Novels (3) - a work in  progress

The Lavender Legacy (1)

Prologue

She had come a long, long way to reach the garden. But here she was at last. Home, safe and sound.
   The place was achingly familiar, bathed in summer sunlight veiled by the softest of mists, filled by the ripple of water and the songs of flitting birds. Beside the pathway, flowers bloomed in brilliant colours, springing from emerald grass and on every bush and tree leaves whispered under the caress of a warm breeze. She came again to the low white fence where beyond a white gate the view opened out and before her... there! Oh, there was the lavender! The breeze brought the fragrance of the hazy purple-blue carpet that stretched away to misted horizons, alive with bees and birds.
   'Come!’ The summons came soft yet insistent, reaching out to draw her in. The mist swirled and she glimpsed a tall winged figure, half hidden in the haze, a warm and benevolent guardian, smiling, beckoning: 'Come...’
   How dearly she wanted to obey. A few more steps and she would be there among the fragrant lavender. Home for ever. Safe from every harm.
   But as she laid a hand on the white gate a woman appeared, moving toward her through the lavender, shaking her head, her eyes anxious, her hand held up to deny entry. 'No, not yet. Not yet. If you come through the gate you can never go back. It is not your time. Not yet. You still have things to do. Will you leave them all undone?'
   She had a choice. That much she knew. To stay or to return.
  She wanted to stay. Here, where she was safe. She did not want to go back. What remained for her back there where she had come from? Nothing but despair.
   I want to stay! But even as the words echoed in her mind she knew she had to go back. Already the garden was fading. Some unseen force was drawing her away. She resisted with all her might, but it was much too strong. It pulled her under, dragged her whirling, down and down the star-filled maelstrom...
 
No!....
  With an effort, Claire Blizzard wrenched her mind back to the present. Holding herself together by sheer force of will, she stared into her dressing table mirror, positioning the black hat at its most flattering angle. Now was not the time to go to pieces. The people she loved most would need her to be strong today.
    Considering that she would be sixty in two years’ time she still looked pretty good, with a golden tan, size fourteen figure, and fair hair highlighted to hide the gathering grey. Black had always suited her, though a brighter shade of lipstick might have helped to enliven her face. And some eye make-up. Without that camouflage she did look a little wan. But she knew she could not get through this day without weeping, and a deluge of hot tears would smudge even waterproof mascara. Better to go without.
     As if it matters what you look like! she thought savagely. Nothing mattered any more. ‘Oh... hell!’ The words exploded from her in a violent whisper and she flung up her hands to cover her eyes – to hide from the desperation she read there.
     People always said that one of the hardest things in life was to lose your child. People were wrong. Harder still was to lose a beloved only grand-child, and have to stand by and watch your own child grieve and be unable to offer comfort because she refused even to look at you, irrationally blaming you for her pain. Or so it seemed. If there was meaning in this cruelty, Claire no longer knew where to look for it.
     The vicar, predictably, had suggested that answers were to be found in God, who moves in mysterious ways – so mysterious, Claire thought, so random and illogical that he (he, she, it, they) might as well not exist. After a lifetime of searching, Claire found it hard to believe in any kind of god. Especially on this bleak, black summer morning when here she was donning bleak, black mourning once again.
     ‘We don’t have to wear black!’ Jen had insisted. ‘Well, I shan’t. Lyddie hated the sight of me in black. Besides, we’re going to be celebrating her life, not---’ She had choked the sentence off, unable to shape the awful word despite her bravado. Tears had spilled from her eyes and her voice came rough with defiance. ‘I’m just glad I had her for four years! I have some lovely memories. And now she’s safe in heaven with Jesus.’ She had glared into all the faces around her, daring them to contradict. ‘I know she is, whatever the rest of you think! I’m glad to know that. I rejoice in it! I refuse to wear mourning!’ With that, the tears had won and Richie, her husband, had put his arms around her and let her weep, his own face strained and grey.
     Did Jen, wrapped deep in her own sorrow, realize that she was shutting Richie out? But Jen had shut everyone out – her husband, her father, even her mother. No, Claire corrected the thought, make that especially her mother.
     At the hospital, in those unreal, impossible minutes just after they turned off the machines and let Lyddie go, Jen had turned on Claire and screamed, ‘I shall never forgive you for this, mother. Never!’ Yet Claire had no idea what she was supposed to have done. Jen wouldn’t talk about it. She had retreated into silent misery. Perhaps, when she had come through the worst, they might be able to discuss whatever it was she imagined Claire had done to harm Lyddie. For now, it was all too painful.
     Smoothing her skirt over her hips, Claire wondered whether her neat black suit would provide her daughter with another cause for grievance -- but nothing else in her wardrobe looked appropriate, somehow. Not for her lovely, laughing, four-year-old Lyddie, who one day was playing with her Barbie dolls, painting rainbow pictures of ponies, and the next lay in a hospital chapel, pale and beautiful as a wax doll. Sleeping. Never to wake.
     Meningitis, they named this horror.
     Meaningless.
     Taking a deep breath, Claire straightened her spine, blotted her face, and returned the stony stare of her reflection. Perhaps only she could see the bitter fury burning deep in those red-rimmed hazel eyes.
     For her there was little comfort in religious faith, not over the death of a bright young life with so much promise. If she had had any choice in the matter she would have refused to attend the church service, but the rest of the family would never understand. It embarrassed them when she railed against the cant and hypocrisy preached by church-going feel-gooders, like the unmarried thirty-something female curate who had come with smiles and easy, lying words; who had dared to say that Jesus had wanted Lyddie for a sunbeam. That pious platitude had comforted Jen, however briefly, but Claire had wanted to scream, or throw something, or batter the stupid bitch over the head with the nearest blunt weapon. She had settled for walking out, on a pretext of making more tea.
     Anger and bitterness were useless, like every other emotion. Today had to be got through. The ritual performed, the play played out. The family putting on a united front in the face of adversity. Hoping to achieve closure. That was what psychologists called it these days. Going through the motions, performing the traditional rites of passage -- whether one believed they had meaning or not. It was supposed to help the grieving process, wasn’t it? All she could do was cope, somehow. Be strong. For the sake of the others. They were grieving, too.
     ‘Ready?’ her husband’s voice came soft, deep with his own grieving.
     He stood in the doorway behind her, reflected in the mirror. Still tall and straight though his once-dark hair was mostly silver now. Still handsome, still lean and broad-shouldered in his dark suit and black tie. Claire’s own darling man, beloved for nearly forty years, wore a look of contained anguish that mirrored hers. They didn’t need words. There were no words. Lyddie was gone. Neither of them could bear it. So they coped. Putting on a face, second by second, minute by minute, hoping that time might reveal some way by which they might continue beyond this tragedy. Some way that might supply a reason to continue.
     Nick said quietly, ‘It’s time.’
     ‘I know.’ She wasn’t ready. She would never be ready for this day.
     Instinctively she reached for the small bottle of lavender perfume that stood on her dressing table. She sprayed a little at her throat and on her wrist, breathing in the sweet old-fashioned fragrance. Soothing, cooling, healing (so their own publicity claimed, and she believed it to be true). The scent evoked, as it always did, a thousand memories – of Nick (of course), of her father, of Elizabeth and Billy, and old Lizzie, whom Claire had never met but whose story she knew so well; and of all the others before her, a line stretching back into history. The scent also prompted visions of the lavender plant itself – fields of flowers blooming purple and mauve, pink and white under a summer sun, laden with bees -- and the heavy, almost astringent aroma of the warm oil as it dripped golden yellow from the stills. Once Claire had dreamed of sharing that legacy with Lyddie, as she had never been able to share it with anyone else. She had visualised herself in old age, sharing with her grand-daughter her delight in the family story, in the lavender legacy, and her belief in the reality of angels. Especially one particular angel... But on this dreadful morning, Claire wasn’t even sure she still believed it herself. The human mind can, after all, play strange tricks.
     The perfume bottle felt smooth and cool against her palm, made of thick purple glass and shaped to fit the hand, labelled with the words ‘Red Mill Lavender’ arcing over a silhouette of a crinoline-skirted lady wearing a big bonnet. Though she had not consciously intended the words, she knew the moment was right as she heard herself say, ‘I’m going to write that story.’
     Nick’s mind had been elsewhere. ‘Sorry?’
     ‘The lavender story,’ Clare explained. ‘Lizzie’s story. Our story. I’m going to write it all down. For Lydia.’
     ‘Good idea, darling.’ He tried a smile, but it only made him look even more desperate, as if he were praying she would not crack up on him now. He couldn’t cope with any more. ‘Are you ready?’
     She came swiftly to her feet and went to him, holding out her hand. He reached to meet her and their hands clasped strongly, saying all that needed saying. Together they would face whatever the day brought. Afterwards, they would learn to live on despite their grief.
     Claire sensed relief in him, too, his strong fingers squeezing hers painfully tight. She knew he found her a little fey at times, but he indulged her, knowing the madness would pass – which meant, in fact, that she had learned to keep her ‘wild imaginings’ to herself rather than suffer the scorn and scoffing of the sceptics in her family. After all, no rational person believed in guardian angels.
     Lydia might have understood, one day. But Lydia was gone. So Claire would write the story down, dedicated to her lost grand-daughter. The story of old Lizzie and the daughter fated to share the burden of her mother’s remorse. Lizzie and her obsessions. Her love of lavender, to begin with. And later her darkest need, her quest for absolution, a desperate secret that she had carried with her to the grave.
     And beyond.
  

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