Return to Summerhouse Read online

  In the end, they combined two gardens from France and one from England into one design. When they finally had what they wanted, they’d celebrated with sparkling apple juice in Waterford crystal glasses.

  As soon as the weather warmed up, she helped Eddie into a deck chair, nearly drowned him in blankets, and he directed her as she used string and spikes to lay out the garden so they could see how it would look.

  Eddie had been near her while she’d argued with the brick mason. “You want all them little paths just so you can plant what you can buy in jars at the grocery store?” he’d asked. “Yes,” Faith and Eddie said in unison. The man shrugged. “It’s your nickel.”

  It had taken two weeks to level off the quarter acre perfectly flat, then restring the walkways. The men came and put in the bricks in the intricate design that Faith and Eddie had made. A few months after it was done, by accident, Faith overheard the brick mason bragging about the garden he’d put in. His hint was that he had designed it. She’d run home to tell the story to Eddie and they’d laughed so hard that he’d gone into spasms and the doctor’d had to be called.

  Besides designing, during the winter, she and Eddie had spent long hours poring over herb catalogs and Internet sites as they planned what to plant.

  Everything was timed perfectly and the huge boxes of moss-wrapped plants arrived just days before the brick was finished. Eddie sat in his deck chair with the plans on his lap as he told Faith where they were to be set.

  The garden had flourished and she and Eddie had had six years with it before he died. They’d added and subtracted plants every spring, and during the winter they read about uses for the herbs. Since it was difficult for Eddie to get up and down stairs, against his mother’s many protests, he backed Faith in converting one of the upstairs bathrooms into a sort of laboratory. He read recipes aloud while she made infusions and concoctions. They’d started with potpourris, but Eddie’s mother hated the smell of them, so they’d gone on to concoct potions meant to soothe nerves and calm nervous stomachs. They’d laughed together at the hideous tastes they created and celebrated when they made something delicious. They made some great shampoos, and Faith’s favorite, bath salts.

  During all this planning, planting, tasting, and trying, Faith’s mother-in-law refused to participate in any way. Even Eddie’s attempts to draw her in had failed. When Faith was outside, she’d often seen the woman watching them from the upstairs window. Faith had waved, but the woman always turned away.

  The day after Eddie’s funeral, his mother had had a backhoe destroy the herb garden.

  Now, Faith looked at the big herb garden and she felt at home. Even without checking, she knew what the three gardens were. One contained herbs for cooking, and the second area was for medicine. When Eddie’s condition had worsened, Faith had delved deeper into finding out what herbs could do, and she’d tried some ancient remedies on him. They hadn’t cured him, but they had helped relieve his pain and make his last days easier.

  Faith knew the third area was for the poisonous plants. She crossed the first two gardens and looked through the locked gate. She saw henbane, foxglove, wormwood, and Bad Henry. Most of the poisonous plants were unfamiliar to her as she’d not grown them or used them. She knew them only from reading.

  She was at the end of the huge walled garden and she looked back to see a big patch of open ground that had been temporarily fenced and inside it were geese. She knew that they’d be kept inside the fence for most of the day to do the weeding, and they’d turn the weeds into fertilizer. The geese also provided meat and eggs; they were used to weed the garden, and nobody kept watch better than geese. If a stranger came onto the land, they let out a ruckus that was louder than any alarm system. On this place, in this time, everyone worked; everything had a purpose.

  Reluctantly, she left the beautiful walled kitchen garden and kept walking. She saw the barn with its dairy cattle. Two women were carrying pails of fresh milk toward the house.

  There was a new stone stable and the stone-paved courtyard was as well kept as any house. Workmen tipped their hats to her, but no one questioned her.

  Faith started walking through what she knew was a gentleman’s parkland that was acres of what looked like an extraordinarily beautiful woodland. But Faith knew that this look of nature at its best had actually been designed by someone, perfectly laid out, and thoughtfully planted. There were huge rocks that she was willing to bet had been hauled in by a team of heavy horses. She could imagine Clydesdales, twenty of them harnessed together, and a man shouting as the giant horses hauled the boulder to where some human had decided it would look best.

  She was musing on this thought, lost in it, and breathing deeply of air that had no car exhaust in it, and looking at a sky that had never seen an airplane, when she was almost run over by a horse. “Oh!” Faith cried as she put her arm up across her face and jumped back.

  The horse, as surprised as Faith was, seemed to turn its head one way and its body the other, its front feet coming off the ground. The rider pulled hard on the reins to get the animal under control.

  Faith, her hand still over her face, stepped farther back and tripped over the corner of one of the boulders she’d been admiring. At last the horse put its hooves on the ground and in the next second the rider slid off and ran toward Faith.

  “Are you all right?” asked a small voice.

  She moved her arm to look up at a pretty young woman, no more than sixteen, wearing a riding habit that was so tight it looked painted on. She had on a perky little hat that nearly obscured her right eye.

  “I’m fine,” Faith said, smiling and standing up. “I was more startled than hurt.” When she stood she saw that the girl was shorter than she was, only about five feet. She was small and exquisitely beautiful.

  “I think you must be one of Amy’s Americans. Your accent…I’ve never heard such a way of speaking except for Amy. Do you also have wondrous stories about your country?”

  Faith smiled. The girl had a sweetness about her that made Faith like her instantly. “I’m sure I do. How do you know Amy so well?”

  “She’s been here nearly a year. Did you not know that?”

  “No,” Faith said slowly. “Are you…?” She didn’t know what to call an earl. “His sister?”

  “Oh yes,” Beth said. “I’m Tristan’s sister, but as he says, I am young enough to be his daughter. Oh my!” she said when the horse, which had been standing still, suddenly turned and galloped away through the trees. “Someone must have filled his food bin.”

  Faith laughed. “I was admiring your park.”

  “Oh, it is lovely, isn’t it? Now that Sheba—that’s my mare—has run home I’m afraid we’ll have to walk back to the house. Do you mind?”

  “No, I love it here.” They started walking back toward the house, Faith feeling much taller and bigger than the tiny young woman. “Everything looks so new.”

  “It is. Did Amy not tell you about us?”

  “Not much,” Faith said. Except that her brother is very soon to be murdered in his sleep, she thought. “I’d love to hear everything.”

  “Amy does not tell us much about herself either,” Beth said, looking at Faith as though she hoped she would elaborate. When Faith said nothing, Beth went on. “My brother built all this for his wife, Jane.”

  “I didn’t know he was married.”

  Beth took a moment before answering. “She died less than a year after they were married.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Faith said.

  “My brother and she were deeply in love. They had been since they were children.”

  “Like Amy,” Faith said under her breath.

  “Yes,” Beth said enthusiastically. “We do know that about her. She’s told us about her husband, Stephen, and their two children.”

  “Did she tell you what happened to him?” Faith asked, curious to know what lies Amy had concocted.

  “That he’s waiting for her in America, but she can’t go bec