Love in an English Garden

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Jassy,’ Tilda began again, ‘do you understand what’s happening?’

  ‘You want to sell Orley.’

  ‘Yes, but not all of it. Nothing’s going to change for us. We’ll still have all the rooms we use every day, and the south garden and walled garden.’

  ‘And the oast house?’

  ‘Of course. But we’ll be selling the rest.’

  ‘What does Grandma think about it?’ Jassy asked.

  Tilda swallowed hard and looked at her mother. ‘We haven’t told her yet.’

  ‘You’re too scared to,’ Jassy said, speaking the truth as only she could.

  ‘We’re going to tell her today.’

  ‘It’s her house too.’

  ‘We know, but it won’t be anybody’s house if we can’t afford to live here.’

  Jassy frowned. ‘But this is our home.’

  ‘And it will stay our home,’ Tilda said. ‘Just with the addition of a few more people.’

  Jassy stared down into her cereal. She wasn’t always good around people. She found talking to strangers very difficult and preferred the company of those she was familiar with. The thought of strangers actually living at Orley was obviously upsetting to her.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Tilda said, not quite believing her own words. ‘Think of it as a new chapter in the story of Orley. An adventure!’

  ‘I don’t like adventures,’ Jassy said.

  Dolly Jacobs wasn’t known to like adventures either. The wife of Robert Jacobs and mother of Oliver, she’d grown up in a cottage on the outskirts of the nearby village of Elhurst and, as far as Vanessa knew, had never left the county. She’d moved into Orley as an eighteen-year-old bride and now resided in a set of downstairs rooms overlooking the south garden.

  The job of telling her that they were selling half the house had fallen to Vanessa who, despite being in her fifties, still felt like a schoolgirl in the presence of Dolly Jacobs.

  She’s never liked me, her inner voice told her now. She wanted somebody else for her beloved Oliver. A nice plump country girl who liked horses, instead of some skinny businesswoman from London. She’s never forgiven me for capturing Oliver’s heart.

  Vanessa shook her head as if trying to dislodge her negative thoughts as she ventured towards Dolly’s rooms in the south wing. Dolly was an early riser and had breakfast long before anybody else was up, then spent most of the rest of the day in her living room during the winter.

  Reaching her living-room door, Vanessa took a deep breath and tentatively knocked. An immediate sound of barking was heard. It was Reynolds, Dolly’s Jack Russell, who also didn’t like Vanessa. Named after Dolly’s favourite painter, Reynolds was a typical terrier with an instinct to protect and an addiction to ankles. Tilda and Jassy adored him and his half-white, half-chestnut face, but Vanessa sincerely believed that Dolly had trained him to hate her.

  ‘Who is it?’ Dolly’s voice came from behind the door after Vanessa knocked for the second time.

  ‘It’s me. Vanessa.’ She opened the door and walked in. It was a beautiful room with an ornate plasterwork ceiling and a large fireplace in which a wood-burning stove had been installed to keep it cosy in the cooler months. There were some very nice pieces of furniture too – pieces that had been hauled in there soon after Oliver’s death, as if Dolly didn’t quite trust Vanessa with them – as well as a fine eighteenth-century portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Dolly wasn’t going to leave that anywhere near her daughter-in-law.

  ‘What do you want?’ Dolly asked. She was sitting in an armchair by a window which overlooked the garden. In the spring, Dolly had a fine view of the glorious magnolia tree in bloom and, in the summer, she enjoyed the colours of the herbaceous border, which she could see comfortably from her chair.

  ‘I’ve come to have a little talk,’ Vanessa said, fixing a smile onto her face as she took a seat in the chair next to Dolly’s. Reynolds, who was sitting by his mistress’s feet, growled at her, baring his nasty little teeth.

  ‘Are you okay, Dolly? Your hair looks pretty this morning,’ she said. She never knew what to say to the old woman and invariably said the wrong thing.

  ‘Never mind the nonsense,’ Dolly snapped. ‘Tell me what you’ve got to say.’

  ‘It’s about the house,’ Vanessa began hesitantly. ‘The girls and I have been talking and we’ve made a decision.’

  ‘A decision without me?’

  ‘Well, I’m here now to run it by you.’

  ‘And what’s this decision?’ The old woman narrowed her eyes. She had once been very beautiful, with a lovely round face and thick mahogany-coloured hair, and Oliver, her only child, had adored her. But Vanessa’s relationship with Dolly had always been somewhat prickly so she was understandably anxious about talking to her now.

  ‘You know how we’ve been struggling. Bills and things. Running Orley.’

  ‘I’ve never known anyone mismanage a house quite like you do,’ Dolly said cruelly.

  ‘I haven’t mismanaged anything, Dolly. You know as well as I do that these big old houses are expensive to keep and, well, we need to be able to ensure its future for Tilda and Jasmine. We need to know that it’ll be in sound condition for us to pass it on to them, don’t we? Just as when you and Robert handed it to Oliver. And we simply can’t do that without a huge injection of cash. Our combined incomes are laughably low and we think it might be in the best interests of everyone if we sold half of the house.’ Vanessa paused, waiting for the tirade that would follow, and was quite surprised when Dolly said nothing at all. The old woman simply stared at her.

  Vanessa swallowed hard. ‘We’re thinking of the north wing. The rooms are large and very beautiful. It has its own entrance as well as the main front door. There’s a separate garden and I think it would make a really wonderful home for somebody. We hardly ever use that wing and it would raise an enormous amount of money for us.’ She stopped, her heart racing and her head thumping.

  At last, Dolly spoke. ‘You always were trouble,’ she told Vanessa. ‘I knew the minute you arrived from London with your city ways. I told Oliver, “That one will be the end of Orley!” ’

  ‘You did not!’ Vanessa said, shocked by the admission. ‘Anyway, this is Tilda’s idea,’ she said, feeling awful for trying to put the blame on her daughter, but perhaps Dolly would feel better about the decision if she knew it had come from a blood relative. ‘And I think it’s a very good one.’

  ‘This isn’t your home,’ Dolly said.

  ‘How can you say that? It’s been my home for thirty years. I’ve raised two Jacobs children here and it’s their birthright.’

  ‘You’re not a Jacobs.’

  ‘And neither are you!’ Vanessa said.

  Dolly sucked in a lungful of air.

  ‘But my children are Oliver’s children,’ Vanessa continued, ‘and he left the house to them and they’ve now chosen to sell part of it, so it’s our role to support that decision.’

  ‘What about all the portraits and furniture?’ Dolly asked.

  ‘Everything will be moved into our half of the house.’

  ‘It’s outrageous! If Oliver were alive—’

  ‘But he isn’t!’ Vanessa cried. ‘He’s dead and we’ve got to cope as best as we can, and we’d like your support with this, Dolly. We don’t need it, but we’d like it, okay?’

  Vanessa stood up, instantly making Reynolds growl. She was shaking. It was probably best if she didn’t say anything else at this stage. She’d let Dolly think about things in her own time.

  Leaving Dolly’s room, Vanessa went upstairs to her bedroom and sat down on the bed. She felt like crying. She missed Oliver so much. It had only been two years since he’d died from cancer, but it seemed like a lifetime ago. An age without his arms around her, without his words of comfort when he knew his mother was getting to her. She tried not to think about how unfair it was that it was Oliver who’d been taken and not Dolly. How much easier life would have been if Dolly had been the one t
o die.

  Vanessa sighed, determined not to be sucked into a vortex of negative emotions. She had work to do and it couldn’t wait a minute longer.

  The estate agent arrived in a very nice Audi and got out of the car with a large clipboard in her hand.

  ‘And you’re sure you don’t want to sell the whole place?’ she asked, a hungry look in her eyes as if she were working out her commission.

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ Vanessa cried. ‘We have to live somewhere!’

  Things got pretty hectic after that, with surveyors, builders, people from building regulations and photographers arriving. A small fence was put up to divide part of the garden. A new door was installed and all of the paintings, furniture and rugs were moved from the rooms which were going to be sold.

  Finally, they were presented with a beautiful brochure of the north wing and informed that it was now being advertised.

  ‘That’s it then,’ Vanessa said to her daughters. ‘No going back now.’

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Tilda told her. ‘It’ll all work out.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Vanessa said.

  ‘Because things always have a way of working out, don’t they?’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Vanessa said, wondering if she dared show the brochure to Dolly. ‘I really hope you’re right.’

  Chapter 3

  Laurence Sturridge hadn’t been able to face the tyranny of the Tube that Friday night and so he’d walked home, pushing through crowded pavements, crossing busy roads and jogging through darkened parks back to his flat south of the river. He’d needed to clear his head after a stressful week of meetings and mergers he didn’t wholeheartedly agree with. His job as a financial consultant used to excite him and he’d enjoyed the pressure but, somewhere along the way, the pleasure had fizzled out and been replaced with resentment. Now, each morning when his alarm clock shook him out of sleep, he would wake with a groan.

  ‘And that is no way to live,’ he said to himself as he reached his street at last. It was a quiet road full of large Victorian houses that had been converted into flats, with a couple of modern blocks towards the end. Laurence lived in one of the newer buildings which overlooked the River Thames. He’d been tempted by a ground-floor apartment in one of the Victorian houses because it’d had a garden but, truth be told, he didn’t really have time for a garden. And that was another gripe he had with the world. When had life got so busy that he no longer had time to plant some bulbs and grow a few vegetables?

  His childhood home had been a cottage on the edge of Elhurst in Sussex, with stunning views across the wooded valleys of the Weald. He’d loved it. From an early age, he’d been allowed to venture out on his bike, exploring the country lanes, paddling in streams and swinging from the great limbs of trees. He’d made dens with friends from the village, climbed hills in the winter and sledged back down them; he’d learned to ride a horse and even had sailing lessons on the south coast. It had been a life led outdoors and he missed that. He hadn’t realised how much until the past few days.

  When had it all started to go wrong? he wondered, thinking back to when he’d left home for university. He’d immersed himself in his studies, which had led him into the lucrative world of finance. He had no complaints about his salary, that was for sure, but what had it cost him in terms of lifestyle?

  Entering the communal door to his block, he crossed the lobby to the lift and took it up to the eighth floor. He hadn’t thought about Elhurst for years but, recently, the green and golden landscape of his childhood home had been filling his mind. The cottage at the edge of the village. The village at the head of the valley. The valley in the loveliest county of England.

  He smiled as he got his key out, unlocking the door and stepping into the hallway. It was dark, which surprised him.

  ‘Dad?’

  Perhaps his father was out, although Laurence doubted that very much. And sure enough, after leaving his briefcase in the hallway and taking off his shoes, he walked through to the living room and spotted his dad sitting in the chair by the window that looked out onto the river. Laurence cocked his head to one side. His father seemed to be asleep.

  Leaning forward, Laurence switched the lamp on, flooding the room with light.

  ‘Dad?’ he said softly.

  Slowly, his dad came to, staring at his son as if trying to remember who he was.

  ‘I’m home. It’s the weekend.’

  His father nodded. ‘Good day?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. I’ve had a bit of a crazy idea.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. We should talk. I’ll make us a cup of tea.’

  He walked into the tiny kitchen. Although well situated, it was a horribly small flat and had been made to seem even smaller since the arrival of his father, but he hadn’t had the heart to turn his dad away. Since Laurence’s mother had died, his father had been like a lost soul, wandering the earth without a purpose. He seemed to do very little other than sit in the chair by the window, reading a book whose pages never seemed to turn, Laurence had noticed.

  Marcus Sturridge had been living with his son for six months now. When his beloved wife Tara had died suddenly in a car crash, he had sold their home in Kent and taken off to South America for a year. There’d been very little communication between father and son during that time and Laurence had been worried sick, imagining a phone call coming any minute from the authorities saying his father had been either kidnapped or thrown in some dive of a prison. To Laurence, it had been as if he’d lost both his parents that year.

  But then his father had returned. Hopelessly dishevelled, horribly bearded and somewhat homeless. He’d been sitting in that chair ever since.

  Something needed to change, and fast.

  ‘Dad?’ Laurence said, coming back with two cups of tea.

  Marcus looked up from the book he wasn’t reading and took the proffered cup.

  ‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ Laurence sat down opposite his father. ‘I’ve been thinking that a change would do us good. I mean, a total change.’

  ‘Oh, God. You don’t want to join a gym again, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to join a gym,’ Laurence said with an exasperated sigh. ‘I want to move.’

  ‘Move where? What’s wrong with here?’

  ‘I don’t fit here anymore,’ Laurence said. ‘My life feels like it doesn’t belong to me. I get up in the morning and, when I realise that I have to go in to the office, this dead weight lands square on my chest and I’m wishing the hours away!’

  ‘You need a job, son,’ Marcus said.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I think I can go it alone now. Set up my own business.’

  ‘Isn’t that a big risk?’

  Laurence took a deep breath. ‘I don’t like what’s happening to the company. It’s different from when I joined. Decisions have been made – choices I don’t agree with. I’m not happy there anymore. I need to get out, and of course it’s a risk, but it’s something I feel I need to do. And surely you can’t be happy here, Dad? Don’t you want to get back to the country?’

  ‘The country?’

  ‘There’s the money from the house in Kent, and I could sell this flat in a heartbeat.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Move, Dad! Get out of here. Go to the country and start living again. Really living.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Sussex.’

  ‘You want to go back to Sussex?’

  ‘Sure. Why not? We were happy there.’

  His father didn’t look so sure. ‘That was a long time ago, Laurie.’

  ‘I know, but it’s a time I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Look, I’ve got something to show you.’

  He went through to his bedroom and came back with a magazine. It was a big glossy one – the sort which had pages and pages of property advertisements. One of the pages had been dog-eared. He turned to it now.

  ‘I found this on the Tube seat next to me last we
ek. It’s like it was fate.’

  ‘Fate that someone had left an old magazine they’d probably sneezed into?’

  ‘Take a look, Dad.’

  Marcus shook his head, but took the magazine from his son. ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘The first property on the page.’

  Marcus squinted and looked at the photograph, then up at Laurence, then down at the page and then up at Laurence once more.

  ‘It’s Orley Court,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Why are you so excited about that?’

  ‘Because it’s for sale. Well, part of it. The north wing and a little bit more.’

  ‘And why’s that of interest to you?’

  ‘Because I’m going to buy it!’

  His father looked at him as if he were quite mad. ‘What do you want with an old manor house?’

  Laurence laughed. ‘It’ll be fun! I’ve got money to invest and property is one of the best investments around, so why not make the most of things and buy something really amazing? I’m always advising people to do that – to put their money not only into sound investments but also into things that will give them joy. Well, it’s about time I took my own advice.’

  ‘But what about me?’

  ‘You’re coming with me.’

  ‘You expect me to put money into this old ruin?’

  ‘It’s not an old ruin. It might need a bit of restoration, but I’ve got plenty put aside. You can chip in if you want, but it’s fine if you don’t. The sale from this flat and the money I’ve got put by will more than cover it.’

  He watched as his father looked at the photograph and read through the accompanying text. When Marcus finally glanced up, he wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I don’t believe in going backwards,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I think it’ll be a mistake going back to Sussex.’