“Sorrel, not gossip, just general jubilation. Andrew is back to himself, you are about to make some miracles, Dad seems to have regained his senses, and Delphine brought mille-feuilles and éclairs for dessert.”
Lunch was just as Graham had pictured. Even Gabe passed through and took the plate Stella offered. He stood in the shade of a newly leafed-out willow some yards away and ate. Several dogs gathered at his feet hopefully, and not even Gabe had the heart to shoo them off. He watched the people he cared for group and regroup as they ate and drank. It was a pastoral painting come to life, and Gabe felt more keenly than ever the need to protect them. He was a part of Kirkwood Hall, the land, the dogs, and the gardens. Since he was a boy he’d watched over these people. When scarlet fever overtook him at nineteen, Graham’s mother called the doctor out in the night to attend him. The antibiotics worked but not before near complete deafness set in. Lady Kirkwood never quite forgave his father, and it was she who took up sign language and painstakingly taught Gabe over that long winter. The care went both ways from that time onward. It was a durable thing that had held fast through the years. The boys not only signed at speed, but also developed their own kind of code so that they could still keep secrets together. But now the world had intruded, as it does for everyone.
At first, Gabe had feared the changes that Stella brought with her when she married Graham. Then, as he saw her gentle ministrations to both the land and the animals and then to her growing family, Gabe softened and accepted that everything around him would continue to shift over time but that he, at the center, would not. He would be the rock for this generation as he had been for the last.
It might have seemed out of character for Gabe to have revealed any clue to the Kirkwood secret, particularly to Poppy, who was still young and dreamy beneath her sharp wit. But once he had watched Sorrel for a week or two, he understood that he needn’t be alone as keeper anymore. Sorrel seemed to have the same kind of eye as Gabe. She noticed the tiny dragonfly hovering over the mock orange and smiled at the iridescent wings, she saw the hornet’s nest that hung hidden in terrible beauty under the Tithe Barn eaves and approached it without fear. She was the only one who could lure the skinny barn cat away from her kittens long enough to feed her scraps. One day as Gabe was overseeing the dredging at the pond, he saw her carefully, gently collect a fallen hatchling and reach high into the hedgerow to replace it in a nest. At first Gabe scoffed, prepared to dislike her just a little bit more for not knowing that she’d doomed the fragile thing with her touch. The mother bird would never accept it, and it would starve before it fledged. After Sorrel returned to her work, Gabe watched for the mother with a grim certainty that he’d have to keep the hounds away from the dead chick by afternoon. Instead, the mother returned and fed her nestlings without incident.
Gabe let his knowledge out bit by bit over the weeks it took for Sorrel to settle in and undertake her work. First he left the tapestry room door unlocked and let Poppy and Sorrel spend just enough time in the room to be frightened. Now he wasn’t sure if he meant to drive Sorrel off or draw her in further. He hadn’t expected Poppy to be so engaged in the matter of the Shakespeare Garden. Poppy had been distant of late, growing up and away, Gabe reckoned, and that was probably just as well. Soon enough Rupert would need to be made wise in the ways of the estate so that there would be a seamless transition when he inherited the title. Rupert clearly had his eye on taking over from his father, and a fine lord of the manor he would be. It was Poppy who seemed unable, unwilling, really, to take up her duties as Lady Philippa, a courtesy title but a powerful one. She had yet to choose a charity patronage, spent little time with her godmother, the Princess Royal, and rarely took advantage of the perquisites of inherited wealth. Still, her attention to Sorrel and the work of returning not just the garden but also the family to peace was encouraging. Seamless, that is what satisfied Gabe, no bumps, no hiccups, and certainly no outsiders to throw his world into chaos. Yet, here was Sorrel and instead of upending things, she seemed to be smoothing them over, for everyone.
Gabe had planned to show Sorrel the connection between the tapestries, the chapel, and Elizabeth’s book, but it was Poppy who had barged in with her mother in a state. Being a skilled lip reader was more than just an everyday necessity for Gabe. He picked up enormous amounts of useful intel simply by going about his business in the presence of others. Eavesdropping on Poppy and Stella as they took off their coats and greeted the dogs gave Gabe enough information about Graham’s weeks-long dissembling that he knew he had to act quickly. As soon as Stella headed out to the garden, Gabe had taken his chance and given his next secret over to the girl. Now, as he watched Poppy and Sorrel laughing together, he felt less guilty about exposing Poppy to the secrets. Together the two women were more powerful, Gabe was certain.