Page 103 of The Queen of Roses

“But if you could go back and change—”

“Do you ever regret things, Mrs. Whitley? Is there anything you would go back and change, or are you happy sitting in your big house on South Orange Grove Boulevard, trying to find things to occupy yourself because your husband doesn’t pay you enough attention?”

Immediately, her throat went so dry she couldn’t have spoken if she wanted to.

Macalister pushed both his hands through his hair before dropping them to his sides. “I apologize, Mrs. Whitley.”

“Is that what you think I am doing?” After all their letters back and forth and her visits to check on the progress of the place, after her questions about topsoil and acidity and mulch and dratted irrigation plans, was that all he thought of her?

“I did not mean—”

“I think you mean exactly what you said, Macalister. After these many months of working together, do you really think that I am simply some flighty socialite playing in my garden until my husband decides he needs me to accompany him to some ball?”

“I don’t—”

“Or maybe you think I’m making my little sketches because I’m bored and I’ll turn to something new in a few weeks’ time.”

He tilted his head back as though trying to decide how to answer her. Finally, he simply said, “I spoke out of turn.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Because why else would you be coming here?” he asked.

“Have you not thought that perhaps this garden is the only thing in my life that is truly mine? I didn’t even choose this house. Guy did, buying it before I could even see it. But this garden…” She looked around her. “He has never even been up to Altadena to see the garden since we began work on it.”

She turned back to the pots and began once again pressing seeds into the soil with more vigor than was entirely necessary. “I suspect you simply said what many people have thought about me. I am a society wife who has little use except to look pretty on her husband’s arm and arrange his parties. Well, that isn’t enough for me any longer.”

“I understand if you want me to resign my position,” he said.

She twisted to face him. “I don’t wish for you to resign. I wish you to teach me.”

“Teach you?”

“I want to learn how to garden. Properly.”

She braced herself for him to laugh or brush her request away, but instead he gave her a single nod. “All right.”

“Good,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “I will come Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

And, she added silently, she would bring those damned gloves.

May 1, 1907

The Gables, Pasadena

Dearest Margot,

You will no doubt be delighted to learn that I have become a student of sorts. Every few days, I have been riding up to Rosewood House to learn how to garden.

This is not, I reassure you, a simple snipping of some dead flowers from their stems to neaten things up. I am sowing seeds and planting plugs and doing all manner of dirty work. I never realized just how much goes into the creation of a garden, but now I am fully aware of the hard work that it can be. I have even more admiration for Gertrude Jekyll than ever before!

My gardener, Macalister, is teaching me, and I believe the work has been good for me. When I arrive, the last of the morning’s dew is just leaving the spiderwebs and flower buds in the borders we are creating. I work until the sun is so high that it would make even the hardiest of men faint. I have a horrible straw hat with a huge, stiff brim that sits firmly on my head to protect me, but then I retreat to the cool of the porch’s shade for lunch. Then, when Macalister comes to fetch me an hour later, we work as best we can in the shade until the worst of the midday sun has passed.

I confess that I have never seen the appeal of being a sportswoman, chasing after a tennis ball or donning a swimming costume to swim lengths in a pool or pond. That kind of exertion has always struck me as horribly unladylike—likely my mother’s influence! I now realize how much I have gained by my exertions, and I can understand a little more those women who are compelled to move their bodies. At the end of each day’s gardening, I am tired and I find that each week I am treated to a new soreness in my back or my shoulders, yet I am happy.

I hope you are faring well in your confinement, and that you are finding as much satisfaction with your life as I am with mine.

Yours faithfully,