Later, after the two men had left her and she was alone in her bedroom, she finally sat down at her dressing table and reached for the sealed envelope that Harry had scrawled her name across. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to open it last night, although the moonlight had slanted in to illuminate it, as though it were embarrassed for the way she was ignoring it, encouraging her to attend to it.
The flap of the envelope snapped up at the pressure of her finger and she took out a small, neatly folded single sheet of paper. She expected writing, an outpouring of emotion, but she should have known better. This was Harry, after all: a man who kept his emotions hidden and who spoke only when it was needed. What she found on the paper was a simple drawing in pencil with arrows and tiny written instructions in tidy block capitals.
Harry had drawn the two halves of a heart shape. One arrow pointed to where he recommended they might join and he’d printed: Suggest seal here with liquid chocolate.
Inside one of the halves of the heart was depicted a tiny card, like a calling card. Another arrow pointed to this with the words:
Customers can write a brief message to the one they love at the time of purchase before it is sealed inside, unseen even by you. Wrap complete heart with its love note in foil.
You could call it ‘The Sweetheart’.
She turned over the page and there was a final note from him.
Darling Alex,
It appears that dear Kitty, whoever she is, and who unwittingly brought us together through her random love letter to a soldier at the Front, has inspired an idea for a new chocolate novelty you may consider. I’ve looked into it and none of the major manufacturers or fancy chocolatiers have used hollow chocolate shapes to enclose anything other than fondant centres. I can’t imagine a woman who wouldn’t be anything but enchanted by a love note enclosed in a Frobisher edible heart. I see no reason why you couldn’t take the idea further to enclose actual gifts . . . even an engagement ring springs to mind!
She gasped with awe at the inspiration of this notion. It was perfect.
Talking of rings and hearts, I wish I could give you a ring to wear in my name but that’s not to be. Instead I leave you with my heart – it will never belong to anyone else and every time you make one of these in chocolate, think of me because I’ll always be thinking of you, wherever I am, whomever I’m with.
Harry
P.S. Matthew will be safe. I give you my word.
The only time she had wept harder with a sense of guilt and loss was as a child when the waters of Scotland swallowed part of her family.
27
Alex blinked at the two doctors and the pair of nurses who were staring back at her with worry in their eyes.
‘What do you mean “disappeared”?’ She frowned. ‘You’ve lost him? After only three days here?’
The thin-faced doctor with a deeply pinched expression sucked in a breath, making his cheeks appear even hollower. ‘I’m as astonished as you are, Mrs Britten-Jones.’
It didn’t answer her question but revealed the level of their distress and embarrassment that they really had little more to offer her.
She’d insisted to her parents on coming alone to see Matthew for the first time since he’d been committed to Bootham; Dr Ely had not considered it helpful for her to upset herself or Matthew with a visit for the first month. Her fury had nearly undone her but she found comfort in the knowledge that they were working to circumvent Dr Ely and she needed to find previously unknown reserves of patience or risk forewarning him. It had taken over a fortnight to wait for the next panel of magistrates to gather and preside over a hearing for Matthew. Giles Farthing had argued passionately for Matthew’s release to the York Retreat and not only Sir Charles but several other key York identities lent their weight in Matthew’s defence. Each claimed Alex’s husband had not once shown any signs of depraved behaviour – homosexual or otherwise – and that even if his sexual inclinations could be proven to run to the other sex in his youth, he was surely now happily married. What’s more, his wife, until this sorry episode, had not had cause to call his loyalty into question and had never discussed infidelity with him until an accusation was made on the same day as his sectioning. Alex had provided a statement to this effect to be read out to the magistrates.
Enough gentlemen on the panel were already family friends with the Frobishers and were highly aware of their influence. More importantly, they were familiar with Matthew too, so it had been a unanimous decision to release him into the care of the York Retreat to ‘convalesce’. His condition was summarised as a ‘clinical breakdown’, burying the accusation of sexual depravity and moral imbecility beneath the claim that he had been working too hard since the end of the war to re-establish the rail network in the north, reconfigure carriages for passengers rather than cargo, plus open up new rail networks. It wasn’t that no one believed the accusation brought against her husband, Alex suspected, more that not one of these gentlemen wanted to confront it. No doubt also weighing heavily on their minds was having one of the county’s most esteemed families embroiled in scandal. The repercussions were not good for any of them or their society friends in the north. Matthew was duly signed over and escorted to the York Retreat, an establishment that had in its heyday of the previous century led the world in the humane treatment of patients with ill mental health.
The unassuming but attractive series of buildings that formed the Retreat was the result of the philanthropy of a Yorkshireman: a retired coffee and tea merchant, another Quaker, who was part of the Friends Society. William Tuke had built his Georgian haven for the mentally unstable on land that roamed through peaceful, sprawling gardens outside the city of York for the good of all Quaker folk in need, and indeed for any poor soul suffering bewilderment and demons of the mind.
And here Alex stood, in those very gardens, down near the cemetery where so many leading Quaker sons of the county took their final rest, including several Rowntrees. She regarded the quartet of staff, appalled by what she was hearing.
‘How?’
They all deferred to the hollow man, presumably the most senior, and now she understood why she had been walked down here to the quietest part of the complex, where no one else could share her distress or their discomfort.
Alex could see that the doctor was tempted to shrug, as clearly he didn’t know precisely how Matthew had pulled off his escape. ‘Your husband was polite and most compliant in the short time we had him here, Mrs Britten-Jones. He was talkative, enjoyed his sessions with the therapists, amused the staff with his entertaining anecdotes and, frankly, I thought he was excellent company for some of our younger patients, who seemed to come out of themselves around his cheerful presence.’
She was not going to permit her ruffled feathers to be smoothed over by flattery. ‘Yes, that sounds like Matthew, but he was not here for entertainment value, Doctor. Forgive me, you can imagine how disconcerting this information is.’
‘Yes, of course, and apology is inadequate, but I’m at a loss to explain. However, while we are all particularly disappointed at his disappearance while in our care, we are not overly worried for Mr Britten-Jones.’
She nodded, knew precisely what was meant, but listened to the rationale anyway.
‘He is a man of the world, well travelled, highly educated, convincingly capable, extremely intelligent and not in any way showing signs of bewilderment or confusion . . . which is what we’re used to here. If anything, Mr Britten-Jones is hale and, dare I say, sound of mind, and I imagine he is likely sitting in a café right now toasting his cunning.’
‘In a club, more like, Doctor. Matthew would prefer to toast his escape with champagne.’
The doctor smiled crookedly, unsure if she was making a genuine attempt at jest.
‘Was he not supervised at all?’
‘Everyone is, to a degree; some more than others. Mr Britten-Jones was not confined in any of our larger day rooms that require padding or security. He was perfectly at eas
e to enjoy all the rooms and grounds but he’d never given us any cause to suspect his desire to escape. He told us he was happy to wait until the courts moved through their required processes and he would be discharged when it was deemed appropriate. Yesterday when we lost track of him he was actually helping one of the delivery van drivers unload his goods – that’s how comfortable he was at the Retreat: keen to be involved, help in some way.’
‘I see. Do you think my husband had help?’
The man blinked with a sheepish expression. ‘Almost certainly. We discovered him gone less than an hour after he was last seen and if he was on foot, we’d have found him. Staff were despatched swiftly on horseback in all directions. He really couldn’t have got all that far in this inclement weather and mainly across fields. There is only one road in.’
‘So the delivery van is the most likely escape vehicle?’ All nodded.
‘It had almost a one-hour head start on us and the driver had presumably planned a careful escape route. To be honest, I imagine your husband was on a train before we’d even discovered him absent.’
She wanted to laugh, wishing this was Dr Ely whom Matthew had thwarted in this manner, but frowned instead. ‘I’m at a loss to imagine who might be complicit in our circle of friends – I can vouch that no one in my family or his was likely involved.’
‘Nor would I suggest someone from either family would be quite so underhand. It’s a mystery indeed because Mr Britten-Jones had no access to the telephone, so it’s not as though he had lots of time or opportunity to carefully orchestrate an escape. Presumably he has bribed or persuaded someone to help him on the spur of the moment but, I should add, he possessed no coin.’
Alex nodded her understanding.
‘No doubt you’ll be one of the first to hear of his whereabouts as Mr Britten-Jones was clearly deeply fond of you, Mrs Britten-Jones. He spoke of you a lot and how he wished he could take back any hurt he has caused you.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’ She did not want to pursue that conversation. ‘So what now?’
‘The police have been informed, of course, and if we hear first, we shall certainly contact you immediately and I hope you will do the same for us?’
‘Of course.’
Deep down Alex didn’t believe they’d hear from Matthew again; she suspected James Feeney might have been driving that vehicle.
She was wrong, though. Waiting at home on her return was a nondescript parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, with a printed address by a hand she wasn’t familiar with. However, when she opened the box, she discovered it was a ruse to prevent anyone seeing a letter from Matthew. He’d hidden his letter inside. Alex tore open the envelope.
My dear Alex,
By the time you receive this I will be far from the reach of those who would commit me as a madman – far away from Yorkshire. In fact, sweet wife, as you read, I shall probably be crossing the English Channel, heading for Paris, towards my beloved James, to live in a country that is tolerant of men who find comfort in the arms of each other.
I hate the churchgoing bigots who claim to be good, tolerant people, and yet would gladly clap a man into chains to be tortured, drugged and straitjacketed for the rest of his life for a situation he can no more help than if he had an ailing heart or club foot.
I was born this way and I shall die this way but I refuse to spend my life being called a moral imbecile. I won’t go into the atrocities of life at Bootham and I am, my love, forever grateful for all that you did to have me moved. Dr Ely can keep his dead man’s testicles! Do you know, he was preparing a special concoction to make me sicken from both ends . . . as though I had dysentery! I shall stop, for my hands tremble with rage at what he had planned for me.
By now you’ve surely worked out I had an accomplice, and help came from the most unexpected quarter. I owe my life to your lover, Henry Blakeney. It is Harry, as he insisted I call him, who drove a delivery van and organised my escape out of the Retreat. It was Harry who paid for and smuggled me onto this train speeding me south to London, where I gather a young lady has been hired to be photographed at a hotel with me by a private investigator. A chambermaid will be paid off to be interviewed and testify that I was seen entering the room and that I’d spent the night with a flame-haired beauty, who couldn’t be my wife, who is dark-haired, et cetera. All of this is to ensure the divorce can go through, although I fear Minerva may need some little pills from Dr Rochester to get through that episode. I am deeply sorry for this trouble to your parents, whom I am fond of.
From London, after the covert business is completed, I gather we shall take the Pullman to Brighton, where Harry knows he can overnight me in secret and reunite me with James, whom he has also helped to escape south.
From Brighton we shall make our way across to France and while Paris is our first destination I doubt we shall remain there, my darling, so please don’t look for me, don’t fret for me, don’t think on me again. In all of this the only guilt I feel is for you and how I duped you into marriage as my protection. But, dear Alex, if you could travel back in time and walk in my cowardly shoes, you would know how scared I was, both of war, of being discovered as homosexual and different to the other men, and of being bayoneted in the back by one of our own. Harry agrees there is nowhere to hide in a trench and while I am at a loss for how to repay him for being so understanding and supportive I know he is actually doing all of this for you because Harry loves you . . . this much is clear.
Oddly, while he makes it possible for me to be with the person I love most, I realise he cannot be with the one he loves. He told me how you blame him for my demise and while I cannot fix this situation, all I can do is ask you to think of this strapping, handsome fellow who sits brooding and, yes, even scowling right now, as a hero. He is a saviour to me and it is Harry who persuaded me that granting you the uncontested divorce you surely crave is the very least I can do under the circumstances.
He has agreed to extend his solicitor’s services to me so I can help you to negotiate the legal ending of our marriage at the appropriate time that suits you. I am giving you your freedom, together with the house, all of its contents and everything in the bank. It’s all yours. I fortunately squirrelled away some not insignificant savings over the years and James and I shall be fine. Harry has offered financial help should we ever need.
Truly, Alex, I would have found a way to kill myself in the asylum, of that you can be sure. And even the Retreat – as kind and gentle as it was – was nonetheless a different sort of prison and I am not a bird who lives happily caged. I need to fly free and, like most birds, I am faithful to my mate. But if I were to name a soulmate, it would be you, darling Alex.
You made me want to cheer so loudly on that day of the Sectioning. I have never felt more proud of anyone. You are formidable in full flight and I hope you will take this freedom that’s been negotiated and not only find someone worthy of your love but make all the Frobishers down the years exceptionally proud of you as you thumb your nose at society and open that shop of yours. Alex the shopgirl! Poor Minerva – she’ll surely swoon on the day of opening.
I am wishing you love, success, children, joy, peace in your heart and, above all, that you’ll find forgiveness for this flawed man you married. I’m glad you met Harry and that you discovered affection in the arms of a lover who could worship you, even though it was brief.
We shall not meet again but I hold you dear always. Thank you for years of tolerance; there were so many times I wanted to tell you the truth because I knew you deserved it and I think my heart knew you’d even accept me how I was. Another reason to love you from a distance.
Fondest, M.
Alex wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying as she finished reading. Tears fell nonetheless and she was aware they were bittersweet – a mix of joy at Matthew’s escape combined with elation that it was Harry who had orchestrated the breakout. However, this pleasure formed a wreath of sympathy, like flowers wound around the wi
re of regret formed from a failed marriage, divorce, accusations without proof and, mostly, the memory of Harry’s disappointment in her.
She had failed him in every way, but he had not failed her. Through his disillusionment he had kept his promise to ensure Matthew’s safety, and James’s too. It appeared that among all of them, it was the stranger – the soldier – who was the most capable of showing humanity in not judging the lovers but accepting their tenderness for one another.
She had to see him, if just to ask his forgiveness. Yes, she must go to him! Harry, she understood, would never consider coming back to her after her terse behaviour and accusations. The fault was hers and atonement was hers alone to seek.
28
She’d sat out the month, mostly to comfort her parents, especially her mother who, predictably, was struggling to come to terms with events. Every time Alex broached the subject of divorce her mother refused to listen and took to her bed. She’d finally admitted to the letter from Matthew but refused to show them, lying that she’d burned it. She had no intention of telling them about Harry’s involvement in the escape but she explained that the letter was connected with the feigned one night of debauchery so that a quick divorce could be granted. Alex had admitted he was on the Continent somewhere and she was happy he’d escaped. While she left Giles quietly in charge of organising divorce papers, she made her move south. It was time to seek out Harry and make amends.
Alex was on the train to Brighton and as she stared out of the window to the sprawling, mist-covered countryside of an almost ethereal green, she realised that these were the very rail lines that Matthew’s endeavours were connected with during the war. This carriage she was seated in, though now comfortably reconverted back to a plush first-class compartment for four, was likely used to transport wounded soldiers from the Front or goods and ammunition, food and parcels to the trenches in Western Europe.
The Chocolate Tin Page 36