When she had first come down the wide flight of steps out of the house she had seemed cautious and restrained, the perfect hostess welcoming a guest. Within seconds, she had burst out of the veneer of maturity she had put on and started to laugh. Now, Lucia Philips almost danced along beside Karin as they walked around the gardens, like a child let out to play, full of excitement and enthusiasm for this new toy, the Seaton Vaux estate. It had been neglected, neither money nor love had been spent on it for years and it had a weedy and disconsolate air. But it was magnificent. The Elizabethan house of rose-red brick and barley-sugar chimneys, the garden with its sunken Italianate terrace, walled orchard and acres of wild grass. Beyond a ha-ha lay the deer park, its trees overgrown and wild-looking; beyond that over another wall lay the small estate village through which Karin had driven.
Lucia Philips wore a pair of perfectly cut jeans, an understated tweed jacket, a pale pink shirt, together with ludicrously high, strappy shoes in matching pink. Her hair had been tied back but as she and Karin had come outside she had pulled the band out and let it shake loose, curling on to her shoulders.
Over coffee earlier, she had shown Karin her wedding photo graphs. ‘We married in Switzerland … in a beautiful village … we took it over. The church had those sweet little bells, you know? We came out married, and walked down to the lake … it was late afternoon, the sun was setting. It was golden. We had seven hundred guests, everyone flew in, but it was so simple really.’
Karin glanced at her but there was no hint of irony in her tone of voice. Simple was what she had said and how it had seemed to her.
‘Your dress is so beautiful … all those tiny crystals. Where did it come from?’
‘Oh, Valentino.’
‘Ah yes.’
‘We went through Switzerland down to Venice, then on to southern Italy, before we flew back to New York and had a post-wedding reception there too. The flowers – oh, you should have seen, you would have so appreciated the flowers – all round the room, simple flowers, you know? Nothing showy, not awful stiff designer flowers.’
‘It sounds wonderful.’
‘It was. My God, I want to have it all again. To marry Cax all over again.’
They had talked garden restoration, garden history, garden plans … trees, flowers, walls, arches, statuaries, water, and Lucia had proved to have knowledge as well as desires, serious interest as well as money.
‘I just love what you’re telling me, how you see it all. I would so like you to take this place on, Karin.’
They sat down in the last of the sun, on a low wall.
‘Listen, I am not a major garden designer, Lucia. I qualified fairly recently and I have never undertaken anything like this. I think you ought to perhaps take advice on more important names.’
Lucia took her hand and looked at her earnestly. She is, Karin thought, too beautiful to live.
‘Karin, I don’t want “important names” … phooey. I want someone I can like and trust and who can come to love and nurture this beautiful place. And that is you. I knew it straight away.’
‘There’s no doubt that I could love it. Who wouldn’t?’
‘Well then … it’s done?’
‘What about your husband?’
‘Oh, Cax will have what I want.’
Yes, Karin thought, that much was clear.
‘I have good taste, you know, Karin … he trusts my taste. He knows how I feel about it here. You will take it on?’
‘I’ll think about it. I’ll make some preliminary designs … do some costings … work out a time scheme.’
‘Of course, whatever you like.’
‘Not with the design and planning – that would be down to me – but I want hands-on help pretty early … I wasn’t well a year ago and I take a bit of care.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry … what happened to you?’
Karin hesitated. One of the things Mike had said he hated was living no longer with a wife but with a cancer victim. Her entire being had been focused on her illness, her time and energy and drive had been given up to it, for too long. It had come to define her. That had to stop. She shrugged and jumped off the wall.
‘It’s not important,’ she said lightly, ‘it’s over and dealt with. I just want to keep it that way.’
Lucia had the best brand of American good manners. She smiled and the subject was dropped.
‘Let’s go round to the west of the house,’ she said, ‘there is the most perfect walled kitchen garden … well, the wall is half there, but it’s just wild. I so want to grow all our own fresh stuff – vegetables, salads, fruit, herbs. I’d even like to start a business of this, you know, an organic garden store? I care so much about preserving the land, growing with respect. I think we have the land on trust, don’t you? And because I’m just a newcomer, jumped in on your territory, I really so want to nurture and respect it.’
Coming from anyone else it would have sounded phoney.
‘This is where you and I do shake hands,’ Karin said. ‘Organic fresh produce is my own passion. I’d love to take on a project like this.’
Lucia turned to her, kissed her on both cheeks, and then danced off again.
They went on happily towards where a broken gate led into the old kitchen garden. Karin felt a burst of energy and renewal. The place and the girl were filling her with enthusiasm and a bubbling up of excitement. She realised she had barely thought about either Mike’s absence or her illness since arriving here. Instead, she had started to plan and dream and urge herself forward.
Lucia caught her shoe in a tuft of weeds, wobbled and fell over. She lay there for a split second looking startled and then began to laugh, and as she laughed, lifted her legs and pulled off her shoes and threw them in the air. She turned to Karin.
‘Well, doesn’t that just serve me damn well right?’
They laughed, there in the warmth of the sun that came off the old brick walls, until they were crying with it.