Page 34 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘No, especially since he was actually carrying them out to his van when I accosted him. Anyway, nothing went missing on days when he wasn’t there, so unless the peacocks had turned light-fingered, it had to be him.’
‘He must have known that made him the obvious suspect, but I suppose it was better just to let him go quietly than make a fuss about it?’
‘Except he’snotgoing quietly. He came round here on Monday, blustering and threatening – said if I didn’t give him redundancy pay, he’d take me to an employment tribunal!’
‘Could he do that?’
‘Not really. He’s self-employed and he always wanted to be paid in cash, so I reckon he wasn’t declaring all his income. He shut up and went away when I suggested HMRC might be interested in investigating his tax returns.’
‘Checkmate!’ I said.
‘I hope so, and that that’s the end of it, but if he bothers you again, let me know and I’ll deal with him,’ he said grimly.
‘OK,’ I agreed, then changed the subject. ‘Myfy told me that James won’t let anyone help him with the front borders, so I won’t touch those.’
‘Much better not. They’re his pride and joy, though his taste in spring and summer bedding plants is a bit garish, to say the least. Still, he helps out with the rest of the gardening when his rheumatism will let him and he’s going to man the ticket office when we open to the public.’
‘What about Gertie?’
‘She’s quite spry, but her real love is the vegetable garden and thegreenhouses, which are outside the Grace Garden itself, through a gate at the bottom. I’ll show you in a bit, but first, perhaps we’d better go to the office, where you can see a blown-up photo of the original plan.’
He strode off through the gate and took the path past the Alchemist rose to the arched entrance, trailing me and the peacocks behind him.
Last time I’d visited the courtyard I’d been too focused on the coming interview with Ned to take in what was there, so this time I stared around curiously. It was a large, rectangular cobbled yard, the brick walls a little lower than those around the garden. Straight ahead was another arch, this one with a closed gate, which must lead to Old Grace Hall, for I could see the twisty chimney-pots and roof above it.
To my right, Ned’s office and a long building with a sign on the door proclaiming it to be ‘The Potting Shed, Private’, stood at right angles to each other.
There were more buildings against the wall on the other side and a smaller gate, presumably the visitors’ entrance. But there was no time to linger, for Ned had already thrown open the door of his office and vanished inside. I hurried after him, closing the door on the peacocks.
‘Here we are,’ said Ned, when I joined him in front of the corkboard wall. ‘The original plan of the apothecary garden, begun in the late seventeenth century.’
I moved closer. ‘I spotted this yesterday and thought that’s what it might be. You’re very lucky to have it!’
I studied the unusual layout, with a large circle within the square and a criss-cross of paths to the four corners.
‘I know I’m lucky to have it – and it’s a very early example of an apothecary or physic garden, especially so far out of London. I suppose I’d better give you a potted family history, so you can understand the context.’
I dragged my gaze away from the plan with an effort and said, ‘Go on then, I’m listening.’
‘The Grace family were local minor gentry – Grace was a corruption of a Norman name – and as the family fortunes flourished, due to a tendency to marry money, they remodelled the original house that was here into the Tudor one you see now.’
‘I’m sure this flat area must have been inviting for building on, but how did they get across the river, before the bridge was built?’ I asked curiously.
‘There was an earlier one of slabs on stone piers. You can just see the remains of it above the present bridge, where the channel narrows.’
‘I wouldn’t have fancied that on a dark night, with the Devil’s Cauldron waiting below!’
‘Nor me,’ he agreed. ‘Anyway, a bit later on, the then Grace heir excelled himself by marrying into the minor nobility, to a Miss Lordly, and the family decided this house wasn’t good enough any more and built Risings Manor on the hill opposite. That was when they changed their name to Lordly-Grace, too.’
‘How very pretentious! What happened tothishouse?’
‘They sold it to a Grace cousin called Nathaniel, a rollicking Elizabethan character, somewhere between an adventurer and a pirate – the distinction was a bit hazy back then. He’d made enough out of it to buy the Hall, marry and settle down here. And this is the point where it gets interesting, Marnie, because one ofhisdescendants married a Tradescant, which is where the beginning of the Grace Garden lies.’
‘Not one of the famous London plant-collecting Tradescant family?’
‘The very same, and she too had a fascination with plants and their medicinal and culinary uses. Not long after the marriage, the walled garden that already existed here was enlarged and the plan drawn up.’
‘She must have been a girl after my own heart!’
