The Garden Tour Affair: A Gardening Mystery (12 page)

“Don’t give up so easily, Miss Seymour.”

As they left the table, Bill’s face broke into a wide grin. “Why didn’t you polish it off by telling her it’s not over ’til the fat lady sings?”

“Really,” she chided, giving her husband a gentle poke in the side, elated when he jumped a little, “you want me to mix metaphors? I was going to tell her not to leave the ring until the bell rang in the last round—but I restrained myself.”

When they went into the lobby, Louise saw that the garden-tour crowd included only Frank and Fiona Storm, Grace Cooley, and Bebe Hollowell—plus, of course, her own clique, Bill and Nora.

The climbers, with lunches in their backpacks, also congregated in the lobby, preparing to leave for the hour-long trip to Bear Mountain. Janie and Chris were to ride in the inn’s van with Jeffrey Freeling and Jim Cooley. The Posts had already departed, electing to go separately in their Bentley. The Gasparras also were driving alone. Freeling stood off to the side, handsome in his lederhosen and hiking boots, but looking uncomfortable. Could it be that he didn’t like the lineup of his fellow travelers to the mountain?

As the two groups dispersed, Louise watched the young dining room manager approach Janie. He slid a worldly glance down her daughter’s body, and Louise realized he was nowhere near as ingenuous as he appeared, and probably not as young, either. He gently pressed Janie’s arm and said, “Now you take it easy on that mountain.” He gave her a toothy smile. “You know what I was telling you last night—it’s a pretty tough climb. Nontechnical, they say, but dangerous just the same.” He looked out the inn’s huge doors into the downpour. “It’s even more so today, because those rocks near the top are going to be very slippery. Once you’re on the summit, everybody climbs this ancient pile of rocks left over from some cabin—it’s kind of like the climbers who
stick another flag in the ground once they reach the top of Everest. But you’d better not do that today.”

Janie looked about ten years old, wearing shorts and hiking boots, her long blond hair in practical pigtails. It was as if she were talking to her big brother. “Gee, thanks, Teddy, for the warning,” she said.

“Yeah, thanks a lot,” echoed Chris, putting a proprietary arm around Janie’s shoulders and giving Teddy a brisk smile— and a glance that took in his black-and-white staff attire. “But don’t you worry about it—I’ll take good care of her.”

“What am I going to be—a grip?” said Bill.

Louise grinned. “Exactly, because you’re going to help Doug do the setups in the rooms, and the outside segments as well. You’ll carry stuff, hold stuff, help set up light stands, steady the reflectors—things like that. He’ll have about four portable TV lights, all on stands.”

“I knew there was some reason you invited me on this trip.”

“First, we have to check out downtown Litchfield,” she said, propelling him toward the road. Litchfield’s “downtown” was only a mile from the inn—a nice stroll. They got their first look at it when they stopped to pick up Nora and Bill’s reserved tour tickets at the courthouse.

It was perfect: a model village out of someone’s imagination. In the center was a flawless village green, emerald-colored and weedless, with a small white information kiosk tucked under huge trees. On one side was a church that Louise had heard was one of the most photographed churches in the United States: The First Congregational Church of Litchfield. It glistened white even on this gloomy day, its spire looming above sugar maples and pines far into the sky as a symbol of earlier Connecticut residents’ enormous piety. Flanking the green on the other side was a prim line of shops, with two other historic
churches and a county courthouse sandwiched between them.

Three elderly, fancy-hatted Litchfield women parceled out tickets for the garden tour. They sat at the foot of the courthouse steps, as if they were putting the full power of the county behind their worthy project—and it
was
worthy, with proceeds of the tour going to Connecticut Junior Republic, a home for boys. They carefully checked Bill’s and Nora’s names off the list, and nodded acknowledgment to Louise with more familiarity than she would have expected. “Oh, we recognize Louise Eldridge—you’re part of that television crowd,” said one, sniffing a bit. She was a tall, gaunt woman, with parchment skin drawn tightly over her face. “Of course, here in Litchfield we are quite used to you photographers.”

“Oh, are you?” said Louise cheerfully. “Good.” She turned to her companions and quietly murmured, “Doug has to get some footage of these three ladies before the day is over. It’ll make a great B roll for the lead-in to the segment.”

Bill and Nora looked perplexed, so she explained. “The primary interview with the talent—that’s me—is called the A roll. B roll is the pictures we use with the voice-overs.”

Bill nodded at Nora. “That perfectly clear?”

Nora looked uncertain. “Not perfectly.”

“I’ll explain more later,” Louise told them.

Erected above the women and their card table was a tiny tent. For the hats, Louise realized: The hats were the things to be protected from the prevailing weather, for they were high-crowned and intricate, their droopy silk flowers showing their age. She wondered if they could be part of the village’s historical preservation efforts. Hats from the past? She was beginning to know Litchfield, and she bet that they preserved
everything
, just like Louise’s tightfisted grandmother had back on her farm in Illinois. Old lumber, dented pails a half-century old, used nails, falling-down buildings, broken furniture: all things made for man’s use
that must be carefully repaired and
continued
to be used— lest God think man was wasting His goods. As she discreetly glanced at these pleasant, firm-jawed women, she could picture them living two hundred years ago.
These gals would have been the social and moral conscience of the village
, thought Louise,
and a pretty tough one, at that
.

As if reading her mind, the woman who had spoken to her before said, “I bet we look like ancient relics to you.” Her faded blue eyes held a dangerous twinkle.

“Oh, my,
no
” said Louise, caught off balance.

The woman gave a big, hearty chuckle, and the droopy flowers of her hat shook like a garden in the wind. “Well, we are, and so are our hats. We’re actually blood relatives of old Litchfield families. And we’ll be glad to pose for you when you come back to take our pictures.” Still chuckling, she reached out a skeletal hand and gave Louise’s hand a hard little squeeze.

As they continued down the street, Louise said, “Now how the dickens did they know we’d come back to take
their
pictures? Did she hear me?”

Bill said, “They know all about what’s picturesque — because
they’re
picturesque. Probably’ve been photographed as much as the Navajos out in Arizona. Native people, Connecticut-style.”

Louise cast a long look at the two blocks of upscale shops radiating from the courthouse. They included several boutique restaurants, the boutique woman’s wear store, followed by the boutique deli, the upscale bookshop, drugstore, and antiques store. Louise realized that ordinary businesses such as hardware stores or repair shops had been driven from the area to make way for tourist-oriented enterprises.

Wandering around a corner they found another village delight—the-post office. It was lodged in a charming old white Federal building, and its windows were filled with huge flowering and tropical plants. Louise thought ruefully of the tan postal station she took her packages to in northern
Virginia: Its homeliness and grime discouraged would-be postal customers.

Litchfield had to be one of the most idyllic little communities in the United States. It appeared to be buffered from the evils and problems that beset most places. No wonder she was attracted to it:
You could come here
, she thought,
and hide from the real world forever
.

It was only a short walk to the first house on the garden tour, where they met Doug and the rest of the TV crew near a big white van. Doug stopped busily unpacking equipment to come over and embrace Louise like an old friend. She introduced him and the others to Bill and Nora, and with amiable, quick glances, the New York contingent checked Louise out. She gave them an enthusiastic hello. Then, one of her fingers went up and touched the skin under her eyes in a reflexive female gesture.

“It’s okay, Louise,” said Doug, slipping an arm around her shoulders and walking her a ways down the sidewalk. He reached over and straightened a piece of her long brown hair. “You don’t look that bad. You look wonderful, in fact.”

Cameramen, on occasion, were known to stretch the truth, especially if it meant reassuring the talent. Doug was about her age, and the same height as she was. As she looked at him she saw real sympathy and affection in his friendly, luxuriously bearded face. Along with Marty, this was the man who had helped make her a Saturday TV personality, who made her look good week after week. He ranked right up there with her favorite people, like Bill and Janie—and Marty, of course. “You can tell, can’t you, Doug—I was up late last night. I hope my cover-up masks the circles under my eyes.” Her hand strayed to her face again.

“Babe,” he said, stretching out the “a” sound, “you look great. Terrific dress.”

She looked down and gave the skirt of the peach cotton creation a little pull. “You’re right—the dress will help a lot. It’s a color that even a dead cat would look good in.”

He grinned. “So that’s why you bought it. You’ll look good today, Louise, even if you are coming off a bender.” He looked down the street at the idyllic village center. “But how could you find anything to do in this place? It doesn’t look like it has much life in it.”

“It wasn’t that, Doug—it was just insomnia.”

Unlike the tourists who lined up in front of the house with their umbrellas opened to protect them from the residual raindrops, the crew was allowed to photograph the inside of the house. The photo ban for the general public was a necessity, Louise had heard, for the owners of these beautiful two-hundred-year-old houses didn’t know who was in that line out there. Some visitors could be burglars who would use a photo record of the place to help them decide what to steal in a break-in.

Today, her crew would tape inside only one house, and in three of the gardens. A hip-roofed carriage house was the first stop. Much more elegant as a fine residence than as the horse-and-carriage storage place it had been centuries before, the home was surrounded with informal gardens that Louise was a little disappointed to see contained only standard plants. But next they visited a two-hundred-year-old home in Early Federal style. Louise had heard that through the years the various residents had insisted on gilding the lily, adding to and embellishing these homes with one feature after another—railings, additions, redesigned windows. However, authenticity was the goal of this homeowner, and inside, all the furniture, the paintings, even the assorted vases and other objets d’art were appropriate to the period. With great care, the crew (including Bill) set up lights and reflectors in the downstairs rooms. The lights blazed in Louise’s eyes as she launched into a prepared spiel about the Early American decor and low-ceilinged construction.
Finally they moved to the yard, where the homeowners had planted only flowers and shrubs that were used in that era. A massive display of plume poppy, with its intricate curvy leaves, and masses of later-blooming
Clematis paniculata
adorned the gardens. Old-fashioned phlox flourished near the little outbuildings and in clumps around the old stone fences and ledges.

This was the first time Bill had been with her on location, and he had been plunged into the action. As she did her walk-and-talk through the garden, Doug walked backward in front of her and recorded it with his Steadicam, while her husband the grip guided him with one hand on his shoulder so he wouldn’t lose his footing or step in a hole. Finally they ended at the ancient garage with a carefully restored stone wall that Louise coveted at first sight. She had seen it before in the many photos the associate producer brought back when he did a site survey in Litchfield. But the reality was so much better.