Page 99 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘Buy your own, Ellwood,’ he said, covering his plastic basket protectively with both large hands.
Treena and Luke didn’t stay long because although she had left the dogs at Happy Pets, where one of the staff would have walked and fed them, she wanted to pick them up and get home.
‘The cats will give me hell,’ she said gloomily. ‘That new Siamese is ten times more trouble than any of the others, now he’s settled in.’
‘I know the feeling,’ I sympathized. ‘And Caspar has taken to coming to find me when I’m working.’
Once they’d gone, Ned and I reverted to our favourite topic – the garden – and there was no sign of Wayne that night to jolt my uneasy conscience … Not that it needed jolting, and when Ned suddenly asked me out of the blue if anything was still worrying me that I’d like to tell him about, it would have been the perfect opportunity to Confess All.
But call it cowardice, or simply a reluctance to spoil what had been a lovely day – maybe both – but I smiled at him and lied through my teeth.
‘No, not a thing! I love living here and working in the gardens.’
At least that last bit was true.
I was early for work next day, but Ned had beaten me to it and had already tipped several barrow-loads of Gertie’s best rotted compost on the rose beds, and there were three more full ones lined up.
We began spreading it out around the roots, but after an hour or so he left me to it, and went off to Risings to speak to Wayne about thoseholes in the lawn, and I carried on alone, feeling a bit uneasy. I hoped he wouldn’t lose his temper. Although he was very easy-going, he could be pushed too far …
I finished spreading the mulch and then awarded some to the Rambling Rector in the Lavender Cottage garden, though, goodness knew, it didn’t really need encouraging. I spread the last bit on the Alchemist rose in the tall bed by the path leading to the arch, on my way to put the last of the barrows away. Then I replaced the ropes across the paths in the rose garden, ready for opening, though actually James was probably right about the pong and none of the visitors would want to venture down them.
There was still no sign of Ned, but when I found James in the Potting Shed with a cup of tea and a rock cake, he told me he was back and working down the other end of the garden.
‘I suppose he thought I’d have finished spreading the manure on the roses on my own,’ I said.
‘Is that what you’ve been doing? It’ll be ripe enough to floor a visitor at ten paces in there.’
‘It is a bit niffy, but it’s a good country smell and it’ll clear their lungs a treat,’ I said.
‘It might clear the rose garden, till it wears off,’ he said, then asked me what had been decided the day before about extending the shop. I explained what we planned and he said he hoped we’d be getting more stock in soon.
‘People seem very keen to part with their brass before they go.’
‘I know, there’s something about looking round a stately home or garden that makes you want to try to take a piece home with you,’ I said. ‘A souvenir to remind you how lovely it was, I suppose. I do it myself.’
‘Well, we need a bit more choice.’
‘I know, I kept telling Ned, but he can see it himself now, so there’s going to be a lot more stock soon – including some aimed at the children, with a galleon logo.’
Then I asked him if Ned had seemed OK, because he’d been to have it out with Wayne about those holes in the lawn.
‘He didn’t say anything but “thank you” when I took him a cup of tea down, but he’d been digging like fury and he’s probably down to Australia by now.’
‘Oh dear, that doesn’t sound too good. Perhaps Wayne denied it all and they argued?’ That certainly wouldn’t make Ned warm to my loathsome relatives!
‘Quite likely,’ James said, a Job’s comforter.
Ned didn’tlookangry when I saw him later, but his face darkened alarmingly when I asked him if he’d spoken to Wayne.
‘Yes, he was up at Risings – and I’m certain the spade he was using was one that went missing when he was working for me. But I couldn’t prove it, any more than that it was he who dug those holes all over my lawn, and he knew it.’
‘So … he didn’t admit he’d done it?’
‘No, but I don’t think he’ll try anything like that again. I’ve warned him that if I ever find him on my property, he’ll be sorry. I think I scared him, but he was still cocky, even when I’d finished tearing him off a strip.’
‘I suppose he’s just like that,’ I suggested.
Ned frowned. ‘There seemed to be a bit more to it than that, as if he knew something I didn’t and then, when I was leaving, he asked me if I was happy with my new gardener and I said it was none of his business.’
