A Secret Garden Affair, page 11
At the thought of the ugliest of truths ever becoming known, her heart began to beat faster and her mouth went dry. She took several deep steadying breaths and then picked up the tray to take through to the drawing room.
She was greeted by Elfrida sitting on a footstool and waving a black and white photograph at her.
‘Come and see what I’ve found, Bess!’ she cried. ‘It’s a photograph of Amos when he was an under gardener at Lambert Chase. I remember taking the picture, lining up all the gardeners in front of the house and telling Amos not to look as if I were about to shoot him!’
Bess leant in for a better look at the photograph. ‘More likely he was contemplating how soon it would be before he was tempted to shoot you,’ she said, remembering with great fondness her long since passed husband.
Chapter Ten
October 1934
Lambert Chase, Northamptonshire
Bess
‘What d’yer say, Bess Harding, shall we make things official and get ourselves wed so I can make a respectable woman of you?’
‘What makes you think I’m not a respectable woman already, Amos Judd?’ I bristled.
We were sitting on the wooden bench in the courtyard just off from the servants’ hall of Lambert Chase. The chilly autumn night air was not conducive to being outside for long, but Amos had been unusually insistent that he wanted to talk to me, and alone. I should have guessed what he was up to, but I didn’t.
Normally he would go home when he’d finished work in the garden, but today he’d hung around and eaten his supper with the rest of us. It was when everything had been tidied away and we were listening to the band playing upstairs for Elfrida’s surprise birthday party that he had approached and said he had something he wanted to discuss with me. No sooner had we stepped outside into the darkness than I’d heard the others laughing in the kitchen behind us and somebody saying, ‘You behave, Amos Judd!’ Another voice had said, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’
‘Now don’t you be taking on like that,’ Amos said with a laugh in reply to my question, ‘it’s just a turn of phrase. I know all too well there’s no more respectable a woman than my Bess.’
‘Just so long as you remember that and don’t think you can start taking any liberties with me,’ I said, wondering when I had become my Bess to him.
He laughed some more. ‘So is that a yes, then? Will you marry me?’
‘I had no idea you felt this way,’ I said. It was an outright lie; I’d had a strong suspicion that his feelings for me had been growing ever since he’d started shyly to present me with little posies of flowers whenever I arrived here with Elfrida for one of our visits. He’d even asked if he could write to me.
We had exchanged letters, but mine were always brief and little more than day-to-day accounts of life at Larkspur House, or about wherever I had recently travelled. In contrast, Amos’s letters betrayed his eagerness for the next time he would see me. I never let on to Elfrida what was passing between the two of us, but if she had guessed that something was going on, she didn’t say anything.
‘How can you say that you had no idea how I felt about you when we’ve been …’ Amos’s words trailed off and he suddenly looked so very earnest and uncertain, and not at all his customary self. ‘Do you feel nothing for me, Bess?’ he asked, his shoulders slumped and his eyes barely meeting mine.
‘Of course I do. It’s just that you’ve sprung this on me. Marriage is such a big step.’
‘I know that. But I thought I’d grab my chance while I could. I’ve been trying to pluck up the courage for ages now. I very nearly asked you the last time you were here. But after you pushed me away when I tried to kiss you, I lost my nerve.’
I remembered the moment all too well. It had haunted me ever since. I’d felt so sorry for him, yet at the same time I’d been rigid with fear and unable to apologise or even make light of my treatment of him.
‘Amos,’ I said with as much kindness as I could put into my voice, ‘will you give me time to think about this? I need to speak to Miss Elfrida.’
Although it was dark, with only a weak light coming from the coach lamp on the opposite wall to where we were sitting, I could see the frown on his face as he leant away from me. ‘Why?’ he said. ‘To ask her permission?’
‘Not exactly, but there are important things we have to consider. For instance, where would you and I live?’
‘Here, of course, in the village, this is where I work. My cottage is only small, but it’s crying out for a woman’s touch.’
‘But I live and work in Suffolk and Miss Elfrida needs me.’
‘But I need you, and you could find work hereabouts, maybe here at Lambert Chase.’
‘I doubt Mrs Whittaker needs a new lady’s maid,’ I said.
‘You’re clever and adaptable, you could do some other type of work. And you really are the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.’
I studied his face, a face I had come to know so well during the many visits I had made here with Elfrida. I could see the tender love in his expression. He wasn’t what you’d call handsome, but the more I had got to know him, the more I had appreciated his strong angular features and gangly body that always gave me the urge to feed him up. But as much as I had enjoyed his company, I had been adamant there would be no intimacy between us.
That one and only time he’d tried to kiss me, I’d panicked and shoved him away. I knew he was offended, but how could I tell him that I was scared of being touched, that the very act of intimacy filled me with bone-deep dread? It was my own fault; I should never have allowed him to think we could ever be more than friends. But then so much was my own fault.
There had been a time when I would have written to my sister Joan about Amos, but now I didn’t feel able to. Motherhood had changed Joan; her world revolved around Nancy, whom she absolutely doted on, and it seemed there was no room in her life for me anymore.
Joan’s husband, Dudley, had changed too, and if I didn’t know better I’d say they both looked down on me now. In their determination to give their daughter everything they believed she deserved, Dudley worked all hours. They had moved to a new house in a completely new area shortly before they’d become a family and they now lived in Tunbridge Wells, where Dudley had set up his own business selling second-hand motorcars. The last I heard, he was doing so well he was in the process of buying a second garage. In the few letters I received from Joan, there was a lot of emphasis on their making something of their lives, as though they were ashamed of where they’d come from and who they’d once been.
I didn’t blame them for wanting to better themselves; I had felt the same way when I first started work at Larkspur House, but that didn’t mean I turned my back on those to whom I’d always been close.
As for Nancy, she was nearly six years old now and it pained me to admit it, but the child was showing signs of being thoroughly spoilt, which would serve her ill in years to come if it wasn’t nipped in the bud. But if ever I said something to my sister about it, I was told not to interfere. It hurt to hear Joan speak that way to me, but I let it go; after all, as Joan would remind me, I was only the child’s aunt. I would never have dreamt that she would behave so coldly towards me.
So no, I wouldn’t write to my sister to ask for her advice on whether I should marry Amos. The only person to whom I felt I could unburden myself was Elfrida, but she was the very person I would be abandoning if I did agree to become Amos’s wife.
Working for Elfrida brought me so much joy. She might be eccentric at times, like dressing in men’s clothes, or throwing herself into affairs with men who weren’t worthy of her, but she could also be incredibly kind and generous. She was a woman who acted on instinct, but sadly just occasionally it failed her. Not that my own instinct hadn’t failed me as well.
Then there was the happiness living at Larkspur House gave me and working alongside people whom I regarded as my family. Did I want to give that up, along with all the travelling I did with Elfrida?
I cared for Amos, I really did. He was a good and decent man, but he hadn’t experienced life in the way I had since working for Elfrida. He hadn’t had his horizons broadened by travel. He was old-fashioned and staid and that probably meant he was reliable. Sometimes that was what counted in life, wasn’t it? Dependability surely laid down the strongest of foundations between two people. But would dependability be fun? Would life as Mrs Amos Judd be exciting?
Perhaps the real question I should be asking myself was did I love Amos, or could I come to love him?
Or did I want to end up as a lonely old maid, just as Elfrida joked was her future? Not that she would ever be lonely. Not Elfrida. She was too witty and vivacious and too much fun ever to be miserable and alone. If Amos was my only chance to marry, then perhaps I owed it to myself to say yes to this kind man sitting beside me who was patiently waiting for the answer he hoped to hear.
But instead of doing that, I suggested we should go for a walk in the garden. After a moment’s hesitation, he agreed, and led the way across the cobbled courtyard.
‘Perhaps we should have a lantern to guide us?’ I remarked as we moved away from the light provided by the solitary coach lamp.
‘No need,’ he said, offering me his hand. ‘I can find my way round the garden with my eyes shut. You just have to trust me.’
With it being such a cloudy night, the stars and sliver of new moon were barely visible in the velvet sky, and so I had no choice but to put my faith in Amos and hold his hand.
In silence we ambled along the Rose Avenue, then through an archway in the beech hedge to the Knot Garden, then turning right, with my eyes gradually growing used to the dark, I could make out the shadowy forms of the Topiary Walk. All this, and so much more of the garden, had been designed and created by Elfrida and I couldn’t help but be proud of her, with what she had achieved in so short a space of time.
‘Let’s go inside the glasshouse,’ Amos said, ‘it’ll be warmer in there.’
Warmer for what? I thought with a tremor of alarm.
He must have felt the tremble in my hand for he suddenly stopped walking and pivoted round to face me. ‘Bess,’ he said, ‘please don’t think I’m about to rob you of your virtue, I know how precious it is to you. It is for me too. I believe in saving oneself for marriage. Does that put your mind at rest?’
All I could do was nod nervously.
‘Good,’ he said, before setting off again for our destination.
He had just pushed open the door of the glasshouse and stepped aside to let me go in first, when I felt another tremor, coupled with a sixth sense that I should not under any circumstances take another step forward.
My instinct was right. At the far end of the glasshouse, I saw that we weren’t the only ones to have come here in search of somewhere private. I could only see the back of the woman, but I recognised the dress that was hitched up around her thighs and stocking tops. It was only when the man, perhaps sensing they were no longer alone, opened his eyes and glanced over the top of Elfrida’s head towards the doorway where I stood, that I registered who it was.
It was Count Nikolai Demidov.
Loyalty to Elfrida made me push Amos back before he saw what I had seen. I couldn’t have borne the thought of Elfrida losing his respect, or him gossiping about her to the rest of the household staff at Lambert Chase. I dragged him away, pretending I hadn’t recognised who we’d nearly interrupted in a secret tryst, and when we were back in the Topiary Walk, to stem the flow of his questions as to who it might have been in the glasshouse, I silenced him by planting a daring kiss on his lips. I had meant it purely as a distraction, and it was certainly that, because he must have been so taken aback by my mouth bumping ineptly against his that our teeth clashed. He immediately claimed the fault as his own and apologised for being so clumsy.
‘Shall we try again?’ he asked.
Overcome with awkwardness, I forced myself to say yes.
The next morning when I had taken Elfrida her breakfast, she asked me, and seemingly without a shred of discomfiture, what I’d seen last night. ‘I know you were there,’ she added, ‘Nikolai told me.’
‘I hardly saw anything,’ I said, setting the tray on the bed where Elfrida was sitting up and looking as fresh as a daisy, and just as innocent.
‘But enough to shock you and Mr Judd, I would imagine,’ she said.
Pulling the curtains back, I replied, ‘How do you know he was with me?’
‘Why else would you be lurking in the garden so late at night?’
‘I wasn’t lurking,’ I said, my cheeks suddenly flaming.
‘I’m teasing you, Bess. But I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you. Was Mr Judd very shocked?’
‘I made sure he didn’t see anything, miss.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you, as I know that kind of thing can be viewed quite poorly below stairs. Now, why don’t you sit down and tell me about you and Mr Judd.’
Just as the colour had cooled from my cheeks, they flamed once more. ‘Why do you think there’s anything to tell?’
‘Bess, this is me you’re talking to, I’ve seen the way he hovers around you with that dreamy look in his eyes. Has he asked you to marry him yet?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘he asked me last night and I don’t know what to do.’
She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her coffee, then looked up at me. ‘If you loved him, you’d know exactly what to do.’
‘Is that how it is with you and the Count?’
Elfrida dismissed the question, an audacious question at that, with an unladylike snort. ‘We’re talking about you and Mr Judd, not me. How have you left things with him?’
‘I told him I had to talk to you.’
‘As indeed you are.’ She sipped her coffee, then lowered the cup to its saucer. ‘If you say yes to him, I presume that means you’ll be handing in your notice, again,’ she added.
‘That’s the problem, miss, I don’t want to leave you. I like working for you and being at Larkspur House.’
‘In that case, I may have the perfect solution for you, if Mr Judd is agreeable.’
Four months later not only were Amos and I married, but he was working at Larkspur House with a view to taking over from Jimmy Padget, the head gardener, when he retired. Home for us was a two-up, two-down cottage in the centre of the village of Finchley Green. It had no electricity, and the lavatory was in the garden next to the coal shed, but it was our home, and we grew to love it.
Just as I came to love Amos.
Chapter Eleven
July 1981
Larkspur House, Suffolk
With her cardigan on, a hat jammed onto her head and her handbag and a bunch of sweet peas from the garden placed carefully into the wicker basket attached to the handlebars, Bess set off for church on her ancient bicycle. It was a creaking and clanking contraption that had certainly seen better days. Much like the car in the garage.
Elfrida had bought the old Wolseley back in 1960 and Bess had never taken to driving it; but Elfrida had driven it like a maniac, thundering around the quiet country lanes without a care in the world. It had failed its last MOT and Elfrida hadn’t done anything about having it put right, not after the man at the garage had said that she’d be better off getting rid of it and that he knew someone who’d pay a nominal amount for the vehicle in order to break it up for spare parts. Since then, the car had remained in the garage gathering dust and cobwebs, unused and unloved. Elfrida had decided they didn’t need a car as they didn’t go anywhere and the local shops delivered all they needed. And, of course, Bess could always cycle to the village if need be.
Bess’s parting words to Elfrida before setting off had been to tell her not to do anything silly while she was out. Words which, naturally, had fallen on deaf ears as Elfrida was adamant her ankle was almost as good as new now, and she planned to potter in the garden as well as sleep in her own bed tonight.
Thankfully Libby had promised she would keep an eye on Elfrida in Bess’s absence.
From the end of the drive, it was exactly two and a half miles to St Jude’s but after less than a mile of pedalling at her customary brisk pace along the leafy tunnel of Woodley Lane, Bess felt a squeezing sensation in her chest, as well as what felt like a rush of blood pounding in her ears. She stilled her feet on the pedals and using the speed she’d generated, she coasted along the narrow lane.
Something similar had happened to her last Sunday when she’d cycled to church but she had filed it under ‘just one of those things’. Until now she had forgotten all about it. Now it was very much in her mind. But what did it mean?
It means you’re getting older, you daft old fool, she told herself.
Probably it was something to do with her blood pressure. All that worrying about what might be unearthed from that wretched trunk.
She had gone to bed early last night in something of a poor mood, having left Elfrida and Libby to stay up late rootling through the topsy-turvy contents of the trunk. Bess couldn’t bring herself to join in with what they’d both found so fascinating. It had been like a game of Russian roulette for her, as with each photograph Elfrida plucked out and reminisced over, Bess had feared it could in some way possess the potential to bring down their carefully constructed house of cards.
What really concerned Bess were the notebooks that Elfrida had stored away, and which apparently she had forgotten all about. They were mostly full of notes made about the gardens she had created, with the addition of detailed plant lists and roughly drawn sketches and plans. But some pages were of a rather more personal nature – observations about parties attended, people met, love affairs concluded, and with no shortage of witty or barbed comments. Had Elfrida written anything in those notebooks which she really shouldn’t have?
Now that the squeezing sensation in her chest had passed, Bess pedalled on, but at a slower speed. No point in tempting fate, she thought. And no harm in being sensible and reminding herself that despite a lifetime of good health, there was bound to come a time when her body would start to complain. The same was true for Elfrida, and though the infuriatingly stubborn woman would never admit it, her tumble in the garden the other day had been a warning to her that she wasn’t invincible. Neither of them were.
