The Rose Garden (37 page)

I would know, and remember, and that was enough.

A breath of wind brushed past my face and brought the scent of woodsmoke with it from the kitchen hearth.

I looked back once at Oliver and Claire. Claire’s cheeks were wet but she was smiling as she gave a nod and mouthed the word ‘goodbye’.

I thought I heard the words ‘come back’ as well, but whether it was Oliver or Daniel who had spoken them I couldn’t tell. My face by then was turning to the warm light of the open doorway and the man who stood within it, waiting for me.

Gaining substance by the second.

Wordlessly he stretched his hand towards me, and I saw his smile.

And with a smile, I went to him.

The End

Polgelly is the Cornwall of my memory. But it bears a strong resemblance to the village of Polperro, as it was when I first saw it in the summer that remains the brightest bead in all my string of childhood memories. And Trelowarth owes its heritage to Landaviddy Manor, on the hill above Polperro, where my sister and I shared a room that looked towards the sea.

I’ve changed the names, in part because it
is
a work of memory and in part because I’ve changed the landscape and the house to suit my story’s needs: I’ve left The Hill exactly where it should be, but I’ve moved the cottage and the beach, and added in the Beacon and the Wild Wood and the gardens.

In my building of the latter, I’m indebted to the kind and generous help of Stewart and Rebecca Pocock, award-winning owners of both Pocock’s Roses of Hampshire and The Cornish Rose Company of Mitchell, near Truro, who were constantly encouraging and patient with their guidance, as was Lara Crisp, my UK editor, who helped me prune the deadwood from my manuscript to let it take the shape that it was meant to be.

I’m thankful as well for the help of my friend, fellow writer Liz Fenwick, who from her Cornish home took time to help me get my details right.

The years stand still for no one, but I’ve always felt a magic in the crossing of the Tamar, and I like to think perhaps some future traveler to Polperro, having climbed The Hill, may hear a burst of laughter from the lawn of Landaviddy Manor, high above the sea, and glimpse the shadows of two sisters still at play there, in another time.

Read on for a preview of

Mariana

By Susanna Kearsley

Coming April 2012

from Sourcebooks Landmark

This time, the final time, it was early April, two months shy of my thirtieth birthday, and—for once—I was not lost. I still lived in London, in a tiny rented flat in Bloomsbury that I had become rooted to, in spite of an unexpectedly generous legacy left to me by my father’s Aunt Helen, that same aunt we’d been visiting in Exeter all those years earlier. She’d only seen me twice, had Auntie Helen, so why she had chosen to leave me such an obscene amount of money remained a mystery. Perhaps it was because I was the only girl in a family known for its male progeny. Auntie Helen, according to my father, had been possessed of staunchly feminist views. ‘A room of your own,’ Tom had told me, in a decided tone. ‘That’s what she’s left you. Haven’t you read Virginia Woolf?’

It was rather more than the price of a room, actually, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with it. Tom had stoutly refused my offer to share the inheritance, and my parents maintained they had no need of it, being comfortably well-off themselves since my father’s retirement from surgical practice. So that was that.

I had quite enough to occupy my time, as it was, having shifted careers from graphic design to illustration, a field I found both more interesting and more lucrative. By some stroke of luck I had been teamed early on with a wonderfully talented author, and our collaboration on a series of fantasy tales for children had earned me a respectable name for myself in the business, not to mention a steady living. I had just that week been commissioned to illustrate a sizeable new collection of legends and fairy tales from around the world, a project that excited me greatly and promised to keep me busily employed for the better part of a year. I was on top of the world.

Ordinarily, I’d have celebrated my good fortune with my family, but since my parents were halfway round the world on holiday and Tom was occupied with Easter services, I had settled for the next best thing and spent the weekend with friends in Bath. On the Monday morning, finding the traffic on the main road too busy for my taste, I detoured to the north and followed the gentle sweep of the Kennet River towards London.

It was a cool but perfect spring day, and the trees that lined the road were bursting into leaf with an almost tropical fervour. In honour of the season, I drove with the windows down, and the air smelt sweetly of rain and soil and growing things.

My arthritic but trustworthy Peugeot crested a small hill with a protesting wheeze. Gathering speed, I negotiated a broad curve where the road dipped down into a shallow valley before crossing over the Kennet via a narrow stone bridge. As I bumped across the bridge, I felt a faint tingling sensation sweep across the back of my neck, and my fingers tightened on the wheel in anticipation.

The most surprising thing was that I wasn’t at all surprised, this time, to see the house. Somehow, I almost expected it to be there.

I slowed the car to a crawl, then pulled off the road and stopped altogether, just opposite the long gravel drive. A large ginger cat stalked haughtily across the road without so much as glancing at me, and disappeared into the waving grass. Three times in one lifetime, I told myself, even without the cat, was definitely beyond the bounds of ordinary coincidence.

Surely, I reasoned, whoever owned the house wouldn’t mind terribly if I just took a casual peek around…? As I hesitated, biting my lip, a flock of starlings rose in a beating cloud from the field beside me, gathered and wheeled once above the grey stone house, and then was gone.

For me, that was the deciding factor. Along with my mother’s looks, I had also inherited the superstitious nature of her Cornish ancestors, and the starlings were a good-luck omen of my own invention. From my earliest childhood, whenever I had seen a flock of them it meant that something wonderful was about to happen. My brother Tom repeatedly tried to point out the flaw in this belief, by reminding me that starlings in the English countryside were not exactly uncommon, and that their link to my happiness could only be random at best. I remained unconvinced. I only knew that the starlings had never steered me wrong, and watching them turn now and rise above the house, I suddenly made a decision.

I grabbed my shapeless green anorak from the seat beside me and stepped out of the car, nearly tumbling into the ditch in my eagerness. I wasn’t exactly dressed to go visiting, I admitted, tugging the anorak on over my jeans and rough sweater—but that couldn’t be helped. I ran a hand through my hair in a hopeless attempt to smooth the short, unruly curls, but the damply blowing wind spoilt my efforts.

Now, I thought, what excuse to use? Directions? A glass of water? Trouble with the car? I glanced back at the dented and battered Peugeot and nodded. Car trouble, I decided. Anyone would believe that. Mentally rehearsing my lines, I crossed the road and started up the gravel drive. A cracked and weathered signboard bearing the words ‘Strictly Private’ in faded red paint hung dejectedly from a nail in a nearby tree. Undaunted, I soldiered on, hoping that my footsteps didn’t sound as crunchingly loud to the people inside as they did to my own ears.

The house looked exactly as I remembered it—the same red chimneys with their clay chimney pots; the same symmetrically positioned white windows, four panes over four; the same rough-hewn grey stone walls under the steep slate roof. The only thing different was the door. I had always imagined it to be brown, but now I saw that it was clearly dark green, standing out in sharp contrast to the massive stone portal that surrounded it.

My knocking echoed heavily with a dull and hollow sound. Three times I bruised my knuckles against the heavy wood, before finally conceding that no one was coming to answer the door.

Which meant there was nobody home. And, I told myself happily, since there was nobody home, it followed that no one would be disturbed if I went round to the back of the house and looked in a few windows. Having thus rationalised my trespassing, I retraced my steps to the drive and followed it round the north side of the house.

Here the drive ended abruptly at a squat, low-slung stone building with a weedy thatched roof. Presumably this had once been the stables, but the bumper of a car protruding from one of the open stalls left no doubt as to its present use.

The view from where I stood, looking across the level farmlands and gently undulating downs, broken here and there by clusters of dark-green trees and wild shrubs, was truly beautiful. There was no yard as such, although a tumbled heap of stone a hundred feet or so behind the house looked as if it might once have been part of a boundary wall. And though I had counted three oaks, a fruit tree, and several shrubs at the front, the only bit of vegetation growing close against the back wall of the house was a solitary poplar with gnarled bark, its silvery-green branches trembling in the breeze.

There was another dark-green door here, with an old-fashioned latch, and another double row of white-painted windows. Beneath what I assumed must be the kitchen window, someone had piled a precarious stack of ancient flowerpots, their sides encrusted with thick black moss from lack of use. I stretched on tiptoe and leant closer, cupping one hand against the glass to shield my eyes against the reflected glare of the sun. It
was
a window to the kitchen, or perhaps the pantry. I could just make out a shelf of tinned goods and an old porcelain sink. I was angling my head for a better look when a man’s voice spoke suddenly out of the air behind me.

‘He’s not there.’

It was a friendly voice, with a faintly un-English burr to it, and had come from some distance away. But I didn’t register any of that immediately. I spun round, startled, and sent the pile of flowerpots crashing to the ground.

At first I could see no one, but as I stood there staring, the figure of a man detached itself from the tumbled stone wall and came across the grass towards me. He was a young man, perhaps five years my senior, dressed in rough working clothes and wearing leather gauntlets that looked oddly medieval and out of place.

‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he apologised. ‘I just thought, if you’re looking for Eddie, he’s not there.’

He was quite close now, close enough for me to clearly see the combination of auburn hair and flint-grey eyes that is, somehow, so distinctively Scottish. He smiled, a friendly smile that matched the voice.

‘Are you a friend of Eddie’s?’ he asked.

I shook my head.

‘A relative, then.’

‘No.’ To my credit, I blushed a little. I had a hunch my tale of phony car trouble would not make it past those shrewd grey eyes. ‘No, I don’t know the owner. Will he be back soon, do you know?’

The man tilted his head to one side and gave me a long, measuring look that rather reminded me of my brother.

‘I hope not,’ he said evenly. ‘We buried him last month.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I blushed deeper. ‘I really am sorry.’

‘No harm done.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re just having a poke about, then?’

My face, by this time, was crimson, and I had a feeling that he was enjoying my obvious discomfort. It took a moment, but the full importance of what he’d just told me finally sank in, and I abruptly forgot my embarrassment.

I lifted my eyes quickly. ‘Is the house for sale, then?’

‘Aye. Did you want to have a look at it?

‘I want to buy it. I’ve waited twenty-five years for this house.’

The man raised a russet eyebrow, and for some absurd reason I found myself babbling out the whole story of ‘The House and I’, to which he listened with admirable patience. I can’t imagine he found it very interesting. When I’d finished my childish narrative, his level gaze met mine for a second time, and the resemblance to my brother was even more pronounced.

‘Well, then,’ he said solemnly, ‘you’d best see Mr Ridley in the High Street. I’ve not got my own keys with me, or I’d show you round myself.’ He stripped off one gauntlet and extended a hand in greeting. ‘I’m Iain Sumner, by the way.’

‘Julia Beckett.’ I must have altered my expression at the sight of his hand, because he smiled again, looking down at the tiny lacerations marring his skin.

‘Brambles,’ he explained. ‘They’d choke out my garden if I didn’t thin them back. It’s not painful,’ he assured me, pulling the glove back on. ‘I’d best be getting back to my work. Good luck with the house.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, but he was already out of earshot.

Five minutes later I was sitting in the offices of Ridley and Stewart, Estate Agents. I confess I don’t remember much about that afternoon. I do recall a confusing blur of conversation, with Mr Ridley rambling on about legal matters, conveyances and searches and the like, but I wasn’t really listening.

‘You’re quite certain,’ Mr Ridley had asked me, ‘that you don’t want to view the property first?’

‘I’ve seen it,’ I’d assured him. To be honest, there seemed no need for such formalities. It was, after all, my house. My house. I was still hugging the knowledge tightly, as a child hugs a present, when I knocked on the door of the rectory of St Stephen’s, Elderwel, Hampshire, that evening.

‘Congratulate me, Vicar.’ I beamed up at my brother’s startled face. ‘We’re practically neighbours. I just bought a house in Wiltshire.’

1. The first known time-travel story appeared in the year 720, in a Japanese book called the
Nihongi
, and many other writers since then have explored the concept. What do you think is the reason for the enduring appeal of time-travel stories?

2. Stephen Hawking, in his essay “How to Build a Time Machine,” says: “Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labeled a crank. But these days I’m not so cautious… I do believe in time travel.” Does knowing that noted physicists like Hawking accept the fact of time as a fourth dimension make the whole idea of time travel seem more believable to you, or do you feel it’s all a fantasy?

3. Fergal says of Daniel: “Knowing that the battle will not end the way he wishes does not make it any less worthwhile to fight.” Daniel stays committed to his cause and to his kinsmen, even though it puts himself and those he loves in harm’s way. Do you find this noble or naive?

4. Claire is able to meet her grandparents as young people and be present at the moment they first met. What moment in your own family history would you like to witness if you could?

5. Katrina remains an unseen extra character throughout the story. How do you think she influences Eva’s actions, and where did you sense this most strongly?

6. Eva’s appearance is never described in the novel, except for the length of her hair. Did you notice this? Did it affect your ability to “see” her? Why do you think that the author chose not to describe her?

7. What do you think is likely to be the biggest challenge for Eva in her new life; the biggest adjustment she’ll have to make? What would you find most difficult about living in the early eighteenth century?

8. One of the reasons that some scientists, including Hawking, think that time travel to the past is less likely to happen and more problematic than travel to the future, has to do with paradoxes and the problems they create: the chance that a time traveler might meet a former version of himself or somehow change the way the future is meant to happen. In
The Rose Garden
, Daniel dismisses this idea outright. His view is that nothing Eva does in the past can change the future, and her own experience seems to bear this out. What did you think of this departure from the usual rules of time travel? How did you feel about Daniel’s belief that our lives are predestined, that what happens to us is just meant to happen?

9. In the past, Fergal steps in to become Eva’s mentor and confidant. Which character do you think fills these roles in the present?

10. Even though she knew what Eva was going through, Claire purposely stayed out of things and didn’t interfere. Do you think she took the right approach? Is there any way she could have made things easier for Eva? How might the story have changed if she’d been more involved?

11. The love scenes in this book (and in all of Susanna Kearsley’s books) are decidedly G-rated. Do you like this approach, or do you prefer the bedroom door to be left open? Can a love story with no sex still be sexy?

12. The historical account of the attempt to raise a Jacobite rebellion force in Cornwall is true, and the events of the past story are played out against an actual historical timeline, even using some real people, like the traitorous Colonel Maclean. Does it change the way you read a story when you know that some of the events really happened? Do you find it a strength or a weakness in fiction?

13. Do you think historical fiction is a valid and useful way of learning about history? Were there any bits of history you learned from this book that you didn’t know before?

14. Apart from her feelings for Daniel, why do you think Eva felt more at home in the past than the present? Did you notice any differences in the way she fit into or was treated in the two different Trelowarths?

15. At the end of the book, Eva is very certain and confident that she and Daniel will be able to build a life together in the past. Do you share her confidence? What qualities do you think she and Daniel each bring to the relationship that will help make it a success?

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