The Last Garden in England(85)
She was cutting up an apple when she remembered the post she’d walked over. Setting down her knife, she retrieved it. She had been wrong; it was two seed catalogs—one stuffed inside the other—and a letter with her address handwritten on the front but no return. Slipping her finger under the flap, she ripped it open and pulled out a sheet of heavy cotton writing paper.
A grin spread across her face. Professor Waylan had written.
20 August 2021
My dear Miss Lovell,
I trust you are well. I was delighted to receive your letter. I do so enjoy the little challenges you send me and your rapacious interest in the past. If only more of your generation had such reverence for the gardens of our great forebearers.
I’m thrilled that you thought to bring me this little challenge about our beloved Venetia Smith. This one was a tricky one. (How very clever of you!) I did not recall a Celeste ever being associated with Venetia, but then I have forgotten more about the great gardener than most will ever learn. When none of my searches in books at home proved fruitful, I broke my happy isolation and took the ferry to the University of the Highlands and Islands, where they are kind enough to allow me access to their research facilities. Finally, after three days of exhaustive hunting, I believe I may have found something for you.
The name Celeste appears in none of Venetia’s archived papers. I had thought that perhaps she was a relation of one of Venetia’s clients, yet that path proved a false end. In Adam Smith’s letters, however, was a clue. He was long engaged to a young woman whom he later married after Venetia left Britain for America. In 1903, not long after the start of his sister’s career, he wrote a letter to his future wife. I have enclosed the pertinent parts below:
You asked me if I miss my parents now that I am an orphan. Simply, yes. Sometimes, when I sit in my chair in front of the fire, I recall my father looking over at my mother with such love as she worked a little bit of needlepoint, completely unaware of his gaze. At those times he would call her his “Celeste” because being married to her was heaven itself.
Quite the romantic, Venetia’s father, Elliot, was!
The second reference appears years later and may be too labored a stretch for your purposes; however, I know you like to leave no stone unturned. Venetia’s eventual husband, Spencer Smith, wrote a letter to her in 1912 from their home outside of Boston while she was overseeing the construction of the Plinth Garden in Minneapolis. In it he writes, “Sometimes when you are away I think back to the celestial connection that forever binds me to you. The joy that slipped through our fingers led us to where we are now. I hope you do not hate me for having no regrets, because now I have you.” He then goes on to describe in quite some detail just how ardently he loves his wife.
I do hope that these little tidbits prove helpful in your search, my dear. All I ask in return is that one day you tell me about what it is that has prompted your quest. I know you are unlikely to give me even the tiniest of hints until you are ready, but when you are, I beg you to remember…
Your faithful servant,
Walter Wayland
She shook her head in bemused exasperation at the professor’s overwrought letter and the fact that he’d found something while on a university campus and hadn’t emailed her. But then again, what did she expect from a man who locked himself away from the world in an isolated house on a remote island on an annual basis?
She read the letter again, lingering on the passage from Adam Smith to his beloved. Celeste. The heavenly one. Perhaps all those months ago, Charlie had guessed correctly. The garden was named for Venetia’s mother. It seemed the only connection to make sense.
Emma snapped a photo of the letter and texted it to Charlie before swiping through her phone. She frowned when she came to a voice-mail notification from an unknown number. She hit play and put the phone on speaker.
“Hello, Miss Lovell. This is May Miles from the Royal Botanical Heritage Society. I realize that this call might come as a bit of a surprise, but we underwent a budget review earlier this year, and I’m happy to say that our hiring freeze has now ended. If you are still interested in the head of conservancy position, please do give me a ring back, as we were very impressed with your initial interview.”
The woman rattled off a phone number before Emma even thought about grabbing for a pen or pencil. The foundation job was open again.
? STELLA ?
Come on, Bobby. We haven’t all day,” Stella said as she stood in her attic bedroom, holding out her nephew’s little navy jacket. She’d just brushed it clean that morning, but she’d waited to dress him until the very last minute, lest he dirty it. The problem was, now they were at risk of being late for Beth’s wedding.
“But, Aunt Stella, I’m about to win the war,” he said, looking up from a set of tin soldiers he must have borrowed from Robin.
“Bobby,” she said sharply.
“We’re invading Tahiti!” he whinged, pointing to a postcard of the tropical island she’d found in a charity shop and stuck to the wall with Sellotape.
She planted her hands on her hips. “You’re being a very naughty boy.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could pull them back. Her nephew seemed to close in on himself, become somehow smaller.
She pushed her hair back from her forehead. She was rubbish at this. Pure rubbish. Despite trying her hardest to do right by her nephew, every time it was just the two of them, she seemed to put a foot wrong. Just last week, she’d tried to explain that he must wait to be asked up to the nursery because Robin might not wish to play with him now that he was sleeping in the cot beside her bed once again. Rather than chasing after him when he ran crying from the room, she’d slumped in her chair, defeated. All she’d wanted to do was warn her nephew that at some point the divide between servant and master would be too wide to overcome.