Hope - Lesley Pearse [20]
As a gardener he didn’t work at all on Sundays, and up till now he’d always gone to the church in Chelwood. Nell felt he could only have decided to change churches because he wanted to get to know her. It couldn’t be Rose he liked; she was a real old maid of over thirty. Ruby was only fourteen and as skinny as a rake and plain as a pikestaff. That only left Ruth, but to Nell’s knowledge they’d never spoken to each other. Nell wondered if she was brave enough to invite him back to the cottage after the service. Would that seem too forward?
As if hearing her thoughts, Albert stopped, looked back at her with a smile and waited for her to catch up with him. ‘How many of your family will be at home today?’ he asked.
Nell thought he could pass for a country gentleman in his tweed jacket, dark green breeches and neat stockings. ‘Just Hope, the two younger boys, and Matt, my oldest brother – he works on the same farm as my father,’ Nell replied. ‘Where are your family?’
‘In Penshurst, that’s in Kent,’ Albert said. ‘Only a brother and two sisters and they are married. Our parents died a few years back.’
‘James told me you used to work for the Bishop of Wells. What made you come so far from home to work?’ she asked.
Albert shrugged. ‘I knew I’d never get a better opportunity than working in a palace gardens.’
‘So why did you leave there?’
He gave her a rather odd sideways look, and she thought perhaps she was asking too many questions.
‘Because I’d be old before I got to be head gardener. I heard Sir William needed someone, and I walked all the way here on my day off to see him. Soon as I saw the grounds I knew it was the place for me, Sir William liked my suggestions for changes too.’
All the servants had noticed that the master seemed much more enthusiastic about the grounds since Albert arrived. He would go out there in all weathers, often helping with laying out new flowerbeds. Lady Harvey had said she was glad he’d found another interest apart from riding.
‘Don’t you get a bit lonely here though?’ Nell asked. ‘I mean, Willy’s a bit simple and James is always off to the village in the evenings. You must have had lots of friends in Wells?’
Albert shrugged again. ‘I’m not much of a one for company,’ he said. ‘If I want some I go down to the ale house in Chelwood. It weren’t so different in Wells; the other men were either very old or simple like Willy. I like this place better.’
James had told Nell that Albert wasn’t much of a conversationalist, but he was wrong. He chatted all the way to the church, and asked Nell dozens of questions about her family. He was a bit serious, he frowned more than he smiled, but Nell didn’t mind, she was just happy he wanted to talk to her.
After the service Albert walked back up the hill with Nell and the rest of her family, and it was her father who invited him in for a glass of beer. Albert stayed for about half an hour admiring the vegetable garden, before excusing himself. But as he was leaving he rather pointedly asked Nell what time she would be coming back to Briargate, leaving her with the distinct impression that he intended to meet her to walk her through the wood.
Nell could see that her parents approved of Albert, though they made no comment other than that he was ‘a sober young man’. Yet although she was excited that Albert appeared to be as taken with her as she was with him, a Sunday at home with her family was for now more important.
Meg had made a rabbit stew with dumplings,