The Forgotten Garden Part 30

"Where did she go?" said Ca.s.sandra, surprised.

"Overseas somewhere, I think." Julia frowned. "Though now you mention it, I'm not sure that Rose actually says"-she waved her hand-"and it's beside the point, really. The fact is, she went away while Rose was pregnant and didn't come back until after Ivory was born. Their friendship was never the same again."

Ca.s.sANDRA YAWNED and readjusted her pillow. Her eyes were tired but she was almost at the end of 1907 and it seemed a shame to put the sc.r.a.pbook aside with only a handful of pages left to go. Besides, the sooner she read them, the better: while Julia had kindly agreed to the loan, Ca.s.sandra suspected that the separation would only be borne for a short time. Thankfully, where Nell's writing was scrawled, Rose's hand was steady and considered. Ca.s.sandra took a sip of tea, lukewarm now, and pa.s.sed over pages filled with fabric, ribbon samples, wedding tulle and flourished autographs reading: and readjusted her pillow. Her eyes were tired but she was almost at the end of 1907 and it seemed a shame to put the sc.r.a.pbook aside with only a handful of pages left to go. Besides, the sooner she read them, the better: while Julia had kindly agreed to the loan, Ca.s.sandra suspected that the separation would only be borne for a short time. Thankfully, where Nell's writing was scrawled, Rose's hand was steady and considered. Ca.s.sandra took a sip of tea, lukewarm now, and pa.s.sed over pages filled with fabric, ribbon samples, wedding tulle and flourished autographs reading: Mrs. Rose Mountrachet Walker, Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Rose Walker Mrs. Rose Mountrachet Walker, Mrs. Walker, Mrs. Rose Walker. She smiled-certain things never changed-and turned to the last page.

I have just finished rereading Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess of the D'Urbervilles. It is a perplexing novel, and one which I cannot truly say that I enjoy. There is so much that is brutal in Hardy's fiction. It is too wild, I suppose, for my tastes: I am my mother's daughter, after all, despite my best intentions. Angel's conversion to Christianity, his marriage to Liza Lu, the death of poor baby Sorrow: these occurrences bother me, all. Why should Sorrow have been deprived of a Christian burial-babies aren't to blame for the sins of their parents, surely? Does Hardy approve of Angel's conversion or is he a Skeptic? And how could Angel transfer his affections so simply from Tess to her sister?Ah well, such issues have perplexed greater minds than mine, and my purpose in turning again to the sad tale of poor, tragic Tess was not literary criticism. I confess I consulted Mr. Thomas Hardy in the hopes that he might offer some insight into what I might expect when Nathaniel and I are wed. More particularly, what might be expected of me. Oh! how it heats my cheeks even to think such questions in my mind! Certainly I could never find words to speak them. (Imagine Mamma's face!)Alas, Mr. Hardy did not provide the answers I so hopefully sought. I had remembered incorrectly, Tess's defilement is covered in no great detail. So there it is. Unless I can think of somewhere else I might turn (not Mr. James, I think, nor Mr. d.i.c.kens), I will have little choice but to go blind into that dark abyss. My greatest fear is that Nathaniel will have cause to look upon my stomach. Surely it won't be so? Vanity is indeed a great sin, but alas I cannot help myself. For my marks are so ugly, and he so fond of my pale skin.

Ca.s.sandra read the last few lines over. What were these marks of which Rose spoke? Birthmarks perhaps? Scars? Had she read anything else in the sc.r.a.pbooks that might elucidate the entry? Try as she might, Ca.s.sandra couldn't remember. It was too late and she too tired, her thoughts as blurred as her vision.

She yawned again, rubbed at her eyes and closed the sc.r.a.pbook. Probably she'd never know, and in all likelihood it didn't matter. Ca.s.sandra ran her fingers again over the worn cover, just as Rose must have done many times before her. She placed the book on her bedside table and switched off the light. Closed her eyes and slid into a familiar dream about long gra.s.s, an endless field and, suddenly, unexpectedly, a cottage on the edge of an ocean cliff.

THIRTY-SIX.

PILCHARD C COTTAGE, 1975.

NELL waited by the door, wondering whether she should knock again. She'd been standing on the doorstep for over five minutes and had begun to suspect that William Martin knew nothing of her impending arrival at his dinner table, that the invitation might have been little more than a ploy of Robyn's to smooth the waters after their previous encounter. Robyn seemed the type for whom social unpleasantness, no matter what its cause or consequence, might be intolerable. waited by the door, wondering whether she should knock again. She'd been standing on the doorstep for over five minutes and had begun to suspect that William Martin knew nothing of her impending arrival at his dinner table, that the invitation might have been little more than a ploy of Robyn's to smooth the waters after their previous encounter. Robyn seemed the type for whom social unpleasantness, no matter what its cause or consequence, might be intolerable.

She knocked again. Affected an expression of blithe dignity for the benefit of any of William's neighbors who might be wondering at the strange woman on his doorstep who seemed content to knock all night.

It was William himself who finally unhooked the latch. Tea towel over his k.n.o.bbly shoulder, wooden spoon in hand, he said, "I hear you've gone and bought yourself that cottage."

"Good news travels fast."

He pressed his lips together, regarding her. "You're a b.l.o.o.d.y-minded la.s.s, I could tell that a mile away."

"As G.o.d made me, I'm afraid."

He nodded, gave a little huff. "Come on, then. You'll catch your death out there."

Nell peeled off her waterproof jacket and found a peg on which to hang it. She followed William through the main door and into the sitting room.

The air was heavy, damp with steam, the smell at once nauseating and delicious. Fish and salt and something else.

"Got a pot of my morgy broth on the stove," said William, disappearing at a shuffle into the kitchen. "Couldn't hear you knocking over the b.l.o.o.d.y spits and spurts." A racket of pots and pans, a gruff curse. "Robyn'll be along shortly." Another clatter. "Got held up a time with that fellow of hers."

The last he uttered with some distaste. Nell followed him into the kitchen and watched as he stirred the lumpy broth. "You don't approve of Robyn's fiance?"

He leaned his ladle on the countertop, replaced the saucepan lid and picked up his pipe. Plucked a lone strand of tobacco from the rim. "Nothing wrong with the lad. Nothing bar the fact he's not perfect." Hand supporting the small of his stooped back, he headed for the sitting room. "You have children? Grandchildren?" he said as he pa.s.sed Nell.

"One of each."

"Then you know what I'm talking about."

Nell smiled grimly to herself. Twelve days had pa.s.sed since she'd left Australia; she wondered whether Lesley had noticed her absence. It was unlikely-all the same, it struck Nell that she might send a postcard. The girl would like that, Ca.s.sandra. Children liked that sort of thing, didn't they?

"Come on, then, la.s.s." William's voice from the sitting room. "Keep an old man company."

Nell, creature of habit, chose the same velvet chair as she had on the previous occasion. She nodded at William.

He nodded back.

They sat for a minute or so, in a performance of companionable silence. The wind had picked up outside and the windowpanes rattled periodically, accentuating the dearth of conversation within.

Nell indicated the painting above the fireplace, a fisherman's boat with a red-and-white-striped hull and her name printed in black along the side. "That's yours? The Piskie Queen Piskie Queen?"

"'Tis indeed," said William. "Love of my life, I sometimes think. Saw each other through some mighty storms, she and I."

"You still have her?"

"Not for a few years now."

Another silence stretched out between them. William patted his shirt pocket, then withdrew a pouch of tobacco, started refilling his pipe.

"My father was portmaster," said Nell. "I grew up around ships." She had a sudden image of Hugh, standing on the Brisbane wharf sometime after the war, the sun behind him and he in eclipse, long Irish legs and large strong hands. "Gets into your blood, doesn't it?"

"That it does."

The windowpanes chattered again and Nell exhaled. Enough was enough, it was now or never, and numerous other handy cliches: the air needed clearing and Nell was the one to do it, there was only so much small talk she was prepared to make. "William," she said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees, "about the other night, what I said. I didn't mean to-"

He raised a work-hardened palm, slightly shaky. "No matter."

"But I shouldn't have-"

"'Twas nothing." He clamped his pipe between his back teeth and thereby closed the matter. He struck a match.

Nell leaned back into her chair: if that was the way he wanted it, so be it, but she was determined, this time, not to leave without another piece of the puzzle. "Robyn said there was something you wanted to tell me."

The sweet scent of fresh tobacco as William sucked a couple of times, then puffed to get his pipe smoking. He nodded slightly. "Should have told you the other night, only"-he was focused on something beyond her and Nell fought the urge to turn and see what it was-"only, you caught me by surprise. It's been a long time since I heard her name spoke."

Eliza Makepeace. The unspoken sibilant shimmered its silver wings between them.

"Been more than sixty years since last I saw her, but I can picture her right enough, coming down the cliff from the cottage up there, striding into the village, hair loose behind her." His eyelids had closed as he spoke, but now he opened them and eyeballed Nell. "I expect that doesn't mean much to you, but back then...Well, it wasn't often that one of the folk from the grand house lowered themselves to mix among the villagers. Eliza, though"-he cleared his throat a little, repeated the forename-"Eliza behaved as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She wasn't like the rest of them."

"You met her?"

"Knew her well, as well as one could know the likes of her. Met her when she was just eighteen. My little sister, Mary, worked up at the house and brought Eliza with her for one of her afternoons off."

Nell fought hard to contain the thrill. Finally to be speaking with someone who had known Eliza. Better yet, to have his description confirm the illicit sense that flirted on the rim of her own patchy memories. "What was she like, William?"

He pressed his lips together and scratched at his chin: the whiskery sound caught Nell by surprise. For a split second she was five years old again, sitting on Hugh's lap, head resting against his bristled cheek. William smiled broadly, teeth large and rimmed with tobacco brown. "Like no one you've met before, an original. We all of us around here like to tell stories, but hers were something else. She was funny, courageous, unexpected."

"Beautiful?"

"Yes, and beautiful." His eyes met hers fleetingly. "She had this red hair. Long it was, all the way to her waist. Strands that turned golden in the sun." He indicated with his pipe. "She liked to sit on that black rock in the cove, looking out to sea. On a clear day, we'd be able to see her as we were coming back to port. She'd lift her hand and wave, looking for all the world like the Queen of the Piskies."

Nell smiled. The Piskie Queen Piskie Queen. "Like your boat."

William pretended fascination with the corduroy grooves of his trousers, grunted a little.

Realization crowned: this was no coincidence.

"Robyn should be here soon." He didn't glance at the door. "We'll have us some tea."

"You named your boat for her?"

William's lips parted, closed again. He sighed, the sigh of a young man.

"You were in love with her."

His shoulders sagged. "Course I was," he said. "Just like every fellow who ever laid eyes on her. I told you, she was different from anyone you'd ever met. The things that govern the rest of us didn't matter one whit to her. She did as she felt, and she felt a great deal."

"And did she, were you and she ever-"

"I was engaged to someone else." His attention shifted to a photograph on the wall, a young couple in wedding clothes, she sitting, he standing behind. "Cecily and I, we'd been steady for a couple of years by then. A village like this, that's what happens. You grow up next door to a girl, and one day you're kids rolling stones off the cliff, next thing you know you're three years married with another baby on the way." He sighed so that his shoulders deflated and his sweater seemed too large. "When I met Eliza the world shifted. Can't describe it better than that. Like a magic spell, she was all I could think of." He shook his head. "I was that fond of Cec, loved her true, but I'd have left her in a moment." His gaze met Nell's before shifting quickly away. "Doesn't make me proud to say that, sounds awful disloyal. And it was, it was." He looked at Nell. "But you can't blame a young man for his honest feelings, can you?"

His eyes searched hers and Nell felt something inside her buckle. She understood: he'd been seeking absolution a long time. "No," she said. "No, you can't."

He breathed a sigh, spoke so softly that Nell had to turn her head to the side to hear. "Sometimes the body wants things the mind can't explain, can't even accept. My every foolish thought was of Eliza, I couldn't help myself. It was like a, like an-"

"Addiction?"

"Just like that. I figured I could only ever be happy if it were with her."

"Did she feel the same way?"

He raised his brows and smiled ruefully. "You know, for a time I thought she did. She had a way about her, an intensity. A habit of making you feel that there was nowhere she'd rather be and no one she'd rather be with." He laughed, a little unkindly. "Soon enough learned my error."

"What happened?"

He pressed his lips together and for an awful second Nell thought the story had dried up. She breathed a sigh of relief when he continued. "A spring night, it was. Must've been 1908 or 1909. I'd had a big day on the boats, brought in a huge haul and I'd been out celebrating with some of the other lads. I'd got a bit of Dutch courage into me and on my way home I found myself heading up along the cliff edge. Foolhardy thing to do-it was just a narrow path back then, hadn't yet been turned into a road and was barely fit for a mountain goat, but I didn't care. I'd got it into my head that I was going to ask her to marry me." His voice quivered. "But when I got near the cottage I saw through the window..."

Nell leaned forward.

He sat back. "Well, you've heard this tale before."

"She was with someone else?"

"Not just any someone else." His lips trembled a little around the words. "One that was family to her." William rubbed at the edge of his eye, checked his finger for a phantom irritant. "They were..." He glanced at Nell. "Well, you can imagine right enough."

A noise outside and a burst of cool air. Robyn's voice drifted in from the hallway. "It's grown cold out there." She stepped into the sitting room. "Sorry I'm late." She looked hopefully between the two of them, running her hands over mist-damp hair. "Everything all right in here?"

"Couldn't be better, my girl," said William, with a quick glance at Nell.

Nell nodded slightly. She had no intention of divulging an old man's secret.

"Just about to dish up my broth," said William. "Come and give your Gump's sore old eyes a sight of you."

"Gump! I told you I'd fix the tea. I brought everything with me."

"Humph," he grumbled, pushing himself out of the chair and catching his balance. "Once you and that fellow get going, there's no telling when you'll remember your old Gump, if at all. Figured if I didn't look out for myself I stood a good chance of going hungry."

"Oh, Gump," she scolded as she carried her shopping bag to the kitchen. "Really, you are the limit. When have I ever forgotten you?"

"It's not you, my dear." He shuffled after her. "It's that fellow of yours. Like all lawyers, he's a windbag."

While the two of them argued familiarly about whether or not it was beyond William's physical abilities to cook and dish up broth, Nell sorted mentally through all that William had told her. She understood now why he was so adamant about the cottage being tainted somehow, sad; and no doubt for him it was. But William had become sidetracked by his own confession and it was up to Nell to steer him back in the direction she needed to go. And no matter her own curiosity as to whom Eliza had been with that night, it was beside the point and pushing William would only cause him to withdraw. She couldn't risk that, not before she found out why Eliza might have taken her from Rose and Nathaniel Walker, why she'd been sent to Australia and a completely different life.

"Here we go." Robyn appeared carrying a tray loaded with three steaming bowls.

William followed, somewhat sheepishly, and eased himself into his chair. "I still make the best morgy broth this side of Polperro."

Robyn raised her eyebrows at Nell. "No one's disputing that, Gump," she said, handing a bowl across the coffee table.

"Just my ability to carry it from kitchen to table."

Robyn sighed theatrically. "Let us help you, Gump, that's all we ask."

Nell ground her teeth; she needed to keep this argument from escalation, she couldn't risk losing William again to pique. "Delicious," she said loudly, tasting the broth. "Perfect amount of Worcestershire sauce."

William and Robyn both blinked at her, spoons hovering at half-mast.

"What?" Nell looked between them. "What is it?"

Robyn opened her mouth, closed it again like a fish. "The Worcestershire sauce."

"It's our secret ingredient," said William. "Been in the family for generations."

Nell shrugged apologetically. "My mum used to make morgy broth, so did her mum. They always used Worcestershire sauce. I guess it was our secret ingredient, too."

William inhaled slowly through wide nostrils and Robyn bit her lip.

"It's delicious, though," said Nell taking another slurp. "Getting the amount right, that's the trick."

"Tell me, Nell," said Robyn, clearing her throat, a.s.siduously avoiding William's eyes. "Was there anything of use in those papers I gave you?"

Nell smiled gratefully. Robyn to the rescue. "They were very interesting. I enjoyed the newspaper article about the Lusitania Lusitania launch." launch."

Robyn beamed. "It must have been so exciting, an important launch like that. Terrible to think of what happened to that beautiful ship."