“Sam, go and find Cassie, will you? I’ll look after Dora.”
The ponytailed man throws Dora another suspicious glance before disappearing wordlessly through a doorway.
“Don’t worry about him,” Felix continues. “He’s really very nice when you get to know him.”
Dora smiles and shuffles awkwardly, hoping her sister won’t be too long. Her nerves are jangling. She glances again at the portrait on the wall. The man really does look quite miserable.
“My great-grandfather,” says Felix, following her gaze. “The Reverend Robert Reveley-Jones. Quite the comedian, apparently.”
Dora smiles despite her nerves.
“God knows how he wooed my great-grandmother, Lady Isabella Swan, but thank goodness he did, because, well, here we are.” Felix throws his hands out wide to indicate the enormous manor surrounding them.
“It’s been awhile since you and Cassie caught up, hasn’t it?” Felix asks, staring at her with open interest.
It is Dora’s turn to be suspicious. She wonders if he’s Cassie’s boyfriend and how much he knows about their past. She blushes at the thought. “Yes,” she says, clearing her throat, “it has been awhile. A few years.”
“Well I know she’s looking forward to seeing you and showing you our little outfit here. The Secret Garden is pretty much all thanks to her, I have to say.”
“So you work here too then?” Dora asks, still unsure what exactly this “Secret Garden” is that he keeps going on about.
“Yes, I suppose I do. This is my house. I own the building and the estate. I’m your typical trustafarian I’m afraid: spoiled little rich kid living the dream off his inheritance. I just don’t have the crusty dreadlocks to prove it.”
“It’s a beautiful house,” Dora says.
“Yes, isn’t it? Of course it was far more beautiful in its heyday, but it suits us fine for now.”
As they are chatting, two women wander through the vestibule. They are carrying large boxes of vegetables in their arms and throw shy smiles at Dora and Felix as they walk by.
“Hello!” greets Felix, before turning back to Dora. “That’s Scarlett and Sophie, our resident cooks. You should stay for dinner, if you can. You’d be very welcome.”
“Thank you,” murmurs Dora, wishing Cassie would hurry up, “but I should probably get back.”
“No trouble, another time perhaps?”
Thankfully Samuel is back, sidling into the room with his hangdog expression. There is someone else behind him.
“Here she is,” says Felix.
“Hey, Dora, long time no see,” Cassie says, appearing from behind Sam. She moves across to Dora, a smile playing on her lips, and pulls her into a hug.
Dora submits herself to her sister’s arms, but she feels stiff and awkward in the embrace.
“So, what took you so long?” Cassie asks.
“Sorry,” says Dora, breaking free to try to get a better look at Cassie. “The M25 was a nightmare…terrible traffic.” The words are out of her mouth before Dora realizes Cassie isn’t referring to her lateness that morning, but rather her glaring absence over the past few years. She blushes and gazes around the empty hallway in panic. It’s going wrong already. She should never have come.
“God, lighten up will you? It was just a joke!” Cassie lets out a sharp bark of laughter, reminiscent of their father, and the sound of it takes Dora straight back to Clifftops, to sitting around in each other’s bedrooms, trawling through magazines for new hairstyles and clothes, gossiping about some new supermodel or another washed-up pop star. She relaxes slightly. She is still Cassie, no matter what has passed these last few years.
“Sorry, I’m a bit nervous,” Dora admits.
Felix clears his throat. “Well, we’ll leave you girls to it. It was nice to meet you, Dora. See you again, I hope.”
Dora nods. “Yes, thank you. Nice to meet you too.” She turns back to Cassie. “You look good,” she blurts. It’s true. She is not the pale recluse she has imagined on the drive down, but rather fit and tanned, as though she has just returned from a Mediterranean holiday or an expensive spa break. Dora is surprised to feel a tiny tinge of jealousy well up within her. Cassie has always been the beautiful one.
Her sister, however, doesn’t seem to register the compliment. “I thought we could go for a walk, if you fancy it?” she suggests. “You know, get out of the house and get some air, if you don’t mind?”
Dora nods. “That sounds great. I’d like to stretch my legs and it’s a beautiful day.”
“Good. Come on then.”
Dora follows Cassie out of the marbled entrance hall and back into the daylight. Her sister walks fast, her long legs striding ahead, before turning down a gravel path that runs round the side of the house. As Dora races to keep up she notes Cassie is taller than she remembers and she wears her hair pulled back into a single, thick plait that hangs down the center of her back and glints golden in the sunlight. She is dressed in a white T-shirt, sneakers, and an old pair of Levi’s, a simple outfit that makes Dora regret her own careful choice of summer dress and kitten heels. She’d thought she’d feel poised and in control but instead she feels fussy and formal by comparison.
They round the side of the building and emerge onto an ornate carved terrace that runs all the way along the back of the house. From its elevated position she can see across beautiful landscaped gardens flowing away down the hillside. Dora makes out the distant glint of water through the trees but instead of heading down toward the lawns, as she thinks they might, Cassie continues her gallop straight across the terrace and down a few more steps before passing through a discreet wooden door set into a brick wall. Dora has to bend slightly to fit through it and she follows her sister blindly, taking three or four more steps forward before stopping dead in her tracks. She shields her eyes from the fierce glare of the sun and looks around in wonder.
They have entered a secluded garden, hidden from the house by high stone walls. It is startling not so much for its unexpected appearance, but for the flood of color and scent that suddenly assaults Dora from every direction. The garden is in full bloom. Vivid jewel-like shades of ruby and amber, amethyst and jade swim before her. She sees red-hot pokers, tangled fuchsia roses, sunflowers and the pinkest of asters, helianthus and the sturdy stalks of sedum and globe thistle standing alongside vivid red dahlias. Along one wall a bold hedge of blue hydrangeas nod heavy flowers sleepily in the sun. At her feet a bank of lavender thrusts its lilac flowers up toward the sky and fills her nostrils with their heady scent. She turns in amazement and glimpses flourishing bushes of rosemary, basil, and mint and the blue-green leaves of sage and thyme. Beyond the herbs stands a neat vegetable patch. It bears cane towers laden with twisting bean plants and rows of sprouting green tufts that give away the secret location of onions and leeks and carrots, all carefully tucked in their soil beds. And beyond these, a ramshackle greenhouse leans against one wall, glinting silver in the late-morning sun.
It is beautiful, a picturesque kitchen garden and a tiny, private oasis where, it seems, time stands still. Dora half expects a scullery maid to bustle past her at any moment with a wide basket and scissors readied to select herbs and vegetables for the evening meal up at the house. She is reminded of the secret garden she has read about as a child; the whole landscape seems to hum with life, with color and sound and scent. She sees fat bees drunk on buddleia pollen wafting past on the breeze; butterflies dance daintily across the flower beds; and somewhere, just below the chatter and hum of insect life, lies the low, steady bubble of running water. This final enchanting sound she is able to trace to a small water lily pond set into the center of the garden. Beside this stands an archway covered in trailing pink clematis; hidden in its shade is a low wooden bench, toward which Cassie moves. She brushes at something invisible on the seat, and then sits herself down, patting the empty space next to her. “Come, sit with me.”
Dora moves across to the archway, drinking in the heady perf
ume of lilac blossom and basil as she goes.
“So, what do you think of our Secret Garden then?” Cassie asks. As she speaks she turns back to survey the garden, eyeing the rows of plants before her critically. Dora follows her line of sight. “It’s my little project.”
“Your little project?” she asks.
“Yes, the garden here, what do you think?” Cassie seems amused at Dora’s disbelief.
“It’s…gorgeous…beautiful.” Dora struggles to find the right words to sum up something so tear-inducingly lovely. “Did you do this?” Dora indicates it all with a sweep of her arm.
“Not on my own, but yes, I did. It’s kept me pretty busy over the last few years.”
Dora sits next to her sister on the bench. “Since when did you become so green-fingered?”
“I don’t know, really.” Cassie shrugs. “I just came out here one day and started digging around. It was a wreck. The whole place was covered in weeds and brambles, not to mention all the old junk from the house that had been heaped up over there.” She points to one corner, near the greenhouse. “But as I started to clear a small patch, or dig out a flower bed, it became clear that underneath it all lay the bones of something really special, just waiting to take shape again. Most of the plants were still there, drowning under everything else. They were just hidden, waiting for someone to bring them to life again.
“It was Bill’s idea, actually,” Cassie continues.
“Bill?” Dora is confused.
“Yeah, old Bill Dryden. Remember him?”
Of course she does. “Bill was here?” Dora is still confused.
“Yes. I know. It was a bit of a shock when he turned up here. He said he was visiting an old friend in Oxford and wanted to look me up. Apparently Mum gave him the address here.”
“Bill Dryden came to visit you here?” Dora shakes her head.
“Yes. I didn’t know what we’d talk about. It was awkward at first. But then we just chatted about Dorset and the house and Mum and Dad, and you, and Alfie…”
“You talked about me? And Alfie?” Dora can’t keep up.
“Yeah, nothing special. Just stuff like when we used to badger him for wheelbarrow rides, and that time we nicked all his flowerpots and canes to make hurdles for our imaginary horses, and when Alfie hid in the pile of lawn cuttings and Mum went ballistic at him for traipsing grass all through the house.” Cassie pauses. “Do you remember Bill showing us how to take a geranium cutting? I’d forgotten all about that, but he remembered. Such a sweet man. He died you know?”
“Yeah, I saw Mum a few weeks ago. She told me.”
Cassie looks at Dora with interest. “You saw Mum? How was that?”
“Oh, you know. Difficult.”
Cassie is staring at her searchingly with her clear blue eyes, but Dora doesn’t feel ready to expand just yet.
Cassie shrugs. “Anyway, you wanted to know about the garden, right? I was working as a waitress in London, just killing time really, when I met Felix. We got friendly and he invited me down here to stay. He’d just inherited the old place and didn’t really know what to do with it. I came to stay for the weekend and, to my shame, never left. Swan House became my home.”
Dora nods and wonders privately again if her sister and Felix are together.
“Anyway, Bill came to see me, God, it must have been about five years ago now. We took a little walk around the grounds. He was the one that spotted the door into the garden here. He went ballistic when he saw what was in here. It was a mess, but he saw beyond all of that. It was all down to him really. He was the one that could see the promise of what lay underneath it all. He suggested I get my hands dirty. ‘Treat it like a little project,’ he said. ‘You look like you’ve got the time.’ Cheeky beggar.” Cassie laughs.
“I see,” says Dora. But she doesn’t, not really. She can’t control an unpleasant rush of bitterness that wells up inside of her. While Dora has spent the last few years wrestling with guilt and grief, her sister, it appears, has been living a utopian existence tucked away in some grand old love nest with her hands in the soil and the sun on her hair. But then, she supposes, perhaps that’s possible when you just up sticks and leave your family behind, mired in their pain and anxiety, while you dance off into the sunset without a care in the world.
“Anyway, it took me a few months to get up the nerve,” Cassie continues, seemingly unaware of Dora’s surge of anger. “Bill’s idea kept bugging me, but I’d just walk past the gate there, and poke my nose in, but then get scared and back straight out again. Until one day I woke up and thought today’s the day. I found some old gardening gloves in a store cupboard and I came down here and started clearing brambles that very afternoon. And after a week or two Felix got me some proper tools, just a spade and shears…a trowel, a wheelbarrow. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince me to keep going. And the more I did, the more it sucked me in. It became my therapy, if you like.”
“So this is the Secret Garden that Felix was talking about?” Dora asks, suddenly understanding.
“In part, yes,” says Cassie. “The garden was the starting point. We began growing vegetables and flowers. A few more friends came and joined us, helped out in the grounds, until Felix realized we couldn’t use everything ourselves. So rather than waste it we took the extra produce to the local farmers’ markets. It’s all organic, of course, and posh old dears round here went crazy for it. Now it’s not just fruit and veg. We make jams, soups, cakes—our own-brand muesli too! Felix came up with the name Secret Garden. It works rather well, don’t you think?”
Dora nods. She can see how their business taps into the current zeitgeist for all things homegrown and organic. “But how did you know what to do with all of this?” she asks, still baffled at her sister’s talents. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“I read books…lots of books, and Bill helped. I’d write to him about what I was doing and he’d send me letters full of information and advice about different plants. He sent me sketches of herb gardens and veggie patches and so I’d learn from him too.”
“Like a correspondence course,” Dora muses. “But you’re a natural. You have green fingers. You must have got them from Granddad.”
Cassie smiles. “Yes. I suppose so. Now that the others help out it’s run like a cooperative, of sorts. We share the profits, and put some back into the house, for its upkeep. Felix is useless at managing the place, but we bully him into it. There’s even a supermarket chain sniffing around. They want to distribute our produce in some of their local stores, but we’re all a bit nervous about that. We don’t want to lose the essence of what we do here. It’s important to us all that we keep the business small, local.”
“Is Felix your boyfriend?”
Cassie lets out a snort. “Me and Felix? God no, he’s just a friend.”
Dora nods, unsure why her question has been met with such derision.
There is a brief lull in their conversation and Dora closes her eyes and breathes deeply, trying to release the tension in her neck and shoulders. Her ears fill with the sounds of insects and birds and she realizes, suddenly, that it feels good to be out of London. It has been the right decision to come, no matter what follows next. She turns back to her sister, eyeing her warily before asking her next question.
“So, you’re…happy then?” Her question comes out sounding more confrontational than she’d intended, and Cassie studies her carefully for a moment before answering.
“Yeah, I guess I am.” She leans back against the worn wooden slats of the bench and says with a faint smile, “I like it here. I’ve got my friends and the garden to keep me busy. It’s enough for now.”
“Mmm…,” says Dora. She tries to look pleased, but there it is again, that surge of bitterness churning in the pit of her stomach. She wants to know more. There are still so many things unspoken between them. Cassie, however, seems to have finished talking for the moment. She closes her eyes and turns her face up to catch the sunlight
and so they sit there in silence for a while longer before Dora summons the courage to speak again.
“Cassie?”
“Yes?”
“I need to know why you left. You know, not exactly why you left, but why you left in that way?” She pauses again. “I mean, one moment you’re heading off to university and I’m stuck in Dorset with Mum and Dad; then the next thing I know is you’re in hospital, supposedly having tried to kill yourself. Then Dad leaves Mum and shacks up with Violet, and all the while I’m stuck at Clifftops, virtually on my own.” Dora is trying to control her emotions, but an accusatory edge has entered her voice. “Didn’t you think about what your leaving like that would do to us all?”
Cassie shakes her head. “It must have been hard for you,” she says quietly. There is another silence, filled only by the flutter of wings as a bird takes off from a nearby pear tree. When the sound of its feathers beating the air has faded, Cassie continues.
“To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about any of you. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. I know you might have felt shut out, like I didn’t care, but I just couldn’t stand being around you all then. When I was at Clifftops I felt surrounded by Alfie…and the emotion surrounding his death. I couldn’t bear to look at you all and see the suffering. It was too painful. Deep down I knew Edinburgh wasn’t an escape. I wanted to just end it. I wanted to be free from it all…from all of Mum’s and Dad’s expectations, from all of the pain. I suppose I thought it might be a relief to you all if I just disappeared. I thought I was doing you a favor, but I suppose, looking back, I couldn’t have been more wrong.” Cassie turns again to look at her sister with a sad sigh. “It was pretty cruel, wasn’t it?”
The House of Tides Page 32