The Secret of Pembrooke Park (22 page)

What was she doing? She was a woman of three and twenty, not a little girl. And a practical woman at that—not some dreamer or desperate gambler. She rose stiffly and returned to her bed. She closed her eyes and listened but heard nothing. The house was unusually quiet. No winnowing voices. No trespassing footsteps. When was the last time she had heard any? Apparently Duncan, or whomever it was, had long ago given up the search.

It was time for her to do so as well.

She blew out her candle and pulled up the bedclothes. As of tomorrow, she would lay aside her search for treasure and find a more useful way to spend her time. She had been foolish to entertain the notion. To hope.

Would Gilbert expect the woman he wed to bring a hefty dowry into the marriage? He was just starting out in his career, likely many years away from financial success. Even a poor clergyman like William Chapman no doubt hoped for a wealthy wife, or at least one with some sort of dowry. She sighed. It couldn’t be helped. She had no dowry, and the majority of her father’s wealth was gone. And no mythical treasure was going to appear to replace it.

The next afternoon, another letter arrived. Abigail had begun to fear she had received her last word from that source. She opened it right there in the hall and read the journal page eagerly.

How strange it feels to benefit from the misfortune of others. To live in the house of relatives I have never met and now, never shall. My father says I am being ridiculous.

“This is your grandparents’ house—the house I grew up in. I have every right to be here, and so do you.”

If this is my grandparents’ house, why have I never been here before? Why no Easter visits, Christmas dinners, or leisurely summer holidays?

Apparently there was a falling out between him and his parents when he was young, and he’d had to join the navy to earn his own way in life—as he often told us, part bitter, part proud. But now he seems determined to act the part of a landed gentleman, ordering fine suits and fast horses. He wants so badly to win the admiration of our neighbors, and is growing increasingly angry as he realizes that taking over his brother’s house has not brought him the respect he sees as his due.

I once had an aunt who died of typhus. I once had a cousin who died as well. A girl like me, who liked pretty frocks and played with the dolls’ house in my room—her room.

Aunt and Uncle Pembrooke. Eleanor. I feel I am coming to know them at least a little, through what they left behind. Beautiful clothes, well cared for. Beautiful gardens, well appreciated. Beautiful pianoforte—well used.

They were reverent or at least religious. There is a family Bible hidden away, and a well-worn prayer book in the family box in the estate church, though we attend but rarely.

The girl was loved. Cherished even, if the carefully stored baby clothes mean what I think they mean. Indulged, if the dolls’ house was hers and not our grandmother’s collection.

And the girl knew, I believe, where the secret room was. Discovered it, and kept it to herself. As I have.

Aha!
Abigail thought in triumph. The writer had found the secret room. Unless she had some reason to prevaricate, to lead Abigail on a wild-goose chase for her own personal amusement. And why would that be? Unless . . . Was she hoping Abigail would do the work—find the treasure for her? But if she already knew where the room was, why would she give a stranger clues to its whereabouts?

Gilbert would say that the room the writer had found was likely now the closet in her bedchamber. However, Gilbert might have missed something. After all, he had not read the journal pages. Perhaps she ought to have shown them to him. But she prized them as her personal secret to savor. . . .

Abigail went down to the library, determined to look at the plans again.

O
ver the next few days, Abigail endeavored to study the plans and search the house at every opportunity, but her search was hindered by the presence of a houseguest. Miles Pembrooke took an active interest in her concerns and movements and often asked to accompany her whenever she went for a walk or even to sit in the library, saying he would simply keep her company while she read or wrote letters or whatever she was about.

She felt she couldn’t—or shouldn’t—study the plans with Miles looking over her shoulder. So she made great headway in the novel she was reading entitled
Persuasion
. She would be able to give it to Leah in a few days’ time at this rate.

One afternoon, the post arrived as she prepared for what she hoped would be a solitary walk. Her heart lifted to see another letter in that now-familiar hand, but Miles came upon her before she could open it, and she quickly slipped it beneath a letter from her father’s solicitor.

His eyes glinted knowingly. He must have seen her less-than-deft attempt at concealment.

“A letter?” he asked. “From whom, pray tell?”

“I . . .” Abigail hesitated. She believed the letter writer was Miles’s own sister. Likely he could look at the writing and confirm
whether that was true, and the mystery would be solved. Why then did her spirit catch at the thought of showing it to him?

Abigail lifted her chin. “Forgive me, Mr. Pembrooke. But I hardly think it your concern.”

“Ah! A love letter, is it? I am all devastation.”

“No, it is not a love letter.”

“Then what has you looking so flushed and secretive?”

“Your persistence, sir!” she protested.

“From Mr. Scott, perhaps? Or the good parson?”

“Neither. And that is my last word on the subject. However, if you’d like the new
Quarterly
Review
, I am sure my father would not mind your reading that to your heart’s content.”

He reached out and stroked a thumb across her chin, smiling indulgently. “You are charming when you’re vexed, Miss Foster. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No.”

“Ah. That honor is mine at least. If not first in your esteem, at least I am first in something.”

Deciding to forgo her walk, Abigail excused herself, took the letter upstairs, and carefully latched the door of her bedchamber before opening it.

The letter began with two lines in bold print:

I hear you have a houseguest by the name of Pembrooke. Why did you not heed my warning?

This was followed by a long letter written in that familiar script. It was not a page from a young girl’s journal, as most of the others had been, but instead appeared to have been written recently.

We had been living in Pembrooke Park for more than a year when I first saw her. She stood in the rose garden, staring up at the house with haunted eyes. I stood at my bedchamber window, contemplating the grey sky, wondering whether or not to bother going out for a ride or if I would end up soaked.
Riding was the only diversion I enjoyed, beyond reading novels. I had no friends. Not one. We had not been in Easton long before I realized our neighbors despised us. It was almost as if they feared us. Why, I wondered, when they don’t even know us? It seemed devilish unfair to me.

No one allowed their daughters to accept my invitations. Nor their sons to spend time with my brothers. The boys at least had each other. But I had no one. Maybe that is why I noticed her. A girl, perhaps a few years younger than myself, standing close to the house and partially hidden behind the rose arbor. I wondered if she was bent on mischief or simply afraid to be seen. Did she think we would run her off, not realizing I, at least, would welcome her warmly, so rare was a visitor to Pembrooke Park?

I thought I had seen most of the village girls at least from a distance, at church or on market days. But I had not seen her before. She had golden hair peeking out from her bonnet and wore a stylish spencer over her frock. She didn’t look poor, but neither was she a girl “equal to my station,” as mother referred to it. That was how she tried to console me—telling me it was just as well no girls my age called, for she wouldn’t want me to spend too much time in the company of uneducated rustics, not when I was well on my way to becoming an accomplished young lady. I confess I snorted a bit at that. A year earlier, we’d been living in a pair of shabby rooms in Portsmouth and wearing castoff clothing. Of course that was before Father had received his prize money and helped himself to the contents of his brother’s safe.

The first time I saw the girl with haunted eyes, I did nothing. When I noticed her a few days later, I raised my hand, hoping she would see me. But she didn’t. So I opened the window, thinking I would call out a greeting, but the sound of the latch startled her, and she bolted like a wild hare fleeing a fox.

When the girl didn’t return for several days, I went in search of her. Eventually I found her in a hideaway she had
made between the potting shed and walled garden, quite out of view of the house. To a casual observer—or a boy—the arrangement of planks, bricks, colorful glass jars, and a pallet covered with a cast-off petticoat might look like an odd collection of rubbish. But I saw it for what it was. A playhouse.

Not wanting her to flee again, I decided not to risk a direct approach. Instead I returned later in the evening to leave flowers in one of those glass jars along with a note assuring her I meant no harm and asking if I might play with her the next day. I signed it, Your Secret Friend.

I was afraid she would leave as soon as she discovered the note and knew someone had been in her hiding place. Instead, when I walked over the next afternoon, she stood there and watched me approach, looking solemn and older than her years.

“Why do you want to play with me?” she asked.

I decided to be honest with her. “Because no one else will.”

“And will you promise not to tell anyone?”

I nodded. “I promise. It shall be our secret.”

“Very well.” She tilted her head in thought. “You may call me Lizzie,” she said. “And I shall call you . . . ?”

“Jane,” I supplied, giving her my middle name. Afraid she would refuse to associate with me if she knew who I really was.

And that was the beginning of our secret, mismatched friendship. We met nearly every afternoon when the weather was fine, for most of that summer. We performed the little plays I had written, and played house, creating families and situations and lives more appealing or interesting than my own—likely than her own as well.

I didn’t ask about her family, because I didn’t want to invite similar questions in return. I didn’t want to talk or even think about my real family. Especially my father. I wanted to escape for an hour or two into the company of this new friend. And into a world of make-believe.

Before long, I figured out who her family was, and heard her real name. And I assume she learnt mine. But we never spoke of it. It was as if to do so would break the spell and end our private world, the sanction of our friendship.

But all too soon it ended anyway. My little brother saw us together, and she was afraid word would get back to her family. She left me a note behind a loose brick in the garden wall. Ending our friendship as I had begun it. Fitting, I remember thinking later. At the time, I thought only how unfair life was.

Abigail felt a heavy sense of sadness as she finished the letter. She wondered where the girls were now, and if they ever saw each other again. If Harriet Pembrooke, or “Jane,” had ever made another friend. And what of Lizzie, the village girl? Was she married, with a little girl of her own playing house somewhere nearby? Or was she alone?

Wherever the girls were, Abigail hoped they were happy. But somehow, after reading this account, she doubted it. Again she wondered if she should show Miles the letters. Why was she so hesitant to do so? Perhaps she could at least ask Miles about his sister.

She went and found him in the library, perusing the fashion prints in a copy of the magazine Susan and Edward Lloyd published.

“May I join you?”

“Of course!” he said, beaming. “Look at this well-dressed couple in their new fashions for spring. That could be you and me—we are easily as handsome. And what about this promenade dress and tall hat? I think it would suit you.”

She glanced at it with feigned interest. “I never cared for ostrich plumes. But that bicorn hat would look well on you,” she added, earning herself a smile.

She sat down with her novel, and he returned to his magazine. The ticking of the long-case clock had never sounded so loud.

After a few minutes pretending to read, she said casually, “Miles, may I ask about your sister?”

“What about her?” he said, eyes still on the page.

“Where does she live, for starters?”

He looked up at her. “She splits her time between Bristol and London, I believe. When she’s not traveling about.”

Abigail thought of the Bristol postmark on the letters she received. “How does she fare? Are you two in contact?”

He shrugged. “Not really. I’ve only seen her twice since I returned to England.”

Seeing his discomfort, she changed the subject. “I was surprised when you told Mac your brother had died. I don’t think anyone here knew that. I suppose no one thought to send word back to the parish.”

Miles nodded vaguely. “We only lived here for two years after all.”

Abigail swallowed, and then said tentatively, “May I ask how he died?”

“You may well ask. You may ask how . . . and why. I know I did for years. Still do.”

She waited for him to explain, the clock ticking loudly again. But he did not. He sat there, wiping at some invisible spot of dirt on his breeches.

Abigail said gently, “I spoke with old Mrs. Hayes, who used to be the housekeeper here. She’s blind now, poor old dear. She told me she found blood in the hall after your family left.”

“Blood?” Miles echoed. “What a thought!” He tucked his chin. “I say, Miss Foster, you read too many gothic novels. My dear brother was alive when we left here. And is now buried in a churchyard in Bristol, near my mother’s family.”

“And . . . your father?”

“I honestly don’t know. We never saw him again. And I hope we never shall.” He rose abruptly. “Now, if you will excuse me, I am weary and would like to rest before dinner.”

“Of course. I am sorry to have upset you. I shouldn’t have pried.”

He paused beside her chair and reached down his hand. Uncertain of his intention, she tentatively raised her own. He took it in his and pressed it warmly.

“You do not upset me, Miss Foster,” he whispered with a sad smile. “You are a balm to my soul.”

Standing in the nave of the church the next afternoon, Abigail handed William another taper as he replaced the spent ones in the chandelier.

“May I tell you something?” she began.

He shifted his weight on the ladder. “Of course.”

“I haven’t told anyone yet, though I’m not sure why. It’s been going on for some time.”

He looked down at her, a wary light in his eyes. “What has?”

“I have been receiving letters.”

“Letters?” he asked carefully. “From a gentleman?”

“No. At least I don’t think so. They’re anonymous.”

“A secret admirer?”

“Of course not. From someone who used to live here.”

He stiffened. “From Mr. Pembrooke?”

“No. From his sister, Harriet, I think. About the years she lived here.”

“Why would she not sign them?”

“I don’t know. But some of what she writes does not reflect well on her father, so perhaps anonymity gives her the courage to divulge her secrets.”

“What sort of secrets?”

“Apparently she was afraid of her father. She also writes about her friendship with another girl from the village.”

“Oh, who?”

“Someone called Lizzie.”

“Lizzie is a common name. No surname?”

Abigail shook her head. “And Harriet didn’t give her real name for fear the girl wouldn’t associate with her. I gather the Pembrookes were ostracized while they were here.”

“Yes, they were.”

“I wonder where the girls are now,” Abigail continued. “They would be about thirty, give or take a few years, if I’ve done my sums correctly. Do you know any Lizzies that age?”

William paused to consider. “Mrs. Matthews’s given name is Elizabeth. She is in her early thirties—the woman with the five boys?”

“Ah, yes.”

“And Mrs. Hayes’s niece is named Eliza. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call her Lizzie, but it’s possible. . . . Though she is only in her midtwenties.

Abigail thought of Eliza, taking care of her aunt, who once worked and lived in Pembrooke Park. She
had
seen Eliza writing something, and standing near Pembrooke graves in the churchyard. . . .

William climbed down the ladder, adding, “I could ask Leah—she might remember if there were any other girls by that name.”

“Thank you. Or I could ask her myself next time I see her. Was Leah acquainted with Harriet Pembrooke?”

“I don’t think so. She was away at school for a year when they lived here.”