Page 68 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘There wasn’t much more to the one about hidden gold at Sixpenny Cottage, though, was there? It was just a few silver sixpences and some old copper coins.’
‘Well, more fool them for thinking an old skinflint living in a hovel up in the woods would have any gold to hide,’ he said. ‘But these days, with metal detectors, people are turning up good stuff all the time. Me and my mates have got them, but we haven’t found much yet except rusty nails and the like. I might try those old ruins, before they start to dig it all up.’
‘The monastic ruins?’ I exclaimed, startled. ‘I really wouldn’t, because you’ll be caught and prosecuted. Anyway, the monks moved to another monastery after only a couple of years, so they’ll have taken anything of value with them.’
Wayne looked unconvinced, but said, ‘That pirate that bought Old Grace Hall probably came back dripping with treasure.’
‘I really don’t think so,’ I said dismissively. ‘But I’m sure the house has been searched several times over the centuries since, so anything hidden there would have been found.’
‘Unless he was cunning and it’s out in the garden somewhere,’ he suggested.
‘Not in the Grace Garden, it isn’t. That wasn’t created until the seventeenth century and this rose garden was where they kept the hens and pigs till long after that.’
He looked first dampened and then wary as James suddenly came round the curve of the path.
‘What are you doing skulking about there, young Wayne?’ he demanded.
‘Just talking to the new gardener, like. Warning her what a curmudgeonly old sod you are.’
‘I’ll have less of your sauce,’ James told him angrily. ‘Ned said he caught you messing about in the stables earlier.’
‘I’ve already told Ned I was only looking for a bit of chain for a gate.’
‘A likely story,’ said James. ‘I’d take yourself off, before Ned spots you.’
‘I got a right to walk up a public road, haven’t I?’ Wayne said belligerently, but he slouched off, all the same.
‘He’s a bad lot,’ said James. ‘The Vanes are a dour and bad-tempered family, but at least most of the rest of them are honest and hard-working.’
‘James!’ came a bellow from the direction of the Grace Garden and he started. ‘Forgot why I’d come for a minute! They just rang Ned’s mobile to say they were delivering the signs, but they’ve brought a van too big to go over the bridge, even though he warned them about the access. They’re unloading them on the other side, so we’ll have to carry them from there.’
We all trooped out and over the bridge, and Charlie came out of the pub to lend a hand, too.
‘If we don’t hang about, we can move them across before the café gets busy and people start getting in the way,’ Ned said. ‘Let’s stack them on the patio behind Lavender Cottage first – I’m sure Elf and Myfy won’t mind – then we can take our time shifting them from there.’
So we did that, Charlie and Ned taking the bigger ones and James guarding the slowly diminishing heap by the bridge, as if afraid sign thieves would hurtle down the one-way road and steal them.
I had barely got back to the pruning when I was summoned yet again, this time to help carry in a plant delivery, though actually it wasn’t just plants; there were small trees and shrubs, too. At least this time they’d arrived in an open-backed truck that had been able to be driven over the bridge and into the courtyard next to Old Grace Hall, where the contents were offloaded.
The plants now stood in a group on the cobblestones, like a lot of nervous sheep in a field, and all had to be carried across the path, through the visitors’ gate and then on into the garden, where they were lined up on the paths near where they were destined to be dug in.
‘We might as well have a bite of lunch and a brew, before we do anything else,’ Gertie said as we walked back once we’d finished.
‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a sandwich back with me, so I can get on,’ I said, so in the Potting Shed, Gert fished out a plastic box and shoved several sandwiches and a slab of foil-wrapped lardy cake in it.
That should keep me going for a bit, I thought, as I headed back.
It was some time later, and I’d hacked back quite a bit of the path down the other side of the giant central bed of Apple Rose, when Ned appeared, carrying a bucket of soapy water and a brush. He was wearing waders.
‘I’ve been planting up the pond with the water plants that came,’ he explained, seeing my quizzical look.
‘You’re the biggest garden gnome I’ve ever seen,’ I said, and he grinned.
‘Forgot my fishing rod. But while I was fairly waterproof I thought I might as well clean down this marble bench James told me you’d found.’
‘Pity you didn’t do it earlier, before I sat on it,’ I said ungratefully. ‘I’ve got a mossy green bottom.’
‘If it’s permanent, we could advertise you as a garden feature,’ he suggested. ‘Speaking of which, Wayne seems to be becoming a garden feature too, though an unwelcome one,’ he added. ‘James said he found him talking to you over the wall, earlier.’
