The Heart of the Garden

by Victoria Connelly

  He gave a derisive laugh.

  ‘You need to give things time.’ She could feel her heart thudding as his grip on her hand tightened. ‘I really think you should let more people into your life.’

  ‘I invited Jay here.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s good.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Why would you ask that?’

  ‘Because I’m not happy with you spending so much time with him.’

  ‘I have to. He’s painting me.’

  ‘But I’ve seen you in the garden together.’

  ‘We’re just talking.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Emmy. I can always tell when you’re lying.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘I want to know the truth.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘What’s going on with you?’

  She gently removed her hand from his – a move that didn’t go unnoticed by him. He frowned at her.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘We’ve become friends,’ she said at last.

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘If you know what’s going on, why are you asking me all these questions?’ She made to stand up, but Tobias grasped her hand and forced her down again. ‘Tobias!’

  ‘Tell me the truth!’

  ‘Let go of me.’

  ‘Not until you’re honest with me.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘You think you’re in love with this man,’ he continued, ‘but you’re not. He’s just the first man you’ve ever really spent time with.’

  ‘And whose fault is that? I’ve spent my whole life in this house. Then I was sent to an all-girls’ school. The only time I got to meet men was at university and you were always so careful to remind me that I was there to study and not to fall in love, remember? I think you’d rather I didn’t meet anyone at all, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, that’s not normal!’ she cried.

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me what’s normal and what isn’t.’

  ‘Somebody needs to tell you and I’m the only one who dares!’

  They faced each other, eyes blazing in defiance. Tobias was the first to speak.

  ‘Go to your room, Emilia.’

  ‘You can’t treat me like a child.’

  ‘Go to your room.’

  She stood up and turned her back on him.

  ‘I said—’

  ‘I’m going!’ she shouted at him. ‘Not because you tell me to, but so I can lock myself in it away from you!’

  When she reached her room and had bolted the door, she sank down heavily on the bed. She hated fighting with her brother. Hated it. But there seemed to be no other way with him sometimes.

  When he’d asked her to sit with him and talk to her, a little part of her had hoped that they really could talk, because she’d wanted to tell him something important.

  She’d wanted to tell him that she believed she was pregnant and that it was time for her to make a life away from Morton Hall.

  ‘Have you ever been married, Mac?’ Cape asked as the two of them shifted a half-rotten beech branch from a flower bed to a wildlife area. In the three months in which the group had been working together, Mac was the person Cape felt most intrigued by, other than Anne Marie, of course. They’d had a few personal conversations, which he’d enjoyed immensely, but he felt like there was much more to find out about the older man.

  Mac took his cap off and ran a hand through his thick hair. ‘Married?’

  ‘You don’t mind me asking?’ Cape said. ‘I mean, tell me if I’m being nosy.’

  Mac shook his head. ‘I haven’t had time to get married,’ he said. ‘Time or inclination.’

  Cape grinned. ‘Married to your gardens?’

  ‘Yep. Although there was a woman once. Just once. Thought it might work out, but it wasn’t meant to be. She was allergic to flowers. Can you imagine that? How could I marry someone allergic to flowers? Got to have flowers about me. You can’t make a garden or a home without them.’

  ‘Did you love her?’ Cape asked.

  ‘For a while. But I guess I loved my work more.’

  Cape nodded.

  ‘I think about her every so often,’ Mac continued, ‘and I’ve been out with a few other women, but they pass like the seasons.’

  Cape couldn’t help smiling at his philosophical take on things. He truly didn’t seem to mind being on his own.

  ‘I take it you’ve not heard from her again, then,’ Mac said, obviously referring to Renee. Cape had told him about what had happened the week before. It had just come pouring out of him in an angry torrent and Mac had been there for him.

  ‘Not since the message she left last week.’ Cape took his own cap off and scratched his head, mirroring Mac’s movement a few moments earlier. ‘It’s driving me crazy. I’ve phoned and I’ve emailed. I’ve used every social media platform available and she still doesn’t get back to me, and her sister’s not replied to the emails I’ve sent either.’

  ‘Have you been back to the police?’ Mac asked.

  ‘It’s crossed my mind, but what would they be able to do? They’ll just say there’s been contact and it’s a domestic problem.’

  ‘Maybe you should go over there.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe I should. But guess what? I don’t have her sister’s address. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve no idea how to find Renee even if I did go out there.’

  ‘What about her parents? Would they know?’

  ‘Her mother died years ago and she doesn’t really talk to her father so I’m guessing he won’t be much help, and her friend Helena’s told me all she knows.’

  ‘I’d say you’re stuffed, then.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Mac bent down and picked up a rogue terracotta tile that was resting on a bed of leaves.

  ‘You know,’ he said, jabbing the tile in the air towards him, ‘I thought you and that nice Anne Marie were getting close.’

  ‘Did you?’ Cape was surprised. Had it been that obvious to the group, he wondered?

  ‘You mean you aren’t?’

  For a moment, Cape wondered whether to confide in Mac about the kiss he’d shared with Anne Marie in the maze, but there was no telling where Mac might stand on Cape getting involved with a married woman. And that was exactly what Anne Marie was. She might have left her husband, but she was still wearing her ring, he’d noticed. She’d also given him a gentle nudge to back off and he had to respect that. Besides, didn’t he have enough problems to be dealing with in his life?

  The truth was, his head was full of Poppy at the moment. He’d barely slept since she and Renee had left. The house felt empty without them and he carried an appalling kind of anxiety around with him as he paced the rooms where his daughter no longer played. Every move, every action seemed abnormal and torturous without her. Fixing breakfast without reaching for her favourite glass and bowl was wrong, and leaving the house without first claiming a sweet kiss on his cheek was dreadful to him.

  He remembered the day that Renee had told him she was pregnant. He’d walked around in a daze for weeks afterwards. He wasn’t ready to be a father, he kept thinking. He wasn’t up to the job. Now, he couldn’t bear the thought of not having Poppy in his life. She was so much a part of him that being separated from her was eating him up inside.

  ‘You like her, don’t you?’ Mac asked, breaking into Cape’s thoughts.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Anne Marie.’

  Cape took a moment to switch his focus from Poppy to Anne Marie. ‘Oh, yeah, I like her,’ he confessed, thinking of their kiss in the maze.

  ‘Can’t say I blame you. She’s a sweet soul.’

  ‘She is, isn’t she? I don’t think I’ve met a sweeter woman in my life.’

  ‘Good worker too,’ Mac observed.

  ‘Where is she?’ Cape looked across the garden, but couldn’t see any sign of Anne Marie.

/>   ‘Keeping away from you by the looks of things.’

  Cape glanced at Mac as if for confirmation of this. ‘You might be right about that.’

  The truth was, Anne Marie had been doing her best to avoid Cape. She felt awful, but she wanted to keep her head down, do her time in the garden and go home. Things had been moving far too quickly between them and her head was spinning with it all. She liked him and she couldn’t deny that there was a connection between them but, as much as she’d loved their kiss in the maze, she needed to get through the mess of her separation first. She didn’t dare allow herself a glimpse of even the tiniest romance in her future.

  Kathleen had been a godsend. She’d told Anne Marie she could stay with her for as long as she liked, which really took the pressure off. The last thing Anne Marie wanted to do was begin looking for accommodation and facing her life as a single woman. Being welcomed into Kathleen’s home and talking to her each day was really helping her through this whole miserable process.

  She was just pulling up a large thistle when Erin ran across the lawn towards her.

  ‘Hey, Erin!’

  ‘Mrs Beatty wants you. Us,’ Erin said between great pants of breath.

  ‘Me? Us?’

  ‘Come on.’

  Anne Marie put the thistle down and removed her gloves.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘Into the house – at last!’

  Anne Marie smiled at Erin’s enthusiasm, knowing that she’d been dying to see the house and its collection.

  ‘Slow down!’ Anne Marie called after her, struggling to keep up with the young woman as she raced across the lawn. ‘Did she say what she wanted us to do?’

  ‘Not yet, but I’m hoping she’ll give us a tour at least.’

  Anne Marie wasn’t as hopeful. If she knew Mrs Beatty, there’d be some kind of hard graft involved in their trip to the house.

  Unsurprisingly, Mrs Beatty didn’t look pleased to see Anne Marie or Erin even though she’d summoned them.

  ‘You will remove your boots and coats and wash your hands in the cloakroom,’ she said, nodding to a door off the hallway.

  Removing their boots, they trotted off to the cloakroom – a pretty little space hung with tiles depicting dragonesque creatures. They took it in turn to wash their hands and returned to the hall. For a minute, Anne Marie was quite convinced that Mrs Beatty was actually going to ask them both to show her their hands to check that they’d washed them to her satisfaction. But she refrained.

  ‘Come with me,’ she commanded, and the two of them followed her down a hallway, turning left at the end into a large room that seemed to be some kind of office. Like all the rooms Anne Marie had seen so far, it was beautiful, with wood-panelled walls and a large mullioned window. But it wasn’t the beauty of the room they were staring at now; it was the heaps of papers, files and books everywhere.

  Mrs Beatty cleared her throat. ‘It needs a little organising,’ she conceded.

  ‘A little?’ Erin said, her face registering her shock.

  ‘The Mortons didn’t like people,’ Mrs Beatty said, and then paused. Anne Marie had heard the same rumours so wasn’t surprised by this.

  ‘I mean,’ Mrs Beatty continued, ‘they didn’t like people poking around. Old Mr Morton did his best with the paperwork, but I fear it got the better of him, and young Tobias was – well – he never was one for that side of things.’

  ‘You want us to do the filing?’ Erin said, clearly disappointed.

  ‘To begin with, yes. This place needs to be sorted out just as much as the garden does. If not more. It shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘Really?’ Erin didn’t sound convinced by this.

  ‘And then we can move onto the art collection – cataloguing that. It’s never been done, you see.’

  Erin’s expression changed and Anne Marie realised that Mrs Beatty was dangling the art collection as a particularly juicy carrot for Erin. You can catalogue that later, but the filing must be done first.

  ‘I think if we separate all the official things like bills, invoices, statements, et cetera and then collate the more personal items like letters, shopping lists—’

  ‘Shopping lists?’ Anne Marie queried.

  ‘All here,’ Mrs Beatty said. ‘The Mortons never threw anything away.’

  ‘But this will take decades,’ Erin exclaimed.

  ‘I’ve put some new box files out for your use. Divide things up as you go. You don’t need to worry about date order. We can come back to that later. There’s a kitchen down the corridor with a kettle if you need to take a break in, say . . .’ She checked her watch. ‘. . . two hours or so.’

  Erin’s mouth dropped open and Anne Marie swallowed hard. In essence, they were being told that they were to endure two hours of filing before taking an official break. Part of her wanted to laugh at Mrs Beatty’s nerve, but part of her rather admired her. She knew what she wanted and how to get it.

  ‘This is a dreary place,’ Erin said as soon as Mrs Beatty had left them. ‘I’ve been dying to get in here all this time and now I think I’d rather be out in the garden.’

  ‘But it will lead to other things,’ Anne Marie suggested. ‘Mrs Beatty said so.’

  Erin looked thoughtful. ‘Yes! Maybe this is a test and, if I pass, I’ll be allowed to poke around the attics and curate some kind of exhibition or something.’

  ‘Well, she said that the art collection needed cataloguing.’

  Erin nodded.

  ‘Was it my imagination or was Mrs Beatty really staring at me?’ Anne Marie asked Erin.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now. The whole time.’

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ Erin said.

  ‘I don’t have mud on my face or anything, do I?’ Anne Marie said, giving her nose a stroke with anxious fingers.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I got the weirdest feeling when she was looking at me. Like she was trying to work me out.’

  But Erin wasn’t really listening to her. She’d spotted a portrait hanging above the desk and walked across the room to examine it.

  ‘Look at him. That’s the sternest-looking moustache I’ve ever seen.’

  Anne Marie joined her and looked up into the grim Victorian face. ‘You wouldn’t want to cross him, would you?’

  ‘I wonder who he was.’

  ‘A Morton.’

  ‘One of the ones who didn’t bother with filing?’ Erin tutted.

  ‘Probably,’ Anne Marie said. ‘Come on. Let’s make a start.’

  It was dusty, dirty work, but not without its pleasures.

  ‘Look at this receipt,’ Erin cried with joy after they’d been at it for a good half-hour. ‘It’s for a Burne-Jones stained-glass window bought at auction.’

  Anne Marie took a look at it and spluttered at the amount paid, which was eye-watering even back in the 1970s.

  ‘Each member of the family kept adding to the collection, it seems,’ Erin said, clearly fascinated.

  It was a few minutes later when Anne Marie found a newspaper clipping from the 1980s.

  ‘Tobias Morton found dead in his bedroom,’ she read.

  ‘Oh, let’s see!’ Erin grabbed the piece of paper from her and examined it. ‘He was handsome, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Anne Marie said, looking over Erin’s shoulder and studying the pale face that stared back out at her from the newspaper.

  ‘What did it say he died of?’

  ‘Suspected drug overdose,’ Anne Marie read. ‘So sad.’

  ‘Why is it that so many rich people get themselves into trouble with drink and drugs? I mean, why would you do that to yourself if you owned this amazing house?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that. A beautiful house doesn’t necessarily make you happy.’

  ‘So he was Miss Morton’s brother?’ Erin asked.

  ‘Yes. It says here that she was the one to find his body.’

  ‘But there’s no photo of her
.’

  ‘No, it’s only a brief story. That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘From what I’ve heard, nobody knew much about the family here,’ Erin said, handing the clipping back to Anne Marie who placed it in a box file.

  For some reason, the story in the newspaper had made Anne Marie intensely sad. There was something about the idea of Miss Morton on her own, finding the dead body of her brother, that touched her deeply. What must that have been like, she wondered? She couldn’t even begin to imagine. And where had Mrs Beatty been? What had she made of it all? She wasn’t the sort of person one felt you could ask about such things, but she must have felt something towards her previous employer.

  ‘And now they’re both gone.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Erin said, looking up from the pile of papers she was sorting through.

  ‘Tobias and Emilia. The last of the Mortons.’

  ‘That’s why we’re here.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s sad? Not to have anyone to leave your home to?’ Anne Marie said.

  ‘But they did – they left it to us.’

  ‘I know, but not to have family.’

  ‘I guess.’

  Anne Marie swallowed, suddenly realising what she’d just said. She didn’t have family, did she? Other than her mother, that was. But, when her mother died, Anne Marie would be the last one, wouldn’t she?

  ‘Are you all right?’ Erin asked.

  ‘What?’ She looked up. ‘Oh, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’d rather be out in the garden too, wouldn’t you?’

  Anne Marie fixed her attention on the view from the mullioned window. ‘No,’ she said a moment later. ‘I rather like it in here. I feel strangely at home.’

  Chapter 19

  Jay looked pensive.

  ‘What is it?’ Emilia asked, turning around from the window.

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The painting.’

  ‘Really?’

  He looked at her and nodded, a sad smile on his face.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She left the window where she had been standing for the last hour and a half and walked towards the easel.

  ‘It’s funny,’ she said with a small laugh, ‘but I’m actually nervous.’

  ‘But you’ve seen it before.’