When Delphine too agreed to help Sorrel, Gabe began to feel almost optimistic. He’d known Delphine as long as she’d been with the family and he had, naturally, fallen a little in love with her right along with Graham. He’d watched how the two explorers began to unravel the secrets in the house, how they approached their adventures with great exuberance, and each little mystery they solved was another cause for celebration. He couldn’t remember now why he hadn’t stopped them that rainy day so long ago when Delphine found the tapestries. It had seemed of little concern because Graham wasn’t particularly enthused by the tattered rolls so Gabe imagined it would all just go away. But it didn’t and after Delphine revealed she was pregnant Gabe began to worry in earnest. The subject matter was unsuitable for anyone, but when he thought about the true magic happening inside Delphine and how delicate she appeared as she struggled through the early months, Gabe knew the tapestries had to be removed and he needed to make that happen. Richard Kirkwood had already “disappeared” the disgusting seventh panel; it was down to Gabe to find a way to take the others far away for as long as possible. At least Delphine would be free of their pull while she waited for her baby to be born.
One of Gabe’s daily chores was collecting the post in the village. He could have given the job over to one of the young workers who seemed to be multiplying as the estate began to come into its own, or he could have asked one of the business staff. But Gabe found the daily trip a pleasant break so he continued, always stopping for a cup at the teashop and the racing form at the newsagents. It was on one of those trips that a solution to the tapestries presented itself. Graham’s mother, Helena, Lady Kirkwood was a patron of the Victoria and Albert, an honor held by Lady Kirkwoods going back to Cosima, whose Venetian glass collection was on permanent display at the museum. Gabe was wrangling the letters and bills, circulars and magazines out of the Kirkwood box when he came upon a shiny catalogue raisonné for a V&A exhibit of Elizabethan textiles. Here was an answer, and it was just the place for a load of old tapestries to find a home. It was of no interest to him whether they sat in a storeroom in London for the next three hundred years or ended up in a dumpster. Honestly, he’d have preferred the dumpster. Besides, he was uncomfortable with the fact that Delphine spent her spare time poking away at them with her needle and thread, her magnifying glass and her tissue paper squares to hold the fragile hems. Gabe feared what so much time before such ugliness could do to a spirit.
The next time Delphine was at Kirkwood Hall, Gabe handed her the catalogue without explanation and strode from the kitchen before she could say anything. For one thing, Gabe was still nervous around her, more so now that she was so clearly pregnant, and for another, because he found it next to impossible to read her lips. She spoke too quickly and her mouth formed words differently in her Belgian accent. Gabe had retained a form of spoken words because he had practiced in front of the mirror in secret from the very start of his deafness. It was important to him to know that he still had a voice, even if almost no one ever heard him. He and Delphine most often used pen and paper to share their news. This time there was no need for a note: Delphine came to the same conclusion that Gabe had and in a matter of days she believed that it was all her idea to ship the tapestries off to London. It took almost no convincing to make Lady Kirkwood see things her way, but Lord Kirkwood had several back-and-forth negotiations with the museum before he convinced them (by way of a substantial donation) to keep the tapestries away from prying eyes and their owner anonymous. The curator was certain that, given time, he could convince Lord Kirkwood that giving them outright to the V&A was a fine idea. Gabe so wished that the curator had been right.
Away they went for the moment and Graham was able to return to his studies, Delphine to preparations for her baby, and the rest of the Kirkwood estate to the business of being stately. Over the coming years Gabe never regretted his or Richard’s undercover machinations, never mentioned the seventh panel, nor its hiding place. When the restored tapestries returned to be hung in their own special room, Gabe held the only key and never opened the door. Graham unexpectedly approved of the secrecy too and so Gabe found his purpose and contentment in the public and private role of caretaker to Kirkwood Hall and all its denizens.
When Mathilde was born, Gabe left a full set of Beatrix Potter books on the inn’s doorstep. They were wrapped in rose-printed paper and tied with an organza ribbon, but there was no card; Delphine would have recognized his hand straightaway. To this day she did not know who had left them. Years later they would be well worn from reading and then dusty with disuse. They still sat on a shelf in the hallway between the dining room and the library, behind the thrillers and romances left by guests over the years. There was no one to read them anymore.
Gabe pushed off from the willow with his empty plate and tried to escape before one of the cheery lunchers wanted to chat. But Sorrel noticed. She grabbed a pastry and followed him. Gabe was headed for the small maze that lay at the center of the formal garden. This could end badly, Sorrel thought as she surveyed the tall hedges. Minotaur or meaningless death by starvation after the Napoleon is gone . . .
“Hey,” Sorrel said as soon as she came to the entrance of the maze. Pointless shouting as Gabe had his back turned. Sorrel reached to grab his sleeve. He turned, and she said again, “Hey.” She was overwhelmed by the smell of healthy boxwood. There were some who thought box smelled of cat piss, but Sorrel was not one of them and for a moment she was stilled by the wave of scent, green, damp, rampant.
Gabe too was stopped. He was not immune to this brief season of electric green, of newness and possibility and limitless future. As he looked at Sorrel, he lowered his guard. He knew who and what she was, and if he was ever to fulfill his purpose and ensure that the Kirkwoods found their rightful place in history, Gabe needed to stay and heed.
“I’ll talk slowly so that you aren’t thrown by my accent, is that good?” Sorrel said standing as close as she could without spooking Gabe.
He nodded and reflexively snatched a cluster of box leaves and held them to his nose.
“I know,” Sorrel said. “It is the smell of both age and youth isn’t it?”
Gabe nodded.
“Here’s the thing,” Sorrel said. “I am like you.”
Gabe made to turn away.
“No, stop,” she said and touched his sleeve. “I am of the land and the soil and all the elements that make things grow. So are you.”
Gabe closed his eyes. If this woman made her way into his head, then the Shakespeare Garden would never be saved. She would see what he knew, what he feared, and she would run away from all of them as fast as she could.
Sorrel tapped his chest and Gabe jumped.
“Look at me,” she said, and Gabe nodded, acknowledging that she hadn’t asked him to listen to her.
“I can fix this,” Sorrel said. “I can resurrect this garden, I can heal this family and remedy the poison of their history. No one I have met here deserves to be cursed by the past.”
Gabe shook his head and pointed to his own chest.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Sorrel said. “You are the clear water that runs through a blighted landscape, Gabe. You are the one who, for whatever reason, has taken this family on and you are part of what will fix it, all of it.” Sorrel waved her arms around as if the maze itself were closing in. “I am the hands that will plant the new garden over the old. You must be the heart that stands with me.”
Gabe began to cry silently. He drew a giant handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face.
“Yeah, I knew you’d get it,” Sorrel said. “Come on then, lead me out of here before I eat your éclair.”
CHAPTER 14
Harebell