“And that,” said Sydney, as they walked down a path between the water garden and the white garden, “brings us to this.”
At first, all Emma saw above the tall brick wall were the reaching tops of trees and long canes of a climbing rose fighting for supremacy and sunlight. However, as they walked around the gently curving wall that formed a circle of brick, they came to an iron gate rusted brown and orange. Vines twined around its bars, and stems shot out rudely. Everything in this garden seemed desperate to escape.
“This must be the one Charlie warned me about,” she said.
“The winter garden. When I was little, we only came up to the house two times a year—for Granddad’s birthday and on Boxing Day—but I remember Dad walking me around the gardens every time. In the depths of December, this would be the only bit that seemed alive,” said Sydney.
“You’ve been inside?” Emma asked, wrapping her hands around the iron bars and trying in vain to see beyond the thick foliage.
“No, it’s been locked for as long as I can remember.”
Emma ran her finger over the huge keyhole cut into the iron. “And I take it there’s no key to the gate, then.”
Sydney shook her head. “Another thing I’m hunting for. Andrew suggested getting a locksmith in, but I’ve called two and they both said that the condition and age of the gate means they might have to cut it off its hinges to get it open. Doing that just feels… wrong.”
“Wrong?” Emma asked, pulling back.
“I couldn’t in good conscience destroy part of the garden’s history while I’m working so hard to restore the house. And…” Sydney paused. “There’s just something about the winter garden. It feels so abandoned.”
The entire garden was a living example of neglect, but Emma saw her point. She guessed Sydney was around her age, and the idea that someone could leave this garden untouched and untended for thirty-five years made her shiver. It was so… sinister? Solemn?
Secretive.
Nothing about this job was going to be easy. There were no plans, there was little archive material, and much of the original structure of the garden had been lost to time. But while that might have scared off some of her competitors who preferred the ease of designing a contemporary garden to their clients’ exact specifications, Emma couldn’t help the hint of excitement that fizzed through her when she looked at the hopeless mess. This was what made slogging through payroll and ordering and appointments with her accountant worth it. Highbury House was the sort of project she loved.
“Well, we could get a ladder and try to scale the wall,” Emma suggested.
“Andrew had a go at that,” Sydney said. “He got up there and realized that there was nowhere to safely put a ladder down the other side.”
“When was this?” Emma asked.
“Right after we sold our company. We offered to buy the house from Mum and Dad. Granddad had left them some money, but most of it went to fixing leaks in the roof and trying to heat the place so the damp didn’t set in. It had become a bit of a millstone over the years, but Dad never had the heart to sell it,” Sydney said.
Emma offered her a small smile. “And now you’ve decided to put it back together again.”
“That’s right. We’re Sydney and Andrew Wilcox, saviors of old houses.”
“And their gardens,” Emma said.
“I hope that the scale of the project hasn’t scared you off,” Sydney said.
Even if the size of the Highbury House project had been intimidating, Emma still would have taken it. Mallow Glen had run over by a month because of three different issues with suppliers, forcing her to sacrifice a smaller job doing up a cottage garden in Leicestershire while prepping for Highbury House. Losing that additional injection of money into the business hurt, but Highbury would be a much bigger prize.
“It is tricky,” she admitted. “We just don’t have that much to go on in the way of original documentation or photos, so I’ve drawn up plans based on Venetia’s other designs from the same era.”
“I’ll work on those boxes, I promise,” said Sydney. “Now, what happens next?”
“The crew arrives. You’ve already met Charlie, but there’s Jessa, Zack, and Vishal, too. They’ll start by clearing away the overgrown vegetation so we can really see what we’re working with. I should be able to show you final plans this week.”
Sydney clasped her hands in front of her, looking for all the world as though she was about to break out into song like the heroine in a musical. Instead, she said, “I cannot wait.”