Page 101 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘This could take a while,’ I said, opening the lid on the trunk and finding it crammed right to the top.
‘I know, and the other box is just as full,’ Ned agreed.
Caspar poked his head into the trunk, then sneezed and backed off, looking affronted.
‘Perhaps we ought to order some food before we start, from the Lucky Dragon?’ Ned suggested.
‘Mmrow,’ approved Caspar from the armchair and listened intelligently as we discussed the rival merits of sweet and sour chicken, Singapore fried rice and prawn curry.
‘Sesame toast and spring rolls,’ Ned muttered, jotting things down before phoning the order in.
‘That’s enough for four people,’ I pointed out.
‘Ieatenough for three,’ he said simply, turning off his phone. ‘There we are – we’ve got at least half an hour till it arrives, so we might as well begin.’
‘We need a plan,’ I said. ‘Since everything’s already mixed up, why don’t we start by fishing out all the photographs and putting them on the table?’
‘Good idea, and when we go through them later, there are a couple of photograph albums on one of the shelves, so we might be able to identify a few of the people in them.’
We worked away, one box each,tryingnot to let ourselves be distracted when we came across very ancient-looking documents written on parchment, and only stopped to devour our takeaway, duly delivered by Luke’s assistant, Ken.
Ned suggested Ken stay and help us with the sorting, but he just laughed and said he had another delivery to make and then a hot date at nine.
Caspar accepted a couple of prawns from the fried rice, which I hoped wouldn’t upset his delicate tummy, then Ned took the debris through to the kitchen and came back with a bottle of chilled pinot grigio and two glasses, which, if it didn’t help speed up our search, at least cheered us along the way. Caspar, profoundly bored, went to sleep.
It was late before we were sure we’d found all the photographs, which ranged all the way from very early views of family groups, sometimes posed by the river or the waterfall, to hand-tinted portraits and Box Brownie snaps.
A few had names and dates on the back in pencil, but you could date some of them anyway by the clothes, or the vintage cars they were proudly grouped around. In the roaring twenties, there seemed to have been a vogue for people pointing at things in the garden, so the backgrounds of those were interesting – the sundial was in one.
The more recent photos were in the albums but I could already tell that Ned was a true Grace, tall and fair.
‘There’s a contemporary description of Nathaniel Grace as a fair giant,’ Ned said, ‘though in those times you didn’t need to be very tall to be thought one.’
‘You’re pretty tall fornow,’ I pointed out, sifting through the heaps of photos on the table, looking for the more relevant ones.
There were some very atmospheric ones of the falls and I came across a whole packet just of the Grace Garden, taken before the lower part had been dug up to grow vegetables for the war effort.
‘There’s loads of material here for the museum displayandthe next edition of the guidebook,’ I said.
‘I think I’ll have to update that annually anyway, as the restoration of the garden progresses,’ he said. ‘And we’ll have photos of the rose garden in bloom to go in the next one, too.’
I stood up and stretched. ‘I think we’d better call it a night, don’t you? We can start rough-sorting the papers tomorrow.’
Caspar watched me put on my coat and then came to wind himself around my legs.
‘I’d forgotten about Caspar – he probably needs to go out.’
‘He followed me to the kitchen earlier and there’s still a cat flap in the back door there, from my uncle’s day … if he can squeeze through it,’ Ned said. ‘He didn’t show any sign of wanting out then, anyway.’
He unhooked his own coat from the rack as we went out and said, ‘I’ll see you to your door.’
‘There’s no need – it’s only a few yards away and it must be safe enough here!’
‘I’d like to stretch my legs anyway,’ he insisted, and we went back the way I’d come, by the road, which was a lot easier than unlocking every gate through from the back of the Hall to the Lavender Cottage garden.
As usual, a dim light burned at the back of the café and another came on near the side gate as we approached.
‘Goodnight, then,’ Ned said, opening the gate for me, as Casparshoved through first in his usual mannerless way. ‘It’s been quite fun, hasn’t it?’ he added, as if in surprise and then walked off, whistling as sweetly as a blackbird.
