Eden's Garden (30 page)

‘Yes,’ replied Carys. ‘Yes it was.’ He had noticed, she realised, but he was tactfully leaving her in peace. He wasn’t expecting conversation or demanding anything of her. The strength of his arm holding hers and the warmth of his body stealing through her jumper was surprisingly comforting.

‘Makes you wonder what tomorrow might bring,’ David said, as they made their way past the surfers – still beautiful, even in the dark – downing pints on the sea wall, talking surf, the wave that got away, the relative merits of the south and north Cornish Coasts, and was Watergate Bay, like, the Most Awesome Place Out There?

‘Mmm,’ replied Carys, too drained and exhausted even to think, as they finally reached the hotel.

 ‘Karenza’s Field of Flowers’ said the sign, as Carys pulled up the next morning outside a low, whitewashed building set amongst the rolling green countryside just inland from Mevagissey.

She had woken up with a thumping headache and puffy eyes, but a couple of painkillers and breakfast with strong coffee had soon chased them away. Now she felt calm and energised, as if last night’s tears had washed away the raw edge of her hurt, enabling her to begin moving forward at last.

‘Rhiannon would love this,’ David remarked, looking round at the brightly coloured hanging baskets overflowing with the hot reds and pinks of geranium and busy Lizzies, intermingled with the bright blues of lobelia. Reaching up towards the hanging baskets, late delphiniums stood amongst a riot of orange and yellow nasturtiums, with the green heads of sedum just turning to their autumn russet.

‘Rhiannon’s idea of heaven,’ Carys agreed, with a smile. Through an archway of jasmine and honeysuckle, she glimpsed row upon row of late summer flowers, bordered by greenhouses at the far end.

‘Hi, you must be Carys.’ A woman with dark hair, caught away from her face by a green silk scarf, looked up as they stepped through the door. She abandoned her row of coleus and aloe vera plants next to a large reception desk, and came towards them, wiping her hands on her jeans. ‘And you must be David Meredith. I’m Karenza Treverick. Pleased to meet you.’ At which point, the phone rang, temporarily ending all possibility of conversation.

‘It’s okay, Karenza. Got it,’ called a young man in a stripy jumper of the hand-knitted and every colour of the rainbow variety, appearing and settling himself down at the reception desk. ‘Karenza’s Field of Flowers. How may I help you?’ he declared into the mouthpiece, ready to lead any bride – or mother of bride – gently but firmly down the path to Karenza’s door and nowhere else.

‘Come through,’ mouthed Karenza, leading them through an archway divided from the reception area by a curtain screen made up of strands of tiny shells. ‘Sorry, it gets a bit hectic in there,’ she added, as they made their way through a room with two stone sinks side by side, and shelf upon shelf of rolls of wire of every thickness imaginable and every colour of ribbon. A higher shelf contained jars of beads, tiny bows and sequins, swathes of silk, a vase bursting with peacock feathers and a papier mache pumpkin that grinned at them in a slightly vacant fashion, as if embarrassed to find itself there at all. A heady scent of freesias filled the air.

‘I hope we’re not interrupting,’ said Carys, feeling a little foolish. Had she really forgotten that it was all very well for those on holiday to go around asking questions about a family from long ago, but in the real world everybody worked, and anyone running their own business was usually rushed off their feet.

‘No, not at all.’ Karenza smiled. ‘Ed loves being in charge. I set up Field of Flowers a couple of years ago, so I’ve only recently been able to afford to take on staff. Growing the flowers and helping people choose the look they want is the bit I love. Ed was a real find. He’s a born salesman, and he’s worked with plants since he was sixteen so he really knows his stuff.’ She grinned. ‘It gives me the luxury of a bit of free time. I’ll make a cup of tea, and then we can sit out here, and you can show me this article.’

She led them to a gravel area overlooking the banks of flowers and the greenhouses. A large round table surrounded by chairs stood just outside the door to a small kitchen.

‘My consulting area,’ Karenza explained cheerfully, leaving the kettle to boil and returning to join them.

‘It’s beautiful,’ sighed Carys, just a little wistfully, gazing out over the sea of flowers in front of them. The gravel area was edged with a low hedge of lavender that sent up its rich fragrance in the warmth of the sun.

‘It was a mess when I bought it.’ Karenza gave the grimace of hard work well remembered. ‘The previous owners had kept pigs and chickens and a few goats. Most of the back there was completely overgrown. I’m sure I’ve still got the scars of brambles in places.’

‘Did you clear it yourself, then?’ asked David. After yesterday’s adventures, he had expected Karenza Treverick to be a white-haired lady pushing seventy-five at least, not this tanned, energetic young woman, of about thirty-five.

Karenza nodded. ‘Every single last bit. I’m not sure I’d do it again. But at the time I reckoned I could do brute force and ignorance myself, and save my cash for stuff like the building work and putting up the greenhouses.’

‘Was it something you always wanted to do?’ asked Carys.

Karenza’s dark eyes rested on hers for a moment. ‘Yes. I suppose it was. But I thought it was a childhood dream. Funny, really. I always thought my life was in New Zealand, not here. But then when my husband and I split, it seemed like a new start. It might have been different if we’d had kids, but I didn’t really have ties back there. Apart from friends, of course.’ She smiled at Carys. ‘I suppose, deep down, I knew it was my only chance to do what I really wanted with my life.’ Her eyes rested on the green of the fields on either side, with the distant hint of the sea. ‘And maybe home is always home, after all.’

‘So you grew up here?’ said David.

‘Not here exactly.’ Karenza smiled at him. ‘I lived in Treverick until I was fifteen. The village, not the Hall,’ she added. ‘Then my parents emigrated to New Zealand.’ From inside came the click of the kettle as it boiled. ‘It seems a lifetime ago,’ she added, as she went inside, returning a few moments later with a tray containing a teapot and cups, which she set down in the middle of the table with a practised air. ‘When you called, you said you were researching the Trevericks,’ she reminded them, pouring tea.

‘Yes,’ said Carys.

‘In a way,’ said David.

‘Oh?’ Karenza handed them their cups. ‘So you think we might be related in some way?’

‘Not me,’ said Carys. ‘But the Merediths might be.’

‘Really?’ Karenza’s eyes searched Carys’ face. ‘You’re not a Meredith, then.’

Carys blinked. ‘No. We’re not related.’ There was something in Karenza’s glance that was making her slightly uneasy. ‘Well, apart from the fact that my family were David’s family’s servants, that is,’ she added lightly, to break the mood.

‘Head gardener hardly counts as a servant,’ David retorted.

‘No, indeed,’ said Karenza with a smile. ‘I’d never call a gardener a servant. I thought I recognised a fellow plant addict,’ she added to Carys. ‘So it runs in the blood, then.’

‘My grandfather,’ Carys explained. ‘My dad too, for a while. And my mother swears there was always an Evans running the gardens at Plas Eden, ever since Roman times. Although I’m not sure Celtic tribes had head gardeners.’

Karenza laughed. ‘So does this mean you found a Treverick in your family tree?’ she asked, turning to David.

He shook his head. ‘Not a name,’ he said.

‘I found this postcard of Treverick Hall in my mother’s attic,’ said Carys, pulling out the postcard. ‘No one had ever mentioned it before.’

Karenza fished out a pair of purple-rimmed reading glasses, with a jaunty leaf motif etched down each arm, and peered at the photograph. ‘Oh so that’s what it looked like.’ She pulled a face. ‘Dad always said it was a monstrosity. I can see why they all fought over the money and wouldn’t touch the place. Thank heaven for the British inheritance rules. I’d have hated to have ended up responsible for keeping an old mausoleum like that in one piece. The men are welcome to it.’ She looked up again. ‘So this was what started it?’

Carys bit her lip. She glanced towards David, aware Karenza was following her every move.

‘No,’ he said, slowly. ‘It was my parents who seemed to think there was a connection, years ago. We’re sort of following in their footsteps.’

‘So they didn’t find anything?’

David shook his head. ‘They didn’t have the chance.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There was an accident. Their train was derailed. They were both killed outright.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s okay,’ said David, awkwardly. ‘It was a long time ago.’

Karenza gazed down at the postcard in her hand, as if lost in thought. ‘Rhiannon,’ she said, at last.

Carys jumped. David set his cup down a little too hard, spilling tea over the table, where it ran in milky rivulets away from them and dripped bit by bit onto the gravel. ‘How do you know Rhiannon?’

‘I don’t.’ Karenza looked up again. ‘At least, I’ve never met her. Who is she?’

‘My aunt,’ said David. ‘My mother’s sister. She looked after my brother and me when our parents were killed.’

‘That makes sense.’ Absently, Karenza reached for a cloth and mopped up the spilt tea. ‘I did wonder after Carys phoned me. It was her mentioning the Meredith name. But of course it could easily have been a coincidence.’ She let go of the cloth. ‘My parents ran the Treverick Arms, when I was a child. I used to help them sometimes after school, unofficially of course, when things were really busy. I was the one who took the call, you see.’

‘The call?’ said Carys. ‘From Rhiannon?’

Karenza nodded. ‘I still dream about it sometimes. I suppose it made quite an impression, I must only have been eight or so at the time.’

‘So what happened?’ asked David.

‘It was a particularly busy weekend for some reason. Mum was run ragged with the B&B. There were phone calls every half hour or so with people wanting to book. She was furious that two of the guests hadn’t turned up that Saturday night. No message. Nothing. She could have let the room five times over, you see. The phone rang, and I picked it up.’ Karenza began to fold the cloth carefully into tiny squares. ‘I don’t suppose it registered that she was speaking to a child. She was so calm, I remember. That was the worst bit. Hearing her voice keeping so steady and practical and trying to explain something so terrible and sort everything out, and all the time you could tell that inside she was falling apart. She offered to pay for the room. Mum wouldn’t take anything, of course.’ She looked up at David. ‘So that was your aunt.’

‘Yes.’

Karenza’s eyes searched his face. ‘You can’t have been very old at the time.’

‘I was nine. My brother’s a couple of years younger.’

‘What an awful thing to have happened.’ She placed the cloth carefully on a spare chair, and smoothed it gently. ‘I lost my parents within six months of each other when I was in my late twenties. That was hard enough. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to lose them both so instantly like that, and so young. I’m sorry.’

‘You okay?’ It was Carys, her voice low as Karenza returned to the kitchen, murmuring something about more tea.

‘Fine,’ he replied, smiling at her. ‘It just brought it back, that’s all.’ He traced the pattern of veins in the botanical drawing of a Morning Glory bloom on his mug with one finger. ‘Huw and me, we lived such privileged lives in Plas Eden. Big house. Money. The best education money could buy. Nothing to worry about. But it doesn’t matter who you are or where you live when something like that happens.’ He brought out the copy of the newspaper article from his pocket with a slight shudder. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like to lose a child like that.’

‘No,’ agreed Carys, quietly.

‘Is that it?’ said Karenza, returning with a fresh pot of tea. ‘The article you were talking about?’

‘Yes,’ said Carys. ‘We made several copies while we were there. This one is for you.’

‘Thank you. That was really thoughtful. I’ll read it properly later. I’m not very good with things like that. I’m just bound to cry.’ Karenza looked down at the article. ‘No wonder there were always stories about the Trevericks being cursed. I suppose that’s what got to Dad in the end. He’d always rubbished that idea of a curse. But I think it must have been your parents being killed like that, David, on their way to find out more about the family that finally got to him. He started talking about New Zealand only weeks afterwards, I seem to remember.’

‘So did they say what they were looking for, then?’ asked David.

‘They must have done. They must have spoken to Mum about it when they made their booking.’ She frowned, searching her memory. ‘In fact, I’m certain. I can remember Mum and Dad talking about it afterwards.’

‘It was definitely something to do with the Trevericks?’

Karenza nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I remember Dad saying they must be mistaken, and they must be thinking of the satyr and the nymph in Treverick Gardens.’ She watched them exchange glances. ‘I take it you’ve been into the gardens?’

‘Yes,’ said David.

‘And got ourselves well and truly spooked,’ added Carys.

Karenza laughed. ‘I can believe that. I’ve been meaning to go and see them now they’re restored. But somehow I never seem to have the time. You know how it is.’ She frowned. ‘Or maybe I didn’t want to spoil the illusion. We used to play there when we were kids,’ she explained. ‘Me and my friends from the village. It was massively overgrown. A proper jungle. The Lost Gardens of Heligan when they were still lost had nothing on Treverick in those days. We used to scare ourselves silly at Halloween. Not that there was anything there, of course. At least, I don’t think so. And anyhow, I always felt that if there were ghosts, they were family and were unlikely to want to hurt me. It was Judith Treverick who is supposed to have designed that waterfall bit and had the nymph and the animals made.’