The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5)

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  ‘Gone off with Tremadoc, has she?’ He scanned it quickly. ‘Well, that’s a relief, I suppose. Takes care of her. No blood in that family, but money. And, I’ll tell you something.’ Just occasionally the Duke actually had an idea. ‘Bit of management, we should be able to set it about that there was only one elopement, young Caroline’s. Get Charlotte clear off, d’you see? More than she deserves, but useful.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Duchess doubtfully. ‘Poor little Caroline…But the way things are…I don’t know that Frances will be best pleased, though.’

  ‘Glad to get the chit off her hands,’ said the Duke with robust realism.

  ‘Caroline left a note for Blakeney,’ said the Duchess.

  ‘Did she so?’ He thought about that for a moment. ‘Well, now, m’dear. He must have it, of course. But…not for a week or so, do you think? No need for it to follow him to Bath. I mean him to see us settled there, then come back to town and his duties with the Volunteers.’ There was no need for him to explain to the Duchess that the less he saw of Blakeney after last night’s exchange of words, the happier he would be.

  So, ten days later, no rescue had come, and Caroline heard herself saying the fatal words that made her Geraint Tremadoc’s wife. She had not believed it could be so horribly easy. At every stage she had expected, hoped for some insurmountable obstacle, but there had been none. It would have been small comfort to her to realise that her own cool, ladylike behaviour had contributed a good deal towards this result. She had been trained always to behave like a lady, never to make a scene, and her training had held. Finding herself Mrs Tremadoc, she now allowed her husband’s chilly kiss, civilly thanked the grinning blacksmith who had pronounced the fatal words, and fainted.

  ‘Not very flattering,’ were the first words she heard as she recovered consciousness.

  ‘I expect it was the relief, sir.’ Tench’s voice, and Caroline blessed her for her tact. She was lying on a shabby sofa in the uncomfortable little inn where they had spent the night. It was all over.

  She opened her eyes and looked up at Tremadoc. ‘Forgive me, my dear,’ she managed the endearment with an effort. ‘I am afraid it has all been too much for me.’ She looked about the sordid little room. ‘I am quite better now. Please, may we not start for home at once?’ And wondered, as she said it, just what home would be like.

  ‘Just what I thought.’ He agreed with obvious relief. ‘Tench, tell Jenkins we’ll start at once. I rely on him, tell him, to see to everything, since Mrs Tremadoc is not well.’

  ‘Mrs Tremadoc,’ she said as Tench left them. ‘How strange.’ She held out a hand to her husband. ‘I will try my very best to be a good wife to you.’

  ‘I am sure you will.’ He was. ‘But first we must get some colour back into your cheeks, Amoretta. Do you know, I think perhaps it would be best not to stop at my uncle’s in Manchester. After all, my mother has probably left there by now, and I am sure you will be better off at home in Grosvenor Square.’

  ‘Have you written to your mother?’ She had been longing to ask this, but had not felt entitled to do so until now, when she was actually his wife.

  ‘Not yet. I thought it best to wait until I could tell her the knot was tied. I’ll write her from Carlisle tonight. To my uncle’s, and a note to Grosvenor Square in case she is back there already.’

  ‘Will she be very angry?’ Caroline had met Mrs Tremadoc only once and remembered her as a rather formidable figure in purple bombazine.

  ‘Angry? A little, perhaps.’ He, too, was beginning to realise just what they had done. ‘But a Duke’s daughter, after all.’

  When they reached the Crown at Carlisle Caroline was surprised and relieved to find that Jenkins had again asked for separate rooms for them.

  ‘I can see that you are not quite yourself yet.’ Tremadoc must have noticed her swift look of surprise. ‘Besides, I must write to my mother tonight.’

  Over breakfast, he admitted that he had failed to do so. ‘A deuced awkward letter to write. But here is a trifle of a sonnet for you, Amoretta.’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ She read it with an admirably composed countenance. ‘I do hope your mother will not hear the news from someone else first,’ she said, when she had paid him the expected compliments. ‘I left a letter for the Duchess, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite so. I will write tonight.’

  Once again, he arranged separate rooms for them, and once again failed to write to his mother.

  ‘I was feeling entirely too sick and shaken from the day’s journey,’ he told her next morning. ‘How you can take travelling so lightly, Amoretta, is more than I can understand. But I wish you will try, today, not to disturb me by so many exclamations about the beauty of the prospect!’

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said humbly. ‘I was so excited to think that we were travelling through the country Mr Wordsworth writes about. I promise I will be quiet as a mouse today.’

  ‘Do,’ he said. ‘I am planning an epic poem, when the shaking of the carriage allows it, which will be quite different from anything your Mr Wordsworth has ever written.’

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ she said.

  He had still not written to his mother when they reached London at last, and they were still sleeping in separate bedrooms. Was he waiting for his mother’s approval, she wondered, or did he, perhaps, find the next step in matrimony as daunting as she did? The inevitable close contact of the journey had merely emphasised the fact that they were total strangers to each other. Madness to have married, and she began to wonder if he did not feel this too. Was he even hoping that the powerful mother who had organised his life so far would free him from the bonds in which he had tied himself? There were such things as annulments, she believed, though she did not know just how they were obtained.

  ‘Here we are at last,’ he said with false joviality as the carriage turned into Grosvenor Square. ‘Now we will be comfortable again.’

  ‘I wonder if Mrs Tremadoc is there.’

  He turned to give her a strange look. ‘You are Mrs Tremadoc! It’s your house now.’

  There was a carriage waiting outside the house. ‘James, my man of business,’ he told her. ‘Now I wonder why in the world?’

  ‘We will know in a moment.’ She smoothed her hair with a hand that would shake. She had passionately hoped that they would find no one in Grosvenor Square, that there would be time to have her things sent over from Chevenham House. Absurd to mind that she had had to go away with so few clothes and now looked unmistakably travel stained, but she did. It was somehow a last straw, in this awkward situation, to know that she looked so far from her best.

  He was handing her down from the carriage. He looked pinched with fatigue and, she thought, fear; and in the midst of her own discomfort she found time to be sorry for him and ashamed of the way she was using him. She pressed the hand that held hers.

  ‘It won’t be so bad, not if we stick together,’ she said.

  The doors of the big house had swung open; a huge butler was awaiting them.

  ‘Well, Barnes,’ said Tremadoc, as they trod sedately up the steps together, ‘Is your mistress home?’ And then, recollecting himself, ‘Here is your new mistress.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ said Barnes. ‘Yes, madam is in the small saloon with Mr James. She will be glad to see you.’

  Something’s wrong, thought Caroline, something is very wrong in this house. Not just our mad marriage. There is something the servants know and we don’t.

  Did Tremadoc feel it too? ‘Would you like to go upstairs, my dear?’ he asked. ‘Or will you come and meet my mother and Mr James?’

  She thought he wanted her to go upstairs. ‘I would like to meet your mother.’ She kept her hand firmly in his as they crossed the hall to where a gawking footman had thrown open another door.

  Mrs Tremadoc was all in black. For a wild moment, Caroline thought she must be in mourning for her son’s marriage, but her first words explained it. ‘Geraint.’ She held ou
t a shaking hand to her son. ‘Your uncle is dead.’

  ‘Uncle Tom?’ He could not believe his ears. ‘Impossible! A man in the prime of his life…’

  ‘By his own hand,’ she interrupted him dramatically. ‘I will spare you the horrible details. This is no time for that.’ She turned, still holding Tremadoc’s hand and held out her other one to Caroline. ‘My dear…’ To Caroline’s amazement, her voice was now warm and loving. ‘Such an awkward greeting for my new daughter, but I thought best to have it all out at once. And now, let me see my new child! Such a naughty puss to steal away like that; they are quite at sixes and sevens at Chevenham House; but you are to be forgiven of course. And my bad Geraint too, who swept you off your feet. What a coil we have been in here, thinking what was best for you bad children, and you, I have no doubt, thinking of nothing but your own happiness.’ She had actually been untying Caroline’s bonnet strings as she talked, and now planted a firm kiss on her cold face. ‘But you look exhausted, child, and so does my poor boy. Travelling never did suit him, which shows, does it not, how desperately in love he was. Quite the romantic story of the day, my dears, and thanks to a few words from the dear Duke where they most mattered, I think we will brush through it well enough. That Mr Mattingley has been a good friend, and so has his friend Mr Brummell, who seems to have taken quite one of his fancies for you, my love. But what a brute I am to keep you talking here, when you must be longing for the comforts of home. Come to your room, daughter Caroline. We’ll leave the men to talk their business, shall we?’

  Still volubly talking, she led Caroline upstairs to the big bedroom with its huge damask-hung four poster which, she confided, she had abandoned on learning of their marriage.

  ‘Nonsense, my dear,’ she said, when Caroline protested, ‘You are the mistress of this house, and I the old devoted dowager. I found myself a corner up one more pair of stairs where I shall be snug as can be, so long as my dear new daughter lets me stay. What a tiny thing you are,’ she exclaimed, as Tench, who had already begun unpacking a big trunk that stood in the middle of the room, rose to help Caroline out of her pelisse. ‘I sent for your things from Chevenham House just as soon as I learned from the dear Duchess how things stood,’ she rattled on. ‘Just think of my bad boy not leaving me a line of explanation! We must scold him about that, you and I, but not tonight. Tonight everything is to be happiness. And now I will leave you. We dine at six, my love, quite en famille, and I am sure you and my bad boy will wish to make an early night of it.’ And on this note she left them.

  Caroline and Tench looked at each other.

  ‘Well,’ said the maid at last, ‘You could knock me down with a feather.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Caroline, sinking into a chair. ‘I don’t understand it, Tench.’

  ‘The Duke must have turned up trumps, I reckon,’ said Tench. ‘You’re nicely enough settled here, that’s for sure.’ She opened a door. ‘Mr Tremadoc’s dressing room. I’m hanging your things in here, Jenkins can have the cupboards there. I’m surprised he’s not here yet, fussing about and getting in a body’s way.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Caroline absentmindedly. She had been looking with what she recognised as hope at the small bed in the corner of the dressing room. There was no lock on the communicating door. Absurd. Why should there be? ‘I must dress, Tench dear,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Tench. ‘I’ve had your dress hanging up but there’s not a crease in it. Whoever packed it for you knew her business. Well, they all love you at Chevenham House, and no wonder.’ She returned from the closet with a great froth of white over her arm.

  ‘My ball dress? Oh, Tench, should I?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, that you should. Dining the first night in your new home. We must show the flag, ma’am, don’t you see? Mr Tremadoc ain’t said anything about jewels, I suppose?’

  ‘Jewels? Why, no.’ It occurred to her with new force that Tremadoc had said very little about anything practical.

  ‘Then you’ll just have to wear your pearls, and very pretty and suitable too.’

  Her mother’s present. She had loved them as a child, the only tangible evidence of the mother she had lost. She had found her now. Frances Winterton. The Duke’s mistress. As Tench clasped the pearls round her neck she thought they had brought nothing but trouble. If she had not lent them to Giles he would have stayed and faced his father. Poor Giles. Where was he now?

  Tremadoc joined them just as Tench had pronounced herself satisfied with her appearance. ‘We must send for the hairdresser in the morning, but for tonight, with the flowers, it will do.’

  ‘It will do admirably.’ Tremadoc smiled at his wife’s face in the glass. ‘I believe I have never seen you in such looks! I am delighted to find you ready, my dear. My mother is awaiting you in the drawing room. She has a million things to say to you. And I will join you just as soon as Jenkins makes me fit to be seen.’ There was something in the way he looked at her bare shoulders and low neckline that she did not quite like. Ridiculous. He was her husband.

  Emerging from her room into the upstairs hall, she caught the murmur of voices, suddenly stilled, in the hall below. In the surprise of Mrs Tremadoc’s overwhelmingly warm greeting, she had forgotten her first feeling that there was something odd going on in this house, but as she trod down the balustraded stairway and saw the footmen, stiff in the hall, she was more sure of it than ever. A minute ago, they had had their heads together, talking about something so exciting that it could not wait until they were off duty. What could it be? Well, she thought, Tench will find out. Tench will tell me when she gets me ready for bed. Thank God for Tench.

  Mrs Tremadoc was resplendent in black velvet and jet. ‘My dear,’ she came forward to give Caroline another of her firm kisses. It smelt of something faintly sweet, unidentifiable, associated in Caroline’s mind with illness. ‘You look like a princess.’ Mrs Tremadoc held her off by the shoulders and Caroline felt like a bale of merchandise being inspected for quality. ‘I am glad that you, too, felt this was a night for all our finery. I am only sorry,’ she produced a black bordered handkerchief, ‘that I must depress your spirits with my blacks.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ began Caroline, ‘your poor brother…’

  ‘No, no.’ A firm hand on her arm stopped her. ‘Not tonight, my dear; tonight is for happiness; for my Geraint and you. Sit down, child, and tell me all about my new daughter and how she stole away my son’s affections.’ And then, as if aware that this was not the happiest of notes to strike, she plunged into a string of breathless questions about the events of the journey, which Caroline answered as best she might, wondering a little about the million things Tremadoc had said his mother had to say to her.

  It was a relief when he joined them and they adjourned to a sombre dining room furnished with more ostentation than taste. There was something extraordinarily oppressive about this house, she thought, as Tremadoc pulled out a chair for her.

  ‘No, no,’ she protested, ‘I am sure that is Mrs Tremadoc’s place.’

  ‘Dear child,’ said that lady. ‘You are Mrs Tremadoc now.’

  The meal seemed endless. The food was both over-elaborate and ill-cooked, and Tremadoc merely toyed with his. ‘These collops are scorched!’ he exclaimed. ‘And the sauce has curdled. I tell you, ma’am, we ate better on the roads than here. You know how delicate my digestion is!’ He turned and said something to the footman behind his chair, who left the room and presently returned with a ruby coloured decanter. ‘This will set me to rights.’ His hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips.

  ‘My dear,’ protested his mother. ‘Remember…’

  ‘I remember everything,’ he told her with what struck Caroline as almost a look of hatred. ‘Have some yourself, Mamma.’

  ‘Do you know, I really believe I will,’ she said. ‘My poor nerves are quite discomposed with joy! It is a tonic medicine my poor son and I are compelled to take from time to time,’ she turned to explain to Caroline. ‘I am afraid you w
ould think it very nasty.’

  ‘This lemonade is quite delicious,’ said Caroline, untruthful for once. Something must be very wrong indeed in the kitchen, she thought, if the lemonade came up to table unsweetened.

  By the time she and Mrs Tremadoc rose to leave the dining room the decanter was almost empty and Tremadoc’s cheeks were flushed and faintly shining. His talk was rapid and enthusiastic as he described the epic he had planned on their journey.

  ‘It’s to be The Downfall of Bonaparte.’ He rose unsteadily to his feet. ‘But I have not quite decided who shall be my hero.’

  ‘Do not stay too long considering,’ said his mother with a quick glance from the level of the liquid in the decanter to the footman behind her son’s chair. ‘We shall expect you when you have finished your glass, Geraint. You know port never agrees with you, and I am sure my dear daughter is ready for her bed.’

  ‘And so am I!’ Still standing, Tremadoc refilled and drained his glass, then moved over to take Caroline’s arm with a hand that felt damp with sweat. ‘You will excuse us, ma’am?’

  ‘Of course I will, dear children. It’s all honeymoon with you, I can see. Sleep well, my dears!’

  Something in her tone made Caroline flush up to her hair, and as the three of them climbed the stairs to the drawing room floor, Tremadoc’s arm still in hers, she was aware of servants, watching, listening, full of salacious curiosity. It’s horrible, she thought, disgusting. But soon I will be with Tench. Tench will help me.

  Help her how? She did not know. And when she and her husband reached their bedroom he sent Tench away.

  ‘I shall wait on my wife tonight,’ he told her. ‘Off to bed with you, woman.’

  ‘But, sir!’ Tench actually began to protest. ‘My lady…’

  ‘My wife!’ He was suddenly white and shaking with rage. ‘You will leave us, if you wish to keep your place.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am.’ Tench made a flurried curtsy, gave Caroline a long, strange, loving look and left them.