Love in an English Garden

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘No – I mean, the song wasn’t annoying. I meant the constant playing of it.’

  ‘It was on a lot,’ Tilda admitted.

  ‘So that’s where I know you from. You were on the TV and in the newspaper all the time.’

  ‘For a little while.’

  ‘Well, this is really—’

  ‘I think you should buy this furniture, don’t you?’ Tilda said abruptly.

  Laurence managed to get a bit of a discount and free delivery on the items he wanted to purchase and felt very excited about seeing them in situ in his rooms, but it didn’t distract him from the incident with Tilda. As they left the antiques centre, he zoned in on her again.

  ‘Do you mind me asking how it all happened?’

  ‘How what happened? How you came to buy half the antiques centre?’

  ‘No!’ he said with a laugh. ‘How the whole Tilly business happened.’

  They got in the car and Tilda took a deep breath. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Yeah! I really do. I’m a boring financial consultant. I don’t often get to meet famous people.’

  ‘I’m hardly famous.’

  ‘No? You’ve just been on the TV, radio and in newspapers, and cause little girls to have heart attacks in public places.’

  Tilda shook her head, but he could see that she was doing her best to suppress a smile.

  ‘Tell me, Tilda. Or should I call you Tilly?’

  ‘No, please don’t. Only my family is allowed to get away with that and they were doing it long before the madness began.’

  ‘So how did it all begin?’ he asked, starting the engine and driving through Elhurst.

  ‘Well, I entered a talent contest and then got signed up to a record label, but I only had the one hit. It did pretty well, though. It was summer, so the timing was right and I got involved in a nationwide tour, but that was it. It was a corny, cheesy song. I had the lyrics pushed into my mouth. But it made a lot of money. It helped us out at Orley with some pretty big bills.’

  ‘And you’re not singing and performing now?’ he asked, taking a right turn into the valley.

  ‘I was kind of pushed aside. Another artist from another talent show came along and became the next big thing.’

  ‘That’s brutal.’

  ‘That’s the business.’

  ‘But you’ve still got your talent – your music. You still write, don’t you?’

  She didn’t answer and gave a funny little shrug.

  ‘Because what I heard coming from that piano was really beautiful. You can’t bury talent like that.’

  ‘But can’t you see that nobody’s going to take my music seriously now? I’ll always be “Silly Tilly” of that summer song.’

  ‘Then reinvent yourself. Artists do it all the time. Pick a new name, a new identity. Find a new sound.’

  ‘I don’t have a new sound, unless silence is a sound.’

  ‘I’m afraid “The Sound of Silence” has already been a big hit.’

  ‘Very funny,’ she said.

  ‘Seriously, write your music, Tilda. It’s beautiful, and people will always want that in their lives. You don’t have to hit great heights again like you did. Music isn’t all about money, is it?’

  ‘Says the investment accountant or whatever it is you do!’

  ‘No, I mean—’

  ‘It’s totally about the money. I have to earn a living and these days I do that by teaching music. I’ve no right to think I can be a musician anymore.’

  They’d reached Orley and, as soon as Laurence had parked the car, Tilda jumped out.

  ‘Hey!’ he called after her. She stopped and turned back to face him. ‘Thanks for today.’

  She nodded, but she didn’t say anything.

  Chapter 6

  Tilda wasn’t in a good mood as she packed her bag and got her things together for her afternoon’s teaching. Who did this Laurence Sturridge think he was, telling her what she should be doing with her music? Just when she’d started to think of herself as a teacher, he’d come in and done his best to throw her off course again. Well, she wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Nothing and nobody was going to persuade her that she could do anything more than teach. Teaching was safe, it was reliable and, if she could get enough pupils, it could become a really viable career. The same could not be said for becoming a full-time singer-songwriter. There were too many variables, too much luck involved. The industry was frighteningly fickle and she wanted nothing more to do with it. At least, that’s what she told herself.

  The truth was, Tilda knew that there was more to her than teaching. However wonderful it was to guide a pupil towards a love and appreciation of music, it was nothing when compared to composing your own pieces, and she missed that, oh how she missed that. She was an artist, pure and simple. She needed to write, to play, to sing. But what was the point, really, if she was never going to find an audience? She truly believed what she had told Laurence – that the music industry would never consider her as a serious artist after her incarnation as Tilly. She was as good as dead and so she had tucked her dream away, burying it under layers of remorse, and regret that she had ever entered that stupid competition.

  Oh, she was so mad that Laurence had managed to get her all stirred up about things again. He might have a cute smile, but she was going to have to avoid him in the future if she was going to keep sane. As it was, her mother and sister were always telling her she should be singing rather than teaching. The last thing she needed was another voice chiming in. Was she the only one who could see the truth of the matter?

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to think about it anymore. She had promised herself that, one night in a lonely hotel room in the middle of her tour. The tour on which she had been replaced.

  Her manager had been less than tactful about it, telling her to go back to her hotel and ride things out. ‘Don’t take it personally,’ he’d told her, but how could she not? Just a few months before, she’d been told countless times that she was the most personable girl on the planet and that everybody loved her. So, where had all that love gone? Had it simply transferred to the next young act? Had she been forgotten so quickly? They had built her up and then hadn’t even stuck around to watch her fall.

  Tilda still carried some of that hollow feeling around inside her. It was like a kind of disease, but she was doing her best to make sure that she never caught it again.

  Grabbing her bag, she left the house and drove into Elhurst for her Saturday appointment with old Major Finnegan. He lived in a large Georgian house opposite the church and Tilda parked outside, glancing up at the eight enormous sash windows that looked out onto the main street and wondering if the major was looking out of one of them, awaiting her arrival.

  Sure enough, as soon as she was out of the car, the front door opened and the tall, portly figure of Major Finnegan greeted her.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, ushering her in. ‘I expect you’ll want to try and teach me something, eh?’

  ‘That’s the general idea, Major,’ Tilda said.

  ‘Well, come on through, come on through.’

  He led the way into the sitting room. It was a beautifully light space with two windows which took in the panorama of the church and the Ridwell Valley beyond. The room itself housed an old sofa with a threadbare cover and a scattering of old cushions and even older cats, whom the major would chase out before they began their lesson as if he were afraid he might upset his pets with the racket he made on the keyboard.

  The major was a widower and a large portrait of his very large wife dominated the room, glowering down at the piano. It was quite off-putting really, but Tilda did her best to ignore it.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Tilda said. It was one of the major’s delaying tactics, she had found. A cup of tea, a plate of scones, a quick tour of the garden to see what was growing, a rifle through the newspaper to read her the latest book reviews – the major was a great
one for putting off his actual lesson. ‘I think we should get straight to it, don’t you?’

  ‘Hmm, I suppose we should,’ he said, cracking his knuckles, which made Tilda wince.

  ‘Now, Major—’

  ‘I do wish you’d call me Herbie.’

  Tilda nodded silently. She couldn’t even call him by his full Christian name of Herbert, let alone Herbie. It just wasn’t right. Even though she was the teacher in this scenario, she always felt like the schoolchild.

  ‘Let’s see how you’ve been getting on with that Bach piece I left you with, shall we?’

  The major grumbled something into his beard which Tilda couldn’t quite make out, but she seriously suspected that it had something to do with him not having played a single note since her visit the previous Saturday.

  When she got home, she felt absolutely drained. Some of her pupils did that to her, she found. She seemed to pour more into their lessons than they did. Honestly, she wondered why some of them took up such a pastime as the piano. Her younger pupils were often pushed into it by ambitious parents, but what on earth was the major doing, torturing himself every week when he didn’t have to? Music should come from the soul, she thought. It shouldn’t be forced, or thrust upon a person who had no interest and no natural aptitude.

  Tilda sighed. She mustn’t allow herself to become so despondent. She knew that not all of her pupils would be astonishingly talented protégés who would light up her world with their talent and enthusiasm. No, the reality was that it was her job to push a few reluctant children through their grades in order to appease their parents. That was the lot of the piano teacher and she had better get used to it.

  As soon as Marcus had seen Laurence’s car take off down the driveway, he’d put his book down and got out of his chair. He walked around his rooms for a bit, looking out of the windows at the new view. It wasn’t London, that was for sure. But, then again, London had never really been his home. If he was perfectly honest with himself, which he rarely was these days, he hadn’t felt at home since Tara had died and he’d sold their house in Kent and gone travelling, putting as many miles between himself and the memory of the tragedy as he could.

  In all his years, Marcus had never felt so unsettled as he did right now, and that was saying something for a man who’d joined the navy as soon as he’d left school and had sailed the seven seas. But this was different. This was the kind of unsettled feeling that came from deep within, squatting in one’s insides and seemingly unable to respond to anything – even a year-long trip to the other side of the world and two house moves. Maybe he’d feel better if he took a walk, he thought, putting on his coat and boots.

  He saw her as he was walking down the stairs. Vanessa. The well-meaning woman he really didn’t want to see at that particular moment. He sensed that there was something needy about her; he had absolutely nothing to give her and so he deliberately avoided eye contact and hoped that she was going about her own business and would ignore him.

  ‘Oh, Mr Sturridge!’ she cried as she spotted him. Marcus took a deep breath and looked up.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ she asked. He nodded and continued walking towards the door.

  ‘Anything I can get you?’ He shook his head. He was at the door now. He was very nearly outside.

  ‘Okay then. I’ll see you later.’

  He hoped not.

  Once outside, he took a deep breath of spring air. He didn’t mean to be rude, he really didn’t, but it was easier sometimes. Politeness often encouraged intimacy and that was the last thing he wanted. Swapping pleasantries led to personal intrusions so it was best not to begin.

  He wasn’t really sure where he was heading. If he’d been earnest about a walk, he should have gone straight out into the lane and across the fields, but he found himself walking around the garden and soon realised that he was at the oast house. There was something about the round building that had captured his imagination, he realised, remembering his conversation with young Jasmine on his last visit. Was she in there now? he wondered. He didn’t want to disturb her and, to be fair, he shouldn’t even have been walking by the oast house as it was very much a part of Orley that belonged to the Jacobs family. But, as he walked past, the door opened and an old cat streaked out.

  ‘Stay out of here, Skinny, or you’ll get paint on your nose like last time!’ Jasmine called after the frightened feline. She looked up and caught his eye.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’ She pushed a large blonde curl out of her eyes and adjusted her hairband, which was a swirl of wild colours. ‘You coming in?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  She disappeared inside and Marcus tentatively followed, watching as Jasmine returned to a large canvas she was obviously working on.

  He cleared his throat. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I had a cold last week and my nose swelled up and turned red, but I’m fine now.’

  He smiled. Her honesty was so refreshing. ‘Can I see what you’re working on?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said with a shrug and he took a step towards her, looking at the brilliantly bright colours on the canvas but unable to make out exactly what it was. ‘It’s called Spring. Not very original, but I’m not feeling very original today. Today is an ordinary day and I never paint well when I feel ordinary.’

  He took in the warm pinks and yellows that seemed to dance before his eyes. ‘I like it.’

  ‘It’s a mess, but I’ll get something from it. I usually do.’ She put her hands on her hips and frowned, and Marcus suddenly felt uncomfortable being there.

  ‘I – er – I know this is your family’s part of the property. I shouldn’t really have trespassed.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. You can help me move this bench,’ she said. ‘I can’t shift it on my own and it’s driving me nuts.’ She nodded towards a long bench on the far side of the room. Like everything else in the building, it was covered in paint.

  ‘Where do you want it?’ Marcus asked as he grabbed one end and Jasmine grabbed the other.

  ‘To the right of the door.’

  They moved it together, being careful not to scrape it along the beautiful wooden floorboards, which were also covered in paint splats.

  ‘That’s better,’ Jasmine said. ‘I can use that space over there for my new easel. The light’s better.’

  Marcus nodded, but he didn’t really understand these things. He’d always envied artists and their ability to see the miracle of something as simple as light and to create something from absolutely nothing – to fill a blank canvas with colour and expression.

  Looking around the oast house now, he took in marvellous sketches and paintings, abstracts and landscapes, portraits and still lifes.

  ‘You’re frowning again,’ Jasmine said.

  ‘Am I?’

  She nodded. ‘You frown a lot, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  ‘You do. I’m telling you that you do. Your forehead goes all wrinkly and you look serious and sad. Why are you sad?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You know what I do when I’m sad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I paint. Well, I paint when I’m happy too. And mad. But it’s particularly good to paint when I’m sad. That’s what you should do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Paint it out.’

  ‘I don’t under—’

  ‘Paint out all your feelings. Let them go. Put them down on paper or canvas.’

  ‘But what would I paint?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Marcus felt completely baffled by this young woman. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Sure you can,’ she told him, and she looked around the room before grabbing a brush. ‘This one will do. I’ve got a nice bit of hardboard here. It’s been primed and it’s ready to go. Paint on it. Go on!’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  �
��Don’t think. Just do it!’

  Marcus gave a funny kind of laugh. It was the first time in a long while that anything approaching a laugh had sounded from him and, before he could talk himself out of the situation, he took the proffered paintbrush.

  Vanessa had tried not to take Marcus’s abruptness personally as he’d left the house, but she couldn’t stop it from bothering her. He was obviously a man who was carrying around a great deal of hurt and she so desperately wanted to reach out to him. Her late husband had often told her that this was a great fault in her because she always wanted to help those in need and one simply couldn’t. It was an impossible task to want to make the whole world smile. Still, Vanessa couldn’t help wanting to try.

  But it wasn’t going to happen this morning, she thought as she put her coat on and left the house, walking to the little shed where she kept her bicycle. The misty, silvery mornings of winter were slowly being replaced by the gently golden ones of spring and it felt really good to be outside.

  The road from Orley to the village of Elhurst was a narrow and winding one full of potholes, but Vanessa loved it. Flanked by gently undulating fields, it was a joy to ride down even on a rather ancient bicycle with the wicker basket shaking. Oliver had hated his wife riding the old thing.

  ‘Take the car!’ he used to shout, terrified for his wife’s safety with the speed of the traffic. But there really wasn’t ever much traffic on this road other than the dog walkers or horse riders, and Vanessa couldn’t imagine life without her bicycle. It was a little freedom which she loved.

  Arriving in the village, she dismounted and leaned her bike up against the wall of the shop. She was just about to enter when a tall man opened the door and came out. She didn’t recognise him. He looked to be in his mid to late forties and was wearing a checked shirt unbuttoned at the neck, a dark gilet and a pair of steel-capped boots. His hair was the colour of a redwood tree and his face had a healthy bronze glow about it that told of a life spent in the great outdoors.

  Vanessa stood to one side to let him pass and it was then that Barbara, the owner of the shop, appeared in the window, sticking up an A4 poster with some Blu-tack. The man gave her the thumbs up and looked at Vanessa.