Chapter Twenty Two
Caroline,
Bath, Somerset
Spring has arrived in Bath with carpets of bluebells in the park and buds bursting into blossom on the cherry trees.
I feel as excited as the chirping birds outside my window.
I can’t describe how wonderful it feels to be back in a house that feels like our very own.
The smell of beeswax polish, the lingering scent of faded roses and wood smoke is just as wonderful, and my bedroom quite as lovely as I remember it.
Mrs Partridge was here when we arrived and greeted us like old friends before sitting us down to feast on cold salmon and new potatoes. Just after lunch the phone rang, and Mrs Partridge popped her head round the door to say it was Harry on the line.
‘I hope you don’t mind, dear,’ said Ellen, as I stood nervously to my feet, ‘but I made sure Piers gave him the house number in his letter.’
I skipped round the table at that, and planted a kiss on her cheek before I dashed into the hall, and stood staring for what felt like a very long time, telephone receiver in hand. I put it to my ear, and said hello, though it came out all wrong - sounding very high-pitched and strained.
‘Is that you, Caroline?’ Harry said, and his voice was so good to hear it made me tremble. My hands were shaking so much that the telephone wire was tapping along the top of the demi-lune table.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ I managed to say in a lower register, hoping I sounded somewhere nearer normality, even if I was quaking.
‘It’s so good to hear your voice,’ he said, and I couldn’t stand up any longer, plumping down on the chair put there on purpose for talking. ‘I’m free this afternoon, and wondering if you’d like to meet.’
‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I answered, thinking he must be wondering why he was so keen to meet a girl who couldn’t string a whole sentence together.
‘It’s such a lovely day - I thought we could go for a walk to Prior Park - if you’re feeling fit enough, though it’s a bit of an uphill climb.
One of my old school teachers from Cheltenham is the headmaster up at the school there.
I’ve visited him several times lately, and when I told him about you he said I should be sure to show you round sometime.
We’ll have the place to ourselves, as they’ll all be on holiday for another week or two yet.
The views are worth it when you get there, and there’s a most amazing Palladian bridge. I know you’ll love it.’
Harry was talking non-stop, but it made me feel that perhaps I wasn’t the only one who was feeling nervous.
‘It sounds perfect - I can’t wait to see it - where shall we meet?’
Meet me on Pulteney Bridge, by the steps that go down to the river … is twenty minutes too soon?’
I laughed. ‘No, Harry, I’ll be there.’
‘I’m so looking forward to seeing you,’ he said, and then the phone clicked, and he was gone.
I rushed upstairs to check my appearance in the long mirror in my bedroom, and sprayed fragrance on my wrists and ears. It was unusually warm, and I didn’t think I’d need more than a cardigan if the weather turned cool.
Ellen and Roger waved me off at the door and I set off down Pulteney Street, feeling so happy that everything in the world seemed particularly sharp and bright, as if I’d never noticed before how the sky was the exact blue as forget-me-nots or how the silver birch trees had branches like the delicate arms of graceful dancers, their leaves turning silver, rippling in a port de bras over Laura Place.
Before I got to the bridge I saw him, and it was all I could do to stop myself running the rest of the way.
Just the sight of him made my legs shake, as if the bones had melted away, and I wondered if I looked as I felt, as if I were wobbling on marshmallow legs.
I’m sure there were other people near the bridge - I remember someone pushing past quite rudely, saying ‘Excuse me,’ in a very pronounced way, because the pavement isn’t very wide just there when there are crowds of people trying to get down to the river, but what I most remember is seeing Harry in all his beauty, and those periwinkle eyes holding mine in his intense gaze.
He didn’t throw his arms round me or anything like that - it was all very restrained, as if he was a character from one of Jane Austen’s novels.
And I knew he really was Mr Tilney in that moment - the Mr Tilney I’d been searching for all my life, though I doubted I was his Catherine, even if I knew he liked me enough to want to see me.
‘I thought we’d walk along the river,’ he said, ‘and go up to Prior Park via Lyncombe Hill. There’s a pretty walk Jane Austen did once that she mentioned in one of her letters. I’ve been that way a couple of times, I think you’ll like it.’
‘Oh, yes, I’d love to walk in her footsteps,’ I said. ‘I’m ashamed to say I haven’t really read her letters.’
As I said it, I thought how incongruous that seemed now. I felt very familiar with some parts of Jane’s life, and I thought about the journal and the experiences I’d had last time I was in Bath.
‘I must admit I’ve been doing a little research. I know how much you like her writing, and I wanted to show you some of Bath you might not have seen before. She wrote to her sister about how she’d walked to Lyncombe and Widcombe with a friend in 1801.’
I felt so pleased that he’d gone to so much trouble, and found I could hardly look at him.
We were quiet for a moment or two as we strolled along in the sunshine.
We walked closely side by side, but he didn’t attempt to hold my hand or anything like that, and I actually felt glad we weren’t rushing back into behaving like ardent lovers.
It was impossible not to remember Cassy in Spring Gardens or her handsome Mr Fowle, as we walked by the river where the pleasure boats were filling up with passengers, though I knew Harry had mentioned a much later time in Jane’s history.
As we passed the pub and restaurant, and the recreation ground where the gardens used to be, I thought how different it all looked.
However disappointed Jane had been with the gaudiness of Spring Gardens, I couldn’t think that what had replaced it in modern times was better.
‘We’ve so much to catch up on,’ he said. ‘I hope you had a good Christmas.’
‘It was lovely, just Mum and me, but how did you get on? I kept thinking about how strange it would be, and hoped you were all getting along.’
‘It was really bizarre at first, to be back in Wales, and with our uncle who can be very severe at the best of times. However, his bark is worse than his bite, and he’s not half as frightening when he becomes angry as he used to be when I was small.
I think he was pleased we’d been able to join him.
There were even Christmas gifts, though I suspect his housekeeper had been the one sent to do the shopping.
We feasted in the usual way, and played charades, though Uncle Geraint watched from his chair through a fog of cigar smoke.
But, he was certainly in a better mood by the time we left, and even said he hoped we’d go again soon. ’
‘And how is Elsa? Did she enjoy her holiday?’
‘Elsa is very well, and sends her love. She’s dying to see you, and wanted me to tell you that she was hoping to get to see you first. I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t wait another day. So, she has to wait her turn.’
We fell into silence again, the sun beating down on our heads, and I wondered if he felt he’d said too much, but I was singing inside, my tummy dancing with butterflies.
We followed the river, soon arriving at Widcombe where we walked through the village, Harry pointing out the little cottages climbing the hill and explaining that Ralph Allen who built the house at Prior Park had built them for his workers.
He said we weren’t going to take the most direct route up that hill, but the views would be far more picturesque.
‘Mr Tilney would be able to instruct us on matters of natural taste in landscapes, foregrounds, and perspectives,’ I said. ‘I love the way that Catherine dismisses the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape, once she knows the principles of the picturesque.’
‘I must admit, I’m not sure I’d know natural taste in landscapes if I was examined,’ Harry replied. ‘You must teach me, Caroline - I’m sure as an artist you’re far better qualified and know just what you’re talking about.’
‘Perhaps if I were using fashion models in a landscape setting, I might be able to demonstrate a certain style, but I’ve no more idea about the picturesque than you. Do you think Jane was having a bit of fun and mocking the art establishment of the day?’
‘Undoubtedly, and it makes me laugh to think times haven’t really changed. Theorising on art is as open to ridicule as it’s ever been, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, yes … you wouldn’t believe some of the lectures I’ve attended where I’ve despaired at some of the current thinking. But then, I suppose it’s what makes discussion so entertaining.’
It didn’t take long before we were striding up Lyncombe Hill.
Harry pointed to the cliff of Beechen Hill soaring upwards to our right, and I thought about Henry and Catherine walking along the top looking down at Bath below them.
As we carried on, the road inclined further, and was much steeper than I expected.
I’m ashamed to say I had to stop a couple of times, but pretended I was looking at the pretty Georgian houses lining the road.
‘I’m not as fit as I used to be,’ I admitted in the end, ‘I spend far too much time sitting down sewing.’
‘Well, we can change that while you’re here, though I don’t want to tax you too hard. I read that Glandular Fever makes you tire very easily. We can stop and sit down as we go along if you like.’
‘If Jane Austen took this walk in her stride when she was considerably older than me, I’m sure I can do it too.’
‘She would only have been twenty five, twenty six in the December of that year,’ Harry said, ‘so just a few years older, I’m guessing.’