Chapter II — The Garden Maze

Rutland House, Belgrave Square — March 1879

By the spring of 1879, London had begun to notice that the Duke of Rutland was spending rather more time at the theatre than was generally considered necessary for a gentleman of his position. This was not, in itself, a serious offence. Dukes were permitted a surprising number of eccentricities provided they possessed sufficient discretion to conceal them, and Charles had always possessed discretion in abundance. He attended dinners, received visitors, appeared at the proper functions and continued to fulfil his parliamentary obligations with such regularity that nobody could accuse him of neglecting his duties. Nevertheless, there are few secrets in London which survive long once they become interesting, and the acquaintance between Charles Montclare and Catherine Walters had already become a subject of conversation among people who had never witnessed it and therefore felt perfectly qualified to describe it.

At Rutland House, however, the matter was regarded with greater seriousness. His mother had noticed the alteration in him. Charles had become less patient with the endless entertainments which formerly caused him no difficulty, less inclined to remain after dinner when conversation descended into gossip and considerably more willing to refuse invitations without offering the elaborate explanations expected of a duke. There was no particular reason for the change, and that was what made it troublesome. Had he been indiscreet, the family might have objected. Had he been openly rebellious, they might have opposed him. Instead, he had merely become absent-minded, which in a man of Charles's character was considerably more alarming.

His mother finally mentioned Catherine's name one afternoon while they were seated in the drawing room. She did not accuse him of anything — women of her generation rarely accused a duke directly — and instead, she remarked that actresses were generally surrounded by rather unfortunate people and that it was a pity when young gentlemen of good family allowed themselves to become too familiar with theatrical society.

Charles looked up from the newspaper.

“I have no particular familiarity with theatrical society.”

His mother smiled.

“I am pleased to hear it.”

The conversation ended there, though it did not end in Charles's mind.

That evening he attended the theatre again where Catherine was performing. After the performance they met in one of the quieter passages behind the stage, and what began as an accidental conversation gradually became a habit. They spoke of books, music, London, the absurdities of fashionable society and the strange difference between the person a man was in public and the person he became when nobody was looking. Catherine possessed an intelligence which surprised Charles, not because he had expected stupidity from her, but because he had expected her to be less interested in the world beyond the theatre. Instead she seemed to observe everything; she understood people, and perhaps that was why she understood him.

She saw through the Duke with an ease which occasionally irritated him and frequently delighted him. Charles had spent years surrounded by men who addressed him according to his title and women who measured every sentence before speaking it. Catherine did neither. She teased him when he was solemn, contradicted him when he was certain and laughed at him when he behaved like a man who had been raised to believe that every difficulty could be solved by an estate solicitor.

He found himself becoming less formal in her company, which frightened him more than anything else. For Catherine did not seem interested in the Duke of Rutland; she seemed interested in Charles, and Charles had almost forgotten that there was a difference.

By April, the acquaintance had become a friendship, and by May, it had ceased to be merely a friendship. Neither of them spoke of the change, nor did they need to. There are attachments which announce themselves with declarations, letters and vows, and there are others which grow so quietly that by the time a man recognises what has happened, he has already surrendered the greater part of his resistance. Charles found himself arranging his days around the possibility of seeing Catherine. He began to take longer rides through London, to remain at the theatre after performances and to invent reasons for visiting places in which he might encounter her without admitting that the encounter had been planned.

One afternoon, he persuaded her to accompany him into the countryside. They travelled north of London by carriage, leaving behind the crowded streets and the endless succession of houses which seemed to have been built chiefly to ensure that nobody could see the sky. Charles had arranged a private luncheon at one of the smaller properties belonging to the Rutland estate, a house surrounded by woodland and formal gardens which was rarely used except during the shooting season.

Catherine had never been there before. She stood upon the terrace overlooking the gardens while Charles watched her. The house was old, but unlike Belvoir it had never been made to impress. It had been built in the eighteenth century as a retreat from the main estate, and its rooms were smaller, its windows lower and its gardens more intimate. There was an orangery at the southern end, a stone pavilion beside a lake and, beyond the lawns, an old maze enclosed by tall hedges.

Catherine looked towards it.

“Is that a maze?”

Charles smiled.

“Yes.”

“Have you ever been inside?”

“Once.”

“And did you find your way out?”

“Eventually.”

She laughed, and Charles had begun to discover that he would willingly do almost anything to hear that sound.

They entered the maze together. The paths were narrow, enclosed on either side by high hedges which concealed the rest of the garden. The sunlight fell through the leaves in broken patches, and the distant sounds of the house disappeared almost immediately. For several minutes they walked without speaking.

There was something strangely peaceful about it. Charles had always thought of his estates as possessions. He had seen the land through the eyes of an owner, noting fences, timber, drainage, tenants and improvements. That afternoon he saw it differently. Catherine made him notice the scent of the roses beyond the hedge, the birds in the trees and the sunlight upon the gravel; she made the place seem alive.

They reached the centre of the maze, where stood a stone fountain half concealed by ivy.

Catherine rested her hand upon the edge.

“You have a beautiful home.”

Charles looked at her.

“It is not really mine.”

She seemed surprised.

“You own it.”

“That is different.”

“Why?”

“Because I inherited it.”

She smiled.

“Then you are merely looking after it for the dead.”

The words remained with him, as he had never considered the matter in those terms. His entire life had been built around inheritance, yet suddenly the estate seemed less like something he possessed and more like something which possessed him.

Catherine turned towards him.

“You are always thinking.”

“I am a duke. It is expected.”

“No,” she said. “It is required.”

There was no accusation in her voice, which made it worse.

Charles looked away.

The afternoon passed quietly. They walked beside the lake, sat beneath the trees, and drank tea in the orangery while rain moved across the glass roof, during which Charles discovered that he had begun to imagine Catherine there permanently. He saw her among the roses, walking through the gardens, in the library, and seated at the breakfast table. The images came without invitation, and that was when he began to make his first mistake: he did not imagine Catherine as she was, but began to imagine her as she might become.

He pictured her in silk gowns selected by his mother, entering drawing rooms filled with duchesses and countesses, her name upon the invitations sent from Rutland House, and her portrait hanging beside those of his ancestors. He imagined, in other words, that the woman who had awakened him could somehow be brought into the world which had kept him asleep.

Catherine noticed the change before he did.

“You are looking at me strangely.”

“I was thinking.”

“That is usually when you become dangerous.”

He smiled.

“I was thinking that you would like the gardens at Belvoir.”

“Would I?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I think you would.”

She looked at him for several seconds.

“You have begun to imagine me there.”

Charles said nothing.

She smiled, but there was sadness in it.

“Be careful, Charles.”

It was the first time she had used his name, and he felt the effect of it immediately.

“With what?”

“With imagining people differently from the way they are.”

He tried to laugh.

“You are very difficult to please.”

“No,” she said. “I am merely difficult to change.”

The carriage returned them to London that evening, and Charles remained silent for much of the journey while Catherine watched the countryside through the window. Neither understood that the warning she had given him would eventually become the centre of their tragedy. For Charles had fallen in love with her, but he had also begun, without knowing it, to reshape her in his imagination — and there is a dangerous difference between loving a woman and loving the woman one believes she might become.

By June, the Duke of Rutland had made a decision: he would take Catherine to Belvoir. He would show her the house, the gardens, the lake, the library and the old maze. He would introduce her to the world which had formed him and, he thought, allow her to see the man beneath the title. He did not yet understand that he was asking her to enter a world which had never been designed to accommodate her, nor did he understand that the house which had preserved the Montclare name for generations might prove less capable of preserving his happiness.

The invitation was sent on a warm morning in June. Catherine read it twice and then folded it carefully, feeling, for the first time since their acquaintance had begun, afraid.