying the warmth of his body next to hers.
“There,” said Edward as they came to the river’s edge, large railings marking the end of the pavement, set well above the water’s edge.
Maggie stared down. The Thames, usually so fast flowing and a dark murky colour, was now entirely still and covered with snow, turning it from a moving river into a sparkling winter wonderland. Already there were gaily coloured tents set up at various points and people hurrying about setting up more, walking where before they would have drowned.
“What are they all doing?”
“Setting up the Frost Fair. Shall we go? They will have all sorts of merriments for us to enjoy.”
She was still amazed by the sight below them. How could it be possible to walk on the ice without fear? “How thick is it?”
“I’m not sure. They say thick enough for hundreds, perhaps thousands of people to go out on it, all together. I even heard there’s to be an elephant.”
“An elephant? On the ice?”
He nodded, grinning. “Shall we go to see it tomorrow?”
“What if the ice breaks and the poor creature drowns?”
“They wouldn’t take it out unless they were certain it was safe.”
The next day they ventured out to explore the Frost Fair, Maggie holding tight to Edward’s arm, the ground beneath them so slippery it was hard to stay upright.
“Penny for the plank, sir.”
Edward paid a boy two pennies so that they could descend from the shore down onto the ice on wooden boards, laid there to make the descent safer and cleaner.
“He’ll want two more to let us off the ice again,” said Maggie. She knew the pennies the boy would earn today would be food in his belly, perhaps a little money for his family.
“He will,” said Edward jovially. “I don’t begrudge him it,” he added. “He’s a smart boy to have thought of it, and after all, otherwise we’d have been trying to climb down and landed poorly, you know it.”
“Like the time I knocked you over with a snowball?”
“You dare bring that up again? Are you not afraid I will seek my revenge?”
Maggie giggled. “Are you not afraid I will only win again?”
Edward held out his hand to help her down the last part of the plank and onto the ice. She stepped out tentatively, afraid, still, that it would break beneath her even though it was obvious from the sight ahead of them that it was unlikely. If the ice could hold carriages with horses, tents, and several hundred people already enjoying the novelty, it should be safe for two more.
The first tents and stalls had created a shopping avenue of sorts, while latecomers had pitched more sporadically about the giant field of ice.
Walking along the avenue, Maggie was surprised by the variety of food and drink. There were stalls for tea, coffee or hot chocolate, the latter heavily spiced and sugared, as well as every kind of gin and ale, from Wormwood Purl to Brunswick Mum. Thick sandwiches of roast beef or mutton were wrapped in raw cabbage leaves to keep customers’ hands clean while they ate. There were baked apples and gingerbread, shaped as hearts or snowflakes, stands with toys, books or pieces of jewellery shaped from cut steel.
There were drinking and dancing tents, from which lively fiddle music leaked out and into which various men disappeared, often walking less steadily when they emerged or with a woman on their arm who had not accompanied them there. Further out on the ice two large structures had been built out of wooden poles. They held up swings ridden by giggling girls, pushed by their admiring beaus, often soldiers, dashing in their red cloaks. Nearby there were skittles, with eager groups of men and women playing. Sledges topped with miniature sails as though they were ships were available for the children, who climbed onboard and were dragged about the ice by older boys, charging a penny a ride.
“What are they?” asked Maggie, seeing a dozen or so stalls that were handing out paper leaflets.
“Printing presses,” said Edward, heading towards one.
The printing presses were producing commemorative poems. They read a few before Edward bought them both printed slips, which declared:
Amidst the Arts which on the Thames appear,
To tell the wonders of this icy year,
Printing claims prior place, which at one view,
Erects monument of THAT and YOU.
Printed on the River Thames,
February 4,
in the 54th year of the reign of King George the III.
Anno Domini 1814.
One printer, a man named George Davis, had gone a step further, creating not just poems or amusing sayings but an entire book of one hundred and twenty-four pages: titled Frostiana; or A History of the River Thames In a Frozen State: and the Wonderful Effects of Frost, Snow, Ice, and Cold, in England, and in Different Parts of the World Interspersed with Various Amusing Anecdotes . He had typeset and printed the title page on the ice and the book itself promised a wide range of topics, from histories of extreme weather to Ice Palaces and Icebergs , information about how to save someone from drowning, as well as how to make a fruit ice-cream. Apprentices were busy hanging up copies of the title page to dry and Edward stopped by the stand and paid for a copy of the book to be sent to Atherton House, which address occasioned a great deal of bowing and scraping.
“We surely have to add that to the library,” said Edward as they strolled on, “since we were here in person to see it being made and experience its delights. Perhaps we can give the recipe to Mrs Barton, and she can make us an ice-cream to remember this day.”
He seemed happy and light-hearted, and it made Maggie’s spirits rise to see him like this, although she did wonder if, one day in the future, he would come across the book and think of her, think of the day they had spent laughing together in a strange white world so unlike their everyday life. Would he be married and safe with his family, perhaps have children? Or would he have been taken back to Ivy Cottage or elsewhere to live out his lonely days recollecting the few days of freedom he had ever known?
They waited to see the elephant, which plodded slowly across the ice, surrounded by crowds of wide-eyed spectators who broke into rapturous applause as it reached the other side in safety. Maggie watched in awe, she had never seen such a beast, towering above them all, its grey wrinkled skin and strangely dangling ears like no other creature she had ever seen.
“They say they can suck up water with their trunks and spray it at you,” said Edward. “A good thing all the water here is ice.”
“Buckingham!”
They turned to see Lord Comerford making his way towards them.
“Comerford,” said Edward with pleasure. “Are you here alone?”
He made a face. “I’m supposed to be meeting Lady Celia Follett, but I haven’t caught sight of her yet. Miss Seton,” he added, bowing.
“Lord Comerford.” Maggie curtseyed.
“I’ve seen the Godwins,” Lord Comerford said to Edward, as though imparting helpful information. “They’re over by the swings.”
“Thank you,” said Edward politely.
“Lady Follett is just there,” said Maggie. “In the red coat.”
“Ah yes,” said the earl. “Much obliged. Good day to you both.”
They nodded their farewells as he made his way towards the woman to whom he was supposedly engaged. Maggie wondered whether he was pleased to see her or felt any dread in being promised to the young woman. He had pointed out the Godwins and their daughter Miss Belmont, which made her wonder if the whole of the ton considered the alliance a done deal for Edward.
“You look doleful, are you too cold?”
Maggie startled out of her thoughts. “No, no, I am well,” she said, reluctant to spoil the adventure.
“Good,” he said. “I will buy you a hot chocolate to keep you warm and then we must seek out our turn at skittles.”
He made no mention of the swings. Was that omission on purpose or accidental? Was Edward deliberately avoiding the Godwins?
The sweetness of the hot chocolate, spiced with ginger and cinnamon, warmed Maggie’s hands and belly, turning her mind away from sad thoughts of the future and back to the glittering present. Everywhere was the smell of meat roasting on large braziers, from goose and mutton up to a vast ox.
“Is it wise to have so many fires?” Maggie asked.
“Who knows, but the ice seems thick enough still and the smell is making me hungry.”
“You are always hungry these days,” said Maggie, as they received thick slices of bread stuffed with roasted goose and pickled red cabbage. It amused her to see Edward eating something so inelegantly served after months of fine fare and delicate table manners at Atherton Park and Atherton House.
He grinned and took another large bite. “I think I must still be growing,” he said. “My tailor will be most displeased with me if all my coats become too tight.”
Maggie thought he could do with eating more, so she encouraged him to buy the hot baked apples and spiced and iced gingerbreads on offer. Some were in the shape of an elephant to commemorate its appearance on the ice, though the shape had clearly been carved by someone who had only seen one for a very brief glimpse, appearing like a large circle with the addition of an extended trunk.
“I can eat no more,” she finally protested.
The skittles reminded her of playing games at Ivy Cottage, the first time she had heard Edward laugh out loud. Watching him throw the ball, she contrasted how he had been then, a spindly fearful youth in labourer’s clothes, barely able to eat for fear of the purging to follow. Now, he was a handsome laughing young man, his cheeks flushed with the cold, dressed in the finest tailoring London could offer and sporting a fearsome appetite. Maggie offered up a silent prayer that he might always be this way, that no matter what the future held, he would at least be happy and healthy, that nothing and no one might take that away from him again and reduce him to helpless misery.
Back at the plank to shore they found a young man loitering nearby, dressed well enough but very much the worse for drink.
“Spare a penny for the plank, sir?” he asked Edward. “I’ve lost everything I had on me on the Wheel of Fortune.”
Edward paid his penny as well as theirs, slipping the little boy a few extra coins at Maggie’s whispered request.
“God bless you, sir,” said the drunken man, wandering off unsteadily.
“He should think twice about which stalls he frequents in future,” said Edward, shaking his head with a grin.
It was twilight by the time they returned to Atherton House, cold but happy, so well fed that they barely touched their dinner. The Duchess retired after only a short time in the drawing room.
“Will you play the pianoforte, Edward?” Maggie asked. It would be a perfect end to the day.
“Only if you will sing.”
She nodded and he sat at the pianoforte, rifled through some of the music and then pushed it away and began playing from memory the song they had sung together back at Ivy Cottage. She joined him in singing the first verse.
“Did you not hear my Lady
Go down the garden singing
Blackbird and thrush were silent
To hear the alleys ringing...”
“Although it is hardly the time for gardens,” Edward pointed out, pausing for a moment. “Perhaps we should change it.” He thought, then sang.
“Oh, saw you not my Lady
Walking at the frosty Fair
Shaming the glittering snow
For she is twice as fair.
Though I am nothing to her
Though she must rarely look at me
And though I could never woo her
I love her till I die.”
Maggie laughed. “And then?” She picked up the refrain.
“Surely you heard my Lady
Go through the snow lands singing
Silencing all the songbirds
And setting the sleighbells ringing...”
Edward responded,
“But surely you see my Lady
Dancing across the Thames
Rivalling the glittering icicles
With a glory of golden hair.”
“Such a fine composer,” she teased.
“It is easy with a pretty tune and such magical surroundings as we had today,” he replied. “And we sing well together, do we not?” His voice was warm, and Maggie wanted, for a moment, to bask in that warmth, to revel in the closeness that it implied, their natural affinity, their ease when they were together alone. But he was looking at her with eyebrows raised now, waiting for an answer.
“We do.” It was all that she could manage, but it was a feeble response for what she felt and perhaps he thought the same. A flicker of disappointment appeared and vanished again across his face, as though he had hoped for more.
“I like to hear you sing,” she tried again, wanting to give more, to show him that she shared his joy of the moment. “It makes me think you are happy.”
“I am happy when I am in your company,” he said but it sounded too much like the pale compliments handed out at every social occasion they had attended so far, without true meaning between them. They were both silent, uncertain of how to proceed, what response would be appropriate.
They were interrupted by Bartholomew the footman, asking if they wanted hot drinks.
Edward shook his head and Maggie likewise.
“I think that might be the servants’ way of encouraging us to retire for the night,” said Maggie with a small laugh when Bartholomew had disappeared.
Edward stood. “Probably,” he agreed. “In that case, may I offer you a candle to light your way upstairs?”
They each took a candlestick, the two small lights flickering as they made their way up the stairs. They paused on the landing by their respective doors.
“Good night, Edward,” she said, reaching for the door handle.
“Maggie?”
“Yes?”
“I am…” He hesitated.
“What is it?”
“I am glad we had this time together. Not just today.”
She nodded, her face serious. “So am I.”
He made her a small bow. “Goodnight, my lady.”
She curtseyed. “My lord,” and entered her room, but when she sat on the bed, she could hear him next door, still singing the song.
“Though I am nothing to her,
Though she must rarely look at me,
And though I could never woo her,
I love her till I die.”