The Gardener

by Catherine McGreevy

  As the carriage passed through the familiar stone gates and up the long tree-shaded avenue, he frowned. The gatehouse appeared neglected. No one came out to greet him or to inquire about his business. The gardens were overgrown, and vast patches of rosebushes had died. He saw no sign of groundskeepers. When the carriage drew up in front of the house, he saw broken shingles and weeds growing through the flagstones. No servant came to meet him. In the silence, he could hear the twitter of birds far above him and the sound of his own breathing.

  “Ho, there! Are you the gentleman who was interested in buying the property?”

  Not deserted after all, he realized, for someone was coming toward the carriage, walking slowly and unsteadily, as if it took all his concentration to remain upright. Boots, which had once been elegant but were now cracked and smeared with mud; buff breeches, neatly darned; an elaborate faded waistcoat. Even before Tom saw the newcomer’s face, he knew who it was.

  But Jonathan’s brown eyes swept over him without recognition. Tom’s instincts had been right: arriving as a gentleman in a rented coach, he had taken on the most impregnable disguise possible. Jonathan would never associate this prosperous American with a disgraced and probably long-forgotten footman.

  He decided to play along with Jonathan’s misunderstanding. It was the perfect pretext for his visit.

  “I’m not sure if I wish to purchase the place,” he said, meeting the other man’s gaze straight-on. “Are you sure the property’s not entailed?”

  Jonathan snorted and stopped, leaning heavily on his cane, which had a dented gold handle. “My father had an idea to entail it, but fortunately he popped off the hooks before he could complete the papers.” The broad face showed lines of dissipation; the eyes were bleary, although the fleshy mouth curved into a twisted smile. “Be glad to get rid of the old place. Never cared much for the country, anyway. With the proceeds, I should be able to pay off my debts and buy a handsome house in Bloomsbury Square.”

  “A pity to sell it off, though,” said Tom quietly, gazing around the familiar grounds with nostalgia, poorly kept as they were. “It's a handsome place, and I hear it has been in the family for many years.”

  “It is well enough, I suppose.” Jonathan sounded uninterested. “If you wish to see the place, come inside. I did not catch your name.”

  Tom hesitated. “West. My name is Thomas West.”

  Jonathan’s uneven gait did not change. “Come this way, Mr. West. This, as you see, is the grand hall. Not as grand as it was, mind you, but it has possibilities.”

  Tom said nothing. The statues and most of the paintings were gone. The Constable, the Rembrandt, the family portraits, all vanished, leaving nothing but paler rectangles against the sky-blue flocked wallpaper.

  He cleared his throat. “I see no servants?”

  “Oh, there’s a few still about. Most of the staff are gone, to other houses or elsewhere, I couldn’t say. I believe they were all given references.”

  He couldn't say Jenny's name. But there was a roundabout way to find out. “And your family?”

  Perhaps he had gone too far after all. Jonathan turned and shot him a curious glance. The bleary eyes took him in, the lips compressed. Then, “My parents are dead,” he said shortly. “And my sister, who lived in Barbados, as well. She and her husband were killed in the slave uprisings. I inherited the house only a year ago.”

  Lord Marlowe dead one year? And Jonathan’s debts already forcing the heir to sell? Tom said nothing as Jonathan resumed the tour, although the rapidity and extent of the family’s decline in fortune shocked him.

  All the rooms were missing some of the best pieces of furniture: the red parlor, the green room, the banquet hall. Tom knew the house better than Jonathan himself, including the small hidden stairways and the service rooms as well as the public rooms, but he allowed Jonathan to show him it all. Once he had loved and admired the place, then he had hated it and never wished to see it again. Now … he wasn’t sure.

  “Well,” said Jonathan when they were done. “I do not suppose you care to make me an offer?”

  Tom thought of his farm in Ohio. The land there was bringing a pretty price these days, with thousands of emigrants flocking from the east and snapping up lots. He did not know how much Jonathan was expecting for the manor house, but he realized with a thrill that perhaps he could afford it. Blackgrave Manor—his? For a moment the possibility tantalized him.

  Then he remembered Abigail’s words. “I do not believe you have ever got England out of your system, Tom.”

  No. He knew the moment's temptation had been just that: a temptation. Any residual longing for his old life dissipated like smoke, never to return.

  “I’m afraid not. The place is too large for me.” Tom's face felt like a mask, but inside, his heart was pounding with the irony of the situation. All the times Jonathan had thrown Tom casual orders: to fetch a cane, to light a fire, to summon the stable boy, to ride behind the gilded carriage and deliver calling cards…. Back then, Tom and Jonathan had unknowingly shared an infatuation for the beautiful Jenny, a maid with the face of an angel and the soul of a calculating fish-wife. Once they had stood in the library, just down that hallway, and had a long conversation face-to-face despite old Lemley’s dire warnings that such actions brought danger. Danger had ensued, but wonderful things had come of it as well.

  Now, after a decade apart, the two men stood facing each other again. Both of them lived much of their lives among these very surroundings—yet one was a total stranger to the other, while the other knew the first intimately.

  Suddenly Tom was tempted to reveal his identity. What would Jonathan’s reaction be? Incredulity? Anger? Chagrin at having treated a former servant as an equal, shaking his hand and calling him “Mister?” The new master of Blackgrave Manor could not fail to note that the other man's clothes were as fine as his own but newer and in far better condition. Tom’s jaw was more cleanly shaven, his boots shone brighter.

  “You’re not interested in the house? I feared as much.” Jonathan pulled out a clay pipe and lit it, shrugging. “Well, perhaps you can mention the place to your friends in London. A pity, though, to waste your time after traveling all this way.”

  Tom was consumed with curiosity about what had happened to his old friends. “You said there are yet some staff on the premises?” he asked carefully. “Does that include any of the groundskeepers?”

  Jonathan looked up from his pipe; his dark eyes narrowed again. “You are referring, no doubt, to the decline of the famous gardens?” He took a slow puff, as if savoring the flavor. “They were a foolish luxury of my mother’s, and I could not spare the expense to keep them up. However, I believe there is an old caretaker who has remained, as he had nowhere else to go. Feel free to look around before you go. The grounds still have a ghost of their former beauty.”

  Tom watched the dark-haired figure stagger back toward the entrance of the decaying manor house. He still had not heard what had happened to Jenny. Well, one thing was clear: the chit was no longer here. He found he was no longer curious about the girl who had once meant everything to him. He felt only profound indifference.

  Leaving the coachman with the horses in the courtyard, Tom turned and strode toward the stables and found the stalls empty. Even the straw had been swept out, leaving the board bare. He heard nothing but his own footsteps, not even the scurry of vermin.

  He walked up the stairs and down the narrow hall, where he nudged open the farthest door. This room, at least, was not empty. The thin figure on the cot twitched, the eyes opened, and Lemley stared at him, speechless.

  Then the old man roused himself. “Tom? Is it you?”

  He pulled up a stool and sat by the cot, carefully taking the old man’s thin wrist into his hand. The fragile bones felt like Tom could crush them if he folded his fingers over them. Lemley’s thin hair had lost all pigment and the skin was paler, waxy.

  He cleared his throat. “It's me, Lemley, same as I ever was unde
r these new clothes.”

  Lemley struggled to a sitting position. On a table next to the cot, Tom saw the remains of a meal: a few crumbs of bread, the remains of a chicken, a jug of ale. The old man was not starving, then.

  “So I’m not dreaming.” Lemley stared as if he were looking at a ghost. “It's really you! I never thought I’d see me poor Tom again.”

  “Life has been good to me, Lemley. I should have written you since arriving in America. I can’t think why I never did.” Perhaps it was because England had seemed like part of another world, one that no longer existed. Guilt stabbed him nonetheless.

  “America! Is that where you’ve been all these years? I see ye've done well for yerself, me lad. Ye have the air of a gentleman.” Lemley laid his head back against the pillow. “Aye, how times have changed. Ye have nothing to fear here anymore, now that the old master is dead.”

  Tom knew Lemley was right. Jonathan had known of Tom's innocence from the beginning. But of course, Jonathan never would have exposed his sister as a liar —hence the story about the missing snuffbox.

  Pushing back the memory, Tom looked around at the room, which had once housed several men, and cleared his throat. “Well, Lemley, it appears they’re all gone. The house servants too.”

  Briefly he thought again of Jenny. Had Jonathan eventually tired of her? No doubt the calculating young woman had ended up the mistress of a duke or an earl, with a house of her own, just as she had always wanted.

  As if reading his mind, Lemley’s wizened face took on a sour look. “That lass ye were so curious about – Jenny, I believe her name was—saved her money and bought a millinery shop in Scotland. Mrs. White ran into her a while back while visiting a relative—claimed the girl had grown fat and smug as a cow. A spinster, after all these years.”

  “Is that so?” Tom yawned. It all seemed so long ago.

  “Too good for the minx, considerin’ the trouble she caused,” Lemley said, snapping his remaining teeth together. “As for the rest of ‘em, not all have left the area. The seamstress, Rosie, lives in town. She’s married the butcher, and she’s plump and happy.”

  At the news, Tom’s eyes returned questioningly to the plate of food, and Lemley nodded vigorously. “She visits me every day or two, and has been begging me to come live with her family. But I told her she must care for her young ’uns and not trouble her ’ead about me, who scarcely knew her in the old days. But Rosie said….” His voice trailed off, and for the first time his rheumy eyes avoided Tom’s.

  Tom leaned closer. “Rosie said what?” He had to strain to hear the old man’s words.

  “She said that as long as the good Lord gave ’er breath, she’d not desert the man who’d raised Tom West.”

  Tom tightened his grip slightly on the old man’s hand. “She’s happy, then?”

  Lemley chuckled under his breath. “As ’appy as a stout woman can be what ’as two healthy young ’uns and a hearty ’usband who treats ’er kindly,” he said, grinning, revealing the gap between his yellowing teeth. “She seems well enough, young Tom. Ye need not worry about ’er.”

  “I’m glad.” Tom thought of that fateful night when he had escaped from Blackgrave Manor, the bundle of money Rosie had tucked in his hand that had helped him reach the shores of America. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gold coins and piled them on the wobbly table next to the bed. “Give these to her, will you? Tell her it is a repayment of a loan, with ten years’ interest.”

  Lemley looked at the coins with wide eyes. He reached a respectful finger to touch them, and Tom realized that the old man had probably never seen so much money in his life.

  Then Lemley looked back at Tom, quirking his bristly white eyebrows. “Will you not give it to her yourself? She’d be glad to see you, my boy.”

  Tom shook his head. “I'm learning the past is better left in the past. I have seen you again, and by Jove, that’s enough for me. Do promise me one more thing, though, Lemley.”

  The old man shifted against his pillow. “Anything in my power, lad.”

  “When she asks you again to come live in her home—say yes. I shall not be content until I know you’re in a house with a loving family around you. Every man deserves to end his days with others around who care for him.”

  Lemley's rheumy eyes fastened closely on Tom’s face, and the younger man had the impression the suggestion took the aging gardener by surprise. After a few moments, he nodded weakly, rubbing his bristled chin. “By gad, Tom, I believe I shall. Yes, perhaps I shall. That is…if you are sure I'll not be a burden to her.”

  Tom’s mouth twitched, remembering brusque, hard-working, good-hearted Rosie. He knew full well that if she hadn’t wanted to take the old gardener in, she would never have suggested it.

  “She’ll be glad to have you, Lemley. For one thing, it will save her coming all this way to check on you. For another, these gold pieces will enable her to hire a serving girl to help.” Tom leaned forward and somewhat awkwardly embraced the old man. “Unless I can persuade you to come to America instead. You could make your home with my wife and me, and her father….”

  “Leave me motherland? Perish the thought!” Lemley looked scandalized, and Tom laughed.

  Tenderly he looked down at the spare man who had been a father to him. It had been worth it, he thought. Worth the long trip across the ocean, worth leaving Abigail and the children, worth risking capture, to ease the last days of the man who had saved his life. He wondered how many times Lemley had wondered if Tom had managed to evade the gallows for good. A bit gruffly, he bade his old friend farewell, and the two men clasped hands.

  As he stepped to the coach, still waiting in front of the house, someone called out behind him.

  “You there! What is your name? Tom, isn’t it?”

  Tom’s heart skipped a beat, and he turned slowly.

  Jonathan stared at him while leaning heavily on his cane. He limped forward slowly. “You’d be the gardener I made a footman, are you not? I almost didn’t recognize you. ’Twas your height that gave you away. And those questions you were asking. Why should you care about my family?”

  Tom stood stock-still, hand gripping the coach’s door handle. How could he have been so foolish as to think he could get away unrecognized?

  “There are not many men in this world as tall as you,” Jonathan said, stopping several feet away and staring at Tom’s face with narrowed eyes. “With hair that fair, and eyes that color. It started coming back to me, bit by bit. 'Twas a bouquet of white flowers, and a carriage and a team of runaway horses that brought you to my notice. Later I gave you a book, in the library, didn’t I?”

  “You did.” Tom cleared his throat to speak, but he raised his chin high and stood with shoulders thrown back, legs planted apart, body tensed. Why should he deny the truth? “I owe you a great debt for that book. Because of it, I have risen in the world until I stand before you today, your equal.” If not your better, he silently added.

  Once he had dreamed of saying similar words to Jonathan’s father. Now he had said them aloud to Lord Marlowe’s heir, boldly and defiantly. He waited, every sense alert, for Jonathan’s reaction.

  It came. Jonathan raised a dark eyebrow. A vertical line appeared between his eyebrows. Then, to Tom’s surprise, he gave a sharp, bark-like laugh.

  “Then I’ve done some good in my miserable life, in spite of myself,” the scion said, shuffling closer, and taking a pinch of snuff from a bejeweled box. Tom recognized it with a sickening twist of his stomach: the object that had started all his troubles. “And all these years I imagined you ended your days dancing from the end of a string as a result of my trying to preserve my sister’s unworthy reputation. A wasted effort, too, from all reports.” Jonathan saw the direction of Tom’s eyes, and, with a flick of the wrist, the snuffbox disappeared into a pocket.

  “It was a low thing I did, pretending you had stolen this to explain your sudden disappearance,” he said, his face growing serious. “I
suppose you’d say I have paid the price, though, eh?” He gave a deep, ironic bow, which served to emphasize the shabbiness of his formerly elegant clothes. “I’ll admit, I’m rather glad to learn you’re alive. One less regret from a life misspent.”

  A wave of pity swept over Tom, causing him to regret his defiant words of a moment ago.

  “I’ve done many things I’m not proud of,” Jonathan continued, “but perhaps you will allow me to strike that particular misdeed from my conscience since it appears to have turned out favorably for you?”

  Jonathan was asking his forgiveness? “Certainly.” Tom was surprised how easily the word came out, as the old anger and resentment fell away. “But may I ask one favor as well?”

  Jonathan's eyebrow glided upward, curious.

  “You say you remember I was once a gardener here.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I would like a cutting of one of those rosebushes. For old time’s sake.”

  Jonathan looked at him with surprise. “Of course. Help yourself to anything you wish.” He turned to shuffle toward the house, cane thumping under his weight.

  * * *

  On the way to London, Tom felt his heart grow light. Old worries had been laid to rest. Jonathan must find the answers to his own problems; Tom cared nothing about them now. All he could think of was how quickly he could return to Abigail’s waiting arms, the children, their farm, and whatever future duties President Jefferson and the new state of Ohio found for him.

  He permitted himself a last stab of pity for Jonathan, lurking in the moldering old manor house. Then he brushed aside any lingering memories. There was work to do in America, a bright and hopeful future to build.

  * * *

  Favorable winds pushed the ship westward quickly, but they could not push it fast enough for Tom’s satisfaction. When the bright-green New England shore came into sight, he was the first on the bow, watching for the beloved figures waiting for him on the dock. He was not disappointed. There they were—the short female with chestnut hair peeping from under her straw hat; the older man, now white-haired yet still straight and dignified; and the bouncing children, clinging to their grandfather’s legs.