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“Yes, well, they say the legs go last,” Victoria replied.

“And what do your children think about all this?” Sarah asked.

“They’re all for it.” I laughed. “Actually, I think they were pretty impressed that I, their mother, would do such a risky, spontaneous thing.”

“Quite the thrill, isn’t it, having your children give you a pat on the back instead of the other way round?” Sarah said, lifting her iced tea in a small salute.

I asked Sarah how she came to write about gardening.

“My family was quite keen on gardening. And from very early on I had my own corner to plant. It grew into a passion.” She said she’d kept a gardening diary since she was eight or nine and, after marrying, began sending in columns to various garden publications. “I do quite a bit of freelance now. It’s a wonderful way to snoop around strangers’ houses.”

“Yes, but it has its dangers,” Victoria said. “Remember, Sarah, how we got locked in that potting shed down in Sussex?” She turned to me. “Alas, we had to break a window to get out.”

In my mind I suddenly saw the two of them as Nancy Drew characters: smart, fearless young women, traveling about England in a snappy blue roadster, trying to solve The Secret at Larkspur Lane. Naturally I said nothing of this, saying instead, “It must be exciting to explore such wonderful gardens.” I mentioned that every time I visited England I promised myself a trip to the famous gardens created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. “I’ve never managed to get there. But I’m determined to do it on this trip.”

“Oh, you absolutely must,” Sarah said. “The White Garden alone is worth the trip. Although the whole place is pretty much a paradise as far as I’m concerned. How do you plan on getting there?”

“Well, I don’t …”

Before I could finish, Victoria interrupted. “I’ve a lovely idea. Why don’t we arrange an outing? Sarah here can beguile us with her arcane knowledge of plants, and I’ll bore you with all the gossip about Vita and Harold.” She turned to her friend. “What do you say we ring up Angela? She’s a great one for impromptu affairs. And besides, she’s got that big old car. The one that looks like a cab.”

“A Bentley, I think,” Sarah said.

Victoria explained that Angela was also an old friend, although not from boarding-school days. “We met her when we were all young marrieds, before Sarah and I moved away from the city,” Victoria said, launching into a chronology of their friendship that I couldn’t quite follow. But I gathered that Angela was considered the “sophisticate” of the group. Widowed twice—the second time after only two years of marriage to an Italian actor—her only son married and living in Wales, Angela remained single, devoting much of her time to fund-raising for the arts, particularly theater and dance. When not doing this, they said, she traveled.

“Particularly to Scotland to fish salmon,” Victoria said. “Although I can’t think why anybody would want to do that, can you?”

Angela sounded quite fascinating and, frankly, I was dying to meet her. However, throughout Victoria’s soliloquy, Sarah remained noticeably silent. Was this a polite way of indicating she had no interest in the Sissinghurst trip? Clearly Victoria was a person who liked to bring people together, to mix and match them. But Sarah, perhaps, had not counted on a lunch date with a stranger turning into a moveable feast. I noticed Sarah looking at her watch. Not a good sign, I thought; she’s figuring out how to leave gracefully, without having to turn down Victoria’s plan.

Then Sarah looked up and said, “I don’t think Angela would be home right now. But I could ring her tonight. It sounds like something she might fancy doing.”

When we parted outside the café an hour or so later, Sarah and Victoria took my phone number with the understanding that one of them would call me about the trip.

I decided to walk over to Chelsea Green, the “village square” that had been recommended to me as a great place to market. Only two blocks from my flat, Chelsea Green did indeed prove to