The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5)

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  It was too cold to stand. She went back through the house and down the steep hill to the High Street, which she found a scene of unusual activity. All along the street, shopkeepers were busy boarding up their windows. Visiting Mrs Norman’s little library to ask for the second volume of Thaddeus of Warsaw, she found that Mrs Norman, too, had a man working at her small window.

  ‘But you are not even on the High Street,’ said Caroline. ‘Is it really so bad as that?’

  ‘I’m a woman in business, aren’t I?’ said Mrs Norman. ‘They don’t like that. I shall spend the night with my good friend Mrs Bowles, as I always do, just in case some rapscallion should decide to entertain himself by breaking my upstairs windows. I hope you’ve been warned to close your shutters tonight, Mrs Tremadoc, and show no lights.’

  ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘You will when you’ve heard them,’ said Mrs Norman.

  Tremadoc had an extra glass of laudanum with his dinner and Caroline knew better than to protest. Soon afterwards, he put on his heavy greatcoat.

  ‘Barrett will lock up after me,’ he told her, ‘and see to it that the shutters are closed along the front of the house. The procession forms up on the far side of the church and marches round the square before it starts through the town and so down to the quay. You will not watch it, ma’am.’

  ‘I do not intend to,’ she told him. ‘I do not at all wish to see you involved in such a barbarous affair. Jenkins tells me that they actually burn the Pope in effigy, down on the quay. I should have thought if you were going to burn anyone, it would make more sense to burn Bonaparte.’

  ‘You understand nothing of the matter. The Guy Fawkes Day celebrations here are an ancient and honourable tradition, dating back to the end of the last century. The first bonfire was lit on the day Protestant William landed at Torbay. November the fifth, 1688.’

  ‘Protestant William?’

  ‘William the Third, gabey. The man who would not rule through his wife, nor yet be ruled by her. They had another special celebration, here in Oldchurch, the year she died and he ruled on alone.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Nobody asked you to.’ He pulled on his gloves. ‘Barrett will wait up to let me in. I have told Jenkins that I shall not need him. I shall be very late. There is to be a select celebration at the Castle Inn after the festivities are over. No need for you to wait up for me, either.’

  ‘I do not intend to,’ she said.

  By the time Barrett had closed the ground-floor shutters and retired to his snug little room off the hall, it was almost dark. Since she must not show a light on the square, Caroline retired to the small garden room she now used as a study. She had heard critical murmurs, in the High Street, about yesterday’s dull sermon, knew they had been justified, and knew, too, that they were bound to get back to Tremadoc and very likely precipitate one of the rages that she found increasingly terrifying. But rack her brains as she would, she could not think of any words to put into his mouth, now, when she felt so totally out of sympathy with his ideas. Had she really hoped that being a clergyman would steady him, make him think? Well, she had her answer.

  ‘Ma’am.’ Tench was at the door, candle shaking in her hand. ‘Ma’am, they’re coming. You can hear them even from our windows. It’s horrible, ma’am. Like animals.’

  ‘I must see,’ said Caroline. ‘Come upstairs with me, Tench, to the guest bedchamber. Its windows look out over the square.’

  ‘But the master said…’

  ‘We’ll leave the candle in the hall and shut the door. No one will see us, there in the dark. But don’t come if you don’t want to, Tench dear.’

  ‘It’s Jenkins, ma’am. He says he don’t half like what he’s heard at the Castle Inn. Back in London is where he want to be, and no two ways about it.’

  ‘Oh, Tench, you wouldn’t leave me?’

  ‘No, ma’am. But I think I’d best not leave Jenkins tonight in case he gets too set in his ideas.’

  ‘Very well.’ She watched Tench go through the green-baize door that cut off the servant’s wing, then trod silently up the shallow stairs, candle in hand, grateful that Barrett had shut himself into his den, where, she suspected, he kept a private supply of pipes and porter.

  She put her candle down on the table in the upstairs hall and opened the heavy door of the guest room, then stopped dead, assaulted by a savage wave of sound. Feeling her way to the window she opened the shutter cautiously. The procession was just entering the square from the lane beside the church. Torchlight flared on masked faces as the leaders turned to their right, to go round the square widdershins, and she saw that as well as masks, many of the torchbearers were wearing what looked like masquerade costumes. Some were merely enveloped in all-concealing dominos, but others appeared as animals, with masks resembling bears and wolves and foxes. Try as she would, she could not recognise Tremadoc among the leaders, but hoped he was in a domino rather than one of those sinister animal masks. At least, she comforted herself, if she could not recognise him by the fitful glare of the torches, no one else would be able to, either.

  Now the insistent beat of a drum could be heard among the shouts and growls and war whoops with which the procession had entered the square. It was a ragged savage rhythm, a kind of undertone to violence, and she began to understand what Mrs Norman had tried to tell her. Horrible to think of the women of the town, crouched in their houses, waiting while these beast-men passed their doors. The leaders had reached the house now, and a torch, lifted high, flared outside her window, making her shrink back in instinctive terror. The shouting grew to a savage roar as a cluster of torches appeared beside the church illuminating a seated figure, carried high on men’s shoulders. The red robes told her that this was the effigy of the Pope that was to be burned presently, down on the quay, and now she saw, behind it, a huge placard, carried between two men, reading, ‘No Popery.’

  The procession stretched all round the square now, and still more torch-carrying figures were pouring in from the entrance by the church. Most of these were not in costume, but they all wore rough masks and slouch hats pulled well down on their heads. If any violence should be done tonight, it would be hard to find witnesses to it.

  The leading torches moved, flaring and flickering, into the graveyard that lay to the church’s left and she shuddered at the thought of these barbarian, these pagan, figures trampling over the graves of their own dead. The drum was nearer, almost under her window, and she felt its barbaric rhythm stirring her blood, and was ashamed of herself, and afraid.

  She sat down on a high chair by the window and watched as the last of the procession straggled round the square. She caught the gleam of bottles, passing from hand to hand, and understood why the shouting was becoming increasingly strident. It would be a miracle if no blood were shed before the night was over. And on the thought, she heard one shrill, desperate scream, mingling with the roar of the crowd, followed by a lull in the shouting, against which the second scream sounded loud, and clear, and blood-stopping. And, from the crowd, a growl of satisfaction.

  A woman’s voice? Her hands writhed in her lap. Nothing she could do, but she could not bear to listen. She picked up her candle and tiptoed silently back down the stairs. In the garden room, she tried to make herself concentrate on next Sunday’s sermon. There must be some words she could put into Tremadoc’s mouth that would suggest the horror of tonight’s doings. Half an hour later, she looked at her series of false starts and admitted defeat. Tremadoc might be stupid, but he was quick enough where his own interests were concerned. Her best hope must be that the doings of the night would have horrified him as much as they had her. Perhaps, in the morning, they would be able to discuss it and he would agree that something must be said next Sunday.

  Now she thought she heard shouting from below the cliff. On an impulse, she put on a heavy cloak and opened the door that led into the garden. The night was cloudy, but not totally dark. She put the tinderbox ready and blew o
ut the candle. Once her eyes had got used to the darkness, she would be able to find her way down the familiar path to the terrace wall. There was a glow of light in the direction of the quay. The mob must be down there already. Yes, as she picked her way carefully along the flagstones, she could hear the beat of the drum, the hoarse half-human shouting. She paused, longing to hurry back to the house, get into her bed, pull the covers over her ears.

  Her husband was parson of the parish where this orgy was taking place. If she was to persuade him to speak out against it, she must see it through to the end. She set her teeth, and, surprisingly, found herself thinking of Blakeney, something she tried hard not to do. We are the children of a Duke, she thought. There are duties as well as privileges. And then, bitterly: what privileges? But her cloak was warm around her. She had given alms to a starving beggar woman in the High Street that morning, blessing the Duchess for the £50 that made such things possible.

  I wish I was the Duchess’ daughter, she thought, and moved quietly forward to lean her arms on the wall and look down. The quay was bright as day, with flambeaux fixed at intervals along it. The bonfire had only recently been lit and was just beginning to flare up. The crowd of men must have doused their torches, for they stood, a black mass, just outside the Water Gate, with the bonfire between them and the dark, irregular shape of the Martello Tower. The shouting had died down, and someone was speaking, or, perhaps, reciting. She could catch the sense of rhythm, like that of the drum, but not the words. As the speaker finished, the effigy of the Pope was brought forward and tossed on to the now raging fire. It went up with the flash and crash of an explosion, scattering the screaming crowd in all directions. Stunned for a moment, when she looked again, flames were licking around the scaffolding of the Martello Tower.

  Another, closer sound made her look quickly down over the wall to the cliff below. Something was happening there. Impossible. A light glowed for a moment, showing a dark shape, apparently emerging from the cliff. A face gleamed white in the darkness, then the figure began to move slowly away, down the sheer face of the cliff. On a rope? On a rope ladder? Impossible to tell, but there could be no doubt that the figure had emerged from under where she stood. From an extension of their cellar. The cellar she had never been allowed to enter.

  She watched, spellbound, as the figure disappeared slowly into the darkness below, which was made more absolute by the nearby flare of the bonfire on the quay, and the flames that were now mounting high from the Martello Tower.

  Straining her eyes, she leaned forward to peer down to where the river lapped at the foot of the cliff, its water catching a glimmer of reflected light from the bonfire. Yes, there was the dark suggestion of a small boat and she either imagined or heard the soft plash of oars. Whoever had climbed down the cliff would be safe away and down to the sea before the fire burned out.

  ‘Well,’ said a man’s voice out of the darkness. ‘And what are you going to do about it?’

  Who? Where? Her heart thudding, she peered about her in the darkness. It was not Barrett’s voice, thank God, though for a moment it had seemed familiar. A Londoner’s, of course, but she knew no one with such a deep bass.

  ‘Who is it?’ Her voice shook.

  ‘Here.’ A flicker of light to her right, where the dividing wall ran down between her garden and that of the recluse next door. She had never seen him. She must be seeing him now, looking round the end of the wall at her, illuminated by a dark lantern, its shutter swiftly opened and closed to let her see the white wig, the eyes bright above a grizzled forest of beard. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, invisible again, the lantern shuttered. ‘Come a little nearer. We must talk, you and I.’ And then, a reassuring hint of laughter in his voice. ‘May I introduce myself? Your neighbour, John Gerard, and very much at your service. I have been wanting a chance to make myself known to you, and hope you will forgive me for frightening you just now.’

  ‘What’s one more fright on a night like this? But ought we not to be doing something about the man who went down the cliff? A smuggler, I suppose.’

  ‘Report him to the authorities, you mean? My dear madam, surely you have lived in Oldchurch long enough to know that the authorities would be on his side. That is precisely why I made myself known to you. I was afraid you might feel it your duty to do something precipitate. Leave it to me to report the incident, and, Mrs Tremadoc, I do urge you to show as little as possible of what I know you must feel about tonight’s doings. If you had been planning to try to get your husband to preach against them, I beg you to think again. You will only endanger yourself and achieve nothing. I am afraid he is deeply involved already.’

  ‘But what am I to do?’

  ‘Get him away from here. Oldchurch is a dangerous town. Think of an excuse, persuade your father to find your husband another living.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do it,’ she said. And then, a little bitterly, ‘You know all about me, I can see.’

  ‘Everybody knows all about everything here in Oldchurch. Even a recluse such as I am has servants to be his ears. From what I have heard, I have felt anxious about you, and am ashamed to have been so slow in getting in touch, but it is difficult to break out of a character so well established as mine is as a recluse. Now, I think, we should put our heads together and contrive how we can meet from time to time. One idea did occur to me. My spies have told me what a regular patron you are of Mrs Norman’s inadequate little library. Might you not learn about mine and make a formal request to use it?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ she exclaimed. ‘But how would I find out about it?’

  ‘Ask Mrs Norman if there is not someone in town with a collection of books. It is odd enough to be generally known. And now it is high time you got back indoors.’ They both looked down to where the bonfire had smouldered into a huge glowing pile and a rather lethargic chain of men were throwing buckets of water on to what remained of the scaffolding of the Martello Tower. ‘I do trust no one knows you are here,’ he said.

  ‘No. Barrett is shut up in his front room. I take it you know about Barrett.’

  ‘Enough to tell you to beware of him. Get yourself indoors and to bed without showing a light, Mrs Tremadoc, and remember you know nothing about the explosion that set light to the tower. And I shall look forward to receiving your request to be allowed to use my library, though I warn you I shall cut up pretty rough before I allow it.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said. ‘I feel…I feel safer for having met you.’

  ‘Don’t feel too safe, Mrs Tremadoc.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tremadoc kept to his bed next morning and Caroline thought him a badly frightened man. If it had not been for John Gerard’s advice, she would have been tempted to seize the chance to try to persuade him to cut his connection with what seemed to be no better than a gang of smugglers, but, in her heart, she knew it would have been useless.

  Instead, she put on cloak and bonnet, picked up the volume of Thaddeus of Warsaw that she had not even opened, and told Barrett that she was going out shopping.

  ‘I take it the town will be quiet this morning?’

  ‘Yes, madam, and tidy too. The bonfire boys are good citizens and always see to it that there is no unpleasantness after their night out. I trust you were not disturbed by the procession.’ He gave her a sharp glance from watery eyes. ‘You look a trifle fatigued this morning, if I may make bold to say so.’

  ‘Well,’ she picked up her basket. ‘It was quite noisy, even at the back of the house.’

  The square lay quiet in pale November sunshine. Barrett was right, aside from some trampled grass, there was no evidence of last night’s riotous procession. It could all have been a dream — a nightmare. But the High Street, when she got to it, seemed unusually quiet this morning. She had planned this outing carefully, and began by a visit to the stationer’s where she bought a quire of foolscap paper.

  ‘My husband uses so much when he writes a sermon,’ she explained, but the clerk was hardly listening
. She had interrupted a whispered conversation at the back of the shop and thought he was eager to return to it.

  She paused at the fishmonger’s to ask if they had any fresh fish, and was met by a glum refusal. ‘They don’t go out on Guy Fawkes, ma’am. His Reverence will have to wait till tomorrow for his sand dabs.’

  Something a little shifty about the straight way he met her eyes as he said it?

  She turned down the lane that led to Mrs Norman’s little shop and stopped, horrified. Mrs Norman’s precautions had not been enough. The door of the shop had been broken open and the interior looked as if it had been hit by a hurricane, with books and ravaged pieces of books lying everywhere. Mrs Norman herself was standing in the middle of the chaos, wringing her hands.

  ‘It’s the end,’ she said, over and over again on the same note. ‘It’s the end.’

  ‘I am so very sorry.’ Caroline put down her basket and took both the distracted woman’s hands. ‘You should not be here. Upstairs. Is it all right?’

  ‘They looked there,’ said Mrs Norman dully. ‘A little damage. Nothing to signify.’

  ‘Then come upstairs,’ said Caroline. ‘You should be resting. Let me get you something to calm you. Sal volatile perhaps?’ So much for Barrett’s boast that the bonfire boys left all tidy behind them. ‘I am sure my husband will be able to arrange to have things down here made straight for you.’ She urged Mrs Norman gently up the steep stair.

  ‘But my stock. There’s no replacing my stock! I shall be made bankrupt, Mrs Tremadoc. I shall have to go on the parish.’ She let Caroline push her down on to her stiff little sofa. ‘I would rather die. I wish they had killed me!’