The Kissing Garden

by Charlotte Bingham

  Seventeen

  Later Amelia would mark the death of George’s mother as the turning point in their lives, but in fact the seeds which brought about the apparent change in George’s mentality had been sowed well before. Even so, the sudden loss of Louisa Dashwood had a profound effect on her only son; so great in fact that for a long time afterwards Amelia was concerned that George might well regress to a state similar to the one in which he had been when he had first returned from the war.

  At times he would sit and talk to Amelia for hours, able it seemed to express his inner fears and doubts, while at others he would remain completely incommunicative, disappearing off on long walks or rides whenever Amelia – sensing that he was about to be engulfed by another depression – asked him if he was feeling all right.

  She soon discovered that the best approach was to carry on as if nothing had happened, helping to look after the children and run the household, knowing that if and when George needed to turn to her he could do so, for the simple reason that she was always there.

  ‘Do you ever think of death, Amelia?’ he asked her one night. ‘Of course you do – let me put it another way. Does it frighten you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be human if I wasn’t frightened by it, George,’ Amelia replied. ‘My father says that we’re only afraid of it because it’s the one experience which we don’t actually go through. But to tell the truth I’ve never found that much help, actually. What we have to think is – if we lived for ever, would we appreciate life? I don’t think so.’

  ‘What about an afterlife? I know we’ve talked about this before, but do you really believe there is one?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I do. My father on the other hand is firmly of the opinion that this life is reward enough. He says if you have a good and happy life why should you need heaven? According to him Paradise should be reserved for those who have a really bad time of it here on earth.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where that put Mama.’

  ‘I’m sure your mother went straight to heaven.’

  ‘Because she had such a terrible time of it here on earth?’ George widened his eyes disbelievingly at Amelia before lighting a cigarette and staring into the fire.

  ‘I didn’t say that was what I believed, George,’ Amelia corrected him, picking up her embroidery. ‘What I meant was that if there is a heaven then I’m quite sure your mother went there straight away.’

  ‘Suppose she hadn’t talked to me the way she had that night,’ George wondered. ‘The night that she died.’

  ‘She did, and that is all that matters.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. But I wonder why she did. Don’t you ever wonder why she did? I certainly do. It was as if she had a premonition.’

  ‘No, George, I don’t think so.’ Amelia glanced up at him over the frame she was holding on her knee, but George was still staring into the blaze of the fire. ‘I don’t think she had a premonition at all. She was altogether too happy that afternoon, and that evening, remember? You said yourself you had never seen her in such high spirits. The way she behaved that night – laughing and singing – that wasn’t the way of someone who had just had an intimation of their mortality. At least, I wouldn’t say it was.’

  ‘So what would you say it was?’ George challenged her, now looking up from the fire and holding her gaze.

  Amelia hesitated before telling him about the visit to the Kissing Garden. It was as if by telling George she might be somehow betraying Louisa. And, too, she hesitated because to discuss magic, or what she thought might be magic, might be to erode it in some way. They had never discussed what had first happened in the Kissing Garden. It had been a sort of secret compact, not to talk about it, in case it went away, or became debased in some way. But now, seeing how grief had taken so much of George’s vitality from him, she finally gave in, and told him how his mother had insisted on going into the garden, and how she had told Amelia that it was the most beautiful place she had ever been, and how as from that moment she had been like Pilgrim when he had been through the Slough of Despond and his burden had fallen from his shoulders.

  George was silent for a long time after Amelia had finished, silent for as long as it took him to smoke a fresh cigarette. When it had gone he stood up and, after staring down into the fire a while longer, left the room without saying another word.

  Since he had not even looked at her once she had ended her account, Amelia thought she had upset him and that possibly he was even angry with her, but much as she was tempted to go after him when she heard the front door bang she remained where she was, sitting doing her embroidery by the fire, until George returned some two hours later.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded, as he poured himself a large whisky. ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this nearer the time? Why wait for so many weeks to pass?’

  ‘For two reasons, George,’ Amelia replied. ‘And I’d quite like a whisky as well, if you don’t mind.’ After she had taken a restorative sip of her drink, she went on, ‘I didn’t say anything to you because I thought you might think I was being fey, and if you did, then that would minimize the importance of the conversation you had with your mother later that afternoon.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘If you thought I believed that the Kissing Garden had anything to do with what happened between you and your mother, you could well have thought it contrived. Or you might even have believed that she had been – well, let’s say for the sake of it that she’d been bewitched. Which would mean you might think that what she said to you was as a result of something other than her true emotions. As if – well, she had been intoxicated.’

  George interrupted angrily. ‘For God’s sake, woman – talk sense, will you!’

  ‘I am talking sense,’ Amelia outwardly calm. ‘And please don’t address me as woman, if you don’t mind. It makes me feel like your servant.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. As you were saying--’

  ‘George – after all that’s happened we have to accept there is something extraordinary about this place. And if it isn’t a matter of spirits or you can’t embrace such a notion, then let’s just call it enchantment, shall we? There are plenty of places which are haunted by their past – affected, if you prefer – and this may well be one of them. But that isn’t the point. The point is that whatever your mother saw or experienced in the Kissing Garden, it wasn’t what she saw--’

  ‘Or didn’t see,’ George interposed gruffly.

  ‘It was what she felt, George. Standing there in that little garden she came to a different understanding of things. She saw what she thought she had done wrong, how she thought she might have failed – and she wanted to make amends. Why it happened we don’t know, and we’ll never know, nor does it matter. Maybe why she thought the little garden was the most beautiful place she had ever been was because she suddenly came to this understanding, and when she did she felt so different she thought she was in paradise – who knows? Nothing strange happened there, nothing odd. There wasn’t any manifestation, or spooky sights, or ghostly sighs and whispers. It was just a realization. Your mother suddenly realized, just as anyone her age might suddenly realize – anyone her age and with her terrific character, that is – she suddenly realized that she must put things right with you, with the son she loved so much. Before it was too late. The fact that it happened in the Kissing Garden – well, who knows? Coincidence, possibly. Remember, George, this is a very ancient place, a place once occupied by monks who spent an enormous amount of their time in contemplation, so the Kissing Garden might well have been one of those areas especially set aside for their private devotions.’

  ‘What you’re saying – no, I don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘Yes you do, George. What I’m saying is that even if something did inspire your mother to think the way she did, they were her thoughts and hers alone. What your mother said to you wasn’t because she had any sort of intimation, but because she sudden
ly saw the truth. She suddenly realized she had to say those things to you because she wanted to. Because she loved you.’

  Amelia had little idea whether her outburst had helped George or not, because although he gave it long consideration he said nothing in return. Not that she had been expecting miracles. Whatever else may have happened to them since they met, and particularly since they found and moved to The Priory, she knew that one thing was constant in their existence and that was her husband’s character. George thought about things for an age. He brooded on them, turned them over and over in his mind, argued with both himself and Amelia, then wrestled some more before coming to any conclusion, so whatever effect her words might have had on him Amelia knew that she would have to wait some time before learning the results. That was how George was. That was his character.

  Or so she thought.

  So while he grieved and tried to come to terms with the change in his life brought about by the sudden death of his mother, Amelia retreated into the shadows and left him alone with his anguish. She did not withdraw an ounce of the love she felt for him; that would have been impossible. She had loved George all her life, and now she was married to him and the mother of his children she loved him more than she dared to contemplate. He was her whole life, but nevertheless she took care not to smother him.

  But then, as quickly as George’s moodiness and heavy drinking had started, it stopped, and he began work on a new book, which immediately preoccupied his every hour, for once he started on a new book he made sure not just to write, but to walk or ride for several hours a day.

  Amelia herself had become a passable horsewoman by now, thanks not only to George’s tuition but also to his generosity. No sooner could she sit to a canter than he bought her a good-natured bay gelding who went by the name of Max, and, with George comfortably mounted on Beau, they could ride together across the Wiltshire Downs and through the forests surrounding the Longleat estate.

  Other than her gardening there was no pursuit Amelia enjoyed more, although she soon discovered that riding out daily with George required not just skill but endurance. Happily Max was able to keep up with Beau, which was more than Amelia could with George when they went walking. Amelia liked to stroll and saunter, examining the flora and fauna as she went, while George preferred to stride through the countryside at a steady and very demanding pace, stopping every now and then only very briefly to admire a view before exhorting his less robust companion onwards. Consequently when George was cooking a book, as he called it, and invited Amelia to go for a walk with him, more often than not Amelia declined, preferring to garden and leaving George to stride round the countryside on his own.

  So it was that at the start of what was to prove a long hot summer George at last pulled himself out of his despair and exercised himself back to fitness, while Amelia went on working diligently in her garden, which was becoming almost as famous as her husband’s works of fiction.

  And in the soft and temperate Somerset air their two children thrived as well as, if not better than, their mother’s plants. Gwendolyn in particular was growing as tall as her mother had predicted she would, well on her way, it seemed, to becoming a slender, beautiful, but most importantly healthy young woman. Peter meanwhile was enjoying his spell at a preparatory school run from a fine old house outside Shaftesbury. He was driven there daily by Amelia, who, living deep in the Somerset countryside, had learned to drive from sheer necessity.

  From his mother’s small legacy to him George had bought Amelia an Austin 7 to which she was now devoted, a miraculous little car which had never let her down. In contrast to George’s Bentley tourer – purchased from the proceeds of what they had both nicknamed his ‘traitor’s novel’ – with which, it seemed to Amelia, he was forever tinkering. Amelia had become a familiar sight at Peter’s school, arriving to watch cricket matches in her little burgundy-coloured open-topped car, straw hat tied under her chin with a coloured scarf to prevent the wind from stealing it, picnic basket safe on the back seat packed with teatime treats for her son and his friends.

  Sometimes George would insist on accompanying Amelia, often using the excuse of having to see his son’s progress on the rugby pitch as a reason for escaping the horrors of creation. In this case they would arrive in the Bentley, which by now had been upgraded to the superb four and a half litre open model. It was the car which attracted the boys’ attention when they arrived in the tourer, not the driver, whereas when Amelia arrived in her little Austin 7 the opposite was the case.

  While his school friends nurtured romantic fantasies about his mother, Peter’s passion for aeroplanes continued to grow. His school books were covered in drawings of not only the latest aircraft models but also those he had designed himself, sleek futuristic monoplanes with guns mounted under their wings; or vast passenger airliners which would be capable of flying round the world non-stop. And most adventurous of all, a plane without any propeller at all, powered instead by a rocket. He had learned to fly, too – in his head.

  As luck would have it his mathematics master, Percy Framlingham, had served with distinction in the Royal Flying Corps in the Great War. And so it was not too long before Peter discovered that Mr Framlingham had, in his spare time, gone as far as building a mock-up of his Sopwith Tiger’s cockpit, with a working joystick controlling invisible ailerons, elevators and rudders.

  It was in this rudimentary classroom that Peter learned the principles of flight.

  ‘Take one morning, Dashwood, that’s all, one morning and you’ll have your wings. You’re a natural, d’you see? A natural pilot, there are such things, d’you see? Like yachtsmen, or jockeys, what have you. Just that we’re a bit unrecognized, as yet.’

  The sports-coated teacher with his ruddy complexion, although much older than his pupil, was in fact a twin soul for Peter. It was just one of those things. They both knew it. The only trouble was Mr Framlingham was not Peter’s father – George was.

  Approached by the teacher to allow his son to take to the skies, George argued that Peter was only ten years old and far too young to be taken up in a plane. This argument was soon demolished since both Mr Framlingham and Peter reasoned that if a boy was allowed to ride a horse, which was a wild animal and less controllable than a plane, or taken daily to school by motor car, there was no logical reason for not allowing him to fly. It was no more dangerous.

  Amelia was horrified, but her resistance only encouraged Peter. ‘Flying is the newest mode of transport – you just have to get used to it. Granny Dennison told me that Grandpa used to have a fit before the war when you started going about in motor cars.’

  ‘That was different!’ But Amelia already knew that she was on a sticky wicket, and so she carefully avoided both George’s and Peter’s eyes. ‘I don’t want you flying, Peter, and that is that.’

  But Peter persisted, as she knew he would, leaving it one day and returning to the argument the next. If she let him ride, or go in a motor car, what was the difference? Finally, as they all knew she would, one morning Amelia walked off into the garden, secateurs at the ready, and dread in her heart, having at last given in to cold logic.

  It was a bright afternoon in the summer holidays, cloudless, perfect flying weather, when George drove the buoyant Peter and Mr Framlingham to an airfield south of Bristol to meet a famous flying ace who, because he was a friend of Framlingham’s, was, it seemed, willing to take the boy up in his private biplane.

  ‘Known Beaufort all my life. Splendid chap, you know,’ Framlingham enthused. ‘You can trust him with your boy, Captain Dashwood, believe me.’

  As it turned out Beaufort was a raffish blond-haired chain-smoker who thrust out a yellow-fingered hand to greet his pupil, and after a short lecture on safety had him up in the air before George had time to collect his thoughts.

  Beaufort flew a bright yellow biplane with his name and logo painted on the fuselage in brilliant red and he flew it with rare skill, climbing, wheeling, diving and finally looping the loop, a st
unt which George had seen many times but now – given the passenger in the biplane was his son – made him turn away and close his eyes.

  ‘May I sit the lad up front with me, Captain Dashwood?’ Beaufort enquired when father and son were joyfully reunited, Peter speechless with excitement and George silent from shock. ‘He seems to know a heck of a lot about this game so I said I’d let him have a go at the old stick. If it’s all the same with you?’

  ‘I don’t think his mother would allow—’

  ‘Please, Daddy?’ Peter begged, before George had time to finish. ‘Mr Beaufort is the most terrific flyer.’

  ‘So I see. Even so, I don’t think your mother—’

  ‘Oh, thanks, Daddy! Really! I’ll do anything you say! Promise!’

  Before George could insist that he stay on the ground with him, before he could form his firmest refusal, Peter had gone, running after Beaufort, zipping up his thick borrowed jacket.

  ‘No fancy stuff this time please, Mr Beaufort,’ George called after them, trying not to think of Amelia’s face, of what she would say, if she was there. ‘No loops and no nosedives,’ he finished, feebly.

  ‘Righto!’

  The last was said in farewell, and the flyer was gone before George could admonish him. He was about to go after him when Framlingham put a hand on his arm.

  ‘He’ll be fine, Captain Dashwood! Believe me. This chap shot down eight Germans, had a scrap with the Baron and lived to tell the tale.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ George said, through tightened lips, ‘but not with my son beside him!’

  This time George watched with a hand over his eyes as the bright yellow aircraft climbed into a clear blue sky before circling steadily round the airfield. It did half a dozen laps all told before descending in a perfect approach to make an equally faultless landing.

  ‘Not bad for a rabbit,’ Beaufort said with a grin as he ruffled his co-pilot’s blond hair, while the father of the said co-pilot felt the blood returning to his face for the first time in half an hour. ‘We’ll have him flying solo in a week. Less, even.’