The Memory Garden (25 page)

Patrick regarded her with amusement, through half-closed eyes. ‘That’s going to take longer than the rest of the week.’

She laughed, slightly uncertainly.

‘Please stay,’ he said, reaching out and grasping her hand. He looked so serious, his face intense. ‘Please. I’d miss you if you went.’

She sighed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There’s a risk. I might get too attached to this place, to the idea of hiding away here.’ Blood suffused her face. ‘And there are things I have to do, a whole life in London.’ She loosed her hand and staggered to her feet.

But he was next to her, grabbing her hand again and swinging her round. Tears of confusion threatened and she tried to turn away, but he imprisoned her other hand, too.

‘Look at me,’ he commanded, but gently. She raised her eyes to his face. How troubled he seemed, his eyes dark, unhappy. ‘It’s not just this place, is it? Say it isn’t. Is it me who is the risk?’

She nodded once and he dropped her hands but instead pulled her towards him, squeezing her hard and burying his face in her hair.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he whispered, his hot breath almost sobbing into her ear.

She struggled, pushing him away from her so she could look at him.

‘What are you sorry about?’ She was angry now. Was he manipulating her? Why couldn’t he be clear? She’d had enough of being messed around.

The energy went out of him. ‘That it’s a risk. That I’m a risk.’

‘It’s still Bella, isn’t it?’

‘It’s difficult getting over her, don’t you see?’ It was he who was angry now. ‘It’s difficult trusting someone else again. Making myself vulnerable. I would be taking a risk with you. Why do you think I came down here? It’s to start again, to grow strong. And now you’re here. All I know is that I want you to stay. It might be selfish of me, I don’t know. And yes, there’s a risk. There’s always a risk . . .’

‘But you can’t just shut yourself away from life, Patrick. You can’t be an island.’ A rock, an island, feeling no pain, she thought, remembering the song. One hand brushed the grotto that had stood untouched by time, by change, by storms, for what – a hundred years? And she? In a fortnight’s time, she remembered, would come the first anniversary of her mother’s death. It felt like an invisible barrier through which somehow she and Chrissie and, yes, stoical William, would have to pass. It would mean they would have completed a whole year, all four seasons, with all their anniversaries and birthdays, without Maureen. She would have to be with Chrissie that day, she knew now with certainty. Go back to London.

And Jake’s selfishness – for she felt it was selfishness – was still too much to bear. He hadn’t wanted her enough to want to make a child with her – what greater rejection of her could there be? And yet she had to look forward, she knew that. Chrissie had Rob and her children. She herself had so much in life to enjoy. She loved her job, loved being in London, and maybe, who knew , there would be someone in time who would stay for her.

She turned. And yet here he was. Patrick. She wanted him so badly, she knew now, but maybe this was the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a risk, but was he a risk she was prepared to take?

Suddenly she felt reckless. ‘Okay, I’ll stay. I don’t know for how long.’ And relief flooded through her. ‘I’ve got to go to London for a few days, though. There are things to do . . . But I’ll come back.’

‘You will? That’s fantastic.’ Patrick was staring at her, a look of joy on his face.

‘Mr Winterton! Mr Winterton, sir – are you there?’ It was a man’s country voice some way away, up the garden.

‘Bugger. It’s Pascoe,’ said Patrick, remembering. ‘The man with the digger. I forgot he might be coming today.’ He began crashing through the undergrowth back the way they had come. Mel stood there for a moment, her mind reeling, then followed after. They emerged from the rhododendrons. ‘Will I see you later?’ Patrick said in a low voice.

‘This evening?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Look, why don’t I cook for a change? Is seven-thirty all right?’

‘That would be lovely if it isn’t too much trouble.’

When she returned to the cottage, it was to find a phone message from Rowena from college. Would Mel act as second marker for the students’ essays this term?

‘Like heck I will,’ said Mel out loud as she banged down the receiver. Real life was the last thing she wanted to think about at the moment.

***

September 1912

‘Another over here, girl,’ ordered Mr Carey’s fat friend the lawyer, waving his empty wine glass.

Pearl passed among the party guests in the silvery twilight with a tray of drinks while still managing to keep an eye on Charles and the fascinating group of unconventionally dressed visitors standing apart, near the fountain. His birthday party had, in the end, had to wait until the harvest was over and now, well into September, there was a distinct chill in the evening air and some of the guests were drifting inside. The artistic contingent, however, seemed impervious to the weather.

The lively woman in the bright green dress was Laura Knight, she knew. Mrs Knight was exchanging banter with a tall, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped man in a loud checked suit, throwing back her head to laugh uproariously. That must be Mr Munnings, then – A.J., as Charles called him – the one living at Mr Jorey’s in the village, who painted horses and amused everybody by singing hunting songs. Pearl pressed her lips together, remembering last Sunday afternoon at her drawing lesson when Charles described to her the people she might expect to see, making her laugh by mimicking Munnings’s flamboyant gestures. He had, she saw now, got Munnings to the life.

‘Who’s that one behind them?’ she whispered to Jenna as they stood together at the edge of the crowd, nodding towards an intense-looking man with greying hair sitting gloomily on the concrete rim of the pond, trailing his empty glass in the water.

Jenna screwed up her eyes. ‘Mr Knight, I should say. And that talking to him now . . .’ for a big, handsome man with an easy, friendly manner had wandered over to Harold Knight, who sat up straighter and instantly became more cheerful, ‘is Mr Birch – they call him Lamorna.’

Pearl saw the mistress beckoning from the crowd and nudged Jenna in front, who went across with her tray. Left alone, Pearl’s eyes moved to Charles, something uncoiling inside her as she admired his long, lithe figure propped languorously against a pillar of the summerhouse where he flirted with a young woman with a cloud of fair hair. She glanced back to Mr Birch. She had seen him before, she remembered now. Up on the cliffs near Mousehole where she had strolled on an afternoon off with her sketchbook. He’d nodded to her as he stood aside to let her pass and after a moment she had turned round and gazed at his tall, upright frame striding back towards Lamorna Cove.

‘Come on, girl, don’t moon, fetch the other tarts and look sharp about it.’ Cook, bearing a huge tray of pies – apple, blackberry and redcurrant – swept past across the lawn towards the trestle tables laid out with white cloths on the terrace, and Pearl moved her remaining full glasses to Jenna’s tray and hurried back to the kitchen with the empties, butterflies of emotion fluttering in her throat.

It was all as exciting as she had thought it would be, this party. Dozens of beautifully dressed guests, with Elizabeth looking as fresh as a snowdrop in the white off-the-shoulder gown Pearl had laced her into earlier, before encasing Mrs Carey in a flattering dark blue gown with an Empire neckline which she had ordered specially from London. Her husband had insisted on squeezing his middle-aged spread into his ancient black evening suit but, despite not being able to do up the buttons on the jacket, he cut a distinguished enough figure as he roamed the house and garden.

But it was Charles’s artist friends who fascinated Pearl the most. They were in a category by themselves, not acting like gentlemen and -women quite, but not like ordinary working people either. It seemed that all that sort of thing didn’t matter to them. What united them was their passion for their work, their ambition. Charles was encouraging her to have that ambition, too. He’d been giving her drawing exercises for some weeks now, ever since he’d found her in the Flower Garden that Sunday, building on what her father had taught her about the rules of perspective, shading, the art of seeing. Charles was a natural teacher. Already her drawings of flowers and faces, the views from the cove, were transformed. But he wanted more for her, she knew.

Shoving open the scullery door, she caught sight of Milly, the skinny young cousin of Jenna’s brought in to help wash up, cramming the scrapings from a meat-pie dish into her mouth. Milly started and there was a crash and a muffled wail as pieces of pottery flew across the flagstones.

‘Here, quick,’ Pearl said, shaking the snivelling girl to her senses and shoving a broom in her hands. ‘I won’t tell. Just get it cleared up before Cook sees or she’ll skin you.’

She tiptoed her way through the mess into the kitchen and picked up a tray of tarts and clout cream. ‘Dump the bits behind the stable and I’ll bury them later,’ she called through the doorway. The girl nodded through her grimy tearstained face. Pearl made a
moue
of sympathy and rather than risk slipping on the slimy fragments with her tray, decided to go back through the house.

The hall was empty, but the door to the morning room was half-open. She heard a man’s voice – a young man – husky with passion. ‘I know it’s him you want, your cousin, but you will have me, you will.’ A scuffling and a scream. ‘No, Julian!’

Pearl froze.
Elizabeth
. She nudged at the door with her tray and it swung open with a creak. Two heads turned, revealing a tableau of living statues. The young man had pinned Elizabeth against wall; one of his hands was pushed down the bodice of her dress. The spell broke. He let her go and she staggered, crying. Pearl swung the tray aside as Julian hurtled past her towards the drawing room. Pearl called into the morning room, ‘Are you all right, miss?’

‘Yes. Leave me alone. Go away!’ Elizabeth hissed, picking herself up and, holding the torn straps of her dress, she too hurried past Pearl, but in the direction of the stairs.

Pearl watched her stumble, wondering whether to go after her, then swung round as another figure scurried out of a hiding-place in the shadows of a corridor and went off upstairs in pursuit. It was Cecily.

Her heart banging in her chest, her mind whirling, Pearl stood a second to recover herself. Then she shrugged and continued through the drawing room, arms aching with her heavy burden, and stepped into the garden.

In a single moment of surprise she forgot all that had just passed, for during her short time in the house, all daylight had gone from the sky; now great milky stars shone down and Jago had lit all the Chinese lanterns around the garden. A tiny row of flickering lights picked out the path up past the laurel maze, making her long to follow where it led.

Instead she hurried dutifully over to the tables where Dolly and Jenna unloaded the pies and cream. ‘What kept you, girl?’ snapped Dolly. ‘Been to Newlyn and back?’ and bid her help serve out dessert.

‘Pies, more pies ,’ quipped a teasing voice. ‘What do they say? If the devil came to Cornwall he’d be put into a pie.’ It was Munnings staring down at her, his face under his fringe almost white in the lantern light, his expression mischievous, challenging, hard.

Dolly, who had made her views of the artists as spongeing time-wasters perfectly clear to Pearl, pressed her lips together and riposted, ‘Nobody else is complaining.’

‘And nor , in truth, am I,’ he said, giving Pearl a wink as he turned away with his plate full.

Inside the drawing room a small group of musicians in evening dress were now tuning up. As Pearl passed the open windows with a pile of empty plates, she saw Elizabeth and Charles standing together talking. For a moment she locked eyes with Elizabeth and was shocked at the girl’s cold glare. Later, after the dancing, as Jago was fetching coats and opening the doors of carriages, and Dolly was fussing over where to put the remains of the food, Jenna filled Milly’s pockets with little parcels for the family and Pearl escaped, ostensibly to collect up forgotten glasses from around the grounds. She slipped past the Flower Garden where the dahlias and chrysanthemums slept, across the edge of the lawn and up the path by the laurels.

Then she stopped, captivated. As if to reflect the great stars overhead, the rockery was aglow with little jar lanterns, each containing a candle. Some were dwindling, a few had gone out, but those that remained made the rows of sea shells studding the stone glitter and gleam in the still air. Inside the tiny cave, two dozen points of light twinkled through coloured glass. She had never seen anything so lovely.

A footstep behind her. She spun round. It was Charles. He came up beside her, touching her lightly on the elbow in greeting. She looked up at him in surprise. He was close , very close now, the edges and planes of his handsome face softened by the candlelight. She felt his warm breath on her cheek and could make out the separate hairs of his moustache. When he smiled, his eyes sparkled and she glimpsed the tip of his tongue against his teeth. Fascinated , she stared, hot blood pulsing through her body.

A voice – the mistress – called from the house. ‘Charles? The Knights are going now.’ And the moment passed.

‘Your sketchbook,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I came to ask. Can you fetch it for me, quickly now? Knight said he’ll take it to look at.’

‘Will he?’ she said, amazed . A real painter who had shows was going to look at her work? ‘Thank you,’ she said and, after a pause, bobbed an odd sort of curtsey. ‘Thank you. Thank him for me.’

She slipped away and ran up the back stairs to her room to fetch the book from the drawer.

The eight-thirty news bulletin started and Mel, who had already heard the headlines at seven-thirty and eight, snapped off the radio.