Planting was slow, precise work for Sorrel. If the weather cooperated, she would be finished in a week, or maybe two. And then she would watch and wait to see how the garden received her plants. In the weeks since her arrival, May had crept toward June, and everything on the estate, with the exception of the Shakespeare Garden, surged into bloom. The orchards were a froth of apple and pear blossoms, the last of the lilacs had been cut and could be found all over the house, and the peonies in the formal garden needed constant staking to support the giant blossoms. Sorrel was given permission to cut some of the flowers as they unfolded. She knew exactly how to select the best blossoms while leaving the formal beds unspoiled. She made arrangements of early delphinium and bells of Ireland and white lilac for the chapel and filled Andrew’s house with bouquets of Queen of Sweden and Lady of Shalott roses from the cutting garden. Each time she gathered the flowers, she worried over the late planting of the Shakespeare Garden.
Gabe met Sorrel every morning that she worked with a paper cup of tea and just the right amount of organic matter in piles. He had laid a tarp down in the center of the garden, and each day he tipped the mulch and compost onto it, ready for Sorrel’s needs. He never stayed, though. He knew she planted alone, but sometimes he climbed to the top of the tool shed to watch. He couldn’t hear her murmurings, but he could see her mouth moving and the way her head tipped as she seemed to listen to each plant. He also watched for any sign of poison. But Sorrel moved with determined grace, pausing only to adjust a bed here or settle a peony ring there. Gabe winced when she pinched off the first growths of the herbs and cut back the first marigold buds. He knew she was right, but he’d always had a bit of a soft heart when it came to pruning.
Sorrel loved the pattern of her day: the moment with Gabe at the start when the light was new and the dawn chorus just fading away, the solitary time among her plants that no one dared interrupt, and the time when she stood, twisted the kinks out of her shoulders, and left the garden for a while. After a few hours Sorrel always took a break. She cleaned off a bit but not so much that she’d hesitate before going back to the soil. Often she grabbed a snack from the main house and went to sit on the bench in the shady little churchyard. If she was lucky, Andrew might be messing about in the chapel and together they’d lean against the old oak and rest in contented silence. Once she fell asleep with her head on Andrew’s shoulder. She dreamt of a white stag and a hare with a crown before waking with a start. Andrew laughed at her horrified face as he dabbed at the drool on his shirtfront.
“Were you dreaming of me, my love?” he asked.
“Only if you are really a giant stag with antlers or a rabbit with a tiara,” Sorrel said.
“Ah, you’ve found me out, then,” Andrew said. “This shape-shifting of mine has got to stop.”
Sorrel nuzzled his shoulder, still logy from her brief sleep.
“Listen, I have to go into London tomorrow,” Andrew said.
“Oh.”
“I’ve been called to a meeting with my bishop.”
“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” Sorrel asked.
“It’s a review, really. In theory, my time in purgatory—to mix religious canons—will end with the summer solstice. Reopening the little chapel on that day was Graham’s idea, a rebirth for us all I suppose, and a return to myself in a sense. Of course the boss needs to give me the once-over to be certain I’m not going to go off the rails again.”
“Is that what you want, to return to your London church?”
“Unclear,” Andrew said. “A few months ago I would have told you that I had left my faith”—he paused—“rather that it had left me. Now I’m not sure.”
Sorrel remembered what it was like when the Sparrow Sisters Nursery fell into ruin. She felt abandoned by her faith in a way, too. But hers was built on the soil and what it nurtured, on nature and her ability to work inside it to create things that some called miraculous. So she was glad that Andrew was at the very least looking at his work again. Examining it in the light of his newfound happiness might restore his spirit in a way even she couldn’t. Sorrel didn’t, wouldn’t look any deeper at what Andrew’s return to London meant for them. No, she could not bear to think beyond the walls of the Shakespeare Garden. Once it was complete, the gate returned with the bricks and mortar, Sorrel would be without purpose to the Kirkwoods. It would be time for her to return to herself. So, instead of counting down the days Sorrel chose to drink them in, and she hoped that Andrew would join her.
“You know,” Andrew said. “I do believe I am capable of care again. I think that I might even be better suited to the calling than I was before.”
“And that makes you happy?” Sorrel asked.
“It does,” Andrew said. “When the days were at their darkest, I couldn’t imagine believing in light again. But as with all natural things, I suppose, my faith is returning, and I find that my heart and my head need to be put to use again.”
“I can’t imagine being so certain in my belief,” Sorrel said. “I’m jealous, I suppose, of yours.”
“Don’t you understand, Sorrel? Faith is belief in the absence of proof.”
“And?” Sorrel asked.
“Your faith couldn’t be much stronger, my little gardener, you just don’t give it a name.” Andrew looked a little surprised at the way the two devotions were suddenly one.
“You’ll leave in the morning?” Sorrel asked.
“Yes, but I’ll be back in two days’ time.” Andrew took Sorrel’s face in his palms. “What shall I do without you?” he asked.
“You’ll be busy,” Sorrel said.
“What will I do when you have quite disappeared from our lives, Sorrel Sparrow?” Andrew asked. What would he do when this faith, this love of his that he had never prayed for, never expected, went away?
Sorrel had no answer because she had no idea.
THAT NIGHT THE lovers ate dinner at the Tithe Barn. Poppy and her parents were at the Queen’s Hart, which left Andrew and Sorrel to cook—Andrew to cook, obviously. He made pasta with Kirkwood’s own sheep’s milk blue and soft goat cheese, mascarpone, marjoram, and asparagus from the kitchen garden. They drank white wine on the little terrace and put napkins over their shirts as they twirled the long strands of tagliolini. The horses milled in the distance, fog lay low on the land as the air cooled, and the pastures gave up the last of their warmth.
Andrew was melancholy. “I’m already nostalgic for us,” he said.
“Let’s not borrow sadness,” Sorrel said. “It’s beautiful. We’ve got three more weeks until solstice and the official opening of the garden, the dedication of the chapel, your reinstatement as, what do they call you?”
“Father, Reverend, Sir, Darling, the usual.”