Henry Beaumont was the only son of the 10th Earl of Dancingdean.
Henry
was a strong man, straight backed and powerful with a square jaw and chestnut
brown hair, a gifted scholar, sportsman and a natural horseman.
It
was early summer and Henry had just returned from Abbottsford University to
Dancingdean Hall, the family home overlooking Teardrop Lake.
His
lifelong friend, neighbour and fellow returnee Sebastian Blackburn lived next
door at Bridge House.
The
year was 1914 and they were on top of the world with a bright future ahead of
them and only 21 years behind them.
Little
did they know as they sailed on the picturesque waters of the lake that
glorious June, that their futures would start to unravel with the death of an
obscure minor royal of the Hapsburg dynasty on the 28th of that very
Month.
Sebastian
was destined for a career in his father’s bank and marriage to Lady Theresa
Edgson in the following year.
While
Henry was to be groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps, which would
culminate in his wearing the ermine in the House of Lords as the 11th
Earl of Dancingdean.
All
through the month of July they carried on with their lives, and the usual round
of social engagement totally oblivious to the treat of impending war.
Henry
even found time to fall in love.
The
object of his affections was Christine Turner a tall auburn haired girl with a
smiling freckled face, a sweet nature and a kind heart.
She
was three years older than him and she had been employed as his mother’s
companion for a year and a half.
And
he had been attracted to her for every single day of that year and a half but
she had always resisted his advances.
And
dismissed his feelings as mere infatuation but she filled his every waking
thought on his last year at University and when he was home it was her he
wanted to see first.
Christine
though was resolute in her opposition, month after month, even though she
shared his feelings.
But
on the balmy evening of the 3rd of July, when his father was staying
at his club and his mother had taken to her bed with the vapours, he kissed her
on the terrace and she reciprocated.
“We
shouldn’t be doing this” she said
“I
know” he whispered and kissed her again.
For
the remainder of that month he fulfilled all the social engagements he was
expected to attend so as not to arouse suspicion and then they would meet in
secret and snatch intimate moments wherever and whenever they could.
But
they told no one, because they could tell no one.
On
the first of August, the day on which Germany declared war on Russia, was also
the day that Henry made a declaration of his own.
It
was Christine’s day off and they had arranged a secret rendezvous up at Lovers
Leap, a rocky shelf that jutted out above the cliffs,
which were an extension of those that formed part of the northern side of
Teardrop Lake and formed the natural border between the Teardrop estate and the
Dancingdean Forest proper.
Lovers Leap was so called because it was where desperate and
broken hearted lovers would leap to their deaths although there was no evidence
that anyone actually had.
It was just a promontory that offered a stunning view, but it was a very rainy day so they met at
Dancingdean Folly instead.
The Folly was built by the 8th
Earl of Dancingdean who had it erected for himself, in the style of a Castle
Keep.
He was always prone to delusions of
Grandeur.
He had it erected on top of a hill and
then had the surrounding Forest cleared so everyone for miles around could see
his standard flying high from the turret.
The
scene was very different almost a hundred years later as the forest had begun
encroaching on the cleared land.
Henry
got there first and immediately took shelter and then waited anxiously in the
doorway for Christine to arrive.
He
had been up there for almost an hour and he was just beginning to think she
wasn’t coming when she appeared, running through the trees and straight into
his arms.
“I
thought you weren’t coming” he said
“Sorry
darling, your mother was being difficult” Christine explained and then she kissed
him.
She
and Henry ate their picnic sat on a tartan rug in the old Folly looking out at
the rain.
When
they had finished Henry refilled their glasses with champagne and as he raised
his glass in a toast he said
“Christine
Turner, will you marry me?”
Henry
waited expectantly for her answer but she looked down at the ground and said
nothing.
“I’m
not joking” he said “I love you and I want to marry you”
“I
love you too” she said “but I can’t marry you”
“Why
not?” he asked
“Because
you’re the next in line to the title and I’m a Lady’s companion” she explained
“But
I don’t care about that” Henry said taking her hand
“But
your father will, and your mother will, and so will all your friends” she said
“I
don’t want the title” he said “I only want you”
“But
what will we live on and where will we live?” Christine asked
“I
have some money left to me by grandfather and a small house in Abbottsford”
He
explained but she was still unmoved
“Its
madness” she said “you will be throwing away your future”
“I
have no future if it doesn’t include you” he said earnestly
She
thought for a moment then held his hand to her lips and said “Yes”
They
couldn’t tell anyone, Henry couldn’t even tell his best friend Sebastian, they
just continued to meet in secret and bide their time.
But
time was not a commodity they had in abundance.
A
point that was heavily underlined when Germany invaded Belgium and Britain
declared war.
Henry
was not a soldier either by nature or profession, he was a pacifist by ideology
and content to be so.
However
he and Sebastian enlisted at the earliest opportunity and joined the Downshire
Light Infantry.
They
were both commissioned as Lieutenants and reported immediately to the camp at
Nettlefield.
Henry
and Christine saw little of each other over the coming weeks and had to conduct
their love affair via the mail.
Their
engagement remained a secret and she had to wear her engagement ring on a chain
about her neck.
Which
she would kiss each night before she slept.
The
training at Nettlefield was intense and rigorous and was completed in under six
weeks and when the boys returned home on their pre-embarkation leave they were
resplendent in their uniforms.
When
they presented themselves to their respective fiancée’s they were viewed with a
mixture of pride and sadness.
Christine
broke down and cried when he told her he only had 4 days leave before he left
for France.
Henry’s
father, George’s reaction was slightly different.
“For
God’s sake boy you don’t have to go” he yelled “you are my heir”
“I
have to go” Henry replied
“No
you don not” his father argued
“I
have to go” Henry repeated
“Then
let me pull some strings and get you a staff post”
“No
father I don’t want any special treatment” he said
In
retrospect he should have said “ok pull your strings on condition that I can
marry Christine Turner”
But
he didn’t.
Sebastian
Blackburn allowed his father to pull strings on his behalf however, but not to
get out of the firing line, Seb wanted to marry Theresa before he left for
France.
So
a hastily arrange ceremony was performed at Olwen’s Chapel.
Olwen was an Anglo Saxon Lady who was
one of the early converts to Christianity but her pagan husband’s tribe would
not accept the new faith and she was forced to worship secretly in the forest.
Her chapel actually appeared to me
little more than an assortment of stones on the forest floor arranged around a
granite altar stone in a woodland clearing, the wooden structure long since
rotted away.
It had been rediscovered early in Queen
Victoria reign and had been lovingly maintained ever since by a local society.
So
on September 13th 1914, Sebastian Blackburn the tall, blonde, classically
handsome lieutenant with the dazzling blue eyes, wed the petite, dark haired
Theresa, she dressed in ivory silk, he in his dress uniform.
With
best man Henry by his side.
After
the reception Henry crept to Christine’s room and knocked lightly on her door.
She
opened the door in her night things
“What
are you doing here?” she whispered through the crack in the door
“I
just wanted to say that on my next leave you will be the bride” he said and
kissed her goodnight.
Three
days later they checked into the Railway Hotel in Abbeyvale as Mr and Mrs
Beauchamp on the eve of his regiment’s embarkation, when their love was made
manifest.
On
the platform of Abbeyvale station the next morning he saw her onto the
Shallowfield train and as he held her hand through the open window he said
“I
love you Christine and I promise we will be married when I return”
“Just
come home safe darling” she said as train pulled slowly out of the station.
He
stood on the platform looking on and waving until she was out of sight.
They
wrote to each other every few days over the weeks he was away, each letter more
heavily laden with romantic sentiment than its predecessor.
Even
when the First Battle of Ypres began on the 19th of October his
romantic fervour was not abated nor did it, by its end on the 22nd
of November and all through that winter it was his love for Christine that kept
him warm.
In
his letters to her he didn’t mention all the harshest realities of life in the
trenches and in return Christine didn’t burden him with the knowledge that she
was pregnant with his child.
As
winter faded into spring the conditions in Belgium had not improved and the
Second Battle of Ypres commenced in April and Christine was fast reaching the
point that it was going to be difficult to conceal a pregnancy in her Edwardian
outfits.
Then
on the 2nd of April her worst fears were realised when the telegraph
boy arrived at Dancingdean Hall.
The
telegram read
“We
regret to inform you that on the 29th of May Lt H G M Beaumont was
killed while trying to rescue a mortally wounded comrade from no man’s land”
Christine
hadn’t seen the boy arrive but was alerted to its contents when Lady
Dancingdean went hysterical and started throwing things around her room.
The
Earl was unable to calm her so he left her to Christine and dealt with the news
of his only son’s death by going out to the woods to shoot things.
Christine
wanted to scream out in grief at her loss but felt compelled to placate her
mistress instead.
That
afternoon however she was taken to the asylum in Pepperstock which she would
never leave.
George,
10th Earl of Dancingdean never returned from the woods either
because after he tired of shooting the wild life he turned the gun on himself.
That
evening as darkness fell so did Christine Turner’s mood.
She
sat in a leather chesterfield in George Beaumont’s study, a large glass of
brandy in one hand and the telegram in the other and tears streaming down her
cheeks.
Dancingdean
Hall was not the only recipient of the Telegram boy’s grim correspondence.
The
inhabitants of Bridge House were informed of Sebastian Blackburn’s death.
How
typical of the man she loved to risk his live to save his wounded friend.
Christine
fell into a black despair and could see no way out.
She
would soon be unemployed and as soon as the baby showed she would be
unemployable and she had lost the man she loved and the father of her child.
The
burden was too great to bear and so she drained her glass.
Her
heart was broken and there was no future for her and her lover’s child, weighed
down by grief in her heart and rocks in her pockets Christine walked onto the
terrace where she had first kissed Henry and then crossed the lawn from
Dancingdean Hall and jumped off the east cliff into the black lake below.
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