We’d eaten our dinner and Ned was just telling the others about our delvings into the family archives, when I caught sight of Wayne coming in, followed by his father.
Elf spotted them too, and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Oh, we don’t often see Saul Vane in here!’
‘The lure of mammon does seem to be too much for him to resist sometimes,’ Myfy said. ‘Or maybe it’s just curiosity to see what fun looks like.’
Wayne took his beer straight into the darts room as usual, but Saul stayed by the bar, sipping his pint and glowering at anyone who came near him, as if they might be thinking of stealing it.
Ned reclaimed my attention by teasing me about something, but when I looked up again, I found Saul’s cold eyes fixed on me, under lowering brows.
Myfy noticed it to. ‘Old Saul seems to be giving you the old “you’ll burn in hell” look tonight, Marnie – what have you done to deserve that?’
‘Nothing that I know of,’ I said hastily. ‘He’s only seen me once before, on the day the garden opened, when he said some odd things … but Gertie told me he is a bit odd.’
‘Daisy told me Wayne came into the café the other day, asking all kinds of questions about you, Marnie,’ said Elf. ‘But of course, Daisy doesn’t know much about you and she wouldn’t tell him if she did.’
‘I warned Wayne on Wednesday morning not to come on my property any more,’ Ned said angrily.
‘Well, dear, although we’re family, the café isn’t your property, so I expect he thought it didn’t count,’ Elf pointed out. ‘And he bought an ice-cream, so he was a paying customer.’
‘What did he want to know?’ demanded Ned.
‘Oh, where Marnie came from and how old she was … if she was seeing anyone,’ said Elf. ‘Daisy thought he might fancy you, Marnie – and maybe he does and Saul’s come to have another look at his prospective daughter-in-law.’
‘I suspect Marnie could do a little better than Wayne Vane!’ said Myfy.
‘Yes, but it would account for Saul being weird to you in the rose garden,’ Ned said, grinning. ‘But if so, I don’t think he’s about to give you his blessing.’
‘He can keep it,’ I said and then, to my relief, Saul finished his pint, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and walked out.
But his sudden appearance and the way he’d looked at me had shattered my enjoyment of the evening. I wished I could believe that he merely was interested in me because Wayne had taken a fancy to me, but I couldn’t.
But if he had guessed who I was and already thought he’d warned me off, why had he come tonight for what seemed to be the sole purpose of glaring at me? Was it just to reinforce the warning?
As if I needed it.
A bad conscience is a poor bedfellow, but luckily, a warm cat is a comforting one.
I didn’t sleep very well, due to feeling that the Sword of Damocles was suspended above my head by a hair – and, deep down, I knew the only way I’d ever be free from it would be to tell Ned the truth about my Vane connections.
The trouble was, the longer I left it, the harder it became. We’d become so close now that I was afraid of seeing the change in his face when he knew, the sudden retreat behind that shutter, barring me from his friendship and confidence … and I didn’t think I could bear it.
31
The Handmaid’s Tale
Despite the lack of sleep, I’d still woken up just as early as usual, draped in a dead-to-the-world cat. My usually healthy appetite seemed to have vanished, but I drank two mugs of coffee before heading down to the bottom of the cottage garden, where I had a good weed under the bushes that edged the paving where the beehives stood in a row.
The shrubs there were all insect-friendly – winter-flowering mahonia, butterfly-attracting buddleia and a ceanothus – so it must be lovely on a warm summer’s day when the bees were more active and humming happily round the flowers. I expect they’d be buzzing off next door to the roses, too, when their usual lavender-rich diet palled.
I went back up to the flat to fetch my rucksack and flask, just in time to see Caspar’s furry rump vanish through the cat flap, on his way to breakfast. Then off I went to the Grace Garden, squashing down the feeling of impending doom. If it was going to happen, I’d dance like a butterfly right up to the brink.
Ned was in the Poison Garden, well covered up and weeding the beds around the angel’s trumpet and the Irish yew. I hadn’t actually been inside the claw-like enclosure yet – the thought of the rosary pea vine, just one berry of which was fatal, had slightly put me off. I had a mental image of it suddenly jumping out of its wrought-iron cage and grabbing me.
Ned said I was mad and there was nothing to fear, as long as you wore the right protective gear for the job and disposed of any harmful material on the bonfire.
‘Come on in and have a look – just don’t touch anything,’ he invited me. ‘It’s not at its best at this time of year, but wait until the angel’s trumpet’s in flower, and the aconite and the foxgloves – I’ve got more of those coming, in pink, red and purple.’
‘I’m sure it will be lovely,’ I agreed, cautiously peering at the quite pretty ferny leaves of the rosary pea, which had red berries … all the better to kill you with.
It was enclosed in the Victorian ironwork aviary, and the mandrake was in a smaller one, though I couldn’t imagine that escaping and wreaking havoc.
When he’d finished, he locked the gate carefully behind us. ‘I’ll start giving tours of the Poison Garden in summer, just to small groups of adults and maybe only at weekends,’ he said. ‘I can’t really ask Roddy to do them, but if it’s just one group a day, it won’t take too much time up.’
‘They’ll be really popular,’ I said. ‘You might have to have a pre-booking form on the website. You should add a sign-up page for the Friends of the Grace Garden now, anyway, and perhaps another for volunteers.’
‘You talk to Roddy about it,’ he suggested. ‘You’re the one with all the ideas!’
‘OK,’ I agreed. ‘When are the rest of the wetland plants you ordered arriving?’
‘Early next week, I think,’ he said, pushing the hair back from his face. ‘You might ask him to chase that up too, while you’re at it.’
‘Your hair wants pruning,’ I told him.
‘Stick to the gardening, Ellwood, you’re not coming near me with the secateurs,’ he said and, picking up the barrow handles, he headed for the gate to the vegetable garden where the bonfire patch lay.
Perhaps it was because it was the last weekend of the Easter holiday that the garden was almost as busy as the last one, but I was conscious of the ebb and flow of the visitors as I dug my way down a long narrow plot with Ned working from the other side, to meet, as we so often did with garden tasks, in the middle.
I didn’t return after checking the River Walk, but instead went back to the flat to wash and change, ready to go over to Ned’s later and get stuck into actually reading some of the papers we’d rough-sorted.
First, though, I whipped up a big risotto, which I ladled into a lidded container, wrapped in newspaper and put inside a freezer carry bag before setting off.
It had worried me that Caspar hadn’t yet put in an appearance at the flat, but I found him sitting waiting on Ned’s doorstep, like some misshapen heraldic beast.
‘What kept you?’ he said – or I assume that’s what he said.
We ate first, while the risotto was hot, finishing off with some of Elf’s ice-cream from Ned’s freezer and coffee, before going through to the library and setting to work.
First, we put all the bundles of letters to one side, for later examination, except for one that had been labelled ‘Tradescant’, presumably by Ned’s uncle Theo, and which we thought might contain some interesting insights into the early days of the garden. Of course, there’d probably be loads of interesting things in the other letters too, but it would take ages to read them.
That still left several other heaps on the table. Ned suggest
ed we divide them between us, then put anything irrelevant to the garden back in the boxes as we went.
‘I’ll start with the oldest-looking pile and put my rejects in the trunk, and you put yours in the box. How about that?’
‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ I agreed, and we settled down to it, finding a few gems of information, but occasionally side-tracked by something irrelevant but interesting, like the contents of an ancient will.
Wills, marriage lines, inventories, lists, stray letters – the task seemed endless … as did Caspar’s bubbling snores from his favourite armchair.
Ned had just come back with mugs of coffee to keep us awake, when I discovered a long brown envelope that looked quite new and had somehow found itself sandwiched between a bill for the refitting of a merchant ship and ‘A Sovereign remedy for girth galls and Spavins’, which didn’t sound like a lot of fun.
‘Listen to this, Ned,’ I said as he put the coffee cups down. ‘It looks like your uncle Theo’s writing again and it says, “An account written by Elizabeth Grace, née Vane, to be given to her son, Thomas Grace, explaining the circumstances surrounding his birth.”’
I passed it across. ‘That’s definitely Theo’s writing,’ he said, opening the end of the envelope to reveal another, older one, inside. ‘I hope this isn’t going to be like pass-the-parcel, with ever-smaller and older envelopes.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘And that must be the Elizabeth Vane in Elf’s book, who ran off with a Lordly-Grace and then ended up married to your ancestor, mustn’t it?’
The dreaded Vane connection had reared its ugly head again.
‘I expect so. I can only think she must have had a charm about her that all the Vanes I’ve ever met have entirely lacked.’
I said nothing and he began to read what it said on the inner envelope.
I found this letter among the papers in my mother’s desk after her death. I saw fit to keep it for posterity, who I hope will not judge her conduct harshly. My mother was the sweetest and kindest of women and her sins were only those of youth and folly.
Thomas Grace
‘It’s dated 1849,’ he added, then gave me a quizzical look. ‘I don’t think I can resist reading this now, even if it’s not relevant to the garden, can you? Elf will be cross that we found it after she’d finished writing her book!’
‘It’s irresistible,’ I agreed, though little did he know I had a personal interest in it …
There were several stiff, crackling yellowed pages inside the inner envelope, closely written on both sides and not very easy to make out, especially when I was leaning over Ned’s shoulder.
‘Why did she use such tiny writing?’ he complained, spreading them out on the table under the lamp.
‘Have you seen the little books the Brontës wrote when they were children?’ I asked. ‘The writing is minute!’
He pulled out a pair of narrow, gold-rimmed glasses from his pocket and put them on: he looked a very learned lion now.
‘I didn’t know you wore specs?’
‘Only for reading fine print, but I forget them half the time.’
‘You should wear them more often; they make you look almost intelligent.’
‘Gee, thanks! Now, perhaps you’d like to get out of my light and sit down, and I’ll read it out aloud?’
He pushed the glasses up his broad nose, cleared his throat slightly self-consciously, and began:
I, Elizabeth Grace, once Lizzie Vane, have decided to set out this account of my life, which I will leave for my beloved son, Thomas, to read when I am gone.
I have survived my dear, kind husband by many years and only now, when I feel myself fading like the last rose of summer in the garden he created for me, do I feel this need to speak the truth.
My son is aware of my past misfortunes, but has never questioned me on the subject of this and the rift it led to with the rest of the family, the Lordly-Graces – and, indeed, the lasting estrangement from my own family at Cross Ways Farm. I have been as one dead to them since my elopement so many years ago.
I would like to tell the whole tale now, painful as it is, for I have known both the worst and the best of men, and would set the record straight. My husband, Richard Grace, knew the whole story and yet bestowed a lasting love upon me that I felt unworthy of.
Ned looked up. ‘The plot thickens,’ he said. ‘But it confirms when the rose garden was created. Shall I read the rest of it?’
‘Go on,’ I urged, fascinated, and he set off again, forefinger moving along under the closely-written words.
After a while, Ned looked up. ‘This all sounds like a Victorian melodrama, doesn’t it? The jolly squire, the younger son … But is she ever going to get to the point where she elopes, before my throat silts up with paper dust?’
‘I’ll make some more coffee, shall I?’ I suggested. ‘Then you can finish reading it. There can’t be much more.’
‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘And you’re right, there’s only a couple more pages to go …’
Lizzie
This fairly happy existence continued until the year I was to turn sixteen. Susanna was a year older and I began to dream of accompanying her to London as her lady’s maid when she had her Season. While I secretly cherished romantic thoughts of her brother Neville, I knew very well that nothing would come of them, but hoped that perhaps one day, I might meet and marry a man of my own station in life, while in the service of my mistress …
But these modest hopes were to be shattered, for one Sunday my father informed me that as soon as I had turned sixteen, I was to be married to Mr Hodgekins, Minister of the Thorstane meeting house! He was not only older than Father and ill-favoured, but a harsh, disagreeable man of whom I went in fear, like all the women in his congregation. He had recently buried his second wife and I had secretly thought she must have been pleased to escape him, even by death.
Nothing I could say would sway his decision and his anger was terrible when, in my distress, I let slip some hint of my hope to accompany Susanna to London. He said the marriage would take place immediately upon my attaining my sixteenth year and once the deed was done, Mr Lordly-Grace could have no say in my future.
I was thrown into great despair by this and did not know which way to turn, until it occurred to me that if Mr Lordly-Grace were to learn of my father’s plans for my disposal before the marriage could take place, he might very well intervene – for after all, I had been trained up as a maid in his house and Miss Susanna would be extremely upset should she have to do without me.
Next morning Master Neville, who was now an officer in the army and had been home on leave, was to return to his regiment, garrisoned near York. This would normally have caused me to weep into my pillow, but my present predicament was all I could think of, and I resolved to appeal to Mr Lordly-Grace to intervene with my father, as soon as he left the breakfast table for his study next morning, as was his habit.
But I was to discover that I was most grievously mistaken in my hope that he would have any desire to help me.
32
Flight
Ned laid down the sheet of paper and picked up the next. ‘I think we can work out why Lizzie ran off with one of the sons, if it was her only hope of escaping marriage to a man she loathed,’ he said.
‘It certainly doesn’t sound as if this Mr Lordly-Grace was prepared to help her, so I don’t suppose she had any other option,’ I agreed. ‘I’m dying to know the rest now, and how she ended up married to your ancestor, instead of Neville – and whether the true story is the same as the version in Elf’s book!’
‘She’s going to be really miffed if it isn’t.’ He pushed the glasses back up his nose again. ‘Last lap: here goes.’
In my distress and agony of spirit, I ran straight out of the front door of the house, which stood open and must have passed the chaise that was to take Neville on the first part of his journey to rejoin his regiment, for as if in a dream – or a nightmare – I heard him call my name in a su
rprised voice.
But I did not – could not – stop. Without conscious thought, my feet took me down to the bridge over the river, and I only stopped when I had reached the highest point and was looking down over the low stone parapet into the cold, churning depths of the Devil’s Cauldron so far below.
There was a pounding in my head and the rushing sound of the water reminded me of angel wings, though I was sure no angel would await me after I had committed the sin of taking my own life.
The chill striking into my bones through my thin stuff house dress woke me, shivering, to my purpose and I began to climb onto the broad wall.
I did not see or hear Neville’s chaise turn away from the main road and stop nearby, or his running feet as he reached me just in time to snatch me back from the brink.
I struggled and begged him to let me go and when he would not, told him the reason I could not bear to live and that this was the only course open to me.
His face changed and darkened in a way I had never seen it before and he seemed for a moment unsure what to do, his hands still gripping me tightly, while I pleaded with him to let me go.
Then, perhaps seeing that I was beside myself and determined in my purpose, he declared he would take me with him and carried me off to his chaise.
It was a moment of impulse born from his kind nature, for his action was bound to get back to his father’s ears. But during that journey I remained in such a state of shock and deepest despair that I barely took in his promise to look after me.
But this promise he carried out, as best he could, though his father immediately cut off his allowance. He established me in lodgings near the garrison, where he could visit as often as his duties allowed …
And later, when his regiment was sent to Portugal, he left me such money as he could and swore he would send more to support me – and the child that was to come.
The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller Page 32
