The French Gardener Part 32

She rushed to the telephone to tell Jean-Paul that the child he had longed for was growing in her belly. A part of him and a part of her, created with love. She opened the address book to find the number of Les Lucioles, but she didn't dial. She stood staring at the page, her enthusiasm shriveling in the harsh glare of reality. What would it achieve? It would only make their situation even more impossible. He'd have every right to claim their child. He had nothing to lose. She, on the other hand, had everything to lose. If she confessed to Phillip, she would risk her own children and create unhappiness for everyone around her. She would hurt the very people she had sacrificed everything to protect. She closed the book. It would have to be her secret. No one must ever know. Phillip would think it was his and the children would accept their new brother or sister without question. She would take the truth to her grave.

The following spring, when daffodils raised their pretty heads and blossom floated on the breeze like confetti, Ava gave birth to a little girl. She insisted on calling her Peach after Jean-Paul's nickname for her. Verity questioned her daughter's state of mind in choosing such a ridiculous name, but Phillip indulged her. He gazed upon his new daughter with pride. According to him, Peach looked just like her mother. Ava was relieved at the baby's blond hair and fair skin, but she saw Jean-Paul in the beauty of her smile. To Ava, every smile was a gift.

x.x.xIV.

The melancholy light of summer's end fills my soul with wistfulness.

London, 2006.

David had never felt lonelier. He had lost everything. Miranda refused to answer his calls. He had written to her, hoping she'd take the time to read his lengthy apology and confessions of stupidity and arrogance. Most of all he missed his children. He tried to keep focused at work, yet Gus's and Storm's inquiring little faces surfaced to flood his heart with shame. He hadn't spoken to Blythe since they had parted at Waterloo Station. He had watched her walk through the crowds of commuters holding Rafael by the hand and had suffered a pang of self-loathing. The people who lost the most were the children. Rafael would never again enjoy a weekend in the hollow tree, and Gus and Storm would never again run around the old ruined castle with their father. Just when he was beginning to enjoy them.

He regretted his arrogance. He had believed he had a right to everything because he worked hard and earned lots of money. But Miranda wasn't one of his chattels like his house and his car, to be added to a list that included mistress and pied-a-terre. He loved her. She was the mother of his children. He was a family man. He'd do anything to put back the clock. Anything.

David had many acquaintances, but there was only one friend he could really talk to. Somerled Macdonald, nick-named Mac, was someone he had known for a very long time. The kind of man he could trust to keep the most shameful of secrets and not think any less of him for it. With honest hazel eyes, the strong, st.u.r.dy body of a gifted sportsman, Mac was reliable and consistent, with a sense of humor that always made the best out of the very worst. Mac's wife, Lottie, had grown close to Miranda over the years they had been married. They had enjoyed weekends shooting on Mac's family estate in Yorks.h.i.+re, and David shared Mac's obsession with rugby and cricket, staying up until the early hours of the morning in Mac's Fulham sitting room to watch the Ashes on the telly. Mac was Gus's G.o.dfather and David was G.o.dfather to Mac and Lottie's son, Alexander. Now it was he who needed a G.o.dfather's wise counsel.

While Lottie was upstairs putting Alexander to bed, David broke down in front of his old friend. "I've been a total b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he said, sitting on the sofa and rubbing his face in his hands. "I've lost everything for what? A meaningless affair!" Mac listened patiently while he recounted his foolishness in a miserable soliloquy. "Miranda's only ever been the perfect wife and look how I've treated her! My mother would say what goes around comes around and I fully deserve to be kicked out." He raised red-rimmed eyes in supplication. "What do I do? Tell me, Mac. How do I get her back?"

Mac sat with his legs crossed, a gla.s.s of lager in his hand, one trouser leg raised to reveal a pair of rugby socks. "You'll get her back, Dave. But she'll make you crawl through the mud first. There's no point going over what's done. It's in the past and you can't change it. The first thing to do is write to her."

"I've done that. I bet she threw my letter in the bin." He took a gulp of whisky.

"I doubt it. If she still loves you, as I bet she does, she'll want to hear your apology. She'll want to hear that you wish it had never happened, that you love her and want her back. How much you value her and the children. How much did you grovel?"

"A lot."

Mac shrugged in his laid-back way. "Putting-your-hands-in-the-mud-to-begin-the-long-crawl-back kind of a lot?"

"Yes, I think so."

Mac grinned and took a swig of lager. "Good. That's a start. Send flowers with a note telling her that she's the only woman in your life. I don't mean a small bunch, fill her kitchen with roses. It's only when you lose someone that you realize how much they mean to you. Use that, it's how you feel right now. If you really want her back you're going to have to fight hard. She's hurt and humiliated. Christ, why you didn't choose someone from another world, I can't imagine! Anyway, that's by the by, you're the father of her children and she's not going to want to lose you either. She'll just want you to suffer as much as she's suffering. Prepare to spend the next ten years of marriage eating humble pie."

"I don't want my kids to see me as a monster. I couldn't bear them to think that..." He put his head in his hands again. The whisky had made him dizzy.

"She's a sensible woman. She's not going to poison her children against you."

"People do stupid things when they're in a corner." He heaved a sigh and sat back against the cus.h.i.+ons. "You know, I've been so one-track minded, thinking about myself and work, I've been a terrible father. I spent weekends watching sports on telly rather than take my kids off to build camps and catch fish. Then I saw the gardener, Jean-Paul, worming his way into my shoes." He laughed bitterly. "I saw him in the vegetable garden with Miranda and the children. The sun was out, the birds chirping in the trees, all they needed was a sodding dog to make it picture-perfect. I realized I was being pushed out of my own family and you know what? It was all my fault. Not Jean-Paul's. G.o.d, he was just doing his job, brilliantly. I distanced myself from Blythe, until she turned up at the office in nothing but a fur coat. After that I resolved to finish it with her and spend more time with my family. I was just beginning to enjoy them when Miranda went and asked her down for the weekend. I didn't continue the affair, I tried to finish it as tactfully as I could. I knew if I made her cross she could spill the beans and ruin everything. Miranda thought I was f.u.c.king her in the greenhouse. That's what it looked like, but it simply wasn't true. G.o.d, I'm stupid."

"Oh, there were plenty of stupid men before you and there'll be plenty of stupid men after you. You're not unique."

"Look at you, Mac," said David admiringly, draining his gla.s.s. "You and Lottie are so strong. Really strong. You're not like me. You've always been self-confident. Happy in your skin. Ever since your school days when you shone on the rugby pitches. I envy you. You'd never be so foolish."

Mac shrugged again. "Everyone makes mistakes. She'll forgive you. Look, here comes my lovely wife."

Lottie descended the stairs with the contented smile of a mother whose child is asleep at last. "Would you like another whisky?" she asked David, looking at him sympathetically. She had heard the whole conversation from Alexander's room above.

"You're close to Miranda, Lottie. Can you talk to her? Persuade her to see me at least." Lottie didn't know whether to play ignorant, or admit that she had listened through the wall. She looked to Mac, who nodded encouragement.

"I couldn't help hearing," she said, taking his gla.s.s to refill. "I'll call Miranda."

David looked relieved. "Thank you, Lottie. You're an angel."

"I can't promise anything."

"I know. But seeing as she won't speak to me at all, you're the only way I can get a message to her."

"And what do you want me to say?"

"That I love her. I'm sorry. I want her back." He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and rubbed his eyes. "I miss her and I miss the kids. I'm in h.e.l.l."

Mac smiled confidently. Lottie would know exactly what to say.

Down at Hartington House, Miranda sat at her desk typing furiously on her laptop. Absorbed by her novel, she was able to block out the horror of her own relations.h.i.+p. Drawing heavily on Ava Lightly's sc.r.a.pbook, Jean-Paul, and her own misery, she found the words spilled out so fast her fingers were barely able to keep up. She had written one hundred and ten thousand words and to her surprise it was lyrical and pa.s.sionate, intelligent and gripping. In spite of the collapse of her marriage, she felt optimistic that at least something good would come out of her unhappiness. Notwithstanding her distraction, she was aware once again of the softly pervading scent of orange blossom.

Miranda took consolation in Jean-Paul. He listened as she cried in his sitting room, recounting how she and David had met, courted and married. He encouraged her to dwell on the things she loved about him. The good times they had enjoyed. The reasons they had married in the first place. She agreed that the cracks were already there in London; the distance imposed upon them after they moved to the country had only deepened them. In London she had been so busy with her own life she had barely noticed. Suddenly, at Hartington, they had all settled in without him; she had grown accustomed to being on her own, and a coolness had swept in through those cracks like a silky breeze. She longed to tell Jean-Paul that she had fallen in love with him, but she was ashamed. He was so dignified, she dared not cause him embarra.s.sment.

Miranda wrote obsessively. She wrote at night once the children were in bed, until the early hours of the morning when the sound of waking birds and the watery light of dawn tumbled into her study to remind her of the time. She wrote until her eyes stung and her eyelids grew heavy. During the day she was able to work because the children were out with Jean-Paul. To them, nothing had changed. They seemed to accept that their father was unable to come down due to work. Gus looked up at her with dark, suspicious eyes, but she was able to convince him that in spite of their argument, Mummy and Daddy were friends again. Jean-Paul took them riding on Jeremy's horses, up onto the hill from where they could see the sea. He gazed on the horizon remembering that enchanted day when it had rained and he and Ava had sought shelter beneath the trees.

Jean-Paul was proud of the gardens. With the help of Mr. Underwood and Miranda, he had brought them back to their former glory. There were still s.p.a.ces to plant things and some shrubs would take a few seasons to grow to their full promise, but they had recaptured some of the magic. The place no longer felt soulless. He walked up the path that snaked through the cottage garden towards the dovecote and felt Ava there among the roses and lilies. Sometimes, when he sat on the bench that surrounded the mountain ash, he thought he could smell the sweet scent of orange blossom. He could close his eyes and feel her sitting beside him, congratulating him on the garden, admiring the flowers as she had admired his painting when he had first designed it. Those times were bittersweet. He would blink back tears and wonder whether he had wasted his life waiting for her, when he could have moved on, married someone else and had children. He would watch Gus and Storm playing in the garden as Archie, Angus and Poppy had done twenty-six years before, and yearn for what he had never had.

David's letter was five pages long and full of apologies, of how much he missed her and the children. A week later she received a vanload of red roses with a note that said: It is only through losing you that I realize how much I love you. I was an idiot to take someone so special and so precious for granted. Then she received a telephone call from Lottie. "David was over the other night with Mac," she told her. "He's devastated. I've never seen him look so tragic."

"He deserves everything he gets. He slept with a friend of mine. He even s.h.a.gged her in our greenhouse!"

"He said he didn't."

"Well, why was his fly undone?"

"That I can't answer," Lottie conceded. "Look, he's made a terrible mistake and he's very aware of it. He wishes he could turn the clock back. That it had never happened."

"I know. I got a five-page letter."

"He asked Mac for advice. He's desperate to get you back. He misses the children..."

"Jean-Paul is a better father than he's ever been."

"Yes, he mentioned Jean-Paul."

"I bet he did. He puts David to shame."

"David's put himself to shame," said Lottie wisely. "Why don't you at least talk to him?"

"Not yet. It's too soon. I've got to clear my head. It's all too hideous. I'm just getting by, you know."

"Let him see the children then," Lottie suggested diplomatically. She was determined to come away with something to give David.

Miranda thought about it for a moment. "You're right," she conceded. "The fight's between me and David. It's got nothing to do with the children."

"That's very big of you, Miranda," she said, relieved. It was a start.

"Tell him he can come down this weekend. I'll come up to London and stay in a hotel. I've promised a friend a day shopping and I don't want to let her down. It'll do me good to get away for a couple of days. I'll book into the Berkeley on Friday night and return Sunday afternoon."

"You're more than welcome to stay with us," Lottie suggested.

"You're sweet, Lottie, thank you. I'll be with my friend Etta. Anyway, the least David can do is pay for a major suite. I'd stay in Kensington if it wasn't for the fact that he's probably s.h.a.gged Blythe there."

"Good idea. I'll pa.s.s all that on, except the last bit, and call you back."

"Thanks, Lottie."

"It's a pleasure. We love you both, Miranda. I hope you can work through this."

"So do I." But Miranda wasn't sure that she wanted to. Her mind turned to Jean-Paul. Until she confronted him, she wasn't sure what she wanted.

Jean-Paul was sitting on the bench beneath the mountain ash. The children were digging a hole among the larches by the dovecote. "Do you mind if I join you?" she asked, opening the little red gate and stepping beneath the arch of pink roses.

"Please. How are you feeling?" he asked.

She sat down beside him and sighed, not knowing where to start. "He's written a long love letter. Apologized, said he regrets everything and wants me back. He's filled my kitchen with red roses."

"That is a good start."

"I've decided to let him see the children this weekend. I'll go up to London with Henrietta and stay in a nice hotel. After all, it's not their fight. Why should they suffer?"

"You are very wise."

"I wish I was. You're wise, Jean-Paul. You're a better father than he is. I guess Gus just needed a dad who took trouble with him. David wasn't that dad. You were." She lowered her eyes. "Thanks to you, Jean-Paul, I've learned to enjoy their company and get my hands dirty. I've grown to love these gardens. I never thought I would. I was such a Londoner. The idea of gumboots made me recoil in horror, now I rarely wear my heels and I don't mind. I've changed. You've changed me."

"It is not me," Jean-Paul said softly. "I wish I could take credit, but I can't. It is the magic in the garden."

"The magic didn't come all by itself. You put it there." She felt herself blush.

"The magic was always there, Miranda, I just brought it back to life."

She took a deep breath. "You're an incredible man, Jean-Paul. You're wise, you're kind, you're adorable with the children. You're there for me, too. I've come to rely on you. In fact, I'm falling in love with you." He didn't reply, but put his arm around her shoulders and held her close.

"Miranda, you're not in love with me. You're confused."

"I'm not. I think I fell in love with you the day Storm brought you home."

He took a moment to find the right words to avoid hurting her. "You know I cannot love you back. Not in the way you want me to," he said at last.

Miranda felt the sudden rise of tears and tried to blink them away. "You can't?"

"I love you as a dear friend. But I will always love another. No one can ever take her place in my heart. She has it for always."

"Who is she?"

"Someone I knew a long time ago. She was married with children. We suffered an impossible love."

"She stayed with her husband?"

"She wouldn't leave her children for me. Her love for them was deeper. It was the right thing to do. It was a long time ago. Another life. I was young. Now I am old." He chuckled at his own foolishness. "I have given her every year of my life since the day we parted almost thirty years ago."

"You never tried to move on?" Miranda was astonished by such devotion. "I didn't think people loved like that in this day and age."

"When you love like that, you cannot move on. No one could compare to her. She spoiled me for anyone else. I had lived a great love affair, nothing less would do."

Miranda felt she had heard this story somewhere before. Suddenly she grew dizzy with the realization that the secret sc.r.a.pbook that had so captured her imagination had possibly been meant for him. Had Ava Lightly loved Jean-Paul? "How long did your affair last?" she asked carefully.

"A year," he replied. Now she was certain. But what did M. F. stand for? She would have to read through the book again to find the answer.

"What was she like?"

"She was unique, eccentric, funny and sweet. A talented gardener. Someone who appreciated nature. She taught me all I know."

Miranda hurried into the house. The sc.r.a.pbook was so fat, with so many pages. If Jean-Paul was indeed M. F. then it was no coincidence that he had come to work in her gardens. It was no coincidence that he had resurrected the gardens the way Ava Lightly had planted them. He had known every inch of the estate because he had worked in it with her. He had painted the picture of the cottage garden. He had come back to find Ava, but found Miranda and her family instead. That's why he had looked so sad. Ava hadn't waited for him as she had promised. Then why had she left the sc.r.a.pbook in the cottage? Why hadn't she simply sent it to him in France?

She flicked through the pages searching for descriptions of M. F. Now she had made the connection it all began to fit into place like a blurred vision moving into focus. At last she found the sentence that gave him away: Oh, Mr. Frenchman, you took a large slice of my heart with you when you left. The wound will never heal but bleed and bleed until there is nothing left of me. My children are my consolation, without them my heart would be devoid of love.

x.x.xV.

The comforting silence of midnight. I always knew heaven was up there beyond the darkness.

That night Miranda refrained from writing her own novel and settled into bed with a cup of soup. She wanted to finish the sc.r.a.pbook. She wanted to know what happened in the end. She turned the pages until she reached the place where she had left off and impatiently resumed.

Jean-Paul sat in his sitting room contemplating the empty chateau with a sinking heart. He couldn't stay at Hartington forever. He had done what he had set out to do: revive the gardens as Ava would have wanted. He had no idea where she was and a part of him was too afraid to find out. She had left without a word, that was all there was to it. Almost three decades had pa.s.sed without a murmur of rea.s.surance from her. She had moved on with her life and he had returned to France to take over the vineyard as he had had no choice but to do.

He had gone home to lick his wounds and throw himself into his new life. His mother had dedicated herself to introducing him to all the respectable, beautiful French women she could find, but none impressed him. His heart was numb and there was no one who could rouse it. Antoinette longed for grandchildren, but Jean-Paul was firm in his determination to remain true to Ava, even though Ava was unable to remain true to him. His mother begged and implored him to marry for convenience, in order to leave the chateau to a child of his blood, but he refused. If he married it would be a betrayal. Ava remained married because she had no choice. He did and he chose not to. He did not remain celibate. He was a man with needs, but they meant nothing; soulless encounters that came and went like shadows in the night.

It was his mother's death that propelled him to return to Hartington. He had looked after her as a devoted son, but once free he did what he had waited twenty-six years to do: find Ava and bring her back. But life is not a storybook with a happy ending. If he expected her to be waiting for him in the cottage, he was disappointed. What good would it do to search the country for her? That chapter was closed.

Miranda began to cry. The end of the book was more tragic than she had imagined. Ava had kept the cottage a shrine. That was why the table was still laid for two; the only way she could prove her loyalty to him was to leave the place exactly as it was. She remained married, raised her children and continued as before, yet the cottage stood as testament of her love for him.