The Kissing Garden

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Excuse me, Dr McAllister,’ George interrupted. ‘With respect, these are just theories, are they not, as to what might be wrong with our daughter? Surely until you have the result of the tests—’

  ‘Yes, Captain Dashwood, of course. But you are here because children are my special subject. I am very familiar with the various syndromes which affect the young and the very young. And I will stake my reputation on being right in this case. Everything indicates a blood disorder and it is imperative we establish precisely which one little Gwendolyn is suffering from. With her background we can rule out poor diet as the cause. Therefore, if I am right in my assumptions, we are looking at something altogether more serious – which is why I must recommend that we have Gwendolyn admitted to hospital at once.’

  Amelia looked helplessly at George who was staring glassy-eyed at Dr McAllister. ‘Hospital, Dr McAllister,’ he repeated. ‘Do you have any idea for how long?’

  ‘Not at this stage, no.’

  ‘It was a ridiculous question. Forgive me.’

  ‘It was not a bit ridiculous, believe me. But try not to be too alarmed. I hope it won’t be for long, but I do like to take every possible precaution. I would recommend we send her to Lady Carnarvon’s Clinic, just a few doors up the street, where they can run a full set of tests and all the top men in the field will be able to examine the patient. I can book her in today for you, if you so wish.’

  Amelia thought her heart would break at hearing Gwendolyn called the patient. They had brought a little girl up to London and now she was to be a patient, designated to a nursing home to be examined by a host of doctors curious to see what disease the child might be suffering from and how it was affecting such a young body. Then, when they had run their tests and analysed what they had found, they would stuff her full of medicines in the hope that whatever it was that was making her so sickly would miraculously vanish, when all that would probably happen was that the pills and potions would make Gwennie ever more sickly until – until she--

  ‘George?’ Amelia said, rising suddenly. ‘Is it all right if I have a word with my husband, Dr McAllister? This has all come as a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Of course. Why don’t you slip into the room next door here? I shall make sure Gwendolyn is looked after since I am sure you have no wish to upset the child.’

  He opened a door behind him and George took her arm and led her into the sitting room where he sat her down in an armchair while he stood by the fireplace studying a painting with absolutely no interest whatsoever.

  ‘Let’s just take Gwennie home, George – can we?’

  ‘I know just how you feel. Because I feel the same.’ George stared blindly at the painting. ‘But I don’t think so. I don’t think we can.’

  Amelia got up and stood behind George, finding his hand and taking it. ‘Please. George? Please let’s all three of us just go home.’

  ‘We can’t, Amelia. Dr McAllister is a very experienced diagnostician. Edward says he cares for every child who comes to him as if they’re his own. So I think we must do as he says. If it’s something serious--’

  ‘Not things wrong with the blood, George. Not things wrong with children’s blood. When children Gwennie’s age are diagnosed as anaemic, George--’

  ‘No, Amelia. Don’t.’ George stopped her before she had time to lose her self-control, taking both her hands and looking into her eyes. ‘It won’t be anything like that. But even if it was, then we would have to put Gwendolyn somewhere where she would get the right care and attention. If it was anything serious the last thing you or I would want would be to have her suffer.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. It’s just that – I love her so very much.’

  ‘I know. So do I. I love her more than I can say.’

  Amelia swallowed hard, bit her lip, dug her fingernails deep into the palm of her hand as she always did when she wanted to stop herself crying. Because she knew that the one thing she must not do was give in.

  They stayed in London while awaiting the result of the tests, once more booking into Browns Hotel, where they spent the rest of the day in their suite, having settled the bewildered Gwendolyn into the nursing home. First thing the next morning they returned to Harley Street where they found a frightened little girl.

  ‘I should have thought of this last night, darling,’ Amelia said, sitting one side of her daughter’s bed while George pulled a chair up the other. ‘Still, I shan’t leave your side until they’ve finished doing whatever it is they’re doing and we all trundle off back home.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘It won’t be long, Tiger.’ George squeezed her hand. ‘We’ve brought you a brand new jigsaw puzzle which I suggest we all do together – and look, Matron’s bringing you in a wireless set so that you can listen to the children’s programmes. Now that is exciting.’

  It took another two days for the doctors to run all their tests and study the results, during which time Gwendolyn was not left alone for one moment by her parents, the three of them spending their time doing puzzles and playing games. In fact they were just in the middle of a particularly hysterical game of Heads, Middles and Feet, always a family favourite, when Matron looked in to whisper that Dr McAllister would like a word.

  ‘We won’t be long, Tiger.’

  ‘It’s all right, George,’ Amelia said quickly, with a don’t-leave-her-alone look. ‘If it’s just a word, I’ll go.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, George,’ Amelia replied firmly, going to the door. ‘You stay right where you are.’

  ‘Mrs Dashwood.’ Dr McAllister rose as Amelia came in, offering her a chair opposite him. ‘Your husband is not with you?’

  ‘We didn’t want to leave Gwennie alone. So he’s sitting with her.’

  ‘I see. Very well, I’ll come straight to the point then, Mrs Dashwood. And it’s not good news. I’m afraid Gwendolyn is not at all well.’

  Once again Amelia felt the ice cold hand grab at her stomach and twist her insides. She took a deep breath to calm herself before she replied.

  ‘You mean she has to stay in hospital, is that it?’ she heard herself saying.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Yes.’

  ‘How long for, Dr McAllister? What exactly do you think might be wrong with her?’

  ‘Mrs Dashwood, this is going to be very hard for you,’ Dr McAllister said quietly, getting up from his desk and coming round to sit down in a chair he drew up close to her.

  ‘I think perhaps I had better go and get my husband, don’t you?’ Amelia said, staring at the man who she knew was about to break the sort of news every loving mother must dread from the moment their baby is put into their arms. ‘If it’s going to be very hard.’

  ‘You must do what you think best, Mrs Dashwood. If you would rather your husband were here – but I’m afraid it won’t make any difference to the diagnosis.’

  Amelia looked at him.

  ‘She’s not going to die, is she?’ she whispered. ‘Please tell me Gwennie’s not going to die?’

  Dr McAllister put a hand gently on one of Amelia’s.

  ‘Your daughter has pernicious anaemia, Mrs Dashwood. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. Every test we made points to the same conclusion.’

  ‘Pernicious anaemia?’

  They were the words Amelia had dreaded. In a way she had more than half expected them, yet even now the verdict had been pronounced it seemed totally impossible to accept such a finding. Gwendolyn was only a child, barely three years old. Children her age should not fall prey to terrible disease. They had not known enough of the world to earn such a sentence. Children were blessed, children were the innocents, God loved little children.

  ‘How could God do this? How can He let her die?’

  ‘Mrs Dashwood, I did not say anything about dying--’

  ‘But Gwennie is going to, isn’t she, Dr McAllister? I can see it on your face. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it the moment I came into this room. She’s
going to die and there’s absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.’

  ‘I wish there was, Mrs Dashwood. More than anything in the world. When I find a child has a disease such as this, I really would give my own life to find a cure.’

  Amelia fell silent for a moment, before looking at the specialist with quite a different expression.

  ‘Are you sure this is what Gwendolyn has? And that there’s nothing you can do? Nothing anyone can do?’

  Dr McAllister nodded, closing his eyes so he would not have to meet Amelia’s.

  ‘What will happen? How long will – how long will she live? How many years, or months, or days has she got?’

  ‘Mrs Dashwood.’ Taking courage Dr McAllister looked her in the eye, and she saw his infinite sadness as he saw her dawning grief. At that moment she knew it was not going to be years, that perhaps it might not even be months, that it might just be a question of weeks. ‘Mrs Dashwood – I think it will be very quick, and of course we shall do everything we can to make absolutely sure she does not suffer.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know how you must feel, Mrs Dashwood—’

  ‘No. No, that’s not what I meant. That isn’t what I meant at all,’ Amelia said, getting up. ‘What I meant was no she’s not going to die.’

  ‘All I can say is that while she is here, while we do what we can for her, something might happen which prevents what looks like the inevitable—’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant!’ Amelia stood up, staring intensely ahead. ‘You don’t understand me! I understand you all right – but you don’t understand me at all!’ She dropped her voice to a whisper, still staring but this time at him. ‘Gwendolyn is not going to die.’

  ‘We will do our very best, that I promise you. We will do everything in our power to try and prevent it, but I’m afraid—’

  ‘We’re taking her home, Dr McAllister,’ Amelia announced, turning for the door. ‘Please tell Matron to see that her things are packed. We are taking Gwendolyn home at once.’

  ‘Mrs Dashwood . . .’ Dr McAllister got himself between Amelia and the door, preventing her from leaving. ‘Mrs Dashwood, Gwendolyn cannot leave here. You couldn’t cope with what is going to happen to her. Not at home. Not without a nursing staff, believe me.’

  ‘She is coming home, Dr McAllister,’ Amelia replied. ‘Now if you don’t mind?’

  She tried to get past him, but the specialist stood his ground.

  ‘Just think about what you are doing, Mrs Dashwood,’ he pleaded. ‘Think of the good of your little girl. You don’t want her to suffer – you said so yourself.’

  ‘She is not going to suffer, Dr McAllister. And she is not going to die. She will only suffer if you make her stay in this place. If my husband and I do not take her home.’

  Amelia’s tears had dried up and she stood facing Dr McAllister with a look of such utter conviction that he stepped to one side to allow her access to the door.

  ‘Perhaps you should speak to your husband first,’ he said, as his last suggestion. ‘Perhaps once Captain Dashwood is apprised of the facts you will see it differently.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Dr McAllister. Not for one minute. I am absolutely sure Captain Dashwood will be of exactly the same mind as I am.’

  Amelia was right. As soon as George learned all the facts, he agreed with her at once, and quite unconditionally. They must take Gwendolyn home.

  ‘Pain, you said, sir, must be suffered. We were not to allay it nor make interference in their distress.’

  ‘This is a child, wizard,’ the Noble One chided. ‘We will not brook such agony.’

  ‘Very well.’ Longbeard consulted his purse, picking out a handful of stardust. ‘This may cure ills, sir, although ’tis no certainty.’

  ‘I want nothing that is not certain, wizard. We brought them to this place, I will not watch the child taken before her time.’

  ‘Then what, sir? I have no spells for such as this. If I had, should we have found ourselves here? I think not.’

  His companion looked at him once then put a hand on his arm. ‘There is magick here enough. We have no need of spells. Just lead her where she must go. Go behind her eyes, enter into her mind, and once you are there she will know what to do.’

  ‘Very well.’ Longbeard nodded, then took from his purse a tiny jet black jewel in the shape of a beetle which he placed in his mouth. When the moon appeared once more his companion found himself alone beneath the yew while somewhere on the wind of night a tiny insect was carried on a light breeze to its place of destiny.

  They had brought her home sedated, in case she was sick on the long car journey, so now she slept deeply in her own bed, while Amelia and George sat by the fire in George’s study, drinking cups of cocoa and wondering in silence what they could possibly do to prevent what they had been told was inevitable.

  ‘Perhaps—’ George began.

  ‘No,’ Amelia stopped him. ‘There can’t be any perhapses, George. If we had left her in hospital, she would have died there. And if she’s going to die, then she must die here. Where she was born. This is her home.’

  ‘It won’t be easy, Amelia. What a ridiculous thing to say – of course it’s not going to be easy.’ George got up from his chair and fetched the whisky decanter to pour them both a drink. ‘What I meant was that we’re going to have to – no we’re not. As a matter of fact, I don’t know what we’re going to have to do.’ He sat down again, staring into the drink he held in both his hands.

  ‘Maybe she’ll get better now she’s back here? Maybe, just maybe, the doctors are wrong and she’s suffering from something else altogether. Doctors are often wrong. So maybe they’re wrong in this case. They could easily be wrong, George.’

  And they could just as easily be right, George thought. What they had decided in London had seemed so obvious at the time, but now they were back home with a possibly mortally sick daughter lying upstairs in bed reality was beginning to come home to them both, and to George in particular. In his heart he agreed absolutely with Amelia, that rather than leave their beloved daughter to her fate in a hospital, even with themselves in constant attendance, they should have the child at home where they could nurse her with total love and devotion. Yet now they were actually home, the thought of what they might have to undergo made George fearful, not so much for himself as for Amelia, whom he could not imagine surviving such a terrible ordeal.

  ‘Amelia darling,’ he began again. ‘Perhaps in the morning after we’ve both slept—’

  ‘I shan’t be able to sleep, George. I don’t actually think I shall ever be able to sleep again.’

  ‘Of course you will. If we’re going to help Gwennie we have to sleep. We have to sleep, and eat and, and – keep up our strength. We have to be strong if we’re going to get through this, one way or another, and to do that we mustn’t give in. We really mustn’t.’

  ‘No.’ Amelia looked at him, her eyes large in her pale face. ‘No, you’re right, George. We mustn’t give in. You’re right.’

  ‘Drink your drink, sweetheart,’ George said. ‘And I’ll take you to bed.’

  Before they settled down for the night, George opened the window. As he did he was surprised by a warm breeze which of a sudden seemed to be blowing in through the window. He stared out of the window, puzzled. The night was as still as the waters of the lake, dark and silent.

  Amelia was lying on her back, propped up by two pillows. Her eyes were fast shut but he knew even before he went to kiss her that she was not asleep.

  ‘Good night, my darling,’ he whispered. ‘Try to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, George,’ Amelia whispered back. ‘I shall. Because we must be strong.’

  George leaned down to kiss her, and stopped. ‘You have a ladybird in your hair. At least I think it’s a ladybird.’

  He touched her head with one finger, lifting the tiny insect out of Amelia’s hair in order to take a better look.

  ‘A ladybird? At night? They don’t fly at n
ight.’

  ‘Probably because it isn’t a ladybird. Look – I don’t know what it is. I’ve never seen an insect like it. Look.’

  Amelia looked, now putting out her own index finger and transferring the tiny creature to her hand. It was shaped like a ladybird but was even smaller, with a dark black shell covered in what looked like minute crescent moons the colour of primroses. Strangest of all were its eyes, unlike any other insects’ eyes, and of such blue luminosity that Amelia found herself squinting away from them as if dazzled. Meanwhile, the insect walked slowly round the palm of her hand.

  ‘It’s like – it’s like a tiny jewel.’

  ‘A tiny flying jewel,’ Amelia replied, smiling suddenly. ‘Because now it’s gone.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t even see it take off.’

  ‘But you were watching it.’

  ‘I know I was, George,’ Amelia agreed patiently. ‘And now it’s gone.’

  But despite her over-patient tone, she smiled again at him, and after that they both slept.

  Amelia was drawn to it all the time, without knowing why. As each day passed and their little girl seemed to be slipping quietly away from them, Amelia would find herself outside the house and walking across the lawns without knowing quite where she was headed. One moment she would be at Gwendolyn’s bedside and the next she would be opening the heavy iron gate at the end of the formal lawns which led to the path along which, each and every day now, and sometimes even at night, Amelia would find herself creeping back to what she knew to be a place of peace.

  Increasingly, particularly in the night when she seemed to wake up and find herself alone in a sleeping house beside the weakening Gwendolyn, she would steal off into the dark garden and open the gate before sitting enraptured by something magical and healing. Nothing had changed in the Kissing Garden by day, but at night it seemed to her that there were voices calling to her to fetch Gwendolyn, to bring her out with her, to carry Gwendolyn to the Kissing Garden.

  After one such visit she found herself hurrying back to the house, breaking into a run. She knew that Edward, their kind doctor, had done everything he could, but now the situation was beyond his capabilities. Now she had to turn to something altogether different. Now she knew she had to rely on other, unseen, powers. It was mad to try something so illogical, but she hoped more than she could say that those same powers that had brought her and George together in the Kissing Garden would somehow bring Gwendolyn back to health.