‘I hate box, it smells of pee,’ remarked Nia.
‘I thought that was privet?’ I said.
‘No, box stinks too.’
‘Lavender certainly smells better,’ Gabe agreed. ‘Though the effect isn’t quite as neat.’ He pulled out one of the other sheets and put it on top. ‘This is a larger-scale plan to the north-east, with the steps down to the pleached walk. Luckily they’re still there, under the soil and turf.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked, surprised. ‘Have you been digging?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘some things I just do know. I’d put money on it.’
‘I’d forgotten you were the psychic gardener!’ I muttered.
‘Gabe’s simply more in tune with nature than most people,’ Nia said approvingly. ‘But we could all be like that, if we wanted to be.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Rhodri said vaguely. ‘Isn’t it a bit like dowsing for water? Either you’ve got the knack or you haven’t. But here’s something that will really interest you, Fran!’ He put his finger on the lawned north-east terrace with its low stone balustrading. ‘This was a rose garden in the early 1800s.’
‘It was? And they removed it? Why on earth would anyone rip out a rose garden, for goodness’ sake!’
‘I don’t know, but that’s one of the first restoration projects,’ Nia assured me. ‘And the maze, of course.’
‘Yes, and then reconnecting all the isolated garden features like the pleached walk and the fountain and the arch to the river will be great fun, like joining dots up and finding a picture,’ enthused Rhodri.
‘It all sounds like a lot of hard work. Presumably the programme only do a small part of it?’ I said to Gabe.
‘Oh, we’re here for four weeks, and it’s surprising how much we get done in the time. The maze and the rose garden are the main projects, with a bit of work here and there on the other stuff where something is being excavated, like old steps or walls—anything that makes good TV. After that, we leave Rhodri with the plans and he carries on—but we do return regularly and update the viewers on what’s happening, and give advice on the ongoing restoration.’
‘But now I’ll have you practically living on the doorstep, my own resident expert,’ Rhodri said happily.
Being a TV gardener must be like being a doctor, in that everyone you meet wants you to diagnose their problems, free.
‘I wonder what sort of roses they would have had in Regency Wales?’ I mused, staring at the plan. ‘Apart from the obvious ancient ones, like Rosa Mundi, which they used to grow as a herb.’
‘There are only one or two mentions of particular varieties in Rhodri’s documents, but it will be easy enough to find out what was available at the time,’ Gabe said. ‘And I suggested to Rhodri that he could plant a modern rose garden below it, so that one terrace leads down to another.’ He frowned. ‘I feel there should be some more steps—and maybe a water feature—right here.’
‘I think that may be the stone sarcophagus the cows drink out of down at the Home Farm,’ Rhodri said apologetically. ‘Apparently my grandmother took against it when she came here as a bride, and had it removed. A stone gryphon spouted water into it, but I’ve no idea where that went.’
‘Well, the cows don’t have to drink out of a stone coffin,’ Nia said firmly. ‘We’ll have that back and find them something else. An old bath, perhaps.’
‘You’ll have to go and see Fran’s rose garden, Gabe, to see what does well around here,’ Rhodri suggested.
‘So everyone keeps telling me—and I will, if she’ll invite me.’
‘There isn’t a lot to see just now,’ I said hastily. ‘Later, perhaps.’
‘I’d like to see it, whatever the season. What roses have you got?’
‘What hasn’t she got?’ Nia sighed.
‘Nia, there are thousands of wonderful roses out there, and I have room for only a fraction of a fraction of them!’ I turned back to Gabe. ‘There’s no particular type of rose that I like better than any other, so it’s a complete hotchpotch of varieties. I’ve even got an Omar Khayyam,’ I added proudly. ‘I know there are more spectacular pink Damasks, but it’s so romantic, knowing it came from the original one found growing on the poet’s grave!’
‘Do you believe that?’ He looked down at me, eyebrow raised.
‘Of course! Don’t you?’
‘As much as I believe in the existence of Tilly the two-ton tooth fairy,’ he said gravely, and the other two gave him rather startled looks. ‘Go on—what else have you got?’
‘I’ve just bought a Constance Spry—they’re so beautiful—and I’ve got a Kiftsgate and a Madame Gregoire Staechelin, and a Gloria Mundi, of course, and an absolutely enchanting Mermaid…’ I stopped suddenly, remembering what had happened to the poor thing. ‘But you don’t want to hear me going on about them!’
‘I could listen to you going on about roses all night,’ he said, in a voice like molten honey. ‘I find it terribly seductive!’
I could feel myself going pink and looked away hastily, only to meet Rhodri’s slightly puzzled eyes instead.
‘Will you come up and help me with ideas for the Plas Gwyn rose gardens?’
‘I’m sure you have more than enough of your own,’ I said stiffly.
‘I’m always happy to have a fresh eye on things…and a pleasure shared with a fellow enthusiast is a pleasure more than doubled, don’t you think?’
‘You could get in the picture when they start filming, too,’ Rhodri suggested. ‘They like to include local characters and they’re even roping Dottie in to ride across the scenery at one point, though I’ve told them she doesn’t take direction very well. Or even at all,’ he added honestly.
‘She’s a true eccentric—she was a big hit on the programme and people want to see more of her,’ Gabe said.
‘But not me—I’d hate that,’ I said firmly. ‘I will come up and help when I can, but there is no way I want to be on the telly.’
‘I’ll have to warn them to keep the cameras off you, then,’ Gabe said, amused. ‘It’s usually the other way round—loads of local people trying to get in the frame, and fans of the programme too, when they know we are here.’
Fans of Gabriel Weston, more like!
‘It would be good publicity for your work, though, Fran!’ Nia pointed out. ‘They’re going to feature me in my studio, aren’t they, Gabe?’
‘Yes, and any other craftworkers you’ve got installed by then. We’ll show the interior of the house too. It all adds interest to the programme.’
‘We’re going to officially open Plas Gwyn to the public at Easter, don’t forget, Fran,’ Nia reminded me, ‘just after the preliminary shooting for Restoration Gardener. The whole place is going to be a work in progress for years, but we need the punters to start flowing in to give us a bit of cash to keep going.’
Back to the royal ‘we’ again, I noticed. The Spyder would probably soon be sporting a ‘Nia ‘n’ Roddy’ windscreen sticker—it was very promising.
‘But we’re only going to open the house at weekends until summer,’ Rhodri explained. ‘By then we hope the gift shop and tearoom will be finished. The plan is to have people buy their tickets to see the house in the gift shop and have to enter and leave the house through it—but they can just come and look at the craft shops for free. Nia thought of that one—she’s so clever and practical!’ He beamed at her fondly and she went faintly pink.
‘You’re not going to have much privacy, Rhodri.’
‘Ah, but this paved terrace behind the new wing, where I’ll be living, is going to be roped off—maybe hedged and trellised later to provide a bit of personal space.’
‘I’m still thinking about that one,’ agreed Gabe.
‘My workshop is functional now, and a couple of the others will have moved in by Easter, when we open with the Grand Easter Egg Hunt. I’ve already done the leaflets—and you’re going to help me hide the eggs, Fran, really early that morning,’ Nia told me in her u
sual bossy way.
‘I am?’
‘And me,’ Gabe said. ‘I’m doing the official opening, so I may as well make myself useful!’
‘What if it’s raining?’
‘We’ll just have to put them in plastic bags or something—don’t be a wet blanket!’
‘OK,’ I conceded. ‘Well, that should get things going!’
‘Is Rosie coming home for Easter?’ Rhodri asked. ‘She could help too.’
‘Only for a couple of days and then she’s going to Ma’s: her local vet’s going to give her a week’s work experience. I’m not sure what she’s doing after that.’
‘Well, tell her if she’s at a loose end over the summer I’ll give her a job up at Plas Gwyn,’ he said kindly. ‘We’ll probably take on a few students.’
‘Once word about the filming gets out, we should have hordes of people here to watch,’ Nia said. ‘Perhaps we should have “Help the Restoration” donation boxes dotted about.’
‘It wouldn’t hurt,’ agreed Rhodri.
‘Won’t you mind crowds of people watching you?’ I asked Gabe. It sounded like my idea of hell.
‘No, we’re used to it. We’ll cordon off where we’re working for safety, of course—they can only watch us from a distance.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ll be spending much time on site anyway; only when they’re filming.’
‘Then you suppose wrong! I thought you’d seen the programme,’ he said, giving me a surprised and indignant look. ‘I’m a gardener, not an actor, so I don’t suddenly spring into action when there’s a camera on me; I work all the time.’
‘Actually, he works harder than anyone,’ Rhodri said admiringly. ‘He built a dry-stone wall himself in the last series!’
‘That’s the fun bit, my reward for doing the camera thing,’ Gabe said. ‘I like getting my hands dirty.’
‘Oh?’ I said, thoughtfully looking at his strong, long-fingered hands again. Come to think of it, they didn’t look as though he had a daily manicure—or even a yearly one.
‘Of course, I’ll have to go off and do a day’s shooting at earlier projects from time to time. But even after the programmes are made, when I’m living here, it will be hard to resist the temptation to come and muck in.’
‘And I don’t think I could stay away if you were planting a rose garden,’ I admitted ruefully. ‘Though I suppose it will give me lots of new varieties to paint once they’re established, so in the long term I would be helping my work!’
‘This is all going to be such fun,’ Rhodri said happily, and I could see that suddenly the Famous Three had become Four. He raised his beer glass: ‘Here’s to success!’
Since I was suddenly feeling tired again, even though all the lovely calories in my glass of beer and two packets of crisps had made me much less shaky, I took myself off, leaving them hunched over the plans like three conspirators.
Carrie had already gone, leaving Huw sitting morosely in the corner over a pint of bitter, which did not look promising. I must ask her what’s happening. They have been together such a long time it would be a pity if they parted simply because of some malicious rumour-mongering.
I was glad to get home, but instead of having something to eat and an early night, which was what I had intended, I ended up talking on the phone for hours. My ear was hot by the time I’d finished.
Ma was first, to say she had spoken to ‘dear Gabriel’ again (she must have his mobile phone number, unless they have established telepathic links) and was glad to hear that already he felt we were old friends and he was looking forward to seeing my rose garden!
She really did tell him he could use the cottage whenever he wanted while he was working at Plas Gwyn until the sale went through, which I think is pretty rash of her, because what if it turns out he is bankrupt, or she changes her mind or something?
When I pointed this out she said, ‘Don’t be silly, my love. He’s such a nice young man. Do you know, he says that he would love me to carry on using the cottage whenever I like, even after he has bought it! He’s all alone in the world, no family at all.’
He didn’t mention that part of it, and neither can I see him in the role of Little Orphan Annie.
‘You can’t call him a young man, Ma—he’s older than I am, so he must be in his forties. And you can’t shack up with strange men!’
‘He’s not strange, and he’s only forty-three, I asked. That’s practically a boy to me,’ she said stubbornly, ‘and you know I’m never wrong about people!’
I wouldn’t exactly say that, but prudence kept me quiet, especially on the subject of divorce, paternity claims and estranged family on the other side of the Atlantic. And is this love? Should I be worried? Does Gabe Weston have a sort of generic attraction for female members of the March family?
Ma hopes to arrive before lunch tomorrow to talk things over with Gabe. And I suppose we will have to sort out the contents of the cottage fairly soon—not a job I am looking forward to.
Gabriel Weston appears to be insinuating himself into my life here without any apparent effort at all, and even Nia seems to have fallen under his spell. Maybe she sees him as a sort of honorary Druid.
I’d hardly put the phone down after talking to Ma when it rang again and Rosie aggrievedly demanded to know where I’d been, like an anxious mother (somebody else’s—mine was never anxious since she always assumed I would be fine).
‘The pub, with Nia, Rhodri and that Restoration Gardener man, Gabriel Weston,’ I told her, and then added that Ma had definitely agreed to sell Fairy Glen to him.
‘I suppose it’s quite exciting for you, having him coming to live in the village,’ she said kindly. ‘How old is he? And is he good-looking?’
‘Early forties, and he’s not handsome the way Mal is,’ I said, ‘though I suppose he’s attractive in his way…charismatic. He has lots of fans—some of them were drooling over him in the pub tonight.’
‘How is Mal?’ she asked, losing interest in geriatric gardeners.
‘Fine—he loves it out there. You know his idea of heaven is to bask in the sunshine like a lizard, preferably on the deck of a boat. He’s got an apartment with a swimming pool and maid service, but he says they’re all like that on Grand Cayman,’ I added doubtfully.
‘Granny says she’s going out to visit him too, because he’s lost in the joys of Mammon and needs to be shown the hard path back to righteousness…or, at least, something like that.’
I was astonished. ‘That’s the first I’ve heard it! Are you sure, because Mal hasn’t mentioned it?’ It was hard to conjure up a vision of Mrs M. on a Caribbean island.
‘Yes, certain, but I think she’s only just decided. She doesn’t expect to enjoy herself, she said, but it was her duty to go. I wish she thought it was her duty to take me with her!’
‘I wish you could go too, darling. How is the course going?’
‘OK,’ she said uninformatively. ‘I’m coming home on Friday with all my stuff—and then, Mum, I hope you don’t mind, but on Saturday morning, very, very early, Tom’s picking me up and taking me over to the Lleyn Peninsula to learn to surf!’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I mean, well, that will be fun, won’t it? But won’t the water be terribly cold?’
‘Wetsuits. I’ll be able to borrow one. Then I’m back on Sunday to pick my car up and go over to Gran’s.’
‘If you want to watch them shooting the opening scenes of Restoration Gardener, you’ll have to take a day off,’ I said. ‘I expect half the village will be watching.’
‘I probably won’t bother. I’m only working that week, after all, and it’s good experience: the practice does livestock as well as domestic pets.’
‘How’s Colum?’
‘Who?’
‘Your boyfriend.’
‘Oh, him,’ she said dismissively. ‘He’s all right. He’s a bit jealous of Tom, actually, even though I’ve told him…well, I’ve told him he’s stupid.’
‘Right,’ I a
greed.
‘Tom’s old enough to be my father, even if he isn’t—and he’s a lot of fun.’
‘He always was,’ I said reflectively. ‘It used to get a bit wearing sometimes, all that nonstop boyish high spirits.’
‘Well, it makes a change from Mal,’ she said shortly, which is true: the last thing you could accuse him of is an excess of joie de vivre. ‘Tom says he’s been thinking about you a lot since he saw you again, and he never forgot you, which is romantic, isn’t it?’
‘It might be, if he hadn’t dumped me in the first place.’
‘Yes, but he said he realised it was a mistake almost immediately. You could have got back together again.’
‘No, we couldn’t,’ I said patiently. ‘Even if I hadn’t discovered I was pregnant with you, darling, I was over him by the time he wrote to me to try and make up.’
‘He’s still pretty good-looking, isn’t he?’ she persisted. ‘You wouldn’t think he was forty! The surfing must keep him fit.’
‘I expect so, for a geriatric,’ I agreed slightly tartly. ‘But I can’t say I really noticed at the Druid’s Rest—other things were on my mind.’
‘He was really sorry about that, but he’d like to meet you just for a chat sometime—and he says Mal must be absolutely out of his mind to go away for six months leaving you all alone!’
‘You know Mal had to take this contract, Rosie, and I’ll soon be seeing him. And it appears I’ll soon be seeing Tom too, if he’s picking you up on Saturday.’
‘He always drives up overnight, so it will be really, really early. You might not be at your best then, Mum.’
‘I’m sure he’ll survive the experience,’ I said drily. It might even do him good to see me freshly risen from my bed, since methinks she is plugging Tom’s charms just a little too much. Wonder what she’s told him about Mal.
After that, I unplugged the phone and went to bed. Chances were that Mal would be trying to phone me later, possibly already regaled with Wevill-borne tales of my driving around and visiting pubs with TV celebrities, but to hell with it, I was beyond exhausted.
This time I dreamed that Gabe was offering me a rose, but I couldn’t quite make out what kind, since I kept snatching my hand back at the last minute.
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