“And then she panics right along with Andrew,” Stella said. “Why don’t we leave it to Sorrel to contact her sister?”
GABE FINALLY CAME to Delphine after the lunch rush at the inn. He stood for a long time in the shade of the laburnum allée that led to the beer garden. There were still a few stragglers enjoying the last of their drinks. Gabe thought they looked happy and carefree, and he wanted to slap them all.
Delphine came out to clear the last of the glasses and saw Gabe.
“You are lurking,” she said. “I’ll take these in and we can sit.”
Gabe felt even worse in the face of Delphine’s hospitality. When she returned, she was carrying a tray with her citron pressé and glasses.
“Something is on your mind,” she said. “Tell me.”
Gabe let the story spill out, alternately signing and scribbling. He watched Delphine carefully, waiting for the anger to rise, the explosion that was surely coming. But when he finished, Delphine reached out her strong hand and covered his worn ones.
“You are expecting blame?” she asked. “A lecture about privacy and respect, perhaps? How the weight of grief that you cannot know and must not trifle with transforms one, maybe?”
Gabe nodded. He was as still as a hare in a hedgerow.
“Oh, Gabe,” Delphine said and patted his hands again. “I did not know how much I wished for those little fairy houses until you told me they survived.”
Gabe closed his eyes in relief.
“And,” she continued, “now that Sorrel is ill and the garden is failing, it is essential that we put them back to work, yes?”
Gabe might have let it go at that, but given the terrible state of the garden, and her little gardener, he made a decision that he knew would probably end his time at Kirkwood Hall. He spoke slowly and carefully so that there would be no misunderstanding.
“The final tapestry is in the crypt,” he said. “Richard hid it. Graham knew that much. He lied to you.”
Delphine froze. Not even the bee that alighted on her shoulder stirred her.
“When was this?” she asked.
“The year you found them, when the chapel was such a ruin no one ever went in it.”
“And you knew this?”
Gabe nodded. “I had to keep the secret. Kirkwood is my life,” he wrote, giving up on the spoken word.
“Of course you did,” Delphine said. “I can’t blame you, not at all.”
Gabe’s eyes filled. The relief of telling the truth made all the anxiety of the last weeks fade.
“Now we will go get it and see what it has to tell us.”
Gabe started to protest. “Graham will not allow,” he said.
“I don’t care what Graham will or will not allow,” Delphine snapped. “It is time to end this charade of his before anyone else is hurt.”
Delphine removed her apron, instructed her husband to stir the veal stock, and led Gabe back to Kirkwood Hall.
On the way she learned about Maggie and cooed her distress as Gabe swiped at his tears. She catalogued the symptoms of Sorrel’s sudden illness with Gabe and heard how the garden seemed to be eating itself alive. When he told her that he had wanted to put the fairy houses in the garden to protect it, Delphine nodded.
“Of course this makes sense,” she said. “It is what Mathilde did, why she made them.”
“Too late,” Gabe said.
“We’ll see,” Delphine said. “We’ll see.”
THE GARDEN GROANED as it oozed toward the sundial. Any bird that had begun to feel safe again inside the walls was long gone. A meadow vole who thought to burrow under the soil and nibble on the tasty bulbs when autumn arrived lay dead in a small indentation caused by the collapse of the lady’s smock. Three holly blue butterflies grown accustomed to the revived ivy were left stranded when the vine fell away from the wall and lay curled in upon itself in the shadows. The silence was absolute. If ever there was a call for a fairy house to keep watch, it was now.
CHAPTER 20
Hemlock
Andrew finally caved the next morning and rang Patience Sparrow on his mobile. Nettie answered the Nursery phone, and when she heard Andrew’s voice, she shouted for Patience before he even had a chance to tell her why he was calling.
“What’s wrong?” Patience asked, her own voice sharp and demanding.
Andrew found himself babbling as he tried to present the situation both in the least worrying light and without the questionable occult bits.
“So is Sorrel sick enough for me to come over?” Patience asked. “I mean, what is it you want me to do, exactly?”
“Mostly she’s been sleeping,” Andrew said, “We had her seen by a medic, but she doesn’t seem to be making any improvement.”
“I’m still confused,” Patience said. “Put her on the phone.”
“That’s just it, Patience. She doesn’t want to get out of bed, and she won’t let me call the doctors back.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Patience spat.
“Well, my thoughts exactly,” Andrew said.
Poppy grabbed the phone from Andrew.
“Hi, I’m Poppy, and I think Skype is the way forward here,” she said. “Andrew’s too upset to be of any use, but I am ready to tell you what you need to know to devise a remedy for this.”
Poppy and Patience organized themselves with admirable speed and before long they were sitting across a computer screen and an ocean trying to fix Sorrel. Andrew paced behind them until Patience finally told him to sit still or get out. He got out, taking Wags, on lead to avoid any garden-related danger, for a walk.
Patience asked Poppy to get Sorrel’s list of herbs for the physic garden and the plan she’d drawn up for the Shakespeare Garden as well. She asked her pointed questions about Sorrel’s state. Only when she asked about the state of the garden itself did Poppy stumble.
“OK, what are you hiding?” Patience asked.
So Poppy told her everything, including how her father was convinced there was a Kirkwood curse and Gabe was certain the garden, his puppy, and Sorrel had succumbed to it.
“First of all,” said Patience, “I don’t believe in curses, only in ignorant people and really bad luck. Second, if something is wrong in that garden and it sounds like something is very wrong, it can be explained without witchery, I promise.”
Poppy felt the lightness and sense of wellbeing that comes from finding help just when you need it, or when a fever breaks. She agreed to come back to Patience once Sorrel’s sister had time to digest the materials Poppy was sending. She took Sorrel’s list of herbs and the garden plan and scanned them into the computer in her mother’s office and emailed it to Patience. Then she went looking for everyone. She didn’t trust the quiet that had come over the house and grounds. Just then Wags came flying around the corner of the stables followed by a shouting Andrew.
Poppy knelt down and grabbed Wags while Andrew caught his breath.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
Poppy told him that she was waiting for Patience’s call and he asked to see her phone.