Any Groom Will Do Read online

  Your mother’s letters demonstrate her very great affection for you, Cassin. I was careless in this regard, I fear, but my eyes are opened now. Our convenient marriage was a betrayal, in a way, of a hopeful and loving family. Even now, their confusion and disappointment is so clear. It is but another reason you struggled with the decision. For this, I am sorry.

  I can also add that, in the days and weeks since our wedding, I have come to regret the awkward and terse manner in which we parted ways. I could say more—my defenses and assumptions, et cetera, et cetera—but the truth is I evicted you from my bedroom . . . and when your intention had been only to review plans and logistical matters. Of course these were topics to which I had endeavored to restrict us all along. Here, too, I am sorry.

  I hope you and Mr. Stoker have found the mining to be speedy and effective (and tolerable). Certainly I would welcome a letter from you, if you have the opportunity to write us. As for this letter, please forgive the length and, if it offends you—the personal tone. I am sentimental, perhaps, on this day. Happy Christmas, Cassin.

  Sincerely,

  Lady Willow Caulder, the Countess of Cassin

  PS: By the time you read this, likely you will have learned of the circumstances of my friend Tessa St. Croix—now Tessa Chance. Yes, ’tis true; Tessa is expecting a child. I am not at leave to discuss the father of the baby, but you may be assured that he is no longer a consideration and has not been for many months. We do not expect to hear from him ever again, and good riddance. We will welcome a new baby here sometime in the month of May.

  I find myself quite without words to explain or justify Tessa’s condition to you, and it is my great hope that you can view both her secret and Mr. Chance’s revised future with some measure of compassion.

  Although loyalty to Tessa prevented me from discussing her condition with you at the time (Surrey, etc.), please believe me when I tell you that I was unaware that Tessa had not revealed her condition to Mr. Chance. Sabine and I were led to believe that he knew all along. Only after their wedding did Tessa tell us that she told him about the baby for the first time that very night.

  The deceit was unforgivable, although it appears that Mr. Chance has, God bless him, managed some manner of forgiveness. At the very least, he did not annul the marriage or flee England in a rage. Nor did he betray her to her family. The wild sort of amorousness of their courtship has now ceased, obviously, and I cannot speak to their plans for future contact. It has been very difficult to coax the details from Tessa all along, but she is heartbroken, that much is clear.

  I cannot think of more to say on the matter, except that we all had our own reasons for leaving Surrey, and Tessa’s was perhaps the most pressing, followed by Sabine’s. My reasons seem insignificant and almost selfish when compared to the dire circumstances of my friends, and yet . . . And yet I have realized my dream just the same, and oh how I relish it. It was always a reckless and outrageous scheme, Cassin, but please know that I never meant to go so far as to keep secrets from you. I will conclude here by simply saying that we are all so very grateful.

  ***

  Monday, 1 January 1831

  Bridgetown, Barbadoes

  British West Indies

  Dear Willow,

  I write to inform you that Stoker and I have arrived safely in Bridgeport, Barbadoes, a fortnight ago.

  We set to work almost immediately, taking rooms for ourselves and letting a small warehouse for the provisions we brought from home.

  Next, we set about hiring able-bodied men to work as our mining crew.

  The work, such that it is, will be hot, grueling, and monotonous. Wretched, in other words. But we intend to pay wages high enough to interest anyone willing to take on the work. Recruiting solid men who will work hard, keep out of fights, and won’t steal us blind is worth our time, we believe. Our goal is forty laborers, a cook and medic, and perhaps a few interpreters. (Between Stoker and me, we can manage French and some German. When Joseph arrives, he will add his fluency in Italian and Spanish. However, we’ll need a translator for Dutch, the West African dialect of Bajan, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Arabic, just to name a few.)

  Because our island can only be reached by a half-day’s sail from Barbadoes, any man we hire must also commit to make camp at the mining site for seven days at a stretch. After seven days of work, we will return the men for a two-day furlough while we replenish supplies. The island (which we have dubbed “New Pixham,” in honor of its patronesses) could not be more primitive.

  But I risk boring you with tedious detail. A shorter version of this explanation is this: The mining has not yet begun, but we are otherwise underway.

  Although the work is arduous, and life in the tropics is far removed from cool, predictable England, we remain optimistic about the venture and eager for what progress each new day will bring. We anxiously await the arrival of Joseph, however useless he may be, considering what is surely malaise-inducing lovesickness. He was very caught up, he and Miss St. Croix, when we left, and marrying her could have only accelerated this condition. I regret that I could not attend what was surely the wedding of the century. I am still in disbelief that their pairing became a love match.

  It feels imprudent to add the next bit, but I shall do it anyway. How often I think of you, Willow. I hope you are safe in London, that you are happy and well. I hope the city is all you dreamed it would be. I hope that you enjoyed a warm and spirited Christmas with your aunt and friends, and that you were not lonesome for Surrey or . . .

  I hope that you are never lonesome for anything.

  And finally, I hope that if (and when) your thoughts turn to me, they are not bitter or regretful. The more I think of the weeks before we set sail, the more I see my own selfishness. For this, I am deeply sorry.

  Certainly I would welcome some brief word about how you are getting on . . . if you have the time.

  Sincerely,

  Brent Caulder, the Earl of Cassin

  ***

  15 January 1831

  No. 43 Wilton Crescent

  Belgrave Square

  London, England

  Dear Cassin,

  Pray forgive a second letter so quickly on the heels of the last, but I felt it would be prudent to inform you that your uncle, Mr. Archibald Caulder, has called on me in my aunt’s home. Three times, in fact. Do not be alarmed; we have managed him, but the letters I receive from your mother suggest that he is badgering your family in Yorkshire as well. I could but write with this news.

  The circumstances of his visit(s) were as follows: I was out of the house on the occasion of his first two calls (thank God), touring new construction with my aunt and uncle. He left his card with staff. His third call, however, caught us unprepared. He discerned from a careless butler that I was at home and demanded to be seen. I saw no way to get around receiving him.

  Based on your own descriptions of Mr. Caulder, I believe I can say without offense that he is a wholly unpleasant person. His voice alone unsettled our otherwise quiet household; the length of his stories; the rap of his cane on my aunt’s marble floor—jarring, all, and this says nothing of the tediousness of the topics he addressed.

  He presented me with a belated wedding gift, which he insisted I unbox while he watched and over which I was clearly expected to gush. (A pair of ceramic ostriches with jewel-encrusted beaks; see sketch below; I could not resist.)

  After we praised the ostriches at length, he embarked on a treatise about the great profitability of coal mining. It was a topic so randomly selected (and yet also so pointed directly at you) that I could but nod. Next he described what he had eaten for breakfast and luncheon in detail and then ticked off the names of his sons, their wives, their children, and homes.

  Honestly, I could not discern a purpose for his visit other than to make my introduction (the stated reason) and otherwise appraise some potential in me (unstated). Potential in what, I cannot guess. He asked direct questions about my family, my life in London, you, your
business in Barbadoes, your mother and brother and sisters, and what I knew of Caldera.

  Never fear, I was as discreet as possible, walking the fine line between vagueness and ignorance. He left here with little if no new information other than the personal introduction to me and whatever his shrewd scrutiny of my aunt’s drawing room may have provided.

  I can only hope I have dealt with him correctly. I have instructed the staff to turn him away, should he ever call again, and Perry has cleverly fashioned the ceramic ostriches into small planters for two indoor ferns that she is cultivating. I am quite fond of them now, actually.

  If you have further instructions regarding Mr. Caulder, please advise.

  Oh, but Cassin? Please do not worry. Distressing you was not my purpose in writing. I am unharmed and unfazed. The meeting left me little more than annoyed, although I do take offense at his keen interest in your business matters and in Caldera.

  In closing, I hope your progress is brisk and your health is well. Time and distance emboldens me, I suppose, and so I shall raise my “suggestion” that you write me to a “request” that you do so. Please send some word, if you have the opportunity. I hope that you are remembering all that you see and hear so that you may, assuming our reunion permits this sort of thing, relay it to me.

  As for me, we continue to devour all that London has to offer. My aunt has promised to take us to Vauxhall Gardens before Tessa’s confinement. We are counting the days.

  Warmly,

  Willow

  ***

  Sunday, 30 January 1831

  Island of New Pixham

  via Bridgetown, Barbadoes

  British West Indies

  Dear Willow,

  I am writing you from the dim interior of my rattling shanty tent on the wind-whipped isle of New Pixham. The persistent island gales, although far less noticeable in the baking heat of the day, make it nearly impossible to sustain candlelight, even with a glass lantern, but I persist.

  We have only just returned from our furlough to Bridgetown (a weekly sailing that I have timed to the arrival of the mail packet from Falmouth), and beside me on my trunk is your letter dated Christmas Day.

  I am gratified to learn that you are safe and contented. My visit with your aunt and uncle in November assured me that they would welcome you in every way.

  Thank you for writing to my mother and sisters. Judging by the sheer number of letters I, myself, receive from Yorkshire, my mother must put pen to paper twice daily. Any correspondence diverted to London is a welcome respite.

  As you noted, Christmas has come and gone, but I can relate that Stoker and I celebrated the holiday in high style, taking a full meal in an actual tavern. Quite a switch from our miserly practice of buying produce from market stalls and eating in the warehouse. We were surrounded at the tavern by inebriated sailors (inebriated sailors are our constant companions in the Caribbean). While we ate, the owner’s pet iguanas, which are lizards larger and more prodigious than your mother’s dogs, prowled the sandy floor at our feet.

  Thank you for your willingness to receive letters from me. I shall endeavor to be less prolific than my mother, although no written description, long or short, can do justice to the challenges we face on New Pixham.

  The island is small, measuring little more than a mile in every direction, an easy thirty-minute walk from one side to the other. Its topography, assuming it bears any distinctions beyond sandy flatness, is entirely obscured by the great, hardened heap of guano, which rises like a large bluff, two hundred feet into the sky.

  In its current state, the bluff is as hard as rock, and the top is too steep to climb. This means it is also impossible to get at it with an ax. So our first orders of business have been to discover (1) how to ascend the bloody thing, (2) how to safely work at the top, and (3) how to remove the guano we chip away without losing half of it to the wind or the sea.

  The first week we spent on the island was devoted to studying these problems and then ultimately constructing a network of scaffolding and chutes.

  Now we dig terraces up the side of the bluff, working the full detachment of hired men including Joseph, Stoker, and me. The lot of us—forty-five in all—swing the axes from sunrise until sunset. (And yes, I see the irony of sealing mines on my own Yorkshire estate only to become a miner myself halfway across the world, perhaps the first ever nobleman to have done so.)

  Certainly I am the only earl to mine bird excrement. Doubtful this is an irony my tenants would enjoy, nor should they, but when I write to Caldera, I have new insights and sympathies that my brother might pass along to them. If nothing else, I hope they can see that I am trying. I did not seal the mines and leave them to struggle without making considerable effort to provide some other, safer way.

  And now comes the portion of this letter where I risk both my pride and your impression of me, if ever it was positive. You’ll indulge me, I hope, as I’ve little else to occupy me here but thoughts of you.

  You are always on my mind, Willow. Constantly, it seems. The memory of you is with me in the heat of the day, when my arms are so tired I cannot lift the ax again, when my hands bleed through my gloves. And you are with me in the night, when I am alone outside my pathetic tent, staring up at an endless sky, frosted with endless stars.

  I entertain myself by guessing what you might be doing in that exact moment. Your impression of London, as described in the Christmas letter, captured the spirit of a great explorer, and I have read it more times than I can count. Looking back, I think how I might have—how I should have—remained in London, even for one day, to accompany you on one turn ’round Mayfair or Hyde Park. The blind rush was my loss, obviously, as you have clearly made your own way (a triumph I never doubted), but I am jealous of your friends. They share with you the pleasure of discovery; they know the delight of turning the corner and seeing some unexpected tableau, distinctly, timelessly London, and yet so new to you. I wonder what you have made of the British Museum. Of Green Park, which is my favorite park, the green openness most like Yorkshire. Have you seen the new London Zoo or London Bridge?

  For all my loyalty to Yorkshire, I have always quite enjoyed London. My father made it a priority to convey the family there several times every year. We did not visit enough to justify a residence, but enough that I could confidently orient the city by the time I traveled there as a student in university.

  But I digress. I hope your next letter brings further details about your explorations of the city and continued delight.

  On the topic of Tessa St. Croix, now Mrs. Tessa Chance, I, too, find myself at a loss for words. Joseph was in a very bad way when he arrived in Barbadoes after the wedding. Angry for the deceit, disheartened, frustrated with his prospects for the future. Worried. I must confess it is an upset (if not an anger) I share; I am loyal too, after all.

  Stoker and I are not accustomed to quiet sullenness from Joseph; he has been irrepressibly cheerful, one might say annoyingly cheerful, since our first meeting in university, some fifteen years ago. It is alarming and worrisome to see him so detached and angry and unforthcoming. He refuses to discuss the circumstance of Tessa’s condition and will only say he learned of her secret on the night of their wedding. He was taken completely by surprise—we all were.

  I appreciate that you addressed the topic in your letter. I believe you when you say that you were never apprised of what Joseph did and did not know. I understand your loyalty and your discretion. It is a very delicate situation indeed. I am responsible for three sisters, and I shudder to think of one of them in Tessa’s condition, although I pray God that my sisters would come to me rather than marry a stranger. It does not appear that this was an option for Tessa in her own family, and how lucky she is that the stranger she married was Joseph Chance.

  Although Joseph’s life has been forever changed, I am, in no way, surprised that he did not abandon her when her secret was revealed. He has not intimated as much to me, but I have every confidence that he will prov
ide for her and the child. He is a gentleman of the highest order.

  I conclude by saying that we said all along the scheme was outrageous. And yet you seem to be happy in London, the mining has become a reality, and my estate in Yorkshire survives the winter because of you.

  So much good, I have come to think, has happened because of you.

  If I sound selfish and unconcerned about my friend or your friend, perhaps I am, in a manner. You have made me that way and for the first time in my life, perhaps. And I don’t regret it.

  But I may regret speaking so freely here, so I shall close.

  Warmly,

  Your husband, Brent Caulder

  ***

  1 February 1831

  No. 43 Wilton Crescent

  Belgrave Square

  London, England

  Dear Cassin,

  Your letter of 1 January arrived yesterday, a day so cold and wet I could scarcely tear myself from the fire. I did not expect a letter—I have not known what to expect from you—but it was a welcome bright spot in a truly abysmal day. How grateful and cheered I am to hear from you.

  I read parts of the letter out to the girls. We eagerly await more news and to learn how goes the mining when you are underway. (And we wholeheartedly approve of the name of the island!)

  We are all still quite well here in Belgravia, having settled into a daily routine with purpose for us all. After breakfast together with Aunt Mary and Uncle Arthur, Tessa and Sabine discover some diversion in the city—shopping or gardens or tea in a cafe—while I join my aunt and uncle on morning calls to homes under construction or newly completed. The pace of new-home construction in Belgravia is maddening, with entire blocks of lavish residences put up as fast as workers can build them. The master builder even fires his own bricks out of the mud excavated from the very marshland drained to build Belgravia itself. But I digress.