impressed despite my personal disinclination to have Adam delving anywhere in my Eden.
‘I don’t know – I sent in photos and details and told them there were lots of family documents, and I’ve just heard it’s being seriously considered. Though of course that’s only the first step, because even if it gets on the shortlist it still has to win the TV vote-off. But it would be wonderful if it did – and even more wonderful to have garden features again at Plas Gwyn other than a lot of grass and trees!’
‘There’s certainly nothing much there now,’ I agreed. ‘Apart from the turf maze, and even that’s getting hazy around the edges, because hardly anyone ever goes and walks around it these days, and Aled drives straight over it on the mower.’
‘I walk around it,’ Nia said, ‘especially at certain times of the year.’
‘Yes, and I still think it’s unfair that you came back and were allowed to be one of the Thirteen for the May Day maze-walking, but they will only let me watch from a distance,’ I said, distracted by the injustice of being excluded from participating in the local mysteries.
‘The Thirteen have to be from certain local families, especially the leader, the Cadi,’ Nia said firmly. ‘Even Rhodri could only watch, even if he wasn’t a man.’
‘I think I forgot to mention the maze in the details I sent,’ Rhodri said, knitting his brows like a Neanderthal sheep. ‘Not that it is a maze at all really, just a sort of winding pathway.’
‘It’s a unicursal maze,’ said Nia, who seems very knowledgeable about these things lately, ‘and it’s probably been there as long as the house, so you should look after it.’
‘Right,’ he said vaguely. ‘And you’d be surprised how the rest of the garden’s changed over the centuries. There used to be a big terrace, and there was a pond with a fountain, only Mother filled that in when I was small so I wouldn’t drown.’
Rhodri’s mother was mega protective, which is why he was taught at home until he finally went off to Eton or Rugby or whichever posh public school his name was down for and thenceforth only ever appeared in the school holidays.
‘It would give the place a bit of publicity if they chose Plas Gwyn for a TV makeover,’ Nia said. ‘Contacting them was a good idea, Rhodri!’
‘You needn’t sound so surprised!’ he objected. ‘But I don’t suppose they will choose us – we’re a bit out of the way.’
I said nothing, torn between realising how good for Rhodri it would be if Plas Gwyn was chosen, and being appalled at the thought of Rosie’s incarnated maybe-father practically on the doorstep.
‘They might, but even if they do I expect this Gabe Weston only spends a couple of days actually on site filming,’ she said, pointedly looking at me. ‘His minions probably do the hard work.’
‘Which would include me,’ Rhodri agreed. ‘I’ll have to do a lot of the donkey work myself. Aled’s not up to much – he should have retired years ago, but he just loves driving that mower around.’
‘And clipping things,’ Nia put in drily. ‘I’ve never seen a pleached walk quite so pleached, the stilt hedge looks half naked, and what that bit of topiary by the front gate is I’m not going to even try to guess, but it looks obscene.’
‘I asked,’ he said gloomily. ‘It’s suppose to be a rocket.’
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ I said. ‘I think you should put a little sign in front of it, telling visitors.’
‘If there are any visitors. I don’t really think we stand much chance of winning the garden restoration because I’m sure the other properties are a lot more deserving.’ Rhodri smiled his rather heartbreaking smile at me. ‘But I’m glad you’re happy and your illustrations and cartoons are so popular, Fran. Nia’s been telling me all about it and how well Rosie is doing with her veterinary science course.’
‘She was always mad about animals,’ Nia said. ‘It was a logical choice. And what about your Zoe, Rhodri, wasn’t she doing some modelling?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, though only in a part-time sort of way – and she’s getting married soon.’
‘She’s a very pretty girl,’ I said kindly, though she’s tall and skinny with big bug eyes in a triangular face and reminds me of nothing so much as a praying mantis, but with Rhodri’s sweet nature.
‘I’m glad I don’t have any children to complicate things,’ Nia said complacently. ‘My sister, Sian, is enough to cope with. She’s convinced I’m swindling her out of her birthright just because I’m buying the cottage from Mam and Dad! But I’m paying a fair price and they wanted it in instalments to live on in their retirement, so it’s suiting us all round – except Sian.’
‘She’s not married?’ asked Rhodri.
‘No, though she’s been through men like a dose of salts,’ Nia said. ‘Works for a newspaper down in Cardiff.’
While we had been talking we seemed to have demolished a plate of pastries between us, though I suddenly had a deep yearning for one of Carrie’s luscious gingerbread dragons, with scales in scalloped red icing … I think this is what comes of deciding to diet: all I can think about now is food.
‘I think we should all go up to Plas Gwyn and see what fresh ideas we can come up with on site,’ suggested Nia. ‘Maybe see what’s stored in the attic.’
‘That would take more than one afternoon,’ Rhodri said, ‘but we could have a quick look now.’
Rhodri wanted to pay for everything but we insisted on going thirds, and I took the money up to the till. I emerged from the teashop five minutes later rather sheepishly holding a paper bag.
Being the smallest one, I sat crammed into the back of Rhodri’s impractical old Spyder sports car. ‘Have to swap this for something more useful, Rhodri, like an old Land Rover,’ Nia said, and he winced. I don’t think she will divorce him from his car; that’s one bridge too far.
Halfway up the drive we met his cousin Dottie (whose name is quite apt) riding towards us on a large bay horse with three white socks.
She halted next to the car and looked down at us disapprovingly, especially me with a half-eaten gingerbread dragon in one hand. ‘Came to see you, Roddy – didn’t think you’d be out gallivantin’ with gels when the house is falling to rack and ruin around you. And you the last of the Gwyn-Whatmires!’
‘Did you want anything in particular, Dottie?’ he asked, wincing again.
‘Cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Made it myself. Come on, Rollover!’
Fortunately she seemed to be addressing the horse, for it moved off skittishly sideways, was gathered in and trotted briskly off.
I was glad the drive was short, because I was starting to feel a bit queasy, and tossed the dragon’s tail out into the bushes for the squirrels. Come to that, this last couple of weeks I’ve felt odder and odder. Am I coming down with something? It’s that sort of brink-of-illness feeling – or maybe brink-of-overdue-period feeling? I’m so erratic, and it always makes me feel bloated and strange.
Yes, come to think of it, I’m sure that’s what it is, because I’m Emotionally Weird, always a sign.
Plas Gwyn is a collection of mossy, ancient grey stones that evolved haphazardly round three sides of a paved courtyard. The oldest part is the three-storeyed hall, with the solar tower poking up above the roof and Zéphirine Drouhin and the knotty trunks of old wisteria entwined around its nether regions; then there is the seventeenth-century wing where Rhodri would have his private apartments, and the stables and outbuildings of various kinds, ripe, as Nia pointed