The Forgotten Garden Part 24

Ca.s.sandra glanced at her watch. Her appointment with the gardener was drawing near but she was curious about Julia's strength of conviction, the way she spoke of Eliza and Rose as one might of dear friends. She sat in the proffered chair while Julia mouthed "Tea?" in Samantha's glazed direction.

As Samantha disappeared, Julia continued, "When we bought Blackhurst it was in a complete mess. We'd always dreamed of running a place like this but the reality resembled something out of a nightmare. You have no idea how much can go wrong in a house this size. It took us three years to make any headway at all. We worked solidly, nearly lost our marriage in the process. Nothing like rising damp and endless holes in the roof to drive a couple apart."

Ca.s.sandra smiled. "I can imagine."

"It's sad, really. The house was lived in and loved by the one family for so long, but in the twentieth century, particularly after the First War, it was virtually abandoned. Rooms were boarded up, fireplaces sealed, not to mention the damage done by the army when they were here in the 1940s.

"We sank every penny we had into the house. I was a writer way back when, a series of romantic novels in the 1960s. Not exactly Jackie Collins, but I did all right. My husband was in banking and we were confident we had enough to get this place up and running." She laughed. "Huge underestimation. Huge Huge. By our third Christmas, we'd almost run out of money and had little to show for it other than a marriage hanging by a few threads. We'd already sold most of the smaller parts of the estate and by Christmas Eve 1974 we were just about ready to throw in the towel, head back to London with our tails between our legs."

Samantha appeared with a heavily loaded tray, jolted it onto the table, then hesitated before reaching for the teapot handle.

"I can pour it myself, Sam," said Julia, waving her away with a laugh. "I'm not the queen. Well, not yet." She winked at Ca.s.sandra. "Sugar?"

"Please."

Julia handed a cup of tea to Ca.s.sandra, took a sip of her own, then resumed her story. "It was freezing cold that Christmas Eve. A storm had blown in off the sea and was terrorizing the headland. We'd lost power, our turkey was going off in a warm fridge and we couldn't remember where we'd put the new batch of candles. We were hunting in one of the upstairs rooms when a flash of lightning bathed the room in light and the two of us noticed the wall." She rubbed her lips together in antic.i.p.ation of her own punch line. "In the wall, there was a hole."

"Like a mouse hole?"

"No, a square hole."

Ca.s.sandra frowned uncertainly.

"A little cavity in the stone," said Julia. "The sort of thing I dreamed of as a kid whenever my brother found my diaries. It had been hidden behind a tapestry that the painter pulled down earlier in the week." She took a large slurp of tea before continuing. "I know it sounds silly, but finding that hidey-hole was like a good-luck charm. Almost like the house itself was saying, 'All right, you've been here long enough with your banging and clanging. You've proved your intentions are true, so you can stay.' And I tell you, from that night onwards things seemed easier somehow. Started to go right more often than they went wrong. Your grandma turned up for one thing, eager to buy Cliff Cottage, a fellow named Bobby Blake began bringing the garden back to life and a couple of coach companies started busing tourists in for afternoon teas."

She was smiling at the memory and Ca.s.sandra almost felt bad for interrupting. "But what was it you found? What was in the hidey-hole?"

Julia blinked at her.

"Was it something belonging to Rose?"

"Yes," said Julia, swallowing an excited smile. "Yes, it was. Tied up with a ribbon was a collection of sc.r.a.pbooks. One for each year from 1900 up until 1913."

"Sc.r.a.pbooks?"

"Plenty of young ladies used to keep them back then. It was a hobby wholeheartedly approved of by the powers that were-one of the few! A form of self-expression in which a young lady might be permitted indulgence without fears that she'd lost her soul to the Devil." She smiled fondly. "Oh, Rose's sc.r.a.pbooks are no different from any other you might find in museums or attics all across the country-they're full of pieces of fabric, sketches, pictures, invitations, little anecdotes-but when I found them I so identified with this young woman from almost a century before, her hopes and dreams and disappointments, that I've had a soft spot for her ever since. I think of her as an angel, watching over us."

"Are the sc.r.a.pbooks still here?"

A guilty nod. "I know I should donate them to a museum or to one of those local history mobs, but I'm rather superst.i.tious and can't bear to part with them. For a little while I put them on display in the lounge, in one of the gla.s.s cabinets, but every time I caught a glimpse I felt a wave of shame, as if I'd taken something private and made it public. I have them stored in a box in my room now, for want of somewhere better."

"I'd love to see them."

"Of course you would, my dear. And so you shall." Julia smiled brilliantly at Ca.s.sandra. "I'm expecting a group booking in the next half-hour and Robyn's got the rest of my week st.i.tched up with festival arrangements. Can we say dinner, Friday night, up in my apartment? Rick will be away in London so we'll have a real girls" night. Pore over Rose's sc.r.a.pbooks and have ourselves a good old weep. How does that sound?"

"Great," said Ca.s.sandra, smiling a little uncertainly. It was the first time anyone had ever invited her anywhere for a cry.

THIRTY.

BLACKHURST M MANOR, 1907.

CAREFUL not to alter her position on the sofa and incur the portrait artist's wrath, Rose allowed her gaze to drop so she could look upon the most recent page of her sc.r.a.pbook. She'd been working on it all week, whenever Mr. Sargent had allowed them a rest from posing. There was a piece of the pale pink satin from which her birthday dress had been sewn, a ribbon from her hair, and at the bottom, in her best hand, she'd written out the lines from a poem by Lord Tennyson: not to alter her position on the sofa and incur the portrait artist's wrath, Rose allowed her gaze to drop so she could look upon the most recent page of her sc.r.a.pbook. She'd been working on it all week, whenever Mr. Sargent had allowed them a rest from posing. There was a piece of the pale pink satin from which her birthday dress had been sewn, a ribbon from her hair, and at the bottom, in her best hand, she'd written out the lines from a poem by Lord Tennyson: But who hath seen her wave her hand?Or at the cas.e.m.e.nt seen her stand?Or is she known in all the land,The Lady of Shalott?

How Rose identified with the Lady of Shalott! Cursed to spend eternity in her chamber, forced always to experience the world at one remove. For hadn't she, Rose, spent most of her life similarly interred?

But not anymore. Rose had made a decision: no longer would she be shackled by the morbid prognoses of Dr. Matthews, the hovering concern of Mamma. Though still delicate, Rose had learned that frailty begot frailty, that nothing caused light-headedness so surely as day after day of stifling confinement. She was going to open windows when she was hot-she might catch a chill, but then again she might not. She was going to live with every expectation of marrying, having children, growing old. And at long last, on the occasion of her eighteenth birthday, Rose was to look down on Camelot. Better than that, walk through Camelot. For after years of pleading, Mamma had finally consented: today, for the first time, Rose was to accompany Eliza to the Blackhurst cove.

Ever since she'd arrived seven years before, Eliza had been bringing back tales from the cove. When Rose was lying in her warm, dark room, breathing the stale air of her latest illness, Eliza would burst through the door so that Rose could almost smell the sea on her skin. She would climb in beside Rose and put a sh.e.l.l, or a powdery cuttlefish, or a little piece of s.h.i.+ngle in her hand, and then she would begin her story. And in her mind, Rose would see the blue sea, feel the warm breeze in her hair, the hot sand beneath her feet.

Some of the tales Eliza invented, some she learned elsewhere. Mary, the maid, had brothers who were fishermen, and Rose suspected she enjoyed chatting when she should be working. Not to Rose, of course, but Eliza was different. All the servants treated Eliza differently. Quite improperly, almost as if they fancied themselves her friends.

Just lately Rose had begun to suspect that Eliza was venturing beyond the estate, had maybe even spoken with a villager or two, for her tales had taken on a new edge. They were rich with the specifics of boats and sailing, mermaids and treasures, adventures across the sea, told in colorful language that Rose secretly savored; and there was a more expansive look in their teller's eyes, as if she'd tasted the wicked things of which she spoke.

One thing was certain, Mamma would be livid to learn that Eliza had been into the village, mixed with common folk. It riled Mamma enough that Eliza spoke with the servants-for that fact alone Rose was able to bear Eliza's friends.h.i.+p with Mary. If Mamma were to ask Eliza where she went, certainly Eliza wouldn't lie, though what Mamma could do Rose wasn't sure. In all the years of trying, Mamma had been unable to find a punishment that deterred Eliza.

The threat of being considered improper meant nothing to Eliza. Being sent to the cupboard beneath the stairs only gave her time and quiet to invent more stories. Denying her new dresses-punishment indeed for Rose-garnered nary a sigh: Eliza was more than happy to wear Rose's castoffs. When it came to punishments, she was like the heroine from one of her own stories, protected by a fairy charm.

Watching Mamma's thwarted attempts to discipline Eliza gave Rose illicit pleasure. Each bid was met with a blank blue-eyed blink, a carefree shrug and an unaffected, "Yes, Aunt." As if Eliza genuinely hadn't realized her behavior might cause offense. The shrug in particular drove Mamma to fury. She had long ago released Rose from any expectation that she might shape Eliza into a proper young lady, was pleased enough that Rose had succeeded in convincing Eliza to dress appropriately. (Rose had accepted Mamma's praise and silenced the little voice whispering that Eliza had shed the tatty breeches only when she no longer fitted them.) There was something broken inside Eliza, Mamma said, like a piece of mirror in a telescope that prevented it from functioning properly. Prevented her from feeling proper shame.

As if she read Rose's thoughts, Eliza s.h.i.+fted beside her on the sofa. They had been sitting still for almost an hour and resistance was emanating from Eliza's body. Numerous times Mr. Sargent had needed to remind her to stop frowning, to hold a position, while he amended part of his painting. Rose had heard him telling Mamma the day before that he'd have been finished already, only the girl with hair afire refused to sit still long enough for him to capture her expression.

Mamma had s.h.i.+vered distastefully when he said that. She would have preferred that Rose were Mr. Sargent's sole subject, but Rose had put her foot down. Eliza was her cousin, her only friend, of course she must be in the portrait. And then Rose had coughed a little, eyeing Mamma from beneath her lashes, and the matter had been closed.

And although the small icy part of Rose savored Mamma's displeasure, her insistence on Eliza's inclusion had been heartfelt. Rose had never had a friend before Eliza. The opportunity had never presented itself, and even if it had, what use did a girl not long for life have for friends? Like most children whom circ.u.mstance has accustomed to suffering, Rose had found she shared little in common with other girls her age. She had no interest in rolling hoops or tidying dolls' houses, and became quickly bored when faced with wearying conversations as to her favorite color, number or song.

But Cousin Eliza was not like other little girls. Rose had known that on the first day they met. Eliza had a way of seeing the world that was frequently surprising, of doing things that were completely unexpected. Things that Mamma couldn't bear.

The best thing about Eliza, though, even better than her ability to rile Mamma, was her storytelling. She knew so many wonderful tales the likes of which Rose had never heard. Frightening stories that made Rose's skin p.r.i.c.kle and her feet perspire. About the Other Cousin, and the London river, and a wicked Bad Man with a glinting knife. And of course her tale about the black s.h.i.+p that haunted the Blackhurst cove. Even though Rose knew it to be another of Eliza's fictions, she loved to hear the story told. The phantom s.h.i.+p that appeared on the horizon, the s.h.i.+p that Eliza claimed to have seen and had spent many a summer's day in the cove hoping to see again.

The one thing Rose had never been able to get Eliza to tell tales about was her brother, Sammy. She'd let slip his name only once but had clammed up immediately when Rose probed further. It was Mamma who informed Rose that Eliza had been a twin, had once had a brother cut from the same cloth, a boy who had died in a tragic way.

Over the years, when she was lying alone in bed, Rose had liked to imagine his death, this little boy whose loss had done the impossible: robbed Eliza the storyteller of words. "Sammy's Death" had replaced "Georgiana's Escape" as Rose's daydream of choice. She'd imagined him drowning, she'd imagined him falling and she'd imagined him wasting away, the poor little boy who had come before her in Eliza's affections.

"Sit still," said Mr. Sargent, pointing his paintbrush in Eliza's direction. "Stop wriggling. You're worse than Lady Asquith's corgi."

Rose blinked, was careful not to let her expression change when she realized that Father had entered the room. He was standing behind Mr. Sargent's easel, watching intently as the artist worked. Frowning and tilting his head the better to follow the brushstrokes. Rose was surprised; she had never imagined her father had an interest in the fine arts. The only thing for which she knew him to bear fondness was photography, but even that he managed to make dull. Never photographing people, only bugs and plants and bricks. Yet here he was, transfixed by his daughter's portrait. Rose sat a little taller.

Only twice in her childhood had Rose had opportunity to observe her father at close quarters. The first instance was when she swallowed the thimble and Father had been called upon to take the photograph for Dr. Matthews. The second had not been so felicitous.

She'd been hiding. Dr. Matthews was expected and the nine-year-old Rose had taken it into her head she didn't feel like seeing him. She'd found the one place Mamma would never think to seek her: Father's darkroom.

There was a cavity beneath the big desk and Rose had taken a pillow to keep herself comfortable. And for the most part she was: if only the room hadn't had such a ghastly smell, like the cleaning lotions the servants used during the spring clean.

She had been there for fifteen minutes or so when the door to the room opened. A thin beam of light pa.s.sed through a tiny hole in the center of a timber knot at the back of the desk. Rose held her breath and pressed her eye against the hole, dreading the sight of Mamma and Dr. Matthews coming for her.

But it wasn't Mamma or the doctor holding the door open, it was Father, dressed in his long black traveling cloak.

Rose's throat constricted. Without ever having been properly told, she knew that the threshold to Father's darkroom was one she should not cross.

Father stood for a moment, silhouetted black against the bright outside. Then in he came, peeling off his coat and discarding it on an armchair just as Thomas appeared, mortification paling his cheeks.

"Your Lords.h.i.+p," Thomas said, catching his breath, "we weren't expecting you until next-"

"My plans were changed."

"Cook is preparing luncheon, my lord," said Thomas, lighting the gas lamps on the wall. "I'll lay for two and tell Lady Mountrachet that you've returned."

"No."

The suddenness with which this command was issued caused Rose's breath to catch.

Thomas turned abruptly towards Father and the match between his gloved fingers was extinguished, victim of the sudden chill.

"No," said Father again. "The journey was long, Thomas. I need to rest."

"A tray, sir?"

"And a decanter of sherry."

Thomas nodded, then disappeared through the door, footsteps fading down the hall.

Rose could hear a thumping. She pressed her ear against the desk, wondering whether something in the drawer, some mysterious item belonging to Father, was ticking. Then she realized it was her own heart, pounding a warning against her chest. Jumping for its life.

But there was no escape. Not while Father sat in his armchair, blocking the door.

And so Rose, too, continued to sit, knees pulled tight against the traitorous heart which threatened to give her away.

It was the only time she could remember being alone with Father. She noticed how his presence filled the room so that a s.p.a.ce, previously benign, now seemed charged with emotions and feelings Rose didn't understand.

Dull footsteps on the rug, then a heavy masculine exhalation that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

"Where are you?" Father said softly, then again from between clenched teeth. "Where are you?"

Rose caught her breath and kept it prisoner behind tight lips. Was he speaking to her? Had her all-knowing father somehow divined that she was hidden where she should not be?

A sigh from Father-sorrow? love? weariness?-and then "Poupee." "Poupee." So softly, so quietly, a broken word from a broken man. Rose had been learning French from Miss Tranton, and she knew what So softly, so quietly, a broken word from a broken man. Rose had been learning French from Miss Tranton, and she knew what poupee poupee meant-little baby doll. meant-little baby doll. "Poupee," "Poupee," Father said again. "Where are you, my Georgiana?" Father said again. "Where are you, my Georgiana?"

Rose released her breath. Relieved that he had not discerned her presence, aggrieved that such soft tones did not describe her name.

And, as she pressed her cheek against the desk, Rose promised herself that one day someone would speak her name that way...

"Put your hand down!" Mr. Sargent was exasperated now. "If you continue to move it, I'll paint you with three and that's how you'll be remembered evermore."

Eliza heaved a sigh, knotted her hands behind her back.

Rose's eyes were glazed from holding the one position and she blinked a few times. Father had left the room now, but his presence lingered, the same unhappy feeling that always trailed after him.

Rose let her gaze rest once more on her sc.r.a.pbook. The fabric was such a pretty shade of pink, one she knew would suit her dark hair well.

Throughout her years of sickness, there was only one thing Rose had ever wanted and that was to grow up. To escape the bounds of childhood and live, as Milly Theale had put it so perfectly in Rose's favorite book, however briefly and brokenly. She longed to fall in love, to marry, to have children. To leave Blackhurst and begin a life all her own. Away from this house, away from this sofa that Mamma insisted she recline upon even when she felt quite well. "Rose's sofa," Mamma called it. "Put a new throw rug on Rose's sofa. Something that will pick up the paleness of her skin, make her hair look s.h.i.+nier."

And the day of her escape was drawing near, Rose knew it. At long last Mamma had agreed that Rose was well enough to meet a suitor. Over the past few months, Mamma had arranged luncheons with a procession of eligible young (and not so young!) men. They'd all been fools-Eliza had entertained Rose for hours after each visit with her reenactments and impersonations-but it was good practice. For the perfect gentleman was out there somewhere, waiting for her. He would be nothing like Father, he would be an artist, with an artist's sense of beauty and possibility, who didn't care two whits about bricks and bugs. Who was open and easy to read, whose pa.s.sions and dreams brought light to his eyes. And he would love her, and only her.

Beside her, Eliza huffed impatiently. "Really, Mr. Sargent," she said, "I should paint myself faster."

Her husband would be like Eliza, Rose realized, a smile pulling at her placid expression. The gentleman she sought was the male incarnation of her cousin.

AND FINALLY their captor set them free. Tennyson was right, to rust unburnished was inconceivably dull. Eliza hurried out of the ridiculous dress Aunt Adeline had insisted upon for the portrait. It was one of Rose's from a season ago-lace that itched, satin that clung, and a shade of red that made Eliza feel like strawberry pulp. Such a pointless waste of time, losing a morning to a grumpy old man intent on capturing their images so that they, too, could be hung, lonely and static, upon some chilly wall. their captor set them free. Tennyson was right, to rust unburnished was inconceivably dull. Eliza hurried out of the ridiculous dress Aunt Adeline had insisted upon for the portrait. It was one of Rose's from a season ago-lace that itched, satin that clung, and a shade of red that made Eliza feel like strawberry pulp. Such a pointless waste of time, losing a morning to a grumpy old man intent on capturing their images so that they, too, could be hung, lonely and static, upon some chilly wall.

Eliza hopped down on hands and knees and peered beneath her bed. Lifted the corner of the floorboard she'd loosened long ago. She reached her hand inside and pulled out the story, "The Changeling." Ran her hand across the black-and-white cover, felt the ripples of her own penmans.h.i.+p beneath her fingertips.

It was Davies who had suggested she put her tales to paper. She'd been helping him plant new roses when a grey and white bird with a striped tail had flown to a low bough nearby.

"Cuckoo," said Davies. "Winters in Africa but returns here in the spring."

"I wish I were a bird," said Eliza. "Then I should simply run towards the cliff top and glide over the edge. All the way to Africa, or India. Or Australia."

"Australia?"

It was the destination that currently held her imagination in its grip. Mary's eldest brother, Patrick, had emigrated recently with his young family to a place called Maryborough, where his aunt Eleanor had settled some years before. Despite this family connection, Mary liked to think the name had also swayed his choice, and could often be probed for details of the exotic land, floating in a far-off ocean on the other side of the globe. Eliza had found Australia on the schoolroom map, a strange, giant continent in the Southern Ocean with two ears, one pointed, one broken.

"I know a fellow went to Australia," said Davies, pausing a minute in his planting. "Got himself a farm of a thousand acres and couldn't get a thing to grow."

Eliza bit her lip and tasted excitement. This extremism was in line with her own impression of the place. "They've got a giant sort of rabbit there, Mary says. Kangaroos, they call them. Feet as long as a grown man's leg!"

"I don't know what you'd do with yourself in a place like that, Miss Eliza. Nor Africa nor India, neither."

Eliza knew exactly what she'd do. "I'm going to collect stories. Ancient stories that no one here has heard before. I'll be just like the Brothers Grimm I was telling you about."

Davies frowned. "Why you'd want to be like your pair of grim old German fellows is beyond me. You should be writing down your own stories, not those belonging to others."

And so she had. She'd begun by writing a story for Rose, a birthday gift, a fairy story about a princess who was turned by magic into a bird. It was the first story she'd ever trapped on paper, and to see her thoughts and ideas turned concrete was curious. It made her skin seem unusually sensitive, strangely exposed and vulnerable. Breezes were cooler, the sun warmer. She couldn't decide whether the sensation was one she liked or loathed.

But Rose had always loved Eliza's stories and Eliza had no greater gift to give, thus was it the perfect choice. For in the years since Eliza had been plucked from her lonely London life and transplanted to the grand and mysterious Blackhurst, Rose had become a soul mate. She'd laughed and longed with Eliza, and gradually come to fill the s.p.a.ce where Sammy once had lodged, the dark empty hole belonging to all single twins. In return, there was nothing Eliza would not do or give or write for Rose.

The Changeling by Eliza Makepeace In the olden time, when magic lived and breathed, there was a Queen who longed for a child. She was a sad Queen, for the King was oft away, leaving her with little to do but dwell upon her own loneliness, and wonder how it was that her husband, whom she loved so well, could bear to be parted from her so long and so often.