Page 64 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘She’s like that with everyone she considers beneath her,’ Ned said, and then added, since Luke was looking slightly alarmed, ‘She lives atRisings, Luke, but she keeps herself to herself, so you probably won’t cross paths with her.’
‘From the sound of it, that suits me fine,’ he said. ‘Cress’s nice, though, and I’m sure it’ll be very comfortable. Better than trying to commute to and fro between here and Liverpool.’
‘Do you want to see a bit more of the house?’ asked Ned. ‘Upstairs there’s an amazing Victorian bathroom, though luckily there’s also a very new one, put in when my uncle Theo got frail.’
We duly admired the Victorian bathroom, with its absolutely huge, claw-footed bath, but he didn’t open all the bedroom doors, just showed us one that had an ancient dark four-poster bed, and another furnished with a complete Edwardian suite in maple.
‘Furniture through the ages,’ he said.
‘I think old houses should reflect the generations that have lived in them, just like old gardens,’ I said.
At the further end of the corridor, past the splendours of Victorian plumbing, was a door to the new wing – so called – with the modern bathroom, and the bedroom that had been Ned’s uncle’s next to it. There were signs of occupation, so I think he’d taken it over.
A narrow, twisting staircase brought us out near the kitchen, which was a very big room with a somewhat schizophrenic air: what might have been the original Regency closed stove remained, with various bits of metalwork hanging next to it that were probably roasting spits, but looked like instruments of torture. But around the other sides of the room were cupboards and dressers and a range of more modern cabinets, with worktops in a horrid speckled granite finish.
There were some mod cons, though: a big fridge-freezer, a dishwasher and all the usual gadgets, including a gleaming new monster of a coffee machine.
I looked critically at it as he filled up the jug. ‘I think that’s overkill.’
But I accepted the coffee, which was good, and we sat in the kitchen to drink it. It was warm and cosy in there, probably due to the Aga that now sat next to the old stove.
‘I could do with proper central heating,’ Ned said. ‘Uncle Theo hadelectric night storage heaters installed all over the house, but they only seem to take the chill off.’
‘Something more ecologically friendly,’ I suggested.
‘I don’t know what, but it’ll have to wait till the garden is earning its keep, anyway,’ he said, predictably.
‘Unless you find this treasure that Nathaniel is supposed to have hidden,’ I said with a grin.
‘I’m sure that’s just an old tale,’ Ned said, smiling. ‘The house has been remodelled so much since his time, and people must have searched for hidden places, so it would have turned up if it really existed.’
‘These old stories get passed on like Chinese Whispers,’ agreed Luke, ‘changing with each retelling.’
‘I have found a couple of treasures in an old chest in the library,’ Ned said. ‘The original plan of the apothecary garden, and some impressive documents, including Nathaniel’s will. I expect there’s still more to discover.’
‘Well, if anything relates to the monastic ruin, let me know,’ Luke said hopefully.
‘You’d be better asking Cress, because any papers pre-Nathaniel probably went to Risings when the original family moved there.’
‘I might do that,’ he said. ‘You never know.’
‘At some point I’ll go through all the papers,’ Ned said. ‘There’s a large wooden box full as well as the chest – and one of the library window seats is full of old accounts books and paperwork, too. My uncle had a rummage about in everything, when he was thinking of writing a family history, so it’s all very jumbled.’
I’d quite have liked a rummage in there myself: who knew what other garden-related treasures might lie within?
Luke looked at his watch and said perhaps he and Treena had better be heading back.
‘I’m taking the evening surgery at the clinic,’ Treena explained. ‘I’ve got Good Friday off, so I can come to the opening of the garden, but then I’m on call for twenty-four hours over Easter Sunday.’
We donned our coats again in the hall, where we’d piled them ontoan old oak settle, and Luke and Treena thanked Ned for letting them see the house.
‘And me,’ I said. ‘I was expecting it to be in a much worse state than it is, but it only really needs some redecoration and a lot of TLC.’
‘Shabby chic is in!’ Treena said with a grin.
‘See you later, Marnie,’ Ned said to me, as I left with the other two, and for a minute I was flummoxed, until I remembered I’d said I’d go to the family Sunday dinner at Lavender Cottage that evening.
I said goodbye to Treena and Luke by the bridge. There were still lots of visitors about, mostly coming out of the River Walk, rather than going in, for it was less than an hour till closing time.
