“Breakfast,” Andrew said and handed Sorrel the flowers. She bashed the stems and put them in water and wondered how it was that Delphine knew just where to find her.
ANDREW WAS DISAPPOINTED not to join Sorrel the first time she entered the garden with its new and fertile soil. He’d set a meeting with Marcus, the verger, at the chapel with his young family to test the refurbished church bells, and while the lure of Sorrel in a garden was strong, the charms of three small children and a puppy were a fine substitute. Andrew was happily rolling about on the lawn with a brindle pup of unidentified lineage and the boys within minutes of his arrival. Marcus Everlane, who had spent countless hours shoulder to shoulder with a much more dour Andrew as they worked on the chapel, couldn’t guess what accounted for this extraordinary change of heart, but he certainly welcomed it. When Andrew and Marcus began their work it was mostly harmless ferrying of bags of rubbish and rubble out of the chapel once it was determined that there was nothing of historical value in the wheelbarrows. Marcus remembered how Andrew’s temperament at the time seemed uniquely suited to the bashing and slamming about. Now that they were on to the finishing touches for the little chapel; sanding down the restored pews before protective varnish was applied, polishing brass and stone and choosing the bibles and hymnals that would become a part of the building and her visitors’ lives, Marcus was glad to see Andrew using a lighter touch. With the bells in place and the roses just blooming, the two men shared a gentle thrill at the fruit of their labors and an overarching sense of optimism about the weeks ahead.
Sorrel, for her part, would not be rolling around in the Shakespeare Garden any time soon. Several truckloads of rich compost had been spread throughout the garden along each gritty pathway and right up to the side walls where the dwarf apple trees would be espaliered. Now the whole thing awaited Sorrel’s marking and plotting. The earth was soaked with the rain, and the smell of manure rose up to float over the estate like the Victorian miasma. Even in the village people lifted their wrinkled noses and hurried back inside. Sorrel couldn’t have been happier, if a bit drier. She squatted down and took off her gloves so that she could feel the soil between her fingers. It was heavy, wriggling with earthworms, blobby and perfect. She wiped her hands on her jeans and picked up her long waxed tape measure, a fistful of stakes, and her chalk line. Sorrel pinned her garden map to the handle of the wheelbarrow and consulted it as she measured and staked. Over and over she tied the chalk line to a stake and snapped it, leaving a white line the length and width of each parterre. A satisfying puff of chalk hung in the still air above the soil with each snap, and Sorrel looked around her with pleasure. It’s begun, she thought. Just then the tentative chime of the chapel bells floated over the wall. Sorrel washed her hands and face with the hose and wandered over to see Andrew and, perhaps, ask him to make lunch. She was sweating and a bit disoriented from being walled in all morning; it would be good to feel a breeze.
On her way to the chapel Sorrel passed the big pallets loaded with her plants. They were lined up in the greenhouse. Clear plastic covered the broken panes, and the air was heavy with moisture. The lavender worried her a little; it was budding out too fast and the blossoms could be damaged in the planting. She ran her hand over the swaying tops, whispering, “Not yet, not yet.” The climbing roses, on the other hand, were struggling. “Come now,” Sorrel murmured. “It’s your time.” The plants leaned into her hands as if they were listening.
CHAPTER 11
Wormwood
I have to say I’m anxious to get back to the country,” Stella said as she sorted through the post.
“You always are, darling,” Graham said and closed the newspaper.
“Indeed, but with the weather cleared and Sorrel properly in the garden I am missing more than just the estate.” Stella stood. “Let’s head back early.”
“No,” Graham said sharply, and Stella raised her eyebrows. “What I mean is that Sorrel should have unmolested time with the garden. We will only be a distraction and”—Graham grinned and rubbed his hands together—“I do believe Andrew has found in Sorrel a distraction of an entirely different sort.”
“Just as I hoped,” Stella said and bent to kiss her husband’s leonine head. “You are right, of course. We’ll leave your gardener and my brother to find their pleasure together.”
“Come with me, Stella, let’s walk by the river before I head to Westminster.”
As they walked, Graham made several false starts at coming clean about his lingering fear of the Shakespeare Garden. Certainly hiring Sorrel Sparrow was the tip of the spear, but what he had not shared with his wife was how much danger he really suspected lay beneath even the richest new soil. Finally, he drew Stella to a bench beneath the flowering chestnut trees and cupped her cheek until she had no choice but to look deeply into his worried eyes.
“I am afraid I have not been totally honest with you, or with Sorrel,” Graham said. “I realize now that my actions have been selfish, but you must understand that everything I have done, every plan, every move, has been to keep my family safe.”
“Gray, what is the matter?” Stella asked. “Why are you so unsettled? Have you done something regrettable?”
“I may have,” he said. “But only because I saw no other way.”
And so Graham confessed to how calculated his plan really was. To be fair, when his sister, Fiona, had first told him about the Sparrow Sisters and their trials in Granite Point, he’d barely listened. This new world Fiona had chosen over Kirkwood Hall had always felt like something of a fairy tale anyway, so hearing the story of the enchanted sisters only provided a vaguely interesting bauble at first. But with time he began to wonder about the Sparrow women. If they were, in fact, as gifted as Fiona believed, surely one of them could bring her gifts to his world. And if such a thing happened, a special gardener like Sorrel Sparrow might be immune to the darkness of the garden, if there were such a thing as a garden with that kind of power.
“Graham, are you saying that you have some knowledge that the blight in that garden is actually physically dangerous to humans?” Stella had a moment’s thought that her beloved husband had lost the plot before she briefly considered some sort of illegal toxic waste dump.
“I have no real knowledge, my love,” he said. “I haven’t had the soil or bedrock tested. But surely you have made the connections?”
“Clearly not.”