As we worked together on the gardens, Mrs Meredith could not help but notice young Mr Evans and his ideas. Anymore than either of us could miss his head deep in conversation with Judith at every available moment. So when the news came, she gave me that chance to tell Judith, in the quiet of her rooms above her shop on Pont-ar-Eden High Street, before she might come across it by chance.
Poor Judith had wept for her brother and for many days afterwards she was quiet, keeping herself busy in her little shop and avoiding Plas Eden. But a decision could not be put off forever.
‘It would give you riches,’ I said, the day she returned at last to see the progress of the gardens.
‘Yes,’ she replied. Her voice was far away.
I was determined to be the voice of reason. ‘And independence. It would give you the power to make a garden of your own like this, entirely to your own design.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was kind of William to think of me.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ I replied. Now was not the time to comment on the power of a guilty conscience, or the wish to keep one’s riches within the family.
I saw the direction in which her gaze travelled.
‘You could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams,’ I said, quietly.
‘He would never accept,’ she replied. She met my eyes. ‘Lewis Evans is a proud man. I would lose him.’
‘You could give him the choice,’ I suggested. ‘He might surprise you.’
‘They would laugh at him. For his manners and the way he speaks.’ That old stubborn line had overtaken her lips. ‘And they would laugh at me.’ Her eyes rested once more on the bowl of the new fountain, where Mr Evans was struggling with the figure of Venus, who appeared to be unwilling to allow water anywhere near her. ‘The Trevericks would try to make me the lady I never was. They’d tell me how to look and how to dress. They’d be shocked at my walk. And even more so at my opinions. And the fact that I have opinions at all. Lewis would think me far removed from him, and every man who wished to marry me would be one I would not trust.’ She smiled. ‘If I were very poor, and had no way of making a living, then being mistress of Treverick Hall would be a freedom. As it is, my freedom, and my happiness, are here.’ She took my hand. ‘Of course I was tempted, for a little while, at least. But it seems to me that being the heiress of Treverick Hall would bring me nothing but misery.’
Over by the fountain, Venus had given up all resistance. A flute of water shot up, high into the air, sending the workers scrabbling from the bowl, already drenched.
‘It worked!’ called Judith. She was already running to join them. ‘I told you it would work.’
‘Typical woman,’ I heard Mr Evans say, as he eyed the Venus, his clothes dripping.
‘Mind of her own, you mean,’ said Judith, tartly. And I saw how the love shone in his eyes, as he smiled in his reply.
On Westminster Bridge, a barge emerged from beneath us, bustling on its way with a loud warning hoot towards smaller vessels straying towards its path, and bringing me back to the warmth at my side and the roses in my hand.
‘Happy?’ asked my new – in law if nothing else – husband.
‘Completely,’ I replied. ‘I wish things could stay as they are now, forever.’
‘Mmm,’ he grunted. He was watching the throng of people passing us, as if lost in thought. ‘Maybe we should ask Evans to arrange for the bottom field next to the kitchen garden to be ploughed up, when we get back to Plas Eden. If there is to be a war, I suspect food could soon be in short supply, and if we wait until the event, there will be few young men left in the village to undertake the task. We could then at least supply some fresh fruit and vegetables to the village and to the hospital here.’
I put my arm through his, and held him tight. Once, I had thought it was the rich and the titled, the beautiful and the extravagant who would inherit the earth. How differently I felt now. And that idea I had been talking over with David’s mother and with Judith, as the gardens at Plas Eden were brought back to life, came back into my mind. This time with utter certainty.
The little people, my Uncle Jolyon used to call them. As would William, too, had he spared the energy to think of all those who worked, day and night, putting the food on his table and keeping his house clean and warm. The brick-makers who made each brick to build Treverick Hall. The cotton spinner in the factories and the weaver who made the cloth. The seamstress who sewed the garments that covered us. All the men and women who would keep the world turning, whatever the outside world might decree, and whatever sorrow might be inflicted upon them. The children, who would take our world, and make it grow into the future.
All of us, I thought, as I looked down into the waters of the Thames, where my life might have ended so long ago, have our stories to tell. Lives to be celebrated. The self-styled great and the good make a hideous amount of noise concerning their existence. But we who have survived whatever life has thrown at us, who have learnt the hard lesson of what it is to be human, are the ones whose stories should be told in stone. Ours are the stories that should be remembered forever.
A fire began inside me that day. A flame that would carry me in ambition beyond a small dragon or even the most graceful of garden nymphs. That would also carry me through whatever might lie ahead for us. One I knew would never die.
‘Ready?’ I said, lifting my eyes from the river to those of the man I loved, and would love, until the end of time.
He smiled, his eyes warm on mine. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Time, I think, for us to go home.’
St Catherine’s was a simple, whitewashed church, flooded with light from Victorian stained-glass windows featuring scenes of Mary Magdalene, small children and the poor.
‘Mr Jackson phoned to say you were coming,’ said the vicar, making her way down the aisle to greet them as they entered. Maggie Day was a tall young woman with sleek cropped hair and the confident stride of a marathon runner. ‘The Merediths built this church, you know.’
‘Really?’ said David.
‘Oh, yes. They were always very particular that everyone was welcome, including the ‘fallen’ women they worked with.’ She smiled. ‘And that compassion was preached, rather than hell-fire. We’re proud to keep up that tradition today. Mr Jackson said you were interested in the social history of the hospital?’
‘Yes,’ David replied.
The vicar gave him a sharp glance. ‘Anything special you might like to find out about?’
‘Well,’ he began, before stumbling to a halt.
‘We’d like to know more about the people who used the church in Victorian and Edwardian times,’ put in Carys.
‘And I believe my great-grandfather might have been married here,’ said David.
‘Really?’ Maggie Day’s eyebrows rose. ‘How very strange.’
David exchanged glances with Carys. ‘There hasn’t been someone looking already, has there?’
‘Oh, no. Not in the time I’ve been here, anyhow.’ She smiled at them. ‘We’ve just been clearing out at the back of the church, that’s all. It was Sam Jackson and his plans to open a museum in the old Meredith Charity Hospital that started it. We’ve just had a grant to turn the offices at the back into a community café and workshop space, so they needed to be cleared anyhow, before the building work takes place next year.’ She led them through a small doorway into a dusty room with books and files piled high all over the floor. Picking her way between the mounds, Maggie began unlocking a metal filing cabinet beneath the single window. ‘That’s when we came across this.’ She pulled out a battered and stained book. ‘It’s one of the old registries. We found it wedged down behind one of the bookshelves that used to be in here. It could have fallen by accident, of course.’
‘Or placed there for safe keeping?’ suggested David.
‘Possibly. I doubt that the church has entirely escaped unscathed from trouble over the past hundred years. Plus it was used for all kinds of different purposes during the two world wars. The da
tes all seem to be 1911. There’s water damage to some of the pages and the handwriting isn’t always the easiest to decipher, but I’m certain I saw a Meredith there. I assumed it must be another family with the same name.’ She steadied the book on a pile of papers and flicked through until she came to the right page. ‘Ah, yes. There we are. Could that be him?’
David bent over the faded scrawl. ‘David Paul Meredith, bachelor. Yes, that’s him.’
Carys peered over his shoulder. ‘That’s definitely an Ann.’
‘The handwriting is pretty appalling, I’m afraid,’ said Maggie.
‘That’s got to be ‘Hermione’,’ said Carys. She met David’s eyes. ‘And that scrawl looks like ‘Treverick’, to me.’
‘Widow,’ read David.
‘What’s the date?’ Carys was peering at her little notebook, to make sure there was no mistake. ‘According to the plaque in Treverick church, William died in August 1911.’
David peered closer. ‘It’s 1911, but the month is under a water stain. It’s completely blurred. And the ones above.’
‘I take it the date of the marriage is important?’ said Maggie.
‘Just a bit,’ muttered David.
‘Very,’ said Carys.
Maggie turned the book towards her. ‘I’m assuming you don’t necessarily need the exact day, just that it’s – ah – in the last six months of the year?’
‘Yes,’ said David. Carys nodded.
Maggie inspected the page. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure one at the top of the page says September.’ She turned to the previous page. ‘There’s still damage here, but I’d say those are September, as well.’ She flicked back still further. ‘It must be. Near the end of September, I’d say. That’s the first one that looks as if it could say August.’
‘September.’ David’s face relaxed.
‘Almost exactly a hundred years ago,’ said Carys. ‘Long story,’ she added to Maggie, who was clearly intrigued. ‘Thank you for all your help.’
Maggie smiled. ‘My pleasure. I’m glad you found what you were looking for.’
‘They must have been very discreet about it,’ said Carys, as she and David made their way out of St Catherine’s, with a promise to return for a longer visit the next time they came to meet with Mr Jackson at Meredith House. ‘They must have been well loved and respected here by people who made sure their secret remained safe.’
David shivered slightly. ‘Thinking about it, I’m sure it wasn’t so much about not wanting people to know how long they had lived together without being married, but making sure that no one ever found out about Ketterford. Hard to explain, especially given the attitudes to women in those days, that Ann wasn’t really mad.’
‘You’re right,’ replied Carys. ‘And rumours of insanity would be passed on to her descendents, too. It was Nainie and your dad, and you and Huw too, they were trying to protect. No wonder we kept on coming up against a brick wall. Thank goodness we found them.’
David came to a halt. ‘You don’t think it was the madness thing that Edmund was on about, do you? I don’t fancy having to fight off suggestions that the Merediths are lunatics. My grandfather took Nainie’s name when they got married, so that there would always be Merediths in Eden. It would be a bit ironic if the Meredith name helped Edmund start mudslinging and suggesting we’re all raving lunatics who shouldn’t be allowed out after dark.’
Carys thought for a minute. ‘Even if he does, it’s hardly going to matter now, is it? Not with those incredible drawings. They are so clear-eyed and compassionate. Like Mr Jackson said, the drawings have already established a reputation of being the work of a hugely talented artist. Just because the artist turns out to be a woman rather than a man, doesn’t change that. Her drawings will form Hermione Meredith’s reputation. Nothing else.’
‘Yes, you’re right.’ David tucked her arm through his. ‘And at least Edmund can’t say Nainie was the result of a bigamous marriage and therefore the daughter of criminals.’ He gave a wry chuckle. ‘I suppose a scandal like that from the past might have brought the tourists into Plas Eden, but I think we can manage without the ghoulish obsessives, whatever happens.’
‘Definitely.’
He tightened his arm around hers. ‘Cousin Edmund must have known Dad would have done anything to protect Nainie from any hurt and public humiliation, whatever his son thinks now. Dad always said Edmund was a liability. He was so right. I hope we never hear from Edmund Jnr again.’
‘Me too.’
Carys, he discovered, was busily counting on her fingers. ‘What?’
‘Nainie always said she was a miracle baby. She was right: at their age, they must have given up the idea of having children at all. Nainie was born just six months after they were able to marry. I wonder if they knew, that day they came to St Catherine’s?’
‘I hope they did. Or guessed soon after,’ replied David, with a smile. ‘I think Nainie would have liked that.’
They walked for a little way in contented silence, until they reached the busy thoroughfare of Westminster Bridge. Open-topped buses lumbered by, as David and Carys dodged tourists taking photographs of each other with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. At the centre of the bridge, they paused side by side to look down the river towards St Paul’s, with the London Eye slowly turning, its little capsules full of passengers admiring the view.
‘So what happens now?’ said David.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Carys.
‘With you and me, I mean,’ said David earnestly. He clasped her hands. ‘Cari, what I’ve been trying to say all this time is that I love you. That I want to be with you. I don’t care how, I don’t care where. I just know that you are the most precious thing in my life, and I couldn’t bear to lose you. Not again.’
‘I love you, and I don’t want to lose you, either,’ said Carys. Crowds or no crowds, his arms came around her, as she was swept into his kiss. Carys held on tight, feeling the warmth of him being absorbed into her, until she could no longer tell which was which. His kisses were becoming more insistent. She could just relax, let go, and let happiness overwhelm her.
‘We could still sell Plas Eden, you know,’ David murmured against her mouth.
‘Oh?’
‘Mmm. Huw could buy a holiday home in Barbados and set up any business he wanted.’ He kissed her again. ‘We could make Rhiannon put herself first for once. And you and I –’ His kiss was longer, this time. ‘We’d never have to worry about money for rest of our lives. We could do whatever we wanted.’
Carys gently disengaged herself. ‘And you’d be happy?’
‘Yes. If I was with you.’
‘Rubbish,’ she said softly. ‘I love you more than ever for saying so, but life isn’t like that. I think, in our hearts, we both know it. We’re neither of us into buying things just for the sake of it.’ She put her arms around him again, holding him tight. ‘An eternal holiday sounds fine in theory. But everyone needs a purpose in life. You included. You’re a Meredith, through and through. Plas Eden is your purpose. Always has been, always will be. How could I be happy unless I knew you were happy, too? I’m not sure love would survive, unless both of us can follow our dreams.’
‘But what about Cornwall? I don’t want you to throw that away.’
She kissed him. ‘Of course I was tempted by Karenza’s suggestion. Who wouldn’t be? A few months ago I would have jumped at the chance. But not now. Oh, I want to visit there, just like we’ll be coming back to London, and I want to get to know Karenza better. I’ll always love Cornwall and be glad it’s a part of me. But I’m a Pont-ar-Eden girl at heart. Then there’s Mam. I’m not sure I’d want to live so far away as Mam gets older. Not now. I’ve learnt so much during the time I’ve been looking after Mam. Most of all, I’ve learnt that Pont-ar-Eden is where I belong, too.’
His gaze was earnest. ‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure? I lost you once before because of Plas Eden. I couldn’t bear losing you again.’
‘You won’t,’ replied Carys, smiling. ‘In those days, I was a child. I didn’t know who I was, or what I wanted. I saw Eden as a trap I could never escape, and that would suffocate me.’
‘It might well do yet,’ returned David.
‘I don’t think so. In fact, I’m certain it won’t. It was your great-grandmother who taught me that.’
‘Really?’ said David, in surprise.
‘Yes. I’ve been wondering, ever since we got back from Cornwall, how I’d feel if my husband had shoved me into a lunatic asylum just to get rid of me. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to love or trust in anyone ever again. But Ann did. She made her life in Plas Eden without even the protection of being married. In those days, that meant she could have been thrown out on the streets at any moment, with no means of supporting herself.’
‘I suppose so,’ said David, with a shudder.
‘I couldn’t imagine what gave her such mind-blowing courage. But then, when we were waiting in that courtyard for Mr Jackson just now, it suddenly struck me. It was love that gave her the courage to go with your great-grandfather to Plas Eden. She wasn’t afraid of taking on the responsibility either. I’m certain she helped him with his work, as well as setting up the Children’s Hospital. I realised it was love that gave her true freedom, too.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘The statues,’ said Carys. ‘Ann’s drawings are amazing, but Eden’s ghosts are something else. They are so ambitious, so alive, and so beautiful. So few women in the past ever had the time or the confidence to achieve anything like that. They are the work of someone who has been able to reach their full potential. I think that’s something money could never buy, and the greatest freedom and happiness anyone could find. That’s what I want to find, too.’
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