The Red Book of Primrose House: A Potting Shed Mystery (Potting Shed Mystery series 2) (12 page)

The drive to Birdie’s house near Romsey passed in a blur, full of hopes and dreams. Pru tried to keep herself grounded by repeating Simon’s family situation—Birdie was his mother’s sister, and therefore he was not really a Parke relation—but it was no use. She began to imagine Birdie suddenly realizing that her own grandmother had been a Parke, too, and so Pru was actually some second or third cousin of both Birdie’s and Simon’s as well as a vague relation to Uncle George Parke. Pru spent a good deal of the drive envisioning a family tree on the windshield and trying to put all the branches in the right place.

When she arrived, she sat in her car a few minutes, breathing in and out slowly. Birdie’s cottage was one of six or seven small, older, but well-kept houses on the street. Pru made her way up the boxwood-lined walk to the door and rang the bell. A tall, thin woman with white hair in a pixie cut answered. Her blue eyes, watery with age, were surrounded by smile lines.

“Well, Prunella, here you are. Come in.”

Oh God,
she thought,
don’t start crying now.
No one had ever called her Prunella except her mother—even her dad had seemed faintly embarrassed by her full name.

“It’s so good of you to let me visit,” Pru said as she followed Birdie into the sitting room, her eyes falling on dozens of photos that populated the walls and tables. She thought they must all be photos of Simon at various ages—in one, she saw a boy holding a cricket bat almost as tall as he was; in another, a group photo from a wedding; and others with Simon and his wife along with two girls at varying ages themselves. Pru stopped in front of one—a snapshot of a young man with one foot up on the tire of some kind of vintage sports car. “That’s Simon?”

Birdie leaned her head to one side. “Hmm, but it wasn’t his Aston Martin.” She smiled. “That was his 007 period.” Pru sat on the cushy sofa and glanced around the room, crowded with the memories of a long life. Birdie took a small photo album from the coffee table and sat down in an armchair. “You know, you’ve changed very little since the last time I saw you—even though you’re all grown up now.”

Pru broke out in goose bumps. “Did I meet you when I came over with my parents? I was only eight, and I don’t remember much about the trip. Did we visit you here?” She glanced around at the walls, the furniture, the Staffordshire pottery spaniels over the fireplace and Pru longed for something to look familiar.

Pru could see Birdie’s hand, with its paper-thin skin, grasp the album tighter and the knuckles whiten. “What did Jenny tell you?” the older woman asked.

“Tell me…about you? I can’t really remember. I didn’t think my mother had any relatives left here, but”—she gave a little shrug—“I still hoped I might find someone. When I heard Simon’s surname, I thought that might lead me to…a cousin. A distant cousin.”

“Oh, child.” Birdie shook her head slightly. “I didn’t mean for it to last this long.” She opened the album, turned a few pages, and handed it to Pru. “But you know, the older you get, the faster time passes without you realizing it. I didn’t even know Jenny had died until Vernona told me. We’d lost touch over the years.”

Pru looked down at the photo, taken outside the very house she sat in now. In the photo, her parents stood next to another couple—the woman Pru recognized from her pencil-like physique as a much younger Birdie. An eight-year-old version of Pru stood with them—her brown hair barely contained in a ponytail—and next to her was a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, his own brown frizzy hair forming a halo around his face. The room was quiet, but a buzzing sound like a swarm of bees filled Pru’s head—no thoughts, no words, just sound. Birdie spoke again, and the buzzing stopped.

“Simon is your brother.”

The words made no sense to Pru, and yet she couldn’t take her eyes off the photo.

Birdie took a deep breath. “At the end of the war,” she said, “your father left for America, promising to come back for Jenny when she was of age. We all liked Robert, but many American soldiers said the same thing to many English girls—and very few of them returned.

“Jenny’s mother told her not to hope that Robert would come back—but Jenny couldn’t help but hope, because she was going to have his baby. She didn’t tell Robert before he left—she said that would be blackmail.” Birdie looked out the window, as if looking back through the years. “It was a difficult time after the war—not the big boom you had in the States. That was no time for a girl of fifteen to have a baby of her own. George and I—Jenny was our niece, although we weren’t very much older than her, did you know that?”

Out of the depths where Pru now found herself came a tiny reply. “No.”

“George and I were married, and we had no children, so we took Simon when he was born.” She looked down into her lap, one hand clenched in the other. “The next year, Robert wrote, and eventually he came back for Jenny, but Simon was ours by then, and Jenny understood it wouldn’t be right to take him away from us.”

“But he was theirs, not yours. Their son.” How could Birdie suggest that her parents would give up a child of their own?

“He belonged to
us,
” Birdie said. “Jenny could see that he was happy, and she came to understand that to surprise Robert with a child he didn’t know he had would be a shock.” As if speaking to herself, she said, “She could see that it was better for Simon to stay here.” Birdie’s eyes rested on Pru, and she shook her head. “You both look so much like him—not like a Parke at all.”

Pru gasped, as if coming up for air, and realized her face was wet with tears. “My grandmother, why didn’t my grandmother take him?”

“Esther died just after Simon was born,” Birdie said.

Pru recalled the story of her grandmother’s death. But it was the only piece of family history to which she was able to cling. “Simon said his parents died in a car crash after the war,” she said, using her sleeve to wipe her face. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Birdie’s face lost its color, except for her cheeks, where two red spots formed. “Simon didn’t know, not until now. When you rang, I knew it was time.” She leaned over to place her warm, dry hand over Pru’s. “He barely remembers your visit—he came down only for the day before going back to work in Surrey. I believe he’s always suspected he didn’t know the whole story of his birth, although he never asked any questions.” Her voice came sharp now, and Pru saw tears in her eyes. “But he knew we loved him. We’ve always loved him.”

The questions in Pru’s head were screaming to get out—but they were all questions for her mother, not for Birdie. She tried to see back all those years, hoping to understand the decisions that tore what little family she had apart. “She never said anything. Why didn’t she tell me?” A thought hit her with cold dread. “Did my dad even know he had a son?”

“I don’t know when she told him, but he knew,” Birdie said. “When you came over, we thought it was to tell Simon. I believe they wanted…wanted to take him away from us.” She lifted her chin. “But he was ours—we had adopted him when Jenny gave him to us. They saw he was happy and settled, and we asked them to let it be for a while longer. We thought it would be easier when you were both older.”

They sat in silence except for the clock on the mantel and Pru’s ragged breathing. She searched in her bag for a tissue to mop up her face, as Birdie got up and walked out. Pru heard her filling a kettle.

This was not the subject for which Pru had prepared, and she could barely think of a question to ask this woman who had reared her brother. Her mind seemed to be frozen. She tried to picture her mother sitting where she sat now—her mother pregnant with Simon, her mother giving birth and handing over her son…and that’s when she became aware of the anger heating up inside.

Pru was unmindful of Birdie serving the tea and didn’t realize she’d picked up a cup. She put it back down again. “I need to see Simon,” she said.

“Give him some time, Prunella, don’t try to talk now,” Birdie said. “He’ll be all right after a while.”

“And let how much more time pass?” Pru shot back. She could not let this lie. “Is he working today? Do you know if he’s at the Wilsons’?”

“Yes, you’ll find him in the garden,” Birdie said with a little smile. “I could always find him in the garden when he had a problem to sort through. When he first met Polly, she was going with another fellow. Simon was so taken with her that he stewed over it for a month—and planted the boxwood along the front walk—before he got up his nerve and asked her out.” Birdie looked out the window at the neatly trimmed box. “That was thirty years ago.”

As Pru got ready to leave, she took a deep breath and asked the worst question. “Didn’t my mother want Simon?”

Birdie drew back as if Pru had slapped her. “Yes, of course she wanted him. But she understood what was best.”

Pru parked in the gravel yard at Greenoak and walked to the walled garden, passing the spot where Simon had dug up snowdrops for her to take back to Primrose House. The air was cold, the sun bright. It was as it had been on Boxing Day: Pru with the sun in her eyes and Simon bent over one of the beds. Now she knew the reason for that queer feeling when she’d first caught sight of him—seeing Simon’s silhouette, it was as if she was looking at her father kneeling over a row of bush beans he’d planted out their back door in Dallas. Pru’s heart was in her throat.

Simon saw her and rose slowly but didn’t move. He wore his sheepskin coat. She stopped about ten paces from him. Her hands were shaking, and so she crossed her arms to hold them still. “Simon,” she said. He didn’t reply. “I just talked to Birdie.”

“Did you know?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about this until today.” Pru saw the ten steps between them as wide as the ocean that had separated them their whole lives.

“Well, no,” he said. “Why would they need to tell you? They had their family—you were all they needed, what did they want with an extra one?”

“You weren’t extra—you were their son.”

“I wasn’t very convenient, though, now was I? Good thing they had someone to pass me off on, or I’d’ve ended up in Australia with the rest of the abandoned children.” His voice remained quiet, but it was as if a pot had started to simmer. He pulled a shovel out of the soil where it stood and then plunged it back in again.

“They wouldn’t have done that…Mother…” Pru was unable to offer a defense for something she thought indefensible herself. “She thought she was doing what was best for you,” she said. “And Birdie loves you.”

“What do you want?”

“I want…”
a brother,
she thought, but the word wouldn’t come out. “I thought you might want to know about our parents.”

He boiled over.
“I know enough about them,”
he shouted as he took several steps toward her. “Why should I want to know about them when they never wanted to know about me? You think I’m going to beg you for stories about people who treated me like excess baggage? No, you keep your happy little American family to yourself. I’ve no use for any of you.”

“But we’re family, you and I,” Pru said, trying not to beg herself.

“We’re nothing but strangers with the same last name. We’re not family—I’ve got a family. I don’t need you.” He yanked the shovel out and walked away, leaving Pru rooted to the ground.

She was twenty miles away from Romsey before she even noticed her surroundings. Pulling into a turnout, she parked just past the tea truck, pried her right hand off the steering wheel, and massaged it before getting out of the car.

“What’ll it be, luv?” asked a young black man behind the counter.

“Tea, please.”

As he dropped a tea bag into a polystyrene cup and filled it with scalding water and a splash of milk, he said, “Good day for a drive, now. Are you off for the weekend? Up to London?”

She looked east and saw a clear sky with thin strips of indigo clouds on the horizon. She contemplated driving up to London, past London, and continuing north until she could be as far away from Hampshire as possible. “No, off home, near Tunbridge Wells,” she said.

“Right,” he said as he took her money, “safe journey.”

Her journey was safe, as far as she could remember. By the time she pulled into the drive in late afternoon, all she could think about was the solitary sanctuary of her cottage.

Ivy Fox stood at her front door, coat buttoned up to her chin and hands stuck in her pockets.

When Pru got out of her Mini, she asked, “Ivy, is Robbie all right?”

“Oh, yes, thanks for asking. He’s spending the weekend at my sister’s in Bristol—a little holiday for him, you know.” Ivy’s eyes followed a car down the road before saying, “Pru, I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t know who else to talk to. I need some advice.”

“Come in and warm up,” Pru said. She tried to shift her attention from the war going on inside her head to Ivy. “Would you like some tea?”

“I could just do with a drink,” Ivy said.

Pru knew how she felt. “Sure, what would you like? Wine, brandy, whisky?”

“A whisky would be lovely—just a small one.”

Pru got down the bottle of single malt Bryan and Davina had given her as a housewarming gift and poured them each barely enough to cover the bottoms of their glasses. They sat at the kitchen table.

“Cheers,” they both said.

“Now, Ivy, what’s wrong?” Pru asked.

Brow knitted, Ivy said, “I’ve been trying to think what to do about this all week. You know I’m so grateful to the Templetons. Robbie and I would have a difficult time if I didn’t have this work. I would never want to get them in trouble.” She looked down into her glass.

“They haven’t fired you, have they?”

“Oh, no, not at all. It’s just that…” Ivy downed the last few drops of whisky, and Pru poured them both another. “We’re very sad about Ned.”

“Yes,” Pru said, unsure of where Ivy was going with this, “we are.”

“You know that the Templetons left for London on Thursday morning—the day it happened,” Ivy began. Pru nodded. “And then they left for Brussels the next day.” Ivy twisted her hands together in her lap. “Oh dear,” she said. “It’s just that…I drove by the house that Thursday afternoon—I’d been working at the Brickdales’, and I was on my way to collect Robbie at Chaffinch’s.” She paused again, using the sleeve of her coat to wipe up an imaginary spot from the table and not looking at Pru. “I saw Mrs. Templeton getting out of her car at Primrose House,” she whispered.

“But they said that they didn’t come back,” Pru said.

“Yes, I know—I heard her say that to the inspector on the phone.” Ivy shook her head. “That isn’t what I saw. But I can’t tell the police, what would that look like?” Ivy’s eyes were large and focused on Pru.

“It would look like you’re telling the truth,” Pru said, a queasy feeling settling in her stomach. She took another sip of her whisky and let it burn its way down her throat. “Perhaps Davina just forgot that she’d come back here that afternoon.” That sounded as ludicrous aloud as it did in her head. “Really, Ivy, you need to tell the police.”

“Oh, I know that’s true.” Ivy slumped down in her chair. “But do you think—would it be all right if I told Sergeant Hobbes, and not that inspector?”

Pru laughed. “I know what you mean. Yes, ring the DS and tell him.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Ivy said, shaking her head. “It just slipped her mind.” It was unlikely that Ivy could fathom Davina a suspect, as she had come up with her own theory about the murder. Ivy thought it had been committed by a passing stranger looking for money—a random, violent act—and ignored the fact that Ned never looked as if he had two tuppence to rub together. Still, Pru couldn’t help liking this idea, mostly because it allowed her to imagine the black cloud of suspicion that hung over Liam blowing away.

“Ned was such a help, wasn’t he?” Ivy said as she unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off. “Even before you started here at Primrose House, he was always popping by just to see if there was anything the Templetons needed doing or to tell them something about the history of the place.”

It occurred to Pru that Ivy might possess information that Pru could use as she looked into Ned’s murder. Ivy might know why Davina implied that Ned was blackmailing her. Pru recalled Davina’s comment about hiring Ned—“It isn’t as if we had the choice.” Talking with Ivy involved no risk on Pru’s part.
I’m being careful,
she told Christopher in her head, remembering with a rush of pleasure that he was due to arrive that evening.

“Ivy, let’s get a fire going, shall we? Can’t you stay awhile?”

“Well,” Ivy said as she took the whisky bottle and poured them both another, “I do seem to have a free evening now, don’t I?”

It wasn’t one of Christopher’s creations, and they smoked up the cottage a bit—but it was a fire and it was warm. The two women settled down with the whisky and a small plate of cheese and crackers and put their feet up on the sofa. They chatted about gardening, housekeeping, Robbie’s love of Robin Hood, and the village hall, which was in sad need of repair. Pru took comfort in both the company and the drink, and the chance to ignore her own troubles for a while.

“Is Robbie’s dad around?” Pru asked, wondering if this was a topic for discussion.

Ivy shook her head. “No, he left when Robbie was about five. It was very hard for him, you know, the way Robbie is. He just didn’t have the strength for it.”

Pru pressed her lips together to keep from saying what she thought about Robbie’s dad and his strength. Instead, she said, “You’ve done such a fine job with Robbie.”

Ivy got tears in her eyes. “Oh, he’s my heart, that boy.”

In her mind, Pru saw Birdie’s sitting room filled to the brim with photos of Simon and realized that he was Birdie’s heart. But that thought brought her too close to despair, and so she turned away from it.

“What kinds of things did Ned tell the Templetons?” Pru asked.

“Just this and that.” Ivy held her glass up to the fire and the whisky glowed golden brown. “He knew so much about the village, and all the ancient goings-on. Do you know about the Domesday Book?”

“William the Conqueror, it’s a recording of all the towns and villages at the time?” Pru offered.

“And who owned what land—well, I once heard Ned talking to the Templetons about the Domesday Book and land rights. I remember he said, ‘Well, who do you think owns it?’ Isn’t that funny, that he would know so much about things so long ago? He was just like the rest of us, didn’t even own his cottage. It belongs to the estate, to Lord Hamilton.”

Pru poured another round as she smiled. “You don’t think Ned wanted to be the earl, do you?”

Ivy snorted into her glass. “I’d say he would’ve taken it if it was offered.”

“Do you know his daughter, Cate?” Pru asked.

Ivy nibbled on a bit of cheese. “Poor sausage. To be left with no parents and her so young. I hope she’ll be all right. I hope she’ll be”—Ivy looked sideways at Pru—“safe.”

“You know about Jamie, then?” Pru took the poker and gave the fire a stab, causing a shower of sparks to rise and a cloud of smoke to billow out into the room. Her eyes burned, and she coughed.

“News gets around,” Ivy said, giving a cough herself and reaching for the bottle. “I asked Ned about her one day—just inquiring, you know, after her welfare—and he said very little, just that he would take care of her.”

“But he wanted her to stay with Jamie, didn’t he?”

“Ned had a traditional view of the world,” Ivy said. “Thought there should be a mother and a father in every home—even wanted me to track down Robbie’s dad and make him come back to us.” Ivy shook her head. “Ned didn’t realize that families don’t all have to be the same to be happy.”

No more talk of family, Pru thought, she couldn’t take it. “Did Ned think that Jamie would get the head gardener job? This job?”

“He may have,” Ivy said, giving her a sympathetic look. “But you know that Mrs. Templeton cannot be talked into anything—although I did hear a sharp word or two between them one day, something to do with the garden. But that was ages ago, before you started here. The Templetons love everything you’re doing.” Ivy reached out and gave Pru’s arm a squeeze.

Talk of the garden reminded Pru of the task still ahead of her—a finished landscape. “I don’t know how we’re going to get it all done,” she said, shaking her head.

Their talk wandered off into other subjects, and they laughed over stories of dealing with employers. Pru was surprised to find that the whisky was well more than half gone. She wasn’t sure she could stand up. “Ivy,” she said, “perhaps you should stay here tonight.”

“Oh, Pru, no,” Ivy said, leaning over to reach for her handbag on the floor and almost falling off the sofa. “Aren’t you expecting your Mr. Pearse? I’m not sure he’d like to find me asleep on the sofa when he arrives.” She pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and said, “Tommy? It’s Ivy—could you come collect me at the gardener’s cottage at Primrose House?”

She rang off and said to Pru, “He’s lovely, Mr. Pearse is. Now then, how did the two of you meet?”

Pru told their story, going light on the details of the London murder, and ended with “And he said if I had gone back to Texas, he would’ve gone to get me. Isn’t that lovely?” She drained her glass and reached for the bottle.

“It’s just like in the movies,” Ivy said. “You’re so lucky to have found such a wonderful man. To be involved…in a relationship…” Ivy gave her a shrewd glance.“To have a boyfriend.”

Pru burst out laughing. “No, Ivy, don’t say that word. How embarrassing.” She covered her face.

Ivy picked up on it immediately. “Oh, go on,” she said, laughing and elbowing Pru, “you say it.”

“I can’t,” Pru said, turning scarlet. “I can’t—I’m too old to say it.”

“Well, you aren’t too old to do it,” Ivy said, and they both erupted in peals of laughter as Christopher suddenly walked in the cottage door, causing another puff of smoke to escape from the fireplace into the room.

His eyes moved from Pru to Ivy to the almost-empty whisky bottle. “Ladies,” he said, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

Pru could see him clearly, although it seemed as if she was looking through the bottom of her glass.

Ivy stood up, holding on to the sofa and her handbag. “Mr. Pearse, how lovely to see you again. I’ll be on my way now.” But she didn’t move, eyeing the distance to her coat at the table.

“Hi.” Pru smiled up at him.
God I love him,
she thought.

Christopher reached for Ivy and her coat at the same time. “You aren’t thinking of driving home, are you?”

“Not at all,” Ivy said. “My car is up at the big house, and I rang for Tommy, our local taxi.” As if on cue, tires crunched on the gravel and a horn honked. “There we are. Bye now, Pru.”

“Goodbye, Ivy, thanks for stopping.” Pru momentarily forgot the reason for Ivy’s visit and thought they’d just had a friendly chat.

“Let me walk you out,” Christopher said, holding firmly to Ivy’s elbow to escort her to the waiting taxi. When he returned, Pru hadn’t moved, although she’d tried to reclip her hair with little success. He sat on the edge of the sofa and said, “How are you?”

“I’ve had a bit to drink,” she said.

“Have you, now,” he said, smoothing her hair down and kissing her forehead. “Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please.” She kissed him on the mouth and wondered why he tasted like whisky. Then she remembered she was the one that tasted like whisky. “Can you fix the fire?”

“Is it broken?” he asked, and she giggled. He put the kettle on and worked his Boy Scout magic with the logs. Pru stayed where she was. She drank the strong tea, and on the second cup her head began to clear. That brought the events of the day back into focus.

“Did you visit Birdie today?” he asked.

Yes, there it was. The pain that had receded briefly was back and as sharp as her moment of discovery. She took a few breaths and stared into the fire.

“Simon is my brother.” She could think of no way to introduce the topic, and blurted out the one sentence that rested at the top of the pile of memories and longings.

Christopher was quiet, searching her face. “Did Birdie tell you that?” he asked.

Pru cocked her head. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“You look very much alike,” he said.

“We look like our dad,” Pru said in a hoarse voice.

“Did your mother never say anything?”

Pru shook her head. It felt as if an earthquake was passing through her body. She swallowed hard, trying to stay in control.

“What happened?” he asked.

“She gave him away,” Pru said, putting her cup on the floor and trying for a matter-of-fact tone. “She passed him off to Birdie and George. He wasn’t convenient.”

“Is that what Birdie told you?” Christopher took her hands.

Pru grabbed them away. “She
abandoned
him.” Now shaking with rage, she got up and stood by the fireplace, hand on the mantel to steady herself. “She was pregnant when my dad left after the war. Birdie said they didn’t know if he’d come back for her or not. She had the baby and gave him to Birdie. Discarded—like an old pair of shoes.”

“She was a
girl,
” Christopher said, standing and taking hold of her hands again. “She was an unmarried girl, and she allowed her son to be brought up by others. Think of the sacrifice that must’ve been for her. Come here, sit down.” She sat, now holding tight to his hands as if they were her anchor at sea. “It’s too easy for us to look back and judge,” he said. “We don’t know what it was like—it was a different time.” He put his hand under her chin and lifted it up. “Did he have a good life here? Does Birdie love him?”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “Yes, Birdie loves him.”

“Does he know about his parents?”

“He does now,” she whispered.

“And did you see him—talk with him?”

Pru’s eyes grew unfocused. “He was so angry.”

Christopher’s hand tightened on hers. “What did he do?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “he didn’t do anything—except make it abundantly clear that he has no interest in getting to know me—he already has a family.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “They abandoned him, so why should he want a sister who would be a reminder of that every day?” Tears came into her eyes but didn’t fall. “All my life I’ve wanted a sibling, and now that I have a brother, he wants nothing to do with me.”