by Liz Fielding
What? Oh, no…
Writing fairy tales was one thing, but believing in them was something else. And with that thought she stopped putting off the inevitable and tore open the big envelope.
Her book had obviously caught the reader on a really bad day, and instead of just returning it with a preprinted slip she had decided to tell her exactly what she thought about it. She didn’t stint herself, making free with words such as ‘clichéd’ and ‘dated’. For a moment Ellie just sat there, completely stunned, before quickly opening a drawer and pushing the thing out of sight.
She had better things to do than worry about another rejection for her novel.
Mrs Cochrane wanted the names of the ferns in her trough by Monday, and since she knew absolutely nothing about ferns it was going to involve knocking on a total stranger’s door and asking. The sooner the better.
Her ring on the doorbell was answered by a call from the rear of the house.
‘I’m round the back.’
Ellie found the owner of the voice, an elegant blonde who could have been anywhere between forty-five and sixty, stretched out on a sofa in a huge old-fashioned conservatory, peering through high-powered binoculars. She didn’t get up but, sparing her a momentary glance, said, ‘I was expecting someone else.’
‘Oh,’ Ellie said, slightly disconcerted by this offhand reception, but ploughed ahead. ‘Well, I’m sorry to bother you, but I walk past your garden every day and I’ve been admiring your ferns. I was wondering if you could tell me what they are?’
‘You’re that girl who’s living in Wickham Lodge, aren’t you?’ the woman said, finally lowering the binoculars and looking at her properly.
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m house-sitting. At least I was. Now Dr Faulkner’s home, I suppose I’m demoted to cleaner.’ She offered her hand. ‘Ellie March. How d’you do?’
‘Morrison. Laura Morrison. I’ve seen you, cutting the grass.’ Then, after a long, assessing look, ‘So, Ellie, what do you know about ferns?’
‘Absolutely nothing,’ she admitted. ‘But there’s this stone trough at the back of the Lodge where I thought they might just work. The pansies in there certainly don’t look happy.’
‘They won’t. Pansies like the sun. Hate being wet.’
She should certainly know. Her garden was stunning. Flowers spilled over enticing stone paths that wound between herbaceous beds before disappearing behind flowering shrubs. A glimpse of roof suggested a summerhouse tucked away in the trees. And there was an exquisite gothic bird-feeder being mobbed by small birds.
It was all on a much smaller scale than the garden at Wickham Lodge, but it echoed the way-in her imagination-‘Lady Gabriella’s’ garden would look, how Ben Faulkner’s garden would look given sufficient care and attention. Informal, exciting, with hidden places for children to claim as their own.
‘There should be some ferns behind the greenhouse,’ said Lady Morrison. ‘I’d get up and find them for you, but my back’s gone into a spasm.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. Is there anything I can do?’
‘You could pour me a whisky.’ Then, before Ellie could query the wisdom of mixing liquor with painkillers, Laura Morrison’s eyes narrowed. ‘Stand aside,’ she hissed, and whipped out a pistol.
Ellie, scarcely able to believe her eyes, just stood there, open-mouthed.
‘Out of my way, girl!’ she said, taking aim, and Ellie belatedly turned to see what had caused such a reaction. It was Millie, fat little belly hugging the grass, who, having followed her, was now creeping up on one of the bird-feeders.
‘No!’ she cried, without a thought in her head for the consequences as she leapt to block Laura Morrison’s aim.
Something stung her ankle, and as she crumpled in a heap on the floor it crossed her mind that she was having a very bad week for legs.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she declared, more surprised than hurt-shock, no doubt. ‘You shot me!’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘YOU’VE shot me,’ Ellie repeated, unable to quite believe it.
‘Don’t be stupid, girl.’
‘Stupid!’ Outraged, Ellie said, ‘There’s blood running down my leg! See,’ she said, pulling up the leg of her cropped trousers, forcing herself to look.
She blinked.
There was no sign of blood. No damage.
‘But I felt it…’ The sting of something hitting her. The damp trickle. She touched her skin, and sure enough her fingers came away wet-but not with blood. ‘It looks like water…’
‘It is water,’ Laura Morrison said. ‘Unless you wet yourself with fright?’
She might have, if she’d had time to be frightened. ‘That’s a water pistol?’
‘Of course it is.’ Then, ‘Did you really think I had a firearm?’
‘Um…yes.’
‘Stupid, but brave,’ she said.
‘No,’ Ellie assured her, ‘stupid does it.’ Then, with only her pride hurt, she picked herself up, wincing as she put her leg to the ground.
‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell?’ Laura asked, finally concerned.
‘No, I did the knee yesterday, when I was dusting.’
‘Dusting? I have to admit that I never saw that as a dangerous pastime.’
‘It is when you do it at the top of a ladder.’A colourful array of bruises had emerged overnight to confirm this fact. She wondered if Ben Faulkner had a matching mirror set, left shoulder, right thigh…Best stop right there, she told herself, and tuned back in to Laura Morrison, who was laughing.
‘You do live an exciting life. Are you sure something as down-to-earth as gardening is quite your thing?’
‘I seem to have the knack of turning the most mundane activity into an adventure,’ she said, her own smile a touch wry. Then, as Laura Morrison winced, she forgot her own aches. ‘Have you seen a doctor? For your back?’
‘For all the good he did. Painkillers and bed-rest was the best he could offer.’
About to suggest that maybe she should do as he’d advised and go to bed, so that she could lie flat, Ellie thought better of it, suspecting that she was not the kind of woman who took kindly to unasked-for advice.
‘Could it be tension?’ she offered instead. ‘My mother’s back seizes solid whenever Great-Aunt Jane comes to visit.’
It was possible that an invasion of neighbourhood cats treating her garden as a fast food franchise might have the same effect on Laura Morrison.
‘She finds massage helpful,’ she continued-her mother occasionally voiced the opinion that she’d been vaccinated with a gramophone needle. ‘She’s fit for anything after that.’
‘Really? Likes a young man giving her a good working over, does she?’ Ellie, not normally given to blushing, blushed furiously. Laura’s laughter was brought up short by another spasm. ‘Good for her. I’ve got my own young man coming any time now. In fact I thought you were him.’
‘Oh.’ She’d been teasing. ‘I’m sorry to have disappointed you.’
‘On the contrary, my dear, you’ve been thoroughly entertaining. You must come again, when I’m on my feet.’ Then, ‘Now, go and get those ferns.’
She did as she was told, sorting through dozens of pots before returning with a likely assortment of ferns in a tray and anticipating a botany lecture.
‘You’ve missed the grey and red one,’ said Laura, sending her back for it. ‘Yes. That should do. Take a look at my planter on the way out and you’ll see how to lay them out.’
‘What? Oh, you mean these are for me? But I just wanted the names…’
Which roughly translated meant, Oh, bother. I’d rather not…It was information she’d wanted, something she could use in her column, not a do-it-yourself dirt-under-the-fingernails lesson in gardening.
‘No point in buying them when these are just sitting around, no use or ornament. You’ll find the names on the labels.’
‘Well, that’s really very generous. Thank you.’
Laura Morrison waved her t
hanks away. ‘Just buy a bell for your cat and we’ll call it quits.’
Uh-oh. ‘How did you know it was my cat?’
‘It’s my back that’s unreliable, not my eyesight. I’ve seen you sitting at your window, playing with your computer. And I’ve seen that cat climbing in through your window.’ She touched the binoculars. ‘I like to know my enemy.’ Before Ellie could answer, there was a ring at the doorbell. ‘That’ll be Josh. Send him round, will you?’ Then, ‘Don’t let those plants dry out.’
‘I won’t. I’m really very grateful, Miss Morrison.’
‘Laura. Come again soon, Ellie. But leave the cat behind.’
Ben was looking at the text in front of him, but he might as well have had his eyes closed for all the sense he was making of it. He couldn’t get Ellie March out of his head. The way she’d kept those huge brown eyes of hers averted as he’d walked into the kitchen, as if by not looking at him she would somehow render herself invisible. As if he might overlook her presence. Forget she was there.
Impossible. If she’d been some quiet, mousy female he would have had no problem with her, but she wasn’t either of those things. Even when she wasn’t around she still managed to fill the house with her presence. She was there in every gleaming surface, every plumped-up cushion, in a lingering scent that he couldn’t put a name to, one that didn’t come out of any bottle.
She disturbed the very air, and he’d wanted her out of his house, out of his life, and the sooner the better.
His mistake had been talking to Kitty. Maybe he’d been looking for some salve for his conscience-justification, confirmation of the lack of any formal agreement or contract. It was clear that there was neither, which should have made things easier. Too late, he discovered that it didn’t.
With a formal agreement there would have been a measure of equity, protection on both side. It would have given him a get-out clause, a period of notice to be given in writing. She would have had rights and, having acknowledged them, he would have been able to rest easy.
Somehow, this gentlemen’s agreement his sister had thought sufficient-and he was quite sure that the lease for her own apartment hadn’t been anywhere near as casual-had left him with no choice but to behave like a gentleman.
He might have to live with it, with her. But he didn’t have to like it.
As he sat there, work neglected, he gradually became aware of the small sounds of the garden filtering in through the open window. A blackbird in the lilac tree, singing its heart out. Small insects, bees mobbing the wisteria. The softly repeated chink, chink, chink of someone working in the garden with a hoe or a small hand tool.
He closed the window. Returned to his desk. But even when he’d blotted out the sound he could still hear it in his head and, furious at the disturbance, he walked out of the front door, around the house, determined to tell her to stop whatever she was doing, give him some peace.
When, finally, he came across her, bent over the old stone trough by the kitchen door, it was too late to regret the impulse, to wish he’d stayed put. To late to back away. It was a re-run of that moment in the library.
A re-run of his life.
And yet everything was different. The woman was a mess. Her hair tugged back in an elastic band, her temple streaked with dirt. She was wearing cut-offs that displayed practically every inch of her shapely legs, the nearest sporting a bruise that mirrored the one on his thigh-a physical reminder, should he need one, of their first encounter. She had battered blue pumps with bright red laces on her feet, and to top it all a blindingly bright pink crop top clung to her untidily generous curves.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.
Ellie, having made a note of the Latin names of the ferns-handily printed on plastic labels stuck into the pots-and despatched them by e-mail to Jennifer Cochrane, along with a proposal for a feature on the imaginative fabric playhouses designed and made by one of the ladies she cleaned for, had felt the tug of conscience.
Laura Morrison had been kind enough to give her the ferns. The least she could do was plant them.
It hadn’t occurred to her to clear the idea with Ben Faulkner first. Why would it?
‘A neighbour gave me these,’ she said, gesturing at the waiting pots with the trowel. ‘Apparently they like damp shade. Unlike these pansies which, it has to be faced, are on their last legs.’
When he didn’t answer, she glanced over her shoulder.
‘They were never happy there,’ he agreed. ‘Never thrived.’
His initial irritation had faded into something else, something that tugged at her heartstrings. The haunted note she’d caught in his voice was in his eyes, too. But it wasn’t her he was looking at, but the sad, elongated plants, all stalk and tiny leaves where they’d hunted for the light. Belatedly, she wondered who had planted them.
Not him-he wouldn’t have overreacted that way if it had been him. Someone he’d cared for, then, she decided, remembering how she’d kept a potted plant Sean had bought her, some ghastly purple chrysanthemum, long after it had shrivelled up and died.
‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she said, picking them up very carefully, tucking their roots back into the damp soil so that they wouldn’t just lie there and die, then easing herself to her feet. ‘I’ll put them somewhere where they’ll be happier,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask Laura. Laura Morrison. She’ll know.’
For a moment she thought he was going to tell her to forget it. To turn and walk away.
He didn’t.
‘You’ll need some fresh compost if they’re going to survive,’ he said, after a moment or two.
‘The pansies?’
‘The ferns. Possibly something ericaceous. I believe woodland plants prefer an acid environment.’
‘Sorry, you lost me right after “compost”.’
‘I’m just guessing. Someone at the garden centre will know.’ Then, ‘Do you want to go and fetch some?’
‘Compost?’ Ellie used the seat of her pants to brush the dirt from her hands. Then, ‘Are you offering to take me to the garden centre to pick some up?’
‘It comes in sacks. I may be wrong, but I suspect you’d find it difficult to manage on your bike.’
‘I wouldn’t even try.’ Then, ‘Maybe we should take Adele’s car? It would be a shame to mess up yours. And it’ll have more room in the back.’
‘How much compost do you imagine you’ll need?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not a gardener.’
‘That makes two of us.’He shrugged. ‘You may have a point. To be honest, I’m surprised Adele didn’t offer you the use of her car as a perk of the job. Or maybe she’s not as free with her own possessions as she is with mine.’
‘Oh, no! She did offer. I can’t drive.’
‘Can’t?’
‘I’ve tried. Sean tried everything. But I have a problem with making my left hand do one thing while my left leg is doing something else and still looking at the road. He told me there’s a word for it.’
‘I’m sure he did,’ he said, with a fleeting suspicion of something that might have been amusement momentarily transforming his face, offering her a glimpse of a very different Ben Faulkner.
Ellie, who rarely got to out-of-town places such as garden centres, left Ben to get all technical on the subject of compost with one of the staff while she wandered off to marvel over the colours and varieties of the endless trays of bedding plants, wonderful pots, bright new tools.
Ben found her looking at a stainless steel trowel with something approaching lust.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Mmm,’ she said, replacing it on the display. ‘You know, I could really get gardening.’
‘If you didn’t have the world’s most romantic novel to finish.’
‘Oh, it’s finished. I had rejection number eleven today.’
‘Eleven? Is that all? You’ve got a long way to go to catch up with some of the great writers.’
‘I make no claims to greatness,’ she said
. ‘Even so, I don’t suppose anyone ever told them they were “clichéd”.’ She couldn’t believe she was telling him that.
‘Maybe you should stop trying to imitate Emily Brontë and try writing about your own life?’ he suggested. ‘That would be different.’
That was why, she thought She could rely on him not to be sensitive, not to save her feelings by suggesting that agents knew nothing, publishers were blind-a frequent moan at the Writers’ Circle.
‘Are you all done here?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ Then, ‘No. Can you spare another minute or two?’
‘I’m in no hurry.’
She led the way to a corner of the store, where glass-sided pens held baby rabbits and guinea pigs. The warm, musky scent of animals and sawdust took her straight back to her childhood.
‘I wondered if they still sold them. My dad used to bring me here when I was little,’ she said, bending down to pick up a sleek-coated jet-black baby bunny. ‘I wanted a rabbit so much. One just like this,’ she said, gently stroking it.
‘Why? They don’t do anything.’
‘They’re soft and furry.’
‘So are soft toys,’ he pointed out, ‘and they’re much less work.’
‘But not warm.’ She glanced at Ben. ‘Maybe it’s a girl thing.’ She sighed. ‘Poor little things. They’re going to spend their lives shut up in tiny little cages, most of them, forgotten after a week or two. Left for Mum to clean out and feed.’
‘Stupid Mum for buying it in the first place.’
She turned to glance at him. ‘Oh, come on. Didn’t you bug your mother for a pet, Ben?’
‘My mother died when I was very young.’
Oh…Oh…‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Why?’ Then, not waiting for her answer, to hear meaningless words that he’d no doubt heard a hundred times before, he shook his head. ‘Dogs,’ he said. ‘We always had dogs.’
‘I was never allowed a dog.’
‘Given the choice,’ he said, ‘I’d have opted for a mother.’
Damn! He’d finally managed to bring her nonsense to a halt, shut her up. But, confronted by her stricken face, he wished he’d held his tongue.