The Kissing Garden

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘You look as though you could do with something nourishing,’ Jack said after he had let him into his apartment, peering at him through his thick-lensed spectacles. ‘Looks as though you’ve had a bit of a night of it.’

  Summoning his half-awake wife to fetch George some warm blankets and make them all some hot toddies, Jack took the files from George and began carefully to scrutinize each and every folder, while Miranda returned to wrap George up in two heavy wool blankets and sit him by the gas fire, where they both sipped their hot whiskies in complete silence as Jack finished his reading.

  ‘Jolly good,’ he said finally, closing the last of the buff folders. ‘We have everything we need here and more. I’d better go and call Rex now. He’s waiting to hear from me.’

  ‘How did you do it, George?’ Miranda wondered while Jack went out to the hall to make his telephone call. ‘Did you have to do the dreaded deed you poor chap?’ she teased.

  ‘No,’ George replied. ‘Thank God. I’d rather lie down with a cobra as a bed companion.’

  ‘Not what most men would say about Deanna Astley. So how in hell did you get the files? What did you do – hypnotize her?’

  ‘Blast!’ George gave a boyish grin. ‘Now my secret is out. Blast.’

  ‘Jacko had his doubts, you know,’ Miranda told him, lighting up a black-papered cigarette. ‘For Jacko, he was a worried man.’

  ‘Jack’s permanently worried, Miranda.’

  ‘He was really worried. I can always tell when he’s really worried. Because he whistles. And for the last twenty-four hours Jacko has done little else but whistle.’

  ‘He’d taken precautions, Miranda. He’d installed one of his – what does he call them? He’d installed one of his bogeys there.’

  ‘Only as a failsafe. No-one could get into the actual safe except you, he knew that.’

  ‘Rex is sending his car over at once,’ Jack said, coming back in and picking up the matches to light his pipe. ‘He wants you to take the papers over to him. All right with you?’

  ‘What does he intend to do? Now you’ve franked them?’

  ‘You mean is he going to publish them? You tell me.’ Jack shrugged, tapping his pipe against the side of an ashtray. ‘A lot of this unsavoury lot have friends in very high places. Might be difficult.’

  ‘Surely you’re not going to just smack them on their wrists and tell them not to be so silly again?’ Miranda protested. ‘In the good old bad old days, people like them went to the Tower, and off with their blasted heads.’

  ‘More than one way to skin a cat, precious,’ Jack muttered, lighting his pipe. ‘We don’t chop off their heads nowadays. We chop off their assets. Fate worse than death department.’

  ‘Do be a little more specific,’ Miranda sighed. ‘You are dealing with a bear of very little brain, beloved.’

  ‘There are other ways of immobilizing people without putting them in jug, ducky. Like recommending they go and find somewhere else far away to play their games. Funny thing, you know. But even to traitors, there’s no place like home.’

  George opened his eyes very wide and looked at Miranda. ‘Now you see why it’s best not to mess with old foureyes here,’ he said. ‘If you’re not careful, Mrs Cornwall, you could end up eking out your old age in exile in Bognor.’

  Deciding it was still too early to ring Amelia to tell her all was well and he would be home later that day, George had just enough time for a quick wash and shave before a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce arrived to take him round to Rex Bowater’s penthouse apartment in Park Lane. Once there he was served a perfectly cooked breakfast by the Bowaters’ butler and maid while the proprietor of United Newspapers and the all-powerful editor of one of the nation’s favourite daily newspapers stood reading the documents that George had brought him standing up at a large lectern he used especially for such purposes.

  While he read George leafed through the early editions of his papers. His reading was finally interrupted by a firm squeeze on his shoulder.

  ‘Cornwall said you were one hell of a fellah,’ Bowater growled. ‘He was right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ George said, putting down his napkin. ‘But in this instance, Mr Bowater—’

  ‘Rex. Please.’

  ‘While honoured by your comment, Rex, as they say, I just did my bit.’

  ‘Nonsense, man. This could and damn well will turn the tide of anti-war propaganda in our favour. This is just the proof we needed to defeat the appeasers. Doing your bit isn’t the half of it.’

  ‘Then I’m glad to have been of service.’

  ‘You really can have no idea of what this means, George. I dare say none of us can.’

  ‘At a guess I would say what it means is war.’

  ‘There are wars and there are wars, George. And this is a war we have to fight. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have done what you did otherwise. You’d never have risked your all, damn it, unless you believed what must be believed. That the Nazis have to be stopped.’

  ‘After the last war, Rex,’ George said, getting up from the table and going to stand at the big picture window that overlooked Park Lane, ‘after we’d finished fighting the last war I vowed never again. The sheer waste of life. The complete folly of it all. And yet now I can’t see any alternative.’

  ‘You have to stand up to the bully boys, George. Wrong causes wars – and so Right has to get up and go fight ’em.’

  ‘I have a son,’ George said, looking up at the blue skies above London.

  ‘So do I, George,’ Rex said, coming to his side and lighting a large cigar. ‘And if your kid is anything like mine, he can’t wait to get at ‘em.’

  ‘Odd, isn’t it, though? The older our civilization gets, the more destruction and havoc we wreak.’

  ‘Not so, George,’ Rex said with a sigh. ‘I’m afraid that war’s as old as the hills. It’s only peace that’s a new-fangled concept. We have to fight this one. There’s no saying what the Nazis will do if we don’t.’

  ‘There’s no saying what they’re going to do anyway, Rex.’

  ‘Sure. But we just don’t want ‘em doing it here, right, George?’

  ‘No, that’s the very last thing we want.’

  ‘It’ll all fall into shape one day, George, and make good sense,’ Rex assured him, his arm round his shoulder. ‘And don’t worry, my friend. I’ll make sure what you did doesn’t go unnoticed.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s only one thing I want, Rex, believe me,’ George said, taking a last look at the skies above him, skies he now saw full of fighter planes and bombers. ‘And that’s to go home to my wife.’

  ‘Of course, old man. Only natural. Go to!’

  Twenty-Seven

  Amelia put out her hand and he took it in his.

  ‘I’m sorry I left without warning,’ he whispered. ‘I couldn’t explain.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered back. ‘You don’t have to explain anything. And you don’t have to be sorry. If anyone’s sorry it’s me. I was the one who lost trust. For a moment I thought you really had changed.’

  ‘Maybe I’m not such a bad actor after all.’

  She squeezed his hand more tightly. ‘Archie and Mae would be proud of you. As long as you can forgive me for not trusting you?’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll be able to make it up with your father now,’ she said. ‘Now we know what it was all about.’

  George turned on his side and looked her in the eyes.

  ‘There’s nothing to make up,’ he told her. ‘That was all his idea. The so-called estrangement between us. He knew it would help what I was doing. Give me the credibility I needed.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have let me in on it?’ Amelia asked, suddenly once again bewildered and a little hurt.

  ‘We discussed that – but in the end he
advised against it. He said the less you knew, the less danger you’d be in.’

  ‘So there’s nothing to be made up, then?’

  ‘Nothing at all, Amelia – except for lost time.’

  He made love to her then, and for Amelia it was as if the sun had suddenly broken through a forest of trees in which she had been lost for many months.

  ‘Do you know how much I love you, George?’

  ‘No, I don’t. And I hope I never live to find out. Just as much as I hope you never live to find out how much I love you.’

  ‘Why? Why don’t you want me to know?’

  ‘Because I don’t know myself. How can you understand infinity? The way I love you – it’s eternal. For ever. I can’t possibly begin to quantify it. But if you want some idea of how I feel – look up at the sky at night. That’s where you’ll see how much I love you. Because that’s what lights the stars.’

  That night she did as he said and looked out through the window of their bedroom on to the shadowy gardens below, hearing a nightjar call and making out the flight of owls as they flew silently through the dark. She looked then above the shapes of the mysterious old yews up to the deep blue-black of the heavens, night skies decorated with an infinity of tiny stars, and in their eternity and their mysterious beauty it seemed to Amelia that at last she had begun to understand the nature of love.

  Part Four

  1945

  ‘To where beyond these voices there is peace.’

  The Idylls of the King Tennyson

  Twenty-Eight

  He appeared out of the smoke as if by magic, stopping to stand quite still by the locomotive which had drawn the train of carriages into the station. Jennifer felt her mother’s hand tighten on her arm, as if making ready to stop her from running to him before it was proper to do so, but she need not have worried because it was clear that he was neither aware of Jennifer nor indeed it seemed even looking for her. He just stood by the stationary locomotive as if still somewhere else, his gaze fixed far above their heads.

  ‘Peter?’

  Jennifer heard his mother call out from the group hurrying to greet him just ahead of her own family, and watched as Lady Dashwood detached herself to hurry to be the first at her son’s side.

  ‘Peter! You’re home!’ Jennifer heard her cry before taking his hands in hers. ‘Peter – you’re back home at last! At long, long last!’

  With her own mother still holding her back, Jennifer continued to watch as Amelia stood on the tips of her toes to kiss her son on the cheek. She knew why her mother was restraining her – it was because she considered it was not Jennifer’s place to be the first to welcome Peter home. They had discussed the matter endlessly on their journey to Castle Cary, much as if they were discussing who should sit where at the dinner table rather than the safe return of a man now loved by two families. In the end Jennifer knew that her mother was right, because although she had accepted Peter Dashwood’s proposal of marriage on his last leave home, they were still only engaged since on his return to his squadron he had been shot down over Germany.

  ‘Welcome home, Group Captain.’

  Sir George Dashwood stepped forward and saluted his son affectionately.

  ‘Papa.’

  When his son had returned the salute George smiled at him, then took his boy in his arms to embrace him. Jennifer’s mother eased her grip on her arm and began to move forward alongside her daughter.

  ‘Something’s the matter,’ Jennifer said, suddenly coming to a standstill. ‘I can see from Lady Dashwood’s face.’

  She looked anxiously at Peter as she began to move towards him again. He seemed still to be staring at the sky above him from over his father’s shoulder, rather than at any of those who had gathered there to welcome him home.

  ‘Peter?’ she heard his mother saying once more, this time with a definite note of anxiety in her voice, a tone which prompted Jennifer to take a longer and even more careful look at her returning hero.

  ‘Peter, darling?’ Amelia prompted him again. ‘Look – Jennifer’s here. Jennifer and her family have come to welcome you home as well.’

  But in spite of his mother’s prompting, Peter continued to pay no apparent attention to his whereabouts, prompting his father to come over to where Jennifer and her family now stood.

  ‘Look here,’ George said quietly, his back turned to Peter. ‘I’m afraid this might be proving just a little too much for him. Which in a way is hardly surprising. Seeing what he’s been through.’

  ‘Perhaps if I went and said hello close to?’ Jennifer suggested.

  ‘Of course,’ George agreed. ‘But go easy. This sort of thing can be quite difficult.’

  ‘Peter?’ Jennifer called as she approached him, reaching out one hand and placing it on his arm. ‘Hello, Peter – it’s me.’

  ‘Jennifer,’ Peter said, looking down at her with a sudden frown, as if he had just worked out who she was. ‘Jenny-wren, how good to see you. Do forgive me, will you? It’s been a hell of a journey.’

  ‘Hasn’t touched down yet, I imagine,’ Jennifer’s father, who had been a First World War pilot himself, remarked to George. ‘Still looking for his landfall.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ George agreed, the clock turning back what seemed now like a lifetime. ‘I’m sure he’s very happy to see us all. It’s all just a bit – overwhelming.’

  As planned they all returned to The Priory for tea, which Clara had laid out beneath the shade of the old yew trees. For a while George and Peter sat apart talking together, although it was apparent to anyone watching that it was George who was doing the talking, while Peter sat in almost total silence, holding his officer’s cap on his knees, as if he was afraid to let it go, as if in some way it held more reality for him than anything that was going on around him.

  Jennifer hesitated before taking his father’s place beside her fiancé but at an encouraging nod from Amelia she did so.

  ‘I expect you’d rather not talk at all, just sit and soak it all up,’ she said, determined to be matter of fact while inside she was struggling not to fling her arms around his poor old head and hug him to her for ever.

  ‘That would be best. You talk. I’ll listen.’

  ‘I – er – we all er – have missed you so dreadfully.’

  He nodded, still not looking at her. Still clasping his officer’s cap just as he must have clasped his schoolboy’s cap while waiting for his parents to collect him.

  ‘You know I escaped, don’t you, Jenny? From the first place, but not the second,’ he said suddenly. ‘I did get away from the first place, but not – not the second.’

  ‘You escaped ?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t they tell you? I’m sure I told them. Perhaps I didn’t.’

  He lapsed back into silence, still staring around, silent, wordless before saying again, abruptly, ‘I think I’ll go for a walk, look at the garden. Can’t really take in anything yet.’

  Jennifer watched Peter cross the lawns of his family home and go through the gate which led to the Wild Garden.

  ‘I should go after him, if I were you,’ Amelia told Jennifer, joining her future daughter-in-law by the ancient trees.

  ‘Actually, I think he’d rather be alone, Lady Dashwood.’

  ‘You think so, but believe me, he wouldn’t. I know,’ she added firmly, as she saw the younger woman still hesitating. ‘Really, I do know. Go on, you’ll catch him if you hurry.’ She turned back as Jennifer started to hurry after her son. ‘Oh and by the way, Jenny, be sure to make him take you to what we call the Kissing Garden. It’s a little garden surrounded by high hedges near the Wild Garden.’

  ‘Is it special to Peter?’

  The question came floating back to Amelia, but since the questioner had long disappeared from sight, Amelia did not bother to answer, only thinking to herself, that if it was not now, it soon would be. After which she gave a thankful sigh and went to find George.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ Longbeard proteste
d as the Noble One pulled on his sleeve. ‘I understood our services were no longer required here.’

  ‘Our services, as you call them, wizard, shall always be required in this place. We have a duty to this place.’

  ‘I fail to see why, sir, now we have put the dangerous one to flight and all is now calm,’ Longbeard grumbled as his companion settled himself comfortably on the thickest branch of the tree he could find. ‘We have bestowed favour after favour on this place.’

  ‘And in return they have bestowed favours upon us,’ the Noble One reminded him. ‘And none more than the man they call George, who you may recall was ready to sacrifice his happiness for all that matters to us!’

  ‘So what is it I must do now, sir?’ Longbeard moaned. ‘I have but few dazzles remaining. You know I have still to make my journey of replenishment.’

  ‘If you do not adopt a more cheerful countenance, you wretch,’ the Noble One warned him, ‘I may push you from this tree. Now see the young people who enter our ground? They need no great dazzle – just a simple kiss of magick. So touch them if you will with a spell that will assuage this young man’s disarray.’

  Longbeard smiled for the first time in perhaps a century, and then, shaking his head at his own obstinacy, from his belt he undid his favoured leather purse to take from within a tiny heart-shaped jewel which shone with yet another new colour of his own invention. ‘I was saving this, sir, for a special occasion.’

  ‘And do you not think this such a moment?’

  ‘Of course, my liege. I see this moment is exactly that.’ Longbeard pressed the tiny gemstone against his sovereign’s heart and let go his hold of it. For a moment the jewel remained where it was before spinning off into the sky where, visible only to those who had spelt its magick, it burst into a million tiny radiant beams which fell in a gentle healing shower on the lovers in the Kissing Garden beneath.