Read The French Gardener Online
Authors: Santa Montefiore
“She never told you?”
“No. Maybe she felt guilty for not telling us both. Perhaps she couldn’t speak of it to anyone, not even to me. But dying people always want to tie up loose ends and I suppose it is my right to know who made me. I decided to put the scrapbook in here so that if you returned you would find it and know that she had never stopped loving you. I didn’t know where to find you and I didn’t want to ask my father. At that stage I didn’t even know whether I wanted to find you. It’s not an easy thing to learn that the man you believe is your father is not.”
“Does Phillip know?”
“Goodness, no. And he never will. It would be wrong of me to tell him. Besides, my mother gave her life to him.
Maybe she would have left had he not fallen ill. He needed her. Who knows?”
“Why did you come today?”
“Because I feel the time is right. It’s what Mummy would have wanted. You both longed for a child so badly, it’s only right that you should know.” She smiled again and Jean-Paul saw his own face mirrored in hers. He felt his stomach lurch at the sight of it. She blushed. “I was also captivated by the scrapbook and the romance of my mother’s secret love affair. She never stopped loving you, or hoping that you would one day be reunited. When Miranda telephoned, I knew it was my chance.”
“Why didn’t she tell me she was dying?”
“I’ve wondered about that, too. I can only imagine, knowing my mother as I do, that she wouldn’t have wanted you to see her like that. Her hair fell out. She aged terribly. She was very sick. I would imagine she wanted you to remember her the way she was.”
“But she knew I loved her.”
Peach’s eyes filled with tears. Once again she could smell the scent of orange blossom. It crept around her like a familiar blanket and invaded her senses, demanding to be noticed. She looked at Jean-Paul. He lifted his chin, aware of it, too.
“Yes, she did,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You can smell her, too?” Jean-Paul closed his eyes. How often he had dismissed her perfume as wishful dreaming.
The room filled with sunshine. It was bright and twinkling as it caught the little specks of dust and lit them up like fireflies. Father and daughter opened their eyes to see that the clouds had parted to let the sun shine through. Jean-Paul stood up hastily. “Come,” he said, taking her hand. Peach followed him outside, into the rain. There, in a dazzling arc above them, stood a magnificent rainbow.
“It’s beautiful,” she said in wonder. “
Un arc-en-ciel
.”
“
Un arc-en-ciel
,” he repeated, knowing that Ava was up there somewhere in the midst of all those colors. Then he laughed, for there, between green and blue, was the most splendid color of all.
“Can you see pink?” He pointed to the vibrating light, the color of a perfect summer rose.
“I see it!” she said, her face wet with tears. “I see it! The elusive pink.”
“She’s there,” said Jean-Paul, squeezing her hand. “She’s there. I know she is.”
The day of Henrietta and Jeremy’s wedding could not have been more beautiful. The sky dazzled with sunshine, a cold breeze whipped in off the sea, swirling through the red and gold leaves, breathing autumn on the final remains of summer, and yet the sun was warm. Birdsong rang out from the treetops and squirrels paused their nut collecting to watch the baffling human world below them. But love is an instinct understood by all creation and it was as if the whole of nature conspired to make their day magnificent.
Troy sat in the front pew with Henrietta’s mother and sister. He had put the bride’s hair up in a glossy bun encircled with purple roses and wiped her tears away himself when she had seen how beautiful she looked. On the other side of the aisle Jeremy waited nervously, his large hands trembling as he fidgeted with the service sheet, exchanging looks with David, whom he had asked to be best man. He took a deep breath, barely daring to acknowledge his incredible fortune, in case he jinxed it and Henrietta did not appear.
Miranda sat behind David with Cate and Nigel, whose coldness sat between them like a corpse. She thought of Jean-Paul and Peach: he had lost his lover but gained a daughter. Ava had said that love was all she had to give him, but that was no longer true; she had given him Peach. Miranda thought of them both in France, at Les Lucioles. He would show her the gardens he had cultivated for her mother and together they would share memories, building a bridge to span the years that separated them.
David caught her eye and smiled. She gave him her hand over the pew and he squeezed it. That squeeze said so
much. Her eyes began to well. “Don’t cry now, darling. She hasn’t come in yet!” he whispered and she nodded, dabbing her face with the hanky she had had the foresight to bring with her.
At that moment the large wooden doors creaked open and Dorothy Dipwood began to play the organ. The congregation stood. Miranda leaned into the aisle to see Henrietta in the elegant ivory dress embroidered with pearls that Miranda had helped her choose at Catherine Walker. Her face was veiled, but her grin was visible beneath it. She walked on the arm of her father, his face pink with pride. Miranda’s eyes were so filled with tears that she was barely able to distinguish Gus and Storm, who stepped behind her as page and bridesmaid with Clare’s two children. Storm held a ball of purple roses hung from a ribbon and Gus held her hand, his face serious with concentration, taking care not to step on Henrietta’s train.
Henrietta watched Jeremy, who stood in the aisle to receive her, beaming as he watched his bride walk slowly towards him. He was relieved he wasn’t expected to speak because a knot of emotion had lodged itself in his throat. Henrietta’s father placed her hand in Jeremy’s and they gazed at each other for a long moment, marveling at the magic that had brought them to this point.
Miranda felt a movement beside her and turned to see Nigel take Cate’s hand. At first Cate stiffened in surprise, too proud to yield, but then the love that pervaded the church worked its magic on her, too, and she relaxed, finally letting her defenses fall. The congregation sat down and Miranda caught sight of the purple Louboutin shoes she had recently bought in London. She wiggled them, admiring the height and color and the elegant cut of the toe. Some pleasures never fade.
At the end of the service they spilled out of the church into the sunshine. The children ran around the gravestones, jumping from one to the other like silk-clad frogs. Jeremy and Henrietta climbed onto Jeremy’s red tractor and waved as they set off to Hartington House where Miranda had organized the reception in a marquee on the lawn. Mrs. Underwood was supervising the food and Mr. Underwood was valet parking with Toby, the new gardener.
David slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “She looks beautiful,” he said. “Clever you.”
“Not at all,” Miranda replied. “Her beauty is entirely her own.”
“Now you’ve shared Jean-Paul and Ava’s story with me, will you let me read your novel?”
Miranda looked at him in surprise. “How did you know I’d written a book?”
“Gus told me.”
“How did he know?”
“Children know everything.”
“I might.”
“Might?”
“Okay, I will. But I won’t ever publish it.”
“What if it’s brilliant?”
“It
is
brilliant, but it wouldn’t be right and besides, I don’t think I did it all by myself.” David frowned at her quizzically. “I had help,” she said enigmatically. There was no point explaining.
She raised her eyes to the sky, remembering the persistent scent of orange blossom that had filled the room whenever she had sat down to write. Since finishing the book she hadn’t smelled it. Ava’s ghost had gone.
“So what are you going to do with it?” he asked.
“Give it to Peach,” she said.
“To Peach? Why?”
“Because I know now that I wrote it for her.” She took David’s hand. “Come on, darling. We’d better gather up the page and bridesmaid, we’ve a reception to get to.”
“Gus! Storm!” David shouted. The children bounded up, their cheeks red with exertion. “Time to go home,” he said, ruffling Gus’s hair. Miranda sighed with pleasure. Home. How good that sounded.
Can you hear a bird sing
At the top of a chestnut tree?
I am the song she’s singing
So sweet a melody.
Can you hear the stream flow
Forever running free?
My laughter’s in the ripples
And bubbles eternally.
Can you feel the sunshine
Warm upon your skin?
I am the very sun itself,
The love you feel within.
The French Gardener
For Discussion