Page 18 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘How horrible that that wonderful moment should have been misinterpreted like that,’ I said. ‘Didn’t they check the story first, before they printed it?’
‘It appears not – and of course, Penny and her husband immediately refuted it, because they were afraid it might affect the adoption … though luckily not, in the end. The paper had to print an apology, of course, but by then another piece about Ned had appeared in a gossip column. The source was by that student he mentioned.’
‘Who, Sammie Nelson?’
‘That’s the one, and it was a ridiculous story, short on facts but full of unsavoury innuendo about how, when they were students and going out together, he’d callously dumped her when he was offered the chance to present a TV series.’
I stopped and stared at her. ‘I do remember them going out together briefly – and she made all the running. Then when that documentary was being filmed at the college, she droppedhimlike a hot potato, because she got off with the presenter!’
‘Yes, that’s what Ned said,’ Myfy agreed.
‘Rumour was that she’d moved in with this man at the end of term. Certainly, she never came back for her final year. And then Ned was headhunted by a totally different TV company for his own series,’ I said.
‘So it transpired, but it’s surprising how many people want to believe horrible things, isn’t it? Mud does seem to stick, too, and the TV company hung fire on commissioning the next series ofThis Small Plot. Poor Ned just suddenly felt he’d had enough of people looking at him strangely and thinking the worst. He was totally disillusioned, not to mention having had enough of living near London and all the travelling about, so he came back here. It’s been his home base for years anyway, since his parents were killed in a car crash and it did mean that he was there for Theo in his last weeks. They were very close.’
‘I would have thought the programme was so popular that, once the truth was out, they’d try to persuade Ned to go back.’
‘They might have done, but he doesn’t want to resume his old life. It was all such a shock to him that people could believe in all those lies. Now he’s inherited Old Grace Hall, he intends to make his life here, restoring the apothecary garden and opening it to the public. He still takes occasional garden design commissions. He likes the challenge of small ones, like in the TV programmes, and it’s amazing what he can do with them.’
‘He was always brilliant at garden design,’ I agreed, as we carried on up the path, turning over what I’d been told in my head. Ned had always been surprisingly sensitive under that rugged exterior and it didn’t really surprise me that he’d retired here to lick his wounds … and then decided to stay for ever. Who, on inheriting such a magical garden, wouldn’t have?
‘I understand now where he’s coming from,’ I said. ‘No doubt he’s heard about a resignation letter to HHT, purportedly written by me, and he thinks I might be emotionally unstable and cause more trouble and possibly scandal for him?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. His recent experience has naturally made him overcautious.’
Welcome to the club, I thought, slightly bitterly.
‘Well, he needn’t have any concerns because I didn’t actually write that resignation letter,’ I told her, wondering how much to explain and deciding on as little as possible. ‘I had a jealous and controlling husbandwhen I was working for the Heritage Homes Trust and while I was off work, ill, he sent the resignation from my email account, and then he emailed them as himself, telling them I’d had a nervous breakdown and not to worry about anything I’d said in the letter.’
‘I … see,’ Myfy said, and I knew she realized there were great chunks of this story I was editing out, but didn’t probe.
‘By the time I was well enough to pick up my emails and find their acceptance of my resignation, the damage had been done. They didn’t believe me when I tried to explain.’
‘And that’s when you went to France?’
‘Yes, and then divorced my husband as soon as he agreed to it.’
‘He doesn’t sound a great loss,’ Myfy said drily. ‘But with that experience behind you, you’ll understand how Ned is feeling.’
‘I do, buthemust understand that all I want now is to settle into a gardening job and a quiet life, doing what I love best. I’ll work hard, take orders and enjoy helping to restore the gardens … if I’m allowed.’
‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘I think I’m a good judge of character and I believe you. Your job with us at Lavender Cottage is secure – and perhaps, if I have a little word with Ned …?’
‘I think it might be better ifIdo that,’ I said. ‘I hope he believes me and gives me a chance, otherwise this wonderful opportunity will be only half a job.’
‘I’m sure he will,’ Myfy assured me. ‘He’s still that same kind, generous and outgoing person underneath, he’s just warier these days.’
‘Aren’t we all,’ I said, thinking that the past was a burden you might think you’d put down and left behind but, like Terry Pratchett’s Luggage, it kept jumping up and running after you.
The path had been growing steadily narrower and steeper as the valley closed in and we now had to pick our way round outcrops of rock and clumps of gorse.
To our right, the drystone wall that seemed to hold back the steep and wooded hillside had drawn closer.
‘I have no idea when, or how, they built the old walls that enclose our bit of land along the river,’ Myfy said, pausing to unhook a fold of hercoat from a snatching branch of gorse. ‘But perhaps there weren’t the trees there before and it was sheep grazing.’
‘You do see walls on steep, rocky mountainsides that make you wonder the same thing,’ I agreed.
The valley now felt more like a ravine and the water, constrained in a deep channel, louder.
