Best-Laid Plants

by Marty Wingate

  Christopher set down one of the cases. “Do you think the satnav would work in here?”

  “Should I give a shout and see if I can rouse anyone?”

  “We’re all alone up here, Ms. Parke,” Christopher said, leaning in. “Who would answer?”

  Pru giggled. “Right, then let’s try again.”

  They retraced their steps, and when they’d found themselves back on the landing, they started again, discovering a missed door just after the second turn. This led them down five steps, through a doorway—duck—the corridors narrowing and the ceiling lowering as they went. Pru felt like Alice in Wonderland and imagined they might not fit through the door of number eight if and when they found it. But now, at last, here it was, a brass numeral “8” signaling the finish line. Christopher put the key in the lock and opened the door.

  Duck.

  They entered Mrs. Draycott’s largest room—a space that was full of the most enormous wardrobe Pru had ever seen. It reached to the ceiling and filled the wall to the left of the door, leaving just enough space to slip between it and the four-poster bed. Pru squeezed by and switched on the bedside lamp, which emitted a yellow light. To the right of the bed, two wingback chairs faced the window with a tea table between. An array of patterns—cerise cabbage rose wallpaper and drapes, a strawberry-patterned duvet that looked as if it might be a William Morris design, and a tartan throw over one of the chairs—seemed to occupy a great deal of space in the room and much of the air. Good thing Pru didn’t suffer from claustrophobia.

  As there was nowhere else for them, Christopher opened the wardrobe and stacked their bags inside. Pru crawled over the bed and looked out the window.

  “Chickens,” she reported over her shoulder. A dozen or so of them, russet-brown—they pecked in the tall grass along a hedge.

  Christopher came up behind and put his arms round her, resting his cheek in her hair. Pru angled her head so she could look up at him, and he kissed her temple.

  “I met Cyn about twenty years ago, not long after Phyl and I were divorced. We…dated briefly. Only a few weeks, actually.”

  Don’t think Pru didn’t hear that nanosecond of hesitation between the words “we” and “dated.” She’d heard it all right, but she chose to ignore it. For now.

  “Twenty years ago,” he repeated. “I’d forgotten all about her.”

  Twenty years. Pru wondered, would you forget someone you’d—insert hesitation—“dated”—from that long ago? A clear and detailed image popped up in her mind of a tall, blond cowboy who wore crisply ironed shirts and drove a white Ford pickup. But maybe it was different for a woman.

  Pru led Christopher one step over to the bed and they both sat. “You don’t have to explain,” she said, dying to know. “It was a long time ago.”

  Christopher frowned. “I don’t remember all that much—I haven’t thought about her in years. I was a bit at loose ends after the divorce—on my own for the first time in a while. This thing with Cyn didn’t last long, and I was back on my feet, threw myself into work.”

  “You didn’t break her heart, did you?”

  He laughed at that. “I doubt if I caused her any great distress—I believe she was seeing two or three other fellows at the same time.”

  “Well, she seems quite friendly.”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. “I do remember that about her.”

  Ah, the memories come back. About a million questions began to sprout like cartoon flowers in Pru’s brain, but she let them be. After all, in Edinburgh, he’d had to put up with Pru’s old beau Marcus; it was the least she could do to put up with Cyn. Pru leaned close to Christopher—brown eyes to brown eyes—and placed her lips on his, softly. He responded, and as he kissed her, reached up, removed her hair clip, and her hair fell to her shoulders.

  A sharp rapping at the door.

  “All right in there?”

  They leapt off the bed and Christopher smacked his head against the low beam near the window. He winced in pain, but laughed at the same time, as Pru rubbed the spot and snorted a giggle.

  “Yes,” she called out. “Lovely. Here, let me just—”

  “No need to open the door. I only like to check if my lodgers are happy. I’m off now for my evening walk. You won’t mind, will you? I’ll return in”—there was a rustling—“fifty minutes. You’ll be all right on your own?”

  “Of course we will,” Pru said, opening the door regardless of instructions. Mrs. Draycott had completed her sky-blue velour tracksuit by placing a matching billed cap on her head at a jaunty angle. “That’s very good of you—a daily walk.”

  “Two miles every morning and evening,” Mrs. Draycott said, throwing out her chest. “Not many eighty-six-year-olds can say that.”

  Pru was stunned into silence.

  “And there’s this,” Mrs. Draycott added. “Would you mind if we say seven thirty-five instead of seven-thirty for your dinner? Although, I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

  “I’m sure seven thirty-five won’t be a problem.”

  “Well, that’s sorted. Now, the girls will be waiting for me.”

  —

  At seven thirty-five, Pru and Christopher sat in the dining room at a table next to the window, which looked out on the stone terrace. The room contained six other small tables, all set for breakfast—toast plates, teacups and saucers, and small menu cards listing eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread, beans—all the items of a full English.

  Mrs. Draycott whipped the breakfast menu off their table and asked, “Lemonade or sparkling water?”

  “Water would be lovely,” Pru said. “Thanks.”

  Mrs. Draycott retreated to the kitchen, and as the door swung closed, the calm, conversational voices of Radio 4 drifted out. Pru pictured their landlady sitting on a stool over the kitchen counter, eating alone while she worked the Times crossword. Her brows drew up and she leaned over the table and whispered, “Should we—”

  The door burst open and drinks were served. Christopher gave Pru a tiny nod, and asked, “Mrs. Draycott, have you had your own meal? If not, won’t you join us in here?”

  Mrs. Draycott blushed and batted her eyes behind her thick lenses. “Well, thank you, Mr. Pearse, how kind of you. I confess it would be lovely to have someone to talk with during a meal.”

  “Shall I take one of these place settings for you?” Pru asked, pointing at the other tables.

  “Oh no, we don’t want to disturb the breakfast things,” she said, as if expecting a sudden crowd the next morning. “I’ll just nip into the kitchen.”

  Mrs. Draycott came out with her own dinner setting and the salads—crunchy, tasteless, out-of-season lettuce with a splash of vinegar and a pink tomato. Pru stifled a sigh and tried not to think of Evelyn’s version of an autumn salad—dressed leaves with pear and dried cranberries in a warm bacon vinaigrette.

  Following the salads came a roast chicken that lacked those lovely browned-crisp bits, accompanied by boiled potatoes in need of salt and a knob of butter, and sprouts, cooked to mush. Pudding consisted of canned peaches sitting atop a pillow of what Pru thought might be Cream of Wheat. The meal seemed to be caught in a time fifty years ago—even before Mrs. Draycott had first opened her B&B—a time when English food hadn’t stepped up to the challenge, fulfilling its destiny of using fresh, local ingredients in mouthwatering recipes. Nowadays, it was more difficult to find bad food than good.

  While conversation flowed about the warm autumn, the history of the cottage, and Mr. Draycott—“dead now these six years”—Pru pushed the food round her plate with the back of her fork until she heard her mother’s voice from decades ago telling her that meals were not construction projects and her fork was not an earthmover, so eat up.

  “The meal was lovely,” Pru said at last, just before sliding the last bit of canned peach into her mouth.

  “I’m not a gourmet cook,” Mrs. Draycott said modestly, yet with a touch of defiance, “but I can roast a chicken.”

  Pr
u momentarily lost her ability to chew as she heard those words—words she herself had said on a few occasions. Was this to be her lot in life, able to roast a chicken and yet ruin the rest of the meal? With newfound resolve she swore that her one cooked dinner of pork chops would not be her last, that when they returned to Greenoak, she would immerse herself in cooking classes with Evelyn. Pork chops in cider would be only the beginning—she’d spend the winter on pastry and braising and soufflés. Classes would begin the moment they came back from this Cotswold foray.

  “Do you know the garden at Glebe House?” Christopher asked their landlady.

  “Oh, indeed I do. My only regret is that you were not here to see it at its zenith. It has been Batsford Bede’s life’s work—his actual profession of barrister and chief magistrate coming in a far second. Of course, he had a great deal of help over the years from Constance Summersun. A delightful woman and the only person I’ve known who was able to instill a bit of patience in the man. Well, almost the only person. I can still see the two of them measuring beds, planting roses, lining out walks—and a constant stream of mail-order deliveries of plants arriving, all the while little Coral racing round crashing into the peonies. Little scamp.”

  Pru’s attention had been netted like a butterfly.

  “I’ve had so little discussion with Ms. Summersun,” she said, “I wasn’t quite sure her relationship to the garden—that is, to Mr. Bede. Is he her father?”

  Mrs. Draycott chuckled. “No, no. Constance already had little Coral when she moved here. The two of them lived in one of the terraced cottages not far from Glebe House—you’ll pass it on your way there. But Batsford and Constance became inseparable—they were a good team in the garden, and if it went further, that was their own business. Batsford was an old bachelor when they met—already set in his ways. I’d say the addition of a small child to the garden was something he hadn’t anticipated.”

  “I’m surprised Ms. Summersun thought she needed to hire someone to advise her on the garden renovation,” Christopher said. “If she grew up with it.”

  “Coral wouldn’t know a dahlia from a delphinium. As soon as she was old enough, she left home, longing for a more glamorous life than a village offers.”

  “And Mrs. Summersun—Coral’s mother?”

  “Dead—ten years ago—and very much missed. Coral returned for her mother’s last weeks and stayed several months, but after that, she was gone, and no one had heard from her until three months ago when Batsford took a turn, and…” Mrs. Draycott straightened up, pressed her lips together, and began stacking their dishes. “Well, it isn’t really for me to say, now is it?”

  Wasn’t it? Pru wished she would, anyway. But the tap seemed to have been turned off as far as the backstory of Constance and Coral Summersun, Batsford Bede, and Glebe House.

  “Would you prefer to take your coffee in the front room?”

  And give her party piece? Pru feared she would be reduced to reciting nursery rhymes. That’s the downside of staying in a B&B—where else was there to go except their bedroom? She met Christopher’s eyes over the tray of dishes.

  “Thank you,” he told Mrs. Drayott, “but I believe we’ll pop down to the pub for a bit. Will you join us?”

  “No, no, now—you two young people go along, and I’ll sort out the breakfast. Can you find your way? You only need start on the footpath behind us here that runs along a hedge and across another field. When you enter the lane, go left round Tadpole Cottage and make straight for the church. You’ll see the pub just before you arrive. You’ll want to take a torch.”

  They took the car.

  And we saw from above, the meadows laid out before us. C pronounced them good and I pronounced them hers forever and ever. BB

  Chapter 4

  “Thanks,” Pru said as she took the glass of red wine Christopher offered. He sat next to her on the padded bench below a window and took a long drink of his bitter, slipping an arm round her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. They surveyed the crowd, a good showing for midweek.

  Pru nodded to a wooden booth with a high back across the room, where two older men bent over their pints. “I’ve a mind to turf them out of that settle,” she said. “It’s ours.” She felt Christopher’s gaze on her, and she met it. “Isn’t it?”

  “It is,” he replied. “I remember it being much easier to walk here from Grenadine Hall than Mrs. Draycott’s directions from the Copper Beech. I met you here for a pint that Saturday afternoon, and Jo stormed in to accuse me of harassing you.”

  “We’ll see Jo at the fête. Cordelia, too, and Lucy. It’ll be just like it was three years ago. Except for the arrival of their little Ollie, of course. Two and a half years old, I can hardly believe it.” She set her wine down and stood. “Sorry, I’ve got to nip into the ladies’. I would’ve gone before we left the B&B, but I didn’t have any bread crumbs to leave.”

  The location of the loos not immediately evident, Pru headed for the bar to inquire and took the only empty space beside a tall fellow with forearms resting on the bar. He was slim and wore a plaid flannel shirt, baggy denims, work boots thickly caked with dried mud, and a knit cap that rose to a peak and was topped by a puffball as big as a hedgehog.

  “Hello,” Pru called out. The barman, at the far end pulling a pint, had his back to her, and all she saw was frizzy ginger hair pulled tight into a short ponytail.

  “Danny Sheridan—you’re wanted!”

  The fellow Pru stood next to wasn’t a fellow at all, but a woman—a young woman, somewhere in her thirties, Pru thought—and at least six feet tall, with thick dark brows.

  “Sorry,” Pru said, as Danny lifted his head in acknowledgment of the summons. “I’m only looking for the ladies’.”

  “Oh, well then,” the woman said, standing straight and towering over Pru, “round to the back of the bar and down a few steps.” She dragged her hedgehog cap off, revealing dark hair, short, curly, that was plastered to her head on the sides and back but sticking straight up on top, molded by the shape of her cap. “You’re American, are you? Visiting?”

  “No, not visiting. Well, yes, actually visiting the Cotswolds. We live in Hampshire and have come up for a week or so.” Pru nodded back to Christopher, who had picked up a discarded newspaper. “That’s my husband. I’m Pru Parke.”

  “Are you now?” The woman broke out in a broad smile. “I should’ve guessed.” She stuck out her hand, but pulled it back again to examine the palm. “Sorry,” she said, giving it a quick wipe on her denims before offering it again. “Margaretta Bramwell. That’s me. Mouthful, isn’t it? I don’t know what my parents were thinking. Everyone round here calls me—”

  “Bram!” Danny called.

  “There you are, now.” She nodded to the barman. “I’m Bram.”

  “Lovely to meet you. Will you excuse me? I won’t be a moment.” Pru had questions—how did Bram know her?—but needed to take care of business first. She scooted off to the ladies’, and when she emerged, Bram had left her spot at the bar and pulled a short stool over to the corner where she sat, elbows on her thighs, chatting with Christopher.

  Pru joined them, taking up her wine.

  “Bram says you’ve been expected,” Christopher told Pru.

  “Word around the village.” Bram nodded. “Apparently, Ms. Summersun’s talked of nothing else for the past month. ‘Pru Parke, famous gardener,’ that sort of thing. You’re to sort out Mr. Bede’s garden for her. He’s not been well since earlier this year, and she’s come back to help him put his affairs in order. Just in case, you know.”

  “Bram farms forty acres here and believes she might have a badger sett on her land,” Christopher said.

  “I know Michael and Susan, you see,” Bram explained. “They’ve been out to nose around a copse at the edge of one of the fields. There’s a mound of sorts with scrubby hawthorn and holly growing in front—we thought they might be inside there. We’ve seen signs of badgers, but not the animal itself.”


  Ah, badgers. Pru remembered Michael and Susan—what was their surname?—as local members of Badger Care, an educational organization that Christopher was too modest to claim he had started.

  “What do you grow on your forty acres?” Pru asked.

  “Winter wheat,” Bram answered, her round face alive with youthful enthusiasm. “And spring barley. I’ve been here going on five years now, and I’ve expanded a bit. I’ve a pasture where I billet ewes and year-old lambs. And meadows. I’ve no problem with having badgers on the land. And I don’t hold with the culling—not like some.” She lifted her chin defiantly, and Pru saw she cut her eyes to a group of four or five men on the other side of the pub. “And neither does Mr. Bede, no matter what you may hear. You’re welcome out to my fields anytime, Christopher.”

  “I’ll take you up on that,” he said.

  As if he’d noticed Bram taking note of him, one of the men from across the room came toward them. He was tall—perhaps almost as tall as Bram—and possibly thirty. His shaved head had a fuzzy, rusty tint, as did his unshaven face. He carried a half-full pint glass in one hand while he dug in his jacket pocket with the other, emerging with a packet of cigarettes.

  “Bram, howerya?”

  “I’m all right, Ger. I thought I’d see you here—looks as if we have a dry week—I’ll be ready for the autumn cutting on those two pastures.”

  “Right you are.” He stood for a moment, rocking on his heels, his eyes half-closed as he glanced round the table.

  “Ger Crombie,” Bram said, “this is Christopher Pearse and Pru Parke. Christopher’s a member of Badger Care.”

  “So, the badger expert has arrived. You calling in reinforcements, Bram?” Pru caught a gleam from Ger’s dark eyes and heard the hint of derision.

  “Does she need to?” Christopher asked.

  Bram ignored the exchange. “Pru is here to help Coral Summersun with the garden.”