“Andrew says the Dower ’Ouse ain’t nothing compared t’what she’s done with the old hall.”
At that moment, the gardens of the main house opened up on the far side of the spinney and Sebastian drew up for a moment as the glory of Liv Weston’s creation spread out before them. It had become the fashion in recent decades to use ruins as decorative accents in gardens. Those without the good fortune to possess an authentic ruin on their estate simply built them—everything from imitation Greek temples to picturesque re-creations of romantic Crusader towers and crumbling medieval chapels. But Mrs. Weston possessed the real thing at the center of her gardens, and she had used it magnificently.
The hall might date back only to the early eighteenth century, but in its ruined state it looked much older, the ivy-hung walls looming over a Renaissance-inspired knot garden with arbors and turf seats and honeysuckle-draped pergolas. There was an Italian garden with a long canal flanked by tall, dark evergreens, and a medicinal herb garden, and a romantic, wild-looking nuttery and orchard underplanted with campanulas and daisies and poppies.
A stocky man pushing a wheelbarrow full of hedge clippings down a grass path paused to watch through narrowed eyes as Sebastian brought the curricle to a halt before the ruined house. The gardener wore a faded blue smock and wide-brimmed straw hat and held the stem of an unlit clay pipe clenched between his rear molars. He shifted the pipe thoughtfully with his tongue as he watched Sebastian hop down to the gravel.
“You must be Silas,” said Sebastian, advancing on him. “Major Weston said you’d show me about the old hall.”
The gardener’s heavily featured face remained impassive. “He did, did he? And who might you be?”
“I’m Devlin.”
Silas turned his head and spat. His skin was dark and coarse and deeply scored with lines from his years of work in the sun, although his sandy hair showed only the faintest touches of gray. He had a short but powerful build, with thickly muscled arms and legs, and was probably somewhere between forty and fifty. “I take it yer that grand London lord what’s lookin’ into the death of the lady?”
“That’s right. I understand she was here Sunday afternoon, sketching the ruins. Did you see her?”
“Course I seen her. I’m here ev’ry day, all day, aren’t I?”
“Did you speak with her?”
“’Spose I did.”
Sebastian was remembering Hannibal Pierce’s comment, that Emma Chance had been asking the villagers an unusual number of questions. “What about?”
“’Bout the garden and the house. What ye think?”
Sebastian stared out over the ripe summer borders of lavender and lilies, agapanthus and late-flowering clematis. “It’s a lovely garden.”
“Miss Liv done it all herself.”
Miss Liv, Sebastian noticed; not Mrs. Weston.
“She’s very talented,” said Sebastian.
The muscles in the caretaker’s face contracted in a grimace. “Better’n that prancing foreigner the previous Lord Seaton brought in to do the grounds of Northcott Abbey some years back. She’s helpin’ the young Squire with the gardens at the Grange now. Ye seen it?”
“Not yet.”
“Course, she only started there this spring, so it’ll be a while before everythin’ grows up the way it’s supposed t’. Gardens take time. Time, and a vision for how it’ll all look someday.”
Sebastian nodded to the nearby row of orange trees in tubs. “How long has she been working on the gardens here?”
“Since the fire. Changed it all around from when Mr. and Mrs. Irving was alive, she did.”
“The fire must have been a terrible tragedy.”
“A tragedy? Yeah, I guess ye could call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
Silas shrugged and scratched a mosquito bite on his cheek with broken, dirt-encrusted nails.
Sebastian said, “Did Emma Chance ask about the fire?”
“Not so much. She wanted t’hear about the days when the Irvings was still alive. ’Bout the grand parties they used t’have.”
“Oh?” Weston had also mentioned house parties—although his focus had been entirely on himself.
“She was partic’larly interested in the house party they had the year them Frogs nabbed their King and Queen and stuck ’em in prison.”
Seventeen ninety-one again, thought Sebastian. He smiled encouragingly. “It must have been grand.”
“Oh, aye; was it ever. They had more’n thirty guests that year, including titled lords and ladies from as far away as Worcestershire and Herefordshire. The gentlemen would go out shootin’ ev’ry mornin’, while the ladies strolled the gardens or did whatever it is ladies do with their days. And every night, there was such a big, fancy dinner they had t’ hire near every woman and girl in the hamlet to help. And then at the end there was a masked ball, the likes of which ain’t never been seen around here before or since.”
“Were you also gardener here under the Baldwyns?”
“Aye. I was a young lad in those days, I was.”