Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Evan comes to find me after a few minutes.
‘What do you think?’ he asks with a smile.
‘Amazing. I can’t wait to start work.’
‘You haven’t seen the half of it yet. We should probably move the car, though. I can give you the rest of the tour tomorrow.’
‘Sure thing.’
We make our way back out through the courtyard. There are still a few visitors around, but I’m guessing they’ll soon be ushered towards the exit.
‘Who was that lady who needed your help?’ I ask of the woman who interrupted us.
‘Oh, sorry, I should have introduced you properly,’ he says as our feet crunch over the gravel at the front of the house. ‘That was Philippa Berkeley.’
‘You’re shitting me!’ I exclaim in a hushed voice. ‘ That was the lady of the house?’
She looked so ordinary in her dark green zip-up vest and unbrushed hair. Her accent was super posh, but I just assumed she worked here.
‘Yep.’ He sounds amused. ‘She’s a character all right.’
‘I can’t believe you call her Mrs B,’ I say as we climb into the car.
‘She loves it,’ he replies with a grin. ‘I’m the only one who dares, though.’
That’s because he’s a cheeky flirt and can get away with it.
‘Harri, Bethan and Sian call her Lady Berkeley,’ he adds as he starts the ignition.
Harri and Bethan are gardeners at my level, although they’re both a couple of years younger than I am. Sian, my new housemate, works in the kitchens.
‘What’s Peter Berkeley like?’ I ask about the viscount of the house as Evan does a U-turn.
‘Haven’t seen too much of the guy, to be honest. Lord Berkeley doesn’t involve himself with staff,’ he adds, affecting a Queen’s English accent and grinning.
‘But Lady Berkeley does?’ I ask with amusement at his piss-taking.
She knew who I was.
‘She involves herself with everything ,’ he says meaningfully.
We head along another track leading off the private drive. Up ahead is a high red-brick wall – the walled garden, I suspect. Evan turns down the right-hand side of it and drives along a narrow dirt track, coming to a stop at the end. Running parallel to the rear of the wall, set well back, is a row of five tiny Victorian terraced cottages.
Yellow climbing roses crawl up the grey stone walls and each of the front doors is painted a different colour: green, purple, pink, blue and yellow.
Evan tells me that they were built to house estate workers in the late 1800s and they’re still used for the same purpose today.
‘Owain and his wife, Gwen, live at number one – on the right,’ Evan tells me of the cottage with the yellow door. ‘Gwen heads up the kitchen.’
And Owain, of course, is our boss.
‘Harri and I live next door in number two, you and Sian are right by us in three, and those last two cottages are occupied by rangers and workshop crew. The workshop is over there, the sawmill behind it.’ He nods at the Victorian outbuildings beyond the cottages.
‘How many rangers are there?’ I ask.
The rangers handle everything past the formal-garden boundaries: the woodland, parkland and everything in between, including the lake.
‘Two. You’ll meet them later. I’ve invited everyone for a few beers and a barbie. A little party to welcome our new arrival.’
‘Aw.’ I smile at him, feeling both touched and slightly nervous at the prospect of getting to know so many new people.
Bethan and Sian are who I most want to meet, but Sian is away on holiday until the end of the month. In some ways it’s not a bad thing: I’ll have almost two weeks to settle in and make the cottage my home before she returns.
I’m a bit apprehensive about living with someone I’ve never met, but at least I’m used to sharing other people’s spaces – I’ve done it my whole life.
‘Does Bethan live on-site?’ I ask.
‘Nope, she commutes in from Wrexham.’ That’s where we’ve just come from, about half an hour away. ‘But she’s been staying here a lot lately as she and Harri recently started seeing each other.’
He gives me a knowing look and gets out of the car, walking around to the boot.
‘Leave them,’ he says when I try to help with one of my suitcases.
He carries them both to the middle cottage with the baby-pink door and sets them down by the porch. There are so many bees buzzing around the climbing roses.
‘Right, here are your keys.’ He pulls a set of keys on a black leather keyring out of his pocket and hands it over. ‘The square one’s for the front door, round one’s for the back, and the skeleton key accesses the walled garden. Use it any time.’
‘Seriously?’
‘It’s the one place staff have unrestricted access to,’ he says, gripping the posts on either side of the porch, his posture casual and easy as he rests his body weight against the frame. ‘We tend to avoid the formal gardens outside working hours, but no one will mind if you go for a wander further afield. I’ll be amazed if you have the stamina for it, though. We’re going to work you hard.’
Did he mean that to sound sexy? It gives me a thrill anyway.
He grins and rakes his hand through his dark hair, ruffling it up a little as he backs away.
‘I’ll let you settle in. Gwen has stocked up the fridge to get you started, and she’s also left some shirts and fleeces for you to try on for size. You have black shorts?’
‘Yep.’ He sent me the uniform requirements a couple of weeks ago, so I’m all sorted.
‘Great. Come over at around six thirty? Use the back door as we’ll be outside.’
‘Thanks so much for collecting me from the station.’
‘No worries. See you later,’ he replies with a grin.
The cottage is small and cosy with a living room off the front door and a kitchen at the back. The living room has matching faded blue two-seater sofas that have seen better days, a rectangular white coffee table and a TV. In the kitchen there’s a small round dining table with a yellow tablecloth and four wooden chairs. Fresh flowers sit in a vase on the top, a mixture of irises: violet, mauve and butter yellow. I wonder, warmly, if my new boss’s wife, Gwen, put them there.
It takes some manoeuvring to get my bulky suitcases up the narrow staircase, but finally I make it into my bedroom. There’s a neat pile of dark green polo shirts, long-sleeved shirts and fleeces on the bed, which is a small double with a Cath Kidston-style bedspread: white with tiny red roses.
I pick up a polo shirt and study the Berkeley family crest embroidered in white in the top right corner. It looks like a shield with feathers spilling out the top. I noticed the same crest printed on the black leather keyring Evan gave me.
I don’t love that I couldn’t stick to my principles when it came to working here. But the pay is decent and hopefully I’ll get the experience to one day work for an organisation I believe in, like the National Trust. That’s the plan, anyway. For now, I’m doing what’s necessary.
Throwing the T-shirt back on the bed, I walk to the window. It faces onto the walled garden and the house beyond, so I’m guessing Sian’s view is of the Victorian outbuildings and fields at the back. A shared bathroom divides our bedrooms.
Pulling up the sash window, I prop my elbows on the windowsill, unable to keep from smiling. The walled garden is by far the largest I’ve seen and it’s bursting with life and colour. Victorian lean-to greenhouses line the south-facing wall on the right, and parallel to them is a large vegetable patch and rows of espalier fruit trees, trained against horizontal wires. The middle of the garden comprises mostly round and crescent-shaped beds set amongst lawn, and on the far left is an arch of laburnums in full bloom, yellow flowers raining down. Beyond the stretch of wall closest to the cottages is an orchard of apple trees, but there must be other beds at the base of the wall that I can’t see – an abundance of purple wisteria spills over the top.
Gardening is everything I dreamed it would be and so much more. I love what I do now and I have never felt more comfortable in my own skin.
I breathe in deeply and want to pinch myself. I can’t believe I get to live and work here.
Music starts playing through the walls of the neighbouring cottage a good twenty minutes before Evan said to come over, but I wait until just after six thirty before venturing outside, opening the back door to the smell of barbecue coals.
The five dwellings share a communal garden: a long stretch of lawn bordered by lavender that hasn’t yet come into bloom. A patchwork of farmers’ fields leads to hilly woodland on the far left, and the land is basking in a warm glow from the early-evening sunshine.
A group of men are hovering around a barbecue further along the garden, cans of beer in their hands. They’re all dressed casually – most will have had the weekend off – and Evan is amongst them. He looks over and clocks me as I pull the door closed.
‘Ellie!’ he shouts with a grin, setting down a pair of tongs and stepping out from behind the grill.
He’s changed into light-blue shorts and a white T-shirt and he looks relaxed and casual as he approaches. The other men stop talking and turn to watch me. Evan’s introductions mostly go in one ear and out the other, but I do meet the two rangers and a couple of workshop employees, plus fellow gardener Harri, a tall, ruddy-cheeked lad with sloping shoulders and a mop of bright blond hair.
An older man emerges from the last cottage, shouting over his shoulder, ‘Come on, Gwen, the party’s already started!’ before making a beeline for me with a crooked smile on his face. ‘You must be Ellie,’ he says in a voice I’m already familiar with.
‘Owain?’ I guess, taking his hand.
‘That’s me.’
He’s a touch shorter than me and stocky in build, with thinning grey hair.
‘And this is my wife, Gwen.’ He waves over a curly-haired woman who has just come out of the cottage.
Her face lights up with a smile as she opens her arms to me.
‘Welcome!’ she says, enclosing me in the sort of several-second hug that would normally be reserved for people who know each other well. ‘Is it Ellie or Eleanor?’ she asks as she withdraws, keeping her hands on my upper arms.
‘Ellie.’
‘I heard Philly call you Eleanor earlier, so I wasn’t sure.’
‘Philly?’
‘Well, probably Lady Berkeley to you. Some of us have worked here a long time, so we’re on more familiar terms,’ she adds with a twinkle in her eye.
A moment later, a tall brunette in frayed denim shorts and a sunshine-yellow jumper bounds out of Evan and Harri’s cottage.
‘I’m so glad to have another girl on the team!’ she exclaims, swooping in for a hard hug before releasing me and beaming. ‘I’m Bethan.’
I like her immediately.
In fact, I like them all.
My feelings only grow stronger as the evening wears on. These people act like a family and in many cases, they are. Owain’s brother Edmund heads up the sawmill and workshop, and their other brother, Gareth, used to be head ranger here, but now Gareth’s son Celyn is. Bethan’s aunt works in the kitchens, and the person whose position I’m filling is assistant ranger Dylan’s cousin.
It’s a little overwhelming being surrounded by so many people who sound just like Ash, and when Catfish and the Bottlemen – a band we listened to on our way to Sintra – come over the sound system, he’s all I can think about.
‘Where are these guys from again?’ I ask Celyn.
His name is pronounced KEL-in.
‘Llandudno.’
My heart hurts – he sounds so much like Ash.
Is there a chance, any chance at all, that I might be in Ash’s old stamping ground? It’s hard to believe that we could bump into each other, but I’m imagining it nonetheless.
When the temperature drops and people begin to call it a night, Evan invites me into the cottage he shares with Harri.
Bethan lets out a squeal of excitement as she sits on the sofa beside me, squeezing my arm. I look at her face and laugh. She is so friendly, I love it.
‘What’s Sian like?’ I ask as Evan and Harri bring over drinks and snacks from the kitchen.
‘Oh, she’s great ,’ Bethan enthuses. ‘When Eleri left, I thought about moving into your room just so I could live with Sian.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I ask with a smile. ‘And who’s Eleri?’
‘Eleri worked in the kitchen with Sian, and I didn’t because I love living at home. My mam and I are very close.’
I smile through a pang of envy. She’s lucky.
‘She also does the best lamb cawl I’ve ever tasted,’ Harri chips in.
‘What’s lamb cawl?’ I ask.
‘It’s like a lamb and vegetable stew.’
‘It’s more of a soup,’ Bethan argues.
‘Whatever, I love it,’ Harri says dramatically.
Bethan grins at him. They’re a cute couple.
‘How long have you guys been seeing each other?’ I ask.
‘Too long!’ Evan says, at the same time that Bethan and Harri reply simultaneously, ‘Two months.’
Harri whacks Evan’s arm and Evan chuckles, turning to me. We smile at each other and then he drops his gaze and takes a swig of his beer.
No one looks at me like Ash did.
But I’m tired of being on my own. I’m sick of feeling desperately lonely. I want to fall in love. I want to get married and have a family of my own one day, bring children into the world who will never for a second doubt my love for them.
I used to wish with all my heart that Ash and I would find our way back to each other, that he might be my person, the person I would spend the rest of my life with. But I’ve spent a lot of time wondering if I built those three days into a bigger deal than they were. That connection felt so strong … But I think it might be time to lower my expectations and start being a bit more realistic.
I look down to where Harri’s ankle is hooked around Bethan’s and feel another twinge of envy.
I’m attracted to Evan. I like flirting with him and we have good banter. If he made a move on me, I’d welcome it. But could I fall in love with him? Is it worth the risk? What if it gets messy?
Argh, I’m overthinking again. I should probably call it a night.
‘Right, bed is calling,’ I say as I stand up. ‘Ready tomorrow morning by eight?’
‘Yep,’ Evan replies, getting to his feet. ‘I can knock for you or you can meet us in the walled garden. It’s where the volunteers congregate and where we kick off each day.’
‘Cool. I don’t know whether to go home through the front door or the back.’
‘We need a hatch in the wall,’ Bethan says. ‘Or a secret doorway hidden behind wallpaper like the ones in the house!’
It hits me, once again, that I’ve landed a job at a five-hundred-year-old historic home. I have a roof over my head in a gorgeous cottage, a steady, reasonable-sized salary, colleagues I like and who may even come to feel like family, and a job I know I’m going to adore with all my heart. I’ve done it. I’m proud of myself.
That night, I go to bed feeling so happy I could cry.