‘And the child?’ His voice was stern now.
‘She’s to go to an old servant of the Duchess’. A very good sort of woman, with married daughters. It was all arranged. Only…’
‘You left it too late.’
‘Yes. The Duke wanted to come too, you see. Only…he’s always so busy. Politics, and the club, and — you know the kind of thing.’
‘Yes, I know.’ He felt infinitely sorry for her, but that had nothing to do with his duty as a clergyman. ‘Well, if none of your family will have you, you will just have to stay with us.’ His heart misgave him as he said it, but he went bravely on. ‘My wife loves your daughter already. I know she will want to go on feeding her. You will have to stay that long. It will give you time to see your position in its true light.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t you see? It’s a kind of miracle. My not being able to feed the child. Your wife taking her. I was afraid I would not be able to part with her. Now it’s easy. Please, won’t you keep her? She’ll be better with you than she ever would with me, or with the woman in Wales. It’s the hand of God, as you said. Please, sir, say you’ll keep her?’
‘Keep her? You mean for good?’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked up at him pleadingly. ‘The Duke couldn’t make up his mind. He thought maybe, later, we could think of a story. The child of French friends, perhaps. Something like that. He’s a devoted father,’ she said.
‘The Duchess has children?’
‘Oh yes! Two girls. They long for a boy — for an heir. Her first child was a son. He died of smallpox when he was four, poor little thing. That was before I met them. Oh, I’m so glad mine is a girl. I could not have born for it to be a boy. For the poor Duchess. I’ve been so afraid…’ For a moment, she believed she was telling the truth.
‘It’s the Duke of Cley, isn’t it?’ He pronounced it to rhyme with fly. And then, seeing her shrink back in the bed, the tears beginning to flow again, he raised a soothing hand. ‘Don’t look so scared, child. Your secret is safe with me. As to the child, poor little creature, it is hard to know what to do for the best. This servant you were planning to leave her with, do you know her?’
‘No, sir. But the Duchess says she is a very good sort of a woman.’
‘And fit to bring up a child who may one day move in the highest circles?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘No,’ he said gently, reserving his anger for the Duke. ‘How should you? Well, you had best give me her name and I’ll have some enquiries made. If she won’t do, perhaps I will be able to think of someone else.’
‘If only you would take her yourselves! Denise says she’s good as gold. And healthy. She’d be no trouble. And, of course,’ she smiled and blushed, ‘the Duke would pay well for her keep.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You must see that it is quite impossible. If it were a question of having the poor little thing for life, I might be mad enough to consider it. My wife does love her most dearly already.’ His smile was kind. ‘I’ve quite lost my heart to her myself. The most perfect baby I ever saw. But you must see, Mrs…’ He paused. ‘Not Brown?’
‘No, Winterton. You have perhaps heard of my husband.’
‘I am afraid so. Even down here in the valleys one is not free from the London gossip. You have my deepest sympathy, ma’am. I take it there is no chance of his accepting the child as his?’
‘Impossible,’ she said. ‘I’ve not ever heard from him since he fled the country to avoid his creditors. And—’Again that pleading look. ‘—I know you think me a bad mother, but I’d not saddle the child with him for a father. Oh, if only you…’
‘I’m sorry.’ He rose as a servant scratched at the door to announce that the doctor had come.
‘At last,’ he said. ‘I’ll take him to Mrs Trentham first, if you don’t mind?’
‘Of course not. But she is really better?’
‘I think so. Thanks to your maid, and your little girl. If you had not arrived when you did…I do thank God for you, Mrs Winterton.’
‘You won’t tell the doctor?’
‘I promised you, child.’
A little later, he was closeted with the doctor in his study.
‘A near thing.’ Dr Mancroft sipped his wine. ‘A deuced near thing. You must not think of risking another, sir. If that French girl had not had her wits about her, I don’t like to think what would have happened. Pity about your little girl, but I doubt if even I could have saved her.’ He had seen too many deaths to take this one hard. ‘Lucky accident, that,’ he went on, ‘the other lady being here. She’s making a splendid recovery, by the way. No problems there. Up and about in a few days, I have no doubt. Told her I thought she’d be fit to travel in a week or so. She seems deuced anxious to get back to town. No reason that I can see why she shouldn’t. So long as she leaves the baby, that is. What are you going to call it? Fetching little thing. No wonder Mrs Trentham’s so taken with it. Saved her life, you know, that baby did. You mustn’t think of letting the mother take it away.’ He put a knowledgeable finger to the side of his nose. ‘Not that I imagine she’ll be wanting to. Pretty clear case, eh, to a couple of men of the world like you and me? Lucky for her you’ve got no option but to keep the child.’
‘No option?’
The doctor finished his wine and turned serious. ‘Had a hard time, your wife. Deuced hard time. Be a liar if I didn’t tell you so. Not quite so composed in her mind, still, as I’d like to see. Doesn’t seem to want to see the other children, had you noticed?’
‘Yes. They mind, too.’
‘Just so. That baby’s all in all to her, right now. Just between ourselves, I’m not sure she doesn’t half think it’s her own. Well,’ expansively, as the rector poured him more wine, ‘women are strange creatures. And at these times…’ he shrugged largely. ‘Not their most rational. By no means,’ he concluded with some emphasis.
‘Let me understand you.’ Mr Trentham put down his glass and leaned forward. ‘You are saying that it would be inadvisable to part my wife from the baby at this time.’
‘Inadvisable! My dear man, it would either drive her mad or kill her.’
Chapter One
‘Caroline! Caroline!’ called Giles Trentham.
‘Carrie, Carrie!’ cried his sister. ‘Time to come out now. We give up. And mother’s rung the bell twice. Time for supper.’
Caroline did not stir. She had found a hiding place, down at the bottom of the garden, where cultivated flowers gave way to meadowsweet and comfrey and tall wild flags. Since Giles had fallen in and been dangerously rescued at the age of eight, they had not been allowed as near to the River Llanfryn as this, but today she had found the gleam of its fast water irresistible. Tucked invisibly away under the yew hedge, which was clipped one side and wild the other, she could smell the rich scent of the vicarage garden, the blend of gillyflower and hyacinth and small heart’s ease, while she watched the swift flow of the water.
It was one of the times when the world around her seemed so piercingly beautiful that she could hardly bear it, she must stay quiet, feeling her happiness, listening to it, as she did to the voices of the older children, still calling her, but farther off now, from the orchard that sloped away to the west of the rectory.
‘Carrie, Carrie,’ came Sophie’s voice, faintly now, and then Giles:
‘You know she doesn’t like being called that. Caroline, please come out now. Mother will be cross.’
Somehow, today, Giles’ voice was part of the extraordinary sweetness of things. It drew her out of the trance of happiness, the spellbound watching of the river. Slowly, still half mesmerised by the rush of the water, she pulled herself up, hand over hand, through the lower branches of the yew, and so emerged onto the gravelled path that defined the bottom of the garden. The scent of blossom was stronger here, and she paused to take one deep, ecstatic breath, before she called, ‘Coming!’ and began to run up the rustic steps.
She c
aught up with the others on the terrace, and fourteen-year-old Sophie gave her one horrified look. ‘Oh, Carrie, what will mamma say? Your dress is torn again, and your hair! Where in the world have you been?’
‘Down by the river,’ said truthful Caroline. ‘I had to climb through the yew hedge.’
‘For goodness sake don’t tell mamma that,’ said Giles. ‘You know you’re not allowed there, Caro!’
‘It’s so pretty,’ she said unanswerably.
In the house, the bell rang again. ‘Come along,’ said Giles. ‘Let me speak for you, Caro, and you won’t have to tell a fib.’
But when they went in from the hot sunshine to the cool of the stone-walled house, they found things in a turmoil. The bell had announced not supper but guests. Nurse Bramber was awaiting them in the back hall, arms akimbo, face red with anxiety.
‘There you are at last! There’s company come. Your mother’s been calling for you this half hour and more. Oh, lud, Miss Caroline, what have you been doing now! Come upstairs this minute. I’ve your sprigged muslin laid out ready. Miss Sophie, I am trusting you to make yourself fit to be seen. And you, Master Giles, your best suit in ten minutes, or I’ll know the reason why!’
‘Lord, Martha, how you do fuss,’ said Giles. ‘Anyone would think it was King George the Third himself, calling, instead of some prosy friend of father’s.’
‘Farmer George, is it?’ She was leading the way up the back stairs now, puffing as she went. ‘No, nor yet that good for nought son of his. And as to a friend of your father’s! It’s not one I’ve seen before, no how. The finest gentleman you ever did see, and the two ladies with him might have come straight from court. So, hurry, children, do, they asked most particular to see you.’
Fifteen agitated minutes later, the three children descended the stairs, neat as ninepence, as Giles put it, in their Sunday best. Sophie, whose curls were natural, had merely had them combed through, but Caroline’s fine dark hair had been ruthlessly re-braided by Nurse Bramber, and tears of protest still showed in her large eyes. She was pale from a rigorous scolding and the brisk cleansing of the various scratches on wrists and ankles about which, fortunately, Nurse Bramber had not had time or breath to question her. The glow of happiness she had felt down by the river was gone, leaving her sad and strangely lonely.
‘Come on, then.’ Giles knocked firmly on the drawing-room door and pushed it open.
For once, Nurse Bramber had not exaggerated. The two ladies who were talking to mamma were beautiful as fairies, as the angels in the big picture in papa’s study. Their clothes were made of stuffs so fine that Caroline, who liked to have a word for everything, had no idea what they were called. And the man talking to papa was indeed the finest gentleman she had ever seen, though she thought she liked papa’s face better, even though it was so much older and more lined.
‘On our way to Llangollen,’ the elegant young stranger was saying, ‘to see my cousin there, and thought we would take a look in on you and your little family. Ah.’ He turned his fair head and saw the children, ‘and here they are. And a handsome parcel of youngsters, too. Now, let me see if I can guess which is Miss Caroline.’ He raised the quizzing glass to his pale eye, considered the two girls for a moment and turned back to Mr Trentham. ‘Not difficult after all. She’s a little shrimp of a thing, is she not, compared with your splendid youngsters.’
‘Charles!’ exclaimed the lady with the golden ringlets who was sitting beside Mrs Trentham on the sofa. ‘What a thing to say! You have put the poor child quite to the blush, I declare. Come here, my dear,’ she held out a hand to Caroline, ‘and tell me how old you are. I have a son at home who must be very much of your age, and he is not very tall either. But I love him dearly just the same.’ She turned to the other lady who was sitting very upright, very still, on a straight-backed chair. ‘Do you not think she has something of a look of our Blakeney?’
There was an odd little silence in the room, and Caroline felt herself suddenly and most unusually the centre of attention. She looked around, disconcerted, and met the steady glance of the second lady, the one with the huge eyes and glowing dark hair. Her look was kind. Wonderfully kind. It took Caroline strangely back to that moment of pure happiness down by the river, smelling the sweet flowers of the garden. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she smiled at the beautiful, dark-eyed stranger, who was now holding out a hand.
‘Come to me, my dear,’ she said. ‘I would dearly like to have a little girl like you.’
She smelled delicious, like the flowers. Clasped in a fragrant arm, Caroline stood beside her chair and looked out at the world she knew. Something very strange was happening. She looked at her beloved family as if from a distance. Papa had read them a poem by Mr Milton that had made a great impression on her. Someone in it had stood high, high up, looking down at the world. That was how it felt to be standing beside this kind lady, who held her close, and went on talking lightly, pleasantly, to mamma and the fair lady.
It did not last. Suddenly, the gentleman was on his feet, slender in his blue coat.
‘Time to be going,’ he said. ‘My cousin keeps early hours. Good of you to have made us welcome at so little notice, Trentham.’ He did not sound as if this had surprised him. ‘We’ll give you a look in, if we may, on our way back to Norfolk? You’d like that, my love?’
He addressed the lady on the sofa, but it was the one who was holding Caroline who answered. ‘Oh, yes, Duke, do let us,’ she said.
‘The Duke of Cley, no less,’ said Giles, back once more in the safety of the nursery. ‘And didn’t he just know it! Treated my father as if he was…was nobody. And called you a shrimp, too, Caroline. I’d like to have told him you were the wisest shrimp in Christendom.’
‘It’s just as well you didn’t.’ Caroline flashed him a mischievous smile. ‘I don’t think he would have liked it above half.’
‘No. He did fancy himself Sir Oracle, did he not?’
Caroline laughed. ‘“And when I ope my lips,”’ she quoted. ‘“Let no dog bark.”’
‘Oh, you two!’ said Sophie. ‘Stop talking nonsense and tell what you thought of the ladies. The Duchess was the pretty, fair one who sat by mamma, but I liked the other better, did not you, Carrie?’
‘She wasn’t pretty,’ said Caroline, ‘she was beautiful.’
She dreamed of the beautiful, kind lady that night, dreamed, amazingly, that she was showing her the garden and the river, telling her how it felt to sit there. She would understand, would share the happiness. Mamma and Papa were always so busy. Besides, they were not really Mamma and Papa. Her own mamma had died when she was born, leaving her nothing but her blessing and a string of pearls, which she was allowed to look at on Sundays. She day-dreamed sometimes that that was all a mistake, that her mother came back, like a fairy in a story book. The strange lady had said she would like a little girl. How soon would they come? The man who was a Duke had not said, but she did not think he would stay long with the cousin who kept early hours. She stayed close to the house, not wishing to miss a moment of their next visit.
‘What’s the matter with you, child?’ asked Nurse Bramber, a week later. ‘I said, “Go out and play while the sun shines,” didn’t I? And here you are, still moping in the nursery. Summer will be over soon enough, and the flowers gone. Out with you, and take the air while you can!’
‘I don’t know what’s got into the child,’ she said later to Mrs Trentham. ‘Never been a bit of trouble before, and now she no more minds me than if I was that chair. Creeping back, she comes, into the house, whenever my back is turned, and always on the listen.’
‘On the listen,’ said Mrs Trentham. ‘I wonder…’
She spoke to her husband about it that evening. ‘Nurse says Caroline is always on the listen these days,’ she said. ‘As if she were expecting someone. Do you think they will come back, my dear?’
‘I doubt it. I am afraid the Duke did not think much of our little Caroline. If he had given her a chance to speak,
he might have understood something of her quality. But, frankly, my dear, I am glad he did not. I know I was reluctant to have her, but now I’d not part with little Caro for anything. I was afraid, when they were announced, that they might have come for her.’
‘I felt sorry for her poor mother,’ said Mrs Trentham. ‘What a lovely creature she is, and what a sad story. Still to be living that no how kind of life with the Duke and Duchess after all these years. How can she bear it, my love?’
‘I suspect she does not have your high moral principles,’ said her husband fondly. ‘To tell truth, I thought she looked happy enough.’
‘And so did the Duchess,’ said his wife. ‘Extraordinary. And the Duke nothing out of the way, were he not a duke.’
‘Ah, but he is,’ said her husband. And then, ‘My dear, I really do believe we are gossiping!’
‘Is there much talk about them?’ asked his wife.
‘Bound to be. But not the kind I listen to, and no more should you. Caroline is our dear daughter, and that’s an end to it.’
‘Yes, but there is one thing…’ She looked at him a little anxiously. ‘She’s not our daughter, you know, dearly though I love her. Sometimes I wonder about Giles…Bringing them up together like this. He stands her champion — have you noticed? — always. You saw as well as I did how angrily he coloured up when the Duke called the poor little thing a shrimp. If he’d been older, I verily believe he’d have called him out! As it was, I was on tenterhooks lest he say something we’d all have regretted.’
‘Giles and Caroline?’ said her husband thoughtfully. ‘No, no, my dear, brought up as they have been as brother and sister, they’ll never think of each other as anything else. And anyway, would it be such a bad thing if they were to? She’s got the finest mind, for a girl child of her age, that I ever hope to see. Now I’m teaching her, I tell you I am sometimes hard put to it to satisfy her. She has,’ he paused, searching for words, ‘a kind of zeal for truth.’
The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5) Page 2