Free The Dead Queen's Garden by Nicola Slade Page B

more delightful surprises. ‘I can’tbelieve how colourful it all is, even at this time of year,’ she said, waving her hand at the glowing scarlet berries on the holly tree in the corner and glancing up at the mistletoe, with its mother-of-pearl fruit, hanging in clusters from an apple tree. ‘Surely some of these trees are very ancient, Lady Granville?’ She looked at the holly again and then, doubtfully, at the apple tree as she spoke. ‘But the garden must be of a more recent date, if you designed it yourself?’
    Lady Granville shook her head. ‘Indeed it is. I built the garden around the trees,’ she explained. ‘The apple tree is only about twenty years old, I planted it myself, but the other trees were here first, the holly and the Queen’s Yew over in the corner.’
    At Charlotte’s look of enquiry, the other woman nodded. ‘There is an old story that says Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, spent time visiting the abbey that is said to have graced this spot. It seemed a pleasant conceit to me, when I decided to design a garden to suit the mansion put up by my father-in-law, to call the garden after the queen and to stock it only with plants that grew in the olden days.’
    Charlotte’s eyes were bright as she continued her exploration, aware that her interest was giving considerable pleasure to Lady Granville, who looked, Charlotte decided, as though she needed to smile more frequently. ‘Goodness,’ she said, stooping to look at a long walk bordered with sword-like green leaves. ‘What on earth are these? The berries are the most brilliant orange I’ve seen since my arrival in England.’
    ‘That’s called Stinking Iris,’ explained Oz Granville, interrupting with a snort of laughter. ‘If you crush the leaves and stems it stinks.’
    Charlotte raised a sardonic eyebrow and allowed him to hand her a leaf which she obediently crushed, though declining, with a laugh, to hold it to her nose, until his pleading gaze made her change her mind. ‘Another name for it is Roast Beef Plant,’ he informed her as she wrinkled her nose at the smell. ‘Mama likes it for the bright colours.’
    ‘Oh dear, with such an unpleasant smell, you would expect it be poisonous.’ Charlotte was surprised to see a frown eclipse her hostess’s earlier amusement at her idle remark.
    ‘I believe the roots should be avoided,’ was the careless answer. ‘I prefer not to dwell on that aspect of my plants, however. The beauty of the berries is sufficient for my pleasure though the flower itself is quite lovely, in varying shades of a brownish-purple and yellow.’ Her enthusiasm was engaging as she eagerly drew Charlotte along the path to admire first this favourite, and then another.
    ‘Osbert is quite correct,’ she admitted with another of those doting smiles, ‘when he says I am particularly fond of the brightly coloured berries. A garden in winter can be so bleak, after all, but with careful planting, I believe I have overcome that disadvantage.’ She waved her hand in an expansive gesture. ‘You see, Mrs Richmond? Small black berries on the ivy that clothes the ruins; scarlet berries on the honeysuckle along the vine walk; purplish red ones there on the St John’s Wort. There are colours everywhere, as you so observantly remarked when you entered the garden.’
    ‘Indeed there are.’ Charlotte found herself being disarmed by the other woman’s enthusiasm. There was a glow in her dark eyes that spoke of a passion and eagerness about her ‘treasure’, that showed an appealing side to the woman Charlotte had thought dull at first meeting. She turned eagerly to her hostess. ‘My stepfather told me of a knot garden at his … his childhood home, but I gathered it was much more formal than this one.’
    ‘Knot gardens were a later development in the art of gardening,’ Lady Granville informed her and was soon well away on the history of planting, not noticing her guest’s far-away expression as