I’m crazy about fairy tales. Always have been, always will
be. But I don’t mean perky animated movies like The
Little Mermaid; I mean the eerie, ambiguous narratives of Hans
Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, or the late 19th-century
retellings found in Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books. These stories
--- evoked explicitly in Kate Morton’s THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN
--- are emotionally complex, mixing terror with magic, cruel fate
with happy endings. (If the success of Stephenie Meyer’s
vampire books is any indication, readers young and old
still take pleasure in being scared out of their
wits.)

This is not to say that THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN will shiver your
bones. It’s much more benign than that. Still, there is a
mystery at its heart: Why was a four-year-old girl apparently
abandoned by her parents in 1913 and left alone on a ship bound
from London to Australia?

To answer that question, Morton constructs a generation-spanning
chronicle of three women. First is a Victorian fairy tale author
named Eliza Makepeace (it’s hard to believe she didn’t
exist, given the quality of the three stories included in the
book). Her well-born mother runs off with a seaman, is disowned by
her family, and dies of consumption, leaving her daughter to the
tender mercies of the evil Swindells (a couple straight out of
Dickens) in fog-shrouded, crime-ridden turn-of-the-century London.
Eliza, who from an early age loves to spin stories and play Jack
the Ripper in the mists, is eventually tracked down by her
mother’s family and delivered to their Cornwall estate,
Blackhurst Manor. There she finds a repressive aunt; a vague,
creepy uncle --- but, on the brighter side, also a hidden cottage
and garden that become her private preserve, and a young invalid
cousin, Rose, who becomes well with the help of Eliza’s
loyalty, strength and active imagination. (If this sounds strangely
like THE SECRET GARDEN, it is. Morton cleverly makes Frances
Hodgson Burnett a guest at a Blackhurst garden party, where she is
inspired by Rose and Eliza’s story to write her classic
novel.)

The second thread is Nell Andrews, the perplexing abandoned
child. When the ship reaches its Queensland, Australia,
destination, she is found by the harbormaster and raised by him and
his wife; only when she turns 21 is she told that she isn’t
their child. After this shock, Nell turns strange and withdrawn.
But in 1975, prompted by the contents of the small white suitcase
that was found with her on the dock --- notably, a beautifully
illustrated book of fairy tales by Eliza Makepeace --- she sets out
to solve the conundrum of her true origins. She ends up in
Cornwall, where she buys Eliza’s former cottage and garden.
She intends to return and make her life there, but something
prevents her.

That something is strand three, Cassandra, Nell’s
granddaughter. Nell is widowed and estranged from her daughter,
Lesley, who rather unceremoniously dumps her 10-year-old on mom.
Cassandra grows up with Nell, shares her work at the antiques
stall, and in 2005 --- 30 years after Nell’s journey to
Cornwall --- keeps a vigil at her grandmother’s deathbed.
When Cassandra, who has her own past losses to contend with,
discovers that she has inherited Cliff Cottage, as the Cornwall
hideaway is known, she in turn goes to England to play
detective.

Even summarizing these stories lucidly is difficult, so you can
imagine how hard it was to write them (Morton must have resorted to
some sort of chart). For the most part the triple-pointed design of
the book is successful. It’s good to have one of the themes
of the novel --- the overlay of memories; the way the mind mixes
fact and fiction --- so well supported by its structure.

What isn’t good is that echoes of other books are so loud
in THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN (I had the same difficulty with
Morton‘s first novel, THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON, which was
straight out of Daphne Du Maurier). It’s as if she has
absorbed her favorite novels too well; here there are intimations
not only of Dickens and Hodgson Burnett, but of Wilkie Collins,
Howard Pyle and Du Maurier (again). In her acknowledgments Morton
pays tribute to children’s book authors and says this book is
partly “an ode to them” --- but she fails to make the
material her own. Too often it reads more like a pastiche of other
people’s styles and ideas. And although it’s pleasantly
written, there are a lot of rather formulaic ladies’-novel
conventions: beautiful heroines with red hair, a handsome stranger
showing up at the right moment, mistaken identities, gossipy local
historians, an old seadog with a peculiarly accurate
memory….

Yet I do treasure --- and share --- Morton’s passion for
old-fashioned children’s literature and book illustration. In
Eliza Makepeace’s tales, which have exactly the proper
cadence and timelessness, this inspiration comes through
splendidly. I just wish there had been more in THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN
that emerged from that deeper place in Morton’s
imagination.

But if it’s atmospheric entertainment you want, this is a
knockout. Morton, like her heroine Eliza, has the
storyteller’s touch. Filled with romance, tragedy and
luscious period detail, the novel would make a rip-roaring
miniseries. Despite its length, it’s suspenseful enough to
keep you coming back for just one more chapter (though your lids
are heavy) before you turn out the light.