China Garden

by Liz Berry

  Clare felt a shift in her thinking, turning her ideas upside-down.

  “Wealth and profits for you, Roger. You’ll be a very rich man,” Frances said.“Tell me, does Mr Aylward know that you are going to sell off Ravensmere?”

  “I’ve discussed it with him. He’s a broken man, Frances. Bitter, broken and dying. He doesn’t care.” Again that shaft of satisfaction in his voice.

  “Then there’s no more to be said,” Frances voice was dull.“Excuse us. We have to unload and unpack.”

  “I have to be on my way too. I’ll see you at the estate office each Friday at nine o’clock, for your weekly report on Mr Aylward. Good evening.”

  He turned away to the stable block arch.

  “Insufferable pig,” Frances muttered furiously, and called after him,“Oh, Roger?” He turned and she smiled at him brilliantly.“How is your wife? I heard you had married out of the area. A woman from Manchester.”

  To Clare’s surprise, a wave of red moved up his neck darkly.“That’s right.” She could see the suppressed rage mottling his face, wiping away the smiling complacency.

  “That’s right—from Manchester. Not Stoke Raven. And it doesn’t matter a damn. It’s all finished. All the rubbishy old customs. All the old legends and stories. All finished and destroyed. You destroyed them yourself, dear Frances. You and Vivienne and Brandon between you.”

  He strode through the archway and Frances stared after him. She looked suddenly ten years older, and close to tears.

  Clare said, slowly,“He hates you. And he hates Ravensmere.”

  “Yes. I never realized. He asked me to marry him once. He used to stay at Ravensmere in the holidays sometimes. But we never liked him. He was obsessed with money. Always trying to worm his way into Mr Aylward’s good books. Telling tales about B ... well, just telling tales. He was a greedy boy and now he’s a greedy man. He’s after the Aylward money I suppose.”

  “He’s the heir? He gets Ravensmere?”

  Frances stared at Clare. Her eyes widened and went slowly blank, and the strange look that made Clare so uneasy spread like a shadow over her pale skin.

  “Only the Guardians inherit.”

  Clare said loudly,“What guardians? What are you talking about? He said it was all arranged.”

  A second later the stable clock chimed the half-hour, and Frances’ eyes cleared, but she looked even paler, almost distraught.“I’ve been wrong, Clare. Roger Fletcher mustn’t inherit. I didn’t understand the extent of the danger. Oh God, it’s all going to have to start again.”

  At some time during the night, a sound woke Clare from the deep exhausted sleep she had fallen into as soon as her head had touched the pillow—something unexpected, ripping up the night air. She lay for a moment, disorientated in the unfamiliar room, trying to identify the sound. Whatever it was had stopped now. She turned over to go back to sleep, and froze. There was somebody out there. Somebody was walking lightly, quietly, on the cobbles of the stable yard. As clearly as if she could see him, she knew he was staring up at her window.

  Not Roger Fletcher. Not a burglar. She knew that too. She slid out of bed and padded to the window, almost as if she was drawn by some sort of power she did not understand.

  He was there, dark and shadowy, very tall, leaning on the stable arch. He was staring directly at her. She could see the faint gleam of his eyes in his starlit face. For an endless moment she stared back, pushing the mass of her long dark hair slowly away from her face, then the stable clock began to chime midnight and he had gone.

  She leaned against the wall away from the window, her heart pounding in her throat. He couldn’t be real. She must be dreaming that dream again. He was the same dark figure who had been hunting her through her dreams before she decided to come to Ravensmere.

  Chapter 4

  Clare woke early. She stretched luxuriously, the health and strength pulsing through her muscles. She realized that she felt better than she had for a long time. Even the worry of the August results seemed less acute here.

  I’ve been neglecting myself, crouched over that desk for months, she thought. I’ll get fit now. Go for walks. Eat fresh salads. Get my ideas sorted out.

  She pushed open the small circular window and leaned out, sniffing the clear air. It smelled of cut grass and hot stone, not the peculiar London mix of soot and cars and chemicals which she was used to.

  The sun shone in the cobbled yard and the brilliant red geraniums in their stone trough outside the neighbouring door seemed to burn with unnatural intensity. The climbing plant on the stable arch glittered with spangles of early dew.

  Had she really seen that dark figure under the arch last night, or had she dreamed him as she had dreamed him so many nights before?

  This morning only the tortoiseshell cat was there, sitting in the exact centre, washing her back. As Clare watched, the cat paused, then turned her head and stared straight up at her. The pink mouth opened and closed in a soft miaow of greeting. The cat was saying ‘good morning’. Glare laughed aloud. She pulled on her dressing gown and went swiftly down the open wooden stair, trying not to wake her mother.

  Last night after they had unloaded the car, cooked eggs and chips, and made up the beds, Frances had looked absolutely exhausted, the skin stretched grey and taut over her cheek bones.

  Clare felt a rush of concern. She hoped her mother had made the right decision to come back, that it would not, after all, be too much for her. What had she said? Old hurts. Old memories. That she owed a debt?

  Pushing aside her apprehension, she unbolted and opened the door. The cat was sitting politely outside. She wound herself around Clare’s ankles and led the way into the small kitchen like a hostess showing in a guest.

  Amused, Clare said to the cat,“I don’t know where you’ve come from, but I think you’ve adopted me.”

  The expression of love and adoration it turned on her made her catch her breath. She bent down and kissed the top of her smooth round head and the cat leapt up on to the pine fitment, where she sat purring loudly, watching Clare getting out the breakfast things.

  Clare looked at her doubtfully as she poured a saucer of milk.“Just don’t let my mother catch you, that’s all. Very hot on the hygiene bit she is.”

  “I’m really pleased that you’ve understood that, Clare,” said Frances dryly, coming in. She had showered, and was wearing her grey uniform dress.“The strain of those exams must have been more than I thought if you’re talking to yourself.”

  Care grinned, and waved her hand.“We have a visitor.” Her mother seemed better this morning, she thought, less like she was going to snap into tiny pieces.

  Frances turned her head and looked into the gold eyes which regarded her blandly. For a moment she was still.

  “Henriette?” she said on an indrawn breath, incredulously.“Not Henriette?”

  The cat blinked contemptuously and looked away.

  “Tabitha, I. think,” said Clare, the name coming into her head.

  Frances laughed shakily.“I just thought for a moment ... There used to be a tortoiseshell cat just like her, but that was years ago. It couldn’t be the same one.”

  “A descendant daughter, maybe,” said Clare easily.“What do you want for breakfast?”

  “Just toast, I think. I’m going up to the House. I won’t wait until Monday. After Roger yesterday I’m not easy in my mind. Have we unpacked the toaster?”

  “No need. There’s one here already. Brand new, like everything else. Bought specially.”

  “Lap of luxury,” Frances said wryly, looking around.“Better than our own house.”

  Their new home had turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. The old stables had been converted with great care using natural stone and wood, and Clare was willing to bet that Roger Fletcher had had no hand in it.

  The front door opened straight into a wide living area, divided from the kitchen by a pine breakfast bar. An open staircase led to a balcony and the main bedroom, with a bathroom s
lotted into a space next to it. The stair continued on to an attic room, with a low ceiling, golden floorboards and the circular window overlooking the stable yard. Delighted, Clare had claimed this as her own.

  To their amazement, all the furniture and fitted carpets were brand new—expensive too, Frances said—just as though the place had been specially furnished for them. Nothing had been forgotten: washing machine, dishwasher, television and video—and someone had put a magnificent vase of roses in the open stone fireplace as a welcoming present.

  “What are you going to do today?” asked Frances, as they washed up.“I won’t be back for lunch. I’ll eat up at the House.”

  “May I come?”

  The question hung in the sudden silence Clare watched her mother carefully.

  Frances put down her nursing bag, picked it up and moved it from one hand to the other, and finally put it down again.“I don’t think… I mean, perhaps it would be better if you kept away from the House, as Roger said.”

  Clare said tartly,“I suppose Mr Aylward really does know I’m here? You haven’t smuggled me in illegally?”

  “Not funny,” said Frances, coldly.“You’re a guest here. I’m just trying to... to prevent any trouble.”

  Clare said,“I’ll finish the unpacking and maybe take a walk down to the village.”

  Frances looked relieved.“You’ll enjoy looking at the church.”

  “Riveting,” Clare said ironically.“Good luck with the job. Have a nice day.”

  Clare knew exactly what she was going to do, but thought it better that her mother should be left in blissful ignorance. She would certainly take a quick trip down to the village. But today was Thursday, wasn’t it? This afternoon the House was open to the public. She would take the tour. And if she should just happen to bump into the mysterious Mr Aylward, then it wouldn’t be her fault, would it?

  An hour later, unpacked, showered and changed into her second-best skirt and blouse, she was on her way, escorted across the stable yard by a purring Tabitha with her tail straight up. She miaowed, and darted away into the bushes, and Clare continued on along the drive, enjoying the sparkling freshness of the morning. There were no cars or people. A rabbit bobbed away under a tree, and in the distance, she saw the red deer.

  The great gate was locked, but Clare found there was a narrow wooden door in the wall next to it which was unlocked. She looked nervously at the lodge cottage, but there was no sign of the crazy old lady who had danced in the drive.

  She closed the door carefully behind her and stood for a moment staring across the valley to Kenward Farm settled into its big hill. Had her grandfather lived there? It seemed strange to think of her mother growing up on the farm, perhaps running along this very lane to school. Clare could see that there was a rough track to the farm, which must lead off the lane further along.

  There was a small fair girl, her plaits flying behind her, racing across the field opposite, where it said ‘Public Footpath’. She was not alone. There were two other children—a small girl and an older boy running after her.

  Clare blinked and the field was empty. Shaken, she stared incredulously. She could have sworn there were children. A herd of cows was moving in the next field, and a tractor crawled along a ridge in the distance but there was no other movement.

  She took a deep breath, and tried to grin to herself. The exams, she thought, stress, all those E-additives.

  She looked again at Kenward Farm, wanting to go there, wondering who lived there now. Instead, she turned reluctantly to the left, and made her way along to the crossroads, where the Leper Stone glittered in the morning sun, and took the steep, sunken lane down to the village.

  The hedgerows banked high above her head were alive with bees and insects, and tiny blue flowers glowed like jewels among the buttercups, ferns and wild roses.

  At first she was careful to keep close to the side of the road, expecting cars and vans at every moment. But there was no traffic. Only a deep quiet. Then, far away, down the valley, she could hear birds and the faint sound of water trickling over stone.

  The village was strung out along the way. Golden stone cottages, with sagging lichen-covered roofs burrowed into a riot of roses and clematis. It was hot and still and no one stirred. Here and there a window stood open, curtains blowing in the breeze, but there was no human activity at all. Just a Sunday-like peace.

  Clare felt uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to such quiet. It was like the stable yard yesterday, as though the silence was waiting for something to happen, almost as if she was being observed, eyes boring into her back. She swung round quickly, but nobody was there.

  The lane curved and curved back again, following the line of some long-forgotten track around the field edge. In a terrace of ancient cottages, a teddy bear looked out of a trefoil shaped window, and a tiny bird, a flash of blue, was surprised from a shrub beneath it with an indignant squeak, but otherwise nothing was moving. No dogs barked. The stillness and quiet began to seem uncanny. Where on earth were all the people?

  The lane widened into a small triangular village green. A handsome Regency vicarage was set at right angles to an even older square-towered church deep in the turf amid ash and yew trees as tall as the tower itself. St Michael and St Mary, Clare remembered, and turned into the churchyard through the lich-gate.

  To her surprise the church was unlocked. She pushed open its heavy door, and caught her breath.

  The church was small and ancient, and every available surface seemed to be blooming with white and gold flowers. Every corner, every carved pew-end had its own exquisite arrangement. By the door stood a Christening font, banked with yellow daisies, and next to the simple stone altar there were two arrangements of great white arum lilies, with golden hearts, so perfect that Clare thought at first that they were made of silk. Someone must have sacrificed them from their garden or greenhouse for a very special occasion.

  Even the old tombs had their flower decorations Clare found stone Sir Edward (1196) in his Crusaders’ gear, lying next to his lady, his feet on a beast that might have been his dog, half-smothered in yellow roses, and the tomb of another Edward Aylward, the Second Earl, on the wall behind a stately arrangement of white iris. Magnificent in black and gold, it showed his wife, Lady Rosamond and their five sons and four daughters kneeling below, looking faintly comic. ‘Born 1509, died 1603’, read Clare. Goodness, he was, what? Ninety-four when he died. That must have been an extraordinary age in those days.

  She wandered on, reading the memorial stones, The Aylwards seemed to feature most, usually dying at a great age or violently when young.

  There was a modest bronze plaque showing a soldier, his head bent over his reversed rifle: Edmund Albert Aylward, VC, who had died at Ypres in 1914, aged thirty-one. A hero.

  The Burne-Jones window, The Waters of Paradise mentioned by the guidebook, showed not a river but a powerful waterfall and a pool, and was dedicated to Rosamond Aylward, Beloved Wife, who had died in childbirth in 1883, aged twenty. Could they be the current Mr Aylward’s father and grandmother?

  There were so many Aylwards, the first names repeated over and over in different generations that she began to lose track. She felt tired suddenly and vaguely depressed, longing for some human company.

  She went out of the church into the sun-dappled churchyard. Somehow the graves here did not seem so gloomy. They were moss grown, sunken deep into the turf, the stones tilted at strange angles.

  She drifted along the path, reading names and dates. Kenwards mostly, who must have got their name from the farm, and a sprinkling of Bartons, Anscombs, and Boyds, most living to surprisingly great age. By the gate on a stone plinth there was a modern-looking stylized angel, its arms raised to the sun as though it was about to take off.

  Mr Holmes, the vicar, paused under the tall yew trees, as he trod the path across the churchyard from his vicarage. For a moment he watched the girl thoughtfully.

  She had none of the elusive fairness of her mother. This gir
l was much harder and stronger. Silver and steel perhaps, not thin gold. But she was too self-contained, too business-like in her smart tight skirt and high-necked classic blouse, her hair drawn back, not a hair out of place. Too cool and controlled and closed-up for a young girl. Too much brain and not enough heart and soul? Had they all made a terrible mistake?

  Then he saw her eyes, as she looked at him, their strange, luminous quality fixed on him like an X-ray, and knew that it was going to be all right. She was her mother’s daughter.

  “Good morning,” he said, coming forward.“There’s something very comforting I always think, looking at the resting place of one’s ancestors. Continuity, you know.”

  “Er, yes, I should think so,” said Clare, surprised.“I don’t know where my ancestors are buried though. In Wales, I suppose.”

  Mr Holmes looked puzzled, his eyes going to the drunken gravestones and returning to her.“These are nearly all Kenwards and Aylwards.”

  “Oh yes, I noticed. All the names keep repeating. Edward and Eldon and Edmund ...”

  “And Rosamond, James, Frances, Sarah. All Kenwards and Aylwards. The two families have intermarried for generations.”

  “Is everybody in the village related to everybody else?”

  He smiled.“It’s not as bad as it looks. Everyone had large families in those days, and although the names are the same they were often cousins three or four times removed. You saw our Epstein? The angel by the gate. The Earl commissioned Sir Jacob in 1927, when his first wife Caroline died. She was only eighteen. Very sad. They had been married only a year.”

  “The Earl? Oh, you mean Mr Aylward. I didn’t know he had been married twice.”

  Mr Holmes pushed back his pale hair which had flopped over his eyes.“She was a Kenward, of course. The eldest Aylward son and heir always marries a Kenward daughter. It’s the tradition.”

  “Even though they were lords and earls?”

  He smiled.“The Kenwards are the older family. Back in the mists of time they owned the whole valley. The name means ‘royal guardian’. The Aylwards are descended from a Norman overlord.”