Page 27 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
‘The good thing about 2CVs is there isn’t very much that can go wrong, and if bits drop off, you can stick another one on. Though I don’t suppose there are many as old as mine over here.’
‘Probably not outside a museum, anyway,’ Treena said, pouring us both another cup of tea.
While we drank it, I told her all about my arrival in Jericho’s End, the Misses Price-Jones – or Mrs, in Myfanwy’s case – my glimpse of Wayne Vane (over whose name we both giggled), who was probably a cousin, and then, finally, my surprise discovery that Ned Mars, with whom I’d been at college, was the owner of the Grace Garden, where I was to spend the majority of my working hours.
‘Elf hadn’t mentioned the name of their new shared gardener to Ned, so he was totally taken aback, too, when he saw me, andnotin a good way.’
‘I’d no idea you were at college with Ned Mars,’ she said. ‘He’s that tall, fairish bloke who presents a TV gardening series,This Small Plot, isn’t he?’
‘Hewas,’ I agreed, surprised she knew even that much because, despite growing up in a green-fingered, garden-centre-owning, plant-obsessed family, Treena remained totally uninterested in anything except animals. It had always been that way, while I, merely the adopted daughter, was a bark chip off the Ellwood block.
‘I was at Honeywood Horticultural College with him, though he was a year ahead of me. But although it’s affiliated to a university, Honeywood’s such a small college out in the sticks that we all knew each other. There was only one pub within walking distance, so that helped, too.’
Treena had been at a different university, training to be a veterinary surgeon at the same time, so she’d never visited it.
‘But if you were students together, why wouldn’t he be pleased to see you, even if it was a surprise?’
‘Well, for a start, he’d heard about that resignation letter I’d supposedly sent to the Heritage Homes Trust, with the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against several staff members, and he thought I’d create another scandal when he’d just been embroiled in one himself.’
She frowned in an effort of recollection. ‘That does ring a bell. There was some kind of scandal about him early last year, but I can’t remember what it was.’
‘“LOVE RAT TV GARDENER CAUGHT OUT IN HOT BED”,’ I suggested helpfully. ‘That was the gossip column headline.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Yes, that’s it. Hadn’t he been having an affair with the married director on his gardening show?’
‘Except that he wasn’t. The whole thing was all in the mind of his jealous ex, and there was a perfectly good explanation for that picture they printed of him in a clinch with his director.’
Then I told her everything I’d gleaned from my Google search and what Myfy had told me.
‘Of course, they had to print a retraction and an apology in the nextissue, but by then the damage had been done – and it was compounded by another student from Honeywood selling a trumped-up sensational titbit to a gossip column. Ned’s quite sensitive under his rugged exterior and the lies had a terrible effect on him.’
‘But half the male so-called “personalities” on TV really are love rats, aren’t they?’ Treena pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it would harm his career, once the dust had settled, even if it had been true.’
‘It was more like mud settling, than dust. One minute everyone loved him, because he was so open and enthusiastic andnice, and then the next, they were willing to believe sordid stories and say vile things on social media. His image was well and truly tarnished and the TV company got cold feet about the next series, even though the tabloids retracted the main story. When there was some talk of getting different garden designers in for each episode in future, he just quit and went back to Jericho’s End, to put it all behind him and start a new life. And then, of course,Iarrived on the scene!’
‘Wanting to put yourownpast behind you and start a new life where no one knew you,’ she said. ‘It’s odd how things work out.’
‘It certainly is. I’d no idea he had any connection with Jericho’s End when we were students, but he must already have been living at Old Grace Hall by then. Myfy told me his parents were killed in a car crash when he was in his teens, and he made his home with his great-uncle Theo. And now he’s inherited.’
‘And Mum and Dad had adopted you by then, too, so you were Marnie Ellwood, not Vane.’
‘It’s not that uncommon a name, so I don’t expect he’d have made any connection with the Vane family at Jericho’s End – who sound ghastly, by the way, so I think I’m going to keep that connectiontotallysecret!’
‘To go back to the scandal thing, surely if he was innocent, then everyone would soon move on to the next bit of salacious gossip about someone else? He only had to sit it out.’
‘Perhaps it dragged on longer than it should because of that nasty bit Sammie Nelson sold to the gossip columnist.’
‘She must be a total cow,’ Treena said.
‘Yeah – I never liked her, though I wouldn’t have thought she’d do something that unpleasant. The journalist wrote the article so cleverly, though, that there was nothing you could pin down, just innuendo and suggestion. Sammie was in my year,’ I added, ‘but she wasn’t interested in having female friends.’
‘Oh, that kind,’ Treena said. ‘And everything she hinted about in that article was untrue?’
‘Absolutely. But there are always people willing to believe the worst, aren’t there?’
‘I suppose so. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Ned wanted to hide himself away.’
‘Like me – though luckily for him, he had somewhere lovely to do it in. Old Grace Hall is the most amazing Tudor house, like an overgrown fairy-tale cottage. And now he can get his teeth into the wonderful project of restoring a walled apothecary garden and opening it to the public,’ I enthused. ‘That’s where I come in. Oh, and there’s a horribly overgrown rose garden, too. I’m dying to hack my way into that and see what’s there!’
