Serpent in the Garden (10 page)

Joshua looked down at his fingers, which seemed feeble compared to Granger’s long, earthy digits.

“Forgive me, sir. But I can’t see what all this is to you,” added Granger with unexpected curtness.

Joshua met his gaze. “People intrigue me, Mr. Granger. Just as I presume you take note when you encounter a strange plant, so do I when I encounter some human idiosyncrasy. I heard Francis Bentnick say Miss Violet recognized the fellow. Yet Herbert Bentnick believed him to be a stranger to Sabine and her daughter. And now you tell me he claimed to know about pineapples and that his hands were not those of a gardener. That strikes me as a rare and curious fact. And it is a rare coincidence too that he should turn up here at Astley, at the very moment you turn the conservatory into a pinery.”

“What gives you the impression any of it was a rare coincidence? It was nothing of the kind. He said it was Mrs. Mercier who wrote and urged him to come on account of it. I didn’t believe him, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he knew her.”

“What else did you learn of him?”

“He was a destructive man.”

“In what way?”

“Is this not proof enough?” Granger waved at the broken pots before him.

“Is that all? You can’t be sure this damage wasn’t accidental. He might have staggered about in his last moments and broken the pots unwittingly.”

“The pots were half buried, sir. I think not. The damage was certainly deliberate. And there’s more. When he came here two days ago, he cut one of the most advanced fruits without my noticing, and took it away.”

“How do you know he did it?”

“Who else would have done it?”

“And what did you make of such an action?”

“I thought that I was correct to label him a rascal and that he can’t have known a jot about pineapples. He should have known you cannot eat a green fruit: it’s the bitterest thing you ever tasted.”

“Did you not go after him and chastise him?”

Granger shrugged his shoulders. “What would be the purpose? The damage was done.”

“I take it you spoke of this to Mrs. Mercier?”

Granger nodded.

“And how did she respond?”

Granger paused a moment. “Not as I expected. She seemed startled. She stared, asked me to repeat myself, shook her head. Then she said, ‘I do not know this man; nor have I written to anyone and asked him to come here. I am glad you sent him away. You did well to do so, Granger.’”

The gardener paused again, while he pressed compost round a plant to secure it. Then he looked away into the far distance. “She never mentioned his name, yet I suspected she knew exactly who he was and that he wasn’t at all welcome. Why else would she have been so pleased I acted as I did?”

Joshua ignored his question. “Did you discover his name?”

“Only this morning. I searched his pockets; there were two letters in one of them, both addressed to a man called John Cobb.”

“What became of the letters?”

“I gave them to Mr. Bentnick when you and he arrived to assist this morning.”

“And what were your impressions when you found Mrs. Mercier?”

“All in all, her behavior this morning was singular.”

Granger confided then that not only had he been first on the scene, he had nearly witnessed the discovery. He had been waiting for Sabine’s arrival; it was her custom to speak to him every morning on her way to the pinery. More often than not she required that he accompany her on her rounds of the building so that she could instruct him on new tasks for the day.

“This morning, when I saw Mrs. Mercier enter the walled garden, I expected her to come toward me or, at the very least, acknowledge my presence. She did neither. She seemed preoccupied. I followed her into the pinery because I had several matters of business to discuss: more young pines to pot, cuttings to be rooted, a question of tan bark to discuss. Soon after I entered the pinery I came across her crouched on the path, cradling the dead man.”

“How did she seem?”

Granger screwed up his eyes as if searching for the right words. “She wasn’t sobbing or screaming. Her eyes were wide open, her brow knotted. I would say she looked surprised rather than fearful. It was only when I called out and offered to help her that the horror of the situation seemed to strike her. She let go her hold on the body, which flopped back, then placed a kerchief over his face, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. When she stood up she shuddered visibly, as if frozen to the core. I was not four feet distant from her, yet I might have been ten miles away for all the heed she paid me. She pushed past and fled to the door. Once outside, she let out a piercing cry. I daresay that was what brought you and Mr. Bentnick running.”

Joshua nodded. “What then?”

“I offered her my assistance again. This time she registered the offer and ordered me to go at once and examine the body. I did as she instructed and retrieved the letters. I intended to give them to her, but by the time I returned, you and Mr. Bentnick had arrived and Mrs. Mercier’s condition seemed worse. I thought it more appropriate to hand them to Mr. Bentnick.”

“Did you read them? Did you see who wrote them?” Joshua demanded.

“No, there was no time. Besides, it wasn’t my place to do so. I saw only the name. John Cobb.”

T
HE NEXT DAY, when Joshua met Miss Elizabeth Manning, his first impression was that she was quite as insipid in the flesh as the wan portrait Caroline Bentnick had drawn. She had arrived in the same carriage as Violet Mercier, who was just returned from London. He caught sight of her from an upstairs window—a slight figure clad in her traveling dress: a black bonnet, a coat of dull mouse brown, a plain gray skirt beneath.

In the drawing room that evening Joshua began to temper his view. Miss Manning was no beauty, perhaps, but not entirely without charm all the same. Her face was small and rather birdlike, with a pointed chin, a well-defined nose, and lustrous gray eyes set wide apart in a complexion unblemished by pox. Her lips were compactly drawn and playful. She had small, perfectly white teeth that showed whenever she smiled, which was often. That evening she wore a black bodice garnished with oyster ribbons from bosom to waist. Her hair, a thick mass of chestnut tresses, had been dressed with a single white silk rose. About her neck, another white rose was attached to an oyster ribbon. However, none of this would have altered his impression of her ordinariness had he not made another discovery. Her real attraction lay within.

Conversation was Lizzie Manning’s lifeblood. She was born with an insatiable desire to discuss her thoughts, to eke out confidences. Silence was anathema to her. Though it was often said that she had learned to talk before she walked, the truth was that when Lizzie was only five, her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her daughter and infant son to be raised by a nurse with a fortunate capacity for chatter. This was why to be left in solitude by her father (who was in the north on business) and her brother (whose whereabouts she didn’t mention) had been like purgatory. The discovery that her dear friend Francis Bentnick had arranged for Violet to collect her on her return from London had thus delighted her beyond words.

New acquaintances were trophies to Lizzie Manning; she collected them as others collect seashells or coins or buttons. Until that day she had never met Violet. From the moment she stepped into the carriage she had bombarded her with words of welcome and questions and confidences. The interrogation continued unabated throughout the afternoon and early evening.

“Tell me, dear Violet, what was Barbados like?”

“Most verdant and most pleasant, Miss Manning.”

“Not Miss Manning—I am Lizzie to everyone. How I long to see it. Tell me about your mother’s garden. I have heard it was like Eden.”

“It is difficult to describe, Lizzie. It was lush, lavish, abundant …”

“It can’t be easy for you and your mother in such a strange environment so far from home. Do you have acquaintances, friends?”

“None, but we have each other.”

“And tell me of the ball. What an event it will be! Have you decided what you will wear?”

“I have a gown nearly finished; it is pale blue silk with flowers and seed pearl embroidery.”

“What an unusual necklace your mother is wearing. I don’t believe I have ever set eyes on such stones. Nor such a design.”

“It came from her second husband, Charles Mercier, my former stepfather.”

“What is its history?”

“It is a curious one. The necklace dates from medieval times. Apparently it was made in Nuremberg—a city famous for the excellence of its craftsmen—as a love token. It was commissioned by a German princeling for a lady he wished to marry.”

Lizzie’s eyes were illuminated with interest. “But is not the serpent a most unusual love token for a besotted prince?”

“Perhaps,” replied Violet with a smile, “though it is often used as a symbol of fertility.”

“And did the prince win his lady?”

“Yes, though the story was not entirely happy. Soon after the pair married, the jewel was stolen by a jealous sister, who was apprehended and later burned as a witch. This gave rise to the superstition that the necklace would bring happiness if given in love, but ill fortune if it changed ownership for any material reason.”

“What an intriguing and poignant history,” said Lizzie, smiling. “It only adds to the allure of the jewel—if that is possible.”

“You should say so to my mother,” declared Violet, rising to bring her mother to speak to Lizzie, “for ever since she set eyes on the necklace, she has taken inordinate pride in wearing it, and does so at every opportunity.”

Joshua watched Violet drift across the room to bring her mother over.

He had met her only fleetingly prior to her departure for London, on the morning after his arrival. Already he had remarked the perfect symmetry of her face and the elegance of her bearing. She was a remarkably handsome young woman: as tall as Juno, finely boned, with plentiful hair dark gold in hue, blue-gray eyes fringed with dark lashes, and the same honey-colored complexion as her mother. Her dress, he noted with great pleasure, was as immaculate as her face: she wore a bodice and skirt of lilac silk embroidered with flowers and trimmed with a tulle pleated frill about the neck and cuffs. The skirt was pinned back to reveal a petticoat of rich purple brocade.

Her face and garb were like those of an angel, that much was clear to Joshua, but he had found unraveling her character less simple. At their first meeting she had avoided light conversation whenever possible, speaking only in response to direct questions, then gazing into the distance, seemingly oblivious to her immediate surroundings, as if some pressing matter preoccupied her. Now, however, he began to suspect that it was Caroline’s animosity toward Violet that had made her reticent and withdrawn. This evening, with Lizzie Manning to encourage her, she presented an altogether different side. By the time supper was finished and the assembled party had moved to the drawing room, where the men sat down for a hand of cards, Lizzie Manning and Violet threaded their arms together and appeared to be on the most cordial terms.

THE DRAWING ROOM was long and narrow, with an ornate molded ceiling and walls lined with pea green damask silk, studded with landscapes and portraits of various Bentnick forebears. In the center of one wall, above a grand chimneypiece, hung a full-length portrait of Jane Bentnick painted by Thomas Gainsborough at Bath only a year or two earlier. Few artists, in Joshua’s opinion, gave the viewer pleasure with such ease as Gainsborough. There was depth yet enviable naturalness to his style. Jane wore a fashionable Van Dyck costume of sky blue silk with a pointed lace collar and a lavishly plumed hat. She looked the ideal of graceful womanhood, and yet, in the turn of her head, the set of her mouth, and in those heavy-lidded brown eyes there was wit, determination, character in abundance. Such was the spell Gainsborough wove that for some time Joshua paid little attention to the cards he was dealt. What would Jane Bentnick have made of her husband’s choice of new bride? What would she have thought of her children’s suspicions? Was Herbert’s hurried engagement a sign that his union with Jane had been blissfully contented, or unhappy?