Doom and Bloom

by H. Y. Hanna

  “The villagers have been so kind,” Ursula said with a grateful smile as her eyes roved over the various stalls. “Some have brought home-made cakes and jams and things, and others have volunteered to run the games, and they’ve all offered to donate the proceeds from their sales to SOAR. We’re hoping to buy a new van to transport the animals to their foster homes, you see.”

  “I think I just funded half your van with the amount I spent at the coconut shy,” said Poppy with a laugh. “But it was worth every penny. I only moved to Bunnington a few weeks ago and this is the first village fête I’ve been to—and I’m having a fantastic time!”

  Ursula smiled. “Thank you. It’s my first time organising an event of this scale and I’m delighted with how it’s turned out. Charitable organisations rely on fundraising events so this kind of organisational experience is crucial for someone who wants a position on the committee.” She gave Poppy a curious look. “You said you only moved to Bunnington recently…?”

  “Yes, I inherited Hollyhock Cottage and the attached garden nursery—”

  “Oh! You’re Mary Lancaster’s long-lost granddaughter!” cried Ursula.

  Poppy flushed slightly. “Yes, I suppose—”

  “What a coincidence! You’re the very person I’ve been wanting to see. I heard that you were coming to the fête so I’ve been hoping to bump into you—I’m so glad to have found you at last.”

  “You were looking for me?” said Poppy in surprise.

  “Yes, I—” Ursula broke off as a pair of paramedics hurried into the marquee, carrying a stretcher and other medical supplies.

  Norman looked mortified and protested loudly as they attempted to carry him out on the stretcher. He flatly refused to go to the hospital, no matter how much Ursula pleaded with him.

  “This is ridiculous! I’ve had a small knock to the head, that is all—there is no need to go to hospital for that,” he insisted. “All I need is to rest for a bit, just until my headache lifts.”

  At last, they reached a compromise where the paramedics examined Norman as best as they could and then left him with some strong painkillers, instructions to take things easy, and a stern warning to go to the hospital immediately if he experienced any serious concussion symptoms. As soon as they’d left, Norman stood up and made to leave the marquee.

  “Norman! Where are you going?” cried Ursula, putting a hand on his arm.

  “I must go to my car to retrieve the items for the raffle,” said Norman. “I’ve brought several pieces from my antique shop to donate—”

  “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere, other than into the manor house to lie down,” said Ursula firmly. “You heard what the paramedics said. You need to rest and take things easy, not go around lugging heavy boxes.”

  “But—”

  “I can go and collect the things, if you like,” Poppy offered. “If you just tell me where your car is parked and give me the keys…?”

  Norman dug into his suit jacket pocket and handed her a set of car keys. “It’s parked right at the end of the field, underneath the elm tree. There are some ceramic items so—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take the greatest care,” Poppy promised, taking the keys and heading out of the marquee.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Several minutes later, Poppy walked slowly back from the carpark, carrying a cardboard box. She headed for the table beside the podium where the other donations for the raffle were being displayed. Included amongst the prizes was a large bouquet of fresh flowers that she had cut from her own cottage garden that morning. As she approached the table, Poppy was surprised to see that the group of women standing around the table were actually admiring her bouquet.

  “It’s just gorgeous, isn’t it? So nice to see a simple bunch of country flowers in an arrangement,” said one lady.

  “Yes, one gets so tired of all those strange exotic things that you get at the florists nowadays,” agreed her friend, making a face. “Monstera and eucalyptus and whatnot…”

  “I always prefer to buy British and this is exactly the kind of thing I’m always looking for: a nice, simple bouquet of cottage garden favourites,” said a third lady. She turned the arrangement to look at it from all angles. “This one really is fabulous. Look at the way they’ve combined the colours and even tucked in some ivy on the sides—”

  “Oh yes, that’s very clever!”

  “I love the looser style of the arrangement too,” said the first lady. “Not like those perfect, stiff bouquets that you get from florists. This one looks as if you’ve just picked these flowers yourself from the garden and tied them together.”

  “Mmm… yes, lovely!”

  Poppy flushed with pleasure as she listened to their compliments. She hesitated, wondering if she should go over and tell them she had created the arrangement. Before she could make up her mind, however, the women turned and wandered off. As they moved away, Poppy noticed a stout lady in her sixties who had been standing a bit farther beyond them, grouping and arranging items to display them to the best effect in the hampers. Poppy realised that it was Mrs Peabody—one of the worst busybodies and biggest gossips in the village—and began to beat a hasty retreat, but it was too late. The woman had seen her.

  “Ah—Poppy… I haven’t seen you out and about in the village in days! Been busy with the cottage garden, have you?”

  “Er… yes, well… you know my grandmother’s property was very neglected and the garden was terribly overgrown. It’s taken me a while to get on top of it. Actually, I’m still not completely done,” Poppy said with a rueful smile. “There are still some things—like that monster rambling rose at the back of the garden and some overgrown ivy on the walls—that I haven’t had the heart to tackle yet. But it’s a lot better than it was.”

  “And I understand that your friend Mrs Hopkins has come to live with you at Hollyhock Cottage,” said Mrs Peabody with a sniff. “She certainly hasn’t wasted time in making herself known in the village.”

  Poppy hid a smile. Oh dear. Maybe Nell’s bid for the Top Hen position was ruffling a few feathers after all.

  “Is it true that Mrs Hopkins used to be your landlady back in London?” Mrs Peabody asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  Mrs Peabody raised her eyebrows. “Your landlady? And now she’s living with you?”

  “Well, Nell has been wonderful—she helped to nurse my mother during her illness, and she’s been so good to me since Mum passed away last year. She’s really become more like family now.”

  “But of course, you still have your real family to find, don’t you?” said Mrs Peabody quickly, with a gleam in her eye. “Surely you haven’t given up your search for your father?”

  Poppy sighed inwardly. She should have known that Mrs Peabody would start asking about her father again. The woman never missed an opportunity to pry into her background.

  “Well, it was never much of a search to begin with, since I know so little about him,” she said. “I mean, it’s really like looking for a needle in a haystack. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  She didn’t add, though, that she still couldn’t quite break the habit of buying celebrity magazines whenever she could and flipping eagerly through the pages, searching the faces of male musicians for signs of similarity to her own features. To her relief, however, Mrs Peabody seemed happy to abandon the subject of her father, returning instead to the topic of the cottage garden nursery.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing it when you officially reopen the nursery—and to being able to purchase plants in Bunnington again,” said Mrs Peabody, rubbing her hands. “So… when will you be opening?”

  “Oh… um… I don’t know yet,” Poppy mumbled. “I’m… ah… still working on some things. You know… er… laying the groundwork…”

  She felt embarrassed to admit that she was struggling with the practical aspects of setting up and running a garden business. She had borrowed a pile of books from the local library and dutifully re
ad them from cover to cover, as well as spent hours online researching plant growing, propagation, and “running a nursery business”. She had tried to absorb all the information on business plans and plant licences, horticultural qualifications and gardening equipment, seed stratification and bottom heat, potting mixes and soil amendment… but all the research seemed to have done was make her feel even more intimidated. Now she felt too paralysed by the fear of “getting it wrong” to even take the first step.

  Besides, even if she had felt confident about the business aspects of running a nursery, she was still stuck on a basic practical level. Her grandmother had specialised in cottage garden plants—flowers, herbs, and other traditional favourites—and that was what people would expect to find when they came to the re-opened nursery. After a rocky start, Poppy had slowly got the hang of sowing and planting seeds. She had a new batch of seedlings that seemed to be growing well, but most of them were perennials that wouldn’t be mature enough to sell until spring next year, at the earliest. In fact, with autumn just around the corner and winter creeping up soon after that—a time when people retreated indoors and did very little in the garden—she had no idea how she was going to bring in an income.

  When she had received that letter about her unexpected inheritance, Poppy hadn’t expected to come to Oxfordshire and fall in love with the little stone cottage and the wild, romantic garden surrounding it. She had impulsively decided to stay and resurrect the nursery business that had been in her family for generations—even though the sensible thing would have been to sell up and take the money. However, since then, not a day had gone by when Poppy hadn’t wondered if she had made the right decision. With no gardening skills or naturally green fingers, no experience of running a business, and barely any savings to her name… had she been naïve and reckless to think that she could take over her grandmother’s cottage garden nursery? It was a worry that had kept her awake at night more and more in the past few weeks and now she squirmed under Mrs Peabody’s shrewd gaze.

  “There’s no shame in admitting that you’re feeling overwhelmed, especially if you’ve never had any experience of gardening or running a business before. Don’t be like your grandmother, dear,” said Mrs Peabody tartly. “She was a great plantswoman and gardener, but her pride was her downfall. She was always too proud to accept help or advice, too stubborn to admit that she might have made a mistake or done things wrong—and it cost her both her family and her health in the end.”

  Poppy swallowed, thinking of the gardening job she had just completed for John and Amber Smitheringale, a wealthy young couple who had bought a country home in the village recently. That had nearly turned into an absolute disaster because—it was true—she had been too embarrassed to admit her inexperience and too proud to ask for help when she had run into trouble. Thankfully, it had all ended up okay in the end, but she had learned a valuable lesson.

  She took a deep breath and turned to Mrs Peabody with a shamefaced smile. “You’re right… I am struggling a bit. Well, more than a bit, actually. I don’t know what to do—I want to re-open the nursery but I don’t have anything to sell! It’s too late in the season to start growing flowering plants, and by the time they’re ready, it will be autumn and nobody will be planting anything in the garden—”

  “They will if it’s winter bedding plants.”

  “Winter bedding plants?”

  “Yes, things like pansies and violas and primroses that will flower in colder weather and early spring. And you could grow cyclamens—those are always popular in winter. People love having colour that they can bring indoors, to liven up the dark winter days.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know… I was just thinking of the traditional cottage garden flowers, like hollyhocks and foxgloves and sweet peas and things. You know, the things that I’ve seen in the garden…”

  “Ah… but you do know that gardens change?” said Mrs Peabody with a smile. “What you see now isn’t going to be the same in a month’s time. There will be different plants coming into their own and blooming. Dahlias, for instance, will be just starting to flower now, and rudbeckias too. Gardens aren’t a static thing, dear. They change with the seasons. So there will be different plants that you can provide at different times.”

  “Yes, I see that now.” Poppy felt her spirits lift, her optimism returning. “Okay, I’ll sow some seeds for winter bedding plants as soon as I get back. Thanks for telling me!” she said enthusiastically.

  Mrs Peabody put out a restraining hand. “But you know, dear… personally, I think you’re trying to do too much. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Maybe it’s too ambitious to want to immediately re-open the nursery the way your grandmother had it. She had years of experience and knowledge. You need to learn how to grow plants well first and that takes time, and lots of trial and error. But you can make things easier for yourself, you know. For example, there’s no need for you to grow everything from seed.”

  “But… but isn’t that what nurseries do?” asked Poppy, bewildered.

  “Well, technically, yes—nurseries propagate plants from seeds and cuttings. But many nurseries also buy in plug plants which they grow into bigger plants to sell. Then you don’t need to worry about germinating and pricking out seedlings and all that nonsense.” Mrs Peabody made a face. “It’s a terribly fussy business and half the seeds never seem to germinate, and then the remaining seedlings die for no apparent reason or simply don’t grow very well.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what happened to me!” Poppy exclaimed. “I’ve finally managed to get one batch of seeds sprouted and growing well, but they’re still really tiny and I keep wondering if they’ll make it.”

  Mrs Peabody nodded emphatically. “That’s why I say you need to get plug plants, dear.”

  “Plug plants?”

  “Baby plants. You can get them very cheaply; I’ve picked up a tray or two from the garden centre myself a couple of times. It’s a very economical way to plant up a flowerbed, you know. And I imagine you could get them cheaper from the wholesale plant suppliers,” she added. “I’m sure your grandmother must have a list of suppliers that she’s dealt with. Even she didn’t grow every one of her plants herself from seed or cutting, you know.”

  “But… if people are coming to a nursery, won’t they mind that the plants haven’t been produced there from scratch?” asked Poppy, still unsure.

  Mrs Peabody waved a hand. “Who’s to know? People don’t care about the details, dear. They just want something easy and pretty to plant in their gardens. Of course, they could get the plug plants themselves—like I have—but most people don’t want the hassle of waiting for the plants to grow on. Everyone is dreadfully impatient, you know—especially young people nowadays. They always want everything available immediately and can’t seem to bear waiting for anything! I’m sure they’d be more than happy to pay someone else to grow them a bigger plant that they can put straight into their gardens.”

  Poppy digested all this, feeling like she was suddenly getting a new perspective. Starting with plug plants is like learning to ride a bicycle with training wheels, she told herself with a smile. Once I get the hang of growing bigger plants, I can try doing things myself from scratch!

  She looked at Mrs Peabody and felt a sudden surge of gratitude, and also of shame for her earlier uncharitable thoughts about the woman. Mrs Peabody might have been a nosy old biddy and a dreadful gossip, but she was also kind and unexpectedly wise. Poppy started to thank her but the older woman turned towards the box from Norman’s car and said briskly:

  “Hmm… right, now, let’s see—what have you got there? Ah… those are from Norman Smalle’s antique shop, aren’t they?” She took each item as Poppy began unloading them from the box. “Hmm… hmm… yes, lovely old clock, this… and these glass paperweights are always popular… oh, and he’s included a pair of bookends—very nice—and these little china figurines are very pretty too…”

  Poppy retrieved the last item at the bottom of the box and
looked at it curiously. It was some kind of knife, with a chunky wooden handle and a curved blade with a hooked tip. It looked almost like a miniature sickle, and as she turned it in her hand, she realised that the blade could be folded into the wooden handle.

  “Is this some kind of pocket knife?” she asked.

  “Oh no, dear, that’s a pruning knife,” said Mrs Peabody. “You don’t see so many around anymore—I suppose people mostly use secateurs or pruning shears now—but back when I was a little girl, most gardeners and farmers had one of these. You can do so much with them, you see—prune roses and trim branches from trees and shrubs, harvest things from the vegetable patch, deadhead flowers, cut up twine…”

  “Wow, this thing can do all that?” said Poppy, looking down at the knife.

  “Oh yes, it’s very sharp. Cuts through most things in the garden. Look…” Mrs Peabody took the knife and pressed it gently against one of the wooden spools that held a roll of ribbon. Poppy was impressed to see it slice right through the rim, as if the wood was soft butter.

  “You have to be so careful with those, you know! My father once nearly cut off his finger with his pruning knife.”

  Poppy turned to see who had joined them and recognised the hysterical woman who had thought that Norman was a murder victim. Sonia—yes, that was her name, Poppy recalled. She was very thin, almost bony, with frizzy orange hair and a pale face that seemed perpetually puckered in a worried frown. She wrung her hands as she eyed the pruning knife and said in a breathless voice:

  “You know, it’s very bad luck to give a knife as a gift—having this as part of the raffle prizes is a terrible omen! It could bring pain and misfortune on all those who buy a raffle ticket!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Hush! What nonsense!” said Mrs Peabody loudly, giving a forced laugh and looking quickly around to see if any members of the public had heard. She lowered her voice and hissed: “Really, Sonia, you must stop believing in these silly superstitions, and you certainly shouldn’t be repeating them!” She frowned at the thin woman. “You would think, as a member of the committee, you’d understand how important it is to encourage the public to donate. This raffle has been fantastic for raising funds and the last thing we need is for the public to hear any bad associations with—”