The Victory Garden(69)
Emily felt a strange rush of excitement as she stared at the page. So that was what the tramp had been talking about: the wise woman, the herb wife. The overgrown garden was a herb garden, and maybe somewhere in the cottage was that recipe book from long, long ago. For the first time in several weeks, she felt a small bubble of hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Emily awoke early the next morning with a new sense of excitement and purpose. Susan Olgilvy’s journal had struck a chord with her. Their paths were too similar to be mere coincidence. They had both come from good homes, had run away to marry the men they loved, then had fled to this faraway corner after the deaths of the men they had hoped to marry. She looked out of her window at the overgrown and tangled garden and wondered if somehow she was destined to come here. It was, after all, a garden that had brought Robbie and her together, and fate had trained her as a land girl. Had all the women who came to this cottage been fleeing to a place of sanctuary? Had they all taken on the role of herb wife? The wise woman? It was a little overwhelming, but a challenge, too. She felt a strong sense that this was something she was meant to do—a way to bring some kind of meaning to a life in chaos.
She put on her dressing gown and opened the back door. The crisp, cold air made her gasp, and her breath came out like a dragon’s smoke, but she set out along the narrow flagstone path. Her knowledge of plants was woefully inadequate, but that was lavender on her right, and under that tangle of dying bindweed was rosemary. The scents came to her as she brushed past each plant, some familiar, like mint and sage, others exotic and unknown. Some had no scent at all. But all were now dying off for the winter. If she was to make use of any of the plants, she would have to harvest them soon or wait until spring.
She jumped as something rubbed against her bare leg.
“Mew?” Shadow the cat looked up at her hopefully. She bent down to stroke it. “I have no food for you, my dear,” she said. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go off hunting for yourself.”
It was almost as if the cat understood her. It stared at her with unblinking yellow eyes, then disappeared into the undergrowth. Emily shivered in the cold, and retreated to the warmth of the cottage.
The first task was to find the book of spells. She paused in wonder as that word passed through her head. Recipes, she thought to herself. Not spells. Was the wise woman also the one they had referred to as the witch? Surely she was looking for simple herbal cures such as her nanny had used for a sore throat: slippery elm, friar’s balsam, oil of cloves for a toothache. She was about to go back into the cottage when she glanced up at the rising sweep of moor behind the estate. On the crown of the hill, a lone pony stood, silhouetted against the rising sun, his mane streaming out in the wind. He was so beautiful that Emily remained unmoving, watching him. Then he tossed his head and galloped off over the crest of the hill.
Somehow, she took this as a good sign—that the gods of nature had blessed her intention. She knew this was stupid. She had grown up in a boringly traditional household, one in which God or religion were rarely discussed. One went to church on Sundays because it was expected. Her mother insisted on sitting in the front pew to display her new hats. She was also on various committees that did charitable work around the parish. But Emily couldn’t recall them ever praying at home. Apart from one highly religious nanny who had not lasted long, she had never felt any personal connection to religion. In fact, the only time she had prayed was when her brother went off to war. “Please keep him safe,” she had pleaded. The memory of her brother’s funeral came to her vividly: her mother sobbing behind a black veil, her father standing proud and erect. And that time, she had not prayed but railed against God. “Why did you let this happen to him? Why didn’t you keep him safe?” But God had not answered then, and since that moment, she had avoided all contact with the Almighty.
Emily went back into the cottage, lit the stove to make tea and put on the large pan of water to wash with. Then she went looking for the book that Susan Olgilvy had mentioned. Tabitha Ann’s book of herbal remedies. It was certainly not with the books in the trunk. She had been through them before. And there was nowhere to hide it amongst the few furnishings downstairs. She went up the steep stairs to the attic, glad that someone in the years between Susan Olgilvy and herself had put in a staircase and she hadn’t had to climb a ladder that dropped from a trapdoor in the ceiling. Wind whistled through the attic as she picked her way through cast-offs from long ago. She came upon a box full of bottles and jars, some with faded labels on them, now too faint to read. These would be needed. She wondered if Susan Olgilvy had used them. She would have to read the rest of the journal to see if Susan had taken on the role of herb wife.
Emily put the box of bottles by the stairs and then went through the rest of the discarded items in the attic, but could find no pretty wooden sewing box. She had to conclude that Susan, or one of the subsequent women, had taken it with her. She felt an absurd sense of disappointment. There was no point in harvesting any of the herbs without the recipes. She left the box of bottles at the top of the stairs and made her way down again. Then she washed and dressed, and after a breakfast of bread and jam, she wound her scarf around her neck, put on her mackintosh and went out to work in the garden. As she came out of the back door, she almost stepped on an object. A dead mouse lay there. The cat sat beside it, looking rather smug.
“Why, thank you,” Emily said, “but I’m afraid I don’t eat mice. You’d better finish this yourself.”