“My wife, Polly, and two girls—grown now, but they don’t live far, and so they’re home for Christmas.”
Mr. Wilson reappeared with a camera, and with a kind but reproachful look at his wife said, “Vernona, I found it in your box of knitting patterns.” He turned the camera on and aimed it at Simon and Pru. “There now, big smiles from the gardeners. Right, I’ll email you a copy, how’s that, Pru?”
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
25 December
Dear Pru,
We are so pleased with the progress you are making in the garden, and we know that the open day in July will be a huge success.
I wanted to dash off this quick email to you while it was still fresh in my mind. You are becoming quite the Repton expert, and so I know you won’t mind investigating this one little thing. You know that large beech at the far corner of the terrace? It’s so very tall—I wonder if this wasn’t the one that Repton planted to hide the view of the village pub. Of course, the only way we would know that now is to look for the pub from the very top of the tree as it stands. Would you mind climbing up for us to see what you can see?
Best wishes,
Davina
Chapter 5
Pru had emailed Davina back immediately, saying she couldn’t possibly climb the beech—eighty feet high if it was an inch—citing health and safety regulations, and not her fear of heights.
Returning to Primrose House the day after Boxing Day, Pru first turned off the lane and onto the gravel drive to her cottage—not as grand an entrance as the approach to the big house, but entirely her own. The workers were off now until after New Year’s. Through the kitchen window she could see the small, dark blue, previously used Aga cookstove that Davina had found for her. Still partially assembled, the cast-iron enamel pieces were scattered about and rock wool, used as insulation, erupted from the top of the cooker. She laughed to herself—dear Davina, did she really think Pru cooked? Still, it would be a great source of heat for the cottage.
She turned her Mini back out onto the lane and up to the drive for Primrose House. The Templetons were to return later that evening from the Seychelles, and Ivy and Robbie had gone off to Bristol to stay with her sister, so Pru was surprised to see a car parked at the side of the house and a man standing beside it, looking around as if appraising the view. Pru parked just past his car and got out.
“Hello, are you looking for the Templetons?” she asked.
“Are they at home?” He walked to Pru, holding out his hand. “Sorry, I’m Jamie Tanner. Are you the gardener?”
“Yes, I’m Pru Parke.” She looked down at her hands, still grimy from digging up the cyclamen and the snowdrops that Simon gave her. “Sorry about that.” She held up her hands to him.
He laughed and held up his own. “There you are,” he said, “gardeners’ hands.” It looked as if he’d had his hands in the dirt, too, and she also noticed a couple of raised scars on his left thumb.
“You’re a gardener, too?” Pru asked.
“Ned’s told me all about you,” he said, smiling. “Sounds like you’ve got things well in hand round here. Can’t be easy, restoring a historic garden.” He looked out at the wood below the sloped lawn. “You’ll be carrying out the tree work?” he asked.
“I won’t be doing any of it,” Pru said with a small laugh. “I don’t do well with heights. I’ve already told Davina we’ll need to hire an arborist.”
His mention of Ned eased Pru’s mind. She knew few people in the area yet and thought it was high time to become acquainted. But even more than that—Jamie could be her first connection into the garden world in Kent and Sussex. “Bryan and Davina are due back this evening. Would you like me to give them a message?”
“No, no”—he shook his head slightly, still smiling—“there’s no need. I can give them a ring when they return. I only wanted to see how it was all going.” He gave a small shrug and stuck his hands in his jacket. “I…well, I applied for the post here, too.”
“Oh.” Pru, acutely aware of how it felt not to get a job, tried to think of something to say that didn’t sound trite. “Well, I’m…sorry that you…”
But he laughed in an easy way and said, “Don’t worry about it. You’re the one with the better qualifications, and so you were chosen. I’ve no hard feelings. I work for the Council, doing the landscaping around town.” He glanced up at the walls of the house. “So, will you replant in front—a few roses, perhaps?” He smiled at her again.
“Yes,” she said, and walked around to the corner of the house, so they could look at the bare expanse of bricks. “I haven’t chosen anything yet. We’ve been starting on the walled garden first.”
“There’s a job for you now. I hope you’ve got enough help.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not looking for work—I don’t want you to think that. I’ve enough to do, and my wife would have my head if I added another job on top of everything else.”
“You’re married,” Pru said. “Do you live nearby?”
“Near enough,” he said, running his hand through his blond hair—long on top and short underneath, it fell back immediately into his face.
“What does your wife do?” Pru asked.
“Do?”
“I mean does she work outside the home?”
“Now, why would she want to do something like that?” he asked with a surprised look. Before Pru could think of a reply, Jamie said, “Right, well, I’ll be off. Good luck with Primrose House.” He walked back to his car, hesitated, and said, “Say, I’ve a friend who grows roses. He’s just over near Staplehurst. He’s got a few large Maigold he’d let you have—I’d say they’re already about eight feet, pot-grown, so they’ve got good roots. I know you can get a rate at the big nurseries, but I don’t think you’ll find anything this size. As long as you don’t mind digging big holes.”
“Oh, we can dig holes,” she said. The climbing rose Maigold, an early bloomer, would be a good way to begin planting at the front of the house. Its golden blooms would be set off well by the red brick. And at that size, how could she resist? “Thanks, that would be great. Should I ring him?”
“I tell you what,” he said, “why don’t I collect them for you and drop them off?”
“No, I don’t want to put you out,” Pru said.
“It’s no trouble. We’ve no work before next week. I won’t bother you—I’ll just leave them here at the front. You can settle up with Michael directly, there’s no worry about that. You’ll give Davina and Bryan my best?”
Pru thanked him again and watched him drive away. Creeping under her sense of gratitude came a tinge of guilt. He seemed a nice enough fellow, eager to help her feel comfortable in her new situation. But she wondered if he had counted on this job. He had a wife, perhaps young children—did the head gardener post at Primrose House pay better than a Council job? Had she stolen food out of a baby’s mouth?
She sat at the kitchen table reading when Davina and Bryan returned late that evening. They’d had a lovely time on the beach in the Seychelles, but, as Bryan put it, “There’s nothing like a roaring fire on a cold English night,” and he went off to light one in the library.
Davina poured them all brandies and sat down at the table, giving Pru the opportunity she needed.
“I want to thank you again for choosing me for this job,” she began. “I’m sure you had many others apply, and probably you had a few local gardeners who thought the job was right for them.”
Davina tossed her head back, sweeping her gray bobbed hair out of her face, and adjusted a few of the many thin layers of fabric that made up her outfit. Her face lost its color and her reply was sharp. “So, Ned’s been talking, has he?”
“Ned?”
“I will not be bullied,” Davina said.
Pru had lost the thread of the conversation. “Ned is trying to bully you?”
Davina sniffed. “He’s a gossipy old man, Pru,” she said, “and you should not pay
him any mind.”
“But, I didn’t talk to Ned. I met Jamie Tanner.”
“Oh Jamie,” Davina said, exhaling with a sympathetic cluck. “How is he? Where did you meet him?”
“He was standing outside when I got back this afternoon. He sends his regards.”
Davina was quiet for a moment, as if assembling her thoughts. “Pru, has Ned spoken to you about the head gardener post? That is, how we chose you as the best candidate?”
“No,” Pru said. At least not since the day I interviewed, and Ned told me I didn’t get the job, she thought. But Davina’s comments confirmed what Pru had suspected—Ned had been talking about Jamie when he said someone had been chosen already.
“If he does,” Davina said, looking down into her brandy as she swirled it around in the glass, “I don’t want you to worry a bit about what he says. He isn’t the boss around here.”
Ned had yet to try to boss Pru. He wasn’t the most talkative or congenial of workers, but for his age, he worked hard and she had no complaints. “Is there a problem with Ned? You hired him to work on the grounds.”
Davina picked up Bryan’s brandy and walked out of the kitchen as she said, “It isn’t as if we had a choice.”
Primrose House
29 December
Dear Pru,
We’ve had the most amazing offer—Hugo Jenkins, a young reporter from the Courier, has asked if he could follow the garden restoration with a blog. Posts would appear every week online, all about Primrose House, Repton, and you. Isn’t this exciting?
Of course, it’s entirely up to you to say yes or no. I wanted you to make the decision, although I’m sure you are as thrilled as we are to be able to share this story with the world. Just give Hugo a ring when you’re ready.
Best,
Davina
P.S. I had a sudden thought last night—we could create a “ruin” in the oval bed with broken castle walls and maybe even a tiny moat. Wouldn’t that be charming?
Chapter 6
Pru found the note on the kitchen table the next morning—Davina’s usual MO, dropping something in Pru’s lap and then leaving town; the Templetons had gone up to London for New Year’s. Pru thought it safe to dismiss any thought of a ruined castle. She said yes to the blog, even though the idea of being interviewed about a Humphry Repton landscape for which she was now responsible seemed audacious. But when she talked with Hugo, she found it easy to extol the virtues of a historic garden while also explaining that so much had happened in the ensuing two hundred years that it wouldn’t be possible to put it back exactly as it was.
—
The day after Bryan and Davina left, six large Maigold roses appeared at the house, lined up just where they should be planted, spaced out three on each side of the front door. They would require large planting holes—Robbie would be happy—and copious amounts of manure, which wouldn’t be delivered for a couple of weeks.
A note was pushed through the letter slot in the door, but not all the way, and so she took it out, telling herself that it could just as easily be for her as Davina and Bryan—after all, she lived there, too, albeit temporarily. Despite her reasoning, she felt a pang of guilt as she read the brief note from Jamie Tanner to the Templetons, which said he hoped that they would enjoy the roses he had found for them. Not exactly subtle, Pru thought. The pang of guilt dissolved. Well, let him try to butter them up—she was the one with the head-gardener post.
While her crew was off between the holidays, she continued to work. She spent most evenings going over pages of the Red Book and then searching for clues in the landscape. She poked around at the end of the drive, looking for remnants of the magnificent gateposts Repton had recommended. She dug around at the base of the house—he hadn’t cared for red brick and often recommended that stucco be applied. “I have shewn the effect of changing the house to a stone colour,” he had written. Perhaps the bricks of Primrose House had been covered with stucco once, but no sign remained now.
She began to come up with a few ideas of her own, too. The broad balustrade stone terrace that ran along the back of the house gave way to a steep lawn-covered slope, ending abruptly at the bottom as it ran into the overgrown yew walk. On the other side of the yew was a clearing beside the wood. Pru hoped the Templetons would eventually terrace the lawn, providing several levels for planting beds. Repton hadn’t specifically advised it, but did make mention that “…the stile and character of the house requires a certain space of dressed lawn or pleasure ground.” A stone staircase and stone-edged beds cut into the slope could give way to the more informal landscape below.
Dreams were fine, but more practical tasks made the restoration real. Pru planted the cyclamen and snowdrops that Simon gave her, and she bought ten flats of primroses and cowslips—grown from locally collected seed—and left the flats in the unheated greenhouse to grow on; they would be planted in another month. Primrose House would have primroses at last.
—
It was a Tuesday, the first day they were all back at work—one of Robbie’s days, and he was the only one with a smile on his face. A fine, cold drizzle fell. Pru handed out assignments and was met with rebellion.
“Liam, go with Ned, please, and finish clearing out the back two beds, then we’ll work our way forward and be ready for the manure when it arrives. And, Fergal, would you go up and help Robbie on the holes for the roses?”
“I’ll help Robbie,” Liam said. He stood a little apart from the rest of them, holding the handle of a shovel and resting his foot on its blade.
Liam seldom had the patience for Robbie, and Pru had soon learned to keep them from working on the same task. “Liam, I’d rather you go with Ned today…”
“I won’t,” he said, and she could see the red creeping up his face and the muscles on his neck stand out. “I’ll go with Robbie.”
“Liam…” Fergal began.
“I won’t do it,” Liam shouted.
Ned stood silent, looking back out at the road, as if observing something of great interest. “I’ll help the boy,” he said quietly. “We’ll get started on those holes, will we, Robbie?”
Robbie could pick up a tense tone in the air as well as anyone, and she could see the confusion on his face.
“Liam and I’ll clear out the beds, Pru,” Fergal said. “We’ll do the back four, not just two.” Each bed was a large thirty-two-square-foot space chock-full of perennial and woody weeds; to dig out and carry off all the material down to their designated brush pile would take the entire day, as short as daylight was.
Pru felt a mutiny on her hands, and, unprepared for it, decided to go with the flow. “Yes, sure, Fergal, thanks.” She took a deep breath. “Well, then, are we all sorted now? Everyone happy?” She looked directly at Liam, who looked away.
They got through the day, although the best thing that could be said about it was that it stopped raining. Ned and Robbie returned for lunch, which they usually took together, sitting along the warmest wall in the garden, but Liam said he had an errand and returned only when it was time to get back to work.
Tension remained high in the following days, with glaring looks from Liam and sullen silence from Ned. All Pru could do was to make sure they were nowhere near each other. She gave Liam jobs to do on his own, which he did well and with no objection. She noticed that Fergal kept an eye on him, and once she saw the two of them deep in conversation, Liam’s face contorted with anger, while Fergal patted the air with his open hands, as if to calm his brother down. She tried to ask Liam what was wrong, but he stomped away, and, as usual, left Fergal to make excuses for him.
“Sorry, Pru, he has a lot on his mind right now.” The brothers’ lives appeared fairly simple to Pru. Their parents had retired from local jobs and moved back to County Mayo in Ireland, but as Liam and Fergal had spent their entire lives in England, they decided to stay. They had bought a decrepit cottage that they lived in and worked to restore the days they weren’t at Primrose House. They hoped to sell the c
ottage, buy another, and do the same. They were handy lads and didn’t seem attached to anything in particular. Liam’s exploits with the ladies were common knowledge—mostly because Liam himself talked about them—but Fergal had a steady girlfriend who worked in the freight transit authority office in Tunbridge Wells.
Fergal’s excuse did little to explain the problem, but as long as they made progress, and she could keep Ned and Liam apart, perhaps she could ignore it. She did, after all, have other things on her mind, at once more pleasant and more stimulating. Christopher rang when he arrived back from Dubai. They spoke about his flight, Graham’s job, and the Courier’s blog, but the volume of their unspoken conversation drowned it all out: “When will I see you?”
—
On Wednesday morning, she gave herself extra time to check the Courier’s website, as the first blog post was scheduled to appear. When she called up the page, the headline screamed at her: “American Takes the Reins at Historic Garden: ‘It isn’t all Humphry Repton, you know.’ ”
Pru jumped back as if she’d been bitten. Oh my God, she thought, how crass, how presumptuous, how arrogant…had she said that? She thought back to her conversation with Hugo. Those were her words—she had tried to explain that many others had a hand in the gardens in the ensuing two hundred years.
Half afraid to look, she turned her face away from the screen while she scrolled down and saw that there were already forty-two comments, many of them along the lines of “Leave it to some know-it-all Yank to take over one of our gardens.”
She wouldn’t read any more now. She couldn’t let it get to her; there was too much work to do. Jo rang to provide a few encouraging words. Pru had told both Jo and Christopher about the blog, so she wasn’t surprised when Christopher was next to ring.
The Red Book of Primrose House: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series 2) Page 4