The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But there’s really nothing the matter at all – just the headache and then a bad night. But I think perhaps I won’t come over to the Hall this evening.’

  I summoned a smile. ‘If I don’t lavish a bit more attention on Caspar, he won’t be speaking to me any more!’

  ‘You probably do just need an early night,’ he said, then added guiltily, ‘Perhaps I’ve been working you too hard!’

  ‘Oh, nonsense, I’m having the time of my life,’ I told him, and his expression cleared.

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it, because I hoped that’s how you felt, too,’ he said and gave me his warm, all-enveloping smile.

  35

  Misery

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’ asked Treena that night, when I got into her car.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, even though I wasn’t any more and telling Ned suddenly seemed a much better option than a night-time rendezvous at the pig farm with my obnoxious relatives. There was a cold, shivery feeling in my stomach about it, but I am nothing if not stubborn.

  ‘OK,’ she said, driving off, but when she parked in the layby opposite the rutted, dark track to the farm, which showed only a glimmer of light from a downstairs window, she turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got exactly one half-hour. Then if I don’t see or hear from you, I’m leaving Luke a message and coming to find you.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said, glad she’d insisted on coming with me, then resolutely set off up the track, the torch I’d brought sending a warm yellow circle of light in front of me.

  I’d been able to both smell and hear the pigs as soon as I got out of the car and I could see the large, low buildings on either side of the track that must house them, as I made my way up it and across a paved farmyard. Dogs began to bark from a nearby outbuilding when I knocked on the door next to the lighted window and it was opened at once by Wayne, who grinned unpleasantly at me and moved aside just enough to let me through.

  I was in a big, untidy kitchen, where someone had made a brave attempt to introduce a feminine touch, with flowery curtains and matching cushions in the wheel-back chairs and a rack of brightly painted decorative plates.

  ‘You’ve come, then,’ said Saul, stating the obvious. He was sitting in an upright wing chair by the fire and, with his large head and torso, looked more impressive sitting down than he had standing up.

  ‘Yes, though I don’t know why it had to be at night, in the dark, like this,’ I said.

  ‘We don’t want people seeing you come here – and it had to be tonight, when my eldest, Sam, and his wife have gone off to her brother’s wedding down south. He don’t know nothing and she’s a blabbermouth.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, not moving any closer. He didn’t suggest I sit down, or have a cup of tea – or hemlock. Wayne had closed the door and I was conscious of him standing just behind me.

  ‘But I know, don’t I, Dad?’ Wayne said eagerly. ‘I’m not a blabbermouth and—’

  ‘You shut up, our Wayne,’ Saul snapped. ‘You’ll be sorry if I ever find out you spoke a word of it outside this house.’

  ‘Look, can we keep this short and civilized?’ I said brusquely. ‘I assume you’ve realized I’m your sister Martha’s daughter?’

  ‘Her bastard,’ Saul nodded. ‘Knew it was by an Eyetie, too.’

  ‘He means an Italian,’ Wayne translated, in case I hadn’t got it.

  ‘So, how did you recognize me?’

  ‘Our Wayne said you looked foreign, but sort of familiar and that set me wondering, even though your name was different. And then, when I saw you, I knew. Our mam kept a school photo of Martha hidden away – I found it after she died – and you look just like her. Same eyes, too.’

  My likeness to her didn’t seem to be a recommendation, since he practically spat the words out.

  ‘That explains it, then. I wasn’t sure at the time that you’d realized who I was, but I hoped not,’ I said frankly.

  ‘I told Dad you and Ned were sweet on each other, but he wouldn’t have been so keen to take you on, even as gardener, if he’d known who you were,’ Wayne said unpleasantly. ‘He might fancy you now, but things’d change if he knew what we know.’

  ‘But what’s it to you?’ I said, turning to Saul. ‘I know the Vanes disowned my mother when she was pregnant, so presumably you want as little to do with me as I do with you?’

  Saul continued to glower silently at me from under his bushy eyebrows, so I added: ‘I’m not interested in you, or your family, so let’s just forget the relationship, right?’

  ‘It’s not that easy, now you’re here – and I thought your mam would have warned you off ever coming back.’

  ‘She did, but I didn’t come back to the farm, I came to the valley because I was offered a job here.’

  ‘You came sneaking in under another name, to see what pickings were in it for you,’ he said harshly. ‘You heard the pig farm was prospering and thought you might get a share of it.’

  I stared at him in astonishment. ‘Of course I didn’t! I didn’t even know it was a pig farm till I got here, and I’d no intention of telling you who I was, let alone coming to the farm.’

  ‘So you say.’ His jaw was working and a fat vein throbbed in his forehead like a mad worm. ‘And maybe you’ll put your money where your mouth is and sign that paper on the table, saying you give over any property rights in Cross Ways Farm to me.’

  I felt a wave of relief. ‘Of course I’ll sign it, if you want me to, but I’m sure I don’t have any rights anyway – and I don’t want them. Or better still, let’s get a solicitor to draw up a more official document and I’ll sign that, too, if you’re really worried about it!’

  ‘Ah, but then you’d have time to think things over and change your mind.’

  ‘OK, then I’ll sign this one, now,’ I said, picking up the sheet of handwritten paper and glancing over it, before signing it with a biro that lay near. I was unsure how legally binding an unwitnessed document like that would be, but if it made him happy …

  He watched me sign, then said, ‘Good. The lawyers didn’t know Martha had a child and I didn’t think you’d any rights in the farm, but I found out later you had. Got someone to ask for me.’

  He got up, glaring fiercely at me and I took a step back.

  ‘You, by-blow of my sister, to take what I worked all my life to build up? That’s to pass on to our Sam, when I’m gone?’

  His eyes burned with hate in his mad prophet face and he took a step towards me, pointing, as if he expected a thunderbolt to shoot out from his fingertip and annihilate me.

  ‘Now, Dad,’ said Wayne, sounding nervous. ‘She’s signed the bit of paper, hasn’t she? And she’s got bigger fish to fry now. She won’t want us to tell Ned who she is and spoil her chances.’

  ‘Maybe … maybe not. But it might be best to make sure,’ Saul said in a low voice that made my blood run cold. ‘I told Martha if she or her bastard ever turned up on the farm again, I’d feed her to the pigs. There’d be nothing to show you’d ever been here, by morning.’

  ‘Now, our dad!’ exclaimed Wayne, horrified. ‘You shouldn’t say stuff like that!’

  ‘I’ll say what I like – and I’ll do what I like. This might be the best way …’

  He took another step towards me and I backed off, though Wayne still blocked the door.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, with a shaky laugh. ‘We’re not living in a Stephen King novel. I’ve signed your paper and that’s an end of it. I never want to see any of you again, or set foot on your farm, either.’

  ‘So you say now, but it might be a different story if I let you get away,’ Saul said, and I was just about to tell him that his threats were empty, because Treena was waiting for me in the layby, when it suddenly occurred to me that then he might send Wayne to fetch her on some pretext, which would put her in danger too!

  Or was I just being over-credulous in taking his threats seriously?

  Saul seemed to have made h
is mind up. ‘Right then, Wayne, give me a hand,’ he said, reaching out to grab me, but even as I dodged behind the table, the door suddenly burst open, sending Wayne flying past me and Ned’s deep voice demanded, ‘What on earth are you doing here, Marnie? And why does Treena think you need urgently rescuing?’

  ‘Oh, Ned!’ I exclaimed thankfully, casting myself into his arms and clinging to him. ‘Don’t let Saul feed me to the pigs!’

  ‘Feed you to the pigs?’ he repeated incredulously.

  ‘It’s to stop me claiming any rights to the farm,’ I babbled. ‘I don’t want them, but he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘It was only a joke,’ Wayne said quickly. ‘And our Marnie was just visiting.’

  ‘Your Marnie?’ Ned said slowly.

  ‘She’s my late sister’s daughter, out of wedlock,’ Saul said, as if the words scalded his mouth. ‘I knew as soon as I saw her, even if she was sneaking around under another name, seeing what the pickings were.’

  ‘Ellwood is the name of the family who adopted me and I wasn’t sneaking round, I came here to work. Mum told me never to come anywhere near you and I didn’t intend to.’

  I was still shaking, but though Ned kept an arm around me, he held me away slightly so he could see my face.

  ‘You’re a Vane?’

  ‘My mother was – Martha Vane, the girl that Elf told you about. But I don’t want anything to do with them or their precious pig farm.’ I shuddered.

  ‘Looks like you got rid of one Vane and hired another,’ said Wayne, grinning. ‘Only she didn’t tell you that, did she?’

  Ned looked down at me again, an unusually bleak expression on his face. ‘No, she didn’t.’

  Then he seemed to come back from whichever bit of inner Antarctica he’d been visiting and snapped, ‘Come on, Marnie, we’re leaving.’

  He swept me off into the darkness, one arm clamped almost painfully around me, half-supporting me as I stumbled over the uneven flags of the yard and back down the rutted track.

  Treena’s car had vanished and there was only Ned’s Jeep in the layby.

  ‘Where’s Treena?’ I asked. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and my voice wobbled. ‘What were you doing here?’

  ‘Luckily, I spotted her in the layby and stopped to see if she’d broken down. She said you’d gone to visit the farm but it was dangerous and since she seemed to be panicking because you hadn’t come back, I said I’d fetch you. She’s gone to the pub to find Luke. You’d better tell her you’re OK.’

  ‘I … I’m not sure I am OK,’ I said, ‘just very glad you came when you did.’

  ‘Your relatives didn’t look exactly friendly, but you didn’t really believe Saul was going to feed you to the pigs, did you?’

  ‘Not at first,’ I agreed. ‘But then Saul suddenly seemed to make his mind up to do it, and he was just trying to grab me, when you got there!’

  ‘But probably not to feed you to the pigs,’ he said, opening the door for me to get in.

  ‘Wayne thought he was serious, too,’ I said, fumbling my seatbelt so badly he had to lean across and fasten it for me. ‘He was trying to stop him.’

  ‘Saul’s a forceful personality; you both let him scare you,’ he said, turning the car expertly in the narrow lane and heading back to the village.

  We were silent for a minute, except for the faint sound of my teeth chattering. Something skittered off into the hedge – possibly the remains of my courage.

  ‘So you’re the daughter of Saul’s sister, Martha?’ he said evenly.

  ‘Yes. She died when I was twelve and the Ellwoods adopted me – you know that.’

  ‘True, though you somehow forgot to mention who your mother was, or that you had any connection with Jericho’s End.’

  ‘I did mean to tell you, only at first we got off on the wrong foot because of that resignation letter. And then,’ I swallowed hard, ‘I wanted to tell you, but the longer I left it, the harder it became, especially once I’d realized how much you disliked the Vanes.’

  ‘I thought we trusted each other,’ he said, staring straight ahead over the steering wheel. ‘Yet all the time, you were keeping this secret from me. I suppose it was what Wayne was hinting about the other day … gloating over.’

  ‘I think so,’ I agreed miserably.

  ‘So no, you couldn’t expect me to be pleased to find you and Wayne were first cousins.’

  He slammed the gears and shot over the bridge, then halted so suddenly outside the café that I jerked forward like a rag doll. He leaned over to open my door, obviously expecting me to get out.

  ‘But, Ned,’ I began, pleadingly, ‘I’m so sorry. I really wanted to tell you but—’

  ‘You didn’t trust me enough – I get it.’

  ‘It wasn’t that—’ I began, but he interrupted me.

  ‘Look, this has been a bit of a shock and I don’t want to talk about it any more tonight. We’ll discuss things in the morning, at work.’

  I got out, my knees like jelly and my hopes shrivelling to ashes. Perhaps he’d also fire me in the morning … and then maybe Elf and Myfy would feel differently about me when they knew, too?

  I closed the door and he shot away. I watched the car turn into the stableyard beyond the Hall and then trudged round the back of the café and up to the flat.

  I was still cold and shaking, and now in such despair that I cried into Caspar’s fur for a whole ten minutes, before I gathered myself together enough to text Treena, before she came looking for me.

  Back in flat, talk to you tomorrow. Xx

  Then I turned off my phone before she could suggest she came straight over now.

  Caspar dried himself off on the sofa cover, with a few un-feline-like remarks, but when I’d made a mug of cocoa and sat down again, he came and draped himself on my lap and head-bumped my chin, which seems to be a slightly painful gesture of affection.

  ‘I’ve blown it with Ned,’ I told him. ‘If I’d been completely open with him from the start, or at least as soon as we became friends again, then it would never have come to this.’

  ‘Pfzzk,’ agreed Caspar.

  I doubted our relationship would have developed any further than friendship, if he’d realized who I was, but he’d probably have kept me on as gardener.

  And that would have been fine … But now, I’d grown to want so much more.

  The cocoa dispelled a little of the remaining cold shivery feeling. Ned might have dismissed what Saul had said as mere ludicrous threats, but he hadn’t seen his expression, and I wasn’t so sure.

  I rinsed my puffy red eyes in cold water and wondered what to do with myself. It was getting late and tomorrow I was sure Ned would tell me he didn’t want me to work for him any more, that he couldn’t trust me.

  But meanwhile, there were several hours to fill and I certainly wasn’t likely to sleep tonight.

  What do you do when your world has come crashing down around you like a house of cards?

  I could start to pack – and I’d have a lot less to take away with me, now I’d sorted out the stuff I’d had stored at Treena’s, except for the two small boxes of old papers under the bookcase.

  I drew them out and put them on the coffee table, then made another mug of cocoa, before opening the flaps on the first box, to reveal a stack of old, yellowing bills. There couldn’t be anything more likely to numb my mind than sorting these.

  Caspar, very bored, settled down on the sofa next to me, with a long sigh.

  36

  Hidden Messages

  Most of the contents of the first box were old utility bills and the like, which went straight into a bin bag for recycling, and when I started on the next, it looked like more of the same.

  I was just beginning to think that Aunt Em had mixed up two boxes intended for the bin with the ones to save (and perhaps consigned two that weren’t rubbish there, instead?), when I came on a big, sparkly, hardback Paperchase notebook.

  It was more Aunt Em’s style than Mum’s, so
I wasn’t surprised to see from the inscription inside that she’d given it to Mum one Christmas.

  I leafed through it and found a random selection of jottings in Mum’s familiar hand – she seemed to have used it as a kind of journal. She’d dated the entries, and I saw with a pang that they’d all been made during the last few months of her life, to write down whatever thoughts and memories came to her – and her hopes for my future and how proud she was of me …

  I didn’t think she’d have been so proud of how I’d behaved recently – but I did think she would have understood. The diary was part of her legacy and I felt such love for her as I read her words from so long ago.

  Time ticked on as I turned the pages, reading about her childhood memories, many of which she’d already shared with me, her happy days as a student nurse – and how guilty she’d felt that she hadn’t known my father was married until too late … He’d been an Italian doctor over on a six-month exchange and he’d gone back home, never knowing about me.

  The entries were not set out like a journal, but jumped to and fro in time, making me smile, cry, or laugh by turns, but I really sat up and took notice when I came to a page where she’d described her last visit to Jericho’s End when, pregnant with me, she’d gone to tell her parents.

  Em insisted on driving me to the farm when I finally summoned up the courage to break the news of my pregnancy to my family. She waited for me in her car in the farmyard and I was glad she was there, because the interview with my parents was more awful than I could describe. They still held to the old, strict religious tenets they were brought up to obey, and disowned me, saying I was no longer any daughter of theirs. I was never to return to the farm or contact them again. But worse was to come, for when my older brother, Saul, saw me out, he made such horrific threats about what he’d do to me if I ever set foot on the farm again that my blood ran cold – especially when he added that the same went for my child! I was sick with horror, because I was sure he meant it and I hope Marianne never goes back to Jericho’s End, even though I haven’t been able to resist telling her stories of my happier times there as a child, especially playing up by the Fairy Falls.