Page 57 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘Well, don’t let Ned rope you into working on your day off,’ Elf said. ‘You need a rest.’
‘You’re right, Elf. Marnie’s already working more hours than she’s being paid for and she’s only been here five minutes.’
‘But we’re all – Gertie, James and me – working more hours than we’re paid for, because we enjoy what we’re doing,’ I said. ‘If you want me to work on Sundays too, I will.’
‘You’re a glutton for punishment,’ Elf said, but she was smiling. ‘I hope you’ll join us for Sunday dinner tomorrow evening? It’s an open invitation, because of course sometimes you might want to go off for the day, but Jacob and Ned usually come, and Gerald.’
‘Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding,’ Ned said reminiscently. He didn’t seem surprised I’d been invited to join them for dinner, but then, I expect he knew how hospitable they were.
‘Sometimes it’s roast chicken instead,’ Elf pointed out.
‘I’d love to, thank you,’ I agreed, capitulating, and Elf beamed.
Ned got up, stretching, his head almost touching the ceiling. ‘Well, I’d better get back to the office for a bit, even though I don’t want to. See you in the morning, Ellwood.’
When he’d gone, Elf looked at me. ‘Why does he call you by your surname, Marnie?’
‘It’s just … sort of a running joke from when we were students.’
‘Well, as long as you don’t mind.’
And I didn’t – in fact, I’d welcomed it as a sign that we were resuming our old friendship.
Treena had sent me a message saying she was definitely coming over to Jericho’s End tomorrow, when Luke wanted to do a little initial surveying at the ruins, so I was really looking forward to showing her where I now lived and worked.
Caspar and I had a quiet night in, snuggled on the sofa, while I read a bit more of Elf’s book. I’d missed a couple of pages at the end of the Lost Treasure chapter, about a miser who was supposed to have buried a wonderful hoard of gold in his garden, but it was never discovered … until more recently a rotted wooden box was found hidden in the beams of an old outbuilding. It contained a few halfpennies and a small leather bag of silver sixpences. The place had promptly been rechristened Sixpenny Cottage, which was an improvement on the original Scrogg’s End.
I can’t say I found that story very riveting and when I moved on to ‘Gentlemen and Buccaneers’, Elf’s writing style caused my eyelids to droop, even when reading about the excitingly swashbuckling Nathaniel Grace. I gave up and swapped Elf’s book for the new Clara Mayhem Doome novel.
That kept me wide awake for longer than I’d intended. Caspar had to be very insistent before I finally put it down and went to bed.
It might be Sunday, but I rose with the lark anyway and hacked up that last overgrown and woody rosemary bush. It put up a struggle, but once it was out and the hole filled and dug over, the garden looked a lot better: I could trim the remaining lavender into neat shapes at my leisure – or Myfy might feel the urge to do some clipping – and it would all now be a doddle to keep under control.
When I went back up to the flat to change out of my working clothes,Caspar was still asleep on my bed, in the exact position he’d been in when I went out: on his back, four big furry paws in the air and a blissful expression on his wide face. He didn’t stir while I was changing into clean dungarees and a long-sleeved T-shirt in a nice shade of smoky blue that I knew did things for my eyes.
My hair was getting a bit long, but at least, being naturally curly, all I had to do was run a brush through it and shove it behind my ears: Marnie the Human Mop.
I breakfasted on the last of thepain au chocolatand about a gallon of good coffee, neither of which appealed to Caspar when he finally made his appearance, so he made a noisy exit through the cat flap to search for a better class of catering.
Before I went out I remembered to search for my phone, which eventually I found zipped into a gilet pocket. Then I managed to drop it on the floor, but luckily it still worked, and I pushed it well down into my dungaree pocket before heading for the Grace Garden.
It was still very early and I’d have plenty of time to discuss the possible extension and improvements to the shop before I was to meet Treena, even after a leisurely diversion to look around the apothecary garden on my own.
I knew Gertie and James wouldn’t be in today, since this was the last Sunday they’d have free before the gardens opened to the public. That meant I’d have the walled garden to myself before Ned was likely to make an appearance.
I resisted the urge to detour and admire the clean marble folly again, but instead went straight through past the pond, where the koi were circling hungrily, and into the Grace Garden, empty of all creatures great and small, even peacocks.
I’d totally grasped the original layout from the old plan in Ned’s office – the small sunken circular herb bed and sundial at its heart, then an outer circular path, flanked on either side with low beds edged in lavender. The tall beds at top and bottom of the garden and the four paths leading from the circular one to the corners … they all balanced and formed a pleasing pattern in my head.
But then, there were the small changes generations of Graces had made to the design, the years of neglect and then Ned’s more recent innovations.
I wandered around for a bit, finding that some of the smaller paths in the mid-level beds led to gravel circles with stone seats that would be hidden when the plants grew taller.
Down in the sunken garden, Gertie had kept the thyme, chives, mint, marjoram and other lower-growing herbs neat in their brick-edged beds, radiating out from the old sundial – and it did lookveryold indeed.
The galleon pointer was in full sail and round the edge of the dial words had been engraved, though the archaic script was hard to make out. But it was quite poetical really, when I’d grasped that they’d written ‘f’ where they’d meant ‘s’.
‘The sun is my treasure, it measures the hours in bars of gold.’
