Page 100 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘It isn’t,’ I said, feeling deeply uneasy. ‘Did he say … anything else?’
‘Yes, that perhaps I wouldn’t be so happy with you, ifIknew whatheknew.’
I went hot and cold. ‘What … did you think he meant by that?’ I asked, trying to stop a slight quiver sneaking into my voice.
‘I was about to ask him – or possibly shake it out of him – when we saw Audrey Lordly-Grace’s car coming up the drive and he walked off and started digging again. So I thought I’d better leave before Audrey came nosing over to see why I was there.’
I must have looked odd, because he patted me as if I was a nervous dog and said, ‘Don’t look so worried, Marnie. Don’t forget, Wayne doesa lot of gardening jobs around the area, so he’s probably picked up some version of the story about your resignation from the Heritage Homes Trust and thinks I took you on without knowing about it.’
Thatwasa possibility, and I certainly preferred it to the alternative!
I smiled weakly. ‘I suppose he must have, but I was hoping it wouldn’t become common knowledge.’
‘Local people will take you as they find you, andweall know the truth, so I wouldn’t let it worry you,’ he said reassuringly.
Little did he realize what I wasreallyworried Wayne might know!
It was still the school holidays, so the village continued to be busy and, if we didn’t get quite the hordes of visitors crowding in that we’d had over Easter weekend, it was still busier than we could have hoped for.
Roddy came in early in the afternoon and went round with the first of Ned’s tours, to see how it was done. He’d already studied the plan, guidebook and information boards – in fact, he told me he’d taken pictures of the information boards so he could mug them up.
He and Ned seemed to be getting on very well and went off into the office to set up the old desktop for the business and induct Roddy into the ways of a PA. Roddy seemed a quiet, scholarly man, who said he’d be happy to work mostly in the office between taking guided tours around, but in any free time, he would work on his own laptop. He was writing a book about the legacy of Oliver Cromwell: the intermarriage of the Cromwell family into the nobility and their descendants. Or something like that.
Again, there wasn’t so much carelessly discarded litter along the River Walk that day, now that the mad rush of Easter weekend was over. The last visitors making their way towards the turnstile seemed pleasant, too, wishing me good afternoon, which it might have been, if it hadn’t been for what Wayne had been hinting to Ned …
A little magic was already creeping back in by the waterfall, where silence, except for a little sweet birdsong, reigned once more. I let the atmosphere wash like balm across my sore conscience and felt better for it.
Ned was expecting me at the Hall at seven, for our first session on the papers, which would be fun – and maybe even exciting, if we found anything relating to the garden.
When I’d showered and changed, Caspar appeared and I told him I was going out, then suggested he might like to go back and make up to Elf and Myfy for a change, since they were the ones feeding him expensive cat food and dealing with his litter tray.
This didn’t go down well, especially my attempt to persuade him to return through the cat flap, and when I set off for the Hall, he insisted on accompanying me. In fact, he dogged my footsteps – you can’t really say ‘catted’, can you?
So when Ned opened his front door, he found Caspar barging past him before he could say anything.
‘Come in, why don’t you?’ he said, looking after the long bushy tail and marmalade rump as it made off down the passage.
Lizzie
I had no opportunity to visit the waterfall again, but treasured the memory of my experience there … But I did love the apothecary garden at Old Grace Hall, and Mr Richard Grace delighted in my interest and told me many wonderful things about the rare plants there, and how it had been set out so long ago as a physic garden.
Mr Grace’s wife had died young in childbirth, so he was inclined to be melancholy, but I believe he found some solace in talking to me and telling me of the cuttings and seeds of interesting plants he hoped to obtain for the garden.
Susanna, bored, would trail behind us and was always pleased when her governess called to us to go home again.
These visits were some compensation for the long, dreary Sundays spent with my family and the other Brethren.
Other than Miss Susanna and Master Neville, the rest of the family at Risings seemed barely aware of my existence, though occasionally the master, a large, red-faced man with a loud, booming voice, would chuck me under the chin in passing, a familiarity he took with all the younger female servants.
30
Box of Delights
I’d only been in the Hall once before, with Treena and Luke when Ned had showed us round. This time we went straight into the library, where the lights were on and the log-burner lit, making it look cosy.
An ancient, battered and metal-banded trunk and a plain deal box stood on the rug next to the coffee table, and neither was exactly small.
‘I’ve dipped into the boxes a couple of times and found interesting things, but I’d say the heir to each generation has simply tipped his predecessor’s papers into one of the boxes and started afresh … and then my great-uncle Theo came along and rummaged about in them, mixing the layers up. He did say that at one time he thought of writing a family history, but the way he was going on, it would have been a topsy-turvy one.’
