The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5)

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  Caroline thought this was true. ‘If Charlotte does go, I’ll come,’ she said.

  ‘She’ll go. Thank you.’ Frances kissed her on a great wave of patchouli. ‘The Duke will be grateful too.’ If there was an implied promise in this, Caroline preferred to ignore it.

  ‘I must go back to her.’ Frances turned away. ‘Take care of yourself, child. You look like Black Monday.’

  At the little house that began surprisingly to feel like home, Caroline yielded readily to Mrs Jones’ suggestion of supper in bed. Reading to the Duchess, she had felt somehow alive again, occupied, needed…Now that strange, invisible wall of glass was back, dividing her from the rest of the world. She slept heavily, dreamlessly and woke again to the feeling that nothing mattered. She got up and dressed, because Mrs Jones seemed to expect her to do so, ate a piece of toast, drank some tea, then sat with her elbows on the table, staring at nothing.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She looked up and saw the maid standing in the doorway, looking frightened.

  ‘Please, mum, I said, might I clear?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Rising to move into the room that had become her study, she felt her head swim for a moment and wondered if she was going to faint. She sat down by the fire and stared into it vacantly. She ought to be doing something. What? The poem was finished. Tremadoc had his memorial. Murderess, his mother had called her. Murdering bitch.

  She was still sitting there when Giles was announced some time later.

  ‘I’ve just been to Chevenham House,’ he told her. ‘There is no change, or not much. No need for you to go today, your mother says. The Duchess is not really conscious now. She liked the poem, I hear. Clever of you to read it to her, Carrie.’

  ‘Not clever,’ said Caroline. ‘No, not clever, Giles.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ He gave her a sharp look. ‘What’s got into you, Carrie? You don’t look yourself today.’

  ‘I don’t feel myself. I don’t feel anything, Giles.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ve overdone yourself, that’s all, shut up here on your own. My curricle’s outside. Put on your bonnet and a warm cloak and we’ll take a turn in the park. Air is what you need.’

  It was good to have her mind made up for her. She rose obediently and went upstairs to get ready. A keen wind had blown away London’s winter fog and he wrapped a fur rug warmly round her as she sniffed gratefully at the cold, clear air.

  ‘Thank you, Giles,’ she said meekly and he gave her a look of surprised pleasure as his horses moved forward.

  It was earlier than the fashionable hour, but Caroline was still pleased when she saw that he was heading for the less crowded area of the Green Park. The last thing she wanted today was to meet any of her London acquaintance, and he must be aware of this. But then they turned up Constitution Hill she saw a little group of horsemen apparently waiting for them.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A few friends of mine, Carrie. I told them we might just possibly come this way. You will enjoy hearing their praises of your husband’s poem.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ She shrank in on herself.

  ‘Oh, yes, Carrie. You are to be ruled by me in this. Don’t you see, child, that any moment now you will be plunged even deeper into mourning by the Duchess’ death? What could be more unlucky? If you are to talk to my friends of the press, it must be now. I explained to them that you could hardly receive them at home, so here they are freezing to death in hopes of a word with you. I hope you recognise it for the compliment it is.’

  ‘I don’t want compliments. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I tell you, Giles, I am not fit.’ Her brain felt numb. ‘I feel a little faint.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re not the fainting kind. I know you too well to be put off with your woman’s excuses. Anyway, here we are. Just a few minutes with each of them, and we’ll be able to go for another edition.’ He raised his voice, became every tone the hearty English gentleman. ‘Good morning, my friends. I must apologise if we have kept you waiting, but Mrs Tremadoc was not feeling quite the thing. She was at Chevenham House all yesterday afternoon, reading The Downfall of Bonaparte to the poor Duchess. Who praised it highly, I can tell you.’

  Disgusting, thought Caroline, wanting to protest, but it was easier to smile, return their civil greetings, and answer the questions that began to pour in on her from every side. Yes, indeed she missed her husband. Yes, she had had to copy out the last part of his poem from her own notes.

  ‘A dark horse?’ She looked at the man who had said this. ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘I met him last summer, ma’am. For a genius, he had remarkably little to say for himself.’

  ‘Unlike you gentlemen.’ She smiled impartially at them all and felt she had scored a point. Then the curious fog in which she seemed to be moving closed in again, and she was back to the meek answering of questions. Yes, Mr Tremadoc had written his own sermons…Had been a member of the Oldchurch Club…

  ‘What about that club?’ asked a small man with sharp eyes and an old-fashioned wig. ‘Something a trifle havey cavey about it, if you ask me. Not just what you’d expect a clergyman to belong to.’

  To her relief, Giles intervened. ‘As I understand it, all the men in Oldchurch belonged. Just a men’s dining club. Is that not correct, Mrs Tremadoc?’

  ‘Most of them.’ Caroline remembered Dr Martin and wondered what had happened to him. ‘I would very much rather we talked of my husband’s poetry.’

  ‘Just so,’ said Giles. ‘The poetry is the thing, after all.’

  ‘And an odd thing about that,’ said the man who had called Tremadoc a dark horse. ‘I remember Mr Tremadoc saying last summer that Nelson had shot his bolt. Quite humorous he was about Nelson and Lady Hamilton as I remember it. Something happened to make him change his mind?’

  ‘Something must have.’ Caroline felt the fog closing in, but made a great effort. ‘Well, he was right to do so, was he not?’

  ‘He was indeed.’ A burly man pushed forward from the back of the little group. ‘A tragic end, ma’am. Can you tell us a little of how you felt when you heard that he had been burnt to death?’

  ‘Sir!’ She looked at him for a long moment of speechless indignation, then answered from a full heart. ‘I felt a murderess,’ she said.

  ‘Carrie!’ She must have swayed where she sat for Giles had his arm round her, holding her up. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. You will excuse us, gentlemen. Mrs Tremadoc is not well.’

  He scolded her all the way home and she listened with the new meekness he liked so well, but sighed with inward relief when he left her at the door, explaining that he must make sure that none of the interviewers printed what he called her idiotic words.

  He might have spared his pains. She figured, lightly disguised, in all the gossip columns next day, but as her words were dismissed as obvious nonsense, they merely served as a scandalous fillip to the poem’s sales, and Giles soon forgave her. As for her, she did not care; she did not care about anything.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Duchess died on the same late January day as William Pitt, and Caroline’s summons to Chevenham House came next afternoon. ‘Charlotte leaves today,’ wrote Frances Winterton. ‘Come to me at once, child, I count on you.’

  Mrs Jones was relieved when the new, lifeless Caroline meekly packed her trunk and prepared to go. ‘It will do you a power of good to be with your mother.’ She surprised her mistress with a warm goodbye kiss. ‘Don’t fret yourself about a thing here. I’ll see to it all for you, and look forward to having you home again soon.’

  ‘Though mark my words,’ she said later to her friend the cook. ‘There’s death in that child’s face, if ever I saw it. Or a nervous collapse at the very least. The life’s gone out of her somehow. I wish I could have gone with her, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘She’ll be among friends there,’ said the cook. ‘It’s her mother, after all.’

  ‘Never came to see her when she was ill. What kind of a mother
is that?’

  Settling back into the familiar routine of Chevenham House, Caroline felt that its heart was gone. On the surface, surprisingly little had changed. Frances Winterton sat in the Duchess’ place, and gave her orders. The great domestic machine moved as smoothly as ever, ensuring the Duke’s comfort, but something was missing just the same. Or was the lack in herself? Life was weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, and she went through its motions like a puppet, glad to have her strings pulled, along with the rest of the household, by Frances Winterton.

  Pitt’s death, following on Napoleon’s victories or even caused by them, had cast a profound gloom over London society. But it also meant a new government, and Whig hopes were high. Charles Fox and his friends went to and fro through the hatchment-decked gates of Chevenham House to confer with the Duke, and Frances Winterton was very busy as the power behind the scenes.

  But though men came, their wives did not.

  ‘I wish you would persuade your mother to stay with you at the Tremadoc house for a while,’ said Giles one morning when he had found Caroline sitting alone, doing nothing.

  ‘Come to my house? But, Giles…’ Impossible to imagine Frances Winterton in the little house on the wrong side of the park.

  ‘Or persuade Charlotte to come back here,’ said Giles. ‘It’s true that your house is hardly what Mrs Winterton is used to, but she must see that even Blakeney hardly comes now except when his father sends for him. I am afraid you are too much of a child to carry weight as a chaperone in the public eye. A pity that your mourning is still so new. As a bride you would be very much more the thing, but as it is I do beg that you will try to persuade your mother to come to you for a while. Carrie!’ His voice sharpened. ‘Are you paying attention to what I say?’

  ‘About my mother?’ She had indeed retreated into the strange, resounding vacancy where she seemed to spend so much of her time. ‘Yes, but Giles, she’d never come.’ He had said something else. What was it?

  ‘Have you seen the Tremadocs’ lawyer?’ He held her unwilling attention with another question.

  ‘Mr James? No. He called the other day, but I did not feel like seeing him. I’m tired, Giles. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘Poor little Carrie.’ She had been afraid he would scold her, as he increasingly seemed to these days, for refusing to see the lawyer, but instead he rose to his feet, urged her to take care of herself, and her mother, and took his leave.

  When he had gone, she sat for a long time, staring at nothing, unhappily aware that there was something she should be thinking of, something she should be deciding…But she was so tired…so very tired.

  Her mother sent for her later that afternoon. ‘Dear child.’ Frances Winterton was marvellously elegant in her deep blacks. ‘Giles Comfrey and I are anxious about you. It is time you stopped mourning that unlucky husband of yours and gave your thoughts a new direction.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The future, child. The future! See how promising it lies before you! It is but to wait out the months of your mourning, and everything will be right again. How well I managed for you, after all. I declare, it’s quite a fairy story. I always did love a happy ending.’ She looked conscious, and Caroline wondered if perhaps the Duke had committed himself at last. ‘The Duke’s at Devonshire House.’ Frances Winterton must have been thinking along the same lines. ‘He practically lives there these days. I’ll be glad when they have settled this cabinet crisis among them. I begin to find their politics a dead bore, and quite long for a breath of country air. I think when the new government is safely sworn in, you and I must set to work to persuade your father that we all need a little holiday down at Cley. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Carrie!’ Her voice sharpened.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Caroline’s mind had wandered again. ‘Cley, did you say?’ A great tide of homesickness washed over her. Brown-green marsh, wide sky, blue sea. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’

  ‘Then speak to your father, child. He’s full of starched notions these days. But he seems to find you vastly improved.’

  ‘Does he?’ Once upon a time, this would have pleased her. ‘But he still never listens to what I say.’ She thought of the library at Cley. ‘You and I could go to Cley together, just the two of us,’ she suggested.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Frances Winterton.

  The slow days ebbed past. Lord Grenville and Mr Fox were said to be close to agreement on the composition of the new government. ‘It’s just a question of bringing the King round to having Mr Fox,’ Frances Winterton told Caroline. ‘If I were a magician, I’d wave my wand and arrange a short sharp bout of his old madness for our Sovereign Lord, and we’d have a real Whig government tomorrow, with the Prince, God bless him, for Regent. I wish I was!’

  ‘Was what?’ Caroline had been wondering, as she often did, if it would be possible to persuade Giles to let her try her hand at a new canto of The Downfall of Bonaparte. Would he believe her if she told him that Tremadoc had outlined it to her?

  ‘A magician, child! I’d wave my wand over you fast enough and banish those blue devils of yours. Anyone would think yours had been a love match, the way you peak and pine for that young man. Try for a little conduct, Caroline. Look at me! I have lost my dearest friend, and my husband, but do I mope and peer around the house, doing nothing and saying less? No, I try to be of some use in the world.’

  ‘But what use can I be?’ asked Caroline. She had sent her Blakeney sonnets to Giles, hoping that they would convince him she was capable of continuing the poem he thought was Tremadoc’s. Several days had passed, and there had been no word from him. He must not have liked them. She tried to make a start on the new canto just the same, but the words would not come, and she found herself crying the helpless tears of complete frustration. Giles, coming down to her from Mrs Winterton’s apartments, found her sitting over her writing desk, tear-drenched handkerchief in her hand, her eyes still large with tears.

  ‘Carrie, this has to stop!’ He took the handkerchief from her and dried two lingering tears. ‘You mother is anxious about you, and so am I. You will make yourself ill if you go on like this.’

  ‘I think I am ill.’

  ‘Nonsense! You need a new direction for your thoughts, that’s all. Stop maundering over Tremadoc and that poem of his. That’s the past, Carrie; all over, done with. We have the future to think of. Our future, yours and mine.’

  ‘Ours?’ He had her full attention at last.

  ‘What else? It’s written in heaven, Carrie, in our stars. I knew it from the very first moment I recognised you. My little Carrie, my sister, my helpmeet. Waiting for me all this time. Making yourself ready to be just the wife I need. Don’t look so startled, child! I have your mother’s permission to speak, and she has spoken to the Duke. He gives his blessing. What a happy day it was for us both when you lent me those pearls of yours and started me on my way to India and my fortune. I shall repay you with long years of happy marriage.’ He lent over her, his hands warm on her shoulders. ‘Just think how delighted my parents would be!’

  ‘Would they?’ She had long suspected that it was the shock discovery about the pearls that had made Mrs Trentham ill.

  ‘Of course they would! They loved you, Carrie, as I do. As I need to, little tease!’

  ‘Tease?’

  ‘I should just about think so! Sending me this batch of nonsense you wrote for Tremadoc!’ He removed his right hand from her shoulder and produced a crumpled bundle of papers from his pocket. ‘Sonnets! Ambling scambling sonnets! Love and prove, dove and move! My poor little Carrie, I hope they pleased Tremadoc more than they do me! But at least it shows how hard you try to please a husband, and there’s comfort in that for me. Don’t look so flustered, my precious, I forgive you it all! I know just how it was: you were getting impatient, but how could I speak sooner? As it is, I am afraid our engagement must be a secret for the moment. There’s scandal enough being talked about this house without our doing anything to add to it. How I wish I could marr
y you tomorrow, my little Carrie, and take you home to Bloomsbury Square, but it shall be soon, I promise you, just as soon as convention permits.’ He laughed. ‘I know someone who hopes for a double wedding, but the betting is against it at Brooks’. I think they are wrong, mind you, but the Duke will wait longer than we need to. In fact, I have half promised your mother that we will move in here when we return from our honeymoon. How I wish I could take you abroad, show you something of the world! Plague take this endless war! But we could go down to the west country, if you would like it. Perhaps take a look in at that garden of yours you set such store by, funny little shrimp that you were. Or would you rather go home to Cley? The Duke offers it, and, in many ways, I think that would be best. Sophie’s still living bold as brass with that man of hers at Llanfryn, and I most certainly do not intend to take notice of her. I think you are right, Cley will be best.’

  ‘But, Giles, I have not said yes!’ This was all unreal. A scene from a play.

  He laughed. ‘Bless the child! Do you mean to hold out for a proposal in form! I thought we were beyond such things, you and I. But if you insist on your woman’s privilege.’ He dropped on one knee before her and allowed the faintest touch of amusement to colour his voice: ‘Dear little Carrie, will you be my wife?’

  ‘I don’t know, Giles.’ The words came out slowly. Looking down at his carefully trained golden curls she had a quick, sharp vision of an unruly head of close-cropped dark hair and a sallow, sardonic face. There had been no word from Mattingley since he went down to the country. Not even the political crisis, not even the Duchess’ funeral had brought him back to town. But wherever he was, he must be mourning the Duchess.

  ‘I never heard such nonsense.’ Giles was on his feet again, pulling her up from her chair. ‘Of course you know! We have known from the first moment, you and I! Meant for each other! Made for each other! I have no doubt my father planned it from the day he took you on — poor little waif that you were. Not that I’m blaming your mother for a moment, mind you. Just see how well things have worked out for us all. A Duke’s daughter! Never in my wildest dreams, sweating it out, off there in India, did I imagine that I would end up marrying a Duke’s daughter.’