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Angela turned and held out her hand. “So you’re the American I’ve been hearing about. How nice to meet you.” Something about the way she said this, the warmth and wry tone of her voice, made me like Angela. Angela was not wearing slacks and a sweater set. Angela, looking as sleek as a greyhound with her white hair pulled back and tied with a black ribbon, wore what looked like khaki jodhpurs and a crisp white cotton shirt.

“Well then, ladies, we’re off,” she said. Then, affecting a Bette Davis voice, she added, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

Bette Davis! From All About Eve, one of my favorite movies! Now this is a woman after my own heart, I thought, as the big boxy car moved soundlessly out from the curb and into the stream of traffic.

Although the drive to Sissinghurst took about two hours, it seemed much shorter. But then time always telescopes when you put four women together who are eager to share what’s on their minds.

On the way Sarah talked about the creation of the Sissinghurst gardens. “They were really designed to function as outdoor rooms, walled in by hedges and enclosures. And the White Garden was where the family dined.” But it was the garden’s creators—Sir Harold Nicolson, a diplomat, and his wife, writer Vita Sackville-West—that interested me most.

“It was a most unconventional but remarkable marriage,” Sarah continued, explaining that Vita had engaged in passionate affairs with a number of women. But despite this, the marriage held. “Restoring Sissinghurst, I think, played a large role in keeping Vita and Nicolson together. You might say the gardens became the object of Vita’s passion.”

“Well, not completely,” Victoria broke in. “Wasn’t there something in that biography of Virginia Woolf about an affair with Vita before the war? One that ended when Vita grew tired of Virginia?”

“Well, I guess gardens can only go so far in the passion department,” Angela said.

“And how would you know?” Sarah asked wryly. “It’s not as though you’ve ever gardened.”

“No. But we’ve all got our Sissinghursts, haven’t we? Our secret gardens that replace some lost passion in our lives. My Sissinghurst, I suspect, is salmon fishing.”

I was struck by Angela’s honesty. And by her willingness to share such an intimate observation. It seemed very brave. What was my Sissinghurst? I wondered. The answer was not difficult: my writing. The search for an elegant way to explain something in words—what I thought of as the physics of writing—still thrilled me.

At the gardens Sarah acted as our guide, leading us through the breathtaking estate that had been nothing more than a series of deteriorating sixteenth-century buildings when Vita and Harold purchased it in 1930. Now there were lawns, orchards, and a lake. And, of course, the famous gardens. The Rose Garden. The Sunken Garden. The Cottage Garden. And the one everyone came to see: the White Garden, known for its flowers and fragrances.

“Quite likely it’s the most copied garden in the world,” Sarah said, leading us through a landscape of drifting, fragrant whiteness. White snapdragons. White roses. White peonies. White irises. White geraniums. White lilies. White poppies. It was like walking through a field of snow flurries.

We strolled through the garden more or less in silence, four women, each with her own thoughts. But later, as Angela and I followed the other two women back to the car, she asked me what I thought of Sissinghurst.

“I was trying to imagine what it would be like to live here and walk through the White Garden in moonlight.”

“Quite lovely, I suppose, in a ghostly sort of way,” Angela replied. “I know you’ll think me mad, but standing in the garden I was thinking about my last fishing trip.”

“And what did you think?” I asked.

“Oh, that standing in a stream always gives me a feeling of connection.”

“Connection to what?”

“To myself, I suppose. To the person inside who’s been there for as long as I can remember.”

I was intrigued and wanted to know more about the person inside Angela. But