The Garden of Forgotten Wishes: The heartwarming and uplifting new rom-com from the Sunday Times bestseller

by Trisha Ashley

  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 seemed to have almost worn off – and Cress, too, who seemed to be interested in everything, like an eager puppy. It reminded me of happy evenings spent at the pub near Honeywood Horticultural College when we were students, unwinding at the end of a strenuous day. Looking up, I thought Ned had the same thought, because he gave me a friendly, uncomplicated smile, as though he was really seeing me clearly for the first time since those long-ago days.

  16

  Heartfelt

  Our gazes met … and held, as I remembered a time when life seemed like an open garden, in which you could sow anything you wanted to, and nothing was complicated …

  But then the moment was broken by Cress’s phone ringing loudly, or rather, neighing loudly. I didn’t even know you could get that as a ringtone! Maybe I could have Caspar snoring as mine. Not, of course, that anyone much was likely to ring me, since I’d shared my new number with only my employers, Treena, the family and my solicitor.

  Cress listened to her caller gloomily and then clicked off the phone and got up, shrugging into her waxed jacket, which had seen better days, most of them while being worn by someone much larger.

  ‘Have to go. Apparently Mummy’s in a flap,’ she said in her posh but gloomy deepish voice. ‘A family had booked to stay tonight and didn’t turn up, so we thought they weren’t coming. But now they’ve arrived – they got lost and then stopped somewhere for dinner. The beds are made up anyway, but I need to go and book them in.’

  When she’d loped off, I said, ‘She’s very nice – I like her.’

  ‘Yes, so do I – and she leads a dog’s life with that mother of hers. Cress adores Risings, even though it has no architectural merit whatsoever that I can see, but there’s no money, hence the bed and breakfast. Audrey shuts herself away in a separate wing and pretends it isn’t happening.’

  ‘That’s not very helpful,’ I said. ‘I told you my sister, Treena, is a vet, didn’t I? And she’s often called out to Risings to look at the two Pekes, though it’s always something like indigestion.’

  Two Pekes – Twin Peaks, said the random weird voice in my head, but I kept that one firmly to myself.

  ‘I can imagine Audrey would call her out at great expense, rather than take the dogs to the surgery,’ Ned said. ‘Cress’s father died when she was a baby, but her grandfather adored her and he scraped up enough money to send her to some posh boarding school or other, where you could take your own pony with you. But then the money ran out and she came home. She did take her British Horse Society teaching qualifications, though, and gives advanced riding lessons – once she’s cooked breakfast for any visitors.’

  ‘I must ask Treena if her horse is at livery at the same stables and she knows her.’

  ‘Cress likes to keep hers handy, at the farm behind Risings, so she can slip out for a ride as often as possible. They don’t do lunches or evening meals at Risings, but people can eat here, or at one of the guesthouses up the road. The village starts to come alive from Easter, when the schools break up, in fact, any minute now—’ He broke off and suddenly looked anguished, then ran his long fingers through his mane of hair. ‘Oh God, we open the garden a week today!’

  ‘Yes, I know, you said so earlier.’

  A middle-aged couple, who had just wandered in, spotted him and did a double take. I suppose he’s used to people knowing him from the telly … and all that publicity. They didn’t come over, though, just sat in a distant corner and pretended they weren’t looking at him. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.

  Quite suddenly voices were raised in argument from the darts room and Mr Posset came out from behind the bar in a purposeful way and stood in the entrance, looking at the players.

  We heard him say: ‘What’s all this? I’ll have no arguing and tempers in my pub – and no, I don’t want to know if anyone was cheating at darts. Wayne, if you use that sort of language again, out you go!’

  Wayne came pushing rudely past him, shrugging into a leather jacket. ‘I’m off to Thorstane, anyway. The beer’s better at the Pike and so’s the company.’

  He slouched out and, as he passed, cast us a dark look, as if his behaviour was our fault.

  ‘The local bad boy,’ said Ned. ‘None of the Vanes from Cross Ways are exactl
y a bundle of joy, but at least they’re mostly hard-working and honest. It’s odd to think that the Graces – and the Lordly-Graces – are even remotely related to them.’

  ‘I must read that chapter in Elf’s book,’ I said, thinking that it was even more important that I keep my much closer relationship to the Vanes a secret.

  I wondered how many generations ago this elopement had taken place and, suddenly, I really wanted to go home and read that story!

  ‘I suppose I should be heading back,’ I told Ned.

  ‘Stay and have one last drink with me first,’ he urged. ‘The great thing about going out in Jericho’s End is that no one cares if I was on the telly or not, or thinks I did any of the stuff in the papers … possibly excepting Wayne.’

  I sincerely hoped he didn’t spot the couple at the corner table, who were still covertly watching him, as if they expected him to stand up and perform magic tricks any second.

  ‘I’m just Ned Mars from the Hall, who they’ve known for ever – even before my parents were killed, because I spent most of the school holidays here.’

  ‘When the garden opens, there’s bound to be some publicity and your name will be linked with it,’ I felt compelled to warn him. ‘I expect it’s already on the website?’

  He grimaced. ‘Yes, and I expect there will be some curiosity seekers who come to goggle at me, not the garden, but there were lots of lovely people who supported me and didn’t believe any of that muck the tabloids raked together, and they’ll probably be interested in what I’m doing now.’

  ‘I should use any publicity to increase visitor numbers, since it’s bound to happen anyway,’ I suggested. ‘Eventually it’ll all be forgotten and only genuine people, interested in gardens, and holidaymakers doing the rounds of the local attractions, will visit.’

  ‘It wasn’t possible to hide totally anyway, because my name was still on my Little Edens website. But I’m going to stay out of camera shot as much as I can.’

  ‘Me, too. You might recall I never wanted to be on camera in the old days at Honeywood and I certainly don’t now.’

  He grinned. ‘You were the most reluctant extra ever in that documentary! But are you still camera shy, or are you afraid your ex will spot you? Didn’t you tell me he’d married again?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sure he’s long since lost any interest in knowing where I am. It’s just that, however illogical it might be, I’d prefer that he didn’t know.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ he said, and somehow, over another drink, we found ourselves opening up to each other about our past experiences with unreasonably jealous and controlling partners.

  I told him how ashamed I’d felt that I, an independent – not to say spiky and determined – character, came to be sucked into a coercive relationship because I’d only gradually realized what was happening.

  ‘At first – well, I thought we were in love and it took time to build a relationship. And it did, but not the sort of relationship I’d had in mind,’ I said. ‘He managed to alienate me from my friends and even from my family for a time – except Treena. And she discovered his first wife had killed herself and left a note blaming him.’

  ‘I can understand why it took a while to wake up to what was happening,’ he said, ‘because my relationship with Lois started out fine, but she slowly got more and more jealous, so that I couldn’t even speak to another woman without Lois making a scene. If I even showed the slightest sign I was enjoying myself at a party or something like that, she’d say she felt ill and insist we go home.’

  He looked sombrely down at his glass, remembering. ‘And when I was off on location for the series with the team, she was constantly ringing and trying to check up on me. She kept threatening if I broke up with her she’d kill herself.’

  ‘Mike didn’t do that, though he was perpetually ringing me at work, too, or just turning up and getting in the way. He threatened to blacken Treena’s professional reputation if I left him, too. But those threats your partner made to harm herself must have made it really difficult. And then she set that private eye on you.’

  ‘Not to mention the press, as a grand finale,’ he said drily. ‘In retrospect, I feel stupid for letting it go on so long, too.’

  ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing,’ I agreed, ‘but at least we’ve learned our lesson. We both realized we needed to go back to our roots and start again.’

  ‘True, and since we’re both gardeners, quite literally back to our roots!’ he said. ‘Here’s to us!’

  We clinked glasses and his amber eyes were warm and friendly again, so that I was sure any last lingering doubt about me had long since vanished.

  But deep inside, a little worm of guilt squirmed because there was something about me that, if he knew, might well bring back that look of mistrust …

  I squashed it down: why should he ever find out? Why should anyone know?

  We walked back over the bridge to the now familiar sound of the water rushing through its narrow channel and then cascading down into the pool.

  Other than the occasional slam of a car door and an engine being started, or the distant plaintive bleat of a sheep, all was quiet. The sudden, silent, ghostly white swoop of a huge owl nearly sent me over the parapet, though, and Ned grabbed my arm.

  ‘Is that a lucky sign?’ I asked, slightly shakily.

  ‘I expect so. It’s lucky for you you didn’t go over.’

  We parted in front of the café – asking him back for coffee might have sent him all the wrong messages, and undermined our newly forged relationship – and besides, I really wanted to read that chapter on the Lordly-Grace family scandal!

  Ned strode off towards the Hall and I went round through the side gate to the back door and let myself in.

  I discovered Caspar in the flat, curled up on Mum’s little velvet chair and he gave me a look and said: ‘Szkyckitpfit?’ Or something like that. It was clearly the cat equivalent of ‘What time of night do you call this?’

  Before I went to bed I read all of that chapter, and the story was a familiarly Victorian melodrama of the ‘out into the cold, cold, snow and never darken my door again’ type.

  Only this one happened to be true. It had all taken place during the early eighteen hundreds, when Lizzie Vane, youngest of a large family at Cross Ways Farm, went into service at Risings, as a sort of companion/maid to the daughter, Susanna, who had taken a fancy to her. Susanna had two older brothers and when Lizzie was almost sixteen, she ran away with the younger one, Neville, when he returned to his regiment, which was stationed near York. Neville’s regiment was then almost immediately posted to Portugal, where he was killed in battle towards the end of that year, leaving Lizzie expecting a baby and with no means of providing for herself and her child.

  In desperation she’d returned to her family, who, being Strange Brethren, had turned her away and she’d had no other choice but to go to Risings. There, the master of the house, Horace Lordly-Grace, also would have had her thrown out into the snow, but his distant cousin, Richard Grace, happened to be dining there that night and, taking pity on her, had her taken to his home, Old Grace Hall. This sad story had a happier outcome than most Victorian morality tales, though, for Richard eventually married Lizzie and adopted the boy she bore as his heir. And he and Lizzie not only shared a love of the apothecary garden, but transformed the land between that and the row of cottages next to it into a rose garden.

  That was interesting: my distant ancestor had not only loved the apothecary garden, but been instrumental in creating the rose garden I was working in now! I felt an unexpected sense of connection with her.

  The family breach caused by this marriage appeared to have gone on for a very long time. In fact, it had sounded as if Audrey Lordly-Grace was still carrying it on.

  I didn’t feel any sense of connection or affinity with her at all. She sounded very disagreeable.

  I rang Treena after I’d read the story to tell her about it, and that I’d had a heart-to-heart with
Ned that evening in the pub.

  ‘It sounds as if you understand each other now,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing like shared misfortune to bring people together.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. Then I asked her if she knew Cress, which she did, because Cress did teach at the same livery/riding school as where Treena kept Zephyr. But since Cress hadn’t been around at Risings when Treena had been out to look at her mother’s Pekingese, she hadn’t made the connection.

  I’d slept surprisingly well after this, which might have had something to do with all that bitter shandy and also, perhaps, the cathartic effect of baring my soul to Ned …

  But somehow, in the light of morning, that made me feel a little shy about seeing him again. Confessions and soul baring often do have that effect, and perhaps he felt the same, because I didn’t see him all morning.

  I began the day by removing the second rosemary bush, making short work of the root ball with the pickaxe.

  I was just about to go into the rose garden after I had disposed of its remains, when Myfy wandered round the end of the cottage, wrapped in her tasselled coat and a dreamy air.

  ‘Good morning!’ she said, with her tilted smile. ‘I was up at Jacob’s but I woke early feeling wonderfully inspired, so I’ve come back. And you must have been up even earlier!’ she added, looking at the freshly dug earth where the rosemary had been.

  ‘I wanted to get this bush out, then there’s only one more, which I’ll do tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll have three new places to plant more lavender,’ she said happily. ‘I must look for some new ones.’

  ‘I hope to prune the rambling rose at the bottom of the garden later today. It really needs doing now. I got a bit carried away when I found that little folly in the rose garden, or I’d have done it earlier.’ I sighed. ‘I love clearing the rose garden, but I’m equally longing to help Ned with the apothecary garden too. It’s like having a wonderful box of chocolates and not knowing which one to eat first.’