Now for the next suspect on our list.
Suspect:
Jonah/Jack
Age:
Indeterminate.
The gardener has been a fixture at Welford Hall since it was
first built and Lady Isolda came there as a young bride, more than forty years
ago. For all that time, Lady Isolda and her gardens have been his whole life
and he can be seen pottering about the lawns all day and in all seasons,
keeping everything ship-shape for her ladyship. A big, gruff Yorkshireman of
few words, he spends most of his free time at the local pub, "The
Blacksmith's Arms". It is one of the few occasions when he might be found
indoors, taking shelter from the weather that has shaped his face into a
landscape as wild and wind-torn as the gritstone moors and limestone crags of
the Yorkshire Dales themselves.
Of course,
his work never takes him inside the grand house of his employers. He is
expected to stay outdoors, where he cannot get anything dirty, and he has made
his bed in the potting shed, among the tools of his trade. Too much comfort, he thinks, would probably be his undoing. As long as he has
his ale and cider in good quantity, he feels no desire to ponder the injustices
of life or resent his lowly place in it. Well, almost none.
Once in a
great while, trimming hedges under the bright sun while his "betters" enjoy champagne in the shade, or take a nap in the conservatory, he has cause to grow a
little philosophical. Even discontented. Not a good thing for him to be with sharp shears clasped in
his meaty, callused fists.
But everything
he has now he owes to Lady Isolda, who once did him a very great favor. It's
not something he can forget, no matter how much he drinks to pickle his brains.
For as long as she's there to remind him, he knows there is somebody else in
the world who shares a dark secret about his past.
So he had
better keep on her ladyship's good side, had he not?
The
gardener, to all appearances, knows his place and never complains. Never even
thinks about protest or revolution. His loyalty is so great that he does not
even object when her ladyship changes his name to "Jack", simply
because she does not like "Jonah". He goes along with it, as he must
with any whim of Lady Isolda's.
At least
for as long as she's alive.
* * * *
Dig into the mystery of "BESPOKE" -- coming to all the best online bookstores, Feb 20th, 2019.
(Image used here: The Old Gardener by Briton Riviere, 1863)
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