Eden's Garden (23 page)

‘Ah. So not necessarily in Pont-ar-Eden.’

She met his eyes. ‘No. I’d originally thought of Devon or Cornwall, when I was considering setting up a business.’ Merlin, she felt, was studying her closely. ‘I’m still going to go and have a look around. But it’s going to be expensive down there. I know I couldn’t afford anything just now.’

‘You’re still thinking about settling there eventually?’

‘Maybe. But not for a while, at least. I’ve got Mam to think of, and I know I’ve loads to learn first.’

‘Hmm.’

‘You’ll think about it?’

He nodded briskly. ‘Oh, definitely. And I’d like to look through that business plan of yours. Do you have time now?’

‘A bit. I’m taking Mam to the history morning at the Boadicea in an hour. But I’m okay until then.’

‘You’d better come into the office in that case. I’m afraid I can’t offer you the hard stuff, like they do in
The Godfather
, on account of kids and my liver, and this being an alcohol-free zone. But I make a mean cup of tea, though I say it myself.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ said Carys with a smile, as she followed him inside.

 

A few hours later Buddug delivered her tray of soup and rolls to the table nearest Pont-ar-Eden’s history club’s latest – and most excitable – gathering to date, and wiped her hands carefully. ‘Those look very old, Carys.’

‘Old? They’re historic,’ exclaimed Sara Jones, her wrinkled face flushed with excitement. ‘Look, the woman in the centre: that looks like a cook’s uniform. If this is the 1920s she must be your grandmother, Buddug.’

‘She looks a bit fierce,’ replied Buddug, just a little dubiously.

‘More like determined,’ said Carys. Buddug smiled at her.

‘Exactly.’ Sara was nodding vigorously. ‘Didn’t you say she brought up nine children on her own? That would certainly take determination in those days.’

‘That’s what my mam always said,’ replied Buddug. ‘I know my grandfather was killed in the First World War, leaving her with nothing, but she managed to work her way up to cook at Plas Eden, and I know she was there for years.’ She peered closer. ‘It does look like her you know. I’ve got some old photographs upstairs. I was starting to look them out for you. She does look like the photos of my grandmother, but I’d need to have another look to be sure.’

‘I’ve made several copies,’ said Carys, reaching into her shoulder bag and bringing out a plastic folder.

‘Thanks.’ Buddug took the print. ‘It’s amazing to see them like that. Makes them real, you know? I’m sure this will have plenty more people in Pont-ar-Eden rushing to trace their ancestors.’

She grimaced as the doorbell clanged, letting in a rush of new customers, drawn in by the promise of smoked bacon and mango salad, and the aroma of courgette, garlic and wild rocket soup. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I can,’ she called back, picking up the empty tray she had stashed by the old sofa which divided the computers from the café, and returning to rescue Alison on the till, who was a new recruit for the summer season and beginning to look faintly flustered as the Boadicea’s lunchtime rush hit its peak.

‘One of those gardeners looks rather sad,’ said Sara, abandoning the photograph of the servants to glance at the young men with their spades and wheelbarrows. ‘Lots of men left, you know, when the First World War was declared. They thought it would be something new. An adventure. A way of escaping being stuck in such a rigid society.’ She shuddered. ‘I hate to think of what most of those poor boys were experiencing only a few years’ later.’

‘Most of them never came back,’ put in Gwynfor, joining them. ‘Many of these are probably names on the village memorial. Hopefully we can match some of them up.’

‘It’s like looking into the end of a world,’ added Haf, abandoning the single portraits to join them.

‘I think it was, in a way,’ Gwynfor replied. ‘Life would have gone on very much the same from medieval times. If not before that. And then it all changed.’

‘It must have been horrible,’ said Carys, joining Mam, and looking down at the face of Dad’s grandfather, proud in his role as head gardener.

‘And frightening,’ replied Mam.

‘True,’ said Gwynfor. ‘But then if things had stayed as they were, we would never have had the chances we’ve all had in life. Rights for women, for one,’ he added, as Edna began to protest. ‘The world these people were born into had few chances for change.’

‘And Victorian women had no legal status of their own, remember,’ put in Sara Jones, white head nodding vigorously. ‘They belonged to either their father or husband. No divorce, no property rights. For years, even if your husband divorced you, you lost your children and any income you earned still went to him.’

‘Typical,’ muttered Edna, feelingly.

‘It is still quite extraordinary, having such a clear picture of the past,’ Gwynfor was saying thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure we could get heritage organisations interested. This could really make a difference to Plas Eden, you know. People flock to places like Erddig, that National Trust estate near Wrexham where you can see how ordinary people lived. David and Huw might at least consider it.’

Conversation started up again around them as the heads grouped round different prints, exclaimed over the total lack of cars in the high street, and look, there was Pendragon’s Hardware shop, didn’t it look smart, and look at that one of the kitchens at Eden – could you ever imagine cooking huge dinner parties on a range like that?

‘It’s the blacksmith’s that gets me,’ said Gwynfor, picking up a photo of a shadowy interior, complete with furnace and anvil, and the blacksmith looking up as he replaced the shoe of a huge shire horse. ‘That’s my grandfather, you know. Blacksmiths had a special status in the past. Goes back to the sword in the stone from the King Arthur story. That’s where the story came from: blacksmiths working with metal when it was a new and magical material. They’d pour the liquid metal into a stone mould, and when it cooled the mould was broken open and bingo – there you have it, a sword pulled from a stone. So forget that white beard and flowing robes malarkey: Merlin the magician was probably a blacksmith.’ He rubbed his hands in enjoyment. ‘I like it.’

‘Dad’s mother must be amongst the servants on the steps,’ said Carys, seeing Mam was beginning to grow drowsy at this talk of the village and blacksmiths. ‘I’m sure Dad said she was a maid at Plas Eden before she was married. We were trying to work out which one she could be, weren’t we?’

‘Yes, that’s right, dear,’ said Mam, growing alert again. ‘But she doesn’t seem to be there. There don’t seem to be any photographs of your grandmother when she was young, which is such a pity.’ She smiled. ‘Your granddad always used to say when you were little that you were the spitting image of her, Cari. Never mind, I expect we’ll come across some, one day. I’m sure there are all sorts of things hidden in that attic still.’

‘I’m sure there are,’ replied Carys, smiling affectionately at her mother. It was good to see Mam entering so wholeheartedly into the spirit of things. Mam’s walking still might be a bit of a struggle at times, but at least her mind appeared to be speeding back into full working order.

And talking of things hidden…

Carys hesitated a minute, then reached into her bag once more. ‘There’s this photograph, too,’ she said, placing the picture of the woman and child on the table. ‘We weren’t quite sure about who they could be.’

There was a murmur of conversation, as the little group gathered around. Mostly, Carys saw, they were shaking their heads as if none the wiser.

‘May I see?’ Across the table, Sara Jones reached out her hand for the photograph.

Carys turned the image to face her. ‘We wondered if anyone might know who the child is?’ she ventured.

Sara shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. I’d have to ask my Alun about that one. He might have more of an idea, being older. But I know who the woman is, all right.’

‘Really?’ said Carys, eagerly.

‘Oh yes. I remember her, from when I was a girl. Scared the living daylights out of me, she did. Not a woman you’d ever want to cross. There’s no mistaking her. That’s Blodeuwedd.’

‘Blodeuwedd?’ Carys stared at her. Sara might not be in the first flush of youth, but there was nothing doolally or fey about her, and she’d never claimed to know a character from the
Mabinogion
before. All the same…

‘Nainie’s mother. Hermione Meredith. The one who made the statues.’

‘A woman made the statues!’

‘Oh yes,’ said Sara, nodding vigorously. ‘Didn’t they tell you about her in Pont-ar-Eden Primary?’

‘No,’ admitted Carys.

Sara clucked. ‘Memories are so short, nowadays. So short. Taught herself, she did. Sculpting from stone that is. To make the statues for the garden. That’s what she’s holding in her hand, see. That chisel thing of hers. You used to see her with her hands all bandaged. That’s what my mam used to tell me. Until she got the hang of it, that is. But Mam said you could still see the scars on her hands, years later. One determined woman, that one. She could do anything she set her mind to, they used to say.’ Sara grinned, impishly. ‘She could show the men a thing or two and all, if you ask me.’

Edna was peering down at the photograph with a frown. ‘Yes, of course. That’s her all right. David and Huw’s great-grandmother.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And not quite the lady she made herself out to be, according to your mam.’

Sara clucked, louder this time. ‘Mam had very definite ideas of what a lady should be.’

‘Well, she wasn’t from London, like she claimed,’ returned Edna, primly. ‘My aunt Alice was brought up in Whitechapel, and she always said that was no London accent she’d ever heard of.’

‘Well, Hermione Meredith was hardly likely to have come from the east end, was she?’ said Sara, with a rare flash of irritation.

Edna took a step back. ‘I was only saying. And then there was that detective.’

‘Detective?’ Carys stared at her.

‘Oh, yes.’ Edna was clearly enjoying herself. ‘Private detective he said he was. Well, at least, that’s what my mam always said.’

‘Oh, so it wasn’t recently,’ said Carys, disappointed.

‘Oh, no. Mam was a little girl at the time. 1912, it must have been. She remembered it, because it was the time when the newspapers were full of all the stories of the
Titanic
sinking. And there was this man, asking questions. And all the children were told not to say anything to him about Mrs Meredith. Not a word. Mam said it was because of the Children’s Hospital.’

‘David’s great-grandmother
did
build a Children’s Hospital in Pont-ar-Eden,’ put in Gwynfor, who had left the rest of his charges and was listening intently. ‘It’s still there. It became the community centre after the last war.’

‘Well, there you go.’ Edna was triumphant. ‘And there always was something. You remember Mair, when the boys were small: that producer from the BBC who wanted to make a film about the statues?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mam, who had been watching this exchange with a faintly bemused expression on her face. ‘So there was. Marianne was full of it, for weeks.’

‘Until Paul put his foot down,’ said Edna, darkly. ‘The boys’ mother always got her own way, but not that time.’ She looked around at her watching audience. ‘Haven’t you seen
Who Do You Think You Are?
? Things like that always turn out to have some truth in them. I bet those statues have quite a story to them, somewhere. If you really looked, that is.’

 In the little glade, the statues stood quiet and still under the last flickering of sun. A breeze stirred the leaves now and again, sending shadows racing and the branches into life, with a dry rattle of dead leaves.

‘They are beautiful,’ sighed Carys, gazing round at the blank-eyed faces with their air of neglected melancholy.

‘Whoever made them was certainly skilled,’ David said. Carys glanced at him, hearing the unease in his voice. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. Or at least not that bit about the private detective and David’s great-grandmother having something to hide in her past. It had seemed quite an exciting possibility at the time. A real detective story all ready to be uncovered with a bit of hunting through Ancestry.co.uk. But if it was your family, and you suspected your parents hadn’t wanted anyone to know about it and had rushed off in secret to prevent anyone ever finding out… Carys bit her lip, hard.

‘She certainly understood human nature, too,’ added Rhiannon, who was gazing round at the faces intently. She tugged at a bramble that was daring to arch over Ceridwen’s cauldron, revealing the fiercely exultant face of the old woman. ‘I wonder just how deep that understanding went. And how she came by it.’

‘I’m sure the private detective thing was just a story,’ said Carys. ‘And it was a long time ago. It could hardly matter now.’

‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Rhiannon, however, sounded unconvinced.

There was a moment’s silence. Squirrels dashed to and fro above their heads, pausing every now and then to chatter angrily at Hodge, who was busily engaged in trying to work out where his latest quarry had vanished to, and was dashing from tree to tree as if there just had to be a solution to this mystery somewhere.

‘Except that Mum and Dad were obviously trying to find out something. Something they felt might upset Nainie and wanted to keep secret,’ David said at last. He was frowning into the face of King Arthur. ‘Suppose it really was something to do with Great-Grandmother Hermione and the statues?’

‘I suppose it could be,’ said Rhiannon. ‘Although I don’t see how we are ever going to find out now.’

‘I suppose.’ He seemed lost in thought. ‘D’you know, I never thought about it before, but looking at all those old photographs, that looks so like Dad.’

Rhiannon jumped slightly. ‘What does?’

‘King Arthur. Dad when he was young, I mean.’

She joined him and peered at the face. ‘I suppose he does. Funny how you can look at a thing for most of your life and not really see it. But I can’t see how it could be. Unless it was a portrait of your grandfather when he was young, of course. Or maybe even your great-grandfather, come to that.’

‘So could any of the others be portraits of the Merediths too, in that case?’ said Carys.

‘I suppose they could.’ Rhiannon frowned. ‘I’d need to have another look at the family photographs. I met some of the family at Paul and Marianne’s wedding, and later, of course, but I can’t say I really knew any of them well.’

‘It would be fascinating if they were,’ said Carys.

David stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘Unfinished business,’ he muttered, under his breath. ‘That’s what Nainie used to say sometimes, after that last stroke, wasn’t it, Rhiannon? I always felt she was trying to tell us something.’

‘Yes,’ replied Rhiannon, quietly. ‘But Nainie struggled with her speech and her memory during those last years: we don’t know for sure she meant anything to do with the statues.’

Carys cleared her throat. ‘Look, I started this.’

‘You didn’t set out to,’ said Rhiannon.

‘But I still started it, when I went looking for the photographs for Mam.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Gwenan’s coming to stay with Mam next week. I need to go back to Chester for a few days. Work stuff,’ she explained to two faintly enquiring, too-polite–to-ask glances. A girl has some pride, and the split with Joe was too recent, too viscerally painful, to open up to others’ scrutiny. And especially not when David Meredith was about.

David, she noticed, was watching her rather too closely for comfort, almost as if trying to read her mind. She pulled herself together. ‘Anyhow, the thing is that I was thinking of going to Devon for a few days after I’ve finished. Clear my head a bit, you know? A couple of days in Cornwall, doing a bit of private investigating, sounds good to me.’

‘You mean, find this Treverick place?’ said Rhiannon.

Carys nodded. ‘That seems to be where the answers might lie. Or at least, that’s what the Merediths thought. And isn’t it weird that neither of you had seen a photograph of Treverick Hall until I found the postcard in Mam’s attic? Surely the postcard should have been in Plas Eden, not at Willow Cottage at all.’

David toyed with a cluster of fallen leaves around his foot. ‘Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. There might be something in Eden, I suppose.’

Rhiannon shook her head. ‘There was nothing amongst your Dad’s stuff, or Nainie’s. You’re right, Carys; you would have expected at least something.’

Carys walked over to gaze at the statue of Blodeuwedd. She wasn’t more than a girl, she thought. A teenager. Sixteen, seventeen? Eighteen, at the most. That moment – if you’re lucky – before life touches you at all. Innocent.

A double-edged sword, innocence. Sometimes it can mean being so protected, so open to the world, you’ve no idea there is pain and suffering, or how cruel your fellow human beings can be. Carys found herself shivering.

‘It might not have anything to do with this Treverick Hall,’ David was saying dubiously. ‘And nobody seems to have been able to find out anything about a Treverick Hall on the internet.’

‘Except Treverick was where your Mum and Dad were going.’

‘Yes.’ David sounded thoughtful. ‘Dad did go to serious lengths to find out something, and not to let Nainie know he was looking at all.’

‘Looking at Treverick Hall,’ said Carys.

David met her eyes. Something was troubling Carys and he knew for a fact this return to Chester wasn’t anything to do with her work. It couldn’t be. Not with that fragile, deeply wounded feeling he sensed wrestling inside her. No, this was far more personal. She obviously needed company, he told himself. Someone to look after her, if she needed it. As a friend, of course. And who better than someone she’d known for most of her life?

It was the least a friend could do, David told himself. Just be there for her. The fact that it might give the two of them a chance to get to know each other again, far away from the looming distraction of Plas Eden – well, that was purely coincidental. Nothing to do with it at all.

He took a deep breath. ‘Are you really sure you want to go?’

She nodded. ‘You bet.’

‘Then I’d like to come with you.’ He caught the look of dismay that crossed her face. Not exactly flattering. His pride told him to walk away and just let her get on with it. The rest of him dug its heels in. This was, without doubt, a last chance. Let her go now, he sensed, and he’d be letting her go forever. Even if, at the end of the time, they both knew that they had grown too far apart for it ever to work, at least then the question would be answered, and they could both get on with their lives. Besides, he was a Meredith, and a Meredith never gave up that easily.

Carys cursed inwardly. She knew he probably meant well – and it was his family, after all – but this was the last thing she needed. Why had she opened her big mouth in the first place?

It had been hard enough persuading Gwenan to take charge of Mam for a week, and even harder persuading Mam to accept the arrangement, but Carys – feeling horribly guilty – had persisted. She wasn’t ready to tell either of them the sordid failures of her personal life, or face the inevitable questions. First, she needed to retrieve her things from the flat and make the final break with Joe. Most of all, she needed time to herself to get her head back together. A bit of space, a bit of time on her own to do some wound-licking and regain a bit of self-esteem in the process.

A few days investigating the realities of finding affordable land in Devon had seemed a good project. Looking to the future. One step closer to deciding where her ultimate destiny lay. The last thing she needed was David Meredith. Not to mention any sentimental view of the past he might have lurking in the background. He was a man, after all, she muttered to herself, and she was seriously off all men: now, and forever. Unless Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall happened to be passing, of course.

‘Don’t feel you have to,’ she said, knowing she sounded horribly stilted. She didn’t dare glance at Rhiannon, who was probably viewing the whole thing as some deep plot to get David on his own, away from Plas Eden, just so Carys could lure him into her lair with who-knows-what feminine whiles and return, ring safely on her finger. The mere thought sent her scarlet with mortification.

‘I’d like to,’ replied David. ‘If it really was something about the statues that Mum and Dad were trying to find, then I feel I’d like to finish it, if you see what I mean.’

‘Oh.’ There was no argument to that. ‘In that case, yes, that’s fine.’

‘Great,’ said David quickly, before she could change her mind again. ‘Why don’t I meet you in Chester? It seems pointless to take two cars. We can book rooms at the Treverick Arms. At least that still exists.’

‘Um, yes. Of course.’ Carys had an uncomfortable sensation of being swept along, despite herself. Oh, what the hell. At least he seemed to have got the point: ‘rooms’ was unmistakably in the plural. She hoped Rhiannon had noted this, too.

She discovered Rhiannon was watching them both intently. ‘What about Huw? What are you going to tell him?’

‘He doesn’t need to know,’ replied David, firmly. ‘Not unless we really find something. He’ll only disapprove. And what’s the point of upsetting him if there’s nothing there?’

‘So you’re intending to keep this a secret?’ Rhiannon sounded uneasy. ‘Like Paul and Marianne, all those years ago.’

David blinked. ‘But that was an accident. Everybody said it was an accident. Wrong time, wrong place. One of those things. It couldn’t have been anything else.’

‘No, of course not.’ But the unease was still there in Rhiannon’s voice.

The last of the light was by now fading from under the trees.

‘I’d better get back,’ said Carys. ‘Mam’ll start to wonder where I am.’

‘I’ll walk back with you,’ said David. ‘I want to get to Low-Price before it shuts. Milk, wasn’t it, Rhiannon. Anything else?’

‘Not unless you spot anything particularly exciting for tea.’

‘Okay. Do you want me to take Hodge?’

‘No, you’re fine.’ Rhiannon bent down to stroke the head resting quietly at her knee. ‘He had a good walk this morning. I’ll take him back with me and get him and the cats fed, so we can have peace and quiet when you get back.’

‘Fine by me,’ said David. ‘And the company is never of the best outside Low-Price this time of night. Might lead you into bad habits, Hodge.’

 

For a while, David and Carys made their way in silence.

Then David cleared his throat. ‘Your mam seems much better, when I’ve seen her in the Boadicea?’

‘Yes, she is. It seems to have taken a long time, but it feels as if she’s beginning to turn the corner. She’s started washing up and peeling potatoes. I think she’s determined to get back to being independent.’

‘Still, I expect she feels better having you here.’

‘Yes, I suppose she does.’ Carys gave a rueful smile. ‘Although I’m not sure we’d last very long in the same house once she’s well enough to take charge again. And Gwenan’s finally persuaded her she needs a permanent home help. So, for the moment at least, she should be able to cope on her own.’

‘Right.’ He eyed her sideways in the faint orange glow of the nearest street lamp, as they approached the village. ‘Merlin was mentioning about leasing the land around Eden Farm.’

‘Oh?’ murmured Carys. Merlin was nothing if not a fast worker, then.

‘Mmm. He said something about you maybe renting part of the land for a bit? Setting up your own business?’

‘Yes.’ Carys avoided his eyes. Damn. This hadn’t given David the wrong idea, had it? That she was staying in
Pont-ar-Eden
to be close to Plas Eden and to him? ‘I’m considering my options, that’s all. Setting up a business of my own is what I’ve wanted to do for years. My first choice was Devon, before Mam got ill. It still could be. I was just exploring possibilities up here in case Mam needs me for a bit longer.’