Amy Snow

by Tracy Rees

  ‘Quite funny really, you wouldn’t think a man like Garland would have so much trouble getting a ring on a finger, you know. Handsome face, manners smooth as glass and all that . . .’ Leworth waves a hand loosely about his head. ‘Maybe they can sense something’s wrong about him.’

  Brazil gives an exaggerated scowl of disagreement. ‘Doubt that, old chap. Don’t think women have that much intelligence, to be honest. Suspect he’s just on a run of bad luck at the moment. Bad, bad luck. It’ll turn around though. It always does for Garland. You know what he’s like. By the autumn he’ll be married to one, playing it with another and the third one, whichever she’ll be, will be carrying his child and he won’t know her.’

  ‘Reckon you’re right, Brazil, reckon you’re right.’ He tugs without effect at Whentforth’s snoring bulk. ‘Come on, let’s get this fool home. Think I’ll give the brandy a miss for a couple of nights this week.’

  Brazil’s laugh bounces around the archway. ‘You always say that, Leworth!’

  Leworth hefts the unconscious man’s right arm over his shoulder. ‘So I do, so I do. Lord, but he’s heavy for a short one. Take his left, Brazil.’

  Frozen with shock, I watch them grunt and groan and hoist their friend between them, his head dangling, feet dragging. They begin a slow, painstaking march along the river.

  When they have gone far enough, I turn carefully and pick my way back up the stairs on trembling legs. I cannot – cannot – think about all this until I am back in the carriage and well beyond Bath.

  As I emerge onto Pultney Bridge, another dishevelled gentleman in evening dress comes swaying past me. I shudder in horror. It is Quentin Garland, though not as I have ever seen him. His cravat is loose, his hair is tousled. He has no hat, nor gloves, nor cane. His brilliant blue eyes are shot through with blood.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Garland!’ I say in ringing tones. I am astonished at myself, for I didn’t mean to speak to him at all.

  He staggers to a halt and looks all around him for the source of the address, even though I am directly in his path.

  ‘Here, Mr Garland. It is I, Amy Snow. Do you not know me?’

  He squints at me and as he leans closer I smell the alcohol pouring off him.

  ‘Hard night, Mr Garland?’ I persist, not recognizing this devil in me.

  ‘By God . . . Amy! Wonderful to see you, Amy.’ He sways towards me. ‘Hard night? Yes, you could say that. You haven’t seen three gents, have you? Think they came this way. Owe me money. Oh, just a quiet game between gentlemen, nothing squalid, you know.’

  ‘Naturally not. No, I haven’t seen anyone, Mr Garland. Well, good morning to you.’

  ‘Morning Amy.’ He reaches for the parapet of the bridge but misses, and somehow trips over his own feet. He falls heavily to the ground, where he sits and looks up at me, chuckling. His blue cravat has slithered off and landed in a puddle.

  Despite myself, I feel embarrassed for him and offer my arm to help. He hauls himself back to the vertical, leaning on me like a cane, breathing heavily. I can smell that he has been sick. I try not to recoil but extricate myself as soon as possible, propping him against the bridge, since straightening his knees is evidently a challenge too much.

  ‘You know, you’re looking a little . . .’ He frowns and reaches out a finger, prods my scraped chin clumsily. I wince. He examines his finger, and shudders.

  ‘Blood. Thought so. You’re looking a little rough around the edges this morning in fact, Amy.’ He winks clumsily. ‘Well, I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me. All your little secrets are safe with me.’ He nods and grins and taps the side of his nose.

  ‘You’re a true friend, Mr Garland. Farewell.’

  I run back to the carriage, feeling strangely triumphant. Ambrose’s composure has surpassed its limits: I have been a great deal longer than ten minutes. She exclaims in horror at my disappearance and at my wounds but I refuse to explain. Without further delay, the carriage hurtles out of Bath and in moments the golden city is behind me.

  I am bound for the north. My Henry is left behind and angry with me and my last memory of the elegant, exquisite Quentin Garland, talk of the town in Twickenham and Bath, is of a debauched chancer sagging against a stone balustrade, sallow-skinned and looking lost.

  Part Four

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Two days later, I arrive in York, amidst the predictable turmoil of station and journey’s end and conspicuous solitude. I am now more noticeable than ever, for a shabby nobody may have a number of reasons for travelling alone – all of them disgraceful, naturally – but an elegant lady doing so screams for attention. However, my apparent position and wealth allow me to trample over speculation and scrutiny with a haughty hoist to my head and confidently flung orders. It is something I may have learned from Mrs Riverthorpe.

  When I step onto the platform, far from anywhere that might ever have been home, I am not afraid; I am too preoccupied by a storm of angry questions inside my head and a heart that seems to be breaking all over again. Under these circumstances the need to hail a porter, ask for a hotel, demand assistance, become trifling.

  Thus I am soon ensconced in a large suite at the Jupiter Hotel. ‘The finest York has to offer, and very close to the station, m’lady,’ the railway porter assured me.

  I can barely take in the sumptuous green and cream furnishings and drapes, the thick rugs and heavy lustre jugs of roses. I am exhausted from eight hours on a train today and ten or eleven in a carriage yesterday. My pride is fractured by the discovery that someone I had thought a friend is in fact a profligate, scheming villain. My heart is devastated from the loss of the man I want to marry – either through his stubborness or my own, or possibly both. It is not a pretty state of affairs.

  I have no further clue to follow. I am here. I have done as Aurelia instructed. What now?

  Sleep must be the first thing. And sleep I do, for even the most troubled soul has its limits. I wake to a fresh summer morning and the tumbling bells of York Minster.

  My first sensation is relief that I am rested. Then comes the familiar, weary recognition that I am somewhere all new – I must start again. I no longer doubt that I can do so, but confidence is cold comfort when I’m alone once more.

  Then comes the re-establishment of the dreaded mist in my brain: nothing is solved, after all. I decide to get up and explore this new city, for I have fretted and ruminated over my woes for every moment in that carriage and every moment on that train and it has achieved precisely nothing. I am neither reconciled to what has happened nor decided upon a course of action. Naturally, it is too soon to put it all behind me and embrace a new start. In short, I feel wretched.

  The worst of it, without question, is Henry. The wrench from him. The inability to believe that our future has been ruined and the fear that it may be so. I hate it. I cannot yet bear to admit that he was in the right, but a budding suspicion that he may have had a point fuels the flame of my indignation. Nevertheless, more than anything I want to leave York at once, travel to Richmond and put it all right.

  But I am afraid. What if he has since realized that loving me was an error from which he has been most fortunately saved? What if his offers to me are all retracted, now and for ever? When he speaks of love and choice, of honouring one’s feelings and acting in accordance, my mind can understand him but the dark places in my heart cannot. In those dark places I have ever been alone. There I am always a blight, with a lopsided smile and grubby hands. And there I have learned that to put my fate in someone else’s hands might cost me dear. Since Aurelia died, I have grown accustomed to looking after myself and though it is lonely, it is safer that way. Those dark places whisper always of impossibility . . .

  I think of writing to him, but I do not know what to say. Although it feels as though we have been separated an eternity, it has only been two days. He will still be angry – and I am still gone. Besides, he will be in Richmond by now . . . I know not where.
And where will he go after that? How might I find him? Any letter must pass through several hands to reach him, even assuming he tells anyone where he is. ‘I shall live my life as I see fit,’ he told me – he is lost to me. For now, at least.

  I have the strangest sensation of being poised on a sixpence, about to bolt at any moment. I just want to take action, any action, to change history so that it never happened. But that is quite beyond my power. For now, the precious, damaged puzzle of Henry and myself is one that I must lay aside until I am free of the quest, or at least until I have a better wisdom with which to address it.

  In these dark moments of contemplation, I also worry upon Quentin Garland’s shameless usage of me – and, apparently, half the other young ladies of Bath. Fortune hunter. Philanderer. Liar. Wrapped up in a shiny pastel exterior with a blue cravat. Thinking about it now makes my skin crawl. I feel so horribly stupid when I remember all the moments that my instincts told me the truth and I barely noticed them, so dazzled was I by the elegant figure he cut. I felt honoured, validated, by his attentions when I was low in spirits, when I felt like an outcast, when I thought Henry did not love me . . . yet it was all mixed up with a sense that something was not right. My instincts whispered to me but my insecurities made me deaf to them. I am angry with myself. And with him, of course – it seems I am angry with everyone at the moment.

  By what right did he fix upon me as a . . . as a target, and decide that my life, my heart, my future might be employed to serve his interests? Despicable disregard for humanity! I fume when I recall the clever, subtle ways in which he tried to drive a wedge between Henry and me, the way he sought me out, in Twickenham and in Bath, having witnessed my dramatic transformation. Oh, it was clear that I had come into a fortune and he fixed upon it like a hound with a scent. And I was flattered that such a great gentleman might take an interest in me! What a fool!

  I feel ashamed when I remember how I allowed myself to imagine that he had my best interests at heart because he appeared to respect my secret where Henry did not. Quentin Garland did not respect my secret – he simply had not the slightest interest in it! He even told his friends about it.

  I know it is fruitless to fret this way, yet I cannot stop, not with any effort of will, and this is why I step out into the clear, warm morning and begin aimlessly to wander the streets of York.

  ’Tis a different world here. The city is old, and beautiful in an altogether different way from Bath. The stone is darker, defensive. The streets are crooked and mischievous. Tiny alleys wriggle from one part of the city to another, with small, silent openings barely discernible to the hurrying passer-by. There are rumours of a second city, older still, buried beneath the very stones on which I tramp, its stories lost for ever. A fitting place, then, to end my quest. The buildings stoop and droop and mullioned windows wink in the sunshine. Despite the golden day, the close-crowding roofs and narrow streets create great tides of shadow, even as midday approaches. I am hopelessly lost, by then.

  In Bath, I found it relatively easy to keep my bearings. Hades House was up the hill. Crescent Fields were higher. The abbey was down and the river a short way east. Here, the streets meander and tease. No sooner have I fixed one landmark – shop, church or garden – in my mind, than it vanishes and I cannot find my way back to it by any means. I must have walked miles, but the unvarying volume of the minster bells as they mark off the hours suggests that all these miles are folded and refolded upon themselves within a contained area, like paths in a maze. It is a beautiful, baffling place.

  I return, circuitously, to the Jupiter and write to Edwin Wister again. I tell him where I am, that any of the Wisters may write to me at the Jupiter Hotel if they wish and that I will let him know when I leave. I tell him I am well, for really, what can anyone do to alleviate my particular difficulties? I give my letter to a maid, then time stretches heavy ahead of me.

  I could roam the streets again, but what will that achieve? I could try to find some clever solution to the puzzle of York, but my mind is sluggish and slants ever towards Henry and hurt. I could write to Mr Garland and tell him exactly what I think of him, but as there are no ladylike words to frame this, I resist. I am furious that I did not take the opportunity to say it when I saw him on the bridge that morning. Doubtless he would not have remembered it, given the state he was in, but it would have given me such satisfaction to tell him that I despise him.

  Henry . . . I want to write to Henry . . . I start letter after letter, even though I have nowhere to send one, until the floor of my room is strewn with crumpled balls of paper and I fling down my quill in disgust. So I sit at my window, staring at pigeons sporting amongst the eaves until dusk draws a veil over this, my first day in York.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Heartbreak makes me stupid. I do try, in the days that follow, to set to the task assigned me. I puzzle over letters, speculate theories and try to piece together probabilities. I sit at my window for hours, thinking of Aurelia, hoping that a childhood memory may trigger a clue, as it did in London. But at inconvenient moments I am invaded by the recollection of Henry’s lips on mine, of the light in his eyes. I remember the warm, melting feeling I experience whenever I am close to him and touching him is an irresistible possibility. I turn my mind away most firmly, but he follows me . . .

  I write to Mrs Riverthorpe, apologizing for my anger when we parted. I assure her of my continued regard – not that she will prize it, I’m sure – and beg her to tell me anything she knows for otherwise I seem doomed to live out the rest of my days at the Jupiter Hotel.

  Letters arrive from Madeleine, Michael and Edwin. They each contain glad news and I am reassured that elsewhere, outside my own strange, convoluted life, good things can happen. Madeleine is finally betrothed and her letter glows with rapture.

  The elderly Mrs Nesbitt has a beau! Michael reports this with some disgust but, being a boy, gives me no further details, much to my exasperation. However, he encloses a fair copy of his latest school assignment, a critique of John Donne’s poetry. It is very accomplished.

  And Edwin announces with delighted modesty that Constance is expecting another child! She has also acquired an alabaster statue of Aphrodite for the conservatory.

  Between letters and tears I walk. I rattle around inside the enclosure of these ancient city walls, aware that they present a marvellous opportunity for sketching and learning about architecture but, honestly, I do not care.

  I am returning to my hotel one aimless evening when something catches my attention and makes me stop.

  I look all around me: a winding street like so many others, with a coffee house and a number of shops, all closed now. I consider walking on but no, something snatched at me and I must know what it is. I gaze at the buildings, the doorways, at the cat that tiptoes past my boots, then shoots away down the street. And then I see, really see, the butcher’s shop.

  ‘J. Capland, Butcher,’ says the sign. What is familiar about that?

  A sudden memory of Mrs Riverthorpe: ‘Should you ever find yourself in the North Country, do please look up my friends the Caplands . . . Shall you remember that name, Amy? Capland? Or will Henry’s dark eyes drive it from your swiftly dissolving brain?’

  I force myself not to think of Henry’s dark eyes and stare at the shop. Is Aurelia’s tale to end in a butcher’s shop? No matter, it could end in a slaughterhouse for all I care if it means I can complete my charge.

  I hurry back to take supper in a newly restored frame of mind. I will say this for Aurelia’s treasure hunt: for all its difficulties and inconvenience, the feeling of moving one step closer is uplifting.

  I feel optimism for the first time since Bath. I might be able to write to Madeleine in just a day or two and tell her I am coming to Twickenham! She and Constance can advise me about Henry and I will find him, however hard that may be. Seeing him face to face will be better than any letter could be. I will be free at last and he will be able to see it in my eyes. Yes, I will find him and
tell him I am so very sorry . . .

  I try to recall what Mrs Riverthorpe said about the Caplands. It was a radical change of subject, I remember, and with hindsight it is clear that she was imparting important information to me. At the time, however, it merely seemed typical of her fleeting attention: ‘He is a very good fellow as they go, owns a shop . . . She is as silly a creature as ever lived, but kind-hearted . . . Oh, do not fear, they are nothing like me.’

  I pass the evening in a sort of fever of excitement. The end of the trail is within my grasp. I have allowed myself to hope this a number of times, but that was wishful thinking; this is certainty. I am filled with such a sense of vigour and energy as I never knew. I curse British trading laws and the need to wait ’til morning. My slumber is fitful, but deep when it comes.

  I wake suddenly, to a startled dawn. Something profound has happened. I sit up, pulsing and alert, while the dawn chorus ripples through my room. I have dreamed.

  I remember the dream vividly – a parade of faces. I see them still: Mr Clay handing me a parcel in the January dawn; Mr Carlton at the Rose and Crown, with his evangelical zeal for railway travel; dear Mr Crumm, with his books and periodicals and his handsome grandson; Madeleine and her family; Mrs Riverthorpe, with her razor tongue and bristling feathers – all those who have helped me on my journey. I saw Henry. And Aurelia, shining like an angel, laughing in the summertime.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  It is still too early to find my fate in the butcher’s shop. While I wait, I am a-quiver with resolve. The night has changed me. I remember Hatville, I remember it all, and I no longer shrink from the memory. It is what formed me, and this treasure hunt has fired me like clay passing through flame. I will be stronger and better for this, I know that now.