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

by Trisha Ashley

  Ned paused to say goodnight to me outside the café, while Jacob and Myfy wandered off, hand in hand, on their way up to the barn.

  ‘Love’s young dream,’ Ned said with a smile, looking after them. ‘Or undying dream: they were made for each other.’

  The moon was silvering his mane of hair, ruffled as usual, but his eyes were dark shadowed pools.

  ‘It’s been a great day, Marnie, and having someone there with me who totally understands and shares how I feel about the Grace Garden made it even more special,’ he said, looking down at me, and I heard the warmth in his voice and smiled up at him.

  ‘It’s wonderful to be part of it. I feel so lucky! The rose garden is going to be a little piece of Paradise, too, by the time we’ve finished with it. I want to stay here forever!’

  That last bit slipped out … leaving a space for my guilt at concealing I was a Vane to rush in and fill.

  ‘I really hope you do, Marnie,’ he said, his deep voice very serious. ‘I’ve been surprised at how connected you feel to the village despite not having lived here for long. See you tomorrow.’

  And he walked off before my sudden urge to Confess All and get it over with had quite formed into words.

  I told Caspar instead, but he wasn’t in the least impressed.

  Lizzie

  My sisters were already married, save one who was ill-natured and ill-favoured, though perhaps her nature had been soured by the lack of suitors and the realization that she was destined to be my mother’s handmaid for ever. My brothers worked on the farm, or on other farms nearby, though one, Job, was gardener at the local big house, Risings, and lived in the lodge there. The age difference being such, they took little notice of me. My mother, harassed and worn down by constant work and childbearing, paid scant attention to me either, save to teach me my letters, so I could read the Bible, the only printed word in the house. She herself, being the daughter of a corn chandler in Thorstane, had been to Dame School, but there must have been precious little other call for her smattering of knowledge, once she married my father.

  My experience of the world away from the farm was confined to Sundays, when the entire day was spent in Thorstane, at the meeting house of the Brethren, or the home of my mother’s parents, who also belonged to this strict religious sect. This seemed quite normal to me at the time, of course.

  There were many more Brethren then, and in bad weather my father would hold prayer meetings in the Red Barn on the farm, instead. It was even colder than the meeting house and no amount of threats that we would all burn in hell for our sins ever served to warm us.

  26

  Mr Mole

  I woke early to what promised to be another warm, sunny spring day, but instead of heading up to the falls, or working in the lavender garden, I just pottered about the flat, playing with Caspar, until he vanished in search of his breakfast, and sat dreaming over mugs of coffee and a buttery croissant. They’re not exactly the same as fresh French ones, when you microwave them straight from the freezer, but good enough.

  The previous evening, Ned and I had grown even closer. We’d won through our initial misunderstandings to the friendship we’d once enjoyed and now were truly allied in a love of the garden and a desire not only to restore it, but to put our stamp on it.

  He regarded me as both friend and ally … and yet, there was still this one secret I should have shared with him long before.

  I finished my breakfast, put on my anorak and picked up my rucksack, ready to go – and with my mind made up. I’d have to tell Ned today, because the longer I left it, the worse it would be if he discovered it from someone else.

  The koi were circling hungrily just under the water’s surface when I passed the fish pond: Ned had usually fed them by now, but perhaps he’d been more tired than he admitted yesterday and was running late.

  But no, when I turned into the courtyard there he was, waving his large fists about and turning the air blue, while the unfed peacocks skulked about his feet, unimpressed.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter, Ned?’

  ‘That!’ he said, dramatically pointing through the open gates to Old Grace Hall behind him and I saw at once that the usually immaculate small rectangle of lawn in front of the house was now pocked with large hillocks of dark earth.

  ‘Moles?’ I deduced automatically. ‘They have been busy!’

  ‘Not moles, unless they’re giant ones who’ve learned to use spades,’ he snapped. ‘You can see the straight marks at the edge of the holes. This was Mr Mole – and I think we can both guess his real name – Wayne.’

  I stared at him, cogs whirring and then, with a sinking feeling in my stomach, said, ‘You think this was Wayne? But why – and when?’

  ‘Must have been last night, while we were at the pub. He came in very late, if you remember. And as to why, I should imagine he was treasure hunting with that metal detector of his.’

  ‘He looked muddy when he came into the pub, I noticed that,’ I said slowly. ‘And he was very interested in Nathaniel Grace’s treasure … But I told him it wouldn’t have been buried in the apothecary or rose gardens, because they were created after his time. So I suppose he thought this was the only place left to look where Nathaniel might have buried something.’

  ‘He’s mad – but I can’t see who else it would be and I’m going to have it out with him, even if I haven’t got any proof. If I had, I’d call the police,’ he added, still looking furious. ‘No Vane is ever putting a foot on any of my property again!’

  My earlier impulse to unburden my bosom on the subject of being closely related to Wayne and his family withered and died on the spot …

  ‘How did he get in?’ I asked.

  ‘Must have been over the wall. He’d have ladders in his van anyway. He took a chance, though I suppose he knows I hardly ever miss a quiz night at the pub. Still, he won’t be doing it again, because I’m going to fit security lights and a camera at the back of the house.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps extend them to the office and courtyard area, too? It might even bring your insurance premiums down a bit.’

  ‘That’s a thought,’ he agreed, starting to calm down a bit. ‘It’s a pity there’s nothing I can do to bring the public liability insurance down as well. It’s expensive, but I need it in case any of the visitors are daft enough to let their little darlings chew on the plants.’

  He ran a hand through his hair, which already looked even more tousled than usual, and smiled ruefully at me. ‘Sorry – what a greeting!’

  ‘It’s OK, I’m not surprised you’re furious. Do you want me to feed the peacocks and fish, while you fill in the holes again, or the other way round?’

  ‘I’ll fill them in and try and smooth it over. Just as well the others are coming in later in the morning from today, or James would do his nut. Keeping that bit of lawn immaculate and planting out his borders are the only gardening tasks he’s ever shown any true enthusiasm about, though he was always a hard worker until the rheumatism slowed him down.’

  ‘I don’t know why anyone fusses over lawns. It’s like outdoor housework, as far as I’m concerned,’ I said. ‘As much fun as vacuuming a carpet.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Ned agreed. Then Lancelot gave a great, despairing wail. ‘He’s hungry, so if you could just feed everything – the scoops are in the food bins in the Potting Shed, two for the peacocks, one small one of fish food for the koi.’

  Guinevere was so eager, she tried to come into the shed with me, but I shooed her out, distributed the food widely, so they both got a share and then spent a pleasant ten minutes by the pond, watching the huge silver, red and gold shapes of the koi circle, surface greedily and then sink back to the depths again.

  Ned was still working on the lawn when I went back to ask him what he’d like me to do this morning, since I’d cleared the rose garden and it was ready for mulching.

  ‘Could you start digging in the rest of the barberry bushes around the wetl
and area? I’ve put the pots where I want them to go.’

  ‘OK,’ I agreed, going to fetch my tools and looking forward to getting stuck in to the Grace Garden as a change from the roses.

  Ned came to join me a little later, bringing two big enamel mugs of coffee. He told me the phone had been ringing off the hook again in the office, with people wanting to tell him they’d seen the piece about the restoration of the Grace Garden on Look North last night.

  ‘Really? I didn’t think they’d show it that quickly – or even at all, unless they wanted something upbeat to fill in,’ I said, sitting down with my coffee on the steps that led to the Invisible Gazebo.

  ‘No, me neither.’ Ned lowered his large frame down beside me.

  ‘Gert and James both say sitting on cold stone gives you piles,’ I observed.

  ‘Then they’re taking their time arriving.’

  ‘Was the TV coverage good?’ I asked tentatively.

  ‘Apparently. They used much more footage than I expected … But then, Clara, Jacob and Myfanwy are all celebrities in their own right, so newsworthy.’

  ‘And so are you,’ I pointed out, and he frowned.

  ‘I was a minor one when I was presenting This Small Plot, but I hardly got mobbed in the streets – or not until I had that touch of notoriety to spice the interest up a bit.’

  ‘You haven’t been in the public eye since, though, so it’s like I said: everyone will have moved on to something else long ago. I mean, the visitors yesterday were only interested in talking to you about gardening and how much they used to love your programmes, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, and they were all really nice. I think I must have got a bit paranoid.’

  ‘That’s what comes of thinking social media views represent those of all the ordinary people,’ I told him. ‘I felt better as soon as I’d stopped being on Facebook, though I’d hardly posted on there for ages before I left for France anyway, because I knew Mike read it.’

  ‘I’m not on it any more, either. Lois used to check up on me that way, too, though she’s long since moved on to another man now – and your ex has remarried.’

  ‘Yes, and he didn’t seem to be trying to find me after the first few months anyway, so I was being paranoid too.’

  ‘Well, there’s no need for any paranoia now. We can just get on with our lives,’ he said, getting up. ‘Right – back to work, Ellwood.’

  ‘Yes, Boss,’ I said with mock meekness, following suit.

  ‘Between us, we should have time to put the rest of these bushes in and plant the new quince in one of the tall beds, before the others turn up and we have to get ready to open.’

  ‘James thinks we should spread the mulch on the roses early on a Tuesday, when there are no visitors, because of the ripe pong,’ I told him, picking up my spade.

  ‘Nonsense, it’s a good country smell and the stuff has been rotting nicely for about five years now, so it’s … delicious.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean, but only gardeners would appreciate it.’

  We worked on, mostly in silence, but occasionally exchanging comments about which new types of lavender would do well in the garden and when we’d have a chance to try and source the roses that had died out … if we could match the old names with something recognizable, where they didn’t presently exist.

  The sun shone, fluffy white puffs of clouds chased each other across the baby-blue sky, the birds sang, and Caspar appeared and watched us, occasionally making a brief and indecipherable comment.

  ‘There, that’s everything in, until we get another consignment,’ Ned said at last. ‘I want more plants for round the pond and I seriously underestimated how many blue iris I’d need. I’ll leave opening this area till the gazebo’s up, anyway, and we won’t open the paths in the rose garden until we’ve mulched it, either.’

  ‘There are a couple of sections of the tile borders broken and in need of replacing, if you can get hold of any.’

  ‘I think I’ve seen a few stacked in one of the outbuildings; I’ll have a look.’

  As we walked back, I said, ‘The visitors are going to love the little temple in the rose garden, and enjoy spotting the names of the old roses.’

  ‘You worked amazingly hard to get it to this stage in so short a time.’

  ‘It was a labour of love. But now I’m going to have loads of fun throwing myself into helping you with the Grace Garden.’

  ‘You might change your mind when we start marking out the long vegetable-style plots in the overgrown quarter of the mid-level garden,’ he said. ‘And Gertie’s got loads more herbs in her greenhouse, ready for planting out.’

  ‘A gardener’s work is never done,’ I said. ‘Those big pots will want planting up too, when they arrive, won’t they?’

  ‘They might come on Thursday, but we’ll just put them in position first: they’re a statement on their own.’

  We’d replaced the rope barriers across the entrances to the paths where we were working, so really, only the gravel needed freshly raking before the visitors came.

  James and Gertie had arrived, though Steve would be in later. He’d come and go around his other part-time jobs, but it should all fit in quite well. I suspected that, like the rest of us, he’d end up spending a lot more time in the garden than he was paid for, simply because he enjoyed it.

  When we opened up, although there wasn’t the initial rush through the gates, like yesterday, it seemed just as busy whenever I looked up. Ned and I had started marking out those long narrow beds at the bottom of the garden.

  Gertie, going past with pots of rosemary and tarragon, offered advice: mostly pointing out that nobody spray-painted grass in her day.

  ‘I wonder where she’s going with that tarragon?’ Ned said.

  ‘Where did you tell her to plant it?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said with a grin. ‘It’s easier to just let her put it in where she wants to.’

  ‘Coward,’ I said, and he spray-painted a neat red line across the toes of my work boots, though at least it was biodegradable and would wash off under the tap.

  At twelve and two, Ned reluctantly led a guided tour around the garden. So many people had asked if there was one that he’d bowed to the inevitable and a handwritten sign had been affixed to the side of the ticket window, giving the times.

  ‘I sincerely hope Roddy Lightower will take over once he finds his way around the garden. He’s very knowledgeable,’ Ned said, returning from the second tour.

  ‘They’re not going to want his autograph, though.’

  ‘No, well, I expect everyone can do without my name written on a bit of paper. I’m totally unexciting.’

  That’s not exactly how I’d describe him … especially when he’d ruffled his mane of hair and his amber eyes were glowing with enthusiasm …

  We’d made a good start on digging out the first long bed when I left them closing up the garden later that afternoon and headed up the river, which, from a rubbish collection point of view, was much like the day before, though without the socks.

  I’d noticed, though, that the force of the water cascading from the rock face at the top of the falls seemed less than before, exposing more of the fissure next to it – the cave of the treasure legend. But then, since the day I’d arrived, we hadn’t had much in the way of rain, so I supposed that was why.

  Elf called me in for coffee in the café kitchen when I got back. She’d just finished cleaning up with Daisy, who’d now left, but to my surprise, I found Ned in there, dipping a biscotti into a mug of coffee.

  ‘We’ve put up the shutters and shut up the shop,’ he said, looking up at me.

  ‘That’s an old tongue-twister,’ Elf said. ‘Though it’s not as good as “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s son, and I’m only plucking pheasants till the pheasant plucker comes.”’

  She managed that without a slip and we applauded.

  One of the newer but still antique-looking ice-cream machin
es was chugging away to itself in the background and she said she had a box of strawberry ice-cream for me to take up with me.

  ‘And I have some for you, too, Ned, which I was going to bring over, but now you can take it back with you. From frozen strawberries, of course, at this time of year, but very good, and I use some of my own bottled strawberry syrup in the recipe, too. You can almost taste the sunshine in that.’

  It sounded delicious.

  ‘I know it should be your day off tomorrow, dear,’ she said to me, ‘but you haven’t forgotten that you volunteered to be the Easter Bunny in the morning?’

  I put my mug down and gazed blankly at her: I had managed to forget it … and nor had I volunteered, it was more that I’d been press-ganged into it!

  ‘Marnie’s helping in the garden anyway tomorrow,’ Ned said, then grinned wickedly. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing her in her floppy ears and bunny tail first, though.’

  I gave him a cold look. ‘Do I really have to put on an Easter Bunny costume? Won’t we be hiding the eggs early, so there’ll be no one about?’

  ‘There may already be one or two random tourists, but we take photos of you hiding the eggs,’ explained Ned, ‘and I print a couple out and pin them to the fence by the entrance. The children love it. “The Easter Bunny, spotted this morning hiding chocolate eggs!”’

  ‘Steve’s got a big basket of eggs in the Village Hut and a load of little coloured paper flags to mark each clutch,’ Elf said.

  ‘Doesn’t that make it too easy?’

  ‘No, because the children will be all eight or under, and most of them tiny tots,’ she explained. ‘We want to make sure they all get some, though we have extras, so we can top up the cellophane bags they put their hoard in at the end.’

  I sighed, resigned to my fate. ‘OK, so I put on the bunny suit and hide the eggs all over the grounds, planting a little flag by each clutch.’

  Elf nodded. ‘Yes. Then the vicar comes over and opens the hunt at eleven.’

  I hoped I’d be back in the apothecary garden, working away by then, my part in the proceedings completed.