Julia Williams 3 Book Bundle

‘Oh, your mother talks about you all the time,’ said Lily. ‘It’s Edward this and Edward that. How did you know my name?’

‘Your mother sent me to fetch you,’ Edward offered.

‘Oh,’ Lily pulled a face. ‘I was enjoying it here. No doubt I shall be summoned back home to face Papa and be told off again for my hoydenish ways.’

She looked down ruefully at her stained skirt. A stray curl fell across her face and she absentmindedly pulled it back, reminding him again of the child he had thought her to be.

‘Are you often told off for being hoydenish?’ Edward said, laughing. There was something so lively and disingenuous about her, it was impossible not to be enchanted.

‘All the time,’ said Lily, with an impish look on her face. ‘I don’t know how it happens but I was so interested in seeing the plants, I hadn’t realized I had made such a mess of my clothes. Did you know you had heartsease growing in this wood? It seems such a shame to hide it. If it were my garden, I’d cut down some of these gloomy oaks and make a proper garden here, to show them off.’

‘Oh, would you now?’ Edward was caught between captivation and irritation. She really was the most enchanting creature he’d ever seen, but he rather resented her telling him what to do in his garden.

‘Oh dear,’ Lily looked stricken. ‘I shouldn’t have said that should I? Please forgive me; it’s none of my business what you do in your garden. It’s just that gardens are rather a passion of mine.’

‘Are they?’ said Edward with a smile. ‘They’re rather a passion of mine, too.’

‘Have I drawn it properly?’ Lily looked at him anxiously, as Edward came over to see how her work was progressing. In the six months since he’d left university, Edward had become used to having Lily for his assistant on his expeditions into the Sussex countryside to document the flora and fauna. Her mother, Lily confessed, had given up trying to keep her at home and teach her how to be ladylike. And though it was an unconventional career choice, learning about flowers was still an important part of Lily’s education, so Mrs Clark had been easily persuaded to let Lily come on these trips with him, so long as Sarah the housemaid accompanied them as a chaperone. As it happened, Sarah was rather fat and lazy, so more often than not she’d accompany them as far as the first field, and sit down to await their return. It meant that Lily and Edward were spending more and more time together, and Edward for one was not sorry.

‘It’s perfect,’ declared Edward, impressed by the delicacy of the poppy that Lily had painted. She had a natural affinity with plants, and a talent for drawing them technically. It was Edward’s plan to put together the material he had collected to make a small book about the plants of Sussex, in the hope that not only could he earn some money in his own right, but also build up a reputation as a serious botanist. His desire was to go abroad, to visit far-flung corners of the globe and make his reputation by bringing back exotic plants the like of which the world had never seen.

‘Hark at you,’ teased Lily when he told her. ‘Who do you think you are? A mighty explorer like Doctor Livingstone?’

‘No,’ said Edward, very serious – Lily’s laughter made him realize just how intensely serious he could be sometimes, ‘I just want to see the wonders that are out there. Imagine trekking through the Amazon, or scouring the deserts of the Sudan. There’s such a huge world out there, I want to go out and explore it. I want to find something new and different. I’d bring it back for you.’

‘Oh, would you, now,’ said Lily, her laughter putting him in mind of silver bells. It was impossible for him not to feel cheerful when he was with Lily. It was as though she made the sun shine. ‘Suppose I don’t want your smelly plant. It might be poisonous for all I know. Besides, why do you want to search for the exotic, when we have perfectly good flowers of our own here?’

‘I could take you with me,’ he said. ‘You could come as my assistant.’

‘Shocking shocking, man,’ she declared with a coquettish smile. ‘I suppose Sarah would have to accompany us as my chaperone then. I don’t think she’d make it past the first step into the jungle.’

Her pretty green eyes danced across her face, and her boisterous curls spilled out of the plait they were supposed to be in and tumbled down her back. Edward took her upturned chin in his hands and kissed her gently on the lips.

‘You don’t have to come as my assistant,’ he said. ‘You could come as my wife.’

A wife. To have a wife. That would be quite a thing. Edward turned the word over in his head. In a few short months Lily would be his, and nothing could ever take them away from one another. In the meantime, much to the amusement of his mother, he had finally started work on creating the garden he had always envisioned, but now with renewed purpose; it was to be a wedding present for Lily.

‘Look at this!’ he would cry every day, as he pored over plans and read books about the gardens of the past. He was transfixed by the idea of creating a knot garden in the Elizabethan style – a knot garden that would be a symbol of his love for Lily.

‘Look at what, Edward?’ his mother would retort with humour. She was pleased for him, he knew. She was very fond of Lily, and only desired her son’s happiness.

‘See here,’ Edward would say, pointing out the patterns in the Compleat Gardenes Practice, a reference guide from the sixteenth century, which he was using to give him ideas to utilize and improve upon. ‘The way they created geometric patterns and wove the plants together. I could do something similar. It will be a knot garden the like of which no one has seen. And Lily will love it forever.’

‘I’m sure she will,’ said his mother, smiling. ‘With such a genius behind it, how could she not?’

Edward ignored his mother’s gentle teasing, and concentrated on his plans. He designed the garden with careful precision. He would wall off the bottom part of the garden, where the old oak trees grew, and place the knot garden centrally, enclosed by gravel paths. From the edges of the paths to the wall would be flowerbeds full of perennials. For the knot garden itself he planned to use box with an interweaving of ivy and rosemary in heart shapes, the centrepiece to include the letters E and L. As was the current vogue he planned to fill up the gaps with bedding plants: heartsease, which was abundant in the area, forget me nots, gloxinia, but in each of the four corners, he left space to plant flowers for the children who would make their happiness complete. And so Edward toiled on his garden, planted in love with hope for the future; a garden he could be proud of forever.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Lily was clearly bursting with curiosity as he led her, blindfolded, down the garden.

‘Shh, it’s a surprise,’ said Edward. He had worked hard to keep secret from Lily what he had been planning over these last few months, pretending that the trees at the bottom of the garden had become unsafe, as a way of keeping her away from the garden. He hoped that she would love his garden as much as he did, having poured his heart and soul into the project. He felt it was quite possibly his best work to date, and maybe the best he would ever do.

‘I hate surprises,’ said Lily, ‘come on, please let me peep.’

‘No,’ said Edward firmly, ‘the sooner you cooperate the sooner you can see it.’

He took her by the hand.

‘Watch out, there’s a step here,’ he said, as he led her down into the garden. He pushed open the wrought iron gate he’d had specially commissioned. ‘Now you can see,’ he pulled back her blindfold, which was the scarf that tied her summer hat on her head.

‘Oh, Edward!’ Lily clapped her hands over her mouth in delight as she gazed on the fruits of his labour, a garden set out in love and hope. A knot garden of hearts weaving rosemary, ivy, forget me nots, and gloxinia, with borders of the heartsease which gave their village its name.

‘Do you like it?’

‘Like it? I love it!’ She danced excitedly down the paths. ‘Did you do this for me?’

‘Of course I did,’ he said. ‘It’s a love knot garden, dedicated to my one true love.’

‘Edward, I don’t know what to say.’ Lily came back to him and threw her arms around his neck.

‘Just say you love me,’ said Edward, with feeling.

‘Always,’ said Lily, ‘always.’

He held Lily fast, and kissed her on the top of her head. Then he led her to the far end of the garden, where they sat on the wrought iron bench he had had specially made, with their initials on. Never had he felt more happy and content. This would always be their special place. A garden to represent their married life, a life that he knew, with Lily by his side, would be well worth the living.

Part One

Chapter One

‘Come on, girls, time to get up! Important day today.’ Lauren came softly into her twin daughters’ bedroom, to watch two tousled heads sleepily awake and register their surroundings. Two brand new uniforms hung over the end of the identical pine beds, and her daughters slowly emerged from underneath their matching pink princess duvet covers. She drew the Cath Kidston inspired floral curtains, and looked out on the little garden that belonged to her rented cottage. It had a small patch of green for the lawn, and her pots of lobelia, geraniums, busy lizzies and alyssum were still flowering in a tumbledown fashion. It was homely and neat, pretty much the way she liked it. The warm, early morning sun belied the promise of the September day. It was going to be another hot one.

Lauren turned back to look at the girls and her heart contracted with a deep spasm of love. Four years old already and starting school for the first time. Where had all that time gone? It seemed only minutes since they’d been born three weeks prematurely, on a baking hot August day. Had they been born on their due date, she’d have had a whole extra year with them. As it was they were going to be among the youngest in their class.

‘Come on, girls,’ she said again, then went to sit on Izzie’s bed and tickle her under the duvet. Izzie was usually the slower of the sisters (and being asthmatic, the one who gave Lauren most cause for concern) and sure enough her giggles brought Immie immediately over to join in the fun. The three of them romped about on the bed for a bit, laughing, before Lauren said, mock sternly, ‘Come on, time for school.’

By the time she’d helped them on with their clothes, and got them downstairs to the cosy kitchen, with its wooden pine table and cheerful mugs on mug racks, Joel had arrived with Sam – on time for once.

‘Big day today, girls,’ he said, as Izzie and Immie came to show off their school uniforms. They looked so sweet in matching grey pinafores (a size too big for them, to allow for plenty of growing room), crisp white shirts, and green cardigans. Their bright white socks were pulled high above their knees, their black Mary Jane shoes positively sparkled and their fair hair was tied up in identical ponytails, which by the end of the day Lauren was fairly sure would be coming undone.

They smiled shyly at Joel, as he popped Sam in the high chair, and watched them parade their brand new green book bags proudly in front of him.

‘You wouldn’t mind taking a photo of the three of us, would you?’ said Lauren. ‘Only, it would be nice to have a memento.’

‘No problem,’ said Joel, proceeding to snap away. ‘Are you excited, girls?’

‘Yes,’ they chorused.

‘I should say so,’ said Lauren, ‘I don’t think they slept a wink all night.’