The Garden of Promises and Lies

by Paula Brackston

  “Are you really OK?” he asked. “You’ve had a pretty terrible time of it.”

  She mustered a smile. “I will be fine once we’ve got Evie home. I need to go to her room and find something of hers. Something with a strong connection. Come on.”

  They made their way along the corridor, up a half flight of steps, and around the corner, to where Evangeline’s room was on the west side of the house. It was a cheerful place, kept tidy by maids and as quickly untidied by Evie, with half-finished drawings on the table, a collection of pinecones on the windowsill, a shawl thrown carelessly down on the floor. But, as the maid had told them at breakfast, her bed had not been slept in, her nightclothes lay untouched on the covers.

  “What are you looking for?” Liam asked.

  “I’m not looking, I’m listening. I need something to sing to me,” she said, walking slowly around the room. She picked up a china doll in a sumptuous burgundy velvet dress, but could hear nothing from it. She found two little wooden horses, one with a repaired leg, showing that they had been played with often. She held them tightly, but felt no vibration and heard no song at all. None of Evie’s clothes were able to provide the connection she needed. She scanned the room. “What does she love?” she asked aloud. “What is her favorite thing?”

  “If you’re asking me,” Liam replied, “I’d say you’re looking in the wrong place.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “Evie is an outdoors girl. She doesn’t like being cooped up inside.”

  “You’re right. Of course!” Xanthe dropped to the floor and began searching beneath the bed.

  “What on earth…?”

  She emerged seconds later clutching a pair of muddy boots. They were ankle length, brown, with laces to the top, their toes scuffed and low heel worn. “These!” she said triumphantly. “Evie’s favorites. She was only wearing smart shoes yesterday because of the wedding. She lives in these.” Excitedly, she held the boots to her, sitting on the floor, waiting, listening. For a moment she thought she had been mistaken, but then the high notes sounded, faint at first but growing in strength. The unmistakable song of a found thing. “Yes!”

  “Can you hear something?”

  She nodded. “These will take me to her.”

  “Wait, you’re going now? Right now?”

  “I have to.”

  “But, you don’t know where, and how will you get back…”

  “I’m traveling time-within-time, Liam. Just like I did from my room the other day. It’ll be OK. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” She got to her feet. “I will be back really quickly.”

  Liam took a long breath and let it out slowly. “It’s not easy, you know, being the one to watch you do all this. Just being left to wait. I feel bloody useless, to be honest.”

  “I need you,” she said, taking hold of his hand. “I couldn’t have done all this without you. Right now I need you to just go along with the search. I don’t know where Evie is, but I don’t think it will be far. Like I said, Fairfax had to be sure wherever and whenever he put her was secure. He couldn’t have someone from another time stumbling across her. Having said that, I can’t just reappear here with her, so, well … I need you to watch out for me. For us. And then go along with whatever tale I tell, OK?”

  “OK,” he said, kissing her quickly.

  Xanthe hesitated and then pulled him close for another kiss. This time it was she who gave it. They embraced, and she breathed in his warmth, closing her eyes, drawing strength from him.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Now, I need to go.”

  She returned to her own room with the boots, waving Liam off as he headed back out to join the search. She hurried over to the bed-cover and tugged out another silk thread. She wound it around her finger, tucking in the end so that it was secure. Next, she opened the Spinners book. Taking a moment to steady herself and focus, she tucked the singing boots under her left arm so that her right hand was free to turn the pages. She spoke to it calmly and confidently. This was no time for nervousness, no time to doubt herself.

  “Take me to Evangeline,” she said. “I must travel time-within-time. Take me to her.” As she watched, the words of the appropriate incantation appeared, racing across the page. She read them out clearly, keeping Evie to the front of her thoughts, feeling the vibration of the boots against her heart. “Where are you, Evie?” she asked, closing her eyes. “Where are you?”

  She traveled with a jolt this time, lurching forward, surprised by the violent movement, putting it down to the urgency of her mission. When she arrived at her destination she saw there was another reason for the unsettling nature of her transition. She found herself back at the folly, and for an awful moment thought she had taken a wrong turn. She was not up on the turret, but at the foot of the stairs. Looking more closely, however, she realized this was winter. The evergreen ivy still twined its way up the stone walls, but the trees around the building were bare, and the temperature jarringly cold. She turned this way and that, searching for any sign of the girl. Seeing nothing, she began to mount the spiral stairs. She had got no more than two steps up when she heard soft moans. Turning, she realized that they were coming from behind a low door she had not paid much attention to before. When she reached it she heard sobs from the other side. The door was worn oak boards with a small iron grille near the top, reminding her of the original lockup in Marlborough, where Alice had been incarcerated.

  “Evie?” she called through the bars. “Evie, are you in there?”

  There was no answer, but she could definitely hear whimpering and the occasional cough. She tried the door, fearing it might be locked, and was relieved to see it was kept closed by nothing more than a heavy iron bolt. It was stiff but she succeeded in pulling it back and releasing the catch. The door creaked open. Evie lay on an old mattress, huddled in a pile of blankets and pillows. There was a chamber pot in one corner of the room, a stone water jar beside the makeshift bed, and nothing more. She felt rage growing inside her at the thought of Fairfax leaving the child here, alone, trapped, in the dark, cold and terrified. It was a salient reminder of just what the man had been capable of and how well rid of him they all were.

  “Evie, it’s me, Xanthe.” She crouched down and pulled the blankets off the girl, trying to wake her. She saw now that she was in the grip of a fever and barely conscious. Had she come a few hours later it might have been to retrieve a corpse. “Come along, little one, let’s get you back where you belong.” She sat Evie up gently. She took off her shawl and wrapped it around the girl, pulling her onto her lap and holding her close. “Stay with me, Evie. Just a small jump down the rabbit hole, you’ll see.”

  She had thought of arriving back in Evie’s proper time somewhere in the woods so that she could claim she had found her there, but the child was in no state to walk anywhere and Xanthe doubted she would be able to carry her far. She decided to trust to all the servants being involved in the search outside the house. She would return to her own room and play it from there.

  “Take us back,” she called out firmly, holding the red silk on her finger against Evie’s cold hand. “Time-within-time … take us back to Petronella!”

  Again the transition was swift and uncomfortable, as if the perilous condition of Evie’s health affected it. They arrived as if falling from several feet onto the floor of Xanthe’s room. Xanthe lifted her carefully onto the bed, smoothing her hair off her clammy brow. She pulled the cover up and tucked her in and then ran, shouting as she went. “Come quick! Come quick. Miss Evangeline is home! She is found!”

  She had been right in thinking most of the servants would be out searching, but Cook and the upstairs maid were still in the house. After much in the way of exclamations and expressions of shock, Cook hurried to the kitchen to fetch hot water and broth, while the maid was sent to find someone to ride for the doctor, and someone else to find Mr. Wilcox and Petronella. As she and the stout woman tended to Evie, Xanthe explained she had heard a noise on the landing outside
her room and opened her door to find the child half conscious in the hallway. They agreed that whatever had befallen her, she had taken a chill and used her failing strength to find her way home. They removed her filthy clothes, washed her with warm water, and made her comfortable in Xanthe’s bed.

  Within the hour, the doctor had arrived and the search party returned. Petronella took up vigil at her sister’s side. Doctor Maynard tried to reassure her.

  “Miss Wilcox is young and vigorous,” he said, “and well equipped to fight through the fever, which I am happy to say is already showing signs of abating.”

  Xanthe was confused by what he called Evangeline and then remembered that now Petronella was no longer the oldest unmarried daughter, her sister was the default Miss Wilcox. She put a hand on Petronella’s shoulder.

  “Evie will be running rings around all of us again by the end of the week. Try not to worry.”

  “I feel responsible for her condition,” Petronella said tearfully. “I was too much taken up with the wedding, or I should have noticed her absence sooner.”

  Doctor Maynard handed Xanthe two small bottles. “When she is able to sip again, give her two spoonfuls of this one. The other is a tonic for Mrs. Fairfax, to help her rally from her own loss. Can I trust you to see they are administered? Excellent. I will call back in the morning.” He bowed somewhat creakily and left the room.

  Xanthe took a chair the other side of what had been her own bed.

  “Oh.” Petronella looked up. “You must be so weary. I will have a bed made up for you in another room.”

  “Don’t put anyone to the trouble, for I will sit up with you tonight. We will watch over Evie together.”

  Petronella thought to protest but then nodded. “Thank you.”

  By the time darkness had fallen Evie’s face no longer looked flushed with fever and she was able to take the remedy she had been left and even a few sips of Cook’s broth. Her eyes had regained their focus and she smiled weakly at her sister. She was made comfortable and fell into a peaceful and restorative sleep.

  Xanthe saw how completely exhausted Petronella was. She stood up and took her hand. “Come and sit by the fire,” she said. “You will be more rested, and Evie can sleep while we talk.”

  Even though it was high summer, the storm had brought about a drop in temperature, so a fire had been lit in the hearth. They each took one of the comfortable chairs in front of it. Xanthe insisted Petronella take some of the doctor’s tonic, and a maid brought up hot milk laced with rum and ginger. When they were alone again, she took the opportunity to talk privately with her friend.

  “Nell, I am so sorry about what happened to Mr. Fairfax.”

  “Such a cruel way to die, and when he was searching for Evie…”

  Xanthe chose her words carefully, seeing no point in adding to Petronella’s distress, and knowing she could never tell her anything approaching the truth.

  “To lose a husband in such a shocking, sudden way must be hard to bear.”

  “It is difficult to reconcile myself to the fact that he lost his life trying to help me by searching for the sister he knew I adored. Even though she had no affection for him.”

  Again she had to bite her tongue, maddened by how far Petronella’s idea of what he had done was from reality. The truth was he had brought her sister close to death and not cared one jot about it.

  “Evie is home safe,” she said at last. “And we are all thankful for that.”

  “Benedict would have been gladdened to know she returned to us and will regain her health fully. We may never know where she wandered to, for the doctor told me patients who suffer such fevers often lose their recollection of events. All that matters is that she is home.” She was silent for a little while then, warming her hands on her comforting drink as she gazed into the fire. When she spoke it was with a calm voice that belied the enormity of how her life had changed in a few short hours. “I will not pretend to you that I loved him, for you know I did not,” she said. “Whilst I would never wish any person ill fortune, it is the case that my husband’s sad fate has left me in a favorable position. As a daughter, I could not inherit Corsham. As a widow, however, I will receive my late husband’s estate in its entirety. He was a successful man of commerce; I shall be amply provided for. His fortune means our family’s future at Corsham is secure. It also means that one day, should she choose to, Evie may marry for love, for she will never want for anything hereafter.”

  “Then some good has come out of a calamity,” Xanthe agreed. She thought then about how the wedding dress had called her to help Petronella. She thought about the complicated train of events that had led to this; to Nell being free and her family saved, without having to endure Fairfax as master of Corsham Hall. Mistress Flyte had always maintained that being a Spinner meant ensuring that history unfolded as it was meant to do. It was a great deal to take in, to understand what that truly meant. If she hadn’t chosen to meet Fairfax at the folly; if it hadn’t rained so heavily; if she hadn’t been able to kick herself free of his grasp—each twist and misstep and stride forward had led to where they were, and she had played her part in it. She wished she could talk it all over with the old lady. She badly needed so many things to be clearer. And yet, she could no longer trust Mistress Flyte with all her thoughts and fears. There were still things the Spinners book had showed her that she did not fully understand, and most of them related to Mistress Flyte’s own history.

  The next morning, Evie was sitting up in bed pleading to be allowed outside. Her father had sternly forbidden her from leaving her bed for at least another day. Petronella was already dressed in the widow’s mourning that she would wear for at least six months and all the servants were wearing black crepe armbands. She had undertaken to make sure that her sister ate three meals and was entirely free of her cough before she would be permitted to venture out of doors. They had questioned her gently on the whys and wherefores of her disappearance but it was as Doctor Maynard had suggested: She could remember almost nothing at all. Xanthe was relieved to hear this, having worried that the child would suffer nightmares and flashbacks after her traumatic experience. The fever had done its work and erased painful memories. Mr. Wilcox returned to live at the Hall, at his daughter’s insistence. He was at first reluctant, but she convinced him she sorely needed his help in organizing her late husband’s funeral, and thereafter could think of no greater balm for her grief than having her dear father close at hand.

  That afternoon, Xanthe made a point of visiting Petronella while she was in her bedroom. There was something she needed to be certain of.

  “Would you mind,” she asked, “if I took one more look at your wedding gown? It was so lovely, I should very much like to see it again. But of course, if to regard it brings you sadness…”

  “Not in the least. More than anything it will remind me of our friendship, as you were so kind and so attentive during all the long fittings and alterations, without which we might never have met.”

  As she watched Petronella retrieve the dress from the box in which it had been placed, Xanthe felt a pang of guilt and sadness. She knew something else that Nell did not, something she could never explain to her. That she and Liam would soon leave, and would vanish from her life as mysteriously and quickly as they had arrived in it. It seemed a cruel end to what had become a warm and genuine friendship.

  Petronella laid the dress upon the bed. “It was very beautiful,” she murmured.

  Xanthe stepped closer to it. Slowly, she reached out her hand and touched the fabulous lace of the bodice, holding her breath as she did so. Nothing. No vibration, not so much as a shiver. There was no calling, no connection, nothing more coming from it. The found thing had ceased its song. She let out a long, thankful breath.

  “My sister has moved back into her own room,” Petronella was telling her. “Please do take up the one she so abruptly took from you. It has such a pretty aspect.”

  “Oh, thank you, Nell, but there is no need. Li
am and I must return to see my aunt tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes.” She nodded slowly. “It’s time to go home.”

  20

  Liam straightened the brim of his hat against the strong sun as they stood on the step of Corsham Hall for the last time. Xanthe was at his side and they watched as the footmen loaded their belongings onto the carriage. He turned to her.

  “If feels like only five minutes ago we were arriving here in that, but so much has happened since then.”

  She looked at him. “Will you be sorry to leave?”

  “The Wilcox family, yes,” he said, waving up at Evie, who had been allowed to sit in the window of her bedroom. Another day had made all the difference to her recovery, her dangerous fever now a distant memory. “This place too. I think I could have enjoyed a life of riding and hunting and fishing. Might have got quite good at it.”

  “And eating,” she said, playfully prodding the tight waistcoat over his tummy.

  He smiled. “They do like their food. And booze! I think I was a bit drunk practically every time I got on a horse. And then Henry would pass around a hip flask full of something lethal each time we stopped to let the horses have a blow, and I’d be even more drunk when I got off.”

  “I’m sorry to leave Petronella,” Xanthe said. “I wish there was some way…” She let the thought go. They both knew this was to be a final goodbye.

  Mr. Wilcox satisfied himself that what luggage there was had been properly loaded. The driver took his place and a footman held the door open. As it was another warm day Xanthe had asked the top be lowered. She knew it would please Liam for them to ride in the landau open topped.