The Chain Garden Read online

  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.

  Rage exploded inside her, blinding, searing. She couldn’t breathe and pressed clenched fists to her temples as screams too big for her throat threatened to split her skull and shudders wrenched her body.

  As suddenly as it had attacked the fury departed, sucked out like a tide. It left her beached, boneless, and utterly exhausted. Stumbling to the sofa she fell onto it and let darkness take her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Riding home on the busy main road in the gathering dusk, Henry Damerel ignored carriages, horse-drawn omnibuses and farm carts. Familiar with the route his sturdy cob needed no guidance. There was nothing to distract Henry from his thoughts. Like claws and sharp teeth they nipped and tore, shredding his optimism, gnawing away at his confidence.

  Despite fevered efforts by the engineer, the blacksmith, and two carpenters, the worn-out leaky pump had defied all attempts to keep it functioning. By mid-afternoon the level of water in the north shaft had forced the men in the lower levels to abandon the stope. That alone would have been sufficient cause for worry. But soon after the afternoon shift in the south shaft had gone down, boys working bellows in the ends were sent back up to grass as one pare after another found that the lode had suddenly pinched out.

  With a new setting day due Joe Buller insisted the only solution was to go back on tribute. ‘I tell you, sir, ‘tis the only way. They’ll find ‘n again, don’t you fret. You could put ‘em down there blindfold and they’d smell out the tin. But you got to make it worth their while.’

  He would not give up. Yet how much longer could he carry on? He needed money: a lot of money. That need was not simply urgent, it was desperate.

  His butler met him in the hall. ‘If I may have a word, sir?’

  ‘Later, Patrick.’ Henry waved him away. ‘It’s been a long day and I’m tired. ‘

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but this can’t wait. May I suggest the library?’

  With a sigh Henry turned as the butler closed the door and crossed to the silver tray. Pouring a generous measure of whisky into one of the cut-glass tumblers, the butler set it on a small tray of polished figured tin and offered it to his employer.

  Taking it, Henry rubbed his forehead where a headache throbbed. ‘All right. What is it? I daresay I can guess. My wife is unwell again. Has Ainsley been sent for?’

  ‘Sir, it is my unhappy duty to tell you that Mrs Damerel passed away this afternoon. Miss Grace came back from the village and found her in the folly. Sitting in the chair she was, and looked very peaceful.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, sir.’

  Lifting the glass Henry swallowed half its contents. Thirty-one years. She had almost died the night Grace was born. The threat had hovered over their lives like a shadow ever since. But now it had happened he didn’t know how to react. Surely he should feel something?

  Patrick cleared his throat. ‘On behalf of all the staff, sir, I’d like to say how sorry we are.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Draining the glass, Henry crossed to the tray and splashed more whisky into the glass, astonished to see his hand shaking.

  ‘Dr Ainsley is upstairs now, sir. He’s with Mrs Chenoweth at the moment. As you can imagine, the shock–’

  ‘Indeed.’ Henry raised the glass to his lips. A thought struck him, accompanied by a flash of irritation. ‘Where’s Grace? Why isn’t she –’

  ‘Miss Grace is in her room, sir. I understand from Kate that Dr Ainsley has given her
a sedative. Took it bad she did, sir. The minister should be here directly.’

  ‘The minister?’ Henry repeated. ‘Whose idea –’

  ‘Mine, sir. Seemed to me Mrs Chenoweth and Miss Grace might be glad of such comfort at this sad time. I hope I did right?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Henry passed his free hand over his face, feeling stubble rasp against his palm. Exhaustion swamped him like a breaking wave. He felt tired to the depth of his soul.

  ‘I expect you’ll want to go upstairs, sir?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Of course.’ Swallowing the last of the whisky Henry set the glass back on the tray. It didn’t seem real. Louise dead? Over the years there had been so many close calls he had become inured to anxiety. Just for an instant he wondered if there had been a mistake. Foolish. He started up the stairs. Patrick followed.

  ‘Madam is laid out in her own room, sir. Violet has attended to all the necessary. Minister shouldn’t be long. Mr Bryce has taken the trap and gone to meet him.’

  Flora Bowden set the plate down in front of Edwin. ‘I expect you’re ready for that. Been some long day for you it have. Reverend Peters was good as gold, God rest his soul. But you do twice what he done in a day.’ She moved the salt and pepper closer. ‘I can’t help thinking that people do take advantage. But perhaps it isn’t for me to say,’ she added quickly.

  Edwin suppressed irritation and flashed a brief smile. ‘Thank you, Miss Bowden.’ As he picked up his knife and fork Flora bustled towards the door.

  ‘You just ring when you’re ready for your afters.’

  As the door closed behind her he gazed at the lumps of grey meat, mashed potato, and cabbage that had been boiled with bicarbonate of soda to a vivid green stringy mush. He recalled fish and vegetable curries made with coconut and spices, subtly flavoured dishes of dhal, and salads of exotic fruits that he had taken for granted. Though conditions at the mission had been Spartan, food was cheap and they had eaten well. He sighed. If not exactly appealing it was adequate as fuel. He opened the book beside his plate, and began to eat.