Flowers in the Morning

  Flowers in the Morning

  By Irene Davidson

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of

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  Copyright 2014 Adrienne Oaks

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, character, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue One: Liana

  Prologue Two: Hamish

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue One: Betony

  Epilogue Two: Jack

  About the Author

  Other titles by Irene Davidson

  Connect with Irene Davidson

  Acknowledgements and Dedication

  A sample of Irene’s next title: Collecting Thoughts

  Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,

  Thus unlamented let me die,

  Steal from the world, and not a stone

  Tell where I lie.

  Alexander Pope

  Prologue One

  Liana

  She lay sleeping …her body furled tightly like some rare unopened flower, breathing barely perceptible, looking to all intents and purposes as if no longer alive, although on rare occasions, which might be days or months apart, she would disprove this by moving as she did now … murmuring the soft unintelligible words of troubled dreams while stretching a questing hand, as if caressing the cheek of some long departed lover. The woodland detritus of too many passing seasons had created a blanket over her, so thick that her long limbs, poorly clad in a gown of gossamer thinness, were no longer visible, even to those who might have once had the ability to see her.

  Her long, once gloriously lustrous hair had become matted and entangled with leaves and twigs, its rich russet tones dulling as the years wore inexorably on. Now and then, the twisted strands would drift across her face as she slept. Whereas in times past she might have tugged at them irritably with one fine-boned hand, it had been a long while since anything outside of her dreams had bothered her. Latterly, her flawlessly pale skin had taken on a faintly greenish hue, as she tried, unsuccessfully, to give back to the Garden the life that had once been so precious to her.

  It had all started innocently enough ... her anguished thoughts had disturbed her to the point of allowing no rest. To this end, Liana had called, as she had more and more in times past, upon the Spirit of the Garden to help ease her pain by gifting her slumber. When, despite her increasingly insistent pleas, no solace was forthcoming from that quarter, she took it upon herself to request assistance directly from the plants … and they, in pity for her sorry condition, came to her aid ... at first only a handful of the lesser species, well-known for their mildly soporific qualities … then later, when these didn't have the desired effect she had added to their numbers until she was surrounded by a pretty but potentially deadly meadow, lush with herbs all noted for their strongly sedative and deeply sleep-inducing properties: valerian and hops; lemon balm and chamomile; lady’s slipper and skullcap ... still not satisfied, she had taken her case to the younger trees, knowing that the aged denizens of the garden would not go against the will of the place ... but the young saplings, like young anywhere, were spurred by youthful rebelliousness and had championed her cause ... so it was not by mere chance that she had become covered over with fir needles from once immature but now lofty old pines and the leaves and blossoms of Jamaican dogwoods and lime trees. They had, over time, grown so closely together that they now encircled her somnolent form with their trunks, forming an impenetrable living barrier between her body and the outside world. Then, as she had at last drifted into drowsiness and away from the ever-present pain in her heart and mind, the germ of an idea had formed and she had rashly acted upon it, giving less consideration to the consequences of her actions than she should have. For unbeknown to Liana, her final act of intentional self-harm had brought her to the attention of the less benevolent inhabitants of the garden, those who had claimed for their own, and indulged in a pretence of ruling, the deep, sunless and rank corners of the woods, one in particular who would stop at nothing to exact reparation for a long-held grudge. At last, the yearned-for opportunity for making mischief of a particularly unsavoury kind had presented itself and he was determined not to let the moment go to waste.

  Watching these events unfold with increasing disquiet, the Garden, unobtrusively vigilant, eventually became aware that she had encouraged a deadly cocktail of hemlock and opium to join her throng of lethargy-inducing plants and at last felt sufficiently uneasy to contemplate intervention. But the world moved slowly within the garden’s walls and it tarried too long in making the decision to become involved, by which time she had gone too far into sleep to be easily awakened. Since she could not now be dissuaded from the course she had chosen, it had, uncharacteristically, intercepted and altered her ill-intentioned scheme, amending it just enough that she would do herself no permanent harm from the consequences of what it considered her temporary insanity ... so that now the pale green umbels of the hemlock and the pretty, but potentially deadly flowers of the opium poppies had been relocated to grow in a spot deeper in the woods -- where they were rendered ineffectual to her sleeping form. They had been replaced with St John’s wort, passionflower and drifts of delicate yellow cowslips ... in hopes of calming her restlessness and easing her troubled spirit. Upon reflection, the Garden had, over the years, added seedlings of wild lettuce, wishing to temper the self-destructive feelings that had led her to this place in the first instance. Time, in the Garden's long experience healed most hurts ...but hers, it knew, was not the hurt of something done one or twice, but that which had been repeated in all probability, one time too many to be endured.

  Liana had chosen this quiescent oblivion in the days immediately after his departure, in preference to remaining awake and vulnerable to the all-too-familiar gut wrenching pain of grief and loss, which she knew from bitter experience, would only worsen in the weeks and months to come. Sooner or later, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she loved them, they had all gone where she couldn’t follow, and she was left desolate and solitary in the garden once more, tormented by her memories and the ache of unassuaged loneliness. The difference being, that this time she had made up her mind to never let it happen again. Confined as she was within the garden’s boundaries, running from the pain was not an option, so she’d decided to hide from it … retreating from the world into insensibility ... she’d done it before with the Garden’s blessing, sometimes for years at a stretch -- but this time, if she had her way, she wouldn’t wake to greet the dawn or gather posies of flowers still fresh with the early morning dew, she’d stay asleep in this comatose-like state of oblivion forever and never a
wake,

  … Never

  … Not ever again.

  And she knew, from bitter experience, that forever was a very long time.

  Perhaps, not such a wise choice made in haste, since with it, she had lost all power to rouse of her own volition. And now, lost in dreams too deep to recall, she was slowly fading ... not exactly dying but trapped in her state of living death … whilst all around her, the Garden could feel the impending loss, helpless to do little more than look on as the inevitable approached.

  Still … intimately bound as they were ...the Garden did what it could to care for her. Shielding her sleeping form from wind, rain and snow as much as it was able, it maintained constant vigil over her ... all the while hoping against hope for a miracle …

  ... And please God, it would come soon …

  And thou art dead, as young and fair,

  As aught of mortal birth;

  And form so soft, and charms so rare,

  Too soon returned to Earth!

  Lord Byron

  Prologue Two

  Hamish

  The late afternoon sun still shone just brightly enough to provide a little warmth, slanting down through golden leafy boughs already begun that inevitable but colourful decline that comes with the onset of autumn. A narrow, solitary beam of sunlight found its way between the densely overlapping branches of the trees to fall like a spotlight on a stage through the open top of a compact classic Austin Healey convertible painted a vibrant green that had been parked beneath the trees, momentarily caressing the back of the head of its sole occupant … near-black hair tousled from the breeze that had been created while he had been driving dangerously fast. The sorrowful strains of Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante defunte drifted as a heart-wrenching refrain from the car’s stereo speakers, the low but exceptionally clear notes dissipating in the still air until eventually they floated away to nothing among the thick undergrowth below the trees.

  It was difficult to say whether he was still listening to the music or not as his eyes had been closed for some time, luxuriously thick dark lashes resting on high strong cheekbones. Anyone chancing upon the car, parked to one side of an ancient lichen-encrusted stone bridge in this quiet lane could have been forgiven for thinking that he was oblivious to anything other than whatever it was that made him look so forlorn and world-weary ... but even now, they would have been very wrong. For, without bothering to open his eyes he could have, had he felt so inclined, described his immediate surroundings in perfect detail … from the pools of light and shadows cast by the dying sun among the oak and elm trees, to the cool trickle of water tumbling gently over the slippery green surfaces of the algae-coated rocks in the shallows of the stream that ran between banks just footsteps away from the front bumper of the car. And he would have been able to locate, with pinpoint accuracy, the songbirds calling to one another in the woods, above and around him. A blackbird, high up in the branches of a tall oak to his left, tunefully letting the lesser birds know of its territory and supremacy ... bronze-chested chaffinches, flitting from tree to tree, newly arrived from northern Europe for their winter sojourn in these woods, and even, at intervals in the distance and just discernible over the gentle burbling of the water, the onomatopoeic call of a cuckoo.

  None of this would have surprised those who knew him or of his reputation as an artist whose paintings were hanging in many of the more prestigious galleries of the world, and whose talent for painting nature was well-known. This was, unarguably, the day-to-day stuff of life to him. So much so that even at this moment, at what could hardly be described as a high-point in his existence, he was as always, innately aware of his environment ... given the desire to do so, he would have been capable of reproducing the scene in a detailed drawing from memory alone. But for now the small sketchbook, pencils and sticks of charcoal that customarily travelled everywhere with him were sitting, untouched in the glove-box of the car.

  His tall well-built frame slumped in the driver's seat, long-fingered hands with blunt nails that were never quite clear of paint residue linked loosely over the steering wheel ... as if in supplication to a God that he’d never felt more estranged from than in these past months, head bowed so low that his forehead rested wearily on his entwined fingers ... and all because he’d forgotten, quite simply, that this particular piece of music was on this particular music disc. He was well aware that it wasn’t what he needed to be listening to right now, but when the track had started playing he’d felt powerless, either to turn the music off or skip forward to another track. Sometimes, he thought, even he was surprised at how little it took to send him into a downward spiral of melancholy. The title was apt -his princess was dead and he was tired and worn down by this relentless grief ... and oh, but if he wasn't so almightily sick of the endless march of weekends spent fruitlessly searching for somewhere ... at this point, almost anywhere, just to get out of London and kick-start his life into being again.

  Six months before, following a relaxed weekend spent outside the city it had seemed such a clever idea, inspired even -he’d thought, to find a new home in the countryside well beyond the reach of London’s motorways, inner ring-roads and overcrowded streets. He'd known long before then that the noise and hustle of city living wasn’t for him, but she'd loved the city, so he'd stayed long beyond his normal tolerance for things 'urban' -to make a life there with her. The very things that repelled him had enthralled her ...the never-ending din, the ceaseless traffic, the wall to wall parade of people frequenting, of course ...the plethora of shops. “Retail Therapy will do you good!”, she'd said gaily, grabbing his willing hand and pulling him along behind her into the Conran shop on a rainy Sunday afternoon, or dashing to the after-Christmas sales with her girlfriends ... laughing and tossing her hair in that way she'd perfected … all flowing lines and movement …

  He regretted now that he'd never been able to catch her on canvas to his satisfaction ... she’d been far too mobile for the medium ... but where film might have recorded her constant motion it would have missed her beautiful spirit. The very spirit that had captured his heart years before ... so much so that her fascination for all things urban had become a part of his fascination with all things her … and so much so that he hadn’t minded living within the confines of what was one of the innermost Boroughs of London, urbanity flowing from every bustling street. He’d thanked God, back then, for the relatively quiet backwater that was their mews and its proximity to the park that he retired to when he needed a quantum of solace from the maddening crowds that frequented every other part of the Borough. It was a tiny slice of nature he’d introduced their daughter Lucy to, and from a very young age she had shared his love for the urban wildlife if not the peace and tranquillity …and all this within spitting distance of the busier streets.

  Acquaintances who hadn’t known them well as a couple commented to one another that they were like chalk and cheese, privately wondering what it was that held the two so closely together and preparing themselves not to be overly surprised when their differences started to drive them apart ... not comprehending, as both Hamish and Elaine did, that their deep admiration for those very differences was, in fact, the glue that held them to each other. It had been in all respects a perfect marriage and as a direct result of this, he’d even found himself enjoying certain aspects of city life such as cappuccinos and lattes over the Sunday papers at their favourite cafe after church ... followed by the long ambling stroll home, past shops and leafy garden squares, Lucy happily rocked to sleep in her pushchair.

  But now, without her ... without them, he corrected ... life was very different ... so that lately he could feel the city inexorably draining away any desire for living that he might have had left in him. ’If a man is tired of London he is tired of life’, the words of Doctor Samuel Johnson, obviously a more stalwart supporter of the city than himself, came unbidden into his consciousness, taunting him even more. This man, he thought, is very definitely tired of London ...as for the other �
��tired of life’ … well, he didn't want to think about that right now.

  He was teetering too close to the edge, and he knew it ... though why he’d begun to contemplate such a radically permanent solution to his problems, after surviving so many months of their absence, was something he couldn't explain. All the same, he acknowledged, if something didn't happen soon he felt would explode with the pressure building up inside his mind. He was short on sleep and missing meals and it seemed that his lack of success at finding a suitable house was compounding with his inability to deal with the losses he’d suffered ... and right now, as if to add insult to injury, he appeared to be on the wrong bloody road ... Andrew Bristow, that pompous ass of an estate agent, had given incomprehensible directions to what was probably going to turn out to be another wild goose chase. His impractical little gem of a car lacked a working GPS, he was one of the few people in the country who didn’t feel the need to own a mobile phone and he’d managed to leave the map-book behind at the B & B. He glanced at the watch hanging loosely on his thinner than normal wrist that indicated both the time and how inadequately he’d been eating lately. He was so late for the appointment now, he thought, he might as well give up and go back to his B & B to retrieve the roadmap. In truth, he didn't know why he even still bothered ... then immediately, his consciousness came back with the reply and he corrected himself.

  Yes … he knew exactly why …

  It was a last-ditch, desperate, gnaw-off-your-own-leg-to-get-out-of-the-trap sort of attempt to get his life back on track.

  So, straightening his spine and his resolve, he reached forward and flicked the stereo to another disc. That was more like it ... a track from Breaking Benjamin’s Phobia album … he smiled grimly, well, he thought, if he was going to listen to angst, he might as well make it angst-with-attitude … he increased the volume to an ear-blasting level and executed a fast, neat turn beside a gateway so overgrown that he barely registered its existence, before driving with speed that spoke of a careless lack of concern for his existence back the way he had come.