‘Father – Ned is a fine man, he is a friend of Pertwee’s—’
Her father tapped his cane on the floor and pulled at his gloves. He was in a fuss, she could tell; he hated to be crossed. ‘Don’t interrupt me.’ She turned to him and saw his strange amber eyes, glowing in the gloom of the carriage. He was like a cat, prowling, lazy, dangerous. ‘You wicked, wicked child,’ he said, in a hissing drawl. ‘The shame you have brought upon us. Imagine me, climbing the stairs to that vile shack. I should have listened to Miss Bryant from the start, when your sister came to me carrying these ridiculous tales of mistreatment, and what do I find? That it was all to cover up your own behaviour. I will deal with you at home, my dear.’
She could just hear Ned’s voice, carried on the wind from the river:
Liddy! Liddy, send word to me!
‘Deal – deal with me?’ Liddy clutched her head, as the carriage juddered and rolled up towards the bridge, back over the river, back towards home, where it would all be over. ‘You can’t deal with me, not any more than Miss Bryant has already seen fit to over the past few years. I won’t submit. You might as well kill me.’ She laughed at her father. ‘Yes, kill me, for it would be preferable to my treatment at her hands.’
‘I won’t kill you, nor will I allow such melodramatic nonsense to be spoken,’ said Mr Dysart, coldly. ‘But I can take your liberty away, which is the correct course of action for wayward daughters.’
‘I will accept Highworth, the second he asks me!’ she said, laughing at her father, for in that second she knew she would, to effect some form of escape, to allow her to leave the house. ‘I will take Mary with me, and find her a husband, up in Scotland! How Mother must suffer, looking down on us—’ She stopped, for her father was laughing, rocking backwards and forwards in the stuffy carriage. ‘Yes, I shall marry him as soon as I may.’
‘Rawnsley! Lydia, dearest, you are very much mistaken on that front. Dear, dithering Rawnsley has been sent back to his mother with a flea in his ear. I have told him you were unstable, a most unsuitable wife for a man of his position. Oh yes’ – he was still laughing –‘he was most relieved; do you not understand, my love? I encouraged his courtship knowing he’d never have the gumption to come up to scratch. My dear child.’ He gazed out of the window, smiling as they crossed the river again, peering at St Paul’s, as if it were all most diverting. ‘None of you will marry. Not while it affects my portion; I shall be honest with you now! You see, no one will want Mary, thankfully, and Pertwee is on his way to ruin with no assistance from me. You were my only concern; I encouraged Highworth to that end knowing he’d keep the others at bay; but now you will understand the course I am regretfully forced to take.’
‘Mother left us our own money!’ Liddy spat, her face burning. ‘She and Aunt Charlotte had the inheritance from their own aunt! There is the house in the countryside! The one w-with the nightingales! It is to come to us, in due course!’
‘Your mother was a fool, and was advised by fools, but for the question of my share. The beloved house about which she used to prattle incessantly is worth no more than the doll’s house. Yes, my dear. It’s a ruin, her father lost his money on poor investments, and ran the place into the ground. The man was a fool – ah, look at that fellow, the sailor, with the parrot! The inheritance she left you was dependent on your marriage. If you’re not wed by the age of twenty-five, it passes to me.’
‘You hope Nurse Bryant is finished with me before then?’ Liddy’s voice shook. ‘You will see me dead before then? I understand.’
Her father’s eyes opened wide, and she saw a thick, snaking red vein in his right eye, inching towards his tear ducts. ‘My dear, such vulgar language. So hysterical! Of course not.’ He dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘Now, we shall return home, and you will be confined to your room, until such time as you can be trusted. Nurse Bryant shall have the care of you. She is waiting for you.’ He leaned forward, so she was inches away from him, and she could smell his sour breath and the oil on his yellowing whiskers. ‘You thought she was your enemy. My dear, you are your own enemy. How you shall soon see it.’
Chapter Ten
Mary dreaded Tuesdays now more than any other day of the week. Before she knocked on Liddy’s door a creeping fear consumed her like a fog, as she wondered what her state would be now, what fresh torture Miss Bryant would have found to visit upon her. At first, every Tuesday she was made to sit on the chair, her hands tied behind it around her writing slate for several hours and when Mary saw her she was too weak to talk, merely lying on the narrow cot bed, face buried in the bolster sometimes emitting a broken sob, her arms too sore to be of use, much less to embrace her sister.
Miss Bryant had made up a song with Liddy, had pretended it was a game, and now Liddy had to sing it every time Miss Bryant or Mary entered the room – if this was not done, a beating with the slipper followed, and there was no food that day. In winter, she said, there would be no coal for the fire. So when Mary entered, her sister would greet her thus:
‘I am bad, I am bad, I am truly very bad,
I’m the worst little girl that you’ll see,
I think vile thoughts and I do evil things,
I bring shame on my fam’ly’
She sang it in a sing-song monotone, head bowed, some of the notes catching in her throat, as Mary watched her, Nurse Bryant nodding in approval. ‘There, we see you can be good, if you apply yourself!’
One week after bringing Liddy back from Ned Horner’s, Father had left for Paris, where he had investments, he said, and this time he was away for six months or more. The night before his departure Mary had begged her father not to leave them in Miss Bryant’s hands, but for this defence of her sister she received only a spell in her own room, three days with no food.
‘I must feel that you are willing to submit to Miss Bryant, otherwise who knows what ills might befall you again?’ he’d told her. ‘Can you not understand that Lydia’s behaviour imperils you? Can you not, my dear, see how she nearly ruined us all? Rawnsley will not touch her now . . . no one will.’
‘Ned loves her, Father—’ This was the one time Mary had mentioned his name, and her father had been roused almost to fury. She had thought of him until this last summer as a stern but distant father. She knew him now. He was such a small man.
‘She will not marry him. She will not marry anyone.’
On the third day locked into her own room Mary was half asleep, half delirious with hunger and fear, and once she had the image, of Liddy and Ned, laughing together in the garden, his fingers pressing the wooden finger into the plump ball of her palm, his lips on her hand, her sister’s flushed cheeks, the desire even Mary could see. And the thought came to her, as she woke, sweating in the freezing chamber. It’s not fair. She caused all this.
But she dismissed it, for she already understood subconsciously that she must stick firm to her sister. They would try to break them both.
They had already broken Pertwee, ordered from the house the day before Father’s departure for some trumped-up business over the girl who worked at the hat-shop on Cranbourn Street who had retrimmed Liddy’s summer bonnet. (Miss Bryant had taken possession of the velvet hat with the egret feather, as a warning to Liddy, she said, not to covet worldly things.) Pertwee had been made to watch as his name had been scratched from the family Bible in Father’s study: Miss Bryant had performed the deed while Father wept crocodile tears. Mary felt keenly it was intrinsically wrong she should do it, though it infuriated her that this of all the horrendous details was the one she latched on to. The Bible had been Mother’s; before that, it was her father’s. The names of his children were carefully written in it. ‘Helena Alexandra Myrtle 1850’ and ‘Charlotte Gwendoline Myrtle 1852’. Mother had done the same with her children. It was not for Miss Bryant to erase them.
But she had, and what were they to do? What could be done?
On Tuesday afternoons Mary was permitted an hour with her sister, and to
bring her her tea. Since Miss Bryant kept her on the strictest rations, tapioca or rice and stale bread, Liddy had lost the bloom of her youth. She was waxy and grey. She was allowed out once a week, to walk in the garden, wearing the red cloak she had been made to sew herself with fabric she had been forced to ask Hannah to buy. Across the back of the cloak were sewn strips of white calico, with the words ‘Sneak’ ‘Liar’ ‘Fool’ tacked in thick black thread. The only time Mary had seen Liddy cry was when she’d had to show herself to Hannah in this cloak and Hannah had shaken her head and quietly said: ‘Not to me you’re not. Never will be, Miss Liddy. You’re my darling. Your mother’s watching over you, so’s my darling Ma.’
They knew that was a lie. Hannah’s mother had gone to the bad and had died in the workhouse and their own mother had taken Hannah with her as a maid when she came from Godstow to London for her marriage. They knew Hannah loved them but that was because she had loved their mother. Gumball the butler, their greatest friend as children, had shaken his head and moved away, as if he could not bear to see Miss Lydia in this state of shame, for shame is what Miss Bryant traded in, shame and secrecy and silence.
‘Dearest? May I come in?’
She opened the door quietly, clutching the little bundle she had smuggled upstairs. Liddy was sitting on the bed, bare feet on the floor, her hair down. She was in her nightgown. The room seemed emptier every time she visited; the previous week Mary had rolled up the carpet from her own room, Persian, with patterns of knotted roses across each end. It was her mother’s rug from her childhood home. She had carried it to Liddy to brighten the room up, but it had been returned that night, laid out perfectly smoothly, while she slept.
The air was stuffy, heavy with the smell of tallow candles. The shutters were kept closed most of the day. At first Miss Bryant allowed her to open them for an hour but after a while Liddy stopped opening them altogether.
‘Dearest, aren’t you getting dressed?’
‘Not today, for I did not eat my supper. There were worms in the rice. I hid it under the bed and lied to Miss Bryant about it. So I am to wear my nightgown now.’ Her voice was dull.
‘What about your trip around the garden?’
‘That is to be no more.’ She did not even raise her eyes to look at Mary.
‘Liddy . . .’ Mary sat down next to her on the bed. ‘See, here, I brought you fresh forget-me-nots and here is an almond biscuit Mrs Lydgate thought you might like.’ Hurriedly, she palmed the soft diamond-shaped cake into Liddy’s hand. But her sister dropped it to the floor.
‘I’m not hungry.’
Her eyes were ringed with purple; her mouth was cracked at the sides. Panic thudded in Mary’s throat, her head, through her body. ‘Dearest, it’s a treat for you.’
‘A treat.’ The word fell heavily into the stifling air of the room.
‘You must. You must see what that is.’ Mary gripped her sister’s bony hands. ‘Darling – please . . .’
But Liddy turned away from her. ‘Oh Mary. I think you’d better go for today, I am not myself, more than usual.’ She gave a small smile, and that was the worst of all. ‘I deserve it all, as I have come to see, and Miss Bryant says Father will be pleased with the change in me when he returns, which is soon – and I shall not bring shame on any of us. But sometimes it is rather hard to bear and I’d rather live alone than have the misery of watching you go and missing you . . .’ She swallowed, and might have cried – a small sob caught in her throat. She unfurled one little hand and Mary saw the figure Ned Horner had given her, the tiny wooden Liddy, as she had once been, carefree, her shoulders turning back in a laugh –
A sound came from outside; Liddy curled her fingers over again in a trice and then slid the wooden girl under her mattress.
At first Mary had kept her up to date with news – the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution had had an interesting talk on spring flowers, and she had heard that the tramway was to close again for more repairs, to the amusement and fury of local residents, the Reverend Mander had preached a most fascinating sermon on loving thy neighbour. (Yet Mary noted the Reverend Mander himself showed no curiosity at the absence of Mr Dysart’s elder daughter, his own neighbour, from church services.)
Liddy had pretended to be interested, but after a couple of months of Tuesday visits she would look away and begin chewing at her nails while Mary talked, and Mary knew it was another kind of torture for her, to hear about it all.
So the two of them sat in silence, in the dank room. Mary’s hand moved towards Liddy’s; the younger let her older sister hold it, gently, but then she lay down, facing the wall – ‘Sorry, Mary. I am rather tired today’, and Mary felt that this was the darkest of all moments. Liddy, from whom life poured forth like birdsong, reduced, at eighteen, to this carapace of a girl. The wooden figure under the mattress had more life than her.
Mary turned for the door, and then, looking down, handed her the rest of the bundle.
‘Dearest, I brought you paper and pens. You should write. Write some new poems.’
There was a silence, then Liddy said:
‘She’ll find them. She goes through the room. I have to hide the figure in my bodice, and now there’s nowhere for her. She’ll find her next and I’ll have to burn her. She makes me choose something to burn, every week. To make me understand I should not covet earthly possessions. Last week it was some of Mother’s letters to me when Father took her to Paris.’
Mary steadied herself on the back of the cane chair. ‘Burn these afterwards then. Memorise them first.’ She came forward again, and pulled her sister so she rolled on to her back and lay blinking up at Mary, her sallow face expressionless. ‘She doesn’t have your mind, Liddy. She can’t have that. Remember it. It is your greatest gift!’
But Liddy only shrugged, and rolled back towards the wall. She screwed the scraps of paper into balls, and tucked them into the small gap between the thin mattress and the wall. She wouldn’t speak after that and so Mary left, stopping to pick up the dropped biscuit first, then quietly closing the door.
Outside, she breathed in the fresh air of the house, the beeswax polish on the staircase, the faint scent of lilies, the breeze coming through her own bedroom window, next door. She felt guilty at the relief of leaving that room. It never occurred to any of them that the door was not locked, that Liddy could have wandered out when she wanted; so complete was Miss Bryant’s campaign of terror.
Mary went downstairs, meaning to gather more flowers outside, and ask Miss Bryant if it might be possible to leave them outside Liddy’s door. The garden at the front of the house was slowly unfurling into spring; early bees droned in the budding lilac. A high wall ran around the front garden but, through the wrought-iron gate, Mary could see two gentlewomen on horseback. They were elegantly sidesaddle, glowing with the first sun of spring; the younger one smiled politely at Mary as she peered at them. She saw, as always, the shock and then concealment as the stranger caught sight of Mary’s scarred and pitted face, and for once Mary did not smile to put her at ease: she returned her curiosity with a hard, cold stare, full of fury at this careless, cruel stranger and her friend, at the fresh spring day and feeling of hope, furious at it because it was all a lie. She turned towards the house.
‘Miss . . .’ A voice called to her from down the road, and she started, then peered out of the gate at a figure, moving slowly towards her.
‘What is it?’ she said, briskly. There was no room for charity in her heart, not today.
‘Miss – Miss Dysart, please: could you spare me a moment of your time?’
It was a young man, by the voice, shuffling as though walking were difficult. He wore a drooping, oversized cap concealing his face. Mary started: could it be – was it? – dear Pertwee, gone for months now and so very much missed by his sisters? She moved towards the gate, looking fearfully behind her; Miss Bryant had eyes – and spies – throughout the house.
‘Go away,’ she said, clearly. ‘We’ve nothing for y
ou.’
The stranger raised his cap. ‘Mary . . .’
Mary saw with a jolt that it was Ned Horner; though so pale and haggard she should hardly have known him. ‘Ned?’
‘Tell me’ – he caught at her hand through the railings – ‘is she still alive? Has that woman killed her?’
His face was, if anything, thinner than Liddy’s. He was a living skeleton. His jacket had once been respectable enough she could see, though it was now filthy, but his trousers were held up by a frayed piece of rope, his shoes splitting so she could see one or two toes, purple and rotten, one of the nails missing. Loose skin lay below his eyes, on his cheekbones. Mary tried not to flinch, as the women had flinched at the sight of her.
‘No, not yet. She lives. Dear Ned,’ she whispered, as low as she could. ‘I am sorry to see you here in this state.’
‘I walked all day and night from Blackfriars, but I wasn’t well – I had to stop – I can’t seem to get far these days.’ He coughed. ‘I have had trouble with my chest as you can tell. But it is quite better now.’ His eyes were too bright.
Mary peered through the iron railings of the gate at him. ‘Dear Ned. Can I fetch you some food?’ To invite him in was her Christian duty; it was also madness. ‘If you wait here, I will hurry inside for some soup—’
But he shook his head frantically. ‘I – I do not want anything, I do not want to imperil her. I want you to give her a message. We argued, the last time – she felt I wouldn’t give up my ideals so that she and I could—’ He was racked by a coughing fit that caused him to cling to the railings: Mary grasped the bones of his hands as he coughed. When he stood up again there was blood on his dirty handkerchief.
‘You are ill,’ she said. ‘Oh, dear Ned—’
‘All will be well.’ He gave her the ghost of a smile. ‘Honestly, Mary. I want you to tell her I’m painting again. A picture that will sell for thousands of guineas, and we’ll be rich. Do you believe me?’
The Garden of Lost and Found Page 14