The Forgotten Garden

In 2005, Ruby comes to visit Cassandra at Cliff Cottage. She’s impressed by the beauty of the place and urges Cassandra to keep the house even though the latter protests that she can’t afford it. Rudy suggests it can be rented out as a holiday cottage, still allowing Cassandra and her friends the use of it. Cassandra is secretly pleased by the idea: “She felt whole and solid for the first time in ten years. Like a circle complete, a thought without dark edges” (425). Ruby suggests a sleepover in the cottage than night, so Cassandra runs into town for supplies. While there, she bumps into Christian and invites him to dinner. He tells her that he discovered the reason for Rose’s mysterious abdominal scars. When Rose swallowed a thimble as a child, Dr. Matthews took 60 minutes of X-rays of her stomach so that he could publish the photos in a medical journal. The radiation exposure would have destroyed Rose’s ovaries, rendering her infertile. She couldn’t possibly have become pregnant in 1909.

At Cliff Cottage in 1975, Nell is inspecting the property that she’s just bought. She’ll be leaving for Australia in four days but plans to return to supervise the renovation.