The Last Garden in England

by Julia Kelly

  She lifted her head to look up at him. “I’ve learned, Father, that there is little that I can say that will stop you if you wish to say something.”

  He laughed. “That is true. Pushiness and interference are both qualities for which I’m certain to be judged at the gates of Heaven.”

  With a sigh, she pushed herself up and took her usual chair, angling it slightly so it wasn’t facing the wall. He took Nanny’s chair—always vacant now. Someone must have sent the woman away.

  “I assume you wish to speak to me,” she said, her words thick. “Or check on me. Everyone seems to be these days.”

  He folded his hands over the Bible propped against his leg. “Should I be checking on you?”

  “I thought it was the prerogative of priests to console grieving mothers.”

  “I could say a number of things. ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven?’ Or maybe Matthew 18:14 would better suit: ‘So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish?’ ”

  “If you did, I would tell you to leave my house.”

  He smiled. “I thought as much. You once told me that you still speak to Father Bilson because he didn’t offer you such platitudes when you were widowed.”

  “The death of a child is different,” she said.

  He inclined his head. “As I am not a father, I can only imagine the pain that you must be feeling. And the rage.”

  Rage. Yes. Layered underneath the sadness and self-pity and pain was a white-hot iron of rage. She could see it—feel it—as though hearing that one word had brushed the fog of everything else.

  “This war,” she spat out. “This bloody, stupid war fought by men who don’t care a thing about the cost. My son. My husband. I have no one left.”

  He simply sat there, so she pushed on. “I was promised a good life, if I only behaved myself. I twisted myself into knots to be a daughter, a debutante, a bride, a wife, a mother. I was supposed to be cared for. And now all is gone.”

  “And now you don’t know what to do with yourself,” he said.

  She sagged forward. He was right. She didn’t have a purpose. She was nothing, just a woman with her husband’s name and a house shrouded in grief.

  “Robin gave you a reason to continue as you were before,” said Father Devlin. “You kept this house for him as best you could. You sent him to school. You tried to give him a normal life.”

  “And now none of that matters,” she whispered.

  His eyes bore into hers. “Does it not? You are still here. You, who had a life of your own, once.”

  “My life before was merely waiting to be married.”

  “That may be so, but now you are a woman of independent means. You may choose to live the life you want to lead. You could play the harp at every hour of the day, or you could run this hospital,” said Father Devlin.

  “Cynthia is the commandant.”

  “Miss Symonds is not the mistress of Highbury House,” said Father Devlin.

  She pursed her lips. A new start. It was tempting—more so than anything she’d felt since Robin’s death. But it was daunting, too. Moving toward an uncertain future meant walking into the possibility of yet more pain.

  Finally, she said, “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  He stood. “Will you indulge me a moment and come with me?”

  She looked at his hand outstretched as though it was the most alien request she’d ever heard. But, after a moment, she let herself be gently pulled to her feet. Father Devlin released his grip on the back of the chair that balanced him and retrieved his crutches. They began a careful walk out of the room.

  Down the stairs, Diana held her head up high as nurses and patients looked up and stared. She must appear to them as a ghost, the unwanted reminder of senseless tragedy.

  Still Diana walked on, following the priest through the French doors and down the steps into the tea garden.

  She squinted in the afternoon sun. This was her first time out of doors since Robin’s death, and the garden was in the midst of its autumnal transformation. Roses were going to hips, and tall grasses were beginning to throw up their willowy buds. The air was crisp, layered with the damp scent of rotting leaves. In a matter of weeks, the trees would begin to change and all of Highbury would begin to go to sleep except the winter garden.

  The winter garden.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I think you know,” said Father Devlin.

  Reflexively, she put out a hand to stop him. “No. I can’t. It’s too soon.”

  The priest shifted his crutches to pat her hand. “I would not do anything that I didn’t think you were strong enough to handle. Trust me.”

  She did trust him, so she forced her breathing steady. When they rounded the winter garden’s brick wall, she stopped. On the pathway just inside the winter garden’s gate sat Bobby. He held one of Robin’s tin lorries, silently driving it across the path.

  “It’s meant to be locked,” she said.

  “I imagine some well-intentioned person put the keys back where you usually keep them. He comes here every afternoon after school and sits in this same spot. When it begins to become dark, he locks the gate again and goes in to his aunt.”

  Diana didn’t say anything, watching the little boy. Miss Adderton had been right. All the spark and life that would flash across his face when he and Robin would play at marauding pirates or soldiers was gone. He was too quiet, eyes too solemn.

  “I asked Bobby why he comes here, and he says that it’s because Robin told him that this was their special place.” Father Devlin paused. “Do you know what I see when I look at him? I see a little boy who has lost his best friend. He is too young to understand it isn’t his fault. He’s seen far more than his fair share of tragedy already. He has no father, no mother, and now no best friend. His aunt seems overwhelmed by the responsibility of taking care of him. If someone doesn’t do something, this little boy might just grow up thinking that he doesn’t have a place. A purpose.”

  She watched Bobby in silence for a moment, rubbing at her left forearm. She thought of what she would hope for Robin if he were the little boy playing alone on the pathway. She thought about what she’d told Father Devlin about her own life. It’s purposelessness.

  Slowly she crossed the path to Bobby. The grass must have muffled her steps because he didn’t look up until she was right in front of him, his hand still clutching the red lorry.

  “Hello, Bobby,” she said.

  “Hello,” he muttered, and went back to rolling the lorry along its invisible path.

  She frowned and crouched down. “What are you doing?”

  “Playing lorries,” he said softly. She remembered this little voice from when she’d first met him in the kitchen. He’d seemed so small and meek, nothing like Robin’s best friend.

  “How did you get into the garden?”

  Fearful, he looked up at her. “I didn’t steal the key. I put it back.”

  She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, Bobby. I’m not angry. I just want to know why.”

  “When me and Robin were pirates, we would go into Blackbeard’s lair and take the key and then come here to look for buried treasure. Only we never found it. We had to take the key back or we might get in trouble.”

  She smiled. “That’s very clever of you making sure to put it back exactly where you found it. And did you ever find buried treasure?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why aren’t you looking for your treasure now?” she asked.

  He looked up at her, his big hazel eyes filling with tears. “Robin had the map.”

  The little boy began to cry heaving sobs. The pressure in Diana’s own chest built, pushing against her heart until her own tears flowed free. Her first instinct was to run, but then she looked at the child laying prostrate on the ground. She couldn’t leave him.

&nbs
p; She began to see a path with such clarity it seemed incredible she hadn’t thought of it before. But right now, the only thing that mattered was comforting her son’s best friend.

  “Bobby,” she choked out, “I would like a hug. Would you like one as well?”

  The little boy half crawled into her lap and buried his face in her chest.

  • VENETIA •

  FRIDAY, 18 OCTOBER 1907

  Highbury House

  This morning, Mrs. Creasley told me unbidden that it is the eighteenth, which means I have been a prisoner for two weeks.

  Each morning, she comes with a tray. Then she helps me dress and sits me in a chair, facing the window. I stare at the garden for hours, the birds and insects flitting around before me as they do their autumnal work. I do not sketch. I do not read. I am buried too deep in the pain of the loss.

  I had no other visitors, just Mrs. Creasley and the doctor. Mr. and Mrs. Melcourt do not come, which is a relief.

  Matthew does not come.

  MONDAY, 21 OCTOBER 1907

  Highbury House

  I awoke this morning and felt different. My grief is still here, but it seems different somehow. It no longer presses down on me so hard I cannot move.

  When Mrs. Creasley came this morning, I said, “I should like to take a bath today, please.”

  She nearly dropped her tray from the shock of hearing me speak, but she pulled herself upright and set the table just as she always does. I pulled my dressing gown on and sat down to eat a proper meal for the first time in weeks. Two maids came with a hip bath a half hour later.

  In the bath, I scrubbed at days, hours, minutes of grief and came out feeling a little lighter for it. I let my hair dry before pinning it up and dressing. Then, I rejoined the world.

  Mrs. Melcourt had banned me from the gardens, but I didn’t care. I needed the outdoors.

  My steps were slow and deliberate. My body was punishing me for the neglect I’d shown it, yet as I walked through the ramble, I could feel myself returning in the scent of the autumn leaves crunched underfoot and the cool of the misty rain that touched my forehead.

  I could not bear the thought of the children’s, lovers’, or bridal gardens. I did not want to see Matthew’s roses in the poet’s or tea gardens. Instead, I went straight to the winter garden and pushed open the gate Mr. Hillock had installed, a key already sitting in the lock with a spare hanging off its ring. Inside, the earth stood bare but freshly turned, awaiting my instructions. I sat down on the stone path and began to cry.

  That was how Mr. Hillock found me, my skirts smashed under my weight and my eyes raw. He didn’t rush up to me or try to calm me. Instead, he closed the garden gate behind him and sat down next to me.

  He extended a handkerchief. “It is a terrible thing to lose a child. Mrs. Hillock and I know better than some but not as much as others,” he said in his quiet, steady voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, dabbing at my eyes.

  “So am I.”

  He let me sit in silence while I collected myself. When finally I handed his handkerchief back, he said, “Has Mr. Goddard been to see you?”

  My heart clenched at the mention of Matthew. “No.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how old a man grows, he will always have the foolishness of a boy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been to see me, your Mr. Goddard,” said Mr. Hillock.

  My heart skipped. “Why?”

  The gardener lifted his flat cap and ran a hand over his balding head before replacing it. “That’s a story he’ll have to tell you himself.”

  I stared out over the unfinished garden. Matthew had been to see Mr. Hillock but not me. His sister had been right. He was ruled by her, by her husband’s money, all of it.

  “It’s a shame about this place,” said Mr. Hillock. “It’s the heart of the garden.”

  “And you’re worried that I’m leaving it unfinished,” I said.

  After a long pause, Mr. Hillock replied, “I don’t worry about the garden, Miss Smith, but if you don’t finish your work at Highbury House, there are things that will never be complete.”

  “None of the sketches I’ve made for the winter garden feel right, and the Melcourts won’t allow me the luxury of time.”

  “You have measurements and a feel for the place. And I’ve heard tell that the post works well these days. It even comes to gardener’s houses in little villages of no real consequence.”

  When I looked up, I saw he was wearing the faintest hint of a smile.

  I twisted to slowly gaze from one side of the garden to the other.

  “Silver birches alone would be too obvious, don’t you think?” I asked.

  Mr. Hillock tilted his head to the side. “Maybe.”

  “Dogwoods, too, then. There”—I pointed to one side of the gravel path—“and there. The red bark will bring depth to the garden on the worst days of January. And grasses. We’ll need grasses for height.”

  “If we plant them soon, they’ll have time to establish,” said Mr. Hillock.

  “We’ll need Christmas rose,” I said, beginning to see possibility. “And sage and holly and hart’s-tongue fern and bellflowers. I’ll write to Adam and…” I trailed off, remembering abruptly that I was no longer employed at Highbury House.

  “I will find the plants,” said Mr. Hillock firmly.

  My shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”

  “The garden needs a focal point.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “A pool would look well in the center.”

  “Maybe a sculptural one, different than the water garden.”

  His cap came off again, but this time he held it between his hands. “It could be a memorial. If someone felt they needed to remember something,” Mr. Hillock said.

  “The Melcourts would never stand for that.”

  “The Melcourts never need to know.”

  “You are a good man, Mr. Hillock.” I reached for the man’s grizzled, callused hand. He flinched, but then relaxed, and we sat there together in silence on the hard ground for some time.

  • STELLA •

  Stella lay staring at the ceiling. Bobby was finally fast asleep in the cot next to her, exhausted from crying. He seemed fine during the day—quiet but dry-eyed—but as soon as she tucked the blankets around his chin at night, he would begin to weep.

  At first she’d tried to comfort him. She’d laid a light hand on his chest. She’d tried singing and reading to him. She’d grown angry and stern. None of it seemed to stop the flood of hot tears that rolled down his face. One day she’d simply gotten up, announced that she had to finish her duties downstairs, and left. When she’d come back, she’d found Bobby asleep, curled around his slightly damp pillow.

  She glanced down at him. His hair had fallen over his brow, and he looked peaceful. She knew that some instinct should probably have compelled her to reach forward and brush his hair back or tuck the covers a little closer around him, but she felt nothing except unadulterated fear. She’d barely been able to take care of him when he’d been just another boy, but now he’d lost his mother and father, and he’d seen his best friend die. Surely it was all too much for a child.

  Stella pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, forcing starbursts to explode in the black. The truth had been pressing on her for months now. She’d tried to escape it but couldn’t.

  “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

  She opened her eyes and looked around the room. Her neat little magazine clippings and tear-outs from travel brochures seemed to mock her. Hawaiian beaches she would never see. Mountain peaks in the Alps she would never climb. She wouldn’t know the feeling of sultry air on her skin in South America, nor would she experience the dry, scorching heat of the Sahara Desert. She was going to be stuck here in Highbury for the rest of her life.

  A sourness rose in her stomach, burning her throat. She pushed herself off her bed and went to the nearest
wall. Rip! She tore Niagara Falls off the wall. Bobby snuffled and shifted in his sleep, but he didn’t wake.

  Rip! Down came the pyramids of Egypt.

  Rip! The Great Wall of China fell.

  Rip! The sandy beaches of Tahiti washed away.

  She worked methodically, piling the pages on top of her bed. When the walls were bare, she turned to her tiny desk and removed booklet after booklet from her correspondence courses. Onto the pile the guides to shorthand and typing went. She pulled out the magazine articles she’d saved about modern girls.

  When her desk was cleared, she gathered up the mound of paper and walked out. Down, down, down the back stairs she went, descending into the basement of the house. A clock struck one in the morning. Good. No one would be in the kitchens.

  For once, it was silent in the room where she spent most of her working hours. She dropped her papers on the wood worktop and went to the iron range. Heat radiated off it from when she’d banked the fire after supper. Stella opened the front hatch, stirred up the remains of the embers, and began to feed in little bits of wood until she saw flame. She wouldn’t need a big fire.

  The correspondence coursework was on top, but she hesitated as she reached for it. How many hours had she hunched over her desk after her work was done, writing in her exercise books? She’d hung everything on those classes, scraping and saving to pay for them. She’d turned down trips to the cinema on her day off and went without new shoes one year. She’d been so focused on her plan, so sure that this would finally free her from Highbury once and for all.

  She put the course materials aside and grabbed the Tahitian beach. When she fed it into the stove, the paper caught and curled with green and blue flame. In seconds, the image burned away. She pursed her lips and let out a long breath. Then she reached for an image of Switzerland.

  “Miss Adderton, what are you doing up so late?”

  Stella whipped around at the sound of Mrs. Symonds’s voice, banging her knee into the stove’s open door as she did. She cried out, grasping at her right leg. A firm set of hands gripped her by the shoulder, and she found herself half hopping to a chair.