The Dead Queen's Garden (20 page)

Charlotte hid a sigh. Ratting held no attraction for her these days but not for the world would she hurt young Oz’s feelings, so she smiled and agreed to the engagement. His lordship peered round and she wondered if he could be looking for Sibella. What if my speculation is correct, she mused. Suppose I’m right about Edward Armstrong’s part in all this, might Lord Granville have some inkling? If he has, he might hope to waylay Sibella, to question her.

He showed no sign of doing so, however, and she remembered
Miss Nightingale’s comment about his sanguine nature. Perhaps he did suspect something but was content to let sleeping dogs lie, after all.

By some fluke of fortune, Charlotte had turned away and was talking to the vicar when Lady Granville’s stately progress around the room brought her up to Charlotte’s side. It was clear from her warm greeting that the lady had not observed her husband in close conversation with a young woman or the dark brows would have met across the noble beak of a nose.

‘How kind of you, Mrs Richmond, to give Osbert such a valuable gift. Ah, here he is, to thank you himself.’

‘It’s capital, Mrs Richmond,’ he told her, opening up each attachment so that she could admire them. ‘I’ve always wanted a knife like this but Mama said I was too young.’

Oh dear, Charlotte’s hand flew to her mouth to conceal a guilty grin but Lady Granville seemed unperturbed. ‘I hope you will prove worthy of Mrs Richmond’s trust, dear Osbert,’ was all she said. ‘Your papa and I rely on you not to damage yourself or anyone else.’ She turned, with a gracious smile, to greet a newcomer. ‘Ah, Mr Knightley, how kind of you to come, how do you do? May I enquire after Mrs Knightley’s health?’

Kit nodded briefly in Charlotte’s direction while bowing over his hostess’s outstretched hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘She is resting today.’

‘What’s that? Your wife unwell, sir?’ It was Doctor Chant, who bustled up and shook Kit’s unwilling hand. ‘Perhaps I might have the pleasure of prescribing for her?’ He glanced round and lowered his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Dr Perry is an excellent enough man, for a country physician, but I fancy he is a trifle behind the times when it comes to the latest methods. Has Mrs Knightley tried hot and cold water treatments? I can promise you miraculous results, if you will place the lady in my hands. Why, only last month, His Royal Highness, the Prince….’

‘My wife is dying,’ Kit snapped, and Charlotte, in response to a concerned glance from Lady Granville, took his arm and marched him unceremoniously out of the doctor’s reach.

‘Come and sit by Gran,’ was all she said, as the gong sounded
and the assembled guests were ushered towards the lofty diningroom. ‘She won’t allow anyone to harry you.’ He bit his lip and nodded, clearly unable to speak, and Charlotte continued, ‘I’ll go and see Elaine tomorrow morning. She’ll like to hear about the party, if – if she’s well enough.’

Charlotte saw him safely under Lady Frampton’s wing and moved away, to find her hostess smiling approvingly.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ was all she said, then she nodded
complacently
at the guests who were finding seats. ‘It seemed sensible to have tea in the dining-room today,’ she pronounced. ‘So much cosier than in the Great Hall and of course there are too many of us to fit comfortably round the tea-table in the drawing-room.’

Cosy? The room was vast and Charlotte stared round-eyed at the table that looked at least half a mile long.

‘Charlotte?’ It was Dr Perry, a frowning concentration visible on his brow. ‘A word, if I may?’

‘Of course.’ Charlotte looked anxious. ‘Is it about Mrs Knightley?’

‘What’s that?’ He shook his head. ‘Oh no, poor soul, that will come at any time; you’ll feel it sadly, poor child. No, this is another matter entirely.’ The furrows in his forehead deepened as he chose his words with care. ‘Char, this is in confidence but I know you can be trusted. Have you heard of anyone else being indisposed after that party at the manor? No?’ He shook his head. ‘Nor I and that surprises me. That healthy young woman had no symptoms other than some kind of food poisoning, but her sister insists that they ate the same food. I know this because the Winchester doctor who attended her in her last hours is a great friend of mine, and he is both perplexed and mortified at her death.’

Charlotte stared at Dr Perry in dismay, his sentiments chimed so familiarly with her own. It was one thing, she discovered, to conjure up nightmares, but quite another to have not one, but two sensible, experienced medical practitioners suffering from the same uncertainty.

‘What are you going to do?’ she breathed, and could not decide whether to be relieved or even more anxious when he replied:

‘I have no idea.’

At that moment, the guests were called to the table and the slight delay caused by her encounter with Dr Perry meant that the only available seat was beside Captain Penbury who was delighted to see her.

‘How are you feeling today, Captain?’ she enquired with a smile. In spite of her reservations about his wife, Charlotte was quite fond of the bluff sailor and felt genuine concern for his health after the fright at the christening. ‘No trouble amidships with the musket ball?’

‘Not a suspicion of it, Mrs Richmond – well then, Charlotte, if you wish, that’s very civil of you.’ He patted her hand, a smile of genuine pleasure brightening his large red face. ‘No, as I was saying, Charlotte, I’m happy to say I find myself hale and hearty at present. In fact I gather there is talk of skating on the local gravel pit tomorrow if the ice holds, and as I consider myself proficient in the art, I shall enjoy myself a good deal.’ He glanced across at her other neighbour, Dr Chant and addressed him, with a gesture of apology to Charlotte. ‘I say there, Doctor. Have you ever come across a case like mine? Hey? I carry a musket ball around, d’ye hear? A relic of the battle when our gallant navy captured the Chesapeake from the Americans in the year ’13.’ He smiled reminiscently, as he went on, ‘Of course, I was only a midshipman at the time, a mere lad, but here we are still to tell the tale, that Yankee musket-ball and I.’

Charlotte relaxed for the moment. At least Kit was safe from Dr Chant and Melicent was enjoying herself exchanging ailments with one of the neighbouring wives.

‘You know, Captain,’ Dr Chant had been frowning and now suddenly leaned across Charlotte with a perfunctory apology, ‘with a delicate digestion like yours, you should be on gruel and water, not stuffing yourself with such rich delicacies as we are served here.’

Oh dear, not again. Charlotte leaned back and let battle commence as the captain started up in indignation.

‘What’s that you say, sir? Hey? I go to Bath to take the waters when I’m feeling out of sorts but otherwise I’m as fit as many men half my age, sir; aye, and fitter than many, despite always carrying
round a musket-ball. I live by the words of some famous man of old – La Rochefoucauld, I believe it was – who said:
“Preserving the health by too strict a regimen is a wearisome malady.”
As for exercise, why I propose to march back to the manor, when this delightful occasion is at an end. I defy you, sir,’ he gobbled, his large face flushed and furious, with an ominous vein throbbing at his temple. ‘Yes, I defy you, to tell me I am not a fit man for my age.’

Clearly unimpressed by this assertion, Dr Chant retorted with an aphorism or two of his own. ‘Indeed, sir? Let me remind you of some other old sayings,
“Diet cures more than the lancet”
and
“Better lose a supper than gain a hundred physicians”,
and I tell you…’ with a shrug, he clinched the argument, ‘no violent exercise should be taken immediately after a heavy meal, Captain, I beg of you. Do you not recall the famous experiment in the last century, by Mr Hunter of Edinburgh, who fed identical meals to two dogs, then left one sleeping by the fire and took the other out hunting? When he examined their stomach contents an hour later, he discovered….’

‘How in the world did he do that?’ Charlotte interrupted. ‘You mean he
killed
the poor beasts and dissected them?’ Her horror was mirrored in several faces so that Dr Chant was forced to subside with an irritable mutter into his beard. Charlotte’s indignation was tempered by the realisation that Kit Knightley had overheard and was actually smiling as he relayed the story to Lady Frampton, so in gratitude for that moment of respite for her friend, she devoted the rest of the meal to allowing the egregious doctor to tell her how wonderful he was.

Mercifully the meal did not in fact last for hours, it only appeared to do so, and just as Charlotte was becoming terminally bored and reduced to counting the carved Tudor roses that
embellished
the frieze round the room, Lord Granville stood up.

‘My thanks to one and all, good friends and neighbours, for joining us,’ he announced, his ruddy face beaming with pleasure. ‘Please be upstanding to drink a toast to the hero of the hour, my dear son, Osbert, on this auspicious day.’

Glasses were raised, cheers threatened to lift the monumental roof, Lady Granville nodded to her guests, a gracious smile on her
handsome face and Oz bowed with awkward but sincere thanks. There was a distinct easing of waistbands and the guests were encouraged to withdraw to the Great Hall once more or, for the ladies, to retire to the more genteel surroundings of the
drawing-room
while some of the gentlemen vanished in search of the library or the smoking-room.

Despite eating sparingly, the meal sat heavily, and Charlotte felt out of sorts as a result, so she eluded friends and acquaintances while she wandered round the enormous rooms, admiring and recoiling in equal measure from the handsome but enormous and uncomfortable stone benches and tables in what Lady Granville had proudly described earlier, as Norman in design. There were monstrous lamps too, rearing up at least twelve feet high, and ornately carved to resemble sea creatures – though Charlotte had her doubts as to their connection with the Normans – each hydra head supporting a glass bowl, the whole lit by gas.

At least Kit was looking less drained. Charlotte smiled as she watched him speak kindly to Sibella Armstrong before leaning forward to admire some of Oz’s birthday presents which were arrayed on a side table. Sibella slipped away to stay close beside Gran when Lord Granville approached the table and Charlotte guessed that Kit might also be invited to the ratting party. The two men and the boy were clearly amused, even Kit managing a smile, while Lord Granville’s face lit up.

What Charlotte saw then demolished her carefully constructed theories about Verena Chant’s untimely death. Wild as the notion seemed, she had gradually come to believe that Lady Granville had somehow found herself with child by the elder brother of the two sisters from Northumberland and that as a result the Granvilles had paid off the brother and severed all ties with the family in an attempt to hide their secret. But now… from a discreet vantage point behind a pillar, Charlotte stared at the group by the table. She saw Lord Granville address the boy and young Oz turn to answer him; and she observed, without a doubt, that the
slightly-built
boy’s flickering smile, combined as it was with a swift sidelong glance to see if his mother might be nearby, was identical to that of the older man.

In her agitation, Charlotte set out once more on her perambulation round the ground floor, all the time puzzling over what she had observed. I see other resemblances too, she told herself, now that the idea had planted itself. Oz laughs like Lord Granville, I’ve seen Lady Granville wince when they both forget themselves in a belly laugh, and he has the same quizzical lift to his left eyebrow.

Did I not notice these likenesses before, she wondered, or was I so enamoured of my theory that I wouldn’t admit what is now so clear? The boy’s blue eyes were set at an identical angle to her host’s, also blue, and the tilt of his flaxen head mirrored the older grey bushy one.

But what did this mean? If the Armstrong brother was not, after all, the boy’s father, how did it come about that he bore resemblances – unmistakeable, now that she had made the connection – not only to Lord Granville, but to Verena Chant? And none at all to the lady of the house. A solution to this puzzle dropped into her mind, so audacious as to make her gasp out loud, and causing the vicar to give her an inquiring look. She shook her head, masking her impatience, and slid back to her shelter behind the pillar. The group by the table had now broken up, but it made no difference.

In spite of Sibella’s belief that her sister was unable to bear a child, had Verena Chant been Oz’s real mother? Could that have some bearing on her sudden, shocking death?

U
NABLE
TO
MARSHAL
her whirling thoughts, Charlotte sought solitude and making her way to the other side of the hall, found the passage that led to the mediaeval garden. It’s astonishing how I can be chilled to the bone by all this stonework, she thought, yet I’m hot and stuffy at the same time. It was the work of a moment to slip out into the crisp night air. There was a full moon silvering the yew hedge with the ruined tower silhouetted against the light.

She stood, irresolute, on the wide path until the cold brought her to her senses. Fool that I am, she scolded herself, to go outside without even my shawl. At that moment the door to the garden opened and her hostess emerged. In a startled voice, Lady Granville exclaimed, ‘Mrs Richmond? You imprudent girl! How can you be so venturesome as to brave the night air? Come indoors at once, I must insist.’

Even had she wished to, Charlotte dared not disobey the peremptory note in the older woman’s voice. Lady Granville sounded both displeased and disturbed, so Charlotte hurried to apologise.

‘I’m so sorry, ma’am,’ she said, her evident sincerity clearly making an impression as her hostess’s face relaxed its frowning disapproval. ‘I forgot that the door is kept locked. It’s just that I couldn’t resist the chance to admire your garden once more, the moonlight is so enticing. It makes me long for the summer to come. It must be a wonderful sight then, in full leaf and the garden awash with flowers. The vine tunnel must look just like a passage way that leads to fairyland.’

She felt slightly ashamed of her gushing, though she knew Will
would have egged her on.
‘Ladle it on thick, young Char,’
he used to say.
‘You can never be too flattering. Why, it was my earnest supposition that so great a sailor must have been subordinate only to Nelson that made me the pet of a prison guard who’d once been a seaman. I spread the butter thicker every day so that I was able to hoodwink him into letting me go off to market on my own.’
Will had grinned, with no sign of remorse.
‘Poor old fellow, he must have been sadly disappointed when I didn’t come back. I hope he wasn’t flogged over that.’

That memory also shamed her, so she felt impelled to make further small talk, even though Lady Granville’s thoughts now seemed elsewhere.

‘I’m intrigued by such an original premise,’ she plodded on, although the cold was beginning to seep into her bones. ‘To conceive the idea of recreating a mediaeval garden is so unusual and so – so
clever
, if you don’t mind my saying so, that I’m finding it truly overwhelming.’

The real warmth of the older woman’s expression was
unmistakeable
and she took Charlotte’s arm.

‘Ah, no,’ she halted abruptly, an unfathomable expression on her face as she stared out at the moonlight. She shook her head and nodded to her guest, with a reluctant half-smile. ‘It is by far too cold tonight, Mrs Richmond, in spite of the moonlight, but I am glad to know that you approve of my garden. So few of my visitors appreciate what I am trying to create,’ she told her guest, a passionate note creeping into her voice. ‘But history is of the utmost importance, do you not feel? It teaches us lessons from the past.’

Charlotte nodded and as they turned in to the house, Lady Granville continued, obviously encouraged by the intelligence in her guest’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said, the brooding expression Charlotte had noticed earlier transforming her to momentary animation, ‘history can show us many things; old problems repeat themselves and if we know how to read our history, old solutions can prove as satisfactory now as in past centuries.’

Charlotte took a puzzled but smiling leave of her hostess and walked back to the Great Hall to pick up her shawl and snuggle into it while she made sure that Lady Frampton was comfortable
and enjoying herself. Enthroned in a massive oak chair beside the huge open fire, with Sibella safely beside her, the old lady was holding court and clearly delighted with her situation. As though aware of Charlotte’s affectionate gaze, Lady Frampton suddenly lifted her eyes and nodded a greeting, to which Charlotte responded with a fond wave as she turned away.

The other objects of her concern also seemed happily occupied. Oz and his father were engaged in an animated discussion with Barnard Richmond and Kit Knightley who was, Charlotte noticed, shooting frequent glances at the grandfather clock in the corner. Yes, she sighed, Kit would be anxious to return to Elaine’s bedside. Only his wife’s strongest representations had made him agree to put in an appearance at this afternoon’s party and Charlotte knew he would be slipping away as soon as he could do so politely. He caught her eye as she strolled past and for a moment the sad severity of his expression was lightened by a grin. He cocked an eyebrow towards his companions and she overheard Lord Granville exclaim,

‘What’s that you say, m’boy? Twenty or more rats? That’s a grand haul indeed. We must see what we can do ourselves, hey?’ His cheerful laugh rumbled out as he clapped his son on the shoulder. ‘The honour of Brambrook is at stake, hey, Richmond? I swear we’ll beat you at our return match the day after tomorrow, d’ye hear me?’ He looked guiltily round, his shoulders sagging with relief when he realized that his wife was nowhere in the vicinity.

Charlotte returned Kit’s smile and passed on towards the small group under a gloomy painting that depicted a forbidding female, alleged to be Lord Granville’s great-grandmother.

‘Char?’ It was Kit Knightley who addressed her. Deep in thought, her circuit of the enormous room had brought her all unknowing to the entrance to the outer hall. Kit was now wearing his coat, his hat held in his hand.

‘You – you’re not leaving?’ For a moment Charlotte felt something like panic, but she forced it down and gripped his hand tightly. ‘Give my dear, dear love to Elaine,’ she told him. ‘I’ll call tomorrow morning and hope to find her well enough to see me.’

‘Is something wrong, Char?’ Kit brushed aside her polite, though heartfelt, words as he retained her hand in his. ‘You look, oh I don’t know – you look somehow almost frightened, that’s not like you. Has someone alarmed you, Charlotte?’

‘Nonsense.’ She had herself well in hand now and gave him a little push. ‘I’m just very full of food, that’s all, and it’s making me feel slow and heavy! Off you go to Elaine and don’t dawdle.’

He nodded, still frowning, but slipped out towards the front door, attended by the immaculate butler, who directed a disapproving frown at a gentleman who had shrugged on his own coat and retrieved his own hat. Charlotte stared after Kit, and wondered how Elaine fared tonight, as she turned back to the party.

Sibella Armstrong was tucked safely into a group composed of Captain Penbury, booming away on the iniquities of the Admiralty, along with his drooping wife who was smirking in a convenient mirror as she turned this way and that to admire the sheen on her new puce silk gown. Lily Richmond was there, queening it a little, and playing the lady of the manor to her heart’s content until Lady Granville joined the conversation and naturally took precedence, apparently unaffected by the defection of her faithful handmaiden. Miss Cole’s absence seemed to be regretted by no-one and all the guests appeared to be enjoying themselves.

Thank God for that, Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. They’re all happily entertained so perhaps I can escape for ten minutes or thereabouts? The noise of determined revelry in the Great Hall was deafening and Charlotte’s head was beginning to throb painfully. A swift glance round showed that nobody was looking in her
direction
so she slipped quietly through the massively-carved oak doors to find a temporary refuge in the small room where Lady Granville had entertained her on that first visit to the Abbey. Sinking
gratefully
on to one of the cushioned settles she pondered on the notion that had struck her; Lord Granville was rumoured to be a ‘one’ for the young ladies. Exactly how young did he like them? And just how young had Verena been, twelve years ago? Could she have given birth secretly to Lord Granville’s child? And was that child passed off by him and his lady as the legitimate heir?

Bessie Railton, experienced midwife though she was, could
have been wrong about Verena’s situation at her death. There was that woman in Adelaide, Charlotte mused. Will had been called in to christen the twins that had unexpectedly arrived one stormy night.
‘Poor soul,’
he had told Charlotte and her mother.
‘She’d been told by every doctor under the sun that she had no chance of bearing a child, so there she was, 48 years old and thinking she had a belly-ache from some pork that had gone past its best.’
His laughter rang down through the dozen or so years as Charlotte remembered.
‘They lived in a little house tucked in between the pub on one side and the little Catholic mission on the other, and by God! One of the babies was the spitting image of the publican – a fine figure of a man who must have been near seven foot tall, and the other the duplicate of the priest next door, ugly as sin and red hair like a bush. So there she was with one baby with his head covered in a red fuzz, and the other the longest new-born baby I’d ever seen, and her man pleased as punch at his prowess in fathering the pair.’

She sighed. Yes, it was just possible that Bessie had been wrong about Verena. Or could the malformation referred to by Sibella rather have been damage caused by giving birth at too young an age? And if so, had her husband, a medical man himself, drawn his own conclusions about secrets kept from him? That could account for the coldness between them. She drew in a sharp breath. Yes, and it could have given him a motive to dispose of a barren wife now that his star was rising.

She dashed a hand across her eyes. It was equally possible that Lady Granville had indeed borne a longed-for child by her own husband and that the resemblance to the Armstrong brother and sisters was purely a coincidence. I’m being nonsensical she told herself firmly and cast about for something to distract her mind. Beside her on the settle lay an ancient-looking book, which had evidently been laid aside for the moment by its reader.

‘A True History of the Queens of England’
she read, tracing the gothic lettering with difficulty, much of the gilt having been rubbed off. As she idly scanned the pages an idea sprang to mind and she turned to the chapter about Queen Eleanor of Provence, who had provided the inspiration for Lady Granville’s mediaeval garden. Or, as the lady’s husband had irritably described it, ‘A damned
depressing monument, if you ask me. Fancy making such a palaver about a dead queen’s garden!’

Oh well, perhaps I should see what there is about the ‘dead queen’ to offer such inspiration and refreshment to Lady Granville, Charlotte decided, wrinkling her nose as she flicked through the florid prose. So, the gist of it was this: Queen Eleanor, a dark-haired beauty with fine dark eyes to match, had come from her warm, sun-drenched home in the south of France to marry Henry III in 1236.

Charlotte paused. Was this where Lady Granville began to see parallels between herself and the queen? Herself a noted dark-eyed beauty, also born in southern climes and brought to England for her marriage, her ancient lineage in return for her husband’s money? It had been politics not money that drove that long ago royal lady’s alliance. Charlotte read on, interested now. Hmm, the parallels ended almost immediately; Queen Eleanor had borne five children and lived to help bring up her grandchildren, whereas Lady Granville must have suffered agonies during those decades of barren misery, seared by her husband’s infidelities until the miracle had occurred.

At the thought of that miracle child, Charlotte gave an
involuntary
smile. Oz Granville as an angel sent from heaven was a hard image to swallow but miracle he was, and as such was adored by both his elderly parents. A frown creased her brow for a moment, but once more she firmly pushed aside her doubts. No good could come of asking questions, she told herself sternly, and her conjectures as to the Granville family must remain in her head alone. Besides, it was probably all moonshine, she admitted. Oz must indeed be what he purported to be: the astonishing gift when hope had almost vanished.

It came to her suddenly that Lord Granville had addressed his wife as Hélène, the first time Charlotte had heard her given name which, surely, was the French version of Eleanor? It struck her as heartbreakingly poignant that the unhappy, barren Hélène of modern times should identify herself so closely with her fecund royal namesake as to create a garden in her honour.

She sighed and returned to the ancient book but however
venerable, it had to be admitted that the style was a mere chronicle of dry facts. Lady Granville might preach the benefits of reading the lessons shown by history but Charlotte was finding nothing pertinent in her skimming of these pages. As she went to put the book back where she had found it, she noticed that the pages yawned open a little, as if at a chapter that had been read over and over again. She slid her forefinger curiously into the gap and opened it once more.

She was unprepared for the shock as the name on the page jumped out at her, and she drew in a sharp breath. Was this it? Could that be the story, there all the time? She frowned, drawing a hand across eyes suddenly grown weary: a story familiar from her childhood, one of the tales from history beloved of Lady Meg who had regaled her young goddaughter with them on their frequent journeyings across Australia.

She could remember the bare bones of the tale but she glanced down at the printed page to refresh her memory. Oh my God, she thought, closing the book once more and setting it firmly down on the cushion beside her. I think I see it now, I see it all. I cannot be right, but I fear that I may be.

An earlier Queen of England born and bred in France, another Eleanor; was she the one known as the She-Wolf of France? Charlotte thought not, but though she racked her brains to try and recall Meg’s tales, nothing sprang to mind – except the story of that other Queen Eleanor – and the crime that supposedly made her infamous. Here, she thought, might be Lady Granville’s lesson from history.