The Art of Inheriting Secrets(29)
I imagined one of my ancestors as a dashing young lord, dazzled by the terraced gardens of Italy. “I’m not an experienced gardener,” I admitted. “I’ve always lived in the city. My mother has—had—a beautiful garden.”
“Well, you’ll have a chance to learn here if you wish.” She gave me a half smile. “We expect our lords and ladies to know these things. And you must buy yourself a good hound.”
I laughed but heard the kernel of truth in it. Point taken. I’d have to educate myself if I planned to stay.
The paths wandered through deciduous forest, opening here for a pool, long and still, the water overgrown with algae and muck, and yet it had a powerful spirit. I halted, captured by the moodiness of the spot, the whispering edge of coolness wafting out of the shadows. A bridge crossed over the pool, green with time, and I imagined a lovers’ rendezvous. With my camera phone, I shot a photo and then another. “This is a beautiful spot.”
“There are several ponds and pools throughout. This one looks to be in fairly decent shape. It only wants a bit of scrubbing and water lilies.”
I imagined the water clean, reflecting the sky and trees and clouds. “I’d want a bench here.”
“Yes.”
Jocasta marched on, and I hurried to follow, but the cameraman, too, was taken by the spot. He lingered until Jocasta called to him.
The gardens meandered along banks of rhododendron—“This will be magnificent in a month”—and what must have once been a knot garden that meandered into a half-walled garden. We paused at the edge of an enormous field of rose bushes just leafing out on their leggy stalks. “How could they have survived so well?” I said in wonder.
“Well, they’ve gone wild, haven’t they?”
“My mother had a rose garden. I suppose I know why now.”
Jocasta looked at me. “We’ll want to tell this part of the story, that you had no idea you were an heiress. We’ll probably do some digging to see what happened to your uncle, too, tell some more of the history of the house.”
“I assumed you would.”
“Have you heard much of the story—of the house, that is?”
“Some. I love the bit about the mistress of Charles II who convinced him a woman could inherit.”
“Else you’d not be here, would you?”
“Right. Nor would my grandmother have had to leave India.”
“The twists and turns of history.”
“Of life,” I added.
The walled garden gave way to another that made use of a ruin from the monastery days. Overgrown beds and pots and shrubs gone amok couldn’t hide what had once been a most romantic spot—private and designed for contemplation. A stream ran alongside it. “This comes from the spring at the center of the medicinal garden,” Jocasta said, consulting her map. “The building might have been a buttery or the like, since it would have been cooler here by the stream.” Fig vines covered the old stone, but everything else was overgrown beyond recognition.
At a hedge, Jocasta stopped. “This is the pièce de résistance. The maze.”
“A maze?” My inner seven-year-old perked up. “How do we get in?”
“The problem would be getting out, since it hasn’t been tended and we haven’t a proper guide.” She walked along, however, and came to an opening cut into the hedge like a window. “Oh, this is a delight. Look!”
I peered through the opening and saw that it opened onto another square, just slightly off from the first, which opened onto another so that I could see a long way into the maze, but not all the way. At each window, you’d be able to see just a little further. “Magical!”
“It is.” She clapped her hands. “Get this, Ian, and we’ll head back up to the top of the hill. Shouldn’t be much farther.”
As we emerged from the overgrown garden, I saw we had made it to the top of the garden and the ruined conservatory I’d spied the first day with Rebecca. “That’ll have to come down, I expect,” Jocasta said.
“No, really?” I stood looking at it with my hands at my sides, feeling all the things we’d seen move through me again—the jeweled light in the stairway, the still pool, the magic of the maze—and now this beautiful wreck of a conservatory. Plants grew all through the broken glass, in and out, and it seemed so very sad that such a beautiful thing could have been lost like this. “It couldn’t cost that much to restore, could it?”
“You’d be amazed. But it’s your call, of course.” She gestured toward the carriage house. “Let’s take a peek at these flats.”
My leg complained, but I did my best not to limp behind her. She noticed my pace and slowed hers to mine, and I assumed that she and Ian had an understanding because he was now filming at his whim, not bothering to keep up with us.
The first two doors of the carriage house flats were locked, but the third opened into a neglected but very sunny space with a view toward the house. The brick had been exposed and the old beams left in the ceiling. A fireplace with a carved mantle took up the far wall, which would be a sitting area and dining room adjoining a kitchen that must have been built in the twenties, judging by the sink. “Quite charming,” Jocasta pronounced.
“Agreed.” I poked my head around the corner and found a bedroom, small but again faced with that open brick and a row of windows that looked toward the hills. A bathroom that was the same era as the kitchen was far more charming, with a pedestal sink and a claw-footed tub. “No shower, but that would be easily added.”