The Last Garden in England(67)

“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you,” he promised, forehead against mine, arms around my waist.

“I know you will try.” That was all he could do. If his sister and her husband found out, I would be turned out of Highbury House.

Yet it wasn’t just this job that was at risk. I could lose everything. The annuity my father left was barely enough for Adam to live on, let alone me. I might think of myself as an artist, but I also worked because I had to. Now my brother and I both relied on my income.

It was easier for Matthew. Even with the hint of eccentricity that hung about him like perfume from one of his roses, he had options. He could marry or not. He could start a business or not. He could simply be.

“I wish that you would allow me to show you that you can trust me,” he said, as though he could read my thoughts.

“I don’t need to trust you,” I said.

He slipped his arms around me. “We all need trust, Venetia.”

I twisted, unable to watch him look at me with such open, earnest hope. Still, I let him coax another kiss out of me when he led me outside to my cart.

“You’ll write to me?” he asked. “I check our hedgerow every day.”

My cheeks flushed, and all I could do was nod before snapping the leads. But as my horse and cart bumped its way out of the courtyard, I couldn’t resist looking back at him, eyes fixed on me at the entry to his drive.

SATURDAY, 29 JUNE 1907

Highbury House

Hot

I lied to Matthew. I did not write to him this morning as I promised. I woke up intending to, but as soon as I donned my gardening apron and stepped out of my cottage door, I heard raised voices and braying. I hurried to the gate between Highbury House and the farm and found the usually unflappable Mr. Hillock in a dither. One of Adam’s orders must have been misread, because instead of four carts of gravel, nine donkey-drawn carts were neatly pulled up.

After sorting out the gravel debacle, an issue arose with the reflecting pool, and then Mr. Hillock’s son, Young John, and another of the gardeners, Timothy, flew at each other in an argument while bending canes for arches. (I gather that the disagreement had more to do with a young lady in the village than it did building garden arches.)

All in all, an exhausting day, and the reason why I couldn’t even put pen to paper to write in this diary yesterday evening. Instead, I’m stealing a few moments over the cup of tea and toast that the maid brings me each morning to write a few lines. Then, a letter to Matthew.





? STELLA ?


JUNE 1944

Stella should have been watching Bobby to make sure he wasn’t tearing things off the shelves of Mrs. Yarley’s shop, but all she could do was stare at the two suitcases on the shelf before her. They weren’t particularly beautiful, but she used to come in just to look at them and dream that one day they’d hold her belongings.

Even now, she wanted to pull one down and take it back to Highbury House, the case slapping against her leg as she walked the dusty, sunbaked road. She would throw it down on her bed and fill it to the brim with clothes and her magazine cuttings of all the places she wanted to travel and her coursework. Then she would take that case to the train station and leave.

She would leave everything behind. Warwickshire. Highbury House. The fights with Mrs. George. Men’s shouts filling the house in the dead of the night. The smell of antiseptic and clatter of the medicine cart too close to her kitchen for comfort.

But mostly, she would leave Bobby.

A low, deep guilt rolled through her.

Even before Mrs. Symonds had read the telegram out, Stella was certain what it would say. She knew the moment she saw Mr. Jeffries out on the veranda that the news was for her, but she’d hoped and prayed that the evening’s tragedy would be someone else’s.

When Mrs. Symonds read out the final “STOP,” Stella had fallen apart, at the loss of her sister, yes, but also at the death of the life she’d longed for. She would never leave Highbury. Never move to London and put to use any of her studies. Never see the places in her pictures.

Beth had told her later that Mrs. Symonds had gone up to Stella’s attic bedroom to tell Bobby. Apparently the mistress of Highbury had cradled the boy to her when he’d begun to sob.

Bobby had not been able to sleep on his own since, so neither could Stella, with him softly snuffling into his pillow. After one week of simultaneously burnt and underdone meals, Mrs. Symonds declared that Bobby would temporarily move to the night nursery with Robin, under the watchful eye of Nanny.

“Are you planning a trip?”

The familiar voice sent Stella’s eyes rolling to the ceiling of Mrs. Yarley’s shop.

“Miss Adderton?” came her employer’s slightly short tone.

She fixed as pleasant a smile as she could muster on her face and turned to the woman who paid her wages. “Hello, Mrs. Symonds. I didn’t realize you were coming into the village or I would have taken a list for you.”

Mrs. Symonds’s brow furrowed. “I enjoy a little time away from the house from time to time. Are you quite well, Miss Adderton?”

My nephew is an orphan. I hate my life, and now I can never change it. But other than that…

“I’m fine,” said Stella.

“How has Bobby been settling into his new routine?” Mrs. Symonds asked.

Stella searched the other woman’s face, looking for malice or judgment, but there didn’t seem to be any edge to her employer’s tone.