CHAPTER 7
Joanna
Dorset
After various incidents from her childhood had been recounted and relived, such as the time Joanna had written a memorable poem about Colmer’s Hill (‘the first sign of your writing talent, darling,’ said Mother), and when her mother seemed to be tiring of looking through their old school stuff, Joanna had packed it all away again, feeling nostalgic for those simple childhood days.
Harriet hadn’t seemed interested and now she was busy in the kitchen, so Joanna left her mother to rest, slipped up to her room to fetch the letters from her bedroom and headed outside, intent on sitting under the mulberry tree to read them in peace.
There was an autumnal and musty tang in the air, a stillness in the hills of Warren Down tinged with the lightest of late afternoon mists.
It was, she thought, so very different from Crouch End.
Joanna almost felt that she was entirely alone in the world as she skirted round the kitchen garden, until the view of the village houses, the church, the town of Bridport and the V-shaped dart of the sea opened up in front of her.
She breathed deeply. She’d forgotten how wonderful it could feel.
Slowly, she walked past the fusty woodpile stacked up against Big Barn and down the winding path that led to the mulberry tree and the pond.
She looked up into the branches of the tree.
It was great for climbing. She had never been able to get as high as Harriet, but she could always get high enough to see the ginger sandstone cliffs.
It was a place she’d always loved. When she was a baby, so the story went, Mother used to park the pram near the pond in the shade of the mulberry tree, and Joanna would sleep for hours.
‘But not,’ her mother had added, ‘when the fruit was ripe and might have fallen. Mulberries stain like billy-oh.’
It was true that when the mulberry fruit ripened, it fell to the ground in blood-red heaps, and Joanna and Harriet grew up knowing better than to get the juice on their clothes or they’d never hear the last of it.
Sometimes, when the fruit was ripe enough and not too tart, Mother made jam from the mulberries, sometimes Father used it to make wine.
And Harriet would look so self-important as she helped him gather the fruit, fetch all the bags and bottles and other paraphernalia ready for the mixing and fermenting.
Had Harriet harvested the fruit this year?
There was none left on the tree that Joanna could see, but all the rain they’d had would have removed all traces from the lawn and the path.
Wanting perversely to stretch out the delicious and anticipatory moment before she started reading the letters, Joanna stood on the edge of the pond and peered into the murky water.
It needed clearing. It was clogged with algae and rotting leaves; the water buttercups and lilies of the summer had wilted and died.
Joanna remembered playing boat races with Harriet, poking the floating mulberry leaves with a stick, staring into the pond in the spring as the water flickered in the weak sunlight, searching for the first sight of a skinny tadpole.
She remembered picnics, a tartan rug spread out under the tree, Mother’s home-made lemonade, the snuffling of the pigs and the bleating of the sheep, the taste of the farmyard summertime in her eyes, on her skin.
She reached out to touch the bark of the mulberry tree.
The bark felt dry under her fingertips, but not brittle.
And yes, the tree looked stronger and more rugged than ever.
Which was reassuring, she found. While the tree was still standing, there was still safety; there had to be.
This tree was iconic of her childhood, and it felt good to be here.
She tested the wooden bench for dampness with the flat of her hand and sat down.
She might clear the pond tomorrow, though in truth she rather liked Mulberry Farm Cottage this way.
The general air of being run-down, dilapidated, on the edge of decay, seemed to suit the place, it was part of its charm; it quite liked being wild, she decided.
As she watched, the serrated leaves of the mulberry seemed to shiver in the breeze, and a leaf floated down through the air, to rest on the lawn by the pond.
Joanna remembered the time her father had cut the tree back too heavily and they thought it would die.
But it hadn’t died. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Would it be like that with Martin? She thought of his unanswered texts.
She had put up a barrier, a wall – at least for now.
She didn’t want to talk until she’d had more time to think, and she certainly didn’t want to argue.
Someone on the radio last week had said that arguments kept a relationship alive because they showed you still cared.
But now she was wondering if the opposite was true.
If arguments could simply batter the love out of you.
And now, here she was, back at Mulberry Farm Cottage, and she could almost smell the change in the air.
Could you go back in order to decide how to go forwards?
Mother might not be the mother of her childhood and Harriet was never exactly sisterly .
. . But this was still home and this was where she wanted to be for now.
Because she felt battered. She felt adrift.
Had it happened without her even noticing?
She took the letters out of her bag, looked around to check she wasn’t being observed.
There was something illicit about the discovery, something thrilling that made her want to keep this to herself.
Gently, she untied the black ribbon. She’d find out first what they were all about – who’d written them and if they revealed anything interesting – and then – she sighed – she’d share them with her mother and her sister.
But for now, they were for her eyes only.
There were three letters of several pages each, fastened with three separate clips.
She unclipped the first pages and began to read, her gaze skating down to the end of the final page to discover the name of the author.
Emmy, she read, in the lovely looping handwriting.
So, she’d been right, it was a woman’s hand.
And she’d written it in Venice. It was written again at the bottom of the letter. From Venice with love. Inevitably, Martin and that romantic trip came again to mind.
She began reading the first page. My dearest Rufus, my heart’s love.
Oh my . . . Joanna looked up, away into the distance of the green rolling fields of the Down where the grass was glistening in the late afternoon sun and the sheep were calmly grazing.
It was a love letter. From Venice with love, of course.
Perhaps they were all love letters . . .
She looked down at the pages on her lap.
Despite her curiosity, she still felt as if she were intruding.
What would this Emmy feel about someone reading her letters to Rufus?
But it was so long ago. And Joanna was so curious. She read on.
How I wish you could be with us in this glorious city.
Us? Who were us? Joanna wondered.
Father is feeling quite well and his breathing seems easier – the warm air here agrees with him, I believe.
Ah, she was with her father then. Joanna read on.
Today, we visited St Mark’s Square, which is very grand, and the architecture is most fine.
Ah, my dearest, how I dream of you being here with me on a boat on the Canal Grande passing by the most magnificent of palaces, my hand in yours, you whispering to me the sweetest of words, such as you have whispered to me so many times before.
Joanna let out another small sigh. Emmy certainly missed him, that much was obvious.
Who was he? Her lover? Her husband? She looked up once more.
The sun was setting and there was now a chill to the early evening air.
Over the sea in the V of the hills, the light was red-gold, gilding the rolling tide.
And behind the cottage, the tall pine trees marked the beginning of Warren Woods where she and Harriet used to gather bluebells in the spring, bringing them to Mother for her to put into vases, their fragrance filling the cottage with heady summertime.
Did she miss Martin? she asked herself. Not enough perhaps.
There was an emotion in this letter that Joanna couldn’t help envying.
Whoever Rufus was, clearly Emmy had left him at home .
. . Here at Mulberry Farm Cottage perhaps?
How old was the cottage? It had been built in the 1880s, she thought, though there might have been another building on the site even earlier.
So, perhaps Emmy had left him here while she travelled with her sick father on a trip.
Drinking the waters or taking the air, or whatever they called it back then.
Were they married? She sounded educated and they must have had money to be able to travel.
Who was she? A previous resident of Mulberry Farm Cottage?
An ancestor of theirs perhaps? Joanna felt a small shiver of excitement.
In the afternoons, she read, going on to the second page, Father takes a nap and I set off with my board and my easel to the bridge. Oh, how you would smile if you could see me, my dearest.
The bridge? Joanna frowned. Something nudged at her mind, something she couldn’t quite capture. And board and easel? So, Emmy was an artist. Was that why they had gone to Venice? She was going to paint . . . ?
Oh, my. Joanna jumped to her feet. How could she be so dense? Emmy was going to paint a bridge in Venice!