61 pages • 2 hours read
Julia KellyThe Last Garden in England
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Winter”
Prologue Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses child loss and abuse.
An unnamed narrator laments that she will not be around to see the garden bloom in the spring. Still, the winter garden looks lovely in the frigid January of 1908. She will stay only long enough to bid her final farewell.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Emma”
Emma braces herself to meet new clients; her company, Turning Back Thyme, has taken on the job of renovating the once-great gardens at Highbury House, designed by the renowned Venetia Smith back in 1907. It is February of 2021, and though Emma loves her work, she dreads the input of her clients, whose ideas are not always sustainable. Nevertheless, Emma admires Venetia, whose revolutionary designs made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Venetia left England in 1908 for America, never to return to her homeland. Emma is eager to accept the challenge of restoring the vast gardens, including the lovers’ garden, the children’s garden, and the winter garden, among others.
Emma returns to her rented cottage after an initial consultation with the owners of Highbury House, Sydney and Andrew Wilcox. She speaks with her parents on the phone, and her mother resurrects all of her old criticisms: Emma moves around too much; she should have attended university; her business is too unstable to support her. Emma hangs up, telling her mom that she will send pictures of her cottage and the gardens.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Venetia”
Venetia has been hired to design a vast set of gardens for the Melcourts of Highbury House. She thinks it will be her most significant work yet. Venetia is aware that her ideas about garden design are quite different from the traditional English gardens of the past; in contrast, she believes in allowing for natural growth and flow. She must tread carefully with her employers, the more conservative Mr. and Mrs. Melcourt.
Venetia is also introduced to Mrs. Melcourt’s brother, Matthew Goddard, who spends his free time growing roses. Venetia does not want an amateur’s opinion but knows she must humor Mrs. Melcourt. They decide that Matthew’s roses will adorn the gazebo. He invites Venetia to visit his property to see his efforts for herself, knowing that she is uncomfortable with his sister’s insistence that she use his roses. As they review Venetia’s plans for the gardens, Venetia assures them that the garden will reflect well on them.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Beth”
Beth Pedley has been enlisted as a land girl, where she will help out at Temple Fosse Farm, near the village of Highbury. She, like everyone else, must do her part in the war effort during the winter of 1944. Her boyfriend, an old friend from home, writes her letters from the Italian front nearly every day. He feels guilty for asking her via the telephone, but knowing she is waiting for him gives him the support necessary to keep fighting.
Beth looks forward to farm life. She grew up on a farm until her parents died and she went to live with her aunt in Dorking, a small town south of London. As soon as she turned 18, she signed up for the Women’s Land Army. Her new roommate, Ruth, hates farmwork, but she must take the position because her wild behavior has gotten her discharged from other, more fitting positions for a girl of her class.
Temple Fosse Farm is near Highbury House, which has been requisitioned to house wounded soldiers in its makeshift hospital. As Beth is trying to learn to drive the tractor, she stalls it, and meets Captain Graeme Hastings, out for a walk. He is convalescing from a bullet wound to the shoulder. Beth seems interested, and the farmer, Mr. Penworthy, notes that Captain Hastings “has an interest in farming” (36).
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Venetia”
Venetia settles into the gardener’s cottage on the grounds at Highbury House, grateful for her privacy. She usually lives with her brother, Adam, but he knows to honor her independence. As she explores the garden space with Mr. Hillock, the staff gardener, she runs into Matthew Goddard, who apologizes for his sister’s insistence about his roses. Venetia assures him she would be pleased to take a look at his flowers.
Later, she is invited to dine with the Melcourts though she knows that Mrs. Melcourt does not expect her to attend. Women with professions are rare enough at this time, and though Venetia comes from the upper classes, her work has demoted her in the social pecking order. She also receives a confusing letter from Mr. Goddard, formally inviting her to his rose nursery and apologizing for his impertinence.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Emma”
Emma takes her assistant and best friend, Charlie, to look at an overgrown section of the garden cordoned off by a locked gate. The owners say it has never been unlocked. Emma hopes that the Wilcoxes will find Venetia’s old plans and papers to help her with the restoration. She is interrupted by a call from a former client, complaining that nothing is blooming. Emma patiently explains that, in the winter, not much blooms. People who don’t understand the garden’s life cycle frustrate her.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Stella”
Stella Adderton is the cook for the family at Highbury House. She accuses the kitchen manager, Mrs. George, of dipping into her ration stores. Stella is concerned about the loss of eggs and milk because her employer, Mrs. Symonds, still likes to entertain guests as if the war were not ongoing.
She is interrupted by the arrival of her sister, Joan, and her sister’s five-year-old son, Bobby. Joan has been widowed by the war, and she wants Stella to take Bobby. He will be safer in the countryside, away from London’s air raids. Stella is reluctant: She runs the kitchen almost single-handedly, and she studies at night, trying to escape the life of a domestic servant. Mrs. Symonds intervenes and assures the women that Bobby will be taken care of; her own son, Robin, is about the same age, and they will attend school together. She admonishes Mrs. George for interfering in her private household’s stores. Her commanding manner surprises Joan, but Stella says this is her normal behavior, even more so since Mr. Symonds died.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 6 Analysis
From the beginning, it becomes clear that issues around Privilege and Class Mobility still dominate English society, dynamics that the gardens reflect. Coming from the lower-middle class, Emma acknowledges her employer’s privilege, which grants her wealth, leisure, and authority. As she notes of Sydney Wilcox, “her voice [is] reminiscent of good schools, lessons at the local riding club, and Saturday cricket on the village green” (6). In English society, speech and accents often define one’s class and social status. The class divide between Emma and her clients explains her resentment toward them. She does not appreciate their uninformed opinion about her work: “All her clients had ideas, but so few of them were good” (7). In this, as in their work on the gardens at Highbury House, she and Venetia are linked.
Venetia knows that her profession compromises her upper-class status. Because of this, the invitation to dine with the Melcourts makes her uncomfortable: “For, while I might be a gentleman’s daughter, I knew that the lady would not be accustomed to inviting professional women to her table” (40). Venetia has exchanged her privilege to pursue a career and fulfill her creativity. She wonders whether the invitation is “a request or an order” (40). Often, Venetia is caught between the need to appease her employers and the desire to pursue her independence. She does not want to compromise her creativity or integrity, but she understands the need for flexibility.
This also applies to the novel’s theme of The Garden as Memory. Without detailed blueprints of the original gardens, it becomes difficult not to compromise historical accuracy in favor of financial expediency. Emma recalls a previous job where she could not convince a client that tropical plants would not survive the Scottish winter. Ultimately, she did what the client desired, even though all of her work died during the ensuing winter, amidst his complaints. This explains why Emma is so excited about the project at Highbury House: “At least Highbury House would be different in that regard—a respite from all of the contemporary design projects she took on to keep the business afloat” (8). Here, she does not have to compromise her principles (or affront the memory of her idol, Venetia Smith) to do her job.
As the first chapters convey, the gardens at Highbury House have endured much history, from their original design in 1907 to their decline and disarray in 2021. All of the narrators—Emma, Venetia, Beth, Stella, and, later, Diana—have a connection to these gardens and the manor house. Without the gardens at Highbury, their stories would have unfolded much differently.
Gardens also reflect their designers and their minders. When Venetia describes her intentions in the original design for the grounds at Highbury House, she describes “a looser, wilder style” of garden than is traditional (21), especially for the time. One suspects that she describes herself, with her fierce independence and impatience with convention. She has no truck with “[t]he gentleman gardener, [who] […] has no practical knowledge of gardening” (23). Her reaction to Matthew exposes her disdain for upper-class individuals who treat her life’s work as a hobby. This contrasts Beth’s reaction upon reaching Temple Fosse Farms. The work is hard, and “[h]er muscles burned”; however, Beth “felt vital and useful for the first time in a long time” (33). While farmwork is different from gardenwork, the two are connected through the satisfaction in hard work that is well-rewarded.
It is also work that relies on the weather and seasons, which are a motif in the novel. Venetia thinks, “[I]t is nature to whom you must defer at all times” (24). Each of her sections begins with a date and a short description of the weather forecast: “Sunny; winds out the east,” for example (18). Lest one forget, gardens and the people who care for them are at the mercy of the elements. This is what Emma tries to impress on her recalcitrant clients. The book begins in winter, the bleakest season for gardens, reflecting the atmosphere of death that accompanies the war. The discovery of the winter garden brings an element of hope to this motif, promising to reveal a secret if its mystery can be solved.
