Page 50 of The Garden of Forgotten Wishes
We carried our drinks over to one of the long tables in the darkest corner, where I was introduced to Gerald, who was a slightly Mr Pickwickian man, portly and rubicund, and with twinkling grey eyesbehind round rimless glasses. He didn’t look like my idea of an intrepid world traveller … but then, now I came to think of it, neither did the birdlike Elf.
I slid onto the bench seat next to her and Ned sat on the chair opposite.
While I sipped my shandy, I looked around at the rapidly filling tables, spotting several people I knew, like Gertie and Steve, at a table with James, and several others who looked vaguely familiar.
Elf decided to point out some of the more notable locals: ‘That’s the Tollers over there, Stacy and Cal, who have the general shop. Their two eldest are in that group of young people near the bar … and then Charlie’s parents will be around somewhere, probably in the restaurant lounge at the moment. Charlie looks just like his dad, so you can’t miss him, but Katy’s really fair. Odd, because she’s the one distantly related to the Verdi family. There’s an older son, Harry, who is a chef, but he’s off working on a world cruise liner …’
‘Don’t baffle the poor girl with a list of who’s who and how we’re all related; just let her find out in her own good time,’ said Myfanwy.
‘But it’s all very interesting,’ protested Elf. ‘The original Victorian Verdis had about a dozen children and they married into the local families, like the Tollers and Possets. You get the dark Italian looks popping up all over the place. Myfy and I both have dark eyes, but Myfy had the lovely raven hair, too.’
‘It’s equally beautiful now,’ Jacob said. ‘Like a cascade of pearls.’ He and Myfy exchanged one of their intimate smiles.
‘My father was Italian, but my mother English,’ I said.
‘That accounts for your rather unusual and pretty combination of dark hair and warm complexion, with light blue-grey eyes,’ Gerald said kindly.
Food had been ordered and it did indeed arrive in retro plastic baskets, but was simple and good: chunky home-made chips and crispy scampi.
Gerald was eating sausages, which he told me were excellent and that the organic pork came from the pig farm at Cross Ways Farm.
‘That’s the Vanes’ farm, isn’t it?’ I said, even though I knew very well that it was.
‘That’s right. The Vanes turned to pig farming in a big way. Old Saul may be the most surly, ill-tempered man in the valley, but he certainly knows his pigs, and his eldest son, Samuel, is a chip off the old block.’
‘Wayne’s the oddball one,’ Elf said. ‘Didn’t want to work on the farm, doesn’t seem to want to do anything much to earn a living. Then there was that big family fuss when he got a Thorstane girl into trouble a few years ago and refused to marry her.’
‘At least that’s one local family you’re not related to,’ I said.
‘Oh, but actually thereisan extremely distant link – not to us, but to Ned,’ Elf said, to my surprise. ‘It’s in my book. A Vane servant girl ran off with one of the Lordly-Grace sons, came back pregnant and somehow ended up married to Richard Grace, a widower who lived at the Hall. He adopted the boy and Ned is descended from that line.’
Ned made a face. ‘I’m more of a Lordly-Grace descendant then, though it was such a very long time ago, I think we can forget all about it.’
I fell silent, thinking this revelation over, because … well, I must be extremely distantly related both to the Lordly-Graces and Ned, through my Vane ancestry!
I’d have to read the story in the book and find out more.
I’d finished my food and someone had put another drink in front of me, without asking. My tired muscles were relaxing in the warmth and I felt a bit sleepy, despite the hubbub.
A last group of people came in. I recognized the owner of the gift shop and Ned said one of the others was from Brow Farm on the hill behind Risings.
Then Ned looked at his watch and said the quiz would start any minute.
‘And here’s Cress,’ said Elf, as a tall, lanky girl in waxed jacket, riding breeches and paddock boots came in and stood looking vaguely round. She had the face of a not unattractive, but slightly worried, bloodhound, and her mouse-brown hair was in a long plait that hung over one shoulder like an unravelling bell rope.
Gerald stood up, waved and beckoned, and her expression brightened as she waved back. She got herself a drink and then made her way over and took the last seat, on the end of the bench next to me and directly opposite Ned. In fact, her surprisingly lovely big grey eyes were fixed on him with a sort of doglike devotion.
‘Hi, Cress,’ he said, casually. ‘This is Marnie Ellwood, the new gardener I’m sharing with Elf and Myfy. Marnie, meet Cressida Lordly-Grace from Risings, allegedly our remote relative by the backstairs.’
Cress looked faintly surprised and he added, ‘We’ve just been talking about the ancient family scandal. Elf’s put it in her book.’
‘Oh, right,’ Cress said vaguely. ‘I knew the family had a big bust-up over it with the Grace cousins at the Hall in the early nineteenth century.’
‘Yes, that’s why the two families ignored each other until recently,’ Myfy said.
‘But it’s so silly to carry on with that sort of thing,’ said Cress. ‘We’re all friends now.’
‘Audrey, Cress’s mother, doesn’t exactly mix with the rest of us peasants,’ Ned said, when she’d gone to the bar to get crisps, which seemed to be all the dinner she intended eating.
