The Lost Garden

1788

Frances Winterton is traveling with her maid in a carriage when they encounter a bridge that had been washed out. They headed to a house for refuge. Frances is in labor as is the mistress of the house, Mrs. Trentham. Sadly, that woman’s baby is stillborn but Frances’s baby girl is healthy. She names her Caroline and asks the Trenthams to adopt her. Frances is the mistress of the Duke of Cley who is Caroline’s father. Frances returns to the home of the Duke and Duchess where she is accepted.

When she is a teenager, Caroline is summoned to the Duke’s home to live. She does not know that he is her father and that she is a bastard. He has two daughters who look down on Caroline and he has two sons. The Duke is not a kind man and Caroline feels so out of place. However, one of the sons befriends her and shows her a private library filled with books where she is very happy. Spending time with him makes Caroline think she is in love with him. But when she learns he is her half brother she is devastated. Then Tramedoc asks her to marry him and they head to Gretna Green. He is a self-centered man who writes poetry. Soon, she learns that he is penniless.

Tramedoc is given a position as vicar in a town close to the coast. He is a self-centered, laudanum addict and depends upon Caroline to write his sermons as well as his poetry. Tremadoc treats her badly and she does all she can to placate him resulting in her own low self-esteem. But the upcoming Guy Fawkes day brings with it some big changes in her life. Can she find a way out of the horrible existence she is in?

This is an interesting plot, although a bit too long, with some well-created characters. As it was originally written around 1983, it could use some updating for it to appeal today’s readers. However, we must keep in mind that this author was highly celebrated in her day. I think readers will enjoy the time period of the book and how well the author incorporated the politics of the time, as well.

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Jane Aiken Hodge’s The Lost Garden was first published in 1982 and is being re-issued by Agora Books, eleven years after her death. I haven’t read any of her fiction before, although I have a well-thumbed copy of her biography, The Private World of Georgette Heyer. I expected a novel very similar to that of Heyer’s, but The Lost Garden couldn’t have been written by Heyer. It’s equally well researched and written, but much darker.

The Duke of Cley’s mistress, Francis Winterton, is sent away to give birth but does so at a rectory before reaching her planned destination. Her daughter, Caroline, is brought up with the rector’s children and has a happy childhood for several years, although she understands she is an orphan. After that, things do not go well for her. That’s where the book differs from Heyer’s lighter style: the child / young woman is loaded with so many troubles that it’s difficult at times to see how she can ever be happy again. Her unsecure position is summed up in her sentence “If I was a teacher in a school, I would be as fierce as anything with the pupils because I would know who I was, where I stood”. It’s a tribute to Hodge’s writing that this 61-year old male really empathised with Caroline and had to keep turning the pages to see what happened next.

Hodge states in the preface that the book was inspired by two eighteenth century sisters , one of whom, the Duchess of Devonshire lived in a menage a trois with the Duke and Lady Elizabeth Foster. There’s a nice nod to that in the novel where Caroline’s mother goes off to see “her good friends the Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Elizabeth Foster”. That made me smile.

It’s a beautifully written book and I’m so grateful to Netgalley and Agora for the opportunity to read it. It drags a little in places and would benefit from being 20-30 pages shorter but that’s easy for me to say – I’m not an editor!

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