Eden's Garden

by Juliet Greenwood

  Carys was still none the wiser. ‘Do you think it might have been information about Nainie’s mother your parents were trying to find the day they died?’ she ventured.

  He shoved his hands deep in his pockets. ‘Dad would do anything to keep Plas Eden and the village safe. Bloody Edmund.’

  ‘Edmund?’ Carys stared at him blankly. ‘Oh! You mean your dad’s cousin? The one from Patagonia who kept on phoning? I thought you said he was delusional.’

  ‘So I thought. I wish I’d listened more. Bloody Edmund.’

  ‘But surely …’ Carys hesitated. ‘Surely he must be very old by now.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘But his son isn’t,’ David added, grimly. ‘Edmund Jnr is very much alive. He insisted on meeting up with me in London only recently. The day you came with your mam to Plas Eden, in fact.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No wonder he looked so smug. He was quite obviously convinced he’d uncovered some dark secret that could make him a fortune. Someone was asking about Ann Treverick at Ketterford museum not long ago, remember.’

  ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean it was him.’

  ‘Who else would it be? Don’t you see?’ David turned to her with pain in his eyes. ‘That must be why Dad didn’t want Nainie to know they were coming to Cornwall. Just in case. It’s the first thing he would have thought of.’

  ‘The first…’ Carys came to a dead halt, light dawning.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Not good for business, I’d have thought, having your lunatics escaping. Maybe after a while, if there were no sign of her, Ketterford Asylum assumed Ann Treverick must be dead. Then the next time a woman without relatives died…’

  Carys shuddered. ‘Ugh, that’s horrible.’ They stood for a moment in silence. ‘This is my fault,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wish we’d never come.’

  ‘It wouldn’t change anything, even if we hadn’t,’ he returned gently. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t have taken Edmund Jnr any more seriously than I took his father. At least this way we’re forewarned.’ David walked over to the fountain, taking one hand out of his pocket and resting it on the little figure of the winged fairy. ‘Funny how something can seem so infinitely precious, when you realise it might not be yours, after all.’

  ‘It was all a long time ago. No one has ever said that Ann Treverick and Hermione Meredith could be the same person,’ said Carys, trying to sound cheerful.

  ‘Not yet,’ returned David gloomily. ‘Greed is a pretty powerful thing. Cousin Edmund was always pissed as hell that Plas Eden didn’t go down the male line in the first place. I’m sure that’s what he’s passed down to his son. Edmund Jnr is one sharp piece of work. I bet if he thought he’d get anything out of it, he wouldn’t leave a stone unturned. And it looks to me as if he’s got the money to do it. Who’s to say what he’s found out already? Legitimacy and the law. That’s what inheritance is about, isn’t it?’

  ‘And you can’t divorce a dead woman,’ murmured Carys.

  ‘Exactly. And if you can’t divorce, you can’t marry again. Not legally, anyhow. That would have made Nainie illegitimate. Or my great-grandfather knowingly made a bigamous marriage. That would make him a criminal.’

  ‘You don’t know that. Even if they didn’t marry, you don’t know that he didn’t legally adopt Nainie.’

  ‘But then why all the secrecy? Why would Dad be so determined Nainie wouldn’t find out the reason he was coming down here? Cousin Edmund was always a pain. He never let up. He obviously told Dad he’d found out something. Something that got Dad worried enough to come to Treverick to try and sort it out.’

  ‘But nothing’s been said since.’

  ‘Until now. From the way he used to rant on at me and Rhiannon, I’d say cousin Edmund lost it, big time, after Dad died. I can’t see Edmund Jnr about to lose anything. It was obvious when I met him that he’s convinced he’s got one over on us.’

  ‘But it doesn’t mean it’s true!’

  David turned away from her, his face hidden. ‘He was so sure of himself. I thought he was just planning a bit of blackmail. It never crossed my mind he believed he can prove that Nainie – and therefore Dad and me and Huw – might have no real right to Plas Eden at all.’

  Part Four

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  David and Carys sat at an outside table of the Boadicea café, watching the Ar Werth, For Sale sign from Phillips, Edwards and Jones nailed above the village butcher’s. Yet another shop had given up the good fight against the odds and was closing. Autumn seemed to have crept into Pont-ar-Eden high street during their short time in Cornwall, bringing with it the edge of a cold wind and the hint of winter around the corner.

  ‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ said Carys, stirring her untouched coffee slowly.

  ‘Mm,’ grunted David, without conviction. His coffee stood cooling, equally untouched, on the table in front of him.

  ‘At least Edmund Junior has agreed to meet you. That’s a positive sign, isn’t it?’

  ‘He thinks I’m about to pay him off, whatever it takes,’ said David bitterly. ‘You could practically hear the cash tills ringing when he answered the phone.’

  ‘Maybe your solicitor will find something.’

  David shook his head. ‘There’s nothing in the Plas Eden papers. Like he said, there’s nothing we can do until we know exactly what Edmund Jnr wants. I wish Dad’s old solicitor was still alive. Dad might have spoken to him before they set off for Treverick. But there’s nothing we can do about that. No: all I can do is go and listen to Edmund and do my best not to hit him, whatever dirt he thinks he’s got on the Merediths.’ He sighed. ‘Huw’s still furious. He’s quite convinced we’ve lost our chance and Beddows won’t touch Plas Eden with a barge pole if they get wind of something dodgy hanging over it.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Carys. She’d never seen him look so despondent. ‘If only I’d never started this.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ He took her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Cari, you weren’t to know.’ He smiled. ‘We were detectives together in this, remember? Edmund Jnr was always going to come out of the woodwork, sooner or later, whether we had gone to Cornwall or not.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Her hand was still being held. Out of nowhere, her heart was beating loud in her ears and she could hardly breathe.

  David leaned forward. ‘Cari,’ he said, his voice low and urgent.

  ‘Morning!’ came the cheerful voice of Gwynfor Humphries, hurrying his way towards the Boadicea, Nesta and Haf – eagle-eyed as ever – in tow.

  Carys found her hand released instantly.

  ‘Good morning.’ David turned his attention to his coffee cup as if there was nothing so important in the world.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Nesta, eying the two of them with a distinctly knowing smile.

  ‘Lovely day,’ added Haf, beaming at them, misty-eyed, as she passed.

  ‘I’d better get going,’ muttered David, as more members of the history group began to appear, watched sourly by Evan Prydderch, who had emerged from the newsagents at the sound of their voices, blinking like a crab lured out of its shell. His eyes sought hers. ‘We’ll talk more when I get back.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ replied Carys, giving the warmest smile she dared while under the scrutiny of Pont-ar-Eden’s prime gossips.

  He hesitated, as if hoping for the smallest gap in the crowds, but a steady stream was now making its way past them into the café.

  ‘You’ll miss your train,’ Carys reminded him gently. ‘You don’t want Edmund to think you’re not coming.’

  ‘Hmm,’ came the gruff reply. With one last look at the increasing swell of villagers, he swung his laptop bag over one shoulder. ‘See you,’ he said, sticking his hands in his pockets and making his way to his car for the short drive to Talarn station.

  ‘He’ll be back, cariad.’ Carys found her arm being patted, and looked up to find Sara Jones standing
next to her, an understanding smile on her face.

  ‘I wish there was something I could do.’ Carys watched the retreating figure. He’d clearly being overdoing things since their return and his limp was as bad as ever. She felt her heart clench. ‘I’ve never heard him sound so low. It’s almost as if he’s finally given up.’

  ‘David will never give up Plas Eden,’ replied Sara, who couldn’t know exactly what Carys was referring to, but was watching her with concern. She patted Carys’ arm once more as she made her way inside the café. ‘Don’t you fret, Carys, dear. David hasn’t dedicated his life to Plas Eden for nothing. He won’t go running out on it now.’

  For every second of her life up to that point, Carys would have agreed. But now she was no longer sure. David had been so quiet on the way back from Cornwall, scarcely relinquishing the wheel and apparently lost in thought. It was almost, she felt, as if his whole view of himself, and his life up to then, had been thrown into question.

  It wasn’t as if he would mind whether Nainie’s parents were married or not. Those things didn’t matter nowadays, unless you were royalty or serious aristocracy. Carys couldn’t remember Nainie talking much about her parents, but everything she had ever said had described how utterly devoted to each other they were, and that Nainie herself had been a much-loved and much-wanted baby. ‘They used to call me their miracle baby,’ she had said once.

  But Carys could see his point. Even she could feel there was suddenly a taint to Eden. A grubbiness that hadn’t been there before. Born not of any argument about who should own it and why, but the thought of a stranger viewing it with an eye for the main chance. Someone who didn’t care about decades of love for the house and the gardens, keeping the place together against the odds. Someone who didn’t give a damn about Plas Eden’s long history, or its intertwined relationship with the village on its borders. Someone who could just see themselves walking in to play lord of the manor on the cheap. Or whose only view of the estate was a pot of gold all ready to fund a lifetime of fast yachts, oversized watches and hanging around the tail-ends of C-list celebrities, hoping to make it to page five of the gossip magazines. Not that she knew Edmund Jnr was like this, she reminded herself, but she feared the worst.

  Carys watched David’s car make its way along the high street and out of Pont-ar-Eden. Maybe, she couldn’t help thinking, once out of here he would just want to wash his hands of the place. Lick his wounds and grieve quietly, maybe as much for all those years of wasted effort as for Eden itself.

  Sometimes, with something you love so much you cannot bear to lose it, it’s easier to stay away, rather than torment yourself with its soon-to-be-lost presence.

  In which case, she considered, there would be no more miracles for Plas Eden. And no reason for the two of them to even see each other again. Even more so if she were associated in David’s mind with memories of Eden.

  She’d hoped after their time in Cornwall that they might one day put the past behind them and move on. Together. She’d begun to hope David felt the same way. The old ease in each other’s company, beneath the initial awkwardness, was still there, and that had to mean they still had a chance.

  But it was no good: she had to face it. Without Plas Eden, David’s life could be wherever he might choose. This might be the push he needed to let go of responsibility and get on with his life. Perhaps, in the end, he might find himself relieved to leave her behind as well.

  Already her heart ached with missing him.

  Standing amongst the battered polytunnels of Eden Farm later that day, Carys felt no better. So much for throwing herself into a new venture to keep any negative thoughts at bay.

  Everything around her seemed larger and more neglected than on her previous visit. The tangles of autumn weeds and sprays of blackberries across the remains of vegetable beds defied any idea of where to start. At least one polytunnel needed its plastic covering replacing, and in the walled garden the greenhouses were a shambles. As for rest of the kitchen garden – well, she daren’t even consider the amount of work that it would take to begin growing. And now, she found, she hadn’t the heart to begin.

  ‘I see some of them have made a start,’ remarked Rhiannon, emerging from the little sunroom in the cottage and making her way down the path towards her.

  ‘Yes.’ Cary turned back to the strips of bare earth, which had begun to appear out of the undergrowth. ‘The bit Sara Jones’ nephew has taken over is nearly finished. Apparently he’s been here after work, as well as weekends.’

  ‘Good for him. I have to confess, I wasn’t sure you’d get anyone from Pont-ar-Eden interested in making allotments and growing their own. But Merlin tells me half the spaces have been taken already, and enquiries are flooding in for the rest, and quite a few of those are from young people with families.’

  ‘Yes.’ Carys bit her lip. ‘It seems such a pity…’

  ‘They all know everything is up in the air with a possible sale in any case, and it might only be for a year,’ said Rhiannon gently. ‘And at the very least, it’s starting something. You never know, this might get some of them to make sure the council creates allotments locally, even if the ones here can’t continue. Or Merlin might take them over permanently, depending on what happens with Eden.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Carys pulled herself together. ‘So? What do you think?’

  Rhiannon smiled. ‘The paintings are beautiful. Fancy being there all the time under that whitewash. Someone took real love and care over those.’

  ‘I wonder if they really were done by Nainie’s mother.’

  ‘I feel sure they were,’ said Rhiannon. ‘I know they are very different from those portraits you showed me, but they’ve got that same sense of life. I suspect they must have been made for your grandmother when she married your grandfather and came to live in the cottage.’

  ‘I like that idea.’ Carys could almost see the sprightly figure of Grandmother Judith moving between pots and cuttings in the little sunroom, sheets upon sheets of sketched designs for the garden piled high on a table in a corner. Around it all the curling designs of the leaves and flowers, robins and blue tits hidden in the greenery, along with yellow dots of bees and the smoky wings of cabbage white butterflies, eclipsed entirely by the green iridescent wings of dragonflies. ‘I wonder if it could ever be restored.’

  ‘I don’t see why not. The paint seems to come off without destroying too much of the pattern, and I’m sure we could work out the rest from the wildlife carved into the statues. There’s at least one dragonfly on the statue of Blodeuwedd, and, in any case, I don’t think Nainie’s mother would mind a little artistic licence to bring it back to life.’

  ‘I suppose it depends on who eventually takes over the cottage.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s worth having a go,’ replied Rhiannon. ‘At least we’ll have a record so we could reproduce something like it elsewhere, and it seems to me it’s less likely to be painted over if it’s fully restored. It will be a nice project. While I have the time, that is.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Carys. Absorbed in her own thoughts, she had entirely forgotten. ‘You must be so excited.’

  ‘The artist-in-residence, you mean?’

  ‘Of course. And against all that competition, too. It’s wonderful.’

  The older woman’s gaze drifted over to the shadow of Plas Eden on the far side of the lake. ‘Yes, it is exciting. And a real confidence boost.’

  Carys frowned at her tone. ‘You are going to take it? You’ve got to take it, Rhiannon. After all your hard work, and beating so much competition like that. It’s the beginning of a new life.’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’ Rhiannon was watching Hodge, who was engaged in snuffling about on the shoreline, following a scent this way and then that, as if in pursuit of the richest of truffles. ‘Old habits die hard, I suppose.’ She gazed back towards Plas Eden, reflected in the still water. ‘I just wish things could be more settled, that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t have to leave str
aight away, do you?’

  ‘Oh no. I’ve got a few months. I’d need to go over to Vermont sometime after Christmas. The end of January, most probably. If I accept, that is.’ Carys heard her sigh. ‘I can’t leave Eden with something like this hanging over it. The things Edmund used to say. Vicious, horrible things.’ Rhiannon shuddered. ‘Things he was always threatening to take to the newspapers if David didn’t “give him his due”, as he liked to put it.’

  ‘Maybe David will find his son a bit more reasonable.’

  ‘I hope so: but from the sound of him, I somehow doubt it.’

  ‘Me too,’ Carys admitted.

  Rhiannon sighed again. ‘I would love to walk away from this and concentrate on my career and the residency in America. The trouble is I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did. Whatever Edmund Meredith is up to, it would feel like betraying Marianne and everything she loved if I were to leave her sons to deal with it alone.’

  A delicious smell of cooking filled the air as Carys let herself into Willow Cottage that evening.

  ‘Nice day, dear?’ asked Mam brightly, emerging from the kitchen wiping her hands on her apron.

  ‘Lovely,’ replied Carys, with the best attempt at cheerfulness she could muster. ‘It really is beautiful over there.’

  ‘The best little spot on earth your grandmother Judith used to call it,’ replied Mam. Her eyes fell on the laden bags Carys was holding in each hand. ‘Oh. Darling, didn’t I tell you? I did that “online” thing you showed me with the supermarket. They delivered this morning. There was everything I ordered, and the young man was so helpful. Brought it right in here for me and put the boxes on the worktop. I didn’t have to lift a thing.’