The Garden of Forgotten Wishes - Trisha Ashley Page 0,68

Christie.

Ned looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I whispered: ‘Cosy crime fan.’

In any small intervals of silence, the tock, tock of darts hitting a board came from the out-of-sight area at the back and occasionally the players would emerge to order in another round of drinks. One of them was Wayne Vane, I saw. He didn’t look around, though, just shambled up to the bar and then straight back again.

We came second in the quiz, narrowly beaten by the next table. Apparently Stacy Toller was an ace at quizzes and had appeared on Mastermind.

The prizes were not extravagant – the winning table got a free round of drinks and the booby prize winners a bag of pork scratchings apiece.

‘We just do it for the fun, really,’ Ned said. He looked much more relaxed this evening than I’d seen him since I’d arrived, as if he might actually remember what fun was, if he gave it a bit more thought.

After the quiz the room began slowly to thin out and the talk at our table became more general. Ned told the others about the marble folly I’d uncovered, and how there were Victorian metal rose-name tags, some of which seemed to have the old Regency names on them, and then Ned and I fell into a discussion about whether it was better to try to find and replace the old varieties where they’d died, or put in newer ones, a topic that we, at least, found engrossing.

‘I think we should restock with what was there originally, if we can,’ I said. ‘But you could put lots more roses into the Grace Garden, because apothecary gardens always had them, didn’t they?’

Cress, who I rather liked for her gentle air of melancholy, like a human Eeyore, listened to our talk about roses and then said she’d like to pop in and see the little temple we’d found.

‘Gertie asked me to bring her some more manure, anyway,’ she added.

‘Gertie has a huge hoard of well-rotted manure round the back of the vegetable garden,’ Ned told me. ‘But she’ll have to part with some for the roses.’

‘I do like gardens, even if we’ve had to turf most of ours over to make it easier to keep up,’ Cress said. ‘We don’t have very extensive grounds now anyway, Marnie. We used to own most of the valley, but we had a gambling Lordly-Grace back in the nineteenth century and that’s when most of it was sold off.’

‘Wayne still does your gardening, doesn’t he?’ asked Elf, and Cress’s face clouded.

‘After a fashion, but Mummy has to constantly keep an eye on him and all he does, really, is drive the mower over the lawns and run a brush cutter across the shrubs. We do have a few tubs and pots about, to brighten the place up, and Steve kindly looks after those, when Mummy’s out playing bridge.’

I hadn’t realized people still played bridge, or had bridge parties … in fact, I had only the vaguest idea of what bridge was – some kind of card game.

‘I’m going to order some huge pots for the less hardy trees and shrubs I want to put into the garden. I’d like an oleander, for a start,’ Ned said. ‘A friend of mine in Great Mumming makes the giant traditional pots, Marnie. His firm’s called Terrapotter.’

Recollection stirred. ‘Oh, yes, I noticed it when I was driving past. Treena told me about it, too. What else are you going to put in the pots?’

‘Citrus trees in some, and I’ve got a few more ideas.’

‘Gert says you need a heated greenhouse, one you can put your coconuts in,’ I told him.

‘I’m not thinking of having coconuts; that was just a very Gertie joke.’

‘But you could squeeze one into the courtyard, couldn’t you? There’s room along the archway wall.’

He considered this. ‘It wouldn’t be huge, but I suppose it could be quite tall … I don’t know, I’ll think about it. And it will have to wait until we’ve got the rest of the Grace Garden under control.’

By now, it was just me, Ned and Cress sitting at the table, for the others had either gone home, or to talk to friends. In fact, now I looked around, there were very few people left and it was a lot later than I’d thought.

But it was nice to be sitting in an English country pub, in good company, which Ned was – when he wasn’t remembering to be wary of me, though that