The Last Garden in England

by Julia Kelly

  My plan to carry this child until the time I chose and then go away had seemed so clear when I was alone. Now, having seen Matthew again, it was anything but.

  If only he’d been cold and distant or furious and indignant. If only he hadn’t looked happy to see me. No, not happy. Overjoyed. Shame and want twisted in me. I didn’t want to let him go, even though I had no other choice.

  I gulped in breaths, my back slumped against a tree, desperate for air and fearful I might faint again. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Venetia?”

  I opened my eyes. Matthew stood a few feet away, his hand outstretched. When he met my gaze, it dropped as though he knew that to touch me would be too much.

  “You shouldn’t have followed me,” I said.

  “You left before I could speak to you. I… I wanted to know what I’ve done.”

  I inched around the tree, the bark catching on the fabric of my shirt. “This was a mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  “We both knew that what we were doing was wrong.”

  “How could what we feel for each other be wrong?” he asked.

  “Matthew, I’m carrying your child.”

  His lips fell open. I watched him, desperate for some sort of sign of… what, I don’t know. The life I’d created—that I loved—was crumbling around me.

  Slowly he asked, “Is this why you’ve been avoiding me?”

  “The affair has to end, for both our sakes. Surely you see that.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “How long have you known?”

  I fixed him with a look. “Since the beginning of this month. I fainted and the doctor was called.”

  “You fainted?” he murmured in disbelief. “I should have been with you.”

  “No, you couldn’t have been. You can’t be. If the Melcourts were to find out—”

  “I don’t care what my sister and her husband would say. They have far too much hold over my life as it is.”

  I drew myself up to my full height. “And they have the power to ruin mine. If I leave Highbury House in disgrace and people find out why, I will never be able to work again. This is my livelihood, Matthew. The jobs that I take don’t just support me. They give Adam employment as well. I cannot leave my brother without means.”

  “Your brother could find another position,” he said.

  “But could I? If I have a child out of wedlock, all of my respectability goes away. I know that you wouldn’t condemn me to that sort of life.”

  “I want the world for you, Venetia,” he whispered.

  When he stretched his hand out over the gap between us this time, I let our fingers brush, knowing that it might be the last time we touched. “Then don’t think too harshly of me for what I am about to tell you.”

  And I laid out my plan for him. Every detail except for where I would go for my confinement. He listened, as I told him in no uncertain terms that I intended to cut him out of my life. The longer I spoke, the more the distance between us felt like an insurmountable chasm.

  I wouldn’t have forgiven me.

  When I’d finished, Matthew looked down at our hands lightly touching fingertip to fingertip. “I’ve sat at Wisteria Farm these past weeks, trying to think of what I might have done. Why you might have pulled away from me, when you are all I think of.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “There is another way, Venetia.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve considered everything.”

  “No you haven’t.”

  “Yes, I ha—”

  “Marry me.”

  I jerked back. “Marry you?”

  “Marry me, please,” he repeated, his voice cracking as he grasped for me.

  I tried to twist my wrist out of his grip. “You don’t have to do this. I have a plan.”

  “Stop talking about your plan. I don’t like your bloody plan one bit!” His voice rang out the harshest I’d ever heard from him.

  I stepped back. “I cannot marry you.”

  “Why not? Can you honestly say that you feel nothing for me?” he asked.

  I couldn’t, and both of us knew it.

  He brushed a bit of my hair from my forehead. “I know that what we have has not been a passing fancy for you—you took an incredible risk.” When I said nothing, he tried another tack. “You spoke of your respectability.”

  “It’s the one thing I have,” I said.

  “You have me. You have our child,” he said tenderly.

  My resolve nearly faltered. I wanted so badly to believe in the words he offered me, but they were just words.

  “Your sister won’t stand for it. She dislikes me,” I said.

  “Helen is not my keeper, Venetia.”

  “I know that the Melcourts are your landlords. You would lose Wisteria Farm.”

  His jaw tightened. “And the income my brother-in-law gives me each year as part of my sister’s marriage settlement. But what dignity would I have as a man if I let that keep me from my responsibilities?”

  “Even if we did marry, people would talk,” I pushed.

  “People want to believe in love.”

  “People want to believe in the fallacy of others,” I countered.

  “Are you always so cynical?” he asked with a smile.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Are you always so idealistic?”

  Rather than responding, he wrapped his arms around me.

  “I’ve found the woman I’m going to marry. What man wouldn’t be idealistic?” he murmured into my hair.

  In spite of my better judgment, I melted into him. I craved his reassurance.

  “How would we do it?” I asked.

  He gave a short laugh. “Well, I expect that we probably won’t be wed in All Soul’s in the village, if that’s what you mean.”

  “There’s only so much longer that I can keep the child a secret.”

  “Then we’ll follow your plan. Together,” he said.

  “Go away?”

  “Yes. We’ll marry quietly and go on a tour of Italy or Spain. It will look like our honeymoon, and it will allow you to go into your confinement. After a month, we’ll write home and tell everyone that we fell in love with the countryside and have decided to stay a little bit longer. You’ll have the baby. We’ll announce the birth nine months after the wedding. When we return in a couple of years with a child who is a little taller than other two-year-olds, who will know the difference?”

  There were still risks. One false move, one spilled word. The scandal could destroy both of our families. If I were a better woman, I would have walked away right then and there. Instead, I swallowed and nodded. “Then we’ll marry.”

  He caught my face up in both of his hands and touched our foreheads together. “You will not regret it. I promise you.” He stepped back. “I should return to the house. Helen will be looking for me.”

  I watched him walk away, ducking his head under tree branches, until I could see him no longer.

  Sitting here, writing these words, I know I should be happy. A good, honorable man will marry me. I will not be forced to have a child alone. For the first time in my life, someone will walk with me, side by side. But for all of that, I cannot help the sinking feeling that we are naive to think that we can outrun a ticking clock and the inevitable ruin that will follow.

  • BETH •

  Saturday, 12 August 1944

  Southampton

  My darling Beth,

  Every time I receive one of your letters, the sun shines again. They are what sustains me and makes me know that this brutal campaign will be worth it if I can come home to you.

  You asked how I feel about working behind the line. I cannot tell you much, as you know, for fear that this letter will become entirely black strikethroughs, but I will say it’s not the sort of visceral existence that I felt when I was fighting. Nothing can replace that, but I can see the good that we’re doing. Whenever a lorry full of petrol rolls onto the road, I know that that is going to move us forward. Whenever
supplies for the bakeries or butcheries arrive, I know that the men will eat.

  How is the farm? How are Mr. and Mrs. Penworthy? Has Ruth finally found herself a flyer? These little details are what holds me close to you and Highbury.

  One thing you can do for me is call on Lord Walford at Braembreidge Manor. I know you’ll not want to bother the man who owns such a grand place, but he’s a lonely sort and I worry about him. Only promise me you won’t let him charm you into marrying him instead. He may be seventy-three, but he is an earl.

  I love you.

  Yours forever,

  Graeme

  Beth eyed Ruth, who sat on the edge of her bed, squinting in the fading light of the late-summer sunset. Ruth was attempting to apply a recipe for homemade nail varnish to her toes, but the paint was too clumpy to make a clean line.

  “Do you think that one is better?” Ruth asked, sticking her foot up for Beth to examine.

  “I don’t want to look at your feet, Ruth,” she said, raising her book in front of her nose. “Could you please go back to your own bed?”

  “Yours is closer to the window. Besides, I need your opinion,” her roommate whined. “I’m half-blind as it is.”

  “You wouldn’t be if you would wear your glasses,” she pointed out.

  “That’s easy for you to say, you’re nearly a married woman. I can’t be out and about in glasses.”

  “Nearly married is not the same thing as married,” she reminded Ruth.

  In the weeks following D-Day, she’d been able to settle. A little bit. Graeme’s letters had been few and far between in the three weeks directly after the invasion while the supply lines were being established, but when he began to escort goods between Normandy and Southampton, she’d begun to receive letters nearly every other day. He couldn’t tell her much of what he was doing, but it seemed as though he was as safe as a soldier could be.

  Each time he wrote, he told her he loved her. Each time she read those words, she knew that she’d chosen the right man. But constantly running in the back of her head were Mrs. Symonds’s words:

  Love can make women do ridiculous things. Intelligent women become silly. They give things up they never intended…

  Day after day, Beth turned those words over in her head. She wasn’t naive. She knew that things would be different between her and Graeme after the war. For starters, she wouldn’t be a land girl any longer. All of her friends—Petunia, Alice, Christine, even Ruth—would go off to their respective homes. If not for Bobby, Beth would have counted on Stella leaving Highbury House as soon as possible.

  Despite all of that, she wanted to stay. There were plenty of people who had made her feel welcome. The Penworthys, Mrs. Yarley, the Langs who kept sheep down the road. The sour Mr. Jones could be a welcome sight on days he grunted to her in greeting. Even Mrs. Symonds said hello in the village, although friendship seemed a laughable aspiration.

  She could be happy in Highbury—she was convinced of it—and she wasn’t going to let that go on the vague promise of a life uprooting and resettling at army bases across the country. She refused to feel orphaned again.

  “Come on.” Ruth shook her foot in front of Beth’s face.

  She sighed and gave a cursory glance at the other woman’s toes. “Congratulations, it looks like you’ve painted them with red currant jelly.”

  Ruth made an exasperated sound. “I don’t know why it’s not working.”

  “Maybe because you’re not meant to be able to make nail varnish in Mrs. Penworthy’s kitchen sink,” she said.

  Ruth flopped back on Beth’s bed. “Is it so much to ask for just a little bit of glamour?”

  Despite herself, Beth smiled. Her first impression of Ruth—that the well-dressed, spoiled woman would be miserable no matter where she’d been assigned—stood. However, Ruth understood what it was to fall asleep before her head hit the pillow because she’d been baling hay all day. She had suffered through blistered hands, cracked heels, and chapped lips. They were both land girls, and that connection counted for something.

  “Why don’t we go into Leamington Spa tomorrow and see if we can find you a new lipstick,” said Beth.

  Ruth rolled over on her side. “Really?”

  “Yes. It’s our day off. It will be fun.”

  Ruth squealed with delight, and Beth settled back into her book with a laugh.

  * * *

  It was fun. In Leamington Spa, where there were shops and people and not a tractor in sight, Ruth came into her own.

  Beth had let her roommate drag her around the shops, looking for a new dress for a dance. Beth was pleasantly surprised when, not having found anything up to Ruth’s standard, they headed for the fabric section of a department store.

  “I think I’ll fit it through the bodice with little cloth-covered buttons marching up the front, and I’ll leave the skirt as full as I can with such a measly fabric allowance. But that cobalt blue will look divine against my hair,” said Ruth, touching her long red curls.

  “It will,” said Beth as they walked by the train station, “but I didn’t know you could sew.”

  Ruth grinned. “How do you think I have such a fabulous wardrobe when fashion is so dreary now? I only do it late at night after everyone’s gone to bed.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “You’re a heavier sleeper than you think.” Ruth stopped Beth with a hand on her arm. “I’d like to buy a flower for my hair.”

  “All right,” said Beth, glancing at her watch. They could always catch the next bus.

  They wove through the crowd of people exiting the train station, aiming for the little flower stand near the front.

  “The London train must have just come in,” said Beth.

  “I wonder if there are any new airmen. I heard that some are already making their way back from Normandy,” said Ruth, scanning the crowd.

  “Ruth, if we’re just here to…” Walking out of the station door was Graeme.

  Beth broke into a run, pushing through people to get to him. She was almost to Graeme when finally he saw her. His kit bag fell from his shoulder, and he opened his arms, sweeping her up into a kiss.

  “You’re here. How are you here?” she murmured against his lips.

  “When my commanding officer granted me leave, I was on the first train up from Southampton. You are the only place I want to be.”

  Right there, in the middle of the train station with all of Leamington Spa watching, she kissed him as though she’d never kiss him again.

  Finally, when they pulled apart a little breathless, Graeme touched his forehead to hers. “That is exactly how a man imagines his homecoming will go.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” she whispered.

  “Captain Hastings, it’s good to see you,” called Ruth from somewhere behind Beth.

  “Go away, Ruth,” said Beth, earning a laugh from her roommate.

  “Beth?”

  Her bubble of joy popped. Both she and Graeme turned, and, for the first time in nearly a year, Beth saw Colin. He looked taller, but he was maybe just thinner than she remembered. His uniform looked clean, but worn. But the most remarkable change was his face. He was gaunt, his eyes hollow, and he seemed somehow… gone.

  “Colin,” she said as she felt Graeme’s arm go around her.

  “Is this him?” Colin asked.

  “Who are you?” Graeme countered.

  Beth glanced at Ruth, whose mouth was hanging wide open.

  “Respectfully, Captain, you’ve got your arm around my girl,” said Colin through gritted teeth.

  Graeme tensed. “You’re mistaken, Private. This is my fiancée.”

  “Beth, tell him—”

  “Stop,” she said sharply, cutting off Colin midsentence. “Both of you, stop.”

  “I didn’t expect you to be the type, Beth,” Colin said.

  “The type?” she asked.

  “The backstabbing type,” he spat.

  Graeme surged forward, but Beth
clamped a hand on his arm. “You stay right there.”

  She stepped up to Colin then, facing him squarely. “What are you doing here?”

  “I applied for a transfer right after I received your letter, but it only just came through. I managed forty-eight hours’ leave to come see you.”

  “You should have used it to see your parents. We tried, Colin, but I never loved you and you didn’t love me, either.”

  “And now you’re engaged.” Colin’s expression darkened. “I didn’t think you meant it. Lots of girls write things they don’t mean.”

  She shook her head. “Colin, I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you. I could have told you more about Graeme and how I felt about him, but things moved so fast. But you also have some blame here, Colin. You ambushed me on the phone, asking me to be your girl just as you were leaving to fight. That wasn’t fair.”

  He deflated a little. “I thought… I thought we were friends.”

  “We were, but that’s all. You just wanted a woman waiting at home for you, and that might have been enough for me in Dorking, but it isn’t enough for me now. I have a life here. I have people who love me.”

  “I love you,” he said, but she could see that even he didn’t fully believe it.

  “No, Colin, you don’t. You love the idea of having someone.”

  “Your letters got me through. Knowing that someone other than Ma was writing helped me,” he said.

  “I’m glad for it. I will always care for you, but I don’t love you. I love Graeme,” she said, looking up at her fiancé, who’d edged closer. “I’m going to marry him.”

  When Colin didn’t say anything, Ruth patted him on the arm.

  “Come on, Private…”—Ruth peered at Colin’s uniform badge—“Colin Eccles. Let’s go buy me a flower.”

  Still looking stunned, Colin let Ruth guide him away to the stand.

  “Poor chap,” said Graeme.

  She raised a brow. “Poor chap? You were about to fight him in the middle of the train station.”

  “When I thought he was trying to steal you away.”

  “I’m not something to be stolen. I’m a woman whose mind is made up,” she said.