“Yes, let’s,” Liana agreed. Kneeling and leaning forwards to heel in the little plant she was holding in one hand she gave an irritated flick of other hand to her long hair, which was both brushing the ground and obscuring her vision.
Sara glanced over. “You know, I could trim that a little after supper if you’d like me to.”
Liana grabbed a hank of her hair and looked at it for a moment before deciding, “Yes, I’d like that, thank you.” She sat back on her haunches and shook out her long tresses before twirling them into a rough plait which she stuffed under her collar at the back of her neck. “Though I think, if you’re willing, it may be time for more than just a little trim.”
“Oooh, goody,” Sara said, grinning back. “C’mon, let’s get this finished then.”
The two women worked companionably side by side putting the last of the plants into the ground before wheeling the barrow full of tools out onto the path and making their way into the cheery warmth of the cottage kitchen for supper.
***
Jack, eavesdropping on the woodland side of the tall yew hedge, could feel his ire rising like sap in the spring. If the human made a play for Liana and she decided to reciprocate, all his plans might come to nought.
He wasn’t having any of that. He’d make sure of it.
'Tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes!
William Wordsworth
Chapter Nineteen
Dawn was arriving earlier with each passing day. Hamish, thinking he was first up, wandered outside just as the sun was peeking over the trees; holding a cup of fresh coffee in his hand, intending to inspect the freshly planted herb beds before starting work on a new painting. The garden’s resident blackbirds were in fine form, voicing their languidly fluted song in characteristic shorts bursts and Hamish stopped for a moment outside the conservatory doors to sip the strong brew and listen before moving on.
But as he walked through the gap in the herb garden’s hedges it became rapidly apparent that he was not the first to wander the garden that morning, birds notwithstanding. What had been, the night before, newly planted beds of small nursery stock with much bare soil still evident was now, this morning, a lushly flowering display with beds full to the brim of herbs and perennials, many near-ripe for picking. The purple-blue flowers of sage, lavender and borage looked wonderful set against the bright yellow of the rue, the frothy creamy-white clusters of meadowsweet and the tall spikes of marsh mellow.
Liana was sitting, calmly surveying the garden from the Lutyens bench nearest the entrance, with ‘his’ robin hopping along the seat back.
“Turncoat,” Hamish muttered to the tiny bird as he walked up to the pair. The robin looked unrepentant and flew across to preen on the sundial gnomon. Hamish thought how the image of Liana sitting as she was reminded him poignantly of the old pre-World War Two photographs of this same garden with her that Arthur had given him. The only point of difference was the outfit she was wearing; her new dark purple trousers, worn with black pumps and a lavender-shaded short-sleeved cotton top gave her an air of contemporary poise. That, he thought, and the shorter hair style. After Sara’s ministrations the evening before, Liana’s red tresses were now bobbed just below shoulder-length. The style suited her fine patrician features.
“Good morning,” he greeted with a wryly raised eyebrow. “I see you’ve been busy.”
“I couldn’t resist,” she look slightly abashed. She then echoed the sentiment that Hamish had felt moments before. “I wanted to see the garden again as I remembered it. Before…I slept.”
Hamish picked a leaf of lemon verbena and crushed it between his fingers to release the scent as he contemplated the abundant display of kitchen herbs; mint, parsley, chives, basil, tarragon, oregano and rosemary and more besides. “Well, on the up-side, I can stop buying those expensive pots of herbs from the supermarket.” He laughed as he sat next to her.
“You’re not annoyed that I meddled with your garden?”
“Not at all. It’s your garden too,” he reminded her.
“Not so much anymore,” she puffed out her cheeks, sighing. “I’d like to go away.”
“Good idea …we could take a day trip to some of the other National Trust properties around here if you’d like; good chance to use my annual membership, there’s Knole …where Vita Sackville-West grew up, or Scotney or Bodium castles –they’re both great places …or how about Ightham Mote? It’s a moated manor house that dates from the fourteenth century.”
“Yes, I remember when it was built.”
“Seriously?” he stared at her incredulously, slack-jawed in wonder.
“No. I just wanted to see your reaction,” she smiled up at him a little tauntingly. He closed his mouth. “I have heard of it though and I was around when it was new but I’ve never taken much of an interest in events outside of the garden. They come, they go…I stay.” She shrugged philosophically as if to say, “So what.”
“You want to go and see it or not?”
***
“Why not? I’ve nothing better to do.” She held out her hand and the robin flew over to perch on her fingertips, trilling prettily. “He likes you. He particularly likes that you are always digging the soil over and exposing lots of lovely yummy treats for him.” She gave the bird a stern look, “he thinks of his stomach a lot more than any self-respecting bird should.” The robin chirruped once, looking unconcerned. “Oh, and he’d like you to know his name is Robin.”
“Really? Robin the robin …I’d have never thought of that.” Robin trilled a last short song, flew from Liana’s fingertips onto Hamish’s head then took off into the trees in the direction of the summerhouse. Hamish sat beside Liana on the bench, casually adding, “you didn’t mention that you could talk to birds …or were you just making all that up?”
“No. I can communicate with him …he has a somewhat limited vocabulary but we understand one another well enough. I didn’t think to include it at the time when I was doing my show-and-tell of my abilities for you.”
“Hmmm. What about the other animals; can you talk to them too?” He couldn’t believe that he was having such a casual conversation about her being some sort of feminine Dr Doolittle, but given the revelations of the past months it was not so surprising, he decided.
“All of the garden inhabitants can.”
Now this was a revelation worthy of his attention. “All of the gardens inhabitants? You’re not the only one? How many are we talking about?” He had explored most of the woodland and had seen nothing to indicate there was more of her kind within White Briar’s walls.
“I haven’t exactly done a census.”
“Ball-park will suffice. You know …to the closest five …or ten, if there are ten?” How many could there be…?
“Hmmm,” she counted, “Twenty … thirty … perhaps fifty all up.” She raised her hands, palms up, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen or spoken with many of them,” then she placed her hands on her knees, her arms held straight, “and not long enough since I’ve spoken with others.” She was referring to Green Jack, whom she’d seen more frequently than she’d like of late. She knew she should stop conversing with him but felt, in her current changed circumstances, unable to maintain the balance she had previously had. There had been nothing forthcoming from the Garden since the day she’d awoke and she could feel that her precarious hold on her sanity was more under threat with each passing day. Jack, at least, understood how she suffered. He had been in the garden almost as long as she.
“Whoa, stop right there. Fifty? Really?” You mean to say the place is riddl…,” he stopped, “I mean, fit to burst with ‘forest folk’ and I’ve never seen hide nor hair of even one of them since I arrived. How’s that?”
“Firstly, you have seen me. And you would do well to remember that I am one of them…a ‘forest folk’ …and they are a lot better at hiding than you’d think. Why do you think I mentioned the naiads, the water nymphs, wh
en you questioned me about my ‘provenance’?”
“I don’t know …I thought you were just making a comparison, I guess.”
“I wasn’t. Three, …no, four naiads live in the pool under the waterfall.”
“Oh. Kay.” It was starting to sound as if he’d taken on a lot more than he’d ever realised when he had accepted guardianship for White Briars. “And who else?”
She rubbed the side of her nose with a finger, “I’m not too sure how many dryads in the woods,” she paused, before explaining, “they sleep a lot so they don’t come out much.”
“Understandable. Not a lot to do when you’re a tree.”
She gave him a look intended to silence, adding, “there are several rock-dwellers near the caves along the escarpment …and, fern-fairies, you know, the kind with wings,” somewhat scathingly, “a pair of elves came over with the Germans and never left and apart from one or two others that’s about it.” She had no intention of giving him knowledge of the Garden’s underlying power, the force that had kept them all safe and had, until recently, kept her bound within the stone walls that encircled the woods.
“What. No little goat-people? No centaurs? No Aslan?” It was, he thought, starting to sound as if he was living in Narnia. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“No,” she said shortly, not ready to share, “but there is one that would do you harm, could he, so do not go looking for him.”
“Really? I’ve never had any spidey-senses go off when I’ve been trotting round the woods. It always seems so benign and I’ve felt nothing but safe wandering around.”
“You would do well to heed my warning. There are things in this garden that you would be best not to disturb,” she repeated.
“Pit of vipers stuff, aye?” He wasn’t convinced.
“Yes,” she nodded, “something like that.” She hoped Jack was eavesdropping and could hear himself being likened to a viper. People who listen at metaphorical doors deserved to hear bad things about themselves, she thought.
“So how would I know him if I saw him?”
“He’s green and covered in leaves. It’s a bit of a dead give-away.” And when she said ‘dead’ she meant ‘dead’. Which was what Jack should be. The Garden had not been informative on what she should do about this change of state and in her present frame of mind she could not be bothered to enquire.
“But he sounds like Jack-in-the-Green. He’s supposed to be a good guy, isn’t he? All about springtime and rampant growth and that kind of stuff; they have him at lots of the folk festivals round here.”
“Believe me when I tell you, this is not that kind of Jack-in-the-Green. You do not want to make his acquaintance.”
“Ahh, I get it, more ‘Poison Ivy’ than Jolly Green Giant?”
“Poison Ivy?” How did he know the vine that knit together Green Jack these days?
At her blank look, “Bad-ass female arch-nemesis type character from Batman,” she shook her head, not getting the reference, “don’t worry, she’s a sort of eco-terrorist from a comic book …made into a movie.”
“Ahh.” Eco-terrorist. She had watched a documentary about such happenings on Hamish’s television. That was an apt descriptor for Jack. He had a predilection for all things natural and an unnaturally vitriolic dislike for any sentient beings other than himself.
“Stay away from the damper areas of the woods,” she warned, “I think he has taken up residence in the low-lying marshy ground between the stepping stones above the falls and the small cave,” the one she knew where his corpse had lain for so long, “the others will watch out for you in the woods, but you would be advised to stick to the paths for now.”
“He’s that bad?”
“Yes, he is. Do not under-estimate Jack’s hatred of humans. I doubt that he will come seeking you but he would be like a cornered fox should you find him.”
“OK,” Hamish figured that some chap made of green leafy stuff couldn’t be that scary but didn’t say. “So, are we on for this trip to Ightham Mote today?”
“Yes,” she rephrased her earlier comment, “I may as well.” The truth was, n ow that she knew she could leave the garden; Liana couldn’t wait to be free of its confines. At least, outside its borders the memories, if not left behind, could be displaced for a while with new experiences.
“Fine, let’s go then.” Hamish jumped to his feet and held out a hand for Liana, all thoughts of whatever else, good or bad the garden might hold, banished for the day.
The wind blows out of the gates of the day,
The wind blows over the lonely of heart,
And the lonely of heart is withered away,
While the faeries dance in a place apart,
W B Yeats
Chapter Twenty
Later, looking back, Hamish would remember that it had all started with a children’s picture book. He had found a copy of Linnea in Monet’s Garden in a second hand book store, a delightfully written tale illustrated with photographs and watercolours, about a little girl who had been introduced to Monet’s art and his garden at Giverny by an old friend. He had given the book to Liana, which had sparked her interest to travel beyond the garden, beyond Kent, beyond England, to Giverny and Paris. Hamish had been surprised, but not displeased at her suggestion that they travel further afield.
The day at Ightham Mote had gone well enough, despite stumbling across a local folk festival. Not a single Jack-in-the-Green to be seen but rather an overabundance of costumed Morris dancers, which had left Liana bemused at the oddities of mortal life. Hamish had admitted that he no more understood the penchant of certain people to dress up and prance about so than she; as they’d watched the beribboned and jingling dancers hop and skip their way through their display, tapping batons and, Hamish thought, generally making horse’s-arses of themselves. The dancers didn’t seem to care what he thought, applauding one another’s performances and appearing to have a jolly good time of it. The remainder of the day was uneventful and after touring the manor and garden, where groups of excitable children were being taught to dance around Maypoles, they’d elected to leave the crowds behind and had stopped at a quiet pub on the way home for a heartily enjoyable cider and pie lunch. On the back of that day’s success they’d gone on to day-trips to Scotney and Bodium Castles, then Knole. They discovered that visiting National Trust properties in May did seem to come with a number of fairs, festivals and springtime celebrations –by the finish of the month Hamish and Liana felt they had had more than their fill of medieval tournaments, coconut shies, tractor rides and even a longbow archery competition. Hamish had enjoyed the falconry display they’d chanced upon at Knole and Liana had proven to have excellent hand-eye co-ordination when it came to throwing wooden balls at coconuts but they were both ready for a change.
The balmy weather continued on into early June so they opted to travel by car, eschewing the train and Eurotunnel by driving down to the Ferry at Dover, crossing to Calais and motoring to Paris. They had taken their time, stopping at anyplace that caught their fancy the first day and staying for a night in Rouen then at a delightful chambres d’hôte in Giverny, visiting Monet’s garden the following morning. It was another bright sun-shiny morning and Liana had thought the garden pretty, although overcrowded with tourists. There was certainly no need for her particular talents here as the garden’s plants were blooming in a lavishly overt display of abundant profusion. They’d been standing on the green Japanese bridge, sheltering from the incandescent heat under the pendulous grape-like raceme blossoms of the wisteria, admiring the view over the lily pond, when an enthusiastic amateur photographer had asked them to pose for a photograph together. Hamish and Liana had been happy enough to oblige and had stood for several shots, when the photographer, wanting to infuse more romance into his images, had asked for a shot of them kissing.
Hamish glanced down at Liana, seeking her approval or otherwise. She gave a somewhat Gallic shrug of indifference so he gathered her into his arms and lowered
his lips to hers, expecting they would give the photographer what he wanted and quickly move on. Not so. The kiss lengthened, deepened and became exquisitely intense in a way neither of them had envisioned. Unthinkingly, Hamish had gathered her so close to him that she was all but plastered to his body, her arms had quit the twisted wisteria vine where her hand had lain before the kiss, to twine around his head and neck in imitation of the tendrils of the climber; all others were forgotten; and it wasn’t until a growing crowd of onlookers clapped their approval that the two surfaced sufficiently to quit the kiss and break apart. A red-faced Hamish led a suddenly bashful Liana off the bridge to the sighs of several female tourists.
“Way to go honey, Ah’d swap places with you any day.” drawled an admiring American woman with bleached blond hair and those perfectly white teeth that U.S. citizens regard as desirable assets. Her comments were directed to Liana but there were several men in the crowd who cast envious glances at Hamish after eyeing Liana’s lithe form.
Hamish and Liana scurried away, hurrying through the underpass back to the main garden and tacking themselves onto a tour of the house. They studiously avoided one another’s eyes for the next half hour then quit the garden for a nearby café. Hamish privately thought that Les Nymphéas, Water Lilies, seemed an entirely appropriate name for somewhere to stop. He certainly wasn’t about to forget their moment overlooking the lilies, but, aware of Liana’s adamant attitude towards a new relationship, thought it better to keep the thought to himself. Liana spent an inordinate amount of time studying the menu before ordering and offered little in the way of conversation throughout the meal.
They had packed their bags before quitting their accommodation that morning so headed on towards Paris, detouring from the AutoRoute at Versailles to tour the gardens. They walked along the long allées with Liana holding a white lace-edged parasol bought at Giverny to keep the sun’s rays at bay. Although outwardly companionable for the remainder of the day, as they explored the vast expanse of Versailles’ splendid landscape, she refused to take his arm or hand when he offered, preferring, it seemed to Hamish to keep an arm’s length of distance between them. It was late afternoon, creeping into evening by the time they left Versailles. Knowing what a nightmare it could be to find car parking in central Paris, Hamish had arranged to leave his Austin with a friend who lived near the RER station in Issy and they took the train to the stop nearest their hotel.
Flowers in the Morning Page 33
