The Forgotten Garden (27 page)

‘We Martins have always worked on the sea. My great-grandfather were one of the Tregenna pirates.’

‘The what?’

‘The Tregenna pirates,’ said Mary, eyes widening with incredulity.

‘Have you not heard of them?’

Eliza shook her head.

‘The Tregenna pirates were the most fearsome bunch you’d ever find. They ruled the seas in their time, bringing back whiskey and pepper when the folk at home couldn’t get them otherwise. Only ever took from the rich, mind you. Just like what’s-his-name, except on the ocean, not in the forest. There’s passages winding right the way through these hills, one or two reach all the way to the sea.’

‘Where is the sea, Mary?’ said Eliza. ‘Is it near?’

Mary looked at her strangely again. ‘Well of course it is, poppet!

Can’t you hear it?’

Eliza paused and listened. Could she hear the sea?

‘Listen,’ said Mary. ‘Whoosha . . . whoosha . . . whoosha . . . That there’s the sea. Breathing in and out as it always does. Could you really not hear it?’

‘I could hear it,’ said Eliza. ‘I just didn’t know it was the sea.’

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‘Didn’t know it was the sea?’ Mary grinned. ‘What on God’s earth did you think it was?’

‘I thought it was a train.’

‘A train!’ Mary erupted into laughter. ‘You are the ticket. The station’s a way off from here. Thought the sea were a train indeed. Just you wait until I tell my brothers.’

Eliza thought of the few stories Mother had told about sand and silver shingles and wind that smelled like salt. ‘Could I go and look at the sea, Mary?’

‘I reckon you could. So long as you make sure and be back when Cook rings the luncheon bell. The mistress is out visiting this morning, so she won’t be here to notice.’ A cloud came across Mary’s cheerful face when she mentioned the mistress. ‘Just you mind you’re back before she is, you hear? She’s one for rules and order, and not to be crossed.’

‘How do I get there?’

Mary beckoned Eliza towards the window. ‘Come over here and I’ll show you, poppet.’

c

The air was different here, and the sky. It seemed brighter and further away. Not like the grey lid that hung low over London, threatening, always threatening, to close upon it. This sky was lifted high by sea breezes, like a great white sheet on laundering day, with the air caught beneath it, billowing higher and higher.

Eliza stood at cliff ’s edge looking out across the cove towards the deep blue sea. The very same sea her father had sailed upon, the beach her mother had known when she was a girl.

The storm of the night before had left driftwood scattered across the pale shore. Elegant white branches, gnarled and polished by time, emerged from the pebbles like the antlers of some great ghostly beast.

Eliza could taste salt in the air, just as Mother had always said. Out of the confines of the strange house she felt suddenly light and free.

She took a deep breath and started down the wooden steps, scuttling faster and faster, eager to be at the bottom.

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Once she reached the shore, she sat on a smooth rock and unlaced her boots, fingers tripping over themselves to complete the task. She rolled the hems of Sammy’s breeches so that they sat above her knees, then she picked her way towards the water’s edge. Stones, smooth and spiky alike, were warm beneath her feet. She stood for a moment, observing as the great blue mass heaved in and out, in and out.

Then, with a deep, salty breath, she skipped forward so that her toes, her ankles, her knees were wet. She followed the shoreline, laughing at the cool bubbles between her toes, picking up shells that took her fancy and, once, a piece of sea debris shaped like a star.

It was a small cove with a deep curve and it didn’t take long for Eliza to travel the entire length of its shore. When she reached the end, proximity gave a third dimension to what had seemed, at a distance, a mere dark patch. A huge black crag emerged from the bluff and charged into the sea. It was shaped like a mighty puff of angry black smoke that had been frozen in time, cursed to an eternal solidity. Properly part of neither land nor sea nor air.

The black rock was slippery but Eliza found a ledge at its rim, just deep enough to stand on. She hunted out jagged footholds and scrambled up the rock’s side, didn’t stop until she’d made it to the very top. She was so high, she couldn’t look down without feeling that her head was filled with bubbles. On hands and knees, she inched forward.

It became narrower and narrower until finally she was at the furthest point. She sat on the rock’s raised fist and laughed, breathlessly.

It was like being at the top of a great ship. Beneath her, the white froth of duelling waves; before her, the open sea. The sun had set hundreds of lights to shimmering on its surface, rising and rippling with the breeze, all the way towards the clear unbroken horizon.

Directly in front, she knew, was France. Beyond Europe was the East—

India, Egypt, Persia and the other exotic places she’d heard humming on the lips of the Thames river men. Beyond even that was the Far East, the other side of the earth. Watching the vast ocean, the flickering sunlight, thinking of the distant lands, Eliza was enveloped by a feeling quite unlike any she’d experienced before. A warmth, a glimpse of possibility, an absence of wariness—

She leaned forward and squinted. The horizon was unbroken no more. Something had appeared: a big black ship with full sails, 189

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balanced on the line where sea met sky, as if about to slip over the rim of the world. Eliza blinked and when her eyes opened again the ship was gone. It had disappeared; into the distance, she supposed. How swiftly ships must move in the open sea, how strong their wide, white sails. That was the sort of ship her father would have sailed upon, she thought.

Eliza allowed her attention to drift skywards. A gull was circling above, calling out, camouflaged against the white sky. She followed its path until something on the cliff top caught her eye. There was a cottage, almost hidden by trees. She could just make out its roof and a funny little window that stuck out on top. She wondered what it would be like to live in such a place, right on the edge of the world like that. Would it always feel as if you were about to topple over and slide into the ocean?

Eliza started as cold water sprayed her face. She looked down at the swirling sea. The tide was coming in, the water rising quickly. The ledge she had first stepped upon was under water now.

She crawled back along the ridge of the rock and went carefully down, keeping to the deepest edge so she could wrap her fingers around the craggy side.

When she was almost at water level she paused. From this angle she could see that the rock wasn’t solid. It was as if someone had carved out a great hole.

A cave, that’s what it was. Eliza thought of Mary’s Tregenna pirates, their tunnels. That’s what this cave was, she was sure of it. Hadn’t Mary said the pirates used to traffic their loot through a series of caves that ran beneath the cliffs?

Eliza shimmied around the front of the rock and scrambled onto the flattish platform. She took a few steps inside: it was dark and moist.

‘Hello-o-o-o-o?’ she called out. Her voice echoed pleasingly, lapped against the walls before fading away to nothing.

She couldn’t see far beyond but felt a thrill of excitement. Her very own cave. She would come back here one day, she determined, with a lantern so that she could see what lay inside—

A thudding sound, distant but drawing near. Ker-thud, ker-thud, ker-thud . . .

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Eliza’s first thought was that it issued from within the cave. Fear glued her feet to the spot, as she wondered what sort of sea monster was coming for her.

Ker-thud, ker-thud, ker-thud . . . Louder now.

She backed away slowly, started picking her way to the side of the rock.

Then, tearing along the ridge of the cliff, she saw a pair of shiny black horses dragging a carriage behind them. Not a sea monster after all, but Newton and his carriage on the cliff road, the sound amplified as it bounced between the rock walls of the cove.

She remembered Mary’s warning. The aunt had gone out for the morning but was expected back for luncheon; Eliza was not to be late.

She clambered along the rock and jumped clear onto the pebbly shore. Ran through the shallow water then back up the beach. Eliza laced her boots and bounded up the steps. The bottom of her breeches were wet, and the hems slapped heavily against her ankles as she wound her way back along the track between the trees. The sun had shifted since she’d come down to the cove, and now the path was dim and cool.

It was like being in a burrow, a secret bramble burrow, home to fairies and goblins and elves. They were hiding, watching her as she tiptoed through their world. She scrutinised the undergrowth as she went, tried not to blink, in the hopes she might catch one unawares. For everybody knew, a fairy glimpsed was bound to grant her finder’s wishes.

A noise and Eliza froze. Held her breath. In the clearing before her was a man, a real live man. The one with the black beard whom she’d seen from her bedroom window that morning. He was sitting on a log, unwrapping a checked piece of cloth. Inside was a meaty wedge of pastry.

Eliza drew herself to the side of the path and watched him. The tips of tiny naked branches caught the ends of her short hair as she climbed cautiously onto a low bough, all the better to observe. The man had a barrow beside him, full of dirt. Or so it seemed. Eliza knew that was a mere ruse, that beneath the dirt he had his treasures stored. For he was a pirate king, of course. One of the Tregenna pirates, or the ghost of a Tregenna pirate. An undead seafarer, waiting to take revenge for the deaths of his comrades. A ghost with unfinished business, waiting in his lair to capture little girls to take home for his wife to bake into 191

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pies. That was the ship she’d seen out at sea, the big black ship that had disappeared in the blink of an eye. It was a ghost ship, and he—

The branch she was perched upon snapped and Eliza tumbled to the ground, landed in a mound of moist leaves.

The bearded man barely moved a muscle. His right eyeball seemed to swivel slightly in Eliza’s direction as he continued to chew his pasty.

Eliza stood, rubbed at her knee, then straightened. Pulled a dry leaf from her hair.

‘You’re the new little lady,’ he said slowly, masticated pastry turning to glue inside his mouth. ‘I heard talk you’d come. Though if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look much of a lady. What with those lad’s clothes and your hair all torn up like that.’

‘I came last night. I brought the storm with me.’

‘That’s quite a power you’ve got for such a small thing.’

‘With a strong enough will, even the weak can wield great power.’

A furry-caterpillar eyebrow twitched. ‘Who told you that?’

‘My mother.’

Eliza remembered too late that she wasn’t supposed to mention her mother. Heart flickering, she waited to see what the man would say.

He stared at her, chewing slowly. ‘I dare say she knew what she were talking about. Mothers tend towards right on most things.’

The warm pins and needles of relief. ‘My mother died.’

‘So did mine.’

‘I’m living here now.’

He nodded. ‘I’d say you are.’

‘My name is Eliza.’

‘And mine is Davies.’

‘You’re very old.’

‘As old as me little finger and a bit older than me teeth.’

Eliza took a deep breath. ‘Are you a pirate?’

He laughed, a deep chuffing sound like smoke from a dirty chimney.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, my girl, I’m a gardener, just like my daddy afore me. Maze keeper to be particular about it.’

Eliza wrinkled her nose. ‘Maze keeper?’

‘I keep the maze tended.’ When Eliza’s face showed no dawn of clarity, Davies pointed at the tall twin hedges behind him, bridged by 192

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an iron gate. ‘’Tis a puzzle made from hedges. The object, to find a way through without winding up lost.’

A puzzle that could fit a person inside? Eliza had never heard of such a thing. ‘Where does it lead?’

‘Oh, it weaves back and forth. If you’re lucky enough to follow it right the way through you’ll find yourself on the other side of the estate.

If you’re not so lucky—’ his eyes widened ominously—‘you’ll likely perish of starvation before anyone knows you’re missing.’ He leaned towards her, lowered his voice. ‘I oft times come across the bones of such unlucky souls.’

Thrill squeezed Eliza’s voice to a whisper. ‘And if I made it through?

What would I find at the other end?’

‘Another garden, a special garden, and a little cottage. Right on the edge of the cliff.’

‘I saw the cottage. From the beach.’

He nodded. ‘I’d say you probably did.’

‘Whose house is it? Who lives there?’

‘No one now. Lord Archibald Mountrachet—your great-grandfather, he’d have been—he had it built when he were in charge. There’s some what says it were built as a lookout, a signalling post.’

‘For the smugglers, the Tregenna pirates?’

He smiled. ‘I can tell young Mary Martin’s had your ear.’

‘Can I go and see it?’

‘You’ll never find it.’

‘I will.’

His eyes twinkled as he teased. ‘Never, you’ll never find your way through the maze. Even if you do, you’ll never work out how to get through the secret gate and into the cottage garden.’

‘I will! Let me try, please Davies.’

‘I’m afraid it ain’t possible, Miss Eliza,’ Davies said, sobering somewhat. ‘There’s no one been right the way through the maze in quite a time. I keep it maintained to a point, but I only go so far as I’m allowed. It’s bound to be grown over in parts beyond.’

‘Why has no one been through?

‘Your uncle had it closed some time past. No one’s been through since.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Your mother, now there’s someone who knew the maze like the back of her hand. Almost as well as I.’

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A bell sounded in the distance.

Davies took his hat off and wiped his sweaty forehead. ‘You’d better be off like star-shot then, miss. That’s the luncheon bell.’

‘Are you coming to have your luncheon too?’

He laughed. ‘The staff don’t eat luncheon, Miss Eliza, that’s not proper. They have their dinner now.’

‘Are you coming up to have your dinner, then?’

‘I don’t eat inside the house. Haven’t done for a long time.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not a place I like to be.’

Eliza didn’t understand. ‘Why not?’

Davies stroked his beard. ‘I’m happier when I stick to my plants, Miss Eliza. There’s some that are made for the society of men, others that ain’t. I’m one of the latter: happy on me own dungheap.’

‘But why?’

He exhaled slowly, like a great weary giant. ‘Certain places make a man’s hairs stand on end, disagree with a man’s way of being. Do you see what I’m saying?’

Eliza thought of her aunt in the burgundy room the night before, the hound and the shadows and the candlelight lashing angrily at the walls. She nodded.

‘Young Mary, now, she’s a good lass. She’ll look out for you up at the house.’ He frowned a little as he stared down at her. ‘It doesn’t do to trust too easily, Miss Eliza. Doesn’t do at all, you hear?’

Eliza nodded solemnly because solemnity seemed to be called for.

‘Now be off with you, young miss. You’ll be late for luncheon and the mistress will have your heart on a supper tray. She don’t like her rules broken, and that’s a fact.’

Eliza smiled, though Davies did not. She turned to go, stopped when she saw something in the upper window, something she’d seen the day before. A face, small and watchful.