stared blankly across the room. ‘You pig.’ But at least she didn’t feel like crying any more. Throwing something, yes, but not crying.
Isabelle picked up the phone on the second ring the next evening, and was as gentle and courteous as she’d always been. So it was, promptly at two o’clock the following Sunday afternoon, normally her housework and catch-up day, Melanie presented herself at Forde’s mother’s fine Victorian house situated some ten miles or so from the home she and Forde had shared.
She was so nervous she was trembling as she rang the bell, but it was a uniformed nurse who opened the door rather than Isabelle. The woman showed her into Isabelle’s comfortable sitting room where a wood fire crackled in the grate despite the warm weather, for all the world as though she were a stranger rather than her patient’s daughter-in-law, which led Melanie to believe the nurse wasn’t aware she was Forde’s wife.
Isabelle confirmed this the moment the nurse had shut the door, leaving them alone. ‘Hello, my dear.’ Forde’s mother was sitting on a sofa pulled close to the fire and she lifted up her face for Melanie to kiss her cheek as she’d always done in the past, before patting the seat beside her. ‘Sit down. I didn’t tell Nurse Bannister who you were. She’s a nosy soul and always poking her nose into this and that. Thank heaven she’ll be leaving at the end of next week and not a day too soon. I can’t wait to have my house back to myself.’
‘Hello, Isabelle.’ Melanie’s voice was shaky. She’d half expected Forde’s mother to look ill and pale, for things to be different somehow, but instead both Isabelle and this room were exactly the same. She had left Forde, then left the city and made a new life for herself, but it was as though the last seven months had never happened and she had been here the day before. The same floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined with books graced two walls of the somewhat old-fashioned room, the same heavily patterned wool carpet covering the floor and thick embossed drapes at the window… She took a deep breath. ‘How are you? Forde told me you’ve been in hospital recently.’ She’d decided to mention his name straight away rather than having him hanging over the proceedings like a spectre at the feast.
Isabelle smiled. ‘I was foolish enough to break a hip and then my heart played up a little, but what can you expect at my age? I’m no spring chicken. More to the point, how are you, dear?’
‘Very well, thank you.’ Telling herself she had to say what she’d rehearsed for days, Melanie took the plunge. ‘Isabelle, when I returned your letter it wasn’t because I didn’t want to keep in touch, not really, but because I—I couldn’t.’
A pair of silvery-blue eyes very like Forde’s smiled at her. ‘I know that, dear. It had to be a clean sweep for you to be able to go on. We were too fond of each other for it to be any different.’
She wanted to cry. She wanted to lay her head on Isabelle’s lap and cry and cry, as she had done the first time she’d seen Forde’s mother after losing Matthew. Isabelle had cried with her then, telling her she would never forget Matthew but there would be other babies to take away the edge of her grief and loss. Frightened by the way she was feeling, Melanie retreated. ‘You want the garden replanning, I understand.’
Isabelle accepted the change of conversation with her normal grace. ‘Want is perhaps not the right word. Need is better. I have to confess it’s become a little too much lately.’
‘And you don’t want a gardener in to see to things?’
‘Occasionally, but not every day. As you know I’ve put in several hours most days for years—it’s my pleasure. I can still do a little but not all that’s required.’
‘So if we got it under control, my assistant coming in perhaps once a month for a couple of days wouldn’t distress you too much?’ Melanie asked gently, feeling for Forde’s mother. The grounds were beautiful and they’d been Isabelle’s pride and joy. ‘You’ll like James,’ she added. ‘I promise.’
‘I’m sure I will. Now, Nurse Bannister is bringing us a cup of tea and then I thought we might see the garden together?’
Melanie nodded. In truth she wanted to get out of this room. She had noticed at once that Isabelle had kept their wedding picture in its elaborate gold frame exactly where it had always been, and she’d avoided looking at it since. The tall, dark, smiling man and his radiant bride could have been different people, so far removed did she feel from the girl in the photograph.
It was clear Nurse Bannister had made the connection when she returned with the tray of tea a few moments later, her gimlet-hard eyes searching Melanie’s face avidly. With no trouble Melanie decided she could quite understand Isabelle’s desire to be rid of the companion Forde—for all the right reasons, of course—had thrust upon his mother.
By the time she left Hillview three hours later Melanie felt she had a good idea of what Isabelle would like, and more importantly not like, in the new garden. They’d agreed to leave well alone where they could and all the mature trees would remain, but Melanie had encouraged Isabelle to treat the acre of ground as a series of compartments flowing into and round each other to create a whole. Easy maintenance being the prime concern, Melanie had suggested vigorous ground cover in places, evergreen, naturally dense plants planted to form a thatch of vegetation that would give weeds little opportunity to develop. A water feature in the form of a large sunken pool surrounded by a pebble ‘beach’ to keep down weeds and an area for sitting in one part of the garden, in another a landscaped rockery with helian-themums, verbascums and sisyrinchiums to give vibrant colour, a bed of gravel aiding drainage and avoiding waterlogging.
Isabelle had listened to all her suggestions, welcoming the idea of winding paths leading to arbours and two or three patio areas, along with several chamomile lawns. This aromatic perennial would provide a contrast of texture to other areas of the garden, and when bruised by light treading the leaves would release a pleasant apple-like scent. The main advantage over a grass lawn for Isabelle was that the chamomile only would need very occasional trimming, which James could see to.
An area of decking surrounded by scented shrubs; a sunny, gentle slope adapted to suit sun-loving plants chosen for their rich flowering and compact shape on a bed of tiny, different-coloured pebbles; dramatic island beds of large shrubs surrounded by lavender or ornamental grasses—Melanie had come up with them all, and Isabelle had been remarkably open to the changes.
They had agreed Melanie would go away and make scale drawings recording features of both the present garden and the new proposed changes, so that Isabelle could review the options and make sure she was completely happy. Melanie had told her mother-in-law that, at the initial stage, Isabelle must treat the drawing as a base plan and she could use overlays of tracing paper to test out different ideas. Once Isabelle was sure how she wanted the changes to look, Melanie would make detailed planting plans for particular areas as well as drawing up cross-sections of specific features, like the pool, the arbour and grass walk they’d discussed, the topiary and other ideas. Nothing was definite and Isabelle had the right to change her mind as many times as she wanted to, Melanie had impressed on the old lady, knowing it was a little overwhelming for her.
They parted with a kiss and a hug, Isabelle holding her tight for a little longer than was strictly necessary. Melanie had a lump in her throat as she drove away from the house. It had felt so right to be with Isabelle again, but she didn’t dwell on her feelings, applying her mind to the drawings she would make on graph paper from her notes and thinking of one or two other ideas as she drove. Softening the stone walls surrounding a patio area by planting vibrant flowers and trailing plants in the top of it, and maybe staggered railway sleepers in the far corner to give a step effect with boulders and varied plants.
She wanted Isabelle’s garden to continue to be a sanctuary to be enjoyed by the old lady, a retreat from the world, and to that end she was planning paths that curled from one feature to another, shady corners with trees and shrubs and sunny spots like the rockery and pool. And lots of benches, comfortable wooden ones, she told herself, where Isabelle could sit and rest any time anywhere in the grounds.
The changes were going to take a lot