The Last Garden in England(22)

“When are you going to get a dog?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said.

“I move around too much for a dog. At least you have the narrow boat.”

Charlie grunted as Sydney burst through the clearing.

“Oh, good, you’re both here. I was going through some things and, well, I think I found something exciting!” Sydney said in a rush.

“What is it?” Emma asked.

Sydney just grinned and retreated.

It could be anything, Emma reminded herself as she and Charlie followed Sydney back through the garden, into the house, and over drop cloth–covered stairs to the finished wing of the house. She always asked owners to dig through any papers that came with a house, but finding something new and significant was rare.

“I was excited after talking to you, and poor Andrew and I have been spending every night up in the attic going through boxes. Granddad might have been a pack rat, but at least he was somewhat organized. The boxes are all marked ‘House & Garden,’?” Sydney chattered as she opened the door into a study with a large mahogany desk in the center and bookshelves lining two sides. Several containers sat in the middle of the room, their tops open.

“I was disappointed at first. It seemed to be a lot of receipts for roof repair and a new Aga in the seventies, but then I came across this.” Sydney pointed to a cardboard tube and an ancient-looking file folder. “Do you want to do the honors?”

Emma picked up the tube, uncapped the top, and slid out a sheaf of rolled-up papers. Sydney and Charlie cleared the desk, and she laid them out.

“These look like the house’s blueprints,” she said.

“They aren’t originals. I think they’re from the late 1930s, just before the war. You can see where an architect moved a wall on this floor to create a larger bathroom,” said Sydney, pointing to the blue ink.

Emma flipped through the pages. There was the entire house in view, then each floor, including the cellar, where the kitchen, pantry, and an old-fashioned stillroom had been. But when she flipped to the next page, her breath caught in her throat. On the large yellowing sheet of paper was a pencil sketch of the garden with “Highbury House” written across the top.

Her eyes went wide. “That is Venetia Smith’s handwriting.”

“You’re sure?” Sydney asked hopefully.

“She’s sure,” said Charlie. “She’s been obsessed with this woman for as long as I’ve known her.”

“Longer,” she murmured. “I should be wearing cotton gloves.” Not that that was going to stop her from examining the plans.

“When I first saw them, I was confused because the way the garden is laid out didn’t look anything like it does today,” said Sydney.

“This is what Venetia would have replaced. It’s a formal garden.” She pointed to the symmetrical beds laid out in a knot pattern. “There might have been a low border of bedding plants here, or it might have been hedged in.”

“Ah, that makes sense. But take a look at the next sheet,” said Sydney.

Lifting the garden plans, Emma found a thin piece of nearly transparent tracing paper. Carefully she lifted it and laid it over the original plans. She lined up the two sketches of the house, the kitchen garden, and the orchard and then stepped back. “There.”

“That’s it,” said Charlie. “That’s the garden.”

“And it’s labeled!” said Sydney.

“The tea garden, the lovers’ garden, the children’s garden, the bridal garden,” Emma read.

“Oh, that’s why it’s all white,” said Sydney.

“Look. The one next to the water garden is a poet’s garden,” said Charlie.

“There’s a book of poems in the library by my great-great-great-grandfather Arthur Melcourt. He was the one who commissioned the garden,” said Sydney.

“Maybe Venetia was trying to flatter him into agreeing to the rest of her designs,” she said.

“Why would she need to do that?” Sydney asked.

“She was ahead of her time. There were a very small number of designers in England who created the English border garden look that we are all familiar with now. Venetia would have been considered a bit of an artist, a bit of a revolutionary,” she explained.

“How is Arthur Melcourt’s poetry?” Charlie asked.

“Pretty terrible from what I remember,” said Sydney.

Emma carefully lifted the page to reveal another drawing. “This looks like it might have been made a bit further along in the project. You can see she added a series of paths to the children’s garden.”

“They look like the Union Flag,” said Charlie.

“A playful nod to the Melcourt kids maybe. And it looks like there’s something here in the winter garden,” she said, pointing to a circle. “Maybe a pond or a small paved area.”

“This must have been a working drawing. You can see where she rubbed out some of the pencil,” said Charlie.

“Hold on.” Emma lifted the sheet up to the light. “Something’s written here above the winter garden. It’s so faint…”

Charlie and Sydney leaned over her shoulder, peering at the spot. After a moment, Sydney said, “I think that says Cecil’s garden.”