The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,39
work out.’
‘It certainly is. I’d no idea he had any connection with Jericho’s End when we were students, but he must already have been living at Old Grace Hall by then. Myfy told me his parents were killed in a car crash when he was in his teens, and he made his home with his great-uncle Theo. And now he’s inherited.’
‘And Mum and Dad had adopted you by then, too, so you were Marnie Ellwood, not Vane.’
‘It’s not that uncommon a name, so I don’t expect he’d have made any connection with the Vane family at Jericho’s End – who sound ghastly, by the way, so I think I’m going to keep that connection totally secret!’
‘To go back to the scandal thing, surely if he was innocent, then everyone would soon move on to the next bit of salacious gossip about someone else? He only had to sit it out.’
‘Perhaps it dragged on longer than it should because of that nasty bit Sammie Nelson sold to the gossip columnist.’
‘She must be a total cow,’ Treena said.
‘Yeah – I never liked her, though I wouldn’t have thought she’d do something that unpleasant. The journalist wrote the article so cleverly, though, that there was nothing you could pin down, just innuendo and suggestion. Sammie was in my year,’ I added, ‘but she wasn’t interested in having female friends.’
‘Oh, that kind,’ Treena said. ‘And everything she hinted about in that article was untrue?’
‘Absolutely. But there are always people willing to believe the worst, aren’t there?’
‘I suppose so. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that Ned wanted to hide himself away.’
‘Like me – though luckily for him, he had somewhere lovely to do it in. Old Grace Hall is the most amazing Tudor house, like an overgrown fairy-tale cottage. And now he can get his teeth into the wonderful project of restoring a walled apothecary garden and opening it to the public,’ I enthused. ‘That’s where I come in. Oh, and there’s a horribly overgrown rose garden, too. I’m dying to hack my way into that and see what’s there!’
‘It sounds like your idea of heaven,’ Treena said, amused. ‘If he’ll let you help him, that is?’
‘He can’t really afford not to, because he’s trying to restore it all on a shoestring and they’re getting me dirt cheap. Anyway, I’ve had the whole thing out with him this morning and put him straight about that damned resignation email! I had to tell him a little bit about Mike, which I really didn’t want to do, in order to convince him I wasn’t likely to cause trouble in future.’
‘I should think not!’ she said indignantly.
‘Myfy and Elf had already told him they were certain I was a good person, which might have helped … and, of course, once I knew what had happened to him last year, I sort of understood why he was petrified I might start throwing accusations about. But I think we’re OK now. At least he’s employing me, and I mean to prove I’m both sane and hardworking.’
‘You can always set him on to me, if you think he has any doubts,’ Treena suggested. ‘I’ll put him right!’
And if he made her really angry, he might just find himself microchipped and neutered, too, I thought, amused.
‘I’m really looking forward to learning about the apothecary garden. I saw what looked like a blown-up photo of the original plan on his office wall, and as well as being huge, it’s very unusual for the late seventeenth century. I’m longing to get my secateurs into that rose garden, too!’
She laughed. ‘I think it sounds like your idea of heaven, rather than mine!’
‘Definitely. I know it’s going to be hard work, but fun! Ned’s going to show me round the garden tomorrow morning, and I can hardly wait. The Lavender Cottage side of things won’t take me long, once I’ve given everything a good pruning, probably an hour or so a week in the afternoon, just before I go up the River Walk.’
‘River Walk?’ she echoed.
I told her about this unexpected addition to my duties and added, ‘You’ll have to come and see it all – and the Grace Garden, when it opens at Easter.’
‘I’ll let you settle in first, unless I’m called out to Risings to see those spoilt Pekes again. And then, Luke is starting his dig at the monastic ruins on the Tuesday after Easter, so I expect I’ll be popping in to see what’s happening there, too.’