The Forgotten Garden (54 page)

Nell stopped by the rocking chair. A little shrine in the corner caught her attention. She went closer. A half-empty drink bottle, a packet of digestive biscuits, a comic called Whizzer and Chips. They had certainly not been there when Nell made her purchasing inspection, which could only mean that someone had been in her cottage since.

Nell flicked through the comic book: a young someone, by the looks.

A moist breeze brushed Nell’s face and she looked to the back of the kitchen. The window was missing a pane of glass from one of its four square frames. Making a mental note to bring plastic and tape to mask it before she left Tregenna, Nell peered through. A huge hedge ran parallel to the house, blunt and even, almost like a wall. A flash of colour and Nell thought she saw movement at the corner of her vision.

When she looked again there was nothing. A bird probably, or a squirrel.

Nell had noticed on the map sent to her by the solicitor that the property extended quite a way beyond the house. That meant, presumably, that whatever lay on the other side of the tall, thick hedge was hers too. She decided to take a look.

The path that wound around the side of the house was narrow, and dim from lack of sun. Nell went cautiously, pushing long weeds aside as she went. At the back of the cottage, brambles had grown between the house and the hedge and Nell had to pick her way through the tangle.

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Midway along, she sensed movement again, right by her. Nell looked at the ground. A pair of shoe-clad feet and skinny legs protruded from beneath the wall. Either the wall had fallen from the sky, à la Wizard of Oz, and crushed some poor unfortunate Cornish dwarf, or she had found the small person who’d been trespassing in her cottage.

Nell grabbed hold of the skinny ankle. The legs froze. ‘Come on then,’ she said. ‘Out with you.’

Another moment of stillness, then the legs began scrambling backwards. The boy they were attached to looked to be about ten, though Nell had never been particularly good at guessing the ages of children. He was a scrap of a lad with sandy brown hair and knobbly knees. Bruises up and down his bony shins.

‘I presume you’re the young monkey who’s been making free with my cottage?’

The boy blinked dark brown eyes at Nell before looking to the ground at her feet.

‘What’s your name then? Out with it.’

‘Christian.’

So soft she almost hadn’t heard.

‘Christian who?’

‘Christian Blake. Only I wasn’t doing any harm. My dad works over at the big estate, and sometimes I just like to come and visit the walled—your walled garden.’

Nell glanced at the bramble-covered wall. ‘So that’s a garden behind there, is it? I had wondered.’ She looked back at the boy. ‘And tell me, Christian, does your mother know where you are?’

The boy’s shoulders slumped. ‘I haven’t got a mother.’

Nell’s eyebrows raised.

‘She went away to hospital in the summer, and then . . .’

The heat of Nell’s ill temper cooled on a sigh. ‘I see. Well. And what are you, nine? Ten?’

‘Nearly eleven.’ Healthy indignation sent his hands into his pockets, his elbows out to the side.

‘Of course, I see that now. I have a granddaughter about your age.’

‘Does she like gardens too?’

Nell blinked at him. ‘I’m not sure.’

Christian tilted his head to the side, frowned at her answer.

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‘That is, I imagine she does.’ Nell found herself skirting apology.

Chastised herself. She needn’t feel contrite just because she didn’t know Lesley’s daughter’s mind. ‘I don’t see her often.’

‘Does she live a long way from you?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘Then why don’t you see her much?’

Nell eyed the boy, trying to decide whether his impertinence was charming or not. ‘Sometimes that’s just the way things are.’

By the look on the boy’s face, this explanation sounded as weak to him as it did to her. But there were some things that didn’t need explanation, especially to strange little boys trespassing on one’s property.

Nell reminded herself that the little scamp was newly motherless.

There were none immune to poor judgement when their certainties had been pulled from under them, Nell knew that as well as anyone.

Life could be so bloody cruel. Why should this boy grow up motherless?

Why should some poor woman go to an early grave, leaving her lad to make his way in the world without her? Looking at the boy’s skinny limbs, Nell felt something inside her tighten. Her voice was gruff but kind: ‘What is it you said you were doing in my garden anyway?’

‘I wasn’t doing any harm, honest. I just like to sit inside.’

‘And this is how you get in? Under the bricks?’

He nodded.

Nell eyed the hole. ‘I don’t think I’ll fit beneath there. Where’s the gate?’

‘There isn’t one. At least not on this wall.’

Nell frowned. ‘I have a garden with no entrance?’

He nodded again. ‘There used to be one, you can see from inside where it was patched up.’

‘Why would anyone patch up the entrance?’

The boy shrugged and Nell made an addition to her mental list of necessary improvements. ‘Perhaps you can tell me what I’m missing then?’ she said. ‘Seeing as I’m not going to be able to take a look myself.

What it is that brings you all the way up here?’

‘It’s my favourite place in the whole world.’ Christian blinked his earnest brown eyes. ‘I like to sit inside and talk to my mum. She loved gardens, she loved your walled garden specially. She’s the one who 389

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showed me how to get inside, we were going to try and fix it up. Then she got sick.’

Nell pressed her lips together. ‘I’m going home to Australia in a couple of days but I’ll be back in a month or two. I wonder whether you might not keep an eye on my garden for me, Christian?’

He nodded gravely. ‘I can do that.’

‘I’ll be glad to know I’ve left it in capable hands.’

Christian stood tall. ‘And when you come back, I’ll help you fix it all up. Like my dad does over at the hotel.’

Nell smiled. ‘I might well hold you to that. I don’t accept help from just anyone, but I have a feeling that in this case you’re the right man for the job.’

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42

Blackhurst Manor, 1913

Blackhurst Manor, Cornwall, 1913

Rose gathered the shawl around her shoulders and crossed her arms against a chill that wouldn’t be warmed away. When she’d decided to seek sun in the garden, Eliza had been the last person she’d expected to see. As Rose had sat making notes in her scrapbook, looking up occasionally to see Ivory fluttering and swooping around the flowerbeds, there’d been no indication that the day’s peace was to be so horridly shattered. Some peculiar sense had made her glance towards the maze gates, and there had been the sight that chilled Rose’s blood. How had Eliza known that she would find Rose and Ivory alone in the garden?

Had she been watching, waiting for just such a time when she might catch Rose off guard? And why now? Why after three years had she materialised today? Like a nightmare spectre crossing the lawn, wretched parcel in her hand.

Rose glanced sideways. There it sat, masquerading as a harmless thing. But it wasn’t. Rose knew that. She didn’t need to look beneath the brown paper wrapping to know what lurked within, an object representing a place, a time, a union Rose wanted so much to forget.

She gathered her skirts and smoothed them against her thigh, trying to create some distance between herself and it.

A flock of starlings took flight and Rose looked towards the kidney lawn. Mamma was coming towards her, the new hound, Helmsley, stalking close to her dark skirts. A wash of relief left Rose light-headed.

Mamma was an anchor back to the present, to a safe world where everything was as it should be. As Adeline drew near, Rose could contain her anxiety no longer. ‘Oh Mamma,’ she said quickly. ‘She was here, Eliza was here.’

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‘I saw it all from the window. What did she say? Did the child hear anything she should not?’

Rose ran the encounter back through her mind, but worry had conspired with fear to wrinkle the edges of her memory and she could no longer tease loose the precise words that had been spoken. She shook her head miserably. ‘I don’t know.’

Adeline glanced at the parcel, then lifted it from the bench, cautiously, as if it were hot to the touch.

‘Don’t open it, Mamma, please. I cannot bear to see inside.’ Rose’s voice was almost a whisper.

‘Is it . . . ?’

‘I’m quite sure it is.’ Rose pressed cold fingers against her cheek. ‘She said it was for Ivory.’ Rose looked at her mother and a fresh wave of panic surged beneath her skin. ‘Why would she bring it, Mamma? Why?’

Mamma’s lips tightened.

‘What did she mean by it?’

‘I believe the time has come that you must put some distance between yourself and your cousin.’ Adeline sat beside Rose, and laid the parcel across her lap.

‘Distance, Mamma?’ Rose’s cheeks cooled, her voice dropped to a terrified whisper. ‘You don’t think she might . . . might come again?’

‘She has proven today that she holds no respect for the rules that were laid out.’

‘But Mamma, surely you don’t think—’

‘I think only that I wish for your continued wellbeing.’ As Rose’s daughter fluttered beneath the dappled light, Adeline leaned close, so close that Rose felt a smooth upper lip against her ear. ‘We must remember, my darling,’ she whispered, ‘that a secret is never safe when it is known by others.’

Rose nodded slightly. Mamma was right of course. It had been folly to think all might continue indefinitely.

Adeline stood and rolled her wrist, motioning Helmsley to heel.

‘Thomas is about to serve luncheon. Don’t be long. You needn’t compound the day’s unpleasantness by catching a chill.’ She returned the parcel to the seat and lowered her voice. ‘And have Nathaniel dispose of that.’

c

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Racing footsteps every which way overhead and Adeline winced. It mattered not how many times she delivered the well-worn diatribe on young ladies and fitting behaviour, the child would not be taught. It was to be expected, of course: no matter the pretty wrapping in which Rose clad her, the girl was common born, there was no escaping that.

Cheeks that glowed too pink, laughter that echoed along the halls, curls that escaped her ribbons, she was as unlike Rose as was possible.

And yet, Rose adored the girl. Thus had Adeline accepted her, schooled herself to smile at the child, meet her impertinent gaze, tolerate her noise. What wouldn’t Adeline do for Rose, what hadn’t she already done? But Adeline understood, too, that it was her duty to maintain a stern and ready hand, for the child would need firm guidance if she were to escape the pitfalls of her birth.

The circle of those who knew the truth was small and so must it remain: to allow otherwise was to invite the hideous spectre of scandal. It was imperative therefore that Mary and Eliza be properly managed.

Adeline had worried at first that Rose might not understand, that the innocent girl might imagine all could continue as before. But on that count she had been pleasantly surprised. The moment Ivory was placed in Rose’s arms, a change had come over her: she was seized by a fierce maternal desire to protect her child. Rose had agreed with Adeline that certainly Mary and Eliza must stay away: sufficient distance to preclude a daily presence, yet close enough to remain within the sphere of Adeline’s influence. Only in that way could it be ensured that neither divulged what they knew about the child at Blackhurst Manor.

Adeline had assisted Mary in the purchase of a little house in Polperro, and Eliza had been permitted tenure at the cottage. Although a part of Adeline lamented the permanent proximity to Eliza, it was the lesser of two evils, and Rose’s happiness was paramount.

Dear Rose. She’d looked so pale, sitting alone on the garden seat.

Had barely touched her luncheon afterwards, merely moved it about the plate, this way and that. She was resting now, warding off the return of a migraine that had haunted her all week.

Adeline opened the fist which had clenched itself in her lap, and flexed her fingers thoughtfully. She had made conditions perfectly clear when all was arranged: neither girl was to set foot again on the Blackhurst estate. The stipulation was simple, and to this date each had 393

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complied. The wings of security had closed over the secret and life at Blackhurst had adopted a peaceful rhythm.

What then was Eliza thinking, breaking her word now?

c

In the end, Nathaniel waited until Rose was in bed resting her nerves and Adeline was out visiting. That way, he reasoned, neither need ever learn the method by which he ensured Eliza’s continued absence. Ever since he’d heard what had happened, Nathaniel had been mulling over how best to set things right. To see his wife in such a state was a chilling reminder that despite the distance they had travelled, the blessed reversal after Ivory was born, the other Rose, worry-worn, tense, erratic, was never far beneath the surface. He had known instantly that he must speak with Eliza. Find a way to make her understand that she could never come again.

Some time had passed since his last venture through, and he’d forgotten how dark it was within the bramble walls, how briefly the sun’s rays were permitted entry. He went carefully, trying to remember which turns to make. A far cry from the time, four years ago, when he had torn hotly through the maze in pursuit of his sketches. He’d arrived at the cottage, blood pulsing, shoulders heaving from the unusual exertion, and had demanded the sketches’ return. They were his, he’d said, they were important to him, he needed them. And then, when he’d run out of things to say, he’d stood, catching his breath, waiting for Eliza to respond. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—a confession, an apology, a handover of the sketches, all of these things perhaps—but she had given none. Rather she’d surprised him. After a moment spent regarding him in the way one might a minor curiosity, she’d blinked those pale, changeable eyes that he itched to draw, and asked whether he would care to contribute illustrations for a book of fairytales—