The Last Garden in England

by Julia Kelly

  I spent most of my ride to Mr. Goddard’s home this morning thinking about how the younger Mr. Melcourt and his wife seemed intent on washing the newness from their money. I was so engrossed I nearly missed the sign for Wisteria Farm. However, when I looked through the gate, there could be no mistaking I had arrived: a huge wisteria clambered over the front of a two-story farmhouse, ready to explode into leaf and bloom.

  “Miss Smith!”

  I twisted in the saddle to see Mr. Goddard emerge from a gap in the hedgerow some hundred yards away.

  “The entrance to the nursery is just a little further down the road. Shall we walk?”

  I let him hold my horse’s reins so I could slide down. We walked the animal to a wide wooden gate that led into a yard lined on two sides with greenhouses, with a barn squared off to the lane. Everywhere I looked were roses. Climbing up the wall around the yard, their bare stems waiting for the spring. In terra-cotta pots large enough to hold three plants at a time. In a border leading to another garden. In the greenhouses, where long rows of plants sported neatly wrapped grafting joins.

  “Welcome to my laboratory,” he said with a smile. “It’s a shame it isn’t later in the year so you could see the roses in bloom,” he said.

  “The yard alone must be spectacular in June.”

  “It is, if I might be so bold. Still, I think there’s something beautiful about a garden in winter,” he said.

  “Everything is stripped back and exposed. You can see the structure of the garden,” she said.

  “Precisely. Although that also means there’s little to hide a garden’s flaws.”

  “How did you come to grow roses?” I asked as we walked into one of the greenhouses, a rush of seductive warmth washing over me.

  He passed a hand along the back of his neck and looked around him at the tables filled with lines of plants in various stages of growth. “Like many young men, I had something of a feckless youth. My mother and father always hoped I would amount to something, but I seemed determined to prove that aspiration wrong. I intentionally did little at Cambridge except for irritate my tutors. And one night I was caught in a rather embarrassing state,” he said.

  “How embarrassing?” I asked.

  “Enough that I’m not certain my sister would approve of my speaking to a young lady about it.”

  I raised a brow. “I’m a confirmed spinster of thirty-five, Mr. Goddard.”

  “Surely you’re not—That is to say, you don’t look—”

  I put the poor man out of his misery with a smile. “Thank you, but I’m quite happy with my age. It is rather liberating. For instance, today I was able to borrow a horse from your brother-in-law and ride it several villages over to visit a gentleman to discuss roses. No blushing debutante could do the same.”

  He nodded and then stopped in front of a row of pots to check the place where he’d grafted a scion stem to a rootstock. “This is ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’. Do you know it?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s a bourbon rose that throws off exuberant flowers in blushing white that almost seem to overwhelm the bush that they grow on, and the scent… it’s sweeter than perfume.”

  “Sweet enough to be a welcome accompaniment as a group of ladies take tea outdoors together?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” he said with a smile before moving to the table behind us. “Or maybe you’d like a shot of crimson for dramatic effect. ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ could be just what you need.”

  I thought of the lovers’ garden I had planned to create directly to the west of the tea garden. I wanted to shock a visitor walking from the calming, feminine plantings of pale purple heliotrope, light pink echinacea, and creamy peonies into a room almost obscene with color. Rich red roses, deep purple salvia, and the red flowering spikes of persicaria. Banana plants, Japanese maples, dahlias, tulips—I wanted it to make people gasp.

  “Maybe it will be easier to start with what I need,” I said, drawing out my notebook from my skirt pocket. It fell open to a bird’s-eye view of the entire garden.

  “And what would that be?” he asked, turning the notebook so that he could get a better look. The very edge of his littlest finger brushed the side of my hand. Heat flushed my cheeks, and I cleared my throat.

  “I need jewel tones for the lovers’ garden, the palest pinks for the children’s and tea gardens, and pure white for the bridal garden.”

  He tapped the page where I’d written “Poet’s Garden” and said, “A clever homage to my brother-in-law’s hobby. I think you’ll find Arthur is always most amenable when he believes the person he’s speaking to fully appreciates his place in the world.”

  “Are you not fond of Mr. Melcourt?”

  Mr. Goddard laughed. “Quite the contrary, I think he’s the perfect match for my sister. Helen can be one of the most stubborn, determined women I’ve ever met. She has certain ideas of how the world should be, and she finds it very irritating when all of us don’t fall neatly into line.”

  “She seems to expect great things from all those around her,” I admitted.

  “I will confess that it becomes tiresome sometimes. I’m rather set in my bachelor ways, so I sometimes chaff when I’m summoned to Highbury House for long dinners. I dare say you’ll have seen it for yourself: never a quiet night of cold meats and simple wine at my sister’s table.”

  “I have,” I said. “My own life is rather quiet by comparison. My brother, Adam, moved to Wimbledon two years ago when I began to travel more often for my work. We often find ourselves happy to picnic on a second meal of whatever Cook made for lunch rather than sit through an entire five courses.”

  “You will find no such concessions to economy or practicality at Highbury. Tell me, Miss Smith, have you ever crossed roses before?” he asked.

  “I—I can’t say that I have,” I said, stumbling over the abrupt change in subject. “I’ve crossed other plants. My father used Gregor Mendel’s experiment with pea plants to teach me about recessive and dominant traits.”

  “Roses operate in much the same way. Colors, scents, foliage, flowering patterns—all are traits that may be passed down through generations. If you’ll come with me,” he said, gesturing to a glass-and-wood cabinet.

  “I’ve been collecting and drying out pollen from various roses I wish to use as the stud.” He unlocked the cabinet with a small key that hung from his watch fob and held open the doors. “Would you care to choose one?”

  I peered around him and found myself confronted with dozens of roses stripped of their petals. Each of them sat on a small piece of card, carefully labeled in pencil.

  “ ‘Souvenir de Madame Auguste Charles’, ‘Alfred de Dalmas’, ‘Shailier’s White Moss’, ‘Gloire des Mousseux’.” I straightened. “I don’t know what to choose.”

  “What do you need for your tea garden?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes and envisioned the garden as it would be in five years—ten, even. Densely planted with exuberant but elegant blooms bending their gentle heads. A faint breeze dancing through the air, rustling the lime leaves just a few feet away.

  “I think I should like the pale pink color of ‘Alfred de Dalmas’ with the fullness of the blooms of ‘Gloire des Mousseux’,” I said.

  “A good choice,” he said, reaching for the paper marked ‘Alfred de Dalmas’. “We’ll use this because the stud usually influences the color of the bloom.”

  “Usually?” I asked.

  “One can never be certain. Roses are sometimes more fickle than a bored lover.” Red rose high on his cheekbones. “That is to say, ‘Gloire des Mousseux’ is such a richer pink, I would worry that Alfred’s delicateness would be lost.”

  He led me out of the greenhouse to the next one, carrying the piece of paper as we went. Whereas the structure we’d just left was full of tables, this one looked like spring had been trapped under glass. Flowering rosebushes grew merrily in terra-cotta pots. Many of them wore brown paper tied up with string.

&
nbsp; “Here we are,” he announced when we reached a bush free of paper. Several blooms were just beginning to open and reveal their many bright pink petals. “ ‘Gloire des Mousseux’.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “She’s a favorite of mine. Now, if you care to do the honors?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a fine-tipped paintbrush, and handed it to me. He showed me how to remove the petals and the stamens before sweeping up the pollen to dab it carefully onto the pistil. Then he dove into his pocket to pull out paper and twine to preserve the integrity of the cross. We repeated it five times with five different blooms before he declared our work done.

  “And now, we wait,” he said.

  I handed him back the brush. “The only problem is that I don’t have much time to wait. Mrs. Melcourt is already asking about whether the borders on either side of the great lawn will be ready in time for a party next spring.”

  “And it will take far longer than that to see if our experiment has worked,” he said. “It’s a good thing, then, that this rose isn’t for them.”

  “It isn’t?” I asked.

  “If you can make do with planting out ‘Alfred de Dalmas’ in your tea garden, I can supply you. You can think on what you need for the other gardens.”

  “ ‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ will be perfect for the lovers’ garden,” I said.

  “Then you shall have it. And this rose”—he gestured to the flower we’d just crossed—“whatever it might be, will be yours to do with what you wish.”

  I found myself strangely touched by his thoughtfulness. “No one has ever made a rose for me before.”

  “Think of it as a present—a reminder of your time in Warwickshire.”

  A strange emotion lodged in my throat so that I could hardly swallow around it. “Thank you,” I managed.

  “It is my pleasure, Miss Smith. Now, shall we venture inside and see what my housekeeper has managed to find for us in the kitchen? I can’t promise it will be more than simple fare.”

  “That sounds delightful.”

  He offered me his arm. “If you’ll indulge me, I’ll tell you over lunch about an extraordinary gentleman that I met the other day. A Mr. Lawrence Johnston who is intent on turning the fields around his new home into a gardener’s paradise.”

  “Your sister mentioned his name. She said that you had supplied him with some roses.”

  “Yes, and I was fortunate enough that he showed me his plans. I thought you might find him interesting because he, too, is designing a series of garden rooms,” he said.

  “I should very much like to meet him,” I said.

  “Then I’ll arrange it,” he said, holding a side door to the house open for me.

  Inside, his housekeeper fussed us into a small dining room warmed by a rolling fire. Mr. Goddard and I sat down across from each other—bread, cheese, meats, and pickles between us—and soon were lost in conversation.

  I can honestly say that I’ve never had a better meal.

  • EMMA •

  The discovery of Venetia’s plans transformed Emma’s project. For two weeks, she had sifted through every relevant piece of paper she could find, taking photographs and notes. The question of who Celeste was nagged at her, but still she worked to adjust her own plans to match Venetia’s. Then came the difficult part—canceling and placing new orders, sourcing large numbers of plants, and figuring out a way to make it all come in on budget and on time for Sydney and Andrew.

  Her days weren’t any less stressful as she directed the crew in the necessary work to clear the mess of plants from the garden and prepare the garden rooms to be planted out. She came home every day bone-tired, and more than a few nights, she fell asleep next to her laptop at Bow Cottage’s dining room table.

  Finally, one afternoon when everyone seemed to be busy with their respective jobs, Emma set aside her gardening gloves and made the short walk from Highbury House to the farm next door in search of its owner. Her sturdy boots sucked mud with each step she took up the farmhouse’s drive, and deep grooves from tractor tires were half full of standing water. Even now, mist crept under the collars of her waxed jacket and her cream fisherman’s sweater to settle into her bones.

  Sydney had told her that Henry Jones came from a long line of farmers who had worked Highbury House Farm. The property had once belonged to the house’s original owners, the Melcourts, before it was sold to the Joneses in the 1920s. It had weathered a world war, industrial agriculture, and countless other changes and remained in the family to this day.

  The farmhouse came into view. She ran her hands over her temples to find that her wispy brown baby hairs had started to pull free from her ponytail. She tugged the band free to retie it, catching sight of the dirt under her nails, despite the gloves she wore religiously while working. Henry Jones would just have to face the reality that a woman who worked in dirt all day might be dirty.

  The sky had already begun to turn inky, so she wasn’t surprised when she saw farm equipment standing idle in the yard a hundred yards or so away from the house. Not seeing anyone around, she made for a redbrick building with lights on in the ground-floor windows.

  As she approached, she could hear music—something with a good beat and some brass behind it. It only got louder as she approached, and when she knocked on the pale green door, she wasn’t surprised at the lack of response.

  She pounded the side of her fist against the door as the mist turned to a steady rain. After a moment, the music lowered. She stepped back. The door swung open, revealing a man sporting a James Brown with the Dramatics T-shirt over a white thermal. His dark hair was messy and all bunched up on one side, as though it had spent all day under a hat.

  “Hi,” the man said.

  “Hello, I’m looking for Henry Jones,” she said.

  “You found him.”

  “I’m Emma Lovell. Sydney Wilcox may have mentioned me.”

  His expression brightened. “The gardener. She did mention you. You wanted to see if I had some of my nan’s old drawings?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Shit, sorry. I shouldn’t be making you stand outside in this rain. Come in,” Henry said, making way for her.

  “Thanks.” Noticing he was only wearing socks, she asked, “Do you want me to take off my boots?”

  He rubbed his hand over the crown of his head, mussing his hair even more. “Do you mind? Normally I wouldn’t ask, but Sue’s just been through and done the office. She’ll kill me if I tread mud over the floors less than twenty-four hours after she’d cleaned.”

  “Who is Sue?” she asked, toeing off her boots.

  “She keeps the accounts for the farm. Occasionally she gets tired of my mess and does a cleanup. Come through here,” he said.

  Emma followed him down a short corridor and into an office with two desks. One was neat as a pin. The other was… not.

  Henry took a seat behind the messy desk, moving a stack of seed catalogs off a spare chair and shoving some forgotten tea mugs to the side. There was a laptop on this desk, but it was half buried under a stack of paper, including what looked like a chemical analysis report, an old edition of the Saturday Telegraph, and a paperback book bent open at the spine.

  “I’m guessing you can tell which side is Sue’s,” he said over the sound of a classic soul song.

  “I think so. Charlie, who heads up my crew, and Sue would get along.”

  “He’s the neat one, then, huh?” Henry asked.

  “Comparatively, although I’m not as bad as you.”

  Henry laughed. “No one’s as bad as me. Now, tell me more about what you’re hoping to find in my nan’s drawings.”

  She explained a bit about her project and what she was hoping to find in his grandmother’s old sketchbooks. “Drawings can sometimes fill in the gaps between intention and reality.”

  “Wouldn’t photographs be more helpful?” he asked.

  “Yes, ideally, but this was 1907. It was still pretty rare for p
eople to document a garden really closely unless they knew it was significant. Venetia Smith didn’t become famous until years later.”

  “She wrote books, right?” he asked.

  “Pardon?” she asked, leaning in to hear over a series of horn blasts from the music.

  He snatched up his phone and lowered the volume on the speaker set on a bookshelf. “Sorry about that.”

  “What was the song?” she asked.

  “Jackie Wilson. It’s called ‘The Who Who Song.’ Dad used to drive up to Stoke-on-Trent to dance Northern Soul at the Golden Torch before he took over the farm from Granddad. Soul, Motown, Stax. He listened to all of it when he did the accounts, and I just sort of kept doing it after he died.”

  That explained the James Brown shirt.

  “I asked if Venetia Smith wrote books. The name sounds familiar,” he said.

  “That’s right. She moved to America, got married, and lived there until she died. Highbury House was her last British commission.”

  “Well, it’s decades later, but Nan was at Temple Fosse Farm during the war, and she used to do deliveries up to the big house. She didn’t get serious about her art until the fifties, after my mother was born.”

  “Sydney said that your grandmother was a well-respected artist,” she said.

  He grinned. “She wasn’t well-known enough for me to pack in farming and live a life of luxury, but she did sell to some galleries in London for a while. She used to take me up to visit her old favorites in the early nineties. A friend of hers used to travel all the time, so we would stay at her flat in Maida Vale.”

  “I’m hopeful any sketches might give me some clues,” she said.

  He leaned back in his chair. “My sister, Tif, and I cleaned out her house after she died. Tif didn’t take much—she lives in London so she has less than zero space. I ended up with the lot of Nan’s things. I’m sure I have at least a few of her sketchbooks.”

  Emma sat up. “Could you dig them out? I hate to take up your time when you’re obviously busy, but…”

  He laughed. “But you’re going to anyway. Don’t worry about it. I’m always happy to help Sydney and Andrew.”