Eden's Garden (37 page)

‘
What
?’ Carys stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re not still on about that, are you?’

‘That’s why he wants to buy the land at Eden Farm, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ She wasn’t quite sure whether she was about to laugh or cry. ‘Do you honestly think that I’d have gone to Merlin with a business proposal if I’d thought he had any romantic interest in me? Or if he still wanted to add me to his knicker collection, come to that. At least credit me with enough sense, in that case, not to give him quite such power over me.’

David scowled. ‘He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy to benefit all of Pont-ar-Eden for the good of his soul.’

‘Of course not. Are you really that blind? Can’t you see it’s not me Merlin’s doing this for. It’s not for me that he wants the village to thrive. And if you ever think anything different, I’ll never speak to you again.’

‘Oh,’ said David. He discovered hope had returned and was banging loudly in his chest. Carys sounded very certain on this. Furthermore, she didn’t seem in the least upset about it. ‘So you still haven’t made up your mind about Cornwall?’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Maybe if I hadn’t seen the old kitchen garden here…’

He looked at her in despair. ‘I hate all this uncertainty hanging over Plas Eden. I hate what it’s doing to us all. Huw thinks his chance of a fortune is slipping away. Rhiannon looks unhappy every time I try to talk to her about America. And I can’t plan for any kind of future at all. Not until I know. At least if we knew for certain about Nainie’s parents, that might be a start. But we’ve looked everywhere. There’s just no trace of Nainie’s parents even being married. That’s before you start on the whole bigamy thing.’

Carys was gazing at the statues, her eyes travelling from one to the other, as if there might be some answer hidden in their stone eyes. ‘There has to be something somewhere. Somewhere we haven’t considered yet. Somewhere so obvious no one has thought to look.’

David sighed. ‘Trouble is, I can’t see Professor Humphries and the history group leaving any stone unturned …’ He came to a halt.

‘What?’

‘Edna.’

‘Edna?’

‘Yes. What did you tell me Edna said about Hermione Meredith?’

‘That she wasn’t the lady she made herself out to be.’ Carys frowned. ‘Which she was, of course.’

‘No, not that bit. The other. Didn’t Edna say something about Hermione telling everyone that she came from London?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘That’s where they must have met. In London. Which would mean in the Meredith Charity Hospital. Those newspaper articles we found in Cornwall said your grandmother worked with charities while she was living at Treverick Hall, didn’t she?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘So that could be the connection. Judith could have worked with the Merediths, or at least known about them and their charity in London. If you think about it, London would be the best place to vanish amongst so many people. That’s where she might have sent my great-grandmother, if she’d helped her to escape Ketterford.’

‘It’s possible, I suppose.’ Carys sounded dubious.

David retrieved his iPhone from his back pocket. ‘I know the hospital won’t be there any longer, but the building might have survived.’ He clicked onto Google, trying first one search, than another. ‘Aha!’ he exclaimed triumphantly at the third attempt. ‘There it is. Meredith House, Lambeth. That’s got to be the one. It seems to be the head offices of several charities. Why didn’t I think of that before? If there is an answer, I bet that’s the one place it can be found.’ He met her eyes. ‘Well? Are you up for it?’

‘Up for what?’

‘Going back on the detective trail. Only in London this time.’

Carys nodded. ‘Okay, count me in.’

‘Great. We’ll sort this out between us. I know we will. We make a good team, eh?’

‘Mmm,’ replied Carys absently. She appeared to have forgotten him already. Her eyes, he found, were searching the stone faces once more.

He took her hand. ‘And Cari, whatever you decide, whatever we find in London, whatever happens with Eden…’ But Carys, he saw, wasn’t listening. She was lost in a world of her own.

‘The statues,’ she breathed, in a voice that came from a long way away.

‘Cari?’

She turned back to him at last. ‘The statues, David. The statues: I know who they are. I know who they all are.’

 Meredith House, it turned out, was a tall, unpromising red-brick building, darkened by the fumes of city streets. David and Carys made their way through the imposing gateway into a small paved area used as a car park, following the signs to reception.

The young woman seated behind the clean lines of the reception desk was sleek and efficient, but with a relaxed and friendly air about her.

‘Ah, Mr Jackson,’ she said, nodding as David explained their appointment with the archivist. ‘He’s left a message for you. His meeting has overrun, so he’ll be another ten minutes, I’m afraid. He suggested you might like to wait in the garden.’ She indicated a corridor with a revolving glass door at one end. ‘There’s a café in there, so perhaps you would like a coffee while you wait. Their cakes are pretty awesome,’ she added confidentially, and with some regret.

They made their way along the whitewashed corridor, past a wooden banistered staircase, and out through the revolving doors.

‘It’s so pretty!’ exclaimed Carys in surprise, as she and David emerged into a little courtyard, where the leaves were turning to a soft yellow around them.

‘It must be a real oasis in the summer,’ he agreed. ‘It feels weird that this must have hardly changed since the Meredith Hospital was here.’

It had turned into a blazing autumn in London. Heat still hung between the high walls of offices grouped around the courtyard. It was lunchtime, and on the benches placed between beds of lavender and the last bloom of roses, office workers chatted quietly as they ate their salads, accompanied with the skinny-lattes-to-go from the café.

The café itself took up one corner of the space, its outside tables filled with men and women in dark suits, deep in discussion over their paninis or lasagne, and accompanied by a dance of hopeful sparrows around their feet. Pigeons burbled contentedly in the eaves, landing every now and again in the hope of crusts or abandoned remains of carrot cake. A burst of laughter echoed around the walls, interspersed with the buzzing of text messages, backed by the faint hum of traffic and the howl of sirens.

In the unseasonal heat, a few people were even perched on the rim of the central fountain, bottled water and an apple in hand, faces turned into its cooling spray.

‘Look, the hospital hasn’t been completely forgotten,’ said Carys, motioning towards the statue of a nurse holding a small child in her arms at the centre of the fountain. The statue looked as if it had been made in the 1920s or 30s. The nurse gazed out heroically, in suitably monumental manner, while a group of particularly wretched-looking women and children crouched at her feet.

‘In Memory of the Staff and Volunteers of the Meredith Charity Hospital’ declared a weatherbeaten legend around the fountain’s base.

They looked up as a small, rather bent figure made his way through the revolving door. He stood for a moment, halfway between the offices of ‘The Honeybee Trust’ and ‘Safe Birth for Mothers and Babies in Africa’, to peer around, until, spotting the two of them, he began to walk briskly across the courtyard.

David took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Here we go.’

Carys felt his hand creep into hers. She gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Merediths don’t just sweep things under the carpet. Not when it’s this important. When it means the future of Plas Eden. Come on. Just you see: the answer will be here.’

 

 I stood in the little courtyard garden of the Meredith Charity Hospital that day and watched the leaves fall gold and crimson from the trees.

‘Mrs Meredith?’ I turned as the Matron emerged from the door next to the little office, and approached me hesitantly. She had changed over the long years between, as had I, but she was still the same.

‘It’s good to see you again, Lily,’ I said.

For a moment she continued to scrutinise me, then I saw the smile light up her face. ‘It is you,’ she said, as she rushed over and embraced me. ‘Of course it is. We knew it had to be, when we heard Mr Meredith had married.’

‘Was I that transparent?’

She laughed. ‘Seeing the two of you together, it was impossible not to know.’

‘Oh,’ I said, blushing despite myself. I held her hands tight. ‘I was so sorry to hear about your Tom.’

Sadness came over her face. ‘Thank you. I miss him still. But we had so many happy years together. And two sons. Who are good boys and look after me.’ I saw a deeper shadow cross her features. ‘Although they say there is a war coming.’

Even in far-flung Pont-ar-Eden, we had heard the rumours that had begun to shadow all our horizons. I could not tell her how much I felt for her. I could not tell her that, but for the storm in Treverick Bay that night, I, too, would now have a son not much older than her boys. One who, with the encouragement of his father and in the impetuosity of youth, might have seen a war as his duty and a schoolboy adventure.

‘Well?’ she said, pushing her gloom away. ‘Mr Meredith said that you had a favour to ask.’

Until that moment, I had not been certain. The Lily I remembered had a good heart and a fair dose of common sense. But this Lily was a woman who had seen grief and loss and returned as a widow to work her way up on merit to be Matron of the hospital. This was a woman I could trust with my life.

‘I have.’

She smiled. ‘Very well, then. I’ll fetch my hat.’

‘Don’t you wish to know what I am about to ask?’

‘No,’ she replied. Her smile was suddenly young and mischievous. ‘Maybe I can guess?’ I looked at her, and she laughed. I could see her old love of romance gleaming in her eyes. ‘There had to be good reason why “Mrs Smith” arrived such a lost soul, and left quite so discreetly. Besides, there was a man who came asking questions, not so long ago. He said he came from Cornwall. A private detective, he said he was.’

‘A detective?’ I exclaimed, unable to hide my alarm.

‘Don’t worry: he got nothing out of us, for all his questioning. Those of us left who could remember Mrs Hermione Smith loved you too well to say a word that might cause you harm.’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured, from my heart.

She left, returning in a few minutes in her hat and coat. In her hand, she held a posy of red and white roses. ‘I always take flowers to my Tom in the churchyard, of a Friday,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘But I feel sure, just this once, he will understand.’

 

 David and Carys followed Mr Jackson down to a little room in the basement of the building.

‘So you are a Meredith,’ the old man remarked, as they made their way between rows of shelves stretching from floor to ceiling, each surface piled high with boxes and files.

‘Yes,’ replied David. ‘I decided it was time to find out more about my ancestors’ connection to this place.’

The old man nodded. ‘And a good time, too. There has been talk, you know, of setting up a little permanent exhibition in one of the ground floor storerooms. Like the museum to Florence Nightingale in the grounds of St Thomas’s Hospital. The British Museum has been making noises about making a temporary exhibition as well, with all this current popularity for the social history of ordinary people. After all, the Merediths, among others, made a significant contribution to the idea of the National Health Service by setting up of a hospital free for all who need it. The mark of any civilisation worth the name,’ he added, severely.

‘Yes indeed,’ murmured David.

‘The staff records were what you wanted, yes?’

David exchanged glances with Carys. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Right at the end here.’

‘As we’re compiling a social history,’ put in Carys, casually, as they followed their guide along the nearest row, ‘we thought we’d also like to find the names of the churches the staff and patients would have attended? And maybe see if any are still standing. I know church-going would have been an important part of their lives, and it would add a little local colour.’

‘Oh, I can tell you that straight off,’ replied Mr Jackson. ‘St Catherine’s. It’s only a few minutes’ walk from here. I can show you on the A to Z.’ David handed over his copy, and Mr Jackson flicked through without hesitation. ‘This is the page. If you walk back from here towards Waterloo Bridge, you’ll more-or-less pass it. There it is. It’s a bit of a maze, but once you get to Lambeth Palace Gardens you’ll soon see the sign.’

‘Thank you.’ David folded down the page of the guide and placed it back inside his jacket pocket.

‘And if it’s social history you’re interested in…’ Mr Jackson paused in his tracks and dodged down a side route through a break in the shelves. He stopped at an old-fashioned iron safe built into the wall. Squatting down in front of the safe, he began to turn the dial rapidly, this way, then that, with an expert flick of the wrist. ‘There’s a copy in the British Library, of course, but we still have the original.’ The last number clicked into place and the door swung open with an impressive creak. Reaching in, their guide lifted out a large box file, placing it almost reverentially on a table to one side. ‘This is what we should be displaying. There’s been talk of it ever since I started working here, and that’s – oh, thirty or so years ago.’