The Memory Garden

by Rachel Hore

  ‘You’re in my light,’ Charles grunted without turning, and Pearl skipped sideways out of the slatted square of spring daylight that poured down through a flight of open steps from the hole in the ceiling above. There was a ripping noise as his knife sawed through the canvas, then a scuffle and a thud as he put down his tools.

  ‘Well, that’ll do,’ he said more gently, turning towards her, brushing his hands on his jacket.

  It was odd, she thought, not for the first time, how the building absorbed all echo so that his voice sounded intimate, for her alone. Unlike in the corridor of the house, where a dozen other sounds competed, or in the garden where the wind carried his words away.

  He moved towards her, his eyes shining in the gloom. She clutched her sketchbook closer to her chest.

  ‘Let’s see what you’ve done.’ He held out his hand and after a moment she gave him the book. ‘Come,’ he said, and she followed him as he climbed the steps into the brightness.

  The old hayloft where Charles painted bore no"; font-weight: bold; into isDJ5 trace of its previous purpose. Charles had seen to that. He had, he told her when he first brought her there the previous September, asked for the building when he arrived at Merryn.

  He flipped up the tails of his jacket to perch on a four-legged stool, where he sat leafing through the drawings Pearl had made in snatched moments since her last lesson, the previous Sunday.

  ‘I had no time, sir. Only an hour on Wednesday when Cook—’

  ‘It’s very fine,’ cut in Charles, narrowing his eyes at a portrait and smiling swiftly. ‘You’ve caught her in a few lines.’

  ‘Jenna sat for me, sir, but she only gave me a moment and she would wriggle like a dying fish.’

  A shout of laughter from Charles. ‘Like a fish, eh? A prize one, I’d say!’

  He closed the book and returned it to her with a slight flourish, then reached out and touched her shoulder in a tender gesture. For a moment he appeared lost in thought, one arm across his chest, the fingers of his other hand stroking his moustache. Long, strong fingers, the nails scrubbed clean and cut straight across. Pearl longed to hold them, to stroke the fine hairs on the back of his hand.

  ‘Today we will see what you make of me,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll sit for me, sir?’

  ‘I will. And the Knights will be struck by the likeness.’

  She looked hard at him. ‘Are you sure they don’t laugh at me, sir?’

  ‘No, no, girl. I told you – they admire your work. They applaud your ambition.’

  ‘My ambition?’

  ‘Yes, and mine. To encourage your talent. Get you started as a painter.’

  ‘But . . .’ Pearl’s raised shoulders, her upturned hand, communicated hopelessness.

  An elderly chaise longue draped with a faded blue velvet curtain sagged at the back of the room, beneath the window cut in the roof, and it was here that Charles sat himself now, one leg crossed over the other. To one side stood an easel, and as she dragged over the stool Charles had vacated, she glanced at the painting propped there.

  It was half-finished, but the very young woman in a wide hat, standing in a garden, the ground a riot of spring flowers, her raised hands full of primroses, was already clearly recognisable as Elizabeth. Pearl’s gaze dropped to the pile of sketches on the floor of Elizabeth’s face and hands. She looked up again at the painting and a stab of jealousy passed through her like a physical pain, seeing the light play across the girl’s lovely face, her countenance of pure joy, innocent of pain or real suffering. What did Elizabeth know of life? What had she ever lacked or lost? Then Pearl remembered what had happened to the girl at Charles’s party and the look of jealous dislike Elizabethboy and we nev

  Chapter 22

  ‘I can’t think why we haven’t been along here before.’

  Mel refastened the gate and slipped her hand into Patrick’s"; font-weight: bold; the gardenisDJ5 outstretched one as they set off up the earthen path. They were deep in the valley bottom, under the trees where the millstream flowed – or used to flow. The millpond had almost dried up now, in mid-July, and was home to gunnera plants, like giant rhubarb. The disused mill itself was now a craft shop.

  ‘We didn’t know for definite what to look for before. Now, at least we have a name, there’s some sense in searching for it in the church.’

  ‘Is Paul graveyard where Uncle Val is buried?’ wondered Mel.

  ‘No, there’s a family plot in my parents’ local church.’

  They plodded uphill in silence, enjoying the ancient lane, the stone walls rising on either side, the electric hum of invisible insects intensifying the heavy thundery feeling in the air. They loosed hands after a while, their fingers warm and slippery with perspiration.

  A mile of walking, zig-zagging through a patchwork of fields of cattle, brought them to the edge of the village, then on to the church with its high tower. They hesitated in the porch, listening to the ghostly sounds of the organ, then, deciding it was a practice not a service, Patrick turned the door handle firmly and they passed inside.

  ‘Hope we’re not disturbing you,’ Mel said to the man at the organ, who was now riffling through a pile of music.

  ‘Oh no, that’s fine,’ he said absently, ‘you go ahead,’ and began to play a sombre hymn, so they walked around the lightfilled church through a sunny haze of dustmotes, reading the memorials and stroking the wooden carvings made smooth by centuries of other hands.

  ‘Here,’ whispered Patrick. He was flicking through pages in a ring-binder. ‘Look, we won’t even have to go round reading all the gravestones.’

  She glanced down the lists of burials but quickly saw to her disappointment that there was no Treglown. She ran her finger down the names again, looking for a Pearl. Her finger stayed at one name: Pearl Boase, 1925. It was bracketed with another name: John Boase, who had died in 1952. The name seemed familiar.

  ‘Boase. Wasn’t that the Head Gardener’s name in the diary?’ The lugubrious hymn had finished and Mel heard her voice too loud in the sudden silence. The organist flipped some pages and started on a rousing processional hymn.

  ‘Yes, yes, it was. But Boase must be a common name round here – look, here’s another, and here, right back to the eighteenth century.’

  ‘Let’s go and look for the grave.’ Mcheekbones, st

  Chapter 23

  November 1913

  ‘Ignorant fools.’ Charles crushed the letter in one hand and threw it into the fireplace. Pearl, fascinated, watched it uncurl, stretch and brown before being consumed by flame.

  ‘What did it say?’ she whispered, horrified. She had known it was important by the way he took it from her tray, turned it over in his hands, examining the postmark, and hesitated before ripping it open. The envelope had fluttered to the floor.

  ‘They don’t want the painting,’ was all he would say, staring out of the window, down the garden, to where one of Boase’s men was raking the fallen leaves in long slow sweeps in the pale winter sun.

  ‘That exhibition, you mean,’ she said, understanding dawning. ‘Oh.’ For months of summer Sunday afternoons she had watched the construction of the painting in question, Elizabeth and Cecily posing for him sitting on the rocks below the cliff, staring out to sea. She had pored over the many sketches of their faces, of Elizabeth’s still-girlish figure and Cecily’s elfin one, the attempts he made to capture the clouds racing across the sky, to find the exact colours of the sea on a fresh sunny day. The result had pleased all of them – but not, it seemed, the grim gentlemen at the Birmingham gallery.

  Disappointment followed disappointment. An earlier portrait of Cecily had not been selected for the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition, and Charles had failed to find a buyer for it until Mrs Carey had purchased it herself.

  Pearl dropped her tray on a chair and moved across the room to touch Charles’s elbow in a gesture of sympathy. As he turned, anger fighting misery in his countenance, there was a light knock on the door and
they leaped apart.

  Swiftly, Pearl danced back one step towards the sofa and bobbed down as though to scoop up the discarded envelope.

  ‘Ah, Charles.’ Mr Carey’s eyes passed over Pearl, as he came into the room, a slight puzzled frown on his face, and focused on his nephew. ‘I need you in the office, if you wouldn’t mind. There’s a matter concerning the Top Field I wish to, ah, acquaint you with.’

  Pearl watched impatience flash across Charles’s features, to be doused by cold politeness. ‘Of course, sir,’ he said, and followed his uncle from the room.

  Pearl tossed the envelope onto the fire, drew the screen across and hurried out to the kitchen to prepare tea. But as she piled cups on a tray and cut thin slivers of bread with the neatness and preciseness of long practice her mind was elsewhere.

  What to do, what to do, echoed in her head in rhythm to the sawing of the bread-knife.

  There was no doubt that matters with Charles were reaching some kind of climax engendered by his thwarted ambition. The trouble was that any future she might have beyond her present position now lay in his hands. What she couldn’t discern, and what mattered to her most of all, was how much he cared about her.

  The previous Sunday, they had made love in the studio, then they had quickly dressed for it was getting too chilly there to dally unclothed. He had paced the room in growing agitation, stopping every now and then to prod a discarded canvas with one foot or to stare at one of the many propped on ledges around the room.

  ‘I can’t stay here, I can’t live this life.’ Charles seemed to be talking to himself, but her hands froze on the boot she was buttoning. He turned to her. ‘It’ll be a prison. Do you see before you a farmer – do you, girl? Can you see me striding the fields examining cows’ hooves? Worrying about the price of potatoes? Discussing the weather with sons of the soil?’

  Pearl had heard him speak like this before, and it alarmed her. But lately, as failure followed failure, his paintings fetching extraordinary coincidenceheer of no market, he seemed more and more embittered.

  ‘Your uncle won’t keep you for ever,’ she said carefully. All the servants were aware of their master’s increasing impatience with his nephew. How could they ignore the arguments over Charles’s frequent disappearance to paint, his trips to London.

  ‘I need to travel. France – I’d go to France if I could. To study. Learn new fashions.’

  ‘But how will you feed yourself? Pay your teachers?’ Pearl asked in a reasonable voice.

  ‘Someone will show this new painting. I know they will. Then I’ll sell it and I’ll go.’

  Their eyes met – his, wild, challenging; hers immensely sad. And what about me? was their message.

  ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ he said.

  ‘How can I?’ said Pearl. ‘We have no money. It’d be daft . . .’ Her thoughts trailed off. Arles, Paris. She remembered her father’s stories, what seemed like so long ago now. Of the intensity of the light, the colours of the landscape, the relaxed pace of life. But that’s all they were to her – stories, pictures in books, dreams. Not for her, when all she knew was a few square miles of rocky coast and scrubby storm-swept fields. Here at least she had a home, people who in a funny sort of way belonged to her. And here she had her own dream, to draw and paint. Where was he taking her? What was he doing? It was frightening.

  ‘Don’t you love me?’ he said fiercely now. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

  ‘I love you . . .’ she said, but couldn’t manage to say she trusted him. Something told her he wasn’t safe, that she couldn’t cross the divide into his world. There were all his promises – that his friends would help her. What were they worth?

  ‘Did you give Mr Knight my sketchbook?’ she had asked, soon after the party.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Charles said. ‘I’ve got it in my room. I’ll return it to you.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Oh, he admired the drawings. Said you were to be encouraged.’

  ‘Was that all?’ Pride swelled in her throat, but she couldn’t live on pride. ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘Practise. Practise what I teach you.’

  So there was to be no further help from the artists, then. But what did she expect?

  Sometimes, if the family was away and discipline lax she would walk on the cliffs and pass one of the Knights or Mr Birch or one of their friends sketching the cove or working furiously to catch the drama of an approaching storm, paint splashing carelessly onto bushes and rocks around. They would glance at her and nod politely, their eyes faraway, and she would strain to catch sight of their work, before hurrying on, too shy to stay and try to talk. To them she must be just some local girl. A servant. No one.

  ‘I do trust you,’ she ventured, ‘but it’s too much, too big. I can’t . . .’

  He studied her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I see.’

  And what would people think? she wanted to ask. Would he marry her if she went away with him? He hadn’t said so. Married – to Charles. She tried to imagine the reaction of the family, of the other servants, and nearly laughed. It wasn’t possible. Even if they were away from here – abroad. Free.

  Terror engulfed her.

  She watched him cross the floor to survey a canvas _’u of on an easel standing to one side, alone: her own painting, worked at laboriously over many months, almost finished now. She rose, wrapping her shawl about her, and walked over to hover behind him.

  After a moment he nodded slowly. ‘It’s going well. Very well.’

  It was the portrait of Charles in the Flower Garden, first sketched in the summer over a year ago now. She smiled as she remembered how they had waited until a Sunday when the garden was empty, the family on a visit to friends down the coast, Aunt Dolly with a cousin in Mousehole. A year, more than a whole year to arrive at this point.

  Charles laughed suddenly. ‘Does it really look like me?’

  ‘I think it does, yes,’ she said seriously.

  ‘Perhaps you should put in a symbol. Saint Mark is known by a lion, Mercury by his serpent staff.’

  Suddenly she saw what he meant. ‘A paintbrush,’ she said. ‘I will give you a paintbrush. That will be your sign.’

  What to do, what to do, rang in her head. The wafers of bread fell from the loaf like discarded leaves from a sketchbook, like useless hopes.

  She couldn’t leave this place, her place of safety, and travel with him, could she? Why couldn’t she? In her heart of hearts she knew the answer. She didn’t quite trust him. Oh, why couldn’t everything stay as iid, set moment

  Chapter 24

  The breakthrough, when it came, was quick and unexpected.

  Mel spent a frustrating week towards the end of July chasing fragments of information about Pearl, her husband John and son Peter, through the Merryn archive, in parish register entries for baptisms and burials, old telephone directories, anything she could think of. She had even gone up to London for a couple of days to visit the Family Records Centre.

  Even after all this, barely a page of her A4 notebook could be filled. She sat in Patrick’s kitchen one Saturday lunchtime and read down the lines. Pearl Treglown had been born in Newlyn in 1894, had married John Boase, Head Gardener of Merryn Hall, in April 1914, when she was already pregnant, as she gave birth to Peter five months later, in September 1914. She had died young, in 1925, cause of death given as pneumonia following an asthma attack. There were no photographs of her in the archive and the only further mention after 1914 in the household accounts ledger was where ‘Mrs Boase’ was paid small sums in respect of helping with laundry.

  ‘Thirty-one,’ Mel told Patrick. ‘I still can’t believe she died so young.’ Such a short life and Pearl’s legacy was a child and seven paintings.

  Mel had not been able to trace the births of any more children and was reasonably convinced there had been none. The question was, had Pearl pursued her talent any further? What kind of woman had she been? Had there been genuine thwarted ambition there, or had
she been content with her lot in li extraordinary coincidence’ll tree surgeonfe? Were there any more paintings to be found? If she could only track down Peter’s descendants she might, just might, find the answers to some of these questions. And she wanted them for her book.

  ‘I know it might all lead to nothing, But you want to find out too, don’t you? It’s a mystery concerning the history of your house.’

  ‘One of many,’ Patrick agreed. ‘And I’m glad you’ve discovered more about the garden. That’s really interesting about Mr Carey’s father.’

  Old Selwyn Carey had been the creator of the garden of Merryn Hall. Mel had found a great wadge of documents, including ground plans, a ledger, lists of plants and receipts, even a notebook record of his thoughts and ideas. It was he who had grown the handkerchief tree that his grandson Charles loved, from a cutting a plant collector had brought him.

  ‘What have you found out about Peter Boase, anyway?’ said Patrick.

  Mel looked down at her notes. ‘He married a farmer’s daughter, Sonia Westcott, at Paul church in 1939. He, too, is described as a gardener and they had three children – Richard, Ann and Michael in 1941, 1946 and 1948. I also found his name in Army records. He was called up in 1940.’

  ‘Explains the gap between children. He must have been away most of the war.’

  ‘Yes, and he died in 1985. Then I start to get a bit stuck. I’ve found the dates of Richard and Michael’s marriages but nothing for Ann. Michael moved to St Austell and he’s had at least two children. The question is, where are they all now?’