A Manor in Cornwall

by Laura Briggs

  I studied the list of demands from the artist, and the performance design as Lady Amanda handed them to me. I definitely agreed with Lord William — we had a lot of work to do.

  ***

  "Put away your digital devices," coaxed Matt. "It's nearly six o' clock, and you haven't even touched your pasty. Or, for that matter, talked to your husband."

  I looked up with a smile of apology. "Sorry," I said. "It's just been such a day at work. Tomorrow, we're removing all the drapes and the furniture from the ballroom...plus, did I mention that we have an engagement party this week?"

  "You've mentioned nothing else," he answered, smiling back.

  "Sorry," I said, again. With a sigh, I turned off my tablet and laid it on the table, then stretched beside Matthew on the sofa. "How was university?" I asked, softly, leaning against his shoulder.

  Matt had been between assignments when he first returned to Cornwall, and served a brief stint once again as Cliffs House's main gardener, but he was now lecturing at Oxford three days a week. Where I had no doubt that the Poldark-esque looks that had so charmed Gemma and Pippa probably had the same effect on his botany students.

  "Good," he said. "I spoke with my friend John from Heligan Gardens a few days ago. He has a friend who is in charge of the grounds at Pencarrow, and would like me to come see a part of the gardens they're considering expanding."

  Pencarrow was a historic estate in the northern part of Cornwall, I knew. "Really?" I said. "Not two days a week, I hope?" I crossed my fingers that it wasn't the case.

  "No," he laughed. "More like a few times a month, mostly weekends. I'd love for you to come with me, if you could. You've never seen it, and it's one of the most beautiful historic sites in the county."

  Between his travel and my hectic schedule, we hadn't seen much of each other lately, so the thought of traveling north by car with Matthew seemed romantic and incredibly relaxing. Unfortunately, when would I find the time? My last weekend I had still been catching up on Friday's to-do list.

  "More than anything, I wish I could," I said. "I've seen pictures of it, and it's everything you've described...and the real attraction there would be you, of course." I took his hand, interlacing my fingers with his own. Watching Matt garden did the same thing for me that watching Ross Poldark in the tin mines did for Gemma and Pippa.

  "Then come with me." He buried his face against my hair.

  "What would I do about my work?" I asked. "These days, there's always something extra to do on the weekends. Lady Amanda can't possibly handle it herself, since she's already running a business on top of booking the manor's events."

  I snuggled closer to him, catching a whiff of his cologne, but only the faintest traces of the earthy, outdoorsy scent I associated with his passion for gardening. Too much time in the classroom, too little time in Rosemoor's flower beds and hothouse, I decided.

  "Find someone else to do it," he said.

  "What? You mean, replace myself?" I echoed, incredulously. "Thanks a lot. I land my dream job, and now you're trying to talk me out of it."

  "No, I mean find someone who will pick up the odd jobs you don't have time for. At least until this busy season is past," he said. "It will give you more time to concentrate on the details that matter, and more time for yourself."

  I considered this idea. Who would it be? Not Gemma, who already had double duty between the manor's cleaning schedule and Dinah's kitchen. Not Pippa, who was leaving in a few short weeks. I couldn't think of anyone who would do, yet Matt's suggestion made sense. Especially if I wanted to spend more time with a certain consulting gardener in the coming weeks.

  I closed my eyes, imagining myself strolling through the gardens in the crisp fall air, my hand in Matt's ... and not a worry in my mind that I was neglecting the celebrated Wendy Alistair's big album debut.

  It was definitely worth considering.

  ***

  "Most of you have worked here in the past, so you know the rules already," I said. "Just in case, however, I've made a short printout of 'dos' and 'dont's' for those of you who will be chosen to work at the actual event...." I passed out the sheets to my listeners with these last words.

  The foyer was crowded with eager would-be staffers from the village, some of whom were volunteering to work for free, believing it was their only shot at seeing Wendy Alistair in person. I spotted several of Gemma and Pippa's friends among them, since virtually every village girl from seventeen to twenty-five — as well as a few boys — seemed to be here this morning.

  "Of course, most of you will only be helping renovate the manor house's ballroom for the next few weeks," I said. "There's a lot of cleaning and repair work to be done, and you'll be supervised by Geoff Weatherby here and by Gemma Lawson and myself. And some of you will stay on for the event itself —"

  "Will we get to meet Wendy?" A hand shot up in the air before I was even done speaking.

  "This isn't a big chance to meet a celebrity, I'm afraid," I said. "This is mostly about serving the event's guests, then helping clean up afterwards."

  "But she'll be there. So we might meet her, right?"

  I had seen the list of demands for the artist, which included a mandatory force field of space between her and fans or staff, so I found it fairly unlikely. "Probably not," I said. "So if you're not interested in simply working for the manor's average part-time wage and going home with a box of leftover truffles and caviar, this isn't the event for you."

  There was some grumbling and whispering from a few little clusters of friends. Beside me, Gemma whispered, "Better go ahead and pass out assignments." She had helped me comb over the names on the sign-up sheet, explaining various skills and limitations. I had to take her word for most of it, since I hadn't lived in the village as long, and barely knew most of them on a first-name basis.

  "Don't let Billy near the kitchen — he'll eat us out of house and home by snitching what's not tied down," whispered Pippa, who had just joined us. "Oh — and Lina's good at organizing things, so she'd be the proper one to fetch and carry for you." Both the girls knew I was hoping to find someone who could help me out directly for this event.

  Lina, a long-haired blond busy texting someone on her phone, had delayed her university entrance because her grandmother had promised to take her to France for a month. Her skills were listed as 'public speaking,' and 'sharp dresser' (no, I'm not kidding on that one) on the sheet from Gemma: qualities Lina shared with a handful of others, a girl named Janet and one named Sandy, who were the two giggling near the front of the crowd. Only one girl wasn't giggling at this moment, in fact: a dark-haired girl near the back, the only one who didn't have on nail polish or makeup, or a stylish pair of jeans beneath her weathered, drab canvas jacket.

  "You'll be split into three groups for today, and see Geoff and Gemma for your assignments," I said. Gemma puffed with pride at this announcement.

  I read their names off according to their group, then followed the second group, the one with sharply-dressed Lina and the dark-haired girl. This group consisted mostly of girls that Gemma and Pippa had recommended as capable and responsible, so they were helping the two of us finish up some last-minute details for tomorrow's wedding.

  Everyone else was helping Lady Amanda and Pippa strip the ballroom down for its makeover, but our group was in the pantry, the long table crowded with flowers and bud vases destined to become centerpieces for the reception's tables. I shoved aside my color wheels and the flower samples for Pippa's wedding to make room for us at the table.

  "Each one of these vases gets a sprig of baby's breath, three daisies, and a sprig of the white bellflowers," I said, using Gemma's pet name for this last one. "We need to fill forty vases with water and floral powder, and then use the remaining ones to make corsages for the ushers."

  Three of our helpers — Lina, Darla, and Ella — immediately put themselves in the spots closest to the materials, sorting the blossoms into vases. Two others helped them by trimming stems, the five of them formi
ng a group that resembled a school clique, all whispers and secretive glances, and the inside language only they really knew. This left a girl named Florrie and the dark-haired girl named Kitty with the job of filling vases with water and the flower-preserving powder from the box on the table.

  "I hope we'll get to meet her," said Lina, as she arranged her daisies neatly in each vase. "I saw her sing in Milan when me and grandmother were there, and I got her autograph. Now I want her to sign the poster on my bedroom wall."

  "I can't believe you actually got to meet her," sighed Darla. "She's sooo beautiful. I've read one of the star players for Manchester United has a crush on her. Think he'll come to her concert?"

  I glanced at Gemma, and we both smiled. Apparently, my honest remarks hadn't completely squashed the dreams of our temporary staff for celebrity sightings.

  "Don't fill the vases so full, please, Kitty," said Lina, in a smooth, polite voice. "They'll spill everywhere when we move them."

  "I know what I'm doing, thanks." Kitty's tone of voice was, well, rude. Lina and Darla exchanged glances, both rolling their eyes as Kitty filled each vase three-fourths full, then began adding the powder, carefully. Florrie had completely disappeared, I noticed — the first defection from the crew?

  "Did you see where Florrie disappeared to?" I whispered to Gemma, who was cutting strips of floral tape.

  "No," she said. "But she was always wandering off in school. Headmaster used to find her hiding in the loo. Sometimes with her mum's cigarettes."

  Great. "Maybe I should go look for her." I was beginning to regret my request that we rally an army to help us — looking for defectors would make every task twice as long.

  "Do these go in the vases, too?" Lina asked, lifting one of the samples from Pippa's wedding. I turned to see that she had begun pairing some of them off into little piles — pink ones, red ones, yellow, magenta — and had put two reds and two pinks in each vase.

  "Not those," I said, quickly. "Those are — that's not important right now — just worry about the ones for the wedding tomorrow." Lina shrugged, then finished arranging the neat little matching stalks in their vases before walking away.

  The missing Florrie wasn't in the washroom, or in the kitchen with Dinah, or even smoking a cigarette in the garden. I gave up looking for her ten minutes later, making a note to speak to her if she materialized and wanted a paycheck without anyone having seen her working.

  Lina and her friends were now transporting the vases to safety, while Gemma was cleaning water and petals off the table. Near its end, Kitty was studying the stalks of flowers and the open color wheel I had left beside them.

  The color wheel — in this case, strips of varying shades and hues of every color, laid out in the spectrum's order — was a possible test I had mused as a way to choose my helper for the next few weeks. In high school, one of my favorite teachers had been an interior designer, and had told me that a person's perception of color, using it and identifying it, was the best clue to someone's organization skills. I had thought it would be a quick way to eliminate which ones were clueless when it came to decorative tasks, at least.

  "Now what can we do?" asked Lina, who was giving me a smile that looked like it was kept in a cool, dry place until needed. I imagined her following me around, doing her best to hide the gleam of excitement at the mention of Wendy Alistair's name, and felt a little dread.

  On impulse, I lifted the color wheel and held it out to Lina, spreading its strips wide. "Pick two different colors," I said. "Pretend they're for your birthday cake — but they have to be two completely different colors."

  "Why?" asked Ella. "Is this a game?"

  "It's too hard to choose," pouted Darla. I could tell right away this test wouldn't work with her.

  "This one ... and this one." Lina confidently pointed to two test strips. One was a creamy white, while the other was a festive pink. Perfect matches, but that's because they were also completely safe and conventional choices. I felt disappointed.

  "So what are we doing now?" asked Ella. Who kept glancing around, as if picturing Wendy Alistair showing up any minute, and maybe popping her head in to see if we were doing the centerpieces for her champagne celebration. I recognized that hopeful expression on sight.

  "Next, we'll be wrapping the corsages," I said. "Then we'll be making a last-minute garland of boughs for decorating the punch bowl's table." A slight mix-up in the details for the reception's layout had created this problem.

  "Is any of this for Wendy?" asked one of the high school girls who had been trimming flowers.

  "Nope," I answered. "Not a bit of it." Her face fell with disappointment.

  I noticed the extra vases by Pippa's flowers had been rearranged. Two sprigs of magenta-colored blossoms, one yellow, one orange — it caught my eye because it looked attractive, even though the stems needed trimmed to give the arrangement a tapering height.

  "Gemma, did you try that combination for Pippa's flowers?" I asked. I had left the color palette open to a spread of reddish, pinkish hues, I noticed.

  Gemma looked up from correcting the corsages. "Who, me? No. Not a bit," she answered.

  I glanced around. Kitty was sweeping up petals on the floor, and Florrie had returned from unknown parts, now busy reading the back of the plant food package. "Where have you been?" I asked her.

  She looked at me with a blank, innocent expression. "I went to the lavatory," she said.

  "Why didn't you say something? You've been gone for twenty minutes."

  "I didn't think you needed me. You had lots of people here working."

  I glanced at Gemma, who offered me a not-so-subtle look of skepticism. I sensed this would be one of many in the days to come.

  I lifted the color palette and opened it randomly, studying the bright samples. I took a deep breath and laid it aside, then removed the box of plant food from Florrie's hand.

  "Florrie," I said. "We need to have a word."

  "What? Why?" she said.

  "Just come with me," I said, leading her towards the door. When I glanced back at Gemma, I saw Kitty looking at the samples, her fingers laid on two separate colors: a blue shade of lavender and a smoky red.

  ***

  "I was thinking of driving to Bodmin this Saturday," said Matt. "Pencarrow's putting Sir William's Molesworth's recently-discovered garden sketches on display with the original blueprints of Pencarrow itself. It's the anniversary of Robert Allanson's final architectural design, I think, or something like that." He glanced at me. "You'll come with me, won't you? Or do you think that designing a diva's stage will occupy your time?"

  "I don't know," I said. "But I've been thinking about your words, and I decided you were right. I'm going to pick someone from Pippa and Gemma's pool of temporary staff to lighten my work load this round." While I was still blenching at the thought of picking oh-so perfect Lina, it hadn't destroyed my desire to free up my time.

  "Before Saturday?" he asked, hinting.

  "Maybe so," I said. "I would like to see Pencarrow. And there's no one I would rather see it with." I drew his arm more firmly around my shoulders, holding onto his hand. My head rested on his shoulder, and the deep, smoky smell of the outdoors in autumn reached my nostrils from the fabric of Matt's shirt. The smell of smoke from our chimney, and of earth and dried leaves, clinging to Matthew's skin and clothes. That was the right scent, I felt.

  "Were you gardening today?" I asked.

  "I was weeding the foxgloves and the hollyhocks," he said. "How did you know?"

  "I can just tell," I answered, my fingers tracing those belonging to his hand, now separating the one that wore his wedding ring, a thick, gold band engraved on the outside with the Cornish words for 'love,' and 'forever.' "You know where I wish you were gardening?" I asked.

  He smiled, amused. "I think Lord William finally ran out of reasons to hire me," he said. "Besides, Pollock's a good gardener. You've never said you dislike working with him."

  "And I don't," I said,
quickly. "I just wish I were working with you. Then we would see more of each other. I'd open the drapes in the drawing room and there you would be, planting autumn mums or trimming the rhododendrons..."

  "Maybe if you ask someone to help you at work," he whispered, "we'll see more of each other here. In our cottage, and our garden. And I could spend Saturdays teaching you how to root cuttings."

  "Sounds exciting," I whispered back. "Tell me more, oh master gardener."

  "It's actually very dull to explain," he answered. "Unless you happen to be a student of botanical science."

  "You'd be surprised," I said. "I could listen to you talk about plants all day." I slid closer to him, succeeding in pushing to the carpet below a book on possible plant fossils in Antarctica's ice and my sketches of Pippa's wedding flowers, now in magenta, orange, and yellow, with a sprig of white added.

  "You must be very desperate for companionship," he teased me.

  "Desperate. For you. Yes, that's definitely the word I'm looking for right now," I answered, kissing him on the lips.

  The next morning, the winnowed pool of part-time manor workers waited for their assignments. I had a checklist with names divided into two groups, one for Geoff and Lady Amanda and one for Pippa.

  "As I read off the names in the first group, you'll be joining Geoff for stage construction," I said. "The rest of you will assist Pippa with moving the furniture into storage." I checked the name sheet once more. "Kitty — you'll be helping me for this afternoon."

  Several pairs of eyes latched onto the dark-haired girl when I said this last name. Several more people were whispering. After a short pause, the girl began moving in my direction.

  "What are you thinking?" hissed Gemma. "That's Kitty Alderson, for heaven's sake!"

  "What?" I asked.

  "She's a troublemaker," whispered Pippa. "Don't you know she's —" But that was as far as she got before she hushed herself.