The Forgotten Garden (40 page)

‘You frightened me,’ said Cassandra defensively, pulling herself out of the chair.

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‘Sorry.’ He stepped forward. ‘The door was open. Didn’t realise you were having a kip.’

‘I wasn’t. I mean, I was, but I didn’t mean to. I only meant to sit for a while but . . .’ Cassandra’s explanation trailed off as her mind returned to the dream. It had been a long time since she’d dreamed anything even remotely erotic, a long time since she’d done anything remotely erotic. Not since Nick. Well, not so that it counted, not so that she wanted to remember. Where on earth had it come from?

The man grinned and extended his hand. ‘I’m Michael Blake, landscaper extraordinaire. You must be Cassandra.’

‘That’s right.’ She blushed as he closed his large, warm hand around hers.

He shook his head slightly, smiling. ‘My mate told me Australian girls were the prettiest but I never believed him. Now I know he was telling the truth.’

Cassandra didn’t know where to look, settled for a spot just beyond his left shoulder. Such open flirtation made her uncomfortable at the best of times, but her dream had left her doubly unsettled. She could still sense it, lingering in the room’s corners.

‘I hear you’ve got a problem with a tree?’

‘Yes.’ Cassandra blinked and nodded as she pushed the dream aside. ‘Yes, I have. Thanks for coming.’

‘Never could resist a damsel in distress.’ He smiled again, a broad, easy smile.

She pulled her cardigan a little tighter round her middle. Tried to smile back but managed only to feel prim. ‘It’s over this way. On the stairs.’

Michael followed her along the hall, leaned to see around the curve of the stairwell. He whistled. ‘One of the old pines. Looks like she’s been lying here a while. Probably came down in the big storm of ninety-five.’

‘Can you move it?’

‘Course we can.’ Michael looked over his shoulder, past Cassandra.

‘Get the chainsaw will you, Chris?’

Cassandra turned; she hadn’t been aware there was anyone else in the room with them. Another man stood behind her, leaner than the first, a little younger. Sandy brown hair curled roughly around his neck.

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Olive skin, brown eyes. ‘Christian,’ he said, nodding slightly. He extended his hand a little, hesitated, then wiped it on his jeans. Held it out again.

Cassandra reached to meet it.

‘Chainsaw, Chris,’ said Michael. ‘Come on, speed it up.’

Michael raised his eyebrows at Cassandra as Christian left. ‘I’m due at the hotel in a half-hour or so, but never fear, I’ll get the main work done and leave my trusty sidekick to finish up.’ He smiled at Cassandra with the sort of direct gaze she found impossible to hold. ‘So this is your place. I’ve lived in the village my whole life and never thought it was owned by anyone.’

‘I’m still getting used to the idea myself.’

Michael cocked an eyebrow as he took in the dereliction of the room. ‘What’s a nice Aussie girl like you doing in a house like this?’

‘I inherited it. My grandmother left it to me.’

‘Your grandmother was English?’

‘Australian. She bought it in the seventies when she was on holiday.’

‘Some souvenir. Couldn’t she find a tea towel she liked?’

A noise at the door and Christian was back carrying a large chainsaw. ‘This the one you’re after?’

‘It’s a saw with a chain,’ said Michael, winking at Cassandra. ‘I’d say it’s the right one.’

The hall was narrow and Cassandra turned side-on to let Christian pass. She didn’t meet his eyes, rather pretended interest in a loose skirting board at her feet. The way Michael spoke to Christian made her feel embarrassed.

‘Chris is new to the business,’ said Michael, oblivious to Cassandra’s discomfort. ‘Doesn’t know his chainsaw from his drop-saw yet. He’s a bit of a greenie but we’ll turn him into a woodcutter yet.’ He grinned.

‘He’s a Blake, it’s in his blood.’ He gave his brother a playful punch and the two men turned their attention to the task at hand.

Cassandra was relieved when the chainsaw started up and she was free, finally, to escape back to the garden. Although she knew her time would be better spent clearing creepers from inside the house, her 282

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interest had been piqued. She was determined to find a way through that wall if it took all day.

c

The sun was high now and shade was at a premium. Cassandra unwrapped her cardigan and laid it on a nearby rock. The sun’s tiny footprints danced across her arms and the top of her head was soon hot to the touch. She wished she’d remembered to bring a hat.

As she searched the brambles, poked her hand gingerly through one gap after another, avoiding thorns, her thoughts drifted back to her dream. It had been particularly vivid and she could remember every detail—sights, smells, even the dream’s pervasive mood.

Undeniably erotic, laced with forbidden desire.

Cassandra shook her head a little, shooing away the tendrils of confusing and unwanted emotion. She turned her thoughts instead to Nell’s mystery. The night before, she’d sat up late reading the notebook.

A task that was easier said than done. If the rash of mould didn’t make things difficult enough, Nell’s deplorable handwriting had deteriorated further when she arrived in Cornwall. Longer, loopier, scratchier.

Written faster, Cassandra was willing to bet, more excitedly.

Nonetheless, Cassandra was managing. She’d been spellbound by the account of Nell’s returning memories, her certainty that she’d visited the cottage as a little girl. Cassandra couldn’t wait to see the scrapbooks Julia had found, the diaries that Nell’s mother had once filled with her most private thoughts. For surely they would shed further light on Nell’s childhood, maybe even offer vital clues as to her disappearance with Eliza Makepeace.

A whistle, loud and shrill. Cassandra looked up, expecting a bird of some kind.

Michael was standing by the corner of the house, watching her work. He indicated the brambles. ‘Impressive crop you’ve got there.’

‘Nothing a bit of weeding won’t solve,’ she said, standing awkwardly.

She wondered how long he’d been watching.

‘A year of weeding and a chainsaw.’ He grinned. ‘I’m off up to the hotel now.’ He cocked his head towards the cottage. ‘We’ve made some good headway. I’ll leave Chris to tie up loose ends. He should 283

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be able to manage, just make sure he leaves it how you’d like.’ He paused and smiled again in that artless way of his. ‘You’ve got my number, right? Give me a call. I’ll show you a few of the local sights while you’re in town.’

It wasn’t a question. Cassandra smiled slightly and regretted it immediately. She suspected Michael was the sort to read any response as agreement. Sure enough, he gave her a wink as he headed back towards the front of the house.

With a sigh, Cassandra turned back towards the wall. Christian had climbed through the hole made by the tree and was now perched on the roof, using a handsaw to cut the branches into lengths. Where Michael was easygoing, there was an intensity about Christian that seemed to spill into everything he did and touched. He shifted position and Cassandra looked away quickly, feigned an avid interest in her wall.

They continued working, and the silence strung between them amplified every other sound: Christian’s saw dragging back and forth; the pitter-patter of birds on the roof tiles; the faint noise of running water somewhere. Ordinarily, Cassandra was happy to work without speaking, she was used to being alone, preferred it for the most part.

Only this wasn’t being alone, and the longer they pretended it was, the more static-filled the silence grew.

Finally she could stand it no longer. ‘There’s a wall behind here,’

she said, voice loud and somewhat more strident than she’d intended.

‘I found it earlier.’

Christian looked up from his stack of wood. Stared at her as if she’d just started quoting from the periodic table.

‘I don’t know what’s on the other side though,’ she rushed on.

‘I can’t find a gate and the plan my grandmother got with the sale gives no indication. I know there’s a heap of creepers and branches, but I thought you might be able to see from up there.’

Christian glanced down at his hands, seemed about to speak.

A thought popped into Cassandra’s mind: he has nice hands. She pushed it right back where it came from. ‘Can you see what’s over the wall?’

He pressed his lips together, dusted his hands on his jeans and nodded a little.

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‘You can?’ This she hadn’t really expected. ‘What is it? Can you tell me?’

‘I can do better than that,’ he said, holding on to the eave so that he could jump down from the roof. ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

c

The hole was very small, right at the bottom of the wall, and concealed so that Cassandra might have searched for a year and not found it.

Christian was on his hands and knees, pulling the undergrowth aside.

‘Ladies first,’ he said, sitting back.

Cassandra looked at him. ‘I thought maybe there’d be a gate.’

‘You find one, I’ll follow you through it.’

‘You want me to . . .’ She glanced at the hole. ‘I don’t know if I can, if I even know how to . . .’

‘On your stomach. It’s not as tight as it looks.’

Of this Cassandra had some doubt. It looked very tight. All the same, the day’s fruitless searching had only strengthened her resolve: she needed to know what lay on the other side. She hopped down so she was eye level with the hole and looked sidelong at Christian. ‘Are you sure this is safe? You’ve done it before?’

‘At least a hundred times.’ He scratched his neck. ‘Sure, I was younger and smaller but . . .’ His lips twitched sideways. ‘I’m joking.

I’m sorry, you’ll be fine.’

There was some relief once her head was free and she realised she wasn’t going to perish with her neck jammed beneath a brick wall. Not on the way in, at any rate. She shimmied the rest of her body through, as fast as possible, and stood up. Dusted her hands together and looked around, wide-eyed.

It was a garden, a walled garden. Overgrown but with beautiful bones visible still. Someone had cared for this garden once. The remains of two paths snaked back and forth, intertwined like the lacing on an Irish dancing shoe. Fruit trees had been espaliered around the sides, and wires zigzagged from the top of one wall to the top of another.

Hungry wisteria tendrils had woven themselves around to form a sort of canopy.

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Against the southern wall, an ancient and knobbled tree was growing. Cassandra went closer. It was the apple tree, she realised, the one whose bough had reached over the wall. She lifted her hand to touch one of the golden fruit. The tree was about five metres high and shaped like the Japanese bonsai plant Nell had given Cassandra for her twelfth birthday. Over the decades, the short trunk had adopted a sideways angle, and someone had gone to the effort of propping a crutch beneath a large limb to absorb some of its weight. A scorch mark midway along suggested a lightning strike many years before. Cassandra reached out to run her fingers along the burn.

‘It’s magical, isn’t it, this place?’ Christian was standing in the centre of the garden by a rusted iron bench. ‘Even when I was a kid I could feel that.’

‘You used to come here?’

‘All the time. It felt like my secret spot. No one else knew about it.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, hardly anyone else.’

Beyond Christian, on the other side of the garden, Cassandra noticed something glinting against the creeper-covered wall. She went closer. It was metal, shining in the sun. A door. Rope-like tendrils draped across it, a giant web blocking the entrance to the spider’s lair.

Or exit, as the case may be.

Christian joined her and together they pulled some of the brambles loose. There was a brass handle turned black with time. Cassandra gave it a rattle. The door was locked.

‘I wonder where it goes.’

‘There’s a maze on the other side that leads all the way through the estate,’ said Christian. ‘It ends over near the hotel. Michael’s been working to restore it these past months.’

The maze, of course. She had known that. Where had Cassandra read about the maze? Was it Nell’s notebook? One of the tourist brochures at the hotel?

A quivering dragonfly hovered near before darting away, and they turned back towards the centre of the garden.

‘Why did your grandmother buy the cottage?’ said Christian, brushing a fallen leaf from his shoulder.

‘She was born around here.’

‘In the village?’

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Cassandra hesitated, wondering how much she should tell. ‘The estate, actually. Blackhurst. She didn’t know until her adoptive father died, when she was in her sixties. She found out her parents were Rose and Nathaniel Walker. He was—’

‘An artist, I know.’ Christian picked up a small stick from the ground. ‘I’ve got a book with his illustrations in it, a book of fairytales.’

‘Magical Tales for Girls and Boys?’

‘Yeah.’ He looked at her, surprised.

‘I have a copy too.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘There weren’t many printed, you know, not by today’s standards. Did you know Eliza Makepeace used to live right here in the cottage?’

Cassandra shook her head. ‘I knew she grew up on the estate . . .’

‘Most of her stories were written here in this garden.’

‘You know a lot about her.’

‘I’ve been re-reading the fairytales lately. I used to love them when I was a kid, ever since I found an old copy in the local charity shop.