THE CHAIN GARDEN

Excerpt

Setting down the barrow Grace looked along the linked beds, vivid with summer colour. She loathed this garden. Its surface beauty was deceiving. It flaunted its secrets, mocking those who couldn’t read them.

Today was the first time she had come here since calling on Dorcas. A visit begun as a favour to Mrs Williams had ended by irrevocably destroying her image of her mother and father. It had finally crushed her desperate hope that the circles of colourful flowers had been chosen simply for their beauty: that despite illness and financial problems her parents’ marriage had been based on love and trust and strength in adversity.

Dorcas’s outburst had blown that hope apart and confirmed her worst fears. It had all been an illusion, a façade. The reality was thirty years of secrecy, lies and deceit.

She hated Dorcas for showing her the truth. Her gaze flew to the bed between her mother’s and her own, the one that had always puzzled her. Now she knew. It was Hal’s. But what she found hardest to accept was that the choice of plants and flowers meant her mother had known about Hal. And knowing about him she must also have known about Dorcas. Which explained why her father’s link had been planted with flowers that proclaimed his infidelity, his betrayal.

Yet Grace could not recall even a hint of bitterness or blame? How could her mother have achieved that? Had she derived sufficient satisfaction, sufficient revenge from this silent declaration to enable her to carry on as if everything was as it should be? Had her father been aware that her mother knew the truth?

The chain garden laid bare facets of her mother’s character Grace could not understand. And now it was too late. It would never be explained. Fury seethed. She felt cheated, terrified. What was real? What was tue? What could she trust? Who else knew?

Her whirling thoughts were echoed in her churning stomach as she looked down the beds, each one enclosed within and linked by the low narrow box hedge. Ever since reading that book listing the meanings of flowers the chain garden had made her uneasy. Now she hated it. She didn’t want to look after it any more.

Guilt filled her. If she didn’t, who would? Busy with preparations for the wedding Mary didn’t have time. Nor with the fruit and vegetable gardens in full production did Jack or Ben or Arthur. Everyone in the family saw it as her mother’s memorial. But they didn’t know its true significance.

It looked beautiful. In reality it was poisonous. The links were supposed to indicate continuity. But chains imprisoned people, denied them freedom, weighed them down so that they drowned. She shifted from foot to foot wiping her palms down the sides of her skirt.

For as long as she could remember she had shouldered responsibility, put everyone else’s needs before her own. It had been expected of her because she was the eldest daughter. She had writhed with guilt at feeling trapped and unhappy. Yet after her collapse Mary had stepped in and everyone’s lives had carried on just the same.

All those years of believing it was her duty to see to, organize, manage, take care of. All those years of anxiety and fear, of self-denial, of standing on the fringes watching everyone enjoying themselves. Never joining in because within hours, days or weeks her mother would be ill again, and it would be her job to take over as nurse while keeping the household running smoothly.

All those years. Yet her absence had made no difference at all. If she wasn’t missed then what had it all been for? She had no value: that was the truth.

Her agitation increasing, Grace walked the length of the chain and back again. The heat was oppressive, searing through her clothes, burning through her hat, heavy on her skull. Her heart thudded loud and painful against her ribs. She gasped, sucking heat into her straining lungs.

Her father and mother: her father and Dorcas: her father and Mary. Where did she fit in? Everything she had believed in was a lie. How could she pretend everything was normal? How could she blot out what she now knew? But if she couldn’t, how could she stay here? Yet where else could she go?

Perspiration pricked her forehead and upper lip. It beaded her skin so that her blouse clung. Her petticoat was hot and uncomfortable. Everyone expected her to continue tending this floral display of anguish and bitterness. This proclamation that her father was an adulterer and had sired a bastard son. Hal was her half-brother and she had never known.

As she stared at the linked beds she felt the weight of the chain dragging her down, pressing her into the soft earth until she suffocated.

Seizing the shears she began chopping at the red, gold and purple blooms. Nurture her dead mother’s secrets? Her father’s lies and deceit? No!

Not now, not ever again.

Published by Robert Hale in August 2006 and available from Amazon.co.uk.

Last revised 1 March, 2007 . Content © Jane Jackson and design © Artemis Web Design