The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,114

was one that he’d bowed to the inevitable and a handwritten sign had been affixed to the side of the ticket window, giving the times.

‘I sincerely hope Roddy Lightower will take over once he finds his way around the garden. He’s very knowledgeable,’ Ned said, returning from the second tour.

‘They’re not going to want his autograph, though.’

‘No, well, I expect everyone can do without my name written on a bit of paper. I’m totally unexciting.’

That’s not exactly how I’d describe him … especially when he’d ruffled his mane of hair and his amber eyes were glowing with enthusiasm …

We’d made a good start on digging out the first long bed when I left them closing up the garden later that afternoon and headed up the river, which, from a rubbish collection point of view, was much like the day before, though without the socks.

I’d noticed, though, that the force of the water cascading from the rock face at the top of the falls seemed less than before, exposing more of the fissure next to it – the cave of the treasure legend. But then, since the day I’d arrived, we hadn’t had much in the way of rain, so I supposed that was why.

Elf called me in for coffee in the café kitchen when I got back. She’d just finished cleaning up with Daisy, who’d now left, but to my surprise, I found Ned in there, dipping a biscotti into a mug of coffee.

‘We’ve put up the shutters and shut up the shop,’ he said, looking up at me.

‘That’s an old tongue-twister,’ Elf said. ‘Though it’s not as good as “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s son, and I’m only plucking pheasants till the pheasant plucker comes.”’

She managed that without a slip and we applauded.

One of the newer but still antique-looking ice-cream machines was chugging away to itself in the background and she said she had a box of strawberry ice-cream for me to take up with me.

‘And I have some for you, too, Ned, which I was going to bring over, but now you can take it back with you. From frozen strawberries, of course, at this time of year, but very good, and I use some of my own bottled strawberry syrup in the recipe, too. You can almost taste the sunshine in that.’

It sounded delicious.

‘I know it should be your day off tomorrow, dear,’ she said to me, ‘but you haven’t forgotten that you volunteered to be the Easter Bunny in the morning?’

I put my mug down and gazed blankly at her: I had managed to forget it … and nor had I volunteered, it was more that I’d been press-ganged into it!

‘Marnie’s helping in the garden anyway tomorrow,’ Ned said, then grinned wickedly. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing her in her floppy ears and bunny tail first, though.’

I gave him a cold look. ‘Do I really have to put on an Easter Bunny costume? Won’t we be hiding the eggs early, so there’ll be no one about?’

‘There may already be one or two random tourists, but we take photos of you hiding the eggs,’ explained Ned, ‘and I print a couple out and pin them to the fence by the entrance. The children love it. “The Easter Bunny, spotted this morning hiding chocolate eggs!”’

‘Steve’s got a big basket of eggs in the Village Hut and a load of little coloured paper flags to mark each clutch,’ Elf said.

‘Doesn’t that make it too easy?’

‘No, because the children will be all eight or under, and most of them tiny tots,’ she explained. ‘We want to make sure they all get some, though we have extras, so we can top up the cellophane bags they put their hoard in at the end.’

I sighed, resigned to my fate. ‘OK, so I put on the bunny suit and hide the eggs all over the grounds, planting a little flag by each clutch.’

Elf nodded. ‘Yes. Then the vicar comes over and opens the hunt at eleven.’

I hoped I’d be back in the apothecary garden, working away by then, my part in the proceedings completed.

Elf invited Ned to dinner and included me, but I said I felt like a quiet night in and she didn’t press it.

Caspar was all for the idea and showed signs of interest in the strawberry ice-cream I sampled after dinner, though it seemed a very un-feline-like thing to want and I didn’t give him any. I expect he’d stuffed himself full in Lavender Cottage