The Forgotten Garden

In Brisbane in 1976, Nell is packing up her things in anticipation of moving to Cornwall. She’s just received a letter from a detective she hired to track Eliza’s whereabouts in 1910 and 1911. According to his report, Eliza never left Blackhurst during that time. More perplexed than ever, Nell resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery once she returns to England. As she continues sorting possessions, a car pulls up. It’s her daughter Lesley with Cassandra in tow, asking to park Cassandra with Nell just for a little while. 

In 1913, as Mansell’s carriage hurtles toward Blackhurst, Eliza struggles to revive from her chloroform-induced stupor. Her mind flashes back to the promise she made to Rose. She agreed to conceive a child with Nathaniel for Rose’s sake. He came to her cottage every night for a week. At first, their interaction is awkward, but, by the end of the week, Nathaniel declares that he doesn’t want their romance to end. Eliza says it must.

Now pregnant, Eliza is attended by Mary, who acts as liaison between the cottage and the manor. After Eliza delivers Ivory, Mary urges her to take the child and flee. Eliza stubbornly insists that she made a promise to Rose. Once the baby is taken away, Eliza feels a loneliness she’s never known: “For with the loss of the child, Eliza found that she had fallen through the center of her old life, her old self. She had forsaken her birthright and, in the process, forfeited the purpose in her life” (525).

Eliza’s mind drifts forward in time to her escape to London with Ivory. They stay at a hotel together overnight, and Eliza feels an unbreakable connection to her daughter:

As carefully as she could, Eliza lay upon the bed and curled her own body to accommodate the sleeping girl. Just as she had done in another time, another room, against the warm body of her brother Sammy. Finally, Eliza was home (527).

Eliza finally emerges from her drugged trance and realizes her predicament in the present moment. She recognizes Mansell and knows she’s being taken back to Blackhurst. She is overwhelmed by the need to save her daughter, so she jumps out of the speeding carriage before Mansell can stop her: “And Eliza knew where she was going. Flying towards her daughter, towards Ivory. The person she had spent a lifetime seeking, her other half. She was whole at last, heading towards home” (531).

At Cliff Cottage in 2005, Cassandra and Christian are digging in the garden when Christian finds something. It’s the clay pot that Harriett described Eliza taking with her when she left the Swindell home. Christian wonders why Eliza wouldn’t have taken the object abroad when she left. Cassandra realizes that Eliza never left at all. She must be buried with the clay pot: “There’s no gravestone, nothing at all to mark the spot. They wanted Eliza to disappear, the truth about her death to remain hidden forever. Forgotten, just like her garden” (535). 

Mansell arrives at Blackhurst Manor in 1913 to tell Adeline that Eliza fell under the carriage wheels and was crushed to death. Linus is upset that Ivory escaped and insists that they search for her, but Adeline is glad to be rid of the child as well. Adeline instructs Mansell to bring Eliza’s body to the walled garden at night so they can bury her there. In the dark, Adeline accidentally stabs herself with a thorn from a rose bush: “It was only a rose thorn. Never mind that her blood was ice beneath her skin, the wound would heal and all would be well. But that rosebush would be the first item removed when Adeline ordered the garden razed” (541). A few weeks later, Adeline dies from blood poisoning.

At Cliff Cottage in 2005, Cassandra and Christian finish opening Eliza’s grave. They look inside the clay pot to find two coins, a strand of Eliza’s hair, and her mother’s mourning brooch. Cassandra is sad that Nell never got to know that she hadn’t been abandoned, that she was loved. Christian insists that Nell knew, just like the crone in Eliza’s story. She realized that Cassandra loved her enough to finish what she’d started. Christian asks if Cassandra is still planning to return to Australia. She says she’s going to remain at the cottage, and he kisses her: “She had come to Cornwall to uncover Nell’s past, her family, and somehow she had found her own future. Here, in this beautiful garden that Eliza had made and Nell had reclaimed, Cassandra had found herself” (546). 

In Brisbane in 2005, Nell is only a few moments away from her death. Cassandra has run to find a nurse. As her mind drifts, Nell finds herself in the maze at the manor. When she reaches the end, she sees the Authoress: “‘Where am I?’ ‘You’re home.’ With a deep breath, Nell followed the Authoress across the threshold and into the most beautiful garden she had ever seen” (548).