only minutes before welcomed her with. ‘I can’t be doing with you cluttering up the place. Can you remember which rescue home she came from, Freya? With any luck they might take her back.’
That was it. I threw down my napkin and pushed back my chair. My determination not to share my news had flown straight out of the window.
‘Don’t worry about Nell,’ I told him. ‘I’ll be taking her with me.’
‘Taking her with you?’ he frowned. ‘What do you mean? Where are you going?’
‘I’m handing in my notice, Jackson,’ I said. ‘I was going to tell you tomorrow when I’d had a chance to write my letter of resignation, but your abhorrent attitude has forced my hand.’
He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, turning redder by the second.
‘But you can’t leave,’ he blustered. ‘I need you here to look after the garden. I’m going to have prospective buyers coming around in a few weeks’ time and the lawns will still be growing.’
‘Not my problem,’ I shrugged.
‘You can’t have another job lined up,’ he said, eyeing me with an expression of annoyance and curiosity, ‘you haven’t had time and I haven’t been asked for a reference.’
‘Where I’m going and what I’m going to be doing is no concern of yours,’ I told him, ‘and you needn’t panic, I’m not leaving with immediate effect.’
‘Of course, you aren’t,’ he said, sounding further nettled, ‘you can’t because you’ve got to work notice.’
‘That’s right,’ I agreed.
‘That’s right,’ he repeated.
‘Three weeks,’ I smiled.
‘Three weeks,’ he choked. ‘That can’t possibly be right!’
‘One week for every year that I’ve worked here,’ I reeled off. ‘That’s what your aunt and I agreed and that’s what I’ll honour. It’s all in my contract – not that, as you’re so keen to keep reminding me, it’s legally binding.’
I was certain I would be getting something far more formal from Luke and Kate and, given what had happened here, I was pleased about that. I supposed I had been a bit naïve when I moved to the estate, but then neither Eloise nor I had ever envisaged a situation like this occurring when she took me on.
‘I’m going to check that,’ Jackson said bitterly. ‘I’m going to check that, right now.’
He jumped up from his chair and stormed out of the kitchen.
‘And get that damn dog out of here!’ he shouted over his shoulder.
‘Gladly!’ I shouted back, rushing to give Nell a hug.
Chapter 5
Even though I knew in my heart that I had Eloise’s blessing to leave Broad-Meadows and embrace the new challenge of living in Nightingale Square and working in the gardens at Prosperous Place, I did wonder how I was going feel when the time came to finally hand over my keys.
I had learned so much about myself during the last three years and I loved the garden like an old friend. It had offered me solace on darker days and a quiet, gentle support that I wasn’t sure I’d find anywhere else, and certainly not in the bustling city. However, I needn’t have worried about how I was going to cope with all the extra company, because for almost every second after I had told Jackson that I was leaving he had been just half a step behind me, watching my every move and clocking me in and out of every task.
Whether he was concerned about getting his wages’ worth, or that I might leg it with the family silver (not that there was any to speak of), I had no idea and I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking, but I did find his shadowing unnecessarily invasive and when the day to leave did finally dawn, shrouded in an autumn mist which stole my last view of the place, I was feeling more than ready to go.
‘Come on, Nell,’ I said, opening the van door and ushering her into the passenger footwell as another vehicle spookily appeared out of the mist, ‘it’s time to leave.’
There was no room for her in the back, not that she liked riding behind me. She had always preferred shotgun but the plethora of boxes containing our worldly goods and few bits of furniture meant that she had no choice but to curl up under the dash for this ride to Norwich.
Amongst my scant belongings, I had also added a collection of cuttings, garnered from Eloise’s favourite plants. We had taken them together before planting out their parents in the revamped borders as a sort