by Lily Graham
‘I’m Rebecca. This is Emily.’
Emily, dressed in pink, smiled in welcome from her seat on the bed.
Rose had met the Hammonds on several occasions, due in no small part to Mother’s schemes, but this was the first time I had been formally introduced to them.
‘You don’t look anything like her,’ Rebecca pointed out, her eyes narrowing.
I didn’t know if she thought this was a good thing or a bad thing – I suspected the latter.
‘I take after my father.’
Emily peered at me from the bed, her face cocked to the side. ‘I think when you’re older, you’ll be prettier, don’t you, Becca?’ She was holding a box of Turkish delight, which she offered round.
Rebecca shrugged. ‘We haven’t met your father. Doesn’t he spend all his time on some flower farm?’
I nodded. ‘Idyllwild – they grow daffodils there. He breeds different types.’
Emily’s eyes widened. ‘That sounds dreamy.’
Rebecca’s eyebrows shot into her hairline.
Emily shrugged. ‘Well, it does,’ she insisted. ‘I love the name…’
‘Thank you,’ I said, though I had had no part in its creation. I missed it terribly.
‘Speaking of what happened on your father’s farm,’ said Rebecca, somewhat crudely, and with a naughty grin. ‘Is it true?’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘D-don’t!’ stammered Alice. It was the first time she’d spoken.
‘D-d-don’t worry, cousin,’ mocked Rebecca with a catty smile, and in a pretty good imitation of Alice’s stutter, much to her mortification. Alice’s cheeks had gone scarlet. I set my teeth, and Rebecca continued sweetly, ‘I just want to hear the truth – set the record straight.’
‘Well, it’s got to be better than the rumours, surely,’ agreed Emily, fishing out another Turkish delight and popping it into her mouth.
‘So,’ Rebecca prodded, ‘what happened? Why were you sent here? Did you really try and sabotage his farm? That’s what Katie told us.’
‘I did not.’
‘What then?’
‘I was friends with someone they didn’t approve of.’
‘Is that all?’ said Alice, shaking her head.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes. ‘I bet it was a boy.’
I shrugged.
‘Who was it?’ asked Rebecca.
I didn’t know why I answered. ‘The son of the head gardener at Idyllwild.’
Their eyes popped.
‘You mean a commoner?’ said Emily. ‘This is going to be interesting.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Present day
Someone was gardening at night at Seafall Cottage.
One morning, I discovered that the leaves had been cleared and the weeds had vanished. And now, as the wintry chill gave way to spring, the first bloom appeared, a solitary, blue velveteen stalk, in a mound of clear, turned earth.
The only person it could have been was the old man. Perhaps it was his way of apologising for taking the letters, or was meant to be a kind of payment for sleeping in the shed.
I’d found an old tin mug and a gas cooker hidden behind the door in the old, potting shed, which explained how he was able to survive when there wasn’t electricity or heating. I hadn’t, however, seen him again. My guess was that he came at night, well after I had left.
I’d have to speak to him eventually, find some other solution, but the few times I’d come past or stayed later into the evening, in the hopes that I would see him, he hadn’t come past. I suspected he simply stayed away. I couldn’t help wondering how he knew when I was there or not.
There had been so much activity here lately, what with the builders and my daily, small efforts over the past months. I began to think I’d scared him off. I wished I could find him and ask him what he knew and why he’d taken the letters from the chest.
He never came when Jack or Will was here, and the last time I’d seen him was when he was standing in my kitchen. The day he tipped his hat at me.
I still hadn’t told anyone about him. But he was harmless, I was sure of that. I left bread and bottles of water in the shed, but he never took them. Instead, I’d find new packets of seed, and notice that the earth had been freshly turned. He couldn’t have much, so why not take the bread and water? Did he want me to know that he wasn’t destitute? Pride can be a hard thing, I figured. But still, what was with the letters? It seemed like he wanted me to have them, and the diary too. So why not just come out and speak to me about it all, if he knew something I didn’t?
There was only one person that I wanted to discuss it with, and that was Adam. But we hadn’t spoken in days. Not since our fight.
While we watched Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – another one of Angie’s one-pound charity finds – I filled her in on what had happened, how angry he’d been.
‘I mean, how can he honestly think that I would just know that he hadn’t taken her back?’
Angie popped some microwave popcorn in her mouth and frowned. ‘But he didn’t, did he? I mean, she’s still hanging about, but I haven’t seen them together.’
‘Yes, I know.’
She shook her head and pressed pause. ‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘Probably not, but go ahead.’
‘You’re both idiots,’ she said. ‘Does it really matter who’s right, when really you both just want the same thing?’
As she pressed play and the film flickered back into life, I thought that perhaps she had a point.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Surrey, 1909–12
Tilly
Gone were the days of idle stimulation, lazy French lessons by the river, gardening by the light of the moon and paddling in the little boat with my best friend. The person I had to try not to think of at all.
Now my life centred on rules and routine. There were set times for everything. From the time I woke up, to when I got dressed, ate my first meal, took my first break – everything had a dedicated, reliable schedule. My grief found a certain comfort in it.
Like some of the girls who came from families similar to mine, my prior education had been decidedly uneven, and Katie Thorpe loved nothing better than to make my life a living hell as a result. I didn’t know why she despised me. Alice had a theory that it had something to do with a scandal in her own family’s past, and she resented the implication that we were similarly tarnished.
One evening, things came to a head after dinner when I entered our room and she flew at me in a rage. Her pale eyes popped as she looked from her bureau to me. ‘I’ve spoken to you about keeping to your side of the room. How dare you leave these disgusting weeds on my desk? I suspected that you were a sentimental little fool, but honestly this is ridiculous. Take them away at once,’ she told me, shoving a clutch of half-dead plants at my chest.
In my confusion, my hands came up and grasped them. Katie gave me one last look of derision. ‘Did you think you’d leave that there and afterwards we’d be friends? No wonder you had to slum it to find people who want to be with you,’ she said in her cold, high voice.
I blinked. Rebecca had obviously been talking. ‘The only slumming I’ve ever done has been to share a room with you,’ I told her.
‘Well, lucky for you, it won’t be for long.’
She stormed out before I had a chance to ask her what she meant.
As I peered down at the flowers in my hands, I felt the colour drain from my face. I sank down on the nearest bed and I didn’t care then if Katie came back in and saw me crying. I didn’t think I could care about anything else ever again. Because they weren’t weeds at all, they were a bunch of wildflowers tied with a string. Each one was different and unique, except for a small clump of daisies, also known as goose flowers.
I never found out how Fen sent those flowers. There was no one to ask, and as the days passed, no new message arrived. But I never stopped thinking about where he was or what he was doing.
In September, I was to receive another shock when Rose joined the school herself. There had been no letter to prepare me for her arrival and no one in my family or the school’s administration had taken it upon themselves to let me know that she’d be joining me.
‘Surprise, little sister!’ she said with a smirk when I found her sitting on my bed one evening after dinner. ‘You didn’t think I was about to let you have all the fun, did you?’
I looked around and to my horror saw familiar objects from Rose’s old room littering the surfaces, creeping past the sanctity of Katie’s thin white line.
Finding that I had somehow, miraculously, got myself rid of Katie, only to have gained my sister instead, was like swapping a rash for an infection. There was little comfort in the fact that I would finally get to say goodbye to Katie’s dark scowls if it meant that I would have to share a room with the person responsible for sending me here in the first place.
‘You’re coming here?’ I said in shock.
‘Well, I don’t see why you’re that surprised, really. I had to finish up some things over the summer, which is why I was delayed, but after Celine left, what choice had I left? I mean, it’s not like they could send you away to school and hire me another governess.’
‘When Celine was fired, you mean.’
‘Well, whose fault was that?’
‘Yours! You’re the one who told them to follow me.’
‘You stole a key and snuck out at night – I didn’t force you to run around with that dirty little—’
‘Stop it! Don’t speak of him that way!’
‘Fine. Anyway, Tilly, I did you a favour.’ She looked around. ‘This is much better than being at home. There are the Hammonds to think about, for one. Mother says we’ll probably be spending most of our holidays there. We’ve already made a date for the summer at Monthesay, after that there’s the home in Italy – Rebecca said it is simply glorious in winter.’
‘You speak as if we’ll never go home again,’ I said with a frown.
‘Oh, well, I might, but you definitely won’t, not for a long while at least. Mother’s prepared to send you as far as Switzerland if need be. There’s some school for hopeless cases there.’
‘What?’
‘Well, that was the compromise, wasn’t it? The one father made with the head gardener – your little boyfriend’s father. They had to send you away, you see, so that he could bring his son home.’
Chapter Forty
Present day
The sun was doing its last call with a cocktail mix of salmon and magenta swirls when I approached the office of Waters Solicitors, with more than a touch of anxiety in my chest.
Adam opened the door after I knocked, then leant against the doorjamb, giving me that lazy smile of his that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
His tie was loose, and he’d folded up the sleeves of his white shirt.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hi,’ he replied.
‘I just wanted to tell you that I don’t run away when things get tough. I know you think that – based on the short time you’ve known me – but believe me, I stuck out my marriage for years even though I probably should have called it a day a long time ago—’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘You do?’
He picked up my hand. ‘Yes. I shouldn’t have said that.’
I nodded. ‘Thanks.’
‘I mean it. I regret it. Look, I’m sorry about Jenna too. I know how it must have looked, but honestly… the only person I want to be with is you. But if you need more time, I can wait.’
‘I don’t need more time,’ I said, my arms circling his waist.
He moved aside my curtain of hair. ‘You don’t, huh?’ he said, his eyes growing dark.
I shook my head. When we kissed, I forgot to breathe. My knees turned weak and my head began to spin.
‘How do you do that?’ I asked, when I finally came up for air.
‘What?’
‘That. You’re bad for me,’ I said.
His arms circled me. ‘I don’t think so.’
I smiled and looked down. ‘No, me neither.’
‘So…’ he said, his hand trailing down my arm. ‘How about the next time one of our crazy exes shows up, we phone the other and let them know that we are not, in fact, getting back together with them?’
I nodded. ‘So we communicate.’
‘Yes,’ he winked. ‘You wouldn’t think that would be so difficult for a writer.’
‘No, you wouldn’t, but then again, there’s a reason we are writers, not talkers…’
He laughed. ‘Good point.’
Later we went back to the Somersby and I attempted to make something from the first cookbook I’d ever had – a recent purchase, using fresh vegetables from Sue’s allotment and fresh salmon that we’d picked up at the deli in the village.
‘You don’t need help?’ Adam asked for the third time.
‘I’ve got this. Stuart and Sue said that I overcomplicate things.’
He kept a straight face. ‘You? Never.’
I flicked a dishtowel at him. ‘Shut up.’
The salmon was mildly burnt in the lemon butter sauce, but the braised cucumbers and garlicky potatoes were not.
I dished up with a grin. ‘Voilà!’
Adam eyed the kitchen, and I saw him take in the little char mark on the countertop from when the fresh lemon juice had hit the-too hot butter sauce and the whole thing had gone up in flames, before I quickly put a lid on it. But he didn’t say anything, just gave me a wink.
‘Looks fantastic,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve certainly improved.’
Chapter Forty-One
Cornwall, 1913
Tilly
I was sixteen the year I saw Fen again. It was the first year since I’d left home that I could count the nights I’d slept in my own bed on more than one hand.
With Mother’s attention wrapped up in Rose and her burgeoning relationship with Charles, I was granted a taste of freedom before we prepared to host the Hammonds that summer.
What I discovered were all the changes to Idyllwild. The farm had doubled in size, and everywhere you looked you could see a bright, yellow sea of flowers that stretched far and wide.
Walking along the river, there were times when a snap of a twig would make me turn, and I was sure I’d see a little boy with curly hair and the bluest eyes, but I never did.
Old Tom’s branches were covered in ivy, and the little green flowerpot was still there, though no hastily scribbled note awaited me beneath the terracotta rim, just as no young boy came haring past with an impish grin and a fox named Arthur perched on his shoulder.
I was haunted by the memories of us. Of rich chocolate soil crumbling beneath my fingers as we gardened in the moonlight, of paddling down the river in our rundown boat, of the taste of sweet pears, bursting with juices that trickled down our chins as we grinned at each other underneath a perfect Cornish sky.
I walked along the cliffs to the walls that concealed the cottage behind, but that was as far as I dared go.
That summer, Mother was in her element, as it was the first time we would be having the Hammonds to stay.
The twins, along with their brother, Charles, and one of his school chums, Stephen Clapham-Stiles, would be coming for the better part of August. It was hoped that by the end of the month, an engagement would be set between Charles and Rose.
Every inch of the house had been given a thorough clean, new curtains had been ordered and the spare rooms given a fresh application of wallpaper. It was the only time I’d ever seen my mother so quick to smile in all my years. Even Father had been persuaded to take time off to get up a shooting party with the boys.
Rebecca arrived later that week, like a brisk summer breeze, declaring herself ‘in love with daffodils’ and this ‘wild, thoroughly romantic part of the world’. Perhaps Mother, for the first time, saw the colour of the grass on her own soil, though I was glad she never heard th
e twins’ snickers when they were shown their ‘sweet, parochial rooms’.
While Rebecca turned everyone’s heads, it was Alice who I was the most glad to see. Her hair was frizzier than ever, and she hadn’t yet lost her stutter, but she was without a doubt one of the most welcome sights to be seen or heard. ‘G-G-Granny wanted me to go with her to New York for the summer, b-b-but I was afraid you wouldn’t survive the month with those three,’ she said. I still wondered how she was related to them. I’d been thanking my stars for sending me Alice McKibbon since I met her.
Knowing that Father was unlikely to play the part of the gentleman farmer for more than a few days, my cousin Tim had been called upon to pick up the post, and a venerable host he was too.
‘What are you doing, Spriggy?’ he said, while we were picnicking on the lawn. I was lying down on my front, writing a passionate editorial about the women’s movement for the little newsletter Alice and I had founded at school.
‘Hmm? Just writing,’ I said, looking up. ‘Isn’t it funny that we live in a country where throwing a rock at the prime minister’s house is considered more outrageous than giving women basic rights?’
‘Not this again,’ sighed Rose. She darted a nervous look at Charles. ‘You promised.’
Charles had his hat over his head, and we could hear faint snoring.
‘It’s just an observation,’ I said with a shrug.
Rebecca plucked the last petal from the daisy in her hands and said, ‘I find the whole concept of the suffragettes tiresome, truly.’
I was about to launch into a heated diatribe when Alice intervened. ‘Why do you call her S-S-Spriggy?’
Tim laughed. ‘Well, when she was little, Tilly was just this little sprig of a girl – thin and tall, all elbows and knees.
I laughed. ‘Not much has changed.’
‘I disagree,’ said Stephen Clapham-Stiles, who was sitting with his back against a tree, eyes closed and looking like he was about to join his friend in an afternoon nap.
