The Rose Garden

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘Well, it tastes great,’ he said, helping himself to a few slices of the bread. Molly sat across from him.

  ‘Thanks, Molly – there’s nothing like home-cooked food when you can get it,’ he said approvingly. ‘It beats food in restaurants and hotels every time.’

  ‘It’s just a bowl of soup!’ she teased, but she knew what he meant.

  Rob asked her about the house and she found herself telling him about how she had planned to sell Mossbawn but the sale had fallen through.

  ‘So for now I’m staying put unless I find a buyer. Even though the house is far too big for me, I don’t know if I could ever bear to leave the place,’ she admitted.

  ‘I can understand that,’ he said, looking around. ‘This place is full of history and is such a part of the village. I’m sure living here keeps you busy.’

  ‘It does. There always seems to be something to do or to fix, but the thing I love the most is the garden – I spend hours on it. Weather like this is terrible because I can’t get out and do anything useful; I can only read gardening books and plan out things for when the weather improves. But at the moment I’m doing research, as I’m trying to restore the old rose garden that was built by the original owner, Charles Moore, for his wife, Constance.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘It is, because they grew some magnificent old Irish country-house roses here. Charles was a keen gardener. It would be lovely to see them growing here again.’

  ‘I remember hearing stories about him and how the house was abandoned for years after his son gambled it away on a racing bet.’

  ‘It’s true. Poor Charles was still alive. He was heartbroken after Constance’s death and moved to London. His son George took over the house, sold a lot of the land and practically ran it into the ground. It was only about twenty years later, after George’s death, that his younger brother James managed to regain the house. He married a Mary Hennessy, who it turned out was a distant relation of my husband’s.’

  ‘Old houses and their stories are fascinating,’ he smiled.

  ‘I know. My niece Kim is doing all kinds of research about it,’ she confided. ‘She’s always on the internet or off trying to find some photos or information about Charles Moore and his family.’

  ‘Genealogy is such an area of interest these days,’ he said. ‘Everyone wants to know about their family tree, even if there are skeletons in the closet.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Kim says,’ she laughed, getting up and asking him if he’d like a coffee.

  ‘I’d love one,’ he said, thanking her, ‘but I’m due to have a conference call with a few of my associates at three o’clock, so I’d better get back to the hotel where all my notes and work stuff are.’

  Molly walked him up to the front door. The snow had stopped. Rob thanked her again for lunch and she watched as he got in his car and disappeared down her driveway. She’d enjoyed having lunch with him. He’s an interesting man, she thought – a very interesting man!

  Chapter 52

  THE NEW YEAR HAD COME AND GONE LIKE THE SNOW, AND GINA found it hard, as business was quiet. She missed the café and working, and hated being idle. She wasn’t good at sitting around doing nothing.

  She was still disappointed about the café, but at least Paul had got the building work on Norah’s place, knocking it and the Armstrongs’ together and redecorating the new section of the local pub. It was great that he was busy, and he had more work lined up for the coming months, including Molly’s cottage.

  She had looked at the old Mulligan’s Bar, but Paul had made it clear that it would not work as a café or restaurant as it was too small and too dark, which was fine for a pub but not for a café; besides, it was on a narrow lane overlooking Timoney’s, the local car-repair mechanics. Who would want to have a coffee or lunch during the day while someone revved an engine or tried to fix an exhaust or moved cars around?

  ‘Wait and see – something will turn up!’ Paul kept assuring her.

  She was enjoying spending more time with the boys, seeing friends, going for long walks and pottering around, but long-term she needed to do something else. She was only thirty-six years old, for heaven’s sake!

  Gina had just come back from visiting Norah when she got a call from Molly Hennessy.

  ‘I was wondering if we could meet up tomorrow, Gina, to talk about Libby’s wedding and go through things here in the house?’

  When Molly had asked her a few weeks ago about catering for the wedding in Mossbawn, she had said it would be possible as long as the numbers were kept strictly at a manageable level. She had also talked briefly to Trish and the bride, Libby, and done up some wedding menus for them.

  ‘Normally we’d have met up in the café,’ smiled Molly, welcoming her and leading her down to the kitchen, ‘but now we either go further afield or just stay at home!’

  ‘I know. Everyone seems to really miss the place.’

  ‘Maybe someone else will open up.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve looked at opening somewhere in the village,’ Gina confided, ‘but unfortunately I can’t find any suitable premises.’

  ‘What a shame! Anyway, the reason I brought you here, Gina, was to go through the details about this wedding. Trish and Larry are old friends and I’ve known Libby since she was a little girl, so obviously I want to help. And now that we have agreed to having their wedding here, I want to make sure that it will all work.’

  ‘Listen, Molly, Grace’s twenty-first was buffet-style, but guests will expect more at a wedding,’ she warned. ‘But we can get hot serving trolleys and things like that to keep food warm. That’s what I used to do at some of the bigger events we catered in my old job. However, the main thing is that I wouldn’t offer a choice of main course. I’ve told Libby and her mother that it would cause far too much pressure in terms of the kitchen.’

  ‘That’s agreed,’ nodded Molly. ‘How many guests can we fit?’

  ‘A wedding is different from a party, as everyone is expecting to sit down at the same time,’ she explained. ‘Do you mind if we have a look at the rooms again, Molly?’

  Gina paced up and down the dining room, then went into the large connecting living room. She rooted around in her handbag and, taking out a tape measure, she and Molly measured back and forth.

  ‘I think we could get about sixty to sixty-five max between the two rooms. We can take off the doors so it looks almost like one room, and then use the orangery for drinks and dancing.’

  ‘What about the couches and piano and living-room furniture?’

  ‘We’d have to move some of it around – maybe put a couch in the lower hall, and the piano could stay. I’d need to measure properly and look at table sizes. How many does the bride want to invite?’

  ‘I was talking to Trish on Friday and she said the guest list is up over the hundred mark.’

  ‘Molly, that wouldn’t be possible!’ she said firmly.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Molly agreed. ‘I told her that this is just a family home …’

  ‘Hold on!’ said Gina, getting an idea and walking back into the orangery. ‘What about doing it the other way around: the meal in here and the drinks in the living room and dining room?’

  ‘Would we fit more people?’

  They measured again.

  ‘We can put long trestle tables here and here and here.’ Gina was calculating it in her head. ‘I think at a big push we could get around eighty-four people in here. And when the meal and speeches are over, you could take some tables out and use here for dancing like we did at Grace’s.’

  ‘So you think it is possible?’

  ‘They are the only two options, as far as I can see, that will work within the confines of the house. There is no problem with extra friends coming on after the meal for drinks and the dancing, but for the formal meal itself we are restricted.’

  Gina had always loved weddings: the menus, planning, canapés and creating an overall look for the bride and
groom. Organizing a wedding here would obviously present some difficulty and she would need some help, but it was something she knew that she would enjoy doing.

  ‘I’m so glad that I asked you to come over and talk to me about it.’ Molly sounded relieved. ‘I’ll speak to Trish and tell her that if they want to go ahead with hiring Mossbawn the numbers are limited and there is absolutely no budging on that!’

  Driving home, Gina hoped that the wedding would happen. Weddings were expensive, but catering one was the opportunity to earn, and earn well, as people didn’t skimp on their weddings!

  Chapter 53

  THE SNOWDROPS WERE EVERYWHERE, GENTLE HEADS PEEPING UP from the grass, under the trees, at the edge of each border. Molly was cheered by the sight of them. The garden was beginning to rouse itself, stretch and wake up. She found herself smiling as she walked around checking snow and frost damage. She had lost two or three new roses; perhaps they hadn’t been strong enough to withstand the winter’s chill and cold. She would find a hardier variety to replace them.

  The pipes were rattling ominously every time she switched the ‘on’ button for the bath. She’d phoned the local plumber to come and check them.

  ‘Have to be replaced, Mrs Hennessy – just all rusted and worn out,’ he announced. ‘It was a miracle that the immersion water heater didn’t burst with the cold.’

  She blanched when he told her the cost of the replacement.

  ‘You’re a lucky woman,’ he said. ‘Most people with old pipes like yours, they just burst – terrible damage done.’

  More money out … Was it ever going to end? she thought, as she wrote him a cheque.

  A wealthy American man and his wife had come to view the place. They seemed a nice couple and were looking for a large Irish holiday home. They both loved Mossbawn, the husband, a keen angler, impressed with the river and fishing rights; but apparently when it came down to it they considered it too far from Dublin and the airport.

  Molly veered between relief and despair. If someone like that bought the house it would remain empty most of the year, and old houses did not do well being left empty. Mossbawn needed plenty of life and activity …

  Roz came and stayed for a few days, the two of them going for long bracing walks, and she brought Roz down by the Gardener’s Cottage to see her reaction.

  ‘Oh Molly, it’s just perfect for you! You’ve got the garden and all of this, and the cottage is far more manageable than a big pile like Mossbawn,’ she enthused as they walked around it and went inside.

  ‘I know it looks run-down and there’s a fair bit of work to be done to it, but Roz, there is something about it I really like. It feels like home every time I come through the front door.’

  ‘I could imagine you living here and me coming to stay!’

  ‘If the house gets sold, it’s the ideal solution to move here,’ Molly confided. ‘Given my life now, it feels right.’

  ‘Well, you know if it’s all done up and if you change your mind you’d probably have no problem renting it or even selling it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to sell it,’ she said firmly as she told Roz her plans for enlarging the kitchen, for installing glass doors to the garden, for her own sunny bedroom that overlooked the back garden, and for the two pokey attic bedrooms to be converted to one large upstairs bedroom with a small bathroom.

  ‘You put me to shame, Molly,’ said Roz. ‘I haven’t done a tap to my place for years! It’s a bit of a time-warp.’

  ‘A new kitchen and some fresh paint in a cottage like this or an old house like yours can do wonders!’ Molly encouraged her.

  Locking up the cottage, she showed Roz around her rose garden.

  ‘It’s a bit bare and I’ve lost some specimens, but in a few weeks there will be more growth and I’m putting in a proper walkway.’

  ‘No wonder you don’t want to come to Dublin,’ teased her friend. ‘You really are kept busy here.’

  Roz loved visiting nearby towns and villages, and trawling around the local craft and antique shops. She couldn’t resist buying, no matter where they went: bowls, plates, fine china … Was it any wonder her home was so cluttered?

  Molly brought her to Myles Murray’s antique shop.

  ‘How are you, Molly?’ he asked, coming out to greet her warmly.

  She introduced him to Roz.

  ‘A friend of Molly’s is always very welcome here,’ he said gallantly as Roz busied herself searching the shelves and tables of expensive china.

  ‘Look at this wonderful piece of Limoges!’ she called, pulling her collector’s mini antique handbook from her bag. Myles laughed as she perused it.

  ‘Any more word on Mossbawn?’ he asked.

  ‘Not a beep,’ Molly admitted. ‘I couldn’t go ahead with one sale, then two weeks ago these lovely Americans were really interested, but now have decided they need to be nearer Shannon or Dublin airport.’

  ‘Unfortunately the market for things of the past is nothing as good as it used to be,’ he said. ‘Everyone is struggling, but I always believe that pieces from the past have an intrinsic value far beyond monetary concerns.’

  Molly agreed with him. Roz had decided to purchase her pretty blue French chocolate pot and Molly kept out of it as she and Myles argued the price.

  ‘It was a good price!’ laughed Roz later, as they ordered soup and a salad in The Weir, the nearby organic restaurant.

  A few minutes later Myles came in to have lunch and spotted them.

  ‘Join us, please!’ offered Molly.

  Myles was good company, full of stories of antique finds and antique cons.

  ‘Oh, Molly, I think that there is a chance I might have someone that’s interested in buying the antique linen cabinet you had in the spare bedroom,’ he explained. ‘A German couple were in the shop last week. They’ve just bought an old house they are restoring in Castlecomer. It’s exactly what they are looking for, and the exact period.’

  The linen cabinet had come with Mossbawn, but they had never really used it except for the odd time friends stayed. It didn’t have any sentimental value and she couldn’t believe the price that Myles felt he could achieve for it.

  ‘I’ll get my lads to collect it on Monday,’ he offered, ‘if that suits you.’

  Molly found herself agreeing; she knew exactly what she would spend the money from the cabinet on – the plumber’s bill.

  ‘And Molly, I’ll treat you to dinner if this all works out,’ he promised, getting up to return to the shop. ‘Who knows, perhaps we can find a few more pieces that might suit them!’

  ‘Well, he’s a lovely man!’ said Roz as they watched him head back across the street.

  ‘Roz!’

  ‘I’m just saying Myles is attractive … he’s into old houses … he’s a widower … has a business of his own … You have a lot in common and I think he likes you!’

  ‘Roz Gilmore, don’t you dare! He’s far too old, he’s still obsessed about his wife and I’m definitely not interested. If you are so keen on him, you can have him!’ she laughed.

  Five days after Roz had gone back to Dublin, Myles phoned her to ask if she was free to attend the Antique Dealers’ Dinner with him in Mount Juliet next month. Molly was in a quandary.

  She appreciated the invite, but just because she was alone and widowed it didn’t make her a candidate for his attentions. She thanked him politely and said no. She’d no intention of encouraging Myles to believe that they could be anything else but friends.

  Chapter 54

  AS THE WEATHER IMPROVED, MOLLY WAS ABLE TO GET OUT IN THE garden and tackle the nightmare of weeding, taking care that with her boots she didn’t step on tender new shoots of green. Bulbs were everywhere as daffodils began to open and pretty primroses gave splashes of colour throughout the garden. She was dividing some shrubs and plants as the soil started to warm up and another season began. She wanted to have the place looking well for Libby’s wedding. She was putting in lots of extra bedding to give colour, espe
cially up around the front door and along the avenue. The massive pruning job she had done on the rose garden had left the place looking temporarily decimated, but shortly things would begin to change. The new roses that she had got from Gabriel were settling in as she under-planted them with bright polyanthus for spring, some pink and mauve penstemons for the summer and purple alliums for the autumn.

  Ronan King had phoned her personally to arrange for a couple to see the house at the weekend.

  ‘They are very keen!’ he warned. ‘I think Mossbawn is exactly what they are looking for.’

  Molly welcomed the tanned, good-looking couple, who had been busy inspecting the outside of her house for the past few minutes.

  ‘What a beautiful house! Thank you for agreeing for us to see the place at such short notice,’ smiled Louise Kelly. ‘When Ronan King sent us an email about it, Stuart and I just had to come and see it ourselves.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, leading them around the upstairs and downstairs of the house, giving them the full tour.

  ‘We were hoping that there would be more bedrooms and bathrooms,’ the woman admitted as they chatted in the living room. ‘It would require a large amount of renovation to get it to the standard that we require for our clients.’

  ‘My husband and I have done a lot of work on the structure of the house,’ Molly assured them, ‘but to be honest we didn’t need eight bedrooms, and managed very well with the two bathrooms upstairs.’

  ‘We would have to have en-suites in every room and would probably have to extend the house to get more bedroom space,’ added her husband.

  ‘Perhaps we could knock down that old glass extension and build there. But I do like the privacy and the garden and the feel of the place.’

  ‘Knock down the orangery! Are you going to run it as a country-house hotel?’ Molly ventured, unable to disguise her dismay.

  ‘Something like that,’ nodded the husband.

  ‘Actually, we run a cosmetic-surgery business,’ explained Louise. ‘We are looking for somewhere in this part of the country to cater for those that want to avail themselves of our services. They would come and stay here, have their procedure done, then rest and relax afterwards with good care while they recover. This house is very private and discreet and yet has great charm.’