by Kate Morton
‘Here we are.’ Julia was juggling two steaming bowls of pasta and had an enormous pepper mill tucked beneath her arm. ‘Ravioli with pine nuts and gorgonzola.’ She handed one to Cassandra. ‘Careful, the plate’s a bit warm.’
Cassandra took the proffered bowl and set the scrapbook aside. ‘Smells delicious.’
‘If I hadn’t become a writer, then a renovator, then a hotelier, I’d have been a chef. Cheers.’ Julia lifted her glass of gin, took a sip, then sighed. ‘I sometimes feel my entire life is a series of accidents and chances—not that I’m complaining. One can be very happy having relinquished all expectation of control.’ She speared a ravioli square. ‘But enough about me—how goes it at the cottage?’
‘Really well,’ said Cassandra. ‘Except the more I do, the more I realise needs doing. The garden’s quite wild and the house itself is a mess. I’m not even sure it’s structurally sound. I suppose I should have a builder come and look at it for me but I haven’t had time yet, there’s been so much else to keep me busy. It’s all very . . .’
‘Overwhelming?’
‘Yeah, it’s definitely overwhelming, but more than that. It’s . . .’ Cassandra paused, searched for the right word, surprised herself when she found it, ‘. . . exciting. I’ve found something at the cottage, Julia.’
‘Found something?’ Her brows shot up. ‘As in hidden treasure something?’
‘If you like your treasure green and fertile.’ Cassandra bit her bottom lip. ‘It’s a hidden garden, a walled garden at the back of the cottage. I don’t think anyone’s been inside for decades, and no wonder, the walls are really high, completely covered by brambles. You’d never guess it was there.’
‘How did you find it?’
‘By accident, really.’
Julia shook her head. ‘No such thing as accidents.’
‘I honestly had no idea it was there.’
‘I’m not suggesting that you did. I’m just saying, perhaps the garden only hid from those it didn’t wish to see.’
‘Well, I’m certainly glad it showed itself to me. The garden is incredible. It’s really overgrown, but underneath the brambles all kinds of plants have survived. There are paths, garden seats, bird-feeders.’
‘Like Sleeping Beauty, fast asleep until the enchantment is broken.’
‘That’s the thing, though; it hasn’t been asleep. The trees have kept growing, bearing fruit, even though there’s been no one there to appreciate it. You should see the apple tree, it looks to be a hundred years old.’
‘It is,’ said Julia suddenly, sitting upright and pushing her bowl aside. ‘Or it very nearly is.’ She flicked through the scrapbooks, running her finger down page after page, turning back and forth. ‘A-ha,’ she said, tapping an entry. ‘Here it is. Just after Rose’s eighteenth birthday, before she went to New York and met Nathaniel.’ Julia propped a pair of turquoise and mother-of-pearl glasses on the end of her nose and began to read.
‘Twenty-first of May, 1907. What a day it has been! And to think when it started I thought I was to suffer yet another interminable day inside. (After Dr Matthews mentioned a few cases of sniffles in the village, Mamma has become terrified that I will fall ill and jeopardise the country weekend we are to attend next month.) Eliza, as always, had other ideas. Just as soon as Mamma had left by carriage for Lady Phillimore’s luncheon, she appeared at my door, cheeks aglow (how I envy her the time she spends out of doors!), and insisted that I put aside my scrapbook (for I was working on you, dear diary!) and come with her through the maze: there was something there that I must see.
‘My first instinct was to demur—I feared that one of the servants might report back to Mamma and I don’t fancy an argument, certainly not with the New York trip on the horizon—but then I realised that Eliza had the “look” in her eyes, the one she gets when she has concocted a plan and will suffer no hesitations, the “look” that has led me into more scrapes than I care to remember over the past seven years.
‘So excited was my dear cousin that it was impossible not to be swept up in her enthusiasm. I sometimes think she has enough spirit for the two of us, which is just as well seeing as I am so often dispirited. Before I knew it we were hurrying along together, arms linked, giggling. Davies was waiting for us at the maze gate, lumbering beneath the weight of an enormous potted plant, and all the way through Eliza kept doubling back with offers of help (which he always declined) before leaping back beside me, seizing my hand, and pulling me further along. We continued thus through the maze (with whose routes Eliza was extremely au fait), crossing the centre sitting area, passing the brass ring that Eliza says heralds the entrance to an underground passage, until we arrived, finally, at a metal door with a large brass lock. With a flourish, Eliza withdrew a key from the pocket of her skirt and, before I had time to ask her where on earth she’d found such a thing, it was inserted. She turned the lock and pushed so that the door swung slowly open.
‘Inside was a garden. Similar to and yet somehow different from the other gardens on the estate. For a start, it is walled completely. Tall stone walls around all four sides, broken only by two opposing metal doors, one on the northern and one on the southern wall—’
‘So there is another door,’ said Cassandra. ‘I couldn’t find it.’
Julia looked over the top of her glasses. ‘There were renovations made, back around 1912 . . . 1913 . . . The brick wall out front for one, maybe they removed the door then? But wait. Listen to this.
‘The garden itself was neat and rather under-planted. It had the look of a fallow field, waiting to be sown after the winter months have passed. In its centre, an ornate metal bench sat by a stone birdbath, and on the ground were several wooden crates loaded with small potted plants.
‘Eliza ran inside with all the grace of a schoolboy.
‘“What is this place?” I said in wonder.
‘“It’s a garden, I’ve been tending it. You should have seen the weeds when first I started. We’ve been so busy, haven’t we, Davies?”
‘“We certainly have at that, Miss Eliza,” he said, depositing the pot plant by the southern wall.
‘“It’s going to be ours, Rose, yours and mine. A secret place where we can be together, just the two of us, just as we imagined when we were younger. Four walls, locked doors, our very own paradise. Even when you’re unwell you can come here, Rose. The walls keep it protected from the rough sea winds, so you’ll still be able to listen to the birds, smell the flowers, feel the sun on your face.”
‘Her enthusiasm, the intensity of her feeling, was such that I couldn’t help but long for such a garden. I gazed upon the tamed garden beds, the potted flowers that were just beginning to bud, and I could imagine the paradise she described. “I heard talk when I was very small about a walled garden hidden on the property, but I thought it must be a story.”
‘“It’s not,” said Eliza, eyes shining. “It was all true, and now we’re bringing it back to life.”
‘They had certainly worked hard. If the garden had been untended all this time, ever since . . . I frowned, the talk I’d heard as a girl was coming back to me. Then realisation struck: I knew exactly whose garden this had been—
‘“Oh, Liza,” I said quickly. “You must be careful, we must be careful. We must leave this place and never come back. If Father were to find out—”
‘“He already knows.”
‘I looked at her sharply, more sharply than I intended. “What do you mean?”
‘“It was Uncle Linus who instructed Davies that I should have the garden. He had Davies clear the last part of the maze and told him that we should give the garden new life.”
‘“But Father forbade anyone going inside the walled garden.”
‘Eliza shrugged, that gesture of hers that comes so readily and which Mamma so despises. “He must have had a change of heart.”
‘A change of heart. How uneasily the sentiment sat with my image of Father. It was the word “heart” that did it. E
xcept for the one time in his study, when I was hidden beneath the desk and heard him weep for his sister, his poupee, I cannot think that I have ever seen Father behave in a way that suggested a heart. Suddenly, I knew, and I felt a strange heaviness in the very base of my stomach. “It is because you are her daughter.”
‘But Eliza did not hear me. She had left my side and was dragging the propagating pot towards a large hole by the wall.
‘“This is our first new tree,” she called. “We’re going to have a ceremony. That’s why it was so important that you be here today. This tree will continue to grow, no matter where our lives take us, and it will remember us always: Rose and Eliza.”
‘Davies was by my side then, holding out a small spade. “It’s Miss Eliza’s wish that you should be the first to toss dirt onto the roots of the tree, Miss Rose.”
‘Miss Eliza’s wish. Who was I to argue with so great a force?
‘“What sort of tree is it?” I asked.
‘“An apple tree.”
‘I should have known. Eliza has always had an eye to symbolism and apples are, after all, the first fruit.’
Julia looked up from the scrapbook and a tear slipped from eyes that were brimming. She snuffled and smiled. ‘I just love Rose so much. Can’t you feel her here with us?’
Cassandra smiled back. She had eaten an apple from a tree her great-grandmother had helped to plant, nearly a hundred years before. She blushed slightly as thoughts of the apple brought back echoes of the strange dream. All week as she’d worked close by Christian, she’d managed to block it out. She had thought she was rid of it.
‘And now you’re cleaning up the same garden all over again. What lovely symmetry. What would Rose say if she knew?’ Julia plucked a tissue from a nearby box and blew her nose. ‘Sorry,’ she said, dabbing mascara from beneath each eye. ‘It’s just so romantic.’ She laughed. ‘It’s a shame you don’t have a Davies to help you.’
‘He’s not a Davies, but I do have someone helping me,’ said Cassandra. ‘He’s been every afternoon this week. I met him and his brother Michael when they came to clear a fallen tree from the cottage. You know them, I think. Robyn Jameson said they do the gardens here too.’
‘The Blake boys. They most certainly do, and I must say I enjoy watching them. That Michael’s easy on the eye, isn’t he? Quite the charmer, too. If I were still writing, it’d be Michael Blake I’d picture when I was describing my ladies’ man.’
‘And Christian?’ Despite her best attempt at nonchalance, Cassandra felt her cheeks warm up.
‘Oh, he’d definitely be the smarter, younger, quieter brother who surprises everyone by saving the day and winning the heroine’s heart.’
Cassandra smiled. ‘I’m not even going to ask who I’d be.’
‘And I have no doubts who I’d be,’ Julia said with a sigh. ‘The ageing beauty who doesn’t have a chance with the hero so channels her energy into helping the heroine realise her fate.’
‘Life’d be a lot easier if it were like a fairytale,’ said Cassandra, ‘if people belonged to stock character types.’
‘Oh but people do, they only think they don’t. Even the person who insists such things don’t exist is a cliché: the drear pedant who insists on his own uniqueness!’
Cassandra took a sip of wine. ‘You don’t think there’s any such thing as uniqueness?’
‘We’re all unique, just never in the ways we imagine.’ Julia smiled, then waved her hand, bangles clattering. ‘Listen to me. What a dreadful absolutist I am. Of course there are variations in character. Take your Christian Blake for instance, he’s not a gardener by trade, you know. He works at a hospital in Oxford. That is, he did. Some kind of doctor, I forget the proper name, they’re so long and confusing, aren’t they?’
Cassandra sat up straighter. ‘What’s a doctor doing lopping trees?’
‘What’s a doctor doing lopping trees?’ Julia echoed meaningfully. ‘My point exactly. When Michael told me his brother was starting with him I didn’t ask questions, but I’ve been curious as the proverbial ever since. What makes a young man swap vocations, just like that?’
Cassandra shook her head. ‘Change of heart?’
‘Pretty big change, I’d say.’
‘Maybe he realised he didn’t enjoy it.’
‘Possible, but you’d think he might have got the hint at some time during the interminable years of study.’ Julia smiled enigmatically. ‘I think it’s likely far more interesting than that, but then I was a writer and old habits die hard. I can’t stop my imagination running away with me.’ She pointed a gin-clutching finger at Cassandra. ‘That, my dear, is what makes a character interesting, their secrets.’
Cassandra thought of Nell and the secrets she’d kept. How could she have stood it, finally discovering who she really was and not telling a soul? ‘I wish my grandmother had seen the scrapbooks before she died. They would have meant so much to her, the closest thing possible to hearing her mother’s voice.’
‘I’ve been thinking about your grandmother all week,’ said Julia. ‘Ever since you told me what happened I’ve been wondering what made Eliza take her.’
‘And? What do you reckon?’
‘Envy,’ said Julia. ‘I come back to it every time. It’s a bloody powerful motivator, and Lord knows there was enough to envy about Rose: her beauty, her talented husband, her birthright. Throughout their childhoods Eliza must have seen Rose as the little girl who had everything, particularly the things she didn’t have. Wealthy parents, a beautiful house, a kind nature that people admired. Then, in adulthood, to see Rose marry so quickly, and to a man who must’ve been quite a catch, then fall pregnant, have a beautiful baby girl . . . Hell, I feel jealous of Rose! Imagine what it was like for Eliza—a bit of an odd bird by all accounts.’ She drained her drink, put the glass down emphatically. ‘I’m not excusing what she did, not at all, I’m just saying it doesn’t surprise me.’
‘It’s the most obvious answer, isn’t it?’
‘And the most obvious answer is usually the right one. It’s all there in the scrapbooks—well, it’s all there if you know what you’re looking for. From the moment Rose found out she had a baby on the way, Eliza grew more distant. There’s very little mention of Eliza after Ivory was born. It must’ve plagued Rose—Eliza was like a sister, and suddenly, in such a special time, she withdrew. Packed up and took herself away from Blackhurst.’
‘Where did she go?’ said Cassandra, surprised.
‘Overseas somewhere, I think.’ Julia frowned. ‘Though now you mention it, I’m not sure that Rose actually says—’ she waved her hand—‘and it’s beside the point, really. The fact is, she went away while Rose was pregnant and didn’t come back until after Ivory was born. Their friendship was never the same again.’
Cassandra yawned and readjusted her pillow. Her eyes were tired but she was almost at the end of 1907 and it seemed a shame to put the scrapbook aside with only a handful of pages left to go. Besides, the sooner she read them, the better: while Julia had kindly agreed to the loan, Cassandra suspected that the separation would only be borne for a short time. Thankfully, where Nell’s writing was scrawled, Rose’s hand was steady and considered. Cassandra took a sip of tea, lukewarm now, and passed over pages filled with fabric, ribbon samples, wedding tulle, and flourished autographs reading: Mrs Rose Mountrachet Walker, Mrs Walker, Mrs Rose Walker. She smiled—certain things never changed—and turned to the last page.
I have just finished re-reading Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It is a perplexing novel, and one which I cannot truly say that I enjoy. There is so much that is brutal in Hardy’s fiction. It is too wild, I suppose, for my tastes: I am my mother’s daughter, after all, despite my best intentions. Angel’s conversion to Christianity, his marriage to Liza-lu, the death of poor baby Sorrow: these occurrences bother me, all. Why should Sorrow have been deprived of a Christian burial—babies aren’t to blame for the sins of their parents, surely? Does Hardy approve of Angel’s c
onversion or is he a Sceptic? And how could Angel transfer his affections so simply from Tess to her sister?
Ah well, such issues have perplexed greater minds than mine, and my purpose in turning again to the sad tale of poor, tragic Tess was not literary criticism. I confess I consulted Mr Thomas Hardy in the hopes that he might offer some insight into what I might expect when Nathaniel and I are wed. More particularly, what might be expected of me. Oh! how it heats my cheeks even to think such questions in my mind! Certainly I could never find words to speak them. (Imagine Mamma’s face!)
Alas, Mr Hardy did not provide the answers I so hopefully sought. I had remembered incorrectly, Tess’s defilement is covered in no great detail. So there it is. Unless I can think of somewhere else I might turn (not Mr James, I think, nor Mr Dickens), I will have little choice but to go blind into that dark abyss. My greatest fear is that Nathaniel will have cause to look upon my stomach. Surely it won’t be so? Vanity is indeed a great sin, but alas I cannot help myself. For my marks are so ugly, and he so fond of my pale skin.
Cassandra read the last few lines over. What were these marks of which Rose spoke? Birthmarks perhaps? Scars? Had she read anything else in the scrapbooks that might elucidate the entry? Try as she might, Cassandra couldn’t remember. It was too late and she too tired, her thoughts as blurred as her vision.
She yawned again, rubbed at her eyes and closed the scrapbook. Probably she’d never know, and in all likelihood it didn’t matter. Cassandra ran her fingers again over the worn cover, just as Rose must have done many times before her. She placed the book on her bedside table and switched off the light. Closed her eyes and slid into a familiar dream about long grass, an endless field and, suddenly, unexpectedly, a cottage on the edge of an ocean cliff.
36
Pilchard Cottage, 1975
Nell waited by the door, wondering whether she should knock again. She’d been standing on the doorstep for over five minutes and had begun to suspect that William Martin knew nothing of her impending arrival at his dinner table, that the invitation might have been little more than a ploy of Robyn’s to smooth the waters after their previous encounter. Robyn seemed the type for whom social unpleasantness, no matter what its cause or consequence, might be intolerable.