The Lost Garden (The Purchas Family Series Book 5)

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  It was a fine morning after the rain. The woods gleamed wetly; blackthorn shone white in the hedges. She remembered the fog in which they had left London. Just two days ago. If I can help it, she thought, I will never waste the spring in London again. I am going to manage my own life. Mrs Mattingley would send her to Sophie. Perhaps there would be a cottage at Llanfryn. How strange it was to find herself thinking forward again after all the listless months.

  Mrs Mattingley. She looked ruefully down at her torn and mud-stained skirts. What was she going to tell her? Well, the truth. Most of it, anyway.

  ‘Truth is always easiest,’ Mr Trentham used to say. She would like to go back to Llanfryn, to live again in his benevolent, remembered shadow.

  It was a long drive. She could not possibly have walked it. But then she might well have missed her way. She ached a good deal today and was both tired and hungry when the carriage turned at last through neat lodge gates and up a tree-lined drive. The house was rambling brick, with a forest of writhing Tudor chimney pots. A gentleman’s residence, comfortable, unpretentious. Mattingley’s home. Mrs Mattingley’s home. She swallowed a knot of tears and put a quick hand to her hair, wishing for the bonnet she had discarded. Ridiculous. She straightened her back, put up her chin and climbed a little awkwardly out of the carriage, the borrowed clogs heavy on her aching feet.

  The front door was open and a woman in black stood at the head of the steps to receive her. A housekeeper, sent to look her over. She felt her glance, from bonnet-less head to clumsy feet and stiffened a little.

  But the woman’s voice was civil. ‘Welcome to Hallam House, ma’am. Mrs Mattingley is not well and begs you will forgive her for not greeting you herself. She asks how we can serve you.’

  ‘Not well? I’m sorry.’ Pregnant already? ‘Not well enough to see me?’ Bad enough to tell her wretched story to Mattingley’s new wife, but to his housekeeper… ‘I’m Mrs Tremadoc,’ she went on. ‘I’ve known Mr Mattingley a little. I badly need help. As you can see!’ A wry glance shared the housekeeper’s unspoken comments on her appearance.

  ‘Come in, Mrs Tremadoc.’ The housekeeper had come to some sort of decision. ‘I am sure Mrs Mattingley will see you. If you will come this way?’

  No chance to tidy herself. Well, it would take some time. She followed the woman up a polished flight of stairs, her clogs clacking awkwardly at every step. The house smelled of potpourri and beeswax. Family portraits in the upstairs hall had hints of Mattingley.

  ‘If you would wait here a moment?’ The housekeeper pointed to an upright chair in a chintz-hung dressing room, went on herself through a further door.

  ‘Mrs Tremadoc?’ A deep voice, raised in surprise. ‘I’ll see her at once.’

  A room full of crimson shadows, velvet curtains drawn against morning sun. A huge tapestry-hung four poster bed. The marriage bed?

  ‘Draw the curtains, Smart,’ commanded the voice from the shadow of the curtains. A beautiful voice, full of character. I shall like her, Caroline thought, God help me.

  ‘Welcome to Hallam House, Mrs Tremadoc.’ The curtains swished back and Caroline saw a tiny old lady propped against piled up pillows. Brilliant black eyes studied her keenly. ‘My son has spoken of you. But…’ She had taken in Caroline’s appearance. ‘Child, what has happened to you?’

  ‘Your son?’ she gasped. ‘I never thought…’

  ‘Good gracious.’ The dark eyes, so like Mattingley’s, sparkled with amusement. ‘Never tell me you expected a wife? You cannot know my son very well, Mrs Tremadoc.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘But that’s nothing to the purpose. Sit down, child, and tell me what in the world has happened to you. And, Smart, a glass of madeira for Mrs Tremadoc.’

  ‘If you please, ma’am, if it could be milk?’

  ‘Milk and a nuncheon, Smart, and I’ll take madeira. That’s right.’ Caroline had subsided on to a gilt chaise-longue. ‘Put your feet up, child, and take off those terrible clogs, and tell me about it.’ And then, as Caroline hesitated, wondering how in the world to begin. ‘Naturally, I know some of your sad story. I condole with you for the loss of a brilliant husband, Mrs Tremadoc. I have read his poem, and the last canto, for which I understand we have to thank your good memory, but what in the world can have happened to bring you here, in this plight?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘So much the better. I love long stories.’ And then, as Caroline still hesitated. ‘If it helps at all, I saw a piece in the Chronicle just the other day, in that shabby gossip column of theirs. I do not normally read it,’ she said severely, but did not explain that she had read the entire paper wondering what it was in it that had taken her son in such a rage to town. Now, she began to think she knew. ‘A nasty knowing little paragraph about Mr C the publisher and Mrs T the poet’s widow. I take it you are Mrs T, so what have you done with Mr C?’

  ‘I ran away from him at an inn in Upper Hallam,’ said Caroline. ‘He said he was taking me to his sister in Llanfryn. Oh, ma’am, she’s in such trouble, poor Sophie. I had hoped that Mr Mattingley would do something for her. Perhaps help me to get to her?’

  ‘First we must get him home,’ said his mother. ‘Mr Comfrey said he was taking you to his sister,’ she prompted. ‘And where was he really taking you?’

  ‘Gretna Green.’

  ‘Good gracious! But, forgive me, my dear, have you not been there before?’

  ‘Yes.’ Caroline met the black eyes squarely. ‘I could not let it happen to me again, ma’am. I knew I must get away. I could not think how. I had no money, you see. No friends. My mother…’ She coloured.

  ‘I know all about your mother. Never mind her. And, you have friends now. But how did you get away?’

  Caroline laughed. She could now. ‘We stopped at an inn in Upper Hallam. Then I just walked. I saw a signpost, you see, that said Hallam. I remembered Mr Mattingley had a house there. He’s always been kind to me.’ She felt her colour higher than ever.

  ‘From Upper Hallam to Granny Biggs’ cottage? You walked a long way. Ah, here’s your nuncheon. Smart, the blue room for Mrs Tremadoc and she will be wanting a hot bath. And ask my dresser to look her out a suit of clothes that will not be too ridiculous.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, ma’am!’ Caroline took a long pull at the milk, and looked hungrily at a tempting plate of cold meats.

  ‘Eat away, child. I doubt Granny Biggs had much to give you, and you must be starving from a walk like that. But don’t stop talking! Tell what happened to Mr Comfrey.’

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. But I heard a carriage, just as I got to Mrs Biggs’ cottage. I think he may be looking for me.’

  ‘I hope he comes here. I’ll see him, if he does. He must love you very much, poor man.’

  ‘I don’t think he does, you know. Would he have done such a thing to me, if he really did?’

  The old woman shrugged among her pillows. ‘Men are a mystery, and that’s all there is to it. But, talking of men, I think I had best send for my son. And get dressed. If your Mr C should come, I wish to be ready to receive him.’ She rung her bell.

  ‘But should you get up?’

  ‘I’m better. I think I was ill with boredom before.’ Or with Mattingley’s absence. ‘Have you finished? Then off you go, child. Have your bath, change your clothes. If you’ll be ruled by me, we’ll do nothing until Charles gets here. Of course I’d like to have Comfrey horsewhipped…’

  ‘But I can’t stand another scandal,’ said Caroline. ‘I know it, ma’am. I think that’s why he thought he had me. Thought I would not dare try to get away. And I was frightened. At first.’

  ‘You’re not now?’

  ‘Now, I’ve met you? No.’ And then, with her usual incorrigible honesty. ‘In fact, I had decided already what to do. Giles can’t hurt me anymore. No one can. I’m going to live in a cottage and write.’

  ‘Poetry?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Brave. And end up like Granny Biggs?’

 
‘Exactly! Oh, ma’am, I’m glad I found you.’

  ‘And I you.’ But Mrs Mattingley was beginning to have quite other plans for her.

  Driving hell for leather up the Great North Road, Mattingley paused to send the man from Chevenham House to Colney Heath to establish that Comfrey and Caroline had really stayed with the Drummonds.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The man returned to the curricle. ‘Left bright and early, planning to lunch at an inn of Mr Drummond’s recommendation at Dunstable and make a long day of it. I told them Mrs Winterton had sent something after Miss Caroline,’ he explained.

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Mattingley. ‘You must come and work for me when this is over. Not a chance of catching them at Dunstable. You didn’t learn where Comfrey meant to spend the night?’

  ‘No, sir. I’m sorry. They didn’t know.’

  ‘Pity. But not your fault, man.’ He must look as savage as he felt. ‘We’ll just have to enquire at all the likely inns. They’ll stop where they change horses of course. We’re bound to find them.’ And if they were sharing a room, passing as man and wife, he was going to kill Comfrey. ‘They lunch at Dunstable,’ he was making himself think calmly. ‘We’ll find them racked up for the night somewhere round Stony Stratford. But we will start enquiring for them well South of there, just to be on the safe side. It’s going to mean driving all night.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The girl I talked to at the Drummond’s house said Miss Caroline wasn’t well. She went straight to bed when they got there. Had her dinner sent up to her room. She looked proper poorly. They won’t have got far. Not if he’s any kind of a gentleman.’

  ‘But he’s not.’ Mattingley had taken the man up in his curricle and they were driving forward at breakneck speed again. ‘You’re not afraid for your neck, I hope.’

  ‘Not when I think of Miss Caroline, sir.’

  The light was beginning to fade as they bucketed through Dunstable, and Mattingley did not even bother to stop at the inn where Comfrey had planned to lunch. As long as the light held, he kept his horses close to the nine miles an hour that was expected of the mail coaches to which everything else on the road had to give way. But with darkness, while his anxiety for Caroline reached fever pitch, he had to slacken speed or risk an accident that might put him out of the running altogether.

  ‘You’ll be no use to Miss Caroline with a broken neck, sir,’ said the man from Chevenham House at last, and Mattingley swore, and fought back the image of Caroline defending herself from Comfrey’s advances, and slowed his horses to a safer pace.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Giles Comfrey did not appear at Hallam House, and Caroline thought Mrs Mattingley was disappointed. There was no chance, she said, of her son’s arriving until next day.

  ‘We will just have to entertain each other as best we may in the meanwhile. Tell me all about yourself, child.’ She reached out to pat Caroline’s hand. ‘I know about your father, of course.’

  ‘Everyone does,’ said Caroline bitterly. ‘Sometimes I wonder why we even pretend to pretend.’

  ‘Does your mother?’

  ‘Pretend? Not really. Oh, ma’am, do you think she encouraged Giles to take me off because she wanted to be alone with my father? To make him marry her?’

  ‘I expect so,’ said Mrs Mattingley. She was really beginning to hope that she was entertaining her future daughter-in-law and welcomed any signs that she was not particularly devoted to her undesirable mother. ‘She’ll marry the Duke in the end, I think,’ she said. ‘She’s a clever woman, your mother.’

  ‘The Duchess was worth ten of her,’ said Caroline. ‘I loved her.’ And then blushed crimson, remembering that Mattingley had too.

  ‘I’m glad,’ said his mother, noticing everything. ‘Yes, one could not help loving the Duchess, though one could not entirely approve of her either.’ She changed the subject. ‘Tell me about your brilliant husband and his poetry.’ An acute woman, she read a great deal more behind what Caroline had told her than Caroline imagined. ‘You took it all down at his dictation?’ she asked presently.

  ‘Yes.’

  What a barometer the child’s colour was. She was beginning to recognise when Caroline was unhappily skirting around the exact truth.

  ‘He…he liked it that way.’

  ‘So you were able to write the last canto from your notes? I like it the best, I think.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Again that quick rush of colour. ‘I…It was his memorial.’

  ‘He could not have a better one. Poor man, what a tragic end. And what an escape you had!’

  ‘Thanks to Mr Mattingley!’

  ‘I wish I could have seen him dressed up as an old philosopher in a full-bottomed wig,’ said his mother. ‘He even deceived me, you know, wretched boy. Sent me letters full of vivid descriptions of St. Petersburg, supposed to have come in the diplomatic bag, and all the time he was entertaining you in his library down at Oldchurch.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No indeed. When I twitted him with it, afterwards, he said the only safe secret was the one told to no one. So I have forgiven him, and I hope you will too.’

  ‘Oh! Forgive!’ exclaimed Caroline, and blushed and was silent.

  It was beginning to get dark when Mrs Mattingley was brought a note.

  ‘From Charles.’ She opened, read it rapidly and gave Caroline one of her glances of sparkling amusement. ‘He’s been called out of town on urgent business. He’d not had my note. I wonder where he has gone in such a rush. His writing is always difficult, but I have never seen anything like this. Oh, well, child, we will just have to make shift with each other’s company until he thinks fit to return. But perhaps you would like to write a note to that poor girl in Llanfryn?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’ But she found it surprisingly difficult to decide what to say. Did she really want to suggest that she and Sophie set up house together? It had seemed a good idea in the first shock of Sophie’s sad news, but now, thinking about it, she remembered that the two of them had never really got on. And besides, did she want to go so far from London? She knew enough about publishers to know that they were given to last moment crises. Imagine correcting proofs from Llanfryn.

  She picked up the pen and put it down again, angry with herself. The surface of her mind might be occupied with Sophie, but underneath was a great surging tide of irrational happiness. Mattingley was not married. Well, until today, she had never imagined that he was. And he was still the Duchess’ mourning lover. Why had meeting his mother, coming to his house, changed her feeling about him so? Or had it merely made her recognise how she did feel about him? I should not have come to his house, she thought. Throwing myself at him. And yet she was glad that she had. Was she? She was glad she had met his mother. Seen his house. But she could not stay here, meekly waiting for him to arrange her life for her.

  That was it. Now she had found it. She put down the pen and sought out Mrs Mattingley. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, child?’

  Caroline would have been amazed if she could have known how exactly Mrs Mattingley had anticipated her chain of thought. Having left her safely occupied with the letter to Sophie, she had descended to the servants’ quarters to cross-examine the man who had brought Mattingley’s note. Learning of her son’s enraged return from Chevenham House, she had smiled to herself and sent another man to seek him out on the Great North Road. ‘You’ll find him easily enough. He’ll have ordered horses ahead. Track him through them.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. But what am I to tell him?’

  ‘Ah.’ That was the question. If she simply asked him to come home, would he obey her? She rather thought not. ‘Tell him Mrs Tremadoc is here and we need his advice,’ she said. And knew from the man’s expression that the servants’ hall had come to the same conclusion as she had. Well, nothing must go wrong now.

  And here was Caroline, behaving exactly as she had expected she would.

  ‘Forgive me,’ she was saying. ‘I am more grateful to you th
an I can say, but I think I ought to lose no time in going back to London. I ought to see my mother before Giles does. She is my mother, after all.’

  ‘Yes. What would you say to her?’

  ‘That I do not intend to marry.’ There came the betraying tide of colour. ‘That I mean to set up house by myself in the country somewhere. I might get Sophie to live with me.’

  ‘You don’t think your mother might just hand you back to Giles Comfrey?’ asked Mrs Mattingley.

  ‘I won’t let her.’

  ‘I don’t think you will. Very well, I think you are quite right, though I shall be sorry to see you go, and I am sure my son will be sorry to miss you.’ How soon would her messenger catch him? ‘Too late for you to start tonight,’ she went on. ‘But I will give orders for the morning. If you are sure you will not stay and give Charles the meeting? I am afraid I cannot hope for him until tomorrow night at the earliest.’ She devoutly hoped she was wrong.

  ‘Dear madam, I really think I should go.’

  ‘Then it is high time you were in bed. You must be exhausted. Sleep well, dear child.’

  She sat up for a while herself, wondering what was best to do. Having been furiously anxious about Caroline, Mattingley would no doubt arrive furiously angry with her. She remembered enough occasions in his childhood when this had happened to her. Let the child go back to town and face her mother? In many ways it might be best. She understood exactly how Caroline felt about seeming to throw herself at Mattingley. In the heat of terror, it had seemed the obvious thing to do. Now she was safe, she was beginning to feel a fool.

  But she did not trust Frances Winterton, and that was all there was to it. Mattingley had told her about the blackmail attempt over the Duchess’ letters and she was privately certain that Frances Winterton was involved. Capable of that, she was capable of anything, most certainly of saying something to Caroline about Mattingley’s long affair with the Duchess that would make Caroline think she could not accept him.