The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,106

all walled gardens, it had lost its air of secrecy.

Ned, who was taking Clara round, was waving his arms about excitedly and his amber eyes were glowing as he enthused about his plans for the garden. I’m sure he had, as usual, entirely forgotten who he was talking to.

I bumped into Treena and Cress as I finally headed back and Cress asked me slightly despairingly if I’d seen her mother in the courtyard.

‘She would insist on going to talk to Professor Mayhem Doome, so I slipped away.’

‘Does she like gardens?’ I asked.

Cress sighed. ‘No, but she insisted on coming, because she wanted to invite the Doomes to dinner, or bridge … or really, anything at all they’d agree to come to. She’d like to be in their circle, though they’re not remotely on the same wavelength.’

‘I think she was trying to talk to Clara, but got elbowed out by the autograph hunters,’ I said.

‘Yes, we did see her after that and she was very cross about it. She also said the gravel had ruined her heels and she was going home.’

Cress turned and smiled at a man who was standing nearby and introduced him to me as Roddy Lightower. He looked a few years older than Cress, but was handsome in a thin-faced, horsy kind of way. I could see he would appeal to her.

‘Roddy, this is the new gardener, Marnie Ellwood. Roddy and I used to know each other as children; we rode our ponies together,’ Cress said, faintly pink and glowing. ‘He’s taken early retirement and bought a house on the other side of Thorstane – and he’s going to volunteer to help in the garden.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘There’s a married couple who emailed about volunteering too, so the more the merrier. I expect they’re here somewhere.’

‘I won’t be up to hard manual work,’ Roddy explained apologetically, ‘but I’m a historian and a keen gardener, so perhaps I could be a guide and take tours around, something like that.’

‘That would be great, because Ned’s really the only one who can do it at the moment and he’d rather garden,’ I said.

‘What about yourself?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’d hate it. I’m just a gardener.’

‘Well, I’d enjoy it and I could do office work too, anything like that.’

‘You know, you really are exactly what Ned needs,’ I told him.

From the way Cress was looking at him, he might be exactly what she needed, too. Ned had a rival for her affections!

‘I’ll try to have a word with him before I go,’ Roddy said. ‘I’m hoping Cress will have enough time to spare to join me for a late bread and cheese lunch at the pub.’

Cress went even pinker, if possible, and said she’d love to. Treena and I looked at each other, and she winked.

‘I should really go home and smooth Mummy down a bit. She ran into Wayne and his father right after she’d tried to speak to Professor Mayhem Doome, so that didn’t help, after he cheeked her the other day.’

‘Wayne and his father are here?’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes – it surprised me that they’d paid to see the garden. I mean, Wayne used to work here and Saul’s not one to part with his money for something like this.’

‘That is odd,’ Treena said. ‘Perhaps curiosity was just too much for them.’

I didn’t much feel like another one-to-one with Wayne, though a glimpse of his father would be interesting … my uncle.

But I was sure I’d have other opportunities, so when Luke appeared and it looked like the four of them were heading to the pub together, I left them and went back to the Potting Shed for my tools.

A working gardener is just so much wallpaper to visitors, as I’d learned while working for the Heritage Homes Trust, so I wasn’t surprised no one took any notice of me as I unhooked the rope on one side of the path by the pond in the rose garden, pushed the barrow through and turned to replace it.

‘There she is, Dad!’ said the all-too-familiar voice of Wayne Vane. ‘That’s the girl I was telling you about.’

Lizzie

I was born at Cross Ways Farm, on the furthest outskirts of the village of Jericho’s End, in 1794, the last of twelve children and, as such, neither welcomed nor wanted.

Being small and puny, I was considered by my father to be the weakest of the litter, besides having committed the sin of being female. I suspect he would have preferred to drown me in a