The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,53
there is for an Eglantine Briar … which I think is a Regency name. But the tags are Victorian, aren’t they?’ I said. ‘The name had probably changed by then, so that’s odd.’
‘Perhaps they found the original planting list,’ he said. ‘I haven’t come across it, but the family papers are well and truly jumbled up, so it might be in there somewhere.’
‘It would be handy,’ I agreed. ‘But it’ll be a while before we can put in replacement roses anyway, because even once I’ve cleared the beds, we’ll need to feed them up with a good rich mulch.’
It sounded like I was going to cook them a big dinner, rather than provide a lovely thick layer of well-rotted manure, if I could find some.
Ned dragged the bag of clippings I’d just filled back to join the others near the gate to the Grace Garden, while I started filling a new one, but after a few minutes he took the larger pair of secateurs from the barrow and began clipping away the higher branches that tangled over my head and made the paths such a tunnel.
‘Yer office phone’s been ringing off the hook this last half-hour, lad,’ said a dour voice behind us. ‘Gert and me could hear it from the shed while we were having a bite and a brew.’
‘Oh – thanks, James,’ Ned said guiltily. He patted his pocket. ‘I think I must have left my mobile there, too … and I only came to make sure Marnie’d had some lunch. Marnie, this is James Hyde,’ he added.
‘Hi,’ I said, to the somewhat wizened and bent elderly man, who was actually smaller than me and wearing a red knitted bobble hat and an indescribably filthy overcoat, which seemed to be minus its buttons, for it had been tied round his waist with a bit of frayed rope.
His rheumy pale grey eyes examined me, then looked at the path I’d cleared and seemed to arrive at some measure of approval.
‘Pleased, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘And Gertie says if you’ve not had a bite yet, there’s a cuppa and a spare cheese and pickle sandwich going.’
‘I meant to pop back to the flat for something – I’ll have to get more organized,’ I said. ‘But I got carried away.’
‘Looks like it,’ he said. ‘Ned, hadn’t you better go and see who’s been ringing you? It might be a job.’
‘I suppose I had better get back to the office,’ he said reluctantly.
‘And I’d be very glad of that sandwich,’ I said to James, so we returned to the Potting Shed, to be greeted by Gertie, who was boiling up a kettle over the paraffin stove.
Despite their being twins, Gertie didn’t resemble her brother in the least, being tall, raw-boned and sturdy. Her iron-grey hair was cropped and her unadorned complexion sallow, seamed and rayed into sun-lines around her eyes.
Ned left us to it and we all bonded over stewed tea, the spare doorstep sandwich and slabs of lardy cake, which was apparently Gert’s speciality and fuel of choice. It was just as well I was burning off so many calories.
The boundaries were set and I made it clear I had no intention of encroaching on James’s preserve of the bedding out front, or Gertie’s vegetable garden domain, beyond the wall at the bottom of the Grace Garden.
‘And I can manage the herb beds round that sundial on my own, too – been doing it all my life,’ she said. ‘But then, you’ll have more than enough work, helping Ned with the rest of it.’
‘He seems to want me to sort out the rose garden first, while it’s still early in the year, and I love roses, so I don’t mind. But if you need me to help with anything else, just shout.’
‘I’ll mostly be manning the ticket office when we open at Easter,’ James said. ‘And the bit of a shop, too, I suppose.’
‘Ned’s got great plans for getting the visitors in and parting them from their brass,’ Gertie agreed. ‘I wouldn’t have thought they’d pay much to see a half-overgrown garden, but he says watching the restoration is a selling point.’
‘I think he’s right. He’s got several information boards coming too, hasn’t he?’
‘New plant labelling, information everywhere, a leaflet with a map of the garden – that’ll be free, but there’ll be a glossy brochure, too,’ said James.
‘And now the visitors will be able see the rose garden being cleared. Ned said I’d already got further than he expected in