The Mermaid Garden
1.
Devon, 2009
ARTIST WANTED
TO SPEND THE SUMMER
TEACHING RESIDENTS TO PAINT
AT THE HOTEL POLZANZE, DEVON
FREE BOARD & LODGING
TELEPHONE: 07972 859 301
The Morris Minor rattled down the narrow lane towards the village of Shelton. The hedgerows were high and luxuriant, laced with pretty white cow parsley and forget-me-nots. A spray of sparrows took to the sky, where feathery clouds floated inland on a salty wind. The car moved cautiously, swerving into a lay-by to avoid an oncoming lorry, then continued through the quaint hamlet of whitewashed cottages whose gray-tiled roofs shone like gold in the enthusiastic glare of dawn.
In the heart of Shelton a gray stone church huddled among a cluster of magnificent plane trees, and below, a sleek black cat trotted lithely along the wall, returning home from a successful night’s hunting. At the end of the village, as the lane turned sharply to the left before descending to the sea, a pair of imposing iron gates opened onto a narrow drive that swept in a graceful curve through banks of rhododendron bushes, already in flower. The car turned in and made its way past fat pink flowers to the gray stone mansion at the end, positioned in splendid seclusion overlooking the sea.
The Polzanze was a harmoniously proportioned mansion built in 1814 by the Duke of Somerland for his whimsical wife, Alice, whose asthma benefited from the sea air. He demolished the old building, an unsightly pile of bricks dating back to the sixteenth century, and designed the present house with the help of his talented wife, who had strong ideas of what she wanted. The result was a mansion that felt like a large cottage on the inside, with wood-paneled walls, floral wallpapers, log fires, and big lead windows that looked onto the lawn and the ocean beyond.
The duchess adored her garden and spent her summers cultivating roses, planting exotic trees, and designing an intricate maze of walkways through the lush woodland. She constructed a small garden for her children outside her study, where they could grow vegetables and flowers, and edged it with a miniature aqueduct so that they could float their boats in the water while she wrote her letters. Enamored of Italy, she decorated her terrace with heavy terra-cotta pots of rosemary and lavender, and planted vines in the conservatory, training them to climb the trellises so that the grapes hung from the ceiling in dusty clusters.
Little had changed and much had been enhanced by her descendants, who added to the beauty of the place with their own flair and extravagance until they fell on hard times and were forced to sell in the early 1990s. The Polzanze had been converted into a hotel, which would have broken Alice’s heart had she lived to see it. But her legacy remained, as did much of the original hand-painted wallpaper of birds and butterflies. The cedar tree that sheltered the east side was reputed to be over five hundred years old, and the grounds boasted an ancient walled vegetable garden—built long before the duchess arrived to cultivate rhubarb and raspberries—as well as an ancient gardener who had been there longer than anyone could remember.
Marina heard a car draw up on the gravel outside and hurried to the first-floor window. She peered through the glass to see a dirty old Morris Minor, stuffed with canvases and paint-stained dust sheets, stall in front of the hotel like an exhausted mule. Her heart accelerated with anticipation and she hastily checked herself in the mirror on the landing. A little over fifty, she was at the height of her beauty, as if time had danced lightly across her face, barely leaving a footprint. Her luscious honey-brown hair tumbled over her shoulders in waves, and her eyes were deep set and engaging, the color of smoky quartz. Petite, with small bones and a narrow waist, she was none the less curvaceous, with wide hips and a generous bosom. She smoothed down her dress and fluffed up her hair, and hoped that she’d make a good impression.
“Marina darling, it looks like your first potential artist-in-residence has arrived,” exclaimed her husband, Grey Turner, peering through the glass in the hall and chuckling as an elderly man stepped onto the gravel in a long brocaded coat and black breeches, his scuffed shoes decorated with large brass buckles that glinted weakly in the spring sunshine.
“Good Lord, it’s Captain Hook!” remarked Clementine, Grey’s twenty-three-year-old daughter, who joined him at the window. She screwed up her nose in disdain. “Why Submarine wants to invite a painter to sponge off us every summer is beyond me. It’s very pretentious to have an artist-in-residence.”
Grey ignored the disrespectful nickname his children had coined for their stepmother. “Marina has a good nose for business,” he said mildly. “Paul Lockwood was a great success last year; our guests loved him. It’s only natural that she should want to repeat it.”