Sorrel looked up and down the hall and then let her eyes stop on the huge portrait directly across from them.
“The man, and woman, really, of the hour,” Poppy said. “Thomas and Elizabeth, Lord and Lady Kirkwood as painted by the less-than-famous Flemish artist Jan Josef Horemans the Elder.” She pointed at the signature on the canvas. “I looked him up and, according to Mum’s research, the portrait was begun on a Kirkwood family tour of Belgium and France. Maybe they were looking for good beer and paté.”
Sorrel laughed. “Or better weather.”
The frame was tilted slightly downward so that the viewer felt almost as if she were in danger. And, from the look on Lord Kirkwood’s face, she was. He was a tall man, particularly for his time, and that was clear from the way he towered over his wife. Of course, that perspective could have just been the work of a sycophantic portrait artist, but somehow Sorrel believed his stature to be true. His hair was swept back in a glossy mound and tied with a satin ribbon. It was not powdered as was the fashion but black, shot through with silver. His brow, while no doubt noble, was lowered over his dark eyes, and there had clearly been nothing the painter could do to make his subject smile. His mouth turned slightly down at the corners, in fact, and one hand was fisted on the pommel of a tall ebony stick. Meanwhile, the lovely Elizabeth stared out at the viewer with clear blue eyes. Her hair was powdered and coiled in a precarious pile of curls. Somehow she didn’t look silly but rather as if all of her was a confection topped with a dollop of meringue. Her dress was white silk satin, sprigged with what Sorrel could see were cornflowers. The bodice seemed punishingly tight, if flattering. Elizabeth held a posy of flowers in her left hand. Her right hand rested proprietarily on a stack of books on the table beside her. She was beautiful and as pale as milk.
“So this is our original gardener,” Sorrel said.
“Indeed, and he is, if not the original Kirkwood asshole, certainly the most well-documented one.” Poppy handed Sorrel a glass. “I think that these two are the keys to the Shakespeare Garden and its failure.”
Sorrel was thrilled. Never had she been given such an assignment, obviously, and never had she had such rich materials from which to draw inspiration. Her fingers twitched to take notes as Poppy talked.
“Your mother gave me a peek at this couple, and I’m with you,” Sorrel said. “I think that if we can trace back everything about the garden all the way to these two, we’ll have found something.”
“I knew you’d get it,” Poppy said. “On to Andrew.”
“I don’t think you should be telling me Andrew’s story,” Sorrel said. “If he’s got one that has anything to do with my work, I’m sure he’ll tell me himself.”
“He won’t, you know. He’s become such a bear lately.”
“Exactly why I wouldn’t want to poke him.” Sorrel took a sip of the exceedingly good wine. Or maybe the chips had made her unreasonably thirsty.
“Exactly why you should,” Poppy said and drank her wine as well. “Mum lets him get away with all sorts ever since Miranda.”
There she is, thought Sorrel. There’s the woman and the reason she must keep her heart to herself, as always. She gazed at the painting in silence and refused to look at Poppy.
“Come on, ask me who Miranda is,” Poppy said.
“None of my beeswax,” Sorrel answered, then drank more wine and shoved three chips into her mouth. “Couldn’t be less interested,” she mumbled.
“Oh, you are absolutely interested,” Poppy said. “I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if it weren’t so, so clear that you and Andrew might be friends.”
“Would you just stop,” Sorrel said.
“I won’t because I think Uncle Andrew has as much to do with rescuing this old place as you do. And furthermore”—Poppy poured wine—“I think it’s your turn, and his, to have some proper fun.”
“Jesus,” Sorrel said, “put the brakes on, Petal!”
“Fine, fine,” Poppy said. “Let me just say this: Miranda and Andrew were the golden couple until they weren’t. And Miranda, well she didn’t just break his heart, she broke his sense of himself. If there was a way to hurt him, she did and all we could do, the people who really love him, was watch.”
“Yeah, okay, now you’ve done it,” Sorrel said.
She longed for Patience and her gift. She felt totally unsuited to this conversation and only wished that her sister was with them to scent the air, to divine the source of Andrew’s troubles. But here she was, alone with a girl who seemed determined to not just pique her interest in a thoroughly unsuitable man but drag her into his murky orbit without the benefit of Patience’s clever nose.
“Yes,” Poppy said, “I can see that you’re powerless to resist the challenge. Andrew, battered but not defeated by Miranda—who is no longer in the picture, by the way—waits, nearly hopeless but still rich with promise, for the only woman who can make him whole again.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Poppy,” Sorrel said. “Cart before the horse!”
“Right, right you are,” Poppy said. “Let’s turn our heaving bosoms to the unhappy couple before us.”
“Leave me hanging, is that the plan?” Sorrel asked.
“For now, I’ll parcel the story out like a bread crumb trail until you two reach each other in a great crescendo of soaring theme music.”
Sorrel laughed and shook her head. “Love is more complicated, I’m afraid, than some romantic movie.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Poppy said.
Sorrel and Poppy stood and moved to the canvas. It was actually harder to absorb the picture the closer the viewer came, but one thing that did come clear was the top book under Elizabeth’s hand. Sorrel pointed it out to Poppy.
“All those years in the English school system,” Poppy said. “I can read Latin and that book, right there, the title is A Mistress’s Handbook.
“The diary!” Sorrel said.
“What diary?” Poppy asked.
“Your mother mentioned it earlier. It’s lost or destroyed or simply gone, I guess,” Sorrel said. “But look, there it is, big as life.”
“Bigger,” Poppy said.
And it was: a leather-bound book, not particularly beautiful in itself, even in the idealized portrait, crack-spined and leafed out with untidy papers. Its covers were brown, the title stamped in gold and worn, the edges deckled and beside it, a scattering of herbs and flowers. No clearer picture of Elizabeth’s gift could be found. And, to Sorrel’s eye at least, no clearer argument that the Shakespeare Garden was worth saving.
“I’m sure Mum would have led you to this eventually but we are now way ahead,” Poppy said.
“Does this painting exist in an art book somewhere?” Sorrel asked. “And the other ones, anything that has this book in it.”
“Probably. We can dig through her study.”
“Or you could just ask me.”
“Mum, you’re up.” Poppy wiped her hands on her jeans. “We were just detecting.”