The Sea Garden Read online

  Ellie went straight to the balustrade. The flat area immediately below was broken up into a formal pattern of beds containing oleander and more clipped clouds of box, a southern imitation of the grand parterres of aristocratic châteaux. A rose garden beyond was the first in a series of gardens created on descending levels, apparently linked by a magnificently overgrown wisteria. Dense lines of cypress hid any farther areas from view, including the memorial garden that was her special brief. As a whole, the garden was charming, luxuriant, but—from a professional point of view—dilapidated.

  “A great deal of work needed, non?” said Laurent.

  She relaxed a little. At least he was under no illusions. And his command of English was even better than she remembered from his phone calls.

  “Now, you will take coffee with me? Come!”

  She found it hard to draw her eyes away from the exquisite vista. The light brought semitropical flowers into keen focus: spiked and veined and pulsing with life.

  Laurent de Fayols led her along the terrace and around the corner. He had the brisk walk of the older man who takes pride in his fitness.

  “This is west-facing,” he said. “We sit here in the evening.”

  Flaking pillars formed a wide loggia, an inviting spot. One wall was smothered by jasmine. On a table sat a coffee pot, cups, a jug of iced water, and an untidy pile of papers weighted down by several old books with metal clasps.

  “And you can still see the sea!” She wanted to swim there, immediately—she had a childlike surge of excitement at the sight of water so clear the rocks at the foot of the cliffs looked like clumps of turquoise flowers growing on the seabed.

  “Yes, the position is perfectly chosen. That’s the Calanque de l’Indienne down there. And this is the book I told you about on the telephone.”

  With an effort, she returned her attention to her host. He pushed a tome the size of an atlas towards her across the table. The leather binding was scuffed, but the marbled endpapers were a startlingly vibrant red with no sign of damage. It was a photograph album full of foxed images of the garden—and of its makers. The figures pictured flanking the dark arches and horticultural opulence were dressed in heavy clothes that seemed to deny the heat and the density of the humidity. Here and there were blank pages between which botanical specimens had been pressed long ago; flowers that in life had once been extravagantly scented and vibrantly coloured were flattened and bleached on the page. Yet the shapes of these brown, crisped flowers—the canna lily, the agapanthus, the rose—spoke of succulence.

  She accepted the small gold-rimmed cup of coffee that Laurent handed her.

  “It’s going to be quite a challenge.”

  “I would not trust anyone who claimed this was an easy job.”

  He came round the table and stood next to her. “This is the memorial garden just after it was laid out in 1947, in memory of Dr. Louis de Fayols”—he flipped to the right page with an ivory letter opener—“and here it is in bloom for the first time in 1948, though obviously the Italian cypresses are still small and the boxwood has yet to establish. But this shows very clearly the spaces in the planting.”

  It was a formal garden designed around a bassin edged in stone, a rectangular pool captured as a sheet of black in the photograph. A carved stone bench of Italianate design was placed at one narrow end. At the other stood two lichened statues, one that might have been Venus, the other Mercury, to judge from the wings on his ankles. A large stone urn was placed in each corner of the garden. No flowers had yet been planted.

  “Typical of its time,” she mused. “So many of the grand gardens were created when the Riviera was populated by rich foreigners—who wanted outdoor temples to wealth and the imagination.”

  “I know you have the sensitivity to do this.”

  It was not the first time Laurent de Fayols had invoked her sensitivity. She took note. Sometimes when clients spoke about her qualities, they were really speaking about themselves.

  “You have a sense of history, too,” he went on. “You respect that.”

  “If you mean the Chelsea garden,” she said, knowing full well that he did, “that was very different. It was a modern impression of an era, not historical fact—a stage set, if you like.”

  The exhibition garden she had designed for the renowned Chelsea Flower Show in London, gold-medal-winning and much admired in the media, had brought in more business than she could take on, and a host of misconceptions.

  “Of course. You know I’m not looking for you to reproduce that. It was the small details in War Garden that spoke to me. The gramophone. The woman’s jacket hanging on the spade in the tiny vegetable patch. The crinkled photograph of the soldier, and the man’s cigarette case left as a keepsake.”

  She’d opened her mouth to protest when he preempted her. “I know. That is not garden design, it is more . . . a piece of theatre. But trust me, I saw that you were the person I had been looking for. Young, with fresh ideas.”

  “Well, it’s a question of understanding the period, doing the right research.” And it was true, she did enjoy that aspect. “I have been poring over old books in the British Library for references, but there are very few. The best I’ve found is a description of the island’s indigenous plants in a Victorian travel account.”

  It didn’t amount to much, but it had probably been Delphinium requienii, Genista linifolia, and Cistus porquerollensis that lured her here to discuss the commission.

  He was looking out at the garden, where exotic tree ferns unfurled like frozen green fountains on a path down to the shore. Impossible to guess what he was thinking. The sea breeze lifted tendrils of jasmine. So close to the sea, the scent was intoxicating: a heady blend of salt and musky sweetness. Ellie felt a wave of conviction that it was all possible. The restoration of the memorial garden could be achieved, the realignment of the great archways and evergreen walls, the reinvigoration of the rose garden.

  Laurent flipped over a few more pages of photographs and stopped at one that revealed a doorway cut into a hedge, edged by topiary of a monumental triumphal arch.

  “That is spectacular,” said Ellie.

  “It stands at the southern end of the memorial garden. It wasn’t yet made in the first photograph.”

  “Is it still there?”

  “The remains of it—very damaged now, but I can show you the place.”

  “I’m curious to know what’s on the other side of the arch. It draws the eye in and makes the visitor want to walk through.”

  He tapped his nose, then winked. “Now you are interested, yes?”

  She gave him a smile, feeling that they were beginning to connect.

  This was the aim of an initial meeting with a potential client: to understand exactly what he hoped to achieve. The garden designer—like an architect—was the practical means of bringing the client’s imagination to life. For that to happen, there had to be an understanding based on a clear sense of the pictures in his mind; but also, and perhaps trickier, there had to be a personal relationship. The connection between designer and client was crucial to the success of any project, and the lack of it very often a precursor to failure.

  Laurent led the way back to the terrace. “After you,” he said when they reached the first of two wide stone staircases down into the formal parterre. Closer up, the box hedging clipped into interlocking patches was brown and patchy.

  Through the rose garden, the path ran straight ahead to the mass of mauve wisteria, now past its best. At ground level, Ellie could see now that it formed a tunnel leading deeper into the garden, gnarled trunks growing over a long wooden frame that was rotten in places. At the end was a green space the size of a large room, walled by a hedge of clipped myrtle. From all sides white trumpets of datura hung down, smelling faintly of coffee.

  “I’ve never seen such a display,” said Ellie.

  “My mother planted them many years ago. Moonflowers.”

  “Also known as devil’s trumpet.”

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bsp; “Angel’s trumpet, too. Or so she told me.”

  One garden opened from another in a series of secret rooms. Stone steps were made treacherous by creeping ivy. As they walked on, rotting leaves seeped from unexpectedly dank corners. The temperature dropped. There were no more flowers.

  “And this is the memorial garden.”

  It was a temple of darkest evergreen, scattered with an artless arrangement of broken pillars and statuary. The statues of Venus and Mercury were bigger than life-size. Mercury no longer had wings on his ankles, only tumours of lichen.

  “That’s astonishing . . . like ruins left by the Greeks or Romans.”

  “The doctor was a great classicist. Some of the wells we have here were sunk by the Greeks and then forgotten under the scrub. He was very proud of reviving them.”

  The water in the stone bassin was a black mirror, then silver as she went closer. Its magnetic stillness drew her in.

  “Tell me more about the doctor—he was your father, grandfather?—and how he came to the island.”

  “My father’s uncle, in fact.” He stared out again, as if picturing the old man in the grounds of his estate. “You know already that Porquerolles has a long military history?”

  She nodded. “The island of ten forts, a strategic defence for the south coast of France.”

  “Used for centuries as a retreat for old soldiers and army convalescents. During the Crimean War, it was a hospital camp for wounded soldiers, and there was an orphanage there for many years for the children of the fallen.

  “A hundred years ago, Mr. Fournier, the man who bought Porquerolles with the fortune he made in the silver mines of Mexico, began all kinds of agricultural enterprises. He planted the first vineyard. But he wanted to be a benefactor too. He kept open the convalescent centre and brought his own doctor to run it. When Fournier died in 1935, leaving a widow and seven children, the presence of the doctor was all the more important for her peace of mind. The Domaine was built as one of the farms for the Fournier estate, but the widow Fournier set it aside for the doctor and his family.”

  “Is it still part of the estate?”

  “No, it was bought by the doctor after Fournier died.”

  “It’s a huge house—did he have a large family?”

  “Two sons.”

  He hesitated.

  “Your father’s cousins, then . . . did neither of them want to take on the Domaine?”

  “Both were killed in the war.”

  Ellie pressed her eyes closed. “That’s awful, I’m sorry. . . .” It was a feeble response, but she never knew what to say, how to put her feelings into words to a stranger. What could anyone say? “But this garden commemorates the doctor, not the sons?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So who was responsible for creating it?”

  “My father. And the man who had been the head gardener here in the golden era before the war. Both of them wanting to honour the past in their different ways. When my parents took over the property, it was in a terrible state. The island was occupied during the war, and all the Porquerollais and French were evacuated. First the Italians, then the Germans. They showed no respect, none at all. The islanders came back to find their houses plundered or blown up, furniture reduced to matchwood. Boats had been destroyed, vines pulled up, citrus trees scythed to stumps . . . it took a long time to restore and redress the balance.”

  Ellie shivered. No wonder; she was standing in deep shade. She rubbed her arms and moved towards the few rays of sun that penetrated the overhang.

  “Here is the doorway and arch in the photograph.”

  It had once been cut with precision. Now the yew hedging was half dead. A cavelike hole gaped where the doorway had once been, and the dark pillars of cypress seemed to hide something behind them rather than stand guard, as they did elsewhere.

  Ellie stooped and pushed through.

  The grounds ran down to the sea, through wind-twisted pines, crumbling rocks, and the unexpectedly lush green of the bushes and trees that held fast to every scrap of earth. On a cliff to her right was the lighthouse. Now she understood the way the house sat on its land, with the open sea to the south and the rocky bay of the Calanque de l’Indienne to the southwest.

  The warmth poured over her like hot water. The wide blue sky and lustrous sea were all light and space. For a few heady seconds she felt a sense of freedom more intense than she had ever experienced.

  They walked back slowly towards the house.

  The sunlight could not quite dispel the difference in atmosphere now that she had seen the interior of the garden. It was as if a dark underside had been revealed that changed the cast of the whole property. But the whimsy of it, the way the eye was drawn down through every vista, the inventiveness, the fairy-tale quality, the melancholy of the lost gardens—it all excited her.

  A summer dining room, shaded by a vigorous vine, had been created at the far end of the terrace. One long wall, perhaps the wall of the kitchen garden, was roughly washed with yellow ochre. A row of kumquat trees stood in glossy black pots, tiny orange fruit trembling in dark foliage.

  Laurent pulled out a chair for her. The table was set for two.

  A thin woman of about fifty came out to serve them. Silver threads shone in her black hair, pulled back severely with a large bar clip.

  “Is Mme de Fayols not joining us, Jeanne?”

  “She sends her apologies, monsieur.”

  “I thought you said your wife would be in Paris,” said Ellie, conversationally.

  “My mother.”

  A muted clatter of lid and serving spoons.

  “Is she unwell?” he asked in French, turning to Jeanne.

  “No more than usual.”

  At least that was what Ellie thought they said. Jeanne served a delicate tart of tomato and caramelized onion. A leaf salad with light tangy dressing. Grilled crayfish. She left the table.

  “My mother will be disappointed not to be able to meet you straight away. But there will be plenty of other opportunities. Now, eat! Some wine? Water?”

  Ellie took a small glass of rosé.

  As they ate, her mood lifted again. She found herself warming to him, and to his enthusiasm. She sensed a dash of mischief. His wife lived mainly in Paris, he told her, close to her spiritual home of fine clothes and the arts, trips to the opera on the arm of a young walker, light lunches beneath crystal chandeliers. It was clear the arrangement suited them both. Ellie assumed that Laurent would have his own attachments in the south.

  “This property is my passion,” he said, as if reading her mind disconcertingly accurately. “If I have a mistress, she is here.”

  He took a sip of wine and dabbed the corners of his mouth with a starched white napkin. “So . . . tell me what more I can do to persuade you to accept the commission.”

  “I’d like to walk in the garden alone this afternoon. I want to get a sense of the place, and to think about how the new parts and the restoration might work. Perhaps just look at the other plants, in the shade as well as the sun, to understand how it all fits together. Then I will do some preliminary drawings to scale.

  “Also, I need to work out what irrigation is available. I’m assuming there is, or has been in the past, some kind of watering system. Everything is possible, of course, but with a job like this we have to start at the beginning and the first investment may be to put in new irrigation pipes. We could spend a fortune on a library of the right plants, but without water we would lose them as soon as they go into the ground.”

  He waved away that concern. “There is a source linked to a channel under the first myrtle hedge. It’s never been a problem before. I can send someone down to show you. Now, I must attend to some other matters. You are welcome to spend as long as you like here.”

  The first task was to survey the site and take precise measurements. Then she photographed the memorial garden from every angle. Close to the house she found a ladder that she propped behind the hedge and climbed to a
chieve a view of the whole area. She downloaded the photos onto her laptop and began to make a series of loose sketches by hand on tracing paper.

  Her instincts were to respect the set pieces of the garden—the central stone pool, the high green walls, the position of the statues, the grand exit—but to soften the hard edges with planting that added a modern depth. It was important to stay to see how the sun set over the land, to walk up the hill and look down, considering which plants and colour schemes would be most effective.

  Hours passed. Ellie made templates for more sketches and then lost herself in the garden. Now that she was on her own, undistracted, the grounds seemed so much larger than they had only a few hours before. Absorbed in her work, she felt calm. Was one of the attractions of garden design the imposition of order on an unruly natural world? If so, there was plenty to engage her here. As ever, once the client had left her to her own devices she could see more clearly.

  The sound of footsteps approaching startled her. Someone had come into the maze of garden rooms. Anticipating the employee Laurent de Fayols had said would show her the water source, she was already smiling as she turned around. She waited, then called out, “Hello? I’m in here!”

  No one answered.

  She walked over to the remains of the grand topiary arch, lured by the perfection of the view: the sea; the clouds of umbrella pines and cistus, with its evening fragrance of warm amber; the artful framing of the lighthouse. She was so quietly transfixed that when a bird cawed above she turned, too abruptly.

  A jab of pain; a deep scratch to her arm oozed blood. She looked around. One struggling bloom of palest pink in the ragged green doorway revealed an old shoot of rose studded with vicious thorns.

  The sun was setting behind a line of trees; it cast a great bird’s wing halfway across the field when she finally headed back towards the house. In the warm shade of the first enclosed garden, the datura plants were already releasing pulses of their heady night scent. The coffee aroma of earlier was now a burnt chocolate and earthy spice smell that would deepen with the night. Ellie felt a burning sensation in her nose, like mustard.