The Kew Gardens Girls
Page 1
Advance Praise for The Kew Gardens Girls
“An absolutely charming story about the strength and beauty of female friendship. The Kew Gardens Girls blossom from the pages as World War I changes their lives and they face the challenges of being the first women to work in the famous Kew Gardens. I loved the way Ivy, Louisa, and Win reveled in the many adventures they encountered and supported one another through the turmoil of wartime life. Settle into the story and be swept away!”
—Natasha Lester, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Secret
“Utterly charming, The Kew Garden Girls, set in World War I London to the backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement, is a tumbling bouquet of detail and dialogue that immediately transports the reader to one of the most famous city gardens in the world, a century in the past. Inspired by real events, Posy Lovell deftly explores issues of friendship, loss, class, equality, and freedom, weaving those serious topics into a beautiful story of women in wartime who find solace and meaning in tending the plants of Kew Gardens, coaxing new life from the soil even as they struggle to hold their own lives together. I’ll never look at the sprawling, brilliant Kew Gardens—one of London’s top tourist attractions and a World Heritage Site—the same way again.”
—Kristin Harmel, international bestselling author of The Book of Lost Names
“The Kew Gardens Girls weaves an engaging, charming story of three women and their friendship while exploring the fascinating struggle for women’s suffrage during World War I Britain. Lovell’s story is just as layered and beautiful as the gardens she writes about. A delight!”
—Julia Kelly, international bestselling author of The Light Over London
“The Kew Gardens Girls is a delightful story about women from very different backgrounds who end up working together at London’s Kew Gardens during World War I, taking on the jobs of the men who have gone to war. The ‘girls’ form fast friendships and something like a surrogate family. With beautifully well-drawn characters whom you root for from the beginning, and interesting historical details about both the Suffragette movement and Kew Gardens during World War I, this is a poignant, heartwarming read that I highly recommend!”
—Jane Healey, bestselling author of The Beantown Girls
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Text © The Orion Publishing Group Limited 2020
Trademark © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2020
Kew is a registered trademark of The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Frontispiece © The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Published by arrangement with Orion Publishing Group Limited
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lovell, Posy, 1973– author.
Title: The Kew Gardens girls / Posy Lovell.
Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2021] |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020049810 (print) | LCCN 2020049811 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593328231 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780593328248 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew—Fiction. | World War, 1914-1918—Women—England—Fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PR6102.A7748 K49 2021 (print) | LCC PR6102.A7748 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049810
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020049811
p. cm.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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For the women gardeners who have kept Kew blooming for more than 100 years
Contents
Cover
Advance Praise for The Kew Gardens Girls
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
About the Author
Prologue
Kew
1913
The bells seemed louder than usual this evening, Reverend Miller thought as he walked round the side of St. Anne’s Church. Perhaps the bell ringers were feeling particularly energetic. He paused for a while, listening to the tuneful clanging with pleasure. He couldn’t hear anything else but the bells, he noted. No shouts from the men working on the nearby river, no sound from the road or from the pub across the way. Just the bells. He nodded in satisfaction and continued on his twilight walk round the churchyard.
* * *
Inside the bell tower, the noise was deafening as the bell ringers threw themselves into their practice, much to the delight of Ginny Walker, who was responsible for the loudest clanging. She pulled hard on the rope, feeling her shoulder muscles cry out in protest. But she didn’t stop. She knew it was important to keep going, louder and louder. Glancing down, she saw the little silver hammer brooch she wore pinned to her lapel. The symbol that showed she was a Suffragette—and she would do anything to further the cause. She pulled on the rope once more, grunting with the exertion. She would do anything.
* * *
The sound of the chiming bells rolled across the green, drowning out the noise made by three women who were standing by the wall.
“Go on, Olive,” one of them hissed. “Hitch your skirt up if it’s getting in the way.”
With a grin, the woman hiked up her long dress round her waist and tucked it into her bloomers.
“Better?”
“Go on,” the other one said again. “Look, she’s up there already.”
Above them, perched at the top of the wall, was another woman—younger than Olive and her friend Lilian. She’d scaled the barrier without hesitation and was now peering down over the other side.
“It’s all quiet,” she said. “Follow me.”
There was a soft thud as she threw herself down from the wall and disappeared from view.
Olive and Lilian glanced at eac
h other and then, with considerably less dexterity than their younger friend, began scaling the wall themselves.
Once they were on the other side, the young woman put her fingers to her lips.
“Sound travels strange inside Kew Gardens,” she said under her breath. “Whispers carry through the trees and the bells won’t cover everything. No more talking.”
The women all nodded at one another and, after picking up the bags they’d thrown over the wall ahead of them, they silently crept through the trees toward the tea pavilion.
“Over there,” the young woman said as they came to a clearing. The building loomed up in front of them out of the gloom. “That’s the tea pavilion.”
She clutched Lilian’s arm. “Just the pavilion, right?” she said. “Because what you did to the orchid house the other day, ruining all those plants? That wasn’t right. They’re living things, not bricks and mortar.”
“Just the pavilion,” Lilian agreed.
As one the women walked quietly to the front of the pavilion. Lilian pinned a note on the wall reading votes for women, and Olive pulled a pack of fabric from her bag—pads soaked in paraffin. She tucked a couple into the wooden slats by the door and another two by the steps. She doused the wooden slats by the door and threw it onto the pads by the steps. The smell rose up, making their nostrils tingle.
“Ready?” said Lilian.
Olive nodded, but the younger woman looked unsure.
“Is this the only way?” she asked. “Really?”
“Deeds, not words,” said Lilian.
She struck a match and, with a flourish, threw it onto the steps behind the younger woman. Immediately, the rickety wooden structure burst into flames—higher and more powerful than any of them had expected.
“Ohh!” The young woman gasped in pain as the fire caught the wooden stair railing next to where she stood and licked her arm with its sharp orange tongue.
“Get back,” Lilian cried. She pulled the teenager away from the flames and yanked her back toward the path, where Olive was already standing.
“It’s too much,” the young woman said, her face lit with the glow from the fire. “It’s too much, this is wrong.”
But Olive and Lilian simply shook their heads.
“We need them to pay attention,” Olive said. “Perhaps this will help.”
“I hope so,” said the youngster. “I really hope you’re right.”
A noise from the bushes made them freeze.
“What was that?” Lilian breathed.
They all listened, senses on high alert. Was it footsteps?
“Keeper,” said the teenager. “We need to go.”
She pulled Olive’s arm.
“This way,” she said. “I know a way out. Follow me.”
She vanished into the shadows and, with the sound of running footsteps echoing through the darkness, Olive and Lilian followed.
Chapter 1
Kew
June 1915
I’m really not sure about this,” said Douglas MacMillan as he slowly walked down the line of potential new recruits. “Not sure about this at all.”
He shook his head, pausing in his pacing.
“What do you think, Jim?”
His assistant, a younger man with a mop of dark hair and kind eyes, gave his boss an amused glance.
“I think you should give them a chance, Mac,” he said. “We’ve lost more than half our gardeners already, and there are bound to be more that join up. We need them.”
He sighed.
“We had this conversation when we put the ad in the Times, Mac. You agreed. We’re lucky so many have turned up.”
Mac huffed in disapproval.
“I’m just not sure they’re up to the job,” he muttered. “Bunch of namby-pamby lady poets and maiden aunts.”
In the line, two of the recruits exchanged a look of solidarity—they were used to being underestimated by men—before standing to attention again as Mac continued his inspection. He paused by one of the women—tall and elegant, though a closer look would reveal her skirt had been mended many times and her coat was faded.
“What’s your name?” he barked.
The woman winced, just a little, at his sharp tone, then straightened up and looked him straight in the eye.
“Louisa Taylor,” she said.
“And you want to be a horticulturalist, do you? Fancy yourself as a gardener?”
“I’m already a gardener. But I’d like to work here, yes.”
Mac huffed again. “Gardener, eh? What do you grow?”
“Vegetables, mostly, at the moment. But flowers, too. I only have window boxes because my flat is very small.”
Mac nodded and the woman continued.
“I grew up in Kent,” she said. “On a hops farm. I understand plants.”
“Hops?” Mac’s gruff Scottish voice sounded grudgingly impressed. “Not easy.”
“No, sir.”
Behind him, Jim grinned again.
“He’ll come round eventually,” he said in a low voice to the youngest woman in the line. “Don’t worry.”
She smiled at him. “Promise?” she said quietly.
“Promise.”
A kerfuffle at the other end of the line made them both look up. A disheveled young man joined the group. His cap was askew, one trouser leg was half-tucked into his sock, and he was breathing heavily.
“Sorry I’m late,” he panted. “Went to the wrong gate, and then it was difficult finding somewhere to lock up my bicycle.”
Mac, looking relieved to see another male face, left his interrogation of Louisa Taylor and turned his attention to the man.
“What’s your name?”
“Bernard,” he said, still out of breath. “Bernie. Bernie Yorke.”
“Well, Bernard Bernie Yorke,” said Mac, “do you have any horticulture experience?”
Bernie chuckled. “Good heavens, no,” he said. “None whatsoever. But I’m a fast learner, and I’m not frightened of hard work.”
“Good,” said Mac. “You’re in. Go and give Jim your details.”
The two women exchanged another glance and the younger woman, the one who’d been talking to Jim, raised an eyebrow. “Should have said your name was Louis, not Louisa,” she said quietly.
Louisa stifled a laugh. She already liked this rather wild-looking girl beside her and hoped they’d both be chosen to work at Kew.
“Louisa?” Mac said, making her jump.
“Yes, sir?”
“Not one of those Suffragettes, are you?”
Louisa looked straight at him. “Absolutely not, sir.”
“Good,” said Mac. “They burned the tea pavilion, you know. And destroyed the orchid house. Terrible business.”
“I heard,” Louisa said.
Behind her back, she curled her fingers round the little silver hammer brooch she wore and which she’d removed just before Mac had reached her.
“Terrible.”
“You’re in,” Mac said with a definite tinge of reluctance. “Give your details to Jim.”
As Louisa went to leave the line, the younger woman next to her caught her hand and pushed something into it. It was another tiny hammer brooch.
Louisa looked at her and the younger woman pushed a strand of red hair out of her face and smiled. Giving her the tiniest of nods, Louisa headed over to where Jim sat on a tree trunk, meticulously writing down the names and addresses of all the new recruits. Bernie stood to one side, biting his lip nervously.
While she waited her turn to give Jim her information, she watched Mac interrogate the other women.
“He’s not as bad as he seems,” Jim said, watching her watching. “He’s got a good heart.”
Louisa raised an eyebrow and Jim chuckled.
; “You’ll see,” he said.
Over in the line, Mac had reached the redheaded girl.
“Name,” he barked.
“Ivy Adams,” she said.
Beside Louisa, Jim raised his head, his kind eyes fixed on Ivy.
“Do you know her?” Louisa was intrigued by his interest.
“She’s some girl,” he said. “Some girl.”
Ivy was small and wiry, with that unkempt red hair that kept whipping across her face as the breeze took it.
With an exasperated sigh, she gathered her locks up in her tiny hands, twisted, and tucked it into itself.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s so annoying. I’d like to cut it all off one day. What was you saying?”
Louisa thought Mac would react badly to Ivy’s inattention but, to her surprise, he smiled indulgently.
“You’re Paddy Adams’s oldest,” he said.
Ivy smiled. “S’right.”
“How’s your dad?”
She shrugged. “Times are tough.”
Mac looked sad. “He didn’t want to come here? I’d give him a job any day of the week. Knowledge he has of flowers is second to none.”
“Her dad worked at Columbia Road,” Jim told Louisa. She looked at him curiously. How did he know that? “One of the best flower sellers down there, until . . .”
“He’s drinking,” Ivy said abruptly. “Too much. And we ain’t seen him properly for weeks. You know what he’s like. You don’t want him here, sir.”
“Shame,” said Mac.
“He taught me everything.”
Mac looked her up and down. “You might have the knowledge, but you’re tiny. You’re not built for physical work.”
“I’m small, but I’m strong as an ox,” she said. “Give me a chance and I’ll prove it.”
“I don’t know, Ivy.”
“Please,” she said. “For my dad?”
There was a pause. Louisa silently urged Mac to give Ivy the chance she obviously wanted so desperately.
“Fine,” he said eventually. “But if it’s too much, you tell me?”
“I will,” she said. “Thank you, sir.”