The Kew Gardens Girls

by Posy Lovell

“What books have you been reading?” Louisa asked politely.

  “A Year in My Garden,” Bernie said. “It goes through the seasons. It’s a wonderful book. I’m learning so much.”

  Ivy snorted. “You can’t learn gardening from books,” she said again, more adamantly than she’d said it before.

  “I’ve picked up a few bits,” Bernie said, but Ivy glared at him in defiance.

  “Oh really? Tell me what you know.”

  Once again he was transported back to the classroom, the smell of chalk dust in his nostrils and a mouthy pupil arguing that there was no point in learning the classics.

  Feeling his heart begin to beat faster, he breathed in deeply and blinked, and forced himself to feel the grass beneath his legs and the sun on his face and smell the deep earthy scent of Kew. He was fine. He was safe.

  Louisa was watching him, her brow etched with concern. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You disappeared there for a moment.”

  “I’m fine,” he said, looking down at the sandwich his landlady had made him that morning. “Just some bad memories, is all.”

  Ivy looked distraught. “Was it me?” she said. “Did I say something wrong? Sorry, Bernie.”

  He smiled at her, eager to reassure her that the problem was with him, not her.

  “I had a bit of trouble in my old job,” he said, choosing his words with care. “I got ill and then I couldn’t work there anymore.”

  “What did you do?” Louisa’s eyes were sharp.

  “I taught classics,” he said. “At a rather old and serious boys’ school called St. Richard’s.”

  “That’s why you love books so much,” Ivy said, as though she’d cracked a code, and Bernie found himself chuckling at her triumphant expression. It was the first time he’d laughed properly for months and months.

  “It is,” he agreed. He reached over and grabbed his bag. “Let me show you my garden book. You can have a look for yourself and see if you think it’s useful.”

  He opened his bag and as he did, a gust of wind swept through the trees and lifted a bundle of paper that was inside, scattering the pages across the rock garden and the lawn beyond.

  “Oh bloody hell,” Bernie said in horror, leaping to his feet. Across the way, Mac was sitting with some of the regular gardeners, and he got up, too.

  “For heaven’s sake, Bernie,” he shouted. “Catch those papers.”

  Bernie looked round in despair. There were pages everywhere—scattered so widely and still dancing around in the wind that he didn’t know which direction to run in first. Then Ivy appeared at his elbow and squeezed his arm.

  “I’ll go that way,” she said, pointing toward Mac and the other gardeners. “You get the ones in the rock garden and, Lou, you head for the rhododendrons.”

  Bernie smiled in gratitude, and veered off toward the rocks, catching pages as he went. He hoped Louisa and Ivy wouldn’t read any of his writing. He fancied himself as something of a poet, but his work wouldn’t stand up to being read. Not yet.

  “Got them,” Louisa sang from the bushes. “Oof, no, here’s another one.” She was laughing as she chased the pages. Her cheeks were flushed; her hair was escaping from its bun. Her forehead had lost the worried frown she often wore and she looked younger than her years. Bernie smiled as he watched her and then mimicked her dancing steps to catch the pages in the rock garden, darting this way and that.

  “My fault, Mac,” Ivy said gleefully. She was enjoying this unexpected exercise, too, Bernie thought. “I knocked over Bernie’s bag.”

  That’s not true at all, Bernie thought, watching as Mac—who was obviously very fond of Ivy, despite his feelings about female gardeners—tutted at her in an indulgent fashion and caught one of the runaway pages himself.

  “Here you go,” Ivy said, appearing in front of him. “Got them all.” She thrust the pages at him all higgledy-piggledy.

  “Thank you,” he said. “And thank you for taking the blame with Mac.”

  She shrugged. “Wasn’t your fault, and I didn’t want him getting the hump with you.”

  “It was nice,” Bernie said.

  Louisa arrived, her pages more neatly arranged in her hands.

  “Here,” she said, her bright eyes looking at the words scrawled across the paper. “Are you a writer?”

  Bernie felt himself flush with embarrassment.

  “I write poetry,” he said, stammering over his words. “I find it helps. When I have troubling thoughts.”

  Louisa nodded. “Did you write when you were having a difficult time at work?”

  Bernie winced, thinking of the love poems he’d written to Vivi. The poems where he’d opened his heart and told her how he felt about her. And which she’d left in the staff room for everyone to see. His ears started to thunder with the sound of the laughter that had followed him round school for weeks.

  “Sorry,” Louisa said, thankfully stopping the noise in his head and clearly realizing he didn’t want to talk about it—couldn’t talk about it, not really.

  “S’all right,” Bernie muttered.

  “Show me the book,” Louisa said, changing the subject. “Let’s finish lunch and you can show us the book you’ve been learning from. I’m sure Ivy will have some opinions she wants to share.”

  Relieved that the moment had passed, Bernie sat down again and carefully pushed the papers into his bag. He took out A Year in My Garden and then fastened the straps so his pages couldn’t escape again.

  “It’s a lovely read,” he said. “I had it on my shelf before I even visited Kew. Wonderful descriptions of the flowers.”

  “We’re going to be doing the herbaceous borders later,” Louisa said. “Only weeding, but they’re looking glorious at the moment. What does it say about those?”

  Bernie was aware Louisa was being kind, trying to get him to chat about things he was comfortable with instead of asking questions about school, but instead of being embarrassed he found he was pleased. Grateful for her kindness. And, to his surprise, keen to talk.

  He found the right page in the book and read out a small passage describing some of the flowers. Ivy was sitting a little way away from them and stayed quiet, but she was clearly listening carefully.

  “That’s right, actually,” she said. “Peonies are like that. I love the way they disappear over winter and then sneak up on you. They’re crafty. It’s good.”

  Bernie held out the book. “Do you want to see?”

  Ivy shook her head.

  “Honestly, have a look. There are even some photographs. And a whole section on peonies, for you to read.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Have a look.”

  Ivy glowered at him. “Leave it, Bernie,” she snapped.

  There was a pause and they all looked at one another.

  “What’s wrong, Ivy?” Louisa asked.

  Ivy looked away, suddenly seeming very young and once more reminding Bernie of his sulkiest pupils. “I just don’t want to look at the book.”

  Louisa and Bernie exchanged a glance. Louisa’s eyes were full of understanding while Bernie was fairly sure his just looked confused. What was happening here?

  “Ivy,” Louisa said gently, “can you read?”

  “What?” Ivy said. “Course.”

  “Really?”

  There was another pause. Bernie could hear the shouts of the gardeners across the way, but everything seemed quiet where they were.

  Ivy looked up at the blue sky. “No,” she said. “I can’t read.”

  * * *

  Ivy hugged her knees into her chest and waited for Bernie or Louisa to say something. She couldn’t believe she’d just blurted out her secret. It wasn’t quite the thing she was most ashamed of in the whole world, that was something different, but it wasn’t anything to be proud of. She couldn’t
bring herself to meet their eyes in case they were looking disgusted.

  “Ivy?” Louisa said gently. She touched Ivy’s arm. “Ivy, it’s all right.”

  Slowly, Ivy looked up.

  “Tisn’t all right,” she said. “It just makes me feel so stupid. Even my little brothers and sisters can read, but I just never went to school enough. I was always with Dad at the market. Or running wild down on the Hackney Marshes.”

  She looked straight at Louisa. “I never let on to the Suffragettes,” she said. “Not once. I just avoided all the banners and placards and all that stuff. Made myself useful in other ways.”

  Louisa nodded. “I bet you were more than useful,” she said. “They’re lucky to have you.”

  Ivy gave her a small smile.

  “You’re a Suffragette?” Bernie said, startled.

  Ivy shushed him. “Don’t tell Mac. He hates us.”

  Bernie looked at Louisa, his eyebrows raised. “You, too?”

  “Shh.”

  He smiled. “None of my business.”

  Looking relieved, Louisa turned back to Ivy. “Does Jim know?”

  Ivy was still thinking of the Suffragettes, so when Louisa mentioned Jim, she winced and wrapped her arms around herself. Louisa was still looking at her, though, and she realized with a start that she meant did Jim know about her not being able to read. Not the other thing.

  “Jim knows. He showed me the ad in the paper and I couldn’t read it and he twigged, like you did, Lou.”

  “What did he say?”

  Ivy remembered how awful she’d felt when Jim had worked out why she avoided certain situations and then how relieved and loved she’d felt when he’d simply shrugged.

  “He says some things are harder for some people,” she said. “He read out the ad, and he wrote the application letter for me. He’s got lovely writing, Jim has.”

  “You’re bright as a button, Ivy,” Louisa said. “I don’t believe for one minute that reading is harder for you than it is for anyone else. I imagine you’ve simply not had a proper chance to learn.”

  Ivy was chuffed with Louisa’s praise, which she felt she didn’t deserve. She felt her cheeks flush with pride.

  “Nah, don’t count on it,” she said, embarrassed. “I’m slow as anything.”

  “Ladies,” said Mac, coming up behind them and ignoring the fact that Bernie was there, too. “I need you weeding the borders. Let’s get on, shall we?”

  Pleased to have an excuse to abandon the awkward conversation, Ivy jumped up and brushed off her skirt.

  “Come on, then,” she said.

  Weeding the borders was boring and hot, kneeling down in the earth in the summer sun, being careful not to squash any of the flowers that were in full bloom. But Ivy enjoyed it. She had meant what she said to Bernie before—she did think gardening was about getting your hands in the dirt, smelling the earth and feeling part of something.

  The three of them worked in contented silence for most of the afternoon, sharing observations with one another when they felt like it, but mostly happily getting on with the job, listening to the birdsong.

  “It’s so nice to be quiet,” Louisa said eventually. “When I first came to London it was the noise that I couldn’t bear. All the people and the horses and the shouting; it was too much for a country girl like me. I sometimes find it hard to believe we’re still in the city when we’re here.”

  Ivy raised an eyebrow. “You want to come to our house if you want to hear noise,” she said. “All the kids playing, and Ma shouting, and Dad grumbling about something.”

  Bernie was standing, a faraway look in his eye.

  “When I had my trouble I had a constant noise in my head. A voice telling me how stupid I’d been. How everyone was laughing at me.”

  Ivy glanced at Louisa. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of Bernie, who seemed both fragile and strong at the same time. She wondered what kind of trouble he’d been in.

  “My school was in East Sussex, you know. Close to the sea.”

  “Nice.”

  He grimaced. “Not once the fighting began. We could hear it. Hear the guns rumbling. It was like a constant reminder that there were men just across the Channel dying. Boys I’d taught, even. People’s brothers, sons, husbands. I hated that I couldn’t get away from the noise.”

  Louisa was busy weeding a patch of delphiniums, her brisk fingers pulling out the tiny strands before they took hold. Now she looked up at Bernie. “Do you still hear it? The noise?”

  Bernie shook his head. “One day, I wandered into a Quaker meeting. Do you know what that is?”

  Both women murmured that they did not.

  “It’s silence,” said Bernie in satisfaction. “It’s quiet and still and sometimes someone speaks, but often they don’t. It felt like coming home.” He looked embarrassed suddenly. “It helped.”

  “Do you still go? Are you a Quaker?” Ivy was glad Louisa had asked, because the way Bernie described his meetings as being like home sounded like the way she felt about her WSPU meetings. Perhaps they had more in common than she’d first thought.

  “I do,” Bernie said. “I am.”

  Louisa nodded. “Good.”

  There was a pause.

  “These are pretty,” Bernie said, changing the subject and gesturing to a small plant with pink flowers.

  Ivy shuddered. “Begonia,” she said.

  “Don’t you like them?” Louisa looked up, interested.

  “They’re pretty enough, but they mean danger, beware.”

  Bernie scoffed. “What?” he said. “How could a pretty little pink flower like this have a meaning like that?”

  “Dunno,” Ivy said. “But it does. Makes me think of the war, Bernie, like you said. Lads I grew up with have gone to fight. My oldest brother is fourteen—he’s already talking about enlisting when he can. Don’t bear thinking about.”

  Bernie looked at the bright blooms with curiosity while Louisa straightened up, rubbing the small of her back.

  “It used to be a thing, didn’t it? The language of flowers,” she said. “I remember my mother and her friends talking about it—how their sweethearts would give them little posies with secret meanings.”

  Ivy was thrilled. “Yes, that’s it. My dad used to tell me about it. And Jim knows so much. He’s been teaching me.”

  “I’d like to learn.” Louisa and Bernie both spoke at once, and they all laughed.

  “Do you think he would teach us?” Louisa added.

  “Course,” said Ivy.

  “What else do you know?” Bernie looked round at the glorious double-width border they were working on. The scent of the flowers was heavy in the air, and bees buzzed round the blooms. “What does this all mean except for a lot of hard work?”

  Ivy chuckled. “Peonies, my favorites, they mean happy marriage,” she said. “I always reckon it’s because there’s stuff going on with a marriage, under the surface, that you don’t know about. Like with peonies in winter.”

  Louisa grimaced, obviously thinking of the things that went on in her marriage that no one knew about, and feeling bad about reminding her, Ivy hurriedly carried on.

  “Snapdragons mean deception,” she said. “Imagine giving someone those.”

  “What about ivy? What does that mean?” Bernie was smiling.

  Ivy felt her cheeks reddening again, and not just because of the sun.

  “Jim says it means fidelity,” she said. “And love.”

  “Maybe it means something completely different and Jim just said it means love to woo you,” teased Louisa.

  Ivy laughed properly this time, a loud guffaw that sent a butterfly circling up in the air. “Sounds like Jim,” she said. “He’s got the gift of the gab, all right.”

  “What else?” Bernie said eagerly.

  “
If you give someone daisies it means you’ll keep their secret.” Ivy fixed Bernie and Louisa with a stern glare. “So imagine you’re giving me them now and you won’t ever tell no one about my reading and writing.”

  Louisa nodded, smiling, but Bernie looked thoughtful.

  “I could teach you,” he said.

  Ivy looked at him. “What?”

  “Teach you how to read.”

  She waved his suggestion away with a dirty hand. “Nah,” she said. “You couldn’t.”

  Bernie lifted his chin. “I’m a good teacher. At least, I was.”

  “I’m sure you are, Bern. But I’m sixteen years old. I reckon if I was going to learn, I’d have done it by now.”

  “You’re a baby, Ivy,” Louisa said. “I think this is a marvelous idea.”

  “I owe you a favor, for taking the blame for my runaway pages,” Bernie said.

  “That was nothing compared with teaching someone like me how to read.”

  “Oh, come on, Ivy. It’s important.”

  She fixed Bernie with a hard stare. “I’ve done all right up until now.”

  “What if Jim hadn’t been around to read that ad for you? Where would you be now?”

  Ivy thought for a moment. She’d probably be scratching a living selling flowers on Columbia Road, trying to keep her dad’s business ticking away while he disappeared again. Or working in a munitions factory like some of her mates, spending long days indoors and never feeling the earth between her fingers.

  “I wouldn’t be here,” she admitted.

  “Let Bernie teach you how to read,” Louisa urged. “And you and Jim can teach Bernie and me about the language of flowers.”

  Ivy knew when she was beaten. “Fine,” she said. “You can have a go, but I’m warning you. I won’t get it.”

  Bernie looked excited. “I’ll start with the letters,” he began, but Ivy gave him a nudge that was perhaps a bit harder than it needed to be.

  “I know my letters,” she said. “Well, most of them anyway. I’m not a baby. It’s just putting them all together that I struggle with.”

  Bernie chuckled. It was a nice sound and Ivy and Louisa couldn’t help but laugh, too.