The Lost Gardens(4)
*Answer is: masthead (an anagram of “as the mad.”) returning to the well, the skeleton and the coins, trying to picture what might have taken place there. He put the paper on the coffee table and stretched out, propping a pillow under his head. Once again the nagging feeling returned: that it could have been a big mistake on his part to become involved in Jamie’s venture. It was too late now, though. He closed his eyes and thought back to that evening when she had first called him.
Chapter Two
When the phone had rung in his Chelsea flat that evening three months earlier, back in March, Kingston was comfortably settled in his rumpled leather chair reading Gardens Illustrated. It had been drizzling steadily all day. Next to him the small fire he’d lit earlier that afternoon hissed contentedly, giving a pleasing warmth and glow to the darkening room. He put the magazine aside and picked up the phone.
A woman with an American accent spoke. ‘My name’s Jamie Gibson,’ she announced. ‘Am I calling at a bad time?’
‘No, no, it’s fine. How can I be of help?’ Kingston replied.
‘You’ve been recommended to me by my solicitor, David Latimer. He thinks very highly of you and suggested that I contact you.’ She paused. ‘He seems to know a lot about you. Tells me you’re one of the top garden experts in the country.’
He made light of the compliment and asked again the reason for her call.
‘I promise to be as brief as possible,’ she replied.
She had recently inherited a large country house in Somerset along with its surrounding two-hundred-acre estate, formerly owned by a family named Ryder, she said. Despite its run-down condition, she had moved in and hired a local builder to start work on the house. ‘I can manage the house just fine, but what really concerns me are the gardens.’ She sighed. ‘They’re another matter entirely; that’s where I’m hoping you might be of help. The reason for my call.’
‘Gardens, plural, you said?’
‘Yes, there’re several.’
‘Really? What do you mean by “another matter entirely”? ’
‘Well, I’ve been told that, in their heyday, the gardens at Wickersham Priory were among the finest in England.’ She described the gardens as they had been in the years before the war and how, in the opinions of some garden writers of the time, they rivalled the best in the world.
‘Where did you learn all this?’ he asked.
‘Mostly from the local library. A couple of seniors in the village told me about their visiting the gardens way back—but their descriptions were pretty sketchy. I also found a good book in the local bookshop, with several pages devoted to Wickersham. Gardens within gardens. They were so grand … so beautiful.’ She spoke the words with a sensibility that he found oddly touching. Then she countered with a warm and infectious chuckle, as though she had practised it a long time to get it perfect. ‘Right now, the gardens look more like something Steven Spielberg would dream up.’ He smiled at the simile and was about to ask her to be more explicit but she carried on. ‘It’s my plan to restore them. I want to see them as they were in those days, mostly for me, but also as a way of expressing my appreciation. As a tribute, if you will, to the Ryder family. So I’m asking if you’ll help me.’ She paused but only for a second or so, as if not expecting a reply. ‘Latimer thinks you’d be perfect for the job. Of course, I’m prepared to pay whatever it takes.’Another pause. ‘Well, within reason, of course.’
Despite the temptation implicit in her last remark—and he had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth—Kingston wasn’t swayed. As the woman had been talking, he had been trying to cobble up a credible excuse and steer the conversation to a polite close. He wasn’t going to tell her he didn’t have the time. That would sound too lame and, in any case, it would be a lie. Truth was that being retired—four years now, from his position as professor and head research botanist at Edinburgh University—he had nothing but time. No, he would simply tell her in all honesty that the magnitude of what she had described was too great for his present inclination for work and leave it at that. That could hardly offend her. In any case, Somerset was out of the question. Surrey or Bucks he might have considered, but Somerset? It was almost a half-day’s trip from Chelsea. He was about to tell her all this when she cut in again.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so abrupt. I realize it’s an awful lot to ask on the phone, plus you don’t know me from Adam—well, Eve, I suppose,’ she said, with the same infectious chuckle as before. ‘It wouldn’t be fair of me to expect an answer right away.’ She paused. ‘In fact, I would rather you didn’t. What I am asking is that you consider it. That’s all. Come down, spend a day and see the place—at my expense, of course—then decide whether the idea appeals to you or not. Stay as long as you want. You can have a whole cottage to yourself.’