The Sea Garden (33 page)

‘Very mysterious,' she said. ‘Thank you, Jess. We'll get together for a jolly in the New Year.'

And now, sitting in the church, Jess turns to smile at her and Kate smiles back and is filled with happiness and gratitude for this new flourishing of friendship and love that travels both backwards to the past and other loved ones, and forward into the future. She wishes David could have met Jess.

The organ music changes from Bach to the opening chords of ‘Once in Royal David's City' and there is a sudden expectant hush. The choir moves forward from the back of the church, the congregation rises to its feet, and Kate picks up her hymn sheet for the first carol.

*   *   *

The parcel remains on the big table until Kate has changed back into her jeans and some Ugg boots and wrapped herself in a cashmere shawl. She makes some tea and, still shivering, takes the mug along to the living-room. It's been a tricky walk home through the deep, frozen snow, slipping and sliding along, clutching the little parcel.

She puts the mug down on the table and, still standing, begins to pull at the Sellotape, which holds the thick brown paper in place. Having ripped the paper across she sees a box, handmade out of corrugated cardboard. She removes more Sellotape and the box falls apart to reveal a watercolour painting in a delicately carved wooden frame.

Kate picks it up quickly, staring at the painting. A stretch of gleaming water at dusk and, on its far bank, a lawn upon which figures are just visible in the fading sunset: light brush-strokes – the sweep of pale chiffon and a swirl of scarlet silk – indicate slender girls, whilst darker shapes, with flashes of white shirt-fronts, show tall, elegant men. Tiny coloured lights are sprinkled over the scene and reflected in the water. The stone balustrade is sketched in, and here is a larger, bulkier figure, immobile and remote: Circe, gazing downriver. It is the sea garden.

Sitting down, Kate tilts the little painting; she marvels at the way the twilight glow on the water has been captured, the suggestion of movement amongst the shadowy figures, the sense of magic. Now, looking more closely, she sees that there is some writing across the corner of the narrow grey mount: ‘Bless you for everything. It's been perfect. Love J.'

Tears well up and overflow. She wonders if Jess knows how hard it's been to part with that other little painting which, by such odd ways, came into her own possession. It seemed right, somehow, to pass it on to Jess as a sign for the future. Now, Jess has responded to it.

Kate balances the frame against a blue ceramic pot of hyacinth bulbs and looks at it again. She guesses that Jess has sketched the scene from Freddy's cottage across the Tamar and then peopled it with those ghosts of the past about whom she has been told. She has stepped into the story and made it her own, and now she will become a part of it; a link in the chain that connects its past with its future.

Kate raises her mug in a toast to Jess's future and to her own. She drinks her tea and reaches for the telephone. Bruno answers very quickly.

‘Was it a good service?' he asks. ‘A strong aroma of incense, old hymn books and small boy?'

She laughs. ‘Small girl, too, these days,' she says. ‘And hymn sheets.'

‘Ah,' says Bruno. ‘Well, it's a long time since I was at school. I wondered whether you might go back with Cass and Tom. More snow is forecast this weekend.'

‘I know it is,' she says.

She lifts the painting and studies it. She thinks of Cass and Tom, preparing the Rectory for Christmas, and of Jess and Will in the sail loft down on the Tamar, of Guy and Gemma and the twins.

‘Have you made your decision, Kate?' asks Bruno.

‘Yes,' she answers. ‘I've made my decision. Tell Rafe to get the Land Rover out, Bruno. I'm coming home tomorrow.'

TAMAR

Snow falls heavily on the night before Johnnie's birthday but the day dawns clear and bright. The sun rises, washing the frozen white fields with crimson and scarlet, spilling its light into the wooded valley. The lanes are blocked, airports in turmoil.

‘It's going to be just us,' Sophie says at breakfast, after Johnnie has gone out with Popps. ‘Fred will bring his little motor boat across but nobody else will get through. With the tide as it is, he won't make it until just in time for tea. Never mind, we'll have to make the best of it.'

‘But we could still have Grando's tea party in the sea garden, couldn't we?' wheedles Will, eating bacon and eggs with relish. ‘He'd really like that.'

Jess looks at Sophie wistfully. ‘It would be rather fun.'

Sophie hesitates, concerned with the wellbeing of the oldest and the youngest of the family.

‘I know the temperatures are sub-zero,' says Oliver, ‘but this sunshine will warm up the summerhouse. We could put heaters in…'

‘And string up the coloured lights like we do in the summer,' says Will eagerly.

‘Why not?' Sophie gives in. ‘I suppose it could get quite cosy in the summerhouse with the sun shining in all day, though it'll be nearly dark by tea-time.'

‘But that's what will make it such fun,' says Will. ‘That's why we need the lights.'

‘OK then. Tea in the summerhouse and then, when we've cut the cake and he's opened his presents, we can have Buck's Fizz to drink Grando's health.'

‘Cool,' says Will contentedly.

He's in that exalted state of mind that promises that nothing can be denied him. Jess is his cousin and an artist – he's googled her and been really impressed by what he reads – and he and she have turned the sail loft into a real den. She's teaching him to sketch and paint, and he's done a really good little picture of the
Alice
for Grando's birthday. He beams with the pure pleasure of it all and wipes his eggy plate with a piece of toast.

‘And you,' Sophie says to Oliver, ‘have been selected from a host of applicants to put up the lights.'

‘I always get the good jobs,' says Oliver, resigned, reaching for his coffee. ‘Are they like Christmas tree lights? Do they go neatly into the box in perfect working order on Twelfth Night, only to reappear the next Christmas Eve tangled and inexplicably bust?'

‘There's miles of them,' Will tells him gleefully. ‘Grando always says it's like sorting out a bag of knitting.'

‘Well, thanks for that,' says Oliver. ‘Do I get volunteers?'

Jess and Will both put their hands up and then grin at each other. Johnnie comes in with Popps.

‘It's freezing,' he tells them, his scarf still wound around his neck. ‘Exhilarating, though. There's been more snow in the night and poor old Popps fell into a drift. I think she deserves a bic, Will. I know I've already had breakfast, Sophie, but I'll have another cup of coffee if there's any going. Warm me up a bit.'

Will slips off his chair to minister to the expectant Popps, who waits imperiously for attention, and Sophie pours Johnnie some coffee.

‘Did I tell you that I had a text from Kate yesterday quite late to say that she's safe at St Meriadoc?' says Oliver.

‘Just in time, I should say,' says Johnnie. ‘I think it's very good of her to give her cottage over to Guy and Gemma. Solves lots of problems.'

‘I'm not certain that Kate's heart was ever truly in it,' Oliver says. ‘She really bought it because she felt she should get back into the housing market but I never could quite see Kate living in the town. Ma will be disappointed but it's certainly a bonus for Gemma and Guy and the boys.'

‘And it's such a lovely little cottage,' says Jess. ‘Gemma must be so pleased.'

‘She's ecstatic,' says Oliver. ‘It's lifted a great worry from her. She was so anxious about where they would all go, and this means they can start straight off all together as a little family without having to be dependent on anyone else. Kate had even put bunk beds in the smallest bedroom so that any of the children could come to stay with her. It's ideal for the twins.'

‘Ben and Julian are coming down after Christmas,' Will tells them. ‘I told them we can take the Heron out. We can, can't we, Grando?'

‘Can't see why not,' Johnnie answers. He picks up his birthday cards and looks at them again, smiling at one, looking more closely at another.

‘There would be more if only the post could get through,' says Sophie regretfully.

Will goes to stand at Johnnie's elbow to look at the cards with him. It's true there aren't many cards and he feels sorry for Grando. He smiles up at him and his grandfather smiles back at him.

‘Presents at tea-time,' says Will encouragingly.

*   *   *

‘I'll shovel the snow off the grass around the summerhouse and make a path of sorts across to the back door,' Oliver offers. ‘Have you got a good shovel?'

‘We'll still have to wear our wellies to the party,' says Sophie. ‘We must've had another three inches in the night. I hope Louisa manages to get home. They've given up on a flight and are catching the Eurostar. They've got snow tyres on their car, she says, so she's hoping they'll get down safely.'

‘I feel slightly daunted at the prospect of meeting them all,' says Oliver.

‘Jess will distract them,' Sophie tells him. ‘I've explained as best I can to Louisa. Will simply thinks that Jess's father was related to Fred. I haven't gone into details but I think that's enough for now, don't you?'

‘More than enough.' Oliver pulls on someone's warm coat. ‘Thank goodness you have all these spare clothes and boots.'

‘Well, it's crazy carrying heavy clothes half across the world each time they all come to and fro. There's always something to put on and enough boots to fit most feet. Put this hat on. You lose most of your body-heat through your head. Did you know that? Don't look at it like that.'

‘This is a beanie,' Oliver says. ‘You realize if Will sees me in this thing I shall lose all my street cred?'

‘Oh, stop fussing and put it on. Come on, I'll show you where the shovel lives.'

‘I think I love you,' Oliver says, following her out into the winter sunshine, easing on the tight-fitting hat.

‘Mmm,' she says, taking his arm. ‘Me, too. But don't let it go to your head.'

‘Wearing this thing,' he says, ‘there wouldn't be room for it.'

*   *   *

By four o'clock the sun is setting behind the hills and long blue shadows stretch across the whitened grass. Already the sea garden is
en fête:
the lights twinkle in the frosty air and Circe wears a necklace of holly and ivy. The summerhouse, lit by oil lamps, glows invitingly and on one end of the table Sophie has put the jug of Buck's Fizz within a circle of delicate, fluted glasses.

Johnnie stands beside Circe, sampling the Buck's Fizz. The tide is rising and, as he watches the long-legged avocets scooping and probing for food on the mudflats, he sees a small motorboat set out from beneath the walls of Cargreen: Freddy on his way to the birthday party. Leaning with his back to the balustrade, Johnnie is aware of other shadowy figures in the sea garden: Al and Mike standing together, sharing a wicked joke, Juliet moving gracefully in her long chiffon dress, and Rowena, half-hidden by the corner of the summerhouse, watching them.

Suddenly, from the house, a procession emerges, led by Popps. Sophie comes next, carrying a tray laden with the tea things, followed by Jess and Will, entrusted with plates and forks, and lastly by Oliver carrying the cake. They are all wearing fleeces and gumboots and woolly hats.

Johnnie smiles at the sight of them, and the ghosts slip back into the shadows. Now Sophie has begun to sing ‘For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' and the others are joining in. Raising his glass in a salute to the past, he sets out across the snow to meet them.

Also by Marcia Willett

FORGOTTEN LAUGHTER

A WEEK IN WINTER

WINNING THROUGH

HOLDING ON

LOOKING FORWARD

SECOND TIME AROUND

STARTING OVER

HATTIE'S MILL

THE COURTYARD

THEA'S PARROT

THOSE WHO SERVE

THE DIPPER

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

THE BIRDCAGE

THE GOLDEN CUP

ECHOES OF THE DANCE

MEMORIES OF THE STORM

THE WAY WE WERE

THE PRODIGAL WIFE

THE SUMMER HOUSE

CHRISTMAS IN CORNWALL

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
.

An imprint of St. Martin's Press.

THE SEA GARDEN
. Copyright © 2012 by Marcia Willett. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

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First published in Great Britain by Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers

First U.S. Edition: August 2014

eISBN 9781466846524

First eBook edition: July 2014