Page 58 of A Marriage is Arranged

After the party at Avondale House, it seemed no time at all before the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury removed to the country for the summer. They were both glad to get out of London. Afterwards, they would both remember their time at Overshott as halcyon days. Louise loved the country home, with its lack of formality, the comfortable old furniture, its early dinnertime, and the long evenings to walk and talk with her husband. She loved the gardens, the hothouses, the home farm, the burgeoning wildlife, the old flowering bushes, the cats and the dogs.

Towards the end of August she began to feel sick in the mornings, her breasts were swollen and tender and she was grateful that the prevailing style was for dresses with no waist.

By the time they returned to London for the opening of the House in October, her pregnancy was past the initial phase. She felt extraordinarily well. Her sallow coloring was replaced by a pink bloom in her cheek and her hair, always abundant, shone like a bird’s wing. She commented on her improved appearance to her husband and his reply was characteristic.

“We’ll just have to keep you increasing all the time. I promise to work especially hard on that.”

The ton of course, wondered how the infant would turn out. The Earl was annoyed when he found out there were wagers in the clubs that her ladyship would give birth to a daughter with eyebrows like her Papa, but that was another secret he kept from his wife.

In the event, Louise gave birth to a boy who looked remarkably like his grandmother, the pretty blond lady whose portrait hung on the family dining room wall. But if his appearance was sweet, his character seemed quite the opposite. He filled the Shrewsbury townhouse with his strident demands for sustenance every two hours, day and night. He was only happy so long as he was being fed. Louise did not want to employ a wet nurse, but after a particularly difficult night she was so exhausted she was considering it.

“Give him porridge!” suggested her husband. “That’s what they gave me in China. I remember my mother saying I was constantly hungry when I was a baby and oats were one thing they recognized from back home. They boiled it up with milk and shoveled it into me. Look at the result.” He beat his broad chest.

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” said Louise, smiling tiredly. “Just a little, if we cut the oats up very fine and boil them well.”

This program was put into operation and the gods smiled on them. Young Christopher (he was named for his grandfather) ate as much as they would give him, then his mother nursed him asleep. He slept six hours. The household breathed a collective sigh of relief.

After that, he grew like an oak. It was obvious he was going to be just like his Papa, without the eyebrows. Then it became apparent that in spite of his angelic face, he had his Papa’s character, too. He was fiercely uncompromising. His favorite word was “No!”

But then Louise presented her husband with another son. He had his father’s nose and heavy brow and looked like a monkey when he was a baby. He was never handsome, but he overcame the burden of his eyebrows by being a smiling, amenable boy. Everyone loved him. He was as conciliating as his brother was argumentative. As they grew older, they were a perfect foil for each other and formed an unbreakable bond.

Finally Louise had a longed-for daughter, who turned into such a beautiful young woman her Papa said he should put her into a castle with a high wall and a moat to keep the suitors away. Christopher volunteered to patrol the perimeter. But since from the very first her mother had inculcated her with ideas of women’s equality, the lovely girl stoutly declared she was well able to look after herself. She certainly ruled the roost over both her brothers and her besotted father.

Motherhood suited Louise. From the moment her first suckling infant put his tiny hand up to her face and smiled at her around her nipple, she knew here was someone who would never think her plain. She was right. Her children thought her the most wonderful person in the world. Her drawings made them laugh, and when she accompanied them with comic voices matching the character, they rolled on the floor, crying, “More, Mama! More!”

Lady Esmé did get to hold all her great-grandchildren. She was immensely proud of them. According to her, they were the best-looking family in London.

“I knew you could do it,” she said to Gareth when she was a very old lady.

“Not without you, Gran,” he replied.

Out of habit she began to protest his use of the name she so disliked, but since, with the encouragement of their father, her great-grandchildren all called her Gran-Gran, she smiled.

“Very well. I give up. Gran it is.”

“It always was,” he said.

THE END