The Gardener

The Gardener

By Catherine McGreevy

The Gardener

Catherine McGreevy

Copyright 2013 by Catherine McGreevy.

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing of the author.

ISBN 9781311504968

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my critique partners, for their endless patience and support.

C.M.

November, 2013

The Gardener

by Catherine McGreevy

Chapter One

“Ye’d best be careful when talking to the master's son," the old gardener Lemley growled, whacking off the drooping head of one of Lady Marlowe's prize roses, which promptly fell to the ground and rolled under a bush. "Remember, them as sticks their heads out gets 'em lopped off.”

“It's the Frenchies getting their heads lopped off these days, not the likes of us." The tall young gardener next to him worked at a brisk pace, wielding his shears expertly. "Besides, the colonists in America bit their thumbs at ol' King George, didn't they? And look at 'em now.”

"That's not what I mean, Tom, and you know it. All I'm sayin' is those Marlowes bring trouble. If yer wise, ye'll stay out of their way." The old gardener spat between his missing front teeth.

"I'll do my best," Tom promised, glancing at the old man who had been like a father to him since he had arrived a young orphan at Blackgrave Manor ten years earlier.  When Sir Jonathan Marlowe approached yesterday and asked for a bouquet to give his latest light o' love, he'd had no choice but to comply. An undergardener did what he was told. That was all there was to the matter. Surely Henry knew that as well as he did. But Lemley was expert at melting away whenever the Marlowes entered the gardens, whereas Tom, standing head and shoulders above than all the other gardeners on the estate, was too tall to duck behind the bushes.

A clatter interrupted them, and he looked up his head up to see a pair of horses galloping full speed toward them, pulling a careening phaeton. As the open carriage rounded the last curve, it tipped dangerously, and a woman's scream filled the air.

A memory shot through Tom’s brain, fleeting and painful as a wasp sting. A runaway horse, a frozen moment of fear, a limp body rolling into a gutter…. Without thinking, he dropped the clippers and raced toward the horses, close enough now that he could see their eyes rolling, nostrils flaring, even droplets of sweat flying from their glossy black coats as they thundered directly at him.

"Tom! Tom! Are ye mad?" Lemley's hoarse cry mingled with the warning shouts of the other gardeners.

He grabbed at the loose-hanging reins and somehow vaulted onto the nearest horse's back, where he clamped his knees tightly against the horse's withers and hung on. Wind battered his face and whipped hair from its queue. Low against the horse's withers, he pressed his cheek against the strong sweating neck, squeezing his eyes shut and silently praying he would not slip and be battered to a rag under those sharp, thundering hoofs.

His muscles gradually began to attune themselves to the rhythm of the horse's gallop, and his terror abated slightly until finally, after an eternity, he remembered to pull on the reins. Years of physical labor had made his back and arm muscles strong, yet his arms felt as if they were being wrenched out of their sockets as the horses resisted his effort to stop them. Little by little, the matched pair slowed and finally stopped, panting and blowing and stamping their hooves. For several long moments Tom remained crouched over his mount's withers. White knuckles gripped the reins while his heart banged like a post-digger against hard-caked earth.

When he finally slid to the ground, his knees buckled and he grabbed the bridle to steady himself.

“Well, bless my soul!” said a hearty voice from above. "'Maeve, it's the gardener I told you of! The same tall young fellow who cut flowers a few days ago, for me to give to a young lady of my acquaintance.”

Tom looked up in surprise to see Jonathan Marlowe, the master's twenty-year-old son, grinning down from the high seat, straight dark hair falling over a high forehead and black eyes sparkling with excitement at their near brush with death. Next to him, Miss Maeve Marlowe stared at Tom. Her thin face was drained of blood, her hair bare. An expensive-looking straw hat covered with silk flowers and ribbons lay in the lane, covered with a fine layer of dust.

Tom pulled his forelock before picking up the hat and whacking it against his knee awkwardly, to free it of the worst of dust.

“Here, Miss. I believe this belongs to you,” he said, offering it to her.

She did not respond. Belatedly Tom realized that he had made a mortal error. He looked down in shame at his mud-caked boots, face hot. A servant never spoke to his superior first.

Lord Marlowe's scion did not seem to have noticed the mistake. "Splendidly done!” he exclaimed. “However did you manage to jump on a horse at full gallop, like an acrobat at the Lambeth circus?”

“Fool's luck, sir,” Tom mumbled truthfully.

Jonathan tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I do wonder if you might not be somewhat to blame for the mishap, my good fellow. 'Twas when you loomed out of the bushes like the Colossus of Rhodes that my sister lost control of the reins. Is that not so, Maeve?”

Tom ducked a curious look at the white-faced female sitting by her brother. So Sir Jonathan had passed the reins to his sister? A reckless act, considering the speed and the strength of the horses, the known dangers of phaetons, and her obvious lack of experience.

Gripping her battered hat, Maeve continued to wordlessly stare at Tom, and, feeling more uncomfortable than ever, he again dropped his gaze to the ground.

“I am right, am I not?" Sir Jonathan asked. "This is not the first time you've rendered me a service this week?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Then take this.” Sir Jonathan reached into his pocket and pulled out an object that glinted in the sun. “A token for both actions.”

Tom instinctively caught the coin. Its weight told him it must be a guinea, even though he had never seen a coin of so much value.

As the phaeton rumbled away, Tom stood staring in wonder at his luck. The bees, startled away by the commotion, returned to buzz among the flowers, while the other gardeners drifted back to their stations, darting him curious looks.

As he walked back to pick up his dropped clippers, Tom saw Lemley hobbling toward him as fast as his rheumatism would allow. Quickly he dropped the coin in his pocket and went back to work.

“Ye fool!” Lemley breathed hard through his nostrils. “Would ye care to tell me what that was that all about?”

“What do you mean?” Tom focused intently on the rosebush he was pruning.

“Did I not say to avoid notice from the Marlowes? The next thing I know, yer leapin' on horses and chatting with the master's son and daughter like the bleedin' Duke of Marlborough! No chance of either of 'em forgettin' ye now!”

Tom kept clipping. “Should I have let the carriage run away with them, then?”
              “Better their necks than yours!”

For a moment Tom was transported again to the long-ago country road, the crumpled, blue-smocked figure lying in the ditch while a gleaming horse thundered away, its well-dressed rider wearing a powdered wig. Only nine years old, he stared in helpless horror at his dead father's body. Soon after, his older sister brought the new orphan to the gates of Blackgrave Manor to begin life in service. That had been ten years ago.

Focusing on the roses, Tom tried to forget the painful memory. Nothing could be done to change the past. Besides, he should be grateful that he had a steady job and food to eat. Many in England, in the year of our Lord 1785, were not so fortunate.

Remembering, he reached into his pocket and opened his palm under Lemley's disbelieving eye.

"See this? Mr. Jonathan gave me it for my trouble. So what’s the harm?”

“What’s the ’arm?” Lemley sputtered, although he viewed the coin with grudging respect. “What’s the ’arm? Why ... they
noticed  ye
! 'An as I told ye, them as gets noticed—.”

“—Gets their heads lopped off.”

Lemley scowled. “It's no joke. If you stay unseen, those in power will have no mind to trouble you.”

“Nor reward you either.” Tom flipped the coin and pocketed it again. He flashed his old friend an impudent smile and went back to work.

*     *     *

Later that afternoon, a black-clad figure approached from the direction of the house, and the furrows in Lemley's forehead deepened. “Trouble, I warrant,” he muttered. “What could that old turkey, Blodgett, want? And why come himself, instead of sending one o' the housemaids?”

The butler strode toward them, his large head down, his body lurching with the distinctive to-and-fro strut that had earned the nickname. His high pink forehead shone like marble under the coarse horsehair wig that perched atop his skull.

Blodgett focused his beady gaze on Tom. “You there! Tom West, is it?”

“Yes, sir.” Tom exchanged a worried glance with Lemley.

“You’re wanted at the house. Come along, lad.” Blodgett turned on his heel and started back.

              Lemley shook his head solemly. “It's happening already. Take care, Tom. Take care.”

Tom followed the butler toward the manor house, wiping his perspiring hands on his smock. What awaited him? Another reward for his impulsive act of bravery? A word of thanks from the master himself, perhaps? Or perhaps a reprimand?              Sir Jonathan had implied that Tom might be the cause of the near-accident by somehow startling Miss Marlowe as the phaeton rounded the curve.

Lemley's words took on a sinister tone.
Them as stands out gets their 'eads lopped off
.

Tom cleared his throat. “Er....I beg your pardon, sir?”

Blodgett slowed his pace and half-turned, an expression of annoyance crossing his heavy features. “What is it, boy?”

“Am I ... am I in some sort of trouble?”

“Trouble? Have you gone mad?”

Tom unobtrusively wiped his sweaty hands again. “Have I not given satisfaction, sir?”

Blodgett permitted himself a smile that barely lifted the corners of his thin mouth. “Quite the contrary. This is a lucky day for you, lad. Sir Jonathan suggested you replace Jenkins." He cocked a disapproving eye at Tom's dirt-encrusted smock. “You should fit the departed man's livery nicely.”

A glow of relief that he was not being sacked poured through Tom, before the import of what the butler had said sank in. He stumbled.

“Are you all right, West?” Blodgett half-turned.

“Y... yes, sir.”

There was no question about it: Tom was being promoted to footman! He contemplated this incredible news, dazed.
A guinea, and now this, all in one morning!
All because these last two years he had grown like a cotton thistle.

Tom had always thought of his tall, gangly height as a disadvantage. It brought taunts from the other outdoor staff, who thought themselves great wits for calling him “the giant” or for asking how it was to be the first to know when it rained. There was the additional disadvantage that his wrists stuck out from his shirt and at night his feet hung uncomfortably off the edges of his straw pallet, and he must watch lest he bang his head on the lintel whenever he entered a door.

Never once had he thought his stature might prove an asset, even though Lord Marlowe's footmen were well known to be among the tallest in England, selected to match as perfectly as the horses that pulled the master's carriage. And Tom was certainly as tall as any of them now, a full head and shoulders taller than most of the other staff.

He knew the promotion was no small matter. In the complex hierarchy of Blackgrave Manor, the footmen ranked just under the cook, the head gardener, and Blodgett Two dozen of the fellows strutted about the house and rode behind the carriages, wearing fine silk livery and delivering calling cards to lords and ladies on silver trays, as arrogant as demigods.

And now Lord Marlowe wanted him to join their ranks!

Tom followed the butler's brisk footsteps down a flight of stone steps that led into a warren of bright, clean rooms. Servants bustled in all directions, too busy to spare the newcomer a glance. Although he knew a few of them, others were unfamiliar. He had rarely set foot inside these walls, confined mostly to his spare quarters above the stables.

Blodgett did not pause for Tom to gawk at his surroundings, but led him to a small room lined with linens, mops, and cleaning supplies, where he commanded him to wait.

Tom obeyed. A twinge of caution told him to mind his words and actions. Here, a wrong word or a clumsy act would prove disastrous. He winced, imagining the jeers of the other groundskeepers if he were kicked back into the gardens, Lemley’s inevitable “I told you so.”

“All right, you great, tall lout, what are you standing about for? I can't do my work with you standing there, stiff as a statue!”

Tom pivoted.

A short housemaid with dark, frizzled hair under her mobcap stared up at him from insolent black eyes, a sewing basket balanced on a plump hip. “Well?" she repeated. "How do you expect me to measure you with your arms glued to your sides? Raise your arms high, lad, I haven't all day.”

Tom thought her manner as haughty as that of Lady Marlowe herself. He gulped, remembering he could not afford to make any missteps. “Sorry, Miss—er—”

“The name's Rosie,” she snapped, whipping out a measuring tape from the basket and passing it around his waist. “I'm not the master's daughter. Address me correctly, if you please.”