Eden's Garden (11 page)

‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ replied Carys, surprised at finding herself with genuine regret. ‘Mam’s due back in a few hours, and I’m hopelessly behind as it is.’

‘No matter. I quite understand. He smiled. ‘Perhaps another time, then?’

‘Perhaps,’ replied Carys, returning his smile as she made her way towards the door.

 We began the next day.

His energy was boundless. The moment I stepped through the office door, a capacious bag was presented to me.

‘Well, open it,’ Mr Meredith said, seeing me hesitate.

I could have laughed out loud. I, who had once delighted in gifts of any kind, could scarcely bring myself to take the soft leather in my hands. Gifts are a means of purchase, however glitteringly dressed up. I was aware of other eyes watching me from under lowered lids. The photographer stood at one side of the room, ticking off boxes of equipment. A young man with a round, earnest face, and who I later came to know as a student of German and a passionate follower of a German philosopher called Karl Marx, was gathering up writing paper from the desk.

My fingers found the clasp. Heaven knows how he had located them in so short a time, but inside I discovered paper and pencils, along with a selection of brushes and a small wooden box. I opened the box hungrily, taking in the array of colours set in blocks inside.

‘I hope they meet with your approval? I know very little of painting, I’m afraid. Let me know if there is anything else you need.’

‘They are perfect,’ I said, suddenly scarcely able to breathe. ‘Thank you.’

‘Good, good,’ he replied. Job done, he was already turning to his two companions. ‘So, gentlemen: are we ready?’

Ready? We never stopped. The energy of the man! Mr Tomsett, the student, could match him easily, step for step. But poor Mr Herring, the photographer, with his cumbersome equipment of boxes and stands, was soon puffing and wiping his brow. As for me, I learnt to bless every stair I had cleaned and every pavement I had walked over the past months that had hardened my muscles and given me the strength I needed.

And the sights we saw? I shudder to think of them, even now. I had never guessed so many people could live crammed in one small, dirty room, in a house so broken-down it was impossible to see how it remained upright, and with so few bits of shabby furniture I couldn’t even begin to imagine where they all slept. Sickly babies cried amongst grubby, barefoot children, while an old woman rocked herself, to and fro without ceasing, in a corner. Work-weary men returned to wives worn to the bone with hard work and cares. And everywhere amongst those crammed little alleyways there were signs of disease and the stench of too many bodies – both animal and human – imprisoned together without sufficient light or air.

I soon understood how the charity hospital must seem a paradise to those taken, however temporarily, into its care. And I also saw that there could be worse places than the slums, wretched as they were. Over every family in those tenements I could see hanging the shadow of the workhouse, only ever a few days’ sickness, or the loss of a workplace, away, along with the fear that, once parted, they might never see each other again.

After that first day I chose to leave most of my precious new materials behind, taking only paper and a selection of pencils with me, and working on my sketches in colour during the evenings or on a Sunday, the one day we were permitted to rest.

‘It’s easier, and I’m less noticed,’ I tried to explain when Mr Meredith’s eyes fell on my simple cloth bag that replaced the leather the following morning. ‘I can work fast, and they are less aware of what I am doing. It feels less as if I am intruding, and I’m better working on the rest in my own time.’

He thought about this, nodded briefly, and went away without comment. But when we came home that evening, I discovered a new room had been found for me. A small, quiet room that overlooked the square of the little garden. There was a bed, and a washstand, and, most precious of all, a desk set at the light coming in from the window. There was even an old armchair placed to one side of the desk, also within the light from the window, where I could sketch in comfort.

I missed Lily, who wept loudly at my departure, but who, I was glad to see, soon had as my replacement a maid of her own age with long dark hair for Lily to fuss over to her heart’s content. Despite Lily’s protests, I had still not permitted my hair to grow beyond my shoulders, and, despite her best intentions, I determinedly pinned the small amount I had back into the severest, most unflattering manner I could find with the aid of her scrap of mirror.

‘But you’ve got
such
a pretty face,’ she would sigh, wistfully. ‘If you put it like this’ – and she would pull my poor bits of hair into all kinds of contortions – ‘then maybe one of the doctors, or even some rich gentleman, might see you and fall in love with you. And then you’d be rich, ever afterwards.’

‘Not if I’m not rich myself,’ I retorted. ‘Gentlemen rarely permit their heart to rule their head. And should they be tempted, you can be certain their mothers ensure they don’t forget themselves.’ I saw the hurt in her eyes at this breaking up of her daydreams, and smiled. ‘Unless you are much, much prettier than I, that is.’

As I said, I missed Lily and her chatter, but I loved the peace of my little room. And, more than that, I gradually discovered as the weeks went by, that the little garden outside my window was not a private place for Mr Meredith and the hospital trustees. I should have known, of course, but it had never crossed my mind.

Often, as I sat at my little desk, I would see Matron, or a little group of nurses, sitting on the benches set along the walls. As winter turned to spring, bringing the yellows of daffodils and primroses, followed by the soft blue haze of forget-
me-nots
, they began to appear more frequently.

As the evenings warmed and lengthened, I found myself drawn there after my work was done. I tried to time my visits for when I was certain Mr Meredith had returned to his lodgings, although he worked so long and so hard, I could never quite be certain. But if he came across me there, he was always polite and kept his distance beyond the usual pleasantries, and, besides, I would often see him speaking with Matron or the nurses during the day.

Sometimes, as I worked with my paints, or worked in the little offices organising piles of papers into some semblance of order, I would hear a burst of laughter echoing around the little square. It was a peaceful, optimistic sound, welcome in a place where voices were more usually raised in anger or in pain, and where cries of grief came as much, if not more, than murmurings of thankfulness and relief.

 

For two years, I stayed in that little room overlooking the fountain.

I had been certain, at first, that my inclusion in Mr Meredith’s study of the conditions surrounding the hospital would not last. But I continued to be included, and no sooner had the study of one place finished than a new one began.

There might, Mr Tomsett would say, be all the talk about living conditions and the wage of the working man having improved over the past years, but there were still places in London that were a disgrace to man.

Was I happy? I suppose, in my own way, I was. I had my drawing once more; my days were filled with activity, and I had a place where I belonged. Friends, even. I was touched to be invited to Lily’s wedding, in the second spring I was there. I even grew my hair for the occasion, much to her delight. I did not have rich men stopping me in the street, or even turning their heads to gaze at me. So I let it grow. Although I still tucked it up as severely as I could. After all, this was a hospital, with no time for vanity.

When did I begin to grow restless? Maybe it was during that first summer, when the letters began. I had not looked for them for so long, I could not entirely hide my joy as that first little packet was handed to me. Or my anxiety. I made my excuses as soon as I reasonably could, and hastened to my room. Whatever news it contained, I knew I could not school my face into indifference, and I had no wish to arouse more curiosity than this sudden appearance of correspondence had already done.

No; those first letters settled me. Made me smile. Left me waiting ever more hungrily for the next one to arrive. Not that I could keep them, of course. Not even the little drawings placed in between the familiar scrawl of writing. I tucked each one deep into my bodice for as long as I dared, burning them, always, within a day or so.

I wrote letters in reply. Long letters in which I poured out my hopes and my fears. That I was safe and contented. And that, one day, I hoped to be able to earn enough to set up my own establishment, deep in the country, far away, when I, and those I loved, could live as we chose. They were, of course, letters I did not dare to send. And, although it tore my heart in two, I knew I could not return even the simplest form of message. I could but hope that the non-return of that first letter was message enough to its sender that I was receiving them.

Maybe it was the unease that soon began to creep through the cheerful tone that began to unsettle me. By that second winter, they had grown less frequent, the writing more hurried, as if undertaken in brief moments when watchful eyes were not there. And I knew the writer too well not to know the unhappiness that lingered there. And the fear.

By that second spring, I felt my powerlessness more than ever. I was not a fool. I knew well enough that outside the Meredith Charity Hospital I would not be able to earn enough to keep body and soul together, let alone rent a respectable house, or even rooms. And if I was discovered – I dreaded to consider what might happen then.

It must have been about that time my dreams began. I dreamt of the sea, of the clear salt wind tugging at my hair and my gown, and spray shooting wildly over black rocks in a turquoise sea. Sometimes, I was rocked in some little boat, watching the harbour drift away into the distance as we cleared the rocks and caves of a bay, gulls shrieking behind us. And I would wake with the taste of salt on my lips.

I thanked Heaven more than ever for that room of mine, and for no Lily there, to hear what I might call out in my tossing and my turning.

By that second summer, I was close to my wits’ end. I had not felt the city to be so oppressive before. Long, hot, cloudless days dawned, day after day, while a more than usually foul stench hung over the capital. Nothing, the older nurses claimed, that could possibly match the Great Stink, before Sir Joseph Bazalgette built his miraculous waste system that had transformed London over twenty years before. But to me, in my restless unease, it seemed foul enough.

‘You find pleasure in water,’ Mr Meredith remarked, one summer evening, as I sat in my favourite seat, beneath the shade of a trailing vine next to the fountain.

‘Like this,’ I replied, looking up from my sketching. ‘It cools the air.’

‘A necessity in this heat,’ he returned. It was late. The sun had left the courtyard some hours ago, leaving a reflected golden light hanging above us. The two nurses drinking tea together just beyond the fountain, stretched themselves and gathered up their tea cups, making their way slowly back towards the ward and its long, restless night.

The garden was now deserted. I returned to my pencil, knowing that when I looked up again he would be gone. But not this time.

‘May I join you?’

I looked up again in surprise. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘Don’t let me disturb your work.’

‘Thank you.’ But, of course, he did. I made a show of shading, here and there, but all concentration had gone. I laid it down, after a while, on the bench between us. For a moment, he scarcely seemed to notice my movement. He was, I found, staring into the waters of the pool, brows knit tight together. His face, I saw, was more drawn and lined than I had seen before.

‘I’m sorry.’ He stirred himself and looked round. ‘I’m interrupting you.’

‘The light is fading,’ I said, quickly.

He smiled. ‘May I see?’

‘Of course.’ I eyed him. ‘It’s for my own amusement.’