The trip was Father’s idea, a way to remove Mother from the scene of so much loss but also another chance for him to dazzle the British audiences. It was his third such try, and still they refused to love him, comparing him unfavorably to Edmund Kean, no matter how he bellowed and declaimed. Edmund Kean! Who at the very start of Father’s career had tricked him into a contract to keep him in bit parts. Whose followers came to Father’s shows only to riot in the pit, fight and shout, throw orange peels onto the stage, and create such cacophony that no one could hear the play. Edmund Kean, dead and gone and still his relentless nemesis.

Once again, Father was found wanting in both physical strength and understanding of character. Kean, the reviews said, had understood Richard III as a man of consummate address, energy, and wit. Father had played him with nothing but bluster.

Father wrote home that “. . . entre nous, theatricals in England are gone to sleep—with all their puffing of full houses.” He complained of the London Tricksters.

Those months in London provided the only schooling that Rosalie would ever have. She made no particular friends, too quiet and awkward for that, but her teachers were fond of her. She surprised her family by doing rather well. Father went so far as to write Grandfather and say so.

Before the trip all the children had been inoculated against smallpox. Still Edwin and Asia suffered light cases. Hagar had to be hospitalized, but she also survived. But Henry’s inoculation didn’t take. He died and his death was more terrible than either Mary Ann’s or Elizabeth’s.

Henry Byron had been the best loved of all the children. He was a quick, thoughtful, charming child. Their shining boy. For Rosalie, he was her rock, her constant companion, their tight bond forged during the terrible time of the cholera.

He’d climbed trees, rode hell-bent on horseback, knew and loved everything about the farm, everyone who lived on or near it. The summer before his death, June, Rosalie, and Henry had spent the time after their chores in a long game of Camelot, a game made into a play in which they all performed. June was Arthur and Merlin, Rosalie was Guinevere and Elaine, Henry was Lancelot and Galahad. The narrative, all Henry’s, was short on romance, but long on jousts. They played this game under trees so thick with leaves that Rosalie could remove her bonnet and crown herself with flowers, and no reddened cheeks or freckled nose would give her away at bedtime. They stole capes and wooden swords from Father’s chests, went smashing about among the branches and roots.