‘You know why, Juliet. She felt you weren’t ready, not then. She wanted you to be able to come back here even though when she died you two had fallen out, because she knew – How do I say it? She thought you might need the house at some point. I daresay she underestimated the challenges of coming back here to live, but her intentions were good. Does that make sense?’
He looked around him. Juliet stood up, and gestured towards the chair. He sat down heavily, clasping her hand, and she nodded.
‘Yes, it does.’ She took a moment to absorb it all, rubbing her fingers across her forehead. ‘Boy. And she was completely right. I wish I could tell her she was right about so many things. Tell me something else, then.’ She touched his arm, gently. ‘Frederic – oh, why did she change so much, towards the end? Why did she hate the doll’s house so much?’
‘How do I explain it? Picture your grandmother. She grows up in the house alone with her mother. All that remains from the glory days is the sketch of a burned masterpiece. There on the Dovecote floor is the very scarring from the tiles where the fire destroyed her father’s dream. There in the trunk upstairs in the house are the fancy-dress clothes in which the beloved children who came before her dressed up. There are the letters of praise from great men, the books and paintings autographed by others. Yet . . . There is no money for new clothes: they refashion everything. They have to sell a painting to repair the roof, and another to pay her school fees, and then her mother sells Ned’s sketches to the Fentiman Museum in Oxford when she is eighteen to send her to university. And there in the middle of it is this doll’s house, which was her mother’s and her grandmother’s, and which Dalbeattie refashioned for those children before the great breach occurred with him, which she must have heard about. And she is expected to love it, to play with it. I did not know Liddy.’ He hesitated. ‘I knew several people who knew her. And they loved her dearly. She was, I believe, a quite extraordinary person to have survived that childhood.’
‘Grandi told me about it.’
‘Exactly. Mais, Juliette – what Stella didn’t tell you, because she was part of it, was that Lydia never really recovered from her childhood. How could she? And then with what came afterwards . . . my God, how did she bear it?’ Frederic began coughing.
She waited for the hacking to subside and then said, ‘Are you all right?’ She pulled a bottle of water from her bag, but he was sipping his tea, calm and collected again.
‘Yes. I am sorry I could not tell you sooner about my role in your inheritance. She was very generous and I have profited enormously from her generosity. It seems wrong that I have the proceeds of the sketch, and you don’t. That’s why I keep trying to give you things. To help you. I stand as your family. That is how I see it, that is what sh-she would have wanted.’ He patted his chest.
‘Oh, Frederic, you dear man. I am so grateful for your help. It’s your money and it’s your reward for looking after her, all those years.’
‘It seems unfair though.’
‘No, no!’ Juliet said, firmly. ‘You mustn’t ever think that, or say it again. Money isn’t important. I know that now and I haven’t got any. I might have to sell the place, if Matt gets really nasty. But it doesn’t matter.’ She smiled at him. ‘All that matters is Bea, and Isla, and Sandy.’
He shrugged. ‘I am sure that is right. But still—’
‘Can I ask you something that sounds absolutely crazy?’ He nodded, and Juliet swallowed. ‘Well. OK. Do you believe in ghosts? Not ghosts, exactly. People – spirits – something unfinished, needing to be completed . . .’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say.’
‘I do.’ His expression was suddenly sober. ‘In Stella’s case, yes, perhaps I do.’ The shop door banged shut suddenly as the customer left, the bell jangling then abruptly stopping. ‘For me it is unfinished, the business of that house, and your family.’
Juliet took a deep breath. Into the stillness of the shop she said, ‘Frederic – do you think Ned Horner destroyed the painting? Do you think he burned The Garden of Lost and Found on the fire?’
‘Why do you ask me?’
‘I don’t know why. But there’s this feeling I get in the house. I’ve studied him for most of my adult life but I never lived in the house, properly. The way he did. With his family.’ They looked at each other. ‘Do you know, I can’t explain it. But I don’t think he could have gone through with it. I just don’t. Neither does Grandi. Did Grandi, I should say.’
‘I agree with you, and with your grandmother. Somehow, I do not believe he would have been able to destroy it. It was, after all, his truest record of the children. And he lost them. He lost everything, remember.’ Frederic pushed away his tea. ‘Where is it, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Juliet. ‘That’s the trouble.’
The words fell into the thick silence of the room, crammed with things from the past.
Chapter Nineteen
March 1893
The loquacious cab driver had said he would set her down outside the cottage, but as they approached Ham Common he grew suspicious.
‘Too narrah, rahnd by the pond,’ he declared, shaking his head. ‘Nothing but mud, ’cause of the river. Funny, out of the way place, in’t it? I won’t get them hosses back if I goes down there. Best I drop ye here, and ye can walk along the path. That way, you’ll have a constitutional, some fresh air.’ He handed Mary out of the carriage, staring at her and she lowered her eyes, pulling her mother’s old Paisley shawl around her. She had no money for a tip, and he muttered something under his breath as he drove away, but Mary did not care: for once in a long while her heart was light.
Liddy was over there – a bare few hundred yards from her, she was there! And, though this part of the world was utterly unknown to her it was Liddy’s home, and so she must love it. The clear blue March sky arched overhead and the last of the snowdrops and the early daffodils made a brave showing at the foot of the hulking trees fringing the common. The track alongside it had indeed been churned into sludge, and Mary was obliged to walk on the damp grass itself, which she did, slipping and sliding, the wind slicing her face. It had been a cold, wet winter.
Ahead of her, Mary could see a fetid-looking duck pond, a row of cottages and, set back from the common, two small red-brick lodges, the old gate houses to Ham House. The one on the left was dark, discoloured, the windows broken. But the other showed signs of life, smoke rising in a black twirl from the tall chimney. Mary clutched her bag tightly in her small gloved hand. Her stomach churned. She was about to see her dear sister, the person she loved most in the world, for the first time since her wedding day.
‘Come in, come in, and let me take your coat – look, Mary – see, how housewifely I am. For we have hooks. Dalbeattie made them – oh, anyway. You may hang your dear old shawl just here. I love this little hat, Mary, is it French? The black straw is so chic. Your scars, dearest – they are remarkably faded, I can hardly see them—do not blush, for it’s the truth! We shall have some tea, shall we? – Alas, the candles do smoke so, does it inconvenience you, Mary? You are coughing, I shall open the window. It is tallow, for we cannot afford beeswax and the smell is rather heavy. Dalbeattie sent beeswax, but we used it all up. The passageway is rather tight so indeed – mind your head on the door, dear – oh! Oh Mary. I am sorry . . .’
‘It is of no moment, my dear.’ Mary rubbed her crown then caught Liddy’s hands. ‘Stop fussing, dearest, and let me look at you now!’
‘You cannot in this poor light, it is a mean, dark house I’m afraid!’ Liddy answered, gently disentangling her hands. She had barely stood still since Mary arrived, instead darting here and there and chattering, nonstop. Mary’s head ached – she had looked forward to this reunion ceaselessly. She had supposed, foolishly, that relations would be unchanged between them. But how could they be? Here was Liddy, formerly confined to the house in a shift and shawl, now a young wife, in a pretty white cambric blouse with wide sleeves and a square yoke an
d a velvet coverall of peacock feathers over her shoulders, concealing a suspicious thickening around her middle. Her skirt was a deep garnet-coloured velvet; her little boots polished and clean. She was completely herself, the wife of a promising young artist at home in her cottage, and at the same time utterly alien to Mary. Suddenly, Mary realised she was nervous.
‘Come and sit in the parlour, we call it, Ned ribs me about it, for I have made it ever so cosy yet I won’t let him take his boots off. He leaves them all about the place and the corridor is so narrow one may trip. We will sit together on this little bench – see, are we not snug together? And the fire is still burning – excellent. We will have tea, Mrs L. has laid it out here, bread and butter, Mary, look!’
In the tiny, dark room, Mary peered towards the fireplace. A small tray of bread and butter and what must be rock cakes sat upon a small iron trivet, keeping warm. A kettle of hot water swung from a stand in front of the puttering, weedy flame. The log smoked slightly. Liddy lifted the kettle up carefully, brushing the strands of pale golden hair from her flushed face, and poured the water into the large, brown teapot. Mary found these simple little rituals of teatime brought a tear to her eye. She had missed them so very much.
Drawings and paintings lined the walls – with a start, Mary saw a sketch of Dalbeattie, his long, lanky frame sprawling over the very bench upon which she sat. Liddy caught her looking at the picture and her eyes fell.
‘Is that Ned’s work?’
‘Oh – yes, yes it is. Dear Dalbeattie, he has been so good to us. All our friends have been so good to us.’
Mary recognised nothing in this house – not the teapot, or the books, not Liddy’s dress. She had taken nothing with her when she ran away – there was no trace left of their former lives together. Mary glanced at her sister and felt her heart beating faster, filling up with love again. ‘How wonderful it is to be here, and see your home, dearest.’
‘Oh yes and to have you here – but I wish Pertwee would come too. You must tell me all about him, and whether he has too many portrait commissions to spend time with you, and how it is keeping house for him, and Paris, and everything else. Why is he not here? Did you tell him I long to see him?’
There was a silence. Mary stared around her again, wishing the room wasn’t so small, the air so close. ‘He hopes to visit you tomorrow. If he is well.’
He had returned home as the sun rose. She had left him at the lodgings this morning, surly and barely able to speak, one eye swollen shut, turning black.
‘Capital.’ Liddy clapped her hands. ‘I think of your home so often and wonder about it! I am not sure this tea has brewed for long enough, but hey ho. Tell me – tell me all!’ She poured the weak-looking tea with unsteady hand.
Mary shook her head. ‘I am very boring, Liddy. I want to hear about you and Ned, and married life.’ She swallowed the word ‘married’. ‘Are you – are you happy, dearest?’
‘Wildly so. Yes.’ She handed Mary a cup of tea and said seriously, ‘Mary, my love, you must know something. You mustn’t concern yourself about me again, do you understand?’
Mary’s throat had a catch in it as she spoke. ‘I cannot breathe and not concern myself with you, dearest.’
‘No, Mary, I am serious. For all is well.’ Liddy’s eyes sparkled with tears. She put one hand on her breastbone, as though taking a vow. ‘You alone cared for me. You saved me from her, on so many occasions. I will never forget what you did. And look. You see I’m happy, I always will be, now Ned and I are married.’ She turned towards the window, and the dull March light fell upon her creamy skin, illuminating her delicate profile. ‘We have always felt we are two halves, and now we are joined . . . Oh, it’s wonderful, dearest one. Truly wonderful. All of it. Our ah, relations – I knew nothing of it all. It is marvellous, we are quite transfixed by each other and what we find we can do . . .’ She touched her rosy cheeks with the tips of her fingers, and Mary felt even more awkward. ‘I will not be indelicate, but you must understand me, Mary!’
‘Yes,’ said Mary, uncomfortably. ‘Yes, of course – I am so glad of it. Dearest Liddy. I suppose you knew the first moment you saw him.’
‘Not the first moment, no. But when we looked at each other in the garden at home that afternoon . . . then I knew. It was very simple. I think,’ said Liddy, carelessly, ‘it always is like this. Men, and women . . . I embarrass you, Mary, for you cannot know of what I speak but oh, one day, perhaps you will – no, it’s too much for me to talk to you like that.’
Mary bit her lip. I have seen things between men and women that would curdle your stomach, my darling big sister. I will never talk of Pertwee’s depravity, the cries they make, the sights I have seen since we last met. The hopelessness of it all. No, my naïve little bird, I pray you never find out what the real world is like!
‘And you, Mary? Has Pertwee introduced you to any of his dashing French artist friends?’
Mary gave a small laugh. ‘He is very busy. Now, tell me, how do you spend your days as a married lady? Is it so very different to what you expected?’
‘I had no expectations, that’s the great thing! Well, I walk Ophelia on the common and wait for Ned to come back to me of an evening. He brings friends sometimes. I keep house. Very badly, as you see.’ She spread her arms around the room and displayed her hands, which were red and raw. At the mention of her name a small, wiry-haired border terrier came trotting into the room, rough little tail wagging, and sat pointedly beside her mistress.
‘Ophelia,’ said Mary with pleasure, and a little pang, for they had longed for dogs as children. She patted the animal’s ruffled neck. ‘I am glad you have a companion, Liddy, it makes me happy to think of her with you all day.’
Liddy’s restless hands stilled for a moment, and she stroked the dog gently. ‘Oh yes, she is my greatest friend now, and I tell her everything, just as formerly I would have told you, only a little more perhaps, for she is not embarrassed by what I have to say.’ Her eyes danced wickedly. Mary simply smiled and patted Ophelia’s soft head.
‘How does Ned’s painting go? Does it progress well?’
‘Yes. Since The Nightingale he has been in high demand, and he is working all the hours he can to submit another painting to the Summer Exhibition.’ Liddy held out a plate of bread and butter. ‘He works in Dalbeattie’s studio, most days, in Barons Court. He takes the Underground train from Richmond. He says he is like a stockbroker, leaving every morning for the City. Sometimes he has to work very late, or dines with friends, and then—’ Her voice faltered. ‘I have Ophelia for company, you see. But he is always sorry if he stays away too long, and he brings me sweetmeats if he is particularly pleased with a day’s progress. I do not worry about him. He is my dear Ned. And then we have tea and are tucked up cosy as may be in our little cottage, safe from the winds . . .’ Liddy’s eyes shone; she chewed the nails on one of her small raw-red hands.
‘It sounds like a veritable paradise,’ said Mary, fondly. ‘Ah – has he actually sold anything lately?’
‘Not much. That is to say, nothing since The Nightingale, apart from a sketch of a dog he made on Ham Common which he sold to the owner before Christmas, and we were so pleased! But I wish he were not so high-minded. I wish he would just paint another picture as popular as A Meeting, or The Nightingale. If it wasn’t for Dalbeattie – he has been such a great support, you know. We rowed rather, before Christmas, about it. He always says he has plans, but you know—’ She broke off and then said flatly, ‘Let us speak of something else. Dalbeattie said he had seen you, I believe?’
Mary’s heart seemed to be in her throat. ‘Oh. Dear Dalbeattie,’ she said, carefully. ‘Yes. He – he came to Paris, to visit Pertwee.’
Her brother had been asleep for most of the day, and tradesmen kept banging on the door, and one girl who claimed he’d stolen her brooch. Dalbeattie had called around for tea, quite unexpectedly, but Pertwee, when roused, wouldn’t let him in.
Dalbeattie had stood in
the drab little courtyard of their apartment, turning his hat over and over in his hands, as Pertwee raved and shouted at him. It was a bad day for him. He had bad days. Mary had watched Dalbeattie trying to reason with her brother, his eyes constantly darting to her, a mixture of shock and despair.
She had forgotten things about this man who had done so much for their family – how pleasing his long, charismatic face was, how dark and gentle his eyes. How his mouth twisted. How his movements were rapid and decisive and yet he was always calm and in control, the very opposite of her poor brother.
‘Here is my card,’ Dalbeattie had said, his kind face furrowed with concern, after Pertwee had turned and gone back towards their own door. ‘Please, dear Mary – Miss Dysart, write to me if the situation becomes urgent. You must know you are not friendless, though I cannot help the poor fellow as much as I’d like – you see . . .’ He had trailed off, his eyes searching hers.
Their hands had touched, and he had gripped her tightly, and Mary had swallowed, her head spinning. ‘Will you be back?’ She had closed her eyes but only heard his voice, dull, flat.
‘Mary – Miss Dysart – I am afraid not. Not for a long while. I am needed elsewhere.’
‘I wish you would come again,’ she had forced herself to say, the boldest words she had ever uttered. But he had simply pulled the bolt of the heavy wooden door and stepped back out on to the street, not looking at her.
‘Dirty old dog, Dalbeattie, sniffing around,’ Pertwee had called as she’d entered the room. He’d sunk back into the winged-back armchair. ‘Got more money than sense since he won that competition. Started building houses for those dreadful aesthetes and the like out in the Home Counties. He’s forgotten what art is, what it is to suffer, to struggle . . .’ He had got up, shuffled out of the room with the blanket around his shoulders, and hadn’t emerged from his bedroom for another day.
‘Dalbeattie said something strange about Pertwee when he came to visit. “He is not too wild, is he?” I was not sure what he meant, and he was locked up with Ned for a while afterwards. Am I to worry about you?’ Her fair face turned towards Mary and she shifted towards her sister on the bench. The dark, cramped room grew still and it was only her voice, the two of them again. ‘Does he treat you kindly?’
The Garden of Lost and Found Page 23