When you visit our website, if you give your consent, we will use cookies to allow us to collect data for aggregated statistics to improve our service and remember your choice for future visits. Cookie Policy & Privacy Policy
Dear Reader, we use the permissions associated with cookies to keep our website running smoothly and to provide you with personalized content that better meets your needs and ensure the best reading experience. At any time, you can change your permissions for the cookie settings below.
If you would like to learn more about our Cookie, you can click on Privacy Policy.
Morning sun found its way through the gaps between the buildings. The day would be warm. Secateurs clicked and scraped as Alice worked. Some of the plants had grown from cuttings various visitors had brought with them from their home countries. The lavender, for instance, had come wrapped in silk and poking out of a lovingly tended pot of English dirt. The bearer had traded the cuttings for meals. A month’s worth, they’d received in the end. Alice wouldn’t have given them a single meal for a scrap of some plant. It might smell nice, but there were far better growing all around the city, even in the gardens across the road. Heather grew in an old horse’s trough filled with soil and kept on the shady side of the yard during summer. They reminded Mrs Ponsonby of home. Alice understood that a