The Flower Garden

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Maria,’ Nancy cried, her hand flying to her mouth. ‘She’s still aboard the Helena.’

  Ramon laughed, his arms tight around her waist where she had longed for them to be. ‘Then she’ll just have to remain there until the Helena docks in Lisbon. I’ll see to it that she’s brought back immediately.’

  ‘But she hates travelling by sea.’

  ‘Mae de Deus!’ Ramon said, his eyebrows flying upwards. ‘Luis was in my office this morning, ranting and raving and swearing he was following her at the earliest opportunity. If I don’t stop him they’ll be able to wave to each other as they cross in mid-ocean!’

  ‘American divorces don’t take too long, darling, do they?’ Zia was saying as she crumbled the petits-fours and scattered them to the doves. ‘Not that I mind if the baby comes before you and Ramon are married. I don’t mind about anything any longer.’ Her smile was soft, indecently radiant for a woman of nearly seventy. ‘I’ve already written to your father. There is nothing to spoil his future happiness now. His conscience will at last be clear and he will have his Gloria. Tell me,’ she sat in the shade of her parasol of peacock feathers, ‘what is Gloria like?’

  ‘You’d better ask Ramon,’ Nancy said demurely, and was rewarded by a gleam in his eye that promised a volatile chastisement and even more volatile reconciliation.

  Nancy abandoned her role as hostess. As her happiness increased, so did her tiredness. The vast suite of rooms she occupied with Ramon opened out on to tropical gardens and her days were spent lying in the shade on a chaise longue, receiving a few visitors and close friends, and painting.

  Ramon, ignorant as to the mysteries of pregnancy, remained unsuspecting and joyful, watching her hour after hour as first one canvas and then another was completed.

  ‘They are good,’ Giovanni said with stark simplicity, at the end of May, when she nervously displayed the six finished paintings to him for the first time. ‘Very good. Carrera will be pleased. I’ll take them to Rome tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh no! Not so soon!’

  Giovanni raised bushy eyebrows.

  ‘They need working on …’

  ‘They are completed,’ Giovanni said with finality. ‘There is no need to be nervous. I, Giovanni, have told you that they are worthy of exhibition. Do you doubt me?’

  ‘No … It’s just that …’ She lay back weakly. ‘I’m frightened, Giovanni. What if no one likes them?’

  ‘Do you like them?’

  Nancy looked long and hard at the six canvasses. She had put her heart into them: her hopes and fears.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

  ‘Then it is enough.’

  At the end of May, Bobo and Hassan married in Paris and returned to Sanfords for their honeymoon. In Rome, Leopold Carrera mounted a small, exclusive exhibition. The work was that of a new, unknown artist. The paintings received guarded praise in the art columns of Italy’s national papers. They received a good deal more when two of them were privately purchased and hung alongside such masters as Chagall and Labisse in a Florentine palace. When a national bank in Amsterdam approached the artist through Carrera, commissioning a painting for its new multi-million pound office, both the art critics of The Times and Le Monde took note.

  Nancy was staggered. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said to Ramon, spreading out the newspapers, reading and re-reading the letter from Leopold Carrera. ‘He wants me to go to Rome. He wants me to acknowledge the paintings.’

  ‘I want you to acknowledge the paintings,’ Ramon said. ‘I also utterly forbid you to sell the other four without allowing me to see them first. I think Sanfords should have the privilege of acquiring one of them.’

  ‘I’ll do all the paintings you want,’ she said, her face flushing with pleasure.

  ‘You’re not going to have time,’ Ramon said drily. ‘Not with world famous corporations inundating you with commissions.’

  ‘One corporation.’

  ‘Two,’ Ramon corrected. ‘This came at lunch time.’ He handed her a telegram from Carrera.

  She gasped. ‘New World Oil! Why on earth do they want one of my pictures?’

  ‘Because, sweet darling, they are obviously outstandingly, amazingly good. As I shall see for myself in a few days’time. We’re going to Rome and you can personally silence all the rumours as to who the artist really is. Even you must have realized that the signature “Nancy” would cause speculation.’

  ‘Yes … No … I didn’t think it would matter. I didn’t think anyone would care who had painted them.’ She hesitated and then said slowly: ‘And I didn’t want to sign them with Jack’s surname. He stifled me for so long. I could never have painted if I had remained with him. He would have laughed, ridiculed. Those paintings weren’t done by Nancy Cameron. I shan’t alter the signature; not until we are married.’

  His hands grasped hers tightly. ‘I love you,’ he said, his black eyes holding hers, sending a shiver of delight down her spine. ‘You’re a neverending source of delight and surprise. What are you going to do next? Sculpt? Write? Compose?’

  ‘Make love,’ she said, and slid into his arms.

  In June, Georgina Montcalm returned reluctantly to her duties as a leading light in the upper echelons of British high society and African lilies clouded the hills around Funchal.

  In July Vere wrote to say that Clarissa had agreed to an undefended divorce and hydrangeas turned the island from green to blue.

  In August, Sonny’s film starring Hildegarde was released and the world acclaimed her a star, second only to Garbo.

  In September, yellow-petalled cassia flowers filled Ramon and Nancy’s rooms and Reggie Minter announced his engagement to Helen Bingham-Smythe.

  In October, allemanda bloomed and Jack and Nancy Cameron’s divorce was made absolute.

  ‘But we’ll have to go to Lisbon for a civil wedding,’ Nancy protested as Ramon kissed her magnificent stomach and told his son that he would not be born a bastard. ‘The church won’t marry us. All the priests in Funchal are Catholic.’

  ‘True.’ His eyes darkened thoughtfully.

  Nancy was eight months pregnant and, despite her fatigue, more beautiful than ever. Her hair and nails had suffered as Dr Oliveira had said they would. Maria had been reduced to tears in her efforts to restore her hair to its former shining glory. With resignation Nancy submitted herself to hour-long sessions of assiduous brushing, of daily applications of wheatgerm oil, conditioning her hair beneath hot, steaming towels. Maria’s tireless ministrations saw to it that Nancy’s rapidly declining health was not apparent in her looks. Her brittle nails she wore short, as always. It was how Ramon liked them. One of the first things he had noticed about her had been the softly buffed nails, naked of brilliant enamel. She could feel, daily, her strength decreasing and was filled with a strange serenity. Each day that she held Ramon, loved him, feasted her eyes upon him, was a gift from the gods that no one could take away from her.

  Dr Oliveira had urged strongly that she should sail to Lisbon for the birth. There were no facilities on Madeira. She would be able to receive no blood transfusions. Nancy had refused. Dr Lorrimer had written fully and extensively: blood transfusions would only delay the inevitable. She told the agitated Portuguese doctor that she would remain on the island.

  Ramon, for reasons of his own, agreed with her. He did not like the idea of her travelling to Lisbon when she was so far advanced in her pregnancy. Not even for the purpose of getting married. The journey would be strenuous and the press would be at the wedding in stifling force.

  Nancy was now so weak that he carried her daily from her vast bed to the chaise longue beneath the shade of the trees. Dr Oliveira viewed him with frustration, wishing he would grow anxious about his wife’s condition and give him some excuse for breaking his vow of silence. Ramon remained unperturbedly unconcerned. Pregnancy was a mystery to him. He saw nothing odd in Nancy’s weakness. If Zia had any doubts she kept them to herself. Nancy was, after all, thirty-five. After Verity’s bir
th she had been told she would never carry a child again. It was not to be expected that her pregnancy would be without difficulties.

  Ramon dismissed the idea of marriage in Lisbon and grinned. ‘We’ll get married aboard the Kezia.’

  ‘You’re mad.’ She was laughing helplessly as he swung her bulk around in his arms.

  ‘I’m not. Captains at sea can perform marriages. We’ll put to sea and Captain Enrico can marry us. Afterwards, when the baby is born, we can have as many civil ceremonies as we like, if it will make you feel any happier.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly feel any happier,’ she said, as he lowered her gently to the ground and she took his face in her hands. ‘It isn’t possible to be any happier than I am at this minute.’

  His kiss was long and tender and gradually they gravitated to the bed and she removed her kaftan and he lay naked against her, his arms round her, his hands warm and strong on her stomach as the baby kicked and moved with restless energy.

  Bobo was summoned from Paris to be matron-of-honour. Helen Bingham-Smythe sailed in from London to be a bridesmaid. Tessa Rossman was overcome at being asked to be a second bridesmaid.

  Champagne by the crateload was transferred to the Kezia. Sanfords’chef moved aboard to prepare a banquet, the likes of which had never been seen before. Her father’s congratulatory telegram was ebullient; Vere’s touching. Costas arrived in person, but without Madeleine. His new companion did not look a day over eighteen. The Bessbrooks cancelled their vacation and arrived for the ceremony, as did Sonny and Georgina Montcalm. Charles, ensconced in Malta with his fleet, was unable to attend but sent his best wishes in a way that Georgina assured Nancy was quite effusive for Charles.

  Charles was not given to superlatives. Georgina confided to Nancy that she only knew he loved her because of the way he treated her: not because he told her so. He didn’t. He thought such declarations unseemly and rather vulgar.

  Prince Vasileyev arrived with a pretty Italian fiancée and Giovanni Ferranzi abandoned his work in his villa on the outskirts of Rome and astounded everybody by announcing his intention to attend a public ceremony.

  The Kezia was bedecked with flowers and looked like a floating garden and on 18 October, ten months after she had first met him, Nancy Leigh Cameron, née O’Shaughnessy, married Ramon Sanford.

  ‘I shall be glad when I can get close to you again,’ Ramon complained as they danced to the strains of Cole Porter.

  Nancy giggled. ‘I must have looked the most ridiculous bride. I felt like a hippopotamus. There was no way I could hold my bouquet of roses in front of me. They simply rested on Junior.’

  ‘You’d have thought he would have had the sensitivity to have stayed still while his parents married,’ Ramon said wryly. ‘He was bucketing around under that white silk dress so that every eye in the place was riveted on him.’

  ‘He’s not bucketing about now,’ Nancy said. ‘He’s unusually still.’

  ‘His timing is very bad.’

  ‘Yes.’ A slight frown furrowed Nancy’s brow.

  Their guests were wining, dining, dancing and laughing.

  ‘Ramon …’ Her voice was hesitant.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Sanford.’

  ‘Ramon, I’m not sure, but I think Junior is about to make his appearance.’

  He stopped dancing and looked down at her with horror. ‘He can’t. He’s not due for another month!’

  A spasm crossed Nancy’s face. ‘I know, darling, but I don’t think anyone has told him that.’

  The music changed to a foxtrot. Bobo and Hassan were kissing and giggling as if they had just married and were not already in their third month of marital bliss.

  ‘You must be mistaken. You’ve drunk too much champagne.’

  Nancy gripped hold of his hand hard. ‘I haven’t and he is.’

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘Arriving.’

  ‘Christ!’ One look at her face as another wave of pain crossed it told him she was telling the truth. He moved to lift her bodily.

  She pushed him away gently. ‘Don’t be silly, darling. I can walk. Babies don’t come in five minutes.’

  ‘Let me get you back to Sanfords,’ he said urgently.

  A tipsy guest gaily threw a wreath of flowers over his neck. Costas’new girlfriend was gesticulating nervously with a foot-length jade cigarette holder. Venetia was pouting at Felix’s refusal yet again to dance, and taking Sonny’s arm with the declaration that she wanted to have fun!

  No one noticed the disappearance of the bride and groom. Ramon’s face was distraught as he hurried her, her white veil swirling high in the breeze, down the gangplank and into the back of his Hispano-Suzia. Nancy smiled at his concern and then gasped as another pain crept round from the centre of her back and gripped hard on her stomach muscles.

  ‘Mae de Deus!’ Ramon’s face was agonized. ‘I didn’t realize what it would be like. I was going to have gynaecologists flown in … nurses …’

  Nancy gripped his hand hard. ‘It’s too late, darling. If the chauffeur doesn’t hurry I’m going to have the baby here.’

  His face was grey. ‘Can’t you tell Junior to wait? Can you still walk?’

  They were at Sanfords’entrance. The pains were coming every five minutes. Verity had taken twenty-four hours to appear. Ramon Junior seemed intent on making his appearance in twenty-four minutes.

  ‘The baby’s coming!’ Ramon shouted to a startled Maria and ran for Doctor Oliveira, too agitated to even think of telephoning him.

  Nancy gasped as another pain gripped her. As it receded she said quickly to Maria, ‘Help me out of my dress and into a nightdress. There isn’t much time. Oh … !’ They waited together, Maria clasping her hands. The pain ebbed. The white silk wedding gown was practically ripped off and tossed carelessly to one side.

  Maria had only just managed to slip a nightdress over Nancy’s head when another pain came – a pain so intense that she cried out loud.

  Dr Oliveira, Zia and Ramon came running into the room.

  ‘Out!’ Oliveira said to Ramon.

  ‘Like hell,’ Ramon responded, and took hold of Nancy’s hand as she lay prostrate on the bed.

  Dr Oliveira knew better than to argue and besides, there wasn’t time.

  Zia crossed herself and withdrew. Her first grandchild. Chips’ grandchild. She hadn’t prayed for years. She went back to her suite and did so with the fervour of a true Catholic.

  ‘My bag,’ Oliveira said urgently to Maria. ‘Put towels on the sheets, quickly girl!’

  This time the pain had taken on a new dimension. Her knees were drawn up, her nightdress around her sweating stomach. Ramon’s hand was her lifeline. She gripped it with all her strength. When the pain became intolerable she fastened her eyes on his. Black, agonized eyes in a strangely white face. Where had all his honey-gold flesh gone? Why did he look so frightened? Did he know? Had he guessed?

  Another pain came, ferocious in its intensity. Her nails dug into her palm. She tried to speak to him, but only a strange, animal cry emerged. She could see Dr Oliveira’s face, taut and anxious. He had never expected her to carry the baby to full term. She had done so, triumphantly. The pain came again, but this time it was different. The baby was pushing down hard, splitting her apart.

  ‘Pant!’ Dr Oliveira was saying. ‘Pant!’

  She panted. She could do nothing else. She was being torn in two. There was a rush of liquid and the baby slithered, howling, on to the bed. Ramon’s face was ablaze with joy. He seized her shoulders, lifting her up so that she could see the miracle that kicked and yelled between her legs, tiny hands clenched, eyes screwed up, black hair plastered flatly to its head.

  ‘It’s a girl!’ she said weakly. ‘It’s a girl. It isn’t a he after all.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll leave while I attend to Mrs Sanford and the baby,’ Dr Oliveira said tartly.

  ‘I’ll do no such thing! This is my wife and my child and I’m staying! Isn’t she beautiful, Nancy? Isn’t she u
nbelievably, amazingly, thunderingly beautiful?’

  No one but a father could have said that. She still wasn’t bathed, the umbilical cord still sprouted from her tummy. To Ramon she was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.

  Nancy fell back against the pillows. It was three o’clock. They had been married only hours. Her sweating body was sponged down, a clean nightdress slipped over her head.

  ‘What is the baby’s name?’ Maria asked tremulously, tears of relief and joy on her cheeks. She had never seen a baby born before. It had been the most wonderful moment of her life. She would have lots of babies when she married Luis; babies like this one, strong and healthy with dark eyes and black hair.

  ‘Janela,’ Ramon said, and the love in his eyes was so exquisite that Nancy knew nothing could ever surpass it.

  Janela: a baby conceived by the banks of a mountain stream. Born in love. Janela: it was a beautiful name. A beautiful baby. She smiled and lay back against her pillows, overcome with exhaustion. The dream had finally come to an end. She had been given all that she had asked for. She had carried her baby and given birth to it and now her strength was ebbing. She felt no fear, only a deep, all-pervading joy. How long had it been since she had stood, lonely and alone, in Dr Lorrimer’s office? Ten months? A year? She had thought then that her world had come to an end. Instead she had been on the threshhold of all that had given it meaning. She had found a love that would sustain her through all eternity. She had discovered talents she had barely known existed. She had given birth to a child Ramon would love to the end of his days.

  He was holding the baby now, his strong handsome face alight with wonder and unbelievable tenderness. The late evening sun glinted on the two dark heads. Father and daughter; looking at each other for the first time; forging a bond that would be unbreakable. She felt calm and fulfilled, supremely happy. She wanted to keep her eyes open, to gaze and gaze at them, but she could not. Her life blood surged, heavy and hot, between her legs, seeping into the delicate sheets, spreading and staining. She did not call for Dr Oliveira. She no longer had the strength. She was sinking into drowsy warmth and a darkness that was welcoming. Ramon would grieve for her as passionately and intensely as he had loved her. Then, as he finally came to terms with her death and his grief became a part of his life, he would marry Tessa. The last flicker of a smile curved her lips. Tessa, with her gentleness and kindness, would love Ramon and Janela. None of them would ever forget her. She was part of them and they would be part of her for ever.