Secrets of the Past

by Estella McQueen

  He walked over to Harry’s picture where it hung opposite the fireplace, next to Amelia’s self portrait. ‘Amelia painted this. Can’t you see how similar it is in style? He probably didn’t even sit for it; she could easily have done it from this sketch, or from memory. Remember Mrs Brownlow told us it had no connection to Brooks Grange? It had been picked up in an anonymous sale over a hundred and fifty years later? Perhaps it’s one of the portraits and personal effects that are mentioned in this ‘Notice.’ Tunney got rid of it along with the rest of her things. But why would he do that? Has he sent her away? Where’s she gone?’

  He looked again at Amelia’s self-portrait. And a strange dislocation occurred whereby the present became the past, the past became the present...,

  *

  Amelia lies amongst the covers in the Taffeta Silk bedroom, her face averted, her brow furrowed as if in pain. Richard stands at the foot of her bed, cool and distant. So very disapproving, so very disappointed in her. Without a word, he leaves the room and a young woman takes his place. Softly, she approaches the bed.

  ‘Hello, my dear, how are you feeling today?’

  Amelia attempts to sit up. The young woman plumps the pillows for her, eases her into a comfortable position.

  ‘You have been ill for a long time, my dear. I fear you are in a deep slough of despond. Your physical ailments are all better.’

  Amelia’s reply is fierce, urgent. ‘Only one thing will pull me free – a word from my beloved. It is many weeks now since I have heard from him; he is not usually so tardy in his letter writing. I do not understand what has happened. Is this God’s retribution? For losing my child?’

  ‘It is no such thing.’

  ‘But weeks have gone by, and not a single word. What if something has happened to him? How will I ever find out? Or worse, what if he has forsaken me, abandoned me, forever?’

  ‘Shh…be calm…,’

  ‘I can feel my husband’s eyes upon me constantly, he watches for some thaw in my mood. He hopes for some kind of rapprochement between us. He is mistaken - never again will I allow him near me! He will never share my bed, never lay a finger on me. I’d rather take up the fire irons and crush his skull than submit to his physical touch!’

  ‘You mustn’t say such things.’

  ‘Oh my dear,’ sighs Amelia, ‘you are weary of my company. I see where your thoughts lie. Pray God, Samuel is a kinder husband to you than Tunney is to me. Do you have the newspaper?’

  ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t, today. It will tire you… Finish your quilt instead.’

  ‘No, I must read it. When the Queen’s affair is over I might hear from Harry. What do you think? He will find time to write to me. Is it only work that keeps him from his letter writing? I forgive him if so, he is a busy man. But I must see him again. Without him I will die. Better that, than be miserable, alone with Richard!’

  ‘Hush Amelia,’ instructs the young woman, ‘I have news. A stranger has come to the house, a French gentleman, purporting to seek advice from all the high born and well to do families in the south east of England regarding the purchase of an English property.’

  ‘What of it?’ says Amelia.

  ‘Rouse yourself. Your husband wishes you to have dinner with him tonight. You must attend your guest.’

  ‘Who is this man?’

  ‘I am not sure. A battle casualty, I think. He walks with a stick.’

  ‘I am not interested. He will bore me.’

  ‘I do not think he will, Amelia. Besides, your husband has requested your presence, so attend him you must.’

  Amelia does as she is told and with her companion’s help she dresses and combs her hair, and with a spot of rouge on her pale cheeks is at last deemed presentable. She makes her way to the dining room where her husband converses with the foreign gentleman. Tunney does not introduce them, however, and Amelia takes her place at the table and waits for the men to join her.

  The stranger averts his face from hers and limps to the table; his posture is awkward, his manner unfriendly. During the course of dinner he chats in a low mumble with her husband. She is not interested, she doesn’t listen; she cares nothing for her husband’s business. But afterwards, when Richard’s attention is diverted, the strange gentleman somehow contrives to take her to one side and speaks to her alone.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he says. ‘Stay still, make no acknowledgement.’

  Startled, she does as he says. With her husband temporarily out of earshot, he boldly asks her in French, ‘Are you in love with a gentleman who resides in London?’

  ‘Sir, I am not fluent. I find conversation in a foreign language difficult.’

  ‘In English then.’

  Something in his manner arrests her attention. There is a tenor to his voice she thinks is familiar.

  ‘Speak again,’ she says.

  ‘Madam?’ he queries, ‘pour quoi?’

  She recognizes the voice, she knows who it is! ‘Harry! Is that you?’

  ‘Harry? I know of no such individual. I am Monsieur Feraud, your husband’s guest.’ But there is mirth in his voice, and he cannot suppress a laugh.

  ‘Oh, my darling! I thought you had forgotten me.’

  ‘Never,’ he says. ‘Not for a moment.’

  ‘Reckless man! What are you doing? Richard will surely recognise you; he will have you beaten and thrown out.’ She is terrified of giving him away. She wants to see his face properly, but this briefest of conversations is interrupted when Richard approaches. She glances at her husband in fear.

  ‘Till later,’ Harry says, ‘stay calm.’ He passes her a note.

  She squirrels the paper away, takes herself off to the far end of the room.

  She reads the words he has written, she had not realized, oh, she did not know! ‘Poppy, if you are brave enough to accompany me first thing in the morning, I will carry you away to London.’ She crushes the note in her hand. Harry is on the opposite side of the room and does not come near her again. It takes all her powers of concentration not to look around and watch him; it takes all her play acting skills to manufacture indifference. The excitement in her breast grows and grows.

  With great trepidation, she rises early and dresses herself, and picks up a bag containing a few belongings. She is about to creep down the stairs to meet with her deliverer when she is accosted at the top of the Great Stair by her female companion, dressed in a nightgown and shawl.

  ‘Please Mary Ellen,’ she begs, ‘do not betray me. I am risking a great deal, I know…,’

  ‘As am I,’ replies the young woman. ‘I am in the middle of preparations for my wedding. What will Tunney say when he finds out I aided and abetted you? He will forbid me from marrying Samuel, you know he will.’

  ‘You are lucky,’ Amelia tells her, ‘that you are free to be with the man you love. Why can’t I be with the man I love?’

  ‘Because you are married! What are you thinking?’

  ‘Please, Mary Ellen, let me do this. Please!’

  ‘Oh Amelia,’ Mary Ellen cries, almost falling to her knees. ‘If I can help you I will! I never intended for you to be so miserable! He is downstairs now, waiting. I sent for him. I arranged it.’ Amelia does not understand.

  ‘It was a subterfuge! Tunney would never suspect me of having anything to do with it. He’ll assume no doubt, that I haven’t the wit to embroil myself in such an outlandish scheme. Never mind that, make haste.’ Mary Ellen ushers Amelia down the stairs.

  Harry emerges from the shadows in the entrance hall, catching Amelia in his arms. They cannot resist a kiss, but then he takes her hand and hastens her away towards the side entrance of the house where there is less likelihood of being observed.

  Harry says not a word to Amelia as they progress safely beyond the gates of Addleston and onto the road, but he keeps tight hold of her hand and doesn’t once loosen his grip. Not until they arrive at the coach house does her determined lover finally speak. ‘Catch your breath, my love. We will rest for a s
hort while.’

  ‘Listen how my heart pounds! Surely we are being pursued, this very minute? The dogs will be on our heels!’

  ‘Nothing follows us,’ he says. ‘You are free.’

  ‘Why, the disguise?’ she asks, ‘How did no one guess it was you?’

  ‘I’m as amazed as you. Clever of me, hey? What bravery it is to sweep a man’s wife out from underneath his very nose!’ He kisses her. ‘And a dozen more times besides! As many and as often as I wish! But we can’t tarry here. We must leave by the coach and travel without delay to London.’

  ‘What are we going to do? Will we live in the city?’

  ‘For a brief while. Much as I relish being in the midst of political cut and thrust; I am willing to turn my back on it.’

  ‘But it is your career, your life.’

  ‘Puffery and foolery! With you by my side I can turn my hand to anything. We will stay in London for the Coronation, and then we will make a new life together, abroad, if needs be. I will write, you will paint. Anywhere, as long as we are far away from Addleston.’

  ‘But I wrote to you, over and over again, you did not reply.’

  ‘I replied, so many times,’ he says, ‘but our letters were kept hidden by Mary Ellen.’

  ‘Oh,’ she exclaims, ‘I will never forgive her! Never! I have been in despair for weeks past.’

  ‘We must thank Mary Ellen. It was she who wrote to me, telling me of your unhappiness. It was she who begged me to free you from your miserable life.’

  Amelia does not believe him. ‘She caused our misery in the first place!’

  ‘She has reunited us,’ he insists. ‘It was Mary Ellen who prompted me to action.’

  ‘I will not waste any more time thinking about her - but what will Richard do when he finds out we have absconded? Shall we be arrested? What if he forces me to come back? I vow that I shall bear the imprisonment, now that I know my Harry was true and the doubts were not of my own making.’

  ‘Silly Poppy,’ he says, ‘you will never go back. That, I can promise you.’

  *

  Charlie found himself standing half way down the long drive, clutching the sketch of Harry in his hands. He wasn’t sure how he got there. He must have been following the lovers towards the road. It had begun to spot with rain; visitors had unfurled their umbrellas and were hurrying past him towards the stable block and the tearoom. Astrid had kept to a distance, at pains not to spoil his concentration. Now she approached and took the picture from his hands. ‘Are you done?’

  ‘What a ridiculous man,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Harry Bramall! Ridiculous, ridiculous man!’ He laughed.

  ‘Come inside,’ said Astrid, ‘tell me everything.’

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Back in the Library, Charlie sat down at the table. ‘I’ve just seen Mary Ellen for the first time. She was with Amelia.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  He took the final sketch from the folder. ‘Like this.’

  The head and shoulders pencil portrait was of a young, fair woman with a long neck and soft features. Her gently curling hair was tied around with a plain ribbon. The delicately realized shape of the woman’s eyes and the curve of her lips where they formed a half smile, suggested a loving nature, a generous heart, a compassionate character. Not the kind of woman perhaps, who would scheme and plot to destroy someone else’s relationship.

  Astrid replaced the sketches in the folder, and exchanged them for the yellowing newspaper cuttings. Among them was an article championing George IV’s wife, Queen Caroline. ‘I think these are articles Harry wrote himself, a collection of his own work.’

  Charlie took it from her and read the piece aloud:

  ‘A mother denied access to her child, a Princess denied the care and protection of the Regent; barred in fact, from his court, the poor woman had fled to Europe in search of friend and companion. The tragic death of her own daughter in childbirth was news she heard from afar, and only the death of her father in law, the King, prompted her to return home and seek the title that was rightfully hers – that of Queen of England. Her dignity and poise during the ordeal that was her divorce trial, marked her out as a woman of strength and character. No wonder the public rallied to her cause...’

  ‘Do you think Harry’s opinion was influenced by his own predicament?’ Astrid asked.

  ‘Everyone’s running away,’ said Charlie, ‘even the Queen of England.’

  ‘She came back.’

  ‘Much good it did her. She wasn’t invited to the Coronation and weeks later she was dead.’ He looked through the rest of the cuttings. ‘What a clever and resourceful man he is: the sort of man who could easily adopt the airs and dress of a fictional French earl, in order to conduct an audacious rescue and elopement. Is there any mention of a Tunney divorce?’

  ‘Divorce was hard to come by. It required an Act of parliament. But there’s no mention of it here,’ said Astrid.

  ‘Amelia Tunney was Harry’s weak spot,’ said Charlie. ‘He’d have done anything to help her, once he realized she needed him.’

  ‘Weak spot? She was the love of his life, not a flaw in his character.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying. He had thought he’d be able to forget her in time. The longer they spent apart the easier it would be. When he stopped writing to her, he assumed she felt the same way. But no matter how busy he was, the ache was always there. Once he realized his folly, he embarked on this mad scheme to get back to her. Their impossible love, made possible.’

  ‘I told you he had something up his sleeve! I said he wouldn’t abandon her.’

  ‘You did,’ he conceded. ‘It was me that doubted him. What I don’t understand is how come Richard Tunney didn’t recognize him? Didn’t catch them out? Was he that stupid?’

  Together they studied the likeness of Amelia’s husband, expecting to find their assumptions borne out in Amelia’s rendering. But it was not a depiction of a mean, cruel man. He was in fact, benevolent in appearance, respectable and amenable, with not a trace of tyranny or bad temperedness about him. An artist might well obscure the sitter’s true personality with fake physiognomy, but Amelia had produced a portrait of her husband that showed him in a flattering light. It was the work of an affectionate hand, not a reproachful, vengeful one, and had a truthful essence about it. What had Tunney done after Amelia left? Had he kept Amelia’s elopement a secret? Told everyone she was dead? Did he move to London and pretend he’d left her at home in the country?

  ‘Are you sure Amelia drew this?’ Astrid asked. ‘He looks the perfect gentleman.’

  ‘Absolutely positive. I can see it in the pencil lines.’

  ‘But why would Amelia make a picture of a man she hates? Does that mean she forgave him in the end?’

  ‘Maybe she did.’

  Richard’s eyes, Charlie noticed, betrayed a slight tinge of worry, an optimistic eagerness to please. He was nervous about something.

  A dislocation occurred, a brief interval, where a tender maiden, unaccustomed to wearing expensive finery, was curtseying before a well-dressed young man. The setting was grand, the manners refined, musicians were playing a sprightly tune. Were they at a ball, or a party? The uncomfortable young woman avoided fixing her eyes on her new acquaintance. Nevertheless, he took her hand and kissed it, then led her away to the dance.

  ‘This wasn’t drawn afterwards,’ said Charlie. ‘This was drawn when she first met him, when she was trying to love him, trying to make the best of the situation.’

  A mild sensation of pins and needles was returning. He found himself heading up the Great Stair towards the Taffeta Silk bedroom as the images imposed themselves in his mind.

  *

  Richard is looking for someone.

  ‘Mary Ellen, I need you! If you would only come to me when I call you! You’re as much use to me as a bent fork! Where are you hiding?’

  Mary Ellen appears in the corridor but doesn’t a
pproach.

  Irritated, he beckons her over. ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘what are the servants saying?’

  Reluctantly she answers. ‘That your wife is glad the babies are dead. That she flung herself down the steps deliberately.’

  He gasps, ‘That she’s wicked and selfish?’

  ‘Of course not! She would have loved her children! She would have been a fine mother.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he muses. ‘You think so? You think that a man who provides a comfortable home and a reasonable income would have nothing to fear from his ungrateful wife?’ His voice rises. ‘Is it such an outrageous request – that a wife and daughter pay fealty to their master? And is it such a preposterous notion that a wife should bear her husband’s child, rather than her lover’s?’

  The girl flinches and steps backwards once more.

  ‘Why should I be defied in this way? What have I done to deserve such treatment? As for you Mary Ellen, I stand up for you, do I not? ‘There’s something odd about that child,’ people say to me, ‘something not right in her eyes… you would do well to send her away.’

  Mary Ellen pleads for sympathy. ‘I have always tried my hardest to please you. You know I have always done as you wished –’

  ‘And yet look at what has happened!’

  *

  ‘What is it?’ Astrid was standing in the doorway. ‘What’s going on?’

  Charlie was next to the four poster bed. A swathe of the taffeta silk material was crumpled up in his fingers. He had reached a crucial moment in the scene, and like an interrupted dream, Astrid had snatched him away from it before it was finished. He rounded on her in frustration. ‘You keep stopping me! Why do you keep doing that? What is it that you don’t want me to see?’

  ‘What do you mean? It’s not deliberate.’

  ‘There’s something I can’t get to, a part I can’t quite reach. It’s to do with the relationship between father and daughter.’ He looked at her. ‘He’s hiding her, or protecting her, I’m not sure which.’