The Chain Garden (10 page)

‘Not important then.’ The door was abruptly closed.

Sweating with humiliation Grace walked down the path. As she closed the gate she looked back at the house and glimpsed movement at one of the upstairs windows. For an instant she thought it was the housekeeper. Then the figure drew closer. There was no mistaking the flash of white collar against the black vest.

If he was at home why had Flora Bowden said he wasn’t?
Had he seen her arrive? Had he told his housekeeper to say he wasn’t at home?

Grace’s breath caught on a sob. Fumbling the catch on the gate she seized the handlebars and hurriedly pushed her bicycle up the street wanting to get away as quickly as possible. Though her reason for calling had been genuine she had welcomed the opportunity to talk to him again. She wouldn’t have delayed him long. She knew how hard he worked, the demands he faced. Her breath rasped as mortification scalded her skin.

‘Miss Damerel! Wait!’ Edwin Philpotts’ voice rang out.

She was tempted to keep going. But he called her name again. This time he was much closer. Screwing up what remained of her pride she stopped and glanced over her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Miss Bowden said –’

Tight-lipped and frowning he made a visible effort to overcome anger. ‘Miss Bowden should not – you must have had a reason for calling at the manse?’

‘Yes. I’ve just been visiting Becky Collins.’ Haltingly Grace explained her concern. He listened, his eyes never leaving her face. She dropped her own gaze to stare at the dusty road. ‘It was just – I thought you might be able to offer her comfort. If she’s really – I can’t reach her any more. She has no one –’ her voice wobbled and she broke off.

‘Of course I’ll go and see her.’

‘Thank you.’ In the silence Grace heard gulls shrieking. The fishing boats must be coming in on the tide.

‘I’m sorry –’ he began.

‘Of course.’ She didn’t let him finish. ‘You must be busy.’ She hurried away, desperate to get home.

Mrs Tallack knocked and put her head round the door. ‘‘Scuse me, Doctor. Mrs Moyle is here.’

‘Ellie.’ John rose to greet her. ‘Come in.’ His housekeeper closed the door quietly.

Despite the summer sun, Ellie’s face was drawn and pale except for the dark smudges under her eyes. Her hair was scraped back into an untidy bun. Escaping wisps hung untidily over her face and down her neck. Once as bright as burnished copper it was dull and greasy and threaded with silver. Her sprigged blouse and blue calico skirt, both faded from countless washings, were grubby.

Exhausted and careworn she looked a decade older than her real age. Not surprising considering what she had been through these past months.

She had caught him in the village this morning and asked to see him, her voice low and her eyes evasive. He had offered to see her at home to spare her the walk, but she had refused, hurrying away as soon as the appointment had been agreed, as if anxious not to be seen talking to him.

He indicated a chair. ‘Sit down, Ellie. I’m so very sorry about Paul.’

Ellie simply nodded, chewing her lower lip, fretting at a fold in her skirt with fingernails bitten down to the quick.

John sat down at his desk and swivelled his chair around so he faced her. ‘What can I do for you?’

She took a deep breath. ‘Expecting again aren’t I?’

Startled, John nodded slowly. This was something he had not anticipated. ‘How far along are you?’

‘Four months. Paul was careful like, but…’ She bit her lip, shrugging wearily.

‘You weren’t using birth control?’

Ellie shook her head. ‘I know what you said. What with Mark just a few months old an’ all. I was willing. But Paul didn’t like it. He said it wasn’t natural.’

Crushing his irritation, John nodded once more. ‘Well, it’s sooner than I would have wished but –’

‘No, you don’t understand. I can’t have it. Not now Paul’s gone. I don’t know how I’m going to feed the four I got. Doctor, you got to help me. I can’t – I just can’t –’ Tears spilled down her pallid cheeks as her face crumpled.

Pulling a pristine handkerchief from his breast pocket, John leaned forward and pressed it into her trembling hands. He understood Ellie’s plight. He saw too many women worn down by continual breeding because their husbands didn’t like using contraception.

‘Ellie, I understand how you feel –’

‘No, you don’t. You got no idea. I can’t have it.
I can’t.
’

If she’d ever had difficulty delivering, or if there was a risk to her health, there would strong medical reasons to justify terminating the pregnancy. But each time her labour had been relatively short and the births trouble-free.

‘Ellie, think what you’re saying.’

‘What do you think I been doing?’ she cried, raising swollen bloodshot eyes. ‘I haven’t done nothing
but
think about it. I can’t eat, can’t sleep.’

‘I’ll give you something that will help.’ He wanted to calm her before trying to explain why what she was asking was impossible.

‘I don’t want
that.
’ She leaned forward, her features tight with desperation. ‘Help me, doctor. I’m begging you. I’ll never tell. I swear on my babies’ lives.’

‘It’s Paul’s child, Ellie. Just like Polly, Meg, Daniel and little Mark. You’re asking me to destroy Paul’s child.’

Screwing her eyes shut, Ellie shook her head violently. ‘It isn’t a proper baby. Not yet. I can’t have it. I won’t. My Paul’s lying in his grave and I miss him awful. I got no money. But how can I go out working when mother’s doing two jobs and there isn’t no one to mind the children? I can’t expect Polly – God love her, she’s only six. Don’t you tell me to go on the parish. I know women who done that and their kids was took away. What am I s’posed to do?’ Her voice had risen to a thin shriek.

Rising, John opened the door and called to his housekeeper. ‘Fetch a blanket and sit with Mrs Moyle, while I make up a sedative.’

When the draught had taken effect, Ellie agreed to an examination. John knew there was little doubt that the changes she described were symptomatic of anything other than pregnancy. He was trying to buy himself time, and that surprised him.

He could not do what she wanted. He had sworn an oath to
do no harm.
To save and protect life. Despite her strain and grief, and some signs of under-nourishment, Ellie was basically strong. She had already produced four healthy children. There was no reason to suspect a fifth would present any problems.

Completing the examination he drew up the blanket and went to wash his hands. As he soaped, rinsed and dried, he felt an ache begin at the base of his skull. He knew if he refused Ellie’s request there was a risk she might go to one of the old women known to
help out
in such situations. He would warn her of the danger to her life and long-term health and promise his support during her pregnancy. He’d ask Grace to make sure Ellie had what she needed for her lying in and for the new baby.

His profession was governed by rules, a code of ethics. To break them would be a betrayal of everything he believed in. His heart ached for Ellie. He had lost a wife he loved. But he had no choice. His calling demanded he protect the unborn life she was carrying.

Chapter Ten

Becky Collins lingered for two more weeks. Hot dry weather during which the hay was cut, wheat and oats began changing from green to gold, and mud on the paths and tracks dried in hard ankle-wrenching ruts.

Hedges were dressed with pale pink blackberry blossom and white convolvulus. Bracken unfurled green fronds. Valerian, crane’s bill and fragrant meadowsweet flowered along the ditches. Starlings began to flock and rooks strutted in the pastures.

The breeze whipped up whirls of dust from the village streets, and the stench from gutters and privies caught the nose and throat.

Grace sent for Becky’s sister Vera, who arrived complaining about the inconvenience.

Grace believed that her own visits every other day bringing food and fresh milk were all that stopped Vera abandoning her sister. She persuaded her uncle to call at the cottage, waiting outside while he made his examination.

‘Grace,’ he was gentle. ‘Mrs Collins is beyond my help.’

‘Surely there must be something? If it’s a matter of cost –’

‘No.’ John Ainsley shook his head. ‘All the money in the world wouldn’t make a scrap of difference. My dear, you have to stop this. You’re assuming responsibilities you have no right to. I say this not out of criticism but from concern.’

‘But she’ll die.’ Grace’s throat was so stiff and tight her voice was strangled.

‘Yes,’ John agreed calmly. ‘And there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do to prevent that.’ He took her hand. She recognised his compassion but it gave her no comfort.
He didn’t understand.
‘Mrs Collins has suffered a great deal. Grace, she’s tired, too tired to want to struggle on any longer. The kindest thing you can do for her, and for yourself, is to accept it. You have to let go.’

Edwin Philpotts had called as promised though Grace hadn’t seen him.

‘He needn’t have bothered for all the notice Becky took of ‘n,’ Vera grumbled. ‘Still, at least he appreciated what it was costing me to be here what with all the trouble I got back home. He might be young but he got a nice way with ‘n. That’s more that you can say for the one we got. All hellfire and damnation he is. Well, you don’t want it, do you? Not every bleddy Sunday.’

After fourteen days of heat the air turned sultry and humid. Towering thunderheads blotted out the sunlight and the darkening sky was split by jagged darts of lightning accompanied by cracks of thunder so loud that windows shook. As the first slow heavy drops of rain burst on the dusty earth Becky Collins sighed softly and slipped away.

The funeral took place the following week. After three days of blustery showers the clouds rolled away and the sun shone in a colour the colour of delphiniums and streaked with mare’s tails. The chapel was full. Miners off-shift, remembering Becky’s husband and son, accompanied the coffin to the cemetery.

Vera refused Grace’s offer to help prepare refreshments. ‘I haven’t got money to spend like that. I thought sister might have a bit put away somewhere. But I haven’t found nothing. Any’ow, I been away too long already. If people want a cup of tea they’d best make their own when they get home.’

Reminding herself that grief sometimes showed itself in unusual ways, and that she shouldn’t criticize, Grace masked her shock with a nod of acceptance. ‘What about Becky’s clothes and possessions?’

‘Dump the lot.’

Grace blinked. ‘But – Surely you’d like something as a keepsake?’

‘I already took what I want. The rest can go on the fire.’

As everyone dispersed leaving two men shovelling earth onto the coffin, Ernie and Grace accompanied Vera back to the cottage.

Unlocking the door Vera handed the key to Grace and picked up two bundles, each tied in a knotted sheet. ‘Right, I’m gone.’

Ernie stared after the departing figure. ‘Well, bugger me,’ he murmured, then added hastily, ‘Begging your pardon, Miss.’

Grace pretended not to have heard. She would not have expressed herself quite so bluntly but she shared his reaction. She looked round the dark kitchen. The range was cold and so was the room. She shivered.

‘You get on home, my ‘andsome,’ Ernie urged. ‘Ben and me can clear the place out. I’ll give you the key back in a day or two.’

‘That’s kind of you, Ernie.’

‘No such thing.’ He was gruff. ‘Get on with you now. Looking fagged you are.’

Putting her bicycle away, Grace entered the house through the servants’ door. Violet was in the kitchen.

‘All right, Miss? Good turn out, was it?’

Grace nodded. During the service she had clenched her teeth so hard that pain stabbed her temples. Holding in sobs as she kept hearing Becky’s grief-stricken
what’s the point of it all
had made her hot and dizzy. She had not disgraced herself, but the effort had cost her dearly. She cleared her throat.

‘M – my mother?’

‘Not come in yet, Miss. She’s prob’ly still down the chain garden.’

‘I’ll go to her as soon as I’ve changed.’ Having lost two children her mother disliked reminders of mourning. Grace sympathized, and could not help thinking it a little unkind of Granny Hester to cling so determinedly to her black.

Twenty minutes later, wearing a simple blouse and skirt, Grace went out through the garden entrance. She paused on the steps but there was no sign of Ben or her mother. Perhaps she had retired to the folly to update the big diary in which she recorded her planting schemes for each of the linked beds.

The sun was still warm but looked watery through the thickening veil of cloud. The breeze had dropped, the air was still, and sounds were unusually sharp and clear. Fledglings with fluttering wings and insistent cries followed weary parents demanding to be fed. Clouds of gnats spiralled beneath tall sycamores on either side of the folly, a sign of more rain to come.

Grace walked up the steps. Her mother considered Ben the perfect assistant. He was quiet, knowledgeable, and took seriously his responsibility to have ready the plants whose names and colours were listed on a plan she worked out each autumn.

What was it that gave her such pleasure? Grace pushed the door open. Was it the sense of continuity in the endless cycle of seasons? The delight of seeing her vision transformed into colourful fragrant reality? Was it that the garden, unlike her health, was something she could control? Or was it something altogether deeper and darker?

In her favourite chair by the window, her straw hat on top of books lying open on the low table, Louise Damerel’s head rested against the high back, her face turned towards the view.

‘Mama?’

Louise didn’t respond, didn’t move. A familiar pang of concern and sympathy pierced Grace. The hours in the garden had been too much. Her mother had fallen asleep.

‘Oh Mama,’ she sighed. Crouching beside the chair she took her mother’s thin hand. It lay cold and unresponsive in hers. Grace chaffed it lightly. ‘Mama? Wake up. It’s time to –’ Shock tingled unpleasantly from her scalp to her toes as blood roared in her ears. ‘Mama?’ Her throat was so dry it hurt and her mouth tasted of tin. Fear poured through her veins, ice-cold, white hot.
No.

‘It’s all right, Mama.’ She could hear her voice. It sounded strange, high-pitched and breathless. ‘Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. I’ll just go and –You’ll be fine – We must get you back inside where it’s nice and warm.’

Scrambling to her feet she stumbled out of the folly and ran on weak trembling legs towards the house. She burst through the door. Kate was crossing the hall and started violently, one hand flying to the frilled bib of her starched white apron.

‘Dear life, Miss! You give me some fright.’

‘Patrick!’ Grace shrieked, ignoring her.

The butler appeared, still adjusting his coat. ‘Miss Grace?’

‘My mother –’

‘Where, Miss?’

‘The folly,’ Grace gasped through chattering teeth.
Why was she shivering?

Patrick took charge. ‘Kate, go and fetch Thomas coachman. Tell him to go straight to the folly. Quickly, girl!’

As Kate turned and ran, Grace whirled back towards the open door. Grabbing a handful of skirt she flew down the steps and back along the path to the folly with Patrick close behind her.

‘I’m s-sure she’ll b-be better once s-she’s in b-bed,’ she stammered over her shoulder. ‘She’s so cold you see. It’s my fault – the breeze – I should have – a jacket, or a shawl around her shoulders.’ She leapt up the steps into the folly, and stopped suddenly on the threshold. The fragile figure hadn’t moved.

‘By your leave, Miss.’ Easing past her Patrick rested his fingers on the side of her mother’s neck.

Grace wrung her hands and looked back to the path. ‘Where is Thomas? Why doesn’t he come? My mother shouldn’t be out here. It’s turning chilly. That’s why she’s so cold. It’s not good for her, Patrick. She should be in the house –’ Hearing running footsteps she glanced round. ‘Thomas, what took you so long?’

‘Sorry, Miss. I –’ He looked past her to the still figure in the chair. ‘
Jesus.’

‘All right, Thomas,’ the butler was quietly repressive. ‘Shall we carry her between us?’

The burly coachman shook his head. ‘Easier for me to do it by myself, Mr Patrick.’

‘As quickly as you can, Thomas,’ Grace begged. ‘We must get her to her room before she takes another chill.’ She saw the coachman glance in bewilderment at the butler.

‘Don’t you worry, Miss Grace,’ Patrick soothed, nodding at the coachman who bent over the chair and scooped up Louise Damerel as if she weighed no more than a child. ‘Come along now.’ He propelled her gently along in Thomas’s wake. ‘You’ve had a nasty shock.’

‘I-I’m all r-right,’ she stammered, her teeth chattering. ‘It’s not me you need to worry about. It’s my mother.’

The butler’s hand was warm and steady beneath her elbow. ‘No, Miss. Not any more.’

Grace looked at him. ‘You’re wrong.’ It was disbelief, denial and plea. ‘She’s not – She can’t be – Send someone for my uncle. He always knows exactly what to do. He’ll make her better.’

In the hall Grace stood stunned and helpless while Patrick instructed an ashen, hand-wringing Kate to send Jamie for the doctor. As Thomas carried his mistress towards the stairs Violet leaned over the carved balustrade on the landing.

‘Mrs Chenoweth want to know –’ As she caught sight of Thomas and his burden her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh God save us. Oh, my dear life. She’s never –’

‘Violet? What’s all the shouting for? What’s going on?’ The querulous demand from Hester Chenoweth’s bedroom made the shocked maid gasp.

Patrick jerked his head, a silent command for Violet to return to the old lady. Her hands pressed to her cheeks, Violet darted away.

A moment later Grace flinched as her grandmother screamed, the sound cut off by the closing door. The hall began to rock and sway. Patrick caught her and steered her into the library and across to a leather sofa the colour of a ripe chestnut. She sank down among green velvet cushions.

‘That’s right, Miss. You just rest there a minute.’ He moved away and she heard the rattle of the decanter, a brief gurgle, and the
chink
of the crystal stopper being replaced. Leaning over her he pushed the cut-glass tumbler into her trembling hands, gently forcing it towards her lips. ‘Come on now. Drink it down. You’ll feel better.’

She’d said that to Becky. Becky was dead.

Grace swallowed, coughing as fumes filled her nose and throat. She shuddered and gasped, swallowing convulsively. Her eyes watered and perspiration broke out on her forehead. It dewed her upper lip and prickled her back like a million scurrying ants. But as the brandy hit her stomach warmth radiated along her palsied limbs. The weakness receded, replaced by crushing realization. Overwhelmed by terror she shut her eyes, clutched the glass and gulped down the rest.

‘Easy, Miss,’ Patrick drew the glass away. ‘You’ll be better directly.’

Grace relinquished it, still unable to speak. Fumbling for her handkerchief she wiped her mouth and forehead. ‘I tried so hard, Patrick.’ Rasped by the neat brandy her voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘All for nothing.’

‘Don’t you ever think such a thing, Miss,’ he scolded. ‘Mistress would never have lasted as long as she did but for you. You didn’t have an easy time of it neither. Mistress was some lovely lady, none better, but she liked her own way. No one could’ve done more’n you did, Miss. Now if you’ll write a note to the minister I’ll have it taken down the village this minute.’

She looked up blankly. She could hear him speaking but the words didn’t mean anything. ‘Minister?’

‘Yes Miss. With respect, Mr Philpotts might be the best person to break the news to your father, him being familiar with such matters, and you having had such a shock.’

Her father. He would say she shouldn
’t have left her mother. He would say it was her fault. It was. It always had been.

‘Come along now, Miss,’ Patrick urged.

She was so tired. She didn’t have any strength left. She felt a hand under her elbow helping her to her feet and guiding her to the walnut writing desk by the window. A tapestry pressed gently against the backs of her legs. Writing paper and a pen were placed in front of her. She stared at them.

‘What do I – I don’t know what –’

‘Just a few words, Miss,’ Patrick coaxed. ‘Don’t have to be much. But ‘t would be best if minister was here before master gets home.’

Dipping the pen Grace bent over the paper and wrote
Please come. My mother –
but her fingers were trembling and slippery and she could only scrawl
please help.
Signing it
Grace Damerel
, she folded it and addressed the envelope,
Reverend Edwin Philpotts.

‘Now you just sit there a minute. Soon as I’ve seen to this,’ Patrick picked up the envelope, ‘I’ll send Kate to you.’

As the butler closed the door behind him Grace stared out of the window.From childhood she had clung to the belief that if she accepted responsibility for the household and shielded her mother from any stress nothing bad could happen. But it had. Without warning death had sneaked in. Years of effort, of biting her tongue, doing the right thing, putting everyone else’s needs first: in the end none of it enough.