Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square

by Heidi Swain

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘Her family had a far closer connection to the Wentworth family than mine,’ he said meaningfully.

  There was a definite twinkle in his eye and I guessed that Harold had been privy to far more than his own share of secrets and memories over the years.

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said mysteriously. ‘You pop round and I’ll fill you in.’

  The rest of the evening whizzed by and as we all congregated together on the green to listen to the countdown to midnight on the sound system John had rigged up and we linked arms to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, I didn’t feel any pang of regret that I was standing in Nightingale Square rather than in my parents’ house or the pub in Wynbridge, and thinking about what David was up to was even further down my list of thoughts.

  ‘Three, two, one . . .’

  As Big Ben began to chime I looked around at the faces of my neighbours and friends and thought how lucky I was to have made my way to Nightingale Square and the warm and welcoming embrace of such a close-knit community. Not that that was what I had been looking for when I spotted my little house online, but as Lisa handed round the first footing goodie bags and everyone exchanged kisses and hugs, I realised that I felt truly at home.

  I knew I had a very real part to play in this vibrant slice of the city, and although I wasn’t entirely sure what my role was yet, one look back at the outline of Prosperous Place, now dramatically backlit by an explosion of city centre fireworks, I knew it wouldn’t be too much longer before I had worked it out.

  Chapter 11

  By mid-January winter had tightened its icy grip. The New Year hangovers had barely been forgotten before Lisa’s brood were enjoying snow days and Heather, her tone loaded with disappointment, had declared conditions were too treacherous for us to run in. A brisk walk down to the shops and into the city for healthy lunches and sale shopping was about all we could manage, but Lisa didn’t seem to mind and to be honest, neither did I, even though our other friend was keen to remind us that we needed to make a concerted effort to get in shape sooner rather than later because ‘a summer body was made in the winter’.

  Rather than worrying about whether or not I was going to be beach-body ready, I spent my days gathering together paint charts, fabric samples and the details of various local kitchen and bathroom fitters in preparation for the refurbishment I planned to begin in the spring. I was content to while away the chilly afternoons flicking through pages and swatches in Lisa’s kitchen with Radio 2 providing a cheery backdrop whenever the chatter was low enough for us to hear it, which admittedly wasn’t all that often.

  On the days when she wasn’t meeting up with other local mums we would go to Heather’s instead, but with Evie becoming more beautiful and more alert by the day it was hard spending time with her, not that I had told either of my friends that. I didn’t want them to feel sorry for me any more than I wanted them to feel annoyed that I hadn’t told them the whole story about David and me right from the start.

  Inevitably, as I watched Evie being jiggled about on someone else’s knee my mind tracked back to the child David had offered me as compensation for his infidelity and I wondered if a little bundle of my own, should I have been so lucky, would have made up for the pain and heartache he had caused. Would my life have been any better if I had attempted to fulfil my broody biological needs and settled for that half-arsed and slightly wonky fairy tale ending after all?

  January turned increasingly bleak and it began to drag by at a snail’s pace. What I needed was a decent distraction before the novelty of the names Farrow and Ball had creatively come up with for their paints no longer beguiled me and I fell to more frequent and gloomier brooding. Fortunately, Harold was on hand to provide an adequate diversion.

  ‘You still haven’t been and had a look at these photographs of mine,’ he scolded one particularly cold afternoon when I called round to collect him en route to Lisa’s for lunch. ‘I’ve got them all ready. There are boxes of them along with a fair few newspaper and magazine clippings.’

  This was just what I needed to take my mind off memories which were as murky as the weather.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harold. I can’t believe I’ve left it this long. How about tomorrow afternoon,’ I suggested, knowing the change of scene would do me good. ‘How does that suit?’

  ‘Well, I go to the library in the afternoon,’ he reminded me as he slipped his arm through mine, ‘and then there’s the Friday club on Friday,’ he reeled off. ‘I wouldn’t like to miss that.’

  At least I didn’t have to feel guilty that my absentmindedness had meant Harold was home alone every day. He had more weekly activities planned than Lisa, Heather and I put together.

  ‘Monday then,’ I said, carefully closing his garden gate behind us. ‘How about I come on Monday afternoon?’

  ‘Perfect,’ he agreed. ‘I’m always at a loss on a Monday after a busy weekend.’

  I shook my head and laughed. I would never have believed the day would come when I was envious of an eighty-year-old’s social life, but my neighbour was clearly out more often than he was at home by his fireside.

  The pre-arranged Monday turned out to be the gloomiest of the year so far. The daylight hours were dark, the sort that required the house lights to be blazing from dawn till dusk and if it wasn’t for checking, you’d never be able to hazard a guess as to what the actual time was.

  As promised, Harold had sought out his photograph albums of Prosperous Place, along with a variety of fragile, yellowed newspaper and magazine clippings which chronicled its fortunes over many decades. I was looking forward to adding another layer to the information I had already discovered about the business and the goodhearted man who had created it. It would be a comfort on such a dreary day to feel the warmth of human kindness and hear a tale or two which hopefully culminated in a happy ending.

  ‘I thought I had more than this,’ Harold tutted, when we were finally settled at the dining table with a cup of tea apiece and a slice of Victoria sponge which Neil had dropped round from the bakery.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry, Harold,’ I told him, reaching for an album. ‘I think there’s more than enough here to be going on with.’

  There were dozens of small black and white images along with a few larger ones in dazzlingly bright colour and they recorded the gardens and grounds, as well as the house, in all their glory.

  ‘Would you look at these,’ I gasped, as I flicked through the pages of an album dedicated to the grounds in high summer. ‘I had no idea the gardens were so extensive. These herbaceous borders must have run the entire length of the perimeter walls, and who on earth are all these people milling about?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Harold, reaching across the table. ‘There should be a newspaper article to go with those. They were taken when the gardens were opened up for charity. My great-grandfather wrote in his diaries that hundreds of people would come and visit, whatever the weather. Judging by what he recorded, everyone wanted to peek over the wall and catch a glimpse of how the other half lived.’

  I skimmed over the clippings, amazed by the amounts of money that had been raised.

  ‘That was typical of the sort of thing old Mr Wentworth set up,’ said Harold with a nod, ‘and not many people know this, but whatever was raised on the day, he would match it out of his own pocket. Generous to a fault, he was.’

  ‘That was the impression I got from the things I found out about him online,’ I smiled.

  The photographs of the interior of the house were every bit as beautiful as the gardens. It looked exquisitely kept and was packed full of furniture and paintings that David and I, along with our clients, would have drooled over.

  ‘Do you know who this is?’ I frowned, pointing at a closeup of one of the paintings, a portrait, which was hanging next to a large and elaborately decorated fireplace.

  Harold readjusted his glasses.

  ‘Oh now,’ he said with a heavy sigh. ‘There’s a
tale for you. That’s Mr Wentworth’s eldest son. He was a rather special friend of Doris’s great, or should that be great-great-aunt, Abigail.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by special friend?’ I asked, moving the photograph further into the light and noticing just how much he took after his father.

  ‘No one ever talked openly about it of course,’ Harold continued. ‘Because it was such a scandal at the time.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He sat back in his chair again and took his time over another mouthful of cake.

  ‘Well, I don’t know all that much,’ he eventually said, ‘and much of what I do know I’ve had to patch together from snippets of overheard conversations from when I was younger.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let’s just say it was often whispered that Doris’s family were rather more connected to the Wentworths than perhaps they should have been, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘You mean there was an affair?’ I asked, feeling intrigued and shocked in equal measure.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I would put it quite like that,’ Harold smiled, his eyes twinkling, ‘but that’s the gist of it. The chap in the painting, Edward Wentworth, was very taken with Doris’s great-great-aunt Abigail, even though she had only just turned sixteen when they met and he was twenty-four.’

  It all sounded very romantic to me, in spite of the age gap.

  ‘Apparently,’ Harold continued in a low voice, ‘she used to wait for him at the end of the road and then they would go off together for the day. By nightfall, when they’d had their fun, she’d trot home as if butter wouldn’t melt. It went on for months and her parents were beside themselves.’

  The secrecy and clandestine nature of the suspected relationship tugged a little at my bruised heartstrings. Edward and Abigail must have been very much in love to go to such lengths and take such risks.

  ‘How long did they try to keep their relationship secret for?’ I quizzed. ‘I thought the Wentworth clan would have been more open-minded than to judge a girl by her social standing.’

  I had a sudden sinking feeling that what Harold was going to tell me wasn’t going to end well. I had created an illusion of perfection around Mr Wentworth and his philanthropic credentials and had everything crossed that it wasn’t about to be shattered. I had to hang on to the belief that sometimes life really did turn out to be as idyllic as I hoped.

  ‘It wasn’t actually the Wentworth family who turned out to be the problem,’ Harold explained and I let out a premature sigh of relief. ‘It was Doris’s family. When they discovered what was happening they said they wouldn’t have the girl getting ideas above her station.’

  I shook my head in disappointment.

  ‘You have to remember,’ Harold was quick to remind me, ‘that Doris’s family, like mine, had all worked hard in the factory and were very lucky to be living in Nightingale Square. My guess is that Abigail’s father thought that if the relationship ended badly then they would all have ended up without a home and a job.’

  ‘But Charles Wentworth wouldn’t have been that vindictive,’ I insisted. ‘That would have gone against everything he claimed to believe in.’

  Harold shrugged.

  ‘We know that, but Abigail’s parents weren’t prepared to take the risk,’ he told me, ‘and after one liaison too many she was forbidden from ever seeing Edward again.’

  It all sounded tragic, very Romeo and Juliet. I hoped the love story was going to end with a joyful reunion, but the expression on Harold’s face wasn’t suggesting wedding bells and a blissful ever after.

  ‘Do you know what happened to them after that?’ I ventured.

  Harold nodded. Considering he’d told me he didn’t actually know all that much, he had managed to piece together rather a lot.

  ‘Abigail refused to do as she was told and was sent away in the end,’ said Harold, shaking his head, ‘to a relative who lived somewhere along the south coast, and Edward,’ he added with a shudder, ‘met an unfortunate end beneath the copper beech.’

  ‘You mean,’ I could barely get the words out. ‘You mean, he killed himself?’

  Harold nodded.

  ‘In the gardens at Prosperous Place?’

  Harold nodded again.

  ‘That’s dreadful,’ I shuddered. ‘I don’t remember reading anything about any of this,’ I said, thinking back over everything I had discovered about the place before my move. ‘I would have remembered something this terrible. There was no mention of the tragedy anywhere,’ I continued as Harold went to boil the kettle again.

  ‘I can’t imagine it’s the sort of family history Mr Wentworth or his wife would have wanted to have made public, is it?’

  ‘Well, no,’ I conceded, ‘but even so. That wouldn’t usually stop the press from having a field day or events being recorded elsewhere, would it?’

  I thought back over my internet research and wondered if subconsciously I’d stopped delving into the past once I’d created the perfect picture of it.

  ‘Did Abigail ever come back?’ I swallowed.

  ‘No,’ said Harold. ‘She never returned. There were rumours that she’d had a child, but there was never any proof.’

  ‘How sad,’ I said, my eyes filling with tears as they returned to the photograph of the portrait hanging next to the fireplace.

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Harold, ‘as my old mum used to say, the path of true love never did run smooth.’

  She was certainly right about that.

  We spent the remainder of the afternoon looking through the rest of the photographs while Harold filled me in on more details about the factory, along with talk about the many members of his and Doris’s families who had worked there.

  ‘I would say my lot and Doris’s were the lucky ones,’ he smiled, as he explained about the supervisory roles they had worked their way up to in the factory, ‘but they had all worked hard to move themselves off the shop floor and into the Square. However,’ he insisted, ‘Mr Wentworth looked after everyone, irrespective of their position. He made sure a fair wage was paid for a hard day’s work and even the terraced houses around here were palaces compared to some.’

  ‘So, when did it all start to go wrong for the business?’ I asked. ‘When was the turning point for the factory?’

  ‘Understandably, things went off the rails for a while after Edward died,’ Harold explained, ‘and by the time Mr Wentworth rallied, his other son Lawrence had developed gambling debts beyond comprehension. The only way his father could help him was to sell off certain assets and by the time he died, the empire he had created was dwindling.’

  It was devastating to think that all his hard work hadn’t secured a future for those who came after him; all his efforts had actually amounted to nothing. It was heartbreaking.

  ‘Eventually Prosperous Place was the only thing left,’ Harold continued, ‘and that was sold out of the family after having been in the care of a distant branch of the clan for some time. Luckily for Doris’s lot and mine, old Mr Wentworth left our families the houses we lived in and his wife made sure that we got them when the time came.’

  I couldn’t begin to imagine how he and his wife must have felt, watching it all fall apart after the death of their son. It was a testament to them both that they hadn’t banished Abigail’s family from the Square, and indeed the county; I wondered if the girl had ever been told the fate that had befallen her beloved.

  ‘I’d like to see more pictures of the factory,’ I said, my eyes flicking back over the muddled plethora of photos.

  ‘You and me both,’ Harold tutted. ‘I have no idea where they’ve all got to, but I hope this has given you some idea of what the place was like in its heyday.’

  ‘It certainly has,’ I confirmed as I started to gather everything together. ‘Thank you for showing it all to me, Harold. I appreciate it, even if you did have things to say that didn’t match my rose-tinted view of the place.’

  Far from feeling comforted, I felt as though I’
d been poleaxed with a cruel hard dose of reality and wished I hadn’t honed in on the portrait of Edward or made certain assumptions about the Wentworth legacy.

  ‘Like I said earlier,’ Harold shrugged. ‘I don’t really know all that much about the finer details, but I can’t help wishing that this didn’t feel like the end.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said sadly. ‘I can’t believe that all this history and knowledge is going to be lost. You should write everything down you know, Harold. The human stories at least. The things you’ve told me this afternoon are the things that keep history interesting and alive for people, even if their outcomes are tragic. If you don’t pass them on, they’ll be lost forever.’

  ‘Well,’ he chuckled, ‘I’ve told you now, haven’t I? Perhaps you could write them down.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘perhaps I could.’

  We were interrupted by an urgent knocking at the front door.

  ‘Now who could that be?’ frowned Harold.

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

  It was Carole and she was looking more than a little agitated.

  ‘Have you seen?’ she demanded, pointing towards the end of the Square.

  ‘Seen what?’

  ‘The sign,’ she urged, ‘it looks like it’s been ripped down and there’s been a car parked at the gates all afternoon.’

  I looked to where she was pointing and she was right, the developers’ sign had indeed been pulled apart rather than dismantled, but there was no sign of a car.

  ‘It’s happening, isn’t it?’ she sniffed. ‘By this time tomorrow you won’t be able to move down here for bulldozers and builders’ vans.’

  I had no desire to join in with her melodramatic wailing, but I had a horrid feeling she was right. If that was how the new owners treated the sold sign then I dreaded to think what was going to happen inside the house.

  ‘I think you’re right, Carole,’ said Harold, as he joined us on the step. ‘Things are finally afoot.’

  ‘I wish I could have seen it as it was,’ I sighed. ‘I wish I could have at least seen the gardens as they were in the photographs you’ve got, Harold.’