The Kissing Garden

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Amelia?’ General Dashwood’s voice enquired. ‘My son there?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. He’s gone to London.’

  ‘Hmm. Where’s he staying?’

  Amelia hesitated, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. ‘I’m not sure,’ she finally replied. ‘He left in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘Most certainly. Just had the editor of The Times on to me. Apparently the leading letter tomorrow’s a pro-appeasement job. Signed by a lot of well-to-dos – as well as by George.’

  ‘Are you trying to get him to withdraw it? Isn’t it a little late for that?’

  ‘Not the point. Point is I want to give George a piece of my mind. Had enough, I’m afraid. Quite enough, Amelia. Sorry. But there it is.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do, perhaps? Anything I can say?’

  ‘Wish there was, dear girl. You know how very fond I am of you. But this is a bridge too far, I’m afraid. If you hear from George, be so kind as to ask him to telephone me, would you?’

  Amelia sat on the stone bench which overlooked the round pond and stared blindly at the big fat fish as they fed lazily on the surface, cursing her stupidity.

  It’s all finally going wrong, she thought, and it’s all of our faults. This is Ralph’s fault, and George’s, and mine – and that dreadful, immoral woman who set out to seduce George so that she and her political cronies could bend his will to theirs. We have each had a hand in wrecking the happiness that was here and, as a result of our stupidity, I think I may have lost the one person who really means something to me, the one person I truly love.

  Or the one person she had loved, which was what she had told George the night before. Loved – he had repeated the word as if it was the end of everything. A second later her thoughts took a U-turn. It was not she who had changed so radically, it was not she who had stayed away in London. To her way of reasoning, if George was not actually committing adultery with Deanna Astley, he was still being unfaithful because of his change of character.

  Looking up, still weighed down by her thoughts and the hurt they brought her, she saw Ralph walking towards her across the lawns. She knew she must remember not to trust him, yet even so, as they walked back over the Chinese bridge, she found herself discussing her fears concerning George’s sudden disappearance.

  ‘There’s nothing so idle as a rumour, nothing swifter either.’

  ‘They say is half a lie. Rumours are things devised by the enemy.’

  ‘You’re just trying to reassure me, Ralph.’

  ‘Of course I’m trying to reassure you, Amelia! What sort of friend would I be to do otherwise?’

  ‘The sort of friend who kissed his best friend’s wife last night.’

  ‘I was tight. We both were.’

  ‘That’s the only reason you kissed me?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Ralph looked at her in sudden irritation. ‘That’s one of the things that always amazes me about your sex. In the midst of death you are in life.’

  ‘All right – but why did you kiss me, Ralph?’

  ‘Why the hell do you want to know that at a time like this?’

  ‘Precisely because it’s a time like this.’

  ‘I kissed you because I love you, Mrs Rafferty, I love you that should not.’

  ‘You can’t love me, Ralph. You don’t know me.’

  ‘That’s another thing women always say! When you tell them you love them, they say No you don’t! I love you, Amelia! I have loved you not from the moment I first saw you . . .’

  ‘When, then?’

  ‘From the moment I first heard you.’ Ralph stared at her triumphantly. ‘From the very first moment I first heard you,’ he repeated.

  ‘Playing the piano?’

  Ralph laughed, shook his head and turned to take both her hands. ‘When George and I became such friends in the army, whenever we were alone somewhere – on leave from the front, trying to recover our strength and our sanity back in whatever billet we could find, wherever we were – George would read your letters. Out loud. Only to me,’ he assured her quickly, seeing the look in her eyes. ‘Only to me.’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Amelia retorted. ‘They were written to him, not to you both! How could he? How could he read my letters out to a perfect stranger?’

  ‘I was only a perfect stranger to you. George and I were friends. Not only that – and I know, you have a right to be indignant, of course you do – but just listen. Not only were George and I friends, but we could have been killed at any moment. George wanted to share his love for you and your love for him – he had to tell someone. In case he got killed and no-one ever knew such a love existed. That’s the whole point. In everyday life, when people fall in love, everyone can see how much they love each other. But when you’re stuck in a trench hundreds of miles from your home and your sweetheart, mud up to your waist, surrounded by the rotting bodies of the enemy and your comrades in arms, and you think you might die at any moment, then you want to share everything. Just so that someone else – even if it’s only one other bloke – just so that someone else will know how much you loved this beautiful girl and how much she loved you.’

  ‘I see,’ Amelia said quietly. ‘At least I think I do.’

  She walked on away from him now over the bridge and along the path beyond.

  ‘Then there was our pact,’ Ralph said, as he caught up with her. ‘Like a lot of other soldiers we made a pact. George asked me to promise that if he was killed – which after all was highly likely – I would look after you and make sure you were all right. So I promised that I would. If I was spared and George killed I promised to look after you and make sure you were happy. I won’t tell you what else he said.’

  ‘Oh yes you will. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘He said that after you’d got over the shock of losing him – he said once you were over it you’d fall in love with me, and that since I was already madly in love with you anyway the best thing would be for us to get married.’

  ‘It’s no good, Ralph,’ Amelia said curtly, shaking his hand off her arm. ‘Whatever you say and whatever might have happened, it’s not going to make any difference. You are not going to seduce me.’

  Ralph, who was once again walking backwards in front of her, stopped, holding up his hands as if she were approaching traffic.

  ‘No, Amelia,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to seduce you. I wouldn’t even try. Is that the sort of person you think I am? Someone who goes around seducing absent men’s wives? All I have done is tell you how I feel about you.’ Ralph sighed. ‘And when someone loves someone it’s only natural they want to make love to them.’

  ‘And you don’t call that seduction?’

  ‘No. Seduction is one thing. People making love together because they want to is quite another.’

  ‘You think that’s what’s going to happen? If you think we’re going to end up making love – well you’re wrong.’

  Amelia ducked under his outstretched arm and began to run down the path towards the house.

  Days passed. With George still mysteriously absent Amelia hid herself away in the garden while Ralph took himself off for long walks in the daylight hours, spending the evenings shut away in the cottage reading and appearing only, like a naughty child, to eat his meals in the dining room with Amelia.

  Peter was due home from school at the weekend and his sister two days later. By Amelia’s reckoning if she could keep Ralph at arm’s length until then she would be safe. She had tried to get rid of him by sending Clara across to the cottage with a note asking him to pack his bags and leave, but five minutes later Clara returned with a note from Ralph which said he would consider her proposal only if she asked him in person, which of course she was not prepared to do.

  On Friday afternoon Ralph knocked on the front door of the house and enquired of Clara if he might be permitted to see her mistress. As soon as Clara had
disappeared to find Amelia, Ralph let himself in to the drawing room where he poured himself a drink, lit a cigarette and made himself comfortable while he waited. Some minutes later Amelia appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I really only came across to tell you I was leaving,’ Ralph said, sitting back down on the sofa. ‘So please – there’s no more need to be antagonistic.’

  ‘Where are you thinking of going?’ Amelia asked, disconcerted now by the actuality of his departure. ‘Back to Paris, perhaps?’

  ‘No. I’m going back to London, but seeing what time it is, would it be all right if I left in the morning rather than having to drive back in the dark?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. I’ll go and tell Clara you’re staying for dinner.’

  ‘I have a better idea,’ Ralph told her before she could leave the room. ‘Why don’t you let me take you out to dinner? As a peace offering?’

  ‘We’re not exactly at war, are we?’

  ‘We’re not exactly at peace either, are we?’

  Amelia smiled. She could not help it. Every time Ralph looked at her with his sad spaniel eyes, a clownish expression which he deliberately exaggerated by a slight lift of his eyebrows, she found herself smiling. Considering the danger to be past, she accepted his invitation to dinner.

  ‘Do you know of this place just outside Wells? I heard about it somewhere or other. The Lantern? It’s a restaurant with a dance floor – and I hear it’s meant to be quite fun.’

  After they had changed, Amelia into a new brilliant red dress which she had not yet had a chance to wear and Ralph into black tie and an evening cloak lined with dark blue, they drove to the restaurant.

  Of course Ralph and Amelia did not realize that as soon as they were shown to their candlelit table in a window overlooking the river, they attracted every eye. But then people who are considering becoming lovers never do. They are too wrapped up in their own feelings. Happily, though, as they arrived an excellent quartet was already playing, so that many of the customers were on the dance floor.

  ‘Would you like to dance before we eat?’ Ralph wondered, once they had placed their orders. ‘ “Falling In Love With Love”. The very latest.’

  ‘Why not?’ Amelia agreed, getting to her feet. ‘This band sounds pretty irresistible.’

  She had never danced with Ralph before. Had she done so, Amelia might well have refused. There are men who can dance, just as there are many men who cannot, but there are just a few, a mere handful of men who can make a woman feel as if she is being made love to as they dance with her. Even the way Ralph held Amelia was seductive, his right hand just a little lower than was customary on her back, and the result was that they did not go back to their table after one dance but stayed on the floor until reminded by the waiter that their food was waiting. All Amelia wanted was to go on dancing. Ralph seemed to be of the same mind. He looked at her only to find her looking at him.

  ‘The soup will get cold,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t mind cold soup. In fact I quite prefer it.’

  They danced on and on until the band stopped to take a break, and the waiter returned with their reheated soup.

  Halfway through the main course Amelia tried to make conversation but Ralph just smiled at her and Amelia fell back to silence. The truth was she had no clear idea in her mind where everything was leading, since she was allowing herself to live only for the moment. Even when she was not looking at him Amelia knew that Ralph was looking at her, although as the meal progressed there were fewer and fewer occasions when they were not looking directly into each other’s eyes as they ate and drank.

  The band returned, opening the new set with ‘September Song’. Hardly had the pianist finished playing the verse before Ralph and Amelia were back on the dance floor, and so they continued until they were the only couple left in the place and the waiters had started to stare at their watches, and it was time to realize that their private party was over.

  They journeyed back to The Priory not in silence but to music, the music of Ralph singing ‘I Can’t Get Started With You’. Second time around Amelia joined in.

  ‘You can harmonize!’ Ralph cried triumphantly. ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘Long as you hold the tune I can!’

  ‘Fine! So let’s take it from the top again!’

  They took it right from the top, and then they took ‘A Foggy Day in London Town’ followed by ‘Jeepers Creepers’ and finally ‘Pennies From Heaven’, by which time Ralph was turning the Austin into the gateway of the house to pull up outside the private entrance of the cottage.

  Amelia shook out her dark hair.

  ‘Behold the moon,’ Ralph said and then sang:

  ‘The moon belongs to everyone

  The best things in life are free,

  The stars belong to everyone

  They gleam there for you and me.’

  ‘What now?’ Amelia wondered. ‘Will you come in for a drink?’

  ‘Will you?’

  Amelia looked ahead towards her house, then round at the cottage beside them. ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘No. But you will.’

  ‘I’d rather walk round the garden with you,’ she found herself saying, even though her intention had been to follow Ralph into the cottage.

  ‘There’s a fire ready to be lit, rose petals in the bed.’ He eased her back towards the cottage and in through the door, refusing to turn on the light and instead lighting candles which Amelia saw were placed all around the living room. Soon the whole room glowed with soft light of old-fashioned tallow.

  ‘You did this?’

  ‘I don’t like electric light. Not at times like this.’ Handing her a glass of brandy he raised his own in a toast. ‘To – whatever we both want most.’ Then he took her by the hand and led her to the foot of the stairs.

  Amelia hesitated. ‘Aren’t we going to have our brandy first?’

  ‘First? Then you agree.’

  ‘I don’t remember agreeing to anything.’

  ‘Aren’t we going to have our brandy first, you said. Which supposes we are going to do something afterwards.’

  Amelia frowned. ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’

  Still holding her hand he led her up the spiral stairs, into a room which even as she had been designing it Amelia had found exciting, a long bedroom which ran the length of the small barn with a scrubbed and polished wood floor. Along one end wall she had put a round stone rose window through which the moonlight now filtered, lighting the room with a soft blue light while the candles beneath it glowed a gentle yellow. She had meant to bring George up here to make love but she never had. She felt a rush of sudden betrayal at the thought.

  ‘No, Ralph . . .’

  ‘Why not?’ he replied, trying to ease her close to him. ‘I love you – and you love me.’

  ‘How can I?’ Amelia protested, still keeping the distance between them. ‘How can I possibly love you? I love George.’

  ‘George isn’t here. Besides, there is no reason why you can’t love me as well.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’ she wondered weakly, finding herself closer to him than she would have wished. ‘Isn’t there really?’

  ‘I love you, and I love George. There is no reason why we cannot all love each other. To my way of thinking it would be more wrong for us not to love each other.’

  ‘Do some magick, wizard!’ the Noble One commanded.

  Longbeard sighed. ‘Very well, sir, but remember, it does not always work. Besides, I am out of tune with the cosmos.’

  ‘Magick, wizard, or he will win again!’

  ‘What was that?’ Ralph wondered, and he looked round as the candlelight was suddenly extinguished as if a breeze had blown through. ‘There’s no window open – no doors . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s for the best, you’ll see. Just follow me.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ralph called as he saw her hurrying downstairs. ‘Wait – Amelia? Wait.’

  ‘No, you wait,’ Am
elia called back as she pushed open the front door of the cottage. ‘I am going to take you to the most wonderful place you have ever been.’

  ‘But this is wonderful.’

  ‘I’m taking you to a place where love was born!’ she called over her shoulder as she ran across the dew-soaked lawns. ‘A place where love may flourish!’

  ‘A place where you and I may find the shining of the stars – where love shall only be the love of Truth,’ the Noble One and Longbeard repeated with her from the shadow of the yews.

  ‘Where you and I may find the shining of the stars!’ Amelia called as she threw open the gate leading to the mound.

  Ralph ran up the flight of stone steps after her, stopping when he got to the top as the moon suddenly hid itself behind a bank of heavy cloud, blotting out the pale blue light which had guided them safely to the place they now stood.

  ‘I don’t remember this part of the garden.’

  ‘It’s a very secret place.’

  ‘I can hardly see, Amelia. It’s got so very dark. And cold.’

  ‘Be patient.’

  They stood now by the entrance to the Kissing Garden, before she led him through the narrow entrance of ancient yew into the garden itself, which was completely aglow with a strange, infinitely pale light which seemed to emanate from no identifiable source. Ralph hesitated as soon as he set foot within the hidden place, as if reluctant to go any further, but keeping a tight hold of his hand Amelia tried to make him follow her to the centre of the lawn.

  ‘Here it is always warm, you’ll see. It is a place full of love.’

  Ralph drew back shivering. ‘This is no place for me.’ He turned, ‘You can stay here. Alone.’

  Amelia did not hear him. As always, she was mesmerized by the Kissing Garden, and within seconds had sat down upon the grass, not noticing that she was, now, quite alone.

  At breakfast the next morning Ralph seemed to remember nothing at all from the night before beyond kissing Amelia good night.

  ‘Did I make a pass at you?’ he wondered once Clara was safely out of earshot and he had settled himself comfortably at Amelia’s breakfast table. ‘I must have had far more champagne than I thought. I just hope I behaved.’