The Love Child by Victoria Holt

Author:Victoria Holt [Holt, Victoria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780399123023
Publisher: Putnam
Published: 1978-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

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152

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 153

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.

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