Anne Marie would ignore such a message at her peril. She once had and the accumulated grief that descended upon her the next time she saw her mother had not been worth it.
Janet Lattimore lived in the sort of Thames Valley village that was frequently used as a location in films. With its close proximity to London and its pretty brick-and-flint cottages and rolling countryside, it was a favourite with directors and would pop up as a backdrop in everything from cosy crimes to the latest blockbuster. She’d moved there after losing her husband three years ago. Anne Marie’s father had been a director at a bank in Oxford, and the family home had been in the leafy suburbs. After he’d died, the three-storey house had been sold for a ridiculous sum and Janet had moved into a tiny two-bedroom house in the Chiltern village. It seemed like a horribly quiet existence after the bustle of Oxford and Anne Marie couldn’t help but wonder what her mother did there all day. Janet was sixty-seven now, having retired from teaching five years earlier. She still went into Oxford from time to time and had joined a few local groups. Still, Anne Marie worried about her being on her own.
Parking outside the cottage now, she took a deep breath.
I am not going to let her rile me, she told herself. Grant and his daughters had already done a pretty good job of that this morning.
‘You’re going to Morton Hall again?’ Grant had complained.
‘Yes. I’ll be going there every week from now on.’
She’d surprised herself by her confident tone and had had to hide a smile as Grant had skulked back to his study. Irma and Rebecca had been in their bedrooms on their respective phones and had barely glanced up at her as she’d poked her head around the doors.
‘I’m going to see Grandma Janet,’ she told Rebecca. ‘Do you want to come too?’
‘She’s not my grandma,’ Rebecca told her. She always said it and it wounded Anne Marie every single time.
Banishing all thoughts of her step-daughters, she got out of the car, picking up the bunch of flowers she’d bought for her mother from a florist en route. Her mother knew the difference between flowers from a florist and those bought in a supermarket or petrol station. Anne Marie remembered the scene her mother had once made when she’d been handed a bunch of flowers from the local Co-op.
‘Is this all I’m worth to you? Your sister would never have bought flowers like these.’
It baffled Anne Marie how anybody could complain about being bought flowers, but her mother had a knack for turning anything into a heated battle.
Opening the green-painted gate and walking up the neat brick path, Anne Marie took a moment to compose herself before knocking on the door. Her mother answered a moment later.
‘Hello, Mum. I brought you these,’ Anne Marie said, presenting the bunch of flowers. She watched as her mother examined them, sniffing the sweet perfume and then examining the wrapping as if she might find a clue to just how much her daughter valued her. It was ever the way, Anne Marie thought as she followed her mother into the cottage. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d had to apologise for gifts because they didn’t please her mother or else return them because they were unsatisfactory.
Her mother went through to the kitchen where she made a great fuss about trying to find a vase for the bouquet.
‘No, this one is much too big,’ she said as she pulled a glass vase out from a cupboard under the sink.
Anne Marie bit her lip, determined not to show her pain.
After tea was made, they walked through to the tiny living room that overlooked the village green. It was a pretty room with a beautiful fireplace above which was a mantelpiece full of photographs. Of Anne. The beloved daughter. The magnificent firstborn. The perfect one.
But somebody else had joined Anne on the mantelpiece of memories: her father. It was funny, but Anne Marie couldn’t remember seeing any photographs of her father while he was alive: death had given his memory the glow of a saint and he was now worthy of a silver frame.
Anne Marie couldn’t help noticing that there weren’t any photographs of her on the mantelpiece. She would have to die before she was adored and talked well of.
‘So, I take it you’ve been busy,’ her mother began, implying that Anne Marie had been lax in not returning her phone calls.
‘Yes. Work’s as busy as ever and I’m doing voluntary work in a garden.’
‘A garden?’
‘Morton Hall.’
Her mother’s face blanched. ‘What are you doing going there?’
‘There’s a group of us. Seven. For some reason, Miss Morton chose us to restore the gardens. She’s left her estate to the village on the condition that the group restores the garden.’
‘Why on earth would she do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anne Marie said honestly. ‘Nobody seems to know.’
Her mother shifted in her chair. ‘I never liked that place.’
‘You’ve been there?’ This was news to Anne Marie.
‘Once. Your father had some business there and I accompanied him.’
‘Really?’
‘Spooky-looking place. All Gothic towers and dark windows.’
‘Yes, it’s not the bonniest of houses, but the garden is very beautiful.’
‘I don’t like you going there, Anne Marie.’
Anne Marie frowned. ‘It’s only for a few hours a week.’
‘It’s unhealthy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That family. The Morton family. They weren’t right.’
‘What do you know about them?’
‘Only that,’ her mother said curtly. ‘The way they locked themselves away there and had nothing to do with anyone. There were stories about them. Rumours.’
‘What sort of rumours?’
‘That he wasn’t right. That he kept his sister under lock and key.’
‘I didn’t know you knew anything about them.’
‘I don’t. Only that. Only stories I heard. But you shouldn’t get muddled up in it all.’
‘But the family has all gone now,’ Anne Marie said.
‘It’s not a healthy environment.’
Anne Marie thought about the time she’d spent there, sitting on the bench and soaking in the calm of the wild walled garden, and how it had helped to restore a little bit of peace in her life.
‘I think it’s one of the healthiest places I’ve ever been,’ she told her mother. ‘The garden at least. I’ve only seen a bit of the house.’
‘When did you go into the house?’
‘For the meeting with Mrs Beatty, the housekeeper.’ She didn’t divulge the other secret trip made with Cape.
‘You shouldn’t have anything to do with that place.’
‘It’s too late for that. I’m committed now and I’m going there today.’ She watched her mother’s face as it turned even more sour. ‘Anyway, I want to go,’ she added.
Her mother shook her head. ‘You’re so unlike your sister,’ she said. ‘If your sister were alive, she would have listened to me, but you’ve always been headstrong.’
Anne Marie almost gasped at the outright lie. Her – headstrong! It was ridiculous. She’d never been given a chance to be headstrong either in her family or in her marriage. And, once again, the familiar refrain: If your sister were alive. How many times did Anne Marie want to shout, ‘But she isn’t! She’s dead.’ It seemed absurd to assume what Anne would have been like or how she would have responded or what she would have said in any given situation, but that’s what her mother always did.
It had always perplexed Anne Marie that her mother had chosen to use her dead child’s name as part of her second child’s. Wasn’t that a recipe for sorrow? Surely every time she spoke her second child’s name, a little piece of her would tear inside as she remembered that precious first child whom she’d lost.
‘I’ve got to go, Mum,’ she said, standing up.
‘But you only just got here.’ Suddenly, her mother was all contrition.
&n
bsp; ‘I’m sorry – I’ve got to get to Morton Hall.’
The scowl was instantly back in place. ‘You shouldn’t go there.’
Anne Marie had reached the front door. ‘I’ll call you next week, okay?’ She leaned forward to kiss her cheek.
‘Anne Marie!’
Stopping by the garden gate, she turned around.
‘What is it?’ she asked. Her mother’s mouth dropped open as if she was about to say something. But, just as quickly, it clamped shut again and she shook her head before disappearing inside the cottage and closing the door behind her.
Once in her car, Anne Marie stared out of the windscreen and yet saw nothing. What possible objection could her mother have for her working in the garden? It was absurd and just another example of how she could never hope to please her. No matter what she did, it would always be wrong, and it would always be compared to what her dead sister might have done in the same circumstances.
Anne. Anne Marie. Would she never be free to be herself?
Chapter 10
Anne Marie parked her car outside Garrard House, but didn’t go back inside for fear of Grant complaining about what she was doing again. She’d had her fill of that today. Instead, she opened the boot and reached in for a pair of wellies, taking off her shoes and pulling on a thick pair of woolly socks. She was actually quite excited by the idea of getting stuck in. They had such a tiny garden at Garrard House and there really wasn’t very much to it other than a lawn, a laurel hedge and a couple of nondescript conifers in pots. She had once made the suggestion of sowing a wildflower area. Actually, she had been hoping to dig up the whole boring lawn and turn it over to poppies, cornflowers and daisies. Grant had looked at her in horror. She’d have thought that a man so in tune with the beauty of classic novels and poetry would have welcomed the romance of a meadow, but he was very attached to that little piece of lawn, mowing it in neat stripes and sitting out on it briefly a few times a year with his gin and tonic and a newspaper.
As she walked to Morton Hall, Anne Marie wondered what kind of garden Cape had. She couldn’t imagine him being happy with a lawn and a laurel hedge. She visualised grand herbaceous borders and pots overflowing with colour.
‘Anne Marie!’
Cape was striding across the driveway towards her. He was wearing a tartan cap and a wax jacket and his cheeks blazed red from being out in the cold.
‘You walked up the driveway!’
‘Yes, I thought I’d give it a go.’
‘Come and see what we’ve found,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘Wait and see.’
Mac was at the far end of the walled garden in the digger when they entered. Anne Marie sent him a wave and he returned it. She followed Cape over the uneven ground and stopped just outside the greenhouse.
‘It’s a violin!’ Anne Marie said, quite unnecessarily, when she saw the black case.
‘I know!’ Cape laughed as he opened it up.
‘Was it here in the garden?’
‘Just over there,’ Cape said, pointing to an area of ground that had now been cleared. ‘Amongst the brambles.’
‘Why would someone leave a violin in a garden?’
‘Do you think they threw it out on purpose or left it accidentally?’
‘I don’t know,’ Anne Marie said. ‘How long’s it been out here?’
‘There’s moss on the case,’ Cape said.
‘It’s lucky the instrument isn’t damaged. Well, not superficially at least.’
‘Maybe Mrs Beatty will know something about it.’
Anne Marie smiled. ‘Yes! We could ask her.’
‘Just what we thought, and it would be a good excuse to see the house again.’
‘If she lets us in.’
‘She couldn’t not on a day like today,’ Cape said, glancing up at the grey sky that was threatening rain.
‘Shall we go?’ Anne Marie asked and Cape grinned and nodded, fastening the violin case and motioning to Mac in the digger.
‘Anyone else turn up yet?’
‘Not yet,’ Cape said as they left the walled garden.
‘I wanted to come earlier, but I had to go and see my mother.’
‘She lives locally?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s nice.’
Anne Marie didn’t say anything.
‘Isn’t it?’ Cape prodded.
‘Isn’t it what?’ Anne Marie said, deliberately evading his question.
‘Nice. I mean, you’re lucky to have your mother nearby.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, of course. I don’t have to travel far.’ She was all too aware that Cape’s eyes were upon her. ‘What?’
He shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’
‘You’re all prickly.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ She quickened her pace and, with relief, reached the front door of the house where she turned to face Cape. He was carrying the violin and leaned forward and rang the doorbell.
It was a moment or two before the door was opened by Mrs Beatty, who greeted them with a frown.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked them, her tone suggesting she didn’t care either way.
Cape cleared his throat and lifted up the violin case for her to see. Her face immediately blanched.
‘Where did you find that?’
‘In the walled garden near the greenhouse.’
‘Give it to me.’
‘Who did it belong to?’ Cape asked.
‘It belongs to the house,’ Mrs Beatty said as she took the violin from him.
Anne Marie could see that her hand now clasping the violin case was shaking.
‘Was it Miss Morton’s?’ she asked.
Mrs Beatty didn’t say anything, but she was looking down at the violin case as if she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
Anne Marie felt Cape nudging her arm with his elbow as if to alert her to Mrs Beatty’s reaction.
‘We’d better get back to the garden,’ he said, though they both waited a moment longer in case Mrs Beatty decided to say something else. But she didn’t. Instead she did a funny sort of shuffling reverse and closed the door to them.
‘Well,’ Cape said, ‘we didn’t get invited in.’
‘She looked really shocked.’
‘You don’t think the violin was hers, do you?’
Anne Marie shook her head. ‘Her hand was shaking.’
‘Yes.’
‘I wish she’d talk to us. She doesn’t seem to want to share anything about the house with us at all.’
‘Give it a few weeks. Who knows, she might don a pair of wellies and join us in the garden sometime.’
Anne Marie smiled. ‘I can’t quite see that myself.’
It wasn’t until after lunch that the rest of the group turned up to help. Cape, Mac and Anne Marie had eaten their packed lunches in the kitchen. The three of them had chatted amiably enough, speculating on the violin and wondering what else they might dig up in the garden during its restoration.
Now, back outside, Cape watched Anne Marie as she worked. She was talking to Kathleen while Dorothy, Erin, Patrick and his two sons were working on the other side of the garden, throwing broken pots, old bricks and other debris into a wheelbarrow. He felt strangely drawn to Anne Marie. What was her story? He kept getting little hints of it: the step-daughters who didn’t want to spend time with her, and the mother who appeared to make Anne Marie reticent at best and miserable at worst. She seemed to be sad and yet there were glimpses of such joy within her. He loved to see her smile. She was smiling now at something Kathleen had said and, looking up suddenly, she caught his eye and he smiled back.
He walked across to join them.
‘Everything okay?’ he asked.
‘Good,’ Kathleen said.
‘Kath was just telling me about a few of her gardening disasters,’ Anne Marie said.
/> ‘I mistakenly thought I might be able to grow things,’ she said. ‘But I stick to fake flowers in the house these days.’
Cape grimaced at the thought. ‘I see we’ll have to restore not only this garden, but your faith in gardening too.’
‘Could take a lot of work,’ she warned him.
‘I’ve never been one to shy away from work,’ Cape said. ‘What kind of jobs do you think you’d get on best with?’
Kathleen looked thoughtful. ‘Well, I don’t want to risk killing anything so don’t put me in charge of tending anything delicate.’
‘Duly noted.’
‘Maybe I could be a general dogsbody, and I don’t mind a bit of weeding.’
‘Really?’ Anne Marie said. ‘That’s my least favourite job.’
‘I actually quite like it,’ Kathleen said. ‘I find it a good stress buster.’
‘Well, we’ve got plenty of weeds here,’ Cape said, ‘and it’ll be an ongoing job once we start planting up the vegetable garden.’
‘Then I’m your woman,’ Kathleen told him.
‘Good,’ Cape said, turning around as Mac approached in his digger.
‘Going to need to clear this area,’ he told them as he hopped out onto the ground.
‘Sure thing,’ Cape said. ‘We’ll make ourselves scarce.’
Cape walked across to where the rest of them were working.
‘We’re going to need to move on for a bit,’ he told them.
‘Oh, what a shame,’ Dorothy said. ‘I was just finding my rhythm in here.’
‘Dorothy’s shifted most of those bricks by herself,’ Erin said with a grin, nodding to the wheelbarrow.
‘Don’t do yourself a mischief on day one,’ Cape warned her.
‘I’ve never felt fitter,’ she said. ‘Getting out in the fresh air suits me. Are you sure we have to move?’
‘Just for a bit while Mac clears the ground.’
‘So what can we do?’ Kathleen asked. She and Anne Marie had joined them now.
‘I think we could start by clearing a few of the paths around the garden,’ Cape told them. ‘There are some really lovely red-brick ones that have been lost over the years. I’ll occasionally catch a glimpse of one and it would be nice to restore them.’
The Heart of the Garden Page 13