The Heart of the Garden

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘And it will be,’ he said. ‘If we can drum up some enthusiasm amongst this group we’re a part of now, just think what we might be able to achieve.’

  Anne Marie’s eyes seemed to light up. ‘We could grow our own fruit and vegetables.’

  ‘And plant some new trees,’ Cape added. ‘Old varieties like the ones the garden would have once had in abundance.’

  ‘And can we grow squashes and gourds and huge pumpkins?’

  ‘If you’re willing to do the work, you can grow whatever you want!’

  She was smiling now. He liked her smile. It lit up the whole of her face, banishing the melancholic look he’d seen there before.

  ‘I’m ready to pull out my wellies right now,’ she said.

  Cape grinned. ‘Look – here’s an idea. I’m at the garden tomorrow. Why don’t you come by and I’ll show you the maze and the topiary garden ahead of everyone else arriving?’

  ‘Really? I’d love that,’ she told him.

  ‘Great. What’s a good time for you?’

  ‘I could probably get there for ten. Is that okay?’

  ‘Meet me at the cedar tree. You know it?’

  She nodded and the two of them stood up to leave the cafe.

  ‘I wonder why she chose us,’ Anne Marie said as they walked out onto the street.

  ‘Perhaps Mrs Beatty will know.’

  ‘Will she be there tomorrow?’

  ‘She’s there every day. Even since Miss Morton died.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll be working with us?’

  Cape took a deep breath. ‘It’s likely she’ll be overseeing things. I can’t remember what Mr Mander said now. Maybe there’s something about it in the paperwork he gave us. Anyway, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.’

  They were walking across the bridge now. The wind had picked up and little waves danced on the Thames.

  ‘I wish I’d met her,’ Anne Marie said.

  ‘Mrs Beatty?’ Cape asked in surprise.

  ‘No! Miss Morton.’

  He nodded. ‘Me too,’ he said with a wistful sigh. ‘I think she must have been quite a lady.’

  Chapter 4

  Emilia Morton always knew that there was something not quite right about her brother, Tobias. Ever since he was a young boy, he’d been unpredictable, petulant and prone to mood swings, but Emilia had never given it much thought until the summer she finished university and came back home to Morton Hall. It was 1983, but it might as well have been 1883 at the old Victorian house. Her record player and beloved LPs were hidden away in an oak cabinet and there were no posters of her favourite pop stars in her bedroom – the William Morris wallpaper simply wouldn’t allow it.

  ‘You have to respect this house,’ her father had once told her. ‘Just imagine you’re living in a museum. Try not to touch anything you don’t need to.’

  Emilia had been a nervous wreck as a child, and her bedroom, as beautiful as it was, had always felt like somebody else’s with its heavy oak furniture, intimidatingly large paintings and the ornate silver mirror she was too scared to look into. There was no room for her to be herself in there. She had a few paperback novels which she kept on a little shelf, but her mother always tutted whenever she saw them.

  ‘Can’t you put those away, darling?’ she’d ask. ‘They don’t really go with the room, do they?’

  It was the same with her toys. Her childhood dolls, her scrapbooks, her games and her colouring books: everything had to be hidden away from view in a large oak chest under the window. Emilia hated that chest. It reminded her of a coffin and she imagined her dolls were being laid to rest each time she put them away. It was the same for Tobias. The few personal possessions he had were to be packed away at the end of each day, and heaven help him if he dared to leave any of his toy soldiers out on parade. He’d once left a little army of them on the south terrace and their father had flown into a fit of rage when he’d seen them.

  When she visited friends’ houses, she marvelled at the freedom they had. Their rooms were pastel-coloured paradises full of light and life. They had posters on the walls torn out of magazines and stuck with Blu Tack and sometimes even Sellotape. Sellotape! Just imagine if she put Sellotape onto her 1874 wallpaper, Emilia thought.

  There were toys too, in great fat heaps on the bed, on the floor, everywhere.

  ‘Doesn’t your mum ever tell you off?’ she’d asked one of her friends, Lucy.

  ‘What for?’ Lucy had said, clearly baffled.

  Emilia had had a small taste of freedom at the girls’ boarding school she’d been sent to when she was ten years old. She’d shared a room with three other girls and they’d been allowed to put a few posters up on the wall behind their beds. Emilia had chosen one of a chestnut horse, one of a giant panda and another of a male singer with hair longer than hers.

  Being sent to a boarding school at such a young age might have scared most girls but, for Emilia, it had been a wonderful release from the oppressive atmosphere at Morton Hall. Charles and Joanna Morton were far more focussed on their respective careers than they were on their children. Charles was a banker, though the Morton fortune was sizeable enough that his salary was barely needed to keep Morton Hall going. Still, he took pride in his job and insisted on working.

  Joanna was a designer, taking her inspiration from the Arts and Crafts interior of her marital home. She was good at what she did and had an enviable portfolio of clients, but she spent money as soon as she earned it, buying period pieces of furniture for the house until it was so crammed that Charles was forced to put a stop to it.

  Emilia still remembered that fight because it had frightened her so much. It had been during her first Christmas holiday since she’d gone away to school, and her parents’ voices had risen up through the house. She and Tobias had come out of their rooms and stood at the top of the stairs, listening.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the ten-year-old Emilia had asked.

  Tobias, who was fifteen, shook his head in disgust.

  ‘Dad’s not happy with Mum,’ he’d told her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s asked her to stop working.’

  ‘But Mum loves her job.’

  ‘Yes, but Dad thinks she should be at home.’

  ‘What would she do at home? Wouldn’t she be bored?’

  Tobias had shrugged. ‘Women are meant to be at home, aren’t they?’

  Emilia had wrinkled her nose. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s their place. If Mum was at home, we wouldn’t be at boarding school.’

  ‘But I like boarding school.’

  ‘She should be a proper mum and stay at home.’

  Emilia had looked at her brother as if trying to work out if he was joking, but he looked deadly serious.

  ‘I think Mum should do what she wants,’ she said at last.

  Tobias had crossed the landing towards her, placing a finger under her chin, examining her with those penetrating eyes of his.

  ‘What do you know about these things?’ he’d said. ‘You’re just a girl.’

  Emilia had watched as her brother had stormed off to his room.

  ‘You’re just a girl.’

  It was a refrain she’d grown up with because Tobias was very good at putting her in her place.

  ‘You’re just a girl.’

  Was that what her father was telling her mother?

  That’s when Emilia had first understood that Morton Hall was a house run by men. Women were just passing through and were expected to do what they were told.

  She’d been dreading finishing university and coming home, and even more so since her parents had died. That tragedy had happened the summer Emilia had turned eighteen. Her parents were meant to be on their way back from a trip to Italy where they’d been viewing a rare Rossetti painting in a private collection. They’d promised Emilia a party to celebrate her big day. Only they’d never returned. On the last day of their trip, Joanna Morton had gone swimming. A passer-by had said
that she’d swum out into the sea and lost control very quickly. Charles had gone in after her and neither had returned. The sea had claimed them: their bodies were never found.

  The painting that they’d bought hung in the long gallery now. It was very beautiful, but it wasn’t worth the price of two lives.

  At twenty-three, Tobias had taken over the running of the house, employing Mrs Beatty to help. He’d given up his job at his father’s bank, stating to Emilia that he didn’t need to work – and he told her the same thing when she graduated three years later. When she replied that she wanted a job, he’d laughed.

  ‘Why would you want to work when you don’t have to?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to be stuck in this house all day,’ she’d said. ‘And I have a degree. I should use it. I’ve studied hard and I’m good at languages, all my lecturers said so, and I think I could do really well if I—’

  ‘You should manage the house,’ he’d interrupted.

  ‘What, like an old-fashioned chatelaine?’ she’d joked.

  ‘Exactly,’ he’d said in all seriousness, giving her that controlling look of his she’d grown up with. ‘It’s your role now, Emilia. It’s your duty. There’s Mrs Beatty, the gardener and the two cleaners to manage. That should be enough for anybody.’

  His tone of voice had told her that he would brook no opposition.

  And, that summer she’d graduated, she found herself falling into the role surprisingly easily if a little reluctantly. She had thought about just leaving one day, of circling a job in a newspaper and waving goodbye to her brother and her family home, but Tobias had filled her with so much self-doubt that she was too scared to do it.

  ‘You wouldn’t know how to survive outside Morton Hall,’ he’d told her and she’d believed him. How foolish she had been, but when you’ve been told something so many times, it’s hard to think anything else.

  So she took up her new role – the role he had handed to her. She was the woman of the house now and, she suspected, would be until Tobias found himself a wife. It was hard to imagine her brother married; he’d never even mentioned having a girlfriend. But marrying was what the men of these houses did and he’d want Morton Hall to himself once he had found the right woman, wouldn’t he? Emilia would have to move on. These houses weren’t made for daughters or sisters. They were men’s houses. She’d been allowed to study for a degree because the money was there. It was all about show. But she wasn’t actually meant to use it. That wasn’t part of the plan. She was to fall in line with what the man of the house wanted, that was all.

  But, oh, how trapped she felt in that place. It hadn’t taken long for the claustrophobia to set in. Morton Hall had been built by Arthur Augustus Morton at the height of his powers in the Industrial Revolution. He’d built the house and amassed the wealth that their family still enjoyed today from the textiles industry, and there was no denying that it was a house filled with beautiful things, but beautiful things weren’t enough to make Emilia happy, she soon discovered. She knew that some of her university friends would envy her for not having to work and for having a magnificent home handed to her. Take her bedroom, for example. It was known as the Acanthus Room, named after the William Morris wallpaper that covered its walls with huge green leaves. It was a lovely room with its stained-glass window by Edward Burne-Jones, featuring his characteristic willowy figures, and the hand-knotted carpet which was only to be vacuumed through a gauze. Rumour had it that John Ruskin had visited the house and pronounced the room ‘one of the loveliest in England’ and Emilia had no doubt that it was, but it just wasn’t her and every hour she spent in there felt draining and depleting.

  The garden, at least, provided an escape for her. It always had. It had been the only place where she and Tobias had been able to run around as children without fearing they might damage something. Even though Tobias always had a dreadful fear of the maze and never ventured in there, they still enjoyed the garden together. They could be proper kids there, wild and free, and she still felt that wonderful spirit of freedom when she was in the garden even now she was a grown-up.

  She was just returning from a walk around the garden one sunny morning when Tobias grabbed her by the arm. He’d sprung out of the shadows in the hallway, catching her unawares.

  ‘Tobias!’ she cried in alarm. ‘You scared me.’

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, practically dragging her up the stairs.

  ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘Wait till you see what I’ve found,’ he said, his voice unable to suppress his excitement.

  ‘What is it? Tobias!’ The pressure of his hand on her wrist was beginning to burn. Luckily, they’d reached the top of the stairs and he relinquished his hold, ushering her into the bedroom at the end of the corridor. It was the room that had belonged to Clarissa Morton – the first lady of Morton Hall, wife of Arthur Morton.

  It was a long time since Emilia had been in this room. The house had so many rooms but so few of them were used now and so they were wrapped up in dust sheets. Tobias had obviously been uncovering the furniture in this room because there was a heap of ghostly sheets in the centre of the carpet.

  ‘What have you been doing in here?’ Emilia asked him.

  ‘Just looking at what’s mine,’ he said. He’d always been blunt.

  Emilia walked towards the bed. The bed itself was quite plain with a simple sprigged bedspread over it, but it was the fact that it was a folding bed with great oak-panelled doors around it that made it a real show-stopper; each of the panels had been painted, depicting a beautiful dreamy Pre-Raphaelite woman with pale skin and cascading hair. The piece had been commissioned by Arthur Morton especially for his wife and it was stunning, although Emilia couldn’t imagine sleeping in it, surrounded by so many faces. It might be a work of art, but it was also the stuff of nightmares.

  ‘Stop staring at the bed and come and see this,’ Tobias said. He was standing by the large wardrobe at the far end of the room and had opened the double doors. Emilia walked across the thick rug and gasped as she saw the contents.

  ‘Are these all original?’ she asked as she stared at the row of dresses.

  ‘All Victorian. You know our family never threw anything out.’

  ‘But they must be worth a fortune!’ Emilia said.

  ‘They’re not for sale. They belong to our family.’

  Emilia nodded. It was a knowledge she’d grown up with. Everything the Mortons had amassed stayed at Morton Hall. Nothing was ever sold, lent or given away.

  Instinctively, Emilia’s hand reached into the wardrobe. Each gown was wrapped in a protective sheet in an attempt to keep the moths at bay and she dared to bring one out, laying it on the bed.

  ‘It’s so long and heavy,’ she whispered as she unwrapped it.

  ‘The fashion of the time,’ Tobias explained.

  Emilia had seen the many family portraits of her ancestors and had frequently marvelled at their clothing with the high lacy necklines, the long skirts in sumptuous materials with pleating and ruches. They were a world away from the jeans and jumpers of the 1980s.

  ‘These should be in a museum. The V and A!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Just let them try to get their hands on these,’ Tobias said. ‘Try one on, Emmy.’

  ‘What?’ She looked at him, trying to gauge if he was being serious.

  ‘I think you’re about the same size as Clarissa.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ she said with a gasp.

  ‘Of course you could,’ her brother told her. ‘What good are they just hanging in the wardrobe? I think they should be worn.’

  ‘They’re too delicate.’

  ‘There’s years of wear in them.’

  ‘I don’t think I should—’

  Tobias took a step forward and was suddenly very close to her. She looked up at him. His eyes were dark and she saw him swallow hard.

  ‘Try the dress on, Emilia.’

  Their gazes locked. She was the first to blink and lo
ok away, her hands hovering over the dress on the bed.

  It took a few moments to release it from its wrappings and her mouth parted in wonder as she took in the ebony-green dress with the delicate buttons and the exquisite lace.

  ‘Put it on,’ Tobias whispered.

  Emilia’s hands were shaking, but she had an undeniable urge to indulge in this most outrageous of dress-ups.

  ‘Turn round.’

  Tobias nodded and Emilia began to shed her twentieth-century clothes, realising how cool the room was once she was standing in her underwear.

  It took a great leap of courage for her to pick up the dress from the bed and she took a moment to hold it against her, the fabric cool and silky against her skin. How beautiful it was, she thought. Too beautiful for her to wear, and yet her brother was insisting that it wasn’t and so she slowly stepped into it.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be wearing a corset or petticoats first?’ she asked, unsure of the clothing etiquette of Victorian times.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Tobias assured her. ‘It’s the dress that’s the important thing.’

  ‘It might not look the right shape on me,’ she said, dipping her arms into the long, lacy sleeves.

  ‘It’ll look just fine.’

  A moment later, Emilia had done as much as she could on her own.

  ‘I need help,’ she said, and Tobias turned around, assisting her with the hooks and eyes at the back.

  Finally, she turned to face him. He took a few steps back, his eyes gleaming with a strange light.

  ‘You look incredible,’ he told her. ‘Every inch the Victorian angel.’ His hand reached out as he moved forward again and stroked her red hair. It was a habit that he’d had as a young boy and she hadn’t minded. It was affectionate, protective even, but now it seemed strange and it was all Emilia could do not to flinch.

  ‘Here – help me take it off,’ she said, suddenly not wanting to be in the dress.

  He shook his head. ‘Keep it on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just for today.’

  ‘Tobias – no – it’s not right.’ Suddenly, she felt scared by his request.

  ‘Why isn’t it right? This dress is mine and I want you to wear it.’