Sowing Secrets (15 page)

I closed my eyes. Did she think I wasn’t worried, my handsome, restless husband on the loose in another Eden?

After Ma had gone I must have dozed off, for when I woke up the light was indefinably different in my corner of the little ward, with its swaying, snot-coloured chintz curtains.

Mal’s mother was sitting on the very edge of the vinyl visitor’s chair with her clasp handbag dead centre on her bony lap and her dark eyes fixed on my face.

‘You’ve committed a great sin, and this is your punishment,’ she whispered when she saw I was awake, leaning over the bed in a wave of menthol and eucalyptus. ‘In the eyes of God you are living with a married man – but I’m sorry for your loss,’ she added perfunctorily, though with a tiny flicker of genuine emotion. ‘And this is no time to rake up old sins, especially with Mal off abroad soon and you weak as a kitten.’

‘Ma’s going to stay at Fairy Glen and look after things until I’m better,’ I said quickly, in case she was going to let Christian charity move her to look after me on my sickbed. ‘And I’m going out to see Mal.’

‘Well, Frances, he knows my opinion on your marriage, but even so I can’t condone his leaving you alone for so long. But he has been consumed by greed, avarice and lust and doesn’t listen to my advice.’

‘
Lust?
’ I said, startled.

‘The burning lust for earthly possessions.’ She primmed up her coldly righteous little prune of a face.

‘Oh … right. Yes, he does seem to want every new hi-tech gadget that comes on the market, and he’s always buying things for the boat, but he’s promised to change.’

‘What of Rosie?’

‘He doesn’t buy her anything at all.’

‘No, Frances, I meant has she been told that you are in hospital?’

‘Ma is ringing her up and trying to persuade her not to come home until the end of term. Although I’d love to see her, I don’t want to interrupt her studies, and I’m all right really.’

I lay back again and closed my eyes, hoping when I opened them that I would find Mrs M. had been a horrible dream.

But after a short inward struggle I opened them and managed to say, ‘It was kind of you to come, Mrs Morgan. I really appreciate it.’

‘
Kindness
doesn’t enter into it, Frances. I hope I am a Christian!’ she said, and, handing me a small booklet called ‘Roads to Redemption’ and a damp bag of hard green grapes, she hauled herself upright and tottered off in her sensible glacé leather shoes.

Nia only came in once, but that was a big concession since she hates hospitals. She was carrying a potted miniature pink rose and a box of Liquorice Allsorts, and trailed Rhodri behind her like a grateful stray who had unexpectedly latched on to a good owner and couldn’t believe his luck; if he’d had a tail he’d have wagged it.

Although I was glad to see his familiar face, it meant I couldn’t do more than exchange a few hasty private words with Nia when we sent him away to buy chocolate. But she has never been the maternal type, so although sympathetic she was also down to earth, pointing out that had I had the baby I would have become one of those exhausted geriatric mothers who totter dazedly through the daily treadmill with glazed, hopeless eyes, their clothes covered in food stains and baby vomit and their hair unbrushed.

‘You’re not Superwoman material, Fran. Remember all those broken nights when you had Rosie? Think what that would be like
now
, when you’re twenty years older!’

‘That’s true, I hadn’t thought of that,’ I admitted. ‘I’m horribly ratty and drained if I don’t get a full night’s sleep – and could you imagine Mal getting up in the middle of the night to feed a baby, even if he happened to be home?’

‘No,’ she said positively, and changed the subject to one that was clearly occupying most of her mind: her last-ditch attempt to persuade poor Rhodri to make an offer for Fairy Glen. She sees the ‘For Sale’ board as a Sword of Damocles poised to part it for ever from the rest of the Plas Gwyn estate and, more importantly, prevent her from doing whatever it is she does up at the standing stones.

‘Now your ma’s down for a bit he could at least go and discuss it with her,’ she said obstinately.

‘But he’s struggling to find the money to get Plas Gwyn up and running as it is,’ I pointed out. ‘Look how hard he’s working, doing all the unskilled stuff.
I’d
love him to buy it too, but I can see it’s impossible, even if Ma let him have the glen separately and sold the cottage to someone else. And I’m going to miss being able to go there for inspiration as much as you will.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, with one of her fierce frowns, and it is true that I don’t perhaps use the standing stones in the way she does, but clearly she had come up against the rock of one of Rhodri’s occasional fits of obstinacy.

She frowned. ‘Tonight at eight it’s the last of the present series of
Restoration Gardener
and if Plas Gwyn does get shortlisted we will have a huge amount more visitors so I’m sure Rhodri
could
buy the glen. It would be an investment.’

‘Oh, Nia, I’d entirely forgotten the programme was tonight!’

‘Well, it’s hardly surprising, is it? Don’t worry, we will record it for you and I’ll let you know immediately if Plas Gwyn gets through to the next stage. I’m feeling a bit more optimistic because Gabe Weston seems so keen on it – did I tell you that he rang up and – no, that’s right, Rhodri only heard on Monday, so I never got the chance. He found one or two interesting things in the documents Rhodri sent him that he’d like to check out, and also he’s dying to look at the maze, so—’ she looked at her watch – ‘he should be turning up at Plas Gwyn any time now.’

‘Now? Today? But, Nia, if he’s coming back, what on earth is Rhodri doing here? He should be there to meet him this time!’

And I really,
really
didn’t like the thought of Gabe Weston invading my Eden again …

‘It’s all right, he’s delegated Dottie to hold the fort again, but just until he gets back.’

‘But she’s crackers! She nearly blew it last time.’

‘She’ll be all right – and we got on the long-list, didn’t we? Gabe Weston chose that and he gets to pick the final three properties for the vote-off too, so you never know.’

‘Rhodri should be up there going all out to persuade him, not down here!’

She shrugged. ‘He insisted he’d rather come and visit you, and you know what he’s like once he actually makes his mind up about something.’

‘He’s so sweet, but I wouldn’t have minded, and they are letting me go home tomorrow so he could see me any time.’

‘Mal doesn’t exactly make him welcome, Fran! I think he’d rather see you here.’

‘Yes, I suppose now Mal’s got the crazy idea that Rhodri might be Rosie’s father, it’s best they don’t meet.’

Rhodri came back carrying the unwanted chocolate and looking large, chunky, wholesome and masculine. The women in the other beds on the ward fell silent as he passed them, only to resume what they were saying after he’d passed.

‘I’ve told her about the Weston man coming again,’ Nia said. ‘And about you still refusing to buy the glen!’

He opened his light-blue eyes wide. ‘But, Nia, I can’t! You know how I’m fixed financially, especially after Zoe’s wedding, but you can walk all over the rest of the estate any time you like, including the maze.’

‘I already do, but I also need access to those oak woods and the falls, and especially the standing stones,’ Nia said obstinately.

‘Why?’ asked Rhodri curiously, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

‘Don’t ask,’ I said faintly, closing my eyes. I only hope she isn’t performing anything involving sacrifice, or Rhodri could be doing an Aslan any time now.

‘I’m a Druid, that’s all,’ Nia said shortly. ‘There’s no big mystery about it.’

‘
Are
you?’ Rhodri said with mild interest. ‘Poetry and folk music and stuff?’

‘You inbred chinless wonder!’ Nia said scathingly. ‘You can hardly think I go up there to skip round the stones while reciting rhyming couplets!’

‘Well, that’s more or less what you do at the May Day ceremony at the maze with the others, isn’t it?’ he pointed out reasonably, grinning. ‘I’ve got a bird’s-eye view from my bedroom window.’

‘Oh?’ Her brow furrowed, so she looked pretty fierce. ‘You can’t see the standing stones from there, can you?’

‘Not really, even in winter when there are no leaves on the oak trees the canopy of branches is pretty dense. Why, you’re not doing all that nude dancing by the light of the moon thing, are you?’ he asked interestedly.

‘Rhodri, I’m a Druid, not some New Age hippie-dippy witch!’

Just as well, the way she was looking at him. ‘I think it’s really interesting, Nia, but let’s talk about it another time,’ I said weakly.

‘You’re getting tired,’ Rhodri said kindly. ‘Perhaps we’d better go.’

They bickered off down the corridor together, Nia addressing him as ‘my Lord High and Mighty’, something she only does when cross with him, or remembering her socialist working-class roots or whatever, so clearly she was still miffed about the folk music bit.

Left alone, I lay there feeling uncomfortable just knowing that Gabe Weston was in the village.

‘Mr Gwyn-Whatmire just asked me if we could put the
Restoration Gardener
programme on the ward TV tonight. It’s so exciting to have somewhere local on!’ one of the nurses said, stopping by my bed. ‘And that Gabe Weston is
gorgeous
!’

‘Isn’t he just,’ I murmured weakly. ‘But I’m sure everyone else would rather watch a soap.’

‘Oh, no, they’ll all be glued to it, you’ll see. And you should eat that chocolate,’ she added. ‘Full of iron, it is.’

So I did, even though I wasn’t hungry: I couldn’t lie about there for ever like a dying duck.

I don’t know what Rhodri thought I would do with the magazines he’d brought me: an old American
Vogue
,
Fly-Fishers Monthly
and
Your Stately Home
, but it was a kind thought … and even that made me burst into tears again.

If there’d been a drought I could have hired myself out as a sprinkler.

True to her word the nurse wheeled the TV into a central position at the end of the small ward and switched on
Restoration Gardener
, so that all those of us in a reasonably sentient condition could watch.

In fact, when Gabe came on, one or two of the patients I’d thought totally out of it suddenly stirred and showed signs of life too. He certainly scrubbed up well: for the programme he was wearing a leather jacket over what looked like one of those supersoft cashmere jumpers, but he still gave the impression he knew which end of a spade was which.

He also looked very familiar now, which was odd – but no odder than everything else happening to me lately, especially this feeling I was experiencing that I was levitating above my bed with my air-filled head bobbing about like a balloon.

‘Welcome to
Restoration Gardener
,’ he said, in his seductively deep furry voice, ‘the last of the series featuring the Old Mill, where the millrace and water gardens are now nearing completion. But just before we go there, I’m going to show you the six wonderful gardens, each worthy of restoration, that I’ve chosen my final three from – and amazingly difficult it was too!’

With spaced-out detachment I watched as he showed us brief vignettes of each one of them, Plas Gwyn being the very last. The house looked lovely, even with Dottie bobbing about in the background like a demented scarecrow, and there were some artfully lit shots of the maze showing the bumps and hollows of the pattern.

‘Plas Gwyn in North Wales is an ancient house in a lovely setting, with a unique unicursal maze … ’ he was saying. ‘I’ll tell you later which will go through to next week’s vote-off, when
you
get to choose our new restoration project! For now, though, let’s go down to Hampshire and see how the Old Mill is getting along … ’

The arrow-head smile that accompanied this seemed to be directed straight at me, bringing me back down to earth – or my hospital bed – with a bump. I couldn’t tell you much about the Old Mill because while it was on I was too busy coping with an emotional seesaw of wanting him to shortlist Plas Gwyn for Rhodri’s sake, yet fearing anything that might bring him one step closer to St Ceridwen’s Well and into my (and Rosie’s!) orbit.

‘That’s all from the Old Mill, though we will pop back in the next series to see how the project has developed,’ Gabe said finally. ‘Next week’s programme will be the last in the present season, but don’t forget to tune in and choose the winner of the next makeover. The three who have made it through are … ’

He paused tantalisingly, then said, ‘Edge Cottage in Devon with its walled apothecary garden, the fascinating grottoes and topiary of Wisham Hall in Gloucestershire and, finally – Plas Gwyn in North Wales with its unique ancient maze.’

He looked full at the camera. ‘I know which one is
my
favourite – now you get ready to tell me yours!’ And with a final smile he vanished from the screen to be replaced by the credits.

‘There,’ the nurse said, ‘isn’t that wonderful? That will have made you feel so much better, Mrs March, knowing that your friend’s house is on the shortlist! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it won?’

‘Yes,’ I said, a trifle hollowly. ‘Absolutely wonderful!’

I tottered down to the phone later and called Nia and Rhodri, who were both wild with excitement, and then Carrie. After that, worn out with making enthusiastic and congratulatory noises about something that could well prove to be the oil slick on the, so far, fairly placid sea of my life, I thankfully climbed back into bed again.

Apart from the occasional coachload of tourists nothing much happens in St Ceridwen’s Well (though I suppose that is all about to change), so next day when I arrived home from hospital several of my neighbours were hanging about outside their houses in a casual sort of way, ready to wave and call greetings. That was nice, but I could have done without the Wevills standing watching me from their doorstep, wreathed in more wholesome toothy smiles than an Osmond convention.

After the heat of the hospital it felt very cold to me as Mal assisted me from the car, and I’d looked in the unforgiving hospital washroom mirror, so I knew it was my turn to look like a ‘Thriller’ zombie, all ashen face and dark-socketed eyes.