The Forgotten Garden

In 1975 London, Nell meets with an antique book dealer named Snelgrove, who’s an expert on Victorian fairy tale authors. He says that Nell’s book is a rare collectible and offers to buy it. When she declines, he shows her a biography of Eliza Makepeace. Nell reads that Eliza was the daughter of an aristocrat and a bargeman. After her father’s death, Eliza’s mother was too proud to ask for her family’s financial assistance. She died of tuberculosis when Eliza was 11, leaving the girl and her twin brother to fend for themselves. Linus Mountrachet, Eliza’s uncle, found the girl and relocated her to the family’s Cornish estate of Blackhurst Manor. She lived with her uncle’s family until she was 25. Having penned only one complete book of fairy tales, Eliza vanished in 1913, and her whereabouts after that point were a matter of speculation. A charcoal sketch of her, drawn by artist Nathaniel Walker, hangs in the Tate Gallery in London. It’s entitled The Authoress.

Eliza now takes over the narrative. The year is 1900, and she’s living in a London slum with her twin brother, Sammy. Sammy is a chimney sweep while Eliza works as a laundress and catches rats as a side job. The children are at the mercy of their landlord and landlady, the greedy Swindells, who threaten to alert the authorities to the orphans if they don’t give the Swindells all their pay. Unbeknownst to the Swindells, Eliza’s mother has left her a valuable heirloom brooch but cautions her never to sell it through an auction house. The sale might alert her mother’s family to their whereabouts: “Mother was worried about the Bad Man, the one she’d been warning them about all their lives. Who could be anywhere, lurking behind corners, waiting to catch them” (125). In addition to the brooch, Eliza has managed to hide some money in a chink in her bedroom wall. She plans to use the coins to buy oranges that she and Sammy can sell. They could be rid of the Swindells and set up for themselves. Eliza assures her brother that she’ll take care of them both.

In 2005, Cassandra is met in London by Ben’s daughter Ruby. Ruby is an energetic extrovert who insists that Cassandra stay with her rather than at a hotel. Although Cassandra wants peace and quiet, she politely puts up with Ruby’s chatter. After Ruby goes to bed, Cassandra sits by a darkened window, contemplating what London must once have been like:

A city where nightfall turned the streets to pitch and the air to fog: Jack the Ripper’s London. That was the London of Eliza Makepeace, the London Cassandra had read about in Nell’s notebook, of mist-filled streets and looming horses, glowing lamps that materialized, then vanished again into the fog-laden haze (132).  

The narrative returns to Eliza in 1900 London. On a foggy day while the Swindells are both out foraging, Eliza decides to play a game of Ripper, which she invented with Sammy. One player impersonates Jack the Ripper, and the other player is his victim, known as Mother. The object is for Mother to escape the Ripper’s clutches. Eliza takes the role of Mother. Sammy gives her a 10-second head start before he begins his pursuit. Eliza quickly slips away toward the river. Behind her, she hears a crash, a horse whinnying, and a man shouting. She doesn’t turn around but keeps running. Several minutes later, she realizes Sammy isn’t following. Retracing her steps, she is horrified to find her brother lying in the street, trampled to death by a carriage horse.

After his body is brought home, Eliza begs Mrs. Swindell to give Sammy a proper burial instead of a pauper’s grave. The girl briefly considers selling her mother’s brooch to pay for a funeral but ultimately rejects the idea: “It was her own fear that the future held worse than the past. That there would be a time, lurking in the foggy years to come, when the brooch was the lone key to her survival” (142). In the weeks that follow, Eliza begins to wear Sammy’s clothing as a way of keeping him alive in her mind. When she cuts off her long red hair, she’s surprised how much she resembles her dead twin. Having made this adjustment to her appearance, she goes on with her life of drudgery. 

The story returns to Cassandra in 2005 on the morning after her arrival in London. She goes to meet Ruby at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where Ruby works. There, Cassandra sees a collection of unfinished sketches by Nathaniel Walker that have been loaned to the museum. A woman in Cornwall found them among her mother’s things. Cassandra recognizes the sketches as early drafts of the illustrations in Nell’s storybook. After Cassandra leaves the museum, she consults Nell’s notebook and finds a street in Battersea marked with an X. She resolves to get to the bottom of her grandmother’s mystery: “It had mattered to Nell and it mattered now to Cassandra. This puzzle was her inheritance. More than that, it was her responsibility” (152). 

The novel shifts to Nell’s point of view during her London trip in 1975. She has found a house on Battersea Church Road where Eliza once lived. When she knocks on the door, no one answers. Instead, a frowsy old woman steps out of the house next door and says she was born in the house Nell wants to visit. Her name is Harriet Swindell. When Nell shows her a picture of Eliza, Harriet recognizes her instantly. Eliza lived with the Swindells and used to make up terrifying fairy tales that delighted all the children.

After leaving Harriett, Nell goes to the Tate Gallery to see Nathaniel Walker’s portrait of Eliza. While there, she glimpses the portrait of another woman whom Nell recognizes—her mother. The woman’s name is Rose Elizabeth Mountrachet. Nell feverishly searched the reference library to find out Rose’s background and learns she was married to Nathaniel Walker, and they had a daughter named Ivory Walker. Rose and Ivory were Nathaniel’s favorite portrait subjects, and Nell soon finds a painting entitled Mother and Child in which she recognizes herself.

Digging further into the historic record, Nell discovers that her parents died in a train accident in 1913. This timing dovetails with Nell’s trip to Australia. Nell is relieved to realize that they didn’t abandon her after all, but she’s confused to find that Ivory Walker supposedly died of scarlet fever at the age of four. Nell believes she can only unravel this mystery if she goes to Blackhurst, her family’s home in Cornwall.