The Kew Gardens Girls

by Posy Lovell

  She and the other women recruits—and Bernie—were certainly earning their pay at Kew. It was as though Mac wanted to test them to make sure they were up to the job. Louisa thought they’d more than proved themselves already, but Mac worked them harder every day. He didn’t let the female gardeners do much—not yet. For now they were limited to working in the herbaceous borders and in the rock and flower gardens. It was good enough for Louisa, though. She loved every moment.

  It was a glorious summer. Louisa’s face had turned brown in the sun, and her nose was sprinkled with freckles. But today was more overcast, with a hint of rain in the air. Louisa smiled. That was good for the flowers, she thought, as she walked along the river to work. A shout behind her made her stop and look round. Ivy was hurrying along the path behind her.

  “I thought I wasn’t going to catch you,” she said, red-faced. “You don’t half walk at a cracking pace, Lou.”

  Louisa smiled. “It’s because I’m so keen to get to work.”

  Ivy rolled her eyes and tucked her hand into Louisa’s arm.

  “Come on, then, you old swot,” she said. “Let’s see what you can impress Mac with today.”

  Louisa enjoyed Ivy’s teasing. She was right, in a way. Louisa was keen to impress Mac. Partly because she loved the work so much and wanted to stay at Kew, and partly because she was desperate to prove wrong his initial misgivings about employing female gardeners.

  “We’re doing the rock gardens today,” Louisa said. “Heavy work.”

  Ivy nodded. “Jim said that Mac wants to extend them a bit. We’ll be lugging rocks all day.” Her eyes gleamed with mischief. “Reckon he’s testing us?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  “Reckon we’re up to it?”

  “Definitely.”

  Laughing together, the women went through the huge Victorian iron gate and headed off to find Mac.

  She had been right, Louisa thought as she wiped sweat from her dripping brow later. It was heavy work, probably the most difficult physical labor they’d done in the weeks they’d been working at Kew. She and Ivy were moving rocks from a pile that had been dumped by the path and arranging them on the new patch that would become the extension to the rock garden. Some of the rocks were small, but most of them were as big as footballs, or even larger, and heavy. The women carried them in their arms, cradling them like a baby, or sometimes sharing the load between them.

  After an hour or so, Mac came over. He stood watching them work for a moment and then cast his eyes over the arrangement of stones.

  “You’ve done well, there,” he said eventually. “Good work.”

  Louisa exchanged a quick glance with Ivy. Maybe they had impressed him at last.

  “I’ll get Bernie to come and help with this last bit,” Mac said.

  “We’re fine on our own,” Louisa said, disappointed he obviously thought they needed a man to help.

  The corners of Mac’s mouth twitched.

  “Not because I don’t think you’re fine on your own,” he said, a hint of amusement in his gruff Scottish tone. “Because I reckon you’re hungry, and with a bit of help you’ll get it finished before lunch.”

  He wandered off to find Bernie, and Louisa grinned at Ivy.

  “He’s softening,” she said.

  Ivy nodded. “Jim says he’s a nice bloke and Jim’s a great judge of character.”

  Louisa braced herself to pick up another rock. “You’re close, are you? You and Jim?” she said, grunting as she heaved it up, feeling the muscles in her shoulders protesting.

  Ivy’s cheeks flushed pink. “Bit,” she said.

  “You knew each other before?” Louisa dropped the rock into position and stretched out her arms in relief.

  “Help me with this one,” Ivy said, choosing a bigger one to go at the back of the garden. Louisa took one end of the stone and together they lugged it over the soft earth.

  “I used to come to Kew with my dad,” Ivy said. “I got talking to Jim one day and we hit it off. Down here?”

  They lowered the rock carefully onto the earth and stood back to admire their handiwork.

  “Couple more, I reckon,” Ivy said. Louisa nodded.

  “Jim’s the nicest person I’ve ever met,” Ivy said. She paused. “Wasn’t always easy at home, when I was little.”

  She sat down on the biggest rock and wiped her brow.

  “My dad was . . .” She searched for the right word. “What is it when you’re not sure if they’ll be nice or nasty?”

  Louisa felt a rush of recognition as she remembered life with her Reg.

  “Unpredictable,” she said.

  “That’s it. Dad was—is—unpredictable. He’s not always around. Sometimes he’s brilliant, working hard and doing right by Ma. Other times he’s drinking, disappearing for weeks on end. You know what it’s like?”

  “I do.”

  “When he was good, he used to come down here to meet the gardeners. Chat about flowers and that. Like I said, I’d come with him because I’ve always liked all that stuff. And I met Jim. And now he’s my family.”

  She said it so simply, that Louisa couldn’t help but smile. “He’s your sweetheart.”

  Ivy nodded. “And I’m his.”

  Oh, to be young and in love, Louisa thought. Before the reality of life sets in.

  “What about you?”

  She blinked at Ivy. “What about me?”

  “Do you have a sweetheart?”

  Louisa laughed. “I’m thirty-five years old, Ivy.”

  The younger woman shrugged. “So, never say never.” She looked mischievous. “What about Mac?”

  “No thank you,” Louisa said firmly. “Even if he does have a good heart deep down.”

  “Bernie, then? He’s a nice-looking chap.”

  “And ten years younger than me,” Louisa said in mock horror. “Thank you, Ivy, but I’m fine by myself.”

  She felt Ivy’s curious eyes on her.

  “Were you married before?”

  Louisa froze. “Why do you ask?”

  “Good-looking woman like you, nice accent, you said your parents have a farm? Bound to be snapped up.” She narrowed her eyes. “So why are you here in London, single, and spending all your time with Suffragettes?”

  Louisa felt exhausted suddenly. She sat down next to Ivy on the rock. “Really want to know?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “It’s not pretty.”

  “We’re friends, ain’t we? Whatever you say won’t change that.”

  Louisa took a breath. “I was married, you’re right. Still am, I guess.”

  Ivy raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t speak.

  “His name is Reggie. Reggie Taylor. He was the son of the people who farmed the land next to ours and I’d known him since school.” She sighed. “He was nice enough back then. My father encouraged our romance because he thought it would mean merging our farms.”

  “It didn’t work out?”

  Louisa shook her head. “Farming is tough. Really tough. Reg lost both his parents young, so he took over the farm before he was ready, really. He was out in the fields all hours, worrying about money . . .”

  She stopped, swallowing a sob.

  “He took it out on you?” Ivy finished for her.

  “He had such a temper,” Louisa said. “Unpredictable, like you said. Some evenings he’d come home and be all sweetness and light. Some he’d be raging at something that’d gone wrong, or something I’d said that he’d been stewing over all day.”

  She took a breath. She didn’t talk about Reg much. Not ever, really. But it seemed now that she’d started she couldn’t stop.

  “The first time he hit me, he was sorry afterward. The next time, he didn’t seem sorry. Or the next.”

  Ivy took her hand and Louisa kept g
oing.

  “He broke my arm,” she said. “I told the doctor I’d tripped feeding the chickens. I had more black eyes than I had hot dinners. He split my lip three times? Maybe four. And the worst . . .”

  She paused.

  “The worst was when I was pregnant. Twice it was early on. Maybe I wasn’t pregnant, who knows? There was just a lot of blood. More than normal.”

  Ivy squeezed Louisa’s hand, and the older woman carried on, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “And then, after I’d thought I’d never have a baby, that I was too old to be a mother, I found I was expecting again. But Reg pushed me down the stairs and I lost the baby.”

  “How far along was you?” Ivy said, her voice almost a whisper.

  Louisa pinched her lips together. “Quite far,” she said. “Far enough for me to know that the baby had stopped moving. Far enough for me to give birth.”

  “Oh, Louisa,” Ivy said. “What happened?”

  “I went to my mother,” Louisa said, gathering herself as memories of her lost baby threatened to overwhelm her. “And I told her what Reg had done.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said I’d made my bed and I had to lie in it.”

  “Christ,” said Ivy. “Really? My ma has a lot on her plate, but I don’t doubt she’d deck a fella who laid a hand on me.”

  Louisa gave her a small smile. “So I ran away,” she said. “I came to London.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes and no. I was a Suffragette already, down in Kent, though I never talked about it much to my family or to Reg. When I was desperate it was my friends there who helped me. One of them put me in touch with the Women’s Social and Political Union, the WSPU, in Wandsworth, and they helped me find my flat.” She smiled and then frowned. “Reg was furious when I said I was going. I ran away at night. But I was scared he’d find me. London seemed the best place to go so I could disappear. The best place to find a job and start again.”

  “Did you?”

  Louisa nodded. “I got a job as an assistant in a hat shop. Deathly dull. I was thrilled when I saw the Gardens ad in the Times.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Six months I’ve been in London now.”

  “All alone?”

  “I found a whole new family with the Suffragettes here.”

  Ivy beamed at her. “That’s how I feel, too,” she said. “Those women are like my sisters and my mothers and my friends all rolled into one. They’ve been so good to me—and Ma. When Dad does one of his disappearing acts, they’re always on hand. Especially now, when we’re not really active anymore.”

  Louisa nodded. “Did you do much?” she said, curious about how young Ivy was and wondering how involved she had been. “When things were happening?”

  Ivy looked awkward for a second. “Bits and pieces,” she said. “I was only a kid, really. You?”

  Louisa grinned. “Oh yes. I was in every march I could get to. I often traveled into London by train to take part. I smashed windows. I threw potatoes at Mr. Churchill.”

  “You never did,” breathed Ivy. “You don’t seem the type.”

  “I was very angry with men,” Louisa said. “Not men individually, you understand, though trust me, I’ve had my moments of sheer fury at Reg. But more the world of men. The world being built for men, by men. You see?”

  “I do see,” Ivy said.

  “Sometimes things went too far, though,” Louisa went on. “They burned the tea pavilion here, you know? And destroyed the orchid house.”

  Ivy shifted on the hard rock. “I heard.”

  “Course, two of them went to jail for it. Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton.”

  “Yes, that’s right. They weren’t inside for long, though, I heard.”

  Louisa lowered her voice. “They said there was someone else with them that night who got away with it.” Her eyes gleamed with the thrill of it. “They never found the other person.”

  “Need a hand, ladies?”

  Ivy and Louisa jumped as Bernie approached.

  “Good Lord, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Heavens, Bernie, we were chatting and didn’t notice you coming,” said Louisa. She hoped he’d not heard their talk of arson and jail and throwing things at politicians.

  “Mac said I should come and help you out,” Bernie said. He looked miserable, Louisa noticed now. As though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I think he’s annoyed with me, because I pushed the mower over some seedlings this morning and then I dug up the wrong flower bed.”

  Louisa and Ivy both stared at him. The jobs they were doing were so simple a child could do them. They were both feeling frustrated they weren’t being entrusted with more complicated tasks, while Bernie was struggling with the easy ones?

  “I’m worried he’s going to sack me,” Bernie carried on, running his fingers through his mop of hair. “And I need this job, I really need it.”

  Louisa took pity on him. “Come on, then,” she said. “Let’s get shifting the last of these rocks. It’s not hard and we’ll be done quicker with you helping.”

  Bernie looked grateful. “Thanks so much,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  Bernie hadn’t been exaggerating when he told the women he was worried about his job. He seemed to be making endless mistakes every day and while Mac was being tolerant for now, he wasn’t sure how long it was going to last.

  He’d read and reread A Year in My Garden and asked all the right questions about flowers and plants, but somehow there seemed to be a disconnect between his brain and his body when it came to physical work. He’d always been clumsy, even as a child, but it had never mattered in the classroom as a pupil or when he’d been teaching. Dropping the occasional book or breaking a piece of chalk was nothing compared to mowing down some carefully cultivated seedlings or digging up the wrong patch of a flower bed.

  He sighed. He was devouring the newspapers every day, checking for any mention of the proposed conscription act. It was said that some jobs would be considered essential and the people doing those roles would be exempt from being enlisted. It was ironic, he thought, that teaching was almost certain to be considered essential. He just had to hope that when push came to shove, gardening at Kew would be, too. Though he doubted it would be.

  “Are you with us?” Ivy’s voice snapped him out of his self-pity. “There are more rocks to shift.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Point me in the right direction then.”

  He followed Ivy’s lead and, with some effort, lifted one of the rocks, staggering slightly under its weight. He looked at the women with a certain amount of admiration. Ivy was tiny but wiry and her slight frame obviously hid strong muscles. And Louisa was more sturdily built but still smaller than he. He would never have imagined women capable of such physical work. Though, he admitted to himself, he had never really spent much time with women. Other than his mother when he was very young, of course, and then Vivienne.

  He shook his head. This was no time to be thinking of Vivienne. Not when he should be concentrating.

  With a grunt, he dropped the rock onto the flower bed. Across the garden, Mac—who’d been watching Bernie’s efforts—straightened up.

  “Careful there,” he called. “Place the rocks down. You’ll know about it if it lands on your toes.”

  Bernie closed his eyes briefly and Louisa nudged him.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Honestly, we’re all just learning.”

  “You’re both so much more capable than I am.”

  She grinned. “We both grew up around gardens and farms,” she pointed out. “I was working in the hops fields and in the orchards as soon as I could walk. And Ivy’s tagged along with her dad since she was tiny.”

  “I’ve been reading a book,” Ber
nie said, eager to please these kind women. “About gardens. I want to know more.”

  Ivy put down the last rock and stood back, wiping the earth from her palms.

  “Not sure what books can teach you about gardening,” she said. “You have to feel it. Get your hands in the dirt.”

  There was a glint in her eye that Bernie liked. He’d seen it occasionally when he’d been teaching, when boys had really grasped the beauty of the language in the Iliad or the Odyssey, or when they’d understood how wonderful the poetry of Catullus could be. He’d never seen it with regards to something so physical, though. Something so . . . he sought the word . . . so real.

  “What plants will go in here?” he asked. “I can look them up.”

  Ivy thought for a moment. “Probably won’t plant most things until the spring,” she said. “But they needed those rocks shifting.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  Ivy’s cheeks flushed, but Bernie didn’t know why.

  “Some are from the tea pavilion. It burned down a while back.”

  “Shame.”

  “Good that they’re making use of the rubble,” Louisa said quickly. Bernie looked at her. She seemed awkward, too. Was it something he’d said? He shifted on his feet, which were beginning to ache.

  “Will it stay empty, then? The rock garden?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Not completely. For now, maybe Mac will put in a few shrubs. Alpines, you know?”

  Bernie didn’t know really, but he nodded as though he did.

  “Think Mac wants to put a couple of conifers in at the back, too. Just little ones. They’ll need keeping an eye on, though, because they grow like buggers.”

  Bernie tried not to look surprised at Ivy’s language but obviously failed because she laughed at his expression, and the tension that had fallen over their little group lifted, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

  “Got your lunch?” she said.

  Bernie nodded.

  “Let’s eat.”

  They all cleaned their hands and sat down in the shade of a tree to eat.