The children had gathered a merry collection of worms and beetles, which they poured into the jar along with a few leaves and blades of grass. “Will they die?” Storm asked Jean-Paul.
“Not if you only keep them for a short while. Put them back at the end of the day. They belong in the garden.” The children set off in search of more. Mr. Underwood finished his cup of juice and returned reluctantly to the dovecote. A few trees had come down in February. He took up from where he had left off before the children’s laughter had lured him into the vegetable garden.
Miranda sat on the grass with her own cup of juice as Jean-Paul set about putting up the sweet pea frame with pig wire. She watched him work, his fingers rough, his nails short, the hands of a man who had worked in gardens all his life. There was something rather moving about those hands and the way his face looked sad in repose. “Have you always been a gardener?” she asked.
“For as long as I can remember.” His hands paused a moment. “My life before meant nothing. I tossed it away on frivolities.”
“What inspired you?”
“My mother. I grew up on a vineyard in Bordeaux. She was a passionate gardener.”
“Is she still alive?”
“No. She died last summer.”
“I’m sorry. You were close?” She slowly prised him open like a rare and mysterious shell. She knew there was something beautiful inside if only she could get in.
“I was her only son. We were very close.”
“What was she like?”
He looked at her steadily, as if weighing up how much he should tell her. His eyes took on a softer shade of brown. “She was dignified and quietly spoken. She had an air of serenity. She was very strong.”
“Was she beautiful?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“She had black hair that she tied into a chignon. I rarely saw it down, except at night before she went to bed. She would kiss me good night when I was a boy and I would see her like that, with her hair down, and I thought she must be an angel, she was so beautiful. It would fall down her back shining like silk. As she got older it went gray. Then I never saw it loose. She never lost her dignity or her serenity, right up until the day she died.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, how did she die? She can’t have been old.”
“She was seventy-three. She died in her sleep, peacefully. There was nothing wrong with her. She simply didn’t wake up.” He shrugged and shook his head. “Like a clock, her heart ceased to tick.”
“Is your father alive?”
“Yes. He lives in Paris. They were not close.”
Boldly she asked the question she had been longing to ask since she first met him. “Jean-Paul, have you ever been in love?” For a moment she feared she had gone too far. His face closed into that of a stranger, pulled down and gray with sorrow. Startled, she was about to change the subject, ask him about the vineyard, coax some more memories from him, but he answered before she had time to speak.
“Once,” he replied evenly. “And once only. I will never love again.”
Miranda felt a wave of disappointment, as if his answer had crushed her heart. She stared into her empty cup. “Would you like some more juice?” she asked, endeavoring to break the silence and return to the way they were. But the shell had snapped shut.
“So you pour all your love into the gardens,” she said hoarsely. He didn’t reply, but his face softened and his lips curled at the corners. “You have a gift, Jean-Paul,” she continued, emboldened. “Your love not only makes the garden grow but my children, too. They’ve blossomed like those cherry trees. Thanks to you they don’t fight all the time. They’ve stopped watching television. You’ve taught them the wonders of nature and the fun there is to be had among the trees and flowers. I’m so grateful.”
“It’s not all me,” he said, taking a pot of sweet peas to plant beneath the frame. “Your children want to be with you and David.”
“I didn’t know what to do with them before,” she admitted. “In London they had a nanny. I realize now that I never really saw them. They’d leave in the morning for school and Jayne would pick them up in the afternoon and whisk them off until six. All I had was bath time and bedtime. I was afraid of upsetting them so I let them watch videos when I should have read them stories and listened to them. Gus was such a problem, fighting with the other children at school, disrupting the classes. Moving out here has been the best thing we ever did for him. He’s really settled down. It’s thanks to you, Jean-Paul. You and the garden.”