The Forgotten Garden (66 page)

c

They arrived in London by night. Darkness sagged thick and heavy in the folds of the street as they made their way from the train station towards the river. The little girl was tired—Eliza had had to wake her when they reached their destination—but she didn’t complain. She held Eliza’s hand and followed close to her clipping heels.

That night the two shared a supper of broth and bread in their room.

They were both tired from the travel and little was spoken, each merely eyed the other, somewhat curiously, over her spoon. The little girl asked once after her mother and father, but Eliza said only that they would be met at the other end of the voyage. It was an untruth, but it was necessary: 470

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time would be required to decide how best to break the news of Rose and Nathaniel’s deaths.

After supper, Ivory fell quickly to sleep on the room’s only bed and Eliza sat in the window seat. She watched alternately the dark street, jostling with busy wayfarers, and the sleeping child, stirring lightly beneath the sheet. As time passed Eliza edged nearer the child, observed the small face at ever closer range, until finally she knelt gently beside the bed, so close that she could feel the girl’s breath in her hair, could count the tiny freckles on the sleeping face. And what a perfect face it was, how glorious the ivory skin and rosebud lips. It was the same face, Eliza realised, the same wise expression, she had gazed upon in the first days of the child’s life. The same face that she had seen so often since in her nightly dreams.

She was gripped then by an urge, a need—a love, she supposed it was—so ferocious, that each grain of her self was infused with certainty.

It was as if her own body recognised this child to whom she had given life as readily as she recognised her own hand, her own face in a mirror, her own voice in the dark. As carefully as she could, Eliza lay upon the bed and curled her own body to accommodate the sleeping girl. Just as she had done in another time, another room, against the warm body of her brother Sammy.

Finally, Eliza was home.

c

On the day the ship was due to leave, Eliza and the girl went early in search of supplies. Eliza purchased a few items of clothing, a hairbrush, and a suitcase in which to house them. At the bottom of the case she tucked an envelope containing some banknotes and a piece of paper advising of Mary’s address in Polperro—it was as well to be safe as sorry.

The suitcase was just the right size for a child to carry and Ivory was thrilled. She clutched it tightly as Eliza led her along the crowded dock.

Movement and noise were everywhere: whistling locomotives, billowing steam, cranes lifting baby carriages, bicycles and phonographs on board.

Ivory laughed when they passed a procession of bleating goats and sheep being herded into the ship’s hold. She was dressed in the prettiest of the two dresses Eliza had bought for her, and looked quite the part of the 471

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wealthy little girl come to see her aunt off on a long sea voyage. When they reached the gangway, Eliza handed her boarding card to the officer.

‘Welcome aboard, madam,’ he said, nodding so that his uniform cap bobbed.

Eliza nodded in return. ‘It’s a pleasure to have passage booked on your splendid ship,’ she said. ‘My niece has been beside herself with excitement for her aunt. Look, she’s even brought her own little pretend case.’

‘You like big boats, do you, miss?’ The officer peered down at the little girl.

Ivory nodded and smiled sweetly, but she said nothing. Just as Eliza had instructed.

‘Officer,’ said Eliza, ‘my brother and sister-in-law are waiting further along the dock.’ She waved into the growing crowd. ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind if I take my little niece on board for a minute to show her my cabin?’

The officer glanced at the line of passengers now snaked along the dock.

‘We shan’t be long,’ said Eliza. ‘Only it would mean so very much to the child.’

‘I’d say it should be all right,’ he said. ‘Just be sure and bring her back.’

He winked at Ivory. ‘I’ve a feeling her parents would miss her if she left home without them.’

Eliza took Ivory’s hand and headed up the gangway.

There were people everywhere, busy voices, splashing water, foghorns.

The ship’s orchestra played a jaunty tune on deck, while chambermaids scurried in all directions, post boys delivered telegrams and self-important bellboys carried chocolates and gifts for the departing passengers.

But Eliza didn’t follow the chief steward inside the ship; instead she led Ivory along the deck, stopping only when they reached a set of wooden barrels. Eliza ushered the girl behind them, and crouched so that her skirts draped across the decking. The little girl was distracted, she had never seen such activity, and was moving her head about, this way and that.

‘You must wait here,’ said Eliza. ‘It isn’t safe to move. I’ll be back soon.’ She hesitated, glanced skyward. Gulls were skimming overhead, black eyes watchful. ‘Wait for me, do you hear?’

The little girl nodded.

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‘You know how to hide?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s a game we’re playing.’ As Eliza said the words, Sammy appeared inside her mind and her skin cooled.

‘I like games.’

Eliza pushed the image aside. This little girl wasn’t Sammy. They weren’t playing the Ripper. Everything would be well. ‘I’ll come back for you.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘There’s someone I have to see. Something I have to collect before the ship leaves.’

‘What is it?’

‘My past,’ she said. ‘My future.’ She smiled briefly. ‘My family.’

c

As the carriage hurtled towards Blackhurst, Eliza’s fog began to lift.

Awareness seeped slowly: a rocking motion, the muddy thud of hooves, a musty smell.

She cracked open her eyes, blinked. Black shadows dissolved into patches of dusty light. A swooning sensation as her vision focused.

There was someone with her, a man sitting opposite. His head was tilted against the leather seat and a slight snore flecked his steady inhalations. He had a bushy moustache, and a pair of armless spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose.

Eliza drew breath. She was twelve years old, being dragged from all she knew towards the unknown future. Locked in a carriage with Mother’s Bad Man. Mansell.

And yet . . . it didn’t feel quite right. There was something she was forgetting, a dark humming cloud on the edge of her mind. Something important, something she had to do.

She gasped. Where was Sammy? He should be with her, he was hers to protect—

Horses’ hooves, thudding on the ground outside. The sound made her frightened, ill, though she knew not why. The dark cloud began to swirl. It was coming closer.

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Eliza’s gaze dropped to her skirt, her hands folded on her lap. Her hands, and yet surely not hers at all.

Bright light broke through a hole in the cloud: she wasn’t twelve at all, she was a grown woman—

But what had happened? Where was she? Why was she with Mansell?

A cottage on a cliff, a garden, the sea . . .

Her breaths were louder now, sharp in her throat.

A woman, a man, a baby . . .

Free-floating panic plucked at her skin.

More light . . . the cloud was fading, coming apart . . .

Words, snatches of meaning: Maryborough . . . a ship . . . a child, not Sammy, a little girl . . .

Eliza’s throat was raw. A hole opened up inside her, filled quickly with black fear.

The little girl was hers.

Clarity, so bright it burned: her daughter was alone on a departing ship.

Panic infused her every pore. Her pulse hammered in her temples.

She needed to get away, get back.

Eliza glanced sideways at the door.

The carriage travelled quickly but she didn’t care. The ship left dock today and the little girl was on it. The child, her child, all alone.

Chest aching, head thumping, Eliza reached out.

Mansell stirred. His bleary eyes opened, focused quickly on Eliza’s arm, the handle beneath her fingers.

A cruel smile began to form on his lips.

She gripped the lever: he lunged to stop her, but Eliza was faster.

Her need was greater, after all.

c

And she was falling, the cage door had opened and she fell, fell, fell towards the cold dark earth. Time folded over on itself: all moments were one, past was present was future. Eliza didn’t close her eyes, she watched the earth coming closer, the smell of mud, grass, hope—474

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—and she was flying, wings outstretched across the surface of the ground, and higher now, on the current of the breeze, her face cool, her mind clear. And Eliza knew where she was going. Flying towards her daughter, towards Ivory. The person she had spent a lifetime seeking, her other half. She was whole at last, heading towards home.

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49

Cliff Cottage, 2005

Cliff Cottage, Cornwall, 2005

Finally, she was in the garden again. Between the bad weather, Ruby’s arrival, and the visit to Clara’s house, it had been days since Cassandra had been able to slip beneath the wall. She’d been subject to an odd restlessness that had only now dissipated. It was strange, she thought, easing a glove onto her right hand: she’d never considered herself much of a gardener, but this place was different. She felt compelled to return, to plunge her hands into the earth and bring the garden back to life. Cassandra paused as she straightened the fingers of the other glove, noticed again the band of white skin around her finger, second from the left.

She ran her thumb over the strip of skin. It was very smooth, more elastic than that either side, as if it had been soaking in warm water.

That white band was the youngest part of her, fifteen years younger than the rest. Hidden from the moment Nick had slipped the ring onto her finger, it was the only part that hadn’t changed, aged, moved on.

Until now.

‘Cold enough for you?’ Christian, who had just appeared from beneath the wall, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.

Cassandra pushed the glove on and smiled at him. ‘I didn’t think it got cold in Cornwall. All the brochures I read talked about a temperate climate.’

‘Temperate compared to Yorkshire.’ He returned a lopsided smile.

‘It’s a taste of the winter ahead. At least you won’t have to suffer that.’

Silence drew out between them. As Christian turned to inspect the hole he’d been digging the week before, Cassandra pretended to be engrossed in her weeding fork. Her return to Australia was a subject 476

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they’d avoided discussing. Over the last few days, whenever conversation threatened to skirt the topic, one of them had been quick to set it on a new course.

‘I was thinking some more,’ said Christian, ‘about that letter from Harriet Swindell.’

‘Yeah?’ Cassandra pushed aside unsettling thoughts of past and future.

‘Whatever it was in the clay pot, the one Eliza pulled out of the chimney, it must’ve been important. Nell was already on the boat, so Eliza took a huge risk going back for it.’

They had covered this yesterday. In a warm booth at the pub, with the fire crackling in the corner, they’d gone over and over the details as they knew them. Seeking a conclusion they both sensed was staring them in the face.

‘I guess she didn’t count on the man being there to abduct her, whoever he was.’ Cassandra plunged her fork into the flowerbed. ‘I wish Harriet had given us his name.’

‘He must’ve been someone sent by Rose’s family.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Who else would have been so desperate to get them back?’

‘Get Eliza back.’

‘Huh?’

Cassandra glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘They didn’t get Nell back. Only Eliza.’

Christian paused in his digging. ‘Yeah, that’s odd. I guess she didn’t tell them where Nell was.’

That was the part that didn’t make sense to Cassandra. She’d lain awake half the night running the threads through her mind, coming always to the same conclusion. Eliza might not have wanted Nell to remain at Blackhurst, but surely when she learned that the ship had sailed without her she’d have been desperate to stop it. She was Nell’s mother, she’d loved her enough to take her in the first place. Wouldn’t she have done everything she could to alert people to the fact that Nell was on a ship, alone? She wouldn’t just have said nothing and left a treasured daughter to travel by herself to Australia. Cassandra’s fork hit a particularly stubborn root. ‘I don’t think she could tell them.’

‘How do you mean?’

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‘Only that if she could have, she would have. Wouldn’t she?’

Christian nodded slowly, raised his eyebrows as the implications of this theory sank in. He heaved his shovel into the hole.

The root was thick. Cassandra pulled the other weeds aside and traced it a little higher. She smiled to herself. Though it was worse for wear, devoid, for the most part, of leaves, she recognised this plant; she’d seen similar specimens in Nell’s garden back in Brisbane. It was a wiry old rose bush, had likely been here for decades. The stem was as thick as her forearm, covered in angry thorns. But it was still alive and with some tending would live to flower again.

‘Oh my God.’

Cassandra looked up from her rose. Christian was crouched down, leaning into the pit. ‘What? What is it?’ she said.