The Gardener Earl 1

 So, I now have 7 chapters of this so I will try to keep ahead of posting. Challenged by his friends to hold down a real job, Felix is not expecting to meet a girl who bowls him over, nor for her to have such idiotic parents that they are more interested in their concept of getting her married respectably than they are in his earldom. Chapter 1 upgraded since last post of it.

Chapter 1

 

 

“Your problem, Felix, is that you would have spurned a mere silver spoon in your mouth when you were born, and have had it easy ever since,” said the Honourable Peregrine Leger.

Felix Halenhurst, Earl Holmshaw, smiled his ridiculously sweet smile.

“Honestly, Perry, you make me sound like some totally mercenary fellow.”

“You are generous, Felix, but it don’t mean anything to you,” said Andrew, Viscount Glenduve.   “You are wealthy, so good looking you are almost pretty, a born horseman, solid cricketer, can stand up to box against any prize fighter, and you are even-tempered and a pleasant companion.  If the pair of us didn’t love you like a brother, we’d be forced to hate you for being such a revolting paragon.”

“I love you too, Drew, but I am taken aback at being called a paragon.”

“It’s a fault,” said Drew.  “And one all the women love; you are the most eligible bachelor in London.”

“And don’t I know it!” groaned Felix.  “I would retire to my estates save that I owe it to my family to marry and produce an heir.”

The three young men had been through Eton and Oxford together, and were firm cronies. Felix had been teased by them since they had first met up at the age of eleven about his curly blond hair and outrageously long eyelashes.  And yet, he managed not to look at all like a girl, for his chin was square and determined, and his shoulders broad. Peregrine was as dark as his friend was blonde, and would have looked the sportsman he was, were it not for his devotion to high fashion; and Drew had the reddish brown hair of his Celtic origins, a wiry strength  to his slender frame, and a visage which was more politely described as ‘amiable’ rather than handsome.

“Your problem is,” said Perry, “That you’ve never turned an honest day’s toil in your life.”

“I resent that,” said Felix.  “I run my own estate, and I do a lot of my own gardening, it being an avocation of mine.”

“Yes, but when you have a problem, you throw money at it,” said Andrew.  “And it won’t fadge, for you cannot hire someone to choose a wife for you.”

“I know that,” said Felix.

“You know it in your head, but not in your heart,” said Perry.  “You ain’t spoilt but it’s only by the best of good luck. And I wager that if you took an honest job as Mr. Blank of Nowhere, and had to live on your income, you’d learn a lot more about what really matters in life.”

“You’re on,” said Felix.  “I accept the wager.”

“So, you’ll take on doing an honest job of toil as a gardener, for, what, three months?” demanded Perry.

“Yes,” said Felix.  “It will serve as a repairing lease during the season to disappear from society and get away from the rapacious clutches of those who fall in love with my title, and find my looks not intolerable as well.”

“I think most of them fall in love with a pretty doll and are pleased he is well-blunted and a nobleman into the bargain,” said Drew.

“Whichever it is, they are superficial,” said Felix, “Though I would prefer it was that way round than the other.”

“We’ll arrange you a job then,” said Perry.

 

Felix reflected on the words of his friends.  He had been an earl for as long as he could remember, his parents having died in a coach accident before he was breeched, and he had had a series of governesses, tutors and instructors in etiquette, deportment, dancing and the sword, who treated him like a little prince.  Felix was glad that he had been sent to Eton, even if not as young as some boys were, in time to knock his corners off.  He could have become quite insufferable, growing up in an atmosphere of deference.  No, Mr. Hume would not have permitted it.  Felix had retained the services of one of his tutors, who were engaged by his trustees to keep up his lessons in the holidays, as his secretary.  Mr. Hume had bear-led him on the Grand Tour, and had made sure that Felix saw important cultural sites, as well as enjoying foreign cuisine and the sort of culture most young men enjoyed, This was to say ballet in France, concerts in Germany, and the one bordello he managed to visit in Italy before foreswearing women of easy virtue when Mr. Hume took him to see those in the final stages of syphilis in a mad house.  It had been an excellent lesson in fastidiousness, but had left him rather diffident around women. 

Of course, it would not matter how shy Felix might feel with women, he was still lionised by parents of daughters for his wealth and title, and would probably continue to be so, he thought cynically, if he had been a hunchback with a squint.  That he was also good looking meant that the girls he was introduced to were not trying to escape him, though none of them ever seemed able to find anything to say.  He thought them all insipid and boring.  In this, Felix did most of the young ladies to whom he had been introduced an injustice; having been adjured by their anxious mothers to make a good impression on the earl, most of them were afraid to say anything which would give him a bad impression, even if they were not struck dumb by his physical beauty.  Felix was cynical about his physical beauty. It was true that his hair was long, golden and curly, when allowed out of its strict and powdered queue; and his eyes were large and smoky blue with outrageously long eyelashes.  However, his jaw was, in his own words, as square as a peasant farmer’s, and his nose wandered past the aristocratic into a hint of the aquiline.  His lips were too large, and Felix thought them coarse.  He had no idea how singularly sweet his smile was when he was genuinely happy, and how his mouth echoed his every mood; or how many women wished they had such well-developed lips as he.  He was blissfully unaware of how many of his ‘insipid’ dance partners became quite hot and bothered in the privacy of their own beds at imagining being kissed by those mobile lips.

 

 

“I have it all fixed up for you, Felix,” said Peregrine Leger.  “I wrote to my godmother, Lady Staines.  She’s a widow, reclusive and has never heard of you, I am certain.  I told her I had a gardener to find work for, a head gardener, mind, so you’re being spoilt in having the ordering of other men.  I didn’t think you would last the course being told what to do by someone you would doubtless disagree with.”

“I appreciate that, Perry,” said Felix, who had been thinking much the same thing.

“Yes, well, my Aunt Emily, as she likes me to call her, has a need for a chief gardener, so she can pension off the current one, who has let the place go to seed.  She says you will have a fair budget to improve it, so long as you steer clear of wholesale landscaping.  She likes her geometric parterres and topiary in front of the house the way they are, and a knot garden of roses behind it, and no follies, ruins, Chinese pagodas, rock gardens, wildernesses or distant aspects, thank you very much.”

“She sounds very set in her ways.”

“She is, but I wager you will enjoy both the kitchen garden and the apothecary garden, which are walled gardens either side of the knot garden. It’s more by way of being a maze than a knot garden;  she designed it herself when she was first married.  There’s a central circular meeting of the ways, with a pond, and a bench to watch it, and curved benches under arches between each of the four paths out. The paths have  trellises periodically for climbing roses, and traveller’s joy, clematis she calls it, and woodbine, and lilac as well, and the scent is incredible.  She will tell you she built it herself, and believe what she says, but of course the trellises were constructed by her gardeners, and the slabs in the pathways as well, and I doubt she dug the pond or installed the fountain.”

“It is unusual for one of our estate to take on such things personally,” said Felix, who had dug an ornamental pond alongside his gardeners.  “It sounds delightful, if not entirely in the modern style.”

“Oh, it’s a splendid place to take a lady for a quick bit of dalliance, or it would be if Aunt Emily entertained as much as she ought to,” said Perry.  “Her ambition is to have a fragrant scent at all times of year, which is a bit insane if you ask me, because if you dallied in a garden sniffing the scents in midwinter, you’d end up with a headcold and unable to smell any scents.”

“Perhaps she hopes to have such plants brought inside to brighten up the worst weather,” said Felix.  “It sounds an interesting challenge; I will try to rise to it.”

“You know what makes my heart sink?” said Drew. “It’s the thought that you probably will enjoy rising to the challenge and then people will accuse me of being a Jacobite for having a Scots name and title.  I will be accused of having done away with you because you can’t be bothered to come home after the three months is up, because you will be having a torrid affair with some shrub.”

Felix laughed.

“Somehow I doubt that I will find a nymph named Daphne amidst the laurels,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

Felix appreciated the grounds he was walking through, with just one valise, an outsize and antique grip he had discovered in the attic, and appropriate to his supposed situation in life. The lady needed no artificial far vistas; she already had an excellent set of views provided by nature. The late summer was lush with growth, but he could imagine it, too, as the colours changed to those of autumnal hue; and also under snow.

He remembered to go to the rear entrance and took off his hat when he was taken indoors to see Lady Staines.

He stood, cap in hand, in the Presence.

“So you’re Shaw,” said the lady. “You look rather delicate for a gardener.”

“Delicate?” Felix was moved to expostulate. “I assure your ladyship that I am quite hardy.”

“Your hands are white and look well cared for,” said Lady Staines.

“I have been using a patent cream for gardening hands,” said Felix, who used the recipe his housekeeper made, with almond and hempseed oil, honey, comfrey, and lemon balm.  “As I have been doing as much directing as gardening of late, I have fewer problems.”

“Learned to speak nicely, too,” said the lady.

“I’m an orphan, ma’am, and I was taught to speak well,” said Felix. It had the advantage of being true.

“Well! I’ve never known my nevvy to take an interest in my gardens before, so if this is a wager, you’ll be working hard for it.”

“My lady....”

“I don’t want to know.” She held up a hand. “Just don’t ruin my garden with modern fancy landscaping.”

“It would ruin it,” agreed Felix, castigating himself for a Johnny Raw to have his lay bubbled at the outset. “Your lands are charming, with delightful natural views which could not be improved upon.”

“Well, I am glad you recognise that,” said Lady Staines. “My main drive is for beautiful scents through the year as well as flowers for the house; I have Masariane[1] for February, and Wood Sweet, but mostly the winter must be served by fragrant leaves, like myrtle and various herbs.”

“I assume you have a hot-house? I did not catch sight of it on my approach, my lady,” asked Felix.

“I do; myrtle and masariane do need overwintering.”

“Do you have Guernsey Lily, or Nerine, for autumn and winter colour?”

“A whole heap of them,” said Lady Staines. “And you’re responsible for preparing the flowers for me every Saturday; and I’ll call on you if they wilt in the meantime. You know how to keep flowers nice of course, when cut?”

“Dip rose stems in boiling water after de-thorning, and add some sugar and cider vinegar to the water to keep any flowers looking nice,” said Felix. “And have the water changed every other day. A housemaid’s job,” he added, dismissively.

“Well, well, you might do,” said Lady Staines. “I’ll be overseeing your work. You’ve a room next to the flower room, where I arrange the flowers, and next, too, to the conservatory. You’re not responsible for keeping the furnace going but if I was you, I’d keep an eye on the boys whose job it is. They are no angels.  It keeps your room warmed nicely, anywise.  Any questions?”

“Not at the moment, ma’am, thank you,” said Felix.

He was dismissed under the auspices of the old gardener, who was to retire, and who showed him about. If Felix was not entirely disoriented, it was not the fault of his guide, who made it clear what he didn’t hold with the idea of being pensioned off. Felix found himself meekly agreeing to ask old Pettiman.

And then he was head gardener.

 

---

[1] Daphne Mezereum