The Restoration Garden: A Novel - 29

Julia

The restoration went smoothly over the next few weeks. But even though it was a success by every objective measure, I couldn’t find any satisfaction in the work. Every day that I held on to the secrets from Margaret’s past felt like a betrayal to the woman who had given me a second chance in my career.

Deep in my heart, I knew the restoration would be a failure if it didn’t help her find closure. She deserved to know what had happened to her sister. Andrew didn’t understand that. He hadn’t experienced the anguish of losing someone when you were too angry to speak to them. He didn’t know how words never said could haunt you forever.

It was close to three in the afternoon when Sam and I made our way to the orangery for his regular date with Margaret—something that had quickly become the highlight of his day.

“Are you here for our game of jacks?”

Sam let go of my hand and raced to his usual spot next to her.

“I wonder if you’ll be ready for chess next. It’s a complicated game, but I think you’re clever enough to figure it out with a little help.”

Sam nodded eagerly.

It was good to see Margaret so lively. She had been too tired to hold much of a conversation, much less play with Sam—though she was always happy to simply be in his company.

“The gardens are looking lovely,” she said to me. “You’ve accomplished so much in such a short amount of time.”

“The crews I’ve contracted to do the heavy work have been extremely efficient.”

“Under your guidance. I’ve seen you out there with them. You’re working just as hard, and I appreciate it.”

“Thank you.”

“Is everything all right?” Margaret asked, seeing through my false smile.

“Yes, sorry. Just working through some thoughts.”

“I find it helps to share my stubborn thoughts when I can’t work through them on my own.”

“I think I would prefer to just put them out of my mind.”

“In that case, one can’t go wrong with a jujube.” She reached into the pocket of her trousers and retrieved a small bag of candy.

I laughed. “I thought you weren’t supposed to have sweets.”

Her eyes twinkled with a mischievous glint. “Our little secret. Besides, what is the point in denying myself at this age? I’ve lived longer than most. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that you must live the life you want, not the one you’ve been told to follow.” She let Sam reach into the bag and come away with a small handful of the candies.

“Is that what you did?”

She popped a red jujube into her mouth and stared out the window. Her long silences used to unsettle me, but I’d spent enough time with her now to know she was simply taking the time she needed to sort through decades of wisdom before responding. “Not as much as I should have. There was one lesson I refused to learn for too long. I can only hope I have enough time to set my regrets right.”

“What lesson was that?”

“It’s almost impossible to explain what it was like during the war. I was barely older than Sam.” She ruffled his hair, silently reassuring me she would be careful with her words. “Everything was about survival. We gave no thought to what would be meaningful for the future. But my sister was the opposite.”

My pulse quickened. “Do you mean Irene?”

“She cared so much about the gardens. I used to think she was silly for caring about something like that. But sometimes I wonder if she was the only one who understood what would be truly meaningful. She saw the need to preserve and protect the beauty around us and keep it alive for future generations. She entrusted me to do that when I grew up.” She turned her attention to Sam. “Of course, one mustn’t grow up too fast and miss the fun either. Remind me whose turn it is.”

Sam and Margaret returned to their jacks. I took out my phone to finally take care of some of the bills I had been putting off paying for far too long. I opened my bank app and checked the balance in my account. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the amount.

A deposit for ten grand had been made by my former employer.

I excused myself to the hallway and dialed his number.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked without preamble as soon as Ryan answered.

“Hey, Julia. It’s good to hear from you. How are you?” He sounded shockingly cordial for a man who had fired me six months ago.

“What is all that money doing in my account?”

“I explained everything in the emails and voice messages,” he said with a slight hint of exasperation. “I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks that there was a mistake. It turns out your sister never took all that money.”

It felt like the floor gave way beneath me. “What?”

“After you left, more money kept going missing. We hired a forensic accountant, who traced it all back to Jack Nelson.”

Jack Nelson was one of the accountants at Hartwell & Sons who managed most of the funds for our projects. My head spun.

Rebecca had stolen from the company—there had never been any doubt about that. She had confessed to it when I confronted her. But she insisted it hadn’t been as much as Ryan had claimed. She said she had taken $200 from petty cash in a moment of weakness. The bookkeeping records showed over $10,000 had been slowly siphoned away in the months she’d been employed. I believed the records.

Ryan had given me the choice to pay off the debt myself or he would press charges against her. I used half of my savings to keep her out of jail and the other half to cover the costs of the rehabilitation center I’d forced her to attend. The place where she had managed to get hold of something deadly anyway.

But now Ryan was telling me it was a mistake.

“Look, I know this is a lot to hear. We made a mistake, and we want you to come back.”

“A mistake? My sister is dead,” I hissed.

“I know and I’m sorry. At least consider the offer. We’ve been contracted for the Seaton Garden in Newport, but they know your work and they’re insisting on you leading the project. We’re offering a fifty percent pay increase.”

I stood there in shock for a long time, barely able to breathe.

“Julia? Are you still there?”

“I . . . I’ll think about it.” I hung up and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes.

I hated myself for even considering the offer, but that kind of money and stability would be life-changing for Sam and me. I could pay off my debts and maybe even buy a house for us to live in. We wouldn’t be facing a future of uncertainty, never knowing when the next contract would come.

“Are you okay?”

I opened my eyes to see Andrew in front of me, looking at me with concern. “Yeah. Fine.”

“That didn’t sound fine.”

How much had he overheard? “It’s nothing that needs to be worried about right now.”

He nodded, suspicion still darkening his eyes. “I was just about to check on Margaret.”

“She’s in the orangery with Sam.”

I followed Andrew to the orangery, more uncertain about my future than ever. But Sam wasn’t at his usual spot next to Margaret. He was lying in front of the chair where I had been working just moments ago. My satchel was open on the floor, the contents spilled out. My phone, ChapStick, a handful of pencils.

And the florilegium.

Sam had it opened in front of him, a graphite pencil in hand.

“Sam, no!”

I snatched the pencil from his hand, but it was too late. He had colored all over the back page of the book.

He looked up, eyes wide with confusion. “I was just coloring.”

“Not on this, Sam,” I said with aching distress. “Never on this.”

“Show me that book,” Margaret insisted with a force that left no doubt she recognized it.

“Margaret,” Andrew said gently. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” she snapped. “Hand it over now.”

I nodded at Sam to bring it to her, despite sensing the tension in Andrew next to me. Neither of us dared approach Margaret, and she opened the soft blue cover.

She let out a small gasp as she examined Irene’s drawings. “Where did you find this?”

“It was hidden beneath the mattress in the room with all the old photo albums,” I said.

“Charlie . . . he must have retrieved it when my father threw it away.”

“Why?” Andrew asked. “Why would he want to keep something from her?”

After so much secrecy, his question surprised me. But maybe it shouldn’t have. This was his family’s history, too.

“Your grandfather was so scared when he first arrived here with all the other child evacuees at the start of the war. Barely spoke at all. He was the smallest of the bunch. I didn’t take to him at first. I wanted to be with all the other children who were excited to be at Havenworth. But Irene was kind to him. She checked on him every night and made sure he was eating and sleeping properly. She urged me to be his friend, which I only did after all the other children returned to London. Once it was just him and me, we were inseparable.”

“How did he get a hold of the florilegium when Irene left for London?” I asked. “Some of her drawings were from that time, so she must have had it with her.”

Margaret ran her fingers over a drawing of delicate blue forget-me-nots. “We had to leave Havenworth that autumn. Father and Mother feared the proximity of the air force base would endanger Havenworth when the Luftwaffe came. We spent the rest of the war at a country home in Shropshire that belonged to one of Mother’s distant relatives. But we had to pass through London on the way so I could visit the doctor. I’m not sure how Irene found us, but she did. It was the last time I ever saw her.”

My pulse quickened with the awareness we were on the verge of unraveling another piece of the mystery. “What do you mean she found you? What did she say?”

Margaret clutched her hand to her heart and shook her head. “I can’t recall. Only that I was so angry at her for leaving us the way she did. There was a terrible raid over the city that night, and we were forced to shelter in the underground. She followed us to the inn and stole Father’s briefcase. Inside of it was the prototype for his cavity magnetron, though I didn’t know that at the time. I just thought it was funny that he had such a strange metal case and carried the key on a chain around his neck like a piece of hidden jewelry. When Irene stole the briefcase, she left the florilegium behind. I never knew why. Perhaps she wanted him to know it was her who had done it.”

Sam tugged at her shirtsleeve.

“What is it, boy?”

“She left a message for you,” he said. “I found it.”

I looked to Andrew, who was just as confused as I was. Had Sam overheard Andrew and me talking about my theory?

“Her last few drawings weren’t sketches of things she saw. I think they were messages using the language of flowers.” I walked over and carefully opened the final page of the florilegium, where Irene had left a drawing of asphodel, columbine, and hyacinth. “I think she was expressing her remorse for what she had done.”

“No, not that page,” Sam insisted. “Another one.”

“Show me,” Margaret said with steely resolve.

I clenched my hands into fists as I watched Sam turn the page over to the once-blank side he had ruined with a pencil. “Here.”

I saw it. The tiny white lines that appeared inside the gray shading. A concealed message. Just like Margaret had taught him to do weeks ago.

Dear Marg—

The rest of the message hadn’t yet been revealed.

“Get a pencil,” Margaret ordered. Sam dutifully raced back to my bag to find one. Margaret handed him the florilegium. “Careful. Just like I taught you.”

My stomach squeezed so tightly, I was almost nauseous as I watched Sam slowly reveal the message inside.

Dear Margaret,

I have done terrible things, but I am no traitor. James and your uncle Edward have been conspiring against Father, and I’ve been working in secret with MI5 to stop them. Though we may never see each other again, I cannot bear the thought of you believing I would ever hurt you or betray our family. I took Father’s briefcase to keep him from boarding that train—it was the only way to save his life. If this letter finds you someday, I hope you’ll understand. And forgive me.

Love,

Irene

The air was so still, it felt like time had frozen. A string of tears fell down Margaret’s cheeks, her eyes filled with a pain so raw that I couldn’t bear to look.

“I was supposed to be on that train,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked gently.

“Father was supposed to take the train to Liverpool the next morning. We were to accompany him as far as Birmingham. But we never got on the train. Father needed to find a replacement for the prototype. He said he would meet us in Birmingham, but Charlie absolutely refused to board without him, so we delayed the trip by another day. We found out later the train we were meant to be on was targeted by a German Stuka just as it pulled out of the station. Most of the passengers were killed.”

I pressed my hand to my lips.

“All this time I believed the worst about her. My own sister.” Margaret let out a sob. She clutched her heart again, but this time it was different. Her skin was too pale. Her breath shallow and rapid.

“Andrew!” I shouted, but he was already racing toward her.

He took her hand. “Margaret, look at me.”

It was too late. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she slumped, lifeless, in her seat.