The Rose Garden

He offered that as though it didn’t matter either way, but there was something in his tone that made me ask him, ‘Would you like to?’

Pushing his half-empty plate away he told me, ‘Yes, I would.’

I glanced towards the clearing sky. ‘We ought to wait until the sun comes out.’

‘Right.’ He hadn’t finished with his coffee, either, but he set that down as well, and stood. ‘You let me know, then, when you’re ready.’ And with that he turned away and went to start his work.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘He really did love her, didn’t he?’ Susan, standing at the sink to rinse our breakfast dishes, tipped her head to one side in a movement that was half-familiar. ‘I mean, it’s not as though he’s been pining away all these years, or anything, and he’s had girlfriends since who were serious, but your sister was special, I think.’

I pushed at a small bit of egg with my knife. ‘Well, she was his first love,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s what he told her. I know he was hers. And you never forget your first love.’

‘I suppose not.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t honestly remember what they were like as a couple, I was only seven. And you and I played together more, really. Katrina and Mark always seemed so much older.’ She was filling the sink now with water and dish soap, and I would have risen to help her if she hadn’t motioned me down again. ‘Sit. You’re a guest.’

‘Not that kind of a guest. I can help.’

‘No, you can’t,’ she insisted, and from her expression she wouldn’t be budged, so I did as she told me and stayed in my seat at the table while she started washing the cutlery. ‘Who was your first love?’ she asked me, and the question broke the subtle air of sadness that had settled on us; brought the light again into the room.

I smiled. ‘A boy at my school in Vancouver. He played junior hockey, I spent all my weekends in freezing cold ice rinks.’ Somehow it didn’t have quite the same level of romance as Mark and Katrina. ‘And you?’

‘I’m still waiting for mine,’ Susan said. ‘I’m too fussy, Mark tells me. I want what my dad and Claire had.’

‘God, you’ll be waiting a long time for that.’ Even my parents, for all their devotion to each other, hadn’t been a patch on Uncle George and Claire. The Halletts had been one of those rare couples who, between them, made a little world that no one else could touch. True soulmates.

Susan ran the dishrag round a coffee mug. ‘I know. Worth waiting for, though, I think. And it doesn’t mean I can’t have some adventures in the meantime.’

She’d been born to have adventures. Although she’d been the youngest and the smallest of the four of us, she’d been the one most likely to explore, to push the boundaries, and she’d often had the skinned knees and the bandages to prove it. From the little I had seen now of the woman she’d grown into I suspected she still had that spirit in her, that her mind still saw beyond the limits others liked to place on things.

Which made me wonder why she had come back here, to this quiet little corner of the country, and Trelowarth.

‘Mark said you’d been living near Bristol,’ I ventured.

She glanced at me. ‘Did he?’ I had the strong impression I had somehow touched a nerve without intending to, but Susan hid it with a shrug. ‘Yes, well, I had my own catering business up there, did he tell you?’

He hadn’t, but I took the opportunity to shift to safer ground. ‘So then you should be able to make a success of your tea room.’

‘I hope so. I mean, Mark would never complain, but I know that it hasn’t been easy these past few years, since Dad’s investments went—’ She stopped and glanced at me and quickly looked away and would have likely changed the subject if I hadn’t stopped her.

‘Susan.’

‘Yes?’

‘Trelowarth’s in financial trouble?’ I could read reluctance in her eyes. I asked her, ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad enough. But don’t tell Mark I told you, or he’ll plant me in the garden with the roses.’

I imagined a place this big must take a good deal of money to run. Apart from the house, there was all the land – not just the gardens themselves, but the fields where the roses were actually grown. Most of the regular work could be done by two men, but with Uncle George gone that meant Mark would have had to hire someone to help. They’d be busiest during the winter months, digging the bare-rooted roses and shipping them off to fill all of the orders that would have come in through the year, after which all the rest of the harvest still had to be potted and delivered to the garden centres that had always sold Trelowarth roses. But even at this time of year there was much to be done. Taking care of Trelowarth, I knew, was a full-time concern.

‘Anyway,’ Susan said, ‘that’s really why I came back. To help out where I could.’

‘Hence the tea room.’

‘Exactly. My dad used to talk about having one someday. I thought if we put in a tea room and opened the gardens for tours, it might bring in some revenue and make more people aware of our product.’ She heard her own words and smiled wryly. ‘I’ve been swotting up on marketing, can you tell?’

‘Good for you, though. That’s just what you should do.’ My gaze found the folder of plans she had left on the table. ‘You mind if I look at these?’